The Athletic Hockey Show - Slafkovsky, Thompson storm Stanley Cup playoff opening weekend

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

The Stanley Cup playoffs are back after a weekend packed with series-opening games. The guys give their thoughts on every Game 1 from both conferences, including a thrilling Sabres win in Buffalo, a huge night for Juraj Slafkovsky and the Habs in Tampa Bay, and a statement by the Wild in a rout of the Dallas Stars. Plus, a quick lookahead to tonight’s Ducks-Oilers matchup and what this postseason means for Connor McDavid’s future in Edmonton.Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusWith: Jesse GrangerExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlanneryWatch 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. Hey, everybody, Max Bultman here alongside Mark Lazarus for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show. Jesse Granger are going to join us in a little bit. But last, we've got a full weekend slate of playoff hockey to talk about. I wouldn't say that it began the most thrilling weekend of playoff hockey I've ever seen, but there was some really good stuff on Sunday to save it. So let's start this with a question.

We're going to do some takeaways from everything that's taken place in all the game ones around the league. But I start with a question for you. Who came up bigger on Sunday? Tage Thompson, Uriyslovkovsky. They both came up huge. Who are you more impressed by on Sunday? God, why don't you just ask me to pick my favorite child while you're at it? You know, for me, I fell in love with Uriy Slavkovsky at the Olympics. Like, I just, it was the first time I really got a chance to see him play like shift after shift after shift, game after game after game, really locking on him. And he's just fabulous. To me, that's the guy here. Like, That's the star we're minting here.

We could talk about Porter Martone, we could talk about Tage Thompson, and all these great young players that are coming up. But this is going to, I'm wildly overreacting to one game. This is going to be the Yerai Slavkowski playoffs where he just stepped truly into superstardom. He is so good. And it's not just the skill.

I mean, he had three power play goals. He's a great goal scorer. He's just a menace out there. He looked like Brandon Hagel. He looked like two Brandon Hagels stacked on top of each other in trench coat, just running around, just laying people out, and scoring all these goals. He was so good.

He's so dominant. I love his attitude. I love listening to him talk. He's so poised. He's so chill about all this. He doesn't get too worked up about it. The big moment is clearly not too big for him. And if we're talking about overreactions,

it's like let's give him the consomite right now. All three of them are power play goals. So there's a lot to get to in this game. But you mentioned, like, this is a player who at the Olympics, we've seen do this before. So you say it's an overreact. reaction. I don't know that it is after what we've seen him just do with Slovakia at the Olympics. I mean, he is the number one reason that they made as far as they did. He started off

that tournament the exact same way as this one. And it was this like, okay, U.S. Levkovsky, big game player, let's overreact, except it just kept happening through the Olympics. Now it has kept happening into the NHL playoffs. And we'll see. It's early in this series. But I'm with you. I think U.S. Levkovsky has the official big game player stamp on him. And don't forget, he did this in the Olympics four years ago, too, when he was like 18 years years old. He led, he had like seven goals and seven games for Slovakia when the NHL players weren't involved. This is a guy who steps up when the games matter most. And he's so young, he's so big and strong. The habs are still like learning how to use him. You know, if you,

you could read like some of Arpin Basu stories and, you know, they're still trying to figure out, is he a net front guy? Is he a flank guy? Is he a one-timer guy? He could do it all. It doesn't matter what position you put him in. This is going to be just an absolute force in this league, especially in these big moments for so many years to come. I mentioned, though, all three of his hat-trick goals on Sunday for Montreal, which comes in a win for the the game. I don't think I said that off the top. All three of his goals come on the power play. And that owes back to a Tampa team that took some penalties they did not need to take. John Cooper, you heard him sound off on it after the game for offensive zone penalties. The worst of these is the one

that set up the OT winner. It was the Jake Gensel penalty. Look, I know what Jake Gensel's trying to do there. There's a puck coming through. He's trying to get a stick on it. You know, this is kind of where you see, kind of where you see havoc happen in the playoffs. It's coming through the slot and you get an awkward swing on it. Puck takes a weird bounce. It ends up a baseball swing to the neck of a Montreal player. Not a penalty you need to be taking with two minutes left in a tie game in the slot. No, and this is the thing.

Like, when do we start worrying about the lightning? They've won four games over the last three playoffs, all of them first round losses. They have discipline issues despite all their experience. Andre Vasselowski is looking very human. At what point do we start? The Lightning, I feel like, especially this year with the Eastern Conference being so wide open. And everyone being just kind of pretty good. Everyone kind of defaults to the Lightning out of deference to what they did, you know,

when they went to three straight Stanley Cup finals and won two straight Stanley Cups. This is not a team that has that aura anymore. This is a team that does dumb things like that, that gets rattled, that, you know, is vulnerable to a 22-year-old running around and kicking their butts out there like Slavkovsky. Like, again, overreaction. The Lightning could very well win this series, could very well win the Stanley Cup, get to the final, especially in this Eastern Conference.

But this team has completely lost the aura of invincibility it once had. And you could hear it in John Cooper's voice, the way he was talking about those penalties. He called his team stupid. He said it was stupidity. And he's not wrong. Like, this is a veteran team that has played an unbelievable amount of playoff games, and they completely lose their composure time and again. Let's see how they respond to that before we start talking about there.

No, it's over. It's over. It's over. I think you're going to see a very good game from Tampa in response. in game two because John Cooper has earned the ability to call his team out. He has an unimpeachable resume, unimpeachable rapport with this group of players. He's led them to wins. I think he's got the license to say pretty much whatever he wants and know that his team,

they owe him one like that at the start of a series. And if it keeps going off the rails, I'll worry. And the players will take it too. They will take it in the spirit it was intended. Like if you're a new coach and you call your team stupid, you might have a mutiny on your hands. But the players respect Cooper and know that when he says that, A, he means it, and B, is probably right.

You talked about the lightning in recent years, though, and what that made me think of as Andre Vasselowski. We talked about this on the preview. LaShawn made the very good point about it, and Vasselowski has not been, he's had closer to a Connor Hella, but Conner resume than he has to the Andrei Vasilevsky resume, the last three years in the playoffs,

and how much of that is due to, like you said, this lightning team, not as bulletproof as it was during their golden era, how much of it is due to how many games he played during that golden era, And, you know, it continues to play a lot of games in the regular seasons. You wonder about overwork there. He did play five less regular season games this year than last year. And I wonder if that's not a coincidence as you try to kind of keep him fresher for the playoffs.

