The Athletic Hockey Show - The NHL's most likeable players, Alex Ovechkin breaks road goal record, and the great goalie debate

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

Ian and Sean return to discuss Sean's piece on the NHL's most likeable players, and the reaction to his inclusion of Claude Giroux and Sidney Crosby. Also, an unhinged Kings-Kraken game, Pat Maroon channels Jack Edward's comments into a positive, and Alex Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky's road goal record.Then, in "Granger Things" resident goalie Jesse Granger discusses that whole Matt Murray net thing, and Connor Hellebuyck not getting a whistle when his mask came off. To wrap up, a preseason take comes back to haunt somebody in the mailbag, and it's all wrapped up with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM: [phone]!Get a subscription to The Athletic for $2 month for 12 months: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Welcome back to your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendes, Sean McIndoo with you. And, boy, we got a lot to get to on this December. Boy, it feels weird to say December edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Because it feels like in some ways, the first two months in the season of blown right by. I got to ask you this, though, Sean, right off the hop. you're a believer in Matt Murray now?

Like, I told you that at some point, during the season, he would play well enough that you'd be like, I see it now. I see what Ian was talking about. This guy can play well. He can steal you some games. He could just, like, I'm telling you, I think you, like, will you agree with me? You can kind of see it now with Matt Murray? He's been good.

He's been good so far. Both goalies in Toronto would be good while here. I'm downplaying it because I don't want to go overboard and say something that, You know, and I'm not naming any names here, but that certain producers are going to clip and throw back at me two months later. I'll just set that up for later in the show. Yes. Yeah, I got to be careful on my takes. Matt Murray's been very good.

You know, the concerns when he, when that trade went down and the Leafs hitched the wagon to him was twofold. One, could he stay healthy? And was he going to play, I mean, at any kind of level that would fit with the Leafs are trying to do? the health part I mean he gets hurt after one game and miss a significant time so you know in that sense you know

the concerns I think are remain justified we gotta see him be healthy for the rest of the year but he's been real good when he has played he's been you know not just good enough but flat out good hasn't been amazing hasn't been

Vezina quality goaltending but that's not what they brought him in for he's every time he's been on the ice for the Maple Leafs. He has, he's held up his end of the bargain. There's, there's no question about that. Yeah. So anyway, I just, I thought, you know, because we're kind of at that point where

it's December, you kind of start to look at teams. And, you know, Harmon Dayall has a piece up on the athletic this morning, kind of looking at, you know, kind of panic meters for the teams that are on the outside looking in. Like, this is just a natural time to kind of look at everything in the standings. I just want to take, though, this, I need this hour, Sean, to not talk about the Ottawa senators, okay? This is like therapy for me. I need to get away from talking about them. Okay, good, because I was going to say, you know, December now, I mean, I saw your piece about November did not go well for that team.

But you know what, I'm good. We will skip over them and we will focus on the, focus on the playoff teams. Yeah. Well, look, there's one thing I do want to focus on, though, and that is your column that ran, now I'm getting mixed up here. Was it Wednesday or Tuesday? Anyway, earlier, Wednesday. And this is a tough exercise.

I'm going to give you credit. Because the NHL, as you mentioned off the top of your column, you know, we're talking about more than 800 players in the league in terms of skaters and goalies. And if you're trying to try to find 10 players that are like universally liked, on one hand, you're like, oh, 10 out of it. 800, that's not going to be a hard exercise. And then you start to dig into it. And you're like, I'm not going to find 10 guys. But I want to, I want to ask you about two guys in particular

because you, you write a column under the premise of let's find 10 like universally loved and liked players. And Claude Jureux and Sidney Crosby, who are arguably the faces of, uh, of, of a rivalry that was superheeded for a good chunk of the 2010s appear on your list. And I'm wondering, what kind of blowback did you get on Crosby and Giroux landing on your most likable list? Well, I'll say this. Far more blowback on Crosby than Girou. You know, Jiru, the last time I tried this exercise was three years ago.

And I put Jureu as kind of an honorable mention back then. This was when he's still on the Flyers and he was still, I think he was at that point one year removed from, you know, his last heart trophy level season. So, uh, he was, he was a star back then still on the flyers. And I sort of threw it out there and, uh, and got a little bit of pushback. I mean, the flyers are one of those teams that the, some, but some fan bases are just like, no, you know what? I'm not, I'm not room for anyone on the flyers. And since then, of course, first of all, we've seen Drew. He's, he's getting older. He's, he's on the, uh, the down slope of career at this point. We saw him go to Florida. So he's, you know, he's off the flyers roster. And now he's

with the team that we agreed we weren't going to talk about, who I think I described in the column as being fun to watch and yet pleasantly unthreatening at this point. So I didn't really get all that much pushback on Claudeau. There were a few people going like, you know, I still, you know, those rivalry days back then. But I think at this point, the way that, that his career has gone, you've got to be written for the guy. He's a classic old guy without a cup, and, you know, you're, those guys are, are easier to like. Sydney Crosby, look, I mean, this was a little bit of advocacy on Marbury. This was, this was, this was me saying, like, surely we're over this now as Sidney Crosby is 35.

He's still doing it. Still a great player. Can we get over the whole crybaby thing? Can we get over the whole, oh, Sidney Crosby wines and this and that? that I get that we always, as hockey fans, ever since I was a little kid, and I'm guessing even before that, for some reason, we just always find reasons not to like the best player. You know, I remember people didn't like Wayne Gretzky back in the day when Wayne Gretzky was doing Wayne Gretzky things. And then we didn't like Merrill Lemieux because Merrill Lemieux, you know, had the, had the gall to say that the officiating was lousy in the league and it was too clutch and grab. gosh, you know, like what a terrible thing for him to say.

Didn't he know he was just supposed to fight through and, you know, having two defensemen, dragon, but water skiing behind him all the time. Of course, in hindsight, he was completely right. And the league would have been so much better off if they had listened to their best player and acted on it. But at the time, a lot of people didn't like Mary Lemieux. And then Sidney Crosby, you know, kind of comes in next and assumes that mantle. And a lot of people right away, she decided, no, I'm not going to like this guy. He gets gifted to the penguins.

In a lottery, you know, he occasionally, you know, seems to complain or whatever. He doesn't have a great personality. I don't like this guy. But now that that torch has been passed to Connor McDavid, like surely we can look at Sidney Crosby and say, all right, you know, as we've done with every other great superstar, probably didn't appreciate them enough in their prime. And maybe we can do that now. And I did get some pushback on that. Not surprisingly, but I'm putting it out there.

It's time to let it go. on the whole Sidney Crosby thing. I'm amazed how many people still, to this day, oh, he's a cry baby, he's a whiner. And you're sitting there going, like, what does Sidney Crosby really cried about in all this? You know, yes, did he argue with a referee from time to time? This is a guy who, you know, suffered terrible head injury,

was, you know, had his career on the line for a certain time. It was never really an advocate who stood up and said, you know, the league absolutely has to change all these things. I don't, I feel like we could have done with maybe more, complaining from Sidney Crosby than we got. And yet there's this reputation. It just sticks to them. I'm not buying it.

And I'm hoping that we can get to a point where Sidney Crosby is a universally liked and beloved player. But I don't think we're there yet. No, I don't think so. I read in the comments, I don't think so. Now, I also want to add another guy that kind of, if you're looking at how the torch was passed from Gretzky to Lemieux and on it.

