The Athletic Hockey Show - The San Jose Sharks, Erik Karlsson and the trade deadline, and Tim Stutzle separates himself from the rest of the 2020 draft class

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

Hailey and Sean discuss Steven Stamkos' milestone and his body of work, give some updates in the world of women's hockey, and re-examine the 2020 draft and Tim Stutzle. Then, Corey Masisak joins the show to discuss Erik Karlsson's resurgence and what a trade blueprint could look like. To wrap up, some thoughts on the Goalie Mask rankings.Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to the TAHS Youtube Channel: youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshow Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to rocketmoney.com/hockeyshowGo to grammarly.com/tone to download and learn more about Grammarly Premium’s advanced tone suggestions.Visit BetterHelp.com/NHLSHOW today to get 10% off your first month Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another edition of the athletic hockey show with Sean Gentilly and Isaac Salvean. You know what? Why did you have to do that? That's Sean. That wasn't me. I want to let the record state that I wouldn't do something like that.

You know what? I was being nice and I wasn't going to bring up Friday because Sean hates it so much. and then he just went full send and did that. It's out from a Budweiser commercial before you were born? I don't know. Yeah. If it was in pre-94. Mid-90s.

Yeah, I don't, yeah, it flew right over my head. Hello, Haley. How are you? Yeah, I'm not doing well. It's been a stressful day. And now we're here. I've set my Zoom settings to, black and white to match my mood.

Corey Mazasak couldn't even cheer you up. No, he stressed me out. This is actually the reason why I'm down in the dump. So Corey Massasak, as Sean just said, is going to join the show in our second segment from the airport. In Chicago, my view. In Chicago. And he had about, he told us that he had 19 minutes to talk.

And then 13 minutes into that, he was like, Oh, they just called my name. And so then Sean and I just talked about the San Jose sharks on our own for a while. But, you know, Corey joined us for a bit. And then he stressed me out. The sharks are worth talking about. They're like a pivot point for the league, I feel like. Not just because of Eric Carlson.

And we love talking about Eric Carlson. We love talking about how great Eric Carlson is. We did that with Corey for a while because he's on the Eric Carlson beat. Like every night, it seems like that guy is doing something crazy. So we touched on that. but low-key, a whole lot of the NHL trade deadline drama is going to center on San Jose, right? Like, they're one of the pivot points for the league because of Carlson and because of Tim O'Meyer. You have the best defenseman on the market in one of the three best forwards, let's say.

But a defenseman who might not get moved. Maybe, maybe not. That's part of the discussion. And we talked to Corey about that, right? Like about the likelihood that he gets moved, what a deal would look like, what the money retention would be and also just how good Carlson has been in general this season. So it was a, good talk. We got 13, because we were very focused. We got 13, or 14 focused minutes with Corey there because we knew his ass was going to have to get on the plane real quick. Yeah. There was no,

you know, other bullshit involves in the interview as the show typically goes. Other than the Carlson conversation, we can go, you know, around. on the league for a few news and notes. Oh, wow. Steven Stancoves. I'm going to take a zip around the league here on the athletic hockey show. Steven Stamcoast, we're not going to get into this much because Mendez and McAdue did this on the Thursday show, but Stamcoast did join the exclusive 500 goal club last night. He ended up getting to 502 as the lightning beat the Canucks 5 to 2, and Bruce Boudreau, yes, he is still the coach of the Vancouver Canucks.

We'll see what happens by Sunday, by the way. Lapin in the wind after that hour-long press conference from Jim Rutherford. He's our coach right now. But we did also talk to him for the candidates. Poor guy. Stamco's hit 500 goals and 1,000 points before he's played 1,000 games, Sean. I just wanted to bring that up. Only 18 players have done that.

I just think Stamcoast has, like when you look at Stephen Stamcoast and everything that he's done, like what do you make of his body of work? Do we talk about him enough in the upper echelon tier of the league? Currently? They're just in historical terms. I love, I love. We aren't talking about him as much as Ovechkin right now, I don't think. We aren't talking about him as much as Crosby.

But is he not in that conversation? Is he not in that tier of elite players in the NHL right now? No, because of injuries. That's the way I. it goes it's not fair it's not fair that's life though as a as an hl player um i like framing it in those terms though saying that he's one of 18 players to get to that goalmark and in that in that amount of games right because that takes into account goals and points right goal's and points that takes into account the dominant narrative i think of what of of of the early part of his career when

he was dealing with the broken leg and he had all sorts of injury issues where he just it was mix of bad luck and you know whatever else i think contextualizing it that way is important because he missed big chunks of time at the peak of his powers and it was it was a it was a fair question in one point like to it was fair to wonder about what the longevity was going to look like on his part if he was going to even get to the, if he was going to get to the big round numbers because of the amount of time that he, that he missed, you know, and we know, we know now that he has, we know now also that he has a decent amount left in the tank, too. This is still a really, really good player. I know that I said earlier, you know, is he on the Alvescan tier in the car, no, he's not,

but that's okay. There's not a lot of guys that are on that tier. So if you, if you put him, you know, on the tier below those two guys from that generation of player. There's no, there's no harm in that. And he's had a fascinating career. And he's at an, it's been interesting to track. And it's been full of a lot of, like, dramatic moments that I think the last couple days have been helpful to kind of remember, you know, and track all the things that he's been through since he, you know, came to the league.

he was so good in the playoffs last year that I almost like threw everything to the win because I was like, I was one of the ones who was like, I'm so bored of this. Like I don't care if Tampa goes back to back to back. Like I'm bored of them just beating everyone in the playoffs. But Stamco's was so good in the playoffs last year

that I ended up completely changing course and going, God, I would love to see him win a Stanley Cup being the guy. Being the dude. Who got his team to do it. That would have been nice. And I feel like we're all just expecting because we know that this trade deadline is probably going to be boring because cap space and the flat cap and every other reason that we've been talking about for a while. Like Emily Kaplan with ESPN said, it's probably going to be a deadline with few fireworks. And I feel like the one team that we can always count on doing something really smart and creative and that works out really well as Tampa.

