The Athletic Hockey Show - Sharp Sabres get the jump on Habs

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

The Sabres beat the Habs in Game 1 of their second round series led by the dominant performances of Josh Doan and Zach Benson. Sean and Shayna discuss the Sabres’ shutdown of the Canadiens and they preview Game 2 of the Canes-Flyers series, as well as thoughts on the PWHL expanding to Detroit. Plus, they welcome Peter Baugh from Denver to take a look at the Wild-Avs series and ask, “Will the Avalanche ever lose?”Host: Sean Gentille and Shayna GoldmanWith: Peter BaughExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Put-up, what up? It's the athletic hockey show for May 7th, 2026. I am Sean Gentile. I am joined by Shana Goldman, SG1. That's her. No Haley. She's somewhere.

No Macand-Doo. No Macs. So we, whatever. It's a major upgrade because Shane is smarter than everybody. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.

Hi. Thanks for pumping my tires early. I'm energized and ready to rip today. Yes, let's go. We're all psyched. We're not tired at all. The two of us are rolling. Producer Jeff is rolling.

Nobody, nobody is exhausted. Nobody feels stupid right now. Let's go. Let's just talk about the games last night. The first one, the first one of the savers halves. That's a big start for Buffalo there, isn't it, Chana? I watched it in a bar in Philly.

The Sixers were playing. the fills were playing and I went in and was like yo can you turn one of these TVs to TNT and the bartender was like yeah TNT like it did like register that it was even hockey

you thought I wanted to you know put on Franklin and Bash or something he was like oh he was like yeah I don't think anyone's watching that one in the corner we should we should be all right so yeah I made at least some portion of the people in that bar

watch savers for Canadians too. What are your initial thoughts come out of that one? Because I know I have some, but when you were watching that one last night, what will cross your mind? I was curious how the Sabres were going to do in this series, because I don't feel like we saw their A game against the Bruins, but they were able to beat them enough with their speed and with their forecheck, that you were like, okay, it was a mismatch, and we always knew it.

But here is a totally different opponent. Here's someone that plays with a lot of speed in the Canadians. they're also a young team. They're great off the rush. So I think that first period, there was a pretty long sequence of no stoppages. And it was back and forth a bit. And it was like, okay, this is your new series. Like, wake up, everybody.

Here we are. And, you know, I'm curious how both teams are going to adapt here because I think the Sabres handled it well. But now it's up to the Canadians who, again, they're going up against a much faster opponent too. They looked like the younger, speedier team against Tampa Bay. and now you get a totally different opponent in the Sabres. So that was like my initial, like, we're a couple minutes in.

It's like, wake up, here we are. It's round two. Yeah, like this might, this is definitely a rush game. This might be a rush series. I feel like that was the takeaway there. The pace in that first period was nuts. You mentioned how long they went without a stoppage. It was pretty wild.

They jumped out 1-0. The Sabres did. It was a goal by Josh Stone, but the whole sequence, we'll talk about him again in a minute, I think, but the whole sequence was kick-started by Zach Benson. You know, Lane Hudson has that turnover

along the board's pretty rough first period for him. Benson seizes on it and just, you know, create some chaos. Makes a really nice play to Don't, right? So that's, I think, an extension of the way he played from the first series where he looked like a difference maker. Did he get it to McCle?

loud and then and then don't. It was it was just, it was those guys working well as a unit. And I think that's a carryover from the lightning series, uh, in a positive way. Like it's good if you're Buffalo to have those guys, those guys contributing.

You don't have to rely on, on Tage Thompson. You don't have to rely on the power play, which hasn't been good. Um, you know that you can get, you know, consistent quality chances from,

from that second layer. And that's what, that's what good teams do is they got guys like, Zach Benson and Josh Stone. And, you know, Ryan McLeod to make actual real measurable differences. And I think we saw that early. Yeah.

And it feels like of all the players on the Sabres, like if you were going into the playoffs, like, well, who might be a breakout player to watch? And it was Josh Stone and Zach Benson easily. Like they proved it all regular season long. And then just the play styles of it too. Like they can play off the rush. They can move the puck really well. Both of them have that top six upside, but they also have those skills that you think

of in like a prototypical third liner. They're great forecheckers. They're so pesky. They pressure for turnovers. They, Zach Benson is just a total all-around pest. He is thriving in this environment, totally rising to the occasion.

And then it's such a good sign because, you know, for the Sabers, Tate Thompson's line's going to get those top matchup minutes, right? He's going to see a lot of Suzuki in the series and a lot of Dobson. So Lane Hudson isn't someone easy to just take advantage of. And this isn't even the case of what you would expect,

right? Like, can Lane Hudson make it a, among men and among these, you know, they just got through the Tampa Bay series doing that. It's young players with a lot of speed. And in Benson and Don's case, they play with a lot of, like, tenacity going up against Hudson.