Eric Lindross was kind of in there briefly. Here's another guy that really just he was a polarizing figure, despite being arguably the best player on the planet there for a two or three year period. And you can get it with him, though, right? Because I mean, with him, he didn't report to Quebec. So, you know, he did something that players aren't supposed to do, which is, you know, as a young player, kind of picked his own team. And he was also, he was one of those players.

He was such a wrecking ball on the ice. You know, he was in there running over guys, being physical, getting into fights and stuff like that. So, I mean, you could understand a little more of people. They're like, no, I'm not going to like that guy. Same as, you know, Mark Messier in the 80s was kind of the precursor to that. And you could understand that. But, you know, to do it to a Gretzky or a Crosby, it's just, you know, it doesn't end.

And I'm going to say, when I was young, I was on board, right? Ah, you know, Wayne Gretzky, boo, this guy, you know, what a, you know, same with Mario and all this. So I'm as guilty as anybody. I'm coming at you like, this is the wisdom of the ages now going, I wish I hadn't been like that. I wish I'd appreciate it. these guys. Yeah. Well, you know what? And you talk about Mario really was upset with the league. Do you remember he made a comment. It was in the 90s and he called the NHL a garage league. Yeah. And I always wondered, like, did he mean garbage league? Or do you think, like, what is a garage league?

Well, that's the thing, right? Like, I mean, people were kind of not, first of all, they didn't fully understand. I don't know. Maybe it was, maybe it's a French thing. Maybe there was, you know, it's a Quebec term. I don't know. I never first. fully understood what he meant by that. But I do remember a lot of people assumed that he had said garbage leave, which I guess, you know, is even harsher. And, you know, it's just predictably. You had all the people going like, oh, you're making millions of dollars.

Why don't you pack up and go, you know, go work at a construction site somewhere if you hate the NHL so much. And, and, you know, again, now you look back at those old clips of Barrio Lemieux where he's got, literally, he's got like a defenseman on his back, like a backpack, just hanging off of him. And you go, how did we allow it? How did we think that's what hockey should be? And yet that's exactly what he was talking about. And at the time, we just, you know, we just didn't want to hear it.

And so it was, yeah, yeah, he was, he was the complainer. He was, he was the guy, he was whining too much. And, you know, you look back in hindsight and you're like he was 100% right to say. Yeah. Well, and maybe some of our listeners can help us out, explain the garage league. Mary Olimue calls the NHL a garage league. And did he mean garbage league? You know what I mean?

Like, I don't know. I'd love to know. Now, back to your list for a second. And there's a bunch of guys on there. I totally agree. Like Stephen Stamco is for me. I always love Stephen. I think he's pretty much universally like,

but I'm going to give you one name that I would have put on the list that I, and you hear me out. And I don't think he was in your honorable mentions. Yep. And that's Alexander Barkov. And I'll tell you. tell you, like, okay, here's my, and I hate to, I know I always try to turn this into an NFL podcast, but the guy that I always use is the goal standard for universally loved is Larry Fitzgerald.

Larry Fitzgerald was this guy who like, great receiver, played for like a very unthreatening team, the Cardinals, who didn't want to see Fitz win a Super Bowl? Like, you kind of just like the guy. There's no reason. Like, I feel like if you asked me of all the four majors, Forge, who's the most likable guy that I've seen in my lifetime, I think it might be Larry Fitzgerald. Like, who hates Larry Fitzgerald? Nobody did. So I can't imagine too many, too many people did. And yeah. Yeah. And it was a hell of a player too. Hell of a player. Oh yeah. So now I ask you, who hates Barcov? Like, he plays for a very unthreatening team, even though they're pretty good. They won a president's trophy last year, but they're just kind of, I don't know. I feel like Barkov.

Barkov is a decent pick. Yeah. But just to be clear here, The premise of the piece is not 10 guys that nobody hates. It's 10 guys that are universally like. Because, I mean, there's lots of players that nobody hates because nobody thinks of them. I mean, there's half the players in this league probably have nobody that hates them because we don't even know who they are. You know, so I flip it around and go like, who loves Alexander Barkoff? And maybe we're getting there because, you know, another guy I put on the list was Anze Coppeter. because in the past, you know, way back when I had Jonathan Taves on the list,

last time Patrice Berger was on my list, you know, these great two-way players where you sort of reach a point where you say, you know, if you really get hockey, you appreciate this guy on a level that maybe even above and beyond what the stats would say. Barcove might be on that path. He kind of feels like maybe they are apparent to that trio of guys who really define that role. I don't know if he's quite there yet, but yeah, he'd be up there. And, you know, as I'm always so hesitant when I do these lists because I'm always, I always go back and forth, do I do an honorable mentions or not. Because I know if I don't do honorable mentions, the whole comment section is just people filled up going, uh, what about, uh, did you not put?

And it's just like, yeah, dude, I made a list of 10. Like it's, I can't put every player in the league. So I try to squeeze a few more extra guys in to nip that in the bud, but then by putting that in there now, oh, my, now if you're going to, guy isn't even on the honorable mentions. I mean, that means Sean's saying that he hates the guy. So, but yeah, Barkov was one of those guys. I could have put there. Currell Caprizo was another guy that I had a lot of people push, come back and say, that guy should be on the main list, you know, at the very least. And yeah, I get that. I, that's, I can't, I can't list everybody, but he would certainly be somebody that, uh, um, next time around, you know, three years down the line or whenever I pulled this gimmick out again, I, I could absolutely see him being well up on the list. You know what's funny too?

I think what you also learn probably in the comment section of this is you find out what fan bases randomly have a beef with a guy that you didn't know about. Like I could see you put Barkoff on there and then like some like Nashville fans like what about the time you butt ended Roman Yosey in the face or something. I have still not recovered from the time that I said that Joe Thornton was a universally beloved. I heard from Blues fans who still have not forgiven him for stepping out of the penalty box and throwing that hit. And I get it. Like, I mean, I'm not saying don't hold grudges if you're, if you're a fan. I mean, that's, you probably shouldn't for your own mental health,

but that's part of what fans do, right? Like you, you cling to something and, you know, so I've got no issue with it. And to this day, anytime I make reference to Joe Thornton being like a beloved player, I always have to put that caveat that like, other than blues fans. And I always hear from blues fans going like, I was about to get really mad, but then I saw that you acknowledged us and that's fine. So, yeah, it's, it's always, a weird exercise because people get very fired up about this and, you know, they, Mark Stone was another one. I put Mark Stone on the list this year and I had a lot of people apparently just do not like Mark Stone and that's, you know, okay. Maybe I, maybe this is the Ottawa side of me. Maybe I'm

kind of missed that as he's an Ottawa guy. But it's interesting and it's interesting to look in the comments because you see other people be like, well, how could you not put this guy from my favorite team on the? Everybody loves this and then immediately just 10 comments from other fans, I can't stand that guy. Nobody likes it. And it's just this little battle breaks. I mean, I haven't, I was in the comment section early. I got to be honest with you.

I've tagged out on the comment section of that one. It's up over 400. The New York Times account tweeted that piece out this morning. And I was like, I'm out. I'm not even, I don't even want to know. It's bad enough to people who've been reading me for 10 years are mad at me over this. Like I do not need people who have never seen me before, you know, coming in and suddenly being like, wait a second. quickly scanning down the list and then being mad at me.

And then the Patrice Bergeron thing was the other one. I said very, very clearly at the beginning of the piece, I'm not putting anyone who was on my list last time. And I even listed a few guys that that includes Patrice Bergeron. He's not going to be on the list this time. And I got so many angry Berlins fans calling me, how could you not put Patrice Berger on your list? Dude, here is all I'm asking.

