The Athletic Hockey Show - Ryan Reynolds wants to buy the Ottawa Senators?, who gets a share of the "blame pie" in Toronto, and New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres are making noise in the East

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

On a new Thursday Show with Ian and Sean, we have a birthday in the house. Then, Ian and Sean discuss the Toronto Maple Leafs, Sean's piece this week, and who gets pieces of the "blame pie" for the team's rough start to the season. Next, the Ottawa Senators are up for sale, Ryan Reynolds is reportedly interested, and Ian asks for some related crowdsourcing help from the listeners. Also, the New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres are both off to strong starts, is there any scenario where both teams could make the postseason?To wrap up, digging into penalty-free NHL games in the mailbag, a look back with "This Week in Hockey History", and more.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM [phone]Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on Youtube: youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. We're back. It's a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, Ian Mendeshaughan McIndoo, with you for about an hour. We're going to rip through some storylines here in the National Hockey League as the calendar is flipped over to November. We'll do a little this week in hockey history, open up the mailback. We've got a lot of things to get to. But I feel like I need to tell the listeners that it is one of our birthdays today. you know and it's not me so happy listen thank happy birthday thank you this reminds me of this is this is going way back for the old school uh dgb crowd but but back in my very early days when it was like uh the

the the leif's blogosphere which was a word we used to actually oh my god yeah many many years ago and it used to be a running joke that anytime i would get to do like any sort of like radio or media or anything, people would go and tell them that it was my birthday when it wasn't. And but like I'd be on the radio and I'm like all nervous. I don't because you know, I mean, you know sports radio, right? It's all big shots and prima don't and all of this stuff. So I'm all nervous. And then like the host would be like, hey, a little birth tells me it's your birthday. And I'd have to be like it's it's not. That's that's not a thing. So it does feel like a throwback. But in this case, yeah, it actually is. Happy birthday to me. Yeah, happy birthday to you. Now, do you? Now, do you ever

go, you know how some places are like, hey, if you come in on your birthday, you get whatever, free scoop of ice cream, free, whatever. You ever take advantage of one of those things? No. No, no. No, I did. Not on purpose for sure. But yeah, I already, you know, you wake up on your birthday and you're like, oh, let's open up

up the old email and see who's reaching out. It's just all like random places you ordered food from eight months ago. Yeah. You know, offering you like free breadsticks. And you're like, oh, thanks. It's good to feel appreciated. Oh, yeah, exactly. Usually I get a first thing first note I see on my birthday is like from my dental office.

You're like happy birthday. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Then the key people in your life don't reach out, but still. No. No. And then like I'll go on Facebook like two months from now and realize I've got 30 messages from people I went to high school with. Just say it happy birthday.

That's it. Nothing else. No absolutely no other. That's the only thing Facebook is now is just a birthday reminder that you see weeks later. Exactly. And, and I think the worst part is then the next day you feel compelled to post for the, you know, for the, hey, just a big thanks to everybody that reached out and say, happy birthday. Thanks to everyone. Won't.

Won't. I probably won't return the favor when it's your birthday. No, I won't. No. Now, did you go to school? Like, your, your birthday is obviously here, we're early November. I'm a December 28th guy. So I was always, it was always Christmas vacation for me.

Did you ever get to, did you have to go to school? on your birthday? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I was, okay. But I don't remember it being,

like, when you're a little kid, it's a big deal. Because both of my kids are in the same boat as Eve. They have, you know, ones like over the holidays

and ones in the summer, so they don't get to have that birthday. When you're like, you know, you're eight years old, it's a pretty big deal. Go to school, find out your birthday.

Oh, you hope the teacher's going to give you a little shout out in front of the class. You know, high school and beyond, maybe not so much. Yeah. No,

I don't, I don't remember. you and I went to university together. I don't remember me gathering the whole. He got it said Sean's birthday today. Yeah, there were no surprise parties. Like, no leading me in for like a game of NHL 94, but actually it's, you know, there's streamers and balloons.

No, that never, that never happened. No. All right, listen, I jokingly said in our Slack channel, you, me and our producer, Danielle, I say, you know what, this episode this week is just going to be Sean doing a reading of his Leafs column from earlier this week in which you kind of laid out, you bared out your soul after another kind of,

hey, listen, it's been a pedestrian start for a Maple Leafs team that, you know, obviously has some expectation. Now, look, I want to, and I'm going to say this, and I'm going to say this, I want you to take this in a good way. I don't want you to, especially on your birthday. I can't hurt this guy's feelings. Okay. So I've always believed that, you know, I always, and I say this,

look at you, you're so skeptical. I always think that writing is an artful. not unlike acting. And I think with actors, you really want to see some range from actors, right? And I always think, like Robin Williams is a great example to me. Like, he's hilarious, he's funny, whatever.

But when Robin Williams kind of got serious, you know, think Goodwill Hunting or, what's the Dead Poets Society, whatever, people are like, man, like, I really like it. When he goes into a little bit of a darker or deeper, more serious role, I got to tell you, I don't think you, write enough stuff that's a little, not serious, but like, I love that piece that you wrote on, earlier this week where you just talked about the, it wasn't funny in the traditional. It was just, I don't know, I think you have so much range as a writer.

And I'm saying this is, again, I hope you take this as a compliment, that sometimes I read these, these pieces that aren't like, ha ha, let's look at this random shift from, uh, Dimitri Christich in 1993 and laugh at what happened. That was a good column. I don't know what you're talking about. No, no. Did a multi-part series on that one. Anyway, I'm always struck by that level of your writing.

And I think it came out this week. And I'm curious what, how that landed with Leafs fans. Because a lot of people are like, come on, man. It's only 10 games while you press the panic button. But I'm sure that that landed really well with a lot of people too, though, right? It did. Yeah. It was my uncut gems, is, you know, what we're going for here.

And it's, I didn't know they were going to do this, but you know that one of my pieces is going to land there if when you see my actual name on it, when they throw the McIndoo in the headline, that's like the equivalent. Oh, and it's not down goes brown. Yeah, exactly. That's the equivalent of like when your mom uses like your middle name when she yelled and you're like, oh, okay, this stuff just got real. So that was.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, if people didn't read the column, it wasn't like, oh, you know, this team is so terrible, oh, they're off to such an awful start. I'm so sad as a fan. You know, I'm a Leafs fan. People know that. I don't disguise it. But it wasn't it wasn't some sort of, you know, like, oh, gosh, the team is in crisis and all this. The point was more that, you know, look, they're off to a bad start. Whatever. You know, maybe they need to make a big move. Maybe they don't. It's just that this group is. hard to root for. And it's very, it's strange to say that because obviously when you're a fan of any team in any sport, you know, you cheer, you love the teams that win more typically than the teams that lose. But even the teams that lose sometimes have a certain character, there's certain, you know, way to get behind them. And as far as, you know, being a good team, this is the most talented Leafs team that I've ever seen in my life. I mean, I'd put them, you know, certainly in terms of top end talent, I would put them ahead of anything in the Pac-Win era in the Pat Burns era.

