The Athletic Hockey Show - The top 10 storylines in the NHL in 2023

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

There was no shortage of storylines in the NHL in 2023. Ian Mendes, Julian McKenzie, Mark Lazerus and Sean McIndoe review the year in question, dissecting the top stories in the game, including Vegas winning the Stanley Cup, the Bruins setting an all time win and point record, Connor McDavid reaching the 150 point plateau, Connor Bedard being drafted by the Blackhawks, multiple celebrities wanting to purchase the Ottawa Senators, tragedy on the ice in England with Adam Johnson losing his life, Ivan Provorov kicking off the Pride jersey controversy and bad breakups for Kyle Dubas, Mike Babcock and Corey Perry on this special holiday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGift a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $19.99 or a 2-year subscription for $39.99 when you visit theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is The Athletic Hockey Show. Well, happy holidays, everybody. It is that fun week between Christmas and New Year, where we like to look back at the year that was. That's what we're going to do here for the next hour or so. Welcome to it. It's a year-in-review edition of The Athletic Hockey Show. It's in Madison Julian McKenzie with you.

As always, Julian, I'm looking forward to this. Me too. Me too. Always a pleasure doing these shows with you. Yeah, but you know what? We can't do this alone. This is going to take some heavy lift. This is a four-person, this is a four-person job when you're looking back at 12 months.

So it's, it's Mendez, it's McKenzie, it's Macandoo, and it's Mark. It's the four. Oh, that's, I was wondering how you're going to get the fourth M in there.

Like that. Macandoo, Mark Lazarus, of course. McKenzie and Mendez with you. I think he was called me Mark. Mazuris, it's fine. I don't care. Mark Mazuris. Mark Mazuris.

Mark Mazuris. No, Mark Mazuris. could actually work as a good, like, pseudonym if you ever wanted to take that on. It would be really subtle. Nobody would have any idea was you. No one would have any idea. Yeah. Who is that?

Mr. Mazuris, I'm going to step on your foot and say your name. Honestly, Mark, based on what I've witnessed of the level of intelligence of the people who get really mad about the stuff you write, might be able to get away with it.

You might be less than that one by them. Who's this mad guy? He might be nicer than that Lazarus guy. He's not woke at all. This guy's way better. Also, I heard that Simpson's reference, by the way. That was a great reference.

Yeah, a little witness protection program. All right. So what we're going to do here for the next hour, we're just going to kind of go through the 10 stories that I think were maybe the most interesting or captivating. And at times they're entertaining.

And other times they're quite the opposite. There's some tragedy in there. But they're all stories that I think captured the attention of the hockey world. I'm going to start because this one, and last, maybe I'll start with you on this one because this one, it's amazing to think this happened in January and so almost 12 months ago,

but Ivan Proverov, the Philadelphia Flyers have Pride Night. Ivan Proverov says, you know what, I'm not wearing the jersey. And I think what's important about this one last, is it was a domino effect that it started a chain of events that really, I think, were felt throughout the entire year. take us back to when the Proverov thing happened,

and did you think that it was going to be the start of a completely new era that did change the way the NHL looked at Pride jerseys and those theme nights? Well, yeah, I mean, we're still writing about it less than two months ago when Travis Dermott put Pride tape on a stick, right? I mean, this is still the ripple effect of Ivan Proverov's decision not to wear those jerseys and the NHL's, you know, panicked a reaction to it, where they basically undid 15, 20 years of inclusion. in the in the queer space like they you know the one thing the NHL had been good at better than

the other sports and when it came to inclusion was the LGBTQ plus community they've always been at the forefront way ahead of other sports in so many different ways brent sople taking the Stanley cup to the to the gay pride parade in 2010 in Chicago you know you can you can play hockey is for everyone all this stuff and it just got unraveled so shockingly fast it was I don't want to say I was surprised, but I was so disappointed to see how quickly the NHL retreated into its NHL shell and just turtled on this issue, where they just teams weren't letting their players wear jerseys, even warm-up jerseys for Pride Night. You know, the Blackhawks, you know, I talked to Connor Murphy right after the Proverov thing. I said, is this going to be an issue for

you guys? And Connor Murphy said, on the record, absolutely not. There's no way we don't wear these jerseys. And then the Blackhawks turn around and tell them, you can't wear those jerseys. And who has to answer for it. Connor Murphy is the one they had answer for it. So the ripple effect of this, and it's not every team, but then they have the league's policy of no pride tape and now you can't wear jerseys for military appreciation night or hockey fights cancer night. Just because Ivan Proverov, one guy, one mediocre hockey player made this decision. The ripple effect throughout the league has been, it's been incredible. Yeah. What I really didn't like about it was after Ivan Proverrover of did what he did, all of a sudden, it just turned into this wild goose chase where we would

see a team have a pride night and everyone would wonder, okay, who's going to do it? Who's going to not wear a jersey? Who's going to make this stand? And bit by bit, you're seeing other players step up and say that they're not going to wear it for their own personal reasons, like a James Reimer or Eric Stahl coming up at one point two, right? Was it both Stahl brothers? I don't remember. I know it was Eric.

Yeah. It was both Eric and Mark. But like, yeah, I just, the one other thing that came out from that, that was very disappointing was the focus that we put on the players who would not wear those jerseys. And it took away from guys who were looking to do good work in that space, like in Philadelphia, with Scott Lawton and James Van Riemstike when he was still a flyer, inviting LGBT fans to a game. And that should have been the big story from that. night, but instead we had to focus on Ivan ProVrov. And I know people will look at us and say, well, hey, you guys are in the media. You guys can choose to focus on those stories. But considering the history of the NHL with those jerseys and those nights and considering, again, how hockey of all sports, they make it all about the jersey in the front, not the name on the back, and they've done everything to repress individuality for this to be the hill to die on for some of these players, of course we're going to focus on that.

So, yeah, that's how I feel about it. that's the biggest thing I take away from that story. And because the focus was on these guys, that's why the leagues and the team started pulling back from this to protect. They were protecting, I mean, let's face it, the bigots. They were protecting the homophobes. And, you know, there was the Russian angle, and we wrote extensively about whether there were really threats to NHL,

to Russian players. And Bill Daly told my partner, Scott Powers, that the NHL had absolutely no evidence that there was any credible threat to any Russian players for doing this. the law only applied when you were in Russia at the time. So it just provided cover for people to be bigots. And it was just so incredibly disappointing. And Sean, when you look at this story.

