The Athletic Hockey Show - Tim Peel's dismissal, NHL moments you wish had a hot mic, draft lottery changes and more

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss the latest on the Tim Peel drama, does the league's officiating need an overhaul? Also, a breakdown of the changes to the draft lottery and a chat about if tanking ever really works.Then in "Granger Things", Jesse Granger comes on to talk about if officiating through a gambling lens, and which teams are most affected betting-wise when it comes to playing their starting or backup goalie.To wrap up, Ian and Sean discuss your thoughts for NHL moments you wish had a hot mic present, and another look into "This Week in Hockey History"Have a question for the show? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on a subscription to the Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back for another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Ian Mendez. Once again, alongside Sean McIndoo, ahead on this episode of the podcast. We'll dive into the Tim Peel storyline about 48 hours after it happened. Should we overhaul the officiating system in light of this controversy, or are people happy with this status quo? Speaking of that, we're also going to read some of your Twitter suggestions about moments in NHL history you wish were caught on a hot mic.

Jesse Granger drops by for Granger things talking betting lines for starting goalies versus backups. And maybe we'll talk to Jesse too about whether or not we should get used to the betting world having a bigger influence on the NHL. And this week in hockey history brings us a little trivia and a crazy experiment that the NHL tried way back in the 1930. So Sean, look, I know that refereeing stories, that's your jam, isn't it? Like that, that, you're like the OG guy that was like harping on referees back in the day, the Kerry Fraser stuff. So we're a little bit removed now. It's been about 48 hours since the Tim Peel story first developed.

Has your opinion on this at all altered as the week has gone on? I'll tell you the piece that has changed a little bit for me. And if, if anybody listens to Puck Sue, my other podcasts, they know that yesterday morning when this was very fresh and we had just heard about Tim appeal is essentially being shut down. I said, you know what, there could be more to this that we don't know about now. He was on a live mic. We heard only half of a sentence broadcast on TV. In the NHL, in investigating this, they may have gone and got the rest of that and maybe

heard some other things. And if they heard something else that we didn't hear, maybe that explains why the punishment was so harsh. We're 24 hours later. We haven't heard anything about that. And I'm guessing, given the amount of criticism that's been directed at the that if there was something else there other than what we heard that was of significance, my guess is we would know about it by now.

Maybe not. We can still wait and see how it plays out. But at this point, I'm comfortable in just judging the NHL's reaction based on only what we heard, Tim Peel say. And based on what we heard from him, I get the frustration from a lot of fans, not because they're big Tim Peel fans,

because this was a guy that a lot of fans over the years didn't, weren't, weren't huge fans of. But it really does feel like somebody is getting singled out and scapegoated for saying something out loud accidentally that he didn't know we were going to hear that we all know goes on. There's not one single hockey fan who dropped their coffee mug when they heard that maybe sometimes NHL referees go looking for penalties and try to manage games and all of this stuff.

We all know this happens. and the fact that somebody would unknowingly just acknowledge that and have such a harsh punishment does really strike me as unfair and something that's not a great look for the league. You know, what I can't figure out in all of this, Sean, is Tim Peel was about five weeks away from retirement. Like, to me, I think if the league had just said, listen, we do not condone what Tim Peel did. We're going to launch an investigation and we're going to, you know, to have it happen. Like, it just seemed like too easy of a solution. Oh, guys got four weeks left.

Like, here's my question. Who's the, who's everybody's favorite referee? It's West McCauley, isn't it? Yep. If this happened to, and Wes McCauley is a wizard with the live mic, we all love West McColley. If this happened to West McCauley, is this the same result? Does West McCauley get punted for life? No.

I don't think so. No, of course not. This was the easy way. out, the guy was four weeks away from retirement. Exactly. And he was. He's about to retire. This is like some buddy cop movie stuff. Lethal work. Yeah. Murtaugh. Yeah. Disclose to retirement. And it's also, look, it's, it's, Tim Peel was the perfect guy to have this happen to if the NHL was looking to send a message

on this. He's, he's, as you say, he's a month away from retirement. He is a guy that the league has had some issues within the past. And he's a guy that at least based on, we don't see how the league ranks its officials, but we see how the playoff assignments go. And if you look at that, Tim Peel doesn't seem to be a guy that they consider to be one of their very best. So he was a very, very easy guy. It's like when something happens and there's a suspension and it's some fourth liner, you go, okay, well, yeah, they'll throw the book at him.

But if it was one of the stars, it would have been very different. And yeah, this gives the league a chance to say, that they really came down hard on a guy, basically kicking him out of the league, while at the same time not actually firing him, not, I mean, he's still going to get paid, he's still going to get his pension and all that. It's really only a handful of games that he loses.

It's the perception versus the reality. It reminds me in a strange way, a little bit of the Todd Bertuzzi situation where the NHL suspended him for one full year, knowing that they were going into a lockout that was going to wipe out the next. season anyways, and it lets the punishment sound really big even when it's maybe not as much. But yeah, Tim Peel, if the NHL had won it, and obviously the NHL doesn't want what happened here,

but if they wanted to send a message, perfect, perfect guy, because he checks every box of somebody that's easy to scapegoat in this situation. You know, I think about this too. Is there any sports league where the fan base is... cool with the officiating. Like, if you think about the NBA, you're like, oh, man, LeBron James, he gets seven, he gets to take seven steps.

Think of just Google Angel Hernandez's strike zone and see what comes up. Nobody likes that. And the NFL, like we all know about, you know, pick a fan base and they'll tell you that they've been on the wrong end is some awful calls. So this is, this part for the course.

And I think we need to understand that sometimes. As sports fans, that's an element here. but in the hockey world, we haven't had a Tim Doneghee situation. And Tim Donagie, for people who don't know, the NBA referee who about 20 years ago basically admitted that, yeah, I was kind of essentially fixing games. I was, you know, purposely making calls in certain ways. So in the history of the NHL, Sean, and again, you are, this is right up your alley. The Tim Peel controversy lands where in terms of all-time refereeing, officiating

controversies in this sport. Yeah, with the caveat that we still need to see where this goes and there could be other chapters or other things that come out. I think it's certainly towards the top of the list. I'll give you, I'll give you three others that I think rank up there. And the first is a little bit ironic because I think the last major officiating scandal that you'd say the NHL had was the Colin Campbell email situation where we found out that he was email and about about his son Gregory. And that's ironic because Colin Campbell is the guy playing a point on this one,

talking about the integrity of the game, and we can't have any suggestion that there's any influence, etc, etc. And he was the guy in the middle of the last one. So that was one. There's another one that's been largely forgotten, but it was kind of a big story and it was right around the time

of the season-long lockout where Andy Van Haliman was the director of officiating by that point. He'd retired as a referee. But there was an accusation that he was borrowing money from officials. And he lost his job over that. And I don't think there was,

I don't think there was an implication that he was doing anything wrong with the money or that there was anything beyond the fact that a boss shouldn't be borrowing money from his employees, especially when that boss gets to decide who gets the Stanley Cup assignments. And if he comes up and says, hey, can you spot me a few bucks? Are you allowed to say no, knowing that he might decide that? And so that was kind of a big thing, but it happened right around the lock. out so I think some of the attention disappeared. And then the one that I would put at the top of the podium,

and I don't think Tim Peel gets anywhere close to, at least not yet, is the Yellow Sunday, the famous 1988 conference final, Devils and Bruins, the aftermath of the Have Another Donut Incident, where Jim Schoenfeld gets suspended for allegedly bumping Don Quaharsky after a game, and the NHL suspends Jim Schontfeld, the devil say, No, no, we want our coach. They go to court and get a restraining order to allow Jim Schoenfeld behind the bench. And the officials at that night's game, and remember, this is a playoff.

