The Athletic Hockey Show - The NHL is heading to TNT, Connor McDavid’s pursuit of 100 points, what if the NHL had compensatory draft picks and more

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss the secondary rights for the NHL going to TNT, will this allow an opportunity for the league to loosen up in broadcasts? Also, Connor McDavid's race to 100 games, and also, a race against Max Domi. Jesse Granger jumps on with "Granger Things" to discuss Wednesday's matchup between Golden Knights and Avalanche, and Vegas' 10-game win streak. Also, comparing trends for how teams perform at home vs. on the road.Finally, the guys wrap up with the listener mailbag, including a question about introducing compensatory picks like the NFL, and a look back with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for the show? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It's another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, Ian Mendez-Shawn McIndoo, with you for this episode of the podcast. Coming up, we'll chat about the new NHL-T-N-T broadcasting deal, and if we think the NHL will loosen up a little bit with their broadcast. We'll also look at the most compelling races, if there are any, down the final couple of weeks of the regular season, and why we think everybody should be rooting for Connor McDavid to hit the century.

Mark plus Sean will weigh in on a cool little race, between Max Domi and Connor McDavid. I didn't misspeak. You heard me right. Max Domi and Connor McDavid. In Granger things, Jesse Granger is going to talk about the red hot golden nights, as well as some trends with home and road games for teams.

We'll open up the mailbag with your listener questions, and this week in hockey history will take us to a crazy postseason road trip for two original six teams. But as we kick off this podcast, Sean, I think there's a lot of people really excited in the NHL that there's a new broadcasting deal. And it's a twofold partner in the United States. ESPN got the A package and we were waiting to see who would end up with the B package. And it's T&T.

And you know, there's a lot of people excited thinking, hey, we're going to get like the Shaq Charles Barkley version of the panel and bring that to the NHL. So like what are we thinking here? Are we feeling optimistic that the starch is going to be taking? out of the shirts of the NHL here? You know what? We can feel optimistic. This is the right time to do it, right? It's, it's, whenever there's a new TV deal, we always hear this, that they're,

they're going to try some new things and reach out to a new audience. And, uh, and they, they do. They try some things. And, and usually this being the NHL, it goes right back to the, uh, the start shirts approach after a while. And that might happen here, but it's, it's okay to feel optimistic. It's okay to have some, uh, some ideas to throw around. and you hope that they do it and you hope that it works.

And you hope that they can have some fun because I know there's a lot of people who, even if you're not an NBA fan, you enjoy the way it's presented at least. And the NHL, both in the U.S. and in Canada, if there's a criticism that you could throw at the broadcast, I think what you hear from a lot of fans is that too often it just ends up being a panel of cranky faces. telling you how things used to be better back in the day. And that's fine to an extent. And that's obviously, I mean, I'm aware that me personally, that's half my schick. So I can't criticize too much.

But when you're sitting down, you're invested three hours of your day to watch a game, you kind of want to be watching other people who seem to be enjoying that game. And if they seem like they don't like what they're watching, it always kind of kind of rugs you in a way like, what am I doing? Why am I invested my free time in this if even the people who are paid to be there don't seem to like what they're seeing? Yeah, I think I always think of like the NFL pregame shows like whether ESPN or NFL network or even Fox. There's a ton of fun, right? Everyone's having fun.

And that's what the T&T panel brings. And everybody is hoping that Charles Barkley ends up in some way, shape, or form over on the NHL side. And you know what I would be down with? No one wants to see Chuck breaking down hockey. You know what I would love to see? I think he's got a great ability to bring out people's personalities. Like, wouldn't you be all in on Charles Barkley in a room for 15 minutes with Connor McDavid?

Like, what happens? I love, well, I mean, I hope that what happens is Charles pulls off a miracle and gets the personality out of these guys, because that's part of it, right? Like, we can sit there and criticize the broadcasters and be like, wow, you know, you need some personality. And then we give him Sidney Crosby for an interview and they're sitting there talking and the guy go, what am I supposed to do with this? This guy won't even crack a facial expression.

How am I supposed to turn this into something entertaining? And yeah, Charles Barkley is a hockey fan. That's something that I, you know, the reason his name keeps coming up on this is he's somebody who's actually said, I really enjoy the sport and he seems to know a little bit about it. And yeah, he's got that personality. I mean, at the very least, I think you put Connor McDavid in a room with Charles Barkley. if Connor McDavid keeps doing the stone face and keeps giving the boring answers about getting

pucks in deep, at that point, we can know it's a loss cause because none of the rest of us are getting anything out of somebody if Charles Barkley can't do it. Imagine if McDavid goes through that whole thing and he has the same face as he had at the airport with that couple. Yeah. That's going to be the measuring stick. That's the Connor McDavid face, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you'd love to see it. And then look, here's the other half of that, though, is you. You get these guys to show a little bit of personality, that Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, whoever it is, hopefully we can get them to do that. Because that's how you bring in a new audience, right? That's how you bring in somebody who hasn't watched before. It's the product on the ice, of course, is number one.

And that's got its own challenges. But then it's got to be the personalities around it. Let them show it. But then the rest of us who are already on board, the diehards, we can't lose our minds the first time Connor McDavid says something vaguely interesting. and start writing columns about, oh, is this now a distraction for the Edmonton Oilers and all of this other garbage that we do? Because we're part of the problem, right? We all say we want more personality.

And the first time somebody just shows a little tiny crack in the armor, we all flip out and turn it into some narrative about whether he thinks he's bigger than the team and all this nonsense. So that's our end of the bargain is let these guys show some personality. And then even if they say something that's maybe, okay, maybe they shouldn't have said that. Maybe that came out a little bit wrong. we can't all line up to be the one who jumps all over them because then it's going to go right back to the media training, boring, don't say anything approach. You know, I think what I think is amazing too

is if you look at some of the NFL or, like, again, let's look at the NBA on TNT. And you look at that panel, you're like, man, Shaquille O'Neal is one of the greatest players of all time. Charles Barclay is a Hall of Famer. I think when I look at hockey, Sean, and I look at the NHL, like that's the one thing. with all due respect to everybody who's on the panels,

we don't have the goats on the panels, right? Like, we don't have, like, and again, part of it's a function of some of them, like the Eisenmans and the sackics are in the game, right? Like, so there's a function of that. But, like, I've seen some people say, like, we need Brett Hall and we need, like, that. Like, I don't disagree with that.

Like, I want Martan Broder. I want Brett Hall. I want the greatest players who also happen to have some personality. I want to see them on the panel because I do think if you watch those NFL panels or the NBA, it's the best players of all time.

