The Athletic Hockey Show - The Athletic NHL player tiers

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Hailey Salvian and Sean Gentille welcome Shayna Goldman and Dom Luszczyszyn to deep dive The Athletic NHL player tiers. This year's project involves 150 players, broken down into five tiers, the MVP cornerstones, the franchise pillars, the all-star candidates, the bona-fide stars and the elite support. This season we expanded the tiers by one and adding 25 extra players, and goaltenders.  Hosts: Hailey Salvian and Sean GentilleWith: Shayna Goldman and Dom LuszczyszynExecutive 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 Gentile here with you. It's Thursday and it's officially a new season of the athletic hockey show. If you aren't aware by now, Max Bolton has moved on to the Monday show. He took off the whole summer and then just quit completely. He's still going to be on the prospect series with Corey Promen on Fridays. And he'll come on here on Thursdays throughout the season.

whenever he decides he wants to hang out with us. But for the most part, you've got Sean and I for a third straight season here on the athletic hockey show on Thursdays. Welcome back, Sean. I thought you were going to say that Max has moved on to a better place. I thought that's where we were going with that. I thought we're about to get some very bad news about our friend, Max. He's, yeah, he's on Mondays. Who cares? He's fine.

Yeah, he's with Mark Lazarus. Listen to that show. I think they did a betting segment on Monday. Dom, are you there for that? Wait, hold on a second. Betting content on a podcast? You got to be kidding me. Hold the fort.

I was not on for that, no. I think they used my article because I forgot who messaged me about it. But yeah, wasn't invited to be the arbiter of truth, the odds, and the betting. All right. Well, Dom's been invited to the Thursday show. this week, Sean and I have two guests to help us preview the NHL season. The athletics player tears came out on Tuesday. So we have Dom and Shana Goldman to help us dive into the list.

I don't know why I said like Dom, just Dom and then full name, Shana. I should have just like committed to either one. Like share. I think we know. I feel like we both get that at least. You know, like no one wants to say your last name and there's people I talk to and they still don't know my last name.

I'm like, that is fine. there's not a ton of other hockey writers named Dom or Sheena not the case for me so people need to get a little bit more specific yeah it's Dom Shana and Sean Jintilly they all were part of the athletic player tiers that came out on Tuesday so we're going to dive into that whole project today 150 players on the list this year five different groups we've got the MVPs the franchise players all stars Bonafide stars and the elite support. That's the new tier with 25 extra players. There's also goalies this season. So I think before we dive into my very personal and specific gripes with the list, this is just going to be me grilling you guys on my vibe check. Why the changes, how did you guys add goalies?

Dom, Shana, do you guys maybe want to take that one? So we decided to add goalies just to make things feel a little more complete. When we did this last year, we got the fancy graphic design work, and you can tear, you can separate it by teams and see what every team has. And there's just a really glaring hole when you filter the New York Rangers and don't see that they have a franchise goalie. And we wanted to account for that a bit better to sort of show what pieces all the teams have and really include that some teams have that really important piece that we didn't have.

And once we did that, we were thinking about the shape of it all. And the top 100 and top 1,25, I think we needed to either cut down significantly to get to 100 or add a little more. And we figured, why not add a little more? Why not add the Philopronics and the Dillon Stroms of the world? I think there was maybe before we start getting into like the tier one, tier two guys, we can start with with the Dylan Cousins because I think that is somebody who snuck on this year because of a Twitter poll.

That is correct. What happened here? We have a Twitter poll every year just to settle some internal debates. The most famous one. I like, hold on a second. I like how Don says we have this. We hit like, it's just it's you. Yeah, why do we have to always this year?

Because Dom told us. Because Dom wanted to have goalies. Like, he's acting, this isn't a democracy. This is a cheerocracy. This is, this is Dom making, making his own calls. They're good calls, folks. Just like a few years ago when I can say the Royal Wee, because we were a three-man team banging the drum for Jack Hughes over Moritz

cider. And so I took it to a Twitter poll. And the Twitter people spoke. They said they preferred cider. We said, no, you to that. Sometimes it's just a vibe check to see. Oh, never mind actually. You're subverting the will of the people on the player poll, uh, Twitter poll. Yeah, we're like, we love our readers. Fuck our readers in the same breath. Oh, they're like, listen. Right. That's the way.

This year we listened. This year we listened. We had four players and Dylan Cousins was the winner. So he said, Dylan Cousins, you have made the list. Thanks to the will of the people. We are benevolent. Or I guess I should say I am. Because it's apparently just me here. Yeah, we'll listen to your opinions for the bottom 150. We do not give a shit what you say for tier one. And that's fine. But if you want to decide the last player, there you go. Right.

You're giving them a little bit of power. That's nice, I think. I appreciate that. Okay, so let's get into tier one first and foremost, now that we've got congratulations to Dylan Cousins and the fans everywhere who voted him in. Um, my first question. The tier one is called top 10 players in the league, but there's 12 there.

Can someone just explain to me how that works? Thumbs rules. Lead byline. Go for it, brother. I want to be the only one talking here. No, that's okay. We, we have never had 10 players in that tier. Uh, I don't think we ever have 30 players in tier two and one either.

They're just sort of frameworks of what to expect. Usually we have eight or nine in tier one. And the idea is the players in 2A are fighting for that last top 10 spot and the ones in tier one are sort of closer to consensus. This year, I think the line has moved where there are 12 people fighting for 10 spots, basically. And anyone in one C is fair game. That's the general idea is that we try to adhere to those numbers, but we know that their arguments are surrounding, I guess, where that line is.