Them going is a great weapon for the Sabres. I was a little worried about them being stacked on the same line going to the playoffs. And it's worked. It hasn't looked in balance at all. And if they get someone like Sam Carrick back, they'll have that kind of pesky energy through more combinations, which is a good thing.

but to me, it's always listed as the third line. I look at it. Like, that's your second line. It doesn't feel that way. No, not at all. Yeah, because Carrick gave them huge menace down the stretch too, right? Like his absence, it seemed, Sabres fans in my life, they were worried about what they would look like without

Sam Carrick. And they haven't, you know, here they are, right? Like, it's other, other deaf guys. I know, I can imagine that. Like, Sam Carrick is the key to all of it, right? But there was, that was not unfounded. There was reason, you know, to believe that they would. you know, really miss something without him in the mix, and that's not, that's not the way it's

been. I wanted to mention Don again specifically, honestly. I sort of, I like, I like, mismatched the first two goals there because he, you know, scores the first one, wins a puck paddle on the second one to get it to Benson, who ended up hooking up with McLeod. And then on the, on the fourth goal, which was the Bo Byron goal, it was it was Donne setting a pretty, a pretty gnarly screen out front. So, you know, he's been, this is nothing new. He's been great for them since the jump. You know, it's, we go back, we go back to the trade, to the Petirka trade, man. Like, I, it's still, it's just so funny that we looked at that and we're like, okay, this is great because Buffalo gets two elements back. They get Kesselring and they get, and they get, and they get, and they get, and they get,

and they get, and they get Josh Dane. Kesslering's been, you know, was a non-factor for the most part in the regular season, but it still kind of feels like they won that trade because of how good Josh Stone has been. And last night, you know, it's impossible to impact the game as a depth for it. Well, second line, whatever, middle six forward, let's say, in more ways than that. Because he's scoring, he's winning puck battles, he's setting screens. Like, that's exactly what you're looking for, right? And I think that was, that was a big takeaway for me last night was what a difference maker he looked like. Yeah, Josh Stone rocks. One of my favorite players to watch. He's chaotic, man.

I love it. Yeah, he does a little bit of everything. You mentioned that trade. Kessler-Ring, you would think, would have been more of the centerpiece because they needed a right-handed defenseman. And it just hasn't worked out. He's been injured. He hasn't been as consistent enough.

Don't instead is, like, when the trade happened, you look and they're like, you know, he could have shades of Brandon Hagle a little bit in the end. But he's got to pick up the production, and he's done all that and more. And it's like, that's why that's one of his, like, stronger comps this year. And it makes a ton of sense. and like, sure, could his career go a different path? But it just feels like he keeps leveling up. And you mentioned on that fourth goal, like the power play, I've been trying to track

their entries this whole time because they're so bad. Is it been bad? So bad. You look at that first attempt. I think they attempted to regroup seven different times and only got in twice with possession. And that next. That's not good. It's not good at all.

And the carrions are from that second unit. You know, it's the cloud and Benson the first go. But then you look at that power play there and don't gets the entry, carries the puck and right in, which I didn't know you're allowed to do for the sabers without a million drop passes and, you know, these past entry attempts that aren't working. But he gets in him and Benson battle for puck possession. They're great puck retrievers on the power play. And it's exactly why I don't know.

They should be on power play one. But, you know, they do the little things that you're not seeing enough with the top unit. And Byram takes shot. They get the face off. They actually win an offensive zone draw, which they haven't been doing a ton. And it sets up that Byram goal. it's all the little things. And then obviously on that play itself, he's screening the goalie.

So he's making his impact known all over the ice. I think he's such an X factor in this series. Same with Benson. It just feels like a lot of the time when you hear about these third line guys, it gets overhyped, right? And let's say in theory they're third line guys. You think of the Tampa Bay era. And like, it's Barkley Goodrow and Blake Coleman and they're great players to have.

But the reason we're talking about them is like the top six is so good. And now you have this next wave on the third line. So it feels like that could be the case here, especially at the top six, just keeps producing a little bit more, right? Like if they're getting that or if this eventually just becomes the second line, who's to say? But it'll be that next wave that every single team needs to go on a deep run.

And that could be huge in this series because Montreal got those depth contributions in round one. Yep. Yep. That seems like that's where stuff's going to get decided. Because like, you know, let's say the top lines play each other to a draw. That's like kind of, I don't, that's not really what happened last night because we didn't see a ton of like hard match.

you know, between the Thompson line and the Suzuki line, which I thought was kind of interesting from Lindy Ruff. He talked about it postgame. It's in the story that Fairburn and Arpin filed. But, you know, it is, it's an interesting approach, right? Because they didn't really hard match anybody there, even though he had the last change, Ruff did. It was a 43% X-Go share for the Suzuki-Kofield, Slavkovsky line,

which, like, you know, you'll certainly take, if you're Buffalo, I think they, you know, there were no goal scored well. well, they were on the ice and a capacity. I think, you know, that's something you accept and say, yes, thank you very much whenever you have, the Josh Jones and Zach Benson's and Ryan McLeod's of the world that are looking like difference makers. Like, you don't need to, you don't need to necessarily get, you know, yeah, you'd love it if a power play or click. And you'd love it if you were fine in some way, some way to, you know, win the minutes against Suzuki even more dramatically than you did.

