The Athletic Hockey Show - Stephen Johns rollerblades across America. Should the Kraken offer Gabriel Landeskog a contract and the captaincy? Gentille's fan poll.

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Former NHL defenseman Stephen Johns joins Craig and Sean on the USA edition of the Athletic Hockey Show to talk about his journey rollerblading across the United States to raise awareness for mental health. The boys discuss some of Stephen's favorite spots along the way, what inspired him to experience this adventure , and how he still suffers from concussion like symptoms every day since his hit back in 2018.Custance and Gentille ask if the Seattle Kraken should offer a free agent contract to Gabriel Landeskog, as the Kraken prepare for the expansion draft which happens on Wednesday night.They guys dissect the Athletic NHL's fan poll with questions on the league's best GM, best uniforms and which player you would have a beer with. Plus the boys stick tap Luke Prokop and his groundbreaking announcement that hopefully changes not only hockey, but sports in general. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, this is Craig Custin's of The Athletic. Joined, as always, on Tuesday mornings with my best friend, Sean Gentile, for the All-American hour, 45 minutes, 40 minutes of the athletic hockey show. 42 minutes. Or hour 15. 38 minutes, 2.5 hours. It could be anything. No one knows. So much to unpack here, Sean.

We've got an expansion draft looming. We have your. Did a pool an HL national fan poll, which was a great idea because I think it was my idea, only if it does really well. I tried to, I tried to rope you into writing it out yesterday with me. It didn't. It didn't work. It didn't work.

And then it's 11, and then it's 1117, and I'm cursing you and your entire family, yeah. That's good. That's good. And most importantly, we have Stephen John's, former Dallas star, Chicago Blackhawks player, who of course, as you know by now, because we've talked about it, he's rollerbladed across America. And since we love America on this show, and what better way to see our country than on roller? Actually, I can think of way better ways. I would be, I would not last 15 minutes on the track.

I'm sure. I'm sure that's great for Johns. Shot and Craig roller skate across America. I could roller skate, maybe. How far would you get on a skate? skateboard? Probably pretty fun. Look at me.

Come on. How far can I go to skateboard? I'd be fine. I think you'd do it. Yeah, I think you'd do it right. Could you pull me like a water skiing? A tow rope? Yeah, we can make it happen.

So yeah, so Stephen Johns, who actually has athletic ability and a cause and in motivation, we're looking forward to having him on. We're doing this right in order. So you're getting it live as we're doing this. So I'm excited to have him on. But first, Sean, before we get to the fan pole, which is fun. almost 10,000 responses in that thing. We wanted to talk expansion drafts.

And specifically, areas that we don't think has really been uncovered a lot. There's been a lot of Kerry Price talk because it's the Montreal, Canadian's goalie, and that's how it works in the hockey media. I mean, we're not even sure carry prices is that good anymore to be making this big a deal. But as we know, we like to focus on the U.S. side. And what I, and both of us felt was most intriguing was, The Seattle Cracken are sitting here with a wide open exclusive negotiating window for unrestricted free agents. That's a nice little advantage.

And I think whatever we see come out of this, if anything, is going to really give us an indication of what they do with some of the bigger contracts on that list. Here's a question. By the time people hear this, we're recording at 943 Eastern on Tuesday. The window lasts until 10 a.m. on Wednesday. So odds are, if you're listening to this early, it's going to be sometime in the afternoon, like post lunch. Will they have signed a UFA? They've got 24 hours left in the window.

I feel like by the time this drops, three o'clock, four o'clock, I think they're going to have somebody in the fold. Well, Chris Dreeger seems to be, like, we think Chris Dreegers is done. Just announce. done, right? Just announce the Dreeger deal. That's specifically what I'm talking. I am so sick of hearing about Chris Drieder being connected to the Seattle

crack and just get it done. Stop lying to us. But here's the thing. If you're, um, if you're Seattle and you want to at least try to squeeze some assets out of the Montreal Canadians and say, hey, we're, you know, this is going to the top. And I, you know, we've seen all the different prairies report, Piel LeBrun is reported that they're exhausting every, uh, option here. Like, don't you lose some leverage if you're like, ah, ladies and gentlemen are goalie.

In all, I mean, in all seriousness, like, that's why they should wait on, you know, finalizing the Driedger deal or announcing it or whatever. It's a lot easier to convince, you know, Mark Bergevin that you're going to pick Kerry Price if you don't have, if you don't have Chris Driedger in the fold, right? So, yeah, get these deals done, turn into like handshake, wink, wink, wink stuff. and then just, you know, let's get max chaos to tomorrow night, make it happen. Oh, I think we got Stephen John's on the line. He is, yeah. Hey, Stephen. He's in a car.

He's in a car. Sorry, no problem, man. I lost track of time. I was, we actually just started, we were 16 hours into a drive home from Denver, and we decided to stop at Notre Dame and ran into all the old coaches and kind of catching up and just kind of completely lost track time. Sorry about that. Oh, you're good.

I try my math. You're early, so I thought we were doing it. So this is awesome. We can bang this out. First of all, I got to say, a little surprise that you're in a car. I feel, are you getting soft now? No more rolling. I'm definitely soft now.

