The Athletic Hockey Show - The Arizona Coyotes saga continues, Jason Spezza's six-game suspension, two massive hits from Jacob Trouba, and team records after coach firings this season

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

It never ends in Arizona. Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss the news from Wednesday about the City of Glendale threatening to lock the Coyotes out of their arena for failing to pay taxes, and the team citing "human error" as the culprit. Then, as Jason Spezza is handed a six-game suspension, is he the most unlikely player to get an in-person disciplinary hearing? Next, a discussion about hits to the head as Jacob Trouba delivered two massive hits this week, one to Jujhar Kharia of Chicago and the other to Nathan MacKinnon of Colorado.In "Granger Things", Jesse Granger dives into team records this season after a coaching change, and is "Bruce, there it is" the greatest crowd chant ever?Then, the Trevor Zegras assist that was the talk of the hockey world this week, and if Sonny Milano isn't getting enough credit, and in "This Week in Hockey History", Ron Hextall scores the first goalie goal, and more.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM at [phone]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It's another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Ian Mendez, Sean McIndoo with you, as always, on a Thursday episode of the pod. Coming up on this episode, we'll chat about Katie Strang's report. It says the Arizona Coyotes could get kicked out of their home arena for not paying property taxes. We'll talk about Jason Spetz's six-game suspension, Jacob Truba's interesting week. Is any assist in NHL history on the same level as Trevor Zegris' helper from this week, and I have a feeling we might

be dropping in a couple of Bruce. There it is. References, because that's pretty catchy. Hey, speaking of new coaches, Jesse Granger's going to drop by for Granger things. We'll find out if the new coach bump is a real thing or not. This week in hockey history takes a look

at Ron Hextall doing the impossible back in the 80s and a wild game from the same time period involving Chicago and Edmonton that featured 21, count them 21 goals. in one single game. So let's kick this off, Sean. You know, I'm sitting there last night.

I'm kind of scrolling through Twitter and I see the Katie Strang article come out. I feel like it's one of those, you know, death taxes and, you know, fill in the blank. And it's like death taxes and weird Arizona coyote stories, except this one kind of involves taxes. So like what was your surprise level like one to 10 when you. saw this story drop on on Wednesday evening. Not not very high, let's just say. It's, it's a weird one for sure. And it's,

it's one that I think is still developing as we're, as we're recording this. So, so who knows how many more twists and turns there are. But yeah, the governments at all levels tend to like it when you pay your taxes. And they tend to get a little bit grumpy when you forget or when, when human error kicks in, which I guess is, the story the Arizona Coyotes are going with. And I think if there's a, if there's a real surprise here, maybe it's that when the story broke in the summer

that the coyotes were going to be pushed out of their arena at the end of the season, I know personally, and I think a lot of people kind of looked at that and thought, well, yeah, maybe that's big news, but maybe it's also just a little bit of negotiating, a little bit of leverage. This is somebody trying to impose a deadline to get a better deal done.

And it wouldn't have surprised me back then if you told me that within a few months, they'll have an agreement on a new lease and everything will go back to normal. And clearly, that's not the direction we're headed in because this story seems to drive the wedge even further. And the coyotes did come out with their statement last night saying that this was, as I said, human error. and basically making it sound like somebody just forgot. Yeah. It's one of those things. It's Bill in accounting.

Yeah. This is all on Bill in accounting. We're all trying to find the guy who did this. Yeah. And yeah, you know, there's a fully paid and signed off check to the city just sitting on somebody's desk. And it's one of those things where even if we take the team at their word, it doesn't reflect super well on them as an organization. if somebody can just accidentally forget to pay taxes. But needless to say, there does seem to be a lot of skepticism out there.

And look, we had the big Katie Strang story earlier in the year where she dove into a lot of the things that have been happening in that organization and happening around it. And some of that did involve, you know, paying the bills and to not even creditors, but small businesses. and people they'd worked with, this does seem to be a pattern. So, you know, I think what's happening here is the city is protecting themselves and making sure that if the coyotes do leave at the end of the year, that they're not going to be stuck with an unpaid bill that they won't have any leverage to get back. So kind of an ugly situation, not necessarily one that's, you know, I think the big hook of the story was that if they're not paid up within a few weeks,

they'll be locked out of the arena. I don't see that happening at this point. But it's, yeah, it doesn't reflect well in the coyotes, even if you take their preferred version of the story. Yeah. And so Katie reporting that earlier this month, the Arizona Department of Revenue basically filed a tax lien notice against the coyotes saying that you owe us more than $1 million

in unpaid state and city taxes. So 1.3 million. that's not a good look. And like you said, here's the statement. Let me just read the statement so our listeners can at least get the full grasp of the coyote's defense. So again, Katie Strang, the first to report that the city of Glendale and the coyotes are locked in another dispute. This one due to delinquency over tax bills, unpaid arena charges, totaling more than a million dollars. and now that the city of Glendale is threatening to lock out of their home arena later this month.

But here's the statement that the story comes out and the coyotes give a statement to Katie Strang late on Wednesday that reads, quote, we have already launched an investigation to determine how this could have happened. And initial indications are that it appears to be the result of an unfortunate human error. Regardless, we deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused. We will make sure that by tomorrow morning, the Arizona Coyote, are current on all of our bills and we owe no state or local taxes whatsoever. And we will take immediate steps to ensure that nothing like this can ever possibly happen again. End quote.

So that means by the time we have dropped this pod, if we take the coyotes for their word, Sean, they should have been cleared up all of their, you know, outstanding amounts will be paid. So we'll see, again, this is a fluid situation. but the fact that they threatened to lock them out as of December 20th is interesting because I need to know let's just say that we get to December 20th

and they follow through and they're like hey you can't come into the Gila River Arena you're locked out. They got a game on December 23rd against the Tampa Bay Lightning. I ask you this, what happens? What happens if the coyotes are locked out? Yeah.

