The Athletic Hockey Show - Trevor Zegras with the greatest pass in NHL history, Jacob Trouba scary hit on Juijhar Khaira, and no job in the front office or behind the bench is safe in the NHL and a lot more

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

Rob Pizzo from CBC Sports and Sara Civian and Jesse Granger from The Athletic reconvene the Wednesday roundtable, praising Trevor Zegras's out of this galaxy pass, which had the hockey twitterverse swooning, in Anaheim's win over Buffalo on Tuesday night. We tackle the Jacob Trouba hit on Juijhar Khaira, and how much danger Khaira was in as he lay motionless on the ice while players fought around him.Pizzo, Sara and Jesse also critique a bad week for NHL referees, and an active week in Vancouver and Philadelphia as those franchises make changes to their struggling clubs.Shayna Goldman, the new beat writer for the New Jersey Devils joins Rob and Sara to talk about the rebuild in Jersey, and how the franchise remains on the right track.In the roundtable twitter segment, we discuss if Andrei Svechnikov is getting enough respect for his multiple 'Michigan' moves, the Nashville Predators twitter account and NHL players hunting for the oppositions knees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show, the Wednesday Roundtable Edition. I am Rob Paisal from CBC Sports. She is Sarah Sivian, and he is Jesse Granger. How are you guys? Great. Jesse, how are you? You know what, I'm going to change the way we do that, because this is like the fourth week in

row. I say, how are you guys? And people can't see this because it's on Zoom. But you both look at each other, like, who should we answer? So let me watch. I'm going to go like this. How are you, Sarah? Thanks so much for this new concept.

up and great. How are you, Jesse? We'll go in a circle. I am fantastic. Early mornings in Vegas. I'm doing wonderful right now. I love those. Poor Jesse. Every time we figure out when we're going to record this podcast, every time I do, I'm like, oh, we're doing it early this week. And then I'm like, oh, Jesse's in Vegas. So he's doing it a heck of a lot earlier than us. But he's had his coffee. He's awake. He's ready to go. And it's good because we got a lot of talk about we got two more teams making significant changes, not only behind the bench, but in the front office, Sarah's going to be happy because she was sick and tired of hearing about how maybe Vancouver was going to make changes. Guess what? They made changes.

We're going to do a little bitching a moment about officiating. It's finally happening. Even people who don't like to bitch about refs are bitching about refs. We're going to talk Robin Leonard in the Olympics. And later on in the show, Shana Goldman, the newest full-time member of the athletic who's going to be covering the devils will join us. But last night, guys, I'm watching hockey and just let people know we have a little chat group with the three of us and our producer Jeff. And, you know, a lot of times we're kind of throwing ideas into this chat group of what we want to talk about on the show. And Jesse writes us all and says, so the Zegra's Pass is going to be the entire show.

And I was like, possibly. Looks like he's just going to pull off a regular old. And I love the way I said that. La Crosse, Michigan goal. and floats a perfect aerial pass to Sunny Milano who bats it in. I'll start with you, Jesse, since you sent the text. What words did you say out loud when you saw that? I don't know if those are allowed to go on this.

I think we're allowed to. I think we're loud. Holy shit. It was incredible. And we keep getting a new innovation of this move, the picking the puck up off the ice, the law cross, whatever you want to call it. And I love it. I love that early on it was almost like hockey purists, like didn't like it.

This is going to, oh, no, don't let that. Or like players get mad when a guy scores something like that. I love that guys are finding new ways to use it. And we always talk about finding new ways to score in the game. Like, oh, we've got to make the goalie pads a little smaller. We've got to do this. We've got to do that. How about guys just find new ways to score?

And that's what Trevor Zegris, Chavezhavichikov in Carolina, guys are finding new ways to score. And the hurricanes were in Winnipeg for the first time since Sveschnikov did the lacrosse go for the second time last night. So that was kind of a funny coincidence. It's like, okay, this is evolving now. Now he has to answer Zegris, but Zeevris is awesome. I've been following his career for a while, and he has a bunch of these tricks up his sleeves. So I can't wait to see what's next. It's really incredible what these guys can do who have grown up in kind of the, what is it, the Hay Barber era now? where like guys are doing crazy skill things.

Oh, hey, Barbara's great. If you don't follow him on social media, because this is the kind of stuff exactly like Sarah said. The funny thing is, if you remember, when Zegra's had exactly zero goals in the NHL, he tried scoring his first NHL goal with a Michigan, which is like, you need a set of hockey pucks to be doing that

because usually you're just trying to get that first goal. But, you know, the NHL's been around over 100 years. And we're, I think now more than ever, We're getting players with innovations and creativity and things we've never seen before. And it's happening all the time because of that, because of maybe like Sarah called it, the Hey Barber era. I mean, I remember the first time I saw the Michigan. And I've interviewed Steve DeBus, who was the goalie, who was in net for that.

And that to me was the same thing. I remember seeing that saying, holy shit, what did I just see? Then we went through an era where the Michigan became a little bit, I don't want to say redundant, but it wasn't as impressive as it was. Then we started seeing players changing it a bit, not bending over, flipping it on the back of their blade. But this is just,

this is just incredible. I don't know. Do you guys think this is something they practiced a lot? Because even Zegra's was shocked. You put his hands on his head, like, what did I just do? At the end of the Hurricanes practice,

they try it literally every day. And it's like, Natchez sometimes, sometimes Trocheck, and they're all just like having a great time. But they'll, it's not during practice. Rod Brindamor rolls his eyes

because it's Rod Brindamore. and it's hilarious. But they'll be on the ice for like 15 minutes after practice just doing it and having fun. And I think that's just kind of where it stems from. It's guys having fun. And then it's like, wait, we've done this so much. Maybe we can. I saw Connor McDavid attempt it last night too.

I guess everybody was just going for it last night. I don't know. Yeah. I hope this becomes a thing where you're seeing it once a game, not a goal like that, but players trying to pick the puck up off the ice with their stick in that fashion. Like in Beer League ones that I do, guys will try it like where I play. You guys will try it on a breakaway. They'll be coming down.

They'll try to pick it up and just spin and throw it in. Now, you know, I don't expect to see that in the NHL. But I think there are other ways to use it other than maybe even just behind the net. I hope this continues to evolve. And we just start seeing crazy ways with guys picking the puck up and then throwing it to each other. It's just creative, creativity in any way, shape, or form. I mean, you know, I think of Pavel Datsuk, some of the things he used to try. Like even the little flick on a shootout.

And it's funny because these things take such guts to do because even the lacrosse school, we've seen many times where people pick it up and the defender just wax a stick and he looks terrible. Right. It looks off. Either it's you're on sports center for the next, you know, 24 hours or people are just mocking you. And I guess you do need, you know, Sarah, you mentioned Brindamor rolling his eyes. You need kind of a green light to do stuff like that. Yeah, absolutely.