This is conference finals. This is big stuff. The officials say if Jim Schenfeld's behind the bench, we're walking out, and they leave. It's a wildcat strike, and the NHL has no officials, and they end up having to go and get three amateur officials to referee the biggest game of the season so far. just a total debacle, an absolute embarrassment for the league. John Ziegler had gone AWOL. Nobody knew where he was.

So he was the lead president. He couldn't deal with it. Just a huge, huge black eye on the league and one that I don't think we'll ever see anything at that level again. Yeah. No, you're right. Yeah, that yellow Sunday, as it's called, is certainly number one. And sometimes we get into recency bias, right? Where we're like, this Tim Peel thing is the biggest controversy of all time.

Now, we have not heard, as of this stage of the get, at, you know, at this point of recording the podcast, we have not heard from Tim Peel. Sean, we may never hear from Tim Peel. But here is my question. How much would officials and referees in hockey being made available for comment, not every game, but from time to time, because we can't have them every game be like, hey, you missed this tripping call on Sid Crosby. Like, okay, enough. But I feel like from time to time, there are. anywhere between, you know, eight and ten times a season, where the officials absolutely unequivocally are a part

in a fabric of a storyline that becomes larger than the game itself. My question to you, and I'd love to hear from listeners on this too, would you want to see from time to time media availability, press conferences, Q&As with referees on the ice? Like, would it help you on Tuesday night if Tim Peel stepped in front of a podium and six people through Zoom were asking him, hey, what did the end of that sentence sound like? Why did you say that?

Do you have any regrets? Like, would that have helped the situation for you? Yeah, I think it would. And first of all, other leagues do this. And the NHL used to do it. And it wasn't a press conference situation. I can understand the league might say, hey, our officials, these guys, they don't have a bunch of media training.

We don't want to put them at a podium and have people screaming questions at them left and right, including the local homer. media who's trying to stir something up. We don't want them in that situation. But what typically happens and used to happen in the NHL is you get one reporter. You get a pool of reporter, gets to go in. Other reporters can say, here's what we want to know. And one guy gets to go in and ask the official some question.

And I think that's perfectly valid. It's perfectly fair. It should happen. It happens in other sports. And I'll tell you this. It's bad for the fans that the NHL doesn't do this. it's bad for the officials too. Because, you know, as much as I'm, you know, you mentioned Kerry Fraser.

I love complaining about the reps. I'm a sports fan. That's what I'm supposed to do. But I will say this. I'm also a rulebook guy. I, you know, and we've talked about goalie interference and some of this stuff. A lot of times I find myself defending the officials. And a lot of times the stuff that you're watching on TV and you go, that, that's nonsense.

They can't do that. Well, yeah, they can. And there's a good explanation for why I was called that way. And a lot of times the broadcasters calling the game don't do a good job and either don't know the rules or don't do a good job of explaining it. And that leaves fans with the wrong impression. And I think it would be useful for occasionally in those situations that you described to have an official be able to tell a reporter, look, here's the page on the rulebook. This is how we have to call it. This is why it was called this way.

Here's a misconception that we know a lot of fans have. They think it's called this way, but it's not. This is how it works. I think there would be some situations where fans would come away going, yeah, okay, you know what? Now that I've heard it, it does make sense. Maybe I'm not as angry. Maybe, you know, I'm still ticked off that my team lost or whatever it is.

But yeah, maybe these guys aren't incompetent. Maybe there's just a piece of information here that I was missing. We don't get that because the NHL for whatever reason doesn't trust these guys to defend their own work even in cases where there is a good defense to offer. And, you know, when Jesse Granger pops by in a bit, Sean, I think we should ask him a little bit about the kind of, you know, the accountability that might have to be present as gambling and betting becomes a bigger factor in North American sports and in particular in the NHL. So when Jesse drops by, I think we need to

look at this story through that lens. And for a lot of us, it's a new lens. We don't look at hockey through that betting lens or that fantasy lens. And I think Jesse will be invaluable on that. So we'll certainly pick that up when he drops by for Granger Things. A story that has been talked about for a while, Sean, and it was made official this week. And I don't think you and I have talked about this on the podcast, is the National Hockey League has officially gone ahead and made changes to the draft lottery format. So here's the kind of the real quick version of it for our listeners

in case you don't know what's going to happen. But starting with the draft this year, only the first two picks are going to be subjected to the lottery. So in the past few years, it's been the top three picks. Now it's only two picks. number one, number two, as well. You can only move up 10 spots. So no more is it the team that finishes just misses the playoffs.

You're kind of, you know, the 15th or whatever, the 17th team. You just missed the playoffs. You can't get, it's the old Rangers thing. You can't get the first first pick overall. But then I think this is interesting too. And I don't know who this is targeted at. Maybe it's the Sabres. Maybe it's the Oilers.

Maybe whoever it is. but starting in 2022, you will only be able to win, you cannot win the draft lottery more than twice in any five years span. So how do we feel about this? Step in the right direction, step in the wrong direction, neutral. How do you feel about this one? Yeah, I mean, if they were going to make changes, I think the changes they made are fine. I didn't have a big problem with the old system. If we assume we're going to have a lottery,

I know there's all sorts of more radical ideas out there about how we can do this. I've got some of my own. But if we want to have a lottery system, I thought the old system was okay. I think the system is okay too. The situation of going from doing three spots to two, I think is okay. What we can't have is we can't just go back to just having one because we saw in 2015, The problem is, however many spots you give out in the lottery, whichever team finishes dead last, is guaranteed to get one of those spots or one worse. And if you're only doing one like we did in 2015 and there's two franchise players, Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, or players like that in the draft, you have not removed the incentive to tank and to finish last.

And that's what the lottery is about. The lottery is about we don't want teams tanking and we don't want a perception that teams are tanking. So we want to kind of nirf their odds a little bit so that it doesn't make as much sense strategically. And I think, you know, three, could there be a year where there were three franchise players at the top of the draft? Yes, it could happen. But I think this is a reasonably low risk. I don't mind that. Not letting teams to finish 14 move all the way up.