And they have to play Tampa on the 23rd. Where do they play that game? Do they play that game? You know what? That's a great question because as far as I know, there's no precedent for this in NHL history of a team being blocked out. We've certainly had situations where arenas for various reasons have temporarily become unavailable. There can be, you know, whether it's structural issues or a weather situation. but, you know, my guess is, and it is just a guess, is they would play the game either somewhere nearby

if there was an NHL arena available or in Tampa. And, you know, you just, you know, in this case, potentially, if it's a situation of the Coyote's own making, you just say, look, you're going to play in Tampa and you'll be the home team, you'll have last line change, but you're going to play the game on the road. And we just keep going like that. But again, you get into arena availability. and who knows what they can even do. Again, I feel like that is very, very unlikely.

But I'm sure Gary Bettman is, you know, this is at the top of his agenda again. And you've got to wonder at what point does he get tired of always having, it seems, a coyote's related crisis on his hands. But we've been saying that for decades now. And the answer always seems to be that it's not yet. yet. So he is, the league has always stuck by this franchise and I would assume that they will continue to do that here. And of course, the NHL Board of Governors are all meeting this week right now in Florida and you have to know that this topic is at the top of the agenda.

And I start to wonder, remember late last week, Forbes magazine reported that the Arizona coyotes were on the market and that potentially they could be Houston bound. The league and the coyotes quickly shot down that story in a very abrupt and kind of they vehemently denied that there was any truth to it. But I got to tell you, when you see a story like this from Katie on the heels of the rumors that they're potentially for sale, it leads you to believe that there's smoke, there's fire, no? I mean, it certainly makes you re-evaluate that strong denial we got last week where, I mean, it was, they, they were, they were shocked, shocked that anyone would suggest that there was even the potential for a franchise move there.

And, yeah, I mean, look, but that's the weird thing about this, right? I mean, teams, teams tend to move when, and it's very rare in the NHL. And I've said this before, I'll give full credit to Gary Bettman. When he first came in in the 90s, there was a lot of franchise movement early on. but since then it's been very stable. The NHL has had one move in 20 plus years, and that's more stability than the NFL or the NBA have had, which is pretty remarkable.

They don't like moving teams, and usually it only happens when in an extreme situation. You look at this, we're talking about a bill of a million bucks, and I'm not going to sit here and say a million bucks is nothing, but to an NHL team and to a multi-billion dollar league, it's kind of nothing. So it's, you know, that's part of why I don't think this goes as much further because, you know, even if the coyotes have trouble coming up with that money, you would assume Gary Betman and the league

will find a way to float them on advance and get this story to go away. Because in the grand scheme of things, you know, a million bucks that you already owe is, it doesn't seem like a high price to get some very bad publicity. off of the front page. Yeah. And like I said, listen, death taxes and weird Arizona coyote stories.

Yeah, but maybe not the taxes, though. Yeah, maybe not the taxes. In the case of human error, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. But it is. It feels like one of those, I'd love to hear from our listeners too. Like if we told you

finish the sentence, death taxes blank in the hockey world, like, you know, what are you putting in there as the third thing? Coyote's weird stories would be in there. I think hockey fans getting riled up over a suspension. That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah, that's it.

Yep, every week. Yeah, let's do it. Well, which one? Well, let's start with your boy. Actually, maybe he's, is he my boy, too, Jason Spetsa? Because he's our boy. He's our boy, Jason. He's the only guy.

We're very disappointed in Jason. Yeah, Jason. He's a good boy. So Jason Spetza gets a six-game suspension for his need of the head of Neil Pionk in that wild game between Winnipeg and Toronto on Sunday. And here's the thing. I really like Jason. I think the world of him,

but when you deliver a blow to the head, like, we need deliver the blow to the head of somebody. Like, I've been screaming for years that we got to crack down on headshots. You know, I know he's appealing it and it might be reduced. But I think I would be disingenuous if I'm like,

ah, but he's a good guy. Like, like, I think, I guess here's my question. Is Jason Spetsu the most unlikely player, Sean, to receive an in-person hearing? Because A, the personality, but B, more so, it's the type of player he is. He's never been called to the carpet.

He's never had a series of kind of nasty, dirty hits, and you think he plays on the line. He is one of the most gentlemanly players out there. So is Jason Spetser the most unlikely player to receive an in-person hearing that you can think of? Yeah, he might be. I, you know, I dug around a little bit trying to remember anyone else who's been suspended, let alone getting the in-person treatment, which, of course, is that's what the league does when they want to leave open the option to suspend for more than five games, which they did in this case. You know, it's, it is funny because any time, any player that you might think of as a clean player or a player who isn't very physical, it only does take one incident. and then somebody somewhere will say, well, that they're not a clean player anymore.

And that's, that's fair. Like, I guarantee we're sitting here talking about, oh, poor Jason, you know, what a choir boy. And there's Winnipeg Jets fans screaming going, no, he's not because look what he just did. You know, the, you know, some of the, Mark Schifley would be an example last year, right? This was a guy that was viewed as a clean, you know, star player. And he isn't viewed that in way anymore because of the Jake Evans hit. You know, I know we've been over this whenever we talk about players everyone loved. and you mentioned Joe Thornton and who doesn't love good old Joe Thornton and St. Louis Blues fans do not love good old Joe Thornton. I promise you that. So, you know, this may be another one of those. But look, I mean, as far as the suspension to Jason Spetser, I mean, you said it yourself, knee to the head. I mean, that's not a sentence that should fit in an NHL game. You're not supposed to have that. And I think when you look at that play, there's really only two ways to

view it. The first is that you take a very, very charitable view to Jason Spetson. You say that he was trying to deliver a shoulder hit to a player who was on their way down to the ice and the timing was off. And by the time he arrives in a hitting position with his shoulder out, Pionk's head is already more at knee level. And that's where the collision happens. And it's accidental and, you know, and, uh, uh, it just, just one of those things that unfortunately happens. Um, not entirely unlike the Corey Perry, John Tavares play that we saw in the playoffs. At which point you, you probably don't want to see any supplemental discipline at all. You just say, I mean, that's, that's a just a really unfortunate thing. I think that would be an

an extremely charitable way to look at it. The other way to look at it is you say, no, this was intentional or at least, you know, this was, you know, this was, you know, this was, Jason Spetsa, whether he had this lined up the whole way or whether it was, you know, last second to mean, he made the decision to hit a guy in the head with his knee. And if, uh, if that's the way that you view it, which I think is fair to say the way that most people looked at that play, then it has to be a big suspension. I mean, that's, that's not something you can, you can punish with one or two games. So, uh, you know, if people didn't see the game or the context here is Neil Pionk had had shortly before throwing a knee-to-nee hit that it injured one of the Maple Leafs players,