But again, yesterday gives up four goals on 19 shots. That is not, again, three of them on the power play, you kind of give goals a little bit of a break there. But that's not the Andre Vasselowski inevitability that we're used to in the postseason. No, he's not stealing games like he used to steal games. Look, Vaselowski very well might win the. the Vesnet trophy this year. That's the kind of season he had is the kind of season that the GMs reward when they give out the Vesna Trophy.

So let's not like say he's cooked or washed or anything here. But it's true. There used to be this aura about him where you could not beat him. No matter what you did, three power play goals would never happen against him because he would make three spectacular saves. And again, it's one game, but he has, we have seen a body of work now these last few years where he just doesn't look like himself. And maybe we can ask Jesse about this when he comes on later.

but I don't know if it is the overworked. I mean, there's not a lot of goalies left that carry the workload that he does that play 55 to 60 games a year. And he's in his 30s now. He's not some young cat anymore. There's a lot of concern right now if you're the, if you're the bolts because you really don't have a better option. Did you do that on purpose with the young cat?

I did a little bit. As it was coming out, you know, I just went with it. The poetry struck you. Yeah, I like that. No, I mean, I think we're going to see a response from Vasilevsky. I think we're going to see a response from Lightning and Game 2, but it's suddenly a massive game two for them. If you go down 02 and you're going into Santrabelle, that's a hard environment.

That is a quick way to put yourself in trouble in a hurry. And this is a Montreal team where, you know, I didn't know what to expect for them coming in. Like they were clearly a good team, but they had really no track record in the playoffs. And you don't know how a young, exciting team like that is going to handle the rough and tumble playoff hockey. Maybe they just get overwhelmed by a veteran team. That's a proof of concept win. because now the Montreal Canadians know they can do this. They're going to believe in themselves that much more.

And that's the kind of performance that can unleash a team to continue to play like that and not get timid out there. They do have some players who have some playoff experience. Josh A Anderson scored. He's got some playoff experience. Nick Suzuki was very good as always. He's got some playoff experience. Those guys stepped up when the Canadians needed them to.

And they get a 1-0 lead in the series to show for it. The other side of the conversation we opened with, though, I thought was the best game with the night. Buffalo Boss. It didn't start out that way. It started out as kind of a slog. It started out as kind of the exact kind of game we thought that the Boston Bruins were going to need

if they were going to win this series. They were not probably going to out shoot the Buffalo Sabres, but they were going to need their big guns, David Posernock and Morgan Geeky to step up, and they were going to need Jeremy Swayman to probably be the best player on the ice. For 52 minutes, Laz, that was the case. They lead it 2-0.

The sabers are doubling them up in shots, but Jeremy Swamon's got 30 plus saves, keeping it silent. And then the dam broke, and it was Tage Thompson breaking it. Oh, man. And for those 52 minutes, that arena sounded so uncomfortable. There was so much, there was 14 years of frustration being poured into this one moment. You got guys tackling dummies outside the arena.

It's just, it's totally, it's the most buffaloan thing you ever saw. It's, it might as well be, like, you know, power bombing guys through tables, like at football games. And then it was just immediately Jeremy Swaming and took them all out of it. They're like, oh, God, here we go. It's just going to be more of the same. And then Tage, the stars do star things. What was it that, that Ross Ms. Dahlin said, dogs being dogs?

That was, that was Tage Thompson yesterday. He was a dog being a dog. He just said, screw it. You know, when he tucked that puck in after he made that big strong move, like this is a really skilled guy. He's also a massive human being. So he's able to win some of these puck battles. When he really applies in something, we saw this again, in Milan.

When he really dials in, he can be one of those all-around spectacular players. And when he tucked that puck in from behind the net, the weight that was lifted off of that arena, of the cathartic scream. It's like, oh, God, here come the Buffalo Sabres. And we've been just waiting for this for so long. I know you're waiting for this in Detroit for your opportunity for this, but it's so exciting to see Buffalo doing things like this.

Did you see a game in Buffalo the second half of this season? Like, were you there at all in person? No, I didn't make that true. As they've turned it, like, and great, these are great hockey fans. We've known this. That building, when Buffalo starts buzzing, becomes a huge factor. And I saw this late in the season. Detroit was there.

Detroit. put up a huge first period and had a huge lead. The whole rest of the game, when Buffalo woke up, that arena was buzzing, and it was, you noticed it. And I have to imagine that was a huge part of what happened in the final eight minutes and how the sabres were able to storm all the way back. You mentioned that Tage Thompson, kind of wrap around tuck that he does. Shortly after that, he gets another one.

And this was a Swayman mistake. And I think I know what Swayman was doing. He was trying to position himself so that he could kind of either push off or, you know, get to a higher shot. But Thompson just slides it on the ice and Swimming lift. his pad, opens the door for it. At that point, when that game's 2-2, the Sabres are winning that game. And I don't know

that it was a guarantee they were going to win it in regulation, but that building was going to will them to victory. It did. And it was Matthias Samuelson who did it. And Mattia Samuelson, for those outside of Buffalo, that might not have been the name you're expecting to see here. You probably should. He is the guy who gets forgotten on that blue line because there is so much star power, all the high picks, Rasmus Dahlene,

Owen Power, Bowen, who they traded for from the Colorado Aval, But Matisse Samuelson had a huge year this year. Massive breakout, 13 goals, over 40 points. He had not been a high point producer this year or up until this year. But he was in 2025, 26. This did not come out of nowhere yesterday for Mattia Samuelson. No, and it's a reminder of all these teams that are rebuilding that you really do need to

rebuild from the back and out. Everybody wants to get your bedards and your celebrinis and your Martones and your, you know, frondels and Hagences and you need those guys. But you don't win without a back end like that. So I'm here in Dallas. look at what Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber were able to do in game one. When you have those kind of players on the back end that can just control the pace of the play, just orchestrate the game from up top.

It completely changes what a team can do out there. And Samuelson, Emerging, gives them a top four that's unrivaled in this league possibly. They're just so good. And then you just see how important it is to draft, to develop, especially to develop, because it takes time, it takes patience with defensemen. but when you have two outstanding pairs and a third pair that you can actually just rely on to just not screw up, you're going to win more often than you don't. 100%. And you said it.

