The Athletic Hockey Show - The Athletic's NHL99 ballots revealed

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

The curtain for The Athletic's NHL99 project has been pulled back, and Julian McKenzie and Sean McIndoe dig into DGB's ballot, including thoughts on Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr, and how to rank Connor McDavid as a current player. Then, Jesse Granger joins the discussion in "Granger Things" to make sure the goalie contingent is covered with thoughts on Dominik Hasek, Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur. To wrap up, a Stars fan asks about Jamie Benn's HOF potential, and a look back with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for the show? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/nhlshowGet a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase at athleticgreens.com/NHLTry Peloton risk-free with a 30-Day Home Trial, New Members only. Not available in remote locations. See additional terms at http://onepeloton.ca/home-trial Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is The Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome to The Athletic Hockey Show. It is Thursday, February 9th. My name is Julian McKenzie. I'm not the voice of Ian Mendez. I'm filling it for Ian Mendez as I hang out with Sean McIntyre. Big Sean or Down Goes Brown. I don't know how to call you Big Sean,

but when you already have a program nickname that everyone already knows you. Yeah, and you can't go Big Sean because there's 18 Sean's at the Athletic and it just gets too confusing. But yeah, poor, poor Ian, he was so upset about the 49ers not making the Super Bowl that he just,

he just needed some time. He couldn't do it. He's broken up. Oh, yeah. How many do you? Hopefully he doesn't have that, that Niners logo has his profile picture on Twitter still, right?

He changed that back seconds after the game ended. Like, he was absolutely, he he he he I'll give him credit he lived up to his commitment but he did the absolute minimum like this is this is like when when I asked my kids to like do something around the house I got to be specific and that exact thing is getting done and not one one iota more and that's that's where Ian went but yeah I don't know what he's he's he might be just throwing the football around he might be the quarterback next year so be all right I believe I think I'm a lot to say

I don't think he's going to be around on Monday's show either, where Ian and I normally do the show together. So I'm filling in for him, like, on two occasions. Redef Marcosis hang out with us on the Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. So Ian is really just, come on, man, like throw us a phone or something. I mean, I feel like this could be like the Brock Purdy of the athletic hockey show. Like, I feel like Mendez may have just gone Wally Pip on us, and you are Lou Gehrig stepping into the lineup.

And it's very sad that I just used two sports metaphors and neither one of them was hockey. I got to. You know what? They still landed in any case. Speaking of hockey, because you are a hockey podcast. We have to talk about hockey. Nice. Yes, of course.

The NHL 99 series has come to an end. Dan Robson wrote the final piece of our series, a great profile on Wayne Gretzky, which you should all check out. And today, the ballots. for everyone who had a vote on who should go where in the NHL99 series were released today. And Sean, I believe you were one of the nine panelists who had a say. Yes, how was that process? I mean, it was fun for me especially.

Like, I'm the history nerd in the group. And so the idea of sitting down and going through all this stuff was, as soon as I heard about the concept, I put my hand up and said, I'm in. I have to do this. So initial reaction, hey, this is going to be a lot of fun. Second reaction, this is going to be really tough. I mean, it just is. I know every time anyone makes a ranking, it's, it's, look, they go out there and they

generate conversation and controversy and people argue back and forth, and that's half the point. It was tough. I mean, it was tough just to cut the list down to 100. I mean, that sounds like a lot of players. We're only going back to 1967. and it gives you a couple of players every year. You think that would be enough,

but there's real good players getting left off, and then you sort of agonize over, okay, you know, who have I left off? Who have I missed? Who am I not thinking of that I should be thinking of? You know, moving guys around is very difficult. You do find yourself starting to see tears form, and that's, tears as far as T-I-E-R-S,

the different levels, but maybe also tears form it in your eyes as you try to... Good one. Get this exactly right. But it's it's tough. We all took it seriously. I will say, like, I'm a way too online guy. And I know, and I've done a lot of rankings in my day.

And I've read a lot of rankings in my day. And we all know sometimes you see a ranking that's done by one person and you sit down and you just look at it and you go, okay, I can tell who you moved out of the right spot into a wrong spot just to make people. mad or just to generate controversy or just because of your own personal bias. And that's why having nine of us working on this, you know, this wasn't that. This was a honest, genuine attempt to get to get the right ranking in place, even though we all knew going in that there is no such thing as the right ranking and there is no such thing as a list that is going to satisfy everyone. Yeah. So to everyone who's in the comments already going at, you know, a certain someone with Bobby Orr, eight like lay off you know what I'm saying like it's not the end of the world like come on

I all I'll say is there's you know a lot of the comments through the whole list have been people criticizing which is totally fair you know like we're doing the list and you say okay this guy's number 84 and somebody comes in and goes that's way too low and somebody else comes in and goes they shouldn't even be on the list that's that's totally fair and and there's an awful lot of comments today we we publish both both the ballot and also a roundtable where we kind of talk through some of the tougher calls and some of the things we think we may have missed or or would like to change. And lots of comments from people saying, hey, you know, here's what my ballot would look like or here's what my list would look like. That's totally fine.

Then you get the other people. And all I'll say is I wish I had the confidence in anything in my life that some people have about their hockey opinions. Like, you know, this idea, it's not just enough to say you're wrong or I disagree. you should never get to write about hockey again because you clearly have never even watched the sport if you don't have, and let's face it, my favorite player at the spot that he should be. And it's like, dude, because it's always a dude, chill a little bit. You know, maybe some people just disagree and that's okay. But I will say that the majority of the comments, even the ones that are pushing back and

disagreeing and all that have been, you know, good faith, good debate, good discussion, which is exactly what we were looking to generate. I want to go through your ballot and your votes and where you have everything slotted. I'm not going to go through every pick. Okay. But I want to look at like some of the names here. Let's go through the top five first, just to start here. You have Wayne, you have Bobby Orr, you have Mario Lemieux, which I already disagree with you there.

And then Phil Esposito at four and then Ravens Bork at five. Yeah. And so those were those were the two where I was, I think the highest vote for both of those. guys. First of all, Orr versus Lemieux, total coin flip. Real, real tough one. I, if, if, you know, there, there are certain picks that I made, choices that I made where I'm like, you know what, I'll plan a flag here and I'll, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll go to the mat arguing about this. Or versus Lemieux, I, I mean, how do you, how do you choose? I mean, just to, I think it's so much easier to choose. I think it's, do you really? Because I think it is because, look,

Bobby Orr, one of the greatest players who have ever played the game, the greatest offensive defenseman, yes, if he had played a couple more years, who knows where his numbers would be at? I think in terms of Mary Lemieux and the career he was able to realize, despite the fact that he had

to battle non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and we asked the question all the time, like, man, if he had a clean bill of health, he'd have better numbers than Gretzky, like, he's a lot closer to that than Bobby Orr is. And I think that just makes it so much easier to put Lemieux over a Bobby Orr in the situation.