Yet another example, just yet another example of hockey players being the biggest, toughest, most, you know, the biggest warriors on the planet, just far and away compared to any other sport. These guys are big, tough warriors right up until. somebody gets criticized and gets their feelings hurt, and then the whole league has to change the rules so that one or two guys per team don't have to get criticized for a few days. Classic overreaction, such an overreaction by the league that you almost wonder a little bit

if it was an intentional, like, you know, we're just, we're going to take this to the ridiculous extreme and see how it goes. And, you know, here we are months later with guys like Travis Derman, just openly say, well, I'm doing it anyways. Go ahead and find me, suspend me. They did. I'll tell you what. And by the way, like just the fact that their overreaction, their over correction to this

was to put in some ban that people don't even respect. Yep. I can't go in the next time we see someone wants to put on his helmet, you know, something, you know, Trump 2020, 24 or something, you know, Robin Leonard had Trump on his helmet just in 2019. This is coming. And that's what they're afraid of. That's what this whole policy was about. It was about preventing someone from putting Donald Trump on their helmet.

I really believe this was a preemptive strike against politics. And I'll tell you right now, I understand there are lots of people who are saying, good, I don't want politics in my sports. We've been hearing that for years and years. Keep the politics. I just want to watch the game. That's all I want to do. I just want to watch game. I just want to watch the game.

And then a few weeks ago, Ian writes a piece says maybe we don't need the national anthem before the game and all those same people show up in the comments section going what do you mean if i don't get to sing a song about how great my country is what's even the point of having sports it's almost like an awful lot of people don't actually have a firm stance on this issue beyond just whichever way the wind is blowing as far as their own politics that's what they want keep everyone else's politics out of my sports uh but you know feel free to have mine in there all with that and don't forget with that anthem too right uh make sure uh make sure the anthems in english because if they hear it in a language completely foreign from their own,

oh no, they're not going to love that. No, sir, not in my sporting event. All right, we got to, we're going to move on here to the next, as we've lost all of our listeners already. Did we just drive right out on the first topic? That was a rough topic to start up for this. Okay, so let's stick with some on the ice stuff here. I'm actually going to group two things together here in this next kind of story of the year.

And I want to know from you guys. and and Laz are going to start with you. We're going to go around the horn. What was more impressive to you in 2023? The Boston Bruins setting a record with 65 wins and 135 points. Connor McDavid getting to 150 points, 153 to be exact, but busting that threshold. Around the horn, last start with you,

what was more impressive in 20203? The Bruins or Connor McDavid? Connor McDavid. I never thought I'd see 150 points score in the NHL again. I remember when Kujerov had like 128 and we were, were like our minds were blown. And now you've got, you know, a few guys running at that. Connor McDavid is doing things that I never thought you could do in the modern day

NHL. Julian? Oh, I'll go with that one then. I'll take, I'll take Connor McDavid just with the abilities that he's been able to show on the ice. Plus with the Boston Bruins,

it's so difficult to go wire to wire and then go into the playoffs and actually finish the job for the Bruins. They did all they did in the regular season. It does not matter because they lost to the Florida Panthers in the first round, something that you and I, we didn't think it would happen that soon. but we did say they were not going to the Stanley Cup final. It would have been way more impressive to me

if they had gone through the regular season as successful as they were and then go to the Stanley. Even if they didn't win the Cup, if they went to the Stanley Cup final and just proved to be the best team for as long as they could, it would have been more impressive. But Connor McDavid is the answer for me.

Okay, so Sean, clean sweep here. McDavid, more impressive with 150 points? Hey, I've been in the sports running game long enough to know that this is where you've got to play the contrarian card. So yeah, I'm going to be. I'm casting my vote for Boston. Connor McDavid, that was phenomenally impressive to do 150 points in the dead puck era.

Every time I say that, people say, no, no, that era is over. Scoring's inching up, but compared to what it was in the 70s and 80s when we saw guys hitting that mark,

we're nowhere near it. So phenomenally impressive. But I want to give some credit to the Boston Bruins. First of all, yeah, they went out in the first round, but you know what? This is the NHL.

This is the NHL playoffs. They're random, guys, they're coin flips. And I know some people hate when I say that the best team always wins because you don't win unless you're the best team and all of this stuff. But hey, it's, it's tough. There's no easy, there's no easy matchups. Now, that haven't been said, because there's no easy matchups, for them to break the record

that had been set by, you know, the Montreal Canadians in the 70s is phenomenally impressive to me. And I know people will say, well, wait a second, this is the era with the shootout. we've got the loser point. It's easier to bank points now. I mean, yes, but back in the 70s, man, half the league stunk. When the Islanders were winning four Stanley Cups, when the Oilers were winning four out of five, half the league was an absolute mess, absolute jokes.

We're talking 40 and 50 point teams. And yeah, the good teams ran over them. You had teams that were stacked with 10 Hall of Famers out of 20 roster spots going out there and, you know, having 120, 125 points seasons. For a team in the parody era to do this almost feels more impossible to me than Connor McDavid hitting 150 points.

This is the two things you're not supposed to be able to do these days. Have a lot of points as an individual and have a lot of points as a team because we're mushing everyone in the middle. Connor McDavid was phenomenal, but the Bruins broke the record. This is, to me, it would be like Connor McDavid breaking Gretzky's point record.

It's just inconceivable, good on them that they did it. tragic, obviously, that they lost in the first round, and, you know, we all hate it to see it and, and certainly hate to bring it up constantly. Yeah. Yeah. Stop line, John. Stop line. I didn't sound like your teeth on that one.

That didn't feel like a contrarian. Hey, I got it. I'm a Leif's man. I loved that upset for about five more games. And then I didn't, I didn't really love it anymore. So. I have a question. I have a question.

When that upset happened, were you among Leif's fans who were changed? chanting we want Florida. Just, just be true. Guys, guys, Leaf fans chanted for both teams. They chant it.

We want Florida and we want Boston. I hate to, I hate to ruin the brilliant, you know, this, this great meme of dumb leaf fans chanting for the wrong team that came out and beat them. They chanted for both.

We want to buy. They still chanted. They still chanted. They got one of them. What's that? Yeah. No kidding. You want,

of course, what are they supposed to, what are they supposed to, Oh, no, we're afraid. We're so scared of round two. We don't want to play anybody. Please give us a bye. We're frightened.

No, they chant it. We want. I mean, gee, they hadn't seen the second round since, you know, in 20 years. Let them, let them get a little bit excited.

I was in elementary school the last time. They had gone to the second round. All right. Can we move? Okay, get out of here. We don't talk about the fact that the leaf's drought is now longer

than the ranger's drought was. We need to talk, we need to bring that up basically every day until it ends. As a, as a kid who grew up, you know, almost as long as the Rangers one was. The Ranger, you're working on

chapter two of that. That's pretty impressive too. Hey, I love that a iteration that's flowing through this show. One cup in 83 years. We do need to talk about that more often, too. Okay. Well, we're going to move along, and what we're going to talk about is one cup in five years.

That's Vegas Golden Knights. And guys, remember when Bill Foley took over as owner in Vegas, and he's like, we're going to win a Stanley Cup within five years. We're like, okay, whatever. You crazy billionaire. You don't know how this league works. And then five years later, he's hoisting the Stanley Cup.