And not every coach is open to something like that because it's not necessarily how high of a percentage play is what Zegras did. Like it's not a high person. He's flicking the puck over the net actually after picking it up and hoping Sonny Milano can whack it out of the air. Like that's a low percentage shot. And they kind of have the green. I'm assuming they have the green light to do it. It's getting the puck to the front of the net, though, just in a different way. And who was it, Sunny Milano was screaming Michigan's Michigan.

Michigan, Michigan, so he was egged on for sure. Is it the Michigan or the lacrosse? Let's just end it right here. I've heard both. I asked Spetchnikov. I said, are we calling it the Spetchnikov now or the lacrosse or what do? He goes, the Michigan is in his great accent because he played in the USHL in Michigan. So he'd know better than anybody.

If he's going to say that, we're going with that. Yeah, that's still one of the most. That almost just exploded Twitter last night, too. It was just huge. And also this morning, I saw. on Instagram, Michael B. Jordan sent it out. He said, I don't follow, I don't follow hockey a lot, but this is incredible. So when Adonis Creed is out there, tweeting it out, that's a big deal.

So from something that was just so much fun to watch to A, a terrible transition, but I have no other way to do it. A scary moment in Chicago, Jacob Truba with the hit on Jujarcarra. You can argue whether or not the hit was clean. we're going to hear from the league either way on that. But one of those scary moments where everybody goes silent, it reminded me a little bit of the Tavares incident in game one against the Habs. But if I can, bitch and moan for a minute here,

when someone is seriously injured, and I mean seriously injured, not knock the wind out of them, not like, oh, you know, he's just kind of, you know, he's just hurt a little bit. Can we stop all the fighting and attend to the guy who needs to be stretched off? I mean, I was watching it going. going, are you guys kidding me? Nobody was paying attention to the injured player. You actually had Ryan Strome of the Rangers going,

guys, stop and get the stretcher out. I don't know about you guys, but it's getting to a point where it's like, I know hockey culture dictates. You hit our guy. We need to fight you. But last night was out of control. Jesse, you're nodding.

I'm assuming you're agreeing with me right now. Yeah, yeah. And I'm trying to remember, I think it was in the playoffs last year. There was another one where a guy was laying like unconscious on the ice. and there was a person trying to like hold the players that were fighting each other back off of him as his body was like on the ice. And it's like I completely agree like, yeah. Even if even if you want to go down the route of like we need to get you back for this, we need to fight, just wait till the next whistle.

And then as soon as the whistle starts, you can drop the gloves and do it. Let this guy get off the ice and make sure he's all right. Yeah. Maybe that's your second reaction to fight. Your first one is to literally make sure he's okay. I know things are happening fast, but that anybody could see that was really, really scary. Maybe check if he's okay. And I just saw an update that he is and he's expected to make a full recovery.

Thank God. He's had concussion issues in the past. So that's really, really great to hear. I've watched it quite a few times this morning. And when you watch it in regular motion, you're thinking it's a fast game. It's a hit. He had the puck. When you watch it in slow motion, you're seeing head contact first.

Do you guys think he's going to get? supplementary discipline? Probably. I think a lot of the times they rule these things based off of like the reaction or in this case, the injury. What happened after the hit, which was horrible. I think if he would have got right and up and skated away after that exact same hit, probably not getting suspended, but I would say they probably do.

Yeah, completely agree. That's basically what I would say verbatim. It's really the way they look at things these days is kind of, of what happened after and what the reaction is, which I don't know if that's right, but that's what happens. So here we go. I've already got against it for years. I really don't. For me, it's about intent on the hit. If when somebody does, and I'm not saying this is a case, I don't think it's necessarily a dirty hit. It might be a bit on the predatory side. But when someone does a dirty hit, if the person who got hit isn't injured, we should just count ourselves lucky, as opposed to

saying, well, no, no, he didn't get injured. So guess what? We're not going to suspend the guy. It never made any sense to me. I was reading Scott Powerspiece that you tweeted out, Sarah, and I thought it was really well written, and he talked about the fighting afterwards because as we talk about hockey culture, we bring this up a lot. Riley Stillman ended up fighting Truba. He ended up falling to the ice after the fight without a helmet on and almost could have got injured. And he brought up the fact that

hot fighting is, we're at a point now we're fighting is not worth the risk. Are you guys in that camp, Sarah? Well, it reminds me of the Tavares situation where the interaction was like, hey, man, I know you didn't mean to do this, but I have to fight you. It's like, what, this is as, I don't know the word I'm trying to look for here. It's just stupid. The word you're looking for is stupid. Yeah, exactly. It's just esoteric.

Like, it's just that's so, there's no reason for that. Why don't we all just wish this guy well? We know it was relatively accidental or X, Y, and Z. I think I'm not ready to totally phase out fighting. But maybe that's just how I loved watching the game growing up. But maybe I should stop being a dinosaur. What do you think, Jesse? Yeah, I'll be completely honest with you guys.

I am, it's tough for me. Like, I, half of me wants to say fighting should be gone. And I see so many reasons why fighting should be gone. But like Sarah said, like, I watched hockey growing up. And like, there are times where like when your favorite team, the guy, your best guy gets hit. And it's like, someone needs to get that guy. Like, I totally understand. why players like the fighting, the players that do.

I understand why people that want to keep fighting in the game want it. But I also see that, like, good players shouldn't be breaking their hands in fights. And when guys' helmets come off and they hit the ice, like, it's super dangerous. I don't know. I do agree with Sarah that, like, the instance where it's like, look, I know you didn't mean to do this, but I have to fight you. Like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. What is this?

The WWE? Like, whereas, like, if a guy. is genuinely upset that a guy made a dirty hit and he's so mad that he just can't control himself and he wants to fight this guy. Like, I guess that is when fights should happen. I don't know why I'm like, it's a weird thing to define. I don't think it's not weird. I don't think it's I'm in the exact same boat. It's the only, it's maybe the only hockey opinion I'm so on the fence on because I'm with you. Think about what fighting is in hockey. It's bare knuckle boxing on ice with blades. It's the stupidest thing ever. I get it. But I also understand emotion. I also understand

the brotherhood that is a team and wanting to, you know, protect your teammates. But the fight after the Tavares incident was the stupidest fight in NHL history. It was so ridiculous. It was accidental. It was clearly accidental. And we've gotten to a point now where like Sarah talks about when you were growing up watching fighting, I did the same thing. But to me, it was exactly what Jesse said. Somebody does something dirty or outside of the boundary of the rules and you need to

you know, stick up for your teammate. We're at a point now where a good hard, clean hit means you've got to fight. And that's what's making fighting ridiculous. I did a story recently on Braden McNabb's hip checks because, man, he throws a hell of a hip check. Just incredible. Just flattens guys. And like those are very clean hits. Like they are nowhere near the head.

