The Athletic Hockey Show - The Athletic Hockey Show starting lineup draft

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Hailey Salvian and Sean Gentille welcome Max Bultman and Sean McIndoe to the Thursday show for the annual The Athletic Hockey Show starting lineup draft. Each member selects one center, left winger, right winger, two defenders and a goaltender with the goal of building a roster where the team with the most combined points wins bragging rights this season. Hosts: Hailey Salvian and Sean GentilleWith: Max Bultman and Sean McIndoeExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff Domet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. What's up, everybody? It's Haley Salvean and Sean Gentilly here with you. It's another Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. We are less than a week away from the start of the 2024-25 season. It's October. I have my favorite fall spooky shirt on. I'm very excited for the season.

Sean, how are you feeling? I heard on the Wednesday show with Frankie and McIndoo that, you're in the best podcast shape of your life? Are we still feeling fresh? Or was that Frankie talking about his training camp shape? How are we doing? I think that was Frank bullying me. Oh, great.

I don't know what the typical route of action here, but I'd like to file some kind of complaint. No, I'm not in the best podcasting shape of my life. I'm surely not in the best physical shape of my life. I feel like I've been locked in my home for the last several weeks, writing team by team previews. And that continues, but I know we're getting close now because we are starting to work on the good teams.

We're like in the top seven or top eight here. And I'm like these teams are actually, you know, real life contenders. So I can tell it's almost over, even though I'm not entirely sure what day it is. It's a busy season for preview content. This will be the last week of preview content from us on the show. Last week, we dove into the NHL player tiers. If you missed that and you're interested, you can find the episode on Apple, Spotify, Google, wherever you might get your podcasts. And this week,

we're bringing back the draft format. We've done this before on the show, but we've also brought in Max Boltman, who ditched us. He's now on the Monday show. And Sean McAdoo from the Wednesday show, he also gets bullied by Frankie Carrotto. I do. What's up guys? It's nice because when Frankie just says Sean and then bullies, we can just pretend that he's. It's. It's a lot. It's. It's the other guy. Yeah, he didn't be neat. You would never do that to me? Yeah, that's clearly.

My name ends in a vowel too. Frankie would never be mean to me. I just like to say I'd love what you guys have done with the place. All the rearranging, you know, it looks really great. I never would have thought to do this. Yeah. It's really, um, took a great imagination. You love, you love the place a mess, brother.

Yeah. I always do. Did he get his security deposit back? No way. We did the landlord special. We covered your room and paint. Yeah, everything's just all white. All right.

So the goal of the draft today, we're going to be selecting a starting lineup. We've done this before, I think, last season. And I'm pretty sure all three of us just pick like three centers. And we ignored the wing position completely. It was like, oh, well, I'm just going to take Drysidal and McKinnon and Jackson. and Jack Hughes, and they can figure it out from there. We're forcing ourselves to not do that this year. We've got to take a center, a left wing, a right wing, two defenders.

It can be left or right shot. That doesn't matter. And a goalie. We're actually going to keep track this time. Who ever has the most points and wins for goalies at the end of the year is going to win. Nothing. Just bragging rights for their own show. We have representatives from everybody here.

We've got the Monday show and Friday with Max. We've got Wednesday with both Sean's and Thursday with myself and Sean Gentilly. Can I just make one request? If you win and you get a prize, can you not share it with Bronman? That feels reasonable. I think that I can. I don't want to line his pockets. I don't think he's going to track it.

So I think I think I've got good odds that just flying right under the radar with that. This podcast is a mosquito to Cory Pranman. He's not going to care. He's the big boss, the pod. I don't think there, I guess other ground rules, you can take players wherever in the draft. We've also set certain positions. So kind of like with NHL awards ballots, Leon Dreisdel is a center, not a center, left winger.

So is Elias Pedersen. I didn't know this until I was looking all of this up, but I guess Yahoo! Fantasy considers Jack Hughes a left wing slash center. He's a center for these purposes in case anyone's wondering. Matthew Kachuk's a right wing. That's how it is for award ballots. So we'll stick with that.

Goleys will calculate the wins and just use those as points. I think we'll multiply the wins times three to get them closer to actual forward point styles. I like how you said calculate the wins. Like we just look to the right of their name on the... I said multiply by three. That's a calculation. That's kind of good.

Is arithmetic calculation? I think it might be. That seems like a semantic. Do you want to host the show? No. Okay. No, that doesn't go well when he... Okay.

Who I let me host a show? Jesus. Any other questions? No. Can I just make a request? Can we, when it's our turn to pick, can you please not spend five minutes thanking the host city and congratulating last year's champions and all that stuff?

I'm pulling a Gary Bettman in 2024. Just make the pick. We want Tim Murray only. Let's go. All right, but I'm bringing out Celine Dion. That's fine. If you've got... You're allowed right over there.

You are permitted. Haley had Michael Buffer ready to go, but now it's awkwardly... I told her to go home. Michael Buffer awkwardly, like, standing on stage. Like, okay. Go ahead. Bye. Thanks for being here.

I'm still ready to rumble. Okay. Okay. They bring it like a vaudeville cane and yank Michael Buffer off stage. I've told Michael Buffer to go walk Bono. it's time for his morning pee I guess the goal of this draft to be clear

this isn't building the best roster for the next five years there's no salary cap considerations because last time that sent Max into a spiral everything sends me into a spiral one of those moments there's been several on camera and off where I could

literally see Max start to sweat I could see his I could see his like Sweatlands fire. What's impressive there is. What's impressive there is you catching it at the start, because I kind of had a baseline sweating. So it's kind of more impressive that you were around me pre-sweat

to see it started. Went from six to ten. Yeah. So the goal is to just build a roster that we want to have the most points by the end of the season. Sound good? I love that. I think I want to be in a fantasy team where that's,

with those is the parameter. Just give me points. That's it. I'm excited. This is basically how the Leafs were built. So, offense only,

no consideration to defense or anything like that. Have you had that one in the chamber? Have you had that one in the chamber since we decided to do this last week? No. I don't prepare for anything. Sorry. You know that.