We love that you read us. We love the passion. We love the feedback. you have to read the thing before you get mad at it. That's the only part of the deal. You can be as mad as you want, but you've got to read the thing. At the very least,

if you're mad that I didn't mention someone, just do a control F and type their name in it. Just see if you missed it. It might not be in bold. Might not be in one of the headlines. Just do me that favor. Please check it out and see if you missed it. Because some of these guys,

I put their name in the piece specifically so that people will see it. And I still get yelled at. Speaking of getting yelled at, what did you think of the Jack Edwards v. Pat Maroon stuff from this week where the Bruins play-by-play guy on Nesson, Jack Edwards, takes a run at Pat Maroon's weight, his propensity for liking pizza and eating. Maroon kind of fires back on social media asking fans to donate to a cause, you know,

in honor of anti-bullying and fat shaming and body image and things like that. This is a story or not a story? I mean, I think it's a minor story. And it's probably already, you know, by the end of this week, it will have played itself out. And it puts me in a bit of a weird spot because I'll be, I'll be honest, I'm not a big Jack Edwards guy. The stick just doesn't land with me. And I have a least fan. So, you know, guys like that, the Homer announcer is not for the other fans.

So I know, you know, some Bruins fans love the guy and some don't and that's fine. I've never been a huge fan. But I'll say, and this isn't even really in his defense, but, you know, this talk about, you know, body shaming and fat shaming, this sort of stuff. Absolutely. Very real issue, very real thing that, you know, that people do to each other out there in society. And it's, and it sucks. And it's something that we all need to sort of be aware of and be thinking about. I don't necessarily think that when you're talking about professional athletes,

who are paid millions of dollars to be in, you know, prime physical condition, that it is the same category if you point out that, you know, if a guy shows up to training camp overweight or, you know, if he's trying to play above, you know, his ideal playing weight. And if you point that out, to me, that's not the same as, you know, what we just kind of do to each other day to day in society. So I did feel like some of the criticism towards Jack, you know, he's, he's fat shaming, he's body shame. I felt like that was a little, you know, maybe maybe a little bit overdone or, you know, not fully taking the context in. You know, that's it. It was a weird thing. It's not like Pat Maroon is. I mean, he's a big guy. He's not out of shame. And obviously,

Pat Maroon, you know, dude keeps winning Stanley Cups. He's whatever he's doing is working for him. The other thing, I guess I would just say in Jack Edwards' defense is, you know, he's a play by play, he's got to talk for 60 minutes, 82 times a year. Eventually, you're going to say something that just doesn't worry. And that's what it felt like. It was just kind of a lull in the game and he was just throwing something out, maybe trying to be funny. And I think we can criticize, certainly, you know, always, always fair to criticize something someone says publicly, but also maybe give him a bit of a benefit of the doubt and say, maybe it didn't come across the way he intended. Good on Pat Maroon for taking a weird situation and turning it into a positive

I like that a lot. And, you know, Jack Edwards will maybe be a little more careful with his words next time. And that's fine, too. Other than that, I, you know, like I said, I'm not a huge Jack Edwards guy, but I don't think this episode makes him some sort of awful guy. You know what I wonder? I wonder for all the people that jumped down on Jack Edwards. I wonder if you went and searched their own Twitter feed or social media feed

and just did a search of their name in Phil Kessel. would they have shared memes about Phil and hot dogs and the body type? We've, right? Yeah, I mean, we've, we've all done it. I was going to say we've all done it. We haven't all done it because there are people out there that, you know, have said, like, you know, knock this up. I remember back in my very early days when I was just starting online, it was Kyle Wellwood with the Leafs. Remember he was always a guy that was out of shape.

There were those photos that went around to him from the off season, you know, and people would make fun of that. and, you know, make a comment on it and other people, you know, even 10 plus years ago would say like, hey, guys, this isn't cool. And eventually, you know, I came to kind of realize like, yeah, you know what, this probably isn't the right way to be approaching this. One of the criticisms of that I do think is fair is when you're sitting there and, you know, if Jack Edwards, whether it's Jack Edwards saying something about Pat Maroon or whether it's, you know, some, all of, you know, who knows how many people on Twitter. saying stuff about Phil Castle or me about Kyle Wellwood or whatever it is, you know what, maybe that criticism is fair when it's directed at an athlete. But who else is hearing it? You know, who else that may be struggling with this stuff is just is hearing this.

And no, it's not directed at them, but they're just sitting there going, geez, there's one more thing. Like what, this guy's a professional athlete playing in one of the hardest leagues in the world. And he's, he's overweight. We're going to make fun of him for being, for weighing too much. geez, what chance do I have? And I get that. And, you know, that's why you, you know, you got to think a little bit. And my guess is if you asked Jack Edwards, I don't know, I haven't seen if he's actually

responded to this at all. My guess is he probably would like it back. You know, he probably would say, you know, this is, I wasn't, I wasn't trying to be mean. I wasn't trying to, you know, to shame a guy. and he probably regrets that it was taken that way. But again, it's, you know, good on Pat Maroon for how he handled it. I think that's, you know, turning a situation into a positive. And beyond that, you know, I'm sure Jack Edwards will be a little more careful next time.

And that's probably a positive too. I'll tell you what, the same night as that Jack Edwards, Pat Maroon stuff was going down, the Cracken and Kings played the most bananas unhinged game of the season. Seattle wins 9-8 in overtime. And I looked this up. I was like, when's the last time? Or how often in NHL history do we have a regular season game in which both teams find the back of the net eight times?

And I looked this up. And in the history of the NHL, which has been since 1917, so you're talking to 100 plus years, only 18 times have we had a regular season game where both teams scored eight goals and the last such one before Seattle, LA, Sean, was Winnipeg Philadelphia in 2011. And before that, we didn't have one since 1996.

So you're almost looking at a once per 10 or 15 year phenomenon here. I guess because you watch a game like that, you're like, man, wouldn't it be awesome if all games were like that or whatever? we're probably not going to see another game like this for another 10 years. No, no, we won't. And, you know, a lot of this is dependent on the era. Like, I don't know what that list of 18 looks like, but I'd be willing to bet. It's mostly, you know, 1980s.

10 games, early 90s. And probably also the very early days of the NHL back when, you know, scoring was crazy because it was fluctuating like wild as they were playing with the rules and all of that. So, you know, to have it happen in this era where, for good or for bad, we seem to kind of settled on this like six and a half goal average is amazing. And look, every time that, you know, I go on with my little rants about, you know, making the Nets a little bit bigger, you know, doing something to bump up scoring, somebody will

say, oh, what, you want every game to be nine to eight? And no, I don't. You know, if that game, if every game was like that, it would be too much and it would, and it wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't feel special. It wouldn't feel like, like you were watching something. remarkable. It's great to have those outliers. And it's, it's, it was a fascinating, entertaining, entertaining, fun, amazing game to watch, you know, as a neutral fan. You didn't have to have any rooting interest. In fact, it was probably more fun to watch it that way. You know, I will just say,

every time I, every time I say, let's bump scoring up, every time I do this thing where I'm like, the dead puck era isn't over. We don't have to celebrate the way we do. Every time, time scoring goes up by 0.05 goals. Like, you know, we could go up a lot more than that. And it would be so much more fun if we, if we could get up to seven or seven and a half goals like it was in the early 90s. You know, and I get lectured by people. You know, you don't understand the beauty of the zero, zero game.

