The Athletic Hockey Show - Travis Sanheim signs extension with Philadelphia Flyers, Patrik Laine to miss 3-4 weeks, and your early season overreactions

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

On a new Thriday show (recording closer to Friday than Thursday), Hailey and Sean look back at some of the slate of games that have been played over the last week, including covering a game while the show is recording. Also, Patrik Laine will be sidelined for 3-4 weeks with an injury, Travis Sanheim's new contract with the Flyers, and to wrap up, your early season overreactions.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. Welcome back, everybody. It's the Friday show. We're recording this. We're starting on Thursday, but it's basically Friday. It's going to be posted Friday because we are trying to be good podcast co-hosts and give you variety. We wanted to wait for you, dear listener, for more games to happen. Yeah.

But instead now, it's 11.30 p.m. Yeah, that's definitely what happened. Definitely wasn't somebody playing a old-timed volleyball game. I mean, this is the first, like, this is the first true Friday show, in my opinion. Because it's going to cross over from Thursday to Friday, like, as we record this. If we record for 42 minutes. We're going to have recorded on both of the days. Right.

Yeah, that's fair. This is Friday proper. Everything else has been Friday adjacent. But no, it's been a really busy day, really couple of days because hockey is back in full. There was a couple of games in Prague. But this is the North American launch of the season, beginning of the season, six games on Wednesday, 10 on Thursday. Yeah, we wanted to watch a bunch of these games on Thursday before we started talking about

them. For you, I didn't have to play volleyball. We could have recorded before I went. Don't play me. I am doing this for our loyal friends and listeners. Anyways, I'm Haley Salveen. I didn't even finish introducing myself before you started making fun of me. My name's Haley Salveen.

I'm here with Sean Gentile. I could have been playing volleyball. Can you play volleyball? It's not your business. What does it mean when I say that somebody is in position number six? Don't have to explain myself to you. If there's six back, what does that mean? This is like the reverse of like the asshole guy who goes out on a date with a girl and is like, oh yeah, you say like football?

Like who is the third string quarterback for. know what? People have been asking me that for years, and it was really nice to say to somebody. Doesn't make it right. Yeah, well, whatever. Thanks, everyone. It's the athletic hockey show. It's Friday. Ten games tonight.

Pittsburgh Penguins start there. They beat the Arizona Coyotes, Sydney Crosby, scores the first goal, the season for Pittsburgh. The vibes were good. Everyone just fought a lot also. Arizona is so bad. Arizona is so bad. We know what their ML is going to be. They came out, they went down 3-0 very, very quickly.

So they kind of fell in a deficit too early to sufficiently goon it up. It was like they had to deviate from the game plan and actually try to play hockey. But yeah, it was, man, classic hip check from Shane. and Gostas Bear that went bad. That was sort of like the way I spent the first chunk of my night on Thursday. I watched the first period of Penguins Coyotes. It seemed like it to evolve from there. Then I jumped over to what the hell did I watch after that? I watched Panthers Islanders for a little bit. Matthew Kuch. First goal as a Florida Panther. He plays for the Florida Panthers now. Is that true?

I think something might have happened. Yeah. I believe there was a trade. Didn't watch Maple Leafs caps because who? cares, but I did watch the first, the first Leafs game, which was a day before. That was fun. I'm sure that's already been talked to. No, that's been talked about. It's official. I would mention.

I don't want to talk about it anymore at all. Okay. Do it? Okay, so we can touch on that quick because that's still, we can talk about the Leafs, I think, in general, quickly here, because I think what we saw today or tonight, Austin Matthews breaks a third period to high scores to, you know, scores the Leaf's third goal. They end up being Washington 3-2. I think we saw Matthews stop us from going into like

DefCon 5 or DefCon 1. Whatever the worst DefCon is, because I'm like completely incapable of remembering that. Yeah, yeah, we got saved by future Arizona Coyote, Austin Matthews for sure. I think if Toronto would have lost those first two games. This is probably a better question for you.

Do we start seeing the Sheldon Keefe stuff if they lose two games? Like when do the Toronto newspaper column is like start sharpening up the knives for those guys? Like how bad would the start have to be? Oh and five? I don't know. I mean, yeah, if they start like oh and five and they're all terrible games and, you know, they're losing to Montreal and Arizona and Philadelphia, et cetera. Like, I think part of the issue was, you know, that Montreal game, I mean, this is a, you know,

I think we do need to preface it with it. It was the HAB season opener and they do have some young talent. Yeah, they just, yeah, like there's still, I'm sure there's people who will say that a, that a home opener at the Bell Center is not an easy environment to step into, but it's not like these are Leaves players who've never been there. you know, Austin Matthews and Mitch Martyr and William Nealander, this is not their first go-round. They're not taking the rookie lap. So that's why you see and hear Sheldon Keith talking about how their performance was unacceptable.

It was a sloppy game. I did the Leafs report cards after that game. It was really sloppy. There was defensive issues for sure. I think there was some things where it's like, what are these guys doing right now? I don't know if I came away from the game being like Sheldon Keith. What is your problem? Sure, you can always think of a coach and say.

say, like, why didn't he have the guys ready? Or maybe he worked them too hard in training camp. I think that's galaxy braining it a little bit. I think it's too soon to do the what the heck is going on with Sheldon Keith. The one thing I would question is, like, the muzzan and hall pairing. They didn't work well last year, did not play well in that season opener either. So I'm curious in terms of that when it comes to deployment from the coaching staff. but also what else is Sheldon Kee's supposed to do? He doesn't exactly what you're going to put Victor Mette in instead of one of those guys and it's all going to be better.

Like Timothy Lilligrant's hurt. They have no cap space. What do you want Sheldon Keefe to do? And also it's one game, like calm down. It's one game. They still outshot the Habs. They still outplayed the Habs for most of that game. But it was really, really sloppy.