Sure, that that's fine. It's very NHL that they created a system where that could happen. And then as soon as it happened, they were like, we didn't intend that. And it's like, guys, you looked at the odds. You knew that something that has a 5% chance of happening. You let it go enough years. It's going to happen eventually. And it's very NHL that they seem surprised by that.

The interesting thing is with the you can't win more than twice in five years because you got to be a little careful on the wording here. What you can't do is you can't win and move up more than twice in five years, which means if the Buffalo Sabres finished dead last this year and they won. win the lottery and keep the first overall pick, that doesn't count against them. What counts against them is like the Rangers, they've done it twice in the last few years or they've moved up. I like that. At fact, I've suggested for a while now that it shouldn't even have to do it moving up. You should just say, if you win the lottery, whoever gets the first pick in a given year,

lottery or otherwise, you can't be in the lottery again for the next three years. If you get the second pick, it's two years, whatever it is. And the reason for that is, hey, if we're saying that these picks are so valuable and you hear this all the time. Red Wings fans, we can't possibly ever win a cup again if we don't get one of these players. Okay, if it's so crucial, then let's spread it out. Let's make sure one team isn't hoarding all of the top picks. Let's make sure we don't have an oiler situation or a Nordiques or whatever. So I kind of like that. I actually would have liked to see them go further and say even if you finish dead last, because we're trying to discourage tanking. We're trying to encourage teams to win. You finish dead last. Doesn't matter.

You got that first pick. Great. Hope you got a good player. Hope you can build around but you're not going to pick again first for a little while because we're trying to spread these very valuable young assets. We're trying to spread them around so that teams have a chance to get these guys and rebuild. And we get as many teams rebuilding as possible. You know, I still, look, and I understand, there's been a handful of times in hockey history where teams have straight up tanked, right? Like the Penguins and the Devils back in the day when they were the race for Mario Lemieux. certainly I think that accusation was there for Buffalo in the in the in the in the McDavid draft but do you not look at Edmonton and Buffalo Sean and if you were

starting a team from scratch and you were or you were taking over a team and you were like hey listen we got we got a we got a restart here is tanking even the way to go like I guess my point is like we're spending so much time on eliminating tanking I almost feel like tanking, the punishment for tanking, you get what you deserve. And that is nobody that has really truly, I guess people will say that the penguins back in 05, 06, and that kind of that 0304 era potentially were so bad that they were tanking. But I don't know that there is such an incentive to tank that if there's no guarantee, if you tank and you're bad for two or three years, there's no guarantee that you're hoisting that Stanley Cup.

I guess it's my point. No, certainly not. And look, let's be clear on what we're talking about here, because there's different flavors of tanking. There is the version where you get two-thirds of the way through the season and you're 10 points out of the playoffs and the team stinks and you go, you know what, this season now has to be about the draft lottery. And also getting a look at the young kids and whatever else it is and cutting salary,

but it stops being about winning at that point. And some people would look at that and say, well, that's tanking. and maybe it is, but it's tanking for a month. That's very different from going into a season saying, we're already punting this season. We're not going to try to win. We're not going to spend all the money that we have.

We're not going to go out and fix the holes in the roster. And you're right. When teams do that, yeah, it makes sense strategically. It totally made sense in 2014-15 to tank that season, if you were the Sabers or the coyotes. And certainly some other teams like the Leafs joined into that as the season went on. It made sense. There were Jack Eichael and Connor McDavid.

These were franchise defining players. But there is a legitimate question to be asked that when you look at the Sabres, how much damage did that do? Because they kind of did it in 2013-14 as well. A couple of years of just writing it off and you say, you know what, we're going to get those top prospects. Okay, but what does that do to your culture? What does that do to your dressing room?

There's not that many guys that are still left from those teams in Buffalo, but what gets passed on as the team gets reassembled, this sense that, hey, we all, look around. We all knew what was going on. You know, the Sabres traded all their goalies at the deadline and didn't have anybody left to play net. It wasn't very hard for those players to look around and say, we know what's going on here. We know this team for all they might talk about being committed to winning and this and that and the other thing. They weren't. They were looking to lose so they could move up in the lottery odds. Does that do some sort of long-term damage?

I don't know. Maybe it does. At the same time, boy, I'll tell you, I wish my team a tank for Mario Lemieux in 1984. I wish my team had been shooting the puck into their own net. If it meant I was going to get Mario for the next 20 years, I would have been absolutely fine with it. So sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I don't think it's just as simple as saying, you know, hey, let's just punt on a season. Not too many teams do that these days.

And certainly, you know, the Sabres didn't do that this year. Sabers thought that were going to be okay this year and it's only been recently that it changed. But I hate tanking. I hate seeing it happen. I think this game should be about winning, going out and trying to win. And I hate as a fan, as a Lee fan, haven't been in this situation more than the few times where you got to root for your team to lose. That stinks. And I like that there's a lottery to try to dissuade teams from doing that.

But you're right. Even if you pull it off, there's no guarantee that it's going to turn into anything for you. So we're about two weeks away from the trade deadline. And your column this week, I want to have some fun with this. It's you're already bracing fans for your team is going to make a bad trade. Here's your list of excuses ready to go. How much fun did you have putting this one together? And I got to tell you, I think the one that you oversold, undersold, sorry.

You list, I think you listed in honorable mentions. It was, yeah, I got it here. Okay. It's okay. We can just turn them into a center. Yeah. That to me is the classic when you trade for a guy and he's a, the winger, oh, you know what, I think he can play some center.

Is the classic rationalization for trading for a guy. But I mean, this must have been a fun. I mean, all your pieces are fun to put together. But the making up excuses for your team ahead of the trade deadline so you're ready to roll, I think it was pretty good. Be prepared, right? You got to be prepared. And yeah, we can convert them into a center.

That was given to me anonymously. I'll just refer to him as Mark B. And I won't say anything else about his identity. But yeah, this is a chance to have some fun. And look, we've all been there. We've all had our teams make bad trades. Sometimes you don't know it for a little while until things play out. And sometimes like right then you find out about the trade and you're just kind of sitting there going, oh no, this is not a good deal.

And this is what we do. As fans, sometimes you go overboard on the criticism and you say, I can't stand it, fire everybody. This is awful. And sometimes that natural instinct kicks in of, okay, I got to defend my team. I got to think of a reason why maybe this will be okay. And I just decided to have some fun with that concept. And, you know, as somebody who is, here's a lot of feedback from different fans on different situations, it's just fun to highlight some of these things. Because, you know, we've all done it, right?

We've all said, well, you know what? Maybe this guy just needs a change of scenery. Like, he's been bad for three years. but maybe it's a change of scenery. He'll just, he'll come in. And the fact that he's somehow just on a different team where he doesn't know anybody and has no chemistry with anyone

and doesn't know the system, that will somehow make him better. Rarely works out, but we've all said it. You know, we've all talked ourselves into some older, expensive player who's not very good anymore, but you know what? He's good in the room. He's that he's a presence in the room.