Rasmus Sandin, which was a more, you know, for lack of a better term, kind of the traditional knee-on-kne, stuck the knee out, that wasn't penalized. So the Leafs have just seen one of their players get hurt. There hasn't been a penalty. And, you know, that certainly, those circumstances certainly don't help Jason Spetz's case because it makes it seem as if this was a retaliation. I get that, and Neil Pionk was suspended for his hit. He got the two games from the Department of Player Safety. I get that if you're a least fan, you're saying, well, you know, if the ref had called that or if something had happened on that, then none of the rest of this happens and you're frustrated that why was there no call.

And that's fine. The Department of Player Safety is not taking that into account. And they can't. I mean, imagine if the Department of Player Safety said, well, there was a missed call earlier in the game. so that may, I mean, it would be, it would be chaos out there. If you knew that if something happens and the referee misses it, that it's 50% off on suspensions for any payback you want to hand out, that would, it would just be a total gong show out there.

It would be the purge. Exactly. I mean, so it's not, I get the Leaf fan from a Leaf fan. I get the frustration with the way that that game is officiated, but the reality is that that can't factor in. And look, it was, It was a bad play. And, you know, if it was an elbow to the head, then I think there's less debate.

It was just because it was so unusual in such a strange play. And, you know, whether that changes Jason Spetz's reputation as a good guy, time will tell. But he got what he deserved. And look, he's appealing and, you know, we'll see how that goes. But I thought the Department of Player's Safety got this one pretty much right. Yeah. You know, it reminded me of, you know, in football when a quarterback goes down to slide and a defensive player can sometimes clip them in the head. And you're like, you know what, that you could have let up, right? Like you could have, you shouldn't be doing that. And I think that's what happened. I think Pionk was in a very vulnerable position. And Jason Spetzel was coming in on him. And I think you've got to be responsible for your body part. And here's the thing, too, is the Maple Leaf saw firsthand what happened to John.

on Tamaris, right? And we all remember that. I mean, that was, I think, for anyone, one of the scariest plays that we've ever seen in the NHL. And this play wasn't that, but it could have been. I mean, this is, and so, I mean, you almost, there's a part of you that would say, if there's any team that shouldn't be throwing hits like this, it's the Maple Leafs, because they've, they've seen the other side of it. So, you know, it's, you know, and I don't want to make it sound like, you know, I'm saying it could have been worse. Neil Pionk is out. He's in the concussion protocol.

We don't know when he will be back. And we know with concussions, you know, you can't just hand wave it away and say, well, he'll be fine in a little while. But at the same time, that play could have gone even worse. So, I mean, you have to take the responsibility for that. And, you know, Spets are appealing. I mean, I guess that's what you have to do. And the PA has to back him. but I didn't think it was an inappropriate suspension.

And, you know, in a way, it was almost, it's nice to see the Department of Player Safety, if you put aside, you know, the fact that it was my favorite team, it's nice to see them go towards the upper end of what's expected instead of almost always seeming to do the opposite. Yeah, and, you know, one thing I want to also tackle real quick before we move on to those Jacob Trooper hits. You know, I saw people saying, you know,

I can't believe Jason Spetsa got more than Brendan Lemieux like biting he got more than biting a guy but hey my point on this and this has always been my point we have an epidemic of headshots that we still need to eliminate from the game we do not have an epidemic of biting right like we're not trying to get biting out of the game there's one guy that's bitten in the last X number of years

right it's the headshots we got to get out of the game so I'm okay with a bigger suspension for a headshot than a bite But that's just me. Yeah. And I mean, look, the bite was such a ridiculous outlier that, you know, I don't know that we can ever really find a fair comparison. I'll just say this. I'm sure Brady Kachuk didn't enjoy getting bitten. I sure wouldn't enjoy getting bitten.

But Brady Kachuk is not going to be 10 or 20 or 30 years from now affected by the fact that he got bit on the hand during the fight. And we know now that there are guys who are still feeling the effects of blows to the head. much later in their in their career and in their lives. And yeah, it's, and it's tough. And, you know, that leads us into the Truba thing because, you know, then you go to, well, how do we protect against concussions? How do we protect against, you know, guys getting hit in the head? And in a lot of cases, including in the Jacob Truba hits, I would argue, it can be tough.

And you look at it and you say, you know, how do we, what's allowed, what's not, what's the line. Whereas in the spets of play, it wasn't that. You know, nobody's sitting there saying, well, there's such a thing as a clean knee to the head. So, you know, we don't have to debate that. And that's why it was a big number. And, you know, there may have been some sticker shock for Leaf fans to see the number be that high. But I think under the circumstances, it was warranted. I got to ask you, maybe this is a potential future column idea for you. Okay. Brady Kach in the four games since being bitten has seven points. We're kind of. kind of getting like a Spider-Man vibe here, right?

Yeah. He's bitten all of a sudden. I wonder if you look back, imagine you look back in history and all the people that have been bitten. What if it turns out that they went on like some crazy heater after being bitten? I feel like that's something you should look into. I might have to check into that. I don't know though.

Like, I mean, what, you've absorbed the powers of Brendan Lemieux? Like, has Brendan Lemieux ever had seven point? Like, I don't know. I don't know if, but yeah, if he gets super, I mean, what would his superhero name be? It's got to be like brickman, right? Like you get bit by a brickhead and you got to, you become brickman. He's got the, but that would make, that would turn you into brick hands. And this is, this is not what he is.