Should know better. McAdu is going to go full Myrtle in the athletic fantasy hockey pool last year where he drafted like seven leaves. He had like Sampsonov and Rasmus Sandin. It was just like, James, what's happening? Living the gimmick, man.

Oh no. So the draft order as produced by producer Jeff, we're going to do a snake draft, by the way. It's Sean, then, well, Sean Gentilly. It's very weird to have to keep doing that. Then it's me, Max, and then

Maccindoo. Sean, you're on the clock. All right. I toyed with taking someone else here. But because of the snake format, I'm afraid of getting shut out on the turn. I'm going to end up with basically my eighth choice after my first one here.

So I'm not going to get cute. I thought about taking Nikita Kutra because of the surplus value. I see. We would provide over other right-wingers, but I can't quite bring myself to do it. I'm going to McDavid. What would everyone's reaction be if Sean took Kutra first overall?

Would that be like collective gasp? Or would everyone be like, yeah, I guess that makes sense. I think he outscored McDavid last year. He did. He did. He had 144 points a season. So I think combined with the positional thing, I can buy it. I would have been surprised to hear it.

But when Sean started talking about that, I looked. I'm just concerned about the loss of Stamcoast from the Lightning Power Play, not at five on five. Steve M. C.m. Coase is, maybe not a bad five on five player at this, at this point in his career, but there's plenty of stuff to suggest that he was a bit of a drag,

at least defensively, on those guys. I know that's not a consideration here. But, yeah, I think there's going to be a certain amount of power play production that's lost from that team. And that ultimately is enough for me to go with McDavid, right? Like, I didn't want to. I think it would have been, on some degree,

it would have been fun to throw a wrench in the works at the top of the draft. But I don't think I quite have the stomach for it. So, yeah, first overall, we're going McDavid still. I guess it just depends if Jake Gensel's going to end up on that top line. Because wasn't that top line, like Kutrov Point and Hagel last year? If anyone's going to drop, it's going to be Hagel because Jake Gensel just took a spot. Absolutely.

Like Hagel and Sorrelli. They got a fair amount of time with Stam Coast. But, yeah, where they settled by the end of the year was really loading up on that, on that top line with Hagle. There's actually the lightning, the Stamcoast effect on both teams is honestly really interesting because we're at the, I'm at the point now. I know I mentioned season previous,

but I'm at the point now where we've done Nashville and we've done Tampa Bay and those are both in the can. And you see in the effect that Stamcoast leaving will have on Tampa and vice versa with the pred. This was honestly one of the more interesting things that, that we've written about. So I don't know, maybe that got in my head a little bit,

but I still, it's tough to turn down McDade. David. My dad picks one team a year that he's like obsessed with in the preseason and he won't shut up about the Nashville Predators. Like if you saw my dad on the street and he heard you were a hockey writer, he'd be like, you know, who looks really good? This year, the Nashville Predators. And then you won't be able to get out of that conversation. You'll have to entertain him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, did you like, okay, Tommy Novak and his center marches so on Stancox. He doesn't see. He doesn't care. He doesn't want to hear it. He's very excited. He's very excited.

for the Preds season. He's going to watch three games. Okay, with the second overall pick, I'm going to take Nathan McKinnon. This feels like an easy one for me. Sean sort of make me overthink it with the right wing thing, but I think I am comfortable having Nate McKinnon, who had 140 points last season and like Rantnan or Nylander lower down when we're looking at the right wings. Pretty easy for me. I like Nathan McKinnon. The drop too from like, like the right wing calculation is like it's the drop from Kutrov to Pasternak. The center thing is, you know, the drop is McDavid to McKinnon, so that's lesser. But once you get past McKinnon, it's actually like a 30 point drop from there.

So with McDavid off the board, I really like that. Yeah. All right. What I'm hearing is this was this draft is rigged in favor of the people who had the top two picks. If I could interpret Max correctly. No. The regular show hosts get the first two picks. All my advantage.

I understand. Makes sense. No. Jeff asked for everyone's birthdays, and I thought he was just trying to get us a gift. I was like so excited. I was like, that's so cute. It was to determine the draft orders based on where your birthday lands in the calendar year. I'm not complaining about it. Just don't come on this podcast and say those things. All right. I won't. I'll save that for the Wednesday show.

Save my negativity. This isn't Wednesday. This isn't one of these. Okay. I didn't realize this is one of those friendly podcasts. This isn't a silly. This isn't a silly goofy show. John and I have specifically been told to rein in the silly goofy moods.

Oh boy. All business. Dead serious now for the rest of this draft. As you can tell by the fact we're 13 minutes in and it made two picks. Yeah. This is all business here. Hey, I was laying the groundwork. Max?

Third pick. So nobody can draft two centers, right? Correct. All right, so then I will take Kutraff. Yeah. I think Sean kind of laid out the rationale earlier, so I guess I don't need to belabor it too much. Yeah.

And for the record, I was really hoping that you wouldn't do that, and I could snag him at the end. But no such luck. That's fine. I'm going to go ahead and keep the positional scarcity thing going. Scarcity is way too strong word. But the positional factor, give me Kail McCar.

I'll take the first defenseman. I like it. And I will take Artemi Panarin as the first left winger. I'm so just blown away. I'm just blown away by the season Panarin had last year. Like he, he, he, that dude completely changed who he was as an offensive player. Like, it had, however what he is, however, like 30 now, it's crazy. Yeah.