And also there's like, it would be arbitrary in some ways to be like, hey, 9, 10, 11 in one C, like, you're getting bumped down just because, because we set this, we set this at 10. Like, I don't think that's necessarily fair either. I think it speaks to how close, you know, that group of players in one C is. Like, that's, that really is. You don't want to create a distinction maybe whether, whether isn't necessarily any. So I think, you know, 12 versus 10, it's a little confusing. But it's like, the way I looked at is that there's, we're saying that there's 12, there's 12 players who are capable of being a top 10 player this year.

Like, I think that's, I think that's a helpful way to. frame it if you're annoyed by if you're particularly annoyed by that. Even like it's not 30 teams, it's 32 teams. I feel like that makes a difference. We're not doing 100 players or 125. Now it's 150. So it's like you kind of have to expand a little bit. And we thought about adding more to tier one because we debated whether or not a goal you belong

there and ultimately decided they should be in two way to start and figure it out differently next year when we have a little experience working with our favorite position. So it's yeah, I like the way that you put it. Like there's 12 players you can think of as top 10 players. players. Yeah. It's it's also a general pyramid shape where tier one is supposed to have 10 players. That's the argument. And then each tier after that adds another 10. So it's 10, 20, 30, 40 and now 50 to get to the top 150. Great. How close was Sidney Crosby to being a tier one player? I've got to throw this in here. He's at the top of tier two. I think it's the second year in a row he's been outside of the top tier. I get he's third.

But he also scored more goals than Conrick David last season. Andy outscored two centers that are already in tier one and Sasha Barkov and Jack Hughes. So how far is Sidney Crosby from being a tier one top 10 caliber guy? Maybe Sean or Shana wants to take this one. Shut up, Dom, basically. If he tries hard enough, maybe he can add that to his list of accomplishments this year, you know? there's always need to be something for Sydney Crosby to work toward and for maybe this season it's breaking back into the top 10. I mean, it's some like that to me is the concession to his age.

You say like we can only have so many top 10 or top 12 players like who gets squeezed out. You say it's the guy that's going to be playing a season at 37 years old. It might be, it's unfair and on some on some regard, but like you know, you got to you got to draw the line. somewhere. And also, like, good as he was last season, I think it's certainly debatable that he was a top 10 player in the NHL last year as well. So, like, if, you know, are you going to pull that out and say that he's going to get better this season? Like, that's, that's a tough ask for, for anybody, for anybody who just, who was as good as he was last year, let alone someone who's, you know, at some point, the decline's going to start. But I think, I think it's a reasonable place to put

them, even though we had some people who were, I think the overall vibe with Sid from people that we talked to were like, boy, I've, maybe should be in tier one, but like, I don't know who you bump out. And I think he makes sense being alone in two ways. So I think like the, the, uh, concessions and the, in the compromise that we, that we came to was understandable. I think what I saw online and maybe this, I could just throw this to, to Shana more specifically is like, I think I saw some comments because I was joking, these aren't just all my personal gripes.

I tried to look at what fans. That one is. That one is a personal gripes. I've got a collection of Sydney Crosby jerseys in my home. And I'm going to fight for him to be in tier one. But I did see, I guess, some of the comments about like,

would you rather have like Sydney Crosby or Jack Hughes in the playoffs? And I think Jack ended up being the guy for me at, first that I was like, well, like, he, Crosby outscored Hughes and like, he can't be a worse defensive player than Jack Hughes, but it seems like Jack has separated himself from a Sydney Crosby type, from other more veteran players in the league into that one tier. So, Shana, do you maybe want to speak to the way that Jack Hughes has elevated himself to one C and kind of created that separation from somebody like Sydney Crosby? because I did notice in the blurb, which is what surprised me,

I was like, oh, he can't be worse defensively than Jack Hughes. Like, he should be there instead of Jack. And then the blurb specifically says, yeah, even worse defensively than Jack Hughes was last year. I wrote that one and knew that people were going to have that reaction. So I was like, yes, his defensive numbers are even worse, believe it or not, worse than Jack Hughes. Yeah, I asked Shane of that question. I figured that was going to be a pressure point.

I know. Sean did that one. That's fair. That's fair. I think you're all both of those. Yeah, did you? So I have personal beef with Sean then. Uh-huh.

That's right. We knew that, though. Longstanding. Yeah, it feels like these two were really tough because it's like, for Crosby, we were saying they're going, you have, he has to tell us,

like he literally has to show us that he is worthy of moving down, right? Like, it wasn't a matter of, of like, sorry, it's not a matter of him going down. It was like,

are you staying in two-a or moving up because he was so good. And then when you factor in the ages of both of them like that, I feel like is the real tiebreaker there because it's even more impressive what Sydney Crosby did a year older and being consistent year-to-year. But Jack Hughes is in the prime of his career with a new coach, with a new vibe. You know, maybe he'll actually have true top six line mates at all times. And Power Play 1 will be actually good. And you see that potential for him to explode from where he's already been,

which is really, really, really good. And the fact that it'll be healthy this year, I feel like that gives him the push because we know he is the MVP caliber player on the Devils. You look at the year that they made the playoffs and Jack Hughes was, you know, top five ballot for some people for the Hart Trophy race, which is similar to Crosby last year. You have to think like their trajectory from here and it feels like Hughes has all of that game-breaking talent like we know Crosby does. And if he can just explode with it this year, which feels like maybe he finally truly can, if he can stay healthy, that's going to be what gives them that like slight bump here.