They're lower body hits. And he was talking Dylan Coglin about it. And I was like, you're his defensive partner. Like what, tell me your perspective when he lands one of those. Like what's going through your mind? He goes, well, the first thing is I look around to make sure no one's trying to fight me because that's the first thing that comes in my mind every time he hits someone is we're all going to fight. It's like, again, that's ridiculous that that's what he's thinking. Yeah.

It used to be a protection thing. You know what I mean? It used to be a, you don't do this to our star player. It can't be a dirty play. But again, now we're getting to a point where it's whether it's accidental or not, it's it ends up being a fight. So we're going to have to wait to see if there's any discipline there. Good to hear from Sarah there that he's doing well. Last week was all about Montreal cleaning house.

I joked off the top that Sarah's happy because it seems like for years we've been talking about when are the Canucks going to clean house. And boy, did they ever do it this week. Travis Green out. Jim Benning out. Bruce Boodrow and his head coach. Scott Walker in as assistant coach. And in their first game, it's kind of one of those age old, you know, I know we talk about gambling a lot on this show. Well, not a lot, but enough.

you always bet on the team with the new coach because they want to impress their new coach and as the fans were saying in Vancouver, Bruce, there it is, as if it's 1993. Sarah, are you relieved that this is finally over? Yeah, the scene in Vancouver said it all. It was like the opposite of the 2011 rallies and, or riots, shall I say. It was a very cheerful scene and I think it is a reoccurring pool of people. who get hired for these positions. But I do think Bruce Bredrow is a great guy.

That being said, he's a great guy for the role. I like that. And good for the Canucks. Like, Jesus, they finally listen to the podcast. What do you think, Jesse? Yeah. Yeah. Thank God they did that.

I think I agree with you about the rotating cast of coaches. Like, it's kind of ridiculous. But also, like, hockey teams should stop firing good coaches. And then, like, I think less of that would happen. Like, I was the same, Gerard Gallant here in Vegas. like he gets hired in New York. And a lot of people are like, oh, another retread. And I'm like, yeah, good for Turk.

He's a great coach. And like, same here with you with Boudreau. Very good coach. He probably deserves to have a job in the NHL. But I do agree with the overall sentiment that we need to try some new coaches. Like Chicago, we were talking about, like, where do they go? I think Rocky Thompson is a guy who should absolutely have a chance to coach in the NHL. He coached in Chicago for the wolves. I covered him. They were the Golden Knights affiliate for a

couple years. Now he's an assistant in San Jose with all these jobs opening up. I'd like to see someone new get a chance. Rocky Thompson will be my pick, but I think there are plenty of people out there that deserve a shot at being a first time NHL coach. Francesco Aqualini had a press conference and he used the quote, we were too patient and it made me think of Sarah when he said that. But I don't know if I've ever remember the time where we've had one, two, three, four teams with interim GMs. I mean, you've got Anahe, you've got Chicago, you get Montreal, and you got Vancouver. And all of them are kind of saying, we don't want to rush into this decision. I know they've got people ahead of them who are making the decisions for them.

But when you're talking about the future, your team, having four interim GMs is almost comical. Like, I don't remember our time being that many all at once. Neither. It'll be really interesting to see if they make moves, the, extent of their moves and then who is in the carousel? Like I know Mark Bergevin's name is being thrown out there again. I'm just like, that's one where I'm like, why? It's going to be interesting at the deadline. Like, if what if these four teams aren't, don't haven't hired GMs by the time the deadline rolls around? Like, do they, are they just in roster freeze mode? Like, or is the

owner trying to like make a trade? Like, how do those teams operate if without a GM when you come? Like, right now it's fine. Like the GM doesn't, like, yeah, there are things the GM should be doing right now, scouting and all that. But you can get by without one. But then there's going to be a time in the season where you need a GM. Yeah. And that's what it's weird.

And not only that, you've got to wonder if other GMs are eager or reluctant to deal with an interim GM. You know what I mean? Do they, does a Ken Holland think I can pick the pocket of a Stan Smil, no problem, because I've got much more experience? Or is it like, you know what? I want to see what shakes down in Vancouver before I start proposing trades or proposing, you know, something. It's an interesting situation. And not only that, but I think, like,

you're going to eventually hire a GM and do you want to make a couple trades that the new guy you hire is like, why in the hell did you do that right before you brought me in? Like, I would never have made those two trades. Like, that's it. And that's what I mean. You're dealing with the future of your franchise. Future of the Philadelphia Flyers right now does not include LMV. He got the pink slip as well. Came after seven one. loss and their eighth straight loss. So Michelle Tarion also fired Mike Yo, the interim coach. They lost 75 to the abs in their first game back.

And I think this is more of an underachieving firing. I mean, you look at this team, some of the moves they made in the offseason. You had to expect more from the flyers, right? Jesse? Yeah, I think part of it is like they made that run, right? The bubble year, the year everything was up in Edmonton. They made that run. They got that one seat.

and we all kind of thought, and they were young, right? Like they made that run with a ton of young players, and we all thought, wow, this Flyers team might be really good for like the next like 10 years, five, six years at least. And then it just kind of disappeared. And what they saw out of those players that season, they kind of all regressed together. Obviously, Carter Hard is a big part of that.

And he gets a lot of the blame. But I think it's all the young players on that team that have just not been what they showed that one year. And it's, I don't know if it's, we keep saying like underperformed, like maybe they just overperformed that year and like all the things went right. And I honestly don't know because that one year seems to be the outlier at this point. Wow. That was like a galaxy brain moment. Maybe they did overperform that one year. Like, I think you're right. And I do think Carter Hart, obviously the goalie takes the brunt of everything,

but he's still so young. I think maybe they might have put him in a few years to, not a few years, but maybe a year or two soon. And maybe it'll all work out, but they are still so young that it's kind of hard to say what exactly it is. But tough to see in maybe like Claude Juru's Twilight, you know?

By the way, I saw a crazy stat with Rasmus Ristoline and when they hire this coach, it will be his eighth coach in nine seasons. That's a lot of people to try to impress. Every time a new coach comes in, you're trying to impress them. You're trying to earn minutes.

You're trying to do everything else. It's like, oh my God, how many guys can I do this, too? Go ahead, Jesse. I was going to say with Carter Hart, this is my opinion on Carter Hart. I think young goalies, the hardest thing for a goalie coming into the league is consistency. Like I think all goalies, even when they're like not at their peak performance, they're still kind of figuring their way out can have huge, they can have huge games and then they'll have bad games. And I think most goalies, it takes them a while to break in the league, right? It's usually like 24, 25. And to me, those goalies got their inconsistencies out in games no one was watching. Like in the end. HL and the ECHL, wherever it was, I think that they, all these goalies had those inconsistencies. They just happened when no one was watching and nobody cared. And if, if this star goalie has a bad game in the HL, like no one even, oh, well, he gave up some goals last night.

