The Athletic Hockey Show - Sidney Crosby to miss start of Penguins' season, NHL players to return to the Olympics, the rebuild is over in Ottawa, and more

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

Ian and Sean discuss Sidney Crosby missing the beginning of the season, with Evgeni Malkin also missing time, will this hurt the Penguins' chances for the playoffs? Also, NHL players will be returning to the Olympics, who may be the most watched players in the league this season, and Ottawa believes their rebuild is over.Jesse Granger returns with "Granger Things" to discuss the teams that had their Stanley Cup odds improve/decrease the most over the course of the offseason, a listener offers up a new player for HOF discussion, "This Week in Hockey History" and more.Have a question or comment for Ian and Sean? You can always email your questions to [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on an annual subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, everybody. We're back. It's another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show for you on Thursday. Ian Mendez, Sean McAnew with you, this episode of the podcast, that we'll chat about the Penguins announcing Sidney Crosby's wrist injury that's going to keep them out of training camp and possibly from the first part of the regular season as well. What does that mean for Pittsburgh? We'll discuss where you might want to take Sydney Crosby and Evgeny Malkin if you're in a hockey pool. We'll also chat about some Olympic-related stuff.

Lots of news out of the Atlantic Division this week, too. Ottawa Senators extending Pierre Dorian, Patrice Bergeron, meantime, casting a little bit of doubt on his future. Beyond this season, Jesse Granger is back for Granger Thanks, where we'll chat about which teams improved or maybe worsened. There's Stanley Cup odds for this upcoming season based on the moves they made during the summer. We'll get some listener feedback as well,

including a voicemail about Neil Broughton, and we'll ask you, if you could watch a behind-the-scenes documentary, kind of like what they're doing with the Toronto Maple Leafs in Amazon, if you could watch a behind-the-scenes documentary about any team in hockey history, what would you choose?

And we'll wrap as always, with a little this week in hockey history talking about the anniversary of some high-profile defensemen being traded. But as we kick off this episode, Sean, it's Thursday. And this is the week, and you actually witnessed this firsthand,

because you and I are in a football, pool. This is the week where everybody forgets what day it is because all day Monday, I thought it was Sunday because Monday of Labor Day gives real Sunday vibes. And so I get a text from you and I didn't check my phone an hour after our fantasy football draft started. You're like, hey man, you're joining the draft? I'm like, oh no, it's Monday. So I'm throwing off. I'm feeling like maybe some of our listeners are thrown off, but it's Thursday and I don't know. This week, I don't really know what the days feel like. Yeah, I don't know. I think you're being a little charitable to say that everybody

forgets what day it is. I think it's, it's some of us. And yeah, you did get the dreaded, the dreaded auto draft treatment. So my condolences in advance and better luck next year. Yeah. So listen, we'll get talking about hockey pools and drafts in a second here because as it pertains to the Pittsburgh Penguins. And they're in the news cycle this week, Sean, is a little bit surprising on Wednesday. The Penguins announcing that Sydney Crosby will miss, looks like the entirety of training camp, probably the beginning of the regular season,

as he recovers from a procedure done to his wrist. And you know, you get to that point where you look at the penguins and Evgating Malkin's going to miss probably training camp, maybe the early part of the season with a knee issue. You start to feel like, is this thing being held together by duct tape in Pittsburgh? Are we reaching the end of the road? Crosby and Malkin are going to miss the start.

start of the season, like kind of what you read into Pittsburgh here, given the fact that they're going to likely start the regular season without their two big guys in Crosby and Malkin. Yeah, that's, it's tough. And look, guys like that missing preseason, I don't care. There's no, Sydney Crosby is going to be completely ready to go whenever he's healthy enough to play. He doesn't need preseason games. He doesn't need to get in those practices.

He knows what to do and how to prepare. and so does a Vigdi Malikin. The question is, you know, you look at this. We learned it last year with Tampa, right? The whole Nikita Kutchev situation, hey, if your star misses the regular season or a big chunk of it or even a little bit, who cares?

As long as you make the playoffs and you're healthy going into the playoffs, that's your team to go after the Stanley Cup with. And if you're a Pittsburgh Penguin fan, you're sitting there going, okay, get Sidney Crosby healthy, get of getting Malcon healthy. We know that, you know,

Malcolm especially hasn't looked healthy for the last little while. Get it all cleared up. Take the time you need. Be 100% by playoff time. And we got a real good team and we can go chase the Stanley Cup. Who cares if we finish a little bit lower in the standings than we otherwise would? The regular season doesn't matter. We've learned that lesson over and over again in the last few years in the NHL.

Who cares? Just make the playoffs. Have a healthy team. Have your stars ready to go. And you've got as good a shot at the Stanley Cup as anyone. The question, when you look at the penguins is, do they make the playoffs without these two guys? And again, you know, Crosby, it sounds like it's going to be short term. It might only be a week or so.

But even that, you know, that could cost them two points. That could be the difference. And the reason is that that division is just so, it's going to be so tough to make the playoffs. In that division, there are six teams, I would argue, that all think that they're playoff teams. You know, you've got obviously Carolina, Pittsburgh, Washington. You've got the Rangers who think they're a playoff team. You've got the flyers who want to get back in. And I'm missing somebody, but there's another good team in the mix there.

It's very tough and tight. And you've got to sit there and say, okay, when the music stops, there's a couple good teams aren't going to have chairs. Who's it going to be? And is it possible that it could be the Pittsburgh Penguins? we're so used to seeing them in the playoffs every year that it seems on the one hand, no, of course, you know, they're going to find a way to get in. But if they're missing guys, you know, Malkin probably long-term, Crosby, even for a week or two, that could be the difference.

And suddenly they don't make the playoffs. And then it's disaster. And we're all pointy figures and trying to figure out what went wrong in Pittsburgh. Yeah, you're right. Because Tampa, you could live without Kuturov because, A, it was a truncated season. But B, you had points. And you had Stamco's and you had Calorn and you had like you were, they are one of the deepest teams going, but you're right.

Pittsburgh without Crosse, I can't even picture Pittsburgh without Crosby and Malkin. And we're probably going to see that beginning of the season. Now, our pal Domloos Chichen put out his fantasy rankings this week. And this is before the Crosby news came down. He's got Crosby at 35, like 35th pick overall. And it's funny because if I'm not mistaken, and it's Crosby and Ovechkin are back to back on Dom's list at 35 and 36.

And I'm wondering, like, Crosby is just that type of guy where you're like, man, what do I do? So let me ask you. And again, there's a little bit unknown here as we're only in the early part of September. And maybe this changes in a month. But if you were drafted right now and you knew that Crosby was probably going to miss, yeah, first couple weeks of the season, like where do you take Sydney? And this is a crazy question to ask. where do you take Sidney Crosby in a pool?

I feel like we haven't asked this question since his rookie here, or maybe a little bit around the concussion stuff when there were some questions about his durability and could he play. But this guy has been an automatic top 10 for really the better part of 15 years. And certainly not going to be the case this year. Like where would you take Sidney Crosby in a hockey pool? Yeah, it's tough to say. And it obviously depends on the format of your pool.