Also like the rubric of the list isn't like put the players in order according to how much you'd like them for a playoff series. I get that people use that as like as a reason to argue sit up, but that's not what the list measures. So like, you know, and that might not like a cop out, but it's not,

it's not meant to be. Like there's, there are more considerations, you know, then who would I rather have in game seven of a play? off series, right? Like, that's just not what the goal is here. Not to say we don't consider it, though. It's absolutely a consideration for sure. It's just like that was the feedback we were getting from. Like for some, for Hughes Crosby, it wasn't as much as conversation, but say like, just

circled hell of work, right? Like, the conversation revolves around that. If you, because you have such amazing regular season bodies of work, then you can use the playoffs as your next bump. Or if you're someone like McKinnon or Dry Saddle who's just unreal the playoffs, like that's going to give you a little extra weight here because we consider a little bit of everything, but it's not the end all be all for everything. It's just, I feel like if a player's really good or really bad in the playoffs, it's the only way we're getting that conversation because for Matthews, for Panarin, like, we're talking about it, or Hellibuck. And then on, you know, the other side, you're talking about the guys who are just that much better in that environment. Let's go to Austin Matthews then with that consideration in mind, right?

I think you see a lot of those comments from fans when you see Austin Matthews in Tier 1A, and it's just like, well, they haven't won anything. But then you also just consider that Austin Matthews is the best goal score in the league right now and a Selke caliber center. Like nine times out of 10, I agree with people like Sean who get annoyed with constant leafs conversations. But I just don't think you're right to complain about Austin Matthews being a top tier player in the NHL. But how did you guys consider the playoffs with everything else? that comes with Austin Matthews' game. I don't think we ever really debated dropping him to 1B.

Like, he feels a lot more comfortable with McDavid and McKinn as a big three. But we sort of felt that with the playoff stuff, he's clearly the number three going into this season. He's a unicorn in this league. No one scores like him. If you defend like him to have that in the same package is, unreal, but until he does it in the playoffs and shows it the way McDavid-McKinnon has, he is the little brother to those two.

It's also, I think he's a good lesson that, you know, not every player in each tier is created equal. Like, he is the third out of those three guys. And you can say that about a lot of players in a lot of different tiers. Like, it's not to say that just because you're in two ways, with whoever else that you're the that you're that you're the implication is not that everybody's equal just because they're in the same tier and i think matthews is an example of that yeah especially at the top there's i think more gap from top to bottom in a tier and one a has the biggest gap with

nick david to to matthews for sure like as you get to tier five you can pretty much say yeah these guys are pretty similar whatever but tier one and two You'll have your own rankings within them. But I think the reason that we did this tier stuff is that everyone's going to have their own different rankings. So I might have Caprisov at the top of Tier 2A instead of C. But someone else who has a lot of penguins in Unreal will say, no, that's crazy. Crosby's at the top. He should be in 1C.

I think that's insane. Let's go to the Quinn Hughes conversation. He makes it up to 1C. everyone's happy. It's great until we get to the third tier, but we'll talk about that after the break. I think my biggest question with Quinn Hughes is not why was he elevated or like why is he placed here? I'm more curious. Is Quinn Hughes closer to Kale McCar, who is in 1B or to Adam Fox, who is with him in 1C? Like where does Quinn rank in the hierarchy of the top three defenders in the NHL right now? That was the question we had to everyone as well.

We initially had Hughes in 1B sort of leaning towards getting people's opinion on, is he right there with McCar or should we slide him down to where Fox is? And there were some who felt Hughes was right there, but the majority definitely felt he was closer to Fox, which is why we moved him down to one C. He doesn't have that same history of doing it like McCarra either, and that's the big step. Like, Macarra has done it in the playoffs.

He's done it at the highest level. He's done it consistently year over year. And yes, he's coming off a down year by his standards, but he still has that little edge over the other two. And like Hughes, it's interesting because he kind of matches up to McCar a little bit more with the flash than Fox, who's so good all around and maybe a quieter style compared to the two of them. But his consistency is what keeps him in one C because even that we thought, like,

is there a bigger gap? Is Cam McCar the only, you know, tier one defenseman? The fact that the gap is so much closer is a good sign. I think for years to come because I think we're going to have that same debate for years and years. If Hughes repeats his season, maybe the conversation is totally different next year. If McCar doesn't get back up to his usual standards, maybe we'll be saying the three of them are a lot closer. But I feel like it's a pretty good place to be.

you're a top three defensemen in the league. And it definitely feels like that's a fair judgment for him this year, especially with only one MVP season under his belt. Yeah. I'm curious to, Shana, because of the way that you've been able to follow the Rangers in New York-based teams, Adam Fox seems to be a bit more of a lightning rod for both sides.

Like, I see a lot of Rangers fans being like, why is he being disrespected? But then I see other fans being like, why is Adam Fox in the same conversation? Like, do you think it's because he just plays that, quieter style. Like it's his brain that works more than his feet, which is why people have that

reaction to Adam Fox. If you watch him all the time, you're like, this is the best defender in the world. But if you're just looking for highlights, maybe you're only seeing Quinn and tail. What do you think about that? McCar and Hughes are going to stand up more because they're two of the best skaters in the league. Adam Fox is not, you know, and that, that's definitely a part of it. And, you know, he didn't shine in the playoffs as much, although it turned out he was playing injured throughout the postseason. It's like you take all those considerations in mind. It's always interesting with Fox because sometimes like when you really dig into it,

you do see he's one of the best all around defensemen in the league. And sometimes the criticism of him will be the defense then. The offense people notice and then the defense is the criticism because it's a different way to think about defense and it's a quietly effective way. So I think that could earn him. It's like he can earn criticism for the offense not matching up to the other two. He can earn criticism for the defense not stacking up even though it's right there. but I mean, I don't know.

I feel like the undersized not as electrifying style might be the knock there, but I think we all should get better about like talking about defense and learning what it is. And then maybe we don't have to have the discussion anymore. Right. Okay. So the only other thing, you know, if you read the tears, you'd know, Connor McDavid is at the top. I don't think we need to discuss why.