Death maybe not because it's the cap era, but the top-end talent is better than anything I've ever seen. And yet, it just feels like a hard group to like, a hard group to really get behind. And what I was describing in that column was not so much angst or heartache or anything that, but as apathy. It was just kind of like, what do we do with this team? Because we've all been told, and it's true, that nothing that they do in the regular season matters. It's, you know, they could go 80, 82 and O, who cares, until they get to the playoffs. So you're left in this weird zone as a leaf fan where the wins don't matter. And yet the losses all feel like a crisis, because the losses all move the needle towards maybe they don't even make the playoffs, which,

you know, in that case, obviously that's a disaster given the talent on the roster. So it's like, when a good thing happens, it doesn't matter. When a bad thing happens, it's, it's, it's over exaggerated into this, this bigger thing that it needs to be. How do we do this for six months? Like, I'm three weeks in. I'm already exhausted with these guys. And just, you know, with all the town,

we got the reigning MVP. We got the, you know, all these homegrown stars and everything. It should be an easy team to love. And yet, you know, my point was just, it's just, you don't really feel it with these guys. And as far as As well you're asking the reaction A whole lot of reaction from Lee fans

Saying yeah basically the same thing Not everyone There were certainly You know some fans who pushed back And you know hey it's 10 games Who cares They started bad last year That all worked out fine

But I was surprised at not only how many fans Said yeah I'm struggling with the exact same thing But how many fans said honestly It was the same for me last year I checked out after the Montreal series I heard from a bunch of fans who said It was Columbus that did it for me. I've, you know, for the last two years, we're not talking about Lee fans who were jumping

off the bandwagon and going and cheering in chairing for some other team, you know, tearing the jersey off saying, that's it, I'm done. It's just people saying, I watch fewer games, I spend less time. I'm not as invested in this team because sometimes with this team, it feels like they're not really all that invested back. So maybe the fans just feed off of that. Man, the one line that, I don't have your comment from me, the one line that I thought was, you know, it was, you know, sharp and whatever. It's like the only time that this team, the star players seem to get defensive is in the media scrums.

And it's, you know, it's. They can get pouty. They can get really. And that's part of what, what is driving so many leaf fans crazy about this season. Because I also heard from a bunch of fans of other teams who, many of whom are the same fans who complain about all the leaf coverage. Like, why do I always hear? about this team and yet somehow they're in the comment section of a Leafs article that was on in

the Leafs section. Yeah. And it's like, dude, you found me. I don't know what to tell you about this, but I, you know, I saw fans saying, man, I wish my team was 500. Man, I wish my team having, you know, 10 bad games was a crisis. You know, what's, what's the matter with you guys? It's why are you overreacting to this? And it's not, it's not just the wins and losses, because they did start badly last year and they flipped the switch and things were fine in the regular season. This start has been worse. Mertl has been posting numbers, demonstrating why a lot of the things that would give you some optimism last year aren't there this year. But that's 10 games, 11 now. This wasn't so much about the wins and losses. Because like I said, they could be

11 and oh, it was about the habits. It was about like, give us some indication. Like, we're leaf fans. We've watched this movie six times now and it has ended the exact same way six times in a give us some indication that something's different. Show us that you guys have finally sort of figured it out, that you're not going to play down to your opponents, you're not going to take nights off or periods off or all that. Give us some indication to make us think it's going to be different this year. And you go down that checklist of problems this team that said,

not only do they not seem to have gotten any better, they seem to be at worse. This team seems to be taken a step back in some sense. And Sheldon keeps been hammering a lot of this stuff since training camp. and yet it just doesn't seem to be sinking through. And that's where you get, you know, as a fan, you're looking at this team. And there's so much talent, you know, Austin Matthews might be the best player to ever play for the Maple Leaf, certainly in my lifetime, maybe period. You know, Mitch Martyr's up there.

You go down the list. And yet, like, they don't seem to learn the lessons. You're waiting for somebody to step up and go, you know what, enough is enough. I'm going to change something. I'm going to do something. They just seem satisfied. They seem like, you know, it's, it's fun. why is our coach mad at us? Why is he benching us? Why did our coach offer some

incredibly mild criticism after the game? And it doesn't, you know, I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's pouty. I don't know if it's petulant. I don't know if it's, you know, maybe that's taken it too far. But I'll tell you right now, it's a funny situation in the Leaf fan base because I don't sense that there's any great love for Sheldon Keith out there among Leaf fans. I mean, he's a good coach, but I don't think anyone's super attached to this guy because like everyone else he hasn't won anything in Toronto and yet if this turns into a players versus coach thing more than it already has I really don't feel like that's going to go well for the players I feel like the frustrate there is this is a fan base that the frustration

is is high right now and it's ready to topple over and they're looking for escape over they're looking for somebody to push back a little too hard on the coach so they can they could flip on them and hasn't happened yet. Players are been smart enough. A lot of it's just speculation and all this stuff. But you can feel like coming. You know, it's funny. So when I used to do radio in Ottawa, uh, we had, I used to do this segment called a blame pie. Okay. So you would basically, I would ask the listeners, I want you to, it's basically like a pie chart. I want you to bake up a blame pie. And you, you can allocate a percentage of blame to the players, the coach, the jet like who deserves the blame and you know and from at various times in the year we would

throw the question out and people would be like 80% this is on you know gie bushey or 30% this is on gold-tending or whatever so if I asked you to cook up a blame pie here and you could allocate maybe 20% to coaching and 50% of the players and 40% to you know to uh to the general manager and 10% to the you know irrational media and fans that sometimes surround this team like where's the majority of your your blame pie going? Are you looking for, okay, are you looking for my blame pie? Are you looking for the fan base? I'm looking for your blame pie.

