The Athletic Hockey Show - Team Canada wins Olympic gold, Marie-Philip Poulin is the most clutch player ever, Jack Eichel returns and Golden Knights storylines aplenty

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

Ian and Sean overcome a late night to discuss Team Canada's win in the women's gold medal game over the U.S., and Marie-Philip Poulin cementing her spot as the most clutch player ever in hockey. Then, with Patrice Bergeron set to return to action on Thursday, between him, Claude Giroux and Evgeni Malkin, who is the most intriguing UFA? Also, as Sidney Crosby scores his 500th goal, how long will he play in the NHL?Next, in "Granger Things" Jesse Granger walks us through the laundry list of Golden Knights storylines this week, from Jack Eichel's debut on Wednesday night, to Mark Stone on LTIR, a Nolan Patrick update, and is there anything to that Marc-André Fleury rumor?Then, a discussion on if a beer league goalie could have a .500 save percentage in an NHL game, a question about tracking game winning goals as a stat in the mailbag, and in "This Week in Hockey History", Georges Vezina records the first shutout in NHL history.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM: [phone]!Get The Athletic for $1/month for the first six months: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez. It's Sean McIndoo with you for the next hour or so. Of course, we're going to hit on Marie-Falip Poulin, adding another chapter to her story career as Canada takes home gold medal over Team USA in Beijing. We're going to have some fun with that.

We'll obviously focus on the National Hockey League as well, the return of Patrice Bergeron. We'll talk about Sidney Crosby's milestone, Jesse Granger will pop by and grade your things. And I would tell you, I think the Vegas Golden Knights might be the most interesting team in the NHL right now when you figure the return of Jack Eichel. They got Stone on LTIR, Mark Andre Fleury and that rumor.

So lots to get into with Jesse Granger for Granger Things. We got a whole bunch of mailbag questions. This week in hockey history, too. We got to get to all of that and more in the next hour. But we're not going to lie to you. We're running a little bit short on sleep. In fact, Sean, you've got, you just told us, myself and our producer, Danielle, before we got on recording here, you said you've been up for 10 minutes. You know what that means.

You got the great podcast voice going, right? You've got to have that deep voice here. Here we go. Exactly. Exactly. And the great podcast face, too, which is, I was digging the sleep gunk out of my eyes right before we went on. because we did it. Big game last night and we won.

I'm very proud of us. Good job. I don't know about you. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which seat to sit in and got the team off to a good start, stuck with it, made some adjustments once the U.S. started their comeback. It's, you know, it's always good to contribute.

and I'm very, very proud of all of us out there for getting the win. Now, how did you handle that? Because it was, for us, in the eastern part of North America, it was a 11, just after 11 Eastern time. Did you have a nap, an afternoon nap, evening nap? Like, how did, or did you just go into it? No, afternoon nap for sure. And I tell you, we say sometimes Friday afternoon, you'll see some of the, you'll see some make a reference to, hey, you know, this is the time where if you got bad news in the

hockey world, you want to drop it on a Friday afternoon or if there's another big story going on, somebody will say, you know, slip it in now. If you had bad news to drop in the hockey world, yesterday at about 3.30 would have been the perfect time to do it because all the hockey writers were asleep. We were all snuggled up in our beds, having our pregame naps to get ready for this 11 o'clock start time. I haven't even got back and checked. Maybe somebody did. I don't know. There could have, there could have been something as has happened. And none of us would know, because we were all unconscious. Yeah. It, yeah, it was, it was one of those nights that, I think, was tough to stay up. I didn't take the nap. In fact, I made a huge mistake around 10. Not only did I not

take a nap, around 10 p.m., I foolishly had a glass of red wine. And I'm like, oh boy, why did I do this? And you know what? And normally I would say that, you know, if you're not going to do the nap, the plant B has to be the coffee, but you're not a coffee guy. Not a coffee guy. That's, okay, well, all right, way to go. I didn't know I was co-hosting with the triathlete here. All right. Yeah.

Okay. That's, some of us, I guess, are just more committed than others. But what I found amazing is that once the game started, then kind of the nerves and the excitement and, you know, that kind of kicked in. I never felt, never had one of those violent head nods or anything like that. Okay. But I'll tell you where I was, I got, I got, I got. Super nervous when Hillary Knight scored to make it 3-1.

And I know that, and you, and insert Maple Leafs joke here, but it kind of felt like, God, I just didn't like that. It was short-handed. I didn't like it was kind of like at the end of the second period. I kind of felt like I've never felt so nervous with a 3-1 lead for a team that I've cheered for. And look, I mean, I'm used to that as a Leafs fan because the Leafs have earned that. This is a little bit different. And it's not so much that there's any reason to think that Team Canada can't hold a lead.

But it's just, it's, it's, team ESA is a very good team. And the rivalry. I mean, we always get close games. We always, whenever these two teams play, whether it's for gold medal, world championship, prelims, anything, it's always close. And so, you know, when it was two nothing in the first period, I'm sitting there thinking, okay, good start. I'm happy. I'll take it, but there's going to be some twists and turns left in this game. And I remember thinking at the time, 2-0.

I felt like the next goal is going to win because if the Americans get the next goal, and it's 2-1, now the momentum switches, and here we go. And if Canada makes it 3-0, then maybe I'll feel comfortable. And they did, and I felt good for a couple of minutes, and then relatively quickly, Team Eosek gets the goal. And like you said, not just a goal, but a shorthanded goal, the exact sort of goal. that kind of shifts momentum and you're sitting there going, oh boy, here we go. And definitely going into that third period.

If there had been an early goal, that changes everything. But instead, full credit to the Canadians, they locked it down. And some of that was goaltending, of course, but they did what they had to do. And as far as three to finals, this one was probably as close to a blowout as we'll ever get between these two great rivals. Mary Philippe Poulin gets the game winner, has a pair of goals in the gold medal game, adding another chapter to her storied legacy. And you saw it all over the place last night. She is the most clutch player in hockey history. Doesn't matter if you're talking about women, doesn't matter if you're talking about women, doesn't matter if you're talking about men.

we need to just go ahead, give her the crown. She's the clutches player who ever lived. So my question is, if we're going to do that, and I feel like she kind of is, who did she knock off the mantle? Like, who did she kick? Like, Justin Williams? Like, who was the clutchesest player before Mary Philippe Poulin?

