The Athletic Hockey Show - Tampa Bay Lightning-Colorado Avalanche Stanley Cup Final set, potential Johnny Gaudreau free agency landing spots, John Tortorella the frontrunner to coach the Philadelphia Flyers?, Multiple Choice Madness, and more

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

First, the reunited dynamic duo of Ian Mendes and Hailey Salvian welcome The Athletic’s Joe Smith to the show to talk about the Tampa Bay Lightning once again returning to the Stanley Cup Final, the turning point of their Eastern Conference Final matchup against the New York Rangers, Andrei Vasilevskiy maintaining his mental and physical health over the last several playoff runs, Brayden Point’s injury status, Steven Stamkos leading the way offensively, and more.Then, Ian and Hailey discuss if the Lightning’s road to the Final was the toughest for any team in history, putting an end to the “don’t touch the conference championship trophy!” thing, John Tortorella as the likely frontrunner for the Philadelphia Flyers head coaching job, and potential Johnny Gaudreau landing spots exactly a month away from free agency.Plus, to close things out, a couple of Multiple Choice Madness questions about whether the Tampa Bay Lightning should be considered the best team of the salary cap era, regardless of the outcome of this year’s Final, and which team, the Edmonton Oilers or New York Rangers, has a better chance of returning to the Conference Final next season.And, right now, you can get a 6 month subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back. It is your Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. And look who's back together again. It's Ian Medes-Haley Salvean. Boy, it feels like it has been months since we've done this. And we're pretty excited because we're kind of doing a Stanley Cup final preview here. Joe Smith, who covers the Tampa Lightning. I'm going to drop by in this podcast. We'll get you all set for this dream matchup between the Aves and the Lightning.

Speaking of Dream Matchups, Dream Connections. Haley, we're back together. And I think you and I haven't done a show together since like the trade deadline. I don't think that's true. I feel like it might be true. No, we did we did a show. We had a show together like six weeks ago. No, before the playoffs though, but it wasn't that far back.

I only stopped doing the shows when the playoffs started because I had to be at the rink every day and couldn't miss practice. That's all. Yeah. That was like six weeks ago. Yeah. See, the listeners can feel the chemistry already. They're like, wow, these two are.

They're electric. And by the way, before we start here, I'll let the listeners in on something. Did you just take a sip of a coffee in a snowman mug? That's right. In June. Yep. Okay. I just want to make, I just want to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

Okay. It's cute. What's your problem? from a snowman coffee cup. Listen, we're going to get Joe Smith to drop up. No, no, no.

I don't care what season it is. If a coffee cup is, like, cute enough or it's big enough to hold a large amount of coffee, I'm going to use it. Typically, I'm drinking out of my baby Yoda mug.

That mug is in Calgary right now. So I picked the cute snowman mug. So you're okay. That's a little bit about me. If you had a Christmas, like if you had a, Christmas mug. You have no reservations about using that like mid-July.

No, I have a mug at home and it's so cute. And it's a little cat in a Christmas tree. And it's like my favorite mug. So. So yeah. No reservations there. All right. See, this is what we need to know about you.

That's right. I love coffee mugs. Okay. Well, now you're just fishing for gift ideas. So next time your birthday rolls are on, I know. I know to send Haley a mug. Thank you. I'm going to send you like an Easter mug and be like,

hey, you can use this any time of year, apparently. All right. Hey, it's January 3rd. Here's an Easter egg mug with a bunny on it. Yeah. It's perfect. Yeah, it's perfect all seasons. All right.

So, look, speaking of mugs, we're going to shift over to Cups, though, because Joe Smith is going to join us, Haley. We're talking about the Lightning's quest for three consecutive Stanley Cups. Like, I'm really, like, I was thinking about this, you know, like, when Tampa clinch, I'm like, man, Tampa, Colorado, this is going to be a dream matchup. I think, like, for me, I don't know about you. The last time I was this excited about a Stanley Cup final matchup was Chicago, Boston, 2013. Because I felt like, you know, Boston was fresh off winning the cup a couple of years earlier.

Chicago had won a cup. Like, I was like, wow, this feels like a meeting of two powerhouses. And I don't know. I guess Tampa, Chicago was pretty fun too in 2015, but this is the most excited I've been for a Stanley Cup matchup in almost 10 years for me. Yeah, I think it's a good one. Like, this is what you want when you're talking about selling the game in terms of skill. And we don't know how this is actually going to go.

Like, you know, Tampa Bay is great. So I don't see this being a sweep by any means. But like it could be over quick and it could be fun while it lasted and it could be over, kind of like that Oilers-Aves matchup that ever. Everyone was so excited about, like skill on skill, yeah. And then it was over very, very quickly. So we don't know if something like that's going to happen. But I think the powerhouse of the skill sets on both sides is going to be great for the game.

I think there's good storylines on both sides too. You know, both teams had different paths to get here. I mean, Colorado's lost two games through those first three rounds. Whereas Tampa, you know, almost didn't get out of the first round because they went to seven games against Toronto. So I think it's going to be really interesting. And I think there's going to be a little bit of something for everybody because each team has, you know, high-octane talent on their forward group, on their blue line. Like we're getting a kale McCar, Victor Hedman. We're getting Nathan McKinnon against, you know, Stephen Stamcoast.