And they're really good this year again. So. And they have no cap space. Maybe Stephen Stamco has, right, but that's, we've seen them pull off. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter for Tampa Bay. I just figure that Kuzmanko from Vancouver is going to go to Tampa or something. You know, like they're just going to, you know, they're going to be the ones who slide in the guy who's making $950,000 this year under the cap.

And then they're going to lock them into a great deal that everyone thinks is so smart and they're going to go to the cup final again. And then Corey Perry is going to lose again. A little mini version of the Brandon Hagel. trade with the Blackhawks last year, right? They're going to do something again. We'll see. We'll see. But yeah, as far as Sam goes, is concerned, it's been, it's been fun to watch.

He, like I said, I just keep going back to those couple years that it felt like he was lost in the wilderness for him. And as far as injuries were concerned. And now here he is. And big numbers, still a really good player. It's been fun to watch. Nope, there's no harm in being one B to Alex Ovechkin in terms of goal scores in your generation. That's okay. Absolutely.

So one of the other pieces of news that we need to talk about on the show today was earlier this afternoon, John Tortorella, essentially doubled down on the Ivan Proverov situation. So if you've been listening to the show, if you've been on Twitter, if you've been following the news cycle, Ivan Proverov did not take warmups with the Philadelphia Flyers on the organization's Pride Night, citing his religious beliefs. which we know is Russian Orthodox. He did not take part in warm-up, so he did not wear the jersey. And John Tortorella was asked about it again today, and he defended Proverov's decision, saying Provy did nothing wrong. Just because you don't agree with his decision doesn't mean he did anything wrong. So again, Proverov cited his religious beliefs as the reason for not joining his teammates

in wearing the rainbow-colored jerseys while on the ice before Tuesday's game. against Anaheim. After the game, he said, and again, we should say he played in this game, so he just didn't warm up, but he still played for the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night. And after the game, he said, I respect everybody and I respect everybody's choices. My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion. That's all I'm going to say. A big part of this conversation, and it's just got really muddy and gross, honestly, and very hate-filled. And so this is something that Sean and I, we don't want to weigh way too much. into it because it's Thursday. This is coming out on Friday. This all happened on Tuesdays.

So we're going to make this pretty quick, but we do think it's important to talk about it on the show. We acknowledge that Ivan Provarov has the right to not participate in something due to his religious beliefs. That's fine. We are still allowed to find that decision incredibly disappointing. That is our freedom of speech. He had his freedom of expression. Now this is ours. It's disappointing that somebody feels that strongly about the LGBTQ community and the inclusivity in this sport that he couldn't put a jersey on for 15 minutes. Sorry. I mean, I'm not. Very, very wild that we're expected to just kind of be like, yeah. Yeah, this is fine. We're cool with this. It's the most basic move you could possibly do that he's, that he's, that he's opting out of, as is his right.

The most basic would be the rainbow tape, which he also didn't do. Which he also didn't do. Which is his right to not do. Whatever. We know. You don't have to tell us that. We get it. We know.

Yeah, we're allowed to think less of Ivan Proverov because he's, you know, very openly and clearly against, you know, demonstrations of equality for a group of people that are effectively, like, continuing, you know, the attempts to legislate them out of existence, honestly. And in a lot of ways, really gross. really disappointing and again the fact that the fact that people are just kind of expected to sit by and sign off on it is weird it's weird and gross

so yeah it wasn't really expecting to talk about this today but this is all because John Torto doubled down again double down today it's understandable that he talked about it because there were questions over who knew what, when and who from the organization you know was aware on the hockey ops side of

of things like weather Rova Robb was going to do this or not, they knew basically is the right way to put it. They knew for a couple days that this was coming down the pike and this was still still the best they could have done. So yeah, it's a bummer. Shout out to James Van Riemsdyke and Scott Lawton who are on the right side of history as far as this concerned. And it seemed like they're actually trying to affect positive change and show support for the LGBTQ plus community. All right.

So a few more things before we go to the conversation. with Corey Massacack. Two quick ones actually in women's hockey because I was going back to my Twitter to find the one thing that I did really want to talk about and I do want to bring up two little pieces of women's hockey stuff. The U.S.-Canada rivalry series is going to end in Quebec in February. There's going to be two games, February 20th, February 22nd in the province of Quebec. And one of the interesting notes kind of in the middle of the release from hockey Canada that I was not aware of, I tried to find these details, but I couldn't. The new Canadian women's national team contract that was signed last month with hockey Canada

actually includes a revenue sharing arrangement on the rivalry series games that are played in Canada. So these athletes can benefit, like, in their pockets, like with money from the revenue generated off these next two events in Quebec. So that's super cool. That's a new thing. That's one of those things where, like, that's great for the players. It's one of those, and as someone who is like so much less steeped in the women's game than you are, I feel like periodically I hear things like that. Yeah, I'm talking about how great that is and you're like what? I just like that is insane.