Say what you want about A-Rod but Alex Rodriguez statistically is one of the greatest players of all time. He's been like kind of a prominent panel guy. Hockey doesn't have that. No, it doesn't, right? When you're sitting around

watching the Fox guys talk about the Super Bowl, Terry Bradshaw is not sitting there going, well, you know, I was a backup, so I don't really know. And yet the NHL, it's all like it's all backup goalies and and third and fourth liners and and they're all good. I mean, this is, you know, these guys are good at it and there's certain, we can all picture, I'm sure, certain NHL stars where we're like, I don't want that guy on that.

I don't, I don't want to see Wayne Gretzky trying to fake laugh like Terry Bradshaw and pull that off. That's not his personality. He wouldn't be able to do it. But yeah, it would be nice to have some of these guys. And look, I mean, you know this. better than just about anyone because you've been a TV guy. TV is hard. It really is.

You sit on your couch and you watch these guys and you go like, oh man, how come these guys don't show some personality? How come they don't do this or that? It's really hard to do well. And there have been lots of guys that we thought would be great on TV and for whatever reason you put them on there and it doesn't work. So, I mean, you got to find the right mix. But it's just, again, though, it's this function.

of to be an NHL star, to be a goat, to be one of those guys in that conversation, you've had a 10, 15, 20 year career where your personality has just been squeezed right out of you because nobody will let you get away with saying anything. And then you get to the end of your career and they say, we want to put you on TV and have you say interesting things. And you're like, I don't remember how to do that because you guys have spent my entire adult life telling me I shouldn't say anything interesting. So there's a handful of guys. You know, some guys, I'm surprised, didn't go down that. path like Mark Messier seemed like a guy that you always thought was going to be a real personality there's a few others maybe we can get Jagger when he's finally done in 10 years from now you get him on there and maybe he's the guy or maybe it's somebody else but yeah let's let's get the let's get the stars let's get somebody you can go and tell the story about hey you know here's here's what it felt like that time I broke that record and not just like here's what it sounded like to be sitting on the bench in a ball cap because I was the backup goalie the night that record got broken.

Yeah, the two guys in kind of the current NHL that I think would be really good, Stephen Stamco's is dynamite. Like Stephen, Stephen is one of my favorite guys to interview. So Stephen Stapkos and Jason Spetsa, because he just knows the game. Like those would be the kind of active players,

but I'd be all in. Marty Brodour, sign me up. Brett Hull, sign me up. Those are the guys that I think we've got to get to. It's funny that you mention, you know, sometimes they've tried it. The one name, and we're going to get to his son in a second here.

But Ty Domi and his brief foray into TSN, and Ty did, I think the segment was called Win, Lose, or Ty. And he got a chance to work with, he got a chance to work with, look, James Duffy is the best, James Dothy to me is the gold standard. And I'm not saying that because you and I, you know, we went to the same school as James or whatever.

Like, we just know he is the gold standard. And he tried his best there. And it just didn't work. It just, Ty Domi, it just didn't work. And it's not a, it's not a slag on Ty Domi. It just shows you like you said, Sean. Not everybody can just step in with the bright lights and have it work. No, that's it. And Domi is the one guy, especially for me as a Leaf fan, because you watched him. And I know, look, whether people liked or didn't like Tidomi and what he was on the ice,

he was a great personality. And he was a guy that, I mean, after the game, he would, he was a guy you wanted to hear from because he just, he could, he was a smart guy. He could express what had happened. He had some personality to him. And you're thinking, this guy's going to be dynamite on TV. And it just, for whatever reason, didn't work. And, you know, there have been other guys like that. And who knows?

You know, we've seen some of the guys have had a chance that we've seen P.K. Sue Ben do it a little bit. And that's different from doing it full time over a whole season. But he's been real good in when he's, when he's been on. So, you know, maybe that's another name that you look at. You know, it's different. It's having a personality for 30 seconds when somebody puts a microphone on your face and ask you a question is very different from all the work and prep and everything that goes

into doing it for an extended period. And it's not going to work for everybody. But that's fine, too. Try a few things. I'm glad TSN tried Tidomi. That we found out if it didn't work, it didn't work. But give it a shot. And you know what?

If that's the worst thing that happens with TNT or ESPN or whoever it is, as they're putting these new shows together, let's give them the freedom to try a few things. Let's give them the freedom to fail. And eventually you fail enough times, you'll find the mix that does work and we'll all be better off for it. You know, I think too, like Ty Domi, we got to, as soon as this podcast is over, I encourage people to check out, Ty Domi did a commercial years ago. Was it Comwave? It was like this rando, like long distance or like cell phone company.

Do you remember this? I remember the commercials. I don't remember who it was for. Yeah, I think it was like calm wave. Anyway, we'll have to check that out. Hey, one more thought just to put a bow on this conversation of the NHL and its new broadcasting deal. There appears to be, and Sean Shapiro, our terrific business writer, who's based out of Dallas, was all over this story during the week, Sean.

And one of the things Sean mentioned was that there's an HBO element to this. and what I'm curious about, your mind automatically goes to 24-7, right? Like, are you excited? Like, should we be excited that there's like a documentary storytelling kind of element that could be involved here? Yeah, absolutely, because that's part of what you need is you got to be able to tell the story. I know there's this almost kind of old school mentality that for some hockey fans, and I'm sure it's fans of other sports too, where they say, like, just let the product speak for

itself. Just let the games speak for itself. That's all you need. And if you're diehard, maybe that is all you need. But for everybody else, you need those storylines. You need that hype. You need the personalities and everything. You look at everything that the NHL is competing with for the attention of everybody these days, especially the younger audience. But really, you know, everybody's got just a million options right in their hand in their phone. And, you know, a lot of that, it's, it's, it's, it's not enough to say let's just let's just do whatever you know whatever happens on the ice is what happens and then we'll analyze that and call it a night get into some storytelling get into some behind the scenes and we've seen it with 24-7 I mean 24-7 was great when it started with the winter

classic and then it kind of felt like a little bit over time teams kind of figured it out and and it I think it became part of the media trading sort of deal and it was like okay we're not getting the full picture here. I hope the league encourages teams to open it up a little bit. And again, then the flip side of that is when you catch an unguarded moment with somebody and it goes into the show like that, the rest of us can't all flip out about it and you know, how awful it is that somebody showed that. Let's have those weird moments.