What I think is amazing about Vegas is the ruthless manner in which they got to this point. Right? With what, three coaches in five years, multiple goalies, you know, you name it. They just kept changing the roster. So I ask you guys this. Are the Vegas Golden Knights, if I had to ask you with them winning in the Stanley, the Cup, did they be, are they the gold standard team in the NHL? Is that the gold standard or is it more of a Colorado or, you know, somebody else that

Tampa Bay, I know they're kind of running on fumes. But, you know, Julian, I'll start with you. Are the Vegas Golden Knights the gold standard in hockey? We're in a copycat league. So right now, yes, because of the team that found a way to win the Stanley Cup with the way that they did it. And not that every other team could emulate it, but at least look at. at the composition of the roster, there are teams that are going to want to find a way to at least

look like the Vegas Golden Knights. I also wonder how the Vegas Golden Knights achieving the success they've achieved in such a short amount of time affects teams who want to rebuild. And I get it, it sounds like two different things on its surface. But I was thinking about this yesterday randomly. The last time the Ottawa Senators played a meaningful game past April, the Golden Knights did not exist. The Seattle Cracken did not exist.

There are teams in the NHL right now who are building on top of whatever rebuilds they've had. And the two expansion teams did not exist when they were last relevant. I'm thinking of Ottawa. I'm thinking of Anaheim. I'm thinking of Buffalo in that conversation. Detroit is also in that conversation as well. There are auto, like there are three teams I just mentioned in that cluster who a lot of us looked at and thought, maybe this is the year they make the playoffs.

Maybe they don't. Maybe they're close. And nothing is there. Meanwhile, Vegas, from day one, and you could say all you want about how the expansion rules were in their favor for them to, I mean, I mean, you could talk about the expansion rules however you want to.

But from day one, Vegas found a way to be a competitive team, and they just built upon that, and they're maintaining it. They're looked at as a gold standard. Maybe you can't necessarily emulate them, but, I mean,

they're Stanley Cup champions for a reason. I would like that, I would like for Vegas to be the gold standard because they're so aggressive, and they don't worry about the future and they're just trying to win every single year. And I appreciate that as a hockey watcher. I wish more teams would be more aggressive rather than playing these endless rebuilds, these Eiser plans and what have you and what the Blackhawks are doing and what, you know, Buffalo has been doing. I wish that more teams would just kind of go for it every year.

But they're not the gold standard. I don't think people look at Vegas as an exception because of the way they gamed the expansion draft because they did a such, look, everything they did was within the rules. They were, they were handed a favorable thing, and they made the most out of it. And they gave themselves a base that was easier to build upon than a team that's tearing it down to the studs. I still think a team like Colorado is looked at as the idealized team, a team that's been built through the draft and then just got good and just stayed good. They need to win another cup probably to really cement themselves because you never want to be just a one cup wonder. But I still think that Colorado is looked at as the best franchise in the league right now. that's no knock on Vegas, but Vegas is extenuating circumstances in a lot of ways.

Yeah, I would mostly agree with that. And I would throw Tampa out there too, even though we're seeing the windows start to close. Absolutely. You know, they're another team that's been phenomenal. But you're right. I mean, to me, the story of Vegas is all of the cherished hockey beliefs that they came along and just ran over, right? I need five years to do a rebuild.

They go to the cup twice, starting from nothing in five years. You know, you can't make trades in the NHL anymore, guys. It's too hard. You can't make trades. Well, you know what? We're going to go get Jack Eichol. We're going to go get Mark Stone. We're going to go get these guys.

Boy, the salary cap. Salary is so tight. You just can't do anything with the salary cap. Guess what? We're going to figure out a way to go and sign Alex Petrangelo. We're going to be the team that does it, even though we don't look like we have any cap room and oh, you know, but the loyalty and the dressing room. I don't, I wouldn't want to disrupt the precious chemistry.

Hey, man, they wrote Mark Andre Fleury exactly as long as he was worth anything to them and then out the door. And Riley Smith and, you know, down the line of, of the ways they do it, including switching GMs, including running coaches out of town. So it, I'm kind of with Mark. I think the NHO would be a more entertaining league. if they were the gold standard in the sense that they were the team that everyone was copycating. But they have disrupted so much of what we think we know about the NHL

and what everyone keeps telling us about the NHL that I think we finally found the champion that people aren't going to copy because it's just it's too difficult. And it's so much easier to just, you know, patient, conservative, give me five years, guys. That's, you know, that's what we need. I don't think anyone wants to admit that the Golden Knight showed us that a lot of that's nonsense. I'll tell you what, we're going to take a little break here as we continue on with looking back at the 10 biggest stories of 20, 23 and hockey. When we come back, we'll hit on Chicago winning the draft lottery, a Norris trophy winner getting traded, and we get to talk about Snoop Dog too. So we can get to all of that on the other side.

All right, as we continue counting down 10 of the biggest stories, Laz will go to you because this one affected you in your coverage of Chicago in a big way. and that is Chicago winning the draft lottery to the delight of hockey fans everywhere to get Connor Bedard. What was that moment like for you as a reporter? I mean, you knew it was a possibility. You knew they had the odds, but what was that moment like for you?

Take our listeners back to Chicago wins the draft lottery. Now you realize I've got the next Crosby, McDavid, whatever on the roster of the team that you cover. Well, just wait till the acclamation they get when they win Celebrini too. Um, yeah, you know, the, the Blackhawks held like a little watch party so that we could interview Kyle Davidson after the lottery. So we're all in this like fancy room that's like a nice little like bar slash dining room

area for the lottery. And Scott Powers and I are sitting there. We're watching the, okay, as they get to four, we expected them to be four, right? That was the highest, uh, highest likelihood. And when they weren't four, we just kind of looked at each other like, oh boy, here we go. And when it flipped over that the hawks had got the number one pick, I just laughed. I just laughed because it was so ridiculous.

I knew the reaction around the league. I understood what the reaction around the league would be. But also, Scott and I go, oh, shit, we got to work really hard tonight now, don't we? I guess if they had done the fourth of, we would have just done a little news headline and gone home for the day. But all of a sudden, we had to write like this big opus on the meaning of Connor Bedard. And we're still learning what that meaning is. It's really been incredible.

I mean, besides the fact of how good he's been on the ice, and he's been amazing, especially when you consider who he's playing with. His linemates are not anywhere near his capabilities. And someday when he has, you know, real linemates to play with, he's going to be simply extraordinary. I mean, that's pretty clear at this point. But the meaning he has around the city, like, you know, in the late 2000s, early 2010s, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Taves and Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook and Patrick Sharp, they cemented the new fan base here, right?

They minted that kind of millennial fan base now. What Bard has done with the younger generation now, whether they're Gen Z or Gen Alpha, I can't keep track at this point. but it's incredible. You go to a game, and there are so many little kids wearing 98 jerseys, and you go to a practice on a weekend

or when it's on a holiday week, when it's like Thanksgiving or, you know, a four-day weekend or, you know, Christmas break coming up. There are just dozens and dozens and dozens of kids wearing 98 jerseys, screaming, screaming at the top of their lungs, the entire practice.