I think you could make the case that the top of the left wing list is close enough that maybe you don't worry about it. Would anybody else have had any defenseman other than McCar at the top of their list? You don't even have to say what it was, but was he not? No, I think the conversation is more just between two and three to me. But kale is pretty comfortably at the top. You can maybe debate, like is Evan Bouchard going to have? even more points this season now that he's got a year of consistent offensive production under his belt, but I don't think I would be taking Evan Bouchard over Kael McCarr.

I did give some thought to going to defensemen. On the turn? Yeah, but I've, in the past, I'm a big, you know, anyone who's, I will do any draft. That's why I'm here. If you say it's a draft, I will show up. Oh, fun. And I'm always like I love that I love looking at the positions and figuring out, okay, well, this guy is here. But I find when you when you use up a position early, sometimes inevitably your four rounds later going, I could take that guy.

That would have been. So trying to space it out. We'll see how it works. Yeah. Well, you got the number one D and the number one left wing. I don't think I think everyone agrees that Panarin's the number one guy on the left side. Good. Right.

See, back to Max. I was trying to pull a random name to Caprizov. Caprizov would be the other guy, I think. Don't, all right. And, you know. Oh, sorry. And Max is going to take.

And the other one would be Robertson, by which obviously I mean Nick Robertson of the Maple Leafs. But I feel like I could probably get him in the next round. Yeah, he might be available. Murdo actually took him in the first. So you guys are out of luck. I'm going to take Quinn Hughes, because I want the Vancouver Canucks fan base on my side.

I want them to bully McIndoo for saying that McCar was an obvious top defense choice. I'm trying to initiate some psychological warfare here. And by the way, he did outscore him last year. So that could repeat. I got bad news for you. You didn't take him in the first round. So the Canuck fans are already furious at you. I was going to say unless you take three more Canucks after this,

as you fill out your roster with Vancouver Canucks, they're still going to be mad at you. And for those who can't see, Max has got like a giant Mark Messier poster on his wall in the background. So I'm just going to let Canucks fans know that too. But go ahead and make your choice. It's fine. Lay's promotional item from 1998 or whatever it was.

A Lee. So Max is just pandering then. Great. Right. This is the point in the draft where I start to panic. Yeah. I have to actually start making decisions. I think I'm going to go with a right wing

because I'm afraid of what's going to happen once the really good ones are gone. I'm going to take Pastor N. I'm going to take Ranon. Is that stupid? Snubbed Pastornak. I love this is, I love this is, Haley's pull in the

pro move in a draft, which is you say a guy's name, let everyone scratch them off the list, and then you go and pick somebody else and then three rounds later, we're all sitting there going, wait a second, I was Pastor Nack still out there. Yeah.

I'm going to... I'm going to... Appreciate it. Yeah. I'm going to take Ranton. I mean, this wasn't a no, I don't want David Pasternak thing. I think Rannins. I pulled up some stats. They're both pretty,

much the same in terms of like points over the last three years. But I guess I just feel more confident. I just, I like Mika Ranin. And I, and I already have Nathan McKinnon. So that's just like, you just like the abs. Like that's fine. So we got three abs in the top eight here, seven here. Oh, wow. Yeah. Three abs. Three abs in the top seven. I did, I did look up on Dom's like fantasy projections because I had that up from our fantasy draft. And technically, after Kutrov, the right winger who's projected to have the most thing. Stop talking about this.

Why? This is the whole point of a show. Shut up. You're not going to make this pick. Technically the next best player in terms of projected points next season's Mitch Marner. I just don't know. Well, that's, yeah, right. So I knew you were going to react that way. So I just didn't know if like

I don't think I wanted, I don't know what it is. I just didn't want Mitch Marner in this slot. An analytics model likes the Leafs? No. Dom's analytics model. That changes everything. Yeah.

So you feel like you don't want Mitch Marner, but maybe there's nothing you can do about it and you're just kind of stuck with him, the feeling? Because I think others might be able to sympathize. You're never going to win a trade when you're sending Mitch Marner up to. Yeah, it's impossible. All right. Well, then Mitch Marner's dead. takes him first overall in every hockey pool that he's in. Yeah, and then he berates

whoever didn't take him. That's right. It just flips the table and someone takes Connor McDavid and Storms. I wanted, I wanted McDavid. I'll take, I'll take Posernock then. That's fine. He's one of the, you know, the top, outside of Kutrov, he's the right wing that I wanted the most.

certainly wasn't into Marner for reasons personal and professional. Be honest, Sean. You just want Macken do to be stuck with Marner on two of his teams this year. I mean, like there's a, there's a little bit of,

there's a little bit of gamification going on there for sure. Is Mocken do in the hockey pool? No, I mean, I'm not as real life team. I've never been invited. Oh, his real life team. Oh, that's so sad.

That's not true. That was, Wheeler put out a, whoever wants to be in can be in. Just didn't read your slack. You just, you just don't pay attention to slack. You can have my team.

I hate the offense, Scott Wheeler here. I feel, I feel that I must. I think that's in the second round. Yeah. Well, let's take a break,

because we've been doing this for about 20 minutes. When we come back, we'll get into the next two rounds. Sean will be first up around the snake. I think I'm already hating my team. I'm getting a little nervous here. Graduation.

Oh, man. We've set it. We've set a new record. Oh, God. Oh, no. We'll be right back here on the Athletic Hockey Show. It's time to get into rounds three and four of our, I don't know what to call this. It's just a draft. It's a starting line of draft.

