The Athletic Hockey Show - Ron Hextall’s Pittsburgh Penguins seem playoff bound, Connor McDavid’s on the verge of NHL history, who’s going to win the Norris Trophy?, Jack Adams Winner of the Week, Multiple Choice Madness, and more

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

It’s Monday, so Ian and Julian are back on The Athletic Hockey Show to discuss the Calgary Flames and Ottawa Senators flipping roles from just a week ago, whether Ron Hextall deserves an apology now that his Pittsburgh Penguins seem poised to make the postseason, first round playoff matchups the Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes would rather avoid, Connor McDavid looking like he’ll become just the fifth player in NHL history to lead the league in goals, assists, and points, if the NHL needs to follow the NBA’s lead in setting a games played minimum to win seasonal awards, who should win this year’s Norris Trophy, and much more.Plus, the guys close things out answering some listener comments, handing out this week’s Jack Adams Winner of the Week award, and a round of Multiple Choice Madness. Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowVisit http://betterhelp.com/NHLSHOW today to get 10% off your first monthGo to http://grammarly.com/tone to download and learn more about Grammarly Premium’s advanced tone suggestions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. It is your Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez, Julian McKenzie, in the big chairs to kind of guide you through the weekend that was, the week that will be in the world of hockey. We'll talk a little bit about whether or not we were too early to rip on the Pittsburgh Penguins. We'll talk about some fun divisional races, Connor McDavid, on the verge of doing something that I don't think enough people are talking about. We're going to talk about that. We've got tons of mailbag questions and comments to get to all of that. I'll tell you, though, Julian, I'm super excited.

And I know what's tough. Look, this is a really tough Monday because it's the Monday after the time change, right? We've all switched to daylight savings time. Everyone's body clock is thrown off. I'm super excited that it sounds like this might be the last year we ever do this daylight savings clock switching nonsense. That it might legitimately be done after this. this year. I had a back and forth with a friend of mine this weekend about the term daylight savings time. Apparently, we're saying it wrong. It should be daylight saving time and not savings time.

Yeah, there's no S on it, right? Is that right? There's no S apparently. Yeah. And I was yesterday years old when I learned that was a thing. Yeah. I'm glad I'm, I'm, I can't wait until we don't have to do with that anymore. I just, just like, I, I, no. It just, it was like a, no. Oh, but hold on. Did your friend actually correct you in a text where you said, I hate daylight savings time? And they're like, actually, it's daylight saving time. So they had posted a meme, uh, that basically made the point that it's daylight saving time and not savings. And then I wrote to them being like, are you serious? And they were like, are you being serious? Did you not know this? Like, as if like I should know. And I was being for real. And just, they didn't judge me as much as I thought that they would

judge me. But I still thought like, like, what are we doing here? Like, why are we, why are we having this needless conversation about daylight saving or savings time? I like the idea of waking up and their sun outside and the sun will be out later. Apparently in Calgary, it's supposed to be pretty, it's supposed to be up pretty late in the, in the summer months, like past like 930 even. Like I'm down for that. Keep it like that's forever. You get up to Edmonton in the summertime and it's bright.

You can golf. I've golfed in Edmonton and kind of been wrapping up on the 18th hole like after 10 p.m. Like it's pretty bright, pretty late. But I don't like that. Look, if you're going to nitpick, those are the people that also, you know, if you just say like, oh, I got to, we're going out. I just got to hit the ATM machine.

And they're like, you know, actually it's not ATM machine because it's, the M stands for machine. You know what I mean? Like, just let it go. Just let it go. You know, it's funny. Like, ATM, I do just say the ATM. Yeah, ATM machine.

But if somebody says ATM machine, I'm not going to be like, well, actually. Well, actually, sir. It's actually just ATM. You don't have, you could add the accent if you want to. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know why you felt the need to add the accent, but it's good.

That's my pretentious accent. If you want to feel pretentious about this, things. You just sound like this as if you know everything you should know about everything. Yeah. Anyway. I like, see, producer Chris is jumping in with the, I don't like when people say, you know, I was up till 2 a.m. in the morning. Yeah. Hey, hey, we all have our thing.

I was up until 2 a.m. in the morning. You were. But I would say it like that because, you know, that's, that's, that's just how I talk. I don't know. Okay. So last, look, as much as we're talking about, you know, springing the clocks forward. You and I need to turn the clock back to exactly one week ago. It was on the Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey show seven days ago that we were like, wow, we're living alternate lives. I'm covering the upbeat fun, here we go, plucky Ottawa senators on the precipice of a playoff race. You're covering the super stale

downtrodden Calgary flames. Well, guess what? Seven days later, it's like that freaky Friday movie and we once again switch bodies. Freaky Friday, that was the movie, right? Freaky Friday. Shout out, even though I'm not happy that Angela Bassett was robbed, but Jamie Lee Curtis, who was in Freaky Friday, won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for a role in everything, everywhere all at once. Yeah.

Yeah. That was a great acceptance speech, too. But I can't believe what a difference a week makes, because in Ottawa, in the last seven days, they've lost to Chicago, Vancouver, and Calgary. Now, Calgary is a little bit different because they are sort of in the playoff mix, so to speak. But Ottawa was just all of the enthusiasm. Everything that I came onto this week, I was telling you I had goosebumps and chills down my spine.

It's gone. It's been replaced by cynicism as, okay, here's what, here's how I want to just describe the situation. I don't want to belabor the point too long. Right. But if you remember, just before the trade deadline, Ottawa played two games against Detroit. And the feeling was, you know, these are huge games for both these teams. Ottawa beat them down in both games. And in the process, it sort of set the course or the trajectory for both teams going into the trade deadline.

Right? Detroit, Steve Eisenman kind of threw his hands up and was like, well, you know what? We're not there. We're going to be a seller. Pierre Dorian was like, no, no, no. I owe it to these guys, Jacob Chikrin, come on down. Okay? as we sit here today recording this podcast,

Ottawa is one point ahead of Detroit. No. So for all of the bluster, all of the Ottawa definitively, you know, drove a stick through the heart of Steve Eisenman and Dylan Larkin and the Red Wings, they're one point clear of them.

Yeah. So it's funny. You know it's funny. I think it was last year where Pierre Dorian, Pierre Dorian, Pierre Dorian had a conversation with, with Pierre LeBron. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Wait, well, actually that's kind of funny for me to franchise Pierre Dorian's name, but not do that to Pierre Lebrun's name. No, no, no. You're just trying to show off your full range of accents. No, I'm not. That's just, that's just, I want to talk. You said Pierre Dorian, no, no, sorry, Pierre Dorian.

Like, oh, God. No, no, you know what? I shouldn't even worry about that. Someone's going to get mad. in the comments that I say names in French. No, no. I just think it's funny. You actually stop and before.

That's happened before on this podcast. Maybe not on this day, but it's happened before where people are like, well, how can you? I did an episode with with Sean Jantilly a couple of what, like, I think last year. And so it was like, Sean, how did you handle it when your partner was just saying all these names in French? It was just like, what? Anyway, that's a whole other great. What I was going to say is last year, Pierre was saying like, okay, like, I hope this trade deadline would be the last. last one where we're selling at the deadline.