We've got to have that. He's got a cup ring from 14 years ago. That'll really help. That'll help the young players. You know, they'll learn from him. We've done that. One of my favorites is the team that trades away prospects or draft picks. And they try to tell you that it's okay because we have too many of these guys, actually.

We have so many picks and so many prospects. We're just drowning in them. You know, so we can go and trade this guy. And you're just kind of sitting there going like, yeah, you have a lot of prospects because every team has a lot of prospects. Are they good? Are they so good that you've got like so many guys coming in that you can't possibly accommodate them all and you got to trade some of them? again, you know, a lot of these might have some truth to them in some situations, but we've also heard people who, like, cheer for the team with the 25th best farm system

in the rankings. And they're like, oh, we got a lot of prospects. And you're sitting there going, I don't know that you do. You know, another part of your column that I loved is when some, when your favorite team trades for a guy and the, one of the first things you do, other than going to cap friendly, which is the first thing everybody does, then you either go to HockeyDB or Hockey reference, depending on what your, your preferences. And you start looking for the past connections.

And I love that, right? Oh, my gosh, he played for him at the 2011 world championships in, you know, wherever, Lafayahe and he had nine points in six games. Yeah. Like, you know, or, oh, he was linemates with him in Erie. Yeah, junior line mates for guys. Junior line mates for 10 years. And it's, yeah, and I mean, in the hockey world, it's so insular.

And, you know, it's, there's always. going to be a connection. You can always find something and you're like, why would this guy be any good? No, no, no. The assistant coach who runs the power play, he was his coach in the AHL for half a season. So they know each other. So there's probably some sort of secret intel. Like, yeah, I'm sure that coach knows something about the player that the team that head him for the last five years didn't figure out. I'm sure that's it. And I love it when they go really far back. Like, you know, they play minor hockey together. Like here's a photo of the two of them when they were 10. And you're going, I don't feel like that's really going to have an impact. Or my favorite is when they start, like, they bring the family into it. It's like, oh, no, his dad was roommates with the GM in college. You're just going, like, I really don't feel like that's worth giving up an extra second round pick. But maybe it's him, you know, prove me wrong, I guess. But it's fun to see how desperate people will get to go back and connect all the lines on that little flow chart that they start putting together.

Oh, yeah. Or even, like, remember when Winnipeg traded for Pierre-Luc DuPois, it was like, his dad is the coach in Manitoba. Yeah, exactly. And you're sitting there going, that's cool and all, but he better not end up in Manitoba because we've really messed up if he's down there in the minor leagues. That's what I was thinking. I was like, what's the point is that is the farm team coach. Great. You just traded two assets for them.

And yeah, anyway, these things are always always fun. And before we get to Jesse Granger, though, do you actually have anywhere on your? computer or I would love it if this wasn't on a computer that this was like written like on a I imagine inside the down goes brown layer that there is like this huge wall that's a mural with like a trade tree that goes back to like the early 90s and you're still trying to justify trades that happened like listen if you follow this cortinal for cornyc tree it's actually not that bad like do you have anywhere in your possession some sort of crazy trade tree. I've seen a lot. I don't tend to make them. Other people do that, do that better than I do. But I say this. I'm not being ironic here. I love a good crazy trade tree. And because that's something I mentioned in the article is the guy who years later after what you, everyone has agreed as a bad trade will pull out like some, well, but yeah, but this guy turned into that guy. And then that guy turned into this pick and this pick turned into somebody. And then they bought him out. But they.

They use that cap space on this. So if you think about it, it's actually a good trade. And my all-time favorite is Boston Bruin fans who are convinced, not all of them, but there's a segment of them convinced that the Joe Thornton trade was actually a good trade. Because dot, dot, dot, and all of this, and then five years later, they win the Stanley Cup, and they wouldn't do that if they didn't have the Joe Thornton trade. I haven't been able to do it for Cortical Codic, which I don't need to because that was a good trade for the Maple Leafs. And unfortunately, I can't do it.

The one I would love to do it for is Tom Kerber's. but I can't because they turned Tom Curvers into Brian Bradley and then Brian Bradley got lost in the expansion draft. But I don't know, maybe if they hadn't lost Brian Bradley in the expansion draft, maybe they would have lost Doug Gilmore. Did you ever think about that? Maybe Doug Gilmore. Maybe that's why the Tom Curber's trade is a good trade.

And next thing, you know, I'm wildly gesturing in front of this big whiteboard. All right, Sean, we'll leave that portion of the conversation there. We'll switch gears here. And we talked about bringing Jesse Granger in for a little, Ranger things. And so, Jesse, we spent a good chunk at the beginning of this podcast talking about this story that is dominating the hockey world this week, and that is the Tim Peel story. And both Sean and I kind of alluded to this, and we really wanted to bring you in to get your perspective. And again, when you join us, it is always a presentation of our partners at BetMGM, the exclusive

betting partners with the athletic. How should we view the Tim Peel story through the lens of, this is now a gambling world that we live in, and there is a higher degree of accountability and integrity that is involved and expected from professional sports leagues. Yeah, definitely. Being in Vegas for the last 13, 14 years, I've kind of seen the evolution of pro sports leagues accepting gambling as a means of drawing up interest in their sport

and realizing that it's not this boogeyman out in the desert in Las Vegas. and it's a real thing that everybody in the country does and in North America does. And it draws interest in your sport. Like, I can remember covering fantasy football conventions run by NFL players just like four or five years ago, not that long ago. And they weren't even allowed to use the logos on their helmets on a poster inside a casino.

They would have to Photoshop the logo off it because the NFL was that terrified of a team logo being just inside the walls of a casino. And now you see the NHL has, contracts with, I think, point sports and some other betting applications. And once you accept that, and I think that's all great. I think it's awesome that sports are becoming more, sports betting is becoming more normalized. But once you make that leap, like you said, it changes, I think the bar. I think it changes how transparent you need to be.

And the NHL has historically not been transparent about many things, from everything from injuries to other things. And I think as they start to transition into being more accepting of sports betting, being more involved with it, that changes the way you have to act in other areas. And that whole Tim Peel thing, the one thing I always like to say is I wish we had more context to that, just for me personally. I know it sounded really bad. And what we got didn't sound good, but I wish we had more context on it. But at the same time, I also understand that the NHL had to act the way that they did quickly because, like I said, I think the standard they're being held to changes over the last couple years when you start getting in bed, as some people

have said, with sports betting and those types of companies. Yeah, and a lot of it ends up coming down to perception, I think. You just don't even want to open yourself to any perception that anything's not on the level. Do you think that as fans, and I know a lot of the people listening to this, fans who they don't gamble, they don't bet, they don't even really care about that, but they are fans of the league and they're frustrated by the lack of transparency sometimes. Is there a door open here that at some point we're going to see the league go to teams and say, you have to say what guys' injuries are. No more upper body, no more lower body. You're going to give us a real injury report like the NFL does and has done for years. You're going to tell us who

the starting goalies are. No more of this. Well, you're going to have to see it the game and any of this stuff, announce your starting goalie in advance and all of this. That could be something that may have to happen because of the gambling angle, but even if you don't gamble, that's just good information ahead. You want to know, I'm going to the game tonight. Who's in net? It'd be nice to know instead of all this dumb secrecy that really doesn't seem to have any competitive advantage to it.