My body is completely given up on me. We're ready to take a week off and relax. Yeah. Are you headed back to Elwood City? I'm in Pittsburgh, by the way, man. So we're close. You're heading back? I have my charity golf event that I have every year this weekend, actually.

So it was like I was planning on getting back by Thursday, but got to Denver. A couple of my buddies flew out to Denver, and we just, I don't know, it's time to go home. I miss my dog. I need to sleep in my bed. It's been a long while since I get a good night's sleep. I mean, that's a nice old byproduct of doing this, though, man. You can hang out in Denver and go back to South Bend for a, you know, for a couple, for a, for a nice little run there.

You get an excuse to hang out with people if it have nothing else, right? Yeah, it's been, honestly, honestly since the, since we've been done and my boy who came with me I mean, I filmed everything. Since he left, I had like a week to get to San Francisco for an obligation. So I kind of just cruised on Highway 1 slowly by myself. And then I got to be home by July 22nd. But it's time to go home. I miss my boy.

Yeah. Miss sitting on my front porch. So, yeah. You got the, you have the electrifying drive through Ohio from South Bend back to Southwest PA. So congratulations. That's a lot of, that's a lot of run. Well, let's talk about the drive from Denver to Pennsylvania. That's an even more electrifying.

It's been a journey for sure. Oh, my gosh. So the thing, here's what I want to know, because I was reading some of the stories. You know, Sean Shapiro has written some good stuff for us. Emily Kaplan and ESPN wrote a really good story. I would encourage everybody to check those out and kind of follow along on what Stephen did. But one of the things that Emily kind of alluded to, you know, you've met some interesting people along the way. So I got it like who was the most random, interesting, like person that you cross paths with in this whole thing?

Oh, man. We met, man, we met so many cool, awesome people. Kind of anywhere we went, we just talked to, we asked if they were a local and, you know, what do we do here? And we're like, we don't want to do the touristy thing. We want to do like what's, like, what we want to remember about certain places. We were in Bozeman, Montana, and we sat down at a nice, like, pretty hitster bar restaurant and sat at the bar and just ate lunch and talked to the owner of the restaurant for like four hours. And he was like an interior designer for a bunch of famous people around the Yellowstone area, the big Montana scene. And his wife came and about an hour and a half into the conversation, you know, three of us were.

we're in tears just telling our stories and telling our own experiences. So nothing, I waited and didn't run anybody like just having like those amazing conversations with so many people. Having like true conversations, like real conversations. That was like that that was for sure the biggest impact. I think having such a wide variety of conversations, listening to people's stories from so many different backgrounds and so many different experiences and kind of, how they intertwined with my story.

And, yeah, man, it's, it's, uh, I, I, I truly can't even put the trip into words, uh, the impact that other people have had on my life. And, I was T-Roh. Sorry. My, uh, the strength, the strength coach who's like the man at Notre Dame just walked by. I was just waiting to say hi to, um, but yeah, uh, it's literally every, every day I'm just kind of remembering stuff. throughout the trip that I wasn't thinking about.

I was like literally there wasn't one part of the trip that was that was that was bad. Or like we had one day where it rained for like 10 minutes. I mean, we went across the country for for a month and a half and it rained for 10 minutes one day. Like it was just an epic trip with a life changing experience, truly a life changing experience that I'll remember for the rest of my life. like every every part of it you mentioned you mentioned bozeman i've heard that about bosman it's like i mean you hear montana and you're just like how how cool could it be but i've i've heard from people who've spent time there that that's like a that's a pretty that's a pretty cool little spot so were there other were there other towns that you made your way through or or other

you know other other pit stops where you know you were surprised or were like wow this is this is this is actually a pretty good hang here uh the entire state of south dakota yes was just, I mean, I had really never heard of the badlands. And then the Black Hills Forest, that's like my spot now. That was like where, well, the badlands is where I had like my first like mental breakthrough in a positive way. So for me, the badlands will always be the most special part of the trip. But the place that everyone's like, oh, like out of all the places you've gone to, whereas like, wherever you go back.

For me, it was a Black Hills forest. We drove around for 10 hours because I physically couldn't blade on it because the roads were just dirt. And I mean, we're shooting a documentary about our cross-country journey and we didn't take a single picture and we drove around for 10 hours. That's awesome. We didn't take a single picture, a single video. And it was just one of those days.

Like, let's just soak everything in. And yeah, I'll be going back there and spending a lot of time. I'm just camping, just hanging out and truly like a healing vortex for me there. That's awesome. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was epic. If you do make it back there, back there, make sure it's not the same week as that big bike rally that they have up there every year. Sturgis.

No. Stay away from Sturgis. Stay away from Sturgis, dude. I have a Sturges story. The vibes will be off. We did an RV family trip. Same, like just head west. We didn't really have plans.

Same thing, Stephen. We got to the Black Hills. there's a, I mean, like when you're with kids, there's like a K-O-A in Black Hills in, in South Dakota, or yeah, South Dakota. And we were like, all right, we're just kind of overnight it and we'll get out of here. And we ended up seeing four nights and love, it just kept extending our stay, didn't want to go anywhere else. And on top of it, it was in the middle of Sturgis. So there was, they were like, you know, bumblebees buzzing around us constantly at the campground.