Let's have Mike Green on the scooter or whatever it was, you know, back when that's the sort of stuff that helps people connect and get some interested and gets them to sit down and watch the three hours of hockey that might be amazing, exciting hockey or might be a one-nothing slog that you kind of have to get through. And if it's that, at least you got a few interesting storylines and personalities to keep you in front of the TV. It's funny how that Caps, Pends, 24-7 is the one that is ingrained in our minds from like a decade ago. And, you know, speaking of caps and pens, they're in your list this week, Sean, of things that you want to see down the stretch. Hey, what should we be rooting for? And look, there's not a lot of

compelling races. Let's be honest here. There's a couple of interesting. races, the battle for first in that central amongst Carolina, Florida, Tampa. I think that's pretty cool. Dallas is still in a playoff race on the bottom end of that division. There's some, there's some fun races. But I really want you, if you can, to explain to our listeners here why we should be paying attention to a random Max Domey versus Connor McDavid race that I didn't even know about until I read your column on Thursday.

Yeah, I imagine not too many people know about this. And it's, yeah, it's the only time you'll ever be able to say Max Domi, Connor McDavid, race and have it be competitive and it sound like something that we're not sure how it's going to turn out. But this is a reader sent this to me. And I found it really interesting. Max Domi right now is leading the league in penalty minutes, which is kind of interesting in its own right for a couple of reasons.

Number one, just the fact that obviously is dad, Tidomi, led the league in penalty minutes, only once in his career, but is one of the all-time leaders in that it's sort of neat that. Max Domi is certainly not the same sort of player Tidomi is by any stretch, but it would be kind of neat to keep it in the family, have the son follow in the father's footsteps and leave the league. It's also interesting because Max Domi has only had one fight all year. He's leading the league based on misconduct penalties. If you're a fan of the Blue Jackets, you know all about that because it's been a storyline in the second half. Max Domi keeps taking these bad penalties and he's been benched and scratched.

And John Tortorella seems like he's at the end of his wits with this guy trying to keep him out of the penalty box. So it'll be interesting to see if he's able to do that or if he can hold on to this lead. But here's the interesting thing, whether it's Max Domi or whoever else, whoever else passes him. Right now, Max Domi is leading the league in penalty minutes. and he has got 71 penalty minutes. Connor McDavid, as of last night's three-point performance, is up to, I think, 84 points, which means that the season ended today,

or if the season continues on the pace that it's on, the points leader will have more points than the penalty minutes leader has penalty minutes. Do you know how many times that has happened in the 101-year history of the NHL? Yeah, and this is what blew me away. And I mean, I guess it shouldn't, because if you think about the 80s,

when Gretzky was getting 200 points, well, the penalty minutes leaders were in the 300. So, you know, as you start to unravel it in your mind, you're like, well, I guess it makes sense. But when you did the digging, I was really surprised that we're on the precipice of something that has never been done in the history of the league. Literally never happened in 100 plus years

that the points leader, scoring leaders, had more points than the penalty minutes leaders had penalty minutes. And you're right. I mean, there was from about the broad street bully days in the 70s through well into the 90s and going really into the big lockout, there was no contest because there was, you know, everybody had 300 penalty minutes every year. But that was actually the exception for most

of hockey history. The totals haven't been like that. There have been quite a few years where it's been close. There have been a couple years where it was single digits. There have been a couple years where there were low penalty minute totals, but the score didn't quite get there. But it's never happened one time. And I think it would be interesting. interesting as not just as, you know, a little trivia question, but it is sort of like another symbol of the change to hockey that we've been seeing over the years, the more emphasis on skill, less and less emphasis on the physical slash fighting slash intimidation, whatever else you want to call it, element of it. That's been a very clear trend for for well over a

decade now. But this would sort of just be the cherry on top of it to see finally, for the first time ever, that points total, outweigh that penalty minute total. And right now it's on pace to happen. But Max Dolme, it could go out. I mean, you could have one big it. That's the one thing, right? Penalty, you can't have a 15-point game. I don't want to put it completely past Connor McDavid, but I feel pretty safe saying he's not going to do it. You go out there, get a fighting major or misconduct, throw a minor in there, and suddenly you're back ahead of the race. So keep an eye on it. We're on the brink of history, but we're not quite there yet. Yeah, by the way, McDavid doesn't play Ottawa again. So the 15-point game is probably,

of the realm of possibility. But look, what's really interesting is, like you said, like it almost happened last year. You pointed this out in your column, Evander Cain. I think it was Evander Cate and Leon Dreisidel were pretty close. So what I think is interesting is now let's watch the, and again, I'm telling people let's watch this in the next five years, but it's true.

Like I think that we could have the possibility of some of the elite players in the game getting north of 125 points in the season. And I think you might see the penalty minutes leader be in and around that number. So you're right. It's kind of this watershed moment, which brings us to McDavid because he's having an unbelievable year this year.

And the fact that at the start of the season, if you had told me someone's going to flirt with 100 points, I mean, obviously what he said, McDavid, but I want to thought, man, that's going to be pretty hard. Like, that's almost 150 points in a, you know, pro-rated in a regular season, almost, right? Like, that's Bernie Nichols territory, as we talked about before. So I thought there's no way this is going to happen.

But Sean, he does it again on Wednesday or like this week. Like it's very much within the realm of possibility. And we should all be cheering for this, shouldn't we? I would. I mean, I don't know. And I will always, I'll slip one caveat in there. I get that if you're a Calgary Flames fan, you're allowed to not want anything good to happen for any Edmonton Oil or ever.

That's the beauty of hockey rivalries. I will grant an exception to any flames fan is out there. But other than that, I mean, how are you not rooting for Connor McDavid at this point? To get to this milestone that none of us or virtually none of us would have thought possible, he's having a season for the ages. He's all sorts of entertaining. So, I mean, to get there, he's going to need to have a bit of a hot streak to finish the season.

But Connor McDavid hot streaks are the best because they're so much fun. I mean, you're just every night, you're sitting there and you're waiting for the highlights to come across of what crazy stuff he's done. you know, of course you're going to root for him. And this is a situation where it's not even like by rooting for him to do well and the oilers to do well, you're throwing off the playoff race. We pretty much know the oilers are going to finish second or third. They're going to play the jets. That's pretty much locked in.

So it's going to be great. And I just, my one hope, I would love to see it come down to the wire. I'd love to see him do it on the final night. I just hope it's not a situation where you get to the end of the season and suddenly the Oilers are going, you know what, we're going to give Connor McDavid a rest. And he's at 99 points with like two games left. And they shut him down. That would be their right to do, of course. They got to focus on trying to win in the playoffs and not on milestones.

But just as a fan, this would just be a really fun thing to root for. And I know that, you know, some people say, well, it doesn't, you know, $199, 98. It's all the same. We love those round numbers. We love those milestones. That's part of what's fun. And we didn't think there was any chance we were going to get to see one this year in the shortened season.