So it's less hard for me as a coin flip compared to other people. I can understand that. But for me, it's Wayne than Mario. And in a different world, it's probably Mario over Wayne. Yeah, I mean, I was mildly surprised that nobody had either Orr or Lemieux number one over Gretzky. You know, just out of nine of us, the fact that Gretzky came in, the unanimous number one, I think he's the right choice. Obviously, he was my pick for number one, but I was a little surprised on that.

The counter argument I would make on the, on the Oar versus Lebuoy, and look, Merrill Lemieux is probably my favorite player ever who wasn't on my, my favorite team to watch. And he's the only guy out of these three where I was there, like, as a fan watching and understanding at his very peak. I missed the very earliest days of Gretzky when, you know, when he was racking up points, I was, you know, I was a little kid and didn't really understand what I was watching. Mario Lemieux was brilliant. If I had one game to win, if I had one shift where I needed to go out and get a goal, I'm taking Mario Lemieux over anybody who's ever played the game.

That said, Mario Lemieux arrived in the NHL. He left the NHL. The NHL was the same as it was. Bobby Orr, the league was completely different when he left to what it was when he came in. He literally changed the game. We say that all the time in sports about people. Usually it's not true. Bobby Orr changed how the game was played, changed everything about it,

to the point where when we have the conversation about who's the greatest defense, how do you rank the great defenseman? We get into Bork versus Littstrom and all this other stuff. We don't talk about guys like Doug Harvey or Eddie Shore because they were just playing a different sport. They were playing a different position. Bobby Orr arriving was such a seismic change. change that it it altered the way the game, the way the sport was played.

And as far as that impact and that is what to me nudges him ahead of Mario, but I do get why someone else would happen. Now, Esposito and Bork, those are the interesting ones because I think we also, that's interesting to be. That's next. We put the guys, you know, we gave you not just all the ballots, but we did the full list and, you know, how many points they had. And what was the highest and what was the lowest vote?

And I believe for both those guys, I had the highest vote. Esposito, I had him fourth. The worst vote, somebody had him as low as 13. Ray Bork, somebody had him as low as 15. That's not a huge gap. I believe pretty strongly that Phil Esposito is underrated pretty severely as far as hockey history goes. And I think part of it is, part of it obviously is, is, You know, that was also the Bobby Orr era and not even just the fact that they were teammates and it's sort of, you know, how much of it was O'er and how much of it was ESPO.

But just, you know, this generation, most of us weren't around for the, to watch hockey in the 70s and we may only have room in our head to have one guy as the face of that decade. And then the fact that Wayne Gretzky comes along next, sort of nudges maybe Esposito out of the way. But people need to understand that for a long time in the NHL, 50 goals was the top level. That was, you know, the Rocket Richard getting 50 and 50 sort of set the tone. And then Bobby Hull comes along and he's the first one to get more than 50, but he tops out at like 56, 58. And then within a couple of years, Phil Esposito, he is scoring 76 goals. He's going 20 goals past what anybody has done in, you know, up. until the point, 50, 60 years of NHL history. And the same thing with points. A hundred points

was unheard of for the longest time. And obviously, some of that was because the schedule was shorter. But 100 points is unheard of. And then Phil Esposito comes in and gets 150. It's just absolute insane numbers. I mean, the idea that, and obviously it's a hard comparison to make. But if somebody came in today and scored 100 goals and had 300 points, even if those records were later broken, you would sit there and go, that is one of the all-time grades. And he did it for a lot of years. This wasn't just a one-time fluke. So I feel like Esposito is underrated. And then Ray Bork, I mean, people, I wrote the Ray Bork piece, and so people can go and read that for my sort of longer argument. I believe that

Ray Bork is the second best defenseman who ever lived after Bobby Orr. I put him ahead of Nicholas Littstrom. I realize I'm in the minority on that. There are more people. seem to like Lidstrom. I don't know if that's recency. I don't know if it's what it is. It may just be that maybe Littstrom was better and they're right and I'm wrong. The one thing that I will say,

and I've been banging this drum for a while, at some point it feels to me like, especially with the younger generation of fans, the idea that Littstrom is number two to Bobby Orr became just accepted wisdom. And if anything, if people push back, they push back and say maybe Littstrom is number one and instead of Bobby Orr.

Don't forget Ray Bork. Ray Bork was absolutely phenomenal for 20 years. I mean, you run down the awards, the All-Star picks, the Hart Trophy voting, everything. We've never seen anything like it. And he is at the very least. If I can't convince you he was better than Lidstrom, that's fine. But he was at the very least, neck and neck, tough pick between those two guys. And I hope I'm able to convince more people of that because it wasn't that long ago

where Ray Bork was absolutely the gold standard for what a defenseman was in the NHL. For people in my generation, like I guess I'll speak for myself here, and I feel as if there are other people who feel the same. My memories of Ray Bork start with him as a Colorado Avalanche and him winning that Stanley Cup. So I don't have the memories of him being this offensive dynamo.

But then when you really look through the history and you discover things like he had held onto this record for how many years, for most shots on net of all time. And Alexander Ovecgen just broke that. Yes, a defense. It feels as if, yeah, that's a defensive. It feels as if we have somehow underrated

the offensive value that Raymond Bork was able to bring to the table. I will say this with Nicholas Littstrom, though, who, yeah, was the gold standard of defenseman, his number one defenseman for as long as I was watching the game. Like, I get why he gets put high up on that pedestal as a Stanley Cup winner. I think it was on that 016.

for Sweden, I believe, for the gold medal. Like, yeah, he's, he has the accolades to back that up. But I don't know. I just, when we, when we think of how great defense are like Bobby Orr are and we value the offensive side of that game, like, we got to show a little bit more love to to Raymond Bork for, for what he was able to do for the better part of over 20 years. So I, I very much subscribe to that newsletter of him being, you know, like, slot him higher. Like, I think of that top five that you have, like, of all the picks that are there.

Like, yes, we have the back and forth on Orrin Lemieux. But, like, Raymond Bork at five, I really like the fact that you put him there. I don't know if I would do it if I had that vote. But I love the fact that you rated him as high as you did. If I got to give you just one Ray Bork back to. And I put 77 of them in the piece. Okay, let me take you back to 1996, 97. Okay.

Ray Bork is 36 years old. He's still in the Boston Bruins. He's hurt this year. He gets, he only plays 62 games. He misses 20 games, puts up 50 points. The Bruins are not good. This is the year they finish last and get Joe Thornton. In the postseason voting, which is not perfect, but is a very good measure of how somebody is viewed,

Ray Bork finishes seventh in both all-star voting for defensemen as well as for the Norris trophy. He finishes set. The voters decide that this season in which he missed 20 games, he is the seventh best defenseman in the entire league. In his 22-year career, that's his worst. season as far as Norris voting. He is, it is the first time in his career that he is not in the top five for Norris voting at the end of the season, top four in fact. And he is not one of the four.