And then they come back and win. So I don't know. If they go, if they drop the first two games, games and if they're back to back and you get a look at both of the goalies who are supposed to be on reclamation projects and I could see the freak out in Toronto just being like, oh my God, canceled, like not cancel a season, but I could see people freaking out being like, this is what we got. This is what we have a goal.

Yeah, because these guys aren't good. Like Matt Murray hasn't been good for five years. That's the tricky part. Ilya Samsonov had every chance in the world last season to actually win the caps. starting job and he didn't like he he he they started benacheck right and look they won tonight so it's not he's coming away with the w um i don't have any of the advanced analytics in front of me to know how many gave goals scored above expected but i mean you keep the capitals to two goals who knows what the capitals end up looking like this season uh i'm still not convinced that

the age curve exists in washington or pittsburg i think it'll probably catch up to the capitals before it catches up to the penguins. But I mean, yeah, he allowed two goals on 26 shots. It was better than what Matt Murray looked like against what we should assume to be a better team. You know, some other guys in Leif's lineup got on the board. Kelly Arn Croke scored. You know, Austin Matthews comes out. He, I don't want to say he was invisible in the season opener, but based on the level that we expect from Austin Matthews,

like he had a couple, I think he had five shots on goal in that game against money. Montreal, a couple high slot chances, a couple one-timers. Other than that, I didn't think that top line looked great. Yeah. I mean, this is what the hell is half of 82? We're a 141th of the way through the season. This is always the way it's going to go. The goalies aren't good.

We're going to have this conversation over and over and over again. They're going to be let down by their goaltending multiple times this year because those guys aren't good enough. And it's going to be a problem now. And it's going to be a problem in May. And the narrative is already set. And it's set for a reason. Because again, like, it's just, it's still, it's still wild.

And whatever, we, that's, that's, that's enough about the leaves, honestly. Yeah. This isn't, this isn't, this isn't Leaf's report. But like, no, and they were the Wednesday game and there's other games that happened tonight. We already talked a bit about the penguins. Sorry to cut you off. But the vibes in Buffalo, great start. Vibes in Ottawa, it's still early, so we're not going to overreact.

But everyone was looking at the Ottawa Senators like they were going to be a playoff team this season. Maybe we should say that the Buffalo Samers are going to be a playoff team this season. No, they're not that good. Okay, my point is that they beat the Ottawa senators tonight. Yeah, they're good. That's what I was saying. They're good enough to beat Ottawa in game one. Yeah, you know, you look at the names popping up on the score sheet there.

I think Dylan Cousins is a guy who's going to, if we're talking about Buffalo is a relevant team, you know, in a month or two, Dylan, or whatever, three months in February, it's going to be because Dylan Cousins makes some kind of leap. And he's shown a lot towards the end of the last season to suggest that that was possible. Peyton Crabbs also had an assist. And I think, like, maybe a little bit more reason to be concerned. about his development because he was pretty he was pretty he was pretty rough he had a bizarre bizarre season last year get gets his first assist i mean that's you know that's a big win for buffalo man i believe josh allen was in the stance i'm pretty sure who's wearing an alex tuck jersey are you being serious right now i have i have a source in buffalo who is suggesting that

josh allen was in the stance when an alex duck jersey yeah did you check any of the channels no to see if he was there okay I don't care. I have moles in Buffalo, that's the point. All right. How about the Flyers, man? Yeah. Some of these teams that were so doom and gloom all preseason or teams that were all excited in the preseason, it's game one.

And we will get to some overreaction, some way too early overreactions to start of the season. We've been collecting some on Twitter. Some of them are really funny. But yeah, another team that some people were really high on, this is the year for the Devils, they're young, they're skilled, their goaltending can't be worse. Devils lose. It's amazing.

Flyers 5 to 2. What happened? I was surprised to see McKenzie Blackwood start that game, honestly, for as bad as he was last season, and for as much as they've invested in the other. Well, isn't that why you go and get Vitec Vana check? You would imagine so, because you're saying this guy is capable. I did the math in our season previews. And the devils were, I believe they're minus, I don't, I don't know the exact number in front of me.

Their goal differential was like minus 60 on the season. And if they would have had 902 goaltending, it would have been up towards zero. And 902 is 11 points below league average last year. Like this is not, like, that is not, that's not expecting much. And then they go out and get a guy who, you know, like Vannecichick is the other crappy cap's goaltender last year. that showed you how bad off jersey was from a goal-tending standpoint. It was that the caps ditched, and the leaves for that matter. The cabs ditched both those guys.

They're like, yo, Samsonov, Vanichek, not working. Like, we need to cut bait and start over here. One lands with the devils, one lands with the Leafs. And Vanek's, you know, doesn't even start tonight. and, you know, Murray or, uh, Samsonov, you know, at least, at least showed something. But it is, it is funny. I think, I think Philly though, I don't know, 82 and O. John Torterlo for John Tortorello for Jack Adams.

Turns out that the, turns out that the Travis Sandheim deal was actually good. Is that, is that, is that what we're talking about here? I mean, let's get into that because this morning, the flyers announced that they've, I guess it was this afternoon. depending what time's on year, and I suppose, that they signed Travis Sandheim to a contract extension, eight years, $50 million. And my initial reaction was like, what are they doing? Like, I get that he's supposed to be one of their cornerstones, potentially he's 26 years old. He's in the final season of a two-year contract.

He signed in 2021. Could have been a UFA this season. So they lock him in on an eight-year, $50 million deal. like I guess I was just I just sometimes get confused about the direction in Philadelphia that's all

sometimes like so Travis Sanheim is a decent number to like a decent second pair guy like that's that's who he is this is just part and parcel with the flyers like not really realizing

or Chuck Fletcher like not doesn't seem like like he's, you know, operating in the same sphere of reality as the rest of us are? Because that's a move that you make when you're like, all right, we love our core. We love our core players. We love Travis Anheim. You know, you would have thought that they're coming off something other than a total like catastrophe season because it's like, yeah, keep it, keep them around.