And for him to be in a position where, like, this year was the year he could actually buy at the deadline against Jacob Chikrin and everyone's happy and over the mood and all that. Like, that must have felt really good. And especially if in a case for Pierre where he doesn't have to like over justify being a buyer, like he had every right to buy as far as I'm concerned. But the fact that they're only a point up on Detroit and there's six points out of a wildcard spot. Like, that's, that's kind of tough. Like, even Calgary is like only five points out of a, of a, of a, of a, of a

playoff spot technically. And the team that has that spot has three games in hand on them. Like, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not fun times for either of our teams right now. It's looking real dicey for the senators and, uh, and the flames. Is it looking dicey for the Nashville predators? Like, here's what I, you want to talk about the craziness of how much things have shifted since the trade deadline. Remember, they traded Matthias at home and they traded, you know, Geno.

And they traded all these guys and you're like, well, that's it. Retooling and rebuilding or whatever in Nashville. Yeah, restocking for barrier trots when he becomes GM. Right. But the Predators have three games in hand on Winnipeg and are six points back of them. So whereas Calgary, you know,

they don't really have the games in hand of their favor. Nashville does. And from a points percentage, standpoint, Nashville is playing at 570, so they're a little bit behind Winnipeg. But are the predators a lot? Like, if we're going to pick one team from the West to make a charge, is there an argument that that team is actually Nashville and not Calgary? I mean, if the predators keep themselves up and they take advantage of those three games,

absolutely. Seven, two, and one in their last 10 games, we should add with the Nashville Predators. I don't know if it's weird to say, but like, you know what? I wonder with that. I almost said like, you know what, they're playing with house money. But when you sell at the deadline, you would think the intention is to, you know, sort of get worse. So the fact that they're still in this position, even though they sold, I wonder how National Predator fans feel about that.

I wonder how David Boyle feels about that. Maybe, you know, maybe the players are feeling something they want to win one for David or something like that. But yeah, especially in Calgary right now, like a lot of people are looking at that team. They're looking at the Avalanche who have two, who actually, no, they also have. three games in hand on the flames. Like that's, it makes it dicey for them. But for the Preds, if they find a way to win, they find a way to make it work, maybe, but even then, like, it would take a, like, I wonder about that because like, like, is, is, if Colorado's in that

spot still and Winnipeg gets points and, like, they fall out in favor of Nashville, like, I don't know if I want to live in a world where we don't have the reigning cup, this year's reigning cup champion in the playoffs because Nashville had a run, you know? That's just my feel. But we might live in a world where we don't have the reigning president's trophy winner in the playoffs from Florida last year, right? Like, they're very much in a fight. And it's remarkable, right?

Like, it is, you know what's funny? Is that Calgary and Florida engineered one of the biggest trades we've ever seen in the cap era of the NHL. And you wrote the great deep dive into Jonathan Hubertoe. Go ahead. You can say his name the way. want, Jonathan Huberdo. Jonathan Hubertow, yeah.

Okay. In exchange for Matthew Kachuk, and, you know, McKenzie Uighur was in that deal, wouldn't it be something if the two teams that engineered a blockbuster deal, both of them were playoff locks last year, Florida won President's trophy. Flames won the division, right, in the regular season?

Yeah, they were, they were a good team. They were, like, that you would both miss the playoffs after making such a deal. It's, it's really eye-opening. Yeah. Yeah, like, what's really interesting, too, is that, like, Matthew Cuch is, is having this MVP, like, like, type season. And I think it's fair to wonder, like, if he stayed in Calgary at least one more year, how would that, like, would that have translated? Would he have played at that level with the flames?

And if he plays at that level, how many more points does that team get? I think if both teams miss, it is very fair to wonder what both teams would have been like had they not made that deal. I think we start getting into that territory. I'm not saying both teams regret that deal. I still think it's something that could eventually work out

for both sides. I think Florida is seeing more of those benefits right now. But even then, like, they're not, they might still miss the playoffs anyway. But that might also have nothing to do with the trade and more just with the change in personnel. Because remember, like, like Andrew Burnett and was leading that team and they had the style

and they won the president's trophy. It's a different coach leading that team right now. So who knows what it would have been like if they didn't make that trade, but they still put Paul Maurice in his head coach. Sounds to me, look, I just gave you a potential story idea. What if they'd never made the trade?

And you, you know, you pick the brain of Dom and Shana to kind of get the, you get their little, the analytics model and you swap out those guys and you see what the impact would be. And do they play each other again? They don't play each other again, do they, Florida? They don't play each other again. They already played the two games they would have played this year.

But that is a very interesting idea. Yeah. That's all we do here. We just workshop ideas. Yeah, clearly. It's to our benefit, man. We got to, we got to get those views. We got to get some subs.

You know, we got to, we got to get that work in. I got to say, maybe we, do we need to collectively write an apology to Ron Hextall and the Pittsburgh Pagas? Remember, as we're talking about all these. teams at the deadline that, you know, Detroit and Ottawa and Nashville, we made these sort of definitive statements about what we thought they were at the deadline. And Pittsburgh was certainly, like, I think if you had to ask the average hockey fan, pick the team that was the biggest loser at the deadline, I think we all pointed at Pittsburgh, right?

Like, it felt that way. And the penguins, Julian, are on a roll. I hate to say this to people. They're on a roll. And I watched overtime yesterday. and they pull it out again. There's seven one and one in their last nine games. Remember, about two and a half weeks ago, they lost.

They gave up seven goals to Edmonton. You know, we were at the point where, like, Rob Rossi and Josh Yoey were like, every day they were like taking turns with a sledgehammer to the entire organization. It was great stuff. It was really passionate, authentic stuff. Pecklers are seven one and one in their last nine. They've, I don't want to say they're a lot to make the playoffs, but boy, they're in most models, including doms,

they're at north than 90%. Do we owe the Pittsburgh Penguins, a collective apology? Yes or no? No. The reason why is because I want to see what this team looks like in the playoffs. Do you remember what the last two postseason campaigns

have been like for the Pittsburgh Penguins when they're in the playoffs with the players that they have and the way they competed in those first round series against what I think of the Islanders and the Rangers respectively. Do you remember why the Penguins lost those first round series? I want to say goal-tending was part of the issue, wasn't it?

It was the main issue. It was very much the main issue. They went through a series against the Rangers where they were down to Louis Doming. That's right. Goaltending has not helped them. They took that to a seventh game last year, didn't they? They did.

They did. But they also had a lead in that series, which they blew to the New York Prain. And wait, was it, was it not over? Yeah, it was overtime in the game seven. It was a really good series. It was a great series. The reason why I'm not here to give any apologies

or anything like that to the Pittsburgh Penguins, I am tired of putting faith in this team when goaltending might still bite them in the ass anyway. That's just my feel. I mean, good for them that they were able to get these wins in and they're able to put themselves a position where they look more and more like a team that'll get in the wild card. Just for me this year,

I'm probably going to pass on on hitching my wagon to Ron Hextall and them boys over there. I know you can't discount Sidney Crosby and if any Malcolm, but like I've seen it twice already. I'm not I'm not getting fooled a third time. That being said, there's one other thing I want to bring up. What do Ron Hextall, I'll throw Sheldon Keith in there too, and Lindy Ruff have in common. Oh God, this is like, this sounds like a joke. This is the start of a joke. What do Lindy Ruff

So Lindy Ruff, Sheldon Keefe And Ron Hickstall All have in common And maybe this isn't a perfect thing But stay with me on this one Okay I'm assuming is it contractually based Is it?