And the fact that we're this close. you know, hey, Connor McDavid has made it that we don't get a scoring race this year. We don't get a heart trophy race this year. That stuff's all locked up. That's already been Connor McDavid's back pocket. This is the one thing that's maybe still a little bit up for grabs. Let's root for him to do this too. Yeah, and I think it's pretty rare.

It's weird. And I'm sure either you know the answer to this and we could look it up. It's actually pretty rare to end the season on 99 points. Like I think Dave Andrewchuk, believe it or not, did it a couple of times. Like, it's weird, too. Like, same with 50 goals. I think in the history of the NHL, I think there's only two players that ended the season on 49 goals. Yeah, this is a potential future column that I might do.

But you're right. It is relatively rare to get almost to that milestone and then stop. The one that still to this day kills me is Merrill Lemieux in 1989, finishing with 190 points, which was his career high. as it was often the case, he missed a few games that season. And so finished one point shy of the 200 point mark, which only Wayne Gretzky has ever got to. So it's still the most exclusive club that there is in hockey history because there's only one name in it. But Miriamy was that close to joining, and it would have been an extremely worthy addition to that club, but he didn't get there.

And that's as close as he came, finished one point short. that's that's heartbreaking yeah and i think rob brown is one of the only guys in hockey history as you would know all about rob brown uh with with 49 with 49 goals in his season yeah it's it's just it's one of those things where i think if you get close and and part of it is just you get close and you're the teammates start feeding you right like their look they they all know that you're you're closing in on the milestone and uh and they try to get you there And I feel like, like, hasn't Alexander Ovechkin gone into a few finale, like right around there? And, and he's pulled it off.

So, yeah, I just pulled it up. It's, it's happened only a handful of times, not too often. And, yeah, some of the, some of the names, Ovechkin did have it happen. 49, right? It was about three years ago. But a lot of Hall of Favors on this list, Phyllispozito, Mike Gartner, Michelle Goulet, Gordy Howe, Frank Mahavillich. But, yeah, Kent Nilsson's another one. he had in the 80s just missed.

And Rob Brown, Rob Brown is, you know, as I look at this list, I have to dive more into it. I wonder if he's one of the only guys whose career high was 49. Because almost all these other guys got to 50 at some point. But, 100%. I don't think ever did.

And that would be an interesting one. And the other name that jumps out here is Jimmy Carson did it at 20 years old. And he had already had a 50-goal season in the bank. He already had scored 55 the year before. That was the year before and the year after he got traded for Gretzky. If there was ever a guy that you would have looked at and said, this guy is a sure thing to be a superstar future Hall of Famer. And that was it.

He never had another season where he even got to 40 after that and was out of the league by the time he was in his mid-20s, one of the crazy career arcs that you'll ever see. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, look, we're all cheering for McDavid. to get to 100 points because like you said, it's a fun story. Sean, a few days ago, we had another fun story that we were all cheering for that we didn't even realize it was happening until after the game. And that is the Ottawa Senators had a couple of goalie injuries in Vancouver.

And Artemnizumov, veteran-centerman, best known for pretending to use his stick as a rifle back in the day when he played for John Totorella, is back in the headlines in the hockey world because he dressed as a goalie. He actually suited up as a goalie and was ready to come in if Ottawa goalie Marcus Hogberg got hurt. So this had the hockey world buzzing. We thought this was great. Fun story. Here's my question to you, Sean. My answer earlier this week was Craig Ludwig.

If I could pick one guy in hockey history that, oh my gosh, all the goleys are hurt, who do we put it? I'm going Craig Ludwig. That's the guy. That was my answer that I had ready to go. I didn't know that was yours. Yeah, 100% though, right? I mean, he basically played wearing goalie pads. I mean, if you never saw Craig Ludwig, he would, his shin pads, he called them,

were basically goalie pads and then he would just yank these hockey socks up over them and block shots like crazy. Yeah, that was my pick too. I mean, I guess you pick, if you have to, you put anyone who's real big in there and just hope that the physics of it work out. But I, like, I love that story, because this is one of those things. I know a few people have asked, you know, these days and last year with the bubble in the playoffs like what's the e-bug situation and you don't have that this year instead every

team's got at least three goaltenders at all time and that's what made the senator's situation so rare is that they lost two guys and they were on they still had their third string but they would have had to have lost one more and and i got to say look we all love the zamboni driver's story that was a great story it was all sorts of fun the nchel got got a ton of publicity out of it and it's, you know, the Scott Foster and guys like that too. But this is so much better in my mind. Seeing up the player have to go in there. I just love that idea.

They put aside the injury risk and all of that, which is why it's not really a thing. I just love that idea of a guy who doesn't play goalie, having to go in there. It's so much fun whenever, whenever like a position player has to pitch in baseball or anything like that, it's great. And I would have loved to have seen that. And I was just, because I, like most people, I didn't know this was going on at the time. And then you heard the quote afterwards where DJ Smith was like, yeah, he was ready to go. And I was like, okay, that's nice that he was ready to go. That means they probably asked him and he put his hand up and said, no, he was fully dressed in the room.

And then the best part is he kept it all on, even when it was knowing that he wasn't going to be needed just so his teammates could see him. Like when they come in, I imagine walking into the room and you see him sitting there and you kind of realize like, we were this close to this guy having to go in. I mean, you ever want to see guys selling out on defense. Can you imagine how hard they would work when they had a teammate back there? It would have been phenomenal. I love the idea of when you get down to your fourth string, yeah, you got to throw a player in there. Yeah, and you're right.

As we wrap up this part of the conversation, too, I think, you know, in baseball, it's fairly common to see a positional player come in, lopsided game, it'll be the, you know, right fielder comes into pitch. you know, we get that, right? We all see the positional player pitching alert on Twitter, okay. The odd time, too, in the NFL, remember the Denver Broncos had that game this last season with COVID, where all the quarterback. Like the odd time you've seen it happen.

We've never seen it in hockey where a positional player is forced it. Not in a long, long time. It used to be the case. Like, if you're ever looking in old, old stats on a hockey reference, you'll see like some guy who's a defenseman and you're like, why does he have goalie stats? And it's because back in the day there were no backups. And so you just went out there. The time, do you remember, this was a few years ago, and the Leafs were playing the Panthers, and it almost happened, because the Panthers, they started Roberto Luongo, and he got hurt, and he left. And then the backup came in, and the backup got hurt. And it was one of those situations, this was before the Scott Foster and before David Ayers. So people were like, is it going to be the emergency, the backup? And apparently, I don't remember which player it was, but one of the players went back because there was this delay where it was like, what are we going to do? We don't have a goalie available.