Like I like like like oh like good. Thank God. Yeah. That wasn't on the books before like okay. No. It goes back to like the story you wrote during the during coming out of the Olympics, I think, where it was just like here's here's a look at you know, a look at all the various. look currently 10 years ago 20 years ago you know players selling selling candy bars to make to raise funds like they're like it's a youth league team just insane so i so i i'm not discounting that all i'm just crazy to me that this is ground that still needed to be broken and it has so if you uh show up to either those games february 20th or 22nd you'll be putting a little extra cash in the pockets of your favorite canadian women

Who is getting the money before? Who was getting, it was just going to who? It's a good question, Sean. I think there's a reason why I've never been able to get my hands on these player contracts because you'd be like, this is new. I've heard some rumblings of some of the things that were put in the contracts for the first time. And I mean, there was details I was trying to hunt down before. Because one of the things about the national teams is like when you're done, when you retire,

you're kind of done. Like you don't have the same, you have a couple more years of coverage. but you don't get the same level of attention in care post-career as you would. Like, you know, Sidney Crosby is going to retire and he's never going to have to worry about his health benefits partially because he lives in Canada. But, you know, any American star who played in the NHL, like, they're going to be covered. You think of how bad post-career benefits are for men in some regards? They are worse.

NFL post-care benefits, I guess, pensions and medical care after. after guys' careers ends and for the rest of their lives, that's always a huge talking point, mainly because it's terrible. Because you're NFL players, and these are men. Yeah. So I can only imagine, you know, relatively how brutal it is for women. Yeah, but anyways, that's something that I've really never been able to actually get my hands on.

Because it's one of those things where in women's hockey, it's always a tricky thing because I think players and people in the game almost don't want this stuff getting out because they don't want to harm the game that's already scarce of eyes, right? It was the same thing in the NWSL. It was like, you know, people just wanted to accept what they had because they wanted to keep trying to push forward and didn't want negative attention on the league when they're just trying to get eyeballs on it.

Anyways, the other piece of news that Toronto Six have signed the Patty Casmeyer winner slash former NCAA star Darrell Watts to a tier contract extension. So she'll play the rest of this season and then play next season. there are no financial details that have been disclosed. So we don't know how much money she makes. That's a really annoying thing about women's hockey is we don't know how much money they're making unless they decide to disclose it. Anyways, that's my scroll through Twitter today. I've really not been tweeting that much lately, which is great.

Way to go. I did get into a little fight with your friend Ryan because he started tweeting about regulation Anaheim Ducks wins today. And I said, hey, that's my thing. This is Ryan Lambert from EPRink. Oh, yeah. It is your bit to tweet about how bad the Anheim ducks are, yes. No, I love the ducks. They are my ducks.

They almost beat the penguins a couple days ago. Yeah. They're the most disorganized hockey teams ever, they're watching my life. And yet somehow. The penguins? That was a joke. There's a joke. Oh, yeah.

You know who did beat the penguins, though? You know, who pulled it off? The Ottawa Senators. That's right. And that is our transition. And your boy. I was covering the Ottawa senators when Tim Stutzler was a third overall draft pick. And I did write on many occasions, if there's one player who's going to end up being better than Alexi Lafranier in the 2020 draft, it's going to be Tim Stittsla.

I said it, mark it, go back. I didn't really say that Lafranier was going to be terrible. Yeah. If there's like six or seven or ten or 15 players that are better than Lafranier in that draft. No. but I left room for that. I just said there's someone who's going to be the, like he could be

the best out of the draft year. That is what I think Corey Promin said for a while. That's what Scouts had said for a while. Corey had him, Corey had him as the number one pick in the redrafted 2020 draft before the season. And this is

in sense, you know, he's already got 20 goals, made his money over $8 million. He walked Sidney Crosby last night. And that's why I wanted to talk about this today. Like the little, the teeny little, just the shift, what he did with his skates, you know, he made that little move, shifted open, then cut right to the inside. Sydney Crosby's not a guy that usually gets done dirty like that in the D zone.

Oh, what Tim Stutzler did. And he just walked in, had the shot, scored the goal. And the tweet that I made that's gotten like way more people talking about it than I thought. I said, is there even a discussion anymore who the best player from the 2020 draft is? At this point? No. You can, we can talk about Lucas Raymond and where he might end up being. And yeah, that he has less, he has less games played.

We can talk about, you know, where Seth Jarvis is going to be after being coached by Rod Brindamore. We can talk about Alexei Lafranier and Quit and Byfield just having, like, different development curves. but right now Tim Stutzla is the best player from the draft class. It's not a debate. I'm trying to think who is leveled up. Even behind him, you know, we're talking about, you mentioned Byfield, whatever. You look at Corey's redraft, which posted in October, who do you take second? You, Haley Salvin, who's your second pick?

That might be, that might be the, that's the more interesting question. That's probably the better debate. Yeah. then just like Tim Stitzler has separated himself. I think based on what we're seeing right now, like if I'm starting a team from scratch and I'm draft, yeah, I'm drafting second overall.

I want this player right now on my team. I'm trying to win right now. I think I'm trying to debate between Lucas Raymond and Seth Jarvis. Jake's Anderson's up there too. Jack Quinn up there too. Like this is a weird group of players, honestly. I don't think you have enough sample size from Jack Quinn yet,

do you? to take him second overall over Sanderson. Maybe not second, but I think we're at the point where, based on his production and based on the production of some of the- Marco Rossi's not even in. Marco Rossi, not in the top 10 because we haven't seen him. Not in the NHL. No.

I mean, Marco Rossi, when I was covering the sentence, I was making the case for them to take him fifth overall. Yeah, and there's extenuating circumstances that come into play with him, obviously, it had a horrible, horrible. Yeah. Borderline tragic case of COVID. He lost tons of development time to that. So he's in the H.L trying to figure it out.