And, you know, and yeah, the occasional zero zero game with lots of chances and great goal to any is, is fun in his own rate. But I'll just say, I, you know, we see, we've seen one nothing games this year. I didn't have, my whole Twitter feed wasn't blown up over these one nothing games the way it was over this 9-8 one. People love offense. Every other pro sports league understands this. No, I don't want every single game to be 9 to 8, but it's hockey is at its most fun when it feels like a goal could come at any time. And unfortunately, most hockey that's played these days doesn't feel like that. And we got to watch a whole game where for whatever reason,

it just felt like every single shot was a scoring chance. And it was all sorts of fun. It was great. Yeah, and I feel like everything was happening on Tuesday night. There was that. There was the Pat Maroon stuff. And again, I covered Ottawa and the Rangers on Wednesday thinking like, oh, we're going to get something fun and exciting. No, it was a very vanilla bland game, three to one for the Rangers. But one other thing I want to sneak in before we get to our pal Jesse Granger.

Also on Tuesday, Alexander Ovechkin, passing Wayne Gretzky for the most goals ever, scored on the road. Ovechkin scores career goal 403 on the road. But I'll be brutally honest with you. Until he got that record and it was tweeted out by the capitals and the NHL, I had no idea. I had no idea that he was close to a record for goals on the road. And I guess my question is, like,

when a record is broken and you didn't know that it was a record, like I guess my question is this a thing? Ovegen's scoring the most road goal? Is it a thing? And I go back and forth on this because I have for a few years now, like had this test that I apply when somebody tells me, well, oh,

you know, somebody set a record. I got to think, have I ever thought of this record before in my life? And do I even know who held the record before? You know, like, you know,

somebody's telling me, oh, the Bruins, uh, 12 and O to start the season at home. And that's, that breaks the record by the 63 black. You know what?

Never thought of a home winning streak to start the season record. Never thought of the 63 Blackhawks. so I don't know if I'm supposed to care. I do love these like weird little, you know, stats when somebody says, this has never happened before or, you know, this is something that's only happened three times in history. And it's, I think we hear more about this stuff because it's easier to find now and, you know, all the online resources.

I do feel like a lot of these I kind of shrug and I don't care about. And I got to be honest, I never thought about road career goals. That being said, anytime you break a record of Wayne Gretzky's, that's pretty damn impressive. And, you know, the fact that Ovechka also, that he has so many, you know, he has more goals on the road than at home is in its own way kind of impressive of just what a beast this guy has been because most guys, the numbers are better at home for obvious reason. So I got in this case, I was pretty impressed, even though it was never something that I had given any consideration to until the moment I found out that he had broken the record. Yeah. And again, I think I agree with you there because in theory, in theory, in theory, it was. would be harder to score on the road where the home team has the preferred matchup and they

can kind of get the defense that they want or the forwards they want against you. Yeah, it is. It is, if you had asked me, I guess, if you had asked me before, just guess, does Ovechkin have more goals at home or on the road? You'd be like, well, probably at home. Yeah. And, you know, and now he's closing in on 800. It's just as soon as you say the words.

Yeah, it is. And, and, you know, part of that's because it's, you know, the changing game. Wayne, Wayne Gretzky, I'm not surprised Gretzky had a lot more goals at home. back then you would throw the shadow over the boards and he would just like we said cling to Wayne Greta like literally in some cases just reach out with his glove and hold the back of a guy's jersey and skate around the ice like that. So I'm not surprised with Kretzky. But anytime you say the words has broken the career goal scoring record previously held by Wayne Gretzky, whatever qualifiers come after that, this is a damn impressive performance. And so, you know, it's just,

To me, this wasn't something that really blew me away, but it was just like, yeah, there's yet another reminder of how incredible what we're watching with Alexander Ovecadjkins. All right. Time for a little Granger things brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with the athletic. Jesse Granger joins us. And, you know, this is going to be great. Jesse, Sean and I talked about Matt Murray off the top of the pot. And, you know, obviously he's playing really well. And I asked Sean if he's a believer. He still sounds like he's a little bit on the fence. But let's have a little debate here on Matt Murray because I know, Jesse, you are going to represent the goalie union here.

This is the position you play. You've played your whole life. And Matt Murray was at the center of quite the controversy recently, game against Minnesota, in which Murray repeatedly appeared to knock the net off in situations where the Leafs were kind of being hemmed in. And it's like, oh, well, oh, the net's off. Three times against Minnesota, one game after he had done it,

appeared to also do it against New Jersey and the controversial game that ended their streak. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Imagine watching that devil's game with the three disallowed goals and thinking to yourself, that's actually not going to be the talking, like one of the, you're going to have another talking point with Matt Murray in controversy. So listen, let's let's talk this out here. Jesse, like, what do you think about a goalie kind of accidentally on purpose knocking

And not often do you think Matt Murray was doing this on purpose? I don't think Matt Murray did it on purpose. I do think it was partially his fault. Two different things. So I think in none of those situations, all four, if you count the three against Minnesota and the one against New Jersey, I don't think he was intentionally knocking the net off on any of the four. And I can go through all four of them and tell you exactly what I thought was happening.

And the one, so the third one against New Jersey, I don't think, I mean, sorry, the third one against Minnesota. I don't think anyone believes that that one was intentional. It was just because it was the third one. Like that was a pretty obvious, like he's sliding across, he hits the post. It barely popped it off. I think if that had been the first one, nobody would have had a problem with that. So I don't really think there's much explaining there. The one that every, and then the first one against Minnesota, that's a goal even if, like if the puck goes in there, it's a goal anyways. He was just trying to, he was in a bad spot and he tried to push across and he kicked the net off. The, the one that, the one that,

that everybody is freaking out, though, is about the second one. And it's because they see his arm, his elbow lift up. But when I watched it, and I don't understand why nobody else saw this, Austin Matthews clearly hits his stick. And his stick is wedged in between himself and the net. And Matthews comes through and his leg catches Murray's stick. And that's what, like, it twists his arm and that's what knocks the post off. I'm telling you, anyone out there who go, watch it back again, especially from the overhead view. The overhead view is the best one. It's Austin Matthews' leg coming through hitting his stick is the reason that net comes off the mooring. So that's me defending each of his individual ones. But what I will say is

Murray is playing the post super aggressive and the nets aren't holding up. Now, does that mean he needs to change the way he's playing? Because I think he's changed his post integrations. And I don't watch Matt Murray enough to get super detailed into it. But when he goes down into the RVH, he's going shin to post, which is not all that common. Most goalies, they want their toe of the skate or the toe of their boot of the pad to be up against the post. And Murray has gone shin to post. And to me, that's just a much, there's a lot more weight behind the shin than there is, like the bottom of the pad, if I can explain it right on a podcast, the bottom of the pad where the pad kind of meets the skate, there's some give there. So when you hit, when you, when you kind of shift into the post,

there's a little bit of give. Your shin going into that post, there's no give. So it's immediately popping the opposite side off. To me, I've never noticed him doing that before. It looks different. I would, I would bet if you ask Matt Murray and he, I don't know how honest he is about technique changes, But I would bet he says he's probably changed the way he's doing his post integrations this year. And I think that's a big part of why it keeps getting popped off. But now you ask yourself, okay, does he need to stop playing goalie like that? Or are these net pegs not working correctly? Because I would argue that they're not drilling the net pegs the way they're supposed to.