Do you think there are two different things? I mean, I'm not, you know, I don't anoint myself the voice of Leaf fans. So it's, you know, there is a lot. Like, I'll give you an example. I would sense that in among Leaf fans, the biggest slice of the pie is probably Kyle do this right now. There's a lot of frustration with how the roster was put together, how it was built, all these cliches, you know, they're not tough enough, they're not gritty enough. It's a bunch of high-paid, you know, stars and that they didn't leave enough cap room for everybody else. And I don't

buy that as much. Obviously, he's, he's the boss. He's the guy putting the roster together. There's certainly a big chunk of blame to go on him when it's not right. But I think I'm more of a dubious guy than some of the fan base would be. I don't sense that there's a lot of it aimed at Sheldon Keith right now. Maybe 20%, maybe 25, which for a coach of a struggling team is a little bit low. I think it's, you know, it's going on in the players. And again, like the player's performance on the ice gets a pretty big chunk. But then like, you know, the attitude, the whole thing with when he criticized the elite players

and then appear to walk it back the next day and people were like, why did he have to walk back something so mild? And then, of course, Marner gets bad. inched. But, you know, this is two shifts and then he's right back out there. And, you know, people are wondering, is this, is this going to cause a rift? And I'll tell you right now, there's a lot of fans going, if that causes a rift, then that's a Mitch Marner problem, not a Sheldon Keith problem. Yeah. You know, I blame Carlton the Bear a little bit. I blame, you know, the media and the fans. I know I don't, I don't put blame there because, look, Toronto's a big market. There's,

There's lots of media there, but people have heard me make this point before. The lead fan base gets criticized for being too harsh, too tough on these guys, you know, too quick to panic. We boo. We drive guys out of town. But also, we don't demand a winner. And that's why the team, we fill the building. We spend our money anyway.

And it's like, which is it? Like, are we too loyal or are we not loyal enough? Pick the lane, please. Because I don't know which it is, but I know we can't be both at the same time. So I don't know what the issue is there. I don't go in for that slice of it. But, you know, I think it's players roster construction, to some extent, coaching. And to some extent, yeah, I mean, I hate this trend in hockey where we turn everything into a morality play.

And it's all about, you know, well, if they didn't try hard enough or if they only worked a little bit harder. Like some teams are better than the other teams. And sometimes the puck balances. And, you know, that's just how it goes. And it's not always about, oh, if we had tried harder, we would have won. But, man, it just never feels like you see like a new version of any of these players. Like any of these players went home in the offseason and went like, man, this is not good enough. What can I do to, you know, to whatever it is.

You know, you would just love to see somebody show up and be like, I work my tail off all summer. Or I've, you know, adjusted my game in this way. And instead it just seems like it's the same group showing up doing the same thing. and going this time it'll probably work. And you know what? In today's NHL, that might, yeah, it might. We're flipping coins mostly at the playoffs. And, you know, you ask for my blame pie.

Some of it, I would put a slice of that pie would just be, hey, they've just had bad luck. You know, they've been real close. They've been a goal away and the goal hasn't come. And some of that is just plain luck. In the fan base, though, I'm very aware that hockey fans don't want to talk about that sort of stuff. and so I don't think the fan base at large has a very big slice for that. No.

I'm curious, too, what you thought. Now, they did end up beating Philadelphia on Wednesday night. John Tavares looked dynamite. That one goal in particular, I thought, was great, I think his second goal of the game. But what I want to ask you about is just before the game, Flyers head coach John Totorella met with the media in Toronto. And I'm just going to read the quote from Toits regarding Sheldon Keefe.

Torturella says to the media, quote, you guys don't know what he's done for that team. You guys chucked darts at him because you want some results. He's a terrific coach. I hope he jams it to you all, quite frankly. Just not tonight. Yeah. Yeah, like how he did do that.

Yeah, not tonight. Well, it didn't work out for him because he did jam it to some people. Toronto bounces back. They win a game. What do you think about Torts? And we should point out, Sheldon Keith played for John Torella back in the day. Yeah.

But so there's a little bit of a, there's a little bit of a connection there that goes beyond just, hey, this is one NHL coach, backing another NHL coach. But when Torts steps in to an explosive situation, often it, you know,

it leads to, you know, these types of quotes and interest. I'm just curious what you think of John Torella coming to Sheldon Keith's defense. I wasn't that surprised. I mean, this is kind of a classic Torts thing where he gets to

throw some digs at the media while, while still seeming like a good guy, because he's standing up for a colleague. And I'm sure I'm sure most NHL coaches would stand up for each other, right? I mean, you know, they probably all feel pretty unanimously that the media is too harsh on them, that the fan base is too tough on them, that people don't understand what they do and everything that goes into that job and that a lot of the criticism is unfair. A lot of it probably is.

I mean, these guys are working 16-hour days and then, you know, we turn around and based on, you know, one decision that behind the bench, we act like that's all they did that day. So he's, you know, he's probably not completely wrong. And Schultkeef has been a successful coach in Toronto in the regular season. He's top 10 all time in NHL history and career win percentage. It's, you know, he's won an awful lot. He's done a decent job. He's done a good job in Toronto. It's just a question of whether it's good enough. It didn't bother me. I didn't feel like that was, some out of bounds thing for John Tortorella to say he's sticking up for a guy that he knows and likes and he's sticking up for his fellow coaches and obviously the message there is

you know I'm sure the patience that he's asking for for Sheldon Keefe is the same patience that he would like in the future for his own jobs and probably would have appreciated it in the past for some of the jobs that he's had so tell you what some of the pressure comes off Toronto they beat Philadelphia Philadelphia is going to make their way to Ottawa later this week to take on the senators. I got to tell you, though, what a week it's been around here, Sean, with the senators in regards to, and full credit to the publication Sportico, they were the first ones to have the fact that the senators had already hired a firm to start exploring.

Essentially, this is the start of the sale process in Ottawa. That part doesn't come as a huge surprise. I think maybe the timing of it. We expected that, right? I mean, you're the one who's plugged in here, but I don't feel like that was in any way of surprise. Now, I knew coming into this episode, I was going to be quoting Sportico and citing Sportico's reporting. I did not think I was going to be citing People magazine.