Is Braden Point going to come back? You know, what is Nick Paul going to do on the third line? Are they going to be able to recreate some of the Blake Coleman magic and big moments in the cup final? Are we going to get that back to back to back success story? How is Bednar and Cooper going to go up against each other? I think you can just keep going down the list and there's going to be something interesting to talk about. And, you know, I think Peter and Joe have done Peter Baugh and Joe Smith have done such a great job laying it all out for everybody. I mean, Joe just had a story come out this morning about the 1980s Islanders.

talking about, you know, they, they, like, the islanders hold the respect of the 1980s Islanders. Like, that is what we're talking about now before their third straight cup final is look at this dynasty team that we have right here in front of, you know, a team that's been hoping to get over the hump for, for a couple years now. So I think it's going to be really great cup final. Speaking of Joe Smith, who dropped that article, as you mentioned on Monday, let's bring them in. I just said he's the busiest man in hockey, and he's given us some time here. Joe Smith, welcome to the athletic hockey show. Thanks for doing this.

Absolutely. Anything for you guys, it's been a little minute. So I'm looking forward to catching up. Yeah. Hey, listen, I think a lot of our listeners, just probably before we look ahead to Stanley Cup final, want to put a bow on that Eastern Conference final. As you look back at it, Joe, what was the definitive turning point in that series in your mind? because, I mean, it could have been game three, could have been in game four, five.

Like, there were a lot of turning points. Was there one that you look back and say, yeah, that was the moment where Tampa shifted things in their favor? Well, I think it started to happen in game two, actually, even though they lost that game. You know, they had come off that long layoff, which was really hard to rhythm. Gatslowski wasn't on his game. The average of 20-givaways in game one. Cooper, you know, brought them into the room after the first intermission and, quote-unquote, blew a gasket, whichever way that means in his terms, but really kind of just got it,

got into them, just kind of talking about how they need to play the right way and not have those kind of turnovers and giveaways and get back to what they've been doing well. And third period of game two, they started to flip the ice a little bit and then play better. And then game three, of course, they played a much better game. And I guess the turning point could have been a little bit in game two. But I guess the definitive one was, you know, in game three when when Pilat scored the late goal. That kind of really popped the bubble, so to speak, with the Rangers, and you saw the lightning

kind of finding their game, and you knew it was a matter of time before they were able to kind of take over. We were talking before you came on, Joe, just about how both these teams that are about to start in the Cup final on Wednesday had different roads to this point, I mean, the Aves only lost, I think, two games in the first couple rounds here to get here, whereas Tampa had to go to seven against Toronto, and they had, you know, this last year's against the Rangers where they battle back down to nothing. Is this the toughest road that the lightning have faced

to get to the finals over these last three years, in your opinion? I think so. I mean, look, the only one to elimination once the previous two years that was to the Islanders. I thought that was the toughest series going into this year, was the conference final last year, and they won one-nothing in game seven on a short-handed goal by Yanni Gord. So the margin was pretty slim there.

But I think from the start here, the first round, the least was arguably, top of series of this playoffs. They were hungry young. They wanted to get over the top. And I thought that could have gone either way. You know, game six, they tied out a five on three power play goal and won an overtime and brain point and then won in game seven because McPaul does it all, does it all.

So, you know, I think this has been the toughest road. Partly, you know, because all the hockey they played the last three years, probably because of the team in the east, I think it was as good as it's been top to bottom in a number of years. And everybody was had 100 or more points. So beat 351 teams in the first three rounds and three of the highest scoring teams in the first three rounds. I think really prepared them for what they'll face in Colorado, who's maybe another animal here. They're more of a juggernaut.

They're obviously have ability to score, but the lighting of taking on similar teams and been able to shut them down and play their defensive style, which will be something they need to do really importantly here against them starting Wednesday night. I'm going to jump in here too, Ian. I'm sorry, I know because I know you have a question, but just talking about. the amount of hockey that Tampa Bay has played. I don't have the number right up in front of me yet, but I am amazed at how much hockey Andre Vasselowski has played at the level he's played it over the last three years in the regular season in playoffs. Because in Calgary, we were talking like, oh, Jacob Marksum started 75 games, like, is that too much? Is he starting to get tired? And then

you look over in the East. And it's like, well, Vasaleski's been doing that for the last three seasons, plus a couple more games to get to the cup final. It's so impressive. it has been. I think that's this story every year where like, oh, the last thing you want to do is burn this guy out, right? And they're so, and us in the media, we're like, oh, they start 62 games. Is that too much? You know, or whatever. I'm thinking it's more of a cumulative thing versus the season. And they've done a really good job, I think, of managing kind of his off-ice stuff, you know, whether taking morning skates off, you know, limiting the work, you know, in between games. When he's off, he's off, you know. And if he really does morning skates, I mean, games, he's starts. If there's optional, he's that out there. And for him, he's such in good physical condition, one of the most best work ethic of anybody, anybody's ever seen in the lightning uniform, and that includes Marty St. Louis here. So the physical thing isn't the issue. It's more so mentally with him. And I think he does such a great job off the ice of getting away from hockey, spending time with the son Lucas and his wife. And like, again, I think of the joke was he didn't have ESPN

before when we asked him about something like that, so he couldn't watch the games. He's, you know, he does all this stuff off the ice and he really has such a strong mental outlook, you know, using faith and religion as kind of a base of that too. So that's the most important thing this time of year. And playoffs, separators are the between the years. And he's as mentally tough as they come, which is why you see him deliver those stats and clinching games.

I think are 0.25 goals against average and six shutouts and pretty incredible stuff. It's 222 games over the last three years in the regular season in playoffs. feels like a lot. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. More than seven, yeah, exactly. It's like 75 games a year.

It's remarkable. I think a lot of people would love to know, Joe, what's the latest on Braden Point? Because I think John Cooper said, what did he say? Definitely probable, which sounded like kind of, you know, definitely maybe. I don't know, but it felt like all signs were pointing towards Braden Point returning. What can you tell us on that front? Was it definitely maybe a movie? Was that a good, wrong?

Yes, it was. I think Abigail Breslin was in it. Yeah. I'll sucker for rom-com, so that'll go. It was extremely probable is what the term was. I didn't know to play in game one, but extremely probable for the series. And I think we thought he might be a game time decision for game six, quite frankly. This extra week will be a lot for Braden point.