Yeah, that's an interesting take. And I appreciate the goalie side of it. As you were talking, I went back and watched that second one with Matthews going by. I hadn't really picked up on that detail, so that's interesting. I'll watch it a few more times and see if it changes anything. And we should be really clear. Like Matt Murray, because it happened in sort of a high profile way against New Jersey and then happened three more times because he's the goalie of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

As everyone knows, anything that happens in Maple Leafs is 10 times more important or treat it that way than anyone else. He's the lightning rod of the discussion. But it happens all over the place with other goalies. Spencer Knight had won the other night. Shasturkin had one too. Shasturket. Like, this is out there.

And, you know, I would just say this. As someone who is not a car carry member of the goalies union, I, you know, I'm going to sit there and say, are all of these done on purpose? No. Are some of them done on purpose? Absolutely. You know, I'm sorry. This is something you, you know, that, and anytime I bring any of this up, I always hear from goalies, not you, Jesse, but, you know, the goalie. goalies flood my mentions, how dare you? Are you suggesting that a goaltender would push the net off to

avoid? Yes, I am suggesting that. These guys are super competitive guys. Their job is to make sure that goals against do not happen. Yeah, they're going to do absolutely everything in their power to do that. And if they feel like they can get away with it, and they can, then it's going to happen. I do think there's a middle ground here, which is that there are goaltenders and it to me feels like a Tramble though, Jesse, you can confirm that where they're really slamming up against these. Like two things are happening. One is using the post to push off, which wasn't always something we saw done as aggressively, where you're going across the net and you plant on that opposite post and go across. And the other is just, you know, really slam, like really getting tight up against that post

when, to make sure you can't get beat on that short side. And look, I mean, we've all seen goalies get beat in, you know, leaving, leave the half an inch and the puck goes through, and they get crucified. You know, what a terrible goal. You absolutely can't. So they're just slamming up against that post. And it's not, they're not doing it because they want to knock the net off. But it's like, if I do this and the net does get knocked off, okay, you know, that's not

going to be the worst thing either. And one of the things that I'm really concerned about here with this stuff is now that it's on people's radar, I'm really worried we're going to get in a puck over glass. situation where people are going to say, well, why don't we just make it an automatic penalty? because it's delay a game. The referee is allowed to call this a penalty. If it's obvious, you know, the referee can absolutely call two minutes on this, but they rarely do. And so, you know, people are going to start saying, why don't we make it automatic and all of this stuff.

And I would hate that. And it would be terrible just like Puck Over Glass is terrible. But I will tell you right now, if they made it an automatic penalty, it would start happening a lot less because these kind of accidental on purpose ones would go away. On this topic, kind of, the other thing I wanted to get your, your, your, two cents on was the Connor Hellebuck situation where he gets the mask knocked off and the play is allowed to continue and and dial scores the tying goal. And what are your thoughts on that? Because that's another one where we've all seen goalies shake the mask off on purpose.

And again, go, are you suggesting that a goalie would take his mask off in the middle of the play just to get a whistle? Yes, I am suggesting that. I'm saying that happens. Granted, yes, sometimes it's because the strap pops loose or, you know, there's a problem with the mask and this is their way of showing the referee that. But I do think it happens. So I, I thought the Connor Hellbook thing, and maybe I'm on an island on this, I thought it was called exactly right. But give me the goaltenders perspective on that one. Before I do that, I just want to

touch on the technique thing you mentioned because you're 100 percent. You're spot on with goalies are crashing into the post more. And it's because of like I was mentioned with Murray, the post integration. So butterfly isn't new. RVH and VH, which is, going down with your pad horizontal with the ice is not new, but it's being used a lot more in just the last like three, four years. Goleys, even like you'll see goalies that,

like Mark Andre Fleury, for example, he'll still stand up against his posts on occasion when, when the play's going like, you know, the old school vertical pads up against it. Young goalies, you don't see that anymore at all.

They're being taught always RVH the whole way. And I think, you're 100% right. The technique has changed. These guys are going into the RVH pretty much every single time. Like you said, that's the worst goal you can give up. And it's like, okay, what's risk or reward? Yeah.

And you couldn't do that back in the day. Like you imagine Darren Pang or Alan Bester, like going down on one knee. You'd have like three feet over their shoulder to shoot at it. Or these guys that are all six foot six. They drop down to one knee. They still got the whole neck cover. Right. So they're going down to RVH a lot.

And they're doing it violent. into the post. I think to me, and again, this is the goalie side of things. I think the ice crews need to do a better job of securing the moorings because of this. This is something that they didn't use, these pegs didn't have to use to be this secured. The thing is, when you look at these, the way these pegs are coming out of the ice, so they're called marsh pegs. And to be honest, I don't play with these because I'm just a beer leaguer. I play men's league. We get the cheap little metal ones with like just a tiny little point on it. Like, you'll knock it off with, even the littlest amount.

But the marsh pegs that the NHL guys use, they drill it way into the ice. And the way it is, the way it works is the peg is actually not supposed to, like if someone runs into it, it obviously needs to have some give so that a guy doesn't break his leg. Yeah. It's not supposed to actually come out of the ice. It's a rubber peg that is supposed to stay in the ice,

but the net is, it's just supposed to bend and the net comes off. So whenever the, the entire peg is coming out of the ice, that's clearly a sign that they're not putting it incorrectly. And I've seen some people on Twitter saying in some rinks, they use the little turkey baster to get the, because when you do a Zamboni, obviously, the water fills that hole in. You've got to get out there. Some teams are just pushing the pegs in through the water and it's not getting all the way down like it's supposed to. Some teams are using drills. Some teams are using the turkey baster. It's like, I feel like if the goleys are going to transition to this type of style, we're going to need to make sure uniformly across the league the pegs are put in correctly. so that it can be safe for the players if they run into it, but these guys can be a little more violent against the post. So that's what I'll say on that. On the Hellebuck thing,

I agree that if there is a immediate scoring chance about to happen as the goalie's mask, say you shoot it, it hits his mask, his mask falls off and the puck's sitting in the crease and a guy jams it into the net. That's a goal. We can't be wiping those off the board. To me, that should be a goal. That wasn't what happened with Connor Hellebuck. They passed the puck around like three times and then took a shot from the point.

That's psychotic. Like I can't believe they let that play go. I'm like screaming at my TV when it's happening. Especially a shot from that distance. Like that shot's going to have some serious velocity on it. It's like I don't like that there were passes. I think if there if passes need to be made after the goalie's mask comes off, it's not an immediate score.

And like I don't like that's a gray area that you could argue like, this is semantics. We could sit here and argue what's an impendent scoring chance. And the rulebook doesn't define it. This is one of these things where the rulebook says imminent and doesn't give any further definition on what that means. Right. So I do agree that there has to be, it can't just be that the mask falls off. You can't score because sometimes there are going to be situations where it was clear they were going to score regardless of whether his mask came off or not. And it's not a danger to the goalie getting hit in the face. Just let that goal. Let that play goal. Let that play on for the extra second or whatever. I thought the one with Hellebuck was, was, you were stretching that

imminent scoring chance to its absolute brink. And I understand why Hellebuck would be upset. All right. So here's, here's my counter argument to that. First of all, we're leaving out an important detail here, which is, was the Jets knocked the neck, the mask off their own goaltender. This wasn't Dallas doing it. Yeah. So Winnipeg knocks the net that knocks the mask off Hellebuck. Hellebuk goes down and stays down off to the side of the net. So he's not in the middle. The net is wide open.