I don't know. We got to dig into this more. But yeah, I'll get to, I'll get on that and figure out to figure out what happens when you get bit. Okay. So the other thing we wanted to talk about too in light of kind of suspension. Look, Jake Truba of the New York Rangers was involved in two massive hits this week. One that was awfully scary involving Jujar, Caria, of Chicago, the other to Nate McKinnon of the AFS.

And both of these hits, Sean, felt like old school Scott Stevens. You catch a guy head down, you know, but Truba doesn't get penalized on these hits. He has to fight for them, and maybe that's another discussion to have. But I guess my question is, how do we feel about these hits? These were, in the case of Kari. I mean, that is so scary. Like, I watched it one time. I'm like, okay, that's it.

I can't watch it again. The McKinnon one, fortunately, it doesn't seem to be as, you know, obviously as serious and Kariah is doing better. How do we feel about these hits in the year 2021? Yeah, I mean, it's tough. Obviously, when you see a player go down like Kariah did, and, you know, he's got the arms up in the air and, you know, we know what that means at this point. I mean, you're right, though. These are hits that up until relatively recently in NHL history would have been considered not just clean hits, but picture perfect hits. You know, they would been on the cover of rock emsockham hockey they they would have been in ads they would have been

you know the crazy fox sports intros would have shown him throwing these hits and the player he hits would explode into a million pieces and and we would um you know people would people would want that sort of stuff in the next video game this is for most of NHL history we've celebrated stuff like that not necessarily when guys got hurt um but uh you know that that was the mentality your head up or you're going to get caught by a big hitter. And that's changing now. And, you know, obviously because we know a lot more about the effect that these sorts of hits and injuries can have. But it's tough.

And, you know, and I don't know what the answer is because we have rules now and they've changed the rules over the years to protect against certain types of headshots. but they haven't removed hits to the head entirely from the rulebook. You hear that sometimes from fans. They say, you're not allowed to hit in the head. Well, you are under certain circumstances. What do we do? Do we change the rules even further? Do we say, as I've seen some people argue, that we're just going to eliminate hits to the head.

We just say, let's say, any contact to the head, automatic penalty, which I'm frankly not sure really solves the problem. problem because there's, you know, there's a lot of different ways that contact can happen. There's that that sort of rule could potentially have an impact on how puck carriers play and all down the line. I don't know that there's a great answer here. I really don't accept to say that I think, unfortunately, the very unsatisfying answer might be that if we're going to have a league where open ice hitting is allowed and you are allowed to throw big. hits like that, we're going to have to accept that sometimes this is the result you're going to see. I don't, the more I think about it, I don't think we can get to a place where we say, you can

come across the ice on a guy who's got his head down at a high speed and put your shoulder into his chest and knock him flying. And that's a great play. But if there's contact to the head, then that's a dirty play. the line there is so, you know, it's so thin. And, you know, we're going to have to say that, you know, it's much less a part of the game. But Don Cherry used to have a phrase back in the 80s and 90s where he said that there are some guys in the league that hit to hurt.

And there were, you know, Wendell Clark hit you to hurt. Scott Stevens hit to hurt. A lot of these guys were celebrated. You know, not that they were going out there trying to be dirty, but they were going out there, they weren't trying to separate you from the puck. They were saying, I'm going to hit you and it's going to hurt. And everyone else in the league is going to be aware whenever I'm on the ice that that's a possibility and it's going to change how they play.

And it becomes part of their game. If you allow players to hit to hurt, sometimes guys are going to get hurt. And I just, you know, it's similar to football, right? I mean, football has made a lot of changes for player safety, but we still allow the safety to come across and take out the wide receiver. Right? That's a play that we celebrate that. That's a great defensive play.

Well, you know what? Sometimes that receiver is not going to get up. And it's kind of the same thing in the NHL. And I really feel like we're getting closer and closer to the point where we have to either say big hits are still a part of this league. And sometimes guys are going to get hurt. And sometimes hits are going to be borderline. And sometimes we're going to have to debate over, you know, did he get the head? did he not?

Or we say, you know what, maybe it's time to go even further and say, we're not going to change the rules or this or that, but we got to try to back away from these big open ice hits altogether. And we've kind of been doing that as a league just over the years. Part of the reason that these hits, you know, you see them everywhere is that they're rare now. You know, there used to be hits like this every day, every week in the NHL, and now they're rare. maybe we're already headed in that direction, much like we did with fighting. But I think as long as we still allow these big, scary-looking hits as part of the game, sometimes they're going to be scary for a reason and guys are going to get hurt.

All right, Sean, as always, time on the Thursday pod to bring in Jesse Granger for a little Granger things brought you by our good friends at BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with us at the athletic. Like, Jesse Granger, I got to tell you, my favorite thing I've seen this week in the NHL, outside of the Zegris assist, is the crowd in Vancouver chanting, Bruce, there it is. I love it. Like, it's the best chant going right now. And they're feeling it. They beat Boston on Wednesday. They're 2 and 0 under Bruce Boudreau.

So I ask you this to kick off Granger things. That new coach smell, as we like to call it, or the new coach bounce, seems to be working. in Vancouver, right? Yeah, definitely. And I think there are obviously a bunch of different reasons. Just a fresh start. I think when a coach gets fired, a lot of times players take that personally. Like, they kind of feel responsible for that. So they want to play a little harder. And then also, I think probably the biggest one is just when there's a new coaching staff, especially in like a situation in Vancouver where they actually bring in the new full-time coach and you know this is an interim. These players are trying to impress a coach that they haven't, that hasn't watched them play

a lot yet. And I think that them being at home probably helps you mentioned the vibes in Vancouver are feeling good. And they're two and oh under him after an eight and 17 start under green. And we've kind of seen that with with some other teams too. I think Chicago was the first team to fire their coach this year. Obviously, Jeremy Colleton going to Derek King. And they were one in 11 under Colleton. And then they won their first four games under King. And two of them were as underdogs. They've alternated wins and losses since then. But I think you're seeing a big time bump in both of those situations. Yeah, that's, it's fun,

because this is the sort of thing is hockey fans, we all kind of take this as gospel. Like, this is why you change coaches, and everything changes. You just hit and reset, and it's a toll start over. And then sometimes it doesn't really turn out to be the case. I wonder, my theory would be that whatever happens

in that first game or two kind of continues. Like, if you lose that first game, it's like, oh, no, nothing's changed. The spiral continues. But I guess we'll have to wait and see we're not there yet with Vancouver. But so far so good, which is cool because I love Bruce Brugro. I think he's one of my favorite coaches in the league. I love to see him have some success.