Some pools are still just points. Some of them it's based on all sorts of stats. And I think that's what Dom's looking at when he does his rankings. He's assuming that you've got one of these pools where you're also looking at shots and power plays and block shots and hits and all of the rest of the numbers that are there. And that's why Crosby falls a little bit maybe further than you might think. But he's still got him. I think when it comes to points as the fifth or sixth center in the league, and that sounds

about right to me. I mean, I wouldn't take him ahead of obviously. And McDavid's the first pick in any format. And I wouldn't take them ahead of Matthews or McKinnon. There's other guys that you get into that range where you start to think about them. But yeah, and then the other thing I want to know is what format is the pool in the sense of am I playing all year long? And we're just going to add up the totals at the end of the year or is it one of these head-to-head formats? Because if it's head-to-head, you might say, you know what?

Okay, I'll go a couple of weeks without Sid at the beginning of the season. And then I'm going to have the guy at locked in for the rest of the year. Fingers crossed healthy and ready to go. So it is, you know, it's tough, but I looked at Dom's rankings and I, you know, Dom's really good at this stuff. And I didn't see anything in terms of Crosby that jumped out at me to make me say, oh, you know what? This isn't the right spot for him. Those numbers look pretty much right to me. And, you know, the number that a lot of people are focusing on in Dom's stuff is Conner McDavid 131 points.

That, I mean, that's a big number. Do you think McDavid get, and look, this guy got to 100 points in 56 games. Does McDavid get to 1.30 this season? If he's healthy, I think he does. I mean, that would be a slower scoring pace than what he did last year, albeit in a shorter season. I absolutely think he can get there. I, you know, I find, I write a piece every year,

and I'm going to do it again this year, I just pick 20 guys and I say these are the most interesting, intriguing guys to watch in the league as far as I'm concerned. Not the best players, not necessarily the guys who are going to win all the awards, but just the guys who for whatever reason really interests me. And I always put McDavid on the list. And it seems like such a lame pick. Like, oh, yeah, it's the best player in the league. He's fun to watch. Really great insight there.

But I just feel every year that it's like, does this guy have another gear? Is he going to find another level? and a year after year, I wrote this last year. I said, like, you know, this guy, he could have a hundred point season, even though we're only playing 50-something games. And he went and did it. And now I'm sitting there going, could he do 150 over a full season? You know what?

Maybe he could. I certainly wouldn't put it past him. Now, it's a longer season. Obviously, injuries can happen, not just injuries where you miss games, but, you know, he could end up playing through something that hurts his production. The way that Dom has it, he's got a, I'm at 130 points. That's basically the over under that he's setting.

He's saying it's equally likely that it'll have more or less. He's not predicting that exact total. Again, seems pretty good. But honestly, if I had to bet, and certainly if you told me that Connor McDave was going to be reasonably healthy all year, I'm taking the over on that. I think he can get closer to 140, maybe even 150. And that's just based on the pace that we saw last year, plus the fact that another year in the league, I think he could be even better than he was last season.

You know, as you talk about your, every year you do the 20 most interesting players. Let's just spitball this here for a second. Okay. And I'm going to throw out a couple of names. You tell me if, you know, I know you don't want to give away everything here. But I think our listeners will probably appreciate the fact that we're spitballing this story idea of yours and not your story about the rhyming player names. Because I think that might have made for a painful podcast. Did you, did you run it through the audience?

I think the people should get a chance to vote on this. That's been one of my most popular pieces of the year. The quest for the six-man starting lineup of players whose names rhyme. And by the way, it's been fascinating to learn what people think does and doesn't rhyme. That is, oh, yeah, that was good. But yeah, hit me with some intriguing players because I've got about two-thirds of the list penciled in, but I haven't sat down to actually finalize it. So I'm happy to have you and the audience do some of my work.

work for me. Okay, I'm going to throw out a couple. You tell me again, maybe they're too obvious, maybe not. Are Temi Panarin? Yeah, that's a good potential one. I try to limit it to one per team and the guy that I'm leaning towards on the Rangers and there's a few. You could go, certainly you could go Panarin. You could go Mika Zabanajad because with the contract coming up. I'm really fascinated with Adam Vox. I want to see what happens here because there really isn't a ton of precedent for what we just saw last year where a guy certainly doesn't come out of nowhere, but a good player in his second season goes from, hey, this is a good young player to, oh, this is actually one of the better young defensivement in the league to, oh, hey, we just

gave him the Norris trophy in a league where that typically has been a lifetime achievement award that you have to build up to over time. And I'm really fascinated to see whether that's the launch pad to him going on and becoming even better or if this ends up being kind of a Jim Carrey situation where we look back and go, oh, that was a little bit weird that a good player, but maybe not a truly elite guy, got that award. I want to see how he follows it up this year. Okay.

This is a name that I think will probably end up making your list and maybe it's too obvious with Tony DeAngelo. Yeah, you know what? That could be another one. Again, I go one per team and it's got to be Kotanemi on Carolina. is my... I don't know. I mean, everybody's going to be watching him.

It's six million after that whole drama and everything that it's not, this season is going to be not just a referendum on him as a player, but that whole Carolina organization, Mark Bergevin, obviously, if he's, if he shows even, you know, slight progress as a player, it looks like he's maybe headed towards something that Mark Bergevin's going to hear all sorts of criticism. But if he doesn't, if he keeps looking like the same sort of. guy he was last year, then you're going to hear Carolina. People are going to be coming after Carolina with both barrels.

I think to me, like, Kockenemi is probably the biggest slam dunk on the whole list as far as guys that I'm just really intrigued to watch because it just, it feels like every single game that he plays is just going to immediately turn into a referendum on that whole offer sheet mess. Yeah, you know what? And maybe Tony DeAngelo is doing cartwheels when they got Kott Kenei because it might be, right? But, you know, it makes me wonder, too. are the Carolina Hurricanes who have historically been this sort of very, and I know the last couple of years they've certainly gotten a little bit more exposure

with a bunch of jerks and they've been a good team. But it feels like they've escalated to kind of maybe the most intriguing team in the entire league on some levels, right? You know what, you could make that case, I think, because you look at, you know, the two situations. We just mentioned Dougie Hamilton walking away, you know, in free agency. and they made offers, tried to keep him, but were they willing to go as high as some other teams?

Would he have stayed? We don't know. The goaltending situation there. I mean, that's fascinating. For a team that, for years, you just kept waiting for them to find a goalie. It feels like they finally find the guy, and then they flip them for a draft pick rather than pay them

and go with a couple of veterans. Could work out great. Who knows, you know, goaltending, it feels impossible to predict. It might work out great, but, man, if they're a great team, and then they're struggling in goal again this year. It's going to be a lot of questions asked there.

And then you just look at the guys up front, you know, how Svetnikov is a fascinating player. It's just all sorts of fun. It's a real interesting team. And then you mix in the whole dynamic and the celebrations and the kind of us against the world vibe that they're very, very good at locking into and putting out in the world.

Yeah, I don't do a most intriguing teams list. but if I did, they'd be in the running for number one, for sure. Avander Cain. I'm thinking Evander Cain is probably going to be one of the most watched players in the league for a myriad of reasons. And again, his status is even a little bit murky. But boy, if he goes back to San Jose, does that not seem like a situation that everyone's going to have their eyeballs on?

Yeah, I feel like that's one that we're going to be watching, obviously, as the season approaches, because the league has told us that, they're they've done this or they're in the process of doing this investigation and they want it to be finished by the time the season starts we haven't heard anything which is fine this sort of thing doesn't have to be done publicly and then with frequent updates but whether we even see a van der kane playing to start this season is is going to be interesting and then you know certainly if if the investigation comes and goes and you know they can they can they can tell us that, hey, accusations were untrue. He's been cleared. You know, here's

why, here's what we found or didn't find, and that feels convincing. Then I guess we move on. And Evander Cain probably is viewed as any other player in the league. But if this cloud is still hanging over him, then yeah, certainly it's, it becomes a, you know, becomes a situation. And then on top of that, you've got the reporting that we've had that Kevin Kurtz done at the athletic about how his teammates feel about him, how he fits into that dressing room, whether, you know, some guys are just kind of tired of them. It's not an easy player to move given not only his situation, but his contract. So if you're the sharks, you're probably stuck with him. And given what he can do on the ice, you know, you might be fine with that.