But, you know, game one wasn't necessary either because you had those guys, you had those guys. you had those guys healing business. Yeah. And we'll, sorry, we'll see how that goes for, you know, series shifts back to Montreal. It's like, let's see how that goes because if that line's going and we're going to assume the Canadians do a little more hard matching because that's what they've done through a lot of the year, you're going to assume that Suzuki line is glued to the Tage Thompson line, but like the conversations changed by game three, depending on, you know, who's running hot.

Who knows? It's going to be interesting. Yeah, I should watch that, that's something I'm watching game two is, is the minutes and who plays against who because you can bet whenever it goes back to the bell center man it's going to be it's going to be one against one because that's how that that's how they rolled and that's how you know they won that's a big part of the reason that they're in this series in the first place right yeah uh Vegas ducks game two is three one ducks that was a score that i don't think was indicative of how much anaheim dominated that game uh pretty smoked them pretty good in the first

period, HD chances or high danger chances were 113 after two. But it was only, it was only one nothing, which is funny. They jump out, get a, get a two-goal lead in the in the third. That's from Troy Terry. And they score an empty-neader to make a three-nothing. So like, you know, 3-1, there's an empty-netter tacked on, or not an empty-netter, a powerplay goal tacked on by Mark Stone at the end of it. So, you know, the score sheet doesn't look quite as, quite as ugly is it is it did for Vegas when you're actually watching the run of play yeah um i think the ducks the fact that they bounced back after the blown powerplay opportunities right because they have a five on four opportunity they get the five on three might have been the worst five on three i've watched

a minute um it was terrible and it wasn't terrible because Vegas was pressuring them it was terrible because it felt like the ducks were just like searching for this perfect shot right like i think the power play went eight for 16 in round one and then it comes into round two and you could just see Vegas pressuring them in short-handed situations in game one. Like so many regroups, very little time established in the zone. It would be like a minute 10 in before they're actually in formation and then it just gets broken right up. So to have this five-on-three chance and Vegas isn't moving much and the ducks aren't either,

they're looking for the perfect shot or when they're moving the puck around, they're not shooting immediately. Like they're waiting. And every time a player is receiving a pass and then just starts looking, it's like, why didn't you just shoot it there? And then the five on four it goes back to and now Vegas is just coming up with these like two on one rushes. And you could have seen this game going right in Vegas's favor in that moment. Like Vegas has the momentum.

They're more battle tested and it could be deflating for the ducks for the power play to burn them so much. But I thought that they were so resilient in this and figured it out. And to be scoring it even strength, especially it's huge in the series. It's going to be more important than five on five scoring. Sorry, power play scoring. But to not lose the energy, I thought, was like such a difference. 100%.

You really could have seen it going the other way. 100%. That's, especially with a young team too, when you outplay someone so dramatically, but you don't have a, you know, a multi-goal lead to show for it.

I think that can be deflating under, under certain circumstances. And, you know, I think maybe that's a sign. You don't want to read too much into it. But I think that's a sign of growth for them, even from a couple weeks ago. Like,

the Edmonton series was won because of the power play period. They were eight for 16 in that series. or whatever. We're seeing tons of volume, tons of shot volume. We're seeing Cutter-Gaultier, you know, playing himself in the right circle, and they're constantly looking for him. He's constantly ready to shoot. For whatever reason, that's not the way at work last night, you know. So I think the fact that they couldn't just, yeah, hit the power play button and be like, okay, this is going to bail us out. This is going to make up for whatever issues we're having at five-on-five, whether it's finishing or just controlling play, you know, that's not what they did

last night. They won a different type of game. And I'm honestly not surprised by it. I thought they were, you know, coming into the series. I think I, I think I picked them to win in seven. That's like me. That's like, you know, that might be, that might be short-term bias just because I, just because I watched them up close for as long as it was against Edmonton. But I don't know, man, there's, there's something there.

You know, the pace that they play with is, is pretty wild. And the fact, but again, the fact that they won that game for all the reasons that, like, that's not why I picked them necessarily to win the game, to win the series in seven round. They're in seven games, right? Like, I didn't, I didn't expect necessarily any of the games to, any of their wins to go that way. And then the fact that they did is, you know, that's a, that's a, that's a pretty serious testament to them. Yeah, this is, this is, this is, this feels like it's going to be a lot. Also, Lucas Dostol was, Luke, Lucas Dostel was pretty good. Like, he had been sort of, sort of whatever against Edmonton. He needs 21 saves on 22 attempts. He's got a goal saved above expected of about 1.5. Like that's as good as he's looked. And that is the big surprise for why they got past Edmonton is that he looked pretty shaky at various points throughout. Like you kept waiting for him to have, you know,

a game that a game or two that absolutely killed him. And credit to them, it hasn't happened. And now he looks like, you know, maybe he did back in November and in December. Yeah. going to the series, if you were expecting the ducks, so I feel like it would have been like, all right,

they're going to win that like five, four, five, three game. Like it's going to be higher scoring. You're going to see them be Carter hard a lot because I think he's had a great postseason. I think even in game one, I didn't love how I'm not some goalie expert. Okay,

no one understands goalies, but I get it. Okay, this is my amateur opinion here, but I thought he looked kind of shaky on some of the saves that he made. And if they were pushing him with more second chances and rebounds, I think we would have seen Anaheim score in game one and be a little bit more.