I think it's obvious. Connor McDavid's the best player in the last. league. He's in Tier 1A. I had him on 2C. I had him on 2C initially, but I got that's crazy. Well, the Evan Bouchard bump that Connor McDavid got for his power play

quarterback. All right. Let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to dive into tier two, maybe a bit of tier three in this player tiers deep dive here on the athletic hockey show. All right. We are back diving into player tiers. Came out on Tuesday, 150

players this season. And goalies are added this year. So let's get into the first big goalie conversation, or at least maybe one of the debates that I've seen online. Igor Shisterkin is the number one goalie on this list. That seems like an obvious choice to me personally. I do think you guys opened up a fan survey. So if you're listening to this and you want to have your voice heard,

you can go and Dom and Shane and have all shared the survey. You can go in and say, who's too high, who's too low? And, you know, yell. about the list that way. But one of the things I've seen is people wondering why Shisterkin's above Hellebuck or like that debate there. So what do you guys think? How did that,

how did that conversation go or how did you guys land on Igor Shisterken as the best goalie in the NHL? Playoff stats, playoff performances. I think in this case, that's what it boils down to. If you haven't paid attention to how Connor Hellebuck's played over the last couple of post seasons,

scope it out. hasn't been great. Almost got out dueled by Alexander Yorgi of last year, right? Like this is, there's, it's,

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not fair,

but this is, this is the, this is what we're working with. He hasn't been good. And just circans, one of the best money, goaltenders in the last, in the last,

in the last 10 or 15 or 20 years. Yeah, we, we don't defer to playoff. stats too often. I mean, Panarin's in two-way, Marr's in two-a, Marr's in two-A. Like, in this case, the gap is so wide that it had to be considered. Like, Schisturkin is the best performing goalie almost every time he's in the playoffs. Hellbuck seems to just run out of gas.

And throw it to Shana, who wrote both of those blurbs and most of the goalie blurbs. She can be our goalie expert on this. Yeah, she fell on that grenade. Thank you. I actually liked writing them. I can't explain it. Maybe it was because we've never done them before. But no, you have two goalies who are stacked up so closely in the regular season, right?

You have the Vezna winner in Halibuck, who is the best goalie in the world this year. You have Chessirkin who's been the best goalie in the world pretty much since he came into the league, you know, contending for that. And if we went by just regular seasons, it's going to be Hallibuck, especially because Chessnerken had that. really, really, really terrible January. But the way he rebounded from it to get back to his usual heights to show like, hey, I remember I'm an elite goalie that, you know, puts him right there. So it wasn't, we knew we were putting them in the same tier. We knew we were putting them really close together.

But that overall body of work had to be a consideration here. And everyone we talked to was saying that's what separates them. And for some, it was how can you blame Helbook? Look how they run them into the ground every regular season. And if Shister can play that workload, the same thing would happen. And that might be true, but the fact of the matter is it's not a one-off that Hellebuck has wilted in the playoffs. It's happened numerous times. I think he's had one above average postseason, I think, his entire career versus just starting being the best goaltender in the league in the playoffs each year he's in it.

So it's a small separation from 2A to 2B, but there's a reason why that, you know, they have that. So I'm jumping ahead here to tier five, but I think this fits in. the goalie conversation. Both of the goalies that played in the Stanley Cup final are down in tier five. What does that, like maybe this is just me making some leap that doesn't exist. But like, what does that tell us about locking in elite goaltenders when it matters versus

locking in like elite D or skill players? Like, does the goalie actually matter that much when it comes down to it when you have your give out dueling Hellebuner. and you've got Bobrovsky winning a Stanley Cup even though he's a tier five goalie. I think if you can build a roster as good as Florida's or have the best player in the world, it probably doesn't matter that much. But otherwise.

It did. It did in the beginning of the season. The Oilers were horrific and goaltending was a huge part of that. Yeah, absolutely. But like it went away eventually. Things even out. Skinner's numbers are better than Jake Ongers or, last two years doesn't have the same rep. That's fine. I'm a stew believer. He's the reason he's on

this list. It's the mustache. It's the mustache that got him here. But we we have to draw a line the stand of where to end the goalies and Stuart Skinner was it. And I think it is definitely interesting that the two Stanley Cup goalies were in tier five. But Bovrofsky has been uneven and even the playoffs last year he was mostly fine obviously won but i think he was lower on the list as to reasons why florida won and i think if you build an elite enough team goalies become less important because you can control the game you can outscore those issues but they can be a saving grace when you have shistercken and harlebuck where shistercun makes the rangers in elite contender year after year.

It's going to be interesting to see how those contracts for like Shisterkin and Jeremy Swayman shakeout seems probably more important for the Rangers to lock in Shasturkin on a big deal than like a Swamen maybe based on the tiers. I don't know. We'll see. Give him whatever he wants. I'm just going to boo on from that. Blank check for Igor Shisterkin.

Otherwise they might as well, otherwise they might as well just blow stuff up because that's that's what their that's what their model is it just hopes just irkins the best so much of it revolves around that so and that's from the model for heaven which is crazy it is it is like having a league goal it is just for us like okay that's not your style for five years that's your style for 20 years all right then okay yeah um 96% of respondents in that survey that i mentioned said Sebastian ahjo is too high he is in tier two had a great season last year by most, maybe all metrics. Is this just like a people don't watch the Carolina Hurricanes thing, guys?