He had a real good year last year. That kind of gets forgotten amidst the other stuff and rightly so. but yeah, that whole situation is going to be a very interesting one to watch between now and the start of the season, and then we'll see if it drags on pass out. Yeah, and listen, we'd love to, I'm sure Sean would love it if, you know, you've got some feedback on what players should make his list of 20 guys to watch this season. I'm sure he would appreciate you can hit him up on Twitter, down goes brown, or even send us some viewer feedback or listener feedback here.

I'm sure you would appreciate that. So listen, since you and I have been on the air or done a podcast together, the NHL has confirmed that the players are headed overseas for the Olympic Games. And this is going to be the first time since 2014 that we have had the players at the Olympic Games. And, you know, we were talking about Crosby and McDavid earlier in the podcast. So you know that those two will likely be slam dunks and be fun to watch them as teammates. Now, I'm going to ask you this. Like, this is the first time we've had the players at the Olympics since 2014.

We had that weird World Cup of Hockey in 2016. So let me ask you this. When we get to the Olympics in 2022, will that be the first time that you believe that we've had best on best hockey since 2014? Or do you count the 2016 World Cup of hockey in the best on best thing? Yeah, I do. I count the World Cup as best on best. And part of that is, you know, when I was growing up, the World Cup, which back then was the Canada Cup. That was the only game in town as far as best on best that featured NHL players.

And it was, it was great. Some of the best, the best memories from the hockey world was from those tournaments. Obviously, you remember 87 with Canada and the Soviets. And 96, when it, when it becomes the World Cup and Team USA pulling up the upset, you and I were in Montreal watching that, watching that game play out completely convinced that Canada would pull it off like they always did. and then watching it all fall apart and the Americans take it. I, you know, I really like Canada Cup slash World Cup. And, you know, 2016, they played with the format a little bit. You know, obviously Team North America, you could make the argument,

was it really a best on best? Connor McDavid wasn't on Team Canada. Austin Matthews wasn't on Team USA. And, you know, I wasn't really sure on how I felt about that at the time. Watching it was obviously all sorts of fun. I mean, Team North America. kind of stole the show as far as having the young guys. But even then, I wasn't completely convinced that I wanted to see it going forward.

If we're back at the Olympics and if this is actually going to happen, I actually don't mind the idea that you keep both and you let the Olympics be the traditional pure best on best tournament. And then let the World Cup be the one where maybe you get a little bit more creative. Maybe you do Team Europe. Maybe you do a team North America, you know, the younger guys. Maybe you figure out ways to play around with the format a bit that you wouldn't normally do. And then you let the Olympics be kind of the true best-on-best, the true measure.

And let the World Cup be something that's maybe a 1A, but you can have some fun with. I think that's a good balance every two years to get the best players in the world against each other. It doesn't feel like overkill to me. Yeah. It's funny because I think I looked at that 2016 thing. I didn't personally, I mean, I enjoyed the, like the, the, under 23 team the Young Guns, whatever we called them. That was fun.

Team North America, that was fun. But I think back and I think, well, if we had that set up for the Canada Cup, like, Mario Lemieux in 1987 wouldn't have played for Team Canada. He would have been on this Young Guns team. And we wouldn't have had that magical moment, right? So I'm torn on it, but I do like your idea of, yeah, maybe you do do something fun. And we see this, like, think of golf. Like, you do different things, right?

Rider Cup and different, like, there are different formats. So you don't have to just stick to country on country. And maybe you can play around with some things and have some fun. And I think at the end of the day, though, I'm super happy that we're going to see the NHL players back in the Olympics because I think once we got that in Nagano, to me it's really hard to put the genie back in the bottle and say, yeah, you know what?

We're going to go back to the World Cup. I think there's been a generation, if not two, that has grown up with watching the Olympics. And that's what they aspire. or two as young NHLers, right? Yeah, and look, you got to look at the history as well with the World Cup. I mean, the U.S. winning in 96 was one of the biggest events in American hockey history, but then partly because they go to the Olympics,

and they go to the Olympics partly on the strength of the momentum from that 96 World Cup, they don't do another one until 2004, and that was the one you remember right before the lockout, they kind of squeezed it in, and it was like literally, Canada wins the trophy and then the next day the NHL shuts down. And it really got overshadowed. And so it's certainly been secondary. And yeah, having, you know, the Olympics are going to be the premier event. I, you know, I think that's pretty clear.

But look, the other piece of this is when you do the World Cup, it's under NHL control, right? So you don't have to worry about the games being on at 4 in the morning because of wherever the Olympics are held. You don't have to worry about the rights and, you know, all this other stuff. and using the imagery that we hear about. The NHL can control it, do it in their own ranks, their own rules. You know, it's, again, I talk to me 10 years in, if we've had these every two years, he might say, you know, this is starting to get a little much. But right now, you know, I love this stuff.

I love when you can actually get the very best in the world. Hockey's one of the only sports in the world where you get the very best, and it is a true question mark about who's going to win. win, you know, any given night. It's a lot of fun. And it's, it's where players can really make or break reputations. And it's, it's, I, there is a too much. I'm sure there is. But I don't think every two years is it. You know, you mentioned the 2004 World Cup of hockey kind of got overshadowed. Do you remember who scored the game winning and essentially, I guess, tournament winning goal for Canada that year? It was Canada against Finland, I believe in the final. Do you

remember who scored the winning goal for Canada? No, I don't. Honestly, all I remember from that tournament is, uh, is that stupid trophy that they, uh, that they debuted. Who scored that, who scored it? Oh, see, I thought you were, I thought you were actually going full pun mode when you said, no, sorry, I don't remember who scored the goal. Wow.

You know what? Okay. I don't remember Shane, don't being on team Canada. So that, it would have taken me. Did he score? I'm pretty sure you is the guy. I don't doubt you. I don't doubt you.

But that's, yeah, it was, I just remember that being such a strange, because, you know, it was the first time we had had a World Cup in eight years and it was, and I think, like, didn't Mary Lemieux come back? So it was his first time playing on a team Canada. At that event, you know, he'd been on the Olympics. You know, and you're watching it. It's fun. But it was like, it was like watching something on the eve of the end of the world. Because, you know, as we were constantly being told that the NHL,

over on September 15th, and it was the night of September 14th, I think they're playing the gold medal game. And then puck goes in, they hand out that ugly trophy. And then the whole hockey world just goes away for a year. I feel like you could, like, you just told me Mario Lemieux played on that team in 2004. I have no recollection of that. Yeah. Well, you know, I could be wrong. So I'm going to sort of quietly check it as we, as we go. But you could tell me, like I have this vague recollection. Again, tell me if I'm wrong. Did Robin Regear play on that team for Canada?

He might have. That sounds like a, that sounds like a Robin Regear type of, type of thing. Yeah, he, he, he, he, he, he, was, on the Canadian World Cup team. That could, yeah, that could be the next game show. Was this player? And was, and was, on the forgotten 2004 Canadian World Cup? Just out of curiosity, if you have the roster there, was Robin Reggie. year on the 2004 team Canada.