And he's been in the league at this point for, what, 16, 17 years. And then the very next, two seasons later, he's back in the All-Star consideration. I mean, it is absolutely insane. There is nobody, virtually nobody who has put up the sort of numbers that he did both in terms of scoring. And yeah, you know, he played in the 80s. Tough to compare his scoring in the 80s to what Nicolid's system was doing in the 2000s. Fair point. But I just, I guess anyone, if you're raising your eyebrow going, Bork over Lidstrom, I don't know about that.

And especially if you just remember him as kind of the old guy on the avalanche, finally getting the Stanley Cup, just go to his hockey reference page. Just look at, look down the awards column. Look at all of that there. From the very first, he was a first team all-star as a teenage rookie breaking into the league in the late 70s just all the way through to the year 2001 when he finally gets the cup. It's a resume we will never see again. By the way, Raymond Bork also has the greatest Stanley Cup raise of all time. Absolutely. No question at all.

Greatest Stanley Cup handoff, Joe Sackick to Bork. just an absolute, you know, I've talked to multiple fans who would have acknowledged to me that they will still get misty-eyed when they watch that clip 20 plus years later. They know that they're like, oh, don't show me that clip because I will, I will. I got misty-eyed. Yeah. I got misty-eyed. I watched that like a couple of months ago.

Just popped it up on YouTube. I started like crying in my parents' basement. Like, I don't know why. It just happened. But, like, I couldn't. It was just overcome with emotion that day. But that is one of the, that is the greatest cup raise. Actually, I have a fun story with that for myself.

Back when I was an intern for an HL team, the Syracuse Croucher couple years ago, the play-by-play guy at the time. There was a guy named Dan Duva, who now works for the Vegas Golden Night. He's a big New Jersey Devils fan. And there was an intern who I got to work alongside, too. of Logan Grossman's his name. He was also a devil's fan. And for whatever reason, we're talking about the Devils and the Aves

in that 01 Stanley Cup final. I remember just like, we start talking about, obviously about the cup race, and I remember just like reciting Gary Thorne's call of it. And as I'm reciting it, both Logan and Dan were so disgusted.

They were legit yelling me like, stop. I would just be like, after 22 years, like stop. Like they just, they were yelling at me to stop reciting that call. And of course, Gary Thorne makes that too. If you ever get to a whole point about NHL play-by-play guys and ranking them, I want to be a part of that list. And shout out to Joe Sackick, right?

Because the immediate, the fact that the only captain to ever take the Stanley Cup and not raise it to just hand it off directly was such a great touch. Absolutely. There's one other part of this, too, of your ballot that I want to get to. Going back to that list of players and the best vote that they get and the worst vote that they get, Connor McDavid who on our list ranked 16th overall the highest vote he gets is 12th

the lowest he slotted is 26th guess who put him at 26 people yeah down goes Brown did that that was me and this is I mean look why David McDavid out of everyone is impossible to rank because he's in his prime right now the guys who are in the prime right now

I mean, how do you do this? Nobody disputes that Connor McDavid, by the time he's done, unless, you know, there's an injury or something, is going to be top 10, probably top five. Who knows? He might be pushing higher than that. The supremely talented player. I just, I don't know how you rank someone who is, you know, still in their prime without even subconsciously projecting ahead and saying, here's what they're going to be. When we first started this exercise, it was during last season. when we first kind of got together and decided we were going to do this and started talking it through.

And, you know, this was a debate that we had. It was a debate that we had about not just McDavid, but also Austin Matthews, where I, you know, I put my hand up and I said, Austin Matthews shouldn't be in the top 100 because he, you know, if Austin Matthews retired today, has he done enough to be in the top 100? And again, you know, obviously here you get into somebody's peak versus their longevity and all of this. But I, you know, I kind of took the literal view last year where I said, you know, we're halfway through this season. You know, Matthews has the time, he's never won an MVP. Hasn't been a first team all-star.

You know, I'm like, yes, he's led the league in goal scoring once or twice. So did John LeClair. You know, what has Austin Matthews accomplished? to say that if we give no credit whatsoever for what he's going to do in the future, that we put him on the list. And to a lesser extent, the same with McDavid. McDavid, much more decorated at that point. Now, I did end up having Matthews on my list eventually because by the time we went and did this and the season was over,

he had had the 60-goal season, he had the MVP. And, okay, now at this point, maybe you start saying that he's done enough. But even then, I did find it quite difficult to rank those guys. And so, you know, with me with McDavid, it's not a knock on him at all. It's just me saying, you know, again, last summer, when we sit down to make this list, Connor McDavid calls a press conference, he gets up and says, you know what, I've decided I'm done with hockey. I'm going to go do something else. And we look at his resume and we say, okay, here's a guy who was absolutely fantastic.

It was one of the great players, you know, had some of the best seats. seasons we've seen, but, you know, would have been retiring with under 700 points, would have been retiring with like, you know, under 250 goals. Would have had the heart trophies and all that, yes. But where do we rank that? You know, what if Connor McDavid, Lord forbid, blows at his knee tomorrow and he comes back, but he just, he's not the same. And he's like a 50 point guy for the next 10 years.

And you look back and go, you know, there have been lots of guys who at the age of 25 or 26 looked like they were going to be all-time legends, and then, for whatever reason, didn't end up being there. And I just, I was nervous about projecting ahead. Look, I'd be willing to bet that Conradiv's going to win the Hart Trophy three or four or five more times in his career. But he hasn't done it yet. And I really wanted to push back on the idea that we give, you know, that we look too far ahead

on this. This is supposed to be a snapshot. And I got to say, I made the argument, and I lost the argument. kind of see that by how everybody else was, was voting except for me. Because Connor McDavid, in the time that he's been in the league, fine, he's under 700 points, but the speed,

the goal scoring ability, there's so many things about his game that already you look at players who have come before him and you're like, well, how many of those guys have ever had all that package together? Like, sure. Like, he's able to do video games. numbers at his point in his career.

