The Athletic Hockey Show - The Flyers epic collapse and can we please get a battle of New York playoff series?

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

This week on 'A Frank between two Sean's', the boys discuss the MVP two horse race between Nathan MacKinnon and Nikita Kucherov, the positive development of Juraj Slafkovský in Montreal, and the push to the playoffs in the East between Detroit, Washington, Pittsburgh and the Islanders. Plus Sean and Sean present what they learned in the NHL this week, with the playoff candidate Flyers imploding, maybe this season is a failure after all in Philadelphia? Meanwhile, DGB demands an Islanders/Rangers playoff series, plus they provide their thoughts on the atrocious non-call on Noah Dobson after he cross checked Vinny Trocheck with a hit from behind into the boards, and the boys 'video tribute' Alex Ovechkin and Auston Matthews goal scoring prowess ahead of another edition of TAHS question and answer period in the app.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Good afternoon. This is the athletic hockey show, the Wednesday edition. Two Sean's and a Frank. Frankie Crado is back. Thank goodness. I'm Sean Dantilly. I'm here with Sean McIndoo.

How are we doing? Doing good. This is fun. What are we got? Week and a half left? We're almost done. Eight days. The season.

Not that I'm keeping track or anything. The best time of the year? I'm just glad that teams in the Eastern Conference are officially starting to get eliminated. Officially or spiritually starting to get eliminated. We need to whittle this down a little bit. What did I say? Was it a month ago where I said I'm done making declarations about the Eastern playoff race? And I think that was around the time everybody was like, penguins are done.

Penguins are out. Islanders are out. Including me. I said on you, you fool. You simple. Four straight pods. Pittsburgh cook, done. So clearly, I mean, Detroit's done now, right?

They're out gone. Write them off. Just kidding. Definitely won't be holding down a playoff spot this time next week. I'll tell you something. I'll get a little Washington thing. Absolutely. I'll tell you something I did learn last night, though.

This is, this is serious. The flyers are done. What have we learned, Sean? They are cooked. They are not officially eliminated, but I'm finally willing to say that it's over for them. I've seen enough. And beyond seeing enough from them as an actual playoff contender, I think what I've learned is that this season could actually be a failure.

We've said it many times I feel like in one way or another over the last couple months. They've banked enough points. Everybody feels good about where it is. Sports was on folks, you know, Jack Adams' ballot is recently as a week or two ago. Yikes. Last night was a catastrophe, but it also was the latest in a long line of catastrophe is going back for eight. Eight straight losses. They have given up four goals or more in every single one of those games.

It is eight games ago, if you had said to me, like, describe a scenario in which the flyer season will be a failure. I would have said there is, like, there is no scenario. They have so much, they are playing with house money, right, is the cliche, right? Like at some point, you've just, the first 70 games were such a great story. As far as a team with no expectations, a team that was seemed to be actively rebuilding, you just looked at them and said, I mean, they have played meaningful games. The young players have learned so much, blah, blah, blah, blah. but there's no scenario.

Well, here we are. And this feels like, I'm sorry, this isn't an epic collapse, not necessarily at the level of some other ones we've seen where teams were expected to be, but missing the playoffs was always going to be fine for this team. Losing eight in a row, getting your doors kicked in by the blue jackets and the Canadians and teams like that. I don't know, man.

Five teams in that skid are outside the playoffs. They've been outscored 42 to 18. Save percentages at 7.81. Again, this is just in that in that it came stretch. The PDO is around 85, right? So that just means the goaltending has cratered to a catastrophic degree. And also, everybody went cold at the same time. If you want to go further back, go to January 23rd,

which is the day Carter Hart left the team. Obviously, he's been charged with. with one count of sexual assault in conjunction with the 2018 hockey Canada situation. Since the day he left the lineup, they're 11, 16, and 5. So once they stopped getting Carter Hart caliber goaltending, the wheels started to wobble, and now they've completely fallen off. And look, I mean, you're right. A lot of this is just goaltending and we've said it before.

So much of what we do is just, but so much of what we do is we just look at something that can be explained by goaltending. and we put other, build other things around it. But it is very hard for me not to look at this and say that eight-game skid pretty much exactly coincides with John Tortoralla calling his team soft. It more or less, not the losing streak itself, but ever since the Sean Couturee stuff, which was a big deal, did it into or did it against Toronto. so you know it was going to get maximum coverage and everything. They've collapsed since then. You know, it was only two weeks ago. We were all talking about what a great leader Tortorella was when he gave his little speech about I'm just trying to make guys better.

And I felt like I was on an island there because everybody was just like, what a great speech. What a great statement by this guy. And I was sitting there going, John, people aren't complaining that you're trying to make people better. They're complaining about the way you're doing it. They're complaining about the fact that this isn't an effective way to call your team soft when they're battling for a playoff spot. And it's, I mean, I will never say, oh, a team's quit. You know, a team's this. Yeah, this is a young team.

It's there. Obviously, fatigue is an issue, the goaltending, all of this stuff. But sure didn't seem to help. Sure didn't seem to fire them up having their coach call them out with, you know, kind of using one of those four letter words that you're not. supposed to ever use when you talk about a hockey team. The other thing about that whole, about the, I don't know, I'd rant, kind of a corny way to look at it, but whatever, the monologue that he gave, you know, on the state of the team at that point is a lot of it felt like him copping to doing a bad job himself in the run-up to that,

which was the weirdest part of it. He's like, it seemed like he was sounding some kind of alarm bell where it sounded like a dude who was like, I don't really know how to reach these guys. And then they go out and lose however many more since that, right? I don't think he's winning the Jack Adams, man. I don't think that's going to happen. RIP John Torterell is Jack Adams. Candidacy, it lasted from March 18th to March 31st. But the overall, though, I think where I'm at on them is that I think, and I think the part that makes, you know, the collapse so interesting or whatever, so fascinating on some level is that even the fan base seemed like it had finally come around to

accepting the fact that this was a team that was probably going to make the playoffs, even though they shouldn't have, and maybe cost themselves a lottery pick and whatever. Like everybody was on board with the rebuild, it seemed like at the start of this. And then gradually throughout the season, you know, the team built up enough cash. and putting up chips, you know, in the bank to be like, all right, fine, let's go, let's make a run at this. And as soon as that happened is when they went in the tank. And that's what makes it so brutal. And now, you know, they have three games left.

They're going to end up with a 12th or 13th pick. They have essentially no shot at winning the draft lottery. So the end result is what? You miss the playoffs in, you know, make a spectacle. of yourself in the process. All that stuff about culture, which is what the entire season was built on. That was what the fallback was from the jump.

Like, yeah, we don't have that much talent, but we're doing stuff the right way. The hallmark of this rebuild is that we are building an organizational culture. That only goes so far in most cases as the talent that you graft onto that culture, right? And now, you know, what does culture guard against?

if not an eight-game losing streak when you're in a playoff spot, right? And that's where we're at now. Sam Erson's the goaltender. He's wiped out. You have Anthony Stollars, who's the former Flyers backup, who's killing it with the Panthers, which is just like another layer of insult injury here. It's a mess.

