The Athletic Hockey Show - Steven Stamkos hits 500 goals, Connor McDavid's placement on the NHL99 list, what does a realistic extension for Cole Caufield look like?

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

To kick off, Ian and Sean have some important NFL business to attend to before discussing Steven Stamkos hitting the 500-goal benchmark. In what tier does he sit in among the all-time greats? Next as The Athletic's NHL99 project rolls on, thoughts on Connor McDavid checking in a #16, and the difficulty in placing players that still active in the league. Then, as the Canadiens look to extend Cole Caufield, what a reasonable contact for him may look like.Jesse Granger then jumps on for "Granger Things" to discuss his goalie mask rankings, and what team is a good bet for betting the over on in games. Then to wrap up, they hit the listener mailbag and take a look back with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or you can leave a voicemail at [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to the TAHS Youtube Channel: youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshow Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to rocketmoney.com/hockeyshowGo to grammarly.com/tone to download and learn more about Grammarly Premium’s advanced tone suggestions.Visit BetterHelp.com/NHLSHOW today to get 10% off your first month Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome back to a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendes, Sean McIndoo with you. Coming up in the next hour, we'll recap a special night for Stephen Stamco's hitting the 500 goal plateau. We'll check in a little bit on the Montreal Canadiens. They've got a couple of interesting storylines with some young players. We'll catch you up on where we're at in our NHL 99.

series counting down the best players of the modern era. And it's some interesting debates as we hit on Connor McDavid. Jesse Granger's going to drop by. We got our mailbag. We got this week in hockey history. But I'll tell you what, Sean, I'm actually going to dip into the mailbag early, okay? Uh-oh. To set the tone for the show today.

Oh, God. We're setting the tone. Set in the tone. This is an email that came in from Jason. And Jason writes in with the upcoming. Dallas Cowboys San Francisco 49ers game this weekend, are the two of you going to be placing a bet with each other? I say the loser has to change their Twitter profile page

and header pick to the logo of the other team, i.e. if the 49ers win, Ian changes everything to San Fran and vice versa for Sean. I'm rooting for the 49ers to win this and then promptly lose to my giants. Comes in from Jason. So yeah, listen, last year, Dallas and San Francisco played in the playoffs. And we kind of toyed around with the idea, right?

We're like, oh, we should make this interesting. And then, like, the game came and went and nothing happened. So here we go. Are we going to make this quote unquote interesting? I'm, I'm listening. I'm, I mean, we're the hosts. Are we taking Jason as the, uh, as the suggestion? Is this what's on the table?

Yeah. I mean, boy, I would love for you for, but how long are this for a week? you change your part of the next game I think is or maybe how about this the end of the next game you got to sit there

you're going to have to fly the 49 the end of the championship game yeah through the end of the end okay okay I'll take it okay

the other thing I was going to say which would have been no here we got I was no no no no no this isn't crazy you're just going to be 14 points and no no there's no this is just a straight up this is a straight up

even though San Francisco's the favorite. I'm willing to... What's his spread? Was it five and a half? Okay. Sounds about right. Was that what it was? Anyway, whatever.

I'm not a big guy on point spreads and all that stuff. But I was going to say, because the two quarterbacks to this game are Brock Purdy and Dak Prescott. I thought, you know, we could have done something in Canada for our American listeners, there's a chocolate chain known as Purdy's. Right?

There's a location in Downs. on Ottawa. They got some great, they got some great chocolates. I thought maybe I would have to buy you like a Purdy's gift basket. Wow. If, okay? And then if Dallas wins, you and I would go out for beer and wings at a bar in Ottawa called the Prescott. You know, you would have to treat me. I thought, you know what? I thought maybe we could play around with that, but you know what? It's probably a little bit too inside, inside the Ottawa here. Okay. I like, I like Jason. I'm feeling good about the bet. By the way, I should say anything can happen in the NFL playoffs, but I feel like that.

I'll just, I'll run it down real quick. San Francisco's at home. They have the far better team. That helps. There's this new thing where 49er touchdowns are worth seven points, but Cowboy touchdowns are only worth six. So that's potentially going to hurt you. And this thing that I only really became aware of today, but apparently all of Cowboys Nation is crying about how they've only got two fewer days to prep for this. Yeah, cross country.

Because they played Monday. You know, that's, we all got together and we said, yeah, we got to find something to play. I'm assuming you had the meeting, right, right, at Pierre's place. And it's that LeBron and Chris Johnson are part of the meeting. Yeah. Okay. That's all right.

That's fine. Me and Duffy will represent the 49ers. This is, but yeah, two extra days. That is a little shady, but Dallas played on Monday. San Francisco played on Saturday. And now this game is on Saturday. It's a little dice. Oh, this game's on Sunday.

It's on Sunday. Okay. Well, it's a lot of. What's your problem then? You're fine. No, there isn't, but we need to define something. Okay, I got to ask you this because... We live in our dream.

We finally did it. It's an NFL podcast. Yeah. Start to finish. Okay, let me bring the hockey listeners right back into it here so we don't lose you. We don't want you to get lost here. Okay. But I, for the last 20-some, I have never until last weekend,

gone out to a bar to watch a Dallas Cowboys playoff game. I've always preferred the comfort of laying kind of, of in the fetal position in my own living room, watching them implode. And I said, you know, I got to change something up here. So I went out with friends and a couple of buddies who were Tampa Bay fans, no less, and we watched the game at a bar kind of close to downtown Ottawa. Here's my question for listeners and for you. Have you ever watched a game, and in your case would be the Maple Leafs, Sean, where the game mattered,

it was a playoff game, some sort of game with consequences, and you went out. to a bar to watch it? Or do you prefer to as me, usually you curled up, fetal position, so when it all comes down and it implodes, I'm by myself and I can go just go cry in my bedroom without being in public, right? Yeah, it's like a playoff game. So I did that.