The only thing he really just needs is just a winning team that could get him those Stanley Cup rings. Like the biggest shame in all of this would be if Connor McDavid would to go through his career, whether he spent it as an oiler for the entirety of his career or not, but he manages to not get the Stanley Cup ring. But in terms of what we've been able to see him do on the ice, like, there are people already who feel like, dude, he might be the great, like actually, Mark Lazarus said this on the Monday show.

he might already be the greatest hockey player we have ever seen in terms of the tantalizing ability that he has. And no disrespect to Austin Matthews, who I think is definitely a top 100 player. Like, I don't think he definitely doesn't wow people the same way as a Connor McDavid does with his abilities, even if he does have the great shot and he's able to score all those goals. He's already considered, some people already consider him the greatest leaf of all time. So I feel like if you're at that point, like it's impossible to leave him off of a list like this. for Conno McDavid to take over games the way he could take over. Like, we watch Edmonton Oilers games and like maybe them and maybe Colorado might be,

those are the only two teams I could probably think of in the NHL right now where you can feel confident enough that they can outscore their problems, so to speak, where it's like, okay, you know what, the defense kind of sucks, but like, Colorado, you wouldn't say that about their defense, obviously. But like, if you're going to get into a shootout with them, they're going to roll with you. Those are the two best teams in that. And one of the biggest reasons why Edmonton is in that discussion is because Connor McDavid, you put the puck on his stick, you don't know how many goals he could get.

And that's a guy who feels he doesn't even get that much hype as a goal score, you know, like he could do it. Like, in his career best numbers last year. That was my big call from the, from the off season where I told, we had Jesse on and we were talking about the goal, like who's going to win the Rock of Richard? And I told people, I said, go Connor McDavid because Conner McDavid has had to have a whole summer hearing people go, maybe Austin Matthews is the face of the league now. Maybe Austin Matthews. And he is just going to go, what does Austin Matthews do? Score goals. All right. I'm going to score goals all

season long. And I'm not right about a lot of things. Most of my predictions go sideways. But that one I'm pretty proud of. All right. We're going to bring in Jesse Granger for another scintillating edition of Granger things. But I just have to say, this is the discussion about the H.L. 99 and your ballot so far. I had to extend that. Like that, that's it, this is so far. It is. And look, I mean, that's the point of it. And I'll tell people, if you want to come on and go, I can't believe this person rank Bobby O'er here, this person did, okay, you sit down and do it. Maybe don't do a top 100, but do a top 10. You know, that's a lot of times I find with this sort of stuff, mentally, until you do the list, we don't really rank guys. We put them in tears. We put the, you know, these guys feel like a top, this guy feels like a top 10 player. Okay, you write down how many top 10 players you have. And next thing you know, you've got. 12 or 13 or 15 guys on the list and you're going, uh-oh, same thing. If you want to say, you know, how could this guy has to be in your top 100? Okay, who are you knocking out? Who are the players that should have, that shouldn't be there? Because we only got 100 spots.

We can't squeeze it. This isn't our list of great players or players we like. If we did that, then, you know, we'd have it all, uh, you know, we'd have room for a lot more guys. We only got 100. Let me know who would have been on your list and who comes off of my list, um, before you yell at me too much. It's about that time to bring in Jesse Granger, covers the Vegas Golden Knights for us here at the Athletic for Granger Things, sponsored by BetMGF. Jesse, how are you doing, man?

I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Just got back from Florida. Golden Knights are on the father's trip right now. I'm not on it. So after two long road trips, I'm happy to be home for a little bit hanging out in Vegas. Well, I'm also happy that you get to hang out with Sean and I. We've been going through his NHL-99 ballot.

I already kind of grilled him on Connor McDavid and Phil Espos. Zito and Raymond Bork. And I understand that you also want to continue the grill. I'm Sean, I got to say, you're taking this like a champ. Like you're getting all these questions from all these sides. And now you're about to get some goaly questions from Jess.

You guys are building me up to like my Colonel Jessup moment where I'm just going to snap on the stand and, uh, and start going right after you. But I'm not there yet. Damn, I don't know who that is. That's an old. Oh,

neither do I. He completely lost us on that way. I don't know who that is. Wow. What movie is this from? You have a movie. It's from a few good men. It's one of the most famous movies of the late 80s.

Jack Nicholson, you can't handle the truth. You can't handle the truth. It's probably a meme for you. I have seen that movie, but I just... Yeah, I've seen the meme. I've seen the meme. Sorry, it might be rated art. You guys probably aren't old enough to see it without...

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I come from Quebec where rated R movies are like, what, like PG-13? Yeah, that's true. That is true. Anyway, for greater things. Yeah, Jesse wants to ask Sean some questions from a goaltender. perspective with regards to his NHL 99. Let me guess. You're mad that the top 10 wasn't all goaltenders.

Top three. Yeah, I was shocked that one, two, and three were not Hachikwaan Brodur. I will start by saying this whole thing was so much fun, the NHL 99, going through it. Even this morning, reading the ballots, reading the reasoning. I have loved every bit of this project. All the stories have been good. And I thought for sure.

the top three goalies would be ranked in the wrong order going into this thing. And they weren't. Hachik, Wa, Rodeur, that's the order I would have them in. They are all three amazing. And to me, like Dryden is pretty clearly number four on the rankings. And I think I agree with that too. But I think that those three are the clear top three. And I was impressed that not just the overall ranking, but you and pretty much everyone had those three in that order.

What went into your thought process when ranking the top three goalies? Yeah, it really does feel like those three have separated in the modern era goaltenders. They're sort of the Holy Trinity. I will be real honest. I knew those were going to be my top three, or I felt pretty strongly that they would. The tough one for me was Hasick versus Walker. Broder, it was a fantastic player. I mean, it's one of these things where, you know, it's almost as if, not that you can ever be underrated when you're Martin Broder, but it's, it's almost as if people wanted to diminish it because he had the wins record.

We've all decided wins isn't, you know, isn't as important as we thought. And, you know, this idea that you push back on him and suddenly people are, are trashing the guy. He's an absolute phenomenal goldender. But to me, it came down to Hasick versus Watt. And it was, you know, sort of the case of with Patrick Watt was a little bit longer career, a little bit larger sample size, a couple of cases of taking, frankly, not very good teams all the way to a Stanley Cup in Montreal. And I don't put, people who read my piece on Marcel Dion, no, I don't put a lot of stock in Stanley Cups.

I don't penalize guys because they didn't win a cup, and I don't put a ton of stock, because, you know, otherwise you'll wind up with, you know, Henry Richard is your number one player of all time. You know, you can't go that far. But for starting goaltenders, I will look at it a little bit. You know, I mean, that is the player was the most control over the team, team performance. So, you know, that was what was in favor of Patrick Watt, but then in terms of the peak,

I mean, with Dominic, yeah, he didn't, really even get started in the league until he was 27, 28, had the very late start as a dominant player. But the peak, I mean, we have never seen it. anything like that. A guy being that far ahead, head and shoulders, year after year after year, being not just the best goaltender in the league, but the best goal in the league by any measure pretty clearly for several years at a time.