And one of the players apparently got up and went back and started putting the gear on. And then Luongo came back. Basically, Roberto Luongo did the whole like get up off the stretcher and come back and said, okay, I'm good to go. I'm good to finish the game. And they put them back in there. And it was a near miss. But I think I'll have to check into that.

Or maybe somebody who's listening and remembers can jog our memory. But I think there was a player who was that that was plan C for them. It wasn't going to be the Zamboni driver. It was good. They were going to throw a player in there. I would love to have seen it. You know, as long as the guy doesn't get hurt. which is a risk.

I'd love to see a player get in there and see what they can do and see what the team in front of them does. Yeah. My guess on who that Panther defenseman or a player would be, might be Keith Ballard, who might be,

he might have always had a sense of guilt for taking out of the goal. He's got some karma to burn off when it comes to his old tenders. I got this. Although boy, you hope he's in there, Keith Ballard's in there. You hope there's suddenly

you don't see Thomas Focoon show up as a defenseman. Like, yeah, remember me? Yeah. All right, it's time for a little Granger Things presented by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with us here at the Athletic Granger Things. Of course, is where we bring in our pal Jesse Granger from Las Vegas. And I got to tell you, this is quite the heater that the Vegas Golden Knights are on, Jesse.

They've won 10 games in a row. Let's talk about just some history. We were just chatting about this before we came on the air. Let's talk about some historical context here. a fairly new franchise winning 10 games in a row. Man, this is remarkable. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I don't think I even realized how rare 10 wins in a row is in this league.

And I was looking through the record books, and I think they're tied for 50-second longest winning streak of all time or whatever. But I'm looking at the longest for each franchise, and I realized the Detroit Red Wings have never had a 10-game win streak in their entire franchise in the regular season. And neither have the Edmonton Oilers. And for two teams that have had the success that the Red Wings and Oilers have had over the last few decades, to have not done something that the Golden Knights have done in four years is pretty insane. I know I riled up the Red Wings fans on Twitter.

It's not as much a telling stat as it is a, I can't believe that this is actually true stat. But yeah, pretty crazy. And it just shows how rare a 10-game win streak for a team in hockey is. And I think, obviously, the Golden Knights have, last night, they played a really tough team in the Colorado Avalanche. Prior to that, they played some bad teams. This West Division, the bottom of it, has struggled. So I don't know if this 10-game win streak is equal to a 10-game win streak in a normal regular season, but regardless of circumstances, super impressive by the Golden Knights.

And by the way, I think Sean and I are both angry. Here's this guy covering a new team. It's like, oh, I wonder, how rare is this? Ten wins in a row. Do you realize how spoiled you are in Vegas? Do you understand? We were talking with our editor and our group of writers, and I was the only team that's,

or I was the only person whose team is going to the playoffs, and I was asking him, like, what's it like to cover a bad hockey team? Can anybody tell me? I'm not really sure. The expansion senators in their first year had 10 wins, period, the whole season. And here's Vegas.

I know there are a few years into it now. I'm just running off 10, 10 game streets. That blew my mind, though, the fact that Detroit and Edmonton, too, I mean, you would have thought for sure those Gretzky Oilers would have had a few, a few times where they ran it like that. That's really something else. And you know what, even Vegas, one shootout win in there, which the traditionalists would say maybe shouldn't,

should put an asterisk on it, but only one. It's not like this is, you know, them getting a bunch of three-point games. They're rolling some good teams, and they beat the Colorado Avalanche. And what I would argue was maybe, maybe. Tell me if I'm wrong, a battle of the two best teams in the NHL right now. Yeah, at this point, I think obviously you can make an argument for either side. And everyone viewing that game last night kind of looked at it as a playoff preview that the Golden Knights players and Pete DeBore afterwards all brought up the guys missing for Colorado. And they know. I mean, they didn't have starting goalie, Philip Grubauer.

You're missing a major piece in Miko Ranton, who's one of the best players on their team, one of the best players in the league. And they had some depth pieces. And the Golden Knights had some depth pieces missing too, but Don Skoy and Taves and those guys. And despite missing those pieces, I think that that game still told us a lot. These two teams are on a collision course for each other. It's at this point seeming very likely that they will end up playing each other in the playoffs, whether it's in the first round or the second round,

before there's a division champion crowned out of the west. And I think it kind of showed us the path to victory for the Golden Knights. The Colorado Avalanche controlled most of that game last night, especially at five on five. I thought they were the faster team. I thought that they were the more dangerous offensive team. But Colorado has some mistakes in their game because of the speed they play with. And I think the Golden Knights are a little more buttoned up on the back end. And then in the end, goaltending was the difference.

And yes, the Avalanche were without Gru Bauer. Gru Bauer is clearly better than Devin Dubnick. But I don't know if he's that much better than Devin Dubnick to be able to overcome the goaltending matchup in this series. And I think Vegas has the luxury of it doesn't matter which goal he's in net. Mark Andre Fleury was spectacular last night. I wrote it in the story. The avalanche are averaging almost four goals a game.

They're the number one scoring team in the league. But against the Golden Knights, in seven games against the Golden Knights, they're barely averaging more than two points a game. They've only been shut out twice this year in the whole. season and both of them were by Mark Andre Fleury and the Golden Knights. I think that whether it's Flurry in net, whether it's Robin Lennar in net, the way the Golden Knights beat the Avalanche is being maybe not quite as good of a team, but with better goaltending.

Yeah. And I think a lot of us look at that and think that that's going to be a fun playoff series if they can take care of the Wild and Blues respectively, or again, depending on how that shakes down. Jesse, in Granger, thinks we love picking your brain on some of the betting lines and kind trends in the national hockey league here. So as we look at teams, are you seeing any trends as it pertains to how a team performs at home versus how they perform on the road through the betting lens?

Yeah, definitely. I wanted to look at this a few weeks left. I know people are trying to make some money on these games. And I looked at it from a perspective of over unders, maybe not so much wins, losses. Because I think at this point, it's pretty clear most of the teams are better at home. Most of the teams struggle more when they go on the road. but it's interesting to see that some teams really get their offense going at home. And I don't know if this is necessarily always having to do with just it could be coincidence.

Maybe the coaches get the matchups they like off of faceoffs. They get second change at home and that allows them to score some more. But you look at a team like Columbus who isn't a high scoring team. They, but at the same time, 62% of their games at home in Columbus this year have gone over the total. on the road, 29% of their games have gone over the total. So the Columbus Blue Jackets have not only scored fewer on the road, but also allowed fewer. They play a tighter checking game. Tortarella probably has something to do with that.