I changed it up. And they won, so I kind of feel like I got to do it again. I admire. I admire the good. I mean, and here's the thing. I will claim that I'm doing this for me that like I just prefer. it's it's for everybody else i don't trust myself to be around people when it really goes bad in the sports world like i i just don't you know you don't want to be there i don't want to it's

it's fine no the closest i don't go out and in fact i don't like i don't even like to watch with people i remember one of the is this your way of telling me that i'm not invited to the super ball this year by the way you're well i mean if the 49ers are in it yeah we'll see we'll see The, one of the, one of the senators leaps game sevens, my wife, like, told me, oh, by the way, my brother's in town and I invited him over to watch the game with you. And, whoa, whoa, whoa, without consulting with you first? I did, no. She just, it was sort of, well, it may have been delivered as one of those like, do you mind, but, you know, when you don't really. Oh, yeah, you had no option.

The invites are already out there. So, and I didn't, you know, even that, I wasn't thrilled about. So, and then they want. So now he has to watch every, but maybe that's my problem. Maybe I haven't invited my brother-in-law over for any of these game sevens. This is what I'm saying. I might be honest on something. It's not the bag of chip.

You've got a brother-in-law. Yeah, you've been going with these bag of chips nonsense. Where's it got nowhere? And so that's what I did last week. I said, I have never gone out to watch a Dallas Cowboys playoff game. I'm changing up the mojo. And like, not only did they win, like, they won pretty definitively. I know they had the missed kicks or whatever.

But I'm kind of feeling like I got to go out. But now, okay, so here's my twofold question to you, fellow superstitious sports fan. Do I have to go to the same place that I watch the game and with the same people? Or is there any, with a room to change it up? You can, like, if they're available, but you do have to go and you have to sit at the same table.

So what are the odds like at the same table? I get there. Really, man. I don't know. How committed are you? The Dallas Cowboys are playing this playoff game on, by my understanding, three days rest. Yeah, that's right. Their plane is going to land and the bus is going to take them right to the stadium. Right to the game, right to kick off. No time, guys. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you can show up an hour and munch on some mozzarella sticks while making sure that you get your table. And I would love to hear from our listeners, too, about superstitions in terms of watching.

And more importantly, at some point, you just blow it. I just blew it all. up. I never thought I would watch a playoff game in public at a bar because I just I'm with you. I prefer to just, I don't want to be around people. Like when Romo botched the snap against Seattle, I wouldn't have wanted to be like, okay, I'll take my check please. Like I wasn't in the food. Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah, that's no good. Yeah, I would, I, one of my favorite pieces that I wrote, this is going way, way, way back to the Grantland years. But after the Leafs collapse, it, again, the Bruins, 2013. I wrote about the 20 or 25

or whatever was types of fans when something like that happens. There's 25 types of fans? Oh, there's so many, right? You know, there's the guy who like has to go for a walk. Because remember there was that great video of the lead fans watching it? And there was the one guy,

you know, they're all having reactions, but there was the one guy who was just catatonic. Like he wasn't even blinking. You know, like you could have walked up and touched his eyeball and it would not have registered with them. It was, and, you know, there's, there's that guy. There's obviously the punch-a-wall fan. There's the scream and yell fan. There's the superstitious fan who, you know, anyone who's there has to change seats or clothes or, you know, whatever it is. And there's also the fan who just gets up and leaves in the

middle of the game. And as I said, don't, don't ask any questions. If that, if that fan leaves, you do not want to bring them back. Don't try to stop them. Don't try to talk them out of it. Get them out. So I'd love to know what type of. fan the the listeners are. And you know what? I don't want to hear from like lightning and avalanche fan. I don't want to hear from fans where it's going good.

I don't want to hear some Blackhawks fan who's like, you know, I don't know. So I saw three cups in different places. I want to know like from the miserable fan bases. Paging, Vancouver, Buffalo, Philly, Ottawa, etc. Absolutely. That's who we want to hear from.

All right. So Dallas, they beat Tampa Bay. and that's going to bring us right to Tampa Bay from another sport. And that's Stephen Stamcoe, Sean. Wednesday evening, Stamcoe joins the... I don't stop this. Oh, yeah. I'm on a roll.

500 goal club. And, you know, we've talked about this before, but I think to me this is a natural point to do it again. I don't think we quite appreciate Stephen's excellence and dominance in this sport. Stephen Stamco's, if you look at his resume, number one pick overall, 500 goals now. He's got a 60-goal campaign under his belt. He's once, you know, I know the first Stanley Cup, maybe he wasn't a huge part of it,

but multiple Stanley Cups, you know, all the things that you would want from a number one pick. And I was looking at this too, and I thought, this is pretty crazy. I didn't realize this. Stamco's is 18th in the history of the NHL in terms of goals per game. So he's at 500 goals and he's played fewer than 1,000 games in his career. So when you start to look at the company he's hanging over, around with, it's, you know, it's Marcel Leon. It's, well, Connor McDavid is, is right there too. Rocket Richard isn't that far up on him as well. So these are some of the best players in the history of

the game. And I always feel like with Stamcoast, there's a feeling like, yeah, he's great, you know, but he's not in the, in the Crosby-Ovechkin stratosphere. He's not, like, where do we put, as we start to now look at Stephen Stamcoast's career. And when you get to 500 goals, I think it's just a natural kind of reflection point, where do we put him in the all-time list of great players and number one overall picks? With the caveat that he's 32. He's got time. He's got time.

Now, I mean, he feels a little bit like maybe an old 32 just because he's, you know, first of all, because he's been in the league so long, a lot of miles. And with the injuries recently. But, I mean, he could absolutely have five very good years left in him. at which point, you know, maybe he does break down the door into that. You know, I don't think he'll ever get to the Crosby-Ovechkin territory, but that, you know, that second tier, I think the names you used were, you know, the Eisenman-Sackic tier. And I don't think he's there yet. But I'm looking at the all-time NHL leaders in a stat called adjusted goals.

