The Athletic Hockey Show - Who has the most punchable face in the NHL?

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

The Athletic NHL's latest anonymous player poll is out, Sean, Frank and Sean discuss who has the honour of being the most punchable face in the NHL, odds on where Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby will play next season if no state tax really matters and the guys look at four games from Tuesday night which featured last second goals.Hosts: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What up, what up? It's the Athletic Hockey Show for Wednesday, December 10th. I am Sean Gentile. I am here with Sean McIndoo and Frankie Carrado. Boys, how are we doing? And which of us has the most punchable face on the podcast? We can just get it.

It's me. We know. That's what I'm dying to know. And I don't even think it's just our pod. Like, I think we go right across the whole slate of hockey podcasts at the athletic. We include the Leaf Report, the prospects guys. We need to know, if you listen to our pod, please tweet at us, tag us, and tell us who has the most punchable face across the board.

I'm curious to see who it is. I can't wait. I can't wait to find out. Who's McIndoo's personal thing? You have to fit one. Boy, out of anyone. Let me guess. You know, the prospects guys are going to get some votes.

That's a three-way tie at the top. I guess it's really four, if you include Peters. It's going to be like the NHL poll. It's just, it's going to be like, it's a punchable face, but it's also just the guy you want to punch. So it's going to be whoever said something mean about your favorite team most recently. Oh, I know who it is right away. If you could get like, you know, the locator on where all the tweets would come from,

Cory Prawnman in Montreal for saying that Lane Hudson has average puck skills and average skating and average compete. Do you think they're ever going to forget about that? I don't think so. Were they upset by that? I don't know.

I couldn't tell. By the fact that they show up in my comment section. Yeah. It's like I wrote a story about color on color jersey matchups and it somehow turns into a real litigation of Lane Hudson's Puck skills. You're guilty by association.

See, sometimes that happens at TSN where the O-Dog will say something on overdrive and it's, you know, opinionated and it's harsh. And we all got to wear the brunt of that sometimes. It's a company-wide problem. Or Craig will do his sports center hit where he put someone into the, what is it, the roast house or something, just roast a team. It's like, we show up to more. morning skate the next day or the next week. We're like, I remember what your co-worker said about us. Oh, well. Yeah. A good one I really recommend is to try to have the same first name as somebody else at the company, because that one, people really pay a lot of attention to detail, and they definitely

don't get mad because somebody with the same name as you said something two years ago. Yeah, try being one of several hasty white dudes with the first name, Sean, working at the athletic, especially a few years ago when there was eight or nine of us. There's no differentiation. We're all the same. Yeah. Boys, I'm just glad to play out there that the player poll actually dropped because we've been hearing about it so much in the athletic slack.

And so it's just been a constant kind of topic of conversation internally because that thing is a lot of work. It takes a whole lot of time for the beat writers to, you know, collect all the various player responses. that they need. I think we got to about 120 this year, which is, which is wild. It's always, it's always a good thing to look at. It's always a fun thing to look at in the first batch of responses dropped yesterday. And of course, we're starting with Punchable Face because that's the one that they mentioned on the TNT broadcast. That's the one that gets a lot of the,

a lot of the attention. Congratulations to Nick Cousins, who is at least a back-to-back champ there. I think he might be, I think he might be a three Peter. Decisid win for him in that category, let's say. He's a 24%. That's a solid, a solid five ahead of Marchand. And Marchand's nine ahead of everybody else. So I'd call it a two man race, but it's kind of cousins a lot of the song. And you know what's crazy?

This is nothing new for Nick Cousins. Like I think I told you guys this last year. We're the same age. And we played together or against each other growing up. and he always had the most punchable face, even when there was a bird cage shielding it. Nine-year-old Nick Cousins. Nine-year-old Nick Cousins was a rat.

Ten-year-old Nick Cousins was a rat. Every single year, he's been a rat for better or worse. Like, I get it. But the thing that I found funny about, the thing that I found funny about this is some of the quotes from the players who voted on this. And this is like the ultimate, I hate this guy so much.