He's up over a point per game right now. Minnesota needs him to be good. I felt like that at the start of the season. Marco Rossi's the skeleton key to that lineup, and they need him to kind of unlock a bunch of other stuff. Yeah, there's, okay. Dossum mercer. Is he 2020?

Dossumers 20-20. I mean, like, you're, we're splitting. I mean, we're... That was a great draft class. Super fun. Was it? Who do you take? It's a great draft class for us to talk about.

Yeah, it is. It's definitely fascinating. Who do you take second? Who do I take second right now? It's the trade deadline. You want a guy on your roster right now to try to want a Stanley Cup. On my NHL team? On the NHL roster right now.

Probably Jake Sanderson. So the Ottawa Senators got the best two players. Yeah, exactly. I remember when I first wrote about why The Send should draft Jake Sanderson, and I did get a little tip. I know. And I wrote about that, and everyone's like, what the hell are you talking about they should go to forwards?

This is not the first time on this podcast. And I'd be ringing the bell, too, with the amount of shit that people took, you know, who said that Sanderson was the pick there. I'd be toot my own horn, too. Yeah. I'm going to toot it because people call me an idiot. We'll see. And I will throw it back in your face.

Who knows? There is a bit of news about Alexei Lafranier, too. He was the number one pick in that draft, and he is not the number two pick for either of us in her down and dirty, quick little redraft here. He is back down to the third line. He'd been playing in Chris Kreider's spot with Capo Caco, and because of Bandajad, he'd been on the Rangers' top power play.

Chris Kreider missed some time. Kreider's back now. And down goes Lafrenier. He was okay when Kreider was out of the lineup. As a top line view or overall view, game score from the three games without where he was on the first line, 0.52, negative 0.13, 0.36. So not a ton to be excited about for Lexi Lafranier.

At the end of the day, this, yeah, this conversation is just, you know, job by the Ottawa senators in their, the first round when they had picks three and five in 2020. And now let's go to break. Coming up next, we have a conversation with Corey Massasag. We are back live from Midway Airport. It's Sharks reporter Corey Mazasak. He's boarding a plane in 17 minutes. This can be fun. That sounds about right. My anxiety can't handle this. Corey, I don't even want to do this interview right now. Just leave. I just had some airport issues, so I'm ready to go. Let's go. Let's go. Who wants to get sick on a plane? Let's rule.

All right. So I feel like the mode you're in right now is Eric Carlson Beatwriter. Like that's what happens, you know, when you have a guy having a season like the one he's having on a team that's as bad is the one that's surrounding them. What's it been like watching him night in and nine out? Because I feel like every, every, every, every shark's game, I feel like you're tweeting different, like historical context and all. all sorts of stuff that he's breaking. It's got to be wild. It certainly seems like it is. Yeah. I mean,

it's been like, I mean, the team hasn't been that bad. Like they've, I mean, I either tweet about how good Eric Carlson is, how good Timo Meyer is, or how the team played well and didn't win.

Like those are like the only three things. Like it's literally like, it's crazy. Um, Eric Carlson's season has been, I mean, it's probably going to end up being like the best offensive season since, you know,

Paul coffee, Brian Leach. Right. you know, back when games were 8-7 all the time. And, you know, I mean, that alone is crazy. The fact that he's, you know, had three years of not being that great or actually not being that great. He was, like, still really good. He just wasn't Eric Carlson.

Right. And he was injured and all those things. So it has been, it's been pretty remarkable. And it's not just like, he's not just getting a bunch of goals and points. It's like you watch them play. And when he is out there, all sorts of. crazy offensive fun stuff happens. And then whenever he's not, it's like they're kind of hanging on for dear life. Yeah, I saw kind of like a 10,000 foot view of his game, or a bunch of, this is

all from Demetri Filipovic. He tweeted this like a couple days ago. So I'm sure this is, you know, a little bit out of date. But they're up 61, 52 with him on the ice, which is, you know, predictable enough. They're also down 70, 41 without him on the ice at 5 on 5. I know he's, it's Eric Carlson. And so there's always going to be, you know, a certain amount of, you know, damning him with faint praise when you talk about the defensive side of the game, right? But I think it's worth stating that, you know, 110 point pace. It's awesome. All this stuff. But, you know, the defensive results have at least been there as much as you could expect, I feel like.

Yeah. I mean, I would say that, like, you know, if he's been a 10 out of 10 on offense, he's still been like a five or a six on defense. And I mean, people act like it's, he's like a negative three. Right. And so, you know, even like even last night, like he had a, you know, he said he had his fourth four-point game of the season, which is just insane. Like, they're the entire Sharks organization that had seven of them in the previous 30 years from a defenseman. He's got four in the last 35 games. He, but like after the game, like two of the other players and David Quinn, the coach all wanted to talk about how he played good defense against the SARS too.

And so that was like, also it's obvious. like we've run out of things to say about his offense and how he creates almost everything that happens for them. So I think the big question with Eric Carlson too is like this brings up a fun conversation. I mean, fun in my opinion. Some people just call me dumb. Like this is the podcast where I reveal all my trauma from the text line because this is what happens when I talk about Eric Carlson, potentially winning the Norris or being in the

conversation for the Norris. People don't like it because the sharks are not a good team. effectively, they're not very good this year. They're in the bottom half of the standings, et cetera. But I think he should be in the conversation. Like, how realistic is it that he is in the conversation for the Norris Trophy? Well, I mean, you know, okay, so the, the, um, North's trophy is different than the heart, right?