It's the Athletic Hockey Show and Friends draft. Sean, you're on the clock at the top of round three. And just a quick recap. Sean has past your knack. I just forgot. Thasternak and McDavid. Sean, your pick number three. This is going against my initial impulse in terms of fantasy hockey drafts,

which I think I need to do because my teams are usually mediocre at best. I ignore defense for too long. And I feel like we're talking about, we're going to draft a defenseman here. I think there's a very real chance that if I didn't get one here, I would not get a truly elite point producer by the time the turn came back to me. I don't want to end up with the seventh and eighth defenseman on my board here. So I'm going to fight the urge to fill out my forward lineup, and I'm going to select Romanoisi. I think he's obviously he's great on his own, but I love the amount of offense

and Andrew Burnett's teams produce. I love what they look like on the power. I love the possibility that he's going to be the power play QB on a group with Stamcoast as we've established. If there's one spot where Stamco Springs still brings a ton of value, it's in the left circle with a top power play unit. So I think we're looking at another, you know, if not 80 points, then super close to it for Roman Yossi. And I think I need to make sure that I lock that kind of production down before the draft comes back to me. interesting well I don't have to draft a defender because that means three

the four defenders are off the board so I will just agonize over who I want on that's left just to be clear we are each drafting two defensemen oh never mind maybe I should draft a defender feel free not to but I yeah

I would have felt a little guilty sitting on that one oh wow that's really nice Max Thank you. Neither of the Shans were going to say a thing. Not at all. I even made the rules. I don't know. It didn't occur to me that you would have forgotten that already.

Which is your three of the four defensemen have been taken. Like something's gone wrong. Actually, three of the eight have been taken. And one of the four teams hasn't taken any. So that's rude. take it up with whoever set the parameters here. Yeah. Well, then I'm going to take Evan Bouchard.

Did I forget about him? Who knows? Who can say? Do I regret helping Haley there? When you said Roman Yossi, I was like a little bit surprised, but also not, because I think Yossi's been the second highest scoring defender over the last three years. And he outscored Bouchard last season. And I just feel like Bouchard is more of a safe bet in terms of trying to get as many points as possible.

Reasonable. So it works for me. Max, is that who's next? Yeah. He's just so still. Went into golden retriever staring at a, at a microwave lighting him. I'm going to catch that car. Um, oh, I'll take.

Did I just take your pick? Yeah, but I'll take Victor Headman. Hmm. Interesting. Get the lightning stack going there. I don't know. I wanted Bouchard. I also was going to take Adam Fox, and I think I just have something hardwired in my brain that won't let me put two sub six foot defensemen on a team, even if it's a fake team that only cares about points. you have Corey's voice playing on loop in your head saying like his skating's a concern

skating's a little bit of an issue might stop him it might mean he only wins three Norrises in his career instead of six it's not like Victor Edmund is like we're not talking about some plugger here he scored like 75 points last season you also you also take out the variable that uh Sergachev is going to eat power play time from him which is something that it happened a little bit of over the last

couple seasons. So Sturgachev's in Utah, right? So that variables out. We're getting full-time power play QB, Victor Headman. And to Haley's point, you plug Genselan for Stamco's. I don't think that the power play of Tampa is going to lose too much sizzle. Not for these purposes, no. I can do. All right. So I've got two picks here. I am going to take my center. I'm going to take Leandro Seidel is my center that leaves, I guess, Max, with his pick of all the others, but I do feel like there's a bit of a drop-off. Plus, I don't want to have Austin Matthews. Everybody has one of two, there's one of two doors, right, when you're doing any kind of fantasy draft,

and you're a fan of a team. You either want as many of those players as you can, or you don't because you're like, I'm not, if Austin Matthews blows out as ACL, I don't need two problems. in my life. So I've always firmly been that group. I don't pick. I try very hard to avoid taking Homer picks. And instead I'll take the highest paid player in the league.

And I'm going to, for my other pick, I'm going to fill out my blue line. And I was really looking at Adam Fox. But I'm going to roll the dice a bit. And I'm going to take Rasmus Dowley. a little bit younger maybe well not younger but a little bit more upside maybe on a upcoming team or not but new sabers captain yeah i feel like i mean it's the leadership that really yeah that i'm bringing them in for um in our fantasy league draft we all had three keepers and i think i drafted rasmus dahlene last year in like the third round and

I was asking Dom like, should I keep Dahlene or like Robert Thomas? And he said to keep Robert Thomas. And then Rasmus Dahlene was the best defender available in the fantasy draft. And I felt that Dom did that on purpose. To sneak possible. Big time sneak. There was some collusion happening. It's fine.

So good pick McIndoo. I miss him. Yeah. I do find it interesting now that my picks are done. and I'm not trying to artificially influence the next few picks. But I find it interesting we've gotten this deep with no goalies. Oh, I don't care about them. Okay.

I think that takes a right, Brad for Living. We got it. She covered Brad Your Living and has adopted one of his major flaws. Brat Your Living signed Jacob Markstrom in Free Agency. What are you Bums talking about? That is true. I think this is just like it's a, it's not just a testament to the top of the league period, right?

I mean, it is, it is in some ways. There's not, not a ton of great goal is, but I think the reason, the reason we're having this conversation, I think has to do with things that have specifically happened over the last three days or three months or whatever. Like the,

the crop is, save those takes for tomorrow. Oh, God, yeah. What are we doing? It's storyline. Top storylines for the seasons coming on the Wednesday show. Or you know what? Give your Swayman take now and then Frankie will correct you tomorrow.