We haven't seen that, certainly in the modern area. You could go back, I mean, I think Jacques Plan had a stretch where that's how far you probably have to go back to find what Hasick was doing in the late 90s. So ultimately, as I say in the roundtable that we had today, I look at peak and longevity, but if I got a pick between them, I want the peak. I want somebody. Give me John LeClair over Patrick Marlowe. Give me the guy who was the best in the league for three, four, five years over the guy

who was pretty good for a long, long time and racked up the stats. And to me, Patrick Waugh was phenomenal. I don't think even he ever got to the level that that has it got to. Okay, I guess that explains it too, right? Because the obvious counterpoint with Patrick Waugh is, well, the playoff success, the consvive trophies, like, you know, like,

like I, again, kind of with some of the other players on the list, like we were talking about with Raymond Bork with the memories with, you know, me seeing him later on his career. Like I think of, of Domachachshik dominating with the Red Wings and a little brief time. He was in Ottawa, but he was still playing at such a disgustingly high level. It's insane.

But like I never got to appreciate the Buffalo years where he began to make his name and earned the Dominator nickname. Yeah. And I mean, it was such a bizarre time, right? Because you got to remember like at 92, 93 season, the Buffalo Sabres, they haven't won a playoff round in a decade. They've got Darren Pupa as their starting goalie. Hasick's this weird backup with his crazy mask and, you know, nobody even knows who he is. And they go out and they, yeah, with the cage. And they go out and they make a trade midway through the season for Grant Fier who also shows up on our, on our.

our list. They get him from the Maple Leafs. They give up a ton. They give up Dave Vanderchuk, Hall of Fame, future Hall of Fame, 50 goal guy at the time, a first round pick and Pupa, they're starting goalie to go and get Grant Fierre because they're like, we need to upgrade the goaltending. Dominic Hask is sitting right there on the bench. And as it turns out, you know, Fear goes in. He plays well enough. They do win a playoff round, but Fear gets hurt. And the next year, Haschick takes over and suddenly, like, immediately, there's no ramp up. Dominic Hachia goes from backup that a team didn't trust and went out and gave it, gives a ton to get to winning the Vezna of the very next year. Absolute madness.

And even then, back then, you're going, okay, goaltending's weird, man. I guess. But no, he just stays at that level for seven years, just, just absolute craziness. I will say this. I did, I felt like there was a big three. I ultimately voted the big three. I gave some consideration to Ken Dryden, maybe nudging Broder out of there.

I mean, Dryden was awesome. Yeah, I mean, like, I've obviously not old enough to have watched that, but his stats for that era when goalies were not stopping pucks the way they are now, he was stopping pucks the way. Like, his safe percentages were like what they are now in an era where guys were not dropping to their knees and like letting in crazy goals. Like Dryden was unreal. I said this in a thing I wrote about, we're going way back,

an old old goalie and Bill Dernan. I said, you know, Bill Dernan might be one of the only players in the NHL where you talk about peak versus his whole career was peak. And Drieden is kind of in that same place where he comes in, he immediately wins a cup, you know, not even wins a cup as a rookie, wins a cup before he's a rookie, because he wins a cup and then goes and gets the calder and doesn't have a long career. And in his case, not because of injury, but you sort of get into the Bobby Orr thing.

How do we measure that? how do we, I had I had him, I think, higher than most. And I did for a while toy with the idea of putting him ahead of Broder, but I just, I just couldn't quite go to that level. But I thought about it.

So I wrote the Brodour piece. And I spoke to him and I spoke to a bunch of people. And like one thing I will say in Broder's, in argument of Broder is he doesn't have the stats, the saves, the saves above average of all the other goleys. And I think he actually deserves credit for not having as many saves.

And it's because he played the puck so well. And they built that system that everyone hates because he played the puck so well. So this goalie is so good at not allowing the other team to get the puck. So we're going to penalize him because he didn't make as many saves because they couldn't get shots on it because he was too good at it now. To the point that they had to change the rules, you know, put in this dumb trapezoid. And, you know, Julian and I were talking at the beginning about Bobby Orr changing the game. Yep. Broder to some extent did too.

And yeah, I mean, he was, I mean, it's funny how they all sort of had their trademark with Broder. It was the puck handling. And then the great thing about the Waver versus Haschuk debate is you couldn't have two more different guys. Because Patrick Waugh comes in and he doesn't invent the butterfly and he isn't the first to use it. But he's the guy that perfects it. And Patrick Waugh marks the end of the stand-up goal. There used to be for you kids. out there. There used to be different

goaltending styles. There was the guys who dropped down. There were the stand-up guy. There isn't anymore. Patrick Waugh played that style so well that everybody was like, that's it. That's the way to do it. From now on, and you know, Berger comes in and, you know, to an extent as well. But, you know, Patrick Waugh is the guy that every

goaltender, whoever came afterwards models themselves after as far as the style. And of course, that allows, you know, that in the lighter pads allows for the bigger guys. And it just, it transforms how the positions played versus Haschick, one of the greatest players ever. But if you were a goalie coach, you would never, ever show anybody at Dominic Ashik and be like, do with that.

Because nobody knew what you used to. If you emulate Dominic Haschik, you're going to give up a lot of goals. Yeah, it was just, it was madness. You're just watching him go, what is he doing? Is he even, like, did he get distracted? Did he, you know, if it was a video game, he'd be like, is he hitting the wrong buttons? Is he got like, is controller drifting?

What's going on? He was, he was just absolutely all over the place, whereas Patrick Wall was just, all the skill and talent in the world and competitiveness and everything, but also the perfect style versus Hachick who was anything but that. Do you guys remember playing those old NHL games where they show you like whatever goal is on your roster and they show you whether they're a stand-up goalie or butterfly goalie? Yeah. That's old school right there.

That's old school. Sorry to cut you off. You would never have that right now. Absolutely not. As a goalie enthusiast, I'm sure other people will argue me that there are more. exciting players that play out. But to me, Dominic Cash is the most entertaining player to ever step on the ice. I grew up in Colorado. I play goalie because of Patrick Waugh,

because I grew up in the glory years of the avalanche. Like right when Waugh came to Colorado is when I was old enough to watch hockey. Dominic Kashi is my favorite player ever. Oh, man. And never knew what he was going to do. Yeah. It was just so entertaining. Like it just doesn't get me better. Snow angels, scorpion, save. He was going to throw his blocker at somebody's head? was he going to try? Ask Mary and Gabbarick. You never knew what this guy was going to do, right? Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, he was on the other side of that crazy save where he's like skating out of his net.

He took him out. He just flipped. Yeah. I'm just going to skate right at this good dude's ankles and send him flipping in the air. One of my favorite like trademarks from Hachik is he would always if the if it was like a two on one and they passed it across to his blocker side, he would throw his stick on the ground so that he wasn't holding. the stick to slow his blocker down and reach that blocker out and get it. Like, man, that's just, you never would see another goal to do it. My all-time favorite moment with Dominic Aschick is, and I feel like just, I love this because it just captures the spirit of two guys. This is when he was with Detroit and they're playing Colorado. And you know what that means, right?