But 6.25 for eight years is wild. And you have, and he's part of a top four, the way right now that's it's him it's rasmus ristolinan who's it 5.1 for five more or four more and you have provorov who's also overpaid at six seven five and you have tony d'angelo who they signed over the lease on the wells fargo center to to acquire from from carolina and then sign so you have all this money and all this term locked up in a top four that like basically isn't any good because they're the definition. They're truly the definition of what happens when you have half decent players,

except for maybe in the case of Rissolining, who are playing like a level above, who are forced to play a level above what they actually are. Like Provarov's not number one, but he's played like one. Sandheim, not a number two, but he's paid like one. DeAngelo is just an eminently flawed player, and then you have the Rissalainen catastrophe. right so you have philly just like whistling through the graveyard and locking up all these like these

four guys for all this money and all this term and it's just like what is i mean we've we've said it over and over again like i've had charlie on two different shows we've talked about the flyers because they're fascinating it's you know slow motion slow motion car crash stuff from them uh and it doesn't get old because they keep making these decisions where you're like what what is the end goal here. So yeah, I don't know. But what the hell do I know? They just went out in one five, two.

Flyers for Eastern Conference champs. Watch out Metro, baby. I think one of my favorite things was before the game. There was an interview with John Tortorella going around, and he was asked by John Clark, who's with NBC. He asked John Tortorella if he's found something in the flyers that are, that the flyers are good at and that they can build on, Build on, excuse me,

to you know, form and identity. And this is what John Tortorilla had to say. No. Man of many words, said John Torrella. Back to you, guys. That's the kind of performance that made him a media superstar with ESPN and TN TSN before him.

It's so great. So, yeah. Post gave me a little more say, said we worked our asses off. I think I saw another funny quote. I think it's always, I missed, I just lost it. I think someone said, you know, Gary Bettman and I are really good friends. He comes to me and finds me all the time, takes all my money.

Maybe that's an old quote. I lost it. I'd pay money to see like a 30-second conversation, like, between Torts and Bettman when they didn't think anybody was around. Like, I wonder what those guys talk about. Pets, probably. Torch's legendary dog guy The man loves animals

I don't know about Gary I don't know if they could bond over that I'll have to wait and see Okay sorry Sean I found the quote Gary Betman and I are real good friends Because all he does is take my money through fines Oh In this tweet

Says that Tortorella has paid a total of $149,000 in fines That doesn't seem like a lot Yeah it does for a coach in a league where nobody's ever find all that much at one time well I guess there's no there's no CBA to like the governs looking for like some astronomer like that was crazy no I mean you present in the bucket for a coach who probably makes way more than like the average dude like I don't think John Tortorella is

making like a million bucks a year he's making he's making 21 50 a year or 2150 an hour If he gets bumped up If he gets bumped up to Shift manager He'll get a $1.50 raise Um I sincerely thought that you were saying that like

Torts said that Like he alluded to some Like that he was telling the truth basically Not just making some joke about How Gary's taking all his money You thought they were friends Yeah I did Oh

I'm stupid stupid. Oh. Well, let's get out of this segment. Let's take a break. All right. So let's keep going around the league here, Sean. There's more games to be talked about that happened on Thursday, that happened on Wednesday. There's games on right now as we're recording right behind me. I mean, just, all right, still an intermission. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's actually kale McCarer drinking out of the cup. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, this is a podcast. so you can't see behind me, but I do have the Flames, Avs game behind me. You guys, you guys just got to trust us.

It's totally cool. It's really cool. I wish you all could see it. Yeah, it's totally behind me right now. You just have to trust us, bro. But it's in the second intermission. Flames are up three to one over the Colorado Avalanche. They're on a back-to-back.

Pavel Fransoz is in that. He was really good in the playoffs last year, by the way. when he had to come in pinch it for Darcy Kemper after he got his eye poked by a stick. But I think he's, I think he's part of the reason that Colorado was like, yeah, we can, we don't, we don't have to pay Darcy Kemper. This guy's fine. He's cheap. Let's get like another cheap guy. One of them will probably be fine, whether it's, whether it's him or Yorgia. I don't know if I, I don't know if I necessarily agree with, with the specifics, but I can understand the sentiment. Peter Bodd said that several times. Like the way Colorado- Give him the extra money to sign somebody like Evan Bouchard

instead of not having. Evan Rodriguez, yeah. Evan Rodriguez, sorry, excuse me. Yeah, or they get some more wiggle room. They don't have to be completely up against it with like Valerie Natchewski. I get it. I get the logic, but you have in Francis.

We'll see. We'll see. Anyways, McKenzie Weger, Jonathan Huberdo, Nazim Kodry, we're getting their first look, getting a first look at them. In Calgary, Mackenzie Weger has two assists in his debut, setting up two goals for the Calgary Flames.

That's a pretty good start for McKenzie Weger. I think we're going to see a different level of offense and a different level of jump into the zone, like more activation from McKenzie Weger this season because he's going to be with somebody like Chris Tanna versus Aaron Eckblad. And that's not to say that he wasn't. good with Eckblad last year and that he didn't have jump and that he didn't provide offense

for the Florida Panthers because he did. But he was the guy who would, you know, get the puck, retrieve the puck, started up in transition and kind of let Ekblad work and he would be there, you know, Uighur's really smart and he knows when to pinch down. He knows where the shooting lanes are. He knows when to drop down into the slot and he has a good wrist shot to finish those opportunities. Somebody just scored behind me. I think it was Tyler To Foley. This is the live play. I play, Gailbury Flames. Let's all turn and watch what Jonathan Hebrido did. Just kidding.

