The Athletic Hockey Show - Toronto Maple Leafs concerns, Minnesota Wild and Vancouver Canucks, Steven Stamkos' fast start, Daniel Alfredsson makes appearance at Ottawa Senators' home opener

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

A little over a week into the NHL season, Ian and Sean discuss the teams that seem close to already boiling over: the Maple Leafs, Wild, and Canucks. Then, Steven Stamkos is off to a fast start this season, and a possible accomplishment on the horizon that everyone should root for. Next, with the response of Daniel Alfredsson's surprise appearance at the Senators' home opener, a discussion about what players have that affect on other franchises. To wrap up, looking back at one of the most unhinged NHL games ever in "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3BKz27u Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. We're back, everybody. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always in these seats, it's Ian Mendez, Sean McHen do with you. Get you caught up in about an hour with what's going on in the hockey world. I got to tell you, Sean, last week, I think when we signed off, I was like, well, I can't wait to get to, because remember, Toronto had lost the opening to Montreal, and we had kind of played out the scenario of imagine if,

we get together again on Thursday and the Leafs are windless and the sky is falling. Now they're not winless, but I kind of feel like that loss of the coyotes on Monday was like the equivalent of losing two or three games. Like tell me right now what's going on here because this like Sheldon Keith had to apologize for using the wrong words to kind of give

a bit of a tongue lashing to the stars. And I, you know, it feels like, for a week or whatever, 10 days into the season, kind of feels like it's off the rails already. Yeah, and it's tough because on the one hand, this all feels pretty ridiculous. This team is two and two.

It's a week into a regular season that we all agree didn't matter for this team. I mean, they could have beat the Coyotes 12 to nothing on Monday, and nobody would be given them any credit. Nobody would care. It is all about the playoffs for this team. And yet here we are having at least a mini crisis based on the fourth game of the season. And the whole Sheldon Keith thing, the way that played out was weird. Because he didn't say anything that was a problem.

You know, he didn't say anything that wasn't true. He basically said people didn't hear it after the game on Monday where they lose to the coyotes. He said that we've got elite players on this team in Arizona doesn't, which is true. and he said that tonight our elite players weren't elite and that's why we lost the game. Also true. And, you know, was he ripping on guys? Was he trashing guys? No, he was offering what I would argue was a pretty mild criticism of a group that hadn't played great.

Now, you know, it's not like Austin Matthews, Mitch Martyr, and those guys were awful. You know, it's not like they were coughing the puck up and leading the goals and that sort of thing. but what Sheldon Keith was basically saying was, look, in a game like this, we expect our elite guys to make a game-breaking play at some point, and it didn't really happen. And yeah, I think that's completely fair. And in fact, not only is, maybe the reason it stands out is because this organization has bent over backwards over the years to keep any sort of criticism of these guys.

Keep any sort of public criticism of these guys away. Now, we don't know what happens in turn. We can assume that behind closed doors, there's more honest conversations happening. But, I mean, every year, year after year, we see it. This team loses in the playoffs and Kyle Dubos comes out the next day and says, we're not trading anyone, we're not breaking the core up, we believe in these guys, just vote of confidence after vote of confidence. And the fact that Sheldon Keith came out and made, again, what I thought was a pretty

mild and true observation about how a game went. And then he didn't apologize the next day, but he kind of did. walk it back a little bit saying he'd used the wrong words and that he had talked to to some of the guys about it. You know, again, this is the sort of thing that this happens in any other market and it's not front page news. And, you know, this is the Toronto dynamic in place. This is what happens when you've got 20 different media guys at every practice looking

for something to talk about. But I really hope that's what it is. And I really hope this isn't the start of some sort of internal problem where, where the star players are mad because the coach said they didn't play well when they didn't play well because that's going to be a problem. And I'll tell you right now, I'm, I don't speak for every leaf fan, but I hear from an awful lot of them. I'll tell you right now, if Mitch Marner or Austin Matthews, whoever is listening to this going, you know what, I bet you the public will be on my side if I turn this into a battle with the coach. I don't think so. I think there was an awful lot

of leaf fans going. It's about time somebody said something about these guys. And if they really had a problem with it, we don't know that they did. But if they did, but if they did, I don't think that's going to play really well in Toronto. Here's what Austin Matthews said about all of this. And again, like you said, Sheldon Keith kind of walked it back and said that he used the wrong words when he said, you know, the difference between us and Arizona is we have elite players. Austin Matthews says what's said in the media

and what's said behind closed doors is maybe different than how it's interpreted in the media. This is my seventh year here now. And I kind of understand how it works. The conversations that go on behind closed doors without media are generally more discussions and communications rather than harping on guys. So look, he says.

That sounds fair to me. I mean, that's, yeah. You know, and look, they don't, they're not obligate. We're both in the media and we believe that there's a certain level of transparency and that certain, you know, fans want a certain amount of access. But these teams aren't obligated to let us, in on every conversation that goes down. I'm sure there's, look, every team. I'm sure there are conversations behind closed doors to get heated.

I'm sure there's conversations to get a lot more than heated. And we don't have access to that. And that's fine. That's the way it should be. You know, really, it did feel like the Sheldon Keith thing was, I don't know, it felt like a nothing story and yet a little bit of a self-inflicted one. Not that he said it in the first place, but the fact that he then walked it back the next day, which led to everybody who had maybe not even paid attention to what he had said the first night going,

okay, well, wait a second, what did he say if he's walking it back? And then, you know, it just starts the whole cycle again. So I don't know. I don't know what made him think he needed to do that. But I think maybe that was more the issue than what it was that he originally said. If we looked around the league right now and looked at other coaches, let's create a little list here of coaches that would never go to the podium the next day. and walk something back or apologize or say, I use the wrong words.

Okay, so torts, right? Yep, yep. John Torrell is not getting up to the press conference the next day, right? Two guys in the league where it's literally funny to imagine them. Sutter and Torrts, right? Sutter and Torrts are the two guys. I can't imagine. You imagine Daryl Sutter.