Well, we are there in Philadelphia, though, as the Flyers fired Elaine Vigno and Mike Yo, his first game was an 03 loss to New Jersey, which is obviously not a great start. And in their game, they – and I think situations matter, right? And like I mentioned Vancouver's situation. They're on a five-game homestand. Well, it was actually a six-game homestand, and they fired Green after the first of that. So Boudreau comes in. He knows he's the full-time guy.

And he's got five straight home games. You win those first two. As Ian mentioned, the crowd's feeling good. They've got three games left in that homestand. They're minus 120 favorites over Winnipeg tomorrow before two tough games against Carolina and Columbus. Whereas in Philly, Mike Yo comes in. I don't think anyone thinks he's automatically the,

answer there. He's probably just kind of holding things down until they figure out what they want to do and they lose that first game. And they're in the middle of a road trip and they are coming to Vegas next where they are plus 170 underdogs. So it does seem like things are definitely trending in a totally different direction in. What do you guys think about the like the difference in? Whereas is it's an interim, a guy who's like an assistant filling in or a guy like Boudreau who is clearly hired to be the future. I love how you know, you're highlighting the schedule because that's, something that I used to do when a coach was really on the hot seat in the middle of the season. I would start looking at the schedule and saying, when would be a good time to bring a new guy in? Because you're right. You don't want your first, your coach to come in and your first game is like in Tampa. And you're going out there and it's going to be a tough one. You want ideally, I always thought a couple of days break, let the new guy come in, start getting the system in place. And some beatable teams coming up to build some momentum.

And yeah, the Philly thing, I mean, you know, Chuck Fletcher's talking about having a turnaround and the joke that we were making on Twitter was, yeah, well, Mike Yao has been part of a historic turnaround. He was a key player in one of the greatest turnarounds in NHL history with the St. Louis Blues. But, of course, his role in that was getting replaced. And maybe that's the plan here. You put him behind the bench long enough, let the hockey gods see him there, and then you replace him with someone else. And obviously, you know, he got replaced by Craig Baroube, who's a name that's very familiar to Flyers fans. So I don't see that one as being a long-term fit.

So maybe that's what we should be doing with the Flyers schedule is looking ahead saying, okay, when's the home game against the coyotes that we can say we'll bring in the new guy for that one. You know what? I think out of this conversation, I think we might have a new down goes brown. Again, another future column for you, Sean. imagine you found out that like whether it's Arizona or maybe it's Ottawa or L.A. or some team, imagine they always face somebody in their first game as coach.

Like I wouldn't. Would that not be interesting if you found out that some team eight times in the last two years has faced a guy and like. The other one, and I've had a few people ask me this and I haven't done it yet, but who's the team that losing to that team leads to the coach getting fired? I think it's Ottawa. I mean, Ottawa seems to be one of them. They have been for a few years now where, you know, it's just that, because I mean, that's an insult to the team, right? If every time it's like, oh, man, okay, we lost 14 in a row. And that was okay.

But we can't lose two to one to the Ottawa senators in a shootout. Your God, we're firing everybody. So, yeah, that would be an interesting one, too, to see if, you know, at some point you got to take it personal, right? It was Vegas there for a while. I can't remember who the other. It happened at least twice. Babcock's last game for the Leafs. It was Mark Fleury. Mark Fleury fired Mike Babcock with that.

That's right. And there was another one before that because I remember that kind of narrative going in was like, and then Travis Green, the Canucks had gotten shelled by Colorado the night before. And then they gave up like six to Vegas. And we all kind of thought like, is it going to happen again? Like it's going to be a third coach fired in Vegas. But I think more than anything. So I was I was digging into these numbers and looking at kind of how teams have turned it around. which teams haven't. And the one trend that I didn't necessarily expect to find going in, but I did. And then once you see it, it kind of makes a lot of sense is that when team switch coaches, the new coaching staff comes in, they tighten things up. They're playing things close to the chest. You're trying to play mistake-free hockey, not trying to do anything fancy route out of the gates. And that's leading to a ton of unders. Chicago was the first team to fire their coach this year. They went under in their first three games under King. They've gone under and eight of the 13 games under him overall.

The Flyers, they've only had one game since they fired Bigno, but they also went under. So if you're looking for a betting edge here in the next few games, Flyers games under looks like a solid play. And the Canucks also went under in their first two games under Boudreau. So that's three, one, and two. Plus, if you want to throw in Florida, I've kind of left the Florida Panthers coaching situation out of this conversation just because it was so different. Obviously, they were 7 and 0 under Joel Quinville.

and it's not really the same. But even that team, when they switched from Quinville to Andrew Burnett, they went under in their first two games under Burnett. So it is a pretty solid trend right now. Teams fire their coach. They go under the next few games. That's probably something to look at for the Flyers and Canucks here moving forward. And also, there have already been four coaches fired this season.

I doubt we've seen the last one. So moving forward, if another team fires their coach, maybe try to jump on the unders on those early games and try to get an advantage. That's a good trend and I hate that that makes sense to me, right? You know, it's the old, the new bosses here, everybody looked busy and everybody, you know, and it's, that's in the NHO these days, looking busy means defense. You know, wouldn't it be great if it was like, oh, the new guys here, let's score six goals tonight, but it's not that, right?