Connor, Connor, Connor, they don't care about anybody else on that ice. They are Connor Bedard fans, and they will become Blackhawks fans because of it. But besides just the difference he's making on the ice, the difference he's making off the ice, given everything that the Blackhawks organization has dealt with the last few years, with Kyle Beach, even with Corey Perry and just the losing.

I know everyone's like, nobody feels bad for the Blackhawks because they won three cups and six years that just ended eight years ago. But it's been pretty bleak around here, like really, really bleak. And Connor Bedard has been this light at the end of the tunnel for Hawks fans for the city. They're selling out the United Center again, which is the biggest rank in the league.

The difference this one kid has made so quickly, I've never seen anything like it. I wasn't here when Kane and Taves came in. I wasn't covering the team. This is something else. This is at another level. It's really been something. Well, let me ask this question to Julian and Sean,

because like I said, I think most hockey fans didn't feel like the hockey gods played the right card here. So let me ask you guys this, Sean, and then Julian. if the hockey gods were a little bit more on point, who should have ended up with Connor Bedard? I mean, there's Anaheim, right? Columbus, my first good answer is Columbus

because we looked, we don't look at that franchise. I don't think we look too highly on that franchise. I don't think we look too highly on Columbus as a hockey city. We see it as a place where, okay, you may have the players, they may have the players they have, but they'll eventually leave, right? There was that team that surprised everyone, that one year against Tampa, another team that had an amazing regular season only to fall out of the first round, and guys like Artemian Panarin left, and it just is what it is.

So to have had a number one overall pick go there and Connor Bedard, I think that could have gone a long way to changing the reputation of that. franchise. And look, they've had number one overall picks before. But with respect to Rick Nash, I mean, Connor Bernard at least on papers, on a completely different level of player and his impact, you see what's going on in Chicago. Who knows how it would have been in Columbus had he gone there. But yeah, I think they're probably number one for me on that list. Anaheim's probably up there too. I mean, they were number two to Sidney Crosby all those years ago for them to get the number one overall pick in this instance,

that might have made up for 2005. All right, Sean, did you look it up? So here's, I looked up my rankings, and yeah, I had Columbus number two, for a lot of the same reasons, had Anaheim three. So it was up there. My number one pick was maybe a bit of a surprise,

and they didn't have odds quite as high as the other ones, but I actually picked the Detroit Redwings. And I said they have been bad for years, which in theory makes them the sort of team, to it that needs that franchise player. They didn't tank in the in the Connor Bedard year. They were at least trying to, you know, be a bit better. They've been aggressive in the offseason.

And they had never won a lottery. They hadn't picked first since 86, had not picked in the top three since 1990. So I know that, you know, a lot of fans, they get very frustrated when it's the same teams, having the same picks. And, you know, even a team like Chicago, they got Patrick Kane through the lottery and now it happens again. So I had Detroit up there, and of course, as Detroit fans, I'll tell you once again, Lottery didn't smile on that.

Let me just read you, though, when I did my top five, who actually deserves it rankings? I listed one team as not ranked. The Chicago Blackhawks, they openly tanked about as shamelessly as any team we've ever seen, and they still didn't even finish last. The lottery loves to reward tanking, and it loves to reward failure, but fail tanking, no thanks. And the hockey gods read that and went. Thanks for the notes, Sean, but we're going to go in our own direction here. Yeah.

Oh, man. So Chicago ends up with Bidar, but that's an easy segue for us to get to our fifth story to recap in 2023. So Baderd arrives in Chicago with a lot of fanfare. And then later in the year, Corey Perry mysteriously vanishes. It's probably the best way to put it last. I mean, you were all over this story. as the year wraps up here in in in 2023 how do we view Corey Perry and his legacy

and all of it as it sort of relates to what happened there at the end in Chicago? You know, it's funny. We did our preseason bold predictions piece where all the writers put their bold prediction in mind was Corey Perry would become a beloved figure in Chicago which seems so impossible because he was so hated for so many years. But like less than a week before whatever happened in Columbus happened, I wrote a, I had a whole feature on what a difference Corey Perry was making in this locker

room. He really was beloved. He was, he was brought in to be kind of a team dad along with Nick Bolino. And he was filling that role. Like he was, you know, holding team meetings and holding guys accountable and preaching brotherhood and all this stuff that he went throughout the window with whatever happened. And we're, we're hopefully eventually going to find out exactly what happened for this quote unquote workplace incident.

We won't write it until we know every little piece of it and confirm it all. We're not going to have it come. out in drips and drabs because that doesn't really serve anybody's purpose. But he played himself out of the team. And now you wonder, I mean, this was a guy who was still burnishing his Hall of Fame credentials. I think that was something that was on his mind. He's not a lock for the Hall of Fame by any means. He's got a hard trophy. He's got a great career. He's won the Stanley Cup. But I don't think he was really, he was a borderline Hall of Famer. And he needed a couple more seasons of kind of compiling some numbers, I think, to really get there. And I think he's

going to, you know, is he going to want to come back? Is a team going to be willing to sign him? You know, down the stretch, what an addition, Corey Perry could be down the stretch for a playoff contender team. He went to the Stanley Cup final three straight years. It'll be really interesting to see if this is the end or if that, if he has a chance to kind of, you know, re-reshape his legacy and really kind of clean his name off again because I don't know if he can right now. I don't know if he's too toxic. Julian, I'll ask you this. Do we have to, like in order for Corey Perry to do what Lazz is suggesting, which is have a kind of a re-reburne.

type of thing and come back somewhere. The entirety of whatever he did, or as alleged to have done, needs to come out, right? Like there's no way he could just sign with the team and be like, all right, here's our playoff guy without people knowing the truth, right? Julian? Yeah. I think in some way he has to apologize and try to atone for what he did before anything goes forward.

And I was probably looking at it more in a cynical view. My thinking was that he would put it. out some state another statement saying that acknowledging more about what happened and he would try to apologize for it. And then some team, either we have heard about it beforehand or afterward, some team would come up the woodwork and sign him. Like I'm until he puts out the paper saying he's retired, I'm not convinced this is the end of Corey Perry. I still think that there's some team out there who sees some kind of value in having Corey Perry in their locker room purely for the on-ice ability that he can provide.