And again, like, I would say if I am told that there are hockey fans. out there who maybe aren't Lee fans and don't follow this team on the day to day. And if you're hearing this, go and actually read the quotes and everything because we don't want to misrepresent it. It's not like, you know, Sheldon Keith didn't get pushed out in front of the media to grovel and beg for forgiveness and all of this stuff. You know, he just, he obviously wanted to clarify. And yeah, sometimes when you're in front of the media, especially after a tough loss,

maybe the wrong words do come out. I don't have an issue with somebody saying, you know, like it came out. It wasn't the way I meant it. I'll give him credit at the very least. He came out and said, I use the wrong words. It wasn't you guys misrepresented. It wasn't you guys took it out of context. It wasn't, you know, this kind of game that a lot of people would play.

He said, hey, I use the wrong words. Okay. But I, you know, I didn't feel like he owed that because even if it was the wrong words, it was so mild that I don't know. Why would you even feel the need to do that? Yeah. And by the way, would love to hear from the listeners. if there's anybody else other than Sutterin Torts that would be on the list of coaches

that would never walk anything back. Imagine Craig Barubi being like, I may have heard some feelings and I don't really want to. I think there's a list. There's a pretty good list to guys. Yeah, you might be right. It might be more than just Sutterin' Torts. Hey, listen, we usually save the voicemails and the emails and the kind of the feedback from

listeners to later in the show. but since this kind of ties in with the Leafs, and by the way, we're going to do a couple of different things today just because we're recording early on Thursday morning. Jesse, we didn't want to, Jesse, nobody gets up in Vegas before 7 a.m., right? So if somebody's awake in Vegas at 7 a.m., it's because they didn't go to bed.

Exactly. So Granger, we're not going to have Granger things brought to you by BetMGM this week, but we are going to move some things around. Let's play the voicemail right now. Okay. This is, you just said, you know, I'm aware that there's some people who aren't Leafs fans. And that apparently is, apparently this is what's happened. But, and reminder, you can leave us a voicemail at 845-4-4-5-8459.

This is Matt from New York. And I'll use the air, you know, it's one of those, you know, my friend said. Have a listen. Here's Matt from New York. My best friend is a Maple Leaf fan. I am not a Maple Leaf fan. and he is in panic mode. I'm calling now on a Tuesday right after that loss to Arizona.

He's in full on panic mode and, you know, doesn't know what to do. As an outsider who's not a fan of the Leaf, I'm not, I wouldn't be panicking about this team. I would still pick this team to make the playoffs. I don't think you could give me enough odds to pick it against this team to make the playoff. So, Sean, my question is, as someone who is a Leaf fan, are you panicking? Should you be panicking? Can you separate the Leaf fandom from what seems like to be maybe a slightly more neutral or objective approach?

Or do you think that my friend is right and this is full on panic mode? All right, Sean. So my friend is a Leafs fan. He seems to be in panic. I think that is a friend. Yeah, exactly. But, I mean, listen, this is a fair point. I think a lot of people who are on the outside still look at this as a lock-it-in playoff.

team like Matt. Matt is like, look, we're a week end of the season here. They're two and two. I don't see the reason why the sky is falling. And yet, as we talked about, the sky is falling for some people. Well, okay, so let me explain what's going on. And Matt kind of asked a bunch of questions there. So let me start with the easiest one, which is can I as a fan separate this out and be rational and objective about it? The answer to that is no. Of course I can't. Don't be ridiculous, man.

This is coming. Come on. But as far as you know, what he's describing. You know, he talks about his friend panicking, but he doesn't say really what that means. Look, if your friend is out there going, fire everyone, fire key, fire duba, trade, Austin Matthews, start the rebuild, tanker, Connor Godard, based on four games,

then yeah, of course, that's unreasonable. But I will explain to you why I think there's a disconnect here, which is that Matt is saying, you know, I look at this team and I go, this is still a playoff team. And it is. and it will be, but that's not what people are worried about. Because remember, this team has been to the playoffs six years in a row. And they have had the exact same result all six years.

And we all said, we mentioned it already. What happens to the regular season this year doesn't matter. They could have go 82 and all. And it would not matter if they get to the first round and they lose. It's all about the playoffs. And of course, the playoffs are six months away. So what do you do in between? Well, what you do if you're a leaf fan is you are looking,

for some indication from this team that something has changed, some indication that it's going to be different this year. Give us something that we can hang on to to say, something's changed with these guys. Maybe this movie, which is now on part seven, isn't going to end the same way that the first six ended. And one of the main criticisms against his team in recent years, and it's an absolutely fair one,

is that they just seem to consistently play down to their opponents. Whenever, you know, they're playing a bad team, they play bad. And sometimes they still win those games because the team is talented enough that they can play 50 or 55 lousy minutes. And the five minutes that they do show up, that can be three goals right there. And, you know, that's enough for them. But it just feels like this team is so eager to ease off the gas pedal. They are so eager to pat themselves on the back over nothing and then take a game off or a period off or whatever it is.

You just don't see that consistent effort. You just see this dynamic at play where, man, if they string together any stretch of success, the mission accomplished banner goes up, they pat themselves on the back and they ease off. And then things go to hell. And we're four games into the season. And we've already seen it now a couple of times because they lose to Montreal opening night. All right. They go in a Montreal team, a team that on paper, the Maple Leafs are far, far better than.