It's the new guys here. Let's all be blocking shots like crazy. So, yeah, unfortunate, but that's a good catch. by you, that that could end up being one to watch for sure. Amazing. Hey, listen, Jesse, always appreciate the visits on Thursdays here. Thanks for the insight on the new coach bump, or in the case of Philadelphia, there's kind of struggling.

But appreciate this. Have a great week, and we'll get you again next Thursday. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. Right on. Thanks, Jesse. All right. As always, that was a great conversation with Jesse Granger. Actually, I thought of one thing, too, Sean, when we're talking about what team is like

the kiss of death, if you lose to them, you're going to fire your coach. Here's another point in favor of Ottawa. Last year, Calgary beat Ottawa like seven to four and the flames still fired Jeff Ward. Yeah. Think about that. That's, yeah, that's a key. You got to get to 10 against the senators. Yeah, that's rough.

Although I got to say, like Jesse mentioning people, coaches getting fired in Vegas, I can think of worst places to be when you suddenly find yourself with some unexpected time off and a severance check in your pocket. Like that's, you know, that's not the worst, you know, the old Gerard, Galant, you know, where's my cab? You know, maybe I'll stick around here a little bit and just decompress, so to speak. Yeah. Was Galant in, in Carolina when that happened? I think so.

Yeah. That was before his Vegas time. That was when he was the Panthers coach. Yeah. And that will follow him forever is. I mean, when he got fired in Vegas, we all made the same joke, right? Nobody was paying attention to the fact a great team just fired a great coach. But we just, we had to make our.

Taxi jokes. Exactly. Before we get to this week in hockey history and wrap up this podcast, we got to hit on the Trevor Zegris assist to Sunny Milano because I know they hit on this on the Wednesday show,

so I don't want to get too deep on this, but just because we're kind of getting into this week in hockey history here, I want to kind of contextualize what we saw this week from Zegris. And by the way, is Sunny Malano not getting enough credit here? Yep.

Yeah, I agree with you because I've, and this is, you know, one of my controversial takes that has gotten me yelled at in the past is I have said that we make too big a deal out of when guys bat a puck out of the air. Like, we act like that's the greatest play when a rebound pops up in the air and somebody swats it into the net. And, you know, I've said, like, look, there's a million things that NHL players do that I can't do, but I can knock something out of the air if you if you just, you know, toss it to me. and I think a lot of those are, you know, we flip out over them. But in this case, it was a real nice play. Because first of all, you're not expecting the puck at that point. In fact, the exact opposite. You're keeping your stick on the ice for a pass that's going to come from some direction.

But also, the flip over the net, you know, by definition, it has to go over the net, which means you have to carefully make sure you don't swat it before it gets under the crossbar. Because then it would be a high stick. And I know there was some, you know, some. Sabers fans probably still think it was a high stick, but it was a really smart play by him to be ready for it and then to execute on it as well as he did. And by the way, Eric Stevens has a great write-up on the goal. If you want to check that out, just kind of walks everybody through, walks the readers through

how they connected and the fact that Malana was actually yelling Michigan to him, like, hey, why don't you do the Michigan play? So I need to know if you're putting this, ranking this all-time greatest assist, in NHL history. Where does Zegra's rank for you? That's up there. I mean, I'm trying to think. Like what else is even on the list?

That's what I'm having a hard time with. You know, there have been some great ones. There have been, you know, some incredible tape-to-tapes. There have been, you know, said, didn't Eric Carlson have just like an insane end-to-end pass to somebody where they've floated way up? Carlson to Hoffman is one of the all-time great plays because Carlson's behind his own goal line and hits a streaking Mike Hoffman like, you know, 120 feet away with this perfect saw. It's the most ridiculous long distance pass I've seen for sure.

I mean, a lot of the, we've seen stuff like that. And that's the sort of stuff. If you're a hockey fan, you go, wow, the skill involved in executing that. What made this one different is it was the sort of thing that even if you could have never watched a hockey game and you show that to somebody and they go, okay, that's cool what that guy did. I really like that. I mean, to me, and I'm going to, let me throw this at you, because I have a theory on this.

Yeah. My all-time favorite assist is not from the NHL. It's from the Olympics. Team Canada, the Mario Lemieux, when I say Mario Lemieux, the through the legs, right? Yeah. He lets the pass go through the legs and Paul Korea takes it and buries it, which is, it's funny because people, and I'm sure I'm not the only. I'm sure when we start talking about great assists, people are going, Merrill Lemieux. And of course, it's not a Marielaumu assist.

That's the whole point of the play is that he doesn't touch the puck. So he doesn't get an assist. Here's my question. Do you know who actually got the assist on that? That's a great question. Is it sackic? No, it's not. See, I had to look it up because I have no idea.

I have no. It's like one of the most famous assists and yet nobody knows who got the assists. It's going to be like Eric Brewer, isn't it? It's, it's, it's, you're, you're actually very close. It's Chris Pronger. Okay. And, you know, it's, and it's, it's a fun one. Because I know to this day, there are truthers out there who say,

Mario didn't do that on, like, he just, he missed the pass or he didn't see it coming or, you know, he wasn't in a position. And, and I would buy that for probably 99% of players. But with Mario, no, I, I absolutely am convinced that he knew where everybody on the ice was and he just made a fraction of a second calculation to let it go through. But it's fascinating to me that, you know, if you talk about that play, everybody goes, yeah, that's the Merrill Lemieux play. And he's the one guy who didn't touch the puck on the play. It's that makes it very unique in NHL history. Totally. Now, I also want to know, like, do we ever see this again? Or like,

I mean, I think we'll probably see this again. When do we see this again? We'll see it more often now. Like, I've said this, too, with the, like the Michigan style goals. the lacrosse style. We're not that far from a time where that's going to become, not a common play, but that's going to become a play that you see a lot.

I mean, I remember, you know, and this is your era too. Like the first time I ever saw Pavel Beret intentionally put the puck into his skates and then kick it back up to his stick.