Not even a contractually based thing All three of those people At some point this year People were wondering about their job security And I'm maybe less so in the case of Sheldon Keefe but I know for sure for Lindy Ruff and I know for sure for Ron Exstall a lot of people wanted their jobs fired.

And essentially right after that, good stuff happened anyway. Remember there were people who wanted Sheldon Key fired at the beginning of the year? Yep. The Leaves ended up playing really well. They took off and now they're going to be a lock for the playoffs. Lindy rough, remember the first game of the year?

People were booing. People were booing. Fire Lundy. The New Jersey Devils are going to be a playoff team. And we're probably going to talk about the fact that they're going to be playing the New York Rangers in the first round. Ron Hextall.

I mean, if you can go back and read Rob Rossi for about 10 days ago, where he was asking him about fire Hextall Chance. And now we're talking about them being as good as they've been. There's something like last year everyone was throwing jerseys on the ice. This year, it's like if you want your team to do something, like boo your coach or GM mercilessly and maybe something will happen. Yeah, it's a good point because, you know, the Fire Lindy Chan were there at the beginning of the season.

Then they were sorry, Lindy, which was... Sorry, Lindy. A great, you know, kind of... Turn around, a good 180. Turn around from fans. It was, it was... You very rarely see that type of ownership from fans to say, hey, we got it wrong. But you know what I'm scared about?

You just said, Devils Rangers round one. I gotta tell you, that's in jeopardy. Because the devils have been red hot. They've now tied Carolina for first place. And I don't think enough people, myself included, realized that until late last week when I was kind of looking at the Sanitation. Because, you know, Toronto, Tampa is locked in. Like you can go ahead and start setting that up.

And I thought about two or three weeks ago, we were kind of there with Devils Rangers. Like, boy, this is feeling like we're going to see Devils Rangers. Now, now it's up in the air. And the Devils have a realistic chance of winning that division. Now I looked it up. Unfortunately, we don't get a head-to-head game, Jersey and Carolina, at the end of the season,

or in the final 15 game. Wouldn't that have been a ton of fun? Head-to-head, watch them play. We don't get one of those. We also don't get Dallas and Minnesota are only separated by a point in the Central Division. They don't play again head-to-head. And L.A. and Vegas, they are,

they have one game left between them, but there's a three point gap there, but that's about it. Like, I don't think we're going to get the kind of divisional showdown game that maybe we wanted, but I think we need to be a little bit or keep our minds open to the fact that Devils Rangers, it's not a lock at all, like, at all. Damn, which would have been, I mean, if you look at, I mean, if we were to put together all the, a little playoff bracket right now, like, if you're ESPN, you're TNT, even if you're sports that are, you know, you look at that first round series.

You're like, oh, wow, like, you know, New York, New Jersey, like that, that whole geographic matchup, but also just with those two teams. Like, I love that. Plus the history they have between them. Like, I, please don't take that series away. That's no disrespect to Carolina, which, you know, think about them and what they could go through. I think if they get a Rangers, if you get a Hurricanes Rangers series, like the, the, the

hurricanes are probably the favorite in that series. but that's not nearly as fun as like New Jersey and the Rangers and you go back to like what they went through in 94 or like Stefan Mattoe and all these other different memories like I want that like I want I want people to go back on a series like that and have that nostalgia come back. So this is just personal preference more than anything. But also big up to the New Jersey Devils who continue to surprise everyone with the year that they're having. Again, as we were talking about earlier with rebounding from from the booze for Lindy Ruff to having this this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, team and having a guy like Jack Hughes turn into this star before our eyes and they land the biggest

they land the biggest fish at the deadline like go for it man like I mean this devil's team just I really didn't see these guys come I don't think they were the biggest thing I don't think they were the biggest prediction I got wrong but like I really

didn't see this coming no I don't look I don't think anybody did this wasn't just a mini step forward there's a quantum leap forward and and they've put themselves into the, you know, the upper echelon of this league. Now, we were talking about Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh's likely going to get in as a wild card team. Right. So if you're Carolina or you're Boston and you're looking at potential first round opponents,

and you're looking at those wild card spots, and you see one of them is held by Pittsburgh, one is held by the Islanders, and the Florida Panthers are also right in the mix. Who's the team you want to face? out of those three because with the penguins, you have the trifecta of Latang, Malkin, Crosby. With the Islanders, you have a Vesna-Kalibur goaltender in Sorokin. And in the Panthers, you would have a team that won the President's trophy last year and obviously would have played well enough to sort of get into the playoffs so they'd begin on a roll. You have to pick out of those three teams, who would you want to face if you were Carolina or Boston?

or New Jersey, let's be honest, or New Jersey, New Jersey might still win the division, which is a wild card team you want to face in round one? Man. I think it might be Pittsburgh, and it's crazy to say that. That's interesting, man. Or is it the Islanders? I don't want anything to do with the Islanders.

As long as Elias or Orkins playing really well, no, I don't want anything to do with those guys. If I'm Carolina or Jersey boss or whatever, I don't want anything to do. Does John Tveris have that T-shirt that says, I don't want anything to do with the Islanders. Oh. I think so.

Too soon. Zing! Yeah. So, okay, you want Florida? I think I'd take Florida. I think they might. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.

In the playoffs, goaltending is such a huge thing. And that's why I poo-pooed on the Pittsburgh Penguins the way that I did. Like, the Estrus and Jerry could be a play like a good goalie, but if he's not healthy or if he's not playing well, like the penguins fold. At the same time,

maybe they don't. Sergey Bavroski, though, I can, it's been unfortunate to say, but like he has not been the goalie we expect him to be. You know that, that long running joke

that Jay Onright had about Sergey Boprofsky about him being on the case, Officer Sergei Bavroffi. Officer on the case. Officer on the case. Sergey Babrowski should have handed in his badge and gun years ago

if we're being honest. So I'd take Florida easily. Yeah, maybe. By the way, I appreciate your alliteration of Poo-Pooing the Pittsburgh Penguins. That's some elite stuff. I didn't even realize that.

Sorry. And one other really quick note, I want to point our listeners in this direction. We'll just stay in the state of Pennsylvania for one second. Because Danny Breyer has taken over in Philly. Had a press conference on the weekend. I got to say Charlie O'Connor's piece on the weekend saying it's time to turn the page from Flyers culture.

Stop being connected to the glory days of the 70s, the 80s, the 90s. You need to go outside of the box to bring in some outside thinking. I got to tell you, this is when writers kind of just right from the heart, you know, Mark Lazarus has had

some great columns this year on Chicago. I think Rob Rossi and Josh Yoey have done a great job in Pittsburgh. go check out Charlie O'Connor's piece on the Philadelphia Flyers and the time to turn the page on Flyers culture. It is a chef's kiss. It really is. This is what you want out of the reporters who cover your team.