I didn't watch the game. I just saw the score or whatever. Whereas Carter Hart, we're seeing him fight through his inconsistencies as a young goalie, like on center stage in the NHL where everyone is living and dying with the results. Like, to me, that's the difference. I think he still, to me, can be a. tremendous goal in this league. We're just seeing him go through what a young goal he goes through on a much bigger microscope than we normally do. You forgot one thing in there. You said in the

NHL for the Philadelphia Flyers, a team that hasn't had a legit number one guy since maybe Ron Hextall for crying out loud. I mean, the pressure that comes with playing in net for Philadelphia is pretty crazy. We've been saying that this team has been one piece away and that piece wears the big pads on the ice for a lot of years. And Carter Hart is someone, and like you said, Sarah, they brought him in early because this is somebody who we've heard so much about in the promise and the ceiling is so high that maybe, yeah, maybe it was rushed a bit or maybe like you said, Jesse, usually this stuff is not, you know, what we see. Like I had him, I still kind of do on my team Canada as a third goaltender for the Olympics because I look at it as one of those future

picks where you're not going to play, kid, but we want some experience with Team Canada for four years from now. And I'm starting to go back and forth on this, but also could have a lot to do with just the way the team is playing in front of them. So we'll see how that coaching change goes. I hate bitching about refs. I absolutely hate it, but I'm going to do a little bit of it. I don't know how much of that Leafs Jets gave you watch this week, but there were like three or four things that I'm sitting there going. The ref is right there. How are they missing it? We saw Pierluke de Bois just absolutely mug Austin Matthews and they got coincidental minors. Neil Piong's knee on neon Rasmus Sandine gets up a two-game suspension but wasn't good enough for a two-minute penalty even on the ice.

And we saw Jason Spetsa with that knee on Pionk and got a six-game suspension. Again, no call. Here's my question, and it's been something that's been brought up a lot. Do NHL referees need to be more accountable? Do we need to hear from NHL referees afterwards? Do we need people explaining to us their thought process behind calls, no calls, what they're doing? I think we're getting to that point, Sarah? Well, Rob, that'll be $25,000.

And I think that they want to be. I've talked to a few of them and they want to be held accountable. I think it's the league, not them, to be honest. And I think this is something Rod Brindamore's been saying for a while. And I think that might have sparked his fine. But he wants an overhead ref who has access to video and is seeing what's going on and like maybe one in the box, just like to be able to see, replay things in real time and be able to make these calls. And I think some of the refs do want to speak out after to explain themselves,

but they're not allowed to. So I don't, I don't want to put the blame on these refs, especially when we know they've been told certain things from the league that they should make makeup calls in the past like that. We've had footage of Colin Campbell saying that to them. So I think the league needs to be held accountable. And they're telling us not to hold them accountable. They're telling coaches to shut up. So it's really frustrating. What do you think, Jesse? Yeah, I agree with you that like holding the referees accountable in terms of interviewing them after or them speaking after. I think it helps everyone else because we're holding them accountable. And like this referee knows that when he makes that call, he's got to answer to it after the game. But I also think it helps the referees. Like Sarah mentioned,

I think a lot of times if we talk to them after the game, they would have an explanation and we'd say, oh, okay. Makes sense. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. Like, you're the, I mean, they're better at this than we are, right? Like, we have to assume these guys have been doing this their whole life. Like, they are better at this than we are.

There are going to be things we don't see that they do see and that they're right there on the ice in the middle of it. I think there are going to be times where if it became a regular thing that they spoke to the media after or even if it was just on a request basis, I think there would be times where they would explain. they're the reasoning for a call or they're reasoning for not making a call. And we'd all say, all right, that makes a little more sense. And I think just that open communication would make the dynamic a little different. I think as long as Gary Bettman's the commissioner, it ain't happening. One of the first things he did when he became commissioner, if you remember, took all the names off the back of the referees and linesmen's jerseys. When I was a kid, we knew all the referee's names. Gary Bettman becomes commissioner. He took it off. They used to have

like, part of, like, hockey cards. They had hockey cards with referees. They stopped doing all that. They want the referees to be this kind of thing that you don't really necessarily see. And I don't, I think we're at the point now where, you know, other sports do it. You see it in baseball. They need to explain. It's, it's, they're human beings.

They're not robots. This isn't balls and strikes. This is, this is a situation where you've got to be able to say, uh, the reason Austin Matthews got two extras because I saw him, but end the guy right before or something. I need something. I saw that. And like I said, I hate complaining about referees because I think we so often watch a replay from 22 different angles in slow motion and go, terrible call.

Well, we're on our couch doing this. They get to see it once and it's the fastest game on earth. So I hate complaining about referees. And I also don't know why a referee would ever want to be a referee because if you do a great job, no one says a word. If you make one mistake, everyone's all over you. But I think we need some more explanation. I think I'd settle for a statement from said referee as opposed to like,

you don't need to throw them to the wolves and say, hey, go to this press conference. I'd settle for controversial calls. Here you go. This is what I was thinking. When you really, really think about it, the censorship helps nobody except the NHL. So just think about that one. But does it? Does it help the NHL?

Yeah, because they aren't because then the refs might say something that would, they need more technology, which they do to be able to make, in my opinion, to make better calls and they aren't kind of getting it. I don't know. The way the NHL has done officiating hasn't changed and it hasn't caught up with the times. That's my opinion. Yeah, but I also think if there was a little more accountability and a little more, I think we would also sympathize with referees more. Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. So that hurts because then we look at the NHL and they're like, oh, they're to blame, not the refs. I get it.

But, you know, there are times where, again, it's a very fast game. If a referee came at it afterwards says, guys, I fucked up. I missed it. Yeah. I missed it. I missed it. Then you go, okay, let's move on. It's like when someone cuts you off on the road and you want to give them the finger and

then you look at them and they're like, sorry. You go, okay, I'm not angry with you anymore. I mean, it's just one of those things. They're humanized. Absolutely. But that game really pushed me over the edge. And I have no rooting interest for either of those two teams. And I was just like, what is going?

going on here. What's going on on the show is Sarah and I had an opportunity to speak to Shana Goldman, the newest member of The Athletic. A little earlier on, we'll play that interview. She's going from being a full-time Rangers person to mostly Devil's Person while still doing Rangers and she's also covered the Islanders. How do you think that makes people in that state feel? We'll talk to her about that and a whole lot more right after the break. Okay, so our next guest actually started her latest piece on The Athletic with the sentence, today is a pretty cool day. And I thought that was a great way to do it

because it's a pretty cool day for us because she has officially joined the athletic full time to cover the New Jersey Devils. I know you don't think of this person as a New Jersey Devils cover, but you've got to get used to it. Shana Goldman joining us on the Wednesday round table. Thanks for doing this, Shana.