Now I'm looking up all the rosters. This is what you get when there's no hockey news. It's just going to be, we're just going to read the Canadian. Yeah. Oh, no, they don't have the, they don't have the full. Here we go. Canadian roster. Canadian roster.

Let's go. Okay. I'm just going to throw some names as I hit. Eric Brewer was on that team. Robin Regier was on that. Yeah. Jose Tejador was one of the goals. Bowles.

Brendan Morrow was on Team Canada. Scott Hannan was on Team Canada. All right. I've lost all credibility at this point. People think I'm making this up. And I'm just throwing names out there. Scott Hannan made Team Canada. Never stopped dreaming, kids.

Yeah. Yeah. And then like also Simone Gagne, but I feel like he shows up on like four different team Canada's that people are always shocked. But wow. Yeah, that was a. That was a very weird year. And, yeah, not a very well-remembered tournament, for sure.

All right, Sean, time for us to bring back Jesse Granger with a little Granger things. Again, this segment brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with us at the Athletic. Always great to have Jesse Granger back in the saddle. And hopefully, Jesse, you had a little bit of downtime. Great to have you back on the Athletic Hockey Show. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, and by the way, you're pinch hitting next week. Sean McAdoo, down goes brown, is going to take some well-deserved time off next week.

So it's you and I next week on the athletic hockey show. Can't wait. I'm pumped. Yeah. So here we go. We get you back for Granger Things. And, you know, Sean and I appreciate this segment with you because you're able to give us, you know, whether it's, you know, fantasy advice, betting advice, things of that nature.

And as we start to look ahead to the new season, obviously some teams championship odds have shifted. either for the better or for the worst. So here's what we're going to do. You've got a list of kind of how everybody's Stanley Cup odds have shifted since the Cup was awarded. Sean and I are going to take a stab at which teams maybe improve their odds the most. So why don't we let Sean go the team that you think Sean maybe improve their odds the most? Hmm, okay. Who has improved?

Are we talking? So while you think about this? We're talking the whole league here, right? or are we talking teams that were already favorites? Because I got one in mind, but I don't know if they're that high on the list, but I'm guessing they're a lot higher. So the way I came up with this list is it's every team in the league. And it's not by their line movement.

So these teams, I just compared their line movement from September, or sorry, July 19th, a couple weeks after Tampa won the cup to September 8th yesterday. And the way I did it was by percentage. So if a team went from plus 57 or 5,000 to plus 4,000, that's minus 1,000, that's 20% change. And the reason I did that is because a team that's plus a ton, a huge long shot, getting a couple points doesn't make as big of an impact on the odds as a team that's plus 600 getting a couple points. It's a major, major difference in those two teams. So I did it by percentage of change of their. their odds since July.

Okay. Well, I'm going to throw my first pick out. I'm assuming that the Chicago Blackhawks have seen a big jump in their odds from probably next to nothing to maybe middle of the pack. Yep, you are correct. We got a winner. Chicago Blackhawks, number one team. They went from 65 to 1 in July to only 40 to 1 now.

That's a 2,500 difference on the line. a 38.5% change, which is a massive change in odds. And obviously, it's pretty obvious why, adding Seth Jones and you add the best goal in the league last year, Mark Andre Fleury, without losing a single thing off your roster for him. So they've gotten a lot better. I also think it's kind of a shift in mentality. I think you see those odds. I think when the odds makers made those odds, we kind of figured this is going to be a rebuild for Chicago. And it's not just the players they added, but it's the fact that they're trying to make one more run with this core of and Taves and those guys.

So pretty easy. Easy choice for number one. Yeah. And plus they get Jonathan Taves back too, right? Essentially didn't play last year. You know, those are some additions, like you said, without any significant subtraction. I guess Duncan Keith maybe a little bit,

but still you're getting Seth Jones. All right. I'm going to take a stab here. And again, they're probably like Chicago in that. They're not in the top five or ten, but I'm thinking, Jesse, the New Jersey Devils have improved their odds. They certainly have. They are number two on the list. And obviously you land free agency's biggest prize, Dougie Hamilton. That's a big part of this. They've been searching for a top and number one defenseman for a while. They thought they had one in P.K. Suben, that hasn't worked out as well as they hoped. Hamilton projects to work out a lot better. And then you also add, I like the addition of Tomas Chatar. The guy has scored everywhere he's gone except for Vegas, the brief time I covered him here. Ryan Graves from Colorado, I think, is a good ad. They fixed their backup goaltending.

hopefully with Jonathan Bernier. It's been kind of the case for them where every time McKenzie Blackwood goes out, they're in trouble. I think they feel a lot more comfortable with that position. They went from 80 to 1 to only 50 to 1 now. So their odds went down 3,000 points on the money line from 8 plus 8,000 to plus 5,000. That's a 37.5% difference. So almost as big of a change as the Blackhawks, like you mentioned, this is going from kind of being a bottom feeder expected to not make the playoffs at all to kind of in the middle of the pack. Maybe they can compete for a playoff spot. Interesting stuff. Do we have, do we want to, I'm interested in the teams that dropped. And I'm sort of thinking through this in my head because I guess when you're looking at

teams that take a step back or forward, this is based on the end of the season. There are teams that maybe had a lot of changes in the off season. But the people who are setting these odds, they're not dumb people. They know, they can look. ahead and try to figure out what teams are going to do what. And some of that is going to be baked in. And the team that that really jumps out to me at is the Tampa Bay Lightning. Now, I think you could make a case that there aren't very many teams in the league that lost more than the lightning this year as the cap crunch finally hit them.

But the guys they lost were guys that most of us assumed they were going to lose. Everything kind of played out the way we thought. We figured they were going to lose that whole third line between expansion and free agency. We figured they probably weren't going to be able to bring back David Savard. We knew they'd been trying to trade Tyler Johnson forever. Did we see a movement there as they got worse over the offseason? Or was that all baked in to the point that it didn't shift all that much? Yeah.

So Tampa Bay is not, they're not one of the three teams whose odds changed the most, but they actually did improve their odds. Not a lot, but from 750 plus 750 to plus 700. So they've gotten a little more likely to win the cup. And I think that that is, remember, lines are changed by odds makers when they see something happened. But more so, more than anything, they're changed when money is placed on the table. That's the way, that's the easiest way to move odds. And I think that Tampa going down from plus 750 to plus 700 tells you that I think hockey betters, let's wait and see what Tampa does.

We know they have to unload some salary. Let's make sure this isn't a disaster. And then I think people liked the way they unloaded it. Obviously, you lose some really good players, but you knew they were going to have to. I think people liked the way they did it. They looked at that team and said, yeah, I think that still might be the best team in hockey and put some money on it. To kind of round that point out, the final team that improved their odds the most, along with New Jersey and Chicago is Montreal. And you look at Montreal's offseason. It's clearly not because of the moves in the offseason because they lose Philip to know. They lose Corey Perry. Shea Weber's likely out. All they brought in was Mike Hoffman and Matthew Perra.

they didn't improve much at all. But I think what happened was they started out plus $5,700. That is ridiculous for a team that went to the final four. And I know it was kind of a Cinderella story and they got there. But just to put in perspective, they literally started the offseason in July with worse odds to win the Stanley Cup than Seattle, which is insane. So I think what happened with that line movement isn't, it has nothing to do with Montreal's actual offseason and more to do with people seeing that line saying, wow, that team was in the conference finals last year, and I can get them at plus 5,000. They've bet it all the way down to only plus 4,000 now, which is kind of in the middle of the

pack. Obviously, Montreal is getting a much tougher division. There are a lot of things that factor into this. But I think just to kind of further that point of offseason moves aren't the only thing that move the line. Money moves the line. And with Montreal, I think that's clearly the case. That's fascinating.