We've got, we all, you know, you had Patrick Waugh, Mike Vernon in 97. Then you get the quasi-re match with Chris Osgood. the next year. Now it's a few years later. The rivalry is still going strong. There's a scrum in front of the Colorado net. Patrick jumps in. Haschick's in the other net. Patrick jumps in and everybody's going, oh my God, here we go. We're going to get the trilogy. We're going to get part three and this time it's Dominica. And sure enough, Hasch comes down the ice, full speed, crowds going nuts. And just as he gets there, he wipes out and just slides along the ice and takes out the whole pie. And like, you can see watch just like, what was that? And the linesman jumps on

him and drags him away and they get him out. And it was just the perfect, like to be, that captures both the guys, Patrick Gua going nuts for no reason, uh, starting fights. And Dominic Hachick, you know, he was, he was going to give it the old college try, but then just wipes out sprawling along the ice. So everyone's going, what is that dude even doing? The, uh, the last thing I'll say on Hashik before we get to the final thing I want to talk about is you mentioned the peak. And I was, I was just like looking at the stats kind of when I was going into this, because I want to wanted to just kind of see how they compared. And so he won six Vezinaos in eight years.

But in the middle of that, like, so that already is a ridiculous peak. But in the middle of that, he won three Veznaos in a row. And I like goals saved above average because it compares you to the save percentages of your era. So to me, it really allows you to compare goalies across eras because you're only being compared against your, your contemporaries and how well you did. most years, if you look over the last few years, most years the goalie that wins, that has the highest goals saved above average in the league is around 27 to 30. Igor Shasturkin last year was historically good. He was like in the heart trophy discussion. He had 44. Dominic Hasch had three years in a row with over a 54 goals saved above average. That is unbelievable. Three years in a row. And by the way, the third year was the year he took the same. neighbors to the Stanley Cup and should have won the Stanley Cup, if not for the skate being in the

crease. He had 14 goals saved above expected in 19 playoff games that year. That's a good season. And he did it in 14 playoffs games. The eye test tells you how good he was. But even in the stats, playing as ridiculous he was, he was just like you said, light years above every other goal in the league at that time. Imagine some forward coming along and scoring 10 goals a year more for three years in a row than anybody else could get to in even MVP seasons. And speaking of MVP, Haschick, won the MVP back to back, an award that historically never goes to goaltenders. Right.

We just, for whatever reason, we don't vote goalies for the MVP. And he was that good, that even in the era where, you know, goals were plunging. And this is, this is the golden era of goaltending, at least as far as, you know, save percentage and goals against, he was that much better than everyone else that they had to give the MVP award to this, this crazy goalie. And for each of those years, he had that GSA at 50, over 50, won the Vesina in each of those years. Yeah. Yeah, he was insane. So the last thing I want to talk to you about is I was reading the piece this morning where you guys kind of, they did a Q&A with the panelists and they asked you like a lot of questions about how you voted. And one of the things that stood out to me was how high Connor McDavid can get on the list.

So as the goalie enthusiast that I am, I immediately thought, okay, well, Vasilevsky was 79 on the list. And he's still, he's, I don't, he's, he's not like young, but he's still got probably half of his career left, maybe more. This guy's still got a lot of hockey left in him. How high do you think Vasilevsky can get? I mean, this guy is behind a really stacked team and, in my opinion, the best goal in the world right now. Yep. How high can he get? And yeah, you're right.

Wow, he's only 28. That's something considering how long he's been in the league, in a league where goalies a lot of times don't even debut until they're 25 or 26. How high can he get? I mean, I just, I have a real hard time imagining he can get into that Trinity. And Dryden is such a sort of tough outlier as far as, you know, the whole thing being peak. but after that, you know, I've got my next guys. I had Bernie Perraugh.

Henrik Lunkwis, certainly he can, you know, he can get past him. I think he already is. Yeah, yeah, you know, and he might, he certainly might be getting there or into the discussion, absolutely. Tony Esposito, Grant Fier, I think that's the range at Belfour is very much in play. And if you were to say he's already there, maybe. You know, maybe he is. I mean, this is a guy who he's won one, Vezina, was a finalist four years in a row,

but he's won one. Again, the two Stanley Cups, but I factor that maybe a little bit less than some would. The big numbers as far as wins, you know, he could be a guy that I could see people looking back and we'll have that argument.

Was he a great goalie, or was he a very good goalie on a great team? and I think he's a great goalie. But he's got a ways to go for me before he cracks that discussion with that next tier after the big three. I wonder with the error of goaltending now and goals going up and goals per game, like starting to get up on that swing and we're looking at how goaltenders are being viewed around the league. Does that play into the perception of Asalesky too?

Because it feels as if like he's, he and Igor's hysterican are kind of near the top and maybe there's another tier where you have guys like UC Soros. and Jesse you could disagree with me because you're the goalie aficionado here, but it feels like there's this drop-off in goaltending or the quality just doesn't feel as if the same as it was in the early parts of the 2000s of the 2010s too, just because of the level of offense that's been coming. Yeah, I mean, I've talked to a couple coaches around the league about like why the safe percentages are going down.

And the answer that they all give is, we got rid of all the checking lines. Basically, like the fourth lines are now young 21-year-old kids. They're trying to snipe. They're skilled offensively. Not only are they better offensively than the checking lines that we used to have, they're worse defensively. So you're getting better offensive teams, worse defensive teams, and the goalies are facing a lot more high danger chances.

I personally think you can rank, I think a goalie can be impressive in that kind of era more so than they can be in like the dead puck era where they're not making saves. My argument for Vasilevsky would be, so he's got two Stanley Cups. And I know, Sean, you said it's not the most important thing, but Waugh and Brodur both had three. If he can get to four, and he's got more Stanley Cups than Juan Brodur, which I think is very possible, considering he's 28 and he's already got two. He'd need a few more Vezina's.

But to me, you need something that differentiates you from the pack. And to me, what I think, by the end of Andre Vassel-FSI's career, I think what's going to, the way we're going to view him is we're going to view him as the last. guy that was the number one goalie without a question without a without a one B because if you look at the league even the best like ilias sorokin could be the best goal in the league right now this he's he might be having the best season and they're still playing varlamov quite a bit like the the league is going in the direction of goalie by committee because the position because of the post integrations everything they're doing to take so much toll on the body they're going to that, but Vasilevsky, the Tampa Lightning don't even care about the backup goalie position.

They're like, whatever old veteran we can get for $700,000, put him back there. It doesn't matter because Vasilevsky's playing every game he can. And once the games matter, it's all him. It's to me, I think seven, eight, nine, ten years from now, we're going to look at it and say, wow, this guy is doing something that no one in this era did. And I think you combine that with if he's got to win a couple more cups, he's got to win a few more Vezanos. But I really do think he can push for that top three. Wow.