It'd be great to have leadership step up, but you've kneecapped your own leadership for questionable reasons. And you're right. Like on some level, this is the worst case scenario. you know, worse than finishing 29th and at least getting that pick

in those lottery odds. And you look at this team, like they're going to finish. As of right now, they've got fewer wins than the Sabres. They've got a worse goals differential in the senators. It's,

the gap between them and those teams is Tortorella's ability to have a team that always gets in overtime and collects those loser points. all that having been said, they play the Rangers tomorrow night. I was going to say they're beating the Rangers, right?

They're going to win their last three games and get right back into this thing. 89 points if they win the last three. That could be enough. The bright side to this from a league-wide standpoint and from like an unaffiliated observer standpoint is that it does seem like they are walking us right into a matchup, though, that everybody actually wants to see, right, in the Metro Division playoffs. This is what I learned. I don't want.

I need a Rangers Islanders. You crave it. First round matchup, man. Two weeks ago, I wrote a piece where I said, look, here's the best matchups that we could get in the first round. And I set a cutoff, right? There's various places that'll calculate the odds of a matchup given, you know, the schedules left and all that other stuff. And I said, it's got to, you know, I don't remember what number I pick, but I said it's got to be a realistic chance. And the Rangers Islanders at that time had a 3% chance, obviously because the Islanders were spiraling out of the playoff race and, you know, the various other reasons.

So I didn't include that one on the list. By the way, if you go back and read the list now, completely irrelevant. None of those matchups are going to happen. It was a total waste of my time. But it always is. It always is. but now Rangers Islanders very much in play. It's one of these, not to take your stick,

but if the playoffs started today, we would not get it. We would get Carolina, New York Islanders, but it's very close to the islanders need to drop down a spot or Carolina needs to catch the Rangers. And we get Rangers Islanders, and we got a preview of that last night.

that looked fun as an outsider as someone who wouldn't have a rooting entries man i could i could do seven games of that i sent out the group text to you and producer jeff and frankie last night like because i watched that one live and as soon as you saw trocheck understandably freaked out over a missed call there was a there's a series really across checks uh from the islanders like in the in the corner there while they were down a goal and in trying to make a late push. Trocheck did one of the great mock applause for officials that you're ever

going to see. We don't need an excuse to want Rangers Islanders to happen, right? That's an historic rivalry that's always ugly in a fun way. But man, I think we got some extra juice last night. I'll take seven games baby. In the middle of a rivalry game. Do you know

it go? Do you know the last time the Rangers and Islanders played each other in the playoffs? And keep in mind, they've been in the same division every single year. Was it 94? It was 94. 30 years since these two teams who are always in the same division have played each other in the plans. I don't remember if anything else interesting happened in 1994.

Maybe Ranger fans will let me know if anything comes to mind. I mean, that's best. Like this, like it's been so long that you know, you kids out there maybe don't realize how great a rival and how much these two fan bases. each other. But, oh, that could be, that could be such a good one. I don't mind. I will sacrifice my, you can take my Toronto, Boston, you can take, you know, all the, this is the one that we need to see. What we need to have happen is we need Pittsburgh to hit the gas again, get into that spot.

So they play Carolina. We get the Jake Gunsell revenge series. Yep. And then give us Rangers Islanders. And then we'll be happy. and those and I mean those fan bases will be miserable like rivalry series suck when it's your fan base you're just on edge the entire time but the rest of us will just be sitting off to the side just throwing matches at that that that oil drum not our problem baby no um frank you saw a game last night

also we're we're gonna go back to gonna go back to flyers talk with him uh in in a second here for the for the frank carrado portion of the show stick around we'll be right back All right, we talked about the Flyers' demise a little bit in the first segment, but we have someone who witnessed the trench yesterday. Frankie Carado, you saw that. You saw that in person, brother. My God. There's a guy out in Vancouver, pass it to Bullis, Daniel Wagner.

Oh, yeah. And he puts out an article after games. I think the caption is, I watched this game. And I watched that game last night in Montreal. And, man, man, was it ugly? for the Philadelphia Flyers. And like, they had a portion of the season where they played a seven-game gauntlet.

And then they came into Montreal. This would have been two weeks ago. And we were down there at the morning skate and we were talking to guys. And basically the sentiment was, I think they went two, four, and one over those seven games. And it was, we survived the gauntlet. Now we have an opportunity because we didn't sink ourselves.

And then they went and played teams like Columbus and Buffalo and Montreal. all and they couldn't score and the offense dried up and ever since healthy scratching Sean Couturey, they've only won one game and they had that portion of the season which was their opportunity to grab the playoff spot that was theirs and it felt like there was a little breathing room and it's gone now and I don't get the sense that that it's ever coming back for them after watching that game last night. They were like they were flat, they were slow. The goaltender has definitely run out of steep.

team and he's been overplayed this year. Like that was his 48th game of the year. He's a 24 year old rookie. Like give him credit for hanging in there. Like the season could have got sunk on the flyers earlier this year. But that's, you know, that's, that was, that was one of those ones that tells you, I think they're, they've, they've reached the end of the line for for this year anyways. There's, there's still reason to be optimistic about their future. Like in the long term, I think there's, there's a lot of good things that are that are happening there.

It's important to keep that in mind. but as far as this year goes, I think the wheels have fallen off. What's it like as an ex-player watching a game like that? Like, do you get the secondhand embarrassment factor? Is there a point where you're just like feeling it on a different level? Or is it just one of those universal things where all of us are watching this going, okay, could just stop the game. Just ring the bell, man.

We're good. I'm kind of watching it from two different points of view. And both of them, I can feel exactly what it felt like in that. situation. Like on the Montreal point of view, I've been a part of those games where it's a blowout and you're on the winning end of it. And it's the most stress-free thing and you're joking around on the bench and it feels great. And you're like, what song are we going to play in the room afterwards? It's awesome. And then on the other side of things, yeah, embarrassment is a word, but you're almost just like you can't wait for that game to finish. And you almost feel like you're going out for

every shift and you're like, what is the purpose in this shift? Because this game, game is over. I still got to play. I still got to, you know, kind of kill the clock here. It's quite difficult. And the one game I can remember in my experience was the ultimate just like add insult to injury, I guess if you want to call it that. I was literally playing in the minors, playing in Rochester, New York on, I don't know, God knows what day of the week in February. And we were losing 10-3 to the Rochester Americans. And I collided with my teammate. And I, I blew out my ACL and MCL and I missed the next nine months in a 10-3 blowout game. And so that's kind of what I'm thinking for all these guys as well.