I mean, that's a good analog. What Minnesota has is all those defensemen, it's not just that they're really good players, the motion that they create in the offensive zone, the havoc that creates for a defense, trying to figure out where is everybody, knowing that if you're a step off, if you leave a lane open, they are seeming you, and they're going to create a very good opportunity from it. That is how it feels when the Buffalo Sabres are cooking. And that's what it looked like down the stretch yesterday. And look, they had a ton of shots early in the game.

It's just that once they got to Swamen, the momentum starts, and then they were not letting off the gas. So the Buffalo Sabers pull out a win. And that one needed to be a win. Your first playoff game in 14 years at home, that had to be a win. My favorite thing that came out of the post game in Buffalo was this quote by Tage Thompson. Because, you know, the Sabers have no experience. Like, there are very few players in their team that have played in the playoffs,

obviously, because Buffalo hasn't been in there in 15 years. Tage Thompson's like, basically, like, whatever. man. What was the quote? I think eight years of adversity is enough experience to get you ready for something like this. Like there was no way they were going to come out and lay an egg in the first game and playoff game in Buffalo since like the Truman administration.

There was just no way. Yeah. Fantastic game. I thought that was the highlight of the weekend for me was that that Sabres Bruins ending. I did think that the Tampa Montreal series going in would be the best series. I don't think that one did anything to change my opinion of that. But the series that I was down on, and I already have to have to have a little. little bit of a mea culpa was Penn's Flyers. My feeling was that, yes, like it's, it's historic

rivalry for sure. It's Sidney Crosby. But the on ice, you know, I kind of just figured this is a fairly clear Pittsburgh win. Flyers, great story to get in defensive team, but the Penguins would overwhelm him. Game one, Laz, Philadelphia Flyers came out with something and their defensive approach gave the Penguins all kinds of problems, I thought. Absolutely. And we talked about this little bit in the last couple of weeks about beware the team that had to scratch and claw to get into the playoffs because they have been playing playoff hockey for weeks.

Whereas the Penguins, surprisingly, kind of cruised in and they lost a bunch of games down the stretch. They were sitting guys. It's hard to flip that switch when you haven't been in the playoffs year after year. Like the Avalanche can flip the switch. The Dallas Stars should be able to flip the switch. The Penguins, even with all their great players, that can't necessarily do that. It's been four years, right?

And you can see experience doesn't always mean poise. Sidney Crosby, you know, Travis Sanheim got under Sidney Crosby's skin in game one of the playoffs. That's surprising. And you have to wonder, when it's an older team like the Penguins, do they maybe even grip the stick a little tighter knowing they only got so many kicks at the can here, you know? There's like, like, Glenn Gullets in Dallas called it, like, an extra bingo ball in the basket. You only get so many of these. And you wonder if the older guys are like maybe more tense than the younger guys who are, you know, kind of too young and dumb to know any better to know that they should be overwhelmed by this. Well, if Gany Balcon wasn't overwhelmed, I mean, he certainly came to play.

He's productive. He almost, you know, he had a great look late in the game. But to me, I think the Penguins will find away from this. It's just a matter of adjusting to the way that the Flyers play. They are a stout defensive outfit. They give you very little space. You're not going to get anything in transition. And I don't think Pittsburgh needs necessarily transition, but that's one of the ways that they do what they do.

They're a big team. They can be a fast team. I think that what they will get the cycle going a little bit more in game two once they're able to make some adjustments to the Flyers. But give the flyers credit. This was a stifling effort. And as we talked about for the last week or two, the guy who wasn't here all year makes a big difference. Porter Martone is an X factor for the Philadelphia Flyers stepping right in.

Look, this goal was a poise goal. It was a patient goal. It's a ridiculous snipe. But the way Martone has to hang on to this puck and not panic, the way that you might expect a 19-year-old playing their first Stanley Cup playoff game to handle that moment, I was very impressed by that. I love his face entry. scored. He was like, oh my God, did you see what I just did? That was so cool.

Like, I just, it's so much fun seeing these young guys, these new faces come in. You know, when Sidney Crosby scores in the playoffs, we're like, wow, Sydney Crosby, that's so cool. But when these young guys do it, when is Tage Thompson doing it for the first time, when it's Porter Martone, when it's, uh, Coley. Cooley was kind of like that. Cooley, yes, exactly. The joy and the excitement, it reminds you, like, oh, yeah, this is really cool. This is really fun. And, man, how, how is that 20-25 draft looking right now? obviously Matthew Schaefer is otherworldly. Anton Frundell came into Chicago as a point-to-game guy. Port-a-Marton comes in.

He's a point-to-game guy. You know, James Hagen's is playing right now. This is turned into a hell of a draft that we had last year. It is. I mean, Matthew Schaefer at the very top immediately makes it. He's not that far off the Celebrini level, really, with what he's doing on the blue line. But you're right, the supporting cast,

like Frundel and Martone were very nice prospects. I don't think anyone expected immediate point-primony level. game level production from them when they stepped into the league. And that's what it's been. And Martone, to his credit, continuing it into the postseason. Should we get to Avs Kings here before we have Jesse on to talk about this series he's covering last night, which got off to, I thought, a pretty interesting start as well. Yeah, I mean, everyone expected the Avs to roll and they still very well might.

They might sweep this series, but it might be two to one every game. This is what the Kings do? They went to, what, 30-something overtime games this year? Their entire MO is just like, let's keep it as close as possible and hope we get a lucky break toward the end. It's not really a recipe for success, but against a team like Colorado, they're so, the kings are so frustrating to play against. They're just, it's not fun to play the Kings. It's not fun to watch the Kings, but the Kings do what the Kings do in it, and it works. And, you know, Colorado is so much better. There's so much deeper. I mean, that Logan O'Connor line

was great. Again, they were so key in that 20-22 run. They have, they just come at you in waves, but the Kings don't let, they just, they're the wave breakers, right? They just sit there clogging up the neutral zone standing five men abreast on the blue line and don't let you pass. They are a horrible team to watch, but they're effective in what they do, and they're the kind team that can give the abs fits. Well, I was torn yesterday between thinking, like, okay, the way that this game won played out, is this a sign that like, okay, the kings are going to give the abs more of a fight than we gave them credit for?