Thanks for having me. Shana Ice Cube Goldman. Yeah. Well, let's start with that because I know most people, you know, most hockey fans, when they think of your name, they think Rangers. What's it like making this transition,

not only for people who follow you on a regular basis, but you're now going to be covering a new team. It's different. You know, I know the Rangers like the back of my hand, so I'm glad I still get to cover them too. But it definitely, I can see the responses of like, oh, you're covering two rivals. How can you do it?

Like, how can you be unbiased? And it's like, I do not care for either team. I don't, you know, I root for, watching cool things and seeing, you know, good teams and things like that. You know, like, I want to have fun watching, but I don't root for anyone. So I could care less. And when they play each other, I don't care. I just wanted to be like an interesting game.

So I'm not sitting there like bored thinking, what am I going to write about this? I saw a lot of the vitriol online. And I don't understand it because I would think somebody who's covering rivals would have a better take on what's going on in the rivalry. I look at it like you've got your hands in both pies and you're able to set up certain things in a better way. I don't understand how Devil's fans are angry and how Rangers fans are angry. Yeah, I think one of the biggest ones is like I saw Devils fans asking like, they're still

going to have to see Ranger stuff in their feed, you know, especially if the games on and I'm like clipping video from both. And the best I can say is like just mute the hashtag, you know, NYR and you won't have to see those tweets. But, you know, that's the best I can do to separate it. But I think it's good to see a little everything. And it gives you better perspective on your team. Like the hardest thing I think is being so, like for me at least, is being too focused in on one team that I don't have a good enough perspective on like everything else that's going on. And that's something I always try to have because I do like writing national pieces too. So I think that's what I'm trying to accomplish. But I guess they could tell me. If you, I would maybe understand the vitriol if it was anybody but you and these people are going to realize the way you cover the game is so unique. And it's so you can get in depth about any team. They're going to love it. it. Can you kind of describe what, how you approach coverage? So I hate every team equally. And I like to be mean to them. So I like to find things that they do wrong and pick at them. But no, really like I,

I, uh, I like relying on video because I think the best way to show what we're seeing on the ice is to literally show what we're talking about. And I like to use data to back it up. I think that anything I say, I want something to back it up and support it. I want to have evidence for what I'm saying. So if I'm saying, you know, this is the best possession team in the league, here's the metrics I can use to show it. So, you know, I just try to have a reason for everything I do and try to look at it maybe a little differently or, you know, with a different perspective because I am a huge nerd. So, you know, data and video are the way to go.

And we see, like, Alison Lucan doing this for the Seattle Crack. And she is, like, the gold standard of data-driven storytelling. So anything that we can do to follow in her path and keep doing that for more teams, I think is the way to do it. Hold on a second. And people who believe in numbers and people who believe in the eye test can't be the same person, can they? I'm led to believe that it's either the eye test or analytics. We can't just.

Yeah. I think it's a breadth of fresh air. That's my eye test. I watch the spreadsheet. But your eye test is also showing us video, which I love. I mean, you know, it's been that age old argument ever since the first stat was ever made was do you rely on numbers or do you rely on the eye test? And I love the fact that your work kind of relies on both. Yeah, like, that's the best criticism you can hear is like, oh, you should watch the game nerd.

And it's like, okay, I probably just watch this game six times over versus you. Like, I'm watching plays. Like, the other day I was working on a story about Dawson Mercer and there were plays I was trying to find with his takeaways. And I'm sitting here watching the same click 10 times and then deciding which I wanted to use to show it. I'm like every little frame freezing it to see if I like the positioning of things. Like, you know, we watch the game so much to figure out what we want to talk about. And sometimes, like, the data does give us that question first. You know, we might look at something and think, we saw a play that was unbelievable.

This player must be good. And then we see their numbers telling us something else. And it's like, well, now we have a question. Let's explore it with both. Do you think you'd branch out and, like, try something new with maybe interviewing a few players? Are you ready for that? I feel like you'd be so good at it. Yeah.

I definitely do want to, like, try doing different things and mix it up. And I think working with a different team kind of is like a new challenge. So this is a better way to get to know them. and, you know, get into like the nitty gritty. It's definitely like when I got to cover the Islanders a bit, I think it was two seasons ago. I was looking at things I had never done before, you know, like I had never done just a special team's breakdown. So I had systems analysis books. And I'm like studying their power play in a different way than I was used to doing because it's not something I know

like the back of my hand and like my bias is coming through that, you know. So I think it just this will push me to do some different things. You know, before you came on, we were just chatting and Sarah said, she's the hardest worker I know. And what you just said kind of describe that. Just when you've got a new challenge like this, kind of like going along the lines of what Sarah was asking you, but is it exciting? It's almost clean slate. And I know when you cover the Rangers, you're going to cover a lot of the devils. And the same if you're covering the Islanders, you know, you know this team better than if suddenly you're shipped off to cover the ducks or something. But is it fun thinking clean slate, new job? Let's go right, you know, head first into it?

Absolutely. That's like the most fun part of it is like what can I do? And the nice part is the similarities though, like, you know, this is a rebuilding team and I know that well. But it's a new challenge to completely directed to a different team and try to use like what I know plus what I'm going to learn. And the fun part is I get to do more national stories too. So that's going to be like a new challenge to look at things differently than I did before for different teams. Let's talk some devils. You mentioned the Mercer piece. Just making the team was huge for him. now suddenly we're talking called her trophy. I mean, and I know that's just what happens when certain players get injured and just,

you know, we hear it all the time. It's not just in hockey or sports. Somebody's given an opportunity and they run with it. I mean, this is the perfect case of that, isn't it? Yeah. Like, the thing for him was it's not just making the team and it's not just playing center at the NHL level because we see so many center prospects come in and maybe they spend some time at wing, which sometimes helps them get used to the pace, get used to the defense of responsibilities

and whatnot. And he didn't just come in and play sex. center. Now he's playing center where he doesn't have that security of one of the teams best ahead of him. It's not like, you know, he could play in a third line role really sheltered. He's playing legitimate minutes on a team that doesn't have as much support. And he's thriving. You know, he's doing everything you could want to see. And obviously, there's a sustainability question. And for so many reasons, he's probably not going to produce at the pace that he has so far. You know, like there's outscoring expectations by so much. They're shooting percentages sky high, you know, while he's on the

but he's showing like the fundamentals that you want to see in a player. So even though he's going to move down in the lineup most likely unless they put him on wing, so he can stay in the top six with their top six centers, you know, he got off to a really encouraging start. So now it's just what he does from here. We've talked a lot about Jack Hughes on this podcast and we've talked a lot about his personality. I know personality is not something you can quantify with enough.