Who had the crown here? Help me out. I mean, that's a great question. And there's going to be a big gap between, you know, whoever it was. I mean, Justin Williams had the name. nickname. And he certainly had his, you know, his numbers in game seven. I know there are a few other guys that show up on, show up on the list. I mean, my, my personal guy, and I wouldn't say

talk clutch player ever, but, you know, growing up, Wendell Clark had a streak of multi-goal game sevens. I think it was three, three game sevens in a row where he scored two goals. And, you know, we all thought that was something. But there's nobody, nobody's going to touch Marie Philly, Poulin. I mean, that is an absolute insane string of gold medal performances. And that's really the key. It's the gold medal performances, because international hockey, both the men's and the women's side, but especially the women's side, we all know there's, there's certain teams where you're going

to run up the score. And maybe sometimes it's not quite as impressive when you hear about somebody's lifetime totals or what they've done in the tournament. And then you look back and you realize, okay, they had 12 points versus Norway in a 15-0 blowout. This is all gold medal, all against the U.S., all against the number one rival, the best team, best other team in the world. And I mean, you just, somebody tweeted out.

I mean, it's four games. She scores two goals in a two-nothing win, scores two goals in a three-nothing win, scores two goals in a three two overtime win and those two goals are the tying goal and the winning goal, gets one goal in the loss and then two goals in a game that they win three to two. So those two goals hold up as the winner. Just absolutely crazy. I mean, it's the only downside to this sort of performance for me as a Canadian hockey fan is it used to be fun to argue about clutch players.

And that argument's over now. It's gone. We've got nothing left to talk about because it's pool in and then everybody else is far, far away. Yeah. And, you know, she's 30 years old. So conceivably she's on the radar to play in the next Olympics four years from now at the age of 34. And you never know, maybe at the age of 38. I mean, her Olympic story might not be done.

We keep bringing her to every Olympics. I don't care when she gets into her 40s, if she can't play, if she can't make the team take a regular shift, you just sit her at the end of the bench like the Terminator. And when we need that goal, you know, when the other team scored to go up by a goal and they're celebrating, there's a couple minutes left, that's when you go over and tap her on the shoulder

and send her out on the ice to get her automatic goal. I mean, we were all making the joke last night, right? That, well, you know, we might as well start the game 1-0 Canada because we got to go with the pooling goals coming. And I guess she heard the jokes. It was like, you know what? No, actually, it's going to be two goals tonight. So just you can't say it now.

Just she never misses. No, right. I'm thinking maybe we've got to roll her into the summer games. Just bring her along. You never know. Let's consider it. I'm, you know, willing to consider it. And, you know, let's maybe get her on the men's team too.

Maybe that was our big mistake. Yeah. You know, slap a fake mustache on her and sneaker in there. I could have used that. See Josh Hossan got a tap on the shoulder. He's like, what do you mean? Well, I got to go away. Why?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, somebody wants to see you back there. And then you get like a cartoon cloud of dust. And yeah, that's. Yeah. Could have been. Speaking of that, like to me, the men's tournament, because it wasn't, and I think we saw this in the women's gold medal game,

because it's best on best, you feel like there's this. there's something special about best on best. And I'm not saying this because Canada and the United States got knocked out in the quarterfinals of the men's side of tournament. I was not interested, not invested. In fact, if they were in the semis, I don't know that I'd be particularly, like, how much of the men's tournament did you watch or have you watched?

I flipped it on the quarterfinal game. I paid some attention. I mean, look, you don't want to take anything away from the guys that were there. There were some great stories there. It's still very high-level hockey. And it's a phenomenal achievement to be on that team and to go to a games and represent your country. But this wasn't a best-on-best. This was not anywhere close to a best-on-best.

And it just, it's not the same. And it's, you know, maybe we've been spoiled by seeing the players go over and by having the Canada Cups and the World Cups. But this was not anywhere close. This really wasn't even anywhere close to a world championship. And I barely watch those. And, you know, at the end of the day, look, if Canada had gone on a run, it made it to the gold medal game, I'm sure I would have worked my way onto the bandwagon at some point. But no, it wasn't a very interesting tournament. And I, you know, even as somebody who pays attention to hockey for a living,

I had a tough time mustering up a lot of interest. And that was even before the two North American teams went out. Yeah. And, you know, I'm looking at this. Now, the big reason why, at least at the time, when the NHL and the NHLPA were kind of forced to pull the plug on Beijing, it was because of the Omicron variant, was really running rampant, right?

Like at that point in December and early January, we didn't know where this was going. I wonder, in hindsight's 2020, but now as you look at the way that the Beijing games played out, there wasn't this, at touchwood, the games aren't over, but there hasn't been this massive outbreak that has sidelined multiple athletes and people of, right? Like, I wonder now, if you are an NHL player,

you thinking, like, you know, we probably, should have gone. I'm just curious. I wonder if that thought is out there because the way it's played out now, it kind of feels like there wasn't the big outbreaks and that wasn't the big fear that everyone was worried about. So far at least, yeah.

So far at least the worst case has not happened. I mean, I'm sure the counter argument of the NHL who never wanted to go in the first place would have been, hey, you know, if you guys had gone with all the games that we missed, the schedule gets blown up.

And, you know, we're playing hockey into July again, probably. And, you know, maybe it would have been worth it. It's, it was a missed opportunity for sure, disappointing that we didn't get it. And let's just cross our fingers that we at least get a decent World Cup in a few years because it's kind of ridiculous that in a hockey world where you've got as many high countries playing at a high level and the potential for some great tournaments that we just over and over again don't seem to be able to pull it together. No, you're right. And, you know, a little bit later, we've got a mailbag question that kind of talks a little bit about the World Cup in a potential format. So we'll get to that later. I want to ask you, speaking of, like, Patrice Bergeron probably would have been on Team Canada had we been going over to the Olympic Games.

But he's back in the news cycle. It looks like he's set to come back Thursday against the Islanders. You know, as I'm looking ahead at potential UFAs this summer, look, I feel like Claude Giroux is the guy getting the most oxygen in the room, like where everyone's like, man, where's Giroux going? And that's a function of flyers being a non-playoff team. But like, how intrigued are you the fact that Patrice Bergeron is a UFA this summer? And then the other guy I want to bring into this is I'm getting Malkin. Like if I had to ask you, okay, of the guy that's kind of been with his team, kind of a face of the franchise amongst Jules. Giroux, Malkin, or Bergen? Is there, like, who do you think is the most intriguing veteran UFA this summer to you?

Yeah, I mean, right now it's Juru because he's the only guy out of that group that could get moved at the deadline and should get moved at the deadline to go to a contender. And once that happens, as much as we always talk about whenever somebody gets traded, well, maybe they'll come back to their team in the offseason. And that does happen sometimes. Once a guy's gone, very often they end up at the very least exploring the market. So that feels much more likely to me. Look, if Genni Malkin, it feels like for years there have been the rumors about, would he be traded, would this or that happen? And it's never gone down.