But it was tab to fully. It's four won flames in the third period. But I think we're going to see something a little different from Weager this season because Tannav is so reliable. And we've seen the impact that Chris Tannave has made on his D-Partners last season with Oliver Shillington, the year before that with Nohan. Haniffin the year before that with Quinn Hughes. We see it all the time. What's he going to do for a guy who's already established as a top pair defenseman? I'm very curious. And especially considering

that those two guys are quote unquote the second pair. So are we going to see them getting to work against maybe lesser opponents? You would imagine. I mean, Rasmus Anderson and No Hanifin ate some Tufts at times last year. But yeah, it's Weger Unleash, right? Like he can be the guy that, you know, he doesn't have to worry about. He can carry the puck in himself. He doesn't have to worry about getting it to Aaron Hackblad or, you know, starting it that way. He's going to get more power play time.

That was something he was, you know, I thought he had more of it in Florida. It turns out he got about 40 seconds a game, right? So, yeah, he played all of two minutes on the power play last season. in Florida or something like that. Yeah, so he's going to have, you know, he's going to have the opportunity to stack up points there, which is honestly a good reason to lock them in if you're Calgary now because we're talked about his contract before too. You know, that dude, it's always funny like ahead of seasons when you see guys who are like,

it's going to happen with John Klingberg and A&I and where they're going to rehab his value by putting them on the power play. He's going to rack up a bunch of points there. It's going to happen with Miro Hayskin and he's playing. top power play with the Dallas Stars because there is now no John Klingberg. He's going to stack up a bunch of points. He's going to get a ton of Norris votes. Like the prime is pumped.

The pump is primed for him to kind of make that leap. It is funny to see what an extra like 15 or 20 points, you know, let's say on a power play can do for a defenseman's reputation because you do see those point totals and you're like, all right, this guy's good. And that is, I think, what stopped, you know, for as good is, for as good is a lot of us knew, a lot of people listen to this, knew that McKenzie Weger, you know, was and is, certainly was in Florida. He didn't have, like, those super gaudy point totals because, you know, he got squeezed out by Eckplad, right? So it's his show now. And he's going to, that dude, he could end up finishing with, you know, whatever, 65 points, 71 points.

Like, it's, it's not impossible with that collection of talent they have there. And what? He's got two assists tonight? Two assists so far tonight, 13 minutes. And Rosamundsen's played 17 already at this point in the game. So, and he's had a pretty good night too. Rosamousanderson scored a goal.

He's got an assist. He's got three shots on net. So I think the flames, I think the flames are going to be good. It's hard to make big takeaways and crazy takes super early in the season, especially when they're playing against a team that I don't believe they got into their hotel until four in the morning in Calgary. like this morning before the game because they had they had the ceremony, the banner raising,

then the game, then they, you know, get to the, pack your stuff up, get a suit, get a clean suit, go home, get back to the ring, get to the, get to the airport, fly to Calgary, take the bus, get to the hotel and check in. So they had a really, really late night slash early morning. Not that they're going to make excuses for that, but that's a really tight turnaround the first two days of the season for them. And they're certainly looking at. I mean, the flames are up for nothing in the third period. Back up Goli and back to back, whatever.

I'm excited to see what the flames look like this season. I think we've talked ad nauseum about it. So we don't really need to get into it. I think we've talked so much about are they going to be better? Are they going to be better? What do we make of the trade, et cetera? I'm glad we don't have to keep asking those questions and we can just watch and see. And see how this turns out.

That's my favorite part about this year. We don't have to keep asking these open-ended questions. We can actually just watch. We don't have to keep previewing stuff. We can just watch hockey and talk about what we're seeing. Any other games that come to mind for you that have happened? It's a bummer of a start for Patrick Lina yesterday. Yeah, yeah.

And you know what? It's a bummer of a start for Boone Jenner because one minute, everyone's talking about how this guy won the lottery. You've got Patrick Liddy on one wing. You've got Johnny Goddrae on the other year, the number one seat. and Columbus and things haven't been great there for a while, but now look at you, Boone Jenner, come on down. You've won the lottery. And then Patrick Lina gets injured.

He's out for three to four weeks. After scoring a great goal, by the way, like that's a goal-scores goal. And I was listening to... That's what he does. That's all he does. Did you know he's never scored 50 goals? He's never had a 50-goal season.

I heard that on the radio. and I had to fact check. I'm like, there's no way. Because everyone just knows Patrick Lainey is the goal score. He hasn't had a 50 goal year yet. Yeah, came into Winnipeg and tore stuff up and had kind of a weird, and then phased into a little bit of a weird stretch and struggled in Columbus. He was hurt.

He wasn't happy. He didn't have anybody to get him the puck. It's also a big part of it because they traded their center. They traded Dubois to bring him in there. It's just been a constant, even aside from the Johnny Goodt, drill stuff. It's been like this constant search in Columbus for just some kind of center depth for going back years now. So yeah, you know, Boone Jenner's the Boone Jenner's the one C. That's a crazy, crazy thing to say, you know, in 2022. But there's at least, you know, you have Cole Cylinder

coming up. It seems like Kent Johnson is still going to play center at some point, some point in his career, even though he's been a wing for a while. Jack Roselvic. Like they have guys now in a way that they didn't, you know, a couple years ago. But man, that's a tough break for Lina because, you know, plenty of contract issues. Like everything lined up for him this year finally to, you know, maybe have that 50-goal year or get back to that 44 kind of gold dude that we saw early in his career, right? He's playing with Johnny Goodrow. He's finally healthy.

He's finally got the contract stuff taken care of. Like we saw that happen in a big way. And he goes out and gets hurt, you know, negative 10 seconds into his first game. He's going to miss a month. It's a shame because he's fun. He's a fun player. Like, he's taking a lot of shit over the years because he is. He's a zero in his own end or certainly has been at points, you know, in his career.