Like, there's the whole, like, I don't, I don't think you have to be on a playoff team to win the heart trophy. I also think that's kind of silly, too, but that's neither here nor there for this discussion. It's the, it's the best defenseman. It's not most valuable. It's not whatever. It's just the best player. And, I mean, there are so many different statistical ways that you can say that

Eric Carlson is either the best defenseman or one of the best defensemen in the league this year. That it would be pretty hard for me to say, like, you shouldn't vote for him or you should, you know, like cancel him out completely just because the team is in 28th place or whatever. So, I mean, I'm sure there are going to be people who would be, would rather vote for, you know, Kail McCar or Adam Fox or honestly like they just played Dallas last night. Miro Heskin and Heskin and is awesome. Like I mean, he could be up there. But like just statistically this year, it'd be pretty hard to not say that Eric Carlson

is a deserving Norris trophy candidate, if not like a leader at this point. Yeah, because the field isn't particularly great either. Like you've had McCar started heating up. He's day to day now and he wasn't any great shakes before that. Fox has fallen off. I feel like. Roman Yosey's not doing what he was last. year. He's gotten better recently, but he's not putting up historical defense. There's no years.

Well, I was just going to say, like, Roman from last year is like kind of a good comparison. Like he had whatever was 96 points and he almost won. But Kail McCar had like just this supernatural season. So everybody was like, okay, yeah, actually the vote was pretty close. I mean, Roman Yosey had more first place votes than. That's right. Cam McCar did, but McCar got more votes. And I think, and sorry to cut you off, Corey, but I think I had a vote last year. and I can kind of speak to what I was grappling with. Like I was looking at the stats. I was like, no one's done this before or it hasn't been done in however long.

And yeah, Kail McCar is amazing. He is the best player in the league. He's one of the best, et cetera, et cetera. But I just looked at it. And I had Roman Yosi first. Like I'll just say that now. And I think part of it that crept in for me is like, when is he going to win one of these again?

Kail McCar is going to get a ton of these awards. And that was kind of part of the equation for me. I think people might not appreciate that, but I also think that that is like a fair tie break because Roman Yosi had the numbers. It wasn't just the nostalgia factor or whatever people want to call it. It was like, he's had an incredible season. You know, let's vote for the guy. And I wonder if part of that's going to creep in with Eric Carlson. I wonder if people are going to look at this and say, give Eric Carlson his third and final Norris trophy because when is he going to do this again and have another opportunity? Yes, 32 years old. Just put him on an ice. He's such.

a miracle. Ice flow and send him out to sea. He's a miracle. But the way that Kail McCar and Adam Fox are trending and how they play, I wonder if that's going to be part of it for voters this year with Eric Carlson. I think that's fair. I mean, and also, like, you know, Roman knows he had 90, what, 95 or 96 points last year. I mean, if Carlson does get to 105 or 108 or something like that, it's going to be like,

he's going to win. Okay. Yeah, like that's, you know, again, this was like, I think sometimes. I think in most of these voting situations, like historically, it's like the difference. Like, if he finishes with 25 more points than any of the defenseman, it's going to be pretty obvious that he should win. If somebody else gets to, like, 90 and he has 102, then, you know, somebody else will probably have a really good chance to beat him because they'll, that person will be considered a better all-around defenseman. In McCar's finishing kick was kind of unbelievable last year. Like, that's what ended up pushing him over, over Yosi by the end.

eliminating something like that. And also, but again, like, MacArthur has been fine, but he's not having a replay season, right? Like, he's starting from his deficit. He's not the MVP on that team right now. No. And that team is also not even in a playoff spot right now. Yeah.

It's wild. Yeah. You mentioned the few down years that Carlson had when he wasn't Eric Carlson. I mean, you cover this team. You've been there for a couple years now. What is the A1 reason for that? playing behind Burns? Was it,

or was it having, you know, Burns, having so much run through him? Was it, was it injuries? Like, where is this guy been? Yeah. He had,

I mean, he was good the year that they, like his first full season there, they made, they got really close to winning a Stanley Cup. I think they've been lost in six in the conference final and they had a bunch of guys hurt. Since then,

he had just a pretty bad year overall. Like, even he admits that that year was bad. and then he had he had one year where he missed like 25 games was just heard and um and even like last year i mean there were there were signs of this last year like right right so he did he had like the first 30 35 games last year he was he was good he was like not supernova good but he was good and then he had multiple and he had COVID last year he had multiple injuries and then the one that kept him out for like six weeks was kind of the he came back maybe like a week or two too

early or something and he just didn't play well the rest of the year you compared to the first part so it has been three of the four years he's been here he's missed at least 20 games like in that like 20 to 28 game range so it's definitely been injuries they've never were really able to make the power play work with him and burns together like they'd play them together they'd let them each have their own unit it just never you know there was maybe like a month in there where there was like it was really good and then people said that when they traded for him by the way like I remember that being part of the narrative where they're like, is this, how is this, you're, you're detracting from Eric Carlson's value in some respect when you trade, when you trade for him and immediately slide him behind that dude on,

on the power play, good as Brent Burns is. And that's also like, if you start to like think about where he might get traded to in the near future, like, you know, you know, I was just, I was watching that team last night. And I was like, man, if you could, if you could figure out a way to put Eric Carlson on this Dallas Stars team, they could win the cup. But at the same time, like, you're in who sits? Like, it's either him or. him or Miro. And I don't know, like, it's probably hard to be kind of, there's like, like, five to eight teams out there that like he probably can't get traded to just because they already have their alpha guy. And it just, they're probably going to be afraid to have the same

situation happening at. So let's go there. And in terms of the Eric Carlson trade conversation, we've kind of heard, you know, people have started asking Eric, like, what do you want? Eric, what would make you happy? And he just wants to win. That's kind of his canned answer. I'm sure that's true. That's not really happening the way. he wants it to be this year. But we also know that, you know, the other can answer is, oh, cap space is limited and it's a, it's a tight flat cap now. Not a lot of teams have a lot of space.