It's very hard for me to imagine him moving on somewhere. But depending on what happens with the penguins, down the road, in the playoffs. It is an older team. Maybe at some point there's, you know, there's, there's a movement toward the future, I guess. It doesn't feel impossible to me. Patrice Bergeron in another uniform right now feels impossible to me. I just can't picture him anywhere else other than Boston. And I know that everybody's going to look at it and they're, they're going to make the Montreal connection. And, you know, now that that team's run by a bunch of Boston guys, it's hard to resist the idea of, you know, Quebec star coming home. I just can't see it.

I mean, I just can't see it. And it would be fascinating, absolutely fascinating if he did hit the market. If there was for whatever reason he was able to explore those options, he immediately moves to the top of the list for the most interesting guys. I just can't see it happening. He means so much of that team. He's been, he's, it's just been a lifelong ruin. Um, I, I, you know, they're, they're still contenders. It's not like he'd be leaving to chase, chase a cup somewhere, certainly not in Montreal. I, I, I just can't put the pieces together in my head to get, to get, get, uh, get him out of Boston. And as I said, Bergeron comes back Thursday night against the Islanders. And I want to talk about the Islanders for a second, Sean, because if you

ask anybody, like, who's the biggest disappointment in the NHL this year? I feel like your reflex answer would be Montreal. Went to the Cup last year or an unmitigated disaster this year. It feels like an easy answer. But is there an argument to be made that maybe the Islanders are the most disappointing team in the league this year? And I say that because kind of like vis-a-vis their preseason expectations. Like, I didn't hear very many people saying the HABs are going to go back to the Cup.

I think some people were like, ah, you know, if everything falls in a place, maybe they'll maybe hang around the wild card spot. But there were some people that thought the islanders would do to get to the cup final. Back-to-back trips to the conference final. Is there something to be said that right now in the here and the now, the islanders are actually the most disappointing team of the NHL? Yep. There's an argument to be made.

I mean, it's like you said, with Montreal, it's just, it's been so bad that I'm not sure anyone can take the crowd from them. But there were lots of people at the beginning of the year picking Montreal to miss the playoffs. I don't think anybody was imagining anything as bad as it got. But certainly, you know, if some time traveler from the future had shown up on opening night and said, hey, Montreal misses the playoffs. Everybody would have gone, yeah, okay, that makes sense. If they had said the same for the Islanders, we would have been shocked because the Islanders felt like one of those teams in the East that you could just go ahead and lock them in. and to not just miss the playoffs, but I mean, we're talking about this in February. They're not even close.

They're not even in the race. Yeah, I think you could absolutely make that argument, especially when you factor in that, you know, you look at Montreal and Montreal is a team that is just going to be starting a rebuild now. But they've got some pieces. You know, they've got some young guys. They've got a decent system on the way. The Islanders really don't have any of that. The Islanders are an old team. Yes, they have prospects on the way.

Every team has prospects, but nobody that really, you assume is going to move the needle in a major way. Haven't had first round picks in a little while. They've got an enormous task ahead of them. And this was one of those teams you sort of looked at and thought, okay, down the road, there's going to be problems, but that's for down the road because they've shown us over the last few years that they're good enough to contend for a cup. and maybe this is the year they do it.

And it just hasn't worked out. And look, obviously that massive road trip at the start of the season was a big part of it. They went through a COVID situation. Injuries, as with every disappointing team always are a factor, almost to a point where it felt like there were stretches. There were everything that was going wrong could. And even when it was, even when they had that huge losing streak, you know, a lot of us didn't want to count them out. A lot of us were looking at it going, okay, now they got to

play 600, 650 down the second half. Now, maybe it happens. And it just, they've, they've never been able to find their footing. So I think you could make the case. I mean, it's not a clown show like it is in Montreal by any stretch. But it's given what the expectations were. I mean, my buddy Greg at ESPN picked them to win the Stanley Cup. I don't think anyone was picking the Montreal Canadiens to win the Cup. But, you know, he had them to win the Cup and people didn't think that was a crazy prediction. It's, it's been a real tough one if you're an Islanders fan because unlike Montreal, you had some legitimate expectations. You know, last week when we did the podcast, Cindy Crosby was sitting at 499 career goals. And I said, I kind of don't want Sid to get 500 in

Ottawa on Thursday because there was no fans. And you know what? I think it was the stars aligned for Sid to do it where I think he was meant to do it at home against the Flyers with a primary assist from Gino Malcol. So it felt like it was great. And I want to ask you about this, because I'm curious. I feel like we spend a lot of time in the hockey world wondering how long Alexander Ovetchen is going to play. And I think we're all agreed upon, this guy's going to play long enough so he can

break Wayne Graskey's record. My question is, how long do you think Sidney Crosby is going to play? And the reason why I ask is, is there any way you think he can chase down Mario Lemieux on the all-time points list, get inside the top 10 all-time and points. As we sit here today, as of this recording, Sidney Crosby is 352 points behind Mario Lemuel.

So as we start to do the math here, you know, that's kind of, you know, five seasons of 70 points roughly or, you know, however you want to slice and dice it, that seems like the easiest way to do it. Five seasons of 70 points. What do you think? How long does Sid play and does he have a legitimate chance to catch Mario Lemieux?

Yeah, I think he has a good chance. And he's 34 years old right now, you know, a year-ish younger than Ovechkin, at least draft-wise, has been healthy the last few years. And how great is it that we're even talking about this in 2022. We're talking about Sidney Crosby playing four or five, six more years when 10 years ago it looked like maybe that wasn't going to be a conversation. But he's been healthy. He's still obviously very productive, still well over a point of game player.

I think he's got a real shot. There's certainly been no sign that he has slowed down to the point where you would start thinking the end is near. I mean, yes, he's not a guy who looks like he's going to challenge for an Art Ross trophy anymore like he did in his prime. But that's fine. that's what you expect when you get around to this age. Yeah, I don't think there's any reason not to think that another four years at a minimum after this seems about right. And if he's four years at a point per game, that pretty much gets into the 320 that you're looking for. I think there's a real good chance.

Now, obviously, injuries can happen. Some guys slow down quicker than others. But, you know, you look at the elite players like this. A lot of them did play fairly later in their career. I mean, Gretzky, I think, went to around that range, 37, 38, but Steve Eisenman stuck around, Ron Francis, stuck around, Joe Sackett, guys like that. Yeah, it does feel realistic to me.

And anytime you're talking about catching Mario Lemieux in anything at all, that's pretty phenomenal. But, yeah, I think it's absolutely in play. And if, let's say he gets to Mario and he passes Mario, then he would have more points than Mario, more cups than Mario Sidney Crosby the greatest penguin of all time? No.

And I say that this is maybe my age talking a little bit as somebody grew up watching Marilyn Neal. I don't think that title is up for grabs. And the reason for that is just, Mary Lou Amoe was the most talented hockey player I have ever seen in my life. And I grew up watching Wayne Gretzky. I've watched Connor McDavid.