Only because he doesn't have a mask on though. Because he doesn't have a mask on. Yeah, granted. But it's not like, you know, he's trying to live. They're taking this shot. I mean, they would have to, he's not in, well, I'm not going to say he's not in danger. But it's not like he was like continuing to play and he's going out and staring down a point shot.

It was three seconds. And I will just say, remember the situation, right? Dallas is down by a goal. There's like a minute left in the game. If they had called it the way that you want to call, they just blowing it dead right away. By the time the referee sees the mask is down, you know, the puck has already come out from behind the net. Dallas has got the puck. There's a wide open net.

There's a goaltender off to the side. And the referee blows that whistle. Dallas and Dallas stars fans will freak out over how can you possibly blow that dead after they hit their own goaltender, knock their own goaltender out of the way, knock his mask off. We can't shoot the puck into this wide open net because of a situation they cause. The only other thing I'll say on this, because it is, I mean, at the end of the day, the rule book isn't very clear. I take Hellebuck's point.

I do think, I know I've seen lots of people say, hey, as soon as the mask comes off, just blow the whistle. That's it. Dead play, no matter what. You do that, you're going to see a lot of masks coming off. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that helps us avoid the worst case scenario. The only other thing that I will say,

and for all the people out there talking about player safety, it's about safety, oh my gosh, Connor Hellebuck, he was put at risk. It's all about safety. If we're really worried about player safety, then when a goaltender is down on the ice, hold after he gets hit in the head, holding his head in his hands, take him out of the game. The NFL does this.

The NFL says if you go down and you're holding your head, you're out of the game. It doesn't matter if you're the star quarterback. Doesn't matter what the situation is. You're out and you're going to get checked out. And they didn't do that with Connor Hellebock. And I'm surprised all. the player safety advocates out there

aren't talking more about the fact that these goaltenders go down, they're holding their heads, they're really selling it, and then they just pop up and they keep playing and everyone seems okay with it. But you know what,

like if you're a skater and you lose your helmet, what's the rule right now? You got it on or go to the bench. You got to put it on or go to the bench. There's no three second, wow, if you're kind of engaged with the play,

you can stay in there. And it's a, like, to me, I think I side with Jesse on this one. But they don't play, but they don't play, but they don't, the play dead when a player loses his helmet. They don't immediately stop.

No, but that player's not allowed to continue to engage in the play. Right. I guess is my point. And if you don't allow a goalie to, it's an automatic goal. How on earth are we allowing goalies to stay engaged in the play without their helmet? That's all. That's all I'm saying. Like, I think I tend to come down on the side of Jesse on this one.

I think if the guy's in the slot and he's about to shoot it, fine. Let it happen. But if it goes on for more than two seconds, even? Like you wouldn't let a skater continue to play. I would tell people, go and watch the play. Like it's three seconds. Watch the play and not just three seconds from the contact, but three seconds

from when, you know, people realize, oh, the helmet's off, the pull he's down. Man, it's not a long amount of time. People are making it sound like they were set up, like on the power play going back and forth on the points and running. There were passes after his there were passes. What does it take to make a pass? It takes a tenth of a second to make a pass in the

NHL. Right, but what I'm saying is they couldn't have scored from where the puck was. They had to pass it into scoring position while his mask was off. I think by the time any reasonable official could have blown the whistle, you were, at that point, you're a second away from the puck going in. That feels to me to be pretty imminent. It's, I agree with you. It's tough because, like, his own player knocked the mask off. It comes down to a, like, it's about the, like, is this a case of, we're worried about these guys, like, manipulating the rules, or is it just a player safety issue? Because if it's a player

safety issue. It's got nothing. It doesn't matter how the mask came off. It's the fact that the mask is off and now he's in danger, so we have to blow the plate. And I'm willing to say, I am worried about guys manipulating the rules. I think if you say goalie mask off automatic stoppage, goalie masks are going to be coming off all the time. We just talk about, you know, people think Matt, you think guys are knocking post off. Hey, you know, not not to be, you know, the smart aleck, but, you know, oh, here comes Connor McDavid on a breakaway. Oops, my mask fell off and we got to stop it right away. You know, that's extreme.

But I think you would see it a lot. But I am also open to the argument that says like, hey, Sean, if that happens a hundred times, but it saves us the one time that a goalie actually, you know, the worst case scenario and a goalie gets hit without a mask, then that's worth it. I'm open to that. I'm just saying let's not act like this is, you know, going to be a once a season thing because as soon as you change the rule, you get the unintended consequences. One thing about the mask shaking off.

I think a lot of people watching or listening probably know this, but just I get it all the time on my tweets when like Logan Thompson shook his mask off the other night for the Golden Knights. A lot of people get really upset watching the game when they see a goalie like visibly shake his head and the mask comes off. And this is what I'd like to just let those people know is when when a puck hits you in the mask, the little straps on the back are designed to pop because it absorbs the energy from the puck. and it's literally designed to pop off. And when one of those, there's four of them. If even one of them pops off, your mask is no longer sitting correctly on your face. It's very loose. It can be hanging to the side.

And as someone who I literally just got hit in the neck with a puck three weeks ago in my men's like with a slap shot, it left a massive welt on my neck. I was terrified. My windpipe was crushed for a couple seconds until I took the first breath. When one of those straps pops off, the mask is no longer hanging on your feet. face the way it's supposed to, you are not in a position to take shots. So that's why they shake the mask off. They can't see correctly because the mask is now hanging down in their face. They shake it off because it's like, this mask isn't protecting me the way it was supposed to. And that's why they shake

off. Now, you could argue that maybe the manufacturers, we've, we've come a long way in technology. Maybe there needs to be masks that can take pucks off the front of the mask and not have that pop off. But I'm just telling people, when you see the goalie shake the mask off, I can guarantee. you, if you look, one of those straps popped off and it may not look like it on TV. It's hard to see the details of how this mask is hanging. But I'm telling you, the mask is not on correctly when that strap popped off. So I'll just say that just for anyone who sees a goalie shake a mask off and says, what the hell is this?

He's intentionally trying to stop the play. Well, I'll tell you. Is they cheating weirdos. We agree. We're on the same thing. You guys remember, as we wrap this up, do you guys remember, Sean talked about a goalie just shaking his mask off if McDavid's on a breakway? You guys remember that?

And I looked it up here. The goalie's name was David Leggio. Yep. And the other, and this was an AHL game. And he's the goalie. There's a two on O coming against him. And he just simply turns around and shoves the net off. I've had guys do that in men's league too.

Yeah. And that's, yeah. And that's the extreme. But, yeah, you could have enough of this. Let me just throw one other thing out there. And then because I know we're, we're over time. but because I said this on the other podcast as well, and I know the goalies won't like this.

If we're really worried about player safety, how about this? If the other team has the puck in the offensive zone and the goalie's mask comes off, we blow the play dead immediately, but it's an automatic goal. That's player safety, right? But suddenly all the goalies go,

oh, you know, I don't know about that automatic goal against thing. Maybe it's that, I'm just, you know, that would solve the problem. Nobody would be mad. Nobody would say I lost my, you know, we lost to score. We didn't have to worry about imminent scoring chances. And we'd never have to,

have to worry about a goalie taking a puck without a mask. It's all to tell you this. But it bumps up the goals against average and suddenly the goalies are going. Suddenly the player safety goalies are suddenly going, I don't know about that. I would bet that if you implemented that rule, automatic goal if the mask comes off. I bet CCM and Bauer and Warrior come up with some masks that don't pop off about a month after. Yep. We'll leave it there, Jesse.