Now, this isn't a real stack kept by the NHL, but you can find it on hockey reference in other places where they basically take the goal scored and adjusted for the area. Because 50 goals in 1988 is not the same as 50 goals in 2002. And so they look at how much league scoring was compared to how much the player was doing. He's 23rd all time. is past guys like Mark Recky, Keith Pichuk, Mike McDonnell, Jean Bellavow. So on adjusted goals, would he be at like 600? He's at 596. He is almost at 600.

That makes sense. And to give you, you know, to give you an example, the guys that he's right behind right now and will pass presumably by the end of the year if he's healthy. Matt Sundyne is next up. And then Dave Anerchuk. And then this one's interesting because you talk about the adjusted goals and the different eras. He's not that far behind Mike Gertner, who was in the 700 goal club, but got those 700 goals in an era where scoring was, had never been higher. So they all get like, so even Gretzky

and Lemieux then using that logic would have their numbers come down, right? Yes, they would. Gretzky actually comes down to fourth all time in, in adjusted goals. Ovechkin is number one. Gordy Howe and Yarmoryeager are next. So again, not a perfect stat. Yarmar Jockers, ahead of Gretzky and adjusted goals. You know what? I'm surprised by that. Yager did a ton of his scoring throughout the dead puck era.

I mean, he got basically five years at the beginning when scoring was high. And the rest of the time, he was in that low scoring era. So it's, you know, again, not a perfect stat. And I'm not putting this out so that, you know, somebody argues over, you know, Gretzky versus Yager and that sort of thing. But just to put Stamco's in perspective, once he gets past those three guys, Sunday and Andrew, Chuck Garter, here's the next names on the list. Marcel Dionne, Mariel Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Mark Messier, Patrick Marlon, we'll skip that out. And then Joe Sackett, Bobby Hall, Steve Iserman.

And they're all within range. Those guys are all within 50 adjusted goals of Stevenson. Stamco's. I mean, and then you're getting into the rocket Richard and Phil Espositos. I mean, we're talking elite scoring. And, you know, goals per game is a good stat too, but goals per game tends to be tricky because when you look at it in the middle of a player's career, it almost always towards the end of someone's career, unless they're Mike Bossy, the goals per game drops because their production drops. And it's, you know, it's kind of hard to compare someone who's a finished product

with someone who's still going. But this is just a goal. It's not a bad number, and it really kind of drives home that there's, you know, other than Crosby and Ovechkin, there's nobody really close to the Steve Stamco's, Fegney Malcon's next on the list, then Patrick Kane of active players.

Those are really elite numbers. And to get to your original question, yeah, I think maybe we don't hold Stephen Stamco's, in high enough regard based on what he's done. He's not in that Iserman Sackett category for me yet, but he's getting there. Like, he could be by the time it's all said and done. He could absolutely be there.

The one, I don't even know if I'd say the knock on him, but the counterpoint that I think you could raise is he had in his 60-goals season, we finished second in our trophy voting. That's his only top five finish in his career. He's never won it. He's won two Rocket Richard's. He's been a second team all start twice.

That's it as far as the trophy case other than obviously the Stanley comes. Now, some of that is the Crosby factor. You know, Steve Eiserman never won an MVP because he had Wayne and Mario in front of him. So you can't just go on that. But there would be an argument to be said that this guy was an incredibly consistent guy who, other than a couple years at the beginning of his career, wasn't in that, considered in that top tier of really elite players. I don't know if I buy that, but that would at least be the argument. Well, and yeah, you know, it's interesting to me that you, and you kind of quickly muttered his name, but can we just take a real quick moment? You said Patrick Marlowe.

Yeah. I kind of feel like if you're on the bubble for Marlowe for the Hall of Fame, would this not make it a slam dunk because he's already the all-time leader in games played, which I think is a great accomplishment that probably should nudge him closer to enshrinement? And then you add the fact that he's top 20 all-time and adjusted goals. Like should it not be a slam dunk? I mean, it's, I don't know if I'd say slam dunk. And I think Patrick Marlow was getting in the Hall of Fame.

So this is, the whole argument is to some extent mood. It does, it does boost his case a little bit because the argument against Patrick Marlowe would be the extreme version of what I just said with Stamco's. This is a guy who was never in the, you know, never won an individual award. I think he had maybe one season inside the top 10 in hard voting. If you strip out the lady Bing and a couple of loose Selke votes that he got really never showed up. on anyone's ballots. And I'm not suggesting that these awards that are mostly voted on by writers are to be all and end all or that we never get anything wrong.

But it does kind of capture how somebody was viewed contemporarily. And I don't think Marlowe was ever viewed as an elite player. And you just say, yeah, I mean, he's the all-time leader in games played, which is great. But because of that, he's a compiler. He's got all these crazy high numbers. But it's because he played 500 games more. and the average player at the same time, and adjusted goals ahead of Mike Gartner.

Gartner was another guy that people just said, you know, not a great player but a compiler, but he got 700 goals. We got to put a 700 goal guy in the Hall of Fame. Well, you know, when you adjust for error, Marlowe was actually more productive than Mike Gartner. And he's literally right behind Bobby Hall, Eisenman, Joe Sackick.

Like I said, I think he gets in. and I know that there will be some small hall types that will throw the hall a very good label on him. And I see where they're coming from. But get your head around it because I do think he's going in. You know, as we're talking about this, it's a perfect way for us to also discuss the NHL 99 series, which we're now getting down to the inside of the top 20.

So all of the guys that you're going to read about in the next couple of weeks, these are the slam dunk first ballot, even if it was a small Hall of Fame, these guys are getting in, no question. I want to talk about the guy who ends up on number 16 on the list. If you're opening up the app today, you're going to read about Connor McDavid

of the Edmonton Oilers. And I'm really, you know, when we got into this, back in the summertime, we all kind of put some votes in, I was curious on where McDavid was going to kind of clock in because, I mean, if we were to take a time machine

and go 10 years in the future, future, maybe we're talking about him on the same level in the same stratosphere as the Gretzky's Lemieux or maybe he's a touch behind with the Crosby's. I don't know. But first of what do you think of McDavid at 16? Is he too high? Is he too low? Is this just about right for where he's at in his career?