I mean, for him, he looks better skating. For him, he wanted to come back and be effective, right? He didn't want to come back. And the way he plays, the way every turnover, every play matters in these playoffs. He wanted to be able to come back and be confident. trust that he can be on his game. So this extra time will help. I don't know if he'll be in there for game one. But, you know, that's said, they're really optimistic that he'll be playing, which is so important. I mean, they won two rounds with that great point. I think George Glantz,

they're, they're best all-round player on the Tibati Lightning. And so that says a lot about not only the number of stars they have on this team, quite frankly, but the mentality of the group that they can kind of play collectively as a unit and find a way. I know it's really weird to say something like this considering he won back-to-back Stanley Cups. But are we seeing Stephen Stamcoast kind of have his moment this playoffs more so than the last two? Well, absolutely. I mean, I think the one major moment was when he came out in Dallas in the Cup final in 2020 and played like two minutes and 30 seconds, but it was the best two 30s out,

he was ever played in the Cup final history, that iconic goal that people still talk about and we'll talk about for years here. But, you know, he wasn't very active there other than behind the scenes. in that year. And last year, he didn't have to be a play driver. I think he was ninth and even strength minutes on the forwards. Last year's run, he had Kuturoff and point those guys stealing the show. But this year has had to be seen in Stamcoast's year. He's his healthies. He's been in a long time mentally and physically. He got a chance to work out in summer versus rehab. It was so motivated to make the Canadian Olympic team, which I thought he would make the team

if they had gone to the Olympics. And for the first half of the year, they didn't have Kuturoff and point for a good chunk of it. And he had to be the guy. He'd go back to the middle. And game six, an elimination game to score not only the first goal, which was, if you watched the replay, like a no look shot across the body. If you look at the replay, he didn't even look at the goal when he was shooting across the body. And number two, 21 seconds after tying the game, the whole building was just quiet, the next play to go out there and score and really just basically take over the series there. I think Cooper said he was happy for him to have the light shine on him for once because of all he's done. He's been the face. He's been the captain. He's been through hell

and back with injuries and people dottered him and wondered if, you know, they were to ask him him to move his own trade clause and what's going to happen. And now he's, I think he's putting a stamp on what should be a hall of fame career. Ian and I talk about this so much, like, just to stick with Stamcoast Ian, like we've talked about him so much this year, just like, he's finally going to make the Olympics. This is amazing after the last two. And then they don't go to the Olympics. And so it's like, and I tweeted the other day, like, I'm, this is awesome for Stephen Stamco. And people are like, oh, two Stanley Cups isn't enough. It's like, You don't get it.

This is great for Stephen Stamco's. Ian and I agree, right? He's one of the best. Yeah, and Joe, I mean, Joe knows his first hand. I always think he's one of the most accessible, well-spoken, articulate, thoughtful players in the game. And I think you saw it, right? At the end of the Rangers series,

he was the guy who just delivered great stuff to the media. It's hard to cheer against Stephen Stamco's, I think is what Haley is saying. I agree with her. Big time. Hey, Joe, I know I got you for a couple more minutes because you're, like I said, you're the busiest man. It feels like in hockey.

Hey, last round, it felt like it was Vasilowski against Shasturkin, and it was like a referendum, who's the best goalie in the game. And I think we might get that here in the Stanley Cup final, but moving to the blue line, it's Kale McCar, Victor Hedman. How motivated do you think Victor Hedman might be to go up against Kail McCar? when a lot of people right now are saying, McCar is the best defenseman in the game.

How much of a motivator do you think that might be for Victor Hedman? Well, he's as competitive of a player as that have been around. It's a superstitious of a players that have ever been around. But I think, you know, for him, I think that would probably motivate him, but I think more so motivated of winning a Stanley Cup. I think no matter if you give him chance between five Norris and one Norris, if you get three Stanley Cups,

I think he'd take that in a heartbeat. He said, Cal McCar is his favorite defenseman to watch in the league. and he really enjoys his style. But I think, you know, those who watched Victor Heaven closely, you know, a lot of coaches in the game still do feel that Victor Headman is the best all-round defensemen in the game. I think Wiccar is a generational guy. I think he's no wins several North trophies.

I think he was my pick this year, I believe, on my ballot, if that's okay to share. But I think, you know, both these guys play different styles, but they both drive plays for the team. And John Cooper says it's had been goes, we go. So if he's playing his game from the back end to the front, Being dynamic in all situations, and they're going to have a good chance of winning. And the same with Cal McCart.

He just fuels what they do there. I've been so incredibly impressed to watch him. And I think it's just for fans of the sport, you get to see two of the best teams in the last number of years here go head to head and two generational talents. And it's like what's the equivalent of Washington, versus who like, you know, in the in the primes to play. So a lot of good matchups to dissect and break down here as we spend a week in Denver. Eventually. I tried to go down the list before you came on, Joe, and I was just trying to go over the matchups, and I feel like I left out half of them.