I don't know if you saw, there was a lot of sweet picks in that athletic snap predictions article in this one. Is the way that this played out a sign that, you know, the kings are going to give the abs more trouble than we gave them credit for? Or did they just hold the Aves scoreless for 35 minutes and still lose that game? Did they just like miss one of their few best opportunities to steal a win here? It's possible. I mean, I'm curious to see how game two looks because like, again, we talk about confidence-building

performances and that's a loss. But if you're the Kings, you've got to feel a little bit better about this matchup after game one than you probably did go in. Like you said, it was more than half of the athletic staffers picked a sweep. I've never seen that. I don't think so. Any of our things. Like that's how Lobsided.

I mean, the Kings had like 22 regulation wins or something this year. Like they had like one more regulation win than the Blackhawks did. Like this is not a good team. But they are effective at what they do. And once you start believing, hey, maybe the gap isn't so great. Maybe we can stay in the series. You know, belief goes a long way in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Well, and that psychological thing plays both ways.

I don't know how much you guys talked about the president's trophy curse on the Western playoff preview. But we have seen it. You know, the team that wins the president's trophy has not been winning the Stanley Cup at the end of year. And I wonder how much of that is partly due to like, oh, we were the best team all year, but this team's like really pushing us. And there's a little bit of, I don't know if there's a little bit of like kind of psychic shock to that. Well, I think part of it is it's like the opposite of the Flyers thing, right? Like what was the last important game the Avalanche played?

Yeah. Like there was a brief moment there when the stars had like a 15 game win streak where maybe they were going to lose the top seat. And then it just wasn't even close again after a week after that. So they have not played an important game. And this isn't a team that, you know, they lost in the first round last year to Dallas. And 2022 is that was four years ago now. So they don't have that credibility that you can just flip that switch. They're so talented and they're so good.

And everybody knows it. But switching into playoff mode, you can get caught wrong footed if you've been kind of on cruise control for three months. And I think that's as much as anything is what's happening here. Once the ass find their sea legs and kind of kick it into gear, and Dallas is in the same way down here where it's like they look like they were half asleep in their first game. Put a pin in that. I want to wait for Jesse for that one. you do see a lot of times these like heavy favorites not play with that,

that emotion that you expect in the game one, whereas a team like the Kings, hey man, winning a couple of games against the abs, that's their Stanley Cup. Let's go try and do it. So eventually the abs will figure this out and they'll start rolling, but the Kings don't make it easy.

That's their whole thing. It's just to be annoying as hell. I think they accomplished that in game one, but it's just a matter of like, can they repeat that recipe against the Colorado avalanche or the avalanche make the kind of adjustments they need. like, all right, we know how to kind of crack this a little bit more. It's exhausting to play that way. Like, you have to be like on your, it's like Carolina to a large degree where you have to be

just on your toes and aggressive like the whole time defending constantly. So you have to have a huge amount of buy-in to do it. And, you know, through one game, the Kings had it. All right. Let's take a quick break right there. We'll come back with Jesse. We got a few more series to talk about. All right.

We are back. And let's bring in now, Jesse Granger. Jesse, you covered the late game last night of Vegas and Utah. and there was some tension in that one for a while. Utah put up a really good push early, but in the end, it was Vegas coming out on top. Let's just start kind of start a big picture. What was your takeaway out of that game one? Yeah, to me, it looked like a big, strong experience team playing against a fast, young, inexperienced team and Vegas's advantage won out in the end. I thought for the first period, Utah, and by the way, I picked Utah in six in this series.

I thought the speed would be too much for Vegas to handle. And for the first 20 minutes, it did look like that. They were skating all over him. Logan Cooley scores a gorgeous goal, super individual effort by him on that play. And then as the game goes on, Vegas starts laying hits. Ivan Barbashev is just battering everyone he sees on the ice. And by the midway point of the second period, Utah did not look like the faster team. They were getting into scrums with the Golden Knights.

everything became kind of just a grind, which is exactly what Vegas wants in this series. And by the third period, Vegas looked like the better team. They're getting to the inside. They score three straight goals to win the game. Yeah, so I think Utah showed flashes of why they can win this series, but it's going to be tough. I'm going to show my age here. But Vegas really reminds me of those 2012, 2014 Kings teams where they would kind of play one way in the regular season. And then they'd get to the playoffs and they would play that hard, heavy, bruising, And I remember asking Dustin Brown once, I'm like, you know, why don't you guys always play like this?

Because if you play like this for 82 games, you would not make it through the season. Like you physically can't do what we do for more than two months. Even the two months is asking so much. And Vegas reminds me like that when they get into the playoffs, they are a different team. Like we've all been underwhelmed by Vegas almost all season long. But then they get into playoffs. Like, oh, yeah, Vegas. Oh, oh, crap.

Here they are again. And it's, they really do remind me of those big, heavy Kings teams. It's funny. I had that almost that same conversation with Ivan, Barbashev last night of like, wow, you look like a different player. He's like, well, yeah, like, you can't do that for 82 games. And Barbashev is such an important player for this team. And he, he had 61 points this year. And when I looked at that number, it shocked me because he didn't feel nearly as impactful for this team. Like, I mean, I remember going into just a few weeks ago,

I was thinking, if this team needs to clear cap space, Barbashev is a guy, they could move. Like, he hasn't had as big of an impact this year. And then you go into last night's game and he was arguably their best player on the ice. He was just laying out everything that he saw. And then that bleeds into the rest of his game. Like he starts feeling good about his game when he's doing that. All of a sudden, he's making extra passes. He's better with the puck. So yeah, this, this team looks different. Ivan Barboshev kind of led the way. Who wasn't it that he drilled early on? Was it Ian Cole that really kind of set his tone? And all of a sudden Utah's like, oh, God, what's going to happen to us today? And so clean. That's what I loved about it. Like, you don't, like, it's so hard to, the guys are so fast.

The hockey is so fast now that it's hard to hit someone that hard without breaking some rule. It was perfectly clean. He just absolutely obliterated him in the corner. Did last night, did the outcome and the way that the third period played out? Did it change? I mean, you said you had Utah and six to begin, Jesse. Did it change your opinion on the series at all? Yes.

I didn't think Vegas could do what they did last night to Utah. So yes, it does. I think it's going to probably be a seven-game series. I think Utah could still win this. Like I said, there were flashes last night where guns. and Cooley did what I expected. I will say the area that Vegas was the best last night that I didn't expect, I guess, is their breakouts were so clean.