This was a ton of fun. Fun, always fun to talk goalie stuff with you because I know you're so. passionate and knowledgeable on the topic. So listen, thanks for dropping by. The Thursday pod, as always, and we'll hook up again next week. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, Matt. All right, that was a ton of fun chatting goalie stuff with Granger.

Let's get to the mailbag. And a reminder that on the Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, we love to hear from you. You can hit us up with an email at The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com or voicemail. And we have one of those this week. If you ever want to drop us a line, we love to hear from you, We'd love to hear your voice. It's 845, 445, 8459.

I think this is an, this is from, we know this is from a New Jersey area code. And, well, have a listen as, and I love the way that this caller starts with such enthusiasm and gusto, especially for the Thursday show. And we'll have a listen as he's got a little bit of a rant as it pertains to the phrase, salary cap, hell. Thursday show!

I just want to call and ran a little bit about Cap Hell. I keep hearing about Cap Hell left and right. Everybody's in Capel. I understand that there's a whole bunch of teams that are right up against the cap can't make any move. But this idea that these terrible moves or these stupid contracts have really hurt anybody in any kind of significant way, it isn't there. I feel like everybody who's been in Cap Hell, the Minnesota Wilde, buy out Souter and Parisi. They're really going to get it now. No, they're the same middling bum sauce team that they've all.

always been. Oh, look, I just heard somebody on the radio say, oh, the flyers are in Cap Hell. They signed a Couturee and brought in Ellis. No, the flyers are in the position therein because they brought in a bunch of players that weren't going to live up to the deals they signed or weren't good enough to be locked up for as long as they were, forget the dollar value. I feel like the threat of Cap Hell, this idea that everyone's going to be smited by the cap doesn't really come through. And on the same side of that, I went through two expansion draft has a team with plenty of cap space in the devils

look and to capitalize and what did the devils come away with? Mirko Mueller and a cart and a ketchup. I mean, it's nothing. It doesn't work out like that. I want to see some rare repercussions for when teams spend stupid money and make stupid contracts. It doesn't seem to really bite anybody in the end.

But I'll keep hearing about cap hell, I guess. Thanks. All right, Sean. A lot of passion there and the feeling from this caller is, listen, this salary cap hell that everyone talks about. It's not a real thing. It's a make believe. What do you think?

Yeah. First of all, A plus rant. Yes. That was a good one. I'll give you that. And to some extent, I see the point, right? Because it's like, look, I mean, you talk about, oh, they're in cap, how, you know, take my team, take the Maple Leafs, for example.

Like, it's not like, yes, the Maple Leafs are up against the cap. Yes, it has affected their ability to do certain things. Yes, it has meant that some. Deft get, you know, Zach Hyman had to go and other guys like that. But it's not like they're putting John Tavares on waivers. Right. It's not like they're having to trade Mitch

Martyr for a draft pick because they're that's the only way they can get under the cap. So maybe, you know, your definition of cap hell is, you know, maybe it's a, your mileage may various sort of thing. I will say though, very clearly the fact that we have this hard cap has had a real impact on how teams manage the rosters.

The fact that it has also been a flat cap for the last few years unexpectedly has affected some teams more than others. We have seen good teams have to send players away. We've seen Colorado last year can't keep Nazim Cadry. And that's a big loss. And some people would say that's the cap working as design, right? This is the enforced parity where we don't want to let any teams get too far ahead of the pack. So having the hard salary cap helps kind of pull them back into the bucket and means that that

good player shakes free to some other team. You know, are we being a little bit overdramatic on some of this stuff? Maybe. Yeah, I take the point on that. But I also would not agree with the idea that, you know, the cap really hasn't affected things, really hasn't influenced things. I think very clearly the hard cap period has had an effect and the hard cap plus it being unexpectedly flat for all of these years, thanks to COVID, has had a massive impact on how

a lot of teams are forced to manage their rosters for good or for bad, depending on your perspective. So that phone call came in from a New Jersey area code. We also have an email from a New Jersey fan. And this one comes in from Jay. She says, as a Devils fan, these have been the best regular season vibes since the early 2000s. But I can't believe Boston continues to stay ahead of New Jersey. Can either of you remember a situation where two teams have a points percentage over 800 this far into the season? I looked it up.

Okay. So I went through every season in the salary cap era, looked at October, November, the first two months of the season, have we ever had a year in which two teams were above 800? And the answer is yes, we had one. One season, and it's 2006, 2007. So you've got to go all the way back to basically year two of the post-cap era. And that season, the Buffalo Sabres, Jay, started the year with a 19,

three and two record. That gave them an 833 save percentage. 833 points percentage. And Anaheim, who would be the eventual Stanley Cup champion that year, started the season 192 and 6 for a 815 points percentage.

So there you go. So it has happened. It's pretty rare. But I went back through every year. And there's a lot of years where even the best teams were just barely at 700, let alone 800, with a points percentage. That's impressive that you did that because I tried to do it a different way. I looked at stathead and stathead doesn't do points percentage.

So I just went by wins. And just to add to what you said, I looked at it, how many wins have the best teams had in the first 23 games of the season? And both Boston, New Jersey are sitting at 19 wins right now. This was the first time that there have been two 19 win teams. through 23 games of a season. So in that sense, it's the first time. But there had been a lot of years where it was closer. There have been some years where one team was 20, another was 17 or whatever.

And the two obvious caveats are these are extremely arbitrary endpoints. I'm just picking 23 games because that's where they are. You know, if you rewind or fast forward a couple of games, you change the whole list. And the other thing is, obviously in the cap era, once we no longer have ties, once we have shootouts and three out three and all of this, The number of wins goes up. So my way to do it of just looking at the wins was probably not as useful as the way you did it, actually going through season by season and looking at the points percentage. Okay.

So there you go. And by the way, we also have from the archives a little sound bite of you, Sean. From now this was. Aren't we out of time? I feel like we're out of time. Yeah. We just have enough time for this. So this was, if I'm not mistaken, was this from the seat like leading into the season?

September. Yeah, this is season preview time. So have a listen. Here's a much younger version of Sean from about two months ago, talking about how the first two months might play out for Lindy Ruff and the New Jersey Devils. I hate to get grim. Here's my call for New Jersey as a playoff team. How much do you believe in Andrew Brunette when he takes over from Lindy Ruff early in the season? Because I think that's a very likely situation. And, you know, if you need somebody to take over a team midway through the year, he showed that he could do it pretty well last year.

Maybe he's the guy who can work the magic. That's the only way I really see it. Listen, we all have egg on our face for something that we predicted back in September or early October. So we want to make it very clear that, you know, we've all made these mistakes. remember early in the year there was a fire Lindy Chan. That's it, right? Like, I wasn't out on an island. You were reading the room.

You were reading the temperature. I wasn't on an island on this saying that I thought that the devils were potentially. And, you know, the fact that they went out and they hired a Jack Adams finalist to be the associate coach, which isn't really even a real job. But, you know, basically to be the coach in waiting. I, I, look, 100%. I was wrong about the devils. I was wrong about Lindy Cup. Lindy Ruff, I will give a full

makeup on that, but Devil's fans, you were right there with me. So, you were chanting fire, Lindy, just like I thought was going to be the inevitable outcome. Then you chanted sorry, Lindy, which was fantastic, so I guess I got to chant the same thing. So Lindy, I'm sorry.

I had it absolutely wrong. I did not see this coming for the devils. I did not see, you know, Lindy Ruff is probably the Jack Adams favorite at this point. And I said it on the podcast. I think I wrote in one of my pieces where I was just waiting for the coaching change. Total whiff on my part.