effective and I didn't love how they were like spacing out in the offensive zone for it because I didn't think they were putting themselves in good enough positions for it and then also overpassing prime scoring opportunities that didn't happen last night we're seeing them beat carter heart with that really great puck movement and they're moving you know cross-scene passes back and forth and that was on that terry and carlson play uh to to score even strength but also it just felt like they had a little bit more control and it felt like they were just like okay time to pour on the offense because if you're the ducks, that's your best weapon, is your offense in the situation, especially because, like, Utah had one line going, right?

The Cooley line was incredible. And they were beating Vegas with their speed, but it felt like they could have used a little bit more here. If the Carlson line and Terry line is clicking at even strength, and they're winning their minutes against the Theodore pair, and then the Cutter-Ghotee line's going to go up against Hanifin and Anderson. And I thought they looked great in that matchup last night. I think head-to-head, it's like Gotei versus Hanifin. It's like 14, nine shot attempts for that line. They have a ton of scoring chances.

Now all of a sudden you're going, okay, there's a good one to punch. Plus, you know, the bottom six can disrupt things a little bit. So definitely a good win for Anaheim, not the way you would have expected to see it, even pretty solid defensively. Like, again, things you don't expect to see because usually you watch the X you go,

are you going to outscore your problems? Then let's no solid carry the rest. And we can do it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's not entirely what we saw last night, you know? Like, that's a somewhat out. a character win in a positive way for them. So we'll see if it's a springboard.

We're going to keep watching those series, obviously. We got another one to talk about. It's a game I will be attending tonight. We'll do that after the break. Also got some big PWHL news. Stay tuned. All right, we're back. Shana, I'm being told it is night 20 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Is that? That's, I don't know if I thought we were there just yet. We might not have thought it like, consciously, but look at us. It's been, it's been, it's more, it's like, than, it's been like one very long night. It's been one, a large blob.

A large blob of kind of indistinguishable days and nights. Just one tonight. It's Carolina versus Philly. Again, I am, I am in Philly for this one. Shana, I, I, I'm interested in your take straight off the top. I think, I think conventional wisdom on this

is coming into it, that it was that it had the potential to be a short one, and I don't know that too much happened in games one and two that suggested otherwise. Yeah, it felt like if the flyers were going to steal on like game two, they at least looked sharper after a pretty terrible game one that you're like, okay, maybe this is possible. Could they steal a game on home ice? Maybe I think it depends on the injury situation at this point because it was always going to be lopsided, but then if they're shorthanded on top of it, it's a killer, but there's just too much going wrong and listen

the goaltending has been pretty solid some of their penalty killing has been pretty good the Flyers no one wants to score on the power play in this series and that's okay and that helps because Flyers Power Play is bad on a good day worse against the Canes but you need

more at even strength and I think you're seeing what that what the absence of Owen Tippett's doing like I think that's such a huge part and now Noah Kate's injury but it feels like If they don't get Tippett back, they are truly cooked and forth. I tend to agree with you there.

And we'll, you know, I'm heading to skate after this. We'll see what comes out of that. I would imagine we're not going to have a straight answer for Tippett. I would guess that's going to be a game time decision. But it sounds like, you know, maybe he has a chance. He seemed like he's trending upward a bit. Over the last couple of days, I mean, he's a gamebreaker. We saw what he, especially early against Pittsburgh.

We saw what he can bring when he's right. You know, he's got that skating. burst. There's moments where like if you were someone who was just watching hockey for the first time, if you were like, you know, I want to be a hockey fan. And what game's on and it's the Philadelphia Flyers, there's points in every game where you watch Ellen Tippett

and you're like, this is the best hockey player on Earth. Like he pops in that way, right? And he did against Pittsburgh. I think he's got that kind of game breaking ability that's, you know, that you kind of need to break the wall that the, you know, that the hurricanes put up sometimes and I think they've missed

that pretty dramatically. Cates is hurt. Me and Kerr's were trying to figure out when it happened. Curz thinks it might happen on a block shot, but it sort of came out of nowhere that he's almost certainly done for this series. Definitely not going to play tonight. That's a big loss, man. He's quality minutes.

His defensive work is pretty underrated, I would say, just generally. And he's another player archetype that I think you need to succeed against the Carolina Hurricanes. You need someone out there who can kind of play their style. especially on the bottom six there. And he's not around either. So, yeah, that's a big deal. The bigger issue for me, I think,

and I've been kind of beating this drum in one way another. Porter Martone looks gassed, and it's fine. He's allowed to be. He's played more hockey this season than he ever has before. He had to adjust to the NHL. There's reasons for Porter Martone to be tired and not producing in the way that we saw from him, But I think it underscores how important his production was to them down the stretch and early in that series against Pittsburgh.