But that's a fun dude. And the league's a better place whenever they have him, you know, ripping down the wing and, you know, firing wristers from the top of the. the circles past guys. He's a blast. So it's a sad sight. Just think about how many times you see guys just beat goalies clean, you know? Like how often is it just a guy coming down the wing, staring a goalie down and beating him clean? Like we don't see that as much as goalies are getting bigger and they're getting better. It's like a tip in front or there's traffic or the goalie's moving side to side. There's a nice play. There's a good pass. Patrick Lainey is one of those guys who can

just stare a goalie in the face and just rip it. Blocker, glove side, wherever it needs to be. So it'll be interesting to see what happens there. I'm very curious to see what happens with Johnny Godreau in Columbus without Patrick Lainey. Is he going to be able to drive a line with just Boone Jenner and whoever ends up taking his spot on the wing that remains to be seen? We did just get our first Hubert O to Linholm goal. I wonder how many of those we're going to see.

Oh my God. Yeah. Flames might be all right. We'll see. How about Brent Burns last night, by the way? The guy who played a completely different role. No. I'm now boycotting the Carolina Hurricanes.

I didn't even bring this up to like take a leak to take a leak on what happened last week. whenever. Right. Rod sunned you in front of X,000, X thousands of people. Yeah. Brent Burns had 13 shots last night. That's great. That seems like a Brent Burns game.

Absolutely. That rocks. Oh, I'm just, I'm so, I'm glad we have actual games to talk about. I was, I was getting, I was getting really sick of preview stuff. Really, really sick of preview stuff. Well, especially after doing all the season previews. 32 different stories but every single team.

Yeah, whatever. That, I turned off my, I don't even remember writing half of those. I was in like a fugue state, I feel like when you got to talk about the, you know, support players for the San Jose Sharks or whatever. I'm not even talking about that.

It was more like me and Dom we're going to do power rankings for Friday morning. That's typically when they run and when they will run. But like, there just haven't been enough games left and we were like,

this is going to end up being like 32 spicy takes or like one one for each team. Yeah. And like neither of us just had it in the tank for that. And I don't think any of you guys do. I don't think anybody listening this wants to see like, here's what's going to happen. Like here's how the next six months are going to play out. Like we're past that point, man.

It's time to actually see games. And the best part, Haley, of being like two games, one game into a season here, is you get to overreact the stuff. Absolutely. I can't wait. This is our third and final segment since nobody asked us questions last week, and it's probably because we were kind of mean to the people who made me in comments. No, the reason nobody asked questions, and we go over this on the Tuesday show all the time. We didn't give them the roadmap. You climb up in a tree. You click your heels together three times. How do you do that in a tree? Don't ask. Are you standing on the tree or your legs dangling? The benevolent fairy will descend from the sky. Okay. She will lead you into the woods. We've talked about me and Craig talk about us all the time.

There's a little hole, take you down in the caves, go over to the listen app or the listen tab in the athletic app. There's headphones. You can click it and find our questions section. If you guys want to hang out there, you go for it. If not, we'll just sit here and BS our way through a third segment. Like we're about to do. We ask people on Twitter that came through. Oh, they did come through.

So the question we put out there was, we want to know your best overreaction that you also completely believe in from these first few days the season. And this is great. So one of them, because we were talking about the flames, is from Cole Smith. He said, my overreaction in early July was the flames need to just go full rebuild and go for Connor Bardard.

Overreaction, now flames are winning the cup. Oh, how a couple of trades, one blockbuster, one big free agent signing can just change everything. You said that was a Cole? Cole Smith, yeah. Cole, me and you, buddy. Yeah, you were a tank mode for the flames, weren't you? I was like, I was like, get these guys out of here. It's not going to work.

Everybody is either crappier, 31, like, turn the pig. age. There's, there's, there's, there's no point in doing this. Colin, Carter Hart's going to be a Vezna finalist this year. This is like, this is the kind of like insane Philly optimism that we were talking about before. That's like, that's kind of perfect. I think, I think that's like a perfect overreaction. It also has a little bit of a chance of, of taking place. Because it's still like, it's still Carter Hart. Like, he's still the dude that everybody, 18 months ago was like, this is, this is the next guy, right? And he's, and he's one game in.

And he's a machine. So that, that's for sure, that's for sure going to happen. He only led in two goals against the New Jersey Devils and a five two win on opening night for the Philadelphia Flyers. So here we go. This one's great. You'll appreciate this. This is from Patrick Damp.

At this point, I can say with certainty that Jason Zucker. It's the best player in the history of the National Hockey League. See, Pat doesn't believe that. Pat's a Pittsburgh guy. He would never say, he would never say such a ridiculous thing. I think he, I think Pat might be a yogger guy. That one doesn't count because Pat doesn't believe it. You know what?

Can I actually, I'm comfortable speaking for him. Can I get your take on this? Because we didn't talk about it when we were talking about the penguins. But. But of Guinea Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Chris LaTang, they are now tied for the longest tenured trio in any of the four major national teams tied with the trio of Yankees from that dynasty. That's wild. It's a, it's a hard, it's a hard thing to parse, right? Because there's a certain, to what, you have to have.

an unblah you have to have a skilled player starting from from a from a from a shit players don't play 17 years right so be you have to be starting from from with that with all those guys they've got to come into the league at basically the same time that's for the most part what what we saw with crosbie and malcolm in latang they have to be healthy enough to play that long and they have to actually want to play together for that long That is wild. 17 years. It was Pasada, Jeter, and Rivera, or the three guys on the Yankees, because Andy Pettit took a break. Yeah, that was 95 to 2011. I was a teenager whenever all those guys joined the, like, joined up with the penguin. It's crazy. And I'm elderly now.

So 2006 to the present. I was just a young child Going to Pittsburgh Penguins games as a youth Driving from Fergus, Ontario to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Going to the old Melan Arena Before it got blown up and turned into a parking lot Can move on Oh, those were the days

But yeah, it's just super cool And I think the other thing too is I believe Crosby tied Mario Lemieux For most years as captain on the team Or he's just one year away Yeah, he's got to be getting close. Because it's the 16th year that Crosby's and Captain. I don't have that right in front of me, so I do apologize.