Yeah, and I'll say, you know what I was wrong. Never mind. Well, we have the OG Swamen believer on this episode. I thought about that yesterday. Haley, what would you pay Jeremy Swayman? Whatever he wants. Yeah, give him a blank check. You probably should have gotten further along on a contract with Jeremy Swayman before

trading Lena Sallmark is my number one point that I would make for the Boston Bruins. Watching Bruins fans caught themselves into Corpusallo has been really amazing. I think I saw they said that he was the day one starter and then Media Day opens up a bit more or whatever and they're in Corpusallosal's stall and he's like, I don't know what you're talking about. It's just like, oh, what is happening here? I don't know. I feel like 8 times 8 for Jeremy Swayman. I think the goalie market is just

so weird. I think it's not to do the whole like goalies are voodoo thing, but I do think in terms of contracts specifically, it's so hard to project and like accurately look at the value of a number one goalie because all those contracts have been so bad for so long. But if we're talking about Igor Shostirken setting the market with like a 13

million dollar deal or whatever they were saying. Isn't that the figures that I think were reported, then Jeremy Swayman should probably be making more than eight. I don't think he should be making 13, but. I'm just a big fan of pettiness that's on display on both sides at this point. Like, we are approaching unseen levels as far as that's concerned. If Lewis Gross is making a statement like that, I am, I am sweating. not a big talker lewis crows and and yet he was he was pissed off and off yesterday to go to the old notes app and say his piece takes a lot is the record still 10 and a half uh yeah i look it's price still even with the raisin cap i would have a hard time going that much over like the record

especially with goalie workloads like well what's hellabuck Was he eight times eight? Him and Shifley were both eight times eight. Eight and a half. Oh, so I guess that's the thing. Swayman better than Connor Hallibuck. He's younger. He's younger.

He's younger than Connor Hallibuck. I guess the other consideration is he hasn't actually been just the true number one yet. He has shown that he can be, but he doesn't have a season under his belt doing that. But I believe in him. Give him whatever he wants. You put your money where your mouth is on that one last year. Yeah.

Everyone, Mark Lazarus specifically insulted me for that pick after he drafted Luke Hughes or something, which that's fine. Great, but shut up. Not to get specific, but it was after he drafted Luke Hughes. That's very funny. It was like, what were you thinking? Luke Hughes is fine, but there are so many other defenders available. Don't make fun of me for my Jeremy Swainman pick. Max, you have the fourth round pick here.

I'm going to go with Matthew Kachuk. I know that Caprisoff was the pick of the group for the next left wing off the board. Kachuk got a little snake bit last year. A shooting percentage was down like a quarter from both last year and his career average.

I think if you throw him back to just his baseline, he's pushing potentially 100 points again, which is where he was the previous two seasons. And I just like the guy. Wait, do we agree that Matthew Kachuk is a right wing or a left wing? Yeah, that was my question, because He is listed as a right winger.

He is a right winger. On NHL.com, is he? I've got him listed his left. On awards ballots, he's a right wing. In Calgary, he played right wing. And as a proud pHL member, I think you need to abide by these rules. Well, that's annoying. All right.

I said PWHL. Yeah. Yeah, but you're going to have to stick with that one. We're going to stick with that one. All right, I guess I'll take Caprizz off, but I'm not going to be happy about it. I like one of those organizations and not the other, by the way. So it's a common mistake. Are we cutting this out?

No, I think we just let it ride. You can let people make fun of me. I'll take Caprizov with no analysis, though. I want to see this happen in an actual NHL draft where the GM gets up there and goes, I'll take this guy, but I'm not happy about it. No enthusiasm. He takes a guy and the commissioner's like he's 14. Yeah, fine.

Pick somebody else, just throws the jersey into the crowd. I mean, nobody should be less happy about this than me because I was like, oh, sweet, this means I'm going to get Caprizov because Haley already has a left wing. And I think you should stick with it to tell you the truth. All right. So we're sticking with Caprizov. I think I have to. But he's not.

Well, I guess. You can't. it's my it's my turn it's your pick i know yeah who do i have hmm oh oh never mind i almost did the same thing i was like i'll take matthew kachuk can a bad oh shoot now i can't take the breeze off damn it with my fourth round pick i take goaltender matthew kachuk i'm gonna drop jeremy swam in i think he'll win 40 games even though he might miss a few. That was a joke. I already wrote it down.

No, I'm the commissioner of this draft. I'll take Adam Fox. Okay. I don't love, I mean, I'm fine with whoever I end up with on Left Wing. I think there's enough options that are in the same cluster. And I think the difference of an Adam Fox or, I mean, I like Noah Dobson and Mirro Haskinen, but I'm, I'm just going to go with Adam Fox.

Because if I think a little too much, I'm going to freak out, and I'm trying to keep the pace. I'm psyched about how this board's broken for me. I thought I was going to get shut out of the group of left wings that I wanted, especially after Caprizov went off the board. I'll take Jason Robertson. I know that he's maybe, you know, there's certain parts of his game that don't pop in the way that maybe a Curl Caprizov does. He's not necessarily the, you know, the puck handler. on that line at all times. But man, that's a really productive guy.

And I think over the course of a full season, he's a little streaky. We all know that. But I think over the course of an 82 game schedule, as long as he's playing, he's going to produce a pretty significant amount of points. So I'm psyched to have him as my left winger here. I think it makes sense.

And I will just say, I think that was my big debate point is like, do I want to grab, like, do I care more about the drop between Jason Robertson and Jake Gensel or a drop between Adam Fox and like no adoptsin. Yeah, totally. And obviously I opted for the latter, but I think that was the big question for my point in the draft too is,

do I want Jason Robertson or Adam Fox? All right. We'll take a quick break. We've got two more rounds to go. Two more positions left for everybody. No goalies off the board yet. As McIndoo said, rounds ago. Nobody cares still.

We'll take a break. We will be right back. with those final two rounds here on the Athletic Cocky Show. All right, we are back for the final segment in the final two rounds of our draft. Sean, you are at the top of round five, around the snake. What do you got? You're on the clock. It's time to take a goaltender. I'm taking the best one in the league.

Igor Shasturkin with the first pick of the fourth round. Fifth round. Of the fifth round. We're really bad at counting in these parts. Yeah, I like this is a total no-brainer for me. I'm thrilled with, again, how the draft board's broken for me. Best school in the league. I'm going to start a ton of games.