But okay, they lose that game. Maybe you say, hey, you know what, it's opening night. It's in Montreal. It's a rivalry game. You know, it's a bit of a weird. But you would think that if you lose to a team that just finished what was 31st, 32nd in the entire league, you might think that you would get a week of strong efforts. out of that? Like you would, your pride would be stung enough that you would go a whole week

before you eased off again. And yet, what happens after that? They lose to Montreal. Toronto's in a panic mode. They play two teams in Washington, Ottawa at home. Decent teams, not cup favorites, but decent teams. They win both of those games. Now they're two and one. I mean, you could just see it coming on Monday night. And you go, they're two and one. Things are going a little bit good. Now they're playing a lousy team. It's going to be a stinker tonight. They're not going to show up. enough they don't. And how many times can Shelton Keith get up and give the whole, we didn't start on time speech? How many times can he get up and go? The effort wasn't there. That's what we're looking for. And the people who are, whether you want to call it panic or,

you know, if fans are just expressing concern or or asking questions, that's what it's about. It's not about, oh, this team's going to miss the playoffs. It's, this is the same story. These guys have not learned anything. They lose time after time year after year when it matters. and yet they never seem to look in the mirror and go, man, we need to find another level here. It's always good enough is good enough with this group. And this was an opportunity to show that something had changed. And instead, it ended up being an opportunity to show us that this,

so far, four games into this long, long season, it just feels like it's the same old Maple Leaf story that it's been for this entire era. So one other email I want to get to from a list, And this is great because, look, and trust me, we're going to stop the Leafs. I know people are like, oh, yeah, I don't know about the Leafs. But this is actually a great point that I think any hockey fan can appreciate. So just to set the tone or set the background here before I read Trevor's email to us,

Toronto almost tied that game on Monday night. And maybe we're having a slightly different conversation if they come back and win four or three, but whatever. Like you would have still felt like they were playing with fire, which is the whole point. But they had a, in the final minute of that game, they had a goal called back. because of a hand pass in the offensive zone or a pass with a glove. And Trevor says, I propose that the rule be changed closer to the kicking motion for goals

where we need to start taking intent into consideration. In that Leif's Coyote's game, it was obvious that Morgan Riley had no intention to make a hand pass to his teammate. Therefore, that should have been a legal play. Let me know what you guys think. And P.S., I'm not a salty Leafs fan. I just think there was nothing. about that play that went against how hockey is meant to be played.

And I think the rules should reflect that. So what do you think? I mean, it's true. I agree with everything Trevor says. Morgan Riley was not trying to, you know, pass the puck with the glove. It was just floating up in the air and kind of glance off his glove down onto the ice. And they ruled that it was a hand pass. I'm always a believer of, listen, if you're going to allow hand passes in the defensive zone,

I think you need to allow them in the offensive zone. That's just me. But what do you think? Do you think this could be a tipping point moment here? That would be the answer is to just get rid of the handpass rule. Just say hand passes are legal. I think that would be a much better solution than what our listeners proposing of bringing intent into it. And now you've got the officials trying to read minds and that sort of thing.

We have a lot of rules in the rulebook where intent comes into. to play. I don't mind those. But in something like this, I would say you just get rid of it. Now, look, based on how the rule is, that was the right call on Monday, just for the record. The question to me was, you know, you see Morgan Wright's hand go up and Clayton Keller stick is kind of right there as well. And the question was sort of, did the puck hit the stick or did it hit the glove? Obviously, they decided, once they decided it hits a glove, it is the right call. There was no question that that is a hand pass based on the rules. But no, I would, I would, I, It's just frustrating, not as a league fan, but as a hockey fan that we, man, we spend a lot of time looking for little nitpicky reasons to take goals off the board.

And it's in a league where scoring is still a lot lower than it should be, given all the talent out there, given how good the players are these days. Man, it is so strange to me that we have all these different little things that can come into play to take goals away. because we're so afraid of something counting that wasn't supposed to be. I mean, this was a classic example of, you know, he plays it down, Mitch Marter takes it. It's not like it leads directly to the ball. It's not like Arizona doesn't have plenty of opportunities to stop that play at some point. It doesn't happen. I don't get why we take them off the board, but we do.

That's how the rules work. And based on how the rules work, it was absolutely the right call on Monday night. And you know what? Probably better for the Leafs that they lost the game. take that heat, take that damage to the pride, then what it looked like was going to happen, which is they were going to come out and pull it out of the fire and get a win that they didn't deserve. Big picture, you'd obviously prefer the one or two points, but I think big picture, it's better

for this Leafs team to have lost that game than to have pulled out one of those 55-minute stinkers that they salvage in the last five minutes. Okay. One of the things we've learned is sometimes misery loves company. And look, the Leafs aren't alone. It's interesting to me that already into the first week to 10 days of the season, there's some points around the league or places where it's like things are ready to boil over. And it's not just Toronto.

Let's go to Minnesota for a second here, Sean. The wild have given up 20, 20, 20, 2-0 goals in their first three games of the season. This was a great stat dug up by Sportsnet. The last team to give up 20 goals in their first three games of the season, the 1989, 1990 Detroit Red Wings. They gave up 10

on opening night to Calgary and then five to L.A and five to Vancouver. So you got to go back to like late 80s 1890, 1990. That's not good.

If they're comparing your defensive results to anything in the 1980s, that's really bad. Wow. I didn't realize it was that bad. And yeah,

it didn't, when we were talking about the hand pass and I was like, man, scoring's not high enough. There were probably some wild fans going. Yeah, you know, scoring seems plenty high to us. At least the goals against. Yeah. Indeed, Everson, he's a little sour.

He's a little sour. No kidding. I mean, boy, coaches, coaches are sour when they give up two goals, let alone 20. So this is, and this is something that you really, I think there has got to be some legitimate concern in Minnesota. again, it's sort of like the Toronto situation, not so much that they're going to miss the playoffs.

I still feel like that that would be a very, uh, very, very unlikely outcome. But, you know, early in the season, it is,

it's so tough because goaltending is so strange and sporadic, year to year, let alone month to month, let alone week to week. So, I mean, some of these things that we look around the league and you see some teams three and O or some teams O and three,

it's just a goal that got hot or cold. And we know it's not going to stay that way. and so, you know, you just kind of shrug it off. The thing in Minnesota is, you know, they got a guy in gold who won the Vezina trophy two years ago. He's off to a lousy start. Okay. You know, that happens. Problem is he's 38 years old.

And, you know, Mark Andre Fleury was excellent two years ago, won the Vezna, was so-so last year. And I think if you're a Minnesota fan, going into this season, maybe one of the things you could have told yourself was, look, we're more likely to get the Mark Andre Fleury from two years ago. because two years ago he wins Zvezina for Ford Vegas and he gets traded to Chicago. He doesn't want to go. He thinks about if he's even going to keep playing. He goes and plays for a lousy Chicago team. And then he gets traded to us.