Is you want somebody who's going to write with passion. I think Drance does this really well. Drance does such a great job. The issue you run into when you do this is twofold. One, obviously the management ownership, they get their backup. They're like, hey, good. And two, you get a portion of the fans who are like, how come you never, you don't love this team and whatever.

But the majority of people who really get it, get it. And just go read this piece from Charlie and tell me at the end of it, you don't feel like, yeah, it's time for a change in Philly. Time for a change. It's great. It's a really good piece. Yeah, the piece is called it's time for flyers to finally move on from the past and a culture that's been holding them back.

Yeah, it's kind of, it's, it, just look at the flyers. Like, as far as long as I've seen them, they're this team that, you know, is this gritty, tough team. And I don't know if that'll ever really go away, just with how the DNA of just Philadelphia just is. But I wonder now with, with Danny Breyer, who's, who spent a couple years in Philadelphia

and basically was promoted with it from within. You spent his time in the ECHL with Maine Mariners, which was associated with the flyers, and then eventually gets promoted within, as I mentioned before. But, like, I wonder if, I wonder how Charlie feels about that. If he feels that's more of the same and not that departure from that culture that he's talking about. You know what I think would be a great, we got to get our kind of marketing promo team on this. And we would need to get like a company like Sour Patch Kids or like one of those warheads, like something super sour.

Okay. And every week we do an athletic, who's the most sour reporter of the week? And then we do like a live reading. We do like a live reading of a portion of their column. And we're like, this is brought to you by, you know, insert company name here. The most sour report of the week, it's Charlie O'Connor. And we do like a live reading of a portion of like the most sour portion of the column gets read out. And, you know, because somebody's always angry. Out of the, you know, in the NHL, someone's always angry. Who's the most angry? Who's the most sour? Here's my thing about that, that segment idea. Twitter exists. And I think if, because, like, it's one thing for people to write a column and to make it work. I guess if we just focus on our guys and, you know, that would probably be a good idea for us.

But that's what I'm saying. For sure. But there are people who are going to, like, how are you going to feel if we say, all right, the sour reporter of the week is Matthew Fairburn, who covers the Buffalo Sabres, when Jim Matheson and Edmonton is saying, why are you so pissy to Leon Drysidal again? No, no, it's the athletic. I know, I know, but I know, but I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. It's great that we would do it internally. It's just knowing how people get, knowing how people get, you know, I just find

It's going to be very funny that if we focus on a guy who's sour internally with us, but then someone online, like, I don't know. I never mean to mention Jim Matheson's name. I don't have any issue with him. It's just an example. But, like, that's just by one thing. Like, what if we do it one week and some reporter goes viral for something crazy? And it's like, yeah, he's, he's not sour. We completely ignore that.

We've ignored it. They're not eligible for the award. They're not eligible. They're not eligible. Oh, but that's why one thing. But other than that, I'm all for that. I'm all for more sponsorships and more fun stuff on the show. Okay.

So speaking of awards, a couple of award-related topics here that we want to get to. Before we open up the emails and get some feedback, which you have a lot of fun things to get to. I feel like I feel the need to point this out to people. Yes. Connor McDavid is leading the National Hockey League in goals, assists, and points. Okay? And on the surface, you'd be like, yeah, thanks, tips.

That's a great piece of information. We all knew that. Here's what you didn't know. I'm going to ask you this question, Julian McKenzie. Yes. How many times in the salary cap era, so 0506 to now, has a player ended this, and I'm going to need the names, but how many players have ended this season leading the league in goals, assists, and points?

How many times? And which players? In the salary cap era? Salary, yeah, salary cap era. So Carter McDavid is not won Because he's never won a Rocket of a Richard trophy But that will probably change In the salary cap era

So since 2004, well 2006 really To now goals assistant points And listeners feel free to play along Yell at your smart speaker, your phone, whatever you're listening to us Yell out the answers We will hear you, we will hear you Is Nikita Kuturov one Nikita Kutjav, no good.

Oh, God. This is where I look bad. I'm just going to, I'm just going to, I'm just going to guess a number here. I'm going to say only three people have done it. Okay. I'm going to tell you, now I'm going to, now you're going to get mad at me. It's not been done in the salary cap era. God damn it.

Okay. Okay. Now, now we're going to stretch it back further. Now I'm going to ask you, who's the last player to outright lead the league goals, assistant points. So they didn't tie, like somebody didn't tie them for goals and they led an assistant,

you know what I mean? Like they outright end of the year, number one, nobody tied with them, goals of system points. Last guy to do it. Mario Lemieux. Sorry, what was his name?

Marie-Lameau. Oh my God. Leave you a lot. Okay. Mario Lemieux is incorrect because there are two seasons in which Lemieux was the leader in goals,

assists and points, but somebody tied him in assists both the times. One time was Ron Francis, one time was Wayne Gradsky. Julian, nobody has led the NHL outright in goals, assist, and points since Wayne Gretzky in 86, 87. Gwen Gretzky was going to be the first person I thought of and I thought, no, there's no way, maybe Mario did it. So what I'm asking you and I'm asking the listeners. Because in Major League Baseball, they have the triple crown.

If you lead the league in batting average home run RBI, you win the triple crown. Okay. We need to come up with a name for this leading the league in goals assistant points. And I'm going to tell you why. How rare it is. So to outright lead it, you've got Gretzky, who not surprisingly did it five times in the 80s. The only other person to do it. since expansion was Phil Esposito, 7273.

Esposito did it. That's it. So the list, if McDavid can continue his current pace and hold up in goals, assist and points outright, nobody ties him, he would join Phil Esposito Wayne Gretzky is the only ones to do it post-expansion. Then I decided, let me look up every season, pretty expensive. I'm going to go right back to 1917. This is an amazing amount of research.

Okay. Well, it's not me. hockey reference. Hockey reference is a great tool. Now there's only a couple of other guys who've done it, Gordy Howe. Yes. And Howie Marens.

Newsie Lalonde, anytime I can work in Nuzi Lalonde into a podcast, I will, he did it in 1919, but he had a share of the assist lead. So again, in terms of outright leading the league, and nobody ties you for anything, in the history of the game, it's Howie Marens,

it's Gordy Howe. It's Phil Esposito. It's Wayne Gradsky. McDavid would be the fifth. We need a name for this phenomenon. I mean, we can't call it the triple crown because... Why can't we call it the triple crown? First of all, baseball has it.

And there's already a triple crown... Horse racing also has it too. If you win three races, like it's just like a... It's like a term that like could be universal for any sport. But hockey already has a triple crown kind of reference connotation to a great L.A. King's line of the 1980s. with Marcel Dion and Charlie Simmer and I think it was Dave Taylor. I think.

Yeah, but like I'm wrong on that. But like, why can't we make that into a award? I don't have a problem with that. We need a name for this. What, like the hat trick? I don't like that. You don't like the hat trick. Anything.

We would like to hear from our listeners. Give us a, if you think Triple Crowns the name, that's the name. But we need to do something on this. Is it, is it weird to just name it after the first player who did it? so just name it the Howie Morens Award or Howie Morens. Yeah, I mean, Howie Moran's was kind of, he was, the phrase they used on Howie Morens back of the day is he's the Babe Ruth of hockey. Like that was that was that was the comparable. He was Babe Ruth of hockey.