And I would, I mean, if I'm proven wrong, I'm proven wrong. But ultimately, he will have to do more apologizing, I think, in order to help his own image and ultimately make himself serviceable to NHL teams going forward. But I mean, I don't have any intel on it, but I would be very surprised if no team right now has at least considered the possibility of having him in their life. locker room because that's what that's what happens in sports guys who get in trouble for better for worse they still if they're talented enough they still find their way on on teams especially if the team is in need of an extra push to make it to a championship well and until we know exactly what

happened here i mean there's the possibility the distinct possibility that this is that the black hawks of it all changed the dynamics right that another team could have absorbed the hit disciplined him and still kept him. But the Blackhawks, given everything that has happened in the organization, had no choice but to immediately cut ties after an investigation. Like, there's a lot of ambiguity right now as to what his future is, because there's a lot of ambiguity about what happened. And Sean, let me ask you this to close up the Perry conversation,

because you are a Hall of Fame guy. You've written at length about who should be a bubble candidate, who should be a legit candidate. Last touch on this, but, I mean, how does this affect Corey Perry his legacy and potentially a chance at a spot at the Hall of Fame. Yeah, he was a very borderline case. In fact, you know, if you take the MVP away, he doesn't really have a case. He's not going to get to a thousand points.

He's not going to, you know, he's got the cup. He, you know, he did a lot of winning. But honestly, I mean, was he a key piece of Olympic teams? You know, even when he won the cup, he was still a youngish player. So I don't think the case is there if you take the MVP away. But that's not how it works. The MVP is there. And you look down the list of skaters, especially, who have won the MVP, they get in the Hall of Fame.

And so that was going to be a big part. I've said for years, I, Perry wouldn't have my vote. But I could see a situation where the guys in the committee sit there and go, man, this guy is a winner. He won everywhere. The fact that, you know, late in his career, his late career act, when he was nowhere near even a top line player, let alone a Hall of Fame guy. still drags Montreal to the final, takes Dallas to the final, you know, with Tampa and all of this, you're sitting there going, this guy is a winner. He is a, the committee, right? It's the 200 hockey men personified.

They would love a guy like Cory Perry. So what is what happens now when Cory Perry did something that was bad enough to get him kicked off of a team? You know, the ultimate letting down your teammates, right? I mean, to just say like, I've got, yeah, you guys brought me in here. and now I can't I can't help you at all. I think it does diminish him. And again, it gets to, are we ultimately going to find out what happened?

Because I really do feel like, I get that, hey, it's not our right to know everything. That's fair. And I get that there's, you know, there are some privacy concerns here,

potentially with multiple people involved. I'm not sitting here and saying, you have to tell us the media, absolutely everything. But as we saw in the Corey Perry story, when you don't tell people things, there becomes it, there's this vacuum forms.

And in some cases, the media in this particular case wasn't, it was fans and, you know, quasi fake media on social channels, go and fill things in. At this point, everyone's looking around going,

okay, is, you know, Corey Perry, is he, is he a guy who has a problem? And we should feel, you know,

in some sense bad for him, or maybe did the Blackhawks overreact? Or did he do something so toxic and awful that we should never want to, you know, hear his name again. there's a wide range and it's going to be tough. It's it's tough to bring him back to a team. I can't see how you put him in the Hall of Fame if there's still this question hanging over him of what exactly is it that happened.

And quickly, it's not like it's like a worst kept secret. Like his teammates still don't know. Like I've talked to enough guys off the record at this point to know that they genuinely don't have all the details, even within that locker room. That's how secretive this all is. I'm still amazed at that, like, like, considering how hockey players talked with each other and what they know and how did they not know. Like, I'm still amazed at how they don't know, Al Davidson walked into the room and told them that Corey Perry was kicked off the team and he didn't tell them why. But wouldn't you want to know if you're a player in that room, if you're a player who played alongside Corey Perry, you, there's no way no one knows. People would have figured it out by now.

There's no way. the Cory Perry story was number five. So we're now into the back half of the 10 biggest stories of 2023. And Sean, I want to start with you on this one because it's rare that a reigning Norris Trophy winner and a 100-point guy gets traded in the offseason after he accomplishes both those things. But we saw it. Pittsburgh Penguins. They swung big.

They got Eric Carlson. That's the trade of the year, right? Oh, yeah. Yep. I don't even, I think it's probably not all that close on whatever would be second. And you're right. Very rare. Again, we're always hearing about how the salary cap makes trades harder, but every now and then, the right set of circumstances comes into and the salary cap makes a trade more likely and maybe a little bit easier.

Because much like the Mark Andre Fleury trade a few years ago, where he was, remember, the reigning Vezina winner at the time, you look at the return here and you go, So this doesn't make sense. I mean, if you were, if you were simming ahead in NHL 24 and you saw Eric Carlson got traded for that package, you go, oh, this game's broken. There's no way that a guy coming off one of the greatest offensive seasons we've ever seen for a defenseman gets traded for next to nothing. But that's the salary cap. And that's what happens when, you know, San Jose moves on without retaining a whole ton of salary. Enormous trade. One that I think a lot of us at the time, you know, looked at and went, wow, this is a penguin's team that is.

swinging big. They are not going quietly on the end of the Crosby window. And so far, halfway through the season hasn't exactly worked out. It hasn't looked great. But a huge trade, almost kind of a throwback to the way things used to be when it was not rare to see players for a variety of reasons. Big name stars getting traded in off seasons, even during the season. Don't see it very much anymore. Definitely saw one here. Still just surprised that it has not worked out as well as some people would have liked in Pittsburgh. We see the power play numbers. They're not great.

They're in the bottom third of the league. Pittsburgh as a whole, just this team that is floundering at the bottom of the Metropolitan Division. What does that mean for them going forward? I mean, Kyle Dubas and the Penguins did all they could to get the big fish in Eric Carlson. They wanted to strike while they were hot with Sidney Crosby still playing at a high level. And Chris LaTang and if any Malkin's still healthy and playing, again, at high levels. What do you do if once you approach the deadline and this team is out of it?

Are you flipping Jake Gensel? Who else are you flipping from this team? What do you do? I can understand that some people would look at the penguins and think, man, you got to find a way to retool. How do you retool when you have this generational player at his late age, what, 36? Still playing amazingly well. You can't waste those seasons, right?

Of course this Carlson trade have to work. It's hard to pin that all on him, but this team as a whole just has not played up to expectation. And I'm really fascinated to see what's going to happen next. Is it that shocking, though, that it didn't work out? I mean, was Eric Carlson as great as he is, as much as we all love watching Eric Carlson play? Was he what the penguins needed?

A very, very, very, very offensive-minded defenseman? Was he the missing piece? They don't have the depth. They don't have the goaltending. And adding, you know, another high-end elite, offensive-minded defenseman didn't really address any of those issues. for them. I think this felt like a very Kyle Dubus trade. More offense, more offense, more offense, right? And that's what we want to see. So many of us want to see teams built with offense in

minds, but we're seeing time and again why it's not always the best idea. This wasn't what the penguins needed. It was a nice luxury, but that could have been used, that space could have been used in other ways. And it's, it's, I don't like seeing it not work out, but I don't think I'm shocked that it's not working out. Yeah, I love the boldness, right? Like, you're Pittsburgh This is what we talked about this earlier with Vegas. We want bold general managers, bold things, but they don't always work out. Before we take a break, there is one story that,

you know, I want to get to that it was probably the most upsetting, sad, tragic story of 2023. And that's the death of Adam Johnson. In what can only be described as just a freak accident with the skate blade from Matt Petgrave. I never watched the video. I couldn't bring myself to it. I don't know where you guys came down on that.