Were we supposed to drop him after he had 90 points last year or whatever it was, at 89 points? Like, he's in the same tier as he was at the start of last season, and then he had his best season. So, I mean, maybe the issue there is that were we starting them at an unfair point? I don't know if that's what people's. contention is, but I would argue pretty strenuously against that. He's a, he's a really, really good hockey player. And most of all, if you take him off the center list and drop him down

to that next one, who do you move up? Like, that's, that's kind of, that's the question a lot of times here. Like, are you going to replace him with somebody? I've lit that's that clocked in behind him. I don't, I don't see that either. Yeah. I was, I think, one of the best two-way centers league. He proves it every year. Last year, he was coming off one of his worst years. And maybe the argument to move him down was stronger then, but we held our ground on him and to be expecting something like this. And we were proven correct. And so he stays there for that reason. He is one of the game's best centers and I think looks like one of the most underrated centers now, given how the readers have responded. I think people on some love are getting sick of the hurricanes.

Yeah, that's absolutely fair. And everyone also talks to the system too, right? Like how many times are like, how good is Brett Pesci or is it just the system? And it's like, well, we're going to find out this year. But you also need cornerstones to drive the system. You have the Slivens, you have the Aho's, like, everything's built around that. So as much as the canes are a product of everything working really well, like, you need players to like grind the gears and get it out. I remember doing a story on, and I was reporting this out, unfortunately, I didn't end up publishing

it. It was like about Rod Brindamor and then they lost in the playoffs. So the story, like very quickly. So I didn't end up doing this story. But I remember somebody talking about Sebastian Aho and the way that he's like so openly accepted the Rod Brindamore system and being like, if he was like a more selfish player, he could have been like, no screw this. Like I've got the offensive skills to be a 100 point player to score more goals and to like have more offensive pop in my game. But like Aho just like bought in on being a two way guy. And that was one of the big things that people talked about is like,

like the Brindamore system and the Brindamore coaching method, like makes guys want to maybe not be that big offensive guy, but like accept the defensive side of the game. And I've always just thought of Sebastian O'Hau of like, if he wasn't on the Canes, if he was like the one C on the Rangers, like would people talk about him differently? Would he score more goals or play a different way?

That's the other side of the Keynes thing that I was always interested me. I don't think a lot of players could thrive in that system as much as Aho. I think he does so many smart things off the cycle and in close that allow him to score 89 points on a four check heavy team. Without always having that top winger alongside him, right? Like, he had Jake Gensel for a while and they were sick together. But like, how many years are we talking about, like, is Spachnikov going to hit that next

level and become a game breaker? And it doesn't happen. So you look at who, like, he's doing this with guys like Tarvine. And who's a great two-way player in his prime too. but I feel like it makes it all the more impressive, too, that you're managing to be that offensive player without always having, you know, say, like you said,

he's the first line center on the Rangers. He's going to have someone like Criter or Panarin alongside. I'm like, how much different is that from what he's been working with? Another player in tier two, another center that's interesting to me is Nico Heeshire. He moved from tier four to tier two ahead of last season. We did not see the best of Nico Heeshire last year,

but he sticks in the franchise tier. Why do we have this belief about Nico Heeshire? I think a lot of people talk to just love Heeshire, and it's going to be, it's really a similar bet we made on Ajo last year where we think this down year is not who he is, and he's shown he's franchise caliber in the past to the point that we're going to project that he'll bounce back and land this year, because that's what these tiers are.

It's not where are they now. it's where do we think they'll end up this season. Mm-hmm. And those bouncebacks are important to factor in. I think I just personally have beef with Nico Heeshur because I drafted him in fantasy and he was like not good. There we go. And I was like all in on like Selky, rah, rah, ra, Nico's the best.

And then I started playing fantasy hockey and now I need to be recalibrated on my feelings about people. I mean, he's alone in T2C for a reason. reason too. Like, we, in our discussions about those guys, yeah, he, he is the bridge between Eichael Aho, Pointin-Peterson, and then, and then the guy who leads up, who leads up 3A. And I think that, which I'm sure we'll talk about in the second, but yeah, I think that's a testament to the overall substance to his game that can go, to go along with the production whenever, whenever he's right, you know, I think, I think, I think he separated himself. He,

certainly separated himself from the guys behind him, but also the fact that he's not in 2B is, that's, to me, that's the, that's where he gets dinged for the way he played last year. And that's fine, because performance does matter, but you also need to account for, you know,

what we think's going to happen moving forward. And everyone absolutely sucking in New Jersey last year. Like, you think about the guys, he should be playing with, like, Timo Myers, not getting top six minutes. And it's also Mercer to have a really tough year.

And Hughes is hurt for part of it. So it's more on him. And the power play completely died when Andrew Brinette left. So it's like all these things too and he was still good, but we know like he can get to that next level and it feels like the devils as a whole are going to be. So like, yeah, we have to project out, but we know he can be that player still. It seems like if there's anyone who's going to get a big like Sheldon Keefe bump other than a Jack Hughes, it's probably Nico he's sure on the devils this season.

Evan Bouchard goes from tier four to tier two. He's ahead of Victor Headman. I saw some very angry comments about that. Ahead of Rosma Stalene. Is this an overreaction to the guy who runs the power play that Connor McDavid is on? Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. An overreaction would have been an overreaction would have been if we slotted him or Dom initially wanted him. He got argued down. Yeah, he did get out of I don't remember where that was, but he

it was pretty high. It might have been two-way. I'm not sure. I love Bouchard. I think what he's shown in the playoffs is what he was doing all year, and people started coming around to seeing he's not just a product of McDavid. And you look at the numbers that he has on the ice with at home, McDavid, Hyman, and they are Harlem Globetrottersask,

and there's a temptation to say, well, that's just all McDavid. And then you look at Colorado with McKinnon and a better winger and Rattanan, a better defenseman in McCar, a better partner in Tabe's arguably, and their numbers are significantly worse. And that's not just all McDavid. That is partly Bouchard being that engine from the back end, the kind of defenseman McDavid has never played with. And they work so well together.