Like, I don't even think I mentioned Stamcoast. I didn't mention, like, Landisog. Like, there's just going to be so many matchups up and down the lineup. But I guess the- The Sorelly line, too, against, yeah. Right? They were so dominant in the Rangers series, and they'll be so important. Yeah, and, well, that's kind of what the assumption is, is we can assume that

Sirelli is going to go up against the McKinnon line. And that's a line in him specifically that's so great. at not just being good in their own zone, but transitioning quickly from defense to offense. Is that a line that you think should be able to have some success at five on five against Nathan McKinnon? Well, you know, it's obviously to be one of the toughest matchup yet, I think going to this round,

but they went up, he went, Sirle, he went up against Matthews, he went against Barcoff and he went up against McIradorad and Aaron there. They're all different styles. McKinnon plays with hold up much of speed and he's big, he's physical. I think Sterling just takes a lot of pride in being that shutdown guy. And with Coulorne and Hagle, they really do a good job of making other teams play in their own zone, right? They spend most of their shifts in the offensive zone. And so it's a lot harder to defend danger zone versus playing them 200 feet away from the,

that's what it'll be the focus, I think, for them going to this series. And it won't just be that line. It'll be the whole collective group. And you'll see a lot of McDonough and Chernak on McKinnon, too. But that'll be the identity, the shutdown line, I believe, going to this series, and it'll be a focal point. They'll get Braden point back, they think. But I think Anthony Sorrelli has been terrific in these playoffs, considering that we've the number one center role.

Take a lot of more minutes and more that high matchup stuff with Braden Point out of lineup. Before we let you go, final question. Haley teed up your article, and I know you spoke to Denny Potvan and, you know, born and Nystrom and some of these great islanders, players from the dynasty back in the day. Final question for you, Joe, if Tampa wins the Stanley Cup, where do you think they end up ranking in terms of all-time dynasties? because I've made this point for a long time.

There's an argument to be made that winning three consecutive Stanley Cups in the salary cap era is as impressive as anything we've seen. But that's just my opinion. I'm curious to hear what you think, like what this might do for Tampa big picture historically. Well, as you know, we love comparing it's so hard to compare different eras and different times. We're 21 teams back then in the Islanders days.

But I think the fact that they've only won 11 series in a row, the Islander's 119. It's just unfathomable to me. I do think the lending will end up if they do win this, this round will be one of the best teams of all time in context of the salary cap and context playing winning. I know they say it's a COVID cup, but they played in the bubble and they played one, two cups from September until July. Like it was incredibly short season. I think Danny Poppin told me, it's unprecedented what they've done. Even if they went back to back cup, it's not that what they went through.

So their team for the ages, the team of this, the cap era, I believe. And not just these cups, it's the six conference finals in the last eight years. And it's 83 playoff wins in 2015. It's a compilation of things that they had to work to get there. So I'm not saying that they're better than the 80s Islanders. I think the 80s outlanders were on a path of their own. But it's impressive to listen to them talking to the comparisons in the championship arc. They had it with the lightning, the kind of style of play that could be it anyway.

And for Wayne Gressie to say they were similar in terms of teams and how they did it, I think says a lot about what they've done. Yeah. Hey, listen, we're looking for, we want to direct our listeners to that piece that you wrote today, kind of looking at that early 80s Islanders dynasty because it's some great comparables there. Joe, appreciate the time. Safe travels. And I think Haley and I are certainly looking forward to all your coverage here in the next couple of weeks. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, guys. I'd want a question for you. What's the water park the best loves he would have went to in Ottawa that we got him. Joe, your column, that feature you did on Vaslavsky's draft day, it set off what a story in Ottawa because it's called Calypso Water Park. Okay.

And now I think some people even tried to create a hashtag blame Calypso thing after your story. It was great. Yeah, that's the water park. I didn't even know there was a water park in Ottawa and I lived there for two years. Yeah. It's like a big lot of the water slides. It's like the lazy river? Is it like, what's the?

Water slides. Mostly waters. And it's outdoors. So it's only open from like June to whatever, September. So yeah, that's absolutely where Vasilevsky would have got the sunburn. Well, blame the sunscreen or blame the GM for not calling him back and scheduling after he has a ballot on them there. So it could be a little different history here. Yeah.

Again, that was just one of your countless great stories you've done during this playoff run. Thanks again for dropping by, safe travels. And I'm sure we'll get you again real soon. Sounds great. Thanks for having me. Have a good one. All right. Great conversation with Joe Smith. By the way, we want to let our listeners know. Wednesday, we're going to have Joe Smith and Peter Baugh, who cover the Lightning and the Avalanche, respectively, for us with Athletic.

We're going to do a live stream, kind of set up game one of the Stanley Cup final, and we'll do that on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. So look for that on Wednesday to tee up game one as we set up the Stanley Cup final here with the athletic hockey show with a live show on Wednesday. All right. So that was a great conversation with Joe. You know, I was thinking about that, Haley, when you asked him about,

is this the toughest path that Tampa's had in their three trips to the final? I'm now wondering, is this the toughest, as tough a path as anybody has faced to get to the final? So just hear me out on this for a second and tell me, and maybe there's another team out there. But look, in round one of the playoffs, they played against the player who might win the heart trophy in Austin Matthews, right? In round two, they took out the president's trophy winners.

In round three, they took out the likely Vezna trophy winner in Igor Shisterkin, and now in round four, it's the best team in the other conference. Like, I'm having a hard time thinking of a tougher path that any team is faced to get to the final and then potentially win the cup. I could be wrong. And I'm willing to leave that out there. Man, that's a tough path when you think about it. Yeah, I think like in terms of every single round,

that seems like the toughest. I'm just thinking back to some of those years, like in the metro or in the east, when like the penguins would go against like Henrik Lundquist in the first round. You'd have to get past him and maybe you could, maybe you couldn't. Or you have to try to get past like Clodrew and the flyers in the first round. And then if you can do that,

then you have to go and play against Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals in the second round. Like I remember the first two rounds for the penguins in those in their like peak years were always really difficult. Like those first two windows was like you're either playing one of those three teams and it's going to be a grind. And I think that's one of the reasons why when you look at dynasties and we'll talk about this later is that maybe the penguins don't stack up as much compared to someone like Tampa because they don't have as many series wins because they would get kicked out in the first or second round if they weren't winning the cup because they're, playing against teams like that. So I think in terms of that whole path, yeah, I think in terms of the caliber of team, the star power on those teams, it might be really short-sighted to say this, but in my recent memory, this feels like one of the most difficult ones for sure. And I think it's just kind of funny the narrative. I don't know what it is. Like, I don't even know if this is a