I couldn't do it. I didn't. I just, I think it's wrong. What I'm hoping, and we're seeing this a little bit out of this, is, you know, the T.J. O'Shee, Lazan, I know you did the piece, right?

T.J. O'Shee, and he's wearing a neck protector in Ottawa. I see Claude Jaroos wearing one now. And you hope that maybe that somebody's death isn't in vain, that somebody's death isn't, you know, for no reason, that maybe we can learn from this. And I understand it was a tragic, you know, one in a million, whatever, but it was so upsetting. I'm glad to see that some players at the NHL level, Laz, and I'll start with you on this,

have started down that road of saying, you know what, more protection is a good thing. And maybe I can learn something from the death of Adam Johnson. But it's not a lot, is it? It's a couple of guys on every team. I mean, T.J. Ochi, who is his company, Warrode, is making this stuff, has been making it for some time and he wasn't wearing it until, until this happened to Adam Johnson. still only have one, two, three guys per team wearing. I know in Chicago, I think it's Wyatt Kaiser and Reese Johnson, the only guys wearing those little turtlenecks now.

And, and, you know, since this happened, I've talked to so many guys around the league, asking them if they think it should be mandated, if neckgear protection should be mandated, and almost every single one of them said, no, that it should be a choice. One guy said, it's like mouth guards. Not everybody wears a mouth guard, even though we know it's smart to wear a mouth guard, but guys choose to do that. And, you know, they're not wrong, but they're not right either right like the nchl should be mandating this if anything so this doesn't happen because imagine if this happened in an n hl game on north american ice the coverage of it and how different it would be if it was it was someone that people knew on a team people under you know knew uh the

the backlash against against the league would be would be catastrophic and i i don't think like i feel like it's already fading away into memory which is unfortunate i feel like the reaction needed to harsher than it was, needed to be more proactive than it was. There was a small window there where you could have really passed some legislation, so to speak, that nobody could have argued against. And now that window is gone. And you're going to have just, you know, what was it, Martin Firk the other day, almost kicked the guy in the throat in a European league or HL or something like that.

This could, we're so close to this happening so often. So often. That's what Haley Wiccanizer told me. She says, she gets so mad when people say that this is a freak accident, because it's not because it happens all the time, guys just get lucky. They just miss an artery or they just get cut skin deep or they just miss their face. And we see it all the time. And, you know, with the speed of the game and the size of these guys and the strength of these guys and the hitting and the flipping over into the benches and into the crease,

it's only a matter of time. And I wish that the NHL and the players would have been more proactive in the wake of this. Yeah. Mark, you said, you know, imagine if it happens. It's going to happen. in the NHL. That's the reality. It's going to happen.

We almost had it with Clint Milarchic. We almost had it with Richard Zednik. Those were both cases where, you know, but we missed by a few seconds. And when the Adam Johnson situation happened, I said, look, this is going to happen in the NHO. What are we going to do the day after it happens inevitably in the NHO? Why don't we do that now? And I, you know, I know that the NHO can't unilaterally do this.

They need the players on board. but there's just a part there's a part of me that says, you know what? Yeah, I get not everyone wants to wear a mouth guard. Somebody taking a puck in the mouth and losing all their teeth. Hey,

not fun, but that's not going to cost the NHL billions in bad publicity and sponsors, you know, deserting them and all that. This could. And it's going to happen eventually. And, you know,

with both, I've said it for years. I'm not trying to be dark about it, but we're going to see somebody dying in an NFL game. It's going to be a skate blade or it's going to be a puck, a fast moving puck up high that gets somebody. What can we, I don't know what we can really do on the ladder, but on this, you know, there's at least precautions we can take. And 20 years from now, everyone's going to be wearing this stuff. And your kids or your grandkids are going to look at it the same way they look

at people not wearing helmets in the 60s. And that's right. And you can prevent, you know, shots of the head. These guys probably should be wearing bubbles as it is. Bubbles aren't even allowed. They're not even allowed. There's rules. against wearing it unless you have a specific medical reason. And 20 years from now, I guarantee you every single NHL player is wearing a bubble. Like, something's going to happen. Something always happens.

And I just feel like the NHL always waits until it's happened. And then they react. Yeah, a day. And it looks like they're going to do it for this too. Yeah, I think so. You look through the history of time with so many safety precautions. You can find video of people complaining about the idea of wearing seatbelts.

So I'm not surprised that there are players, even in the players I've spoken to as well who say they want that choice. But it always goes like that for so many safety precautions. And I don't know if you guys have felt the same way. But ever since that Adam Johnson incident happened, I find just I'm noticing more and more how likely it is for a player to get in contact with somebody and that skate gets kicked up. And I saw it.

I saw what maybe not too many nights after the Adam Johnson incident where skate got kicked up And maybe the blade didn't hit the player in a head, but the leather of the skate hit them in the head. And that's still dangerously close. And we're going to get to a point where the NHL and the NHLP will have no choice but to come together on this and create a lot of mandated. That's what's going to happen. I mean, as much as you want to let the players eventually decide for themselves,

unfortunately, it's going to come to a head. Some drastic things are going to happen. And then they'll make the change. There is an opportunity for the NHL to be proactive. about this. Mark is absolutely right. From what we know about the league, they don't necessarily do it as fast as we would want to. So, yeah, I think it will happen.

Just maybe it might be a little bit too late. All right. Well, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll take a break here. When we come back, we've got three more stories to wrap up from 2023, including, as I mentioned, Snoop and his connection to the auto with senators,

and then a couple of awkward exits from Columbus and Toronto. We'll get to that on the other side. All right, three stories to go to wrap up this look back at 2023. And look, I cover Ottawa and I didn't push for them to be on this list because I cover the senators. I put them on this list because I don't know that there was a more newsworthy team in 2023. So very quickly, I'm going to give you the rundown of the stories with the senators. You have Ryan Reynolds involved. Is he going to buy a team?

He's showing up at games that he famously. hits the eject button in the spring. You have Snoop Dog saying, I'm in. I got a chance to interview him, which quite frankly might be the career highlight for me. The weekend was poking around on the senators. Then finally Michael Anlauer gets the team. And don't forget,

Mike Anlauer had that unbelievable press conference where he takes a shot at Gary Bettman. And he takes a shot at Gary Bettman because, oh, Ottawa loses the first round pick for a trade that happened two years ago. They fire the general manager. and then Shane Pinto was suspended for 41 games for gambling. And if that's not enough, 71-year-old Jacques Martin is coaching the team again

because they fired DJ Smith. So, Sean, I'll start with you because I know you have a special place in your heart for the Ottawa senators. They're the most newsworthy team at 2023, right? What's the most newsworthy senators thing from 2023 for you? Yeah. And I mean, geez, that stuff. Most of what you described was like in the last two months. That was really something.