They make a lot of great things happen. And he is a big reason why they went to the final. Obviously, McDavid is McDavid. Best friend in the world, huge gap between him and everyone else. But Bouchard is that good. He's not just a pretty face on the power play. Peter Shirelli Masterclass drafting Evan Bouchard. That's the second time I've said this on this podcast,

and it's funny every time. I was truly taken aback by that. It didn't even occur to me that. That's who drafted. Jesus Christ. that's correct. The thing with him is, it's tough because I feel like we all talk shit about him

because like when he screws up, it's a massive mistake. And in the beginning of the year, when the goaltenders were overworked and overexposed, but also just bad, it amplified it, right? Because we're all watching the Oilers because it's like this epic collapse of the contender,

but it's also because there's a goal against resulting from something he made a mistake on. And I think the fact that he rebounded was impressive to be at this level. But like there is a reason why he's tier two, not tier one. Like it was the same in the Norris trophy race. Like how many ballots had Bouchard, he,

you know, five and then six was that cold? Because you don't know at times like who's the driver of it. And would Bouchard be as good if he had a different partner? And it's a good conversation to have. Like he still has work to do on the back end and he needs someone to kind of round out his game. Is that the case,

you know, based on the way the Oilers player, maybe if they had an elite goal, it would be different. Like you can have all those conversations. That's going to separate him from, the best three defensemen in the world is going to separate him from Romaniosi, I think still. But 2C is a nice jump for him, and he definitely can go higher

if he can repeat this year and show how much of it's him versus everyone else. Yeah, I think the big thing in the playoffs was he was doing that a lot less. If you watch Bouchard two years ago, those mistakes were happening all the time. And especially in the early year, that was happening as well. But under Knoblock, I think he really cleaned that up. And in the playoffs, I watched almost every other's game because Nick Dave in the playoffs is electric. I can only recall, thank you, I can only recall like one massive Hooshard fuck up in the playoffs. I think he did a lot better in that realm.

I think that's one area where it's an interesting dynamic of how you want to measure defense, whether you want to look at the chances he allows, which is. not a lot or the goals he allows, which is a lot more. And I think finding a middle ground in that realm will piss off the two factions where a lot of analytics people say, oh, he's amazing. Look how many chances he allows. It's not a lot. He deserves more credit.

Or the old school guys will say, look at all these screwups. He's the reason these goals against are happening. A lot of this exercise is just finding the middle ground. And it's possible that we're a little high to start. with Bouchard here, but I think a year from now, it'll be a solid bet of where he ends up. I think the only other tier two big question for me is like around the Mitch Marner positioning, but also looking at like William Nielander and Dom, we talked about this before we started the show. I think it's always consistently been like Mitch Marner is number two after Austin Matthews

or Marner's ahead of William Nielander. but I'm curious after last season and some of the narratives that have been going on in Toronto, whether it's the regular season or the playoffs, is William Nealander bridging that gap and becoming closer to Mitch Marner in terms of the way that people view these players? Yeah, and if you look at almost every other list out there, they will have Neelander ranked higher than Marner. That's something we asked around the league of who, would you rather have? And a lot of people pointed to Marner's track record of how the conversation

is always Marner being ahead of Nielander. Nealander having defensive issues and give a shit issues that he definitely cleaned up last year to his credit and he had a better season than Marner for sure. But Marner's resume and his two-way ability still has him ahead for us. And I think he's another guy who's going to have a bounce back year. I think he was dealing with a lot of health issues, but the gap certainly has closed. Last year, Marner was in 2A, Nealander was in 3A, now there is only a sub-tier separation between the two. I feel like Marner gets a lot of flack for his salary, and like, rightfully so, but I feel like we have to be clear, like that's separate from this. Whether or not Marner plays up to his $11 million average general value now is not

like as much of a concern, right? Like we're not looking at it going, well, he didn't live up to his contract. It's what he's doing relative to the other eyes. Like, take that. that out and I think it's so easy to criticize him. And then you have Nealander who's doing it with a lot less, which earns him that big raise, like the optics too. Like I feel like, yeah, sometimes people are like, oh, maybe there should be, maybe Neelander should jump ahead now. Yeah. I think Nealander's also, I mean, I know that there's people in Toronto who like hate him because he's the pretty boy with the give a shit factor. But I also think William Nealander is just more likable in a lot of ways, which is why people will like fight to say like, no, I'd rather have

William Nealander. Like, this is the guy on the bench telling Marner to stop crying, bro. And I think we're going to get that on the Amazon doc. I saw Marner was asked, are you going to watch the first episode? And he was like, no. I mean, maybe eventually, but it's not going to be like appointment viewing. Would you watch a video, the most devastating moment of your life or one of them? Yes, I have. That's how you get tougher. So that's what you need that. Maybe Mitch Warner should be watching the Mitch Marner should be watching the documentary. I'm running for Mitch Marner heel turn so much this season.

Like I don't want to see no more puppies on your skates. Like none of that. I want you to just fully be an asshole because I feel like everyone around him deserves that attitude. Like I wanted that he be, you know, he's ever on scapegoat. Now I want him to be the villain. Yeah. Well, I think that's what makes Nielander like kind of fun because he is the, he'll just kind of walk in and be like, oh, did you see all the blah, blah, blah this year?

And he's like, no. And I think Nielander is the only dude that I would actually believe when someone says like, oh, did you see all the thing that went viral? And he's just like, no, I actually believe him. I truly believe that that guy doesn't give a shit, which makes him fun for me. And people get angry about it, I guess. Let's take a break. We've got three more tiers to go. We'll kind of go quickly through tier three, four, and five. That's coming up next on the athletic hockey show. All right. So my original plan for the third. third segment was for a mailbag with fan questions. You can do it lightning round. This is my like anxiety nightmare. Nobody sent a question. So I just had like a mailbag tweet that no one replied to. You didn't need to. And that's like, you know, when people do like, I'm at the airport, ask me anything. Like, can you imagine tweeting that and then no one asks you a question? Like that was me last night. Why I don't do those. That's what I'm like, what do you do then? Like, do you delete the tweet?