I'm not even going to acknowledge his. existence. I don't even know if he's in the league anymore, one player said. You know he's in the league. Something tells me that they know that he's still in the league. The deep disdain you have for a guy who's clearly a fourth liner to say that, nah, don't even know if he's in the league anymore. Like, he would have said some stuff to whoever that player is and got under his skin multiple times and definitely personal stuff, which if you have the most punchable face, you are getting personal on the ice, for sure. And it's tough to be the most punchable with like eight minutes of ice time a night.

Like Marchand, you could understand. Matthew Kachuk, you could understand. Brady Kachuk's got to be furious. I know he missed time. But, I mean, he got one vote in the entire league. Nick Cousins just taking all of the punchableness on his own. I mean, his punchable per 60 has got to be insanely. off the chart because the guy barely

plays the league. That's actually a new tab on evolving hockey actually punchable punches to the face per 60. Money puck's got like a little punchability. It's a graph where it's the player's face and the eyes get like blacker as based on how much. It's fun

it's funny to see how there's like some subtle differences between you know evolving hockey and natural stat trick and money puck on punchability per 60. They haven't quite figured it out. They can't all get on the same page. You'll you'll see some different rates depending on depending on your spreadsheets nerds you would know who was most punchable exactly that i like don't you guys find some of the quotes on this pretty fascinating what

certain players say about certain things here's here's the one that i that kind of jumped off the page at me as well is brant clark who's a young puck moving defenseman who's just kind of got that i don't know like there's a look that young players have where it's not deer in headlights but you could tell everything's kind of new and you're really working hard to kind of make a name for yourself. And the quote for him is, everyone hates him and wants to punch him in the face, one player said.

And I'm like, man, in such a short period of time, a young puck-moving D-man who I don't really see as a rat has got this reputation that everyone hates you. And you know the guy, like multiple people, if someone's saying that multiple people have gone up to him on the ice and said, dude, by the way, everyone hates you, including your teammates, which is the worst possible thing that you could hear from anyone.

When you hear that, you're like, your heart sinks a bit because part of you dies and you're like, he might, like, I think that guy's friends with someone on my team in my room. And I'm like, it could be true. Like, it honestly could be true. And you just, you go back to the bench and you start thinking about it. You're like, is it? Yeah, maybe. Did they pull head coaches and was Jim Hiller allowed to vote for Brand Clark himself?

because based on how he uses Brand Clark, I feel like there might be some kind of, there will be some kind of personal, personal issue going on there. Good player, though. How about Joel Erickson Eck? Getting a bunch of votes from his own teammates? I was not expecting to see Joel Erickson Eck on that list.

Me either. I was shocked. That's like a classic case of, we see it on a night-to-night basis, and we talk on the bench in the room, and we're like, man, I would hate to play against that guy. And sure enough, I guess guys do hate to play against him. He's just a good

two-way centerman. That's what he is. He also like a very like almost stereotypical like stone face Swedish player. He's too. Like he's like some super emotional dude. Like he seems like he seems like he's pretty mild.

I'm happy you brought up the fact that he's Swedish though because like when I played a year in Sweden and when I played there I kid you not. It was like rugby on ice. The amount of like clutching and grabbing and guys doing like weird stuff like in Sweden they, you know, I'll go out and say it. I don't, I don't care. I don't have to answer to anyone in Sweden. They dive a lot. And when they get hit, it's like the end of the world. I'm not saying Eric Seneck is like that. He's not. He plays a like he plays a pretty honest game. But like the

rugby on ice component, I could definitely see that, you know, translating from SHL hockey to NHL hockey and that would make him annoying thus punchable wow Frankie making a bid for the punchable face votes from Sweden yeah in the lobby we're huge in Sweden too so yeah we're expecting influx of votes there

Ersnack was the only Euro player show up on the list actually I take that back Stutzlis there too he was fairly low Did I did I scroll over him yeah it's it tilted It tilted towards Canadian and North American players, though, let's say, and bright in, rightfully so. The other big category I wanted to get into is, of course,

the where does Connor McDavid end up three years from now thing. You know, you look at it initially, and you see the oilers at the top of the list, and you see, like, no super close second place, right? Like, it's largely a bunch of teams that are splitting up the rest of that vote, and you think maybe it's not that big of a deal. I think if you frame it as 44% of the players that were pulled, think he's going to end up somewhere else.