I wasn't alone on it, but I can only own what I said. And like I say, sorry, Lindy. Just like those Devils fans, I had it absolutely wrong. Hey, did you inadvertently just come up with a great product idea there when you misspoke and you said Lindy Cuff? The Lindy Cuffs? Think of Mike Babsox. Did you just come up with like a nice French cuff?

You have a little. You know what? Lindy Cuffs. This could, Lindy, call me. I mean, this could be, this is a potential. I mean, we know the Jersey marketing department, right?

Didn't remember they had the hat, hat. I mean, this could be the next big thing, the Lindy Cuffs. Maybe there's a way to go here. You're on to something. You're the idea, man, so I'll cut you in on it.

Yeah. So sometimes this happens when you, just a miss, you know, accidentally said Lindy Cuff. I remember there was the, and again, I loved it subtly,

this into an NFL podcast. But, D.K. Metcalf, wide receiver for Seattle. And I forget who was doing play-by-play. I don't think it was Kevin Burkart, but somebody was doing play-by-play a couple years ago. I think in Metcalf's first season. And he makes a catch. And the announcer says, what a grab by de-calf, Metcalf. And he realized what he said wrong.

And then I think they turned it into a coffee, right? Didn't they de-caf Metcalf? Yeah. I think so. So this is sometimes she's making. There's an opportunity here. Yeah. You know, let's just, let's strike while the iron's hot.

Okay, let me sneak in one more email here from Mike, who says on the November 17th show where Sean was teasing Ian about his 1980s Detroit Tigers jacket, Ian made a throwaway reference to a game he used to play in school called foot hockey. We need to dive into this. I'm about the same age as you guys. My draft year would have been 1993. We went to school in northern rural Alberta.

In the wintertime at recess, we played a game that we invented. We divided ourselves into two teams, set up a pair of piles of snow and tukes and mittens at each end of the school bus lanes as nets. And we tried to propel a ball through the opposing net using only our feet. We called this game that we totally invented boot hockey. Did other kids across Canada independently reinvent soccer and just call it some version of hockey? That comes in from Mike. So 100% we did this. And we called it foot hockey.

Now, did you, you grew up just outside of Toronto kind of in the GTA? Yeah, my school, we had the exact same game, but it was called ball hockey. But did you use sticks? No, no, we had a tennis ball and we were, I mean, it's soccer. It's soccer with a tennis ball. We're doing. We're being very charitable to ourselves saying that anyone invented this. Like, we took the world's most popular, not only the world's most popular sport,

but a very obvious, you know, like, yeah, they put the ball on the ground and let's try to kick it into a goal. And there was nothing like, there's, there was nothing. something hockey about it. Like there was no blue lines. We weren't doing face-offs or anything like that. It was 100% soccer with a tennis ball, but, you know, being Canada, we called it ball hockey, foot hockey, boot hockey, whatever you want. And yeah, we, we all, I think we all played the same sport. And I'm sure the kid, you know, by the area where I grew up, there were, you know, kids immigrating from other countries. They must have been looking at us like, guys, you, this isn't hockey.

Remodely, you guys are playing soccer. Let me in on this. But yeah, we all thought we all thought we had come up with this, this brand new sport that we just ripped off from the rest of the world. Okay. And here's another question, because I have a vague memory of the kids that would be the goalie. Sometimes they would actually take like their jacket off and kind of use the jacket as like a, I don't know, blockers the right term, but like would almost kind of hold it out. Did this happen for you or no? Maybe. Yeah, that may have been a thing.

But what I really remember was, you know, the classic other Canadian thing is the goalie taken off the baseball cap and using that as the catching glove, right? Like hanging in the hand. And if you could, oh man, if you ever snag one in the in the cap, that was. And then you sell it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, and then like the ball will go flying out of the hat and land on the roof and that would be the end of the ball hockey game. But yeah, that was that was the classic piece of equipment right there. Okay.

Speaking of goalies, let's wrap it up with one anecdote from this week in hockey. hockey history. We're going to take our listeners back to this week in 1979, November 28th, to be exact, Islanders goaltender, Billy Smith, becoming the first goalie to ever be credited with scoring a goal. And this one happened in a non-traditional sense in that Smith made a save. The rebound kicked out to Colorado defenseman Rob Ramage. Ramage throws it back to the point. but it goes through the defense goes all the way back into his empty net because they had pulled the goalie because there was a delayed penalty. Smith becomes the first goalie to be credited with a goal.

Now, the reason why I want to bring this up is I had no idea about this. I was digging into this. I'm like, before Billy Smith, there must have been a goalie that scored a goal or was credited with a goal. So now we're really going to take our listeners back all the way back to 1905. Okay? And this is according to a newspaper article from the Montreal Star, a game between the Quebec Bulldogs and the Montreal Westmounts in February of 1905

resulted in the first ever goal by a goalie. And that happened because poor officiating resulted in only the goalies being left on the ice for this game. So think about this. Yeah. The referees... That sounds like great officiating to me. are calling so many penalties. And at the time, they're like, okay, you're off, you're off, you're off, you're off.

There was two players left on the ice. And it was the opposing goalies. And so Fred Brofey of Montreal and Patty Morgan of Quebec were left on the ice. And they exchanged scoring attempts before Brofey beat Moran. And according to the Montreal Star article, the spectators, quote, convulsed in laughter. I mean, that sounds pretty great to me. Yeah. You and me know, right?

Whenever we do the rules quirk, there's always people, people are obsessed with the idea of getting goalies involved in the offense. You hear a lot that, you know, if a shootout goes a certain number of rounds, does the goalie have to shoot? Or, you know, is there any way we can force the goalies to take part in the shootout as shooters? There's that weird rule where the goalie can't participate in the play past center ice. And people are saying, you know, why don't we get rid of that? And if somebody wants to go Patrick Waugh and deak around, we should let them do it. This sounds fun. I can guarantee this would be the sort of thing.

It would be fun the first few times. And then afterwards, you'd be like, yeah, there's a reason these guys are goalies. Get them out of there. But I'd never heard this story before. But I do. I want to know why it's poor officiating. Maybe, who knows? Maybe the refs just did what they had to do.

Or maybe the refs just wanted to get a good laugh. and if so, it sounds like it worked. Now, if we're doing this, let's play this out into the current NHL. Who are the two goalies we want to see if they're one v1? I feel like Igor Shisterkin would be one. He's so good at handling the puck. I feel like he could he could maybe like even pick a corner if he's coming in. But like, I don't know.

Yeah, I, boy, who would, yeah, who are the like the truly great puck handlers right now? Pecena is pretty good, right? This is one of the game. He was not. He was great. and Mike Smith was great, but we sort of lost a few of them to retirement. And this is one of those things where every fan thinks that their goalies are either great at handling the puck or terrible. Like there's no middle ground.

There's no average puck handler out there. But yeah, it would be up there. I mean, the other guy you'd want to see out there is Jordan Bennington because we know he knows how to put a shoulder into somebody. Oh, you know. But then the problem is like you'd come down the wing on him. He'd bump you in the shoulder, but then out of force of habit, he'd just immediately skates. away and get to the dressing room before you could do anything about it. So then maybe that wouldn't work out so well.

Yeah. Oh, he could use the water bottle, couldn't he? That's true. It's true. You know, the accuracy is a bit of an issue with him, but we'll see. Yeah. All right. We'll leave it there.

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