There's no analytic that talks about personality, but how much you're looking forward to covering this guy on a regular basis? I mean, we talked just about the tossing of the stick. the big smile and some of the things he does in social media. To me, being able to cover someone like that on a regular basis seems like it would be a lot of fun. Oh, absolutely. I think anytime you can see personality in a player, like, it adds, it makes it more fun.

He makes the game more fun. You know, we look at a player like Trevor Zegris and we're watching everything he does on the ice to make it more fun. And then you listen to his interview afterwards. And it just makes him more likable. It makes him, you know, it adds a human element to it that sometimes maybe we do forget, especially if we're looking so closely at data and video, you know, there's a whole other side. of it. But this is a young player who has a personality and that's something we've been looking for in the league for how long for players to show that. And he's willing to this early in his

career when he could be, you know, the cornerstone of a franchise. I think it's super exciting. If you had to pick a stat to quantify personality, what would it be? Vives per 60. I want to know if they boost the vibes in the locker room. So like a player like, you know, you look at, like that's the thing though. Like we could look at a player like Ryan Reeves. in New York, and every metric is going to tell us he's not very good on the ice. We know that, especially at this part in his career. There is no question that he's had an influence in that locker room. You can see the players excited on the ice.

You could see, you know, young players being mentored and feeling, even if they feel that level of protection, which is something, you know, I'm not wanting to say deterrent is the right thing. But I think the biggest thing is they have like a leader, you know, on and off the ice. So if someone can boost the vibes in the locker room, boost the vibes on the ice. You're having a good time and, you know, there's like a good feeling on the bench. I think that's going to help everyone out. You could see when teams lose that.

You look at what's going on in Vancouver and everyone's struggling on and off the ice. The vibes are bad and it's showing. Yeah, that's a, oh, man, because I've said that a lot about captives. You know, how do we know certain people are good leaders? Like Mark Messier's looked upon us the greatest leader of all time, right? How do we know that? Because people told us. That's the only, that's all we have for it.

I would, and that's what maybe, you know, something like an HBO 20, 24-7 kind of busted the wall down. We got to see a little bit more of who's a good leader or not. But I've always been a big believer in somebody in the room could make a huge difference. We just don't get to see it. Like leadership per 60 would be nice too. But I mean, just those are the things that it would be fun if we had a number for. But those are the things that people like you guys have to tell us because you cover the team, right?

Yeah. But there also has to be that like perfect balancing act of like not being distracted by the fact that someone's like, an amazing person and the best influence, but if they're terrible on the ice, you need to find the right balance. And that's like the toughest part of it because, of course, those are the players you don't want to break it to you. Like, sorry, you're not playing tonight or you're not playing a mainstay role. So it's just figuring out how to balance their personality and what they bring to the room, the locker room, the bench, the ice, you know, versus what they actually do on the ice. And that's the trickiest part of it. So it's like, as much as we

could look at a player and go, they should probably never play because they're terrible. Like, we do have to consider everything. It's just finding the right balance. of everything. That usually comes later in the career, too. You look at like a Thornton or like even a Yager at the end of his NHL playing career. We saw a lot of that. Sometimes when there's a trade, you see a good player going from a good team to a

team that's on the outside looking in playoff-wise. I kind of feel like you're like that. Unfortunately, you cover the Rangers. And right now, 17, 4, and 3 second in the metro. And then you've got the devils on the outside looking in. Do the devils make the playoffs? It's basically my question. And no, you're shaking your head.

She's shaking her head. Not. Not. No, there's no chance. There's no chance they're making the playoffs, but that's okay. Like, that's the biggest thing. Like, you look at the Rangers the last couple years, they came close. And I think because they came close two seasons ago, their expectations for the next year when truly, if they didn't make the playoffs, it was okay when you consider, like, their actual path.

You know, rebuilding, even if you get super lucky and speed it up like the Rangers did, it's not a perfect straight line to success. And it's building blocks every single year. We saw that with like the Toronto Maple Leafs too. They made the playoffs and they didn't do anything to better their playoff chances one of those seasons because they knew like this is great. This is something we can use and we can learn from. But we're not going to suddenly change everything to reach it. So the devils are obviously one of the bottom teams in the metropolitan. It really is okay.

They could move players at the deadline if they wanted to. And even if they don't and they just keep moving forward from here like they have a good trajectory if they stick to it. And they definitely shouldn't be a team that does anything reactionary like, oh, maybe we have a shot to make it. Like, no, it doesn't work that way. You know, not this year. And that's fine. And maybe not next year. But if they could, you know, in the next couple seasons, start pushing for the playoffs and be a team that's in the mix.

Like, that's the next stepping stone for them and they're not there yet. It's always a tough sell, though. You know, I always find rebuilds are such a tough sell because the consensus is a rebuild takes five years. That's what you always hear. You know, three to five years sometimes. And if it's just not happening by year three or four, well, people, people say, well, how long is that rebuild going to take? And I'm like, you know, what's, what's the attitude like in the Jersey area right now? Are they, because I would think

that Devils fans are somewhat knowledgeable about the game and what a rebuild is. Are they saying exactly what you just said to us? Like, it's okay. Be patient. Stay on this trajectory. Well, from what I know so far, and like I definitely don't have this completely down yet, but it seems like the biggest thing, too, is comparing directly to their rivals because they did start this at similar times. And I think that's the toughest part about a rebuild. is if you're doing it and someone in your division is doing it at the same exact time. It's not like, you know, you start it after you see a team, do it and thrive and you're like, okay, that's the path we want to take as well.

Or on the other hand, you know, a team struggle to do it like the sabers and, you know, that's in your mind too. They probably are encouraged by like the fact that the Rangers are doing it and seeing like this process can work, but they might also look at it and go, well, you know, it's slower than that. But the biggest difference is luck. You know, the devils didn't have a player like Artami Panera and signed with them as a free agent. They didn't get lucky with Adam Fox, and those are the two difference makers in New York. For New Jersey, they did get those high draft picks, though.

And you're seeing them develop and seeing a player like Mercer come in maybe sooner than expected is like the best sign that things are working, but there's still like a ways to go there. Last question, perhaps the most important and the one I want to know the answer to, you've worked with Saracivian before. How much of a prima donna is she? She is incredible. She's the MVP. That's a nice way to say, D.E. No, not in the slightest. Sarah comes up with so many good ideas, too.