We could have sat here and tried to guess that third team for a long time before I would have, I would have thought it was Montreal. Yeah, I, in fact, would have thought Montreal would have been on the other side of the spectrum, the teams that worsen their odds. But you're right, Jesse. It doesn't always deal with changes. A lot of it is based on the money. So let me take a stab here at a team that maybe is on the other side of the spectrum

that maybe watch their odds worsen the most. And I'm going to throw the Boston Bruins out there only because, in my opinion, Tuka Rask, who's been a mainstay as their goalie is certainly not going to start the season there. Dave Craechy, who's been dynamite as their second line center, is overseas. So I'm going to throw Boston out there. Am I wrong on that? Boston's odds actually haven't changed at all. They went from plus 1,200 to plus 1,200.

I agree with you that they have lost some really key pieces. And I think Craichie is even more important than Rask, maybe, because he's hard to replace. The team that actually has changed their odds the most for the worst are the Arizona coyotes. And look at what they've done this off season. And it doesn't surprise you at all. They went from plus 6,500. So to put that in perspective,

they weren't that different from the Montreal Canadians in July. The Canadians were plus 5,700. The Arizona Coyotes were plus 6,500. And then they shipped out their number one goaltender, Darcy Kemper, their best forward, Connor Garland, both backup goalies, Aiden Hill, and Antirontah. They shipped out Michael Bunting, Alex Gologoski, Nicholas Shalmersen, Jordan Austerly.

It was a purge. Arizona. And then now they're all the way up to 150 to 1 plus 15,000. That is a 130.8% change from their odds. They more than doubled since the off season. And it basically went from this Arizona team is competitive. They're probably not going to win the cup, but they can give some teams some problems, which is what they've done for the last couple of years, to this is one of the worst teams in hockey. They are now, they went from the 17th best odds right in the middle of the pack to way down there. near some of those teams like Buffalo and Detroit that basically have no shot at winning. And you talked about Chicago, the importance of signaling that, hey, the rebuild is over.

We're trying to win now. Arizona basically unfurled a great big banner that said, this is a tear it down rebuild. And yeah, I'm not surprised at the betters. And the odds makers would respond to that. Let me throw two more teams at you because I could see these guys being towards the bottom. and I'm really interested to see because I think both of these teams, you could make an argument got worse, not necessarily, but you could make an argument that they got worse in unexpected ways.

And that's Colorado and Carolina. Did either of them see a drop? So Colorado, their odds stayed the same. They were plus 600. They're six to one. They are the favorites to win the cup. They were when the season ended. They are the favorites to win the cup now.

They're just a hair better than Tampa. Despite losing their starting goal tender, which I guess, you know, I think you could argue that Kemper could be better. Kemper could be better. I mean, he wasn't better last year and he hasn't been on a better team, but I think you, and they lost a first round pick to replace their starting goalie, which hurts, but it doesn't hurt this team, right?

It doesn't hurt this team to win the cup. The hurricanes, their odds did get worse. They went from 14 plus 1,400 to plus 2,000. That's a 42.9% change. That's up there with the bet, with the teams that, uh, got the worst over this off season. They are still, we'll see what that team does. I was so surprised with the way that they do,

the way they handle their goalies. I am every off season. The other team that did end up getting on this list that their odds got significantly worse was the Nashville Predators. They were obviously involved in that big trade where they traded Ryan Ellis. And you bring Cody Glass back and that's kind of a rebuild move. And he hasn't worked out here in Vegas. Maybe he could be better for the future,

but obviously they got a lot worse losing Ryan Ellis as well as Pecorini retiring. Victor Arvinson, Calli Yarn, correct those guys. They went from plus 3,500, which is 17 best odds to 6,600. That's an 88.6% change. They almost doubled their odds also. Nashville, man, they were so close for so many years. And I think covering the Vegas Golden Knights, I think that's what you, if you're Vegas, that's what you hope you don't become, right?

Because they've become, they came so close, so many years. then it just seems like it's been going in the wrong direction the last couple years. And I think now we're finally to the point where it's like that that team is no longer a contender at all. Can I just real quick ask about two other teams if you've got the list in front of you? One would be Vegas just to see, you know, the response to the flurry move. And the other one would be given the timeline you're looking at is Seattle because, you know, they went from having nothing other than potential and, and, uh,

an upcoming expansion draft to having, and now the betters and the odds makers have seen what the roster is going to look like. Did they go up or down from nothing to what they have today? Yeah, so Vegas did get worse. They went from 700, which they were right behind Colorado. They were the second favorite at plus 700, 7 to 1, to now they are 850, so 8.5 to 1. Tampa Bay leapfrog them into second place behind Colorado. So Vegas still considered amongst the favorites, spread up there with Tampa and Toronto and Colorado. But it did change a little bit and it got a little worse. And obviously you lose a guy like Mark Andre Fleurie,

who's not only as good as he is, but he's as popular as he is here in Vegas. That goes to that. And then obviously, so Seattle Cracken, they actually didn't change at all. They went from 50 to 1 and they are still at 50 to 1. I think,

and remember, the Golden Knights, before they got their players, they were at 500 to 1. I think we've talked about on here before. The odds makers have learned their left. and they were like, we're going to put, Seattle has the 22nd best odds in the league to win the Stanley Cup. Their odds are better than Vancouver, Los Angeles, Nashville, San Jose, Columbus, Detroit, Ottawa, Anaheim, Arizona, and Buffalo.

So they didn't change because the odds makers are playing that one safe. I doubt there's a lot of money on Seattle at 50 to 1. That's not very good odds for a team that just added all of its players and then they were played together. So probably not a lot of money going across the desks here in Vegas for Seattle. Makes sense. Yeah, listen, terrific stuff as always. And like I said, Jesse, next week, it's a full episode of Granger Things. We'll do the full hour with you and we'll bounce around the national hockey league.

So listen, appreciate your pincheting next week. And always appreciate having you on the podcast. Thanks for this. Have a great week and we'll chat with you next Thursday. Definitely. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Jesse. All right, like I said, looking forward to having Jesse sit in for Sean next week. Before we get to a voicemail from a listener, Sean, just want to ask you about something that happened this week.

And I always like getting the opinions of people who don't. Like, look, I cover the Ottawa Senators as a beat reporter, right? So I'm really in it. I'm entrenched in it. And so sometimes it's really valuable to get the opinions of people who are, quote, unquote, on the outside. So what was your reaction when the Ottawa Senators announced a contract extension for Pierre Dorian this week? And again, this is a team that's missed the playoffs in four straight years and they give the general manager a contract extension.

surprised? Were you shocked? Were you indifferent? Like, what was the, what was the feeling that you had when you saw that news? No, I wasn't surprised. I mean, I think like a lot of people, when they made the Pierre McGuire move this summer, there was that thought in the back of your head that, hey, did they just hire Pierre Dorian's replacement? And with him going into the last year of his contract, if he had gone through the season with that status, everybody would have been wondering that and there would have been questions and sometimes that's life in hockey. But the fact that they extended up, look, Pierre Dorian, the team hasn't been very good, but it's been a rebuild.