And, you know, I remember five years ago, I always, every year I do a piece where I rank the most bizarre off seasons. And the senators are the only team that's ever had a 10 out of 10 from that one crazy off season where there was like the Eric Carlson and Mike Hoffman thing and, you know, all sorts of crazy stuff going on. This might be right up there. I mean, it wasn't off season. I will say the biggest story for the Ottawa senators was the ownership.

and the drama that went around with that, the big names that, you know, you talked about, and then you sort of had the anticlimactic finish of, oh, yeah, it's just some rich business guy gets the team. But I still feel like the fact that it took as long as it did, man, I would love to go back and see some alternate history where that sale happens when we thought it was going to happen earlier in the year. And they, the new management comes in with enough time in the off season

to potentially look at the GM, to look at the coach, to look at those changes. Instead, they say, okay, you know, stability. We need stability. Pierre Dorian gets to stick around and run an off season and sign Teresanko and Corpusallo and guys like that. We keep the coach. We keep everything. And that kind of leads to this, you know, a little bit of a train wreck that we've seen over the last few weeks. So I think that's, that is the story that probably hovers over everything. You know, maybe the Pinto thing is, is unrelated. it, but it feels like everything else, all those little pieces in place. You know, if ownership had already been in there, if Pure Dorian had been fired in June,

does the NHL maybe take a different tact when it comes to the trade? Who knows? We'll never know. But yeah, that's the big one for all the reasons I just mentioned, but mainly because you got to talk to Snoop Dogg. Yeah. And I got to swear a couple of times in the podcast when I was quoting him. Twice.

We got on the swine twice. Drop in the F bomb. Are we not supposed to curse on this podcast? Because I should have been fired by now. Yeah, I was about to say, like, I mean, I feel like that law should have been instituted a long time ago. I'm also wondering, if Snoop Dog ended up being owner of the Ottawa senators, a man who we have seen Crip Walk at different points in his life, how would that have worked out? He said he was going to come to six. His whole part when I spoke to him, he said his plan was he was coming to six.

It was a very specific number. He's like, I will be at at least six games. Like, he would have been. So, like, was there going to be an ultimate? Jersey night or something. Like, I'm not just, I just hope, I wonder if someone's going to answer that question. In all seriousness, I really think we tell them that there's already a team with a big leaf on their jersey, like that's, that's already been taking.

He doesn't get to do that. And they're blue. Yeah. But I really think there was an opportunity for, uh, the coolest thing to happen, whether it was Snoop Dogg owning an HL team. Remember, he went on first take on ESPN and had a one-on-one conversation with Stephen A. Smith about the possibility of owning an NHL team and what. would want to do with creating like a snoop hockey league or something like that for kids.

With the Sanchez, right? Yeah, he was dead. He seemed dead serious about that. There was that possibility. The weekend getting in on this, that would have been something to be. Ryan Reynolds was on the Tonight Show talking about the Ottawa Senators. This was definitely the most American press, the Ottawa Senators have ever gotten. Ever, including an actual.

Like literally the cool, the only other cool thing that has happened to that franchise is Rihanna wearing that alternate Ottawa Senators jersey and like no one knows why but like them being owned by a celebrity that was going to supplant that and all we got was Michael and Lauer who hey good for him. He has the money. He's the guy. I'm not

dumping on a guy who's got all that money can buy an NHLT good for him but there was such an opportunity for the prospective owner of the Ottawa senators to be this cool new celebrity that would have opened so many eyes around the sporting world and the the NHL ended up picking the obvious, in their eyes, candidate for that position.

And look, they probably have the reasons, too, with money and trust and all that. Michael Ann Lauer already has a relationship with the league compared to some of those other guys. But like, Ryan Reynolds, wouldn't that have been really cool? Welcome to Rexum. Welcome to Ottawa. Like a cool documentary series around the Ottawa senators. We would have all been watching that. We would have all been eating that up.

But no, we have Michael Lauer. Again, no shit. Just, just saying. A little bit of shame, a little bit. Oh, man. Okay, we've got, we've got two more stories to get to before we say goodbye. And I figured, why not save the awkward departures for that very reason, as we're about to leave here?

So we got a couple of, we'll start with this one, and that is Mike Babcock. Mike Babcock doesn't even coach a game, Las, for the Columbus Blue Jackets. a absolutely fascinating story that really seemed to evolve over the course of, you know, 72 hours in the fall just before training camp. I mean, it was truly unbelievable. Wasn't it to see a guy get named as a coach and then he never coaches a single game for that team? I mean, it was a little believable because why did you hire Mike Babcock in the first place?

Like, what a predictable ending that hiring Mike Babcock was going to end poorly for it? you. Like maybe not, we didn't know it would be exactly this. But, and again, this is another example of a guy who had lost the benefit of the doubt. And maybe if this had happened on another team with another coach, he could have easily just weathered this. And it would have been an awkward couple of, an awkward news cycle. But when it's Mike Babcock, who is, basically was blacklisted from the league for playing mind games with his players, asking to go through your phones whether you want him to or not and making players uncomfortable, how could you keep him there? I mean, this was the whole concern of hiring Mike Babcock in the first place,

and he didn't learn any lessons because he very well might have been well-meaning about it. He might have been just, this is a thing I do to get to know you, I want to know your family. It might have been perfectly innocuous and fine. But he should have known that optics were everything with him coming back in the league. He should have been smarter to know that I got to rethink the way I do things because the way I did things got me in a lot of trouble. and the fact that he wasn't self-aware enough to know that asking a 20-year-old to look through their phone and put it on a big screen or whatever it was he did

wasn't a bad idea, then this is a guy who's got very poor judgment and you should not have hired him in the first place. It's simple. The fact that that happened is deplorable enough. He didn't even get to coach a game. One game. That's what makes it ridiculous.

Like, if this, like I expect a story like, that to happen 20-something games in. Columbus is bad enough as it is, and then it comes out that he's doing this. And I want, Katie Strang or someone at the athletic breaks this story. It's like, well, this dude can't coach again, but at least we saw him back in the NHL for 20-something games. He didn't even get to preseason. It's embarrassing.

You, could you imagine being Yarmel Kekhleinen? You're putting your ass out there for this guy who I also don't think that he necessarily did enough to deserve that. second chance to coach. And then you have to dispose of this dude before a game is played. I mean, could you feel bad for Yarmal either because I don't feel bad for it either too. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, and I went back on that on that podcast that Ian and I did on the day on when we were talking to Aaron Portsline and breaking down that story, if that happens earlier in the summer, there's a good possibility that Yarm Mekke Kalanin's gone too. Just the fact that if

the timing of it sort of complicated his future as well. You can't have a regular season starting up and the GM's gone, the head coach is gone, and all these changes are happening. I mean, who knows, Yarmal might still lose his job at the end of the year, depending on how things go. You might want to do a whole clean refresh after this year. It's still not going well. But the fact that it got to a point where you have to get rid of this coach,

and he doesn't even get to coach a real game with this team, it is nothing short of embarrassing. You had the owner basically give a press conference where, you know, you didn't have to read that far between the lines. where he practically came out and said, I would fire my GM and my president. If I didn't feel like we need some stability right now, there's that word again. But boy, I mean, if I'm an owner who does not come out

and talk very frequently. Yeah. No. If I'm, if I'm Yarmal right now, I don't even know. I mean, we talk about hot seats. I don't know if he has a seat anymore. He's at a standing desk right now.