Yeah. But here we go. Late on Wednesday evening. And this came, you know, largely because of a tweet from Ryan Reynolds in which a random senators fan on Wednesday. I believe it was Tuesday. No, Tuesday, I think. Anyway, tweeted at Ryan Reynolds and said, hey, would you buy the auto with senators? and Ryan Reynolds on his Twitter account,

which has 20 million followers, responds with the old singular thinking emoji, you know, scratching the hand on chin. Hand on chin makes you think. So People Magazine reaches out, and according to People Magazine, Ryan Reynolds is interested in buying the senators. A source close to Reynolds,

according to People Magazine, say that he wants to buy the team. Now, I think this is important. Now, Reynolds had a, I guess a rep for him. No comment. Leagues not commenting. I've reached out to the senators this week on others related stuff to the ownership. They're not going to comment.

A couple things of note here. Number one, Ryan Reynolds actually grew up, spent a little bit of time in Ottawa. And I don't know that everybody knows that, but he did. He spent part of his youth here in the East. He's viewed as a Vancouver guy, but he did. It does have a fan city, right? Yeah, yeah. But he did.

There is the Ottawa connection. Now, here's the question I have for you. And I think we've talked about this in regards to Will Arnett, the actor follows you on Twitter. Ryan Reynolds follows me on Twitter. Oh, interesting. Sean, if ever there was a time for somebody to slide into DMs, this would be it.

My fear is, if I slide into his DMs, that could be the end of everything. Like he could be like, ah, screw this guy, I'm out. and I'm not, you know what I mean? The crazy Ottawa media. Is he reading the athletic? Is he looking at, you know, like, he follows me. But so what do I do here?

Like, there's part of me that feels like, oh man, like this, if ever there was a, like, when would Ryan Reynolds in the, like, think of the Venn diagram of Ryan Reynolds in the Ottawa centers, you would think there would be, there'd be no overlap. There's some overlap and I'm right in the middle of it. What do I do? I feel like this is just make her break for the, the potential future of the franchise, this could. I don't know what to do.

This is a lot of, do I slide in? I guess I need, okay. So let's talk this out here. If, and it's the capital I, if I slide in the Ryan Reynolds DMs here, how do I phrase this? Like what's the way to,

look, he's not going to give me anything. I don't think, look, if his people are declining comment, I don't think he's going to be, but do I open the door to a conversation? Like, what do I do here? boy. I got to play this smart. I got to play this cool. As you know, I'm not, I'm anything but

cool. So yeah, what do I do? This is this. This is tough. And, uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm certainly not the one to give the, uh, cool advice here either. So, boy, uh, I feel like we need. But he's like, he's our age. Look, he's 46. So he's like right in our wheelhouse here. Yeah, he probably, he'd probably like us. He probably want to hang out. He probably played NHL 94. We got, uh, we got some of his gin just like the other day. The aviation gym. I mean, you know, he is. He's quite the, he's, he's the businessman. He's, he's, he's ready to go. This could be the start of things. I mean, you could, this, you know, you throw it out there. He, you give him some information about the market. He throws you like a role in the new Deadpool movie. This could, this could be the start.

This could really launch, launch your everything. I feel like this is like, we need the listeners to, like, who are on Twitter to, to shoot you a message. And, like, You know, like, how do you handle this? This is, this could be like a group thing. This is like when your, your buddies are, like, getting ready to call the girl and everyone. Like, yeah, okay, well, help you write the text, man. Like, let's all, let's all do it. Like, this could be, this could be it.

Man, this is. Like, what do I do? Like, hey, right, I loved you in Deadpool. Yeah. I can't. I don't know how do you even start. I don't know. Loved you and free guy.

Yeah, you got to find, like, some more, like, like, obscure movie. Van Wilder. show that you're... I loved you in Van Wilder. Yeah, but you can't say that because now he knows right off the bat. He's like, no, nobody loved me in Van Wilder. That's not a thing. Nobody loved me in Green Lantern.

Get out of here. Delete. This is, oh, is everyone in Ottawa like this? Screw this. This is a bad idea. Yeah, this is a precarious situation here. I need to tread with extreme caution, right? Do you want me to like, do you want me to check if Will Arnette can like arrange like an

introduction or something? Should we get to... This is what we mean. Maybe like a game of doubles tennis, you and me and the two superstars. Okay. Pickleball. Okay. We could make that happen.

Boy, this is, like, here's the entire senator's fan base, all these years of bad ownership. And they have this savior coming in and it all could depend on how Ian phrases his DM. And this is my point. He follows, if I'm not, I haven't looked at it. He doesn't follow that many people, I don't think on Twitter. But I think I'm the only senator. Okay. I think I'm the only senator.

He follows. I think. Oh, boy. I think. There's a lot of pressure that comes with that. There's, wow,

there's a ton. Yeah, no, and he doesn't, for the record, does not follow me. Which is fine. You know,

if you're listening to this, Ryan, that's cool. Like, whatever. So I'm not going to take it personal. But I'm just looking like,

I'm looking at his, yeah, I mean, it'll be a nice birthday present, but whatever. That's, that's fine. He's,

yeah, he follows Hugh Jackman, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans. Boy, you go to on the list. Chris Pratt? I mean, a lot of Chris's, but yeah, I was going to say.

It's, it's, this dude follows like all superstars, but he does follow CPD, Ottawa and the Ottawa Senator's official account. Isn't that interesting? Right. Right. And then I heard that he started following the Sends on Instagram this week. Oh, well, that's so, you know,

yeah. Anyway, I don't know, what do I do? So listeners help me out. Help me out. Let's all, we're all going to get together. We're going to figure out the pitch here. Okay. Yeah, let's group, a little group think here. Now, along these lines, though, I do, like, the one thing I want to add with all seriousness in this, if, and look, I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the fact that Ryan Reynolds might be interested in being part of a group that buys the team.

I can tell you, one thing I do want to, you know, just to be serious here for a second, is, you know, this week, when Sportico's article came out, I can tell you, we certainly had heard rumblings that, you know, this might be a foot. So I spent a good chunk of the day on whatever day it was Tuesday, reaching out to people that are very well connected in regards to this situation. Okay. And the one thing that came back to me repeatedly is there are multiple groups looking to buy the senators and keep them in Ottawa.

So for the benefit of the listeners here on the pot, especially because we have a lot of people that, you know, kind of listen over around North America. Because I think when you hear that an NHL franchise with, I think it's fair to say, with a history of attendance issues goes on the market. Your first thought as an NHL fan is, okay, they're moving to Houston or they're going to move to Quebec City.