Yeah, no, I completely agree that that's probably the direction it's heading. I like the way the NFL has it where they've got tears of injuries and it's not just day-to-day, week-to-week, whatever, just whatever words the coach feels like, you. using that day. They have actual definitions of the levels. And yeah, I do think the NHL is going on. And you mentioned not just gambling, but also like fantasy sports isn't technically sports gambling.

It's in a different category. And that's another massive group of people that need that type of information. And it's something that I think part of the reason like the NFL is so much further ahead of where hockey is in the U.S. is a lot to do with fantasy sports and gambling. And if you're the NHL, you know that that's the way to grow your sport, at least a big way. And like you said, it also makes the people who are here just watching hockey happy to. It's amazing to me how many people will say I wasn't even into this particular sport until I got

into a fantasy league. And like those are the two gateways, fantasy sports and video games seem to be the two where somebody will say, I never even watched until I started doing this. And then I, you know, that ended up getting me into the league. So it would be crazy for a league like the NHL that needs every set of eyeballs it can get on it to not embrace that. The third gateway, by the way, I think it might be Netflix documentaries. The amount of people that have told me

that they're now into F1 racing based off of that Netflix document, it's mind-blown. I mean, I'm not an F-1 guy. I haven't watched this thing. People are telling me, you watch this F-1 documentary, you're going to be hooked into F-1 racing.

I have to see it now. Yeah, exactly. Hey, Jesse, as we wrap up with you, We want to talk a little bit, and Sean mentioned about starting goalies and when some coaches announce them and some don't, but from a kind of either a fantasy or a gambling perspective, they can have a huge impact when you know that the starting goalie is going to be in there or you know that there's going to be the backup. So as we kind of hit the two-thirds point of this truncated season, what kind of trends are we seeing, Jesse, in terms of teams that go with the starter and teams that go with the backup and that we know that in advance? Right, yeah. So I cover one of the teams that you don't find out who's starting for the Golden Knights in Teltch warmups, pregame warmups when they skate out. There aren't many teams that way in the league. I think for the most part, the teams are letting people know ahead of time. And if you are betting on a team that lets you know ahead of time. And in this piece, I tried to focus on teams that use goalies a lot. Like if Andre Vasselowski is not in net, he plays nine times out of ten. Obviously, you're going to have to make sure he's in it. And if he's not, the Tampa Bay Lightning are at the same time. But I think most of the Most people are pretty, John Gibson and Anaheim's another good example. I try to focus on teams that play goalies, not maybe not a 50-50 split, but at least a pretty good rotation just because there's not an obvious one.

And like, I want to start with Vancouver just because they've kind of gone away from the rotation. They started a rotation. And because Thatcher Demko has been so much better than Brayden Holby, we've started, they've started to go away from that. Demko started 10 of the last games. And it's pretty obvious why. Thatcher Demko's 12 and 13. Not great, but Braden Holby's been a lot. worst four and eight. He's has an under 900 save percentage, negative goals saved above average,

negative goals above replacement. Braden Holby's been struggling. I think they hoped he'd have a bounce back year after that year in Washington, and he clearly hasn't. So if you're going to bet Vancouver, Batchar Demko has the second highest goals above replacement, only to Andre Vasilevsky in the league this year. I think if he was on a better team, he'd probably be in the Vezna conversation. He still might sneak into the Vezna conversation the way he's been playing lately. But if you're, betting on the Canucks or if you if you if I guess fantasy you're definitely going to want Demko over over Holby but if you're betting on the Canucks you definitely want to check to make sure Demko's in net it seems like he's given them a lot better chance to win another

team in that North division is Edmonton and it's actually been kind of surprising the renaissance of Mike Smith he had a really bad year his last year in Calgary he had a below 900 safe percentage like Holby's having this year goes to Edmonton people thought maybe this will fix it it didn't he was still pretty bad last year and this year I think he's out of nowhere and surprise some people. He is on the plus side of all those numbers, goals saved above replacement, goals above replacement on evolving hockey. He's outplayed Miko Koskinin by a pretty wide margin. And if you're betting on the Oilers, especially lately, Mike Smith has been really hot. I would make sure Mike Smith is in that before I placed that bet. What have you guys thought of

Mike Smith season? Yeah, you know what? When he was out at the beginning of the year and they were riding Koskinen, I thought they're in trouble. Like the Yaventinojers are going to legitimately be in trouble. But Smith has come in and like turn back the clock. And I mean, you look at his numbers. Like it is like they're Vesina numbers. Like you're right. So I think all of us probably have to eat a little bit of, you know,

some crow on Mike Smith, who is in this Canadian division in terms of teams that have Like, I think Hella Buck, like, if I had to pick one goalie from that division, it's Hellebuck. But you can make an argument that That Chudemko and Mike Smith are two and three right now. Definitely. Yeah, man, that's the key, though, is right now, where is it going to go the rest of the year? If I'm an Oilers fan, I'm watching this team. They got the talent is great and it feels like it's coming together. That's the one thing that's making me nervous is I still need three more months from

38-year-old Mike Smith, who was bad for three years and then has been good for a few weeks and has been very, very good. And, hey, some goalies do it. Even at that age, Gold Ten. Mark Andre Fleury is doing it right now, too. It's super hard to predict. So I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but I've got my crew ready to eat. I'm going to hold on.

I'm going to throw it in some Tupperware and put it in the fridge until the end of the playoffs and then I'll get back to you. That's definitely fair. Another goalie that I think a lot of people were down on last year, a different situation for Mike Smith because he's a lot younger. But UCSaros in Nashville, I think two years ago he was thought of as one of the bright young goalies in the league. Maybe he's the future. And last year, he had a bad year. And then people started to wonder, is he the heir apparent to Pecorina? And I think this year he's bounced back and had a massive bounce back.

Pecorine has struggled badly this year. He's another goalie with a below 900 safe percentage. And he's 8 and 12 on the season and 3 and 7 in his last 10 games. Nashville, obviously, as a team has struggled, but UC Soros during that same stretch where Rene is 3 and 7, UC Saros has gone 4 and 1 lately, and his numbers are a lot better. He's 15th in the league in goals above replacement compared to Pecoranah, who's all the way down at 63rd below pretty much every goalie who started major starts. If I'm looking to bet Nashville, which I don't know if I am all that often, but if you are, you definitely want Soros in that.