It's like, go out there for your 30 seconds. The game's over. Get the hell off the ice and move on. And the one thing that always is said after the second intermission in a game like that is, yeah, let's see if we can build something here, you know, like we still got some games left. Let's, you know, let's leave the rink with some kind of positive here. And they scored, you know, they scored three goals in the third.

third period. Why the third period? Yeah, great. I think you get a point for that in the NHL. It'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you should.

Like, if it was a five point tier system, you know, maybe you get a point for a, you know, a moral victory in the third period. I see that I can see like the light bulb go off over Sean's head right now. So he's going to come with it with an 1800 word post about the, about the five. Some GM is going to propose this at the, uh, the next meet. Hey, you, by the way, I saw your, I saw your post. I love the three, the three point system. Like, I love it. I think it absolutely should be here, but it's probably not changing anytime soon.

Yeah, well, it's not because the GMs and I will rant again about that at some point, but not right now. Because you said, you mentioned get the hell off the ice. You know who probably wanted to get the hell off the ice a lot last night is Jamie Drysdale minus six. Holy shit. Oh, man. I'm not. I know plus minus is a dicey stat, but minus six is not good. I guess my question, Frank, did you ever have a game like that?

And more specific, like, is this just like, sometimes you hear about the burn the tapes game in sports? Or is this, could this stick to a young guy? Like a young guy, he comes over in a trade that, you know, is a little awkward situation. Is this like, you know, hey, remember that time we were fighting for our playoffs lives and this guy was a minus six? Like, could this stick to somebody or do you just, you just have the mentality that? that okay, we're moved on. No, I feel like the modern player doesn't really dwell on those types of things, the way guys probably used to or even myself when I played.

And like, you also have to remember the situation. It's not just him who's going through that last night. That's an entire team who laid an egg. There's a lot of bad numbers on that score sheet at the end of the night. Minus six sucks. Hopefully for him, it turns into a story that he tells one of the young guys one day when they're having a bad day or a bad stretch. And he's like, listen, buddy, like I went minus six at the bell center one time in the

middle of a playoff hunt. It's not going to be, like, it's not going to be that bad for you. It's going to be okay. Like, hopefully it turns into something like that. But when you're, it's worse when you're isolated and you're the one that's going through it. When the whole team goes through it, you can kind of get through it together. I will tell you one quick story, though, about a bad plus minus night for me. And I don't know if I ever told you guys this one.

I had a situation once where I was playing for Vancouver. and I had come back off IR. And I guess when I came back off IR, the plan was, you know, got to send them down because, you know, we're going to put ourselves over the cap. So the way it was to get to Utica, I had a flight from Vancouver to Toronto, had a layover, a flight from Toronto to Syracuse. And then from Syracuse, I would, you know, get like a car or someone to pick me up

and bring me, you know, it's about an hour's drive to Utica. I get off the flight in Toronto. I opened up my phone and I got text message and missed call. And it was like, hey, we got to get you back to Vancouver. Just see if you can get your bag and hop on. We're going to book you on the next flight back. I still don't know to this day what happened in that situation, what changed from the time I left.

But I had to fly back to Vancouver after just flying to Toronto. And the next day, we were playing the San Jose sharks. And I went minus three. And it was awful. And I felt so bad about my game. And it was so bad, it got to the point that John Scott, who I have a lot of respect for, the way he played the game, and this was actually quite funny looking back on things, he's yelling to the bench, hey, put 26 back on the ice, get him back out there.

And I'm like, man, that sucks, but he kind of is right, like minus three. Like, I would want myself back on the ice, too. You know what? When they make the John Scott movie eventually, they've got to get that scene in that. there just the establishment of the character. Yeah. I wonder, like,

would he still be the protagonist if he, if he had that story? I want to know what, I want to know what the status of that script is. The John Scott movie has been caught in development hell for the last eight years. I feel it's it's sitting in a drawer somewhere. Yeah, we're just,

we're just waiting for everyone to forget about it and then it's going to come back onto the scene. Yeah. Classic hockey strike while the iron's hot. just really get in there. I have a feeling that Wishanski will be willing to play himself, regardless of when the movie is filmed. They're waiting for Tofer Grace to be available for the Wushinsky part.

To age a little bit. Yeah, age into it. I think a big part of that story last night, it's really been a kind of an interesting element, I think, of the last month or six weeks, maybe even more. We saw the Erys-Slavkowski hat trick. It's a big part of why Jamie Driesdale was, why his numbers were in the tank last night.

Frankie, I know you've seen a lot of him. You've done it. You've done a handful of Habs games of late. How was his game different, not even from last season, but now versus in like January or February? Because it seems like stuff has started to change even more. Yeah, like everyone talks about the confidence. And that, that's obviously a factor. But I said this on the broadcast last night.

like what would be his greatest asset if you watched him play because there's a lot of things now that he's doing really well and there's probably not one thing that really stands out and for him that's a that's a good thing that's a positive i think with some guys you say like hey when you do everything well maybe you don't do one thing really great like so many different areas of his game have kind of come to life like the skating was was was was noticeable this year like he was just he was not getting knocked down as much he looked faster he looked like he looked like he was getting on to pucks a little bit more. So there's, you know, one area that really improved for him. He's shown, especially since the All-Star break, like more of a willingness to shoot the puck and be ready to shoot the puck. So many times before the All-Star break, like he would get it, maybe dust it off, maybe not sure what he wanted to do with it. Now, like, gets it with conviction, knows what he wants to do with it.

He's using his body way more. Like, I think he's starting to realize that he's 6'3, he's 230-something pounds. and he has a physical advantage over a lot of guys. So he's camped out in front of the net a lot more than I have seen him. And of course, he scores one goal last night that goes off his shin pad. He scores one where it's like a back door one timer. So we're kind of like seeing the evolution of all these different skill sets that Montreal would have hoped would have been there for him. And he's putting it all together.

And, you know, you have to give him a lot of credit. Like apparently he's just, he lives and breathes hockey. He wants to improve in so many different ways. And the decision to keep him around Marty St. Louis is proving to be the right one. And that's going to be something that the Canadians will now always keep in mind when it comes to their young players in developing them. Do we want them going to LaValle? We're going to get them more ice time. Or do we want them around Marty St. Louis every single day?

Rubbing shoulders with him, learning from him, being around that. Like there's, there's a lot to be said for, for that. But he's like, he's grown so much in his game. And there's something tangible now, too, because he's got 17 points in his last 15 games. I think what you saw, you know, the standard kind of dialogue that surrounded him for a while is he's doing all the little things better. He's like, the puck supports great, like this and that. It's a lot easier to feel better about a guy who was a number one pick, though, when you can say like, also he's been a point per game player since the start of March or whatever. Like there's something that there's something that people can grab onto.

It's more tangible and more concrete than just being like, wow, like great, great support play there. Like, like, whatever. Like, there's that big flashing red light number, you know, that makes it easier for, for people to feel good about it, I think. Well, and okay, so how about the assist he has on Saturday versus the leaps, that backhand right across the seam to Suzuki? Like, there's another thing. But I think this year has been a great little story. as far as preaching patience for these young players that were drafted really, really high. Like, Quentin Byfield has really emerged in L.A. Lafranier has been really good with the Rangers.