Like I thought Utah's forecheck would force them into errors that they could, because that's the only way Utah is going to find space is by creating turnovers. Because once Vegas is back and set in its defensive zone, there is no space. They're, they're such a well-coached team. And that's going back to Bruce Cassidy, Tortarillo is kind of just keeping the same system going. There is no space. The way you get space against this team is by forcing them into errors and then taking advantage before they can get set up. And last night, Utah just basically did none of that. We'll see. It's, it's, that's one game. And we've seen these series. You think that game one is how it's all going to play out. And then it's completely different when you get out there in game two. But through one, Utah was not able to generate the turnovers. I expected them to. But they committed one. Like that, the turnover that led to, I think it was the Nick Dowell, the deflection of the Noah Hannan.

Yes. That was Vegas applying pressure. and an inexperienced team, you know, kind of soiling itself when it happened and it led directly to the game winning goal. The other thing, too, like I was thinking last night as I'm watching the Eichel Marner Stone line. And I was thinking like, what would a line have to look like for me to think that an opposing line has the edge against those three? All of them could be on a Selky ballot this year. The answer is probably the McDavid dry-sitle combo line that you could see from Edmonton around from now in Vegas. But even then, like Utah has some great fast young talent. that is a smothering matchup line, Jesse.

Yeah, they're really good. I mean, we haven't seen a ton of them all three together. It was kind of surprising when they skated that way the last couple days before this game. Tortorella even said, like, the morning of, like, we're not sure if we're going to stick with it. We're not sure how long we're going to stick with it. I hope it works. They were dominant. After two periods, Stone, I think his, like with Stone on the ice, it even strength the shot

attempts were 25 to five in favor of Vegas. they were just absolutely dominating with that line on the ice. My concern was, to me, this Vegas team, this is the worst their depth has been in a long time. And this is what happens with teams that win the cup. Like you slowly get that chipped away. We've seen it with Tampa. We've seen it with all these teams. I was concerned that if you load up that top line, like, well, they better score three because no one else is scoring.

And then you get a goal from Colton Sizzins, who has scored like almost none this year. Nick Dowd comes in and scores a goal. If you can load that line up the way they have and then you're going to get goals, goals from those guys, you win the game. Like you can't lose a hockey game, getting goals from Colton Sizzins and Nick Dowd with that top line playing as many minutes as they did. So that's the recipe. If they were going to lose that game, a big part of it would have been the second goal.

It's a fluky goal, but I want to get your take on kind of how it came together. Do you, Carter Hart had come out of the net and tried to go for a wrapped puck. I don't know. I think he was back and mostly set, but whenever a goal he leaves his net and the goal happens right after, that's part of the conversation. the poke with the stick is a little reckless, but ultimately it's a bad bounce off his D man. Like, how do you sort through that one? I think the only mistake heart made was trying to get that puck because it wasn't from the red

line. It was from the blue line and it wasn't even contested. It was an uncontested dump in from the blue line that was fired around the board. So like, it's, this is a split second decision, but that's what hockey players are judged on is their split second decisions in in super tough moments. He probably shouldn't have gone after that puck. He didn't get to it. It's not surprising that he's a really good skater. And even he couldn't get back there. It's not surprising based on where that puck was released. So to me, that's the only mistake. I thought he got back into his net as quick as you could ask. He made the save. Like you said, it was a poke with his stick, but he made the save and just an unfortunate bounce off of his own defenseman into the net. The only way I can fault him there is

the decision to leave the net in the first place. All right. If we're talking about blaming goalies, Let's move on to Dallas down here against the well. Because Jake Gottinger, the last playoff game he played, was the one that got Pete DeBoer fired. With DeBoer threw him under the bus, pulled him after two shots, two goals in game five last year against Edmonton, threw his goalie under the bus. And this was Jay Gottinger's first chance to play in a playoff game since then.

They lost 6 to 1. I think maybe one of those you can fault Jake Ottinger on, but the appearance is really, really bad. And I'm curious what you thought about that. performance, Jesse. Yeah, I could picture Pete DeBoer sitting in his living room like the Leonardo DiCaprio once at upon a time in Hollywood, like pointing at the screen. Like, no, it's, like you said, I don't think you can really put it on Ottinger, but I will say that, like, I think Ottinger is a great goalie, but he's not trending well. And I just mean, I mean that big

picture. Over the last couple of years, he has not been the goalie that we saw when he first broke into the NHL. And he hasn't been the, he's a big guy, which normally those big guys are like the more positional blocking guys. But when he first came into the league, he was the, I can steal a game for my team goalie. Like I remember that Calgary series. That's still in my mind, one of the best goalie performances I've ever seen, like in the last like 10 years was that series. And I feel like Ottinger, he's such a cerebral smart guy. You talk to him. It's like I could talk goaltending with the guy for hours because he's so interesting. And the way he's, he thinks about things. This is speculation for me. I don't even cover on a daily basis,

but what I think is I think he's overthinking things. I think he's a little too much in his head. He's not the reactive, like, goalie that he was when he first came into the league. And I think he, it looks like he's guessing on plays more than he should. And like, that's part of the job, right? Like you're anticipating what's going to happen. You're guessing. To me, if he would just get out of his head a little bit and react a little more and be the old, like the goalie he was when he first came into the league. I think he's a better goalie when he's playing that way. And I just feel like lately, when things go a little wrong, you start thinking even more. Oh, what am I doing wrong? What can I do to fix that? And it's just, he just doesn't look like the best version of Jake Ottinger recently.

This is my third spring residency here in Dallas. I've been around him a lot. I'm always, I'm impressed by how mellow he is, but I always have a tough time reading goalies because a lot of goalies don't show emotion. A lot of goalies are like bonkers, but a lot of goalies, like, their whole thing is I have to have a short-term memory and you got to stay even keel. There are times where Jake Onger is just a little too even keel for me. Like, I just want to see a little bit of fire out of him. I want to see him be mad at himself. I want to see him, you know, point the finger out himself and really just kind of like, you know,

I want to see him be angry after a game like this, and he's always so calm. It's probably a credit to him. You probably have to be that way. But man, I just want to see a little bit of fire out of the guy. Do you think, I mean, the regular season, Jesse was not. up to Jake Ottinger standard either. I think that's kind of what you're talking about with this trend line here.

Is there lingering effects? Like when you get pulled from a playoff game after two shots, like is there a lingering effect into the next season? Or is what kind of you guys are both saying that it just would be water off his back anyway? Like, how do you view that? I don't think so, especially with how unanimous the like reaction from everyone else in the world was when that happened.