But these guys were unbelievable. Like, they were great. Like, it was like, like, they couldn't have been better. And I'm like, this is the best place on earth. I never, like, I was so excited to hear you say that because I never would have said, okay, we're going to the, you know, Grand Canyon and Colorado and all this place. And South, you know, the Black Hills is going to be the place that we remember the best. Yeah, we, I mean, for me, the most, the most thing I was, the biggest thing I was excited for

was obviously Yellowstone. Because I just hear about your whole life. Just like how it's the most iconic place on, in, in America. I mean, people from all around the world traveled just to go to Yellowstone. And I was almost underwhelmed in a sense because there were so many people there. And there was a big traffic jam in one day. And the story I've been telling everyone is we posted up and just watched like the most epic sunset ever. And people were driving by and stopping and they were rolling down the window.

I was like, what do you see? Like what's out there? And we were like, you don't see the sun. What are you looking at? Oh, my goodness. Everyone was looking for a bear and it was almost like a drive-through safari. Obviously, it's the middle of summer and out of a pandemic. So everybody's wanting to get outside and do everything.

But for us, I think like the national forests and like getting out and like being on our own truly on our own. Yeah, it was just so many if we stopped on my we honest to stop looking for national parks. We started looking for national forests just to like do our own thing and really have like a pure experience about being in those environment. because like I went to Yellowstone and I wanted to drive 10 miles per hour around the entire park and I had to pull off every two minutes to let 15 cars go by. So it was, uh, yeah. People are the worst. Who's rushing through Yellowstone? That's what I want to know. Well, the other thing. Who's in such a hurry to get through Yellowstone? The other thing too is that it's like, I mean, it's like the number one thing to do now that people can travel again. Like I saw lines it, you know,

it, uh, it's Zion and places like that. There was like a two week stretch there. where it seemed like every single national park just looked like, it looked like Cedar Point or Disney World or something, where it was just completely overrun with people. So, yeah, I figured you were going to run into some of that. Yeah, like, when I was in San Francisco trying to plan my trip back, I was like, oh, I need to go to Yosemite. And a couple of people were like, oh, you can't.

What do you mean? You need to buy a pass in advance and they already booked like all summer. And I was like, well, yeah, that's not. not what I wanted to like, yeah. So like we left Yellowstone and talked to a couple of park rangers and they were like, you need to come back in the winter and do a snowmobile trip through Yellowstone. Like that's the way to do it. So we're already cooking up that plan and, uh, yeah.

What why do you think when you get like, you get that kind of time and space and nature? Like, why do, why is it that creates the perfect atmosphere to kind of reassess or think? Like, what is it about that for you? personally. Yeah, I mean, for me and I think a lot of people that deal with depression, anxiety, you know, all the, all the stuff that stems from that, um, it's so easy to self isolate and just like sit in a dark room all day and just hang out and, and be comfortable. I mean, I tell people, the, the only way I felt happy in my, like, dark days were if I felt worse. And I, it sounds crazy, but like, yeah, the only way I felt

felt better myself as if I like didn't do anything and like just was by myself and I didn't want to be a distraction to anybody I didn't want like anybody to worry you know it's it's a very it's a very hard thing to understand and to talk about just just to try to get people to understand where you are mentally in that kind of state and then just getting outside and realizing it's like oh my gosh like I get to see this stuff. Like I have the opportunity to see all this. And like I saw maybe a 1% of what I want to see now. Just seeing cool things.

And I think just my message was just get outside and talk to people and enjoy like, and it's going to be the sound very tree huggerish, but just like enjoy being on earth. and like the true beauty of everything. My favorite part about this trip has been the roads. Because now I look at every single road. It's like, oh, I can blade that. I can rip down that.

And then I start thinking it's how incredible the power of humans are. In 100 years, we have literally roads that go everywhere. And if I wanted to go to the southern tip of South America, I can leave today and get there eventually. because of a road. And just the power of humans and like, I don't know, the roads have been the roads have been the biggest impact to me because it kind of intertwines like humans and nature.

And I mean, dude, I drove down, I drove down Highway 1 going southbound. I went 20 miles per hour the whole way. And I had no problem doing that. And like for us, our thing was, we're not doing a single highway the entire way. Like, I Google Maps, you have that option. You can turn highways and poles off.

I think I'll do that the rest of my life. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Dude, there are so many good books out there, whether it's about Highway 1 or just various, like, various roads like that throughout the country, just kind of like infrastructure-based books where, you know, we don't need to talk about the highway system or anything like that. But there's so much reading to be done there.

It's something that fascinates me, too. That's, I, I didn't realize that that was actually, I didn't realize that was, you know, uh, that big a part of the journey. Like actually, actually turning off, turning off highways and going, and going the tough way and, you know, turning off toll roads and, and all that stuff. So that's, that's really, that's really cool, dude. Yeah. Well, we, I mean, the whole time, I wasn't able to like, like, rip down, uh, route 90 or

out 80. Right. Right. That makes sense. I actually ripped, I ripped like, uh, like five miles on route 90. in South Dakota, the speed limit was 80. But we got to a point where we could see like 10 miles in front of us, 10 miles behind us.

And at that moment, I was like in the history of like humanity, I guarantee you I'm the only person to be standing right here with rollerblades on. And like, I don't know, I feel like it's a human thing. You want to find a place on earth where you feel like you're the only person to never be there. I don't know. That's kind of how I've always. No, or you're the, or you're the. Or you're the first person to do that specific thing at that specific location.