He's been a lot better, like I said, bounced back. Two goalies that haven't played as well as I think anyone expected, neither of them have, is in Columbus, where they give those kind of matching contracts to Eunice Corpusallo and Elvis Merslikins, and it looked like, all right, we've got a 1A and 1B, neither are star goalies, but we have two really good goalies we can count on. I think both have underperformed from what they expected,

but Corpusalo's underperformance has been a lot more noticeable. He's 8 and 15 this year. Meanwhile, Elvis Mersleekins is 5 and 5. He's kind of winning about half of his games. it's been a disaster with Corpusalo from a numbers perspective, from a wins perspective. In his last 13, he's 3 and 10. Walmers Likens has gone 3 and 2 during that span. He's obviously not playing as much.

But if I was looking to bet the Blue Jackets, and I think the Blue Jackets are a team that I think we all are not, like I'm not ready to write them off yet. They haven't been as good. But at the same time, if they have a nice little run and make the playoffs, they're going to be a nightmare to deal with in the first round. I don't think we want to write them off. So if I'm looking, if I'm a better and I'm saying,

you know what, I think the Blue Jackets are going to bounce back. if I'm looking to bet them as that team, make sure Merzleikins is in that. Intel Corpusole maybe gets into some better form because right now he's on a really rough stretch. And finally, the last team I'll mention is the Carolina Hurricanes, who are playing some of the best hockey of any team in the league right now. But it's been behind a goalie that not many people expected. Alex Nadelcovic has come out of nowhere.

He's gone 5-0-1 in his last six starts, 25-year-old goalie. He's 7-2 and 2 overall in the season, but he's got a 9-30 safe. percentage. And to me, the number that stuck out was I'm looking at evolving hockey's goals above replacements and all their advanced statistics on goalies. And you're going down the goalie list. And all of a sudden, Alex Nadelcovic is sixth in the league in wins above replacement. James Rimer hasn't been bad. I think a lot of these tannums, we've been trying to avoid the goalie who's having the horrible season. And this one, James Rimer and Nadelcovich have both played pretty good. But Nadelcovich has been really good lately. And when he's in net, the Hurricanes, like I said,

5-0 and 1 in their last six starts. I'm a fan of betting the hurricanes in any scenario, but when Nadelcovich is in net, I feel a lot stronger about it. Jesse Granger, as always, appreciate the time, the insight, and certainly this week, the focus on betting and the goaltending was fantastic.

Enjoy the weekend, and we'll hit you up again next week. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, Jesse. All right, Sean. Always great stuff with Jesse Granger, and yeah, man, Nadelcovich in Carolina has become one of, There's some great unheralded goalie stories this season. And Nadelcovic is certainly carving out his niche there in Carolina.

So I threw this question out on Twitter just to get back to the Tim Peel thing here for a second. In fact, I feel here's a potential down goes brown column. There's a couple of them that I'm thinking that'll come out of the Tim Peel thing. One would be, wouldn't it be great if I could see you doing a column on sentences in NHL history that people wish they could have cut off halfway through. Okay. You know what I mean? Like Tim Peel, he, like, we don't know what he said and the rest of it.

How many times do people wish, you know, just, I wish you cut the sentence off right there. You know what would be, you know what would be a great one for that is when they asked Daniel Alfredson, can you guys come back in the playoffs? And he said probably not. Cut that one in half. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Great answer. Way to go. Great leader right there. Exactly. Sentences that could be cut. That would be good. And then the other thing would be, obviously, there was a hot mic in the situation. And so the question I threw out to our, you know, to our followers on Twitter on Wednesday was if you could stick a hot microphone into any scenario in NHL history, what would you pick and why?

Now, a couple of that that came up quite often. The one that came up a lot, Sean, was people said, I wish there was a hot mic to pick up Patrick Waugh going over to Montreal Canadiens President Ronald Corey. and basically saying I'm done. My only thing on that is I kind of feel like we know what was said there. Like it doesn't, right? Would you have wanted a hot mic there? See, I don't think there'd be any surprises on that. But I feel like that moment is so important that I would love to have every word of that

and know exactly who said what. And if there was any reply at all or I would like to have that one, even though you're right. I don't think it would tell us anything we didn't know. Another one that came up was people said, I would love if the referees in game six of the 99 cup final, Dallas Buffalo, were, were miced up and we accidentally heard them saying, whatever, hey, it's too late. Let's get out of here or whatever it is. Is that a hotline situation? That's a great one. I would love to know what was said or not said there because the league said, oh, no, we did review it.

Even though we never announced, we did review and everything. I would love that not just the referees, but give me the war room, give me the whole conversation that went on there. And we could either prove or disprove the NHL's official explanation of how that all went down. James says to us, I would like a hot mic on Tim Murray after he found out he didn't get Connor McDavid in 2015. Yeah, that would be a good one. And I mean, you wouldn't, it's Tim Murray, so I wouldn't expect it to be a lot of words. but that guy was usually good for a very brief sound bite. And I can imagine that, yeah, after everything they went through to try to land Connor

McDavid when they found out that they didn't. There were probably a few interesting expressions thrown around that room. Now, Jay is saying, now, this wouldn't be bad too, because we remember the video. Jay tweeted out us and said, what about a hot mic on Connor McDavid right when he found out he was going to Edmond? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it would have been silent because he would be too, but I would have loved a hot mic follow him for as long as it takes until he actually drops an opinion on that. And, you know, maybe it wouldn't have been right at that moment. Maybe he got up, took a walk, somebody.

But at some point, somebody in his family or a friend or somebody must have been like, how you feeling right now? And I want that reaction. That would have been a great one. Now, people are asking in the replies here, they're saying, for sure, down goes brown. Sean would want Carrie Fraser miced up for the high stick in the conference finals in 1993. If Sean had his choice, now I'm giving you the choice, any moment in hockey history, you get to either kind of eavesdrop or a hot mic, so you learn the truth. What do you take? Well, let me get, okay, I'll give you one for truth and one for just entertainment value.

And the truth one, yeah, I would like to see they have the Carrie Fraser. But the reason for this might surprise you because I look, I've done my share of Kerry Fraser bashing. Every Lee fan has done it. I think there's at least a possibility. I have a working theory that he's actually getting a raw deal here. What I want, I don't want him in the moment. I don't want him talking to Gretzky or Gilmore. I want when he huddles up with his linesmen.

Because remember, back then, linesmen could call a high-sticking major too. Okay? So they all three get together. And part of me wonders, does Kerry Fraser get together with his linesmen and say, hey, Kretzky just high-sticked him, right? And one of the linesmen is the one who says, no, no, I think it was the follow-through. I think it was this or that. Because Fraser's explanation has never really made sense, where he says, I was screened out on the play. And he wasn't.