Yeah. I really struggled with the active players. Yeah, me too. And McDavid obviously is the, you know, the case there. I mean, I don't know if you remember. To give a peek behind the curtain, the way that we arrived at these rankings, there was a group of nine or ten of us. We did it. We all did our initial rankings.

Then we had a meeting as a group and we sort of, you know, could throw some names out and lobby too high, too low. And we did another vote. And this is where it's wound up at. And for full transparency, I was lower on the active guys. In fact, we had a meeting in summer where I put my hand up and I said, Austin Matthew should not be on the top 100. He just hasn't done enough yet. If Austin Matthews retires in the offseason, he's not one of the 100 greatest players of the era. And, you know, the criteria in my mind was pretty clear that we are not giving credit for the future.

We're not trying to predict the future. This is as of right now. other people push back and say, hey, look, the guy, he's already won an MVP, he's already won Rock Richard and that sort of thing. 60 goals was a big deal? Yeah. And he ended up being, you know, towards the lower end of the top 100. Again, that one is so tough because how do you, a guy who's got 10 or 15 years left in the

league, how do you judge him? In McDavid's case, I didn't have any hesitation saying he should be in the top 100. But in looking at the list, I had him lowest out of anyone in our group. And I had him significantly lower than 16. I had him in the mid-20s, which maybe, you know, it's not necessarily a huge gap. I mean, I know people, part of the fun of this is people are getting very worked up about who's ranked where and oh my gosh, you guys had Mark Messier, number 17. There's not necessarily an equal gap between each of the numbers. And in fact, I think there's some guy, I think we're, other than McDavid, who is tough,

I think we're hitting a stretch of the next five or six players. You could very easily shuffle them around with Messier and Coffee and Denny Pop, and Marcel Dion. And I don't think anyone's going to argue too, too much. I really had a tough time with McDavid because, you know, this is a guy. One game to win, I take McDavid over almost. anybody on this entire list. And I think by the end of this, he is in, by the end of his career, he's in the top five,

if not the top three, if not maybe even challenging for number one. I think he's that good. It's just how do you, how do you click the stopwatch and say, okay, based on what we have seen right now, how do you possibly rank him against a Mark Messier or somebody like that who has played all of them? played 1,800 games or some of the names coming up, which, I mean, you know, no, no spoilers, but I'm pretty sure any hockey fan who knows their stuff could probably sit down and figure out who the 15 names coming up in some order are. It's very, very tough. I don't know that

there's a right answer or a wrong answer, but I personally, I had McDavid further down my list than anyone else did. You know, and I think what's interesting on McDavid, too, is obviously, and you touched on this in the very well-written piece you did on Marcel Dion, which I think, I think you hit the nail on the head with the idea of, you know, in hockey, we still ascribe so much of a player's success to whether or not he wins a Stanley Cup. And it's a team sport and there's so much that's out of their control. And, you know, Marcel Dion, like you said in your piece on Dion, aka the Little Beaver, if Dion, if Dion is in Montreal, we're having a completely different conversation. If he's the, if he's playing where Gila Fleur is playing, you know, maybe he's the guy

with four, five, six Stanley Cups and, and all that side. We're looking at his career differently. So with McDavid, you know, if you look at the very best players in the history of this game, and if your Mount Rushmore is Gretzky Lemieux or and how, I think that is what it is for a lot of people. But, you know, maybe you can make an argument for Sid and maybe you can make an argument for OV if he gets to, you know, the 900 goals, whatever. But, All of those guys have something in common, which is at least one championship. Can McDavid, in the way that we think about the game, Sean, can he get into the top, top tier without having led his team to a championship or been part of the championship team at any point in his career? He can get into my top tier. Absolutely.

It's a 32 team league. This is the case I made with Dion. I mean, back then, 21 teams. Now, it's a 32-team league. Connor McDavid is playing in the era of artificial parity, where this league is set up to yank back the good teams, punish excellence, lift up the bad teams, rewarding competence, and keep everybody as close as possible to the mushy middle

so that everybody feels like they can win on any given night. and maybe that's the right thing from a marketing perspective. I know some fans love that side of it. We don't have to do that debate. But I am not going to take, look at a league where any given team has a 3% chance of winning the cup in any given year and look at Connor McDavid and say, you've got to win multiple cups in this era. Otherwise, you're somehow a failure, somehow lesser as a,

a star than the guys who did it, you know, in certainly in an original sixth era, or even in the era of, you know, a lot of the 70s and 80s, I mean, half the teams were barely functional. You know, I take nothing away from the Oilers or the Islanders and the teams that racked up Stanley Cups back then, but they were not playing in a 32 team parity league. So I don't hold anything against him. And, you know, the fact that my ranking for him was low had nothing to do with the fact that, oh, he doesn't want a Stanley Cup with the Oilers. I mean, what's he supposed to do? Geez, look at the season he's having now and the team's barely a playoff team.

There isn't anything else that anyone can do. And the thing that they got, you know, I made this point in the Marcel Dion piece, hockey fans go on and on and on about how this is the ultimate team game. this is a, it's all about the team. It's never about the name on the back. It's always the logo. It's 20 guys. It's Stanley Cup. It weighs this many pounds,

but it takes 20 men to lift it. And yet, when somebody doesn't get that Stanley Cup, we turn around and go, well, they're a failure. Well, how come they didn't drag their team and win a championship all by themselves?

It's nonsense. I don't buy it. Yeah, no, no. And I agree with you. It's going to be interesting on McDavid to get to that. And plus, you got to remember, too, with all of the parody talk,

Like those Islanders teams, yeah, they won 19 playoffs season in a row, but they never had the constraints of the salary cap too, right? You got to think, like, imagine, would you have been able to keep Trotier and Potvin, bossy, Billy Smith, and, you know, go down the list of those great parties? Would you, say what the, I know the Oilers were kind of the first team that they did hit a little bit of a breaking point with things, but it's all part of the equation. And you're right. I think we sometimes think about things with such a narrow focus in hockey when it comes to this.