That's something I think about a lot too. Like, has anybody ever done this? Like right here. So yeah, I'm pretty sure you're the first guy to Blade Down I-90. Yeah. That's probably the, and that shot's definitely going to be in the documentary.

And, yeah, that's my favorite shot of the whole trip, probably. But my favorite, badlands was, who the hell would go to South Dakota to go see National parks like I didn't know anything was there and then you go there yeah and then now it's my it's my it's my favorite state in the country like it's amazing uh yeah were there any were there any

moments on the way where you were like this might not have been a good idea i think i i think i i think i i think i i think i might need to jump in a car for a little bit longer uh well yeah the first night i had the worst like lace bite blisters my feet were killing me i was like oh my gosh like what I get myself into and luckily I stopped in Notre Dame uh equipment manager here Ron punched my punch my skate salad gave me some they gave me a whole bunch of rap and and uh pre-wrap and uh yeah that saved the trip and uh from there on out it was like my right my feet hurt but this is pretty awesome almost got sidetracked by Ohio man of course it's always it's always always oh yeah damn it so we'll let's you let's get back at

I know there's people that you want to see, but how do you think this journey changed you? You said, you know, it has. It's changed you pretty, you know, I imagine it's been pretty profound. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy for the first time in three years. And, like, truly, I've had a headache every second of every day since the hit. And in 2018, on this trip, I had three days without a headache. And I don't know if that's because I wasn't thinking about it because I was just on such like an adrenaline high or just like, I don't know. I don't know what it was, but I didn't even think about it.

And I mean, I have a headache right now, but okay, I can still, I can, now I can, I'm happy though now. And I'm so excited to drive these next five hours and be home and happy. And that's, that's my biggest, yeah, that's, that's number one for sure. and I get to show off my cool tattoo to everyone. That is pretty great. Yeah, let's let's talk about that. I'll see if I can screen grab a while we're talking here. My old man is very against tattoos.

His dad was a veteran. You know, he always told me if my dad wasn't a World War, he didn't have tattoos, like there's no reason for you to ever have one. And I don't know. I'm excited to see his reaction to it because, I mean, it's not only been so impactful for me, but for the people around me to see the impact I've had on others and see what this trip has done for me. I mean, I called my mom the other day and she's just like, wow, you sound so good. It's like, I was just having a conversation with my mom.

And, yeah, it's really life-changing. I, you know, I was so sad because I'm, I was like missing the game of hockey. But after this trip, it's like, I don't, I don't, I'm not, I don't miss the game of hockey. I miss being the dude from Wampum. Like, and I, and I, and I really felt like I can never get that back. And I wanted to do this trip to see if I could feel something again, truly. And, man, it's, uh, I, I look physically can't put into words how, uh, how amazing it's been.

That's great to hear. That's awesome, man. When do we get to watch the dock? Yeah. I don't know. That's a, that's, that's, that's, that's Tootsy's project now. We're going to, I'm going to be flying down to Dallas back and forth and just putting it together. It's, you know, he wants to tell my story in the perfect way.

Definitely some, some stuff in there that's going to raise some eyebrows. But it's a story that needs to be told, not only to tell my story to get it off my chest, but to protect guys in the future to, help. I mean, my life was truly saved by a YouTube video. And if I can, with my project, with this video, with this documentary,

if I can save one person, that's what this trip's about. And yeah. That's great. Well, congratulations. And I'm sure you may never realize the impact you've made because just having these conversations, these very real conversations, people,

can relate in it in it i mean i think it sparks something within people and it's awesome what you did stephen and thanks for sharing with us thanks a lot yeah and i appreciate you guys um yeah and like why not have these conversations that's right kind of yeah yeah yeah awesome well enjoy Notre Dame enjoy the trip home and your bed enjoyed enjoy enjoy the ohio turnpike there's a great there's a great rest up with an awesome burger king yeah enjoy it is it no i don't know maybe Probably. Awesome. All right, fellas.

I appreciate you. Thanks, buddy. Take care. We'll see you, Stephen. All right, good. That was awesome. I like how he just came into the conversation and it just felt natural. And I would go camping with Stephen Johns in a heartbeat.

In a heartbeat. He picked up on, I mean, I don't see, picked up on something. But he kind of got into, you know, especially if you're dealing with depression or anxiety or whatever, how important it is. is to get out there and actually connect with nature. There is, there is something about that. I think it is because it's such an isolating thing sometimes where you actually, there's no, there's no better way to realize how interconnected everything is than, you know, whatever, hanging out in a tent somewhere. So yeah, he's, man, I'm glad he, I'm glad he had that experience. Honestly, I'm, I'm jealous because I've never been to the Black Hills and I just had to hear you guys talk about how great it was for like 15

minutes. Come on. Well, it's not as good as the Burger King and the Ohio. All right, so before Stephen crashed our expansion conversation, we should have just had him jump in. Like, I think he, you know, he would know what it's like to be an exposed. Like, I think he was part of the exposed list in 17 in Dallas. Like, that's, like, if you're a player right now, it's a stressful time. I'm sure you're checking with your agent and it's, and it's wild. But, you know, this, this window of time, we talked a little bit about some of the free agents that Seattle could potentially sign. the to me the most interesting one