And yes, it comes down to confidence. It also comes down to getting these guys more reps at the NHL level, learning the game. And, you know, there's three guys right there that were, you know, at one point or another, maybe considered to, I don't want to say the word bus, but maybe not live up the ex-exilts. expectations that were maybe cast upon them. And all three of them are having really nice seasons. So there is a lesson to be learned there as far as not every 18 year old is going to step into the league and dominate right away.

And the ones that do are incredibly exceptional at what they do, but not everyone is built the same way. And I think these guys are proving that. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time. Yeah. And every Columbus fan who's been watching fan Tilly, every Anaheim fan with Carlson is, you know, clap in their hands right now. because not dominant right out of the gate, but I mean, you, whatever.

It happens, right? We got spoiled. Like that. Leandro Cytle was awful his first season. Joe Thornton had seven points. That's the one. That's the one I was just going to see. He played a full season, by way.

He didn't play 10 games. He had seven points. And Joe Colton or numbers. Well, and Joe Thornton, for the longest time, like always near the top of the points, near the top of the assists. but one of the most feared playmakers, when he would come over the boards, especially on the power play,

it was like, oh, man, here we go again. Like, this guy's going to do something silly. And look where he started. You know, like it's such a, such a cautionary tale for fans of these players. It's like,

they are drafted that high for a reason, and they will get there. But the skill sets on these guys are pretty exceptional. Every Rangers fan is yelling about Capo Caco right now. There's still time. It's only year six is going to be the one, the breakout. I know. But I will say like with with Kako and the Rangers, like in the,

I believe he's playing on the third line and he has been a lot of the season. Like he fills a, he feels, he feels, fits a need for that team. Like I, I think he's kind of found his game in a different kind of way that maybe helps the team win, which at the end of the days has to be considered somewhat of a win.

Like I know it's not the super high end kind of talent. But if he helps your team and your team is successful and your team wins, everyone has to fill a little bit of a cog there. And I watch Kackle play. And I'm like, hey, he does something that helps the team win at least, at the very minimum. He, I mean, he was, I watched him yesterday. He was where he needed to be. He found a rebound.

Then he yacked and shot it and shot at short side. And it was just the wrong move. Like, like he's a guy who puts himself in position, which is, which is good in a lot of ways. But the finishing, the finishing stuff hasn't, hasn't. comment for him. Yeah. I just feel like people just got spoiled or maybe not spoiled, but the expectations for top three picks was just so out of whack because we watched so many of them hit in a real way very quickly, like over and over and over again. Like the fact that we in such quick succession had McKinnon and McDavid and Matthews blew people's, you know,

ability to, it screwed up the expectations, right? It screwed up. It screwed up. It screwed up the barometer because those guys are special. It's rare to have three dudes like that come along in a five-year span. And now it's like that's the standard that everybody's, that everybody's held to and it's not, it's not fair. And with Kako especially, like the draft that he was in to have Jack Hughes go number one to a rival of the Rangers.

It's bad timing, bad placement for him because it just, it does. It messes up the expectation. I mean, Hughes was another guy who started slow. Yeah. A lot of people were looking at that going, Oh, you know, they're not getting what they thought.

As if he didn't weigh 145 pounds as a rocker or whatever it is. Like, sorry, man, you got to drink some milkshakes. Like, you'll be fine. Well, then on the other, like the other end of the spectrum, I was, I was in Toronto when Matthews came into the league. And I got to see him, his 18-year-old season. And this guy shows up to training camp, 18 years old, and built like a man child. And you can tell he's young, but he was so, like, physically mature.

and ready to play the game. Like we did call him a manchild at the time. And like not everyone's going to be built that way. Like Ryan Nugent Hopkins went first overall in my draft in 2011. He wasn't built that way. But you look back at that draft, he's been a very good player. He wasn't going to change your franchise.

But he's a big part of what the Edmonton Oilers have and need. And I think in my draft, it was Newgen Hopkins. There was maybe Landiscaug. There was Huberto. you go down that list. I think there was a lot of good players, but there wasn't going to be that one exceptional talent

that really stood out above the rest. But one of those guys actually went in the second round, and it's Nikita Kutrov. And he is having an exceptional season. And think about that. I think the lightning that you're picked, Nemesnikov in the first round, and Kutrov slipped to them in the second round.

And that was a year where teams were a little scared off by Russian guys. I think the KHL was picking up steam back then. But man, what a pick that was. What a pro segue by you. My goodness. Is Kuturav, where does Kutrav say, I feel like we watched McKinnon win the MVP last night. I feel like that was his, that felt like last night he locked it up. It's an ESPN game, which is relevant for sure, comes out, has just a classic McKinnon goal, right,

where he just blows past everybody in the neutral zone and makes a play, and that's that. It felt like, and I know it's always, we need to be careful of judging by Twitter reactions because, you know, it's not representative of real life in any way at all. Did you know that, Frank? You don't say something in public and people shout to you, nudes in bio. Yeah. I was at Lowe's yesterday. I was buying chicken wire to fix a fence and someone's scream nudes in bio. But it felt like that happened.

The one area where it is real is when you're talking about people who vote for the hard trophy. And it seemed like there were a lot of people online last night who were like, look at this dude. Like he, he is the guy. This is his season. You know, give it to him.

So I feel like we're moving into the end. I know it's whatever. There's three or four games left on the schedule for most teams. So it should have happened by now, but it feels like that's where we are. Right. Yeah. I mean,

yeah. ESPN had their survey where they, I think they had him pretty. pretty well ahead already with the voters. That was kind of the, you know, the basketball team that's already a few points up. And then that was the big dunk in the final seconds where you just kind of do the, okay, yeah, it's, it's, because I mean, that that was ridiculous. Like, I mean, that was, that was like a video game where only one guy gets the turbo button.

Watching all three of those goals, but especially the last one. And you know what? Like, I just, you think about McKinnon, some of the. stuff that he says, some of the quotes that we've gotten from him and what he's done over the course of his career. He is that kind of guy who at any given moment can kind of grab things and say, I'm taking control of this situation. He did it in the playoffs. He's won a Stanley Cup because of it. And it felt like last night was his moment to be like, no, no, no. Like, it's going to be conversation closed here. And the Colorado Avalanche are just at such a like such a plus when he's on the

ice. He really does give them such a significant advantage when he's on the ice compared to when he's not on the ice. Jason Greger out in Edmonton put out a great tweet yesterday with all kinds of detail about McKinnon, Matthews, McDavid, Panarin, Crosby, Kutroff as far as what the team does when they're on the ice versus what the team does when they're not on the ice. And it's so glaring the advantages the Colorado Avalanche have when McKinnon is on the ice. And I just think he's one of those guys where, you know, he talks about how he goes into training camp every year with the mindset that I'm the strongest guy on the team and I'm going to win every fitness test this year. And like that's, that's a leader. And then, you know, there was there was quotes

a few years back. I think it was Zedorov who was talking about how this guy's so crazy about his diet. Like, we can't even have Alfredo sauce when he's around. Like, we have to hide it. And it's like, it's a little weird. It's a little goofy. But it all stems from a place of this guy wanting to be great. And the great ones at any given sport are just wired different than the way the Twitter people who put nudes in bio, I think. And that is, that's, that's the same with hockey, golf, basketball, you name the sport. The great ones are just wired different. And Nathan McKinnon has that in his DNA. Has anybody ever watched your plate? Have you ever had that? I'm like, okay. Fetuccino-A Alfredo. I don't think so.