He comes to Minnesota and he was good. He wasn't amazing when he came over, but it's tough to get traded in the middle of the year. It wasn't settled in and all of that. And then he makes a decision to resign. Okay, now he's here. He's focused. We're going to get two years ago,

Mark Andre Fleur. And instead, to start with, it looks like you're getting an even worse version. And that's what concerns you. Because, again, if we're talking about a 28-year-old goalie, I'd say, don't worry about it. Two or three bad games. Who cares?

But when a guy's 38, you know, sometimes when the age comes for you, sometimes it's pretty quick. And, you know, I'm not saying that this guy's a bum now. I'm not saying Mark Andre Fleury can't play in the NHL that he's going to be, you know, have a six goals against average for the rest of the year. If you were a while fan and you were sitting there going, boy, imagine, imagine if we had the same team as last year, but we've got Vesina quality goaltending again. And that puts us right up there with Colorado.

Early on, man, you are not seeing it. And it's not all in the goalies, we should say in Minnesota. A lot of it is, it's the skaters, it's the blue line. It's systemic stuff. And that's why Dean Emerson is so beside himself. And they've got to get it figured out because you don't have a. ton of points to give away in that Western conference. And man, these bad starts sometimes they can get away from you and they can start

becoming a little bit self-fulfilling. And you really, you want to get a couple wins under your boat real fast if you're well. You know, that's a perfect segue to take us to the other spot that feels like it might be boiling over here in kind of the, whatever, third week of October. That's Vancouver. And, you know, I just, I passed along that stat about the wild. being the first team to give up 20 goals in the first three games since Detroit.

This stat coming up for Vancouver might even be worse. This one is mind-blowing. The Vancouver Canucks, who just lost two nights ago to Columbus in overtime, after once again having a two-nothing lead, are the first team in NHL history to lose their first four games of the season after holding multi-goal leads in each game. So remember, they came out of the gates. What is, 3-0 against Ebbinton?

They lose that game. Two-goal lead against Philly. They lose that game. Two-go-lead against Washington, lose that game. Two-nothing lead against Columbus. Lose that one in overtime. Bruce Boudreau, after the Washington game, you want to talk about self-fulfilling prophecies,

Sean, he basically says, we're a mentally fragile group right now. Like, we're mentally weak. We're waiting for something bad to happen. You know, last year it was, hey, Bruce, there it is, and, you know, Vancouver fans were, we're fired up. They haven't played a, I want to point this out. They haven't played a home game yet.

They open up at home. In fact, their next game is tonight against the aforementioned Minnesota Wild. You want to talk about Misery Love's Company? What a showdown tonight, man. This is the, this is the panic bowl tonight. So Vancouver has the potential to go home for their opener. And I, listen, I grew up in Vancouver. I have so many friends who are Connects,

I love that city. I love the fan base is super passionate. We have to look this up. Has there ever been a team that started this season basically winless in their first five games and then had a home opener? Like, this could get ugly and real fast. I don't know.

And you looked at the schedule when it came out for Vancouver and you went, oh, five game road trip to start season. That's a bit of a tough one. You kind of look and go, oh, you know, Oilers, Wilder on there. Yeah, I think of the blue jackets and flyers too. Okay, you probably want to come home with six points. and you'd be okay. And boy, it's,

it's already in panic mode. And, you know, they've got this Minnesota game tonight. And obviously, whichever team loses tonight, the panic spotlight goes on that team. If it's Vancouver,

you talk about the home opener in a couple of nights. Look who they're playing. Buffalo. The Buffalo Sabres. That's got to be the worst possible team that you could be playing. Because it's a, in theory,

lousy team that's not a contender that you have to be able to beat. And yet, you know, the sabers, to bore a term, they're a little pesky, you know, they're not anyone's pushover. So, boy, it is not hard to imagine a situation where Vancouver comes home, 0 and 5, or even one at 4,

even if they get to win tonight. And they're not playing well against Buffalo. I mean, I don't know what the record is for the fastest boo birds to come out, but, I mean, they may not make it out of the first period before those fans turn on that team. And here's the thing, I'm going to give you one thing that worries me about Vancouver that didn't apply to Toronto,

Minnesota, and then I'll flip it around. I'll give you one thing I feel good about. The thing I feel good about is, like a lot of these teams off to bad starts, the goaltending hasn't been good. And we just finished saying, Mark Andre Fleury. He's 38 years old, man, is this it? Is he maybe hit a wall? The goaltending in Vancouver hasn't been good with Thatcher Demko.

I don't buy that as being any sort of long-term thing. There's nothing that's changed with Thatcher Demco. He's in his prime. He's a good goaltender. I believe in this guy. Every goal he has a bad week every now and then. Basilowski, Shasturkin, Dominic, had bad weeks. So when I see Thatcher Demko not look very good for a week, I'm sitting there going, I will write that off.

I don't consider that a concern going for it. So that's the good news is that unlike some of these other teams, Vancouver has a very good proven goaltender in his prime. I think they'll be okay in that spot. Here's the thing that worries me is we said with Toronto, look, this team's making the playoffs. We said with Minnesota, this. This team is still going to make the playoffs. We're pretty sure. Vancouver was a playoff bubble team coming into the year.

Vancouver was one of those teams. They've got certainly the talent to make the playoffs in that Pacific, but obviously didn't make it last year. And you're looking at it this year going, yeah, man, who are they going to pass? We think Vegas is going to be better. It's a tough path. They don't have two bad weeks to give away.

They don't have six points to give away in the standings the way that maybe a Minnesota or Toronto or some of these other teams might. They need 82 games. So they are already digging themselves a hole. And look, we saw it last year, right? They started awfully. Travis Green gets fired. Bruce comes in.

And they play at a playoff pace for the rest of the year. And that's where a lot of the optimism came from. But man, they feel like they're going down that path again. And we talked when we were talking about coaches on the hot seat, I love Bruce Bougarrow. I think he's a character. I think he's a great coach. I think he's one of the great underrated coaches of our era. But man, I was worried about him coming in because of the way it played out in the off season, right, where he had the option and the team was kind of like, go see if you can find a different job.