The Rangers aren't a perfect team surrounding him, but they're still pretty good. I like this guy in this spot. Does it matter if they're the best team in the league if Jonathan Quick plays 30 games again, or 25, 30 games again? I think a lot of that had to do with how best. just circling was in January and he said he stunk but it's it was a out of character month for him so i'm banking on him not going in the tank for for four weeks this season and and look let's let's also acknowledge the slim but non-zero chance that they can't get a deal done at these huge numbers they're talking about in which case if i'm the rangers i play the guy into the ground

if i got one last year of egor shister you're playing 70 games buddy that's that's it i'm not too, I'm not too concerned about leaving anything of the tank for the next team. So it could be, 50 wins is, is on. Let's go. Yeah. Let's, I, I, apologies or ragers fans. I hope this dude goes unsigned until, you know, June 30. Go full.

Mikeen and 96 Grandfier. Just start them every game. Love it. You planted that seed. Let's, let's make it happen. So I'm not too concerned about a goalie. here because I think with Shasturken off the board, the next three guys are in a similar tier in terms of how many games they're expected to win. So I'll just kind of take who's left at

the end. And I think the final left wingers are interesting because I'm not someone who really subscribes to the like, well, Philip Forsberg's good if he plays 82 games thing, even though he has missed time over the last couple years, maybe not so much in the last, last season, 82 games, 94 points. But I think I'm going to ignore the fact that Philip Forsberg has been the next best left winger. And I'm going to go for Jake Gensel here. I think he's shown that he's been, like he proved in Carolina that he can be a guy without Sidney Crosby, even though he really didn't need to. I thought that that take from a lot of people was kind of lazy. Like I think if you watch. Jake Gensel, you know that he doesn't need Sidney Crosby. But I like what I saw from Carolina. I think seeing him in Tampa potentially on that top line as we talked about is really exciting. So I'm going to take Jake Gensel.

I also have him in fantasy. I don't even care about fantasy hockey, but I keep bringing it up. But just I'm the anti-Macandu. Like I want pain in both areas. Like if Jake Gensel sucks, like I'll eat that in both realms. So being the anti-Magandu is generally. good left of place. Yeah.

That's kind of, have a little bracelet. What would McIndoo do and just do the opposite? Right. So I'm going to take Jake Gensel. I am torn between two goalies here. I think UC Soros has the volume that I would want and his team got way better. But I think Dallas might be the best team in the league. And I really like their goalie and he gets plenty of volume.

So I will take Jake Ottinger. Sweet. Yeah, in a world where wins rule everything for goaltenders. I think that's an even better pick. Yeah. Who cares if his say percentage goes down? Jake O'Donter wasn't that great last year and still want games. All right.

Is that not going to next? I'm down to my last two picks. I got to take a goalie and I got to take a right winger. For my right winger, I did consider Mitch Marner. Because as I wrote in a piece I did with you, Sean, the most Leafs thing possible would be for Mitch Marter to go absolutely nuts this year win the Art Ross and then leave as a free agent. Have 140 points in the regular season,

no points in a first round playoff exit, and then go and sign in some tax-free state and win four Stanley Cups away from the Maple Leafs. When you wrote that, this is a couple months ago, I think it was me and Mendez? It was, I think Dom. It was me and Dom.

Protect Dom and yeah. That's right, because it was about odds. It was off-season odds for all the major awards. When you read that and I read like that scenario and like I could care less about the Toronto Maple Leafs and it's still just like sent a chill up my spine. The idea of witnessing that is overwhelming. This is the beauty of being a Maple Leafs fan that you your brain goes to places like here's the scenario where our guy winning. the scoring title is bad. And it could happen.

But instead, I am going to go with Matthew Kuchuk, a guy who, I mean, I think his most defining characteristic for me is that he is undeniably a right winger. So that's what I'm going to go with. And for my goalie, a couple of, a couple of decent names kicking around out there. I'm going to go one that I don't think is much of a reach, but I'm going to take UC Saros. because I think you look at Nashville as a team that first of all should be a good team, should win games. But given what they did in the offseason, given that they signed him, they basically picked him over Ascarov, traded him to San Jose.

So he's going to get the bulk of the work. And I think Nashville's going to want to look smart. They have made this big investment. I think he has the potential to be near the top league in games played, which should put him. close to the top of the league and wins even if Nashville isn't a monster team in the central there.

So I'm going with him. I'm going with my I'm going with my little small goalie friend. Yeah. And that rounds out my roster. That's annoying because that's who I wanted to draft. So I'm personally angry.

Breaks of the game. Real roller coaster for Haley there with me saying, I thought about picking him, but I'm not. And then Mac and do taking him anyway. I've been really stressed. Okay, Max, I think you just have a center left. Yep, and I will take Austin Matthews. Pretty psyched to get the third of the three Tier 1A players on player tiers

with like the third to last pick of the draft after first two guys went one, two. Yeah. Was that like the hope that it would play out that way, Max, when you kicked that can down the road? Yeah, when you guys took McDavid and McKinnon 1-2, I knew we That's why I asked if we can only take one. And in that case, I was perfectly content with either Matthews or Drysidal. So I just figured I'd wait until the very end. Are you at all concerned in a points-based system that we get like another 70 goal, 30-assist season for Maston Matthews?

Another super-Syung season from Ramosan-Matthias? Yes, but not to the point that it would have changed the calculus, right? Him and Drysidel were separated by a point last year. and even if Drys Settle beats him by 10 points, I think the round difference is such that I can justify that. Yeah. And if Kutrov has another 140 points, then nobody cares. If we had to take a fifth center here, who would it be?