Not tonight, Frankie. Like, has that ever happened? No, no, I never. No, Kessel wasn't that guy for... No, I don't think he was, yeah, I don't think he was monitoring what people ate. But I was, I'm trying to think back. Like, I remember, I think there was one year. I can't remember what team it was on.

They tried to get rid of the ice cream at pregame meal. And that, like, that did not last long. There was a mutiny. Very quickly, there was a mutiny. Just provide some lactate pills. People will be fine. You just eat some lactate. and eat some ice cream, like whatever,

go take a nap, you'll be okay. Yeah. A big part of these awards, too. And like, and you mentioned the Gregor tweet, which I think was great. To me,

like McKinnon has the ultra high end skill where you talk about him as a top three player in that regard. He's got the consistency. And he had that stretch in December and January specifically where he was playing psycho minutes because they didn't have a second line at the time.

That's obviously resolved itself because Middle Stets been good and Drew Ann has picked it up. So, like, he bridged that gap to when they could establish some of that depth and really make themselves look like an actual contender again, which is huge. But, Frankie, I think you kind of alluded to this. So much of it is narrative-based. And so much of it is, like, do people want to vote for this guy? Like, it really can be that simple.

And I think in McKinnon's case, that's absolutely true because everything we've seen from him over the years, like whether it's the cup, whether it's, you know, the workout stuff, the production, whatever, there's been a zillion reasons already to give this dude the heart. And it just hasn't worked out because whether it's because of McDavid or whether it's because whoever, like it just hasn't quite come together at the same time. So that to me is what makes it feel like a lot because people look at him and they're like,

and they're like, that is an MVP. The way he behaves, the way he produces. Like that's a guy who deserves this award. Second place twice in his career already. One other year as a finalist. He's 28, 29 years old. Like, you don't want to get into the whole lifetime achievement award deal like we did with Drew Doughty a few years ago. But, yeah, I mean, he is a guy that you kind of look at and go, he should have an MVP by now.

And the guys, he's up against Kucherov's got one. McDavid's got a million of them. Well, the question you have to ask yourself, like, the question you have to ask yourself is this. If he's not going to win it this year, like, what is the on? performance that he needs to put up in order to win one because all the conditions are there for him. The fact that he hasn't won one yet, he's having a career year, a monster year. He's basically driven the bus for the Colorado Avalanche. Like you said, Sean, through a thinner lineup before the reinforcements got there. It all adds up to this finally being the year. And

earlier on when we were talking, we talked about high picks that maybe took a little longer to find their putting in the NHL and it just dawned on me. There was a point in time where people were not exactly thrilled with Nathan McKinnon's production. Like if you go back and look at his second year in the league, he only played 64 games. There was 38 points. Then the next year he played 72 games. There was 52 points there.

And those are good years. Don't get me wrong. But there was a moment in time there where people were like, well, is there more there? And yes, there is more there. So just to go back to that. Like there's a guy who's dominant, probably going to win the heart this year. And even him, like, it took him maybe a little longer than people would have thought for him to get to the level that he's played at now. Remember for years and years, the thing with McKinnon was the contract, right?

Everybody was the best contract in the league. He's only making six million bucks. That contract was not because Nathan McKinnon just decided, you know what, I'm going to be a nice guy and take less money. It was because that, the three years into his career, when he signed that deal, he hadn't had the big seasons. He hadn't looked like that dominant player. And so he got, you know, good money, but not that great second deal that other guys get. And nobody had a problem with it until he broke out. And then suddenly he had to listen to years and years of people talk about what great value he is.

Still, I was, still is, even though he's making more money than anyone. I talked to him on the day that he signed his new contract last year. Okay. No, wait. It was when McCar signed his extension. And it was like, okay. Like, congratulations. Like,

Kail McCar is now the best value contract in the league. And he was, he was psyched. I don't think it was, it wasn't really on the record conversation. So look, I'm not, I'm not going to pass along exactly what he said,

but he, but he was pumped. He's also like a, he's also like a reminder that, because he was, he was great. Is, maybe not great, but he won the calder as a rookie.

He was great. He was really good. That was the year that the abs with WAC kind of came out of nowhere and made that big jump and made the playoffs in one around. And then he backslit in his second year, right? So he's a good reminder. Not just that it takes a couple years, though he has that too. It's that progress isn't always linear, right? You can be great as an 18 year old.

Then the league figures out some stuff about you. And when you're 19, you got to kind of figure it out again for a second time. Yeah. And you know what? so much of that being a young guy, regardless of how good you are, is the environment that you're around? Like, who's your coach? What is he like? Who are you playing with? How is the team playing? Like, you still are at that point in your career, a little bit of a victim of the circumstances around you. Now, at some point, you turn the corner and you get to be that guy and you get to be

the one that decides, okay, this is how good of a team we're going to be. And I'm going to lead the charge and credit to him because there's probably a two-year window there where the Colorado avalanche are not a very good team. In fact, it is a two-year window where they're not very good. And sure enough, like, they turn the corner and he's the one leading the charge and he goes from, okay, we're not, you know, we don't have a lot around me to, I'm going to be the guy. Let's get some things going below me and we're going to be a really good team. And I think that's, you know, that just goes back to his kind of mindset. to always push to be great and be among the league's best.

And, you know, when you rub shoulders with a guy like Sydney Crosby all summer and you train with Brad Marchand, it's like that is, you know, those are the guys you want to be around. It was, it was always interesting, like, you know, when it came to summer training and I would always train back here in Toronto, you never necessarily wanted to be the best player or the strongest guy in the gym. You always wanted to be around guys that were better than. you, bigger than you, faster than you, so they could push you along.