They didn't seem to be in a hurry to bring him back. He's on the one-year option. And what's the thing that you look at with the last year's Vancouver team, right? If they had made that coaching change two weeks earlier, would that have been enough to save the season? And you wonder if that same kind of logic applies on this. And man, what a turnaround that would be? but yeah that that stat was amazing with with the two goal it blowing multiple goal leads in fact do you have the do you have the stat like right in front of you right now because I'll tell

you when I heard it it was after three games they said first team to ever start the season and blow three such games and then when it happened a fourth time the the version I heard was first team to lose four games in a row like that ever regardless of start not the start the season or middle any time okay any time. First team to ever lose four games in a row where they had multi-go, which blows me away. I mean, again, like, it is scoring was so high in the 80s. You would think it must have happened to someone there. But I guess you've got to be, and this is part of what is so frustrating for Vancouver fans, you've got to be a good team to get multi-goal leads over and over again. But then you've got

to be a bad team to blow them. So what even are these guys? It's enormously frustrating. and I certainly get the sense that the temperature in Vancouver is already very, very high. And the frustration level is already a little bit off the charts there. Because it's been such a confusing offseason for Vancouver. Well, we're going to start a new path. Jim Benning's gone, new management. We're going to do things differently. And then they didn't seem to be doing anything different.

And they bring back the same team and everything. They're in win now mode, but they're not winning now. I think out of all of these teams with apologies to Minnesota, I think Vancouver is the one right now where I'm looking at it going, maybe panic is appropriate. And certainly if they lose tonight, all bets are wrong. No, you're right. This is going to be fat.

I wonder if it's one of those games where both of the teams look at each other, like, hey, gentlemen's agreement, we get to overtime? Like, yeah. Oh, man, if it's tied with 10 minutes left in the third, it is going to be potentially. Yeah, they just need the points. Everybody needs points. By the way, it was so interesting because, sorry,

to interrupt you, but when I wrote about Vancouver over the weekend, I do my weekend power rankings come out on Monday. And at that point, they were 0 and 2. And I had a list of all the teams that, you know, I was saying that were off to slow starts. And I was saying, you know, I don't think they're that bad. And the top three teams on my list, Washington, Columbus, Minnesota. And then I look at Vancouver schedule. And the next three teams they play, Washington, Columbus, Minnesota.

And they're 0 and 2 so far in those two games. You go 0 for 3. I mean, Vancouver is the get-right team right now for everyone else. That's the team you want to see on your schedule when you're not playing a while to get you back on the winning track. And that is not a good place to be. Yeah, by the way, Dom Lus Chishin has brand new playoff odds out today on the athletic Vancouver all the way down to 26%. So they were close to a 50% proposition to make it, but they have plummeted here with this flat start. One week.

I mean, we said it before. I think we said it last week. It gets late early in the NHL when you're not playing well. You never wrap anything up, but man, you can fall out of things real quick. And boy, how long can you wait if you're the Vancouver Canucks? Yeah. I want to bring this up because I think Stephen Stamcoast off to a great start. Leads the league already in goals with six.

This guy is, to me, unbelievable. And yet a little bit, and I don't know if those. word is underrated, but I'm thinking about this because I'm looking at the league leaders. I'm like, there's Stephen Stamcoast again, six goals and four games, leading the league and goals. And I'm looking at it. And by the way, okay, I want to point out, I know you like quirky things, weird things. I want this to happen so badly.

Okay. Stephen Stamco's, Sean, is 13 goals away from getting to 500. He's got 487. He's 21 points away from getting to a thousand points. how amazing would it be if his 500th goal is his 1,000th point? Man. Like, we're sitting right. It's possible. I want people to understand. Look at, like, it could happen.

You know what? I like that. That's, uh, that's a good one. Yeah. Let's, let's keep an eye on that. Let's cheer for this. Yeah, that would be a really good one. And yeah, man, it is weird because, you know, you said,

I'm not sure underrated is the word. And I'm with you because it feels like we don't talk about Stephen Stamco's enough. as a generational star. And yet, you know, underrated, you know, I don't know anyone who doesn't like Stephen Stamcox. Like if you say Stephen Stamcox to a hockey band, their eyes light up, oh, that guy's great, you know, and they, so everyone loves him.

And yet it just feels like, and again, I don't, you know, the career path early in his career when he had the, the two Rock of Richard's had the 60 goal season. He was basically Austin Matthews of his era. and, you know, it was, at the time, if you had said to a hockey fan, hey, the guy who's going to chase Wayne Greshke's record is in the league right now, they would have said Stamco's not Ovechkin. And then he sort of took, you know, a little bit of a step back.

Health became a bit of an issue, you know, settled in more of a 40-goal guy. I don't know if maybe we were just so spoiled by how he started that that suddenly felt like disappointment that a guy who was putting up 40 or 45 goals when he was healthy. and then he hasn't been healthy lately. The lightning are so good, and yet it feels like it's, you know, Victor Hedman's team, Nikita Kutruv's team,

you know, all these different things. But, you know, I'll tell you this. I run a contest every year. And one of the questions in the con, it's a prediction contest, and I got 2,100 entries this year. And I've got a piece going out tomorrow with some of the more interesting finds,

but I'll spoil one of them, which is, there's a question at the end of the contest. And I say, name me a player who doesn't play for the Oilers, so not McDavid or Dressidal, name me a player who's going to get 100 points this year. And if you get it right, you get bonus points. If you get it wrong, you lose your whole entry. So you want to be sure. There were, I believe, seven guys in the league had 100 points last year. And Stephen Stamcoast was one of them.

He had 106 points last year. How many people out of 2100 do you think listed Stephen Stamco as a 100 point guy for this, year. Four. Two. There were two people out of 2100. So one out of every thousand people was willing to look at. And again, you get to list one guy.