I think it's been pretty clear what the approach has been in Ottawa ever since they followed up that run to the conference final with that disastrous season. This has been an old school tear it down to the strips rebuild. And they've, I think pure Dorian's done a reason. good job with that. Now, sometimes that can be one of the easier jobs a GM can do. It's always easy to move stuff out and bring in the picks and the prospects, but he's done a good job of it. They've got a good system in place. They've got some good pieces. I don't think they have enough pieces to warn maybe some of the long-term optimism that you're seeing in extreme cases. I still think there's

some question marks and certainly the ownership question kind of hangs over everything. But given what he said to work with, I think Pierre Dorian's done a reasonable job. Not every move has been a hit. Not everything has worked out. But that's life as an NHLGM. It didn't shock me to see him get an extension. It surprised me a little bit. And I think the part that we're going to remember from this week to see both him and

Eugene Melnick basically plant their flag and say the rebuild is done. that is the kind of statement that it can have some value because we see teams sometimes get stuck in perpetual rebuild and it never goes anywhere. And, you know, to say, look, we're done with that part of the development plan and we're moving into the next chapter. That could have some value. But man, that could also be the sort of thing that gets thrown back in their face when they're halfway through the season and they're 10 points out of the playoffs. And even if the young guys are doing well and suddenly fans both in Ottawa and outsider saying, hey, I thought the rebuild was over. going on and suddenly the pressure ranks up. I think the fact that they both kind of said it tells me that it was a calculated thing that they want that message out there. But that's

what's going to be interesting to me is to see if this season starts off slow, if the season doesn't go as well as some of the optimists think it might go, does that get revisited? Do we have to move the goalposts a bit? Or how does that play out? But the extension itself, no, that didn't, that didn't stun me. Okay. And one other quick note that I think was interesting that happened on Wednesdays, Patrice Bergeron spoke to reporters. And Sean basically, look, he's going to the last year of his deal and was like, you know what? Just going to talk about next year, next year. And at the very least, he has cast a little bit of doubt onto his long-term future.

Like, does this mean this is his last year? It is, is it his last year in Boston? And we saw this with Zedano Chara, right? Zee would always sign one-year deal, one-year deal. And then finally, he didn't sign a one-year deal in Boston. Should Bruins fans be worried? They've lost Dave Kreachie. They've lost the Dano Chara.

Tuka Rask is sort of in this holding pattern. Should they be worried that Petriez Bergeron could potentially have one foot out the door? I mean, I think what you're worried about if you're a Boston fan is that he's 36 years old. And he's got 1100 NHL games on his resume. And they're 1100 tough games. Those are 1100 Patrice Bergeron games. And that's a lot of mileage. And, you know, the question of how much longer can he keep doing this?

How much longer will he want to keep doing this? That's the part that I wonder about. And I'll be honest, when I first heard his comments, my first thought was, this is a player who isn't sure how much longer he wants to play, as opposed to this is a player who might want to go somewhere else or might be open to going somewhere else. So I can't imagine Patrice Bergeron in any other uniform. but if you had asked me a year and a bit ago, I would have said the same thing about Sedano Chara,

and we saw how that worked out. This is a business. Tough decisions get made. You look at the Bruins where they were two years ago and going into this season, no Chara, no Creachy, maybe no Tuka Rask permanently, certainly not to start the year.

It is a changing of the guard, and the era is ending in Boston, and Patrice Bergeron is maybe the guy who symbolizes that era more anyone else. You know, I, I can't picture him going somewhere else, but he's, he's not going to be around for the next 10 years. This is, there is a limited window left for, for him in Boston, one way or another.

And, you know, as a Bruins fan, you hate to think about that, even as you, you know, just appreciate the hell out of everything he's brought to the tables as he's been here. All right. Time for us to open up a little bit of the mailbag. Actually, once again, we're going to open up the voicemail on this edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. We want to remind our listeners that you can drop us an email, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or you can kick it old school and drop us a voicemail.

That's right. We've got an answering machine, answering service, and you can actually leave us a message and we'll play it. 845-4-4-5-4-5-844-9 is that number. 845-4-45-8-4-5-8-4-59. Have a listen. Here's a caller from the state of Pennsylvania, Sean, who wants to know about the Hall of Fame candidacy for a former Minnesota North Star.

Hey, guys, I was just listening to the Hall of Fame debate, and I was wondering if a good faith argument could be made on Neil Broughton. He was on the 1980-11. team. I had almost a thousand points, almost a point per game guy, didn't play as long as some. I feel like he might be just a hall of very good player, but I feel like he often gets overlooked. Plus, he almost spent his entire career with one franchise. And if that franchise was not the Minnesota North Stars slash Dallas Stars and was Montreal, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, he probably would be in the Hall of Fame already. I just thought it was an interesting

player to bring up here. Thanks. All right, Sean. You and I have talked about this a little bit over this summer. Candidates who are sort of in a gray area for the Hall of Fame, where do we put Neil Broughton? Yeah, I mean, he's, he was a real good player. He was not a Hall of Famer. You know, the case that our listener lays out is basically the case for why this guy should at least be in the conversation. And yeah, I mean, that that does make some sense. Had the international success was a very good player in the NHL. But no, not a Hall of Famer. This guy never won an award.

He had exactly one season in his career where he got any heart votes at all. It was played in the greatest offensive era in the history of hockey and didn't crack 300 goals, didn't crack a thousand points. So, no, a hall of very good player for sure, not a guy who should be in the Hall of Fame, even given the fact that, you know, he was on Team USA. He was one of the big early American stars in that era. coming out of that Olympics where we really started to notice American players and you can give him some credit for that. But no, the case doesn't get there. Although I got to say, you know, we did Patrick Aliasch last week.

Neil Broughton this week, I'm kind of fascinated by the idea that just every week people are going to keep calling in with like slightly worse Hall of Fame candidates and just see how far down the list we can go before I completely snap and lose my mind over it. Yeah. And, wait, Neil Broughton also played with, which of the Broughton boys ended up playing with the Devils? That was Eric. Well, Neil Broughton did. Aaron Broughton was the Devils as well, but Neil did as well. I think there was a couple years and then he bounced back to the stars. So the other thing that I'll say, because the listener made an interesting point. And it's a point you hear a lot, which is, hey, if this guy played in a bigger market, his, he would be considered a Hall of Fame or his case would be considered stronger. And I got to say, as someone, as someone. who looks at the Hall of Fame a lot, I don't see a ton of that. We all kind of assume, and certainly, you know, when it comes to recognition during the career, we can all point to players that get either more or less attention than they probably warrant based on their market. I don't see a ton of

it when it comes to the Hall of Fame. A lot of the guys that we would consider weaker candidates who did make it in played in smaller markets. There are some guys who were strong candidates who who either didn't make it in or had to wait a long time. I know everyone always points. They say, well, Toronto and Montreal, they get all the Hall of Famers. Well, Pat Burns had to wait forever. And he was, you know, he was no one for coaching those two teams, perhaps more than anything else he did.

You know, we can find examples and counter examples. But I got to say, I've looked at this from so many different angles and where are the biases and where do we see this or that. I don't see a ton of bias in the Hall of Fame towards guys who played in big markets, even though you might expect to see that in there. Okay. I also threw this question out on Twitter earlier on Thursday because coming up, and if you're on social media or you've got an Amazon Prime account,

you have probably seen the promos for the Toronto Maple Leafs behind the scenes look at last season. It's called All or Nothing. It's sort of just like what HBO is done with Hard Knocks with the NFL. We've seen it 24-7. We've got a Leafs version coming up October the 1st. And the question I posed on social media on Thursday, Sean, was if you had sort of unfettered access to one team in hockey history, who would you choose? Like, which team would you like want to be like, you know what? I'd love to see cameras set up there, see what went on.