Or they're going to move, you know, insert city here that is, you know, Kansas City, whatever. I can tell you somewhat unequivocally that there are multiple groups, and this is well before the Ryan Reynolds story hit the news cycle. And who knows? Maybe Ryan Reynolds will decide the team up

Or maybe some of these other groups that I've kind of connected with, maybe they're like, oh, man, we need to connect with Ryan Reynolds, right? Like, that's the way I probably see this playing out. If there's a chance for him to do something, I think it might be who of him to join one of the four or five groups that I think has already expressed some interest here. Yeah, I don't think Ryan Reynolds is like shelling out 700 million of his own money to become the Jerry Jones of an NHL team.

Hey, by the way, what did you make of Jerry Jones dressing up as a referee with seeing eyeglasses at Halloween? That was pretty funny. That was. Could you get away with that in the NHL? You caught. Like if Frank Aquilini dresses up like a referee? You know, probably not him. No.

I mean, it depends. Could Ryan Reynolds get away with it? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, gee, we get like, it's, I'm so glad we're past Halloween in the NHL because I'm so tired of. like every NHL pair with it's like a fake mustache on and then like

I got to see seven Instagram pictures and people are like ah he's so funny look at this great personnel this is my new favorite team because three of them dressed up and you're like

or you know it's just Halloween and that's what everyone does but here's here's my one thing on the on the Ryan Reynolds thing my only hope and you're right

it's a really good point that the team is is not moving I think there's a lot of fans out there who maybe don't fully understand what's involved in a franchise moving. They hear that a team's for sale and they think, well,

they can just sell it to the highest bidder and then if the highest bidder wants the team in Houston, then the team moves to Houston. Sort of like the old, didn't Melnick have the quote about, you know, it's like buying a McDonald's or something and you're allowed to do whatever you want with it. It isn't like that. Gary Bettman has to approve any franchise move.

So it's not like if I'm in Houston and I want an NHL team, I can just go and outbid everyone for the senators and then they're mine and I move them to Houston. Like I can't do any of that without approval from the NHL. And that approval is not coming if there's any reasonable way to keep the team here. The Ryan Reynolds story is very cool. The only thing that I worry about a little bit is there's so much excitement, so much, you know, like wouldn't it be cool if this, you know, celebrity came in and became the face of the senators that it makes me wonder if now like one of those other groups that are still far,

more likely to get the team. Like, does that now feel like a disappointment? If like a, like, no, it's this real estate guy and, you know, some, you know, he's got a consortium of, is that going to feel boring now? Are people going to be like, ah, we thought it was going to be Ryan Reynolds? That's the only downside. But, you know, at the end of the day, whoever buys this team, whoever's involved, whether they're the big money people or whether they're, you know, just more there for PR, it's going to be

better than what they've had for the last decade. And I think that's, that's the key of your senators fan. Do you remember this? And it was Merrick, Jeff Merrick, who had this, like, we had all heard rumblings about this, like a couple of years ago that Justin Bieber had once tried to kick the tires on buying the senators. Like, do you remember this story? That does sound vaguely familiar. I'm going to give full crack. I think it was Jeff Merrick who kind of nailed it down that a couple of years ago, like, I don't know when it was, but like, that there's another name. Like, I don't know. Ottawa, of all the cities in North America that you would think would be the least likely to attract A-list celebrities, I think I'm happy to say that I'm, like, we're probably near the top of the list of places you wouldn't think A-list celebrities flock to. But what would this do for the street cred of Ottawa?

I think either the Bees or Ryan Reynolds. Than Justin Bieber. But, yeah, that's. But Justin Bieber owning the senators and having a relationship with Austin Matthews would be. be pretty good for people like you and I, no? That would, well, yeah, it would definitely give us something to something to do. I think part of it as the senators are one of the only, um, uh, organizations out there that like any other league, you're talking in the billions to even get into the discussion. And, you know, in the NHL, we saw again this week.

Franchise value shooting up way, way up, even though, uh, you know, that, that doesn't get shared with the players. The, the owners are doing great in this league, but not quite to the same level as all the other league. So, you know, maybe we're still in the celebrity money and not the billionaire mogul money stratosphere. But yeah, who's it going to be next? I don't know. I got to go, I'll check with Will. Like, where are you on this, buddy? Like, yeah, where's Bill Arnett? Slide into his DMs and tell me what, you know, tell me what he says. All right. Hey, before we open up the mailback, one other thing I want to touch on here, Buffalo wins again Wednesday night.

And the Sabre, Pittsburgh is now lost, whatever. six games in a row. I know they got some loser points in there. So winless and six or whatever we want to say for Pittsburgh. No, they've lost six in a row. Don't. Okay. Don't go Pierre on me here. We're not. Don't go LeBron on you. We're using, no, six, they've lost six in a row. They've lost six in a row. Buffalo wins again. There's seven in three. I mean, New Jersey is off to a great start. Here's my question. I think at the start of the year, we all looked at the east. We're like, oh, you know, there's eight really good teams and, you know, maybe one of Detroit and New Jersey or Buffalo or Ottawa could kind of rise up and maybe you challenge

or maybe the islanders, whatever. Here's my question for you is we now move into November. Do you see a scenario in which both New Jersey and Buffalo could make the playoffs this year? Like they're both looking really good. Like this doesn't feel like it's a mirage, especially in New Jersey's case. They're dummying the opposition. Like they're getting by with bad goal tending and just dominating the opposition. So I feel like what both teams are doing is sustainable.

It's not like the flyers that are kind of getting outplayed and Carter Hart is winning them games. My question is, do you see a scenario in which both New Jersey and Buffalo make the playoffs this year or could make the playoffs this year? I mean, it was always going to be tough, right? Because he looked at it and he said, like, who's going to make up that ground? Who's going to drop out of the eight teams in the East that had 100 plus points last year? And, man, you know, I, there's not a ton of doors.

open, but I think that if you had said, who are the teams that are most likely? And the number one team everyone would have said is Washington. And Washington's been so-so. They've lost more games than they've won. They're fake 500. And then, you know, Pittsburgh, you kind of looked at Pittsburgh's a team where I feel like it's been four years now that I've been saying that, you know, when the window closes, it might slam shut, not slide shut.

And it certainly feels like right now that's what's happening because they were really good to start the year. And they've just, they've gone off a cliff. Could it happen? I think it could. I mean, I wrote a bunch of about New Jersey in my weekend column. They really seem like they're for real. The underlying numbers are off the charts.

And like you said, the goaltending has been bad. And it's, you know, it's always so weird because, you know, when we look at a team that's doing well and we say the goaltending's bad, obviously you don't want the goaltending to be bad. It's not a compliment to say the goaltending's bad. But when the goaltending is back, because goaltending fluctuates so much, when you see a team having success despite that goaltending. We're talking like 880, 890, save percent.