So I mean, you know, obviously there were a lot of people saying that awesome Matthews, Kutra, other guys like that. Only two people pick Stephen Stamco's. And this is a guy coming off a hundred point season. And obviously to start this year looks like he's going to be right there again. And, you know, I know that there's just concerns. Is he going to be healthy? Is he going to play a full season?

But this is a guy that is just, you know, he's, he's an underrated guy. And Austin Matthews hasn't been healthy either. So it's, you know, for the fact that there was something like 700 people picked Austin Matthews, two people pick Stephen Stamco's. This guy is, you know, he's on the Hall of Fame track. He's done everything that you could really do in the league hasn't. hasn't been that MVP guy and maybe that's it too. Maybe, you know, people sit there and go, you got to have

an MVP or at least be a finalist. You know, he was the runner up the one year where he had the 60 goals. But, man, I don't know what else we want from this guy. He's been phenomenal. And everybody loves him. And yet, as soon as it's time to start listing the greats that we're seeing,

it feels like he kind of fades into the background. Right. This is my point. Like, imagine going back to draft day 2008 and saying, Stephen Samcoe's taking first overall will end his career. He's likely going to end up close to 600 goals, if not more. Multiple Stanley Cups. Like he did everything.

Do you think part of it on Stephen is just due to injuries and circumstance, he's never played in a best on best tournament, like he never played for Canada at, you know, Sochi or, you know, any of the world, like any of the, is that part of it, maybe? Maybe. You know, and I would have said related to that. that maybe a couple years ago, I would have said, well, does he have that signature moment?

Does he have that moment that you think? But I feel like he got that in the final when it came back in. He was like Kurt Gibson. He scored the goal. And yeah. So, yeah. And, you know, the numbers are there. And again, it's, I think maybe part of this is we're talking about a guy who is primarily

a pure goal score. And he has the misfortune of playing in an error with arguably the greatest pure goal. score in the history of the sport, Alex, Alexander Ovechkin. So, you know, that does maybe diminish a little bit. And, you know, he hasn't had the 50 goal season in 10 years, right? I mean, he's, he's had 240 goals season since then. So, you know, he certainly is a guy where injuries and everything, he set the bar so high with those early seasons where you're looking at it going, this guy, forget 500 goals. He's going to be six, 700, 750 goal guy. He's the new Mike Bosset or whatever you might have thought. And he hasn't been able to maintain that. But he's, he's so good. He does everything

so well. And it is. It's, I mean, as a Leaf fan, they played Tampa in the playoffs last year. And you're like, oh, man, Kuturov, Edmund, Vasilevsky. Oh, Braden Pointe, you know, and then you get out there and you see 91 skating around. And you're like, oh, man, I forgot about that guy. Oh, he's going to do something. He's going to do something phenomenal. And sure enough, he usually does. Yeah. So anyway, let's all, look, if Stamcoast has been under the radar, fine, let's put him top of the radar.

Let's all cheer for Stamcoast to get his 500th goal and 1,000 points on the same play. Okay? We got to, like, we got to monitor that as we go. We got to have like the countdown to see how that's going to go because, man, that would be a fun one. Hey, speaking of fun, I got to tell you, and, you know, look, and you live in Ottawa. For people who don't know, Sean lives in Ottawa. I live in Ottawa.

Obviously, I cover the senators. Man, this thing has been bleak for years. And I got to tell you, Tuesday night's game, I had chills. And I haven't had that kind of spine-tingling feeling inside that arena in a long time. And it was, they had 106% capacity in the building. It was rocking. And I'll tell you, the moment for me, they did a real good job of keeping this on the wraps was Daniel Alpherson. came out to drop the ceremonial puck to start the season.

And they had this great shot, if you haven't seen it, of Alfredson. Nobody knows in the crowd that this is about to happen. And they cut to a shot of him, a live shot of him in the dressing room. And I mean, I thought the roof was going to come off this place. And it was such a cool moment. And I thought, you know, I wish every fan base could experience what we experienced in Ottawa Tuesday night. Like there's just this awesome connection between,

a player and a fan base. And I'm wondering, does every franchise, Sean, have that one guy that can do that, like give you the chills up to the spot? Like, I would think in Toronto, like, I would think Wendell Clark could still do that, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, one of the things that I've noticed in the, in Toronto, uh, they, they have a, or at least last time I was in a, in Toronto a couple years ago,

they have this pregame video that they play of high. And, you know, it's exactly. what you would expect from an original 16th. A lot of black and white, a lot of all the greats. And you know, the crowd gets into it. The crowd reacts to everybody. And there's Johnny Bauer

and there's Dave Kionn and there's Daryl Sittler and Boris Salming and everyone. But they go nuts whenever it's a Wendell Clark play. Whenever they show Wendell, even if it's just him sitting on the bench, the place just erupt. So I feel like, yeah, he'd be the guy and try. I feel like everyone

does have that guy or maybe a few of those guys that they would get that reaction. Now, it is a little different in Ottawa. We should say for the context here, not only is Elfretton the best player in franchise history and the most popular player in franchise history, but there was a falling out between him and Eugene Melnick, the previous owner front office, whatever. He sort of was not welcome by this team, not by the fan base. Fan base never turned on him at all. But if anything, he was kind of the symbol of everything wrong with ownership and the way the team was run because it was like,

if you can't, if you can't get along with Daniel Alfredson, that's our guy. And so I think the symbolism that we saw in the home opener was even a little bit deeper, right? Because to have him come out, it really sends a message that this is a new era. The old way of doing things is gone.

And I think that's why it hit so much. But yeah, no, I expect that most teams would have at least one guy, if not several. I mean, Montreal, geez, every game starts with something like that with those guys. And, you know, in Vancouver, I would imagine Trevor Linden is maybe still the guy there that brings back those memories. There would be other guys as well. Go on down the list.

Yeah. And then, you know what? That's awesome. That's part of what makes sports so great, right? Is he get those connections with people that you've never met. You don't know anything about, but that was really well done by Ottawa that they didn't. they kept it as a surprise and it was very meaningful

for those fans to sort of get the message that we are really showing you that it's a new era. Yeah. And I'm curious, but like, like, Ottawa was a kind of a newer franchise, right? Yeah. Somewhat newer franchise.