So I mean, yeah, I mean, there's nothing, no major award named after Howie Morens. Gretzky, there's no award named after Wayne Gretzky and he did it five times. I mean, Howie Morens, I think, would be okay because, like, he's obviously an NHL legend, even if it was from an era's gone by. But, like, that would be cool. For Wayne Gretzky, who, yes, is the greatest player who's ever lived to this point.

Is that the award you want to name in his name? Wouldn't you want to name, like, MVP in his name or something else? Like, that's my thing. Yeah, like, that's too, like, I think if Howie Moranz gets that award, like that's cool. I think that award would be too niche to be named after Wayne Gradsky. So hit us up.

If you think Triple Crown is the name, that's fine. I'm willing to live with Triple Crown. I just kind of feels like Triple Crown's been done. Horse racing. I mean, even then like MLB. We have a question. Dumb question.

If you, if you lead the league in, I think it's what, home runs, RBI, batting average, do you win an actual award? Or is it just like you just, of one.

So I guess you don't really have to name it anything. It's just a triple crown. That's all the more reason to keep it as triple crown. If you want to have it as an actual like, oh, cool, you did this. Here's an actual honor that solidifies what you did. You name it after that. But if you're not really going to win anything. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

But like, triple crown works just fine. Okay. Hit us up in the comment section. Email to the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Give us a name. Tweet at us as well. Give us a name for what McDavid might do this year. goals, assists, points outright leader in all three categories.

It's only been done by four other players in the 100 plus year history of this game. And I think not enough people have taken notice of that. I agree with that. You know what? I think we should. I'm going to go, I'm going to pitch a story on this. I'm going to pitch a written story on this. You and Sean McIndoo should work on a story like that.

There you go. Okay. So we'll, this whole podcast only exists to just give us ideas for written assignments. That's all we're doing. Thank God. Thank God, because I don't know where I'd be without them. Exactly. I know one other award-related thing you wanted to hit on.

And it kind of relates to basketball, where the NBA and the NBA's Players Association have been in talks about kind of trying to figure out, hey, do we need a threshold of games played to win a major award? So you want to win the MVP? That's all well and fine. You better play X amount of games. And I'm wondering, is there, like, is there a need for us to have that conversation in the hockey world? I don't think so.

I don't think, like, load management, game management has infiltrated this sport to the extent that it has in basketball. But I don't know. I'm open to having the conversation. Like, like, I think if you want to win the MVP, there's a good chance you're going to have to play 70 games of the season, right? Exactly. Like, I feel like if we, like, I saw it, our colleague on the NBA side, Sham Sharania, put that out in his column that dropped Monday morning that both sides. have been talking about this. And it made me think immediately that, you know, if you're,

we're worrying about load management in the NBA in which players will, you know, not play entire seasons. They set out because of injury and rest of recovery. Like, if you're one of those players and you're thinking so much about awards, like, you know, that's what you're, you're, you might be worried. But also, there's a good chance if you're at a position where you're load managing, you might not have to think about that as much. So the comparable of hockey for me is, or least the thing I'm thinking of with hockey is this.

Could you imagine a world in which Austin Matthews and Connor McDavid have won just about as much as they could win individually? And they are so focused on doing everything they can to put themselves in a position to go on a lengthy Stanley Cup run that they go to their bosses and say, you know what? two-game road trip out in I don't know in the Midwest somewhere I'm going to sit that one out say like that you get to a point where

like those two players like they say okay you know I'm in for next year but like let me get 15 games off so I can rest this right knee or at least they they couch it in a way that it's not like specifically load management because they don't really care

that much about I mean not specifically because they don't care about winning awards but like I feel as if like that conversation has to go hand in hand with load management with the awards and stuff. And I'm just thinking if those two players get to a point where they're like, you know what, man, I don't really care that much about like trying to win a rocket return. And we've seen Carter McDavid at least put himself out there and do it. And people are wondering if that's the case with Austin Matthews too.

Like, that's what I feel like we'd see. And I don't know if I'm way too far down the rabbit hole. But like, that's something that crossed my mind. I don't know if it would explicitly happen, but it's something I thought about. Yeah, again, yeah, I don't think we're in that, we're not quite in that spot, right? Because no one really does that like that in the NHL. Yeah, it's, you know, it's funny, it's not really ingrained in the culture of the game, right? To take a day off here or there when it might actually make a ton of sense to do it, right?

Like if you want to stay fresh and healthy for the grind that is April, May, and into June, why not take a handful of games off in February and March, right? Like if your team is set for the playoffs, if your team is, you know, kind of in a safe spot, right? Like, yeah, it's a great. It's a great point. It's a great question. I'd have to look back.

Like, I'm looking at a list of all the heart trophy winners, for example, in recent NHXL history, but it doesn't sort them by games played. I'd be curious. Like, I wonder, what's the fewest number of games that somebody has played in a season in with, like a skater, not like Dominic Hach or Theodore? But like somebody who played a full season and won the MVP, I'm betting nobody has played fewer than 75 games.

Yeah. And I think that should be like, like 70, 75 should be like a threshold, maybe 60 to a certain extent, but like you can't be playing 41 games and saying, oh, I did enough to be considered for this award. Like that's not fair. No, no, exactly. So anyway, we'd love to hear from people if they have any thoughts on what,

Should there be a minimum kind of games threshold on major awards? And if it is, what is that number? Is it 60, 65, 70, you know, 70 seems like the highest it could go. If you're going to go to 75, it just feels like, well, what if a guy's hurt for two weeks, right? Yeah. Then that's it. Like that seems ridiculous. So yeah, I mean, 70, 70 might be, might be the number.

Also, I'll just say for people who are listening to this part, I completely understand that that is, is very much a premature conversation to have with regards to the NHJ. But I think it was still just worth just even kind of thinking about in any case. Let's open up the email, shall we? Let's do it. We got lots of comments that came in. Again, you can drop us a comment in the athletic hockey show. You just go to the comment section.

You've got to kind of follow the, as Gentile likes to say, you follow the trail. Leave us a comment. We read them all. We love to engage with our listeners. can tweet at us or you can send us emails to the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. So last week, Julian, you and I said, boy, Boston, they're giving us 2019 Tampa vibes. You know, vibes of a team that's just too good in the regular season. The Bruins, by the way, this week, or last week, so I should say, fastest team in NHL history to reach the 50 win plateau.

I put it out to the listeners with you and said, let's make this interesting. We don't think the Bruins are going to win the Stanley Cup this year. In fact, I said, I don't even think they're going to get to the Cup. Want to hear from some listeners? So we got a few coming in here. I'll read just a few of them. One commenter writes in, I'll take that Bruins bet with you guys. They're too stacked.

I've got a couple of Jason Robertson rookie cards for the listeners if I lose. Let's make some terms. That's cool. Okay, so that's cool. It's one listener willing to put up some Robertson rookie cards. maybe we find out. Maybe we just act as like a third party broker here and we find another listener that's like,

I'll take the, I see the Jason Robertson rookie cards and I got this, whatever. Yeah, we do like a giveaway or something. Like if you did, yeah,

we do like a giveaway. Okay. Another text who says, I'll take you guys up on your Bruins bet and here's the deal. Loser has to write a passionate poem about Brad Marchand licking their face.