And we're going to see it for sure. It's going to be an interesting debate when these names come out in the final 15 names. But I thought it was a great chance for us to chat about McDavid landing at number 16. The other thing I want to get on. Really quick. Really quick. I just want to get you. Where did you come down on the Messia thing?

Because people, that was the one where it seemed like, you know, there's been lots debate over this guy's too high, this guy's too low, but the Messier coming in at 17 seemed to be the one where there were a lot of voices saying this is not right. This guy needs to be much higher. And again, I had Mark Messier lower than 17 on my list, but I'm curious, I read through the comments and I take some of the points. I'm willing to reconsider and be open to it. You had him almost exactly where he wound up. Did we, did we, did we, miss on that one? I, you know what?

Like, and maybe, got to remember, I did spend a good chunk of my childhood in Vancouver. So maybe the Vancouver. That's a very good point. That's a very good point. A thing is, uh, there's an adjustment for me. Uh, I think with Messier, I mean, boy, like six, six Stanley Cups for a guy. And the two that stick out of those six are the last two that he won, right? Because it was like the last one in Edmonton, Wayne is gone.

It was supposed to be the end of the empire, and he's the captain, he's dynamite, they win. And then 94 in, with the Rangers, it was like they brought him on Broadway for that exact reason. He delivered 54 years of ghosts or vanquished, all that stuff. Like, it's certainly, like, you're hard pressed to think of a guy. Like, I mean, it hasn't happened. Nobody else has led his team to two Stanley Cups as the captain. So there's something to it. I think what happened with Messier was it's like his career could be split into two, right?

It's like everything up to 94 would be like, man, that guy might be top five or six in the game. In the history of the game, when you look at the goals and the points and the cups and all the that stuff. You got to remember when Edmonton won their first Stanley Cup, he was the Kahn Smythe Trophy winner, right? Was he not? In 84, yeah. Yeah. So understand that the Oilers don't win five Stanley Cups, without Macea. They don't. They just don't. So he's a big part of it,

but it's the post-94. It's that nine or ten-year window that I think really diluted his career, right? Whether it's going to Vancouver, whether it's coming back to the Rangers, whatever it is, he didn't make the playoffs the last eight years of his career, right? Or whatever it was, seven, eight years. If you cut his career off around 97, I think we're having a different conversation. I think we're saying, yeah, you know what? That guy's not only top, 10, you could talk me into top seven, six, whatever. Add it all in, I think he gets moved down a few spots. I think putting him, certainly he's in the top 20 for me.

It feels kind of right where he is. Yeah, he really had a career you could dice into four sections. When he was very young in the league, he was a left winger. People forget that. He was a winner for the first few years. It was an All-Star, put up great numbers. Then he shifts over to center. He becomes the number two to Gretzky.

He becomes the guy that everyone says, yeah, but he's not the best player on his own team. Has the last year in Edmonton goes to New York, he's a superstar for a few years. And then that last literal decade where he's not, I do feel like there's to some extent, and maybe I'm guilty of this, there's a bit of a backlash because he was marketed so much. It was so over the top as the greatest leader in all of sports. and he got a hat trick, he guaranteed, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it just became the point where, I mean, it felt like for a few years there, he was the only player of the NHL marketing team knew existed.

It was just all messy, messy, messy, and everyone else was ignored. And it feels like there was a bit of a backlash to that. And there's people who look at it and go, oh, yeah, he's such a great leader. He didn't make the playoffs for 10 years or whatever it was. I don't know. I'm kind of reflecting on that. I'm wondering if maybe I should have had him higher. and yet I look at the guys that are come ahead of them.

I'm not completely sure. You know, certainly there's no one other than McDavid who is, again, tough for different reasons. I don't think there's anyone that jumps out of me. And I say, like, that's an obvious, that's a guy who's obviously not as good as Mark Messia. I'm sure the commenters will say that. But I don't see it.

You know, the one other thing I wanted to touch on with you before Jesse Granger pops by, reports coming out this week that there's been preliminary talks between the Montreal Canadiens and Cole Coffields camp. And I'm so curious about what this deal is going to look like. Now, let me ask you this question. It's a little pop trivia quiz for you. You know, look, Coffield has,

would you agree with me that he's got 50 goal potential in him right now in the way that the game is? I would say close to that, sure. Yeah, yeah, you know, like certainly could get it. And the Habs have not had a 50 goal scores since Stefan Ryshe. Okay? So we're talking a long time. Here's my next question.

Who's the last guy to even get 40 for the Habs, Sean? Who would you say is the last player to score 40 goals in the season for the Montreal Canadians? I mean, I'm thinking of recent guys. I, off the top of my head, I don't think of anyone who gets that far in. Like, does this, do you have to go back to like those late 90s teams? Is there somebody who's done it in the cap era? You got to go back to the early 90s.

The early 90s, okay, so we're not even like in the Turgeon Damfuss era. Domfuss, yeah, Domfuss is the guy. Wasn't it? Okay. Yeah. It's been basically 30 years since a guy even scored 40 for this team. And I don't think we take enough time to appreciate that. You're talking about a great franchise, historically, you know,

a team that has had some of the greatest goals scores of the history of the game with, Richard and Lafleur and Bellevaux and they would go decades without even a 40 goal score. So to me, Cole Cawfield has the potential to be, okay, this is our guy. This is our sniper for the foreseeable future, lock them in for 40, you know, for five years in or whatever it is. What's the contract here that makes sense on a guy like Cole Cawfield for you? It's tough. And look, I've said before, I do not understand why young players.

are locking in on eight-year deals with the cap about to potentially start going up. I don't get why. I mean, I get it. And certainly I'm not going to turn down 50 million if somebody offered it to me. But just, you know, in terms of just getting to the right number, I don't understand why Jack Hughes or guys like that have locked in for that long at numbers that are going to be incredibly team friendly very quickly. With Cole Coughfield, there's.

still a little bit of, you know, of prove it. I think if I, if I'm Montreal and I can get him to go eight years at, you know, like a Jack Hughes or maybe even like a Tim Stuttle sort of number, I might be willing to take that bet. If I'm Cole Coughfield, I'm, I'm looking for something shorter. I'm looking and saying like, hey, I saw a stat the other day where, you know, in the, it's been about 80 games under Martin St. Louis for him and he's got 40, 45 goals in that time. I'm saying, you know what, I want to get a few full seasons under my belt and then I can get a really big number. Maybe it's closer to the Jason Robertson deal. Like, I mean, Robertson was a little more accomplished, but, you know, that four-year bridge deal.