Eric DeHatchik and his crew did a mock draft for us today on the athletic and one of the things they said they suggested is that Seattle should target Gabriel Landiscock and I think that's I think that's an interesting premise because A if you're gonna if you're gonna spend money as part of this process

better to spend better to make your own mistakes rather than to take on somebody else's mistake. Does that make sense? You know what I mean? Like Gabriel Landisog, the second half of that contract is not going to be a good one. But at least you're saying, hey, this is a guy that fits what we're trying to do, fits our culture. I'm going to, and I want your thoughts on this because I'm going to find a text also that I got from somebody that, you know, nosily well that said, hey, we're not, you can't just put together the best team. You have to put together somehow a culture and have people that are going to lead it. I think that's something you have to factor in.

Landisg, I know it feels like he's been captain for 15 years. It's been pretty close. Well, because he got it when he was 16. It was really. Right, exactly. It's crazy that he's already 28, by the way. But he's still, you know, we talk about the back half of the contract. And yeah, it's probably, it's probably not going to be great. But his game is going to age fairly well, too. And from a player's standpoint, not just, it's not just that he's a good fit for Seattle who need, who, who, you. Yes, should be looking for a name player and yes, should be looking for like a lockdown leader, you know, from day one. But they're a pretty good fit for him because we know that he's going to have,

if he wants to stay in Colorado, he's going to have to take a little bit of a haircut on the AIV. And there's really no, there's no such problem with Seattle. If it comes down to another million or another two million a year or whatever, if Seattle wants them, they can get him. So I think they're a good, they're a good fit in both directions, right? If you're Gabriel Landisgog, though, and you're not, you've, you've suffered through the rebuild in Colorado. Like, this has been a process. They've got basically had two different phases of it where they got McKinnon and Landisg,

and then we're kind of good for a second. You played the Wild and then, you know, whatever. And then they had to, then they add McCar and add some of these other pieces. Like, this has been a process. And I know he's disappointed. Like, he's made it very clear he's not happy with how the negotiations have gone. But do you really want to go start over for another mill year in Seattle and try to do it all over again when you're this close to winning a cup? Well, here's a better way.

Here's another way to think of that, though. I mean, yeah, I'm sure given the choice or all things being equal, you're going to stay in Colorado with a team that you came up with with the team that you're already a cap of or whatever. But if it's a meaningful amount of money and a divorce is going to happen. in one way or another, who else would, who else checks those boxes in terms of being able to field a competitive team and give, and give you the money you're looking for than Seattle. Like if, if, if you're on Francis and you're trying to sell Gabriel Landiscaug, and again, that might be happening like literally right now as we, as we speak, because we're, again, we're 24 hours outside of the, outside of the, outside of the, outside of the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

negotiation window closing. You can say to him like, all right, we're going to bring in Chris Dreger. Here's, here's why he works. We're going to draft Yanni Gord. We're going to, we're going to bring in all these guys. And he can go down the list of unprotected guys who he knows he's going to pick. And he can say, like, look at this lineup. This is a, this is a playoff lineup on day one. And you could easily make that sell with the kind of names that they have there and with the process that they have in place in Seattle. And if you're on Francis, you can say like, come on, be the guy, be the captain. Like, we know what this team's going to look like and we need you and we're going to be ready

to roll immediately. And oh, by the way, we can give you $7.5 million a year or whatever. That's right. That's not that bad of a situation. If I'm Gabriel Landiscaug, I'm listening very intently to something like that. And they do need, Seattle does need their Mark Andre Fleury, right? They do need the guy that's coming to every parade and every rally and every fan thing. And this is our star.

And this is, you know, he's, and he's got the personality for it. Like, he's great dude, you know, comfortable in front of cameras. It's easy to forget now because of the talent that's amassed around him, whether it's McKinnon and McCar, blah, blah, blah, go down the list. But there was a stretch where he was, he was the dude. He was the, he wasn't just the captain. and he was the face and the best player on the team and all that. And that was happening for him at a very young age.

So he's got that, he's got that experience. I think he makes, I think he makes a ton of sense, man. All right. We do got to talk. I want to talk survey. But the other one, just throwing it out there, are you calling Alex Ovechkin at all? And just saying, hey, you know, I know you're not going anywhere, but. You might as well see.

It's, I wish. Right. I don't know. Do your due diligence. See how much you would take. And you would say, yeah, it'll be $15 million or whatever. And then you say, okay, thanks for everything. Good luck back in D.C., right?

I'd do it for 15. How many years do we have to do that for? What's up? You think Alex is taking a max like two-year deal? We'll just say, hey, we can't give you any term, but we'll max out the contract. Maybe that's what's going to happen. Yeah. Just sign him in Landiskegg, too.

Then draft carry price. price. Have, have $36 million tied up in, tied up in two, or three players. I'm a hard no on Kerry price. Yeah. Like, I don't, like, I'm, it's not even really, it's not even a proper debate. I don't think. I, do I want it to happen?

Like, well, yes, yes. Absolutely. Just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, I was thinking about it over the weekend. It was almost convinced when the news, when, when, when Pierre broke the news, that it was actually locked and loaded. and, you know, that he wasn't going to wave it. You start looking at the contract and you start looking at the aging curve on goalies over the last few years and, you know, how guys like Longo have been able to play longer than we thought and blah, blah, blah.