Having a guy like that in the lineup completely changes the way everything else works and the way everything else hangs together. Because we knew that they could lock teams down defensively. We knew they could drag him into the mud. Having a dude that, you know, with the shot volume that he was at down the stretch and also the finishing ability man, that was a game changer for them. And now with him operating clearly at less than 100%, whether it's exhaustion or whatever, you know, they're looking a little bit more like the Philadelphia Flyers from, you know, February and March. And I think that's a problem. Yeah, that's definitely a problem. It's wild.

Like his NHL experience is like, it's like the rookie experience on speed. Like he comes in hot and he gets all the momentum. Here's big minutes. But now he said his Ricky Wall. And like you said, like he's played a ton of hockey this year. So that's a huge adjustment for him. And plus, you know, playing against the canes, there's so much more wear and tear on opponents than there is against playing the penguins. So that's tough too.

And then there's some injuries because, you know, he didn't play a ton with Tippett and it hasn't played a ton with Kate's. But when they were on the ice together, like, he looked pretty good in their shared time so far this postseason. Like, this is a guy who he was excelling because he plays such a poised game, but he also just shoots the Pocatan. He has a really dangerous shot. And if his squintecher inscrashions down for any reason, you know, he's not going to be nearly as effective. And against the Keynes now, you're going to be getting tougher matchups, tougher defending to go head to head against.

They're going to swarm and just have endless pressure. They're going to cut back on the volume, whether you're right, whether you're right or not. And that was a big part of what made him successful, you know? Like, I still, a stat that sticks with me going into the playoffs. You know, yeah, it had only been nine games or ten games for him. But, you know, just in terms of individual shot generation, he was doing it over the course of the full season,

If he did what, if he did for 82 games, what he did for those, for those nine games, he would have been third in the league in terms of individual shots per 60. Like it would have been Brady and it would have been cutter goche and then it would have been Porter-Martone. That is wild. And that's, and again, just having any kind of offensive, you know, generation, I think down the stretch was huge for them and they're not, they're not getting that on the same level. And, you know, they look, they look worse for it.

on the on the on the carolina end of things uh they they shook up their lines at the end of that at the end of game too which was wild because it doesn't happen all that often and it worked and it worked out immediately set jarvis scores you know on a on a pretty sick feed from eelers on their first shift together i don't know that they're going to stick with that i think the vibe is that they're maybe going to go back and have and have jarvis back with ahho and svetnikov which is which is kind of interesting Um, that's definitely something to watch, something to watch early. But Shay, I, like, what have you, what have you, like, what are your thoughts from? I know you watch that game too. You were, you, you were watching all of it. What do you've, what's the vibe you got from, you know, those combinations before the switch happened? Well, I think Eilers being on the third line and it's like, it has its plus and minuses, right? Because on the plus side, he's adding that rush-based ability alongside Stall and Martinuk that don't, they don't know, let's be really at this point.

They don't play that style anyway. and, you know, it works together really well. And I think against Ottawa, the fact that their third line was giving them so many chances in transition, especially when the senators had a pretty good job breaking up their four check of time. So you needed to be able to beat them different ways. Huge weapon to have. You put Jarvis there. And now it's like, okay, that's a lot of rush-based strength that the Keynes have on one line.

But maybe it's a good thing to get Jarvis going because I don't think he had a great round one. Like I, it wasn't so much like, oh, it's the entire line. Like when you would watch Ah, Ho's Fetchmanikov and Jarvis played together, you're like, is Jarvis okay? Like the passing isn't as crypt. It's crisp. It's not as effective. So I think that could get him back on track here.

I would be curious if that's just like that refresh, like a game to refresh him and then jump back on the top line and see what happens. But if not, the Keynes know they have this bonus combination in their back pocket that they could always lean on and Svetch is good at moving the puck that you could go, okay, you know, he's been become such a good passer too. You have someone like Mark Knuck who can just get to the front end of the net and be a pain. Like maybe it could work. if they need it to.

But I think I'd be more curious to see if, like, the adjustments gets everyone going. And then you go back and see what they bring back to their, like, original combos. I think that's, I think that's the argument for it, right? Is that you do get Jarvis going. He looked that he looked like the way to the world came off his shoulders post game. Like, he was, he was refreshed and rejuvaded and all those, all those cliches that you, that you hear about someone after they score a goal. But, you know, that was him.

He looked like, he looked like a new man, right? So yeah, maybe that's the thought, is that you'd bring that energy back to the Aho's fetch line and, you know, things take off from there. But it's going to be interesting because they need that, you know, God bless Logan Stancovin and Jackson Blake and Taylor Hall, but like they're not going to be able to do it themselves every single game. Like you're going to need quality minutes and quality, you know, true point production from the Ajo line. regardless of who gets it, you know, I think it needs to come. They can't just be playing teams to draws game after game. Like, that's nice, but that's, you know, that's not a recipe for winning 16 games in the playoffs. No, and not in this division, at this conference, right?