fair question asks, I don't think we have an answer for it. It's like the narrative around Tampa Bay and what they're doing. It's like, this is the toughest path. They're going to have a dynasty. And then you look at a team like the Rangers and people are like, well, they didn't play a starting goalie all playoffs until Tampa. They won the first two, but then they couldn't get it past Vasalescu when it really mattered in tight games. But I don't know. I guess that's just what happens when you win back to back stealing cups and you keep on winning. Like you get the benefit of the doubt and it's all positive, whereas you're coming out of a rebuild and people are poking holes in what you're doing. Maybe it's a New York thing. Maybe it's a, I don't know what it is,

but the narratives around those two teams were certainly very different. It makes sense why they would be again. Tampa's Tampa and Rangers are still kind of starting, but just a funny little thing to think about. Yeah. You know, I also want to just bring this up real quick. Before we hit on a couple of issues and and bigger stories around the league, some coaching vacancies, unrestricted free agency. Both the Lightning and the Avalanche won their respective conference titles last week,

Haley, and the captains of those teams actually touched the conference title trophies, right? The Clarence Campbell Bowl, Prince of Wales trophy. And can we just all put this to rest? All this idea of people,

ooh, it's bad luck to touch. Like, Tampa has touched the trophy in each of the last two seasons and won the cup. Like, can we stop making this a thing Right. Right? Yeah.

I think it is it a thing? Like, do people care about that? Were people upset? I think I saw a few tweets of people being like, Nathan McKinnon is touching like the conference bowl and he looks like he just got arrested or something. Like he just looked miserable. So he was like doing it, but he looked like annoyed about it. That was all I really saw.

I feel like people are past that now, right? Like, didn't the penguins do it the year? Didn't the penguins did it once? I feel like a bunch of, like, teams do that now. Like at best it's 50-50, so it doesn't matter. There's no jinx or curse or anything about touching it, right? Right. Yeah.

I don't know. So let's put it to rest. Was there one year, I feel like I keep going back to the Pittsburgh Penguins because I'm just thinking about it right now. Was there, I don't remember. Like it would, it wouldn't it be kind of funny? Like if they, the year they went to the cup final back to back, they lost Detroit the first year. And then they won the second year. Did they touch the cup the first time and then they didn't the second time?

Or did they not touch it the first time and then touch it the second? You know what? That's ringing a bell to me. Like, because I know that they, in 08, I think they beat Philadelphia to get there. And then in 09, they beat Carolina. I think they didn't touch it when they beat the one in 08. And then in 2009, they were like, well, we didn't touch it and we lost. So like, let's do it this time.

So they're like celebrated and then they won the cup. Help us out, Penguins fans. Tell us, tell us if, if we're right on. Yeah. Man. Yeah. And yeah, anyway. So hopefully that's the end of that.

And as our producer, Chris Flannery, says, that was an awesome video. The lip synced video there of, you know, or not lip syncs, sorry, the lip reading video of, you know, Nate McKinnon and Landis Cog and everybody with, and hey, don't smile. But hey, hey, should we touch it? Should we not touch it? So hopefully that puts an end, an end to that. I don't think, probably in the next two weeks. Haley, you'll see a lot of teams will hold off on making big announcements. Usually the NHL asks teams to not make any big announcements once the Stanley Cup final window is open.

So I don't think we'll get any coaching announcements. I think anything that we get that's big will come after that. But I want to ask you about the fact that a lot of people are suggesting John Tortorella might be the frontrunner for the Flyers job. And I'm thinking, is there a bit – this feels like a match made in heaven. John Tortorella in Philadelphia with that market and that media and that like I think this is great. Like this feels like a good fit to me, right? Like I want to see this happen. You know what?

I think it's interesting because he is that like when now coach, he gets direct immediate results. But I think the one thing that you would that would maybe give you pause. And again, like I think this is a narrative around John Tortorella from like obviously he's not the moment. chipper person outwardly. But I think we've seen stories from players who played for him that he does care about his players. He's hard to play for. But I don't know. I think the one thing that would give you pause with him, though, is if you're trying to attract big name free agents and you're trying to aggressively retool on the fly, is John Tortorella going to give you a competitive advantage or disadvantage when you're luring those, like, players in? Because I,

I think there's the part of playing for John Tortorella that you're going to get those results. And, hey, you can come play for Tororella. He's a good coach. You're going to win here. You can make money here. I mean, they don't even have a lot of cap space. So I can't even say you can make money here. They're going to need to dump tons of money if they're going to do anything really big in Philadelphia, like James Van Reesday or somebody.

But then there's maybe that side of, you know, he's a lightning rod. Like, people either want to play for him because he wins or they're like, nope, I'm not playing for that. That's the same thing for a guy like Daryl Sutter. It's not easy to recruit free agents when you have a coach that is polarizing and really hard to play for. He gets results, but it's not easy and it's tiring. And it's that, you know, lightning rod situation where does that make the flyers a team who can attract top talent?

I think that's something to kind of balance when you're talking about Tortorella. But, you know, they've grabbed players in the past with him. the head coach and they've had success. So I'll be interested to see if that's who they hire and how that works out in terms of their aggressive retool that they're trying to do this summer. Yeah. And like we said, like probably in the next two weeks, you won't see any of those, you know, those five or six coaching vacancies won't be filled.

The league really prefers that teams wait until after the cup to make those big announcements. But we are also, Haley, as we record this podcast, we are exactly one month to the day for the opening of free agency. It's June the 13th. It opens up July the 13th. And I think, and you had a great story. For our listeners who didn't read it last week, I thought you did a great job in kind of laying out the possible destinations for Johnny Goodrow.