I think I'm going Jack Hughes versus. Yeah, I'm going Jack Hughes. Jack Hughes are like, I think the next group would be like Jack Hughes, Sidney Crosby. Would you put Elias Patterson up that high, Braden Point? J.T. Miller? Those are all decent names. The other guy, if we were doing two centers, I probably would have waited until the end.

And I would have grabbed Connor Bedard. The history of guys making, of those elite guys making big leaps in year two is decent. So I think. Sydney Crosby and Connor McDavid, both won heart trophies, not Rosses in their second years. So if you think that Badard is in that class as a player, you could do a lot worse than picking him in an exercise like this.

For sure. Also, Jack Hughes had like, he had, I think 20 points in 10 games before he got hurt last year. Last year I was talking about how Jack Hughes is the best player not named Connor McDavid this season in terms of like watchability and entertainment and just skill. just like yeah if the oilers aren't i mean they usually play late by the time i'm asleep don't don't cop to that you're you're making the rest of us look bad i was joking i don't go to bed i stay up far too late i'm always tired um that was a joke um if you're not watching an oilers game i was watching the devils last year until he got hurt so that'll be fun um okay it's my pick now

I need a goalie. I'm annoyed because I wanted UC Soros, but I think all these guys are pretty similar. I think what's interesting is like Connor Hellebuck is he should be the guy in this situation, but I'm also

not really a fan of the Winnipeg Jets. They burned me real bad last year. I screamed at Max and Sean last year, McIndoo, if you don't listen to show, about how the Jets were legit. Hell looks good in the regular season. I honestly, this is maybe stupid, but I'm going to take the gamble.

I'm going to take Stuart Skinner. Oh, man. I kind of wanted him. I don't mind that at all. I'm not sure. I want to live and die by it. We'll see. Hopefully last season doesn't repeat itself.

But even with all that drama last year, all the, oh, they might suck. The goalies are horrific. He's still at 36 wins. which is top five in the NHL. So I'm going to go to Scooter. This is after he personally punted on the first six weeks of the season.

Oh, I know. But too many doesn't do that. So if Stuart Skinner isn't horrific in October, I think I'm going to look pretty good here. I'm a little disappointed by that. I really thought that I was going to end up with Stuart Skinner. Yeah. And I didn't need to talk myself into it.

I was like, this is good. This is good value at the back pick. So I don't know if I, I don't know if I, I don't know if I talk myself into it too hard or what, but I'm, I'm getting to have Connor Hellebuck and feel kind of bummed about it. You have Schisturkin. You have Schisturkin already.

Oh, yeah. Oh, God, what am I saying? We're only taking, we're only taking, we're only taking one goaltender. Good God. I need a defenseman. I am actually very here for, for Sean playing Connor Hellebuck at the defense.

I mean, that's, Jets might have to, too. I was going to, that's like the Jets, basically the Jets, the Jets, Sean forgot that he started the goalie run. How about that? You know what? I'll take another, I'll take another jet and I'll go with Josh Morrissey.

It's my either defenseman. Another jet for the one that I didn't actually take. Another jet for the one that I was legally barred from selecting. I think he's got the track record now where, you know, you feel okay. you feel okay taking him, even though he's on a team without a ton of talent surrounding him. I just,

he's a fun player to watch, and I think you can rely him to pick up points. I'm not sure he would be my pick for the six best defensemen or the eighth best defenseman in the league, but for these purposes, man, I'm happy to have him.

I'm curious, did you consider Noah Dobson? Yes, he was going to be, I would have taken, it was a coin flip in my mind between him and, between him and Morrissey. Dopson is such a great,

Dobson's such a great player. And he's someone who also, like, especially over the last couple years, like, I think everybody kind of agrees on him. Like scouts love Noah Dobson and stats loves Noah Dobson. Like he's asked to do a ton. He's a great player. And I feel like he's going to be the one if this backfires a little bit. If the Jets overall, you know, offensive mediocrity comes back and bites me in the ass,

think it's going to, I think the sliding door for me is going to be Dobson. So I'm fully prepared to be disappointed by the way this plays out. But man, I, I, I think Morrissey's skill set is also kind of tailor made for this. I thought about Dobson at the headman pick that I made too. My only fear was like, is that power play and that team going to be dynamic enough to, to capitalize? And that was the only hesitance because I think, I think he's a top five defenseman in the NHL. Truly, truly one of the worst power plays of the last few decades last year for the islanders in terms of, in terms of, in terms of conversion rate, in terms of goals per 60, like that, that is a, that is a gnarly, gnarly, gnarly group. And I'm not sure that they've done enough

to fix it. So that's, that's certainly a concern. So just quickly, I think top players that didn't get drafted, um, no Mitch Marner, no knee. Lander would have been interesting if someone took Nylander over Marner. Neither happened. I think one of the left wingeres that I can, I think I already said, Forsberg, did anyone think of a Fiala or a Clayton Keller?

Are those two guys just too far down the list? Too far down for me, I think. I would have probably been gone with like a Brady Kichuk over. No Connor Hellebuck, no Dobson, no Hayskinnan, no Jack Hughes. Let me say about Clayton Keller. I wouldn't seriously consider taking him, you know, in something like this. But we're only talking about four left winger. But I think he could be primed for a big year.

I think having Sergachev on the power play there is really going to help the point totals. Reinhardt as a right winger, did he get any? I mean, coming off the season, they just had almost 60 goals last year. Again, it's sort of the Matthews problem. Yeah. If, you know, goals, yes, absolutely. And goals are more important than assists except for this sort of. I'm just talking about points.

I've been scanning through. I found this kind of interesting. Best NHL teams that we didn't take a player from. Ooh. Well, we took Oilers. We got Oilers. Dallas. As I can come up with the, what's that?