So I'm going to read a few submissions we got from listeners here. You tell me if you'd be in. Of course, Sean, we did get a ton of people saying, load me up 80s or anything. I want to see what really happened behind the curtains with those Oilers teams in the 80s. Yeah, they're really taking the unfettered access concept to the extreme. Yeah, I mean, look, those were fascinating teams on the ice, lots of fun characters off the ice, lots of rumors about some of the stuff that was going on. If you really did have access to absolutely everything, that would be a real good pick.

And they did have the, what was that doc? It was called Boys on the Bus, right? Yeah, that was more late 80s. That was like the rated PG version. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. A couple of other ones here.

Lots of people saying, I would love some early 70s Boston Bruins. Old school, Boston Bruins. Because you probably, I mean, obviously you got ore and Espizo, but like Derek, when you talk to people, though, like,

Derek Sanderson was super out there, right? Like, there'd probably be some really great stuff from the Bruins of the 70s. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and geez, if you got the later Bobby Orr years where you got Don Cherry there, I mean, he was, if you've never done it, look up old Don Cherry coaching interviews. He was a character even back then, so that could be interesting. I think any team from the 70s, if you go back, see what it was like, and then show that to today's fans.

It would just blow some minds of how different the league was in pretty much every way back then. Okay, so a couple of people also writing in would love to see some behind the scenes stuff of the Philadelphia Flyers, the Vancouver Canucks. But now if I'm asking you, you get your unfettered access to one team, which team is Sean picking? Yeah, you know, I thought about this and I even went through it on the mailbag a little bit. There's a few, and there's obviously a bunch of teams where there's some rumored scandal and you think, oh, wouldn't it be great if we had all the, the, information there. But as far as just stuff that I think would actually make it onto a broadcast, I'm going to cheat a little bit, okay? You tell me if this is allowed. Instead of a season, can I give you a calendar year for a team? Okay, yeah. Okay. I want the 1996 Detroit Red Wings.

Because here's what you get with them. You've got the second half of the 95-96 season where they're having one of the great regular seasons of all time, just an absolute 130 point, something like that monster. There's all sorts of pressure on them. They've lost in the Stanley Cup final the year before. This is finally the year they're going to break through and this long Stanley Cup drought that this great market is going through. They go into the playoffs. They run into the St. Louis Blues. They have that epic series. Remember the double overtime, the Steve Iserman goal. I mean, they all know the team is getting blown up if they lose to the 80 points, St. Louis Blues. They go in double overtime. Iserman scores one of the greatest goals in hockey history

to win that series. Then they go on to face Colorado. We all know that. What happens there? That's the Chris Draper, Claude Lemieux series and all the bad feelings that go from that. They lose that series. They go into the offseason. This is the team that can't get it done. What is wrong with the Red Wings? They're apparently almost trade Steve Eiserman in the off season because they, you know, imagine those discussions in the back rooms. He had the GM sitting around talking. Do we win with Steve Eiserman? Do we have to move this guy? Should we send him to Ottawa for Alexei Ashen? And then they start the season and you get the Brennan-Shanahan trade early in that season, which had all sorts of drama attached to it.

Paul Coffey didn't want to go. Keith Primo didn't want to go. There were rumors that coffee was working behind the scenes to torpedo the trade, calling people behind the scenes saying, don't make this trade. I'm not going to go. We got to prevent this. And then finally Shanahan arrives.

And that kind of becomes the birth of what we now consider to be the Detroit Red Wings and that we all know from that era. But it was very shaky. And there were a lot of really interesting points in that calendar year, including somewhere. It could have gone really bad and changed hockey history in some significant ways. I'll allow it if we can draw the line back to December of 95 because I want that game at the forum where they chase Patrick Gua. Let's do that then.

Yeah, I want cameras on the Mike Vernon, Patrick Waugh breakfast diner meeting where Vernon tells them that. But, you know, it's not so bad to get a change. And boy, did he ever. Okay. Here's my submission. If I could have unfettered video access of one team in hockey history, I think you might agree with me on this. Give me Team USA 1998 Nagano Olympics.

Oh, that's a good one. Yep. That's a real good one. Yeah. Let's find out what happened in that hotel room. What? Yeah. Who trashed it?

How did it happen? Like, what went on? There was a big ego. Like, wouldn't you love to say? see what really happened there? I got to tell you, there's, and you probably have had the same experience. There are so many situations in hockey history where there have been rumors about this or that. And anytime, if you ask anyone, a lot of times they just kind of roll their eyes and they go,

nah, you know, that never happened. Or the story you've heard is nowhere near the way it actually went down. You ask anyone about that US, TBSA team, they changed the subject real. quick. Something happened there. And yeah, the only problem is your, your cameras would have been busted up too. That's so you, you probably wouldn't have the footage because you would have been a bunch of 1998 era video cassettes just strewn around a hotel lobby.

Okay, let's wrap up the show as we always do with a little this week in hockey history. And this week actually, Sean, there's a couple of significant trades involving defense. Let's start with this one, September the 6th, 19. 91. So we're exactly 30 years ago this week. The San Jose Sharks, a brand new team, first season in the league acquired Doug Wilson from the Chicago Blackhawks. And it's crazy to think because, you know, if you said the name Doug Wilson to me right now, I'd be like, oh yeah, San Jose Sharks. The guy was like a Hall of Fame caliber, a defenseman, certainly an All-Star, Norris Calibur trophy defenseman for a long time for Chicago.

And yet, in my mind, I think of them as a shark more than a lot. Blackhawk. Yeah, and it's strange because, you know, when you mentioned it, I don't think it's strange to think of him as a shark. He's been the team's GM for, you know, for almost a couple of decades now. But it's, it's so much so that when I picture Doug Wilson, I picture him in a shark's uniform. And you're right. I mean, for a decade in Chicago, he's one of the very best defensemen in the league. And, you know, and yet I picture him wearing the teal, no helmet, But, you know, with the Harris, it was still looking pretty good there even towards the end. Yeah, certainly he's more associated with the sharks now.

But there's a lot of old school Chicago fans, I'm sure out there who would say, wait a second, this guy was real, real good with us. Yeah, okay. Now, speaking to Norris caliber defensemen getting moved this week in 1982, September the 9th, 1982, Washington acquires Rod Langway. From the Montreal Canadiens, and Langway goes on to win the Norris Trophy, Sean, in each of his first two seasons with the capitals. And when you talk about lopsided trades in NHL history,

this one isn't really at the top of the mind for a lot of people, but maybe it should be, right? That was exactly the point that I was going to make to you. And I actually wanted your perspective, because you grew up as a Montreal fan. And I feel like when you talk about, A, big trades in NHL history and B, lopsided trades, that this one doesn't really seem to come up.