Oh. Oh. Okay. Oh, that's gross. And the last one, here. Also involves Brad Marchand. If Boston makes the Stanley Cup final,

the two of you need to personally apologize to Brad Marchand via Zoom. Allow him to be rate both of you and then you release it as your bonus content. That would be the most humiliating moment in my journalism career. Brad Marchand is not going to agree to come on a Zoom call with us.

Are you sure? Yes. Are you sure? You're 100% sure? I would say I would put that at. Yeah, like, no, it's not. I almost, yeah. No.

I don't know. I mean, dude seems to insert himself in a lot of random, like, Twitter stuff. Like, I think if there's an opportunity for him to kind of just, you know, gloat, like, I'd like to see it. I almost want to bet on the fact that if he would take this on or not. Nah, he wouldn't. And I don't blame, like, that guy is such a good player. He's got a Stanley Cup.

He's been to another Stanley Cup. Like, he doesn't need the two of us sitting in the cheap seats be like, he's not going to engage. I don't see him engaging on this one. I mean, I don't know, but like he's, he also randomly told like the, the Arizona Coyotes reporter Craig Morgan, he insulted him on Twitter.

Or Steve Dangle, like he went at him the other, or he's calling Detroit. suss. Like, we don't know what Brad Barsham feels like doing what he feels like doing it. That's what makes him so unpredictable. Yeah, that's a good point. I don't know what the, I forget the exact comedy said about Craig. I think he told him to shut up or something. And the situation had like nothing to do with him. It was the, I think it was the choice that you're Trevor Zegra's thing. And we're all trying to figure out like what Trevor Zegras did to piss off Troy. And then like Craig, I think was tweeting about it. And then like Brad Barshon inserted himself in this. And we're like, why did

Brad Marshaun insert himself in it. And then he gets asked about it. And he's like, uh, whatever. It's just Twitter stuff. Like don't, don't mind me. So why? So Brad seems to want to do what he wants. Maybe he probably doesn't entertain this at all.

And it's not going to hurt it. It's not going to do anything to us if he doesn't. If it gets to that point. Yeah. But I don't think he's going to waste his time. But yeah, you never know. Well, hey, we're willing to put some stuff up. Um, I don't know about the poem about Marchand.

that might be one of those quick limericks. Like the roses are red, violets are blue type of thing. I don't think this is going to be like verses and verses of flowing poetry. But hey, one listener is willing to put up Jason Robertson rookie cards. Roses are red. I'm trying to think of a line with lungs. I've just trying to think of a quick four bar one here. Like roses are red.

I feel it in my lungs. Your love is as soft as Brad Marshall. Charles tongue. That was, you know what, I'm, I'm getting a little emotional here. A little choked up. That was beautiful. A little quick four bar, you know what I'm saying? You found, you knew tongue and lung.

You went right there. I love it. I've got that romanticism in me. Yeah. You can feel it. You can feel it. All right. So we got another topic to get to, which was last week, we were saying, you know,

remember that Rangers Flyers game we were talking about where the Rangers took over? in Philly and then you were talking about why Toronto came into Calgary. I said, I'd love to know, like, from fans around North America. Like, what's the fan base that comes into your building and irritates you the most, takes over your building? And in particular, I said, I'd like to know, are there any non-original six teams that actually invade your building and take over it? So we've got a couple here, a couple from Columbus are written in here.

Really? Yeah. One listener said, look, Columbus Blue Jackets fan here for you guys. A home game against the Pittsburgh Penguins is a nightmare. So many Penguins fans. They're super vocal. The chants are very audible. You can hear them chanting and cheering on the broadcast too.

I don't like going to Jackets games at home when the Penguins are around because they are insufferable. Another texter, also Jackets fan saying the biggest ones that invade our building at nationwide, Penguins, Red Wings, and Chicago, but the Penguins fans are the worst. Wow, the In-Sers. So, I get Penguins fans at nationwide. They played some playoff series together, right? Or against each other.

There was at least one, I want to say? Yeah. So there's a little bit there. We've got a Minnesota fan writing in saying, as a Minnesota fan, I love it slash hate it when the Winnipeg Jets come to the XL Energy Center. They are loud, friendly, rowdy, And I'm always battling with their chance, even in the preseason.

Great games to attend even in Winnipeg, they are a blast. So there you go. Wild Jets games. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess considering how close, well, actually how, yeah, let me not embarrass myself. But I wonder how close Minnesota and Winnipeg would be in turn of the distance. They seemed like they'd be close. Okay.

And then we've got a Dallas fan writing in. Dallas fans saying it seems like most of the games are way too many visiting fans are in our house. Part of that is Dallas is full of people who have moved here from other cities. Part of it is it's a good destination to go watch a hockey game. Ticket prices here relatively low. But my goodness, when Chicago is in town, it is like Christmas. You see red and green all over the place. It is the worst, although it's not as bad now that they're tanking.

It's hilarious when a bunch of them decided to show up in Dallas wearing their green. St. Patrick's Day Hawks jerseys. It's the same color as Dallas's jerseys. As a side note, when St. Louis comes to Dallas, blues fans get in fights in the stands with Stars fans

every single time. So there's going. Apparently the blues fans are rowdy when they go down to Dallas. Man, everything's big in Texas for a reason, including the fights. St. Louis fans. Okay. One last one from Chris in Vegas.

You know, Julian, I'm a fan of two teams. I'm a lifelong, a fan of the Detroit Red Wings, and my current home in Vegas with the Golden Knights. But since I've lived here in Vegas for more than 20 years after moving from Michigan, I was one of those annoying fans that would take over another team's building on the road and cheer for the Red Wings. The late 90s, early 2000s, way easier to get Detroit tickets in Phoenix, Anaheim, and L.A. than it was for my family back in Michigan to go to the Joe.

Poor Phoenix was the worst Red Wings fans easily made up about 80s. 80% of the arena even when they would meet in the playoffs. But as a Vegas season ticket holder, it's interesting to see how other teams come into Vegas, especially in year number one. Somehow, I think we have the orange curse. Any team that has orange in their jersey seems to have better luck. A better luck at the fortress than other teams.

Edmonton, Islanders, Philly, etc. Islanders seem to have, shall we say, unique cheers. Something sung to the Adams family theme that implies a relationship with your mother or something. I don't know about that. I don't know about that at all. But the Adams family, is that just the pot van sucks, Chan?

That's not really to the Adam's family. That's not really to the Adam's family. Do da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. Yeah. Like, where would your mother come in? I don't get it. I don't know.

I don't know. And Chris in Vegas also says, When Edmonton showed up for a President's Day weekend game in year one, they helped us set the record for the 50-50 draw. Somebody walked away with 70 grand in that drawing. And P.S., Vegas actually does a 51-49 draw, says Chris. In Vegas, they give you the extra 1%. There you go.