And I think we can all agree. It feels like he is the prize-free agent, at least of the forward group, that this is the guy. Like, you could maybe open up the vault and sign this guy. As we sit here one month from now, what teams are like legitimately in the mix for, for for Johnny Gujaro? And at what point should Calgary fans be nervous? And maybe that time is now. But when should fans be nervous that it's a realistic possibility that this guy could be out the door?

Yeah, I don't know when the, I think the thing to keep in mind with Johnny and Calgary in terms of his future is the Calgary Flames aren't going to want to wait a long time to get an answer on where his heads at. Are you going to come to the table? Are we going to negotiate in good faith for a new contract in Calgary to make you a flame for life? You know, extend your legacy here, make you the greatest player to ever play here. Are we going to do that or are you going to go and take a peek at free agency? Because if it's the latter, the flames are going to need to pivot and look at a way to replace the skill set of Johnny Godrow. They're going to have to look at then, okay, what do we offer Matthew Guchuk and how much then do we have for Andrew Mangyupani? and how much to then we have for Oliver Shillington and then how much after that do we need to get out the door

to be able to improve our roster in other places. There is a domino effect that's going to happen in Calgary that is quite big this offseason and a lot of it just depends on what Johnny Goddrae does. And that's what's made it a little bit interesting and tricky to cover the team this off season is it's like, well, I don't think they're going to trade somebody like Dylan Dubay or Michael Backland.

But maybe if Johnny Goddrow signs a big ticket and Matthew Kachuk wants more, and Andrew Mangupani wants a lot, and Oliver Shillington wants a lot, then maybe you have to look at moving guys that you don't want to move out the door to facilitate a big hockey trade and to move some cap space and clear some room for all these players. So I don't know if it's panic time yet. I think, you know, I wonder if the flames set a time on that.

I don't know if they'd say, hey, John, like, if you don't give us an answer by July 5th, then it's over. Like, I don't know if they're going to be doing something like that. But I think we'll see. I think the longer it goes, the closer it gets to free agency, the closer it gets to the draft, really, is when you start to get a little bit nervous. But it's still pretty early. Like you said, we've got a, we've got a month until free agency, about three weeks until the draft. So I think if two weeks from now we're still having this conversation, it's like, what's taken so long? Like you're looking at last summer's conversation of will they won't they? And then they didn't.

So it's like, are we doing that again? Except this time he doesn't have one more year left to play. He's just hitting a market. In terms of teams that are realistic for Johnny Goddrow, I listed five. And I probably could have listed more. I had an honorable mentions list. And a lot of fans in the comments were like, well, what about Buffalo? And what about Seattle?

What about L.A.? Those are, sure, they're options. Like I said, in the interest. of my story. If you went to 32 NHL general managers and said, would you like to have Johnny Godreau in your roster? Most of them, we're probably going to say yes. But not all of them are going to have the combination of a pitch,

which is, you know, enough cap space, a competitive roster, playing with elite players. We're going to be able to build something with you at the core of it. Not every team has that kind of pitch that they can throw at somebody like Johnny Goddrow. So some of the teams I kind of went into, and this was from the help of some of our beat writers

as well. One of the ones that kind of interested me that, you know, I talked to Adam Vingen, our Nashville Predators writer about was the Nashville Predators. I think that's kind of lower on the totem pole in terms of the realistic options. I don't really see Johnny playing for the predators, but I do think it's really interesting to consider that David Poyle is a general manager who does not want to rebuild. He believes that, you know, he didn't trade Philip Forsberg at the deadline because he's like, well, we wouldn't have made the playoffs if we traded Philip. Warsburg. So it's kind of this admission of like we're going to keep trying to go for it and just be okay, but also like we're not good enough if you subtract one player from this roster. So there's

this interesting thing happening in Nashville where you have a GM that has a ton of money who might lose a big name free agent in the off season, who will need to replace that talent to continue to just coast and make the playoffs nine consecutive times and not actually win anything. And not actually win anything. So I think they're a little bit interesting because they have the money. I think the islanders are interesting because they have a big need on their left side wing next to Matt Barzell. He had a really tough year this year. He didn't have any consistent line mates. So I think, you know, it's easy to imagine Johnny Godro and Matthew Barzell, like being electric on Long Island next season together, especially when you look at what the Flames Top Line did this season. You know, Elias Linholm is great,

but he does not have the skill set that Matt Barzell does. So that's something that I Islanders fans could, you know, look at and get excited about. They don't have a ton of money, which is why it seems like, you know, a possible trade for someone like Kevin Fiala is a bit more realistic. Nobody ever knows what Lammarillo is going to do, but he's mentioned many times improving the team via hockey trade. So, again, like there's all these options that I'm saying are realistic, but it's very easy to poke holes in these. And that's just what happens in free agency. You know, there isn't ever really a perfect destination. donation. To me, the most realistic option is the New Jersey Devils. I think I just look at their

situation in New Jersey. And you just, the way I go through this is think of the pitch that they're going to make to Johnny Goddrow. It's, we have $26 million in cap space. They don't, and I took it a little bit from Devils fans. So if they're listening, I don't mean this to be mean to Jesper Pratt. I said they don't have any really big contracts left to sign. All of their long-term contracts are for cornerstone pieces, Jack Hughes, Nico Heeshire, Dougie Hamilton. Other than that, their cap situation is quite flexible. I think Brat is going to get a pretty good contract. I don't know exactly what that's going to look like. It could rain. It depends if it's going to be long-term, if it's going to be another short-term deal. He's coming off of a pretty good bridge deal,