Like, you get through the Metro doing it. It's one thing. Senators fires us two defensive powerhouses. Can you do that against whoever comes out of the Atlantic? I don't know. No, we're about to find out again, game three tonight in Philly. We wanted to touch on some P-dub expansion. PWHL announced yesterday in Detroit that team number nine is officially in place.

It was a pretty badly kept secret over the last hour many days, but they do have the announcement. The Illich family is a partner. That's good. The scheduling issue solved, that was kind of a hurdle for figuring out how a team in Detroit was going to look. There's going to be a lot of double-headers with the wings, which I think is pretty cool.

That's something that worked for them during. the PWHL takeover tour. It's ridiculous if there's not another viable spot for that team to play because there's no women's team at the University of Michigan, which is a whole other story, but, you know, it's something worth noting.

And there's going to be three more, probably, Shana. I think that's a fair conclusion to draw. We know from some documents that Haley Salveen got her hands on, that the P.D. could expand by four total for the upcoming season. It seems like this is based on Haley's reporting. It's in a story on the site.

San Jose and Hamilton are the leaders to get two of those other three teams that are up for grabs. I'm wondering what your vibe is on both of those spots. I think the Bay Area personally is fun, and I'm wondering if you agree. Yeah, I like that a lot. I feel like San Jose's done a good job of, like, maximizing their teams in the area. you have the barricade you have the sharks you have a lot of energy and it's such an exciting time in san Jose for hockey in general so just we saw we saw their attendance skyrocket the season like it had been down obviously that team stunk but i think they realize what they have in in uh

they realize what they have in macklin celebrate just like the support for them during the joe thornton and patrick marlowe gloria's was was wild right like that building was loud and rock in every single night so i think there's proof of concept there just generally that that building that building will be full of hockey fans as long as the product's decent. Yeah, I feel like it's just like such a great area for sports. I feel like that. Oh, man, absolutely. You have the West Coast balance idea because that'll help each travel teams like Vancouver and Seattle. It's like a natural rivalry. Honestly, you look at like soccer and sports like that. Like those three teams are always going head to head. I think that's just such a fun idea. Hamilton's maybe the most fascinating because

I do think there's value to seeing how this works in a city without an NHL team. And in the U.S., I would say maybe Wisconsin's your move. But then you're competing against college teams, and I get like not wanting to do that just yet. So if you're going to try it, you try it in Canada. And Hamilton or Halifax both probably are the moves there. Like one or the other, I should say. So Hamilton, it clicks. It's a passionate hockey cities that would be excited.

It feels like that is a really great test market. Totally. Yeah, because, you know, I think the SEPTers have seen that they draw fans from way, way deep into the horseshoe there. So I think it would make sense if the league looked at that and said, all right, well, if there's people coming this far that are interested in SEPTers games, they're probably closer to Hamilton in the first place, right? And then B, Hamilton itself is a great, is a great hockey city. And then C, you know, there is potential to drop people up from Buffalo, you know. Like that's like that's that'll or whatever the Niagara Falls area like there is there's an untapped resource to the to the south there too. So I think Hamilton you know, is that does that mean people in Washington and in Pittsburgh and you know, more traditional more traditional sports

markets are going to be pissed. Yeah. And I and I get it. But there's also something to be said for it for sure. And it's going to be interesting. It does seem like you know that the leagues, The league said it might be two, it might be three, it might be four. But, you know, I think there's, there's, there's reasons to connect the dots and, and think it's going to be four. It's going to be interesting. 12 team P-dub next year. Good God.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, like you said, Pittsburgh makes sense. Washington makes sense. You can make Denver make sense. There's all these places, you know, we heard Chicago a lot, but it feels like Detroit's going to cover that, you know, general vicinity and probably for the best, better arena situation. But it'll be good, too, because. Look, like you mentioned, the whole idea of, like, Buffalo fans in that Niagara area.

Like, you don't want to root for Toronto. I'm sure if you're Buffalo. Like, you know, there's that weird. You always think about it, like, when we see it with, like, relocation and things like that in the NHL or in other sports. Like, how do you now go to your nearest division rival who you hate for every other sports city? So the more cities, the better. I'm going to be curious how people root for Detroit. Like, is it going to only be Detroit fans?

Like, if you're Chicago here right now, who are you rooting for? You probably hate Minnesota. you probably hate Detroit. Like, who would you rather pick? So add these untraditional non-in-h-l cities. I feel like that could open the door to like different fandom too. Like everyone's like, you know what? We love Hamilton.

This is our vibe. Seriously. If you're unaffiliated and you're like, let's go with the Hamilton Blah Blahs, let's go. All right, Peter Baugh's next. He's here to talk Avs Wild and he is coming up after the break. Stick around. All right. We're back.