They maybe play a little more conservative on the road. So if you're looking to bet a Columbus under, which I'm sure most people probably would be if you're looking to bet Columbus, you want them to be on the road, not at home. Same thing for the Dallas Stars, not quite as pronounced. 54% of their home games go over the total. only 33% on the road. Even more than that, and I think this is the team that really shows you the trend. The New York Islanders, similarly to Columbus, play a very structured defensive style of hockey.

56% of their games still go over the total at home. That's like in betting terms, 56% is is considerable about 50%. You look at on the road, 16% of their games have gone over the total on the road this year. it's almost unfathomable to me that you could have a team that has 56% go over at home. And then on the road, they've only had four of their 25 games this season on the road go over the total. So if you're betting the Islanders, they're on the road, not many goals being scored. And then I found another team that kind of goes the opposite trend, which is not what you'd expect. Most of the teams, if you look at the splits, it's at home they score more goals.

But the New Jersey Devils, 53% of their games on the road have gone over. At home, only 39% of the games have gone over. So if you're looking to bet the Devils over, they're actually one of the very few teams in the league that you will want to play on the road. Sean, can you think of a single reason why a team would have significantly more goals for and against at home than on the road? I can't. No, not this year.

Sometimes he might, you know, we're playing to the fans or this or that, but we don't really have that to worry about. So no, I got nothing. It's strange. And like I said, not every team, but certainly these ones are our teams that you can't just blindly bet the over under. You definitely want to look at where they're playing that game. Yeah.

No, that's, that, that, that is, at the Islanders one is really stunning to be, the 16% number jumped out to me. Yeah, crazy. If at this point, you almost have to bet the Islanders under if they're playing on the road 16, 4 out of 25 games have gone over the total. Yeah. That's, that's about as close to a lock. as you're going to get. Jesse, as always, we love these little visits.

And every week, it seems like the Golden Knights. Last week it was Robin Leonard. This week, it's just the fact that they're sizzling. Always seems like the Golden Knights are at the top of the standings and the top of the news cycle. I hope you appreciate that, though, okay? Never a dull moment. Five years from now, I don't hope the Golden Knights. You just at some point, you need to cover a bad hockey team to appreciate what you've got. I just hope you realize what you got going here. Definitely. And you know what? The fans out here are a little spoiled too, but they did have to wait 100 years to get a professional team. So they had to wait to get one.

They didn't have to wait for the wins. Amazing stuff. Hey, listen, thanks for this. Have a great week. And we'll talk to again next Thursday. Thanks for having me, guys. All right, Sean, time to open up the mailbag. We got some great questions.

And, you know, we got the NFL draft going on this week, which is, it's always fun to watch the NFL draft and think about the NHL draft coming up to. And we got a great question here from Tanner. Tanner Ashbury has written in, And written to us at the email, of course, is The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. The athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Tanner has written in, hey, guys, with the NFL draft this week, here's my question.

Do you think the NHL should introduce compensatory draft picks similar to the NFL when a team loses a UFA? So a team could maybe receive between a third and a seventh round pick based on the caliber of player that they've lost in free agency? and maybe if the NHL adopts something like this, it would be good. I think of the Columbus Blue Jackets a couple of years ago. They lost Artemi Panera and Matthew Shane, Sergey Bobrovsky in the same offseason. In theory, maybe they could have had three extra draft picks in 2019. I think that this model could encourage more trades for pending UFA rentals at the deadline if teams can recoup some of the draft capital that they trade away.

So listen, Tanner, we actually really enjoy this question. We think it's a great question, great timing with the NFL coming up. Sean, what do we think of the idea if you lose? And let's use Carolina as an example. They got Dougie Hamilton. He's a pending UFA. Let's say Dougie Hamilton goes and signs somewhere else in the offseason. Do you think that the Carolina hurricane should get a compensatory draft pick for losing a UFA?

I like the idea. And as Tanner points out, this is something that happens in the NFL. They're picks. They're not super high picks. It's not like you're getting the first overall pick for a guy. They're usually sandwiched between rounds. So you could do it between the first and second round, between the second and third. I like the idea.

And there's no reason the NHL couldn't do it. There's nothing stopping them. It's their draft. They can create whatever picks. These picks don't come at the expense of anybody. You don't lose the picks from somebody else. They're created by the league. And I like the.

idea. The argument against it has always been that this would be another nail in the coffin of the trade deadline. Because how many times do we see teams that are out of it and they've got pending UFAs, they go, we got to move this guy because it's that old hockey cliche, we can't lose them for nothing. Well, you wouldn't be losing guys for nothing anymore. So maybe you just hold on to your guys. I don't think that's a big issue. And as you say, you could potentially swing it around the other way and say that, hey, if I'm going to go out and try to trade for a If I know I'm going to get a pick, if that's still going to apply to me, maybe I'm willing to pay a higher price and help those teams out.

Here's the interesting thing about this. And I don't know if, I don't know if Tanner knows this or not, but I'm guessing a lot of listeners may not know this. The NHL actually used to do this. There was a time, it was about 20 years ago, and the NHL did more or less exactly what is being suggested here, except with a twist. And in very NHL style, that twist ruined the whole thing.

And they screwed it up. And that's why we don't have it anymore. But the way the rule used to work is exactly the way Tanner says, is if you lost a free agent, an unrestricted free agent signed with another team, you got a compensatory draft that the NHL basically created out of thin air after a couple of rounds of the draft. And that was your compensation for losing that UFA. But the twist was only if you were a small market team. It wasn't available to the bigger markets. It wasn't available to the Toronto's and New York's and Montreal's. It was for the smaller markets.

And this was back in the days before the salary cap, this was a way to try to even the playing field a little bit. For the Nashvilles of the league are saying, I can't compete with Detroit and Toronto for free agents. Well, this was a way to kind of help them out a little bit. Okay, sounds good so far. Here's the problem. the NHL made the rule just say if you're a small market team and you lose a free agent,

you get the compensation. Didn't say anything about how long you'd head to free agent or even whether he had actually played for you. And so after about a year or two of this, some smart teams went, wait a second, if I'm a big market team and I have a free agent that I'm going to lose, I'm not going to get compensation. I could trade him to Nashville the day before free agent. starts, they'll give me like a fifth round pick. They lose him in free agency. They get a third round pick. Everybody wins. And you basically had this situation where big market teams were

laundering their free agents through the small market teams, including situations you want to get really ridiculous, where the big market team would trade the free agent to the small market team, small market team would lose that guy for a pick. And then he would sign back on his original team. And that's why you had situations like, people don't know that Mark Messier was once traded from the Rangers to the San Jose Sharks for a day. Mike Richter was traded to like I did. Edmonton or Nashville was a team that exploited this a ton. They were basically open for business. And you would see this constant churn of right before the free agency started, all of these big names would suddenly get traded for big markets to little markets.