Like if people were like, if we were debating it, whether and like half the people thought that Pete DeMour was in the right for pulling him, then maybe it could, like, get in your head. But the fact that Pete DeBoer pulled it, everyone in the world was like, wow, that was dumb. And then they fired him. Yeah. And then, and then like before the game, ESPN's running a promo where like 16 different players are saying that Pete DeBoer's an idiot. Um, it's, it's hard for, it's hard for Ottinger to feel like, I don't know. To me, that would just be like, well, that was a mistake by Pete. It wasn't on me type

thing. Well, I don't know. And as you mentioned, Laz, like, not a lot of these goals were like easy, or I don't know which one of you guys said it, but not a lot of these were easy point to finger at Jake Ot and Chaconna Coles. This was a Minnesota Wild Clinic here. We've probably spent, done them a disservice by spending the whole first half of the segment talking about the team that got blown out in this game. Instead of them, they took this to the Dallas Stars. Minnesota, I thought it was exactly what you want to see if you're the Wild.

Your stars are active early in the game. You get the power play going really well. This was exactly how I wanted it to look if I'm the Minnesota Wild. Yeah, Dallas played this game like it was Game 53 of the regular season. And the Minnesota Wild played a playoff game. They were in it. They were involved. They were attacking. They had the stars on their heels the whole time. Every single time the stars even got the puck on their stick, Minnesota just took it right back. It wasn't even one and Duns. It was none and Duns in the offensive zone. And Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber were so dominant. Kind of what we were talking about earlier with Rasmus Dahlin and Samuelson and all these guys in Buffalo can do. They just controlled the game to such a degree that it was almost laughable. They were toying with the Dallas Stars. And we're not used to seeing that out of a Dallas team. And we're also not used to see that. that out of a Minnesota team. This is a much more even matchup than when, you know, your typical matchup here would be that the stars have been to the conference final three straight seasons

and the Minnesota Wilde have lost eight straight first round series. So this is a, this is a leveling off of these two teams now where this really is a toss-up of a series and Dallas better get its act together tonight in the late start because, you know, you fall down two-0 to this wild team. It's hard to imagine winning four out of five against them. Minnesota looked so good. And as I do, I'll go to the the goalies. And I thought that the decision by Heinz, the way the NHL is going where teams are playing goalies in tandem, this is, I feel like it didn't used to be a skill that coaches needed, but choosing your playoff goalies and managing how you use them through the series is becoming a

more and more important part of an NHL coach's job. And I think the easy choice would have been to start Gustafson. Heinz goes out on a limb, starts the rookie. I thought it was the right decision. He's been better since the Olympic break, and we talked about it a little bit last week in the playoff preview. Walstett is specifically really, really good at stopping the exact shots Dallas creates more than anyone. Dallas scored 157 goals in front of the net more than any team in the league. Walstet is so patient on his edges. He doesn't drop early. He doesn't guess, like we were talking about with Autinger earlier.

And he, in those one-on-one with, it's the goalie versus the shooter situations. And I'm not just talking breakaways. I'm talking puck comes over to the weak side. it's you versus the goalie. Walsstett is just nails in those situations. And I think he's the right goalie to start. He didn't have to be the hero in game one. His team was much better. But I love how he looked. I love the guts it took from Hines to start the rookie right off the bat. And it worked. You're absolutely right that he was the right call and all those stats that you mentioned or why. But we still don't know if he's going to be any good in the playoffs because the starts barely tested him at all.

There were two opportunities they had in the second period or elite in the first, I think it was, where Walsett made two really nice stops on two goals. golden chances for Dallas, but that's all he saw. Like Dallas was, they were just completely timid. They were just, they'd no pressure in the offensive. They'd zero four check. They were not getting the nest. You weren't getting those Jason Robertson, Miko Raton, and chances on the doorstep that they do so well. So the stars, tonight, they have to come out and they've got to come out firing, right? They've got to come out and test this kid, because I agree. I think he's the right goalie, and I think he's a really good goalie, and he can absolutely win this series. But you've got to test him.

You can't just let him dip his toe in the water like you did in game one. Because now he's got some confidence. Wallstead admitted to being nervous all day on Saturday before game one. And then you just let him have this like quote unquote easy first game in the playoffs. Now he's got confidence. Now he's going to be a little more comfortable. Dallas really, really blew an opportunity by coming out so weak in game one. I keep this going with this narrative.

I keep talking about Wollstead's stats against the best teams. When he plays against the elite teams, he's like a 930 safe percentage. and then against the bad teams, he's just like, eh, I'm telling you, I know it's still young. This is a big game goalie. Like, this is, he may not be Patrick Waugh, but the style, the mentality, the guy who just like wants all the pressure. Give me the best teams. Give me the pressure. That's what I feel about yes for Walsstead.

Well, speaking of tough goalie calls, Jesse, the one I was the least expecting this weekend was Carolina pulling Brandon Bussy out of that, not pulling him, not putting him into the net and starting Freddie Anderson. And boy, boy, did Freddie Anderson make that. look like a really, really good decision. Yeah, I was very surprised by it. The guy was the best goalie all year for them. I mean, he set how many NHL records did he set this year? The fastest goalie to five wins, the fastest goalie to 10 wins, to 20 wins, to 25 wins. He was unreal. He struggled after the Olympic break. I will say that, but it's not like Freddie Anderson was setting the world on fire. I mean, he finished with the worst statistics of his entire career and he's been playing a long time. But Brindamore goes with the veteran. That's kind of how he is just in all of his

coaching decisions. And it turned out to be the right one. And I also, like, early on, when I saw this decision, I was almost kind of like upset. Like he's, like, Brindamore is robbing us of the Brandon Bussy story. Like, I feel like that's one of the better stories in hockey this year was this kid coming out of nowhere. He's an older player who hasn't really had a chance. He comes in and sets the league on fire. And now we don't even get to see it play out in the playoffs. So I was kind of like upset at Brindamore for it. the more I thought about it and you're watching Freddie play in the game and it's like and I was actually I was kind of like arguing online with hurricane fans and one of them

mentioned think of it this way now they have Freddie Anderson who's playing well and has been a good playoff goalie and they have Brandon Bussie just waiting in the wings in the event that they need him at some point so I still think Bussy may play a role in this I do I picked the hurricanes to come out of the east I would be stunned if Freddie Anderson plays every game of that. I would be stunned if that happens. So I think Brandon Bussie will still play a role here, but Freddie Anderson was good in game one. I swear, Jesse, you can take any goal-tending situation and turn it into a positive. This is not a positive. Freddie Anderson is not, he has not been good in the playoffs. He's been good in the first round and a half or so over the years.