That's, yeah. And it's, that's a really interesting way to put it. It almost reminds me of like what we're seeing with running backs in the NFL where. Yes. There used to be Emmett Smith. That's your guy. 350 carries a year. And now everyone's got the committee, almost everyone's got the committee to the point where the few teams that don't really stand out.

You know, Vasilevsky may be, you know, maybe he's the last of a breed, or maybe he is the guy who sort of brings that back. Or how many cups does he have to win before you go, you know what, maybe we don't need two guys playing 40 to 45 games. I know with the salary cap and money going up over the next few years, we might think of this a little differently. Andre Vaselowski might be the last goalie I could think of, at least for a while, who you, I feel you could really feel comfortable shelling out nine and a half million per four. Like looking at the guys like Amber Carey Price, get making over 10 and a half. Like I can't think of any other goalie right now who, like I feel comfortable shelling out that type of money for.

And that plays in. Nobody ever puts that list, that contract on their list of bad contracts in the league. Yeah. It's got any issue, man. But that's just how it is with the goaltending position. Yeah. What a scintillating edition of the Granger thing segment.

Jesse? Well done. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, it was fun. I saw the chance to talk goalies and I took it. I always do. Absolutely.

And for once we were, I was saying good things about goaltenders and just come on here and defend their honor. Thank you so much for hanging up for Granger Things sponsored by BetMGM. We'll talk to again next week. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, man. Man, this show's been going really great so far. Ian is the easiest job in the world.

No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. He doesn't have the easiest job in the world. I can understand why he loves the Thursday show. This has been really fun so far. Big thanks to Jesse for Granger Things. And now it's time for the mailbag. We got some questions in.

If you want to leave us a voicemail. First off, if you want to send us a question, you can reach us at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. You can leave a question there. Or you can make what we're about to hear now and leave a voicemail at 845-4-4-5-8-4-4-5-8-4. This is pretty cool that we have a voicemail feature on this show. What do we got?

Dallas Stards fan here. I wanted to ask you about Jamie Ben. He's a longtime fixture here in Dallas, Texas. You've got to remember the Stars were in bankruptcy, and he was here early in his career for that transition with Tom Galardi, the rebranding. And this franchise, well, they may have not won a title in that time. It's night and day, the support, full buildings.

a team that at least makes the playoffs and tries to be competitive at a minimum. And I'm just curious how Jamie Ben's perceived outside of this market. And in you all's minds, does he have a shot at being a Hall of Fame? I don't think his numbers stack up right now, but I'm kind of curious what you think it would take for him to get consideration for the Hall of Frame. So, Sean, what do you think Jamie Ben has to be considered a Hockey Hall of Famer? And how do you perceive him? Yeah, it's interesting. because when we sort of talked off air about this,

I sort of, as a smart Alex said, he needs to have more than one good season. Because we all remember that Art Ross season, that weird year where he won the Art Ross with only 87 points, had four points at the last game to take it away from, I think was John DeVars. But that wasn't his only good year.

In fact, you could argue that his next season was even better, where he had 89 points, didn't win the Art Ross, but was a finalist for the Hart Trophy. and the year before that he was a first team all-star. So he had a three-year stretch where he was absolutely, you know, you talk about peak in the conversation, best left winger in the game.

And, you know, that's pretty impressive in the Alexander Ovechkin narrative to be in that discussion. That said, three years isn't enough. You know, five years isn't enough, as we've seen with John Leclair, a guy who was, you know, an All-Star for a significant amount of time, led the league in goals, and has had virtually no support for a Hall of Fame case that we can see. Jamie Ben is, he's 33.

He's got years ahead of him, but it sort of feels like he's an old 33. I mean, this guy's been a warrior. There's a lot of mileage there, so how long he can go remains to be seen. Just over 800 points, just at 350 goals. I feel like if he gets to a thousand points, he's at least in the discussion. But I don't see him being a serious candidate unless he can get back to the level that he was at before.

And obviously he said injuries and that sort of thing. But he needs a few more of those All-Star level seasons because unfortunately, 14, 15, 16, when he's first team All-Star, since then, in the, you know, we're now going on seven seasons, is not even an all-star vote. And again, voting is not to be all and end-all. You know, we certainly don't always get it right.

But the fact that for six years, I'm going on seven now, he has not even been in consideration to be one of the best wingers in the game. I think he's just not going to get there as a serious candidate unless there is sort of an unexpected Eric Carlson-like late career renaissance that comes in and puts him back on the radar. I can understand that. Yeah, my criteria as kind of scattered brain as it could be, like you have to be considered among the best at your position in like that top five,

maybe top 10 for like a sustained period of time. And like, like, yeah, Jamie Ben has a little bit of that. But like I don't like what's the last time you've thought of Jamie Ben as like, already is a top 15, top 20, top 25 player in the league? Like it's been. It's been sometimes it's been considered that. Two things that kind of work against him that probably. shouldn't. Number one is the contract. He's one of those guys who was a good player, got a great

player's contract, didn't live up to it. And in the hard cap era, that matters. But we spend so much time going, oh, bad contract, bad contract that it starts to, in some people's head, become bad player. And it shouldn't be. But, I mean, he hasn't been, you know, I mean, he was a 40-point player a few years ago and close to a full season. So clearly not anywhere there. And the other thing is, A lot of guys who win an Art Ross do get significant Hall of Fame consideration and through no fault of his own. Just the fact that he won it was such a low total almost became like a symbol of the low scoring era. The fact that somebody, oh my gosh, 87 points wins you in Art Ross. Wow.

Like what is going on with this league? And again, that's not his fault. It's not his fault that, you know, nobody had more points or that, you know, he led the league in scoring fair and square. and yet I feel like the art Ross is sort of diminished in maybe the eyes of a lot of fans that it's sort of something that you turn your nose up because you're like, oh man, that's such a low total for such a prestigious award. Yeah. So yeah.

Thank you very much for the voicemail message. Also, here's a really random thing before I get to the next one. 2013, 14, 2014, 15, 2015, 15, 15, three seasons for Jamie Ben in which he has the exact. same penalty minute total. Like they each top out to 64. That is really weird. And then the year after. He is 66.

Yeah, 66. That is funny. Now I want to look up and see if he like, was it like at the very end? Was this one of these things where he was like, you know what? No, I'm not doing this for a third year. I got to pick up another. I got to pick. I got to go punch somebody in the head or something and get that last penalty.

It doesn't look like it. But that's. Mr. Consistency, at least, when you look at that column. Let's take this next one from Schmue, from Vancouver. I was looking up on Wikipedia the last time a Canadian team hosted the All-Star game, and I learned that for the All-Star Games first 20 years from 1947 to 1968, the Defending Cup champs hosted the All-Star team. Do you think that switching to that format now would make the game more entertaining?