and it ended up being a bit of a mess. It was a loophole, and the NHL said, you know what, we're shutting this down. It only lasted for a couple of years, but you have some very weird trades like Mark Messier to the San Jose Sharks was a real trade. Mike Richter, a guy who played his entire career with the Rangers, got traded twice, I think, under this. And it did pay off. And I don't remember, I think it may have been Ed Belfour may have been the guy. But one of those compensatory picks that the predators got by exploding this loophole ended up being the pick they used on Shea Weber. So it did have an impact. And it's just one of those weird footnotes in

NHL history. So I guess my answer to Tanner is it's a good idea. Be careful what you wish for and tighten up those loopholes before you put the rule out there because otherwise it might go bad on you. Okay. Refresh my memory on this. Did Curtis Joseph not get traded to Calgary? Did the Toronto Maple Leafs not trade Curtis Joseph to Calgary just before he signed in Detroit? Yep. That was another one. The Leafs trade at Taitomi as well and then just re-sign. him. It's very, if you ever go down the rabbit hole on hockey reference on certain guys, you get to the bottom and you're like, what's going on here? Like, did somebody tack into this and mess around? Why are they, why are they telling me that, that these weird trades, that Brian Leach was never traded

to the Emminton Oilers or whatever it is? This is what was going on. It was these weird trades. They're probably on June 30th. And then it's July 1st. The guy signs back. And it was just this, this very strange thing. But you know what? Cudos to whoever figured it out originally. I would assume it was maybe somebody with the predators and started to exploit it. And then the NHL, rather than close the loophole and say, yeah, you got to play the game. They just said, you know what? It was like an angry parent. It was like, you know what?

We tried to be nice. We tried to give you this thing. You guys wrecked it. It's gone. We're taking it away. And it hasn't come back since. All right. I tell you what, let's do one other question from the mailbag here.

Because Sean, I actually like this one. We talked about Joe Juno last week. And Mark has emailed into the show and said, because we talked about, look, Joe Juno was, you know, in an aeronautics engineer, right? Like he was an absolute wizard and just a really smart guy. And Mark says, look, beyond Joe Juno, what other NHLers have had remarkable side gigs or a resume that's really cool outside of hockey? Ken Dryden comes to mind, but certainly there must be other cool stories out there, guys. Look forward to hearing from you about this that comes in from Mark.

The number one name that comes to my mind, Sean, is Al Seacourt. He's a pilot with United Airlines, right? I didn't know that. Right. So I've always thought to myself, you know, when you get on a plane and you fly from whatever, let's see, you're through Chicago and you're connecting somewhere, imagine you get on the plane and hey, folks from the flight deck, it's Al-C-C-Cort here. And you're like, wait, what?

Al-C-C-Cort. Yeah. Like, I don't know, would you feel, I guess I would feel super comfortable and confident, but Al-C-Cored, and I don't know if he's retired as a pilot, but for years has been flying for, I think it's United Airlines. Okay, no, I didn't know. I assume that there would be some guys who maybe went and got the pilot's license, but to actually do it. Yeah, you think you're going to complain about your flight being like, I'm going to go have a word with the pilot.

You get in there and Al C.Corp turns around. You're slowly backing away going, sorry to bother you, sir. We won't. Yeah, that's a real good one. The best one I could come up with is, and there's, my mind immediately went to guys who have tried to dabble in the entertainment side of things. And there have certainly been a lot of NHL players who have done. sort of, you know, kind of for fun have done something, you know, like Gila Fleur had a disco album.

You know, that's sort of kind of good, Phil Esposito with the hockey sock rock and stuff like that. But the guy that comes to mind for me, and boy, you talk about an interesting guy who had an interesting career, Jim Seanfeld. Yes. Well before he was an NHL coach and slash mattress salesman who was famous for the donut incident, it was a real good player. He had a legitimate music career.

Like, he put out a couple of albums of real music. Like, this wasn't like, hey, here's a hockey guy and he's going to sing a fun song about hockey as a novelty. He had real, I mean, it was intended as a real album and people seem to enjoy it. You know, I don't think he won any Grammys, but he actually had a run as a musician, as he had a music career as he was doing the NHL and and then went on to to do all the other things that he did as well. So, man, that's, that guy has packed more interesting stuff into, into his career than,

than most of us will ever get for sure. You know, you bring up Gila Fleur's name. Do you remember this side hustle from Gila Fleur? Gila Fleur had his own kind of recovery sports drink called Flower Power. Do you remember this? You know what? Now that you say that, it's vaguely ringing a bell. Yeah.

Like, do you think he thought to himself, you know, I'm going to take a run at Gatorade? Like, that's legitimately what he thought. And it was called flower power. And it was a, it was a sports drink that was exactly, and it had him on the label, and it was called flower power. Because, you know, when you're looking for good health, you turn to a 1970s hockey. Smoker. Yeah. That's really, wait a second.

There's a cigarette button. my flower power. What is this? You're fine. Get out there. Oh, amazing. Hey, listen, speaking to hockey in the 70s, let's go to this week in hockey history to wrap up the show. Sean, this week in hockey history, April the 26th, 1975, the upstart New York Islanders. You could probably start to see the seeds of the dynasty slowly starting to be planted in the 70s. They come back from an 03 series deficit this week in hockey history. They erase an 03 deficit against the Pittsburgh Penguins and win Game 7 April 26, 1975. Here's my hypothesis or my theory, Sean. The Islanders coming back from 03 in 1975 is the least talked about comeback in NHL history. Agree or disagree? You know what?

I might agree today. I think there was a time that I can remember hearing about this a fair amount. And that was back in the 80s and 90s When every team fell behind 3-0 You always heard that it had only happened Twice in NHL history that a team would come back to 3-0 One of them was the Leafs in a Stanley Cup final In like the 40s and it's the 40s

But in modern history This had been the only time it had ever happened And I believe not just the only time it had ever happened In NHL history But the only time in sports history It had never happened in baseball It had never happened in the NBA And so you did hear about it from time to time.

And then it happened in the Kings and Shark series. It happened with the Flyers and Bruins. We saw it in baseball with the Yankees and Red Sox. And I think that sort of pushed it off the pile. Yeah. And it was just, you know, it's just this thing that had. And it was, you know, it was two pretty good teams in the 70s, but not great teams. The Islanders weren't quite there yet.

The penguins were just a team. But, you know, here's the interesting thing about. that 75 Islanders team that a lot of people don't remember, even if you remember the 3-0 comeback, they went on having won that series and they played the Philadelphia Flyers in the next round. And the Flyers had won the Stanley Cup in 74, were on their way to winning it again in 75. The Highlanders once again fell behind 3-0 in that series. And once again, they came back and forced a seventh game. But this time they ended up losing. They almost pulled it off twice in a row, which that would have been just complete insanity.