And you're like, maybe a 38-year-old carry price for $10 million on an expansion team isn't quite that bad. I was close, but, yeah, I don't think you can do it. You almost got there. You find your big ticket items elsewhere. That's right. I think that's a big takeaway. That's a big part of it is that like, Carrie Price isn't the only brand name franchise, quote-unquote, Mark Andre Flurry in the group. We just talked about Gabe Landis Garg for 15 minutes, right?

Like, there's other guys out there that don't carry that prohibitive price tag through the age that Carrie Price is going to be by the end of it. You can get them somewhere else. Yes. Okay. I want to talk about your survey. You, you, so for listeners that haven't seen, like, our beat writers, do. this about once a year. It's a, you know, 10 to 15 questions to the fan bases. Trying to get the temperature. How much faith do you have in the GM? Would you want this

key player signed, et cetera? And they're fun. They're really good. Like, it's, it's, if I'm the team, I think it's valuable information. You know, we're also getting thousands of readers. I was thinking that. We should, we should actually try to charge some kind of consultant fee for like. To like, here you go, uh, New Jersey Devils. We just did all your survey work for you. Here, I'm Sarah Sivian. I just did unpaid, unpaid marketing research for the hurricanes. That's right.

And they're really good and popular. People like them. So now we roll them out at least once year for the beats. And we've never done a national one. Which is crazy, crazy. I know. I really thought that happened. This was a layup from me.

Yeah. So I'm like, hey, let's go over some of these questions. And it's fun. Like it's, you know, there's always hot topics. I mean, you run the league. And you know, and you give fans the opportunity to change one. thing if they were commissioner who you know who you're building a franchise around if conor macdavid's not available i'm glad we just removed the easy answer people still try to vote

people still tried to vote for him by the way did they multiple votes for connor mac david wearing a mustache yeah that's pretty good canner canner mcdovid who's his who's his evil twin yep um so so sean in doing this process again how many votes did you end up getting from uh i'm looking at the actual at the actual uh document now is 8,615 responses. That's awesome. Like that's, I mean, that's, that's, this is valuable information. That's a relevant, that's a relevant amount.

That's, that's, that's about statistically as sound as, is, is we're going to get here. Um, what did you find most interesting as you were going through those answers? What did I find most interesting? I would say how lopsided the GM vote was. It was basically split between four guys. The question was, what current GM other than your own? would you handpick to run for your team. And it was, I mean, basically 80% were split between Iserman, Brisebois, Sackick, and then, and then Loo. I mean, there was a major, major, major gap.

You're talking about, you know, there were 10 guys who basically had single-digit votes out of, out of 8,500, which I thought was, which I thought was wild. I don't know what it means. I don't know, I don't think it means that there's only four good general managers in the league, but I think it's public perception is so concentrated on those guys, mainly because of what Tampa's done over the last couple, over the last couple years. And it's funny because people will change, like Joe Sackick, we're not, you know, I'm old enough to remember where people thought he was terrible. Fire him.

Fire him. Fire him, right? Like, this guy doesn't take it serious and doesn't want to put in the time, et cetera. And now he is, and, you know, and part of this is, it's worth noting. it's, you know, this is a whole front office thing. Like, we, we tend to put the, the onus on the GM, and he's, you know, buck stops there, etc. But, like, this, you know, Colorado's smart front office.

Tampa's a smart front office. People, and people know it, too. What I'm really interested in is Steve Eiserman, you know, credited with, he's number one. And by a lot. By a lot. And the moves, like, the rebuild in Detroit, my guess is Steve has gotten there and it's like, pooh boy, this is probably even a bigger hole than I imagined, and this is me projecting. But the fact that he's number one, and I know, like, fans don't love every move he's made.

Like the Nick Letty deal, people were like, we're, you know, in a rebuild and we're giving up assets for a 30-year-old defenseman. I'm just, I would be curious to think how much time he has still built up in equity before fans want to see some sort of results. Like, I don't know what's real. We clearly, we clearly haven't hit that threshold. We have not. He got, that answers to the question. Like, fans are still convinced he's the best. He got, he got 35% of the vote.

And that's not just because, I mean, granted, he does and should get a lot of credit for the team in Tampa. He played a major part in building it. But you don't make it to 35% overall if you don't have significant public buy-in on the job you're doing currently, right? He's not at 35% if people are, like, ready to jump. ship on the on the wings thing the other the other thing that surprised me why there were there's plenty of stuff that surprised me did did you look at the breakdown of the pick one team to win the Stanley Cup in 2022 question like did did you actually see did you actually see the four results no I just saw your chart that you put in the story okay how many the fact that

the abs got 43% is wild to me I know they're like the sheik pick and probably the smart pick and, you know, it's impossible to pick Tampa to win again just because of the, you know, strains and stress that two cup runs put on teams. You know, there's a reason nobody's done, you know, in whatever, 35 years. But 43% for the afts is wild. That seems like, that seems like we're cruising for a market correction on them at some point. And by the way, it may well happen at some point in the next 24 hours, depending on what happened with Gabriel Landisagg. You obviously have Grubauer out there. too. So I feel like we might, I mean, this is like peak public opinion on the apps.