and he's a great player. That's really the only thing that they have to do that's going to be big. They have Miles Wood and a couple other players left to sign, but they have 25 million in cap space and the flexibility to work with it. Like the devils aren't in a situation where it's one or the other thing. It's a, we have all this money and we can go and try to find another goalie, and we can try to sign Johnny Godro and we can get Brad under contract and we can do other things because then they have Thomas Tatar coming off the books next year

and X, Y, Z coming off the books this year, and next year, excuse me, P.K. Suban's off the books this year. That's $9 million that just opened up for them. So I think they're a team that has a ton of cap flexibility. They have the number two pick in the draft, but they're ready to like reenter that playoff discussion. I think, you know, the signing of Dougie Hamilton last season is an example that they're not going to be just sitting back and trying to like wallow in the rebuild a little bit longer. This is a team and a GM and Tom Fitzgerald that wants to get out of this. And I think that's like a thing that you can sell to someone like Johnny Godreau, look at the players we already have, look at the destination that

we've already sold to players, look at how much money you can make here, it's closer to home. I just think New Jersey makes a lot of sense. If it's not Calgary, I think that's the asterisk on this whole story is, I think it's still realistic that he stays in Calgary, but I think you just look at the offer that New Jersey could make, and it's like, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And you know what? I'd be curious, and not that I'm trying to make work for you, but other than, other than Stephen Stamcoast who went like right up to, like, he signed in like in late June with Tampa, like how often do we see a guy resigned? And I mean like a big ticket guy. I'm not talking about like a bottom six. It's rare that big ticket guys make it to free agency like this. It's rare, but it's even more rare that when they do sign the extension, it like to me, if. we get to July 13th and he's a free agent, he's gone. I don't see him resigning in Calgary, right, at that, at that stage. I, I just put a know. Unless he hits the market and, like, nobody's offering him

anything. But we know that that will be the case. Like, he'll get, as you said in your, in your piece of, you just said it here again, like, 32 teams would want Johnny Gudrow. 32 teams would want him. Um, so he'll get the offers. I, I'm just curious, like, how often, and maybe our listeners could help us out here, Like other than Stephen Stamcoast, who signed on like June 27th with Tampa, you know, whatever 2016, whatever year that was, how many times has a A-lister taken it that close to free agency? Like usually you sign months in advance when you're of that stature, right? So I'd be curious. I'd be curious to hear. Who else are we missing here?

Yeah. I'm not exactly sure. That's a good thing to look into, Ian. I think the other teams too that are interesting, and you can tell me how you feel. I remember talking to Lisa Dillman, and she was saying, like, of course the Kings would poke around. And, you know, the Ducks are interesting because you've got this young core. You have Troy Terry and Trevor Zegris, who's one of my favorite players to watch. You know, the Kings did well in free agency last year, and, you know, they took it to Edmonton the first round.

So those are some, those are some honorable mentions here as well as, you know, know, Buffalo Sabres fans wanted to hear their name out there, too. I think we were just looking at it. It was like, do we see Johnny Goddrow going to Southern California? Like, do we really? And that was the thing. I don't know. And that's, did people see Blake Coleman moving to Alberta?

Nope. No. So that's the thing about this is it's, you look at it and you try to make the most sense of it. And then something completely different happens in free agency. The players never know what's going to happen until all the cards are on the table. and that's the difficulty with analyzing a situation like this. So I just tried to find the top five most realistic teams at this time. And to round that out, it was Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

The Penguins won's interesting to me because if they lose of Gennemalkin in Chris Lattang and Free Agency, you know, that's a market that is used to having at least two star players in their forward group. That's a market with a new ownership with deep pockets who want to continue winning. so you'd think that they would take a stab at a big name free agent to kind of recoup that star power. And Jake Gensel's great. And they re-signed Brian Rust. And you've got talent up and down that roster for sure.

But you would think that maybe they would say, like, go and try to grab one of these big names to recoup what we lost in free agency. But again, those two guys could resign. And then it's like, well, Johnny Goddrow's not going to fit there whatsoever. But that was just another food for thought one, too. All right, Haley, time to wrap up our Monday show like we always do with a couple of fun, multiple choice questions for us to bat around. We kind of hit on this earlier. Let me ask you this question here, okay?

Here's the first question. Regardless of what happens in the Stanley Cup, do the Tampa Bay Lightning now deserve the mantle as the best team of the salary cap era? Your options are A, yes, doesn't matter what happens. They are the best team of the salary cap era, or B, no, they have. have to win so they can have three Stanley Cups to match either Pittsburgh or Chicago. What's your answer there? I think they have to win.

I think when it's all said and done, I think winning playoff rounds is great and making it to the conference finals. What is it eight times? I mean, that's really impressive. Is it eight times? No. That's too many. I misheard, Joe.

I don't know. No, conference finals would have been 2011. Eight times. What? That's not right. I think it's six times, no, isn't it? Six? Anyway, yeah.

Whatever. That's great, but you've got to win the third, in my opinion. I think you need to win the third to be in the conversation of the best team in this cap era. Yeah, because I think you've got to win your third to basically be debatable against the Pittsburgh Penguins more so than the Chicago Blackhawks. In my opinion, I think the Penguins haven't missed the playoffs since 07-08. You know, I think Tampa's great, but to say they're the greatest dynasty when they've won two Cucs. and but they've just made it there three times. The penguins made it there three.

Penguins made it there four times and one three. So you've got to win your third to be in that conversation. Okay. So, okay, let me, let me, that's, that, listen, the fair point. Let me make the counter argument. Fair point, but you idiot. I'm going to correct you. Fair point.

Yeah. Let me go full well, actually. Yeah. Okay. So here's why I think maybe we can make the case regardless of what happens, why Tampa's the best team of the salary cap era. Okay, first of all, no team has gotten to three straight Stanley Cup finals, right? In the salary cap era, that's never been done.