He always falls apart in the playoffs. I like Freddie Anderson, good regular season goalie, good early in the playoffs goalie. And Brandon Bussie was a disaster down the stretch. That's why Freddie Anderson's in there. It's not because Anderson earned it. It's because Brandon Bussie lost it. And the fact that we are still having this conversation about the Carolina Hurricanes, that all these years into this incredible run they had, this incredible machine that they've built down there, and they still don't have a goalie. I just don't understand how we keep having this conversation. How has Carolina not addressed? And Brandon Bussie was a great story, but you don't solve your situation by picking up a guy off waivers from Florida early in the season. It's just

incredible to me that we're still talking about the Carolina Hurricane. his goalie. In this Eastern conference, they should be able to run away with this playoff tournament. And because of their goaltending, I don't think they will. And you clip that, put it on social, that Carolina is going to, they need a goalie. They don't have a goalie. They never have a goalie. Look around, though, at all the teams in the playoffs. I was like, finding a goalie on waivers and have it and be your goalie in the playoffs is not as crazy as it might have sounded five, ten years ago. A lot of the heavy hitters are not in the playoffs here. A lot of these goleys are on their second home. They've been on waivers.

It's wild. We got guys like Anton Forsberg is starting in the playoffs. You know, Carter Hart. I saw Carter Hart playing Dan Vladar. It really is incredible how hard it is to find a goalie. But, man, it's been enough years. Find a goalie, man. I think what it is is the fact that there are like five of them who are just clearly in a league of their own.

And then the like sixth best goalie in the world through the like 45th best goal in the world, the difference is so small. Like these guys are all the same guy. Right. Because it used to be, there weren't goalie coaches. So goalies taught themselves. So like some of them were way better at it than others. And like the differences were massive in like the 90s and like early 2000s.

To me, all these goalies have been trained. Every movement they make has been precisely honed since they were five years old. So they're all so similar. It feels like you just need the guy who's feeling it that week. And the 45th best guy in the world who's feeling it is better than some top 10 guy who's not. So what we're saying here is as I've been. saying all along since you've been doing this show with us for years is goaltending is nonsense. You are not an expert on anything.

Nobody knows what they're talking about. Goaltending is stupid. That's what you're telling me. Voodoo, right? Voodoo is the word everybody likes to use. Oh, my gosh. I'll say this. I picked the Sends in this series, and I picked them in part because I thought in a series

where I think shots are going to be at a premium, Brandon Bussie was a variable. He could go one way or another, and I thought that was enough to, and it still could be. This was still a very tight game. Freddie Anderson made a huge save at a crucial moment. this game, Jesse, that I don't know if Brandon Bussie makes that save. The athleticism, there were multiple, actually, in this sequence. The one that everyone's going to point to is the overturned goal, where it looks like Batherson puts the puck into the net and it's into Anderson's glove over the line,

but Anderson actually kind of wedged it between the glove and the post. There was another very athletic save shortly after that on Brady Kachuk. Like, he really competed in this game. There was two moments there. This ends up a two-0 game. This could have easily been a two-one game for the Sands. this could have been a two two game going to overtime. Shots were in a premium relay.

It was like 15 to 9 through two periods. Opened up a bit in the third. But Anderson, I thought, was the difference in the reason that Carolina came out in this one. Yeah, I mean, he made like two really nice saves, and that's about all he did the whole night. Well, there weren't that many shots to go around. Right.

I can't think of that many Carolina looks that didn't go in the should have. Yeah, I mean, like you said, the shots are, I think it was like three nothing shots. total through like 12 minutes into the game. And I'm like, are we ever going to see the goalies in this game? It's, it's these two teams did the same thing all year. You look at their underlying metrics. They don't give up any shots.

They take all the shots. Which of those is going to play? Like, are they both going to be able to get a ton of shots? No, neither of them can get a shot. It's going to be basically a one shot game. There is going to be a four overtime game between these teams because the way they play, it just sets up for that. It's going to happen at some point.

The marathon game of the first round will be coming from that series. I don't know, like, does Bussy make the save that Freddie Anderson does? I think he could. Like, I think they're both similar goalies in that they excel in making those off-schedule saves that aren't, like, reading the play perfectly and getting into the right spot. It's just kind of be an athlete, get your hand in front of it. They both kind of excel at those saves. And obviously, Freddie made a huge stop.

I'm not going to say that Bussie wouldn't have made it. Fair enough. I covered a four-overtime game in Raleigh. a few years back and it was fun. It's funny, the hurricanes have this reputation as being awful to watch. And Max and I were talking off air about this. I disagree strongly. I think he does too.

I love watching the hurricanes play. But they have to be the worst team to play against. Like, if you're a hockey player, like it's just a nightmare. Like there's other teams, like your L.A.s and your Seattle's that muck it up and slow the game down. But Carolina does that, but they're also so fast and so relentless. It's like a full court press at all times. Their forecheck is so tenacious. and they're so quick and they muck it up defensively and make it difficult to get through the neutral zone.

It must be so hard to play for Rod Brindamore, but it must be so much harder to play against this team. They are just an absolute machine. Well, Lazan, you talked earlier about the kind of the Kings and you can't play this kind of hockey all year. If there's a, if there's a theory for why the Keynes haven't been able to kind of get over the hump in the playoffs, part of the theory is that they play this style of hockey all year. There's not another level to get to. It's not that they're necessarily the physical banging level of the Kings, although I do think they forecheck pretty hard. But they are just kind of this repeatable, like every moment matters team.

And I think that's what makes for in some ways a really exciting playoff series between these two, even without a lot of goals, without a lot of shots, because it's so much tension. You know, any goal could be the deciding factor. It's a double-edged sword too, though, right? Because like they will play this style no matter what against any team, no matter who it is, and they don't make it just. Like Rod Brindamore's like, this is how we win. And that's why when you get to that conference finally, you're starting to play really good teams that make adjustments and figure out how to beat it, the hurricane is like, no, this is what we do.