And like, we had a flip cup tournament. That was her idea. And we raised, you know, $5,000 doing it. Not many people have those, like, creative ideas in a way to show her personality while she's doing it. You know, she's the best to work with. And I will happily team up with her any day of the week. And I'm sure we will be soon. So excited to have you on the team full time, Shana.

It could not be more deserved. Thank you. Thanks for doing this, Shane. I appreciate it. Look forward to reading all your devils. and Ranger stuff. You're not completely going away from the Rangers, right? Right, right.

Doing a little of everything. Little of everything and you can get mad at her on Twitter. Thanks for doing that, Shana. Thanks for having me. Stick around after the break. Your Twitter questions, you keep writing them. We'll keep reading them. All right, time for your favorite part of the show in mind.

We go to Twitter. Sarah always sends out that tweet. What do you want us to talk about? We got a few that caught our attention. We'll start with Iron Caniac says, do you think the national hockey media would have made a bigger deal about Sveshnikov scoring the lacrosse, well, twice if he had been a North American-born player and or a player for a big market team? Sarah, I think it's only right.

We start with you. You know what? I feel like I'm kind of biased about this, but yes. Like, I was listening to ESPN last night, and they didn't mention Svetnikov when they were talking about Zegers, and they mentioned the Michigan and nothing else about Svetichov, and I was getting annoyed. I had a bone to pick because it. It was very cool that he was the first guy to do that in the NHL and he did it twice. And I remember, and it might be because the Keynes have a little bit of an obnoxious social media,

which I guess we'll get into later too about everybody. But I know Don Cherry at the time criticized him, I think, for scoring the goal. And I know that was a big thing in Canada. And now it's like, oh, look at this awesome goal. And that always happens when you're the pioneer of something. But it might have something to do with being Russian and. playing for the hurricanes. I don't know.

Do we have more objective people to step in here? First off, is that how you think Canadian sound? Ooh, look at this goal. Yeah. Yes. Jesse, I'll let you go in there. Maybe I'll hear your Canadian impression too. I agree with Sarah that there were people who like Don Cherry who tried to minimize it.

But I thought maybe it's just in my bubble on Twitter. I thought it got tons of attention. I don't know how it could have gotten more attention when it happened. And maybe that's just, maybe that's not, I'm not in Canada. I'm not watching them talk on TV. Like, I'm not watching SportsNet every night. So maybe Sportsnet and like those big national, like that's where hockey is at its biggest. I'm not watching that.

So maybe they didn't cover it. But in my little bubble on Twitter and on Instagram, it was everywhere. They covered it. They covered it. I think some of the negative. coverage was a little unwarranted. That's what I'll say. What do you think, Rob?

That's kind of what I was saying earlier. You both need to get your asses to Canada and just enjoy hockey being punched you, punched in the face every single day. Every time I hear you two or any American friend of mine, talk about how it wasn't a big deal here makes me laugh because it was ginormous here. I ended up doing like a five minute feature on the lacrosse school because of Svechnikov's two goals. Like we, it just, it was huge because it's Canada.

and it's hockey. I understand it. The reason I think it didn't get, like, you could, you would definitely argue that the Michigan goal by Mike Leg got way more attention, even in the pre-social media era, because we'd never seen it before. And that was the issue. I know we'd never seen it before in the NHL, but we'd seen the lacrosse goal. Crosby did it in junior. We'd seen it. So while it was cool, while it's impressive, while you got to pat it on the back, we'd seen it before. What Zegras did, I say this every week, I've watched a billion hockey games. I've never seen that before. I've seen players flick the puck over the net. I've seen players pick puck on their stick and do something with it. But never that. That made me say,

like Justin said, holy shit, what did I just see? So I think that's why it didn't get as much attention. I do agree with Sarah, though, that there was more negative, right? Like, people are, people still, there were still people out there that weren't accepting of picking pucks up like that. And like, that's not part of the game. like that, like there was still that. Whereas at this point in time, I think that's completely gone away. Like, I think everyone has just decided like, that's awesome. Let's just let everyone do it. I'll say part of that is you have to have the first person do something. So I don't know if it was just because he's a Russian-born player for the Canes because it's like Zegris plays for the ducks. It's not like he plays for the Maple Leaf. So I'll give him that. Yeah. And that thing,

like I said, it made its way across my little Twitter bubble pretty damn quick. Everyone I knew was tweeting it out, which makes it just fly across the internet. Something else that got a lot of attention is from Rivard, NHL on Twitter. Says, hmm, I feel like a certain Tennessee team's social media did something dumb to warrant some thought-provoking discussion. Now, I will just get everybody up to speed and then we can comment on it. Someone on Twitter had sent a tweet to the Preds Twitter account saying, it's got to suck for your city's name to rhyme with Trashville, to which the Nashville Predators replied, I just know someone that lives in Detroit didn't say something.

Basically slamming the city of Detroit. A lot of people jumped on this, calling it racism, calling it offside, saying delete this tweet immediately. Jesse, we'll start with you on this one. What did you think? I don't know how that, I mean, I didn't seem, racism did not put, pop into my head on that tweet. I thought I was just kind of making fun of the city of Detroit. I don't think teams Twitter accounts should be making fun of entire cities, probably.

Agreed. Agreed. I think, I don't think it goes any deeper than that. Like, it's just my opinion. I didn't think it was racist in any way. I didn't think it was like, this person needs to be fired, but it's more of a, like, what are you doing? Like, this isn't your Twitter.

Like, that person that runs that account has their own personal account. Like, make jokes on your Twitter account about entire cities. Let's not do that with the Nashville. Predator's name next to it. Yeah. The thing about, okay, where to begin? The thing about making fun of Detroit is that it is kind of inherently racist and classes because it's one of the bigger cities in America that is like largely black and

they have gone through kind of tough times. But I don't think the person behind the Twitter account had any racial intent. And I know her. And I know she does not mean to be racist. But when you play with fires with these goddamn Twitter accounts, this is going to happen. Like, we need to stop being petty on Twitter under NHL accounts. I just think, like, there's so many NHL accounts that act like teenagers. And it's just you're bound to get burnt, whether you mean it or not, people are going to hate you.

And they're looking for a reason to crap on you. And while I think people are sort of justified in, because criticism of Detroit in kind of the way it was said, is inherently racist and classist, even though it wasn't intended that way. It's kind of a microaggression. So I see why people took it that way. I don't think that was the intention, but I do think it's kind of a cocktail of these accounts acting like brats and being like haters for no reason and people wanting to be mad, you know? Yeah. It's one of those things where you got to think, and I like to think that this is the way I think when it comes to Twitter, if there's even 1% of you that's saying,

could this be taken the wrong way? You just don't do it. Yeah. You just don't do it. But now it feels like, and Sarah, you know this better than anybody, because I know you did your story on the hurricanes

and what they've done with their social media. That makes news. When a social media account does something really funny slash clever, everyone's talking about it. So everyone, I feel, wants to put themselves in that spotlight of saying, hey, look how funny we are. Hey, look at this.