But it's just wild. So Crosby's going to break Lemieux's longevity record with 18 years with the Penguins. So Crosby set that milestone against the coyotes. This is 18th season with the Penguins. Lemieux played 17. And he's coming up on the captain C title as well. I don't think you can call it a title. But Crosby will tie Joe Sackix.

You get a little banner, actually. You get a crown, just a teeny little crown. And Crosby's going to tie Joe Sackix 16 seasons with the Avs slash Nordiques for the second most as an NHL captain of one team. Steve Eisenman leads that 19 seasons as captain of the Detroit Red Wings. sometimes I don't know if we appreciate how long. And it's probably so cliche to like get to this point in his career and be like, Sidney Crosby's actually now underappreciated. But I don't know if sometimes we zoom out and reflect on just how long he's been one of the absolute best players slash centers in the league.

He's not. He's not underappreciated. I appreciate Sidney Crosby. Other people might not. Not me though. Here's a good one from my buddy, Dan Hoffman. Hopper. Lindy Ruff gone by November. I don't think that's impossible.

Like the expectations in New Jersey are high. They have the next guy on the bench already with Andrew Burnett. That's still a wild hire that we, you know, obviously the coaching carousel is ridiculous. But Andrew Brunette landed in New Jersey. So you got Lindy looking over your shoulder. Expectations are high. They least didn't do the office. season championship shit again like they've done for the past seven seasons or however long it's

been. But if they get off to a to a rough start, I think that's, I think that's extremely, extremely possible. Well, especially when so many of the, and externally, people were looking at this is a team who might take a step in the next direction, people saying I actually really like the New Jersey Devils. I've liked them for a long time. This is a year. Maybe they're going to make the playoffs. We just talked about it. It's like, it's like, what are problem last year they didn't have goal tenning well they go out at least theoretically try to fix that and then they you know it's in the cards like like nobody can say that the devils are going to start you know whatever three and 13 but it's feasible it's it's it'd be crazy but it's feasible and i

think that's like what makes what uh what makes some good ones right what do you think of this stars finished second and the central and make it to the western conference final Pete DeBoer does Pete DeBoer things. That's from that's from Groot. He is Groot. Groot? My mom is obsessed with Groot. Guys, I'm not even joking.

My parents have gotten into an argument before because my mom just kept doing, I'm Groot. And my dad was like, stop it, stop it. You're not Groot. My mom loves Groot. I bought her a Groot flower pot and a Groot welcome Matt. So my mom. Mom loves Groot anyways. Sounds like your dad should be mad at you.

I asked his permission before I bought them at, FYI. I was like, hey, are you going to be mad if I bring home this Groot thing and mom freaks out over it? Yeah, and then you said, yeah, and you did it anyways. No, he said, it's fine. She'll really like that. So very sweet. She loves her Groot, welcome Matt.

It just says I'm Groot, which means welcome. So does the Talisars win the Central and make it to the cut final? Finish second essential and make it to the Western Conference final. Wow, I really wasn't listening. I just heard Groot. Sorry about that. I think it's interesting. Nope, I said that.

I said Groot after the tweet. So you burnt. It's midnight. I think it's interesting because I think if you look at Pete DeBore's track record taking over teams, like this is a coach that has success pretty quickly. I think there's probably questions over his ability to have that kind of longevity in terms of that kind of success, like getting to a conference final or getting to a cut final. So I think that's interesting. That's a coach that sticks and works right away.

There's a pop there. And I think that's a bet on Jason Robertson, Joe Pavelski, Rubei Hintz. They've got a great top line. Mero Heiskenen, very, very good defender. You've got, you've got pieces there. And Jake Ottinger is a star. I think that's a big bet on the top line, on your coach and Jake Ottinger. And they gave the flames a ton of trouble. It took down to game seven for them to get past them, the Johnny Godreau game winner, game seven. So I think it's interesting. Yeah, we have a group list listed a bunch of stuff like that.

It mentions Mason Marchman, says he thinks he's going to prove he scores consistently, which we all know the stars need. That's true. You can say healthy. Well, they need one or two more Mason Marchments. To add on to the Star stuff, our buddy Eileen, she's loyal, loyal Tuesday Boys, hashtag Tuesday Boys Tuesdays, loyal listener, Tyler Sagan is back. What do you think about that, Sean? I think he's cooked, and I take no joy in that.

But I don't know. If you, how about this? insane surgery for Sagan last year. He had basically had to rebuild his quad in addition to all the hip stuff that happened. I'm pretty sure they took his quad out and put it in his hip or something crazy. Yeah, like he had just a total kinetic chain meltdown

after all of that. And he's a workout freak. So that's like the glass half full look at him, right? Is that like he's going to have, after a year, another offseason of working out. you know, he's going to be ready to contribute, like, a little bit more. But that deal is just too. Too bad to get past for me.

I do want to bring up one thing that I found and sorry to go back to Groot. But this is exactly what I was looking for. I think the more bold thing to say here, Groot, is that they're going to go to the cup final. Go all in, dude. Because look at this. I mean, Florida, they, they missed the playoffs three times. First year in New Jersey,

they're fourth in the Atlantic, they lose in the Stanley Cup final against the LA Kings. Then they miss the playoffs twice. Like, this is what I mean when they're good. And then it's like, ah, what's going on?

It takes over in San Jose. They're in the Pacific, losing the Stanley Cup final. They got a little bit more there, losing the first round the next year, losing the second round the year after that, losing the conference final. And then takes over in Vegas,

they lose in the conference final, losing the semis the year after that. First in the Pacific is first year in Vegas. It's the roadmap, baby. Could be something there. Capitalize, year one, Pete the Boer. There's something there.

Absolutely. I dig it. Carter Rubin, big Kings fan. Cool. I know you love the Kings. I do really like watching the Kings. Gabe Valardi breakout season. Why?

I don't know. Just based on vibes? He's playing on the top six. I hate Sanchez. No, no, no, wait. He's playing, yeah, we got a cut back. He's not like, Dom. Too, too much time.