Okay. You know, Sean, the 10th story, the final one that we're going to talk about here, You just mentioned a press conference where you didn't have to really read between the lines. That's a good summation of Brendan Shanahan from earlier in 2023. And kind of the dueling, not press conferences, but stories that came out, Kyle Dubus leaves Toronto, ends up in Pittsburgh, but his departure from Toronto, boy, Sean, that one didn't feel like it was an amicable departure. It felt like it was something weird.

It was strange and it certainly came out. And I think anytime you have a situation that happens in Toronto, it's going to be magnified. But this one really did feel like a massive news story with Caldubus and the Toronto Maple Leafs parted ways in the spring. And it was bizarre. And look, I mean, you want to talk about bizarre moments in Maple Leaf's history. I give you a long list. You know, I lived through the Harold Ballard era. You know, I had a million of them during there, you know, through the 90s and even the Brian Burke era.

That was part of what Brendan Shanahan brought to the Maple Leafs, you know, when he came in and then after that first year or two and even bringing in Lou Lamarillo for a little bit, credibility, stability, and hey, we're not the dumb team anymore. We're going to be the team that actually thinks things through. We're not falling all over our face in public all the time. And this was, that's what made this story so bizarre. because look, Kyle Dubus, when you look at his record in Toronto, in terms of the moves he made, in terms of the success or lack of it, the team is head. I think you can make a case this guy is a really good young, up-and-coming GM in the league. He's a real smart guy, and he's the guy who should be running your team.

I think you could also make the case that he hasn't done a good enough job. You could pick apart some of the moves he's made and say, hey, if it wasn't Toronto and this guy, you know, wasn't on camera all the time, we wouldn't think twice about moving on. And I think you could even make the third case, which is good GM, but you know what? You had your chance in Toronto. We wish you luck somewhere else. But none of that happened. Instead, what happened was we knew that he was going into that last season with no contract extension.

So we knew it was the make or break year. Brendan Shanahan, by his own account, spent all year watching, spent all year seeing what Kyle Dubas was doing. And at some point, he made his decision, which was, this is the guy for us going forward. We want to keep Kyle Dubas. And he sits down and he, you know, the contract offers go back and forth. And Kyle Dubas gives his press conference, which he has to do. It's Toronto. You can't just say I'm not going to show up and talk to the media.

And three days later, Brian Shannon's up there saying, I changed my mind. So like, again, when that story broke that it was a Friday morning, Kyle Dubas will not come back to the Maple Leafs. I think a lot of us went, okay, wow. But you know what? okay, they won one playoff round under this guy. And some of his moves didn't work out. And you know what? Okay.

And if Brandon Shan had just sat down and said, look, guys, I got three cup rings. I know a little thing or two about winning. You know, this wasn't the right path going forward. We needed to change it up. Okay. Then, you know what? It's a big story because it's Toronto, but it makes sense. But for him to get up there and say, well, we had actually decided we did want to keep

them right up until a few days ago. And now all of a sudden we don't. That's just made you sit there and go, oh, geez. Like what's next? You know, is Kyle Duba's going to come back wearing the paper bag over his head? Or like, what are we doing here? Because it's back to the old school Toronto Maple Leafs. And that comes after Kyle Dupus steps in front of everyone.

And whether it's genuine or not, I chose to believe that it was. But he speaks in front of everyone honestly and talks about how much of a toll it is to take on that job and how it is on his family. And it's like a rare moment where you see an exec, like be emotional. and pour it on on how tough their job is. And then he doesn't come back. You know, how much of that is on the contract stuff? How much of that is on money? I can't tell you.

I'm not in that market. But for me, the fact that it, the fact that that happened after Kyle Dupus had that press conference where he acknowledged the toughness of the job and how much it wore, tore on him and his family, that doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth, just as a neutral observer. And I wrote at the time, I said,

you know, there's got to be something else here. And at some point, we're going to know the rest of the story and we'll look back and we'll say, okay, maybe it makes sense. Six months later, we still don't know the rest of the story. We still have not, Kyle Dubas has not said anything. They played the Leafs twice. They've been in Toronto. He didn't talk to anyone.

Brandon Shanahan has not, you know, said anything else. Nothing's leaked out. So we don't know what the story is. If there even is one, maybe the story is just exactly the way Brandon Shanahan laid it out. And that's it. But boy, it was such a bizarre situation. On a move where it felt like there was no way for the Leafs to screw it up because, you know, bring them back or don't.

There's a case to be made on either side and they somehow managed to cross the streams and mess it up both ways. Didn't Dubis say during that press conference, I'll either be GM of the Leafs or I won't have a job. Isn't that what he said? And then, yeah, like a week later. He kept his word for three days. What do you want?

I mean, yeah, you're right. That's also surprising too. I really thought he was going back to actually I don't remember specifically what I said at the time. I mean, I think I was a little bit more concerned about Sheldon Keith's job security in all seriousness. But to see him end up in Pittsburgh, I was very surprised. There was a part of me that held out hope that he would join the Ottawa senators because I think we were still wondering about their ownership situation at the time. And that would have been such a very, very interesting conclusion to that. saga, but Pittsburgh's pretty good too.

Yeah. Oh, no, there was definitely a path for him to come to Ottawa, I think, had the timing of that sale been different, I think Cald was going to the general manager. Yeah, exactly. It all comes back. Where's Eric Carlson in that alternate universe? Oh, man. Eric Carlson back in Ottawa. Okay.

Our next episode that we're going to record is the alternate universe, 20, 23, where we just go back and talk about all these potential things that could happen. All right. But we are going to have to leave it there. So we want to say, happy holidays. Happy New Year from all of us here at the Athletic Hockey Show. So for Mark Lazarus, Julian McKenzie, Sean McAdoo, we appreciate all of you listening to us all year long.

I want to let you know that coming up later this week on Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, Haley, Max Boltman, Sean Gentilly, they're going to preview the upcoming PWHL season. So that's coming up in the next edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Later this week with the World Juniors underway, Max, Corey, Scott Wheeler, And Chris Peter is going to join the show. That should be a lot of fun. They will get you covered wall-to-wall for the 2024 World Junior Hockey Championships. And we want to thank you again for listening to this year and review edition of the Athletic Hockey Show.

And right now, until the end of the calendar year before it flips January, you can get the one-year subscription to the Athletic for 1999 or a two-year subscription for $39.99 when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show.