That's remarkable. Then when you look at this little window, think about this, under Tampa's list of accomplishments, you also have the greatest regular season in NHL history. So now you're starting to think like, oh, man, like you got the best regular season record ever, three straight trips to the Stanley Cup final, an additional trip to the Stanley Cup final in 2015, an additional trip to a game seven of the conference final of 2011.

Like, I don't know. I think that they are. I think they are the best team of the salary cap era. And it's awfully, like Chicago and Pittsburgh are right there because they have the three titles. But I don't know. I certainly think this is the best four-year window anybody's put together of the cap era.

Right. But we're not, But for a four-year window is like, you know, what about team? I just think they had their failures too, right? Like they lost in 2019 against Columbus in that play-in round. And John Tortoella had that quote, like, oh, God, we created a monster. You know, they missed the playoffs in years previous. Like, this is a team that couldn't get there for a while.

And now they've gotten there and they're doing really great. but I think that the four-year window has been excellent. I think, yeah, they had the other Stanley Cup final trip. I just think it's a little bit too short, like near-sighted. Like, this is recency bias to say that even if they lose, they're going to be the greatest team because they got there, but they didn't do it. So. Yeah.

No, it's, listen, it's a fun, fun debate. And I certainly see both sides of it. And yeah, you're right. If they win, I think it's a pretty open and. shot, pretty open and shot case that they are. Okay, one more question for you. Which team has a better chance, Haley, of getting back to the conference final next season? Is it A, the Edmonton Oilers or B, the New York Rangers?

Who's got a better chance to get back to the final four? Oilers or Rangers. I think it's the Rangers, because you look at the conference or the teams that they might be up against. I think, you know, Boston's certainly going to be out of the question. I think the Rangers would need to get past again some kind of Tampa, who's probably going to change again because the salary cap, like is Andre Pilat going to be back next year?

We don't know. Are they finally going to start to get tired after the restrate Stanley Cup final appearances? You know, Pittsburgh is a big question mark. What's Carolina going to look like? You just look at who their potential opponents, I mean, who they were this year and who they could be next year. Toronto could be one. You're just thinking of who they need to beat.

And then you look at who Edmonton would need to be. and it's, you know, if Johnny Goddrow goes back to Calgary, or they keep Matthew Goodchuk. Edmonton's going to need to get past Calgary again. L.A. is going to get better. Vegas is certainly going to be better next season. So I just think, you know, maybe Edmonton's path is a little bit tougher because the Vegas Golden Knights are going to try to come back and make a cut final next season for sure. Oh, how come you didn't list Vegas as a potential destination for Johnny Goodro?

Maybe because they have no money. Yeah. They'll find a way. I'm sure they would find a way. Yeah. 100% they would find a way. Hey, I can't disagree with you too because I think the race...

I also just like the Rangers roster better, if I'm honest. But I think the goaltending, right? Like, that's the whole thing. Edmonton got that far in spite of their goaltending. And unless they fixed that in a hurry, I don't know. And Mike Smith was, Mike Smith was pretty good. And other than game ones of every series, like he actually was, fine in the first two rounds. He got the job done. I mean, he had the Mike Smith moments, though.

That's the thing. He was fine, but he was still Mike Smith. Calgary's goaltending was really bad in the second round. Everything was pretty bad in the second round. But yeah, you've got Igor Shostirkin, who's one of the best goalies in the world right now behind Vasilevsky. So, I don't know. I just like their roster better. They have more talent up and down the lineup, not just on their top line. And they have a better blue line. Adam Fox is better than anybody on that blue line in Edmonton. So got to go for Rangers. Yeah. And plus you cover Calgary. So you know, you can't, you can't pick Edmonton there. I'm not allowed. No, you're not allowed. I said something on Twitter about like the Avs finally making the cup final and Oilers fans were like, uh, Flames reporter, you're just a fan.

It's like, man, I'm not even talking about Calgary or Edmonton. Like this team's really good. And I'm glad they made the cup final. I'm sorry that you guys got. swept. Don't yell at please. It has nothing to do with the team I cover. This is the first, like I said off the top, this is the first year where I feel like this is like if you stripped aside any rooting

God, the first round is usually like where I'm interested and then I don't care any longer. Yes. And this year it's like I'm like, ooh, we got it. I've been watching everything and it's because of the teams that are still in it. It's because of the storylines and it's because of the idea of this cup final. I've watched every round

this year. Last year, the Cup final came around. I was like, I don't know. Tampa's going to win again. It's fine. I don't care. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be, yeah, it's going to be, it should be a lot of fun. And speaking of which, speaking of the Stanley Cup final, we want to remind our listeners that Wednesday, live athletic hockey show, we're going to stream a Stanley Cup final preview on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, Joe Smith, Peter Bob. We'll be part of that. And looking forward to bringing that to you on Wednesday. we'll make sure we post more details on that in the next couple of days. So listen,

Haley, this was great. This felt like it was way overdue, doing the show with you. So this was fun. Yeah. Yeah, we'll be back again next Monday to build on the chemistry.

That's right. There we go. See, I was wondering, remember the first, it was like either the first or second show we ever did where I was wrapping up. I'm like,

Haley, thanks a ton, this was fun. We'll do it again next week. And you just stared into the camera and you didn't say like, thanks, Ian, looking forward to it. And like,

it made it. it even funnier that I wasn't on my phone or something. I was just looking right at you through my camera lens. Was I supposed to say something to that? Yeah. Oh yeah. Thanks. See later.

Yeah. Later. Right. Bye. This was fun. Thanks everybody for hanging out with us for the past hour or so. This was a ton of fun. We want to remind you that you can follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

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