Can you just lay out the Eric Carlson trade? Like, I forget the word. Blueprint. Like what? And is it even realistic this season at the deadline? He's also one of the five players who will actually tell the truth whenever someone asks him what he wants. Yes.

Okay. So real quick, because I think they just actually called my name. But I got a minute here. So the issue is he's got four years left. It's 11.5 million. It's the most expensive defensive contract to league. He's got a no move clause. So it's going to be a very limited where he might be able to go.

And so, but it does seem like he's going to be willing to move for the right situation. I don't think anybody's really holding any pretense against that at this point. So like just sort of who's going to, how's this going to work? How much of the sharks going to be willing to retain? my guess is that there's a better chance of it happening in the offseason whenever more cap space opens up for everybody and they have more time to sort of, you know, figure things out. But look, there's a non-zero chance that he's going to get traded between now and March 3rd. It's just a matter of, you know, what can the other team pay for it? How much will

the sharks keep? There was a report that the sharks want three first-round picks. Mike Greer softly denied that. So we'll see what happens. Obviously, they're not going to get three first-round picks. But, you know, I think, it's really going to come down to how much the sharks are really actually willing to keep because it's four years. That's totally different than retaining on a one-year deal. And then we'll kind of go from there. Like I said, I really honestly think, you know, like very small percentage of a chance it happens between now and March 3rd and then a much bigger chance that it's going to happen over the off season. Okay, please go and catch your flight.

Wait a second. Can they do this without getting a third team involved? Yes or no? Yes, but I would imagine there will be a third team involved. Thank you very much, Corey. Go get your plane. See you all. Thanks for having me. Thanks, dude. That was very stressful. I felt very bad. It's okay. A mistake was made, maybe?

No, Corey was good. Corey is as good as it gets. You know why? It's because he's from Western Pennsylvania. Shout out to Apollo PA. And he attended the University of Maryland. And he is now a hockey writer. That is the best demographic of human being.

He's fine. He made it, by the way. We have confirmation. Corey Mazasak is on. the plane. He got on the plane. He got off the plane. Friends?

Friends? Okay. He didn't get on the plane? He didn't get on the plane. Have we ever had a conversation on this podcast about my feud with the Maryland mascot, Tustudo? No. Those have been off-camera conversations.

I think I just tweeted one day about how he was really stupid and then the Tustudo Twitter account. Shaded me very hard. A bunch of Maryland people were like, what's wrong with you? He's just a turtle. He is just a turtle. Who named him to Studeau? What does that even mean?

We've, I'm not, I'm not going to rehash this conversation with you. We've discussed this. Anyways, we are going to transition the turtle conversation to a continuation of the shark conversation. That's my expert radio host transition. Yeah, I was going to say. They're both. They're both.

From the turtles to the sharks. creatures. One of the things that Corey got into was some of the reporting about the Eric Carlson trade situation. And a previous report was from Bob Stauffer in Edmonton was three firsts. And they would retain 18%. Very specific. But Mike Rear did tell Corey.

And Corey had a very good 18.2%, actually. And Corey had a really good story laying everything out. in the Eric Carlson situation, even Tim O'Myer, which we will get to, it was a great piece from Corey talking to GM Mike Greer. And Mike Greer said, I'm not going to get into what we're actually asking for, but I don't think that report is totally accurate. Whatever the return would be, he said, it would have to be an offer that we feel makes us stronger in the future

and gives us the ability to help turn this thing around quicker. Yeah, I mean, sure, that's what, it's Mike Greer's job to say stuff like that. You know, like you can't quite... Yeah, like, we're not going to trade Eric Carlson if we get worse, but it's a hard situation because... It's a tough position, yeah, for Mike Greer to be in, right? He's a first-year general manager.

He entered a situation... Haley, I feel like you and I joke about it constantly about Mark Edward Vlasic. I thought he retired five years ago. Nope, nope, not only has he not retired... Hey, what's Mark Edward Vlasic doing these days? Oh, still on the Sharks. Flassick.

Tamash Hurtle, good a player as he is, is locked in for a long time at a big number for them. I mean, this is not an easy situation for Mike Greer to walk into. He's a very serious guy also. So he's going to give a very measured answer when Corey asked that question. Because like, really, like, think about it. If he's like, no, this is bullshit, actually. That's not our number. We don't want third round picks.

We'll retain more than that. like he's nuking his own leverage because who knows who knows what happens maybe maybe there's a team out there that's like you know yeah we'll sell the farm for eric carlson need you need to allow for that possibility so you can't just walk back all of that but at the same time if those are the specifics of of the ask and the demand like that that would be wild and so there's got to be some desire on my career's part to like kind of set the record straight without completely destroying you know an element of of his own leverage. But can you imagine the way that the playoff landscape would change if a team that was on the bubble or already a contender got Eric Carlson on their team post-deadline? Like, that's a game changer for pretty much any team in the league. Like, who wouldn't benefit from Eric Carlson? Maybe that Keynes, because, yeah, I was, I was.