There was a Oilers fan at the Flames Vegas game I was at. And there was like one guy in an Oilers jersey was all like, we flew from Edmonton to see the Flames lose. and they show them on the Jumbotron and everyone lost their mind. They would love that. But do you think that those people are real? Or do teams put plants in the crowd? I can confirm that for like some of those like Jumbotron stuff or, um, I'm trying to think like,

um, like say like you see like the, the kiss cam where like, you know, this guy's supposed to be there with this girl. There's a space in between the seats and there's like two people. People, they kiss or whatever, then the boyfriend shows up. Like, stuff like that's fake. But I think that what I saw the other night in Vegas, I thought that was real. I think that's pretty real. But I think there's definitely some fake stuff.

There's definitely some planted stuff. By the way, speaking to the Adams family, have you watched Wednesday on Netflix? I haven't watched Wednesday yet. But Jenna Ortega, man, she's having herself a big year so far. Jenna Ortega is on a heater right now. She is on a heater right now. Wednesday? Terrific show.

Like very funny, like kind of clever, dark. It's good. It's a, I really enjoyed Wednesday. Am I going to have to get, I don't know how to describe it other than...

I don't have Netflix. I have like Disney Plus and I have Amazon Prime. I don't have Netflix though. Hold on. Julian McKenzie doesn't have Netflix. I don't have Netflix. I just, all the shows I would really want to watch are on,

yeah, on Disney and Amazon Prime. And the few times I've had to watch Netflix, I guess I just kind of borrow from somebody, which I don't think we're allowed to do anymore. So you're going to have to, maybe a birthday present for myself. I buy myself a Netflix subscription.

An hour, hour into the podcast. Realize this guy doesn't have Netflix. Not our. We've worked together a year, basically. A whole season. The whole season, basically. And a little bit more, because we've done all those guest spots and stuff.

But, yeah. Yeah. I don't have Netflix. Presently. maybe you know what now i understand why you didn't quite get the friends references i was although friends is off netflix now so that's well but that's even well before a netflix thing like that's something like you know you grow up with and stuff like i i get it that that goes well beyond that i don't know are you old enough to remember like i don't know if like tbs or

whatever would be like the station and like yeah they would like show classic sitcoms like four and four thirty i mean four four three like yeah and the day like, I'm trying to think. Actually, it's 4.30 a.m. in the morning. 4.30 a.m. Yeah,

4.30 a.m. of the morning. I'm trying to think, like, I remember there was a time I would grow up and I'd watch stuff on TBS. I'm just trying to remember

the shows that they would have. Oh, God. But I definitely remember. If I, like, if I start, like, like, hearing some of the names of sitcoms, I would remember.

But, like, why did I feel like kings and queens at one point was running on syndication there? King of Queens was King of Queens, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. King of Queens was definitely a, like, that would set you up for an evening

of Atlanta Braves baseball. Like, they would be able to, King of Queens right into first pitch with John Smolz. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. I'm trying to figure out if any, like,

like the Steve, no, Steve Harvey show would have been on BT for me. My wife and kids was on CTV for a while. Um, what other really old. Oh, God. Um, No, one-on-one was BET. I think a lot of shows I would think would be on TBS

might have been on BET when I was watching as a kid. But anyway, TBS was a classic. Yeah. Anyway, we don't need to get it on my old TV watching happens. Yeah, there we go. All right, I'll tell you what we will do, though. We're going to wrap it up. We're going to go for the Adams family to the Jack Adams.

Hey. Because that's how we do it on this show. We wrap it up with a little Jack Adams of the week. I got to tell you, I like this this week because the previous seven days, We've got three candidates here, Julian. I don't think we've, certainly one of them we haven't had as a candidate. That's Rick Talkett. Vancouver Canucks perfect.

3-0-0. Now, part of that, I think they got Thatcher Demko back and that helps. But Rick Tockett has a connect's playing better. They go 3.0 and O'N O. We talked about Mike Sullivan, the much maligned and beleaguered Pittsburgh Penguins. They get a seven of a possible eight points in the week. But so too to the Arizona Coyotes. Andre Tourney, 3.0 and 1.

They beat Minnesota on Sunday. They value an effort before losing the Colorado in overtime. Turney, Tocke, Sullivan, who gets Julian's Jack Adams of the week? Mike Sullivan gets it this week. Because it's all part of the Pittsburgh Penguins seemingly proving everyone else wrong in thinking that they're just this, you know, this sleeping team. But maybe they might be a sleeper when things are all said and done. Turini and Talket,

as good as it was for those teams, for Arizona and Vancouver to win all those games, that's just low tank awareness. They're just taking themselves further out of the Connor Bedard sweepstakes. That's not good. That's not good. So I'm going to give it to my solid.

It's like Andre Turney did not understand the assignment. Yeah, that's it. And I think he's already won two. And it's fine like the first time. But like if your team keeps doing this, like, I don't know. It's hard for me to do that again. So yeah, Mike Sullivan's my pick.

Okay. You know what? I'm going to go Rick Tocke. Like Vancouver was an, and again, maybe he doesn't understand the assignment if we're vis-vis Badaard, but they got to change that culture, right? They got to change. J.T. Miller's been playing better. Like I said, Demko is part of it.

But Alias Patterson to me is having the best season of his career. I understand. Tuckett's not, you know, solely responsible. for that because he's only had them for a few weeks. But I got, God, I got to tell you, Vancouver, like, they're on a roll here. 3-0-0. I'm going to give Rick Talkett, my Jack Adams.

Yeah, Elias Pedersen, 30 goals, 82 points to this point. Yeah, he's playing his best year right now. I've always felt that, like, he was, like, just this young kid with a lot of great talent who a team like the Canucks can really build around. And obviously they have Quinn Hughes at the back as well. like it's just they just need some kind of direction. And I'm pretty sure fans have felt that way for a long time.

But they have, they have good pieces there lying underneath the surface. They just need to build a proper team for them to thrive. And hey, maybe Rick Tockech is that guy to kind of unlock it out of everybody. I just, I still think it's a bit weird that they would make the coaching, not that they would make the coaching change. I mean, the way that we all know how that went about and that was kind of weird. But I still think like bringing Rick Tockeet in now,

is still kind of weird, especially if they could have put themselves in a position to get Connor Bernard. You know what? You still have the rhyming thing going on in your brain. You don't even realize it. You just said, unlock it with Talk It.

Oh. You didn't even realize that. I didn't even realize that. Okay. By the way, what, so who are we deciding on here? Talkin or Sullivan? Who gets it?

I'm still standing on Sullivan. Okay. Mike Sullivan, it is. Write him down. Mike Sullivan wins the award. this week. Okay. Last award we're going to hand out. It's multiple choice madness. Dom did a great piece this week and it got a ton of traction on the site about four days ago because the Norris trophy feels like the most contentious individual trophy, right? All the other

ones are, feels like it's McDavid, you know, rookie of the year feels like it's Maddie Bennears. But the Norris is like a four or five person race. So here's the question for you to wrap it up. If you're voting today, Julian, who gets your vote for the best defenseman? Norris Trophy winner 2223? Is it A, Eric Carlson, B, Hempas Lindholm, C, Adam Fox, D, or Rosmustallin, or E somebody else? Who will get your vote right now? Man, it's so tough. Like, I honestly, like, like, I want to live in a world where Eric Carlson should be the undisputed winner. But we've seen defensemen have, like, high scoring seasons. the way that they do, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they are the Norris Trophy winner,

like for best defensemen. Like, they have to show abilities all around, right? Like, you can't just be this high scoring defenseman, but then you allow too many goals against. And in that article from, from Dom, actually, if you look at the leaderboard in terms of game score value added, like, there's a three-way tie at the top on that with Adam Vox, Hampas Lindholm and Brent Burns actually, but I was shocked to see Burns in there.