We're joined by Pete Ba. He's wearing his Colorado Avalanche Beat Rider hat again. Peter, hello, hello. How are we? I am doing well. I'm out here in Denver. It's a little early, but that's all good. And I'm pumped to be traveling for the start of the series.

It's been really fun so far. Absolutely. What was the last series you covered for the abs? Like how, which year was it? So, well, before Avs Kings, it would have been 2023 Cracken Avs, seven game series. series overturned goal in game seven in the third period that would have tied it for the Aves and then the Cracken win go on and take the stars to seven games in the next year.

Back when the Cracken were kind of relevant. What a time to be alive. All right. So in this series so far, the one you're watching this year, it's Aves Wild, obviously. On Minnesota's end, goaltending's been an issue. We talked about it a bit on the Wednesday show you guys have written about it in a couple of different capacities you and Rousseau and Joe it's yesper Walsett was in for game one let's in nine Gustafson has a dud in game two uh on your end how much of that has been due to the ads are they making those guys look worse is it wrong place wrong time combo combo of the two what are you seeing on the Colorado end of the wilds goaltending problems yeah it's it's definitely a combination of

the two, right? Like the wild, their goalies have not played well. The abs are also creating very dangerous chances. I think you can look back at at last game as an example. I'm not a goalie expert. Like Jesse Granger would be better at saying like what the goalie should have done in specific spots, who's at fault on which play. But the first goal is Nathan McKinnon and Martin Natchez doing crazy things where they're cutting into the offensive zone at 100 miles an hour. Natchez backhands a shot through traffic that Gustafson probably doesn't see. The second goal is a tick-tac-toe power play goal that was going to be hard on any goalie. The third goal, though, is one that you would think he probably should have had.

His angle wasn't great. And against the aves, where the wild probably have a pretty low margin for error because of the injuries to Jonas Bredein and Joel Erick, as well as the fact that the abs are are probably just the more complete roster at this point. Like, you really need to be getting the saves the goalie should make. They can't be giving you their C game. They need to be giving you their B plus or A game. And so far, that hasn't been the case this series.

So while obviously you're dealing with key injuries, no Eric's Neck, no Brodeem, but it feels like the Brodine one's opening the door to some problems from Minnesota. It means Middleton's up in the top forward Spurgeon. there's a Petrieupegoge and third pair. Like how much of a problem do you think those those bottom four defensemen are for Minnesota so far? It's been a huge issue.

And I wrote about it the other day. It also has a trickle-down effect of Quinn Hughes, Brock Faber, are now playing so many more minutes than Cal McCar and Dev's. So McCar and Taves are a little bit fresher every time they take the ice because they haven't played as much this series. and you're seeing the abs are kind of taking advantage of the the amount Quinn is playing, not in the, I mean, he's obviously amazing and they're not doing as well when he's on the ice, but they're hitting him a lot.

Like he's kind of, he's put some, there's been a lot of miles that he's had to, had to drive this series already. And the type of kind of, he's having to take more defensive zone starts because they aren't trusting Middleton and Spurgeon, which is really, really the pair, that second pair is really the pair that they need to be able to trust, but they haven't trusted Middleton and Spurgeon. So Hughes and Fabor are starting more in the defensive zone than they would otherwise, which means they're not playing in the situations where, like you want Quinn Hughes starting in the offensive zone, creating offense, doing what he does

best, but they're having him to rely on him for everything. And I think it's a major storyline in this series. And the Erickson-Eck injury is massive too. I mean, this is a series where the Aves already had the edge in terms of center depth because they can go McKinnon, Nelson, Cadry, Drury, they can move Nick Waugh over if they needed. And now the while they're down, not only their top offensive center, or one of their top offensive centers, but a defensively really sound player. And when you're down your best defensive forward and best defensive defenseman,

it's a bad recipe against that. Yeah. Yeah, I think that kind of dovetails into my next question. You know, we know Matt Bowley's a difference maker. Dallas certainly knows that he's a difference maker. He's got one assist in this series. So this is Colorado holding him in check. How is that work for them?

What have you seen on that end of things? Why are they, you know, limiting the work he's doing so effectively? This was Boldie specifically? Boldie, yeah. Yeah. Well, Joe Smith just wrote about this. today. And I think some of it is, um, Jared Beddner talked about this. He is like, well, they're down Joel Erickson, like that hurts, uh, their forward group that hurt in terms of

offensive production. So someone like Matt Boldy is not playing with, uh, the center that he normally would, would be playing with. Um, I think that they've played Boldie pretty tight. Um, I think that he also maybe has just not been as sharp as, as he normally is. And I think that, that could be from pressing. That could be because it's a two-game sample size. Matt Boldie's going to get his looks. I have no doubt that back in Minnesota, he's going to get some chances and be able to do some things

and make life a little difficult on the avalanche at points. But you're right. Like they've played him physical. They've played him tight. And I think that it's going to be a, like, I mean, look, if Minnesota is going to win this series, they're going to need the boldies, the Caprizov's, they're going to need those guys to be really special. And we'll see if they can