I've watched Sidney Crosby and Ovechkin and everybody else. And there is no question in my mind that Merrillomey was the most talented and physically gifted hockey player I've ever seen. We know the time that he missed. We know the injuries, you know, the cancer, the everything that he had to fight through and to do so much of it in the awful clutch and grab era. even if Sid passes him. Look, no shame in being number two to a guy who's quite possibly the very greatest who ever, ever did it. All right, Sean, as always, it is time to bring in our friend Jesse Granger for a little segment. We like to call Granger Things, brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with us at The Athletic.

A very good morning to you, Jesse Granger, on this Thursday. after the Eichael debut. And I think a lot of us were curious how that would play out. How would Jack Eichael look after such an extended layoff? You obviously had a chance to watch him with your own eye. So give us the scouting report on Jack Eichel beyond that box score, which, you know, it seemed like a pretty pedestrian night for him. Yeah, I think he, Pete DeBore mentioned it after the game.

He showed a couple flashes. Like, he showed the things that you want to see out of him, which is his skating speed. I was really impressed with his first two strides. The unfortunate thing is most of the times his speed stuck out to me. It's because he was catching up to the Colorado Avalanche break and he would hound them down. But his first couple strides are really impressive. He got, man, it was not an easy assignment for Jack Eichael last night. I mean, the guy is coming off of an 11th month layoff, the longest layoff he's ever had since he started playing hockey.

Coming off the neck surgery that no hockey players ever had. And his first game back is against Colorado Avalanche. And his main matchup was the McKinnon-Rantan and Landisog line. So the guy, like the statistics while he was on the ice were not good. I think the shot attempts were 11 to 1, Colorado. But he did, he showed some flashes here and there. He made a good pass to Evgeny Dodonov on the break, a really good pass. They set him up for a backdoor goal, but Dodonov just lifted the puck a little bit over the crossbar on the shot.

He, Eichl mentioned after the game, not perfect. I'm not expecting this to be perfect. It's going to be a process. And that's kind of where they're at right now. I think an easier opponent will probably allow him to show a little more. They didn't have the puck a lot when he was on the ice because that McKinnon line's just so good. I love big trades in sports and in hockey where guys in their prime who have got 10 years left come over and we pass judgment after one game. That's always so fun.

So congratulations to Sabers on winning the trade because he's a bust. I think you've got to move him out now. and probably I think he goes to Edmonton and McDavid trade. Would you agree with that? Yeah, that'll be their next target, I'm guessing. We were joking yesterday about like all these contenders going after free agents. And Sarah goes, well, you know Vegas isn't on that one. And I'm like, I don't know about that.

I would never count Vegas out on anyone. You know who Vegas reminds me of is the L.A. Rams who we just saw win a Super Bowl by playing like it was a video game and just collecting every star they could, trading away all their future picks, just loading up, and it worked. And it was really entertaining. And Vegas is sort of the NHL equivalent of that. And it certainly makes for some fun storylines. Yeah. But to get these, look, to get Eichel into the lineup and get them under the cap,

we've been talking about this for weeks. They've got to do something. And then sure enough, Mark Stone gets placed on LTIR. And you know that everybody in the hockey world, Jesse is looking at that and yelling shenanigans, right? It feels like here we go again with Kuturoff, what he did in Tampa, shenanonizing. So help us out here. Walk us through where Mark Stone is at. Is his back injury that bad that it's going to require him to be on LTIR for a long time?

And do we expect to see him again in the regular season? So it's complicated. I think everyone, especially nowadays, wants a, like, black and white answer of either Mark Stone's back is perfectly fine and they're lying and cheating the cap or he's absolutely, like, without question, can't play the rest of the season. And it's like kind of somewhere in the middle. Like Mark Stone, his back is, like I saw a lot of people on social media. That's just kind of what they do, like minimalizing Mark Stone's injury. Mark Stone is, I can guarantee Mark Stone is dealing with a very serious back injury that he's been dealing with for months. Now, he's been playing through it. And that's part of the issue is he's been playing through it and he'll play a couple games and then he'll be out for a couple games. And then he plays another, he's missed games four separate times for this back injury. The most serious one was early in the year when he was out for basically a month with it. And I think the Golden Knights are looking at this situation and thinking, all right, maybe we have a perfect storm here. Like we don't have,

like maybe the best thing for Mark Stone's back is for him to not play hockey for a month and a half, two months. And that could be true, but it could also be true that if Jack Eichael didn't exist and they weren't over the cap, Mark Stone might be playing through that back injury. I think the situation the Golden Knights are in where they can't fit all this money under the cap and the fact that they're allowed to place a player who's not healthy on LTIR and perhaps keep all their players until the playoffs like Tampa Bay did last year, I think they're looking at that situation and saying, maybe we can get the best of both worlds. Maybe we can get a healthy Mark Stone by the time the playoffs rolls around because if we don't let him sit for a month, two months, whatever it is,

the back's never going to get healthy. They've tried over and over and over. Give him a week. It doesn't help. They gave him a month. It didn't help. I think they're thinking, we can use this situation to our advantage. Mark Stone's back is injured. We can let him sit out and it'll give Jack Eichael 34 game runway to get used to playing with this team. So it's kind of complicated. Like, yes, I think the Golden Knights are taking advantage of this LTIR rule. But I also am not going to sit here and say this is complete shenanigans and mark stone isn't hurt because he absolutely is and and he's been struggling because of it like he still has decent stats because mark stone's so good but like he hasn't looked himself even dating back to that Montreal series last year i asked him

three times in that series if he's hurt and he said no every time um he clearly was and mccriman alluded to that uh the other day saying that this this injury has happened has been going back to those playoffs yeah and and this is the kind of thing where i i can't muster up any outrage here because this is, we know the rule by now. And we knew the rule when it was Patrick Kane. And we certainly knew the rule when it was Nikita Kutrov and the NHL has had lots of opportunities to close loopholes or make changes. They haven't. So this is how they want the system to work.

And I can't get mad at a team for letting the system work that way. And whether it's, whether it's this sort of thing or whether it's guys who are going on injured reserve at the end of their careers. and letting their teams get out of cap hits, that sort of thing. I think as hockey fans, we just have to get our head around the fact that it's not that hockey players are either healthy or too hurt to play. There is a whole big middle ground in between where they are hurt, but they could play. And there are way more players who live in that zone than we probably think, especially late in careers, especially late in seasons.

and, you know, that's, you know, how could this guy be hurt and then be healthy for game one? Well, he won't be healthy for game one. He'll be healthy enough to play. Right. And that's all that it is. The one thing I'll say when it comes to the Golden Knights is for this sort of move to work, like we saw with the Blackhawks when it was Patrick Kane, like we saw with the lightning, the key element is you've got to also feel very safe in your playoff spot to shut down a start player.