He had a clear view of it. But the play did happen quick. And the idea back then was your linesmen are supposed to help you out. And it's almost part of the referee's code that you never throw your linesmen under the bus. So I could see Carrie Fraser all these years later, if it was Kevin Collins or a I don't remember who the other linesman was who was like, no, no, Carrie, I think it was a follow-through. Don't call it. He probably wouldn't say that.

He would probably feel like he needed to protect his guy. I really wonder what that conversation was and who was it that came up with the idea that it was a follow-through. So that's, everyone's great when they're saying that I want to hear it. That's my one for the truth. Here's real quick, my one for just entertainment value. 2009, a few months before the Maple Leafs make the Philcastle trade with Boston Brew. Brian Burke actually calls the Bruins leading up to that year's draft and says, I want Phil Kessel, I'll give you Thomas Cabberley.

The Bruins come back and they say, we'll do that deal, but you've got to throw in your first pick this year, which is the seventh overall pick. Brian Burke says, no, I'm not doing that. Peter Shirelli calls him back, apparently, the next day and says, okay, we'll give you our first round pick in next year's draft. Brian Burke says, you've got a deal. Shirelli says, awesome. They go to the draft that night, thinking that they've got to.

a deal. But the thing is, Brian Burke thinks the deal is Kessel and the Bruins' first round pick for Kabburley. Just that. Peter Shirelli thinks it's Kessel and the first round pick for Kavrily and the Leaf's first round pick. There's been a breakdown. There's been a miscommunication. I want a hot mic on the moment where they get together on the draft floor and go, hey, you want to go run the paperwork, and they realize that they have miscommunicated this. They've screwed it up and they don't actually have a deal after all. Because I'm sure Peter Shirelli had some interesting things to say. But I guarantee you, Brian Burke in that moment would have been.

And that I would love to hear him when he realizes that the guy that this new franchise player, he thinks he's just landed a deal for. And he's probably told people in the front office, they got the press release all ready to go. When he finds out that, no, it was one of these miscommunication, broken telephone things and the whole thing has been screwed up, I would pay $1,000 for the audio of that. just to hear what Brian Burke said in that moment.

I bet you Brian Burke said, you know what? If you ever get Thomas Cabberley, I'm putting a curse on him. He will not do anything for your power play and see how that works out for you. Exactly. And Brian Berg said, you know what, I'm going to show you. I'm going to overpay for Phil Kessel two months from now and it's going to define my entire tenure here in Toronto. Yeah, and you're still going to get Cabberley.

And then he went off to build a barn. Yeah. Amazing stuff. Hey, as we wrap up, we love doing this week in hockey history. And there's a couple of them here. And I had no idea about this. Maybe you did because, again, you have written, legit, written the book on hockey history.

And I feel like this is the type of thing you would be aware of. So we're going to take our listeners back to March 22nd, 1932, to the Boston Garden. And there's a game featuring the New York Americans against the Bruins at the Boston Garden. Now, it's late in the season, and both teams are not going to be. going to make the playoffs. So the league says, we're going to try something in this game. It has no consequences on the standings. So with both teams guaranteed of not making the playoffs and the game

being inconsequential, the NHL decides to eliminate the blue lines from the game and only the center ice spread line is there. And that will be the line to determine offside. So basically, it's like a two zone game. New York wins eight to six. So here's my question to you. Why aren't we doing this more as, and I say this is a guy who covers the Ottawa senators who have finished at the basement of the standings for years. I've watched a lot of meaningless games. What if, what if the league said, okay, Ottawa and Detroit, you're playing, it's April, you're out of the playoffs. This game will be played four on four. Like, what's the, like, why not? I love this idea. I am 100% on board. Yes, this would be fantastic. I mean, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the

in the 30s, they had to do this because they didn't have an AHL in the sense they have now where they could say, because that's what they do now, right? They let the AHL be their experiment. And yeah, I mean, there's an argument that, hey, it's one game. It's not going to tell you that much. But just for the entertainment value, yeah, let's play a game with no offsides. Let's play a game where we play around with the rules. Let's do power plays last the full two minutes. Let's take away icing during penalty kills. All of this stuff that we talk about, let's make the Nets bigger. In fact, I'll go on further. Let's make the Nets. net's two inches bigger and don't tell anybody and just see.

You know, imagine that. You get to the end of the game and you go to the goalie, what do you think of the bigger nets? And he goes, I didn't think the nets were any bigger. And then you go, okay, well, there you go. We're good to go. It would make these late season games watchable. Like that would suddenly, nobody's watching Buffalo play New Jersey right now.

I mean, you couldn't pay me to sit down and watch that game start to finish. But if they're playing with no off sides, I'm in. I'm in. I'm going to watch. that game. I want to see what's going to happen. It's a fantastic idea. I wish I had thought of it. I'm going to claim that I thought of it in a couple of months when people forget that we had this conversation. But it's amazing. I'm 100% on board. Experiment on the bad teams. Let them be the guinea pigs. Let's do this. Right. So again, these are like again, let's say Anaheim and

San Jose are playing a game now. It's not going to mean anything. What if in that game they decided when you take a minor penalty, the player serves the whole two minutes. It's not out after 40 seconds. You're in the box of the full two minutes. Like just different things to see how they play themselves out because we have these ideas. So put them out there. Maybe maybe the idea is we change the overtime format. These two teams, hey, listen, you've got nothing. You don't have to, let's play three on three for 10 minutes. What are you worried about losing your energy for the playoffs? There is no playoffs for you. But let's try this stuff. I don't know why I, I don't know why I never thought of this until I started looking up,

let's see what we'll do for this week in hockey history. I'm like, this is, it's almost too good of an idea. What you need is a great big wheel that you spin at the beginning of the game. It's spin the wheel and you just, yes, exactly. You give it a spin and you go, okay, guys, that's it. We're, uh, you know, we're playing no off sides tonight. That's it. This is how it's going to go, you know, spin it again.

Oh, okay, goalies can't freeze the puck now. You got to keep it in motion at all times. Okay, let's see what happens. You would absolutely be glued to your television to watch that if we did something like that. This is, it's brilliant. I love the idea. Okay. So I look forward to your column stealing this idea from the podcast.

Yeah. Yeah. And people would be like, man, Sean, you come up with the greatest ideas. They'll call it the Mac and do plan. It'll be, it'll be fantastic. Amazing. Okay. So last thing on this show, March,

24th, 1992. The Pittsburgh Penguins had a couple of things happen in this hockey game. First is Mario Lemieux gets to a thousand career points on this date, and he did it in only 513 games. So that's, I mean, second fastest to Wayne Gradsky, almost two points a game. But on that date, let's have a little fun here. Let's see if the listeners will have a little trivia here for them. And I think this list is only four players long.