That means everything else is going great because that was the story with New Jersey last year. They were the, you know, the analytics people would tell you, New Jersey had the underlying numbers of a playoff team last year. Not a great team, but they were middle of the pack in the league. Fringe playoff team in terms of the underlying numbers and they had lousy goaltending. So when you looked at the devils this year and, you know, they brought in, they brought in one new goalie, they doubled down a little bit on McKenzie Blackwood and you say, okay, if the devils are going to have success, they've got to continue what they were doing last year and get decent goaltending. It didn't have to be great, but even middle of the pack goaltending, okay, now the devils are

in the discussion. And that has not happened. Instead, they've just been amazing in every other facet of the game to the point where even though they're getting 80-80 goal-tending, it's good. And look, no team gets 80-goaltending for a whole season. virtually. I mean, it's, it's really difficult, especially a team that's doing well in the standings. There's other guys out there they could go out and get. So the gold thing is going to get better if everything else stays. Now, they're not going to, I mean, at one point they were getting

like 70% of the expected goals, which is just off the charts. I mean, that is, that's a little unsustainable. I know people hate the word, but that is unsustainable. But again, this is a team and look, I mean, and I'll put myself at the absolute front of this line, but all the people we're talking about Lindy Ruff, first coach fired. It's when, not if, when's Andrew Bredek going to come in? You know, he's lurking over his shoulder. Maybe Lindy Ruff hasn't forgotten everything he knows about how to coach in this league. So the devils are impressive.

Right now, yes, I don't have a problem saying the devils are potentially going to be a playoff team, maybe likely to be a playoff team. The Sabres, the thing with Buffalo, and I know that, you know, the past isn't the present and it's different players and everything, but how many times it's, have we seen them get off to decent starts, even really good starts. And we've all written that like, here. Oh, yeah. Here go the Sabres again.

You know, this is finally the year of this great fan base and everything. And part of it is, you know, I don't mind saying, like, I root for these guys. I root for the fan base of the Sabres more than anything. They've been so miserable for a decade. I grew up just, you know, in near Toronto. So, I mean, we're just right there with Buffalo. We get all the same TV stations. I feel like of any fan base, that's the one I know best other than the,

the Leafs and I know it's a great fan base. The TV ratings are always amazing even when the team stinks. I'd love to see them finally have something to root for. It's just, we've been down this road before with this team. They always seem to start off 8 and 3, 9 and 4. We all write the articles and then next thing you know, they lose 10 in a row and the coach gets fired and off we go. So there's got to be some hesitancy there.

I'm sure there is even in the Sabres fan base, but they look really, really good. and you know a lot that the young guys have been have been pretty good and there were there were probably three things that you would have said with the sabers going into the season that had to happen for them to be good number one you'd say you know Owen powers looks amazing I don't know if that's completely happened yet you know he's been fine but you know he hasn't it hasn't been great but you would have said Rossman Stallon has to have the breakthrough that seems like it's happening and a whole lot of us when they signed Tage Thompson of that extension.

We went, oh, boy, you know, hey, shooting percentage, right? He shot the lights out last year. That's, here's this word again, unsustainable. You know, they, oh, that's not going to be a good contract. He looks fantastic. Yeah, he just looks like a monster out there. There's a ton to be optimistic about here if you're the Sabres and you're a Sabres fan,

even if, you know, whether it's all that, I don't know. And, and, you know, to get back to the playoff push, Toronto hasn't been great. Florida hasn't been great, but even those teams are, you know, sitting right around the playoffs. Tampa hasn't been great. Man, that Tampa Ottawa game earlier this week was wild. I have a wild finish. That is. And it's, you know, it's funny to circle it back to how we started with the Leaf conversation.

And you talk about the Leafs history and all of that stuff and not getting the best of the doubt. Can you imagine if the Leafs had made any one of the three or four giveaways that Tampa Bay made in that game, how the reality. action would have been. I mean, they, they had, they gave up a five on three short handed goal. Yeah. Seconds after they had given up a five on three short handed breakaway. And the end of that game where Tampa's up by one, they, they have the goalie out and they have the puck in the Ottawa zone. There's five seconds left. And then with one second left, Brady Kachuk has a breakaway going the other way. How does that ever happen? And yet it, I mean, it was just such

a sloppy, ugly, ridiculous game. So, which is all my way to say, Tampa Bay doesn't look great either. No. You know, the only team that looks great in, in the east right now is the Bruins. Everyone else, it's kind of a mix, but, but none of the, my point is,

none of those playoff teams look awful right now with the exception of the penguins. So that still might only be one spot opening up. I think the devils get it before the sabers, but I'm rude for the sabers. Yeah, I mean, who's not? Honestly, like, all those fan bases, New Jersey and Buffalo have been through some really lean years lately.

And in particular, Buffalo, I mean, like you said, if you don't have a horse in the race, man, you should be pulling for Buffalo. Like, you know, honestly. Detroit fans are going, hey, we're right there too. Even Montreal's 500. I mean, everyone other than Columbus and, I mean, I don't know, what's the, what's the hockey mood like in Ottawa right now? Because this is, this was the conversation they were supposed to be in, right? when we're a month in going, hey, who's going to be a new playoff team?

And they're four and five. They've beaten some good teams. They beat the Bruins. And yet, you know, four and five. They were four and two. You know what? When they were four and two, we were like, okay, well, here's the team that we thought they would be.

And then they've lost three in a row, and they've been outplayed. And you know what? This next three game homestown is going to be critical for them. They've got Vegas, Philly, and Vancouver. I think you almost have to win two of them. those three games. Yeah.

Yeah. I think so. That is a tough one. Anyways. Anyway. The East is a lot of fun. It's, uh, yeah. And it's, and it'll be way more fun if it stays like this.

Like, you know, we, we said before it last year when we knew all eight playoff teams by the first week of December. No fun. In a league where seating doesn't matter. There's no playing around. There's really very little home ice advantage. You're just like, oh, okay. I guess I'll watch the Western Conference for all year because there's nothing going on out east.

All right. I'll tell you what, let's open up the mailback. By the way, Jesse Granger, not going to be with us for Granger Things this week. I think it's partially because there's a Vegas-O-D-Wa game on Thursday night, and Jesse this doesn't want to muddy the waters here. Vegas and Ottawa, Thursday. It has to be it. But anyway, Granger Things hopefully be back in next week.