And Vegas, I feel like we all have them locked in as a playoff team. But when you look at the standings, they're not as safe as maybe you might think. And I really wonder what happens if they just, they hit a losing streak for two weeks. They lose five straight and suddenly comfortable goes down to, oh, maybe they're a bubble team. That could be what screws it all up. Because, you know, I think these days in the NHL, I don't think you're too worried about home ice or seating or anything like that. we get into the playoffs, let Mark Stone come back then. But you get into the last month of the season and they're a point out of the playoffs,

suddenly you're looking at, you know, maybe we need arguably our best player Mark Stone back. And at that point, as soon as he comes back, if I understand it, the whole cap situation blows up again and they got to do something that. Right. Yeah. It's going to be interesting. The Pacific Division being not very good again in the fourth best of the divisions again,

certainly helps them in that regard. I mean, Calgary looks outstanding right now. I've been so impressed with Calgary. I think they're a we've kind of, I feel like prior to like, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, it was just, all right, can we just get to Colorado already? Like Vegas, can we already just get to that? But now Calgary is showing that, like, they're a legitimate threat. I don't know if the other teams are going to threaten, but you're right.

If Vegas goes on a losing streak, and I actually asked Kelly McCrimmon the day he announced Stone would be going on LTIR, I asked him about the salary cap implications. And he knew where I was going with it. And he basically said, look, the trade deadline's not here right now. And he's right. They have five weeks before the trade deadline. So five weeks is a long time. And five weeks from now, they could know a lot more about the team that's on the ice.

They can know more about where they are in the playoff standings. They'll know a lot more about where Mark Stone's back is. And at that point, they're going to have to make that decision. I would think that they have to do it before the trade deadline. I know you can trade players after the deadline. They just can't play in the playoffs. And if you're just unloading salary, that would be an option. Like the Golden Knights could get out of this after the trade deadline.

But that's a great point. A lot of people don't know that. But it seems very difficult. And it limits your options. So if I was Kelly McCrimman and I knew I had to unload $6, $7 million of cap space, I'd rather do it before the trade deadline. But even then, you still have five weeks. And like I said, you can get a lot more information on the injury,

on where you are in the playoffs. And then at that point, you can revisit this again and say, do we need to trade Evgeny Doddanov, Riley Smith, whoever, and bring Mark Stone back? Or is the best thing to just let this guy, back sit on the shelf another month and have a healthiest mark stone we can have for the playoffs. You got me excited now. Now I'm looking forward to them making a trade two weeks after the deadline and people just losing their minds. Oh my gosh. Can you imagine? Yeah.

Hey, before we talk about people losing their minds briefly over Mark Andre Fleury rumor, before we get to that, I do just want to ask you, is there an update on Nolan Patrick who unfortunately, we all know this young man's concussion history, did not want to see that happen to him. A high hit from Nate McKinnon. Any idea about what happened to Nolan Patrick on Wednesday? Yeah, obviously, I thought the same thing you guys did when we saw him take a hit up high and go down the way he did. Pete DeBore didn't have an update, but he did say it wasn't good with Nolan's history, which doesn't sound great. It's kind of leading us down that concussion path possibly. We're hoping that that's not the case. I don't know. I'm going to be at

practice here in a couple hours and we're going to ask him again. DeBore usually doesn't give us much after the game in terms of injuries. But yeah, it's definitely, I mean, that's the one guy you do not want to see get hit with a high hit. And DeBoer even mentioned that in the post game. He's like, and then Byron for the abs got a concussion against the against Vegas last year. And DeBoer said, like, I would hope these two teams of all people would be sensitive of a guy in that situation. But I didn't think it was a particularly dirty hit. I don't know.

I didn't look at it a bunch of times on replay. But it definitely was unnecessary. They weren't near the puck. But yeah, just an unfortunate situation for a guy. who, even since being traded to Vegas, just cannot stay healthy on the ice. And as I mentioned, wanted to wrap up with this. In fact, so here's what we're going to do.

I'm going to ask you, Jesse, about Flurry. But in the interim, in the interim, I'm going to give Sean a little bit of a kind of a homework assignment in the two minutes so he can think about this. What's the most awkward reunion that's ever happened, Sean, in the NHL, where a guy left somewhere, and you're like, there's no way that guy's coming back. and then he did come back.

You're like, damn, I didn't see that. So Sean's going to think about that for his second. While I ask you, Jesse Granger, where did this rumor emanate from and kind of, I mean, there's a window where people said, oh, my God, the Vegas Golden Knights are exploring, the option to bring in Mark Andre Fleury back. So help us out, help our listeners out. Where did this come from? Does it have any legs?

And is there any chance of this happening? Yeah. So it came from Frank Sarvali at Daily Face Off Franks, Frank's obviously awesome. He reported that Robin Lennar could, he could have a serious shoulder injury, which Robin Lennar went, underwent shoulder surgery, not last offseason, but the offseason before that. And apparently he's out.

He obviously didn't play last night against the avalanche. The Golden Knights have ruled him out with an upper body injury. And Frank reported that that could potentially be a serious shoulder injury. And if that's the case, the Golden Knights may be looking for a goalie. I've been told that the Flurry stuff is very, very, like, was completely. completely not true. I don't know. Like, I mean, both like, who knows where, who that's coming from and like both sides have reasons to say that. So I will say, I think it's highly unlikely that it's Mark Andre Fleury. My initial reaction is, well, Kelly McCriman and George McPhee aren't going to put egg on their face like that a few months after trading the guy and what that caused. But then at the same time, I look at George McPhee's history and the guy traded a first, second, and third round pick for Tomash Tatar. And then he didn't work for like a month. And he was like, gone, get rid of him. So, like, this is a guy who has shown he will fix mistakes and is willing to admit a mistake very quickly, which a lot of GMs are not willing to do.

So I will give George McPhee a lot of credit in that regard. In this case, I don't think it's happening. I don't think, like, if the Golden Knights were to try to add a goalie, it's not going to be Mark Andre Fleury. It's, I just don't see it happening. I asked Pete DeBore about Robin Leonard yesterday, and he basically said the plan is for him to be the guy. We're going to give Brasua some games right now. We're going to let Lennar get healthy. I think the thought is maybe that injury for Lennar could require surgery,

but you could also just kind of delay that until the offseason. We know a lot of guys do that and see if he can play through it. So I think right now they're just letting Lennar heal. And Braswe was phenomenal last night. And he's actually been really good in his last three or four starts. So as long as he's playing well enough, you can kind of just let Lennar rest and see if he gets better. and then if he doesn't get better,

then maybe the Goldenites are looking for a goalie at the deadline, which would, I mean, we just talked about all these complicated scenarios they're going through at the deadline. Them having to add a goalie just adds another layer to Kelly McCriman's plate. He's got a lot going on right now. Yeah, absolutely. It's certainly a complicated situation.