And we probably never would have heard the end of it. There were one game away from pulling off the miracle comeback twice in a row. And then who knows where things go from there. But it was a near miss. But yeah, I feel like growing up I did hear about this, but you're right. It's sort of fallen off the table since then. I think just because it's happened enough times recently that we've got more recent references. This week in hockey history, April the 30.

1986, the Oilers opportunity, Sean, for a, you know, the five consecutive Stanley Cups, it has the hiccup in the middle. April 30th, 1986, Steve Smith in the third period of a tied hockey game accidentally banks the puck off a Grant Fier's pad into the net. The flames hang on to win the game and they win this series, one of the most remarkable kind of singular moments in hockey history that certainly changed the fortune of the Oilers. Poor Steve Smith, it's his birthday, his 23rd birthday. I ask you this too. There's no way anybody's had a worst birthday in the history of sports than Steve Smith, right?

I can't imagine. And I can't think of any examples. If anybody out there has one, by all means, let us know. I'm sure there are goalies who have lost a game seven on their birthday. I'm sure there are guys who've been injured or something like that. I can't imagine a worse birthday than this because this is one of the worst moments in NHL history. Of all the moments in angel history that don't involve like an injury or some, you know, some serious situation like that, this is right up there because it's, uh, he banks the shot in his reaction.

I mean, he falls to the ice. He's crying. It's just this, uh, uh, miserable thing. And, uh, it's, it's awful. There's two things to stand out about that. First of all, and you tell me on this, looking back on that, just remembering that game in your own head, in your head, does that goal happen with like a minute left? Like two minutes left in the game? There was 15 minutes left.

There was a whole period left. Like, you know. Yeah, exactly. In my mind, I thought it was four minutes left. You've only got like 14 Hall of Famers on the roster. How about scoring a goal and bailing this kid out? And yeah, you would think that it would, they would have been able to bounce it back. but no, it ends up being the winning goal.

And here's the other thing. Do you know what interesting hockey tradition sort of indirectly spawned out of that moment? Out of Steve Smith. Yeah. No. It's, go ahead. No, I have no idea.

It's one of the nice, you know, obviously, the Oilers said won two cups. They lose in the playoffs to the flames. I know where you're going with this. The next year, the Oilers get back to the final and they win. And Wayne Gretzky makes a point of giving the Stanley Cup to Steve Smith as the first guy to get it. And back then, Stanley Cup handoffs weren't really, you know, there was no Gary Bettman.

It wasn't organized. It was really just he went and got the cup and it was chaos. This was kind of the first time that a team ever made a point of one guy getting the cup first. And it didn't quite catch on immediately as a thing. But within a few years, it sort of indirectly spawned the tradition that we all. love now of who is the captain going to give it to first, where you get those Ray Bork moments or whoever it is. And it's become this honor. Steve Smith was the first guy as a result of having scored this goal. His teammates did have his back a year later and made sure that he got recognized

and that he was the first one to get the cop. So I always thought that was kind of cool. And the other thing, too, let's not sleep on the fact that game seven of the second round was happening on April 30th. Yeah. Yep. Like, second round, Game 7.

And also, and also the flames and the Oilers, arguably, you know, maybe the two best teams in the league. So anyone who says,

oh, I hate the playoff format right now. Well, this is, this is, when we're all complaining about

Vegas and Colorado in a month, like, why are they playing in the second round? It was always like this. It's always been weird. Yeah. Okay.

Last one I got to get to April 29th, 1959. That's right. 1959, okay? April 29th, 1959, the Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers embark on a 23-game, 26-day post-season exhibition tour of Europe.

They go to England, they go to Switzerland, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria. Sean, if you ever wanted clear evidence that there was no Players Association or Union, how about the fact that, hey, by the way, when the season ends, you're going on a, 23 games in 26-day tour, you're going to traips through Europe and play 23 games in less than a month. Dude, you thought we got sick of the Blues and Coyotes playing each other for two weeks

in a row this year. Yeah, this used to happen. This used to be a thing back in the day where your season ended and your season wasn't over. They would send you on some tour somewhere. they would send you to the, there was a story. I'm pretty sure it's the Bruins where at one point they got sent to go do some tour of, I think it was Eastern Canada. And they get to some town and they're supposed to play an exhibition game in the rink. And the rink isn't finished yet. It doesn't have a roof. And they're like, are you guys want to play anyways?

And they're like, yeah, we'll play. And it goes down in history as one of the early outdoor games in NHL history, technically, because the, the roof of the arena wasn't finished yet. And it's funny. I'm looking at the page with this, this Rangers and Bruins play each other over and over and over again. And let's just say, I'm looking at the scores. I don't think the players were really in full on intensity mode. Let's just say. Let's go seven to five, 12 to four, eight to four, eight to nothing, seven to two, eight to two, six to six. It was pretty high scoring. I don't think they were exactly selling out to block shots and

play defense by the time they had been on the road for a full month playing the same team over and over and over again in games that didn't count. And the best thing about it, the Bruins were a good team that year. They had been in the playoffs. It wasn't like these are the two teams that missed the playoffs

and they just sent them over. They lost in the playoffs and it was like, all right, pack up because you're heading to Europe for a full month. Yeah. And, yeah. Yeah, see, I think as well, you say they didn't really try hard.

That's why hockey never took foot in Belgium. That's why there's no NHL team in Berlin right now. Yeah, exactly. It's all because of that. And here's the funny thing, okay? So I looked it up. So that's to wrap up the 1959 season, right? The next year, the Rangers and the Bruins finish in the last two spots.

They finished fifth and sixth. Gee, I wonder why. Yeah, I can imagine it's. Yeah. You're retired from playing 23 games. the extra 23 games. This was, again, back in the day, your owner would just say, like, if you're the Detroit Red Wings and your owner would just be like, we're going to go play in a prison.

And you're like, do we need to do that? And the owner's like, well, I said we were going to. So get out there. And another early outdoor game. It's the, yeah, the NHO was a different place. And yeah, you're right. There definitely no NHLPA around to put their hands up and question whether that was a good idea. All right.

Okay. We'll leave it there. It's always fun to go down hockey history. Always fun to do this podcast. Sean, enjoy the weekend. Should be a couple of interesting games. And again, we're going to keep our eye on McDavid getting to 100 points. Enjoy the weekend and we'll get you again next week.

Right on. Sounds good. All right. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. We'll get you again, like I said next week. And you can always email us any questions like some of those listeners did today. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. You can also leave us a voicemail. And you can do that at 8.3.

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