I did. I did delete the tweet. I'm at the airport. I'm going to sit somewhere and drink one beer in complete silence and then get on the plane. I don't want to talk to anybody, let alone on my phone. Yeah. So I have questions that I wrote down just in case. But yeah, that was like high school cafeteria.

I know where to sit. Nobody asked a question. I messaged Dom like, please retweet this. I don't look like a loser. And I still did. So let's talk about J.T. Miller. Canucks fans are very angry. Very angry.

The pitchforks have been put away when it comes to Quinn Hughes. But they're back out for J.T. Miller. He's in 3C. Why do you hate the Canucks, Dom? I don't hate the Canucks. We had Miller in 3A. We had Hughes in 1B. we had Brock Besser and I think 5A

and everyone we talked to some people did not like with Besser there was like there was a little bit of pushback being like you sure on that one and we left we we left them there yeah they wanted a Besser I think off the list but yeah Miller went down and I think a lot of Canucks fans will point to Heeshur in 2C

and it's funny because we had Miller and Heeshire side by side initially and the overwhelming reaction was these guys do not belong side by side and it was Miller sliding down and obviously he's been very productive he has more points than all but like five players or whatever

that is the big debate point and discussion and he's very good on the power play he's very good producing we are giving him full credit for that it is a matter of how much he's helping outside of producing. He might be, like, I don't want to say he's an empty calorie score because he added some substance last year. A lot of that substance was based on PDO,

and it's possible he doesn't repeat that, which is part of the reason he's in 3C, but he might be the best pure score in the league where a lot of his value derives from that, and it's a big question of where to put him, based on that and where he lands based on his volatility. I think last year we had him in Tier 4D or whatever, just barely off the list.

And a lot of people telling us to take him off because of that empty calorie scoring. And we kept him on because there is value in that. And he showed that last year. And he did that in tough minutes. He deserves a lot of credit for that. But a lot of what he did does not look especially repeatable. when you talk about the Canucks regressing this year, a lot of it is on Miller not being on the ice for 65% of the goals

when he is only getting 50% of the chances. Maybe that number is 55%, but that's a huge drop that we are factoring in and that those we talked to told us to factor in. Also, like, I feel like you look at where players are placed to, and in tier three, a lot of them are not the number one star on their team, right? like Pedersen is for Vancouver. That's why he's in tier two.

And even if you look at guys like Jake Gensel to Sebastian O'Hoh, it's the same thing. Like there's separation for the canes where they ended up last year. It was here's your tier one guy in here. I'm sorry, tier two and here's your tier three. And with Miller, it's kind of interesting because like some players get like the dick tax a little bit. And he, I feel like it actually worked in his favor this year.

Like, hello, they were like, you can't play center. We have to literally acquire a 2C. And he at that point was like, actually screw it. I'm going to be the best. second line center you could have. And I give him all the... By a lot of measures. Yeah.

Down the stretch. Yeah, because he was so good at center, which you wouldn't have expected, but it's like, where was that all season? When he got better defensively, being the two C with Besser, down the stretch, it's like, where was that all season? If he can put it together all season, like,

go off JT, but until then, like, show that you can be the number one. If he shoots 19% again next season, then he'll probably raise, so he'll probably bump up in the tiers, right? Don't say PDO to me ever again. I didn't. I don't want to hear it.

I'm just telling you don't. I don't like empty calorie goals. That's like that's my, that's my little pet phrase that I hear and just. Actual production matters too. Yeah. And that's why he's mocking. She's mocking me there.

It's fine. No, I'm not. Miller's also 31. I mean, that's an important part of this conversation. He's washed. He's not washed. He's,

Some people age differently, and he's having this beautiful moment, his career in his late 20s and early 30s. But there is some age adjustment based on that. And look, we have him project for 88 points. We think he'll be very good. They're just some more complete players ahead of him. That's all. Shane, I think, was making more of a joke about maybe everyone on this podcast is over 30, and we're talking about old man, J.T. Miller is 31.

Oh, what a miracle. 31-year-old J.T. Miller. Yeah. I think Sean, it was you, you were like, once you hit your 30s, you're going to hate, what was it, like, per 60 stats? What was the one that you decided? You're like, once you hit your 30s, but none of that matters anymore. It's completely true. Goals per 60, I don't do the shit anymore. I'm too old for this. I'm too old for Corzy. Corzy is that anymore?

Your stat is dropped. I think one of the interesting players for me in the three, four, five conversation is somebody like Robert Thomas. It feels low. I guess it feels justifiable at the same time, given how the blues have been the last couple seasons. But like, should Robert Thomas already be in the franchise tier? he needs to have another excellent season. And then I think it'll be a real discussion point. Like he wasn't very good the season before last. And he was really good in 23, 24.

So if he does that again, then he's then he's almost certainly going to jump up. Like there needs to be some amount of track record when you're talking about players that are in that are in two C. And he just doesn't have it yet in my opinion. Yeah. Some of it's not fully his fault that have a little more support around him because you've seen like what he can, he can literally be the best passer in the league. Like he has that ceiling. But yeah, it's definitely not easy.

Just do it again. That's really what it comes down to. He plays the toughest minutes of any forward. And I think that is a cool little fact that people should be aware of going this season. And the fact, he scored 80-something points. Great job, Robert Thomas. Do it again. You're a tier two guy.