So wrapping this up, back to you, Sean. If Flurry somehow ended up in Vegas, I think it would be on the all-time list of, I can't believe that guy went back there. I thought it was so awkward and nasty. and toxic, he went back. What, like, what do we got here? How many times have we ever seen something like this?

You know what? I tried to jog my memory. I googled NHL reunions and the first thing that came up was a piece that I wrote. So, yeah, there's a lot. There have been a lot of guys who have come back. I'm going to give you three that all kind of maybe fit the category for different reasons. First of all, the worst comeback that should have been a great comeback. Doug Gilmore coming back to the Maple Leafs at the end of his career.

at the trade deadline to chase one last Stanley Cup and blows out his knee in the first period of his first game back, suffers a career-ending injury and never plays again. Another one that I put out there, Mark Messier going back to the Rangers, not because the comeback was at all awkward, but, you know, that three years in Vancouver that just didn't work at all, that's the all-time leader in the let's never speak of this again. You know, this is the, that couple that breaks up and like he goes off with like, you know, some, some, uh, somebody he should not be with and then comes back and it's like, you know what, we just don't, we just don't speak of it. Uh, we'll pretend they were always together. And then the, the one that maybe would fit this category where a guy left with some bad blood, uh, and, uh, and then came back at the end of his career.

But Bobby Holie leaving the New Jersey Devils to go to the Rangers as a free agent. that that one line that you just can't cross as a devil's legend to go leave your team and go to the big market, big budget rangers for a huge contract. And he actually came back at the very end of his career and was welcome back. It wasn't very good. But maybe that would be the closest comparison we can come up with. See, to me, if Mark Messier went back to Vancouver at some point, then we would be talking. It could happen.

That's, uh, connect. That's Ian Mendez said that Canucks fans, not me. So tweeted him. Yeah. I don't need to hear it. Yeah, exactly. Jesse, I appreciate the visit, as always. And listen, have a great week, and we'll hit you up again next Thursday.

Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Right on. All right. Always great to have Jesse Granger on in the Vegas Golden Knights, as I said, certainly, a team that everybody is paying attention to with a number of storylines. Hey, want to open up our mailbag here. But before we do, with some of the emails we got,

I'm going to open up your mailbag from your column this week. And your mailbag column is a lot of fun, kind of covers a wide swath of topics. And people always ask you some odd questions. Like, hey, can you look up this or what do you think about this? And you had one reader ask you if they thought that like a pickup league, beer league goalie could be parachuted into an NHL game and basically have a 500 save percentage.

meaning they would save 50% of the shots that they saw. And I think it's a fun question to tackle in a mailbag on print, and it's certainly fun to tackle it on a podcast. So where do we come down on whether or not you insert Rando Beer League goalie into an NHL game? Yeah, and let me be clear, to be fair to the readers sending the question, where this came from was apparently this is a debate he was having with his friends, with his Beer League team and there was one guy on the team

who insisted that he could put up a 50% save percentage and everybody else thought he was crazy and they figured that I was the right guy to take the case to. And yeah my answer is you're absolutely out of your mind if you think that you could put up anything

close to a 50% save percentage in an NHL game. And the question, you know, in this hypothetical the idea was that for some reason all the other players on the ice don't realize that you're a beer leaguer. So it's not like the defense can just, you know, crowd,

crowd into the crease with you. It's not like the other team's going to be bombing slapshots from Center Ice. It's going to be a regular NHL game in every way, except that this, this beer leaguer, and by the way, it was a beer league skater. It wasn't even the beer league goalie who thought he could come in. No, there's absolutely no way.

These discussions pop up from time to time. You get these delusional people who think that, like, they could win a point off Serena Williams or, you know, they could, you know, they could score a touchdown in an NFL game. No, you couldn't. You have absolutely no concept. If you haven't played hockey at a very, very, very high level, you have no concept of how good these guys are. You would get destroyed. Yes, you would make some saves because the puck would hit you a few times. And that's all that would happen.

You would not be making glove saves or surrogens. sprawling out and stopping guys. The puck would occasionally hit you. The only scenario I could come up with is if the very first shot of the game is an Alexander Ovechkin one-timer that hits you in the collarbone, uh, and turns your collarbone into powder

and you leave on a stretch you're having made one save in one game, that's the only possible way that you get to that, uh, that save percentage over 500 because, uh, these guys are insanely good and they would absolutely destroy you. And,

And not just the question of how much better NHL players are than your average beer leader, which is insanely better. But also the idea that a skater could go into net, let's keep in mind, when David Ayers had his miracle game, which by the way, he only had an 800 save percentage in that game, there was a reason why when the hurricanes needed a goalie, they went to a 40-something Zamboni driver who knew how to play goal. and they didn't put like Sebastian Aho in that. It's because playing goal is a completely different skill set.

You would have no idea. And my favorite reply was somebody said that, you know, my beer league goalie didn't put up a 50% say percentage in my beer league game last night. So I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do it in the NHL. Yeah. It's it's you're, you're completely out of your mind if you think you would, you would have any shot at this.

And that's, that's my final answer. that's why I wanted Artemisimov to suit up for that game. Remember last year, Ottawa had a game where, you know, Matt Murray got hurt and I think, you know, Marcus Hogberg got hurt, whatever. And they were getting thin down the middle or in the crease. And Artemisimov put on the gear. I'm like, I would have loved to have seen that. I don't think we'll ever see that again.

Like we'll never get to that point. That was our one chance to see a rando NFL player. We almost had it in Florida a few years ago. Remember there was a game where both the Florida goalies got. Roberto Luongo started. He got hurt. The backup, who I don't remember, got hurt. And they were looking around.

There was no ebug in that game. So they were going to have to put someone in. And then Luongo came back. He basically got up off the trainers table to get back in. But it would be great to see. But look, the goaltenders, here's the thing. It's a very specialized skill set. It's very unique.

and also every goal tender is a huge weirdo. And so a normal person can't go in and play that position. You have to have something very specifically strange about how your brain works to even want to get in there. You could not do it. None of us could. You're just going to have to believe me on this one. And one more question for you. Ken, I just thought of this now.

I'm giving you the choice. you either have to play one period as a goalie in an NHL game or you have to play catcher for one inning in a major league baseball game. What are you taking? What are you taking? One period of a, you're a goalie, or one inning as a catcher. I'm kind of feeling maybe I'd be the goalie and hope that my defense shut it down.

I mean, if I'm trying not to get hurt, I'll be the catcher. 100% we're trying not to get hurt. If I'm trying not to get humiliated, that's a tough one. Because the one thing with the goal, I mean, I guess first of all, I'm not going to last a period. I mean, three shots, three goals, and I'm going to be on the bench in a baseball cap, I hope. I just feel like in baseball, the fact that as I whiffed on every second pitch, I would, I'd have to like go and get the ball. As soon as we had a base runner, I'd have to remember to like go and, you know, my mask would be turned around and like, One shin pad would be falling off.