We all talk about Doug Gilmore. We all talk about Brett Hall. If you want to jump back further, there are a couple of Phil Esposito trades we could put on the list. But nobody talks about the Montreal Canadians trading away, I think 23, 24-year-old defensemen, who then wins back-to-back Norris trophies, not five years down the road, but right away with his new team. And it just doesn't seem to come up. And I got to say, this is, to me, one of the most fascinating trades in NHL history because we all look back at it as as the Habs trading away Rod Langway,

it was a much bigger deal than that. It was, this was like a five or six players deal. And Montreal at the time, they didn't just trade Rod Langway. They traded Ryan Engblom, who most of us today probably think of as a broadcaster. But this was another guy in his early 20s. They had these two defensemen,

both in their early 20s, both real good. Both of them had finished in the top 10 in Norfolk. voting that year in 1982. In fact, Emblon finished higher. His stats,

let me just tell you in 1981, 82. So his last year, he was a plus, I got to find it now,

some ridiculous number, plus 60, he was a plus 78 for the 19881, 882, Montreal Canadians. He had been

plus 63 to lead the league the year before. plus 78. And as a 20 in his, okay, he was a 27-year-old defenseman. So you got Engblom's the veteran guy. You've got Langway's the younger guy who's kind of learning. They're basically Montreal's top pair as a defense.

Montreal's top defenseman is always going to be Larry Robinson as long as he's there. He's the big name. But this is their top pair. They trade both guys in the same trade to the Washington Capitals as well as some other players. And in exchange, they get Ryan Walter. And Ryan Walter is a guy that, because of when I grew up, I picture him as being like, he was an okay middle six forward for those Montreal Canadian teams.

But Ryan Walter actually, at the time that this deal went down was one of the most promising up and coming forwards in the league. He had been the second overall pick in 78. He had had three pretty good years in Washington, had already been named Washington's capital. And then in 81, 82, he has a big breakout. He scores almost 40 goals. He finishes with like 90 points.

He's still only 22, 23 years old. Montreal trades a huge chunk of their roster to get this guy. And he comes over and he never really hits those heights again in Montreal. But if you look at it, you can understand why they made that move. And there were a whole bunch of financial implications too. There were a lot of players in Montreal won a New Deal. So it was kind of a case of we got to move some guys out. but they go and trade

Langway and Engblom to Washington. Langway wins the Norris trophy for two years. And by the way, in case you're wondering, well, what happened with Brian Englam? He had one year in Washington, wasn't super great. So they traded him the next year

and they got some kid named Larry Murphy. I mean, talk about remaking your franchise. And this is basically the trade. The Washington Capitals, ever since they come in an expansion for the five, six, seven years, they had been the joke of a franchise. This is, you know, whatever you team, the Sabres today,

that's what the capitals were back then. This was the trade that flipped the switch on that. And it was fascinating. I went back and looked up an old article on it. And it was, they made reference to Washington's young GM, David Poyle, rolling the dice on this trade. And, you know, here we are almost 40 years later and he's still at it. Yeah.

No, it's nuts. Like a lot of people tell you that, that deal saved hockey. in Washington, right? Because Langway comes in and they become a credible team. And they started being a really good team in the Patrick Division in the 80s, but before then they weren't. And you know, it's funny too. Rick Green, who was in that trade, was a number one overall pick, too. At some point in the 70s, right? You're right. Not only was it maybe a little bit lopsided, but it's a blockbuster deal that we probably don't talk about. Doug Jarvis was in that trade. It was, I mean, it was a monster trade. Went down a couple of

days before training camp and and was a trip by the way that was not well received in Montreal at the time I mean even back then

people were going wait a second you can't move this much out just just to get this one kid who comes in and who knows

I mean you you know maybe you get to continue your career in Washington

instead of coming into the pressure cooker of Montreal where they've just torn up their blue line to get you

you know maybe his career goes a little bit different. Can I throw one other thing at you? Because this is kind of only a little bit related to the trade itself. But, you know, we all say, and it's true, Montreal trade at Rod Langway, and then he wins the Norris two years in a row. Rod Langway had 30-something points, both years, that he won the Norris trophy in the early 80s. And in fact, the year, the second year that he won, his second of back-to-back Norris trophies, Rod Langway had nine goals and 24 assists. He had

33 points. Second place that year, Paul Coffey had 40 goals, 86 points, sorry, 86 assists, 126 points. And Paul Coffey finished second to this defensive defenseman, Rod Langway, in the greatest offensive era. You talk about records that will never, ever be broken. How about that, I'm doing the math in my head, 93 points, I want to say. Rod Langway finished 93 points behind. Paul Coffey and still beat him for the Norris trophy.

The list of players who, defensemen who have scored that many points in his season is very short. For whatever reason, voters in the early 80s, I think it was a backlash to the offensive explosion, decided we are giving this plotting defensive defensemen, our Norris love, because he was a real good player, but Paul Coffey had to be sitting there going, guys, what do I have to do to get some notice?

And as we wrap this up, Was that the same here that Steve Casper won the Selke Award with like a minus 19 rating? Like maybe we need to dig into the awards voting of 1982. You know what? We talked about that on one of our earliest podcasts. I have an answer for you. Oh, okay. I actually found the answer of how did Steve Casper, who was like 20 years old and a minus on the season win the Selke trophy?

Can I make a guess? Yeah, go ahead. Did he shut down Wayne Gretzky in like two head-to-head games or something like that? He didn't just shut him down. he was one of the very first shadows. He was the guy they sent him out and he just followed Wayne Gretzky around. If you're a young fan, you might not know what a shadow was, but back in the day, that was where you sent a guy out there and you just said, follow that guy around.

And back then, you could obstruct and just hook and hold. And yeah, he shut down Wayne Gretzky as a shadow by basically just following him around. And the funny thing is, you look up the numbers. He didn't even really shut him down. It's not, you know, Gretzky was still real good. I think people just saw that and they were like, oh, that's going to be the future. Again, this sort of pushback to all of these offensive records that were falling, had fallen in the 70s and now they were falling again in the 80s. And I think there was a bit of a backlash to that Euler's team and the fact that, okay, this guy is just going to skate around behind Wayne Gretzky with one hand on his back and tugging at his jersey.

We like that. We're going to give that guy our Selke boats, even though over the course of the season, he didn't really do that much. man yeah like I said one day we'll just do a deep dive into that whole 80 like 82 whatever 81 82 voting stuff some some wild stuff there all right we'll leave it there and like we said earlier in the podcast Sean you're going to get a week off from this so listen enjoy hopefully a little bit of downtime and we'll get you in in a couple of weeks that sounds good and I'm going to throw one last thing out there yeah I know that at the beginning when I was trying to rhyme off all the teams that were in a division with the penguins and I said I think I left one team out it was

the Islanders. I know I left off the Islanders. Islander fans, please, I don't need, I know some of you have already tweeted me. Please don't come and burn my house down. I understand. Yes, your team is very underappreciated and I apologize deeply that they were the team that I couldn't pull in that moment. Okay, there you go. See, that's the disclaimer we put at the end of the podcast. All right. So what I'm not there next week, don't assume it's because the Islander fans got me up, but don't assume that it's not. Yeah. Exactly well said. All right, we'll leave it there. We want to remind people that earlier this week, a Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, a terrific conversation with our feature writer Dan Robson and the great one, Wayne Gretzky,

who took some time to talk about his very personal and poignant relationship with the late great Ace Bailey. This coming, of course, on this weekend's the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in which Ace Bailey unfortunately perished along with 3,000 other people. So it's a great conversation. It's very light. It's Wayne Gretzky at his best telling stories. We want to encourage you to listen to that because it really is powerful and moving. And thanks again for joining us for this latest edition of The Athletic Hockey Show.

Like I said, drop us to the email, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. And if you're not a subscriber with us, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show for 50% off an annual subscription. You can also subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcast. You get all the bonus content that we're pumping out there. start with a 30-day free trial, and then you can go on for just 99 cents a month after that.