But this one, I agree. I'll be with Jesse. I racism, and maybe this is just me being a bit naive, racism never popped into my head. I did agree with what you and Sarah said that, really, we're attacking the city of Detroit. Attack the team. Attack the city of Detroit. Respond with like you want for a team that hasn't made the playoffs in X amount of like. Fair games. Absolutely fair game. Not more of a city where there's a high crime rate.

Yeah. I'll say, yeah, maybe that was kind of a reach. same time for people who are from Detroit and people that love Detroit, it does feel like a personal attack and people crap on their city all the time. So I don't know. Just don't do that. Like, I'm just sick of these accounts, I guess. I don't know. I'm kind of over it. It's like that one friend who, you know, all your buddies will rag on each other, but the one friend who goes just a little bit too far and you go, wait, that's, that's personal, man. Like, that's, that's not just making fun of something for the fun of, you know, having a laugh. Just leave it alone. That's personal. Leave it alone. It's a touchy subject. Come on.

Last one we'll take here from Chase Tickle. All right. Wants us to talk about the seemingly high amount of knee on knee or leg on leg hits so far this season. Yeah, it's interesting, like even just using the leg, like that spets a knee on Pyong's head was tough to watch, but so was the Pionk on Rasp of Sandin. Do you guys feel like there's more than usual? I mean, I saw Ian Cole last night.

He got a game misconduct. I don't think he'll get any more discipline, but that was like a knee-on-neigh situation. I don't know if there's been more. I don't know what to make of that either. Maybe just coincidence. What do you think, Jesse? Yeah, I would say coincidence.

If I'm trying to look for a reasoning, I would go towards the, like, they're being told not to hit each other in the head. And we saw in football kind of a increase in a... Overcompetition? an increase in like ACL tears because guys are diving at knees on plays that they would normally go up high. And I think in hockey, you could see something similar in terms of guys are leading with their lower body towards each other, trying to avoid that head to head contact or shoulder to head contact. And maybe that would lead to it. Like I said, I don't, I don't think that's what's happening. I think it's kind of just a coincidence and there just happened to be a rash of them all in a row right here. And then we might go months without having one. But I would say that if it does continue, that's kind of, kind of what I would look at is like, are these guys trying to make hits in a different fashion than they were trying to avoid getting suspended and all this?

Yeah. I mean, it's one of the, I don't always like using this as an excuse, but it's the one type of hit sometimes that you can almost blame the speed of the game and a little bit of human reaction. It happens. It happens. And at every level of hockey, people you've see people all of a sudden kind of miss a hit and go to do something.

then it went, oh, geez, did I really just do that? And again, when you slow it down, it can look a lot worse than it actually is. I'm not excusing knee-on-knee hits. You can destroy someone's career with a knee-on-knee hit, but it's the one rare one where you could tell sometimes it could honestly be just reaction and an accident. Speaking of Twitter, I hate when these hits happen. I hate when these hits happen and it's like the second after we have to say, is it dirty? Is it clean? What do they deserve? What's going to happen? Like, can I just watch this from a few angles before I weigh in? And it's always hilarious that the reporters and the fans of one team think it's dirty. And the reporters and the fans of the other team think it's clean.

Like, I wonder why. Just grind my gears. The coaches. The coach's post-game press conference after a dirty hit is so comical. Coach of player who made the hit. Nah, it's a good clean hit. You know, that's the way he plays. And the coach of the team who got hit is like, I can't wait for the league to look at this. You're like, okay, guys, it's somewhere in the middle. So let's all regala. But I know you got to... Whichever golden night player made the hit.

Pete DeBore calls them the cleanest player he's ever seen. All of them. Whichever one it was. It's the cleanest hockey player I've ever seen. I get it from a coach. I get it from a coach. You're trying to avoid suspension. They're lobbying on that one.

Yeah, exactly. Raps up another show, guys. What are we working on this week? Jesse, we'll start with you. I'm getting ready to getting ready for a trip to Boston in New York. I'm excited about it. Longest, yeah, Sarah was happy for me. I've never been to Boston. Oh my God. One of the three, there are three NHL cities I have not been to, and Boston is one of them. So I'm excited for that. And then I get to... What are the other two before you move on? What are the other two?

Calgary and Detroit. Sorry, I must say Seattle now. There's a fourth, Seattle that I'll be going to later this year. But yeah, Calgary, Detroit and Boston. So checking Boston off the list. Detroit's beautiful this time. I heard. If you look at my tweets since 2018, I'd say it's my favorite city and I'll stand by that. I love Detroit. God bless Detroit. Jesse, get your ass there. It is great because you know what we used to do with me and my buddies? Cards on the table. I grew up a Red Wing fan.

You go to Windsor. You stay in Windsor. You party at the casino, have a good time. And there's actually a city bus that you jump on. Well, I don't know if it's there anymore. This is when it was the joke. And a city bus takes you across the border and takes you to the game. And then you jump on the city bus takes you right back to your hotel.

It was fantastic. Yeah. So anyways, get to Detroit. But what's the other thing you were about to say? Oh, just, yeah, that trip, I'm going to have some good stuff coming out of that. I'm excited for that spending like a week in New York City right before Christmas, so can't complain about that either. It should be fun.

It should be a good trip. What about you, Sarah? I've been a little under the weather for the past few days, so kind of inching myself back to coverage, but I have a few kind of like off the wall things coming up. I'm doing a little Q&A with two, like, really random people. So look out for those. They're like on a national level. And then trying to catch up on her.

hurricanes coverage. So wish me luck. I wish you luck. I'm feeling the exact same way battling a little something. I'm sure that no players want you around. Yeah, exactly. I didn't take those trip to Canada. So stay at home. Thanks a lot. Guys. Got a lot of other great stuff you can listen to. Speaking of Detroit, Dylan Lark and the captain of the Red Wings, joins Sean Gentilly and guest co-host Max Bultman on the Athletic USA

this week. A big thanks. Listening to this show, the athletic hockey show. And remember, or follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Don't forget, leave a rating and a review. And you could subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcasts to get all the bonus content from our entire network. This week, it's our roundtables turn to do that bonus content. And last week, we went a little off the rails,

but we had a little fun doing it as well. So make sure to check that out. You start with a 30-day free trial. Then it's just 99 cents a month after that. And right now, you get an annual subscription to the athletic for just $3.99 a month when you visit the athletic.com slash hockey show. The athletic hockey show continues Thursday with Ian Mendez

and down goes brown for Sarah, for Jesse. I'm Rob. We'll see you next week.