I had a moment last week. I was like, I need to, I need a break. Dom, I don't. So do, so do podcast listeners, apparently. Somebody's in here, haves with dads, the abs sneak into the playoffs. That, that isn't over. That's an overreaction.

I love it. It's not going to happen. I'm as happy as anybody to see them beat the leaves last night. I think that was awesome. But ain't going to happen. There is a lot in here about Mark Andre Fleury. Negative stuff. Negative stuff about Mark Andre Fleury.

Wait, I have something to say about the HABs, though. Okay. I think we're going to see a lot of fun stuff from Nick Suzuki and Cole Cawfield this season. Those two were great, super fun to watch against the Leafs. Cole Caulfield is so good, so good. And it took him like game 32 or something to score two goals last season. I saw a tweet last night. It was like if the Leafs want to contain Cole Caulfield, they should hire Dominic Dusharme.

Ooh, it was a good one. Anyways, I don't think they're- Wonder what he's up to right now. Yeah, what's he doing? Did he get a job? I'm sure he's really nice. I mean, who knows? Who knows?

In these days in hockey, I'm not gonna- I'm done saying stuff like that. Me too, and that's why I pulled that back for myself. I was like, you know what? I don't know any of you people. So, unless I know you and I actually think you're nice, I don't know. So who's to say in this freaking sport? But yeah, I'm excited to see Suzuki and Caulfield.

We didn't mention, but hopefully maybe Ian or. Sean talked about it on the Thursday show. Really awesome to see Sean Monaghan score based on what he's been through the last two years. Two hip surgeries and back-to-back years, wrist issues previous to that. Like just he had fractured ribs last season as well. So he's playing on a torn labrum and fractured ribs. He even said he's like, I don't even know what I was doing practicing sometimes. I couldn't even tie my skates.

And to me, I feel a sense of dread and I feel bad. also like, what were you doing practicing? Why were you practicing? Like, if you can't even bet, like, you're asking Johnny Goddrow to tie your skates for you, like, what are we doing here? I understand guys want to be there for the team. And I'm sure there's a lot of people looking at the flames being like, what, what are we doing? How are they playing?

But Sean Monahan's a guy who plays through stuff and he doesn't say a word. I don't think the flames knew about the torn labrum until the end of the season when he's like, I can't keep doing this. That's what I was going to say. He's got that track record of. Not telling them because he just wants to be a good guy for the team. He's a hard ass. He's a tough dude.

Yeah. It's tough to see, though. It was awesome to see him score. The other thing before we get to a couple more of these overreactions that I didn't mention, the Edmonton Oilers had a really nice tribute for Ben Stettler at their home opener. The six-year-old fan who passed away after a long battle with cancer, it was a really heartfelt, like a really lovely tribute video before the game. And, you know, Connor McDavid brought him up post game.

It was just really nice to see the Oilers kind of honor this fan who really became a big kind of rallying point for fans in the team last season. Lots of stuff with Ben going like, play La Bomba, baby. And so it was just really sweet to see them kind of carry him in their season opener. which they won. Nice comeback win against the Vancouver Connects. So anyways, I just wanted to bring that up. That was something on my list that I forgot to throw in the first segment.

So let's go, let's do a couple more of these overreactions and get out of here because it's, it's midnight. Anyone want to update on the flames score? I'm just kidding. When you're listening to this, you'll know what happened in the flames game. Give us a couple more. What's good? Mark Andre Fleury will be the wow. I was back up goalie by February.

And what they're thinking that it's going to be Philip Gustafson, that's a starter? I believe that's the implication. There's a lot of it. There's a lot of this. Well, more people are saying that math's cooked and that Garen's going to regret trading Talbot. Maybe not bringing them back, but trading Talbot. But Talbot didn't want to be there. Mm-hmm.

Like he was causing that kind of stink, you know? Yeah. I mean, Garon was ready to just let that dude rot, I think, and then ended up thinking the better of it. But, like, yeah, I don't know. Would you rather have, would you rather have Camp Talbot or Philip Gustafson in 2022? I mean, Philip Gustafsson's not a proven number one, you know. Camp Talbot isn't anymore either. He's been brutal.

for a couple years and he's 30. He's another dude. Older than you think. Camp Talbot's like 36. Fleury let in seven. Yeah. So. Who would you rather have right now,

Mark Andre Fleury or Matt Murray? Mark Andre Fleury. No, Matt Murray. Matt Murray. Mark Andre Fleury led in seven goals. So what? On 35 shots. Matt Murray led in four on 23 shots.

One's an 800 say percent. The other's in 826. I'm not, the question wasn't, who would you rather have? Overreaction. I want Matt Murray every day. Yeah. Who would you rather have last night? Yeah.

Sure, or whatever on whatever. I don't even know what day, with Wednesday night, whatever, whatever we're talking about here. The fan reaction to protecting Murray over Flurry, it was the, like, demise of Matt Murray. He never recovered from how much fans hated him for the penguins losing their sweet precious flower. Yeah, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, that was the right move back then too like that's something cap space oh it was how are you going to resign mark andre flurry it wasn't it was it was expansion draft stuff that's what it was i know i know i know that they lost him in expansion

yeah it was that it was that in cap stuff and then the fact that you know maybe they couldn't have extended jake gensel or patrick cornquist or one of those guys like there was it was there were a hundred reasons to do it but yeah i mean Matt's had one half-decent season out of his last five. Like, it's not, I'll take, I'll take Flurry. I was just kidding for the record. I don't, I don't, you sound pretty serious. The Rangers can win the President's trophy.

Is that happening? They just beat the Minnesota Wilde's 7-3. Is that, is it an overreaction? I don't think so. Man, Schisturkin's really good. It's probably an over-reaction. I mean, you think it's an over-reaction. overreaction? You don't think they can be the best team in the league. I think it's realistic.