If I'm Cole Coffield, I want to do something shorter term. And then when the cap is at a number that starts with a nine, I want to sit down and get that. But that's if I'm, you know, I'm Cole Coffield. Also, am I going to turn down $70 or $80 million if it's offered to me? Maybe not. I would probably make that offer if I'm Montreal. I'd sit there and go, do you want the Jack Hughes contract? You know, that's already an enormous bargain for New Jersey.

Cole Coughfield certainly isn't at that level yet. And as a winger, you know, may not get there. But I think I'm willing to take that bet if I'm the Montreal Canadiens. Let's see if the player is. All right, Sean, time for us to bring in our pal, Jesse Granger for Granger Things, brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with the Athletic. And Jesse, you had a really fun piece alongside Sean Gentilly and Shana on Thursday morning for the people who have to open up their app to read. It is a ranking of goalie masks in the NHL. This is a fun idea.

You know, I love what you guys came. Jacob Markstrom comes in at number one. The thing I love about the Markstrom mask is it gives me Brian Hayward vibes from back in the day with San Jose when he had that. He was the first guy to kind of have that really kind of cool, kind of intimidating look to his mask in the modern era. And it felt like you guys as a group pretty much all felt like Markstrom's at the top of the list. How much fun did you guys have putting this one together? A lot of fun. This is an idea I've had for a while and finally got it executed. I'm a goalie nerd. I'm a goalie

nerd. I love the masks. I've written a few stories on specific masks over the years, and I have gotten to know the painters pretty well. And to me, it's just awesome because in pro sports where everything is like they try to not let anyone individualize anything, not just in hockey, but in every pro sport. I can think of like basketball. The guys get to wear their shoes. And like, that's a, that's an expression of individuality. And goalie masks are pretty much the only places you see that. And obviously, goalie masks are very intricate. So we figured we'd rank them. It wasn't the easiest thing, because we didn't want to rank every goalie that had touched the ice. So we tried to like put some parameters, pick one per team. But it ended up being a lot of fun. I was glad that Sean and

Shane helped me out with it. It was, and, and like you said, we came to a consensus. Markstrom's is the best. And I agree with the, the comment that it's, I like the, like the, the homage to the past. And like, if you go through the rank, like people will see if you go through the rankings. I, if it reminds me of a mask from the past, I'm giving it high rate, rankings. Darcy Kemper with the Godzilla, uh, fire breathing Godzilla on his mask, a homage to Olaf Colzig of the 90s. Mark Andre Fleury's got, his, his mask has got a little bit of a kujo look to it. I love the old school mask designs that remind me of the goalies when I was, when I was growing up. This is, this is so fun. And you're right. It's, it's so wild that this is an

NHL thing. It feels like it kind of crept up on us from the early 90s. Like, doesn't it feel like right now if goalies didn't have masks like this and somebody showed up and said, I want to do this, that we'd all freak out. You can't put a crack in on your mask. Like, what are you talking about? But it's almost always been, you know, even, you know, Hayward in the early 90s was a turning point, but even going back, right?

I mean, the 70s, the classic stitches on the mask and all that sort of crazy stuff back then. It really is wild. I love that you're giving bonus points for painted straps. Like that level, you can, only a goalie would notice that. Yeah, Marks. Yeah, if they would have just been the white straps, I'm telling you it would have looked terrible. I'm looking at the mask and I'm like, man, it just looks so cohesive.

That mask, whatever it is about it, like, it just looks so perfect. There's just like there are other masks with the face going over the cage like that with the teeth around the cage. But for whatever reason, that one looked great. And I think a big reason is the straps are painted like flames. The top three, Markstrom Gibson, Gruber, just in case people were wondering if a great mask makes a great goalie. I feel like we've sort of disproven that based on these rankings. You know what? And real quick, so John Gibson comes in at number two.

We're going to go around the horn and there's no explanation needed. Okay. You just have to say it. Granger has never seen Top Gun. Okay? He's never seen the movie Top Gun. We're going to go around the horn. And maybe Granger, maybe you have a movie that's above that.

What's the biggest, most popular movie that you've never seen? Okay. For me, it's the Godfather. And I'm just going to step aside. I will take, exactly. But everyone's got one. Okay? I'm the godfather.

I've got a lot. What's it for you, Macon? Yeah, anybody who listens to my other show where I have to pretend to know about pop culture, I've got a ton. I've never seen Titanic or Avatar. For me, it's either Top Gun or or the Avengers movies. I don't watch any comic book movies. So all the Marvel stuff that are like obviously the most popular movies made today.

Those are probably mine. Okay. All right. But yeah, top gun. So, and then obviously you never saw the reboot than this summer. No. But I've heard it's good. I actually watch it.

That mask is excellent. I didn't even know what the mask was for and it still looks great. Exactly. All right. Hey, before we let you go, I want to talk about the San Jose Sharks. And, boy, Eric Carlson, another four point night on Wednesday. day, you guys don't pay for 110 points this season. And you know what?