It's, you know, as I don't know, I don't have experience in either position, but I've coached enough baseball to know that just getting a kid into that equipment, getting them to understand what to do. Yeah, that would not be too much fun. But I'd come out of it without too many. I mean, I'm not calling any breaking balls, first of all. It's fastballs only. And I just got to hope there's not too many foul tips.

But whereas in hockey, I know I'm having. shots come by, but I don't think too many of them would hit me. Yeah. And just to wrap that up, can I just drop one of my all-time pet peeves in sports is when somebody calls it a back catcher? Yes. As opposed to. Yeah.

The French catcher? Like what? Yeah, exactly. And is that a, but is that a Canadian, like, do, I don't remember, and I grew up a little bit in the States, I don't remember anybody saying to me, hey, I'm going to be back catcher, who's backcatcher? And I feel like there's only Canadians and obviously not huge baseball fans, but they're like, I'll be back catcher. Maybe somebody can get to the origin of that.

Let's find that out. I always assumed it was like some old-timey phrase from, you know, like the 20s, but, you know, the same sort of people who call them a batsman or something like that. But now you got me wondering. Okay, reverse mailback. We're asking you. Help us out. What's the origin story of backcatcher? But hey, speaking of mailbag, you can drop us to email.

to The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. The athletic hockey show at gmail. You can also leave us a voicemail. At 845-4-4-5-844-9, I want to rip through a couple of these. Richard says, can you guys explain to me why we actually care about

and keep track of game-winning goals? If Player A has 100 goals and five of them are game winners, but player B also has 100 goals, but 20 of them are game winners, does it really tell us anything about the players? It seems totally random to me, players or sorry which goals end up becoming game winners what am i missing here and i'm wondering

if we should be keeping track of a first blood kind of thing like who scores the first goal of the game to me that would be just as easy to track and it might seem like it tells us something a little bit more significant that comes in from richard yeah uh and i don't disagree it's a pretty useless stat when it's used as a catch-all. Now, sometimes you'll see it referred to in the sense of guys who've scored overtime goals. That's different. I think we can put at least some prominence on that. But yeah, no, just the generic game-winning goal, pretty useless, pretty random, especially given the way that it's game winners are considered in hockey, which is it's just whatever number the other team got to,

that plus one is the game winning goal. So if you score the fourth goal to give your team a 4-0 lead and then the other team scores three, you've scored the winning goal, even though nobody at the time felt like it was a big goal. There's different ways to calculate it, but that's how hockey does it. Yeah, it's pretty useless stat.

I don't think it tells us anything about the player. And as far as first goal, yeah, you can find that information for some guys. This is just one of those things that it should probably go the way. Like you're close enough to my age that you remember the game winning RBI, how that was a big stat in baseball. You used to see that whenever Jim Rice would come up and they tell you how many game winning RBI. And then it was almost like collectively where like this is dumb.

This isn't a real stat. And you don't see it anymore. The hockey version should probably go the same way. Oh, what a great Jim Rice pull. hadn't thought of that guy forever. I don't know. Mr. Game winning RBI. He was a game winning RBI guy, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, now I'm thinking about Mary Philippe Poulin. And we're like, all these game-winning goals. And like we... Well, but it's not the game-winning goal. I mean, first of all, she's getting game-winning goals over time, you know, late clutch. And, but with her, she's, it's not random because she's getting the game-winning goals

because she's getting all the goals. So you don't even really have to look it up. You're like, well, she scored 70% of the. the goals, I'm pretty sure she's got a few of the game winners as well. Exactly. One other email here that comes in from Michael. I love the athletic hockey show. I love them all equally like children, meaning I do have a favorite, but I'm not going to

say it out loud. We know it's the Thursday show. That's fine, Michael. We got you. The Tuesday boys are having a tough day, so we don't need to. The Tuesday boys. So how about this? Okay.

And I was going to mention this earlier in the show. We'll do it right now. We made a bet, and I've been doing the last couple of Mondays because Haley, Haley Saldivans been doing just some fantastic work on the Olympic panels. And as a result, I've been doing the last couple Monday episodes of the podcast with Julian McKenzie. And we said, let's make Canada USA interesting with the Tuesday show, with Custin's and Jen Tilly. So we decided that the podcast of the losing nation would have to open up the podcast next week

by singing the winning country's national anthem. Oh, boy. So Custin's and Gentilly have to open the Tuesday show, which they usually do with the American anthem, right? The few riffs of that. They got to sing the Canadian anthem, but here's the thing. I tweeted at them and said,

we're expecting the French version. Like, it's a bilingual country. They got to sing it in French, don't they? Well, I mean, you got to do both, right? You got to do the hockey version where you switch to French. Yeah. I mean, you could hold my family hostage and tell me to start singing the anthem in French. I can't do it.

And I couldn't even tell you where I switch. I just know there's a certain point where you start singing in French. I do not know what any of those words mean. And then you bring it home in English. Yes, absolutely. They have to do it that way. There's no question. Yeah.

So we'll see what they bring out with the vocals on the Tuesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. So we certainly had some fun with that. Michael says, look, he loves all the shows. He's got a World Cup format. And we were talking about we just want to see Best on Best again, right? Yeah, on the men's side, we certainly enjoyed the women's gold medal game, best on best. So here's Michael's idea.

World Cup of hockey format. I feel like this will never happen, guys, because it's too cool. But here's my idea. We have an eight-team tournament. The first six teams are already slotted. They would be the United States, Canada, Russia, Finland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic. or Chechia. I keep seeing it both ways now.

It's, it's, this is the, they are Chechia going forward. This is the last, the Olympics is the last time they're technically the Czech Republic. Okay, I thought so, okay. So U.S., Canada, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Chechia. So those would be six locked in. Now you've got two other spots available because you're going to do an 18 tournament. Michael is saying spot number seven is determined by a play in team. So you put some of those periphery nations,

in a four-team tournament. Think Switzerland, Germany, Slovakia, Denmark. They play a round Robin, winner that, you got spot seven. Then spot eight is made up of what Michael is saying, what if it's a world team? And it's made up of players who are not selected for a national team with the caveat being you can have a maximum of four players from any one country. What do you think of this idea that's from Michael? I mean, it's not bad. I'd certainly watch that tournament. It's going to be tough logistically to do that play-in. I guess you'd have to figure out when to do it. And if you're going to get the players, the best players from those countries to be part of it, then that becomes tricky with the NHL schedule. And if you're not, then I'm not sure what we're really learning from it. But maybe there's a way to do that. I don't love the idea. of having world teams in these tournaments. I mean, it's an international tournament to me.