I thought that was the craziest thing I had ever seen. And now that's a reasonably common play for skill players to make. And I really think that's kind of the next frontier in offense. And, you know, if we ever get anyone in this league in this sport who's thinking offensively and trying to innovate there instead of it always being defense, defense,

defense, that's going to be it, is guys being able to control the puck off the ice, not just with these sorts of flip passes, you know, to be able to do it behind the net. Obviously, you'll see guys come in on breakaways and be able to lift the puck and come at the goalie from a different angle. I really think that's going to be something that over the last. the next 10 years, you're going to see more and more up to the point where, you know, our kids and grandkids will look at it the same way that we look at some stuff when we watch games from distant eras and go, how come nobody's doing this? How come nobody makes this play?

And it was like, well, it wasn't really a thing that happened back then. We're going to see it a lot. And that's, and it's going to be cool. It's going to be really fun. There's already people you go on YouTube who can do ridiculous things with the puck. Once we get players skilled enough to do it in a game situation, even for it to work sometimes, that's going to change things for the goalies. And I'm happy for it because goalies have been headed too good for too long in this sport. Yeah. And you know what I like is the fact that for the most part, all I've seen is people celebrate the Zegris-Milano goal. You haven't seen the dinosaurs say that you are mocking the game or this is bad for the game. We're like, this is just pure skill that we all want to

see. And I like that. I like the fact that people seem to be celebrating it. It's great. And the other thing I'll say is that's kind of cool is, you know, we've never seen somebody coming on a breakaway and lift the puck, you know, and you know, you see it in practice or, you know, so I think maybe some guys have done it in the All-Star competition. But did you know the NHL actually already has that covered in the rules, whether that's a legal play or not? And, you know, they've already, for once, the NHL was actually ahead of the curve on its rulebook and isn't just going to wait a few years of chaos and arguing and anger and then put a rule in, they actually went and put that in the rulebook and got it all sorted out to be ready

for when players can do it. So kudos to the NHL for once on that. So wait, you can do it on a shootout? You can do it on a shootout or any, but you can't at any point handle the puck above the crossbar. As soon as you go above the crossbar, that's a high stick. But as long as you stay under the crossbar, you can keep the puck in the air and it's fully legal. You know, I wonder, like, Casper's Doggivens was kind of this journeyman player played for Ottawa years ago. And for people who aren't familiar, you can look this up on the internet YouTube.

In a game against the Bruins, I think in like 2012 or 13, Doggivins comes in on a penalty shot against Tuka Rask. And basically does a weird thing where he like puts the tip of his blade of his stick on the puck and comes down in a very weird way. and almost scores an unbelievable goal. And I remember, I talked to David Creachie. I did a walk-off interview with Dave Creachie after that game. And Creachie was pissed off and said that was a mockery of the game. And the Bruins players were incensed. And even I think Ottawa, there was some people within the Ottawa organization

that felt like, I don't know if you should have done that. I wonder if somebody does what Dogavins did, you know, 10 years ago, they do that now. Do you think there's a little bit more room for that? I hope so. I hope so. Because the weird thing is, he wasn't even the first to do that move. Phil Bork did that years ago. And I don't remember anyone being mad at Phil Bork.

Now it wasn't a shootout situation. So, yeah, well, yeah, that's probably it. I mean, I hope so. Look, if you're making a legal play, and, you know, we saw this with other things, right? Some of the spinoramas and that kind of thing. And, oh, you know, you're making the goalie look bad. Well, that's your job is to make the goalie look bad. Like, I don't think any other sport does.

this. I don't think anyone in basketball is like, oh, that, you know, you fake the pass and the guy, you know, broke his ankle and he fell over. You made him look bad. Oh, don't dunk on that guy. It's going to hurt his feelings. Man, hockey players and the hockey culture. We, we love two things talking about how tough everybody is and how we're so much tougher than every other sport and then crying about somebody hurting our feelings by doing something that was too skilled or too different. You made me look bad. Oh, my goodness. goodness. It's, that's, that, that, yeah, I, I hope. I hope somebody starts doing this stuff. Maybe not the billboard move, because I don't really see how not being able to raise the puck

is going to, is going to work for you. But do something like it, please. Yeah. All right, hey, listen, let's wrap up the podcast as we always do with a little this week in hockey history. And speaking of people doing things that were kind of unprecedented, this week back in 1987, Sean, Ron Hextall became the first goal tenor in the history of the league to actually shoot the puck on the opposition net and scored. Did it in a game against the Boston Bruins. And Hextel, of course, when he came in, was revolutionary at being a puck handling goalie. Let me ask you a couple questions here. Let me start with this.

You're surprised that in the course of his career, Ron Hexel only scored two goals. Yeah, a little bit. And they were both early, right? Because it was the year after that he got the playoff goal. and then never did again and I can't actually remember off the top of my head

if he had many more attempts even maybe some Flyers fans can jog or memory but yeah that that was surprising also not only you know if you were a kid when this happened or you know

any kind of fan it was the coolest thing we'd ever see I mean we just like that was so it was one of those great plays you know pretty internet but you'd say to somebody you gotta watch the Flyers highlights

to that you're not going to believe what happened also one of my favorite one-liners of all time because if you remember, you know, he shoots the puck down the ice and it kind of like clings off the side. And he comes in the press conference and he sits down. He says, before anybody asked me, I was aiming for that post, which is just one of those great lines. And yeah, I mean, man, the Ron Haxtillera was fun. That was a real fun, you know, those few years where he was really on top of his game, man, that was as entertaining a player as you'll ever see. And if you go look at the highlight on the internet on YouTube. And I think they're playing the Bruins, right? And I think if you look at it.