Am I right on that? That have done this? Something like that, yeah. Okay. So I think I have them. And, well, let's see if you got them. How many players in NHL history, Sean, have done what was done on this date, March 24, 1992, which is scored 50 goals in a season, 5-0, and accumulate 200 penalty minutes.

Who's on the list? Yeah. And I mean, I've got the list in front of me, but I will, we can put it out there for the listeners. And just as we're talking, try to think, who were the guys, 50 goals, 200 penalty minutes? because I'll tell you, it's not the guys that I think that you would think on. Like, I'll tell you right now, if I didn't have the list in front of me, very first guy that would pop up in my mind, obvious slam dunk, Cam Neely. Cam Neely is not on the list.

Cam Neely didn't do it. I think a lot of fans might mention a guy like Wendell Clark. Wendell Clark never had 50 goals. Came close, but didn't get to the 50 goal mark. Not Eric Lindrosse. There's other guy, not Mark Messier. That'd be another one that I think a lot of people. people would mention. And

even, not even Pat Verbeek. And I think Pat Perbeek's the guy who's the only one in the 500 goal, 3,000 penalty minute club for a career. So, yeah, and then the other guy, and he shows up on this list having come close, but Rick Talkett, another

classic late 80s power forward back in the era where there was lots of fights, lots of it, you know, lots of scoring. But no, there are four guys who have done it. I think a couple of them being guys that you would probably think of if you thought of it long enough. One of them is Brendan Shanahan.

Yeah. Makes sense. Brendan Chanan, another one of those guys in the talk at Neely Mold. Keith Kuchuk, a guy that maybe you don't really think of as much of a fighter, but he was a guy that did rack up a lot of penalty minutes, big physical guy. And certainly we can see he's passed on some of that in his DNA to his kids. The guy who is maybe a bit of a surprise, but maybe not if you watch him play. Roberts is somebody who

another one of those power forwards. And then the guy that we're talking about who in that 1992 game for Pittsburgh became the first guy to do it, Kevin Stevens. And I feel like Kevin Stevens for a lot of fans wouldn't necessarily come to mind. And he wasn't a big fighter. He wasn't like a Cam Neely type who was taken on other teams and forzers. But I got to tell you, there were a few years there were Kevin Stevens was an absolute beast in this league.

Offensively and in terms of the penalty men's power forward, everything. Kevin Stevens put up the sort of numbers that I think a lot of people think Cam Neely put up. And Cam Neely was a great player. But he didn't have any seasons like Kevin Stevens. And yeah, some of that was playing on Pittsburgh and playing with Mario and that sort of thing. But this guy had multiple 50 goal seasons.

He had 123 points that year, 1991, 92 for a cup winning Pittsburgh team. this was a guy just a phenomenal player at his peak. And man, when you talk about consequential injuries in NHL history, that injury that Kevin Stevens gets in game seven against the Islanders in 1993, put aside the impact on Kevin Stevens and it was a major impact. It wasn't just in terms of him being injured, but it affected his career. It affected his life.

Just a devastating injury. But just what it did to that game. just took the crowd right out of it and it took all the energy out of the penguins and they go on and lose to the islanders and who knows how NHL history changes if the penguins win that game and go on and play Montreal and Patrick Law and all of this stuff, maybe win three cups in a row. That one's right up there because Kevin Stevens was never quite the same. He did have some good years after that when he came back, but he was never quite the same. But boy, in the years leading up to that, there were very, very, very few players in the league

that could do it all the way that Kevin Stevens could. And he doesn't get in a enough credit for that and doesn't get talked about enough when we talk about that era. Just to wrap up the show here, Cam Neely, his three seasons of 50 goals, Sean, his penalty minutes, the most he ever had in a 50 goal season, 117. So it's not like Neely even flirted. His penalty minutes were 54, 98, and 117. So it's not like he was like, wow, he just needed a couple of, you know, fighting majors. No, he wasn't even close. That surprises me. Cam Neely was a guy that didn't always need to fight, especially later in his career, because it was kind of one of of these like, don't poke the bear sort of things. But yeah, that surprises me. I would have thought

he'd be higher than that. And kind of in the same vein, to wrap up the show, do you know the only two players in hockey history to have 30 goals in a season in which they had 300 penalty minutes in that same year? Okay. So I'm going to assume that one of them, because I know he had a 30 goal season, is Tiger Williams. Yeah. Did he have 300 that year? That was the first year. That was the first year that he got that he went to Vancouver from Toronto. And then the other guy that jumps to mind, did Dale Hunter ever do it? No, it's not Dale Hunter. And I'm going to put this in the in the equation of is this arguably one of the greatest seasons in

NHL history that's not talked about. 44 goals. Okay. 303 penalty minutes for future pilot Al Seacord. Wow. Yeah. Al Seacord was another one. that some of his numbers and this season we're getting back in the mid-80s are really off the charts.

And, you know, and it's funny because me as a Leaf fan, like he went to the Leafs a few years after that. He wasn't quite the same player. And it always strikes me as weird to remember that like, oh, yeah, this guy back in his days with the Blackhawks, he was all over the place and all over the score sheet apparently. Yeah. So, okay, what's more impressive to you? 50 goals and 200 pimms? or 40 goals and 300 pims.

You know what? That might be it because to get to 300, even in the 80s, that meant that you were, you were doing some work back then. And that is really something else. I know Bob Probert had like some big goal scoring years. The one that always sticks out to me is,

remember that one year where Chris Simon had like 27 goals or something and it almost came out of nowhere. I love those seasons like that. But yeah, there was a time. And it's a completely different era. I'm sure that anyone who's, if you're a fan today and you're a new or a young fan, you're scratched at your head going, how could you have 300 penalty minutes in a season, let alone do it while still being a productive first-line player?

But that's how the game used to be. Yeah, amazing stuff. Hey, listen, this was a ton of fun. And hopefully we've given you some ideas for future columns. You don't even have to give us a credit for it. I'm just so impressed I came up with that idea. I can't wait to use it. Awesome stuff.

Hey, listen, enjoy the weekend. And we'll do this again next week. All right, this was a ton of fun. And we want to remind our listeners that, hey, March Madness is underway. And the athletics basketball crew, they'll bring you the ding you. Presented by BetMGM. We'll cover all the action both on the court and at the sports books, grabbing insight from the Athletics College Basketball writers,

picking the brains of BetMGM's top bookmakers. And you can join them for the next show discussing the Sweet 16. That comes your way, 1 o'clock Eastern time on Friday, on the Daily Ding feed and streaming on the Athletics YouTube channel. Thank you so much for joining us. We had a ton of fun doing this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. We'll get you again on Monday. I'll be back at it with Haley Salvia.

A reminder you can always email us your questions to The Athletic Hockey Show at chemail.com or leave us a voicemail at 845-4-45-8459. And if you're not a subscriber with us, you can get a subscription by joining us at theathletic.com. slash hockey show.