And then they lose because they're not adjusting back. I also think it's when it's the regular season and you're only playing them once or twice, like they're just a blip on the radar. Like you don't get used to it. The pressure in your face, the fact that you have to make the passes quicker than you're used to. And then over seven games, it's like, okay, we've seen this three nights in a row. I do think teams start to get a little more adjusted to it, whereas in the regular season, it's like by the time you're adjusted to it, you're down three nothing and you're already

thinking about the next game on your schedule, so screw it. That's a very good point. I mean, seeing this team over and over again, whatever cracks you can find, you actually have time to exploit it over a seven game series. You do not in a one-off here. One more series I want to talk about before we let everybody go today is the one that hasn't begun yet, the Oilers and the Ducks. To me, this is, you know, especially with the way the Ducks kind of limped into the

playoffs. I think the Oilers are ramping up. I think this has the potential to be a pretty short series, but there's a lot of young, exciting talent on the ducks that I think hopefully we at least get some exciting hockey out of this. Yeah, this is the team. We wanted to see like the sharks. We all wanted to see sharks, ducks, right? We all wanted to see just the complete defenseless, all offense, all gas, no breaks style of play. This is the next best thing, because that's kind of how the Oilers play too. They're just not as young doing it. This could be a lot of fun. I agree with you. It's probably going to be short. The Oilers have been playing really well. Anaheim kind of

limping into the playoffs here, getting in the pillow fight by default, really, just because nobody else was able to come and take that spot from them. But it should be really high-octane hockey. It should be complete opposite of Sends Cains, where it's just going to be all shots on goal. And, you know, if we get one series where every game is 5-4, 6, 5, 7, 6, I'm here for it. Yeah, best case scenario is that. The Ducks skilled young forwards can score with Edmonton, and then it's on McDavid and Drysidal to just single-handedly, like, will they're walking to the net? And Anaheim's defense has gotten better. But if you look at the like style of defenseman, Truba and Gudis and Carlson,

like those are big, heavy-footed guys who are not built to defend Connor McDavid on the rush. Like that is, it's going to be ugly for those guys trying to defend Connor McDavid. It's going to be Lukash Dostal. Please save us a lot in this series. And I think the best case scenario is we get these back and forth high scoring games. The worst case scenario is it's kind of. of what I saw here in Vegas where the older experienced team just kind of bullies the other team. And it wouldn't surprise me at all. Like I have Edmonton in a long series. It wouldn't

surprise me at all if Edmonton just comes in and the ducks don't score the way we expect. And Edmondson just runs all over him. Sean Gentile had a piece today on The Athletic about how Conor McDavid, the Oilers have to win this year to keep him basically, like to keep him happy. What does that mean? Does that mean another trip to the final, does that mean win a round or two? Does that mean they have to win the Stanley Cup? What do you guys think has to happen for Connor McDavid to go, you know what? I will stay here long term.

Well, this year and next year, right? I mean, you kind of got, technically, it's this year next year in the year after that on the contract, but you probably need to know by the end of next year. I think if they get back to the finals, you can certainly still be like, it's right there, you're on the doorstep. I just don't think you want an early exit. And an early exit casts huge doubt into the direction. of everything. Obviously, I mean, for him, nothing is going to sate the hunger until he's

hoisting the cup. I mean, I don't think there's any doubt about that. I don't know that he gets a lot of fulfillment out of it. But I think you can sell, look, we keep getting right to the final. We're right there. You're not finding a team that's closer than us. Yeah, I agree with that. We were talking about it here in Vegas, and the teams are in such similar spots. It's so similar in Edmonton where the playoffs are all that matters. And your entire feeling of the first, franchise comes down to what happens in these like a few weeks or or longer. If the oilers were terrible this year, they just weren't a good hockey team. They sucked flat out.

Oilers, not a good hockey team. And if they lose this series, that will be how you feel about the oilers going forward. Whereas if they win a few series, then you, then the regular season is poof, vanish. Who cares? We didn't care in the regular season. And the players will think that. We didn't care. They said that.

Did you see that? Right. You can say that. But like, if you lose in the first round, then your feelings after the season are maybe we do suck. Whereas if you win a few series, it's like you just completely, the regular season did not exist. And you feel like, yes, we have one of the best teams in hockey. It's fascinating how that works, but it's true.

And it is that way for most contending teams. Yeah, I feel that after the podcast sometimes. I'm like, you know what? We do suck. They let us know when we do. That's for sure. Did you see, you saw the McDavid quote last that was like, you know, I don't think this group. I don't think the regular season does it for us, basically.

I wonder if that's almost him trying to psych himself up as like, that's all this was. It's just, it's group. It's the regular season. See, you know, the Blackhawks used to say that all the time. Like they would be like, you know what, whatever. We're the 16th, we're the 1 seed, where the 8th seed, we're going to be fine. But they earned that right.

They've won championships. And now the Oilers, they've been to two straight Stanley Cup finals. They have won a lot in the playoffs. They've sort of earned the right to think that. but I really feel like you have to have a championship under your belt in order to treat the regular season like a non-issue. So they're not quite worthy of that sentiment. You have to have won it in order to feel like it doesn't happen.

I just mean, do you think he really does feel like it? Or do you think he's almost like wish analyzing it? Well, I think he absolutely feels like that. When you've played as many playoff games as he has in the last couple of years, when you are flying to Seattle for a Tuesday night game that who gives a crap about, you absolutely feel that. These teams that in the lightning feel like this a lot, the Panthers feel like this a lot,

the Blackhawks used to feel like this, the Kings used to feel like this, the penguins used to feel like this. It is really difficult to get up for most regular season games when you have played on the biggest stage for the biggest prize imaginable. So I absolutely think he believes that. I don't think it's like some mind game

that he's trying to play with himself. I don't know if he's earned the right to say that, but he absolutely believes it and it's completely understandable. I totally agree that he believes that. I don't know if I believe it, though. I mean, the oilers are worse. Like the depth, the forward depth is worse than it was a couple years ago. The defense, maybe you could argue the defense is about equal.

The goaltending is definitely worse. And that's going to be what the spotlight's on tonight. And for as long as they're in the playoffs, because they, as for as bad as Stuart Skinner and everybody wanted to put all the blame on him, he was good in the playoffs and got them to cup finals. And they traded him and without question got worse in that. So we'll see how that plays out. A lot of good stuff out of the game ones here.

I'm sure there's going to be a lot more in the game twos, which will kick off tonight. That is going to do it for us today. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Fletic Hockey Show. Sean to Frankie Carrano, we'll be back with you on Wednesday. We'll talk to you soon.