So let's just open up the mailbag here. And hey, speaking to the Devils, we were talking about earlier in the pod, I think maybe two weeks ago, whatever it was, talking about, you know, what are the icons for various franchises that kind of give you those goosebumps moments? And Morgan writes in and says, listen, about, you know, we said for New Jersey, Sergey Breelin was certainly a fan favorite, but Scott Niedermeyer not so much. And was, you know, Morgan says, look, Devil's fans love Niedermeyer. And I think we've come back around on him again.

But the way he left the team, let's just say it sat poorly with the devil's fan base for a while. So that's why Morgan says, Niedermeyer isn't maybe held in the same regard as some of the other icons in franchise history, even though first ballot Hall of Fame. Yeah. And I, there is something to be said for these, these players that leave in free agency. And it just always seems to, you know, create these wounds, create these bad feelings. I actually, you know, I'll be honest, I didn't fully remember the circumstances around that. And so I went back and kind of looked at it. Because I thought, you know, this was Lou and the Devils, did he go cheap?

Did he, you know, do something? And it actually turns out the, the Devils offered Scott Niedermeyer more money to stay than he took to go to Anaheim. In fact, the Devils offered Scott Niedermeyermeier, the max. Remember the max? Remember that 20% max that nobody gets close to these days? Back then, at the very, very early days of the cap where teams were still feeling around, that number was out there. And apparently, the devil's offered him, which back then was only 7.8 million as a cap hit. But they offered it to him.

So they went all out to keep him. But the thing is, like, he left to go play with his brother. Can we not forgive that? Like, can we not understand that, you know, and especially it almost goes the other way for me. Like if a player, if you offer a player a bunch of money and he goes and takes a few bucks more somewhere else, then it's okay. Then it was about the money and, you know, was he being greedy and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. but if he takes less money to go play with his brother, obviously that, you know, there's, there's other circumstances in play there.

So I don't know. I'm never going to tell fan base who they can like and not like and police that, but it does strike me a little bit weird that there's these bad feelings over a guy leaving to go, you know, once in a lifetime chance to play on an NHL team, go chase a Stanley Cup and ultimately win one with his, with his own brother. Yeah. William writes in, and look, we were also talking a couple of weeks ago about, we had a listener write in and say, you know, I feel like Thomas Vokun is criminally underrated.

And we talked that out. We're like, yeah, you know what? You know, he's probably not, it doesn't rise the level of being, you know, in the Hall of Fame conversation, but certainly he is underrated and underappreciated was where we came down on this. William writes in, look, you guys were talking about Thomas Vokun and you guys said that while Vokun was not a Hall of Famer, you guys felt like Mark Andre Fleury was a lock. And I've heard similar sentiments frequently, I just don't get it.

Flurry is not clearly better than any of these goals. that you guys were mentioning, Vokun, Pecourine, took a Rask, Ryan Miller. Flurry has a 9-13 save percentage, which is below those other guys. He only has one Vesna win, and that was in the shortened season. He was never a finalist in any other year.

He was actually Thomas Vaucun's backup when they were together in 2013 with Pittsburgh, despite Fleury being in the middle of his career, Vokun on his last legs. I get that Flurry is fun to hang with. He's got three Stanley Cups, but remember, one of those was on the bench in 2017, while Pecarine,

on the losing side was still the starter. Can you explain why Mark Andre Fleurie is a lock for the Hall of Fame while Tuka Rask, who has much better numbers, is just borderline. Thanks, love the show. That's from Williams. You know, anytime you're talking Hall of Fame debate, there's the, you know, where were they in their peak? Where were they as far as being the best to the best?

But there was also the longevity and the just compiling the stats. And why is Mark Andre Fleury a lock? He's got 525 wins. That's it. I mean, that's really. what makes he's he's that's third all time he's behind patrick waugh and martin broder and then it's mark andre flaring wins and i understand wins is not is certainly not a great stat for goalies i think we all know that um as far as telling the whole story especially in an individual like a season

level but when you're talking about a 20 year career um wins actually isn't a bad way to look at golden because it just shows you like who was a starter who who was the guy that you know was uh right well enough to um you know to get those wins and the fact that he's He's got more than anyone in the history of the NHL other than Broder and Patrick Waugh, I think makes him, is what makes him a lot. I mean, you look at the top 10 list for career wins, and it's Broder and Waugh. The next guys are Luongo, Belfour, Henrik Lungwis is going to make it. Sautchuk, Plant, Esposito.

The only guy in the list who's not in the Hall of Fame yet is Curtis Joseph. And he might make it. He's seventh. He might make it someday. He might not. he's got 454 wins. That's a lot for a guy not in the Hall of Fame. And Marconte Fleur has got him beat by 70 wins on top of that.

So, yeah, Fleur is going in. The fact that he's a nice guy that, you know, everyone seems to love certainly will help him. The fact that he's so popular in all the markets he's played and will help him. But at the end of the day, I mean, it's very hard, even though it's an overrated stat and everything, and maybe we should be looking at the percentages and deeper numbers. When you got a big round number like 500 and there's three guys in the club, all three of those guys are going on the Hall of Fame.

And I'd say that as someone, I do think Rask should get in. I do think, you know, some of those other guys. I've talked about it a bunch how there's not enough goalies in the Hall of Fame. So, you know, I think Rass should be there. I think Rene probably should be there. Ryan Miller, I think, is a bit of a dicier case. But he's, you know, he's in the conversation. but with Ryan Miller, among other things,

you look at it and you say he's got 390 wins. Man, does that get him in the conversation? Well, Mark Andre Fleur's got 525. He's going in. One more email here from a listener. Again, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com is where you can hit us up. Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com.

You can also leave us a voicemail, by the way. If you prefer to do that, 845, 445, 845, 8459. Let's wrap it up with Sousa. They have a question for us. and it sounds like Sousa is a referee, and they referee at a, you know, kind of a low level, but had a question. A couple of things here.

First of all, wondering if there's ever been a game that had no penalties called. While I doubt that's the case, I wonder, what's the lowest number of penalty minutes ever served by a team in a season in the NHL? Thanks for your wisdom and knowledge. Absolutely love the show. Keep it up.

That's from Sousa. Yeah, so I, luckily we can look this up. Thank you to the hockey reference. database. And the first question, has there been a penalty-free game? Yes, there has been. And in fact, it's happened relatively often, probably a lot more often than you think. There's about 200 examples in NHL history.