Like, we know that that kind of, I mean, they would sure benefit, but maybe not to the extent that they would wish because we saw that play out already. Corey's exit was so stressful that I didn't even have, you know, I didn't have the time to make that joke. But it's like, yeah, I guess you can probably cross Carolina off the list there. Yeah. Look. Even though they're kind of always in it around any meaningful move this time of year,

slash at the deadline. For sure, for sure. You can just assume that they're poking around. Yeah, the Brent Burns factor doesn't help. That's why. The interesting part about this, Sean, is this is not a pending unrestricted free agent in Eric Carlson. So while he has a lot of control over where he could go because of that no move clause, we are not in a situation where we're going to see Eric Carlson say, I want to go to the Florida Panthers and you're going to take the best deal because I'm walking at the end of the summer and you better get what you can. No.

He's still got term left. So Mike Rear is actually in a, it's a tough spot, but a pretty okay spot because he's not getting backed into a corner. you know, accepting, you know, a worse deal or a crappy deal because he needs to get rid of Eric Carlson. I think people need to remember where we were on the Carlson, in the Carlson discourse at the start of the season, right? Where you're like, okay, this guy's 32 years old. He makes $11.5 million against the cap for four more seasons after this one. Those are the specs on Eric Carlson's contract. If anybody forgets them, because it's easy when so many years and so much money are involved. You just kind of internalize like, oh, he makes a ton of money for a ton of

years. That's what it is. Yeah. 11.5 for four for four more years after this one, right? The fact that he's rehabilitated, it's crazy. The fact that he has rehabilitated his value to the point where not, he's not just a Norris candidate, he's probably the front runner at this point or close to it. He should be. And it's not the nostalgia factor.

I will just say, I feel like people are going to hear what I said about the Yosey thing and be like, oh, you just are being soft about it. No. I'm not. That matters. That matters to all this stuff. Narrative matters with these awards. When it's a tiebreaker, it does.

Yes. Right? No, it always matters. It completely matters. The coach the Jack Adams goes to its narrative based. Yeah, true. It's not 100% close to it. Like it's not just a tiebreaker for some people.

That's how human beings process information. We are not robots. We glom on to human interest in, you know, the dramatic arc. and all those things, whether we are cognizant of it or not, those things play into our decision-making process. Right. So I'm not soft. I'm just being open and honest.

I'm just not lying to you. You're showing your humanity. Oh. Yeah, I'm showing my humanity with my black and white background. Very sad. Melancholy podcast. Nobody can see this like that. But the fact that we're talking, I mean, really, the fact that

we're talking about Eric Carlson in these terms, nor is finalist A and B, more relevantly here as a guy who has like some legitimate trade value and is not just a no-go absolutely not, can't do it under any circumstance player. It's on cap dump. It's wild. It's wild. And that is a testament to how good he's been and how remarkable he's been is that teams are seriously

considering adding an $11.5 million player with four more years left on his deal in his mid-30s. Crazy. That more than anything else, even though every night Corey is tweeting all these crazy stats about how great Eric Carlson is, that more than anything is the indicator of how great he's been, is that people are willing to trade for him in his contract

because three months ago, that seemed impossible. I think the one player that should be the easiest to trade, in theory, is Tim O'Meer. Absolutely. Do you think? We can blame the gate agent at Southwest, by the way, for us not being able to ask that. Yeah, I'm not sure why it was necessary. We know what time his flight was at.

It wasn't that early. It didn't need to be that stressful. But I think it's, it's, Tima Meyer is a really interesting case because when you look at the sharks and you look at all their bad contracts and you look at the players on that roster, Timel Mire is not the guy that you want to be getting rid of. Right. But you probably should be. Like, this isn't a team that's going to be in a place to actually contend. And a lot of these players on that roster because of the way that they play, where their games at, what their contract looks like, these are immovable pieces. Tim O'Meier is not one of those immovable pieces.

He's young. He's very good. And he's a restricted free agent. So this isn't just, you know, a rental at the deadline for teams. You can get good returns for guys like Timel Meyer. and as much as Mike Greer probably doesn't want to get rid of a young, talented guy who's in team control, he probably should. Timo Meyer is making $6 million this season.

He's a pending RFA. If the sharks or whichever team acquires him, if a team acquires him, does not work out a contract extension with him. He's due a $10 million qualifying offer for next season. So there's a lot of shoes, there's a lot of balls in the air regarding Timel Meyer. I mean, the guy is unbelievable. Like, he has been, you know, an X-goal, fancy stat darling for years, and now he's on pace to score more than 40 goals.

This is a player who's, you know, putting it all together. But yeah, I think I don't get the vibe from Mike Greer that he is particularly interested in signing a bunch more players to a bunch more long-term contracts. All those deals happened before he was brought on, including Tamash Hurdles, which was signed by the interim GM after Doug Wilson stepped down. And Mike Greer is a, like I said, he's a very, I said it earlier,

he's a super even keel, rational guy and I don't anticipate, you know. I don't, he's going to do what he wants to do there. But if it's a super deal for Tim O'Meer, yeah, I don't think, I don't think you can do that. You can't, you can't commit more money to the cap whenever you have so much dead stuff tied up, tied it moving forward, including, by the way, potentially in another Eric Carlson trade. Like, if that happens, they're going to have to retain something, whether it's 50% or 18% or somewhere in between. So, yeah, it's a fascinating move. He's one of the best players on the market.