turn it around in Minnesota. But right now, the avalanche have, I mean, game one was a total, like, crazy chaotic, like so many goals everywhere. But in game two, I thought that those guys were held in check for the most part. And the wild power play hasn't been able to score all that much, though it did have a really good looking first power play of last game. You mentioned the power play. That's a problem for the Fs. Somehow, two seasons. of issues, two different coaches, different personnel. It's clicking now. Do you think it's just a really short-handed penalty kill that already, like, at full

strength, that penalty kill was struggling against Dallas, here it is now you're without Brodine? Is it, how much of it do you think is the Wild's penalty kill just not being where it needs to be or the abs have finally figured it out on the power play? I think it's a mix of the two. They were, they had kind of started to figure out the power play in the latter half of the regular season. And after the Olympic break, if you look, their numbers were a lot better.

And they were certainly not at the top of the league. But if you sort it from the Olympic break on, it was probably more middle tier. And I think they had a really good start after the Olympic break. And then Cadreys got hurt and it maybe went down again. Against the Kings, it was so-so. I didn't think it was great. But they had some looks and they finally scored in game four. So I think it was generally trending in the right direction entering this series.

series. And then when you're facing a short-handed penalty kill that was already struggling, it makes things a lot easier. I mean, that power play looked really dangerous in game two. It scored twice. It had some other really good looks. And then I thought the fifth power play that they got, they kind of were being a little cautious because it was so late in the game and they were up three goals and didn't want to get too cute with anything. So I wrote going into the series, like five on five, this was going to be a really tough series for the Wild. But the power play and like winning the special teams battle was going to be massive because of it.

And so far Colorado has dominated in both regards. The Wild do have a shorthanded goal. But the abs have, I think, three power play goals plus another one that happened right after the time expired. And then they haven't allowed the Wild much on the penalty kill. We need to talk about Scott Wedgwood. He's a guy you wrote about today. Great story, of course, up on the site.

Six and O with a 923 save percentage in the playoffs thus far. What is it about him that's working for the for the, for the, for the, for the abs? Because, you know, he's a guy who he saw split time with McKenzie Blackwood to some degree. But, you know, I, he's, he's been, he's been really, really solid for them, really throughout the year. Yeah, he's, he, doing that story was interesting because, I mean, you don't see. This is his first, he's third. 33 years old, and this is the first season in his career where he started more than half of his team's games. And he leads the league and save percentage in the regular season.

His underlying numbers were pretty good. Obviously, he benefited a lot from playing behind a great defensive team and a team that was going to win him some games. But he's been someone, I didn't use this in the story, but Alex Nadelcovich told, who's close friends with Scott Wedgwood. He mentioned in the story that he was like, he's like, Like it's not just that the abs are so awesome in front of him and he isn't holding his own. He makes a few big saves every game that kind of keeps them in games sometimes, and then they can take off and win games 4151. And I think this series in particular, the bounce back from game one was really impressive

because he wasn't very good in game one. And then in game two, I thought he was really solid. And I thought it was the right, I mean, clearly it was the right decision by Bednar to stick with him rather than doing what Minnesota did and switching goalies. And Blackwood is ready. And I would guess at some point he will play during this playoff run. But Benar stuck with Wedgwood, and Wedgwood kind of rewarded his trust and was really steady, calm and had a, I thought, a really solid game, too.

The Wild generated some chances as that game went. And he kind of always kept them arm's length away from being able to really get back into the game. it'll be interesting man and he's he's another reason to watch you know people thought that it's funny it looked like blackwood was the long term kind of permanent answer there for for stretches since they acquired from san Jose and then you know it's not quite the way it's it's not quite the way it's worked out you've had a you got a great a great story and man i i remember when he was in junior he had like he had like some kind of crazy 70 save game i remember and i that was the first time i ever heard his name and it was 15 years ago and i it's been it's been funny to watch him

kick around and you know I've kind of a star turn now it's cool stuff it's what the playoffs are about it is cool and blackwood like to his credit black it's not like blackwood's been bad like yeah he's been what the abs paid to acquire him yeah he's been worth Alexander giorgiave and a second round pick or whatever it was like he's he had a 904 save percentage this year in a year where the save percentages were low so 896 or whatever it was yeah yeah he's been an above average goalie and um i don't know i i still kind of like wonder of i think the abs in the regular season next year are going to be content again to just let them split time because they're both they're both solid enough um yeah it's been a big it's been a big difference watching going from

watching new york rangers hockey mostly to watching watching the avalade you're going to get you're going to get the bends from surfacing up like that that that that quickly brother yeah right, man, enjoy the next couple of days. You get a three-day break. That series resumes on Saturday back in Minnie. Enjoy travel safe, and I'm sure we'll talk to you soon at some point. Sounds great. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Pete. Thank you, Shana. Thank you fine folks for listening to the athletic hockey show. The Prospect Series is back tomorrow. Enjoy the game tonight. Again, it's just one. It's Carolina, Philly. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. We'll catch you again real soon.