Listen, at some point, you are going to be that guy, like, and you hope you are because that means you've made that kind of progress. But when you surround yourself around people like that that are just, you know, at a level that you aspire to get to, I think that really drives you. And that's obviously part of the recipe for McKinnon's success. Frankie, we got eight days of games left. What's the schedule looking like for you? are you working any more games like wow how are you going to spend the next the next week here as the

regular season so i'm i'm on the abs beat uh to finish things off i'm going to do a habs panel um on tsn two tomorrow with my good buddy mark row who's hosting i love mark row shout out to him uh i'll be down at scotia bank arena saturday for the leaps game against the red wings on tsn 50 with the tat man doing uh pre games intermissions and post games on 1050 you do one more sense panel to finish the year next Monday. And then I'll have the final regular season game for the Canadians versus the Detroit Red Wings. And I'm very interested in that little back to back with the Red Wings and the Montreal

Canadians. It's a Monday and a Tuesday. And you would think that if you're the Red Wings or a Red Wings fan, you look at that schedule and you think that's got to be a non-negotiable four points. But I'm not exactly sure. is. And the Canadians who, you know, played spoiler last night, they have an opportunity with those two games. I don't know where the Red Wings are going to be at. Like, they got to play Toronto. They're going to have to play Montreal. But man, they could, they could really put a fork

into the Red Wings playoff hopes if the Red Wings aren't careful. They're a quasi-illimination game in Pittsburgh here tomorrow too. It's Pittsburgh versus Detroit. That's a big one. Yeah. Well, we'll see, man. The Red Wings are interesting because, you know, they went out and signed a lot of veteran guys. Like they felt like they needed that with their group, but I still watch them play and I'm like, why do they make so many kind of like rookie young player mistakes? And that doesn't really apply to last night's game.

Like they really got goalied last night. But so many times they've just been leaky, leaky. And you're like, I don't know, man. Like there's got to be more within that group, but we'll see how they do to finish off the season. I feel like that could be our next coaching change if they end up fumbling this.

down the stretch and just miss the playoffs. And I say that knowing Steve Eisenman might be the most patient guy in the league. But you just think you just you kind of think there should be more there. Like just a little more awareness, a little more execution because it's not like as much as they were a rebuilding team and a young team. Like they didn't really, they didn't really hand the keys to the young guys and say like it's you. Like they went out and they got Petrie and they got Charade and they got Perron and they got in.

you know, Andrew Cop, like, you know, I'm sure I'm missing some guys, but, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, sort of veteran insulation around that group. It just, it never really computed to me how they would go on these long stretches of, of losing games outside of the fact that Dylan Larkin wasn't playing. Like, that's, you know, it's obviously a big loss, but it shouldn't sink your team. Like, Austin Matthews has missed games for the leaps. They still find ways to win. Mitch Martin missed games. Morgan Wright, like, you can go through all the teams. I, I know I'm, I'm close to Toronto here, obviously living here.

So that's the first example that pops into my head. But teams get by when good players miss games. You have to. You have no choice. Yeah, because it's easy to look at their roster and say like Larkin's the high-end guy that they have, right? Or at least down the middle because like God bless Andrew Cop and, you know, whoever else. But JT. Confer, guys like that, they're good enough. But the depth chart isn't where it needs to be.

But so you look at that team and you say like, be that as it may, like the slide that they went on is just not, it's not going to work. I don't like how like, okay, so Dylan Larkin, I feel like for the longest time was considered a really good second centerman, but maybe not exactly a high end first center. And then when your team kind of goes through the struggles that they went through, I think we can all agree. like Dylan Larkin is a first line center. And if you have players below him who, you know, you feel like can make a difference and impact your team, there's nothing wrong with that. Like there's, if Detroit turns into a good team one day, there's going to be nothing wrong with Dylan Larkin being your first line center.

So I mean, his impact was was massive. And when he was out of the lineup, you could really see that team fall up. Enjoy the Red Wings beat. That's what you're on now. Like forget forget the Canadians. You're playing, you got two games coming up for them. It's an interesting place. Like watching Red Wings and Sends Twitter go back and forth this year was a wild, wild scenes.

Just stay away from those empty nets, boys. Sensitive stuff. Yeah. We didn't even talk about that. My God. Yeah. I'm happy we didn't talk about that. Thank you.

Yeah. I have some people get voter fatigue with certain players. We have empty net fatigue. I just don't, I just don't care. I'll talk about it all day long. Yeah, I guess what the third segment is. Just going to. Yeah.

We'll probably have something else to talk about with you next week. I'm sure there will be some other empty net goal-related controversy to talk about next time. I can't wait. And we'll see where the playoff picture is at, man. It's going to be exciting. Like those last couple days. Wait, man. Every one of those teams is going to go 0 and 4 and the Sabres are going to be one point out of the playoffs.

The next time we talk to you. Oh, man. April, April 17th is our next chat. The question is how many matchups will actually be solidified by that point with two more nights of games? Let's, let's see. I think in the East, we could still, we could very well have two matchups that still aren't solidified by then. Definitely. I think it's going to be that close.

And outside of the penguins grabbing points in 9th Street, no one has really grabbed it. They've all fumbled it at times. Titch of trash. All right, buddy. What a homer. See you guys. See you. See you.

See you, Ricky. All right, we're back. Also back officially, I'm calling it, is the world's laziest third segment when we just go into the comment section and read a bunch of stuff from you guys. You came through in a big way after last week. Before we do all that, though, man,

we should shout out. I don't know. The best goal score of the last generation, the best goal score of the current generation. Alex Ovechkin, 18 straight years of 30 goals in the season. It's the most ever officially. And Austin Matthews, 66, most in the cap era. Is he going to hit 70?

Is that what's happening here? He's getting close. He's getting right there. First of all, let me just say on Ovechkin. Obviously, the story there is the slow start and the big second half. It is as an old guy, it is crazy to me that somebody just broke Mike Gardner's record of 30 goal seasons because that was one you always heard like it was crazy that you're like how can you do that for 17 years especially in a league where occasionally you get half

a season because of a lockout or this and that and the fact that that gartner did that for so long was i mean 17 seasons of 30 goals that's 500 goals right there that's i mean that you've already passed the 500 goal mark just based on on it's it it was wild that you know greetsky didn't do it all the guys didn't do you have to be healthy you have to all this stuff and oh Vetchkin goes along and breaks I love I love records like that that are maybe not top of mind they don't have the cachet of like it's like a single season record or a career record or whatever but just something that's like second tier in terms of notability but far in a way like oh that's never you can just put that one on a shelf it's it's not I'm

gonna say it real record that one is you know not not fake I'm going to put that one in the real category, not in the fake category. And then, yeah, Austin Matthews, the, okay, but you see, you said most goals in the cap era, which is the way that everyone, I'm, everyone talks about it, but not the league. This is something I've just kind of realized. Why is the league just, this is a new thing? Because suddenly what I'm seeing is this is the most of any active player. That is their way, because the NHL has been wrestling for years with how do we deal?

with the fact when we're talking about records and milestones that we had this dead puck era for 25 years. So all the, you know, it's like, you know, is this a great achievement yet? It hasn't been done in 25 years. But before that, there were like 10 guys who did it because hockey was fun in the 70s and 80s and 90s and then it stopped being fun and Gary Bedman didn't do anything about it for 20 plus years. And now it's it's kind of fun again. So, you know, you think you could just say, well, since the cap era or they used to do this thing where they, they used to do this thing where They would, on Twitter, they would put these stats out. And you'd see a list of like, most goals scored by a winger.