Like, I would think in like Tampa, Ottawa came in at the same time as Tampa, I would think Marty St. Louis, maybe he had a bad ending, but maybe it's Vinie La Caville, right? Like, he probably evokes that emotion. My question is, like, Nashville and Florida. Like, do they have, like, like, like, David Legwan doesn't do that.

I don't think so. Is it, is it, is it pecarine? I think, yeah, it is tough because, you know, when it's guys who just recently finished their careers. Yeah. You know, I wonder what the Shea Weber reaction would be like. Oh, yeah. That might be.

That might be a little tougher. Again, you know, like the way, the way things ended. Florida is, Florida is the tough one. God, here we go again. We got in so much trouble last year. Every time, every time we started talking about the Panthers, we wound up in a bad place last year. That's right.

Yeah. Who would it be for the Panthers? I don't know. Is, I mean, John Van Biesbroke with everything with him, I don't know if he's the guy. Is it, you know, like Scott Melendie? It's got to be somebody from that 96 cup run, right? Well, you would think, I mean,

Roberto Luongo is extraordinary. early popular there. And again, that's another guy who just had his career and relatively recently. But, you know, he might be the guy there. But yeah, that would be a little bit tougher. Columbus, I guess he got Rick Nash. Minnesota Wild. It's, it's Koebu, right? You'd have to think. Yep. I don't know. That'd be interesting. If you're, that's a good one to throw it to the listeners. Like, if you're a fan of a non-traditional team, let us know who that guy is. Let us, you know, a couple of Canadians who, you know, of course, we don't, we don't watch any of those teams anyways. Like, let us know who that guy is because I do feel like, you know, it's some of them are

easier than others, right? Anaheim, Salani, Korea. We got those two guys. That's easy. San Jose, it's Marlowe Thornton. But, yeah, I'd be interested to hear some of those, some of those other ones. Like, who is that guy? And especially, I would also love to hear from, you know, who's the guy that maybe isn't a star?

You know, he's not the Daniel. He's not the Hall of Fame or whatever. but the guy where you're like, you know, that's our guy. And, you know, he, I'm a devil's fan. And, you know, you can have Scott, Steve, Scott, Netterbury. But Ken Danico comes out. I'm coming out of my seat, you know, that sort of thing. That, that, I'd like to hear that too from people.

Yeah. So, yeah, hit us up either on Twitter in the comment section. Love to hear from people on that. Listen, we're going to wrap up this episode. I got to tell you, that game on Tuesday was, I'm going to use the word unhinged. Ottawa was up 3-0. Boston tied it at 3. Ottawa takes a 6-3 lead.

Boston makes it 6-5. Like it was perilous, unhinged. Like, it was wild. And it was fun and it was entertaining. For everyone, but a coach. Yeah. There are two people in that whole building

that hated that game, and it was the two head coaches. DJ Smith and Jim Montgomery were like, yeah, give me out of here. But, you know, I give me a DJ Smith after the game, said, look, we'll take a win anyway. We can get it right now. And, you know, he didn't,

You know, coaches don't love that. But I loved it. It's one of those games where you're like, you know, and in fact, I had a good chat with Shane Pinto yesterday. I'm sitting at his stall. We're just kind of shooting the breeze a little bit. And, you know, he says to me, man, if you're, if you watch that game and you don't come out of it and you don't love hockey, he's like, I don't know what to tell you.

And I'm like, yeah, this is like, you know, the players love it, right? The players love those types of games. And we were saying, like, that's the type of game you would love to, you know, put that on a USB stick. or whatever, like, you know, put it online and show it to somebody and say, this is how fun the game can be, right? You want to bring new fans in. You want to show them the 7-5 game. You don't want to show them the, you know, the 2-1 hockey game.

But that brings us to this week in hockey history. And I got to tell you, okay, usually I look up things and, you know, I'm trying to find something different that, you know, maybe we haven't talked about in the pod over the years or whatever. And I'm like, I've never heard. of this game. And you want to talk about wildly unhinged games? I kind of feel like this might be on the short list of the most unhinged game in

NHL history. So to give the listeners a little bit of a context here, we're going to take you back to October 17, 1989. So this week in 1989, the defending Stanley Cup champion Calgary Flames roll into the Colise to take on the Nordiques, who were at the time, probably the worst team. in the league. In fact, there's no,

probably about it. They're in the midst of a... Three three years. They finished dead last. Yeah. Okay. So they're awful. I would say not only worst in the league,

the worst non-expansion team in the history of the NHL. Yes. Okay. So do you have the box score up there? I do. Yeah. Because I'm like you.

You sent me the link to this. I'd never seen this before. And my jaw dropped. Yes. Okay. So I'm going to set the scene. And then you're going to take the listeners through what happened.

Okay. So again, defending Stanley Cup champion flames are in to take on the Dormat Nordiques. Guess what, though? With about seven minutes left in the game, Quebec is up eight to three, eight to three with seven minutes left. And then as they like to say on Twitter, and then what happened? So why don't you walk the listeners through Calgary's down by five goals and then what happened? So Calgary is down eight to three.

13 and a half minutes left to play. Gary Roberts scores a goal, makes it 8 to 4. Seconds later, Gary Roberts scores again, makes it 8 to 5. And seconds after that, Jim Plotinski scores makes it 8 to 6. So they've scored three goals in, let me do the math, 27 seconds to close it to within 8 to 6. And if you're a Quebec fan here, you're thinking, oh, my goodness, here we go. This is going to be an all-time epic collapse. But from there, they settle it down and Quebec rides it out.

They get into the final minute. They're still up eight to six, not just the final minute, the final seconds. In fact, at the 1941 mark of the third period. So there's 19 seconds left in this game. Presumably a scrum breaks out. Gary Roberts takes a penalty, Gary Roberts of Calgary. So the flames are down, two goals. There's 19 seconds left.