43% of the voters have them winning the cup. It's crazy. Was there any team that didn't, 8,000 votes didn't get a Stanley Cup pick? I mean, are fans, were fans just being realistic? Or did everyone, you know? Everyone got one at least one. I think the, I think the coyotes were last. And I believe they had five. So you can just assume that that's, you know, people make. making jokes or whatever. Right, right. Or just diehard coyotes fans.

But it is wild, man. Number one was at 43%. That's the abs. And then the number two was Vegas, which was at 9.7%. So you're talking about a major, major, major gap between Colorado and everyone else. Sean, I didn't want to get too far into this podcast without acknowledging, congratulating, whatever the proper phrase, celebrating the bravery and the strength shown by Luke Procop yesterday.

and, you know, coming out as the first publicly gay hockey player that ticketed for the NHL, just a monumental day. And, you know, aside from how big a deal it is, because like if you go, if you do a Google search right now with his name, it's, you know, it's not just a hockey story. It is, you know, New York Times. It's CNN. This is, this is huge. And what really impressed me about Luke, and I was part of the process in getting these stories

together for us and working with Pierre and Ian Denny, who was leading on the editing side. And just the whole process from start to finish struck by how much composure he had, how much strength he had. Like, you know, I was probably, he seemed more nervous than he. Like he just was like, hey, this is, I'm doing this. And I was just blown away by the maturity, the composure, the strength, the impact he's going to make in the world. You know, on top of it just being a historic moment for hockey and how great it was, how just universally embraced the news was. This kid seems like almost the perfect kid to be doing it in this moment.

Like just the way he handled himself. I was just blown away by it all. 19 years old, man. He nailed it. Yeah. across the board. It's just, it's cool to see, it's cool to know what a role model he's going to be for,

for any child, you know, in the LGBTQ plus community who's, who's coming up and doesn't just want to be a hockey player, but just likes the sport in general. That's, that's, it's,

it's really cool for them to have somebody to model themselves after, moving forward. The other thing that I thought was, you know, and whatever, low at this point. So it was more relief than anything. But I was I was happy and relieved to see the amount of support he got across the board, not just not just from not just from organizations, but I thought USA hockey did a really good job like on their social posts where, you know, they

were kind of very wisely and judiciously kind of hitting back at people who were saying, you know, caveman ugly shit in the in the comments. Because there's always there's always going to be people, you know, doing that stuff. But to see that kind of pushback from official channels was cool. It was great to see player support. You know, I know Jason Zucker stood out for me. He had a, he had a really nice kind of connection, you know, there with, there with Luke. All, all good things. And, you know, it is, is it kind of a bummer that we're, like, patting everyone on the back for just doing, doing the bare minimum? Like, maybe in some, maybe in, maybe in one way. But, but the alternative is a whole lot worse. So it's good to see the support. It's good to see people rally around

them. And it's just good to know that, you know, that he's in a good place himself, right? Like, I think that's, I think that's what's good to see is how, is how happy he is and how much support he says he's gotten. And also, we get to see what he's like as a player now. I thought that was kind of a cool, a cool point, a cool point that people made. Like, this kid was a third round draft pick, you know, struggling under one of the most, you know, a secret that for a lot of people is really, really traumatic to keep in a process that's really, that's really, really tough. So now he's got that off his shoulders and he can focus on playing hockey a little bit more. And the kid made it this far.

He's a third round pick, you know, under some tough circumstances. So now we get to see, you know, where the road takes him. I'm really excited about it. Like, that's the fun part now, right? Yeah. We get to track this kid and root for him. And this isn't my thought. I think this was Brock McGillis who raised this.

So I wish I had thought of it. I think I, I, that was definitely Brock Miguelis too. Like, let's let's see what he's like now. Because it's, now he can just play. That's, that's who it was. Sorry.

But not just that. Like he, I think it was Brock. He said like, we talk and, you know, we worship at the altar of mental toughness. And, you know, you know, is this a guy that's, that can battle through things and. Who's tougher than, who is tougher than, yeah,

having to deal with this. and not, you know, carry this with them, not being able to share it, and also play at such a high level that you're a top three round draft pick. And, like, what is mentally tougher than that? Like, if you're a GM or a coach, like, this is a kid you want on your team because he has shown. I mean, that's like that, you know, it's one of those things you can't quantify, but I think in this case, you can identify it fairly easily. Absolutely. Yeah, what an awesome moment. obviously you're going to be cheering for him and excited to see where it goes next.

And now, you know, great jersey to own. I imagine that would be if you're the predators, you're firing those up. Absolutely. And, you know, yesterday I saw Pierre and Sivvy kind of went deep on this, right, where they brought in Bain Pettinger and they talked to Brock McGillis and they kind of went deep on the announcement that that Luke made. So yeah, I got a, I got to circle back and listen that because I didn't, I didn't get to it yesterday. But I think if you want to hear more about it, you know, more than just eight minutes of two dudes talking about it at the end of a podcast, go, go listen to

Sarah and Pierre because it sounds like they had some great conversations with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, awkwardly transition to plug the other podcast the other days of the week at the athletic hockey show. Um, you get the live preview of the. NHL expansion draft coming with guest J.T. Brown, Corey Promin, Scott Wheeler, Jesse Granger, Ian Mendez and Haley Salvin are hosting that. It's going to, I'm a little disappointed and hurt, you know, that our name isn't, it's not fair. It's okay. It's okay. If you want to join Sean and I on our own private live version of the expansion draft. First off, you have to send me $5.