I don't think it's like a crazy, I don't think it's like off the books crazy like the Canadians making the playoffs would be. Right. Zabanajad looked great in their opener. Artemi Panerran had a four point night. We might see top six Alexei Lafaneer. Chris Crider. Chris Crider heard all of us saying he's never going to score 50 again. Scores two today. Two goals through two games. What's that pace? Maybe Chris Kreider scores 75 goals this year instead of 50. Oh, that's bold.

Lots of Capo-Cocco stuff. People think Coco's going to break out. I don't think that's happening. I'll believe it when I see it. I'm so sorry. That's a hobby horse from McIndoo, too. He's like, why are we? He's like, if it was going to happen, it would have happened already.

He was number two. He scored tonight. He was the number two pick in the draft four years ago. It's all over. He scored tonight, but it was a 7-2 game. Doesn't count. And I'm pretty sure he did it when the game was already like six to five, six to one or something, you know? If you score a goal, yeah.

If you score a goal when your team's up by more than four, it should only count for a half towards your total. Yeah. Do it when it counts, not this garbage time, you scrub. Guard against the garbage time merchant. They're selling you a bill of goods. Don't trust them. Which Kachuk Brother ends the season with more points. Oh, I love that.

I love that. I think it's still Matthew. Oh, for sure. I think so. I agree. I wouldn't bet on him to hit the numbers that he hit last year. You don't think so? You don't think him and Sam Bennett are going to have 100-point seasons?

I think they'll probably be better. than they were a few years ago. But yeah, we've seen enough of them to say that it's probably not a hundred point. If that's what it ends up being, if it ends up being Kachuk and, you know, Kachuk and Bennett as the kind of power pair on that second line, I don't think that's happening. I think the thing with Matthew, and when Matthew Kachuk had a down season, there was a lot of like Brady's better, Brady's better. Like, what are we doing here?

And Kachuk at his worst, I think his worst season was like his second full year in the league when he had 50 points. And that's still not super far off from Brady's best, which is like 67 last season, 30 goals, 67 points. I mean, Brady's great. I didn't even realize Brady scored 30 goals last season. I mean, Brady Kachuk is a really good player. He's the captain in Ottawa, very, very important. But Matthew Kachuk scored 42 and 104. So I think even if Matthew takes a step back,

I think we're still looking at like, what, 80 point Matthew Kachukuk, 70 point, something in that range. We've talked about this with Gidreau and like me, I think me and Craig talked about it on Tuesday. Like, just because a dude goes from 105 points to 95 doesn't, that doesn't make them like a disappointment. Bad. Like it's tough, it's tough to do.

It doesn't happen that often, you know. So if Matthew Kachuk doesn't hit 100, how many do you have last year? Matthew, 100. Yeah. Was it 104? If he doesn't hit 104 again for the rest of his career like that, look cute. That doesn't necessarily mean that he's been, you know, a disappointment or anything. We got one more.

I've got one question, actually. No, I got a question. This is a fun one that I think you'll like. In honor of the Friday show, what's your favorite food combo of two things that don't seem like they'd go together but are actually great. Some examples are fries dipped in a frosty or peanut butter on a burger. Peanut butter on a burger is... That sounds upsetting to me. Perverse. Like, that's freak shit. No thank you. I have, I've dabbled in the French fry with, like, vanilla soft serve ice cream. Wow. Salt and sweet. Hey, just be careful out there.

Why? Calm down. You're living too fast. French fries and ice cream. Salty and sweet. It's breakfast to me, baby. Let's go! What's another one? Are you like reading off a list here? No, I just asked you that question. Those were the examples.

Forget it. What was your final one? I don't know. This show sucks. Maddie Baneers, point per game for the entire year. Buy herself. I do like Maddie Baneers. Is you going to have an 82?

point rookie year. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, okay. Just say yes. You just really confused me. I was like, wait, are there 82 games in the hockey season? Don't admit that. Maddie Baneers.

Good American boy. I don't think he's going to have. See, that's why. As soon as I say he's American, you're like, you know, never like. No, you didn't let me finish. I actually picked him to be the most impactful. rookie this season. He had nine points in 10 games in his stint last season coming out of college at the end of the NCAA season. And he's picked up right where he's left off. He had two goals

in their opener. They lost to the Ducks in overtime. Trevor Zegris. Yeah, right. Friend of the show, Trevor Zegris scores the tie and Troy Terry gets the game winner. But then Maddie Baneers comes up again today. I like Maddie Baneers, but I don't think he's scoring 82 points. He will. Flames won, by the way. Point per game. That's how long we've been talking. The Flames game is over.

They won their first home opener slash season opener since 2009. The 12-year streak ends against Colorado Island. Hmm. The last time the Flames won a season opener, Jerome McGinlow was the captain. Mark Giordano was making like $890,000. all out. Which is the right what he's making right now. Keel McCarer was in fourth grade and probably in the stand with his mom and dad watching that game. Darrell Sutter was the general manager. What a world.

All right. Let's get out here. We've talked about a lot of hockey games. And again, the Flames game is over. So that's so long we've been talking. We said we were going to have a quick, tight show today. And then we didn't. So thanks everyone for sticking around. If you did make it this far, take Sean's advice. Do the heat. in the tree and find the comment section, send us some questions. We'd love to answer whatever you have in that comment section. If you can find it, it's actually really not that hard. Just go to the listen tab, click on the athletic hockey show and click on the show. Super hard, actually. Yeah. You need to climb a tree. Really tough. Anyways. We'll be back next week on Friday. I don't think we'll do the wait for these games to end. No, we're never doing this again. This sucks. It's not that bad because I'm usually awake, but wow, I don't know. I don't normally talk this much at this time and I just feel bad because it wasn't sharp. So we tried it

for you, dear listener, and we won't do it again for you. So thanks. We'll talk to you next week. If you are not an athletic subscriber, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show to get an annual subscription for $1 month for the first six months.