And then like in a little small print, it would always say since 1996. Like that was the cutoff. And now they've apparently settled on among active players. Is their way of signaling to you that like, okay, we're not talking Gretzky and Lemieux and those guys? But which it also just kind of automatically devalues the record itself because there's plenty of guys who, Lots of guys came and went. Yes, exactly. Who fall in the gap and are no longer active players.

Almost 30 years. It's really something. It is going to be interesting in Toronto, like, what they do. If he's like scoring a goal a game, do you play him and that? Do you rest him? Do you, you know, how do you do it? Because either way, they're screwed. Because if they sit him in the season finale and he doesn't get to 70,

Okay, that's one thing. But then if he doesn't score in the first two games of the playoffs, everyone's going to be like he was hot and you rested him and now you cooled him off and now he's not scored. And of course, it goes without saying if they put him in the lineup to chase 70 goals and he gets hurt, it's over for everybody in Toronto. Everybody who wants him to get 70 goals will be like,

oh, that was a terrible. What an awful decision. Nobody wanted that except all of us. They get the devils on Thursday. you know, Jake Allen, I assume. Fine. Red Wings, we'll see where that goes on the 13th. Florida, who maybe would rather see Sergey Bobrovsky

than Anthony Stolars at this point, because Stollars has been great. And then Tampa on the 17th, that's an interesting one, because there's a very real, there's a very real chance that on April 17th, I mean, the Tampa, you know, all signs point of them being locked and loaded

is the first wild card. like they're unless they, I guess, unless they move into third and in the Atlantic, which is, which is not impossible. But if Tampa doesn't have anything to play for on April 17th, and they,

and they roll out, God, what's his face? Jonas, I just, I literally forgot, Jonas Johansson, who is the backup who,

you know, fell apart, basically after, after a few weeks of, uh, starting in Vaselowski's place. Can you imagine that? Like 60,

68 goals. or however many Matthews has at that point and he's gone up against a backup on the last day of the season is going to be very, very interesting. All right. On the comments. If they play them.

If they play them. Back to back, go to those Florida tail. Do they? I think they have to. All right. You think he doesn't want that? You think he's not going to say like,

he's not going to have his thumb on the scale a little bit. And if it'd be like, yeah, I got 69 goals in one more game to play. Let's throw me out, throw me out there. It does need to be like, He doesn't need to need to kill penalties or anything. Throw him out there for 17 minutes, limited shifts and just see what happens.

Because there's a decent chance of neither. Imagine if he's stuck at 69 goals in the last game. And we have to, you got to go on social media and watch a battle between Leaf fans and the meme guys. Just fighting it out. That will be, that'll be terrible.

And everyone's going to act like they're the first person to make a nice joke about that season, about the season. And it won't be. Nice season. Ha, ha, ha. Har, har,

Again, this is the only good segment on the show. Morgan D wants to know, Sean, in honor of the devil's complete nightmare of a season, Jack Hughes, shoulder surgery. Worst kept secret in the league, I feel like, was that he was dealing with something down the stretch. They finally decided to have that dealt with, you know, stick another fork in the Devils for the season.

Morgan wants to know, though, what your worst, or what your nightmare season was for the for the leas what's the worst one you you can you can remember experiencing i've i've obviously as a lead fan been through some some very bad seasons to tough ask but to compare it to the devils that's the interesting thing because what makes the devil season so so terrible it's not the record it's the fact that the expectations that they came in the year with and and just not meeting those and that's one as a leaf fan a lot of that you don't come in to the season with those high expectations.

Like the Brian Burke years, yeah, there was the infamous, the 18 wheeler going off the cliff season. There were some late collapses. But even then, you knew the team wasn't very good. I mean,

you maybe thought, well, they can still make the playoffs, but you knew that, you know, you weren't, they certainly weren't cup contenders or anything like that.

I will go back. I'll play my old man card here. I'm going to go way back. And this one, I'll cheer up my devil's fan friend here. Because I'm going to take the 90-91 season with the Leafs. And this is the year they have, first of all, the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1980s did not finish 500 the entire decade. That's not great.

Not did not finish 500 for an entire decade. Not even once. Not even once. But then 1989, 90, they finish 500 on the nose. Make the playoffs. They lose in the first round very quickly. but they finish 500. Gary Lehman scores 50 goals.

And there is some hope for the first time in Toronto. Nobody was thinking they were cup contenders, but there's hope. And then they come out in 1990, and they just have a terrible season. They start one nine and one. Lehman gets hurt and Oldtrak gets traded, all of this stuff. And they just have a miserable season. And the reason it makes Devils fans happy is this was the year that they had infamously already traded their first round pick to the New Jersey Devils.

and that pick and it almost ended up being number one overall which would have been Eric Lindross which I mean you talk about how history changes the Leafs almost gave Eric Lindrosse to the New Jersey Devils but instead it ends up being number three they take Scott Neidermeyer

Meier leads to multiple Stanley Cups and the Leafs spit their wheels for a few more years until Gilmore arrives but I would say that would be the one because it started off so bad they were out of it you know almost almost instantly like I said,

1-9-1, fired Doug Carpenter, guys are getting hurt. It's just one of those everything is going wrong seasons. So, hey, at least you're not giving away

a top three pick. Hopefully. True. Morgan also twisted the knife on me, obviously from Pittsburgh. Grip up Penguins fan. Morgan says, it's tough for me to narrow this down,

me personally, because the league just hands out the first overall pick and a pony to Pittsburgh whenever anything goes wrong there. Uh-huh. that is indeed what happens. 2003, 2004 were dark times, though, because that was pre-Crosby.

Mary Lemieux played 10 games that season because of a hip issue that ultimately would, you know, be the one true end for him. The team lost 18 games in a row at one point, which was the longest losing streak until the Sabres matched it during the pandemic. And they just narrowly finished out of last place league-wide, which in, when, end up being the Ovechkin lottery, of course. Was that the year they went bankrupt or was that the year before? There's so many times they were their bankrupt. Which bankrupt thing was that? Tough to say.

They were, but the cherry on top to all that is that it seemed like they were going to move. Like that was really when, you know, the arena drive here hit hit its peak and it seemed like they weren't going to get one built. And, you know, if that happened, they would be the Kansas City. Kansas City was lurking for the team? depends on who you ask about that. But Lake Lemieux did a site visit there.