Hurricanes. The hurricanes are the ones that not only did we not take anyone. I don't think we mentioned the single Carolina hurricane at any point today. We didn't, we also, I don't believe, have any, any devils. But we talked about Jack Hughes as being close and, you know, I don't think people mention Dougie Hamilton, but, you know, he was in the running. Anybody think of taking Markstrom at all on a goalie list or was he? No. They probably won't play them enough.

And Vegas. You're right, Max, Vegas is the other sort of marquee team. Jack Eichol, not just not close enough to that really elite center tier, but some pretty good, you know, considering. We had some, some guys off of not very good teams. Yeah. I mean, Eichel,

the issue with him is, is always like, it's staying healthy. Like, he's pretty reliably, has missed at least a handful of games in each year. And for as good as he is, he's never had,

he's never had like a 90-point season. Like, that's what stops him from elevating himself a little bit further up in the discussion. Absolutely. So, like, people love him.

And he's, and he's a blast to watch. And he's become such, like a substantive player. But, you know, raw points, man. He's just not, you can't do it. Two other things that stand out to me, I believe, unless I'm misreading this,

my pick of Rasmus Dallon was the only player picked from a non-playoff team last year. Wow. We're clearly focused there. And the other thing I would just say is a shout out to Max for having no Canadians on his, roster. I was honestly, I was thinking about leaning into that

gimmick. Got the U.S. All-Star team plus did the Wilde make the playoffs last year? What's that? The Wilde make the playoffs Okay, so Caprizoff too then. Caprizov would be the other. Okay, yeah, good call. Well, I mean, everyone just, yeah, the Wild

took a break from making the playoffs and losing in the first round last year. Yeah. Okay, final final rosters. Gentilly has Connor McDavid, David Pasternak, and Jason Robertson

top line with a top pair of Roman Yosi and Josh Morrissey and Igor Shisterkinan and Nett. I've got Nathan McKin Miko Rantan and Jake Gensel top line with an Evan Bouchard and Adam Fox, D. pair and Stuart Skinner

and Net. Max has got Nikita Kutrov, Kriel Kaprizov and Austin Matthews on his top line with Victor Hedman and Quinn Hughes on the blue line and Jake Ottinger and Goll and McIndoo has Artemmy Panarin Leon Dry Seidel and Matthew Kuch with Kail McCarr, Rasmus Dahlene, and UC Soros. Does anyone think they have an idea of who's the best? I kind of like McIndo's. Yeah, I think I'm with that.

Did you just piggy yourself, John? Yeah. I stand on business. I've been my team. To be clear, gently, if you win, is that a win for the Wednesday show?

Or like, how does that play? Oh, interesting. I think we, I think it's a shared, it's a shared trophy, I feel like.

No, you have to pick, actually, right now. We can delay this discussion until, Galey and I are going to stand at Occidentine to the room.

You got to run to the one you love most. They'll make we choose. Frankie may or may not be. Frank's the judge. Dangling, dangling twins. No, this is, yeah, this is the, uh, think about the children. It's the custody hearing.

And Frank, Frank, Franco Rado is the family court judge. You get to bang the gavel on the side. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They didn't give them the first pick to rep the, rep the Wednesday show here, McIndoo. They gave him the first pick to, to rep the home team. That is fair.

We'll see. If I win, then I don't need Sean's points. Wow. Producer Jeff with the, Producer Jeff with a ruling. He says that I'm wrapping Thursday in the show. TGB's on Wednesday. So there you go.

Jeff, Jeff made the decision for me. Jeff, do you have a quick thought on who wins here? You know, I love the fact that you all kind of went off the board with a not so safe pick. Like Haley going for Skinner in Edmonton as her goalie and DGB taking a chance on Rasmus Dahlene. And Gentile, like not a safe bet with Josh.

Morrissey as your second D man. Max for me, he picked Austin Matthews with his final pick, which is impressive enough. Just leaves Homer bullshit. Yeah. I can't handle this. But Jake Ottinger is going to collect a lot of wins for him this season.

And I think it's Max's for the Taken. Friday show. The Monday Friday show. Max. Who am I representing? I think that's my question here. You are an independent contractor. Right down the middle, Maxie.

Trophy is not going in promise case. If Max wins, we won't be doing a follow-up pod. This will never be spoken of again. The winner of this league gets the Matthew Kachukh trophy. Yes. It goes to the person who definitely knew Matthew Kach's position at the start of the process. and also built the best team. Someone really should clear that up, though.

I went and looked. My ballot did not get spoiled last year despite having him with since the left wing, but it was wrong. Maybe they started accepting him as a left instead of a right, but when I was in Calgary, he was definitely just a right winger. We should post that eight minutes

that I'm going to cut out of this podcast. It's a little extra at the end of the season. Bonus. Yeah. We're going to create a separate... Where we argued for 10 minutes about is Matthew you could chuck a left wing or a right wing. You're going to create a separate Patreon tier to listen to that.

I think it might be too painful to me see my giddiness at winning a legal matter. Yeah. Yeah. This is going to ruin. Max, I know you. I know you well. This is going to stick with you for days. There is.

The anxiety. All right. So we have producer Jeff. He thinks Max is going to win. Sean thinks he's going to win. Me and McIndoo are just going to coast. We don't care, actually. But this was fun. I guess I shouldn't speak for McIndoo. I think he very intensely cares about the result. I will intensely care if I win and otherwise I will never think twice about this. Never be never be spoken of again. I will not remember having done this. All right. We'll try to keep track of the points.

ever wins the end of the year. They get nothing but bragging rights is the best show on the network. Let us know in the comments, too, if you listen to the show, which team you'd rather have going into the season. If Sean wins, the victory goes to Thursday. Thanks, everyone, for listening to The Athatakki Show. I guess you'll have a bunch of content from Max on Friday with the prospect series, right, Max? Hopefully.

Okay, great. Thanks, everyone for listening. We'll be back next week. Thank you.