He's probably playing in the perfect spot because as you're looking at the trends here, Jesse, San Jose is consistently scoring goals and involved in high scoring games on a regular basis. Yeah, the sharks have been fun to watch lately. They've won four out of five. But they're also fun to watch because you're basically guaranteed a shootout when the sharks play. I was watching the game last night and they're down three nothing, score five straight goals to

come back. and beat Dallas. And in my head, I'm like, man, it feels like every game is like that with this team. So I went and looked and it's right. They, of their 44 games so far this season, 30 have went over the betting total. So 68%. That's the highest in the NHL. The second highest is the oilers, 65%. So that just shows you the kind of company the sharks are keeping right now. Just a little note on that. I was looking at the Oilers numbers. Carter McDavid and Leon Drysiddle have 31. power play goals, that's more than all but 14 teams in the league. There are only 14 teams in the league that have more power play goals than just those two. But anyways, back to the sharks. In their

last 14 games, 12 have went over. So the over, if you were betting the over blindly on every shark's game, you'd be 12, 1, and 1 with a push in that last, in the last 14 games. In those 14 games, they've scored at least six goals, or sorry, not they have scored, but there have been. at least six goals in all 14 of them. And if you go down to five goals, five goals every night, they haven't had a game without at least five goals in 20 games. You have to go all the way back to November 30th versus the Toronto Maple Leafs. The last, like, that blows my mind that for 20 straight games, there have been at least

five goals in every single San Jose Sharks game. Obviously, Eric Carlson's a big part of that. They've got some other guys that are scoring. I mean, Tomas Hirtle, Logan Couture. Timo Myers up to 26 goals now. But more than anything, what's contributing to this is their goalies have just been terrible. I mean, James Reimer and Capo Caccanin, neither of them have reached the 90% save percentage. Rhymer's at 897. Capo Cacco is at 870. Capo Cacanin is at 870. They're both deep, deep, deep in the negative goals saved above expected goals saved above average.

The goaltending has been bad, but they are scoring a bunch of goals. It's like roller hockey watching the sharks. I'm really enjoying it every night. Okay, but how are the goalie masks? Yeah. You know what? Rymers did not score high. It did not. We were disappointed because his mask is almost all black and white. It's like a white mask with a with a shark sketched and like gray on it. And we're like, man, the teal is so great. Teal really popped. Yeah, I love those uniforms that they went to this year with the teal pants. It looks so good. With the color scheme that good, I don't see how you don't use the teal in your mask. And he has had a couple masks to his credit, but the one he's been wearing the most is mostly white. It's like Philip Grubauer's who's who's like top three on our mask. I wrote it in the

comments. It's like, I'm convinced at this point, you cannot make something that doesn't look awesome using the crack in color scheme. Literally anything. Every jersey, every shirt, it's impossible to make something that doesn't look good using that color scheme. So Rimer gets discounted for not using the shark's awesome teal. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I love that. And the Seattle, I wasn't sure about it when I first saw it and now I watch it in person. I saw them in Ottawa and I'm like, yeah, I love it. I love the color scheme and all that. Jesse, listen,

appreciate you dropping by as always for the Thursday hit and want to encourage our listeners, yeah, check it out. If you want to have a fun read on a Thursday, I know there's been some heavy stuff in hockey lately. You want a fun read, check it out. Jesse Granger, Shena Goldman, Sean Gentile. Breaking down the best 32 goalie masks in the national hockey league. So, listen, thanks for dropping by and we'll hit you up again next

next Thursday. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, but. Definitely check out that Granger piece. A lot of fun up at the Athletic. If you've got a subscription to us, it's a great way to kill some time and look at some rankings on this Thursday.

All right, let's open up the mailback. I know we already did to open up the show with Jason and that 49ers Cowboys bet, but we got a couple of hockey-related questions for us. And a reminder, you can reach us at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 845-4-4-5-84-84-84-8. This one's coming in from Ted. Ted says, like to say, I'm a long-time listener.

Thank you both for allowing me to relive some of the NHL glory days each week with you guys. I recently got a subscription to Audible. And when there isn't an athletic hockey show to listen to, I've been listening to audiobooks at work. Having finished a best seat in the house and the down goes brown history of the NHL, which was seven hours and 53 minutes of the angelic voice of Sean McIntyman. do, which of course, those were both enjoyable reads. I wanted to share with you guys a suggestion of my own. One game at a time by Harner Ryan Singh,

if anyone has written how much the game of hockey is meant to one person, it's Harner Ryan. With apologies to the great Ian Mendus and Down Goes Brown, this book quickly became my favorite hockey read of all time, eclipsing the game. And had it not been for the Monday show, having Harner Ryan on as a guest, I likely would not have picked up a copy.

So, Sean and Ian, I'm curious, what hockey book have you enjoyed and would you recommend to the listeners to read that comes in from TED Good call. First of all, thanks for the recommendation on one game at a time. I mean, not to go too obvious, but start with the game by Ken Dryden.

If you haven't read that, that's sort of on the mandatory reading list. I really enjoy the McKenzie books. I really think that, you know, they strike a great tone of, you know, it's not too heavy, not too light, but really smart books and, you know, capture the spirit of the game really well. You know, for me, you know what I, the book I really loved.

And I grew up a Habs fan and a big fan of hockey night in Canada. Dick Irvin wrote a book called My 26 Stanley Cups in which he just told some great stories of, you know, mostly working as a broadcaster, but also kind of being around as, you know, a kid, his dad coached the Habs. What a great, if you're a Habs fan or just a hockey fan, and you love watching Hockey Night in Canada in the 80s and 90s like I did, and you were just a big fan of Dick Irvin. Dick Irvin's My 26 Stanley Cups.

Fantastic great. Fantastic great. A lot of fun. A lot of great stories. And you're right. You know, the Bob McKenzie books are fantastic as well. Those are just great. But yeah, I should check out the Harnar Ryan book as well

because Julian and I had him on the Monday pod and he was just a fantastic, fantastic guest. I have so much time for Hanna Ryan and is talking about his journey to getting to where he is. It's great. Okay, let me read one more. Because I have no recollection of this and maybe you do. And if you don't, then maybe some of the listeners do.