$1. Sign up for our substacks. Yeah. Secondly, you have to sign a non-disclosure because we're going to get into some heavy stuff. But be sure to check that out. And I forgot to do this to go into the comments section. I love that the comment section of our podcast has become a thing. I forgot.

I forgot to this week, unfortunately. Are you bringing it up? Are you calling it up right now? I'm bringing it up. So if you can buy me some time by talking about how great our comments section is. It's fun. It's become community. It really is.

You know what? I think one of our goals was, it's a great gimmick to have where people get in the comments and talk about things that they don't want to hear us say ever again. I think that was the right move. Or it's like you're not allowed to say, yeah, no, you're not allowed to say galaxy brain. You're not allowed to, you know, da, da, da, da, da. So I think that was kind of the Trojan horse that we needed to get people to, to get people to congregate in the comment section on the app and it's worked.

It's worked. And I would add, so we have our list of band words. All right. So I've got it loaded. So I'm going to see if there was any more candidates for our list. I will say, and people have mentioned this on Twitter now, it's ruined some of these words and phrases outside of our little tiny space in the podcast. They're like, anytime I hear Galaxy Brain, which I saw a lot in the context of expansion draft.

expansion jack. People were like, oh, GM's galaxy brain. So yeah. So the other thing we've asked, and if you're listening to this and you're a subscriber to the athletic, and you're not, if you're not a subscriber, go to theathletic. com slash hockey show. You can get in at $3.99 a month for six months. It's totally worth it.

But we also are saying, hey, you get to suggest guests. And we've actually, you know, we've reached out to people based on comments in here. And so some good suggestions, John Tortorella, by Chris was a suggestion. And Chris says that Torts probably would say no, but I disagree. I think John would do it because I like talking to John. He's a special in July. He likes you.

We don't know. About as much as he could. John's, and so Chris says, you know, in quotes, his love for the media, he probably just say no. That's overblown. I think John, obviously there was some very, very public blowups with, you know, with Brooksie and whatever. Like you don't want to do a John Tortorella interview after a loss.

I don't want to. Nobody wants to. But on July 20th, talking hockey or talking whatever with John Tortorella, I will do that all day. So we need to. The first playoff run I covered was when they made it to the cup and he was just on, he was on guard, like during that cap series and whatever else. I was, I think it's safe to say that I was terrified.

I was, I was concerned. Jonathan O suggests Cammy Grinato Absolutely She's on the list I also I've seen J.T. Brown pop up a couple times Request is in For sure

For sure But we were I think we were specifically saving him To do the expansion show With Ian and Haley Michael P has another candidate for her list And this is going to be tough Sean I don't know if you saw this one

But the rules or rules If you put it in the comments We can never say again dry. It's wild. We can no longer say it's wild. Oh, that's bad. That's a, that's like a space filler for me. That's like a tick. I say it when I don't know what else to say, which happens quite a bit. So, all right, that's fine. Michael P. though, if you're going to say that, you better. It's like when you say, hey, this team should get into the playoffs next year. You're like, great, who are you taking out? Michael P. Give us a tick or some phrase to replace it's wild with because I

I can't, I don't know if I'm ready to take that up. I'm sure I'll find one. I'm developing new ones every week, so something will take its place. I let Lucas C. has suggested anybody from the Hughes family would be a cool guess. And I, I agree. I'm a big Hughes family fan as a red-blooded American. Mom and dad. I would do, like, all the kids are great.

And I've been dealing with them since they were, you know, little of the kids. Little kids, yeah. I mean, you know, and I've, but the person I might vote for if, if out of anybody in the family is mom, Ellen, Ellen Hughes. Obviously, great athletic history for her. I mean, just a great athlete, hockey, lacrosse, and soccer player. And she's fun. Like, I've talked to her about Jack. I've talked to her about the process, about raising the street boys.

That's a no-brainer. We are going to have to get, Ellen, if you're listening to this, which of course you are. Of course you are. We reach out to our producer and let's make that happen. Oh, and our last one, this is from Steve N, who suggests, and we have to do it, banning the phrase salary cap gymnastics. I completely agree with that. That's a cliche that's popped up in writing over the last, well, we'll say a few months. specifically because of the lightning. Yeah, that one goes. That should, that should not be used

in speech or, or in written word. That should be done. It's out. And so is it's wild. It's out. I mean, rules are rules. I'm less, less excited about that one. So, all right, get in there. If you're not already, we obviously read them and we like to respond and it's fun. And this podcast was fun. Thanks to Stephen Johns for joining on the road from Notre Dame. You can see them. I'll do some screen grabs, hopefully. as long as I look good in them in a little tiny box in Zoom. He had a sleeping bag in the background. Like, this guy is doing it, man.

And it was awesome. Sean, thank you too. You're doing it, man, too. Thanks, dude. Next week, we're going to have, like, another actual 30-second team to talk about. This is crazy. This is the last podcast in the pre-Seattle Cracken era.

Can you believe it? It's wild, man.