Now, most of those happen way back in the olden days. The NHL has sort of had this, has been very sort of cyclical in terms of how penalties are handed out. There's a lot of distinct eras. In the early days, not a ton of penalties handed out. It wasn't very rare to see a penalty-free game in terms of even into the original six era. And then obviously the 70s come along, Broad Street Bullies, and then the 80s and 90s is where we see a ton of penalties. And then in more recent

history, it's dropped down. I think what was most interesting to me is when I looked up the list of penalty-free games. And again, the last time it happened was early earlier this year, Dallas and Philadelphia in January had a penalty-free game. There were a couple more this season before that. So rare, but certainly not unheard of, not all that rare. But the interesting thing was just looking at that pattern of the original six, and then you see it through the 50s and 60s, it becomes less common in the 70s.

And then at least according to the Hockey Reference database, there were a couple of games in early 1980, one in January, one in February, that had no penalties. and then we went 20 years. Right. Without getting another one, a 20-year gap on something that previously had been every year or two, you know, probably more frequent than that. And then we suddenly go through a 20-year gap because of the 1980s or, you know,

that's the year of the enforcers and gong shows and all this. And even into the 90s that that still drags on. But no, not all that rare. And certainly there are in terms of one team not getting penalties. You see that fairly often, especially in the, playoffs. And in game sevens of the playoffs, there have been lots of cases where the officials certainly don't seem to want to call a penalty. I remember famously the Leifes Red Wings game seven back in 93. There was only one penalty called the entire game. And that was a high stick that they had to call.

They were letting everything go because the reps don't want to decide the game. We know all that. They did call a high sticking penalty in the 93 playoffs involving games. Yeah. Well, I mean, you have to. Ian, it's somebody gets hit in the face of the stick. and it's that's a penalty. I mean, it's not, you'd have to be like not watching the game to miss something like that. And then as far as the least penalized teams in a season, again,

this one, obviously you're looking at the, if you're just looking at the total number of penalties, it's the shortened seasons, the COVID season, the lockout seasons, the early days where there were fewer games. The team,

you want to talk about unbreakable records, the team that does hold the record for fewest penalty minutes in a season is the Montreal Wanderers in the NHL's inaugural season. This is the team that lasted six games before their arena burned down and they folded. So I don't think we're ever breaking their record because they only

put it up in six games. But as far as full seasons, let's say 80 games or more, it's pretty much all teams from the recent era. It's, which you would probably expect. I think the lowest is the 2016-17

Carolina Hurricanes. 4, six penalty minutes. They're the only team under 500. There's a leaf team from a couple years ago, Blue Jackets team, but it's all stuff within the last decade that are showing up on that list. And by comparison, again, just for fun, I went and looked at the 1980s and the lowest total, there was never a team in the 1980s that went under a thousand. There was one team. I think it was the Sabres had a thousand and one year, and that was the lowest. by a pretty good chunk. So, yeah, a 50% drop.

Carolina was under 500. Nobody in the 80s under 1,000. It was just a very different era. All right. Well, listen, we'll wrap it up there with the mailback. Just real quick on this week in hockey history. I'm going to take it back to this week in 1995. So late October, early November, 1995,

Sean, Mario Tromblay sets the NHL record for the best start ever to a coaching career. Trambley wins his first six games behind the bench of the Montreal Canaanians. If I had asked you before you saw this little factoid, would you have known that Mario Trambley had the best record ever to start a career behind the bench in the NHL? No, absolutely not. And definitely not in 95-96, because, I mean, geez, it's like the meme of, you know, images that precede unfortunate events. This is records that precede unfortunate events.

Because imagine being like that team, you're off to the, you know, You've just replaced, you know, Jacques de Mares, the beloved Jacques de Mares. And here comes Mario Trombly. And, yeah, six wins right out of the gate, turns that team around. They had started 0 and 5. He comes in, wins the first six. And if you're a half-s fan, you're thinking, we got our guy. This guy's going to be, what a popular name, I'm sure he will be.

Yeah. We all know, you know, if people don't know what we're referring to within what, like another month, We have the Patrick Waugh game with the, and the I Will Never Play for this team again. And, you know, the image of trauma. I mean, you know, you're, you were a Montreal fan back then. But I mean, am I wrong that the image of Mario Trombley when you mention him as a coach is him sitting there with his arms cross, watching Patrick Waugh go talk to the talk to Ronald Corey and with that kind of confused look on his face? And he probably goes down in history as one of the worst coaches in HAP's history, at least the least. least respected and beloved.

I think he lasted maybe one more year. And that's it. So tell me, I remember, you mentioned I was a Habs fan at the time, and you and I were at Carlton. Did you come with me? I went with a handful of people

to a Habs Leaves game that year in October of 95. It turned out to be Mario Trombly's first game behind the bench. Did you come on that trip? Oh, boy, I don't think so. No, that doesn't, that doesn't. Okay. Okay, because I went to the game.

And the Canadians beat the Leafs on a goal by Pierre Turgeon as time expired. Like it was at 1959. Wow. And in fact, they had to go to video review, I believe. And but I remember being in the same, I couldn't believe it. But I remember being excited because the red light was activated. And I remember thinking, okay, well, the red light can't go on because once the green light goes to indicate the end of the period, the red lights deactivate.

I thought, well, there's, it's a goal. It's a good goal. And that was Mario Trombly's first game behind the bench. I feel like I would remember that. I thought you might have been there. I'm looking at the box score right now. Was it 1950? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. That was, is it true that, uh, I remember hearing this that, you know, because Mario Trombly obviously had played for the Canadians before in that he was Patrick was roommate. Yeah. In 1986, there, there was some friction there.

Like he didn't like the rookie, right? Yeah. And then, well, it got worse. So, yeah. Yeah. All right, listen, we're going to leave it there. That wraps up this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. A little promo for the Friday show. That's Salvean and Gentilly. They record on Thursdays. They run it on Fridays. They call it Friday. Hillary Knight, Hockey Legend from USA Hockey. Going to join the pod with Haley and Gentile. That's coming your way later this week. I want to thank everybody for joining us. Again, looking for. some advice here on how to handle the Ryan Reynolds situation.

So hit us up. Help you know. Help me out. The athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Not a subscriber with us. Join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show. Get an annual subscription for a dollar a month. For the first six months, you can also subscribe to the athletic hockey show's YouTube

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