Price tag is attractive. All it's going to take is some team that actually has a has cap space in the desire to add, which is tougher to find than you'd imagine at this point. Yeah, cap space in the next. next, like not just in the short term, but the long term, right? Because I highly doubt that Timo Meyer is going to just sign. I mean, you probably don't want Timo Meyer signing as QO. You probably don't want Tima Meyer signing a little bridge deal. So that's, there's a lot of considerations there. You're not going to sell the farm for Timo Meyer to not negotiate a long

term deal with them and then hem yourself in a situation where you have to pay them $10 million for one year's worth of play. You know, not going to happen. The last note will, we'll say on the sharks here because we've been talking about their cap situation and some of these old players. San Jose has Eric Carlson, Tamash Hurdle, Logan Kutcher, and Mark Edward Vlasic all under contract for at least the next four seasons for more than $34 million. Hurdle is the youngest of those players. And even that one for me. Yeah.

I was like, why did you do that? Good players seems like a really good guy. I take them on my team. 10 times out of time. Sure. But if you're the San Jose Sharks at this phase in their life cycle, I don't know if, like I said. Think of the value that that guy had last year and how much talk was about, like, how many teams were a fit for Tim O'Meyer who had the cap space and had the need, who had the assets. Like, they could have gotten a haul.

Yeah, and they didn't. And now they're here trying to trade two big ticket items. when 12 teams have less than $1 million in projected cap space on the deadline day of according to the credit cap from tough life. Good luck, Mike. It's going to be an interesting situation. All right. So we already kind of did a draft.

We redrafted the first two picks of the 2020 NHL draft. And so we're not going to do another one here. But we are going to critique Sean's goalie mask rankings with our friend, producer Danielle, who is a goalie. Danielle? Yes. Just, I'm going to mute my mic and you can go off. What did we hate about Sean's writing? All right, first off, Danielle, I have the duck's goalie at number two.

Oh, no. I think Markstrom and Gibson at number one, number two, solid. However, no mention of Gibson being in the danger zone at all in the mention of his top gun mask. I'm bad at my job. What do you want to do? Otherwise, no notes. He's putting the ducks even further into the danger zone. He's stunk. It's stunk. But that mask is phenomenal. It's great. It's clean. It's a top gun reference for anybody who is unaware. He's going to. got like the top gun of, you know, helmet design. It's a layup. It's a total layup. I was the only one who had it first. Jesse and Shana both had it.

Sheena had it fourth. Jesse had at six. I was stunned. Maybe because nobody else likes Tom Cruise. That's true. I mean, there's that. But that aside, that design is just so clean. Yeah.

I don't need, like, it, like, beat me over the head with this sort of stuff, right? Like, I don't need, like, I don't need subtlety from my, from my goalie from my goalie mask design like give me something that you can see you see on TV something you can see you from the stands right and there's like some art that it's so convoluted from far away you're like it just looks like a blob it doesn't stand out there's two there's like two dominant forms of goalie mask artwork i feel like one is just throw some logos on the mask basically glorified you know glorified backup goaltender masks and then then the other stuff is cool but yeah it's so sublimated or subtle that, you know, you can't really see it unless you're staring at,

unless you're staring at an Instagram post of it, right? So, yeah, give me something, give me something loud and very obvious. That's, that's what I need. I'm not a smart group hours. Group hours is awesome. You know why? Because it's got a gigantic squid on the side of it. Right. Why? Not Bowie. Not buoy. Justice for Bowie. Marksham's mask is number one for me, but I think Gru Bauer is number two because I don't, I don't look at John Gibson's mask and go, oh, that's Top Gun

because I... It's your fault? Don't watch Top Gunn. My own issue with my placement here is Darcy Kemper's. It's a cool design, and it's an Ole Colzig homage, which is like right up my alley.

Not sure what I was thinking having a 10th. I had him lower than anybody else. Jesse had him 2, Shane had him 5, item 10. I needed a do over there. I felt bad about that one.

Other than that, of course, my rankings, as always, unimpeachable. Incorrect. Incredible stuff. Danielle, was there anything that Sean completely... Oh, Vasselowski's mask is great. I love Cam Talbot's pandering to Ryan Reynolds on his mask. Because also, I don't know how long it takes for the process of how long it takes to get painted. But he must have, like, put in a rush order for that, like, once the Brian...

metal news started happening and he's like I need this right now and the quick turn around that it's pretty awesome if I like Deadpool more I would have been I'd have been more on board with Alan but not not a Deadpool guy but Haley you mentioned you mentioned Vasilevsky's that's like kind of what I'm talking about like there's a possessed wolf it's cool as hell but there's too many it's also it's also it's also it's also it's also it's also a cat by the way for the wrong mascot isn't it there's too many shades of blue. You can't tell, you can't look at it, you can't look at them in the crease

and realize how cool that thing is. Like that's, like, don't overthink it. Like, it's, a lot of these are too cute by half. You need to know that these are cool when you look at them, when you, you know, when you have a one shot on them on the, on the TV broadcast.

And Vasilisius just doesn't work. There's not enough contrast. Neat color contrast. For God's sakes. I'm mad about this again. But yeah. I don't really care. for Darcy Kemper's. That one looks more of a, I can't tell, I can't, I prefer, I prefer Vaslaskis.

Anyways, check out the entire ranking from Sean. That's all the time we have on the show today. We've been talking for far too long. Sean got everything wrong. Danielle got everything right. And I say this because I won the last draft. That's always, that's true regardless. Amazing. All right. Do you want to say goodbye, Sean? Goodbye, Sean. Goodbye, Sean. Thanks everyone for listening to this edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, this Friday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Mike Murphy from the NHL Situation Room joins the Athletic Hockey Show's Wednesday Roundtable

and Jeff Merrick. Big get. That's a huge get. Joins the Leafs Report. If you're not a subscriber to The Athletic already, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show to get an annual subscription for $2 a month for 12 months. You can also now subscribe to the Athletic Hockey Show's YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash at the athletic hockey show.

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