Fans of the Stanley Cup team would get bragging rights and fans of every other team would be invested in seeing the cup winners lose. Also, would the Colorado Avalanche or last year's lightning teams beat the rest of the league's all-stars? I think the actual team's familiarity with each other would give them a huge advantage

over the more talented and deeper all-star roster, but I'd be curious to see if that assumption held true. This could be like a chance to have a down-goes-brown team construction experiment column in real life. Yeah, it could. And you hear this every now and then, partly because the All-Star game, it's, I mean, it's so hard to watch a lot of times. And, you know, we've been over that.

And the league, to their credit, has tried all sorts of things. And at the end of the day, it just doesn't work because these guys have made it very clear that they have no interest in putting even a minimal effort into the games. We saw it last weekend. The Atlantic was the only one of the four divisions that seemed to care at all. The Metro had enough pride that when they were. were playing the Atlantic, that they sort of elevated their game. And then the Central got into the final and was like, no, we're not, we're not interested. And, and.

Real Caprizov literally switched out of an event in the skills competition, like, during the event. Yeah. And I get it. Look, it's, you know, the season is a grind. These guys are beat up. They're hurt. This is supposed to be their, their break. So the question is, if you made it, you know, up against, if you put them up against

the Stanley Cup champion, would that, would that trigger the. pride. Would you see that team saying, you know, we're the champs, we're going to play hard, and then, you know, the other team responds to it. I'm not sure it would. At this point, I'm, you know, I'm willing to try pretty much anything, but I'm not sure that it would work. Maybe it would. The disparity in talent theoretically would be more significant than it is in the original six era. I mean, back then, there, I mean, if you won the Stanley Cup and you were a great team, your roster probably at least at the top of the lineup didn't look all that different from an all-star team. And, you know, these days, 32 teams, it's not quite the same. The one thing

you would have to do is it couldn't be like it was back then where the Stanley Cup team hosted because it's just too big a deal with the NHL to move this around. And it's, I mean, it's an event right now for sponsors and schmoozing and that sort of thing. So risking having it be in the same place multiple times, I don't think would work. But, you know, I'm willing to give it a try because I will tell you right now, if I have a hard time thinking that anything could be much worse than what we've seen the All-Star game become over the years. And look, I mean, we saw it in the NFL where they radically changed how the Pro Bowl work.

They just said, you know what, all right, you guys don't want to try? We're not even going to play a football game. We're going to play flag football. We're going to do events. We're going to have some fun. Maybe this would be the NHL's equivalent to sort of go in a different direction and get creative by going back to an old idea. I think it could be a cool idea, but I would also love to see

them go back to the All-Star draft, but also like the captains, I really want a Crosby versus Ovechkin All-Star game. Like, I think that might be something that incentivizes at least some of the players to get into it. And like if you put a little more money in it, yeah. The fact that we dropped the draft was so ridiculous. I mean, it's, this hockey fans go on and. on and on about how tough these guys are.

They're the toughest athletes in the world, but then we can't have an all-star draft because it hurts their feelings. Give me a break. I don't want to be picked last. Yeah, oh, it made me feel bad. Well, okay. I mean, geez, I'm sure getting cross-checked in the head

makes you feel bad too, but, you know, can we, can we, maybe you could use that as motivation to go out there. And I don't know. I mean, it's, I think at this point, it kind of just is what it is. And we've got to, figure out a way to live with it. And as long as the sponsor,

the corporate partners, get the schmooze and shake hands with people, then maybe that's all we should be looking at. I guess. Now, let's wrap up our show with a look back with this week in hockey history. Got two notable tidbits for you.

February 7, 1976, Toronto Center, Darrell Sittler sets the NHL record with 10 points in a game in a Toronto Maple Leafs 114 win over Boston. leave gardens, he gets six goals and four assists. Obviously, that record has not been broken since. Maybe Tage Thompson had a fighting chance at that earlier this year, but it's still the record as it stands. And wild that that is, that record has not only never been broken, but no one's even

gotten to nine points in a game. And, you know, we're talking Wayne Gretzky in the 80s. We're talking, Mario, in the 80s, high scoring. eras. I think they both topped out at eight points. We're talking somehow, you know, Sam Gagne and Patrick Dunstrum and guys like that also get eight points. So, I mean, it can happen. You can have that perfect night where everything's going in. Obviously, we don't see a lot of games where a team scores 10 goals these days, let alone has that many points. But it is, it is somewhat shocking to me that nobody even got close to it in the 80s. And, you know, we will see it eventually.

I got to say, as a Lee fan, I have, I'm as old as I am, I am. I have no memory of this game. But I have like a certain amount of pride. I don't think about it much. But then every time you flip on the TV and it's like, oh, this guy has four points in the first period, I'm always like, oh, is this the night that somebody takes Sittler's record? Because as a Leaf fan, we have so, we have so few things to cling to. And this is this is one of them. And the other thing I want to bring up, February 11, 1957, the NHLPA forms and Ted Lindsay, a longtime Detroit Red Wing, elected.

as president. Yeah. And, you know, if sometimes I know people ask, why is the award for best player as voted by the players named after Ted Lindsay? Why isn't it Gordy Howe or Wayne Gretzky or something like that? And this is a big part of the reason why he was a phenomenal player, absolutely, but he also was instrumental to the formation of the players union, which, you know, you can imagine back then was not a popular stance at all for him to take.

take and he risked a lot by by pushing for it and being the face of it. And that's why to this day he is honored by the players by having that award named after him. And that's going to do it for the Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Sean, it was an absolute pleasure getting to hang out with you for this last hour and a bit. This was fun. Yeah, this was this was excellent. You know, you did, I realize now where I should have gone at the beginning was you are the Dominic Hachick to Ian's grand fear. He's, you know, he's a hall of famer. He's a top 100 podcast host, but, you know, maybe this is the moment where you sneak in there and start racking up the hardware. Man, this is the, that's probably the nicest hockey related

compliment I've ever received in my life. So thank you, Sean. And dude, as for your work, it just put me on to a lot of game today, man, a lot of hockey history, a lot of hockey knowledge. You've probably forgotten more than I will ever know. So getting to learn from you today was really sweet as well. And, and hey, check out tomorrow. I'll drop in the quick plug because, you know, there are a lot of, a lot of the old timers have said, you know, this top 100 list you guys did in the modern era was great. But what about Gordy? What about the Rocket? What about Doug Harvey and Eddie Shore and all these guys?

Tomorrow I have got my own personal ranking of the top 50 guys of the pre-modern era. So pre-1967, I'm doing my own top 50. No panel, no ballots, anything like this. This is just me making my own list. but if you're one of those old timers going, hey, where's some of these older names? We're going to get them for you tomorrow. Be sure to check that out. And thank you again for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show.

Again, you can always email us your questions at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com or leave a voicemail at 845-445-8459. Right now, get a one-year subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show.