Keeper in my fantasy team. Just wanted to say. Congratulations. I drafted him last year and dropped him in the first. two weeks. What a loser. Not in the athletic league, obviously. I drafted him in like the eighth round and he's my keeper.

Yeah. Him in Philip Borsberg and the eighth and eleventh round. I feel like a genius. Forsberg in that right. Yeah, that's nice. Thomas never shot the puck and that has some value. You're done. You're done.

Two weeks in. And then he started shooting the puck more. That's like me screaming about my fantasy football team like in the first five minutes of Thursday games. I'm like, that. Anyways, this is supposed to be rapid fire. Brady Kachuk is the highest ranking member of the Sends this year in the player tiers. Tim Stitzla drops to 3C.

This is not a slight to Brady. This is more conversation about Tim Stutzla. Is that bad for the Ottawa senators that Tim Stitzla is not pushing for like tier two at this point in their rebuild? The big reason they were as better as they were last year. was that like he didn't he didn't progress the way he should have he took a really big step back he wasn't as good offensively his play driving was you know not great the defense didn't get much better so you look at all the elements like the the path is there and the skill is there if you can put it all together consistently and like maybe the stability that looks like the senators are finally getting is going to help him but it seems like Brady Kachuk managed through the shit better last year than Tim Sitzla and it kind of just like drowned him out Brad Marchon 4B scored 29 goals last year more than he did in 2022, 23.

But there's still a big drop. And I think Marchan is one of the interesting players or like you can have the youth versus experience conversation that happens within these tiers, right? Like I'm sure when you talk about the tiebreakers, people will be like, I'd rather have Brad Marchan in the playoffs than Tim Stutzler, or insert young player's name here. but how do you guys measure like an older player like Marchand who has the experience and the track record versus a young up-and-comer like a Conner Bredard or a Y. Johnston,

etc. I think players at the tail ends of their career, so very early or very late, if you see a drop or a rise, you should believe in that a bit more than you'd see that for a prime player. So if someone who's 25 dropped like Marchand did, you would be more willing to give them a pass. Marshawn being 36, yes, 36. You start wondering if this is a sign of things to come, if this is new normal. And I guess how we played in terms of Huck possession driving play without Bergeron was, I think, pretty telling last year. And his scoring dropped, all of that.

that it made a lot more sense to drop Marchand more than we might have dropped someone else who had a simpler season, despite the track record. Sure. Is Cole Cawfield really just a good support player at this point? Yes. Yeah. Aw. Who knows?

That tier is great. I love that tier of guys who just score goals and that's it. Who cares about anything else? Yeah. I love. Every team needs that, right? Goals are valuable. You need every team, every contender needs like that amazing complimentary winger.

Like there's nothing wrong with being that. Mm-hmm. They just should be the top guy. That tier just fits. Bessert Cofield to Brinket, McCann, Marcha So, Campay. Those are guys who can put the puck in the net. And other stuff, who cares? Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it. Final question. So we can throw a good one here for Stars fan. You guys, I said Starr's fan. That was a, that I misspoke. I'm sorry, fans. I'm a fan. No, I was fan, like singular fan.

That was really rude. You guys pondered Wyatt Johnston for tier three, but he lands in tier four. Was that like a pump the brakes, let's see him do it again kind of thing? We had him higher, right? Did we have him higher? And then everyone, like, knocked him down lower. I think people pump the brakes for us on that one. Yeah, him ends.

Yeah. We're both in 3C initially. Even I think Jarvis was another one of those guys, right? Like were we jumping a little too quickly because we were so excited about them. And like, yeah, the other guys who were like, let's see another season of this basically is what a lot of the folks told us on those guys specifically. But then like a Connor Bedard stays fire because of his. Connor Bedard is not Wyatt Johnston. Sure.

He's also obviously. way younger and you can expect a bigger leap because of that they massively cleaned up the sporting cast that you can project a little higher. If you look at the ratings on the side, Bedard's obviously sticks out compared to all the other tier three guys. He is projected to be the worst of all those players, but he is Connor Bedard and he is special and you expect a bigger leap than what some dummy with the model says. You know, more special than Connor Baderd though, Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid,

because they won scoring titles in their second season. Ain't going to happen with him. Well, that's the end of the show, I guess. Yeah, that's what I wanted to close on. Come on. Come on. All right. Well, thanks Dom and Shana for joining us this week.

It was good to go through all of the players. If you guys haven't read the player tiers yet, it came out on Tuesday, 150 players, five different tiers. There's goalies in there. And there is a survey this year. So if you disagree, if you agree. Well, I guess there isn't an agree option.

You just skip it. So if you think players are too high, too low, go and take that survey. It's been shared on Twitter, right? It's not on the player tiers. It is on the player tiers. It's inconveniently under an ad. And initially, I was not getting any bites whatsoever

because I think people were just like, oh, let's go right to the tiers here. And they might have missed that link. Oh, shoot. Thankfully, Twitter is a ghost town these days, and I'm getting all these bites from Twitter.com. Yeah. I've noticed that, actually, like, Twitter engagement's really low. Nobody wants to be there anymore.

Just us, little sickos. Yeah. Hockey Twitter. All right. Thanks, guys, everyone. Check out player tiers. Take the survey so Dom can have more content. And thanks everyone for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show.

It's a new season. Sean and I are back every Thursday. again this season. The Prospect Series with Max, Corey, Scott, and Chris will have their U23 draft episode on Friday. All four guys are picking

6, 4, and 1. I don't think I know what that means, but it sounds really fun. I guess 6 forwards 4D1 goalie. That's a beefy draft. Anyways, they're copying us because we're going to do a draft next week.

But you can catch that next Thursday. Thanks, everyone.