And he takes like a roughing and unsportsman. Like, the game's over. This is clearly a guy sending a message. He's sending a message. you know, it's 19 seconds left. Obviously, we're not going to win this game, but we're not going to go out like that. So they're now short-handed with 19 seconds left,

four seconds after the Gary Roberts penalty, Doug Gilmore scores to make it eight to seven. Okay, so short-handed. Short-handed. Remember, back then, the penalties could still be in the zone. So the face-off is in the offensive zone. The flame score, they make it eight to seven, and four seconds after that,

they score again and tie the game 8 to 8. Four seconds after, that means a face off at center ice. And they short-handed with 10 seconds, with 15 seconds left in the game. And I don't know about you. I spent probably way too much time digging on YouTube. I found the game.

Boy, oh, you did. I found, I found a, like, it's one of these things where it's like somebody's clipped together the highlights and they put like rock music or like, I don't know why they did it this way.

It wasn't like a high, like an official thing. But I found those last two goals. And man, if you, if the video is, what's the title of it? It just says Flames versus Nordiques 17.10.89. So that's the date, right? So if you search flames Nordiques, October 17th, 89, the end of it, first of all, I mean, if you're, if you're an NHL coach, don't watch it. Because, Annie, if you're somebody, maybe like me who romance, is the 80s. I was the greatest era of hockey. Don't watch because, oh my goodness, it reminds you

that, you know, I think we have too much in the way of defensive systems these days, but we didn't have anything back then because the goal to make it 8 to 7. So there's the face office in the Quebec zone. Quebec's got a power plant. They got an extra guy. And yet the flames win it back. They pass it to Doug Gilmore, who is completely alone in front of the Quebec net. I don't know how when you're short-handed, you're completely alone in front of the other team's net. The Quebec goalie, Stefan Fissette, responds to this by just flat out diving towards Doug Gilmore. Like, no positioning, no, no, just total panic, flops in front of him. Gilmore beats him for the goal.

It's a ridiculous looking goal. And then, yeah, right off the face-off, they just win it ahead, like Joel Otto or whoever wins it ahead. And they just go in on a breakway. It's like video game stuff. It's like, you know, and the other guy doesn't know what. buttons to press and you just go straight ahead and they score four seconds in to tie the game, send it to overtime. And then somehow in an eight to eight game where we've just seen two goals in seconds,

the game finishes as a tie. Nobody scores an overtime. Like, honestly, this, I had never heard of this game until I looked at it. I was like, yeah, I'll do this week in hockey history. And they had this game list. I'm like, what on earth happened here? It is just just stunningly stunningly bad.

You're just looking at it trying to figure out like what what was even happening here? Like the goal tending is terrible, which, you know, it's the 80s. So you would expect that. But it's, it's, uh, yeah, I'm watching the like I'm looking off to the side, just watching the replays. And I mean, Quebec's trying to play defense, which in back in those days means that they're like hooking guys and tackling guys and all of that stuff. but they don't somehow they

they don't get the one guy who's in there. And I'm saying they're short-handed. I would assume, I can't actually tell from this. I assume Calgary has their bully out. Yeah, I think I looked it up. So I think Mike Vernon was pulled at that point. Yeah, well, I mean, eight game, yeah, probably should have been.

But yes, so, you know, it's five on five, I guess. But even then, I mean, it's both the goals are so bad. But the Gilmore one, just watch the goaltent or watch it's stuff on. But you can almost hear him like yelling. Like when he sees this guy, like, maybe I'll just dive towards him and then Gilmore slips it past him. And then the, oh my goodness, the last goal right off the face off is an all-time terrible one. And then at the, so I just saw this video now. And then at the end of the video, it's a montage of all the newspaper clippings from the next day in Quebec.

Yeah. No, it's like this is wild. Like the columnists are just ripping them. Yeah. Performance inexplicable. What else? Like, this is crazy. Like, how have we never heard of this game?

But here's what I want to know. So I looked up the, I'm like, what happened here? So the flames had played back-to-back games on the road prior to this. Then I'm assuming they had the day off. Here's what I think what happened. Okay. I've said this before. You need to look at the schedule.

I bet you the flames went hard in Quebec City the night before the game. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I would, I mean, it looks like they went hard the afternoon before the game, but that's, yeah, that could definitely, that could definitely be up there. But yeah, I mean, all of these call of this is just, just ripping on that. You know what the problem is? It's that the Nordic strong exists anymore. Like, if this was a team that still existed in its current market, we would still hear about this, right?

There would still be that, you know, when you're sitting around, I can't believe the Leafs blew a three-goal lead. They always do this. And then, you know, somebody comes in and goes along. let me tell you a story about my team. Maybe it's for the better. They don't exist after a game like that. But holy smokes. What a terrible collapse.

But I honestly find the highlights. I can't recommend it enough because they are, they are every bit as bad as we're making it sound. Yeah, unbelievable. Eight, eight. And then for nobody to score an overtime after an unhinged end like that, that's even, you know, How do you go into overtime like after that and and just, you know,

you're Quebec like you still got the power play for a minute and 45 seconds. Hey guys, you want to drop a play or something like that? That's right. How about we draw up a play where we don't just completely abandon our goaltender at all times? And not only that. Back then you didn't get the, there was no quote unquote loser point, right? That's right. They still had the like they could have ended the game and won at 9-8, no harm, no foul.

Like, hey, we won 9-8. Like we didn't give up a point. What a wild. Yeah. Yep. I was just looking at that. Peter Stasney had four points that night. Big memorable night for him.

But oh my gosh. What an absolute mess. There you go. So we'll leave it there. That's a lot of fun. We always encourage people to check out those old clips from classic games. So we'll leave it there.

Had a lot of fun. And again, boy, Minnesota, Vancouver. on Thursday night's going to be a lot of, you know, provide a lot of fodder, I think, for maybe for Haley and Jen Tilly. The way Vancouver is going. I feel like that blowing the five-goal lead is in play. It's on the board. Exactly.

All right. We'll leave it there. I want to thank everybody for joining us. Hit us up with any emails at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail. 845445, 845, 8459. Not a subscriber with us. You can join us at theathletic.com.com. hockey show, get an annual subscription for a dollar a month for the first six months.

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