Thomas writes in, John Tote Around the Flyers ban of the iPads on the bench made me think of a story. I think I heard one time about a goalie. getting in trouble for reading a book while on the bench. If I remember this correctly, it happened in juniors or in college or in some European league. And I'm pretty sure, though, the goalie ended up making it to the NHL because I think I heard

about this story while a couple of broadcasters were bantering around during an NHL game. Did either of you hear this story or have any recollection of the time a goalie got in trouble for reading a book on the bench? That comes in from Thomas. I don't. That one's a new one to me. I've heard several stories of backup goleys getting caught with food.

Yeah, the hot dog. Trying to order a hot dog or something, but not reading a book. Like, and what kind of, like, are we talking about like a novel? Like, there's no goalie would have rolled into a game as a backup with like. You could, especially if you're in one of those ranks where they make you sit off by yourself, right? I mean, that's the, that's the key. If they stick you at the other end of the rink, you're just sitting there by yourself. Yeah.

I mean, what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to watch the game, you know, just in case so you can see how it's going. I mean, if you go into the game, the game's not going well. There's your answer. So, yeah, you break out a little John Grisham and see if you can figure out who the killer is by the end of the third period. That'd be all right. Yeah. All right.

Let's wrap up the show with a little this week in hockey history. Okay. January 19, 1945, we're going to take our listeners back to the old Olympia. arena in Detroit. And the Red Wings are hosting the New York Rangers in a game that's supposed to start around 8 o'clock local time. However, terrible weather, as you might expect in the middle of January, hits Detroit. The game is delayed by three hours because the players have a hard time getting to the rank, Sean. The game is delayed by three hours. The puck eventually drops at 1115 local time. But here's what I find fascinating. The game ends.

about 90 minutes later at 1256. Like wouldn't wouldn't you love to be at hockey games that end? Like the start and end is 90 minutes apart. They must have sped through that. Wow. That's classic right there. We don't want to give refunds tonight behavior, right? Like that's what you're sitting there going,

all right, we got $8,000 paid. I'm not giving that money back. So we're going to play the game. The thing that surprises me about this is this is 1945. I would have thought there would have been, curfews still. Yeah, because that had affected. It's right in the war window.

Yeah. The wartime curfews, that's why the NHL dropped overtime from the regular season because they couldn't have the extra time. So I don't, I'm surprised there wasn't a curfew in place here. And I wonder if maybe there was and 1 a.m. was looming as a time that they had to, you know, maybe that was just it. We got, we got until one. And then the lights go out.

So, but that's, that's an interesting one. I hadn't heard that story before. No, and can you imagine how, like, how uncomfortable? Like, this is 1945. This is the Olympia. So I'm thinking the seats aren't comfortable. It's not like you're sitting there and you're like, you could be on your fault. What are you doing to kill three hours waiting for a hockey game?

And how is the word being, like, are they constantly updating people over the PA system? Like, ladies and gentlemen, tonight's game is delayed and like, how is this all happening? Yep. That's got to be it. You're just, you're sitting there. But, and every hour a voice comes on and tells you it's going to be a little while longer. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's it.

There's, but you know what? They didn't have a lot going on back then. So they, I don't know. Hopefully somebody brought like some jacks or deck of cards or something. And that was it. What's your cutout? Let's say you went to an NHL game and they're like, folks, due to some unforeseen circumstances,

You got 15 minutes and I'm out of there. Realistically. And you don't have young kids with you. It's just you and maybe a buddy and you're going to the game. Like what's your cut off with screw this? I'm out of here. Like are you waiting for a regular season game? Regular season game.

It's the Rangers in the war era. So they're terrible. I don't know how the Red Wings were back then. Not long. I mean, the flip side of this is always, you know, sometimes someone will say, How late would you stay for overtime in the playoffs? Like, are you, at any point, period four, period five, are you checking out?

And I get that with that you say, you know what, I'm in, I got to ride this to the end. The game hasn't even started yet. Ugh, that's a rough one. I don't think, I don't think I'm sticking around too, too long at all. Yeah. Okay, one other this week in hockey history. We're going to take you back to the third week of January, the 21st of January, 2001, where Pittsburgh is playing Chicago

and this show on is the first adageal game to feature a pair of European trained coaches against each other at the same time. It is Ivan Holinka with the Penguins and Alpo Suhounan of the Chicago Blackhawks. So what I find the interesting is this is now, whatever, 22 years ago,

have we had another matchup of two European trained coaches going head to head? I'm trying to think. I don't think so. there's like certainly not in my head yeah off the top of my head I can't think of any and that's you know um you you do hear from time to time when there are openings that you know there's this or that coach in europe that maybe would be considered but I can't think that there have been that many and then part of it is that Ivan lincoln help us hone and didn't weren't especially successful um you know probably best remembered for for do you remember don cherry getting in trouble was there was a dog food comment or something yeah He said, you know, Alpo's on and he said it, you know, it's a dog food. Which is why, I mean, there was a branded dog food called Alpo. That's, that's the, the second most famous dog food related, the NHL story after the 1983 St. Louis Blues.

So other than that, I don't remember too much about either one of those. Yeah. But by the way, is Alpo still a dog food brand? You know, that's a good question. I don't have a dog. I don't know if they're still out there. I don't think so. I don't think they are.

There's a bunch of those brands and things that, yeah. It's weird, right, that like, that is a Don Cherry controversy around that era. You mean, think of all the stuff he was saying back then. We were just like, yeah, sure. No problem.

That was the one where we were like, now that's too far, man. Yeah, you can't call somebody dog food. All right. We'll leave it there. We've had a lot of fun over the last hour catching you up in the world of hockey. Hope you enjoyed spending a little time with us. we want to thank everybody for listening to the Athletic Hockey Show.

As always, you can email us any questions that you have, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Hit us up there. Let us know we were talking earlier about your viewing habits for your favorite sports team. Do you ever go out to a bar and watch a game or do you have to be at home in the comfort of your own place in case things go wrong?

So listen, love to hear from you on that. You can also leave us a voicemail at 8454-4-8-8-4-584-59. Right now you can get a one-year subscription to the athletic for $2 a month when you visit athletic.com slash hockey show.