Like, look, the 2016 World Cup, we all remember Team North America. We all, you know, there's that argument where it's like, yeah, on the one hand, it's a dumb concept, but they were so fun, they were so exciting. Should we bring that back? I know we've had a few pieces on the athletic about, like, what would that roster look like? Who would be on it for, you know, if we did that again? I didn't love that.

and I feel like as good as it was and as fun as it was to watch that team with McDavid and Matthews and all of these guys. I don't know that I'd want to see it again. But the thing that people forget about 2016 is Team North America was fun and then they went out. Team Europe stuck around and almost won the thing. Team Europe went to the final and it was close against Canada. That was a case where I feel like we dodged a bullet there because if, If team Europe wins the World Cup, you know, a country that isn't even a country, that's the sort of thing where, you know, people kind of go, oh, do we even do one of these things

again now that it's been won by someone who's not even a country? It'd be a fun team to have for sure. But it's always fun right up until they win. And then you're looking around going, what did we just do? I would still, I appreciate the creativity. And I like this idea more than a lot of versions I've seen. I would rather just see six or eight or whatever it is countries as countries. And we do a traditional international tournament that way.

Remember when Team Europe was in that final against Canada? And we had the great debate. Imagine they win. What's the anthem they play at the end of the tournament? Yeah. Exactly. Do they play the final countdown? Final countdown had to be.

It's got to be, right? Yeah, it's got to be that. Yeah. Because that's the only, well, that's the only song I can think of by that band, Europe. Were they like a one-hit wonder? I think so, right? You know what? This is one of those where we're going to say that,

and then we're going to find out they had like 17 number one hits in Germany and somebody's going to be mad at us. Yeah, somebody is always mad at us. Okay, let's wrap up the show as we always do. With a little this week in hockey history, going back to the middle of February in various years. I want to start with this one because this is so random to me. This is so weird.

I actually had to read this multiple times. So I can take our listeners back to February 20th, 19th, 177. But I'm also going to take our listeners back to February 20th, 1972, and 1974. This is really weird to me. Phil Esposito celebrates his birthday on February the 20th. And on three different occasions, Sean, not only did Phil Esposito celebrate his birthday, he also scored his 50th goal of the season three different times. 1971, 72, 74.

Happy birthday, Phil. Here's your 50th goal. that seems kind of weird that the stars would align for that multiple times. Yeah. And you know what? Credit to him, that's like some, that's a very grown up thing. When you're a kid, you sit around on your birthday and wait for everyone else to do something nice for you. And then when you get older, you're like, no, it's my birthday.

I'm going to treat myself. Treat yourself to a 50th goal. Three times. Year in and year out, not bad. And by the way, also just a nice reminder of how incredibly good Phil Esposito was that he's sitting there scoring 50 goals in mid-February. You know, look at the goal scored in race right now. We're all, nobody's even at 40 yet.

And this guy was cracking 50 in February time after time. Hey, the great ones have a good sense of timing and a good sense of the dramatic. And Phil Esposito was absolutely one of the great ones. Okay. I've got one other one here I want to hit on. And we're going to go way back more than 100 years ago to February 18th of 1918. And to give our listeners a little bit of context here, the NHL had just launched in November of 1917. Okay.

So basically, the NHL has only been around for three months, but there had never been a shutout until February 18th, 1918. And that's when Montreal goaltender George Vezna became the first goalie to record a shutout, a 9-0-0 win over Toronto. And the reason why I bring that up is I feel like when I think about old times, Jaime hockey in that kind of 19, 18, 19, 20. I think about like these low scoring, like there wasn't very much offense. You couldn't pass a puck forward in the offensive zone. Are you surprised it took three months for the NHL to get a shutout? I'm not.

And the reason that I'm not is what you're describing, those low scoring games, that absolutely was a big part of the early NHL history, but not those first few seasons. Before we got to that, geez, I think there was a year where there was the NHL average, like, under three goals a game, total, both teams. It was just a complete crisis of a lack of offense. But before that, the first few years, the scoring was off the churns. I mean, it was beyond 1980s levels. I mean, the first game in NHL history finished 10 to 9. There were quite a few double-digit games, that sort of thing.

So I'm almost surprised the other way that there even was a shutout in that first season. Because back then, just with the rules and with the way the game was played, it was not at all rare to see 10 or 12 or 15 goals in a game. And it wasn't for a few years before everything got completely crazy. the other way. And then, believe it or not, the NHL actually made rule changes to get scoring back up. Interesting. That that was a possibility back then. But yeah, the NHL scoring rates have bounced all over the place quite a lot over the years. And it always makes me laugh when I say, you know, hey, why don't we make the nets a couple of inches bigger? And somebody will be like, well, the sanctity of the record book. And it's like, dude, look at the record.

record book. We've been all over the place in the history of this league. There is, there is really no consistency from generation to generation. I wonder, do you think George Vezna who got the shot? Do you think he kept the puck? Do you think he realized the significance of it? You know what? I doubt they were keeping pucks back then. They probably had like one puck. So I'm going to, I'm going to keep this, take it home, wrap some tape around it, write my name on it. And they're like, well, then we're not going to play tomorrow because that's the only puck that this league has. The rest of them all burn down in whatever arena fire

we're currently recovering from. You know what? I'm going to end this podcast by telling you a story that I know you'll appreciate about a player that kept a puck. Okay. So as you said, you know, when a player scores his first career goal, maybe his 50th goal, 500th goal, whatever,

they keep the puck, they put some white tape around it and then they take a Sharpie and they write, you know, 50th goal, 100th goal, whatever, right? Like, it's a common thing. And they make the player pose for the world's most awkward photograph. Yeah, and you're standing there with the photo, okay? Yeah, just hold the puck, you know, naturally the way that everyone does. This story is so old, it involves me being in Atlanta and covering a Thrashers game.

Wow. So I'm in the Thrashers dressing room and I'm speaking to Eric Bolton. If you remember Eric Bolton, he was a real tough guy, right? Like he dropped the gloves more than anything, okay? And I look at the top of his stall and he's got a commemorative. puck there. And it's got white tape around it. And I go into peer closer. Like what like what offensive milestone did Eric Bolton have? And on the puck, it's written good dump in. And I'm like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. Good dump in. Eric Bolton had a commemorative

puck in the top of his locker that said good dump it. I love it. Not even a great one. Just, you know, good. Did we find out who gave that? Because I'm assuming that came from the T-Bates, right? It had to be... Ilya Kovilchuk's fingerprints were all over it. I don't know, but I always think of that. I just thought of keeping the puck and that story just came to the top of mind. That's fantastic. I love that. There we go.

That's a good place to leave it. We want to thank everybody for joining us for this Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. We'll get you again next week. As always, drop us an email. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. If you are not a subscriber with The Athletic, right now we got a deal. going. You can join us at the athletic.com slash hockey show. Get an annual

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