It's the Bruins broadcast that often is the one that's shown. And I think, and I don't know if it was Derek Sanderson or, you know, whoever was doing the call. But they basically, just before it happens, they're like, you know, what are these days he's going to get a goal. And yeah. And they even call the situation because they say like, you know, back then it was the thinking was, the time to try it would be had to be two goals up so that if you screwed it up and gave up a goal you weren't you know you hadn't cost yourself the game necessarily and also ideally you were shorthanded because that meant there's no icing so if you miss you're not costing yourself

and you know they were just saying like yeah we know this is the situation it's two goals keep an eye on hex still he might and then he goes and does it and another cool thing about that highlight watch the defenseman because they get in the puck goes in and the defenseman comes and he like digs the puck out and he like starts to play it like he looks up like he's not even sure if that goal counts he's kind of like is this is the play over does that count or like are we still playing here it's one of those weird moments of confusion it's a super cool play yeah and okay now what do you think we'll see next because really we haven't seen a ton of goalie goals lately I think Perene was the last one he was yeah to score and really in the last six or seven years

we've only had one goal from a goalie and we also haven't had a lot of goals goalie fights. So I ask you this, what do we see next? A goalie shooting on an opposition net and scoring or an old-fashioned goalie fight. What happens next? Oh, boy. You know what? I mean, there's certainly been a lot more goalie fights over the years than goalie goals. Both are sort of going away. Probably the fight. I mean, we've seen that, I guess the last one was what? It was Mike Smith. The Calgary-Ebbott-Den, yeah. And Mike Smith, I think with Hextel, probably the only member of the goal and a fight club that is out there.

But yeah, I mean, I'd love to see, you know, there's always a couple of goalies who have that kind of have it in the back of their head that they're always trying. And people are thinking about it. Like Jack Campbell the other night had an empty net and he had the puck behind his net. And you could hear the crowd suddenly starts chatting, shoot, shoot, and he didn't. But they would love to see it. But no, I think the goalie fights are a little bit probably more likely to. see, but I hope I'm wrong because the goals are awesome.

Yeah, they are. Speaking of goals being awesome. One other Dayton hockey history from kind of the same time frame, December 11, 1985, Edmonton and Chicago at the peak of their offensive powers play a wild game that ends with 21 goals in regulation time. Edmonton wins 12 to 9. I was thinking about this. I was like, you know, let's say, Sean, you had a chance to sit down with a person who was on the fence about being a hockey fan.

And they're like, hey, maybe, you know what, show me any game from hockey history. I want to, I want to get a good flavor of the game. Are you picking the 12-night Edmont to Chicago game and saying like,

would this be a good game to try to sell somebody on the sport or would it just be such a, you know, gong show that you're like, ah, this isn't a good representation of what the game is. It was a bit of a gong show.

I know, like, I'm always banging the drum of we need more goals. Offense is fun. make the nets bigger, all this stuff, and how much fun it was in the 80s and 90s to be a hockey fan when there were lots of guys getting 100 points and 50 goals. But games like this are maybe the counter example, where you say, like, there's a point where things go off the rails a little bit.

And I wouldn't show this to someone that I was trying to turn into a new hockey fan, not because it wasn't a fun, entertaining game, but that would just be false advertising, right? I mean, you show this game to somebody, and they come out of it and they go, I'm sold, man. That was fun. 21 goals. When's the next NHL game?

And then you sit down and like Columbus and Minnesota are playing a one-nothing game. Remember, we're not allowed to mention Minnesota anymore as a boring team. That's right. That's right. Columbus and Islanders. Islanders are probably, they're having a rough enough time already. But yeah, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't show them that. You know, I wouldn't show them, you know, the wings and the avalanche, you know, rivalry.

because that that's not really part of the game anymore. I'm not sure. Like, I feel like it would have to be something in the last, um, 10 years or so, because the game has changed so much. I mean,

it's, it's, you know, there's, those 80s games are almost unrecognizable sometimes. When, when you watch the way that they were played versus how it is now. Um,

I don't know. Like, uh, I've got, give me your picks because I've got one in the back of my head that I would, that I would show to somebody, but like, I feel like I'm going to maybe steal from you here.

Yeah. Go ahead. 2014 Western Conference final Chicago, L.A. Yep. That's the one? Well, I've got two. That is one of them. Now, here's the thing.

Are you picking the game seven? Or are you picking the game five? Which game was the, yeah, it was game four or five? Game five was the one that had the overtime. And I don't even really remember the game itself. And that's another thing. Like there's lots of times where, you know, NHL games are, you know, the first period was boring, but then it gets going or the second period.

But that overtime, if I had one, if you give me half an hour to make a hockey fan, I'm showing him that overtime because the whole overtime fits in half an hour. And it's just end to end absolutely insane. Bob Cole is on the call and he is just lights out. He is just killing it the whole time. And that would be my pick. But here's why I said, yeah, as soon as he said 2014, because we didn't say NHL, right? We're allowing international, I'm assuming here.

Sochi? 2014 women's gold medal game the craziest game I've ever seen you sit somebody down in front of that game and you say this you go look this is a gold medal game highest stakes possible

virtually you know not only the two best teams in the world but virtually every one of the greatest players in the game right now in the women's game is in this game it's practically an all-star game and these two teams hate each other like the rivalry is off the charts here This is intensely personal.

They can't stand each other. And then you show them that game with, you know, the bad refing and Canada. And the pop coming down and hitting the post and Canada scores and ties it. And then they win it over. Like that to me was the wildest, craziest game I've ever seen. And, I mean, you show that to somebody. If you can watch that game and at the end of it, you go, eh, it was okay. Then you know what?

Don't worry about hockey. It's not for you. If we can't sell you with that game, then they'll never be anything. Yeah. Well said. Hey, listen, we'd love to hear from you if you could, you know, sell one game to a non-hockey fan. What are you picking? And like I said, we love to hear from you.

Drop us an email. The athletic hockey show at gmail.com. The athletic hockey show at gmail. You can also leave us a voicemail. 845-4-45-84-59. Sean, as always, this was a blast. The hour just flew by, and we'll do this again next week. Right on.

Sounds good. Already, and we want to remind you, if you're not a subscriber with us at The Athletic, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show. Get an annual subscription for $3.99 a month. And you can also subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcasts. Get all of our bonus content from our entire network. Start with a 30-day free trial and then it's just 99 cents a month after that.