Burnt Burns is having like a sneaky underrated year and I know that because I have him in fantasy. He's having like a pretty good pretty good year. I think people were worried with his age and now he would play in Carolina but he's actually having a pretty decent season so far. If I have to make a pick

I guess off the fact that the GSVA is up there. He's actually putting together some pretty good numbers. while also being good defensively. I think ultimately I might give it to Adam Fox. I think we're in an era now anyway where we're going to see that Norse trophy go back and forth between Adam Fox and Kail Makar anyway.

But that's who I would pick today on March 13th. It's entirely possible when it comes time for ballots, which by the way, as a new member of the PHWA, I get to vote on the Norris, right? Do you get to vote on the Norris? Right. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, we vote on the Norris, yep.

Oh, we, I know we, I know we as reporters do, but like, as a first, like, someone who legit got their, like, pHWA card, like, a couple months ago. So, you know what? You know what? It's not everybody with a pHWA card definitively gets to vote. Like, there is. That's what I want to know.

Like, do I get an opportunity, like, like, as a, as someone in their first year in the association, do I get to vote on these awards? And how many do I get to? It will come down to rock paper scissors with you and Eric Francis. So you'll play rock paper scissors and the winner emerges with the vote.

Eric Francis, dude has been covering the flames longer that I've been alive. You might win that off seniority alone. I figured if I was going to toe to toe with like Ryan Pike or something, like fine. No, I don't know. I don't know.

But like Eric Francis. No, each chapter, I think, gets four votes, five votes, whatever it is. And then within that the chapter, who's your chapter chair? Fresh West Gilbertson of a post-media. I will have a chat. So I'd be taking West Gilberton out for a little drink, be like, hey, man, what's going on? He's got to cozy up. Oh, boy.

But I don't envy anybody on the Norris vote because I think you can make a compelling case on Carlson, like you said. Absolutely. He's going to flirt with 100 points, but so too did Roman Yose last year, and he didn't win. That's it. That's my whole thing, too. Roman Yosi had an outstanding season last year and didn't win. John Carlson had a really good year a couple years ago and he didn't win. Funny enough, I think Roman Yosey won that year.

Like, if you are a high-scoring defenseman, unless your name is Caleb McCar and you find a way to, like, score as put up as many points while being really great defensively, it is not a guarantee that you win the Norris trophy. And I think a lot of people are seeing the stats that Eric Carlson's putting up and they love the fact that he is having this like this like flashback performance to his Ottawa Senator's days. It's just not a guarantee that he will win it because of that. You know what? I'm torn. There's part of me that I'd love to see a guy like Hampus Lindholm win it because it would change the narrative a little bit about the award. Right. Lindholm was what?

He's like plus 40 or whatever he is. but I think what I like about Fox is there's a little bit of a mix, right? Like, it's not all offense or it's not all defense, right? Like I feel like Carlson and Lindholm are the two extremes, if that's the right term to use, on both ends. And then maybe there's somebody in between that can kind of give you a little bit of both. So I think I come down with you. I think I go with Fox for now, but I could very much have my mind.

And I'm open. Like, I want to make this very clear to listeners. Like, if you're very powerful, passionate about any of the awards, like, like engage with me or engage with Julian or engage with anybody who has a vote. It's our job to try and solicit opinions from other people. Like we, like I take that very seriously. So I never want, I try to talk to a lot of people like coaches or general managers or scouts.

I try to talk to a lot of people and I don't try to just sit down and like either just look at stats or go off what I think in my mind. So we'd love to hear from people on the vote for the Norris. You think it's Carlson, Fox, Rosmus, Lindholm, whoever, like, hit us up. Seriously. I had a whole conversation with, I think, Chris Watkins is his name, who normally does a lot of data work. And I think we know him on Twitter as Yolo Penaado. And I legit just tweeted him. Just be like, dude, like, what do we need to do to properly, like, account for certain awards and how we should vote on them?

And he tries best to give me a good explainer through a Twitter thread. And I think that's cool. I think it's cool to, you know, not just be in your own silo and just think, you know everything and just think, okay, well, this guy has this many goals, this many assists, this many points. He should win. Like, that's not a guarantee. Like, Casey point back to Carlson, I'm not trying to dump on him. He's having an outstanding year. But, like, of all the defensemen in the top 10 that Don mentions in his article in terms of, I guess their defensive rate, Carlson is the only one who's, like, defensive number is in the minuses.

Like Adam Fox is at 19.9. This is at the time of the article. Like Adam Fox is at 19.9. Hamas Linholm at 28.5. One name we did not mention at all in terms of defenseman who probably will not win, but has the best defensive number of all these guys. Jared Spurgeon at 30.6. And his GSVA is at 3.1.

But like he probably won't win because his season is not nearly as flashy as at Adam Fox or Eric Carlson or even a Rasmus Dahlene or even a Ducky Hamilton to that effect. But like Jared Spurgeon, a leader on his team in Minnesota, like he's shown to be a reliable defenseman over the course of his career. But like this, the idea of who should win the north, like we know this very much up for debate. But here's something I want to bring up. If he like considering the offensive talents that some of these guys have, what if we had

the Paul Coffee Award for best. Yeah, or Bobby Orr, right? Yeah, or that too, or Bobby or Paul Coffee, the defenseman who exemplifies, like, the best offensive season. Like, you know, you could look at it like to get the most points, get goals, whatever. Like, that would be pretty cool because it's not, we're not in the day and age now where defensemen just have to be these stay at home guys. Like, we can see guys like Eric Carlson or Akele McCar step up and, and put up points and contribute just as much, almost as much as forward. It's like, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't have an award. that praises a defenseman for showing those offensive capabilities.

It's a part of the game. And I think it would be a fun, I think that would be a fun race to watch. Well, think about like, we have an award for the best defensive forward. Yes. Right? So we laud or we praise forwards for being defensively responsible,

but we don't, although I guess the argument is that that's what the Norris trophy has evolved into. So where I like your idea is that. I don't think it necessarily has evolved into that because we just brought up the fact that, Like Roman Yossi and Carlson have had offensively good seasons, but they didn't necessarily win for that. I don't think that award has necessarily evolved to that.

I think now more than ever, because of the access to information that we have, because of models of what, like, what Dom is able to do and what Shane is able to do, I think there's every more reason for people to not just say that if a defenseman has all those offensive stats working in their direction that they should win. I think there's more and more information that says,

like we can make an informed decision that goes to the true definition of the award, which is a defenseman that shows proficiency in every category of being a defenseman. So being good offensively, defensively, and whatnot. All right, so listen, we'd love to hear from our listeners on that or anything we've hit on. Hit us up in the comments section. You can tweet at Julian and I. You can also send us an email to the Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. We'll leave it there.

Again, remind everybody, drop us the comments wherever you. Ken, you can follow us on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show. And right now get a one-year subscription to the athletic for $2 a month when you visit the athletic.com slash hockey show. Corsi.