And the question was whether that was like Kabuki Theater or not. And I still don't think anybody's ever gotten a straight answer. But in 2003, 2004, I was 17 years old. And it really seemed like that was going to be the last, especially when the lockout happened. Lockout, lockout goes down, you know, that following summer. And it really felt like maybe we had just seen the last, the last year of the Pittsburgh fans. the dark times for Pittsburgh are not in the last 40 years haven't been many but the low points have been have been pretty pretty low because one season where you guys had to go 70 games without seeing a generational top five all time player hey man nothing's worse nothing's worse nothing's worse than the prospect of losing a team i don't i don't care i don't care whether you have lemieux or crosbie or whatever it truly felt like it was it was game over it so it's been like yeah of course it was 99%

charmed existence, right? But there was that stretcher. I was like, oh, oh, what exactly is happening here? And for me, that was 0304. Got a bunch of great ones here. Honestly, we got, we got to pick our spots wisely. Travis B. on board with Mack and do. Ray Bork, second best offenseman of all time.

Travis's main point was that he bridged the gap of like the high flying 80s to the dead puck era and just, you know, never. never really missed a beat, which I think is a huge part of your contention there, right, too? Yep, absolutely. And again, like, guy finished in the top seven in Norris Trophy voting every single year of his career. That's insane. Like, that doesn't make sense to be, you know, you pick anybody that you think of as a consistent superstar. Crosby, Ovechkin, go on down the list.

Nobody can match for it. I remember one of the one weird article I wrote one time is I just, I just, I just, And it was one of these, yes, just one. One of these where I sat down and I had the concept first and I was like, I'm going to write it before I even know what the answer is. But I said, what if the NHL was like Major League Baseball and we divided the awards by conference in the case of, you know, obviously in baseball, MVP, Cy Young, all that. There's the American League and National League. They split them up. And I said, okay, what if we had the East and the West or whatever the conferences were?

And I went through it. And it turns out Ray Bork ends up winning like eight MVP's. like 17 Norris Strait. Like the number of times he was like right at the top, just finished right behind one guy or the other, you know, Messier or whoever. This,

yeah, and I hate saying that because I, it feels like in order to hot take a fight, I have to like be dumping on Nicholas Littstrom. Like Nicholas Littstrom was phenomenal. But Ray Bork was right there, if not, if not above him.

And all I'll say is, if you think Littstrom was better than Bork, I'm not saying you're wrong. But if you think Littstrom is better than Bork, no conversation, no question about it, you don't know Raybork. You're just, you're, you're overlooking absolute greatness. It's true. We love Raybork.

This is, this is a pro-raybork podcast. Yeah. John B., with respect to 100 assists season, because we've talked about that plenty, because of McDavid and now, and now Nikita Kutrov, who, uh, can Nikita Kuchov? I come down and not ruin my premise of my, only the legends, only the true Mount Rushmore greats. do this find and replace it'll be very simple john john b's question is what's more impressive 30 goals 100 assists for 130 points or 50 goals 80 assists for 130 points this actually dovetails

like directly into a thing that you and me and mendez are doing i i don't want to spoil it does yeah this is all this is almost like like like punch for punch uh the choice that people had to make it at one point pretty recently And look, I mean, the 50 goals is more impressive. Sure. Goals are more important than assists. We know that. I don't think.

And, and, you know, to go one further, if McDavid finishes with 100 assists and Kutura finishes with 99, that's the same season. You know, you know, it's, but I'm just saying this as a sports fan. We love the round numbers. There is no reason that 100 RBIs is better than 99 significantly. There's no reason that 100 rushing yards is better than that. Like, but. We just love these nice round numbers.

You know, 50 goals and 49 goals are the same. 68 goals and 70 are, you know, functionally the same season. But we just love these cutoffs. We love the milestones. And if we're going to do that, here's the roundest number of them all sitting right there. That was my point. Thomas H. wants to make Canadian Australian Sean Mackin to an honorary American to complete the full

old Tuesday show bit. So Canadian Australian, is that, has that how you identified? Do you call yourself a Canadian Australian? Canadian, but I was born in Australia. Yes. Okay. We need to try to get to American citizenship just to recreate the bit that I used to have with Cousins. I don't know that I'm fully.

It's fully on board with that. We'll make it happen. Okay. We'll finish with Joseph L. Are we 100% sure that Canucks Clint shirts aren't just a terrible April Fool's joke? It's possible. I have seen that theory. Here's the thing.

That tweet by the team went out on March 30th. So, yeah, they are a terrible April Fool's joke. You can't do that. April Fool's jokes are bad in general. Correct. They're awful things. But you see that sometimes where someone's like, I'm going to get out ahead of it and I'm going to put it out like late on March 31st. Can't do that.

That's cheating. It has to say April 1st. You can't do it on March 30th. If nobody realizes you're making a joke and if a joke is kind of indistinguishable from something you would actually do, then you actually haven't made a joke. Like it only, it's only a joke. That's tough news for me to hear, man. Yeah, sorry, but this is making me rethink about 80% of the conversations I have in real life. That's, that's, that's real.

Yeah, it's only a joke of people laugh at it, which is bad news for both of us. Oh, boy. Well, we have, this has been a deadly serious episode of. Ish. Wow. We got a great, well, we'll finish up with this. Great fake stat of the week from producer Jeff. Why'd you have a fake?

Of course. Really? You fake? On a cake. And the guy never knows? Yeah. How can he not know that? Because I was good.

This is something he saw on a broadcast, unreal. I'm almost impressed by this one. Matthew Nyes has seven points in his first three games versus Tampa Bay. The only player is with better stats in their first three games against the Tampa Bay Lightning are Wayne Gradsky and Mario Lemieux.

So congratulations, Matthew Nyes. So, I mean, we do our, you know, fake stat that, Yes, the fakesest of all stats, but phenomenal fine. Whoever came up with that, I mean, whoever would just like clap their hands and was like, oh my gosh, I had to get this on the broadcast. A plus job. Fascinating factoid. Absolutely fake stat.

Like, I mean, can you imagine like it's just like the sitting around and, you know, do you think anyone will ever match Mario and Wayne's record? Oh, which one? The 199 points in a city. No, no, no. Most points in your first points, first three games against the Tampa Bay Lightning. That's it. Will it ever be done? Send this stick to the Hall of Fame, baby.

Let's go. I remember after his first two games, I was just like just so nervous. Is he going to do it? Like how many guys have come close before? Oh, honestly, whoever can, I want to give a hug to whoever found that stat. That is, and good for them for getting it on TV because I would have written a 2000 word article about it. If you're the TV, if you're the producer, the production assistant who came up with that, please please reach out to either me or DGB here.

I want an autograph. All right, buddy. That's it for us this week. Thank you folks for listening. Thank you, Sean McIntyre. Thank you, Frank Carrado. Leave us a five-star rating and review us if you're enjoying the show. But if you're not, don't.

Tomorrow, it's Haley, it's me, it's Max, who is in Pittsburgh, I think possibly as, as we speak for Wings, wings penguins on Thursday night. So we'll have a nice conversation there, I would imagine. I assume neither of us will be hung over from whatever we end up doing tonight ahead of that record. Definitely not going to happen.

And then next week, we have two Shons and a Frank. Again, two weeks of Frankie Carrado. Congratulations to everybody. You got what you wanted. Talk to you next week.