I think that's when it gets a little bit more interesting. I think that's the way to frame it. You have barely a majority of the 120 players pulled here, think that he's going to be in Edmonton past a three-year mark, which is a little bit interesting to me. I found this fascinating because if you're a player around the league, you're so deeply entrenched in what you're doing every day and you're worried about yourself, but you have a pulse on, you know, what's going on.

And you would have a pretty good pulse on the Oilers because they're a team that gets talked about a lot. McDavid plays there. They've gone to two straight Stanley Cup finals. And from playing against them, you would have a feeling whether like this is a team that McDavid could see himself winning with down the road. And so that, you know, 56.4, whatever it is, percent of players that were pulled think that McDavid will stick around in three years.

It bodes really well for the Oilers. I personally, if I were to guess what that number was going to be, like I would have said high 30s, low 40s maybe, but I mean, that's got to be a pretty encouraging sign if you're an Oilers fan that like his peers think for the most part he's not really going anywhere. It's encouraging until you scroll down, you see the Sydney Crosby pull where it's, what was it, high 80s, something like that. About 75%, yeah. Okay, all right.

So, I mean, even that, that's, you know, a pretty high number of players going, no, he's not going anywhere. So he's not. It's, it was, I'll tell you that the two things I found fascinating. The one is like, like Sean, you mentioned, almost 50% of the league thinks he's going somewhere, but nobody can agree on where. And in fact, the number one team on the list at 10% is the Maple Leafs, which is, that's just kind of like the.

default. He's going to go somewhere, but I don't really know. So I'm just going to name a big market team. You know, the Rangers kind of got some of that too. There doesn't seem to be any sort of consensus on where it would be versus Crosby where there's, you know, pretty much two teams. The other thing I got to say on those two is I want to give a shout out to the one player. And I know it's anonymous. I know I'm not supposed to know whether it was the same player who gave both votes, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was one guy who didn't enjoy being asked this question because there was one vote each for Sidney Crosby going to Philadelphia and Connor McDavid going to Calgary.

Guys, you're allowed to just say no to the poll. You can just tell the writer to get lost. You don't have to intentionally pick. Everyone hates doing this. Like, I'm going to pull back, I'm going to pull back the curtain on this a little bit. This is one of the worst things that have to do. And I am so glad that I don't have to get involved with this. Ask. Dudes to do this sucks and it sucks for us and to some degree it it it sucks for them. So we did. What are the what's the steps that it would take for Connor McDavid to be a Calgary flame? I don't even like there's no disrespect to Calgary.

I don't even think there's a step possible. Like I really don't. Like if 31 teams folded and Calgary was the only one left, is that a possibility or is he in the KHL? He's in the care. It depends how much Gazprom is willing to pay him to go to the KHL. But, okay, forgetting about Calgary, right, there's teams that got, like, not significant percentage of the vote, but, like, the Utah Mammoth got 1.8 percent.

The Anaheim Ducks got 1.8 percent. I'm sorry, but there's no world where that's happening either. Those are just blow-off answers, man. It's crazy, because if you go Edmonton and Toronto, New York, Chicago, Vegas, Tampa, you're like, okay, all reasonable. But then, I mean, it just feels like there's somewhere. There's really no chance. Just like Crosby's got three possibles, three possibles, like Pittsburgh, Colorado, Montreal,

McDavid at the most could have five realistically, and even that might be too much. I was surprised Vegas was as low as they were. Vegas basically got five votes out of the 100 plus players. I thought if anybody, I maybe would have picked them to be number one on the non-Edmonton list, just because they go after everybody. They always find a way to make it happen. Players seem to want to play there. So I would have thought that would have been the one, but apparently not.

I would. A ton of players. Tampa is low. Tampa is low. Yeah. No cap space. No future assets to make it happen. And yet, Tampa's too low.

It's Florida. It's Tampa. It's John Cooper. It's interesting. It's all that stuff. We got five or six votes for the Florida teams combined. That's low. Yeah, you're right.

And so if you think about Florida, they have stockpiled players from the 2014 draft, right? like they have Ekblad, Reinhardt, Bennett. They were all in the same draft, 2014. Am I right there? I'm pretty sure I'm right. Yep. And so, McDavid was the 2015 draft. If you had McDavid and Eichael playing together in Vegas,

like there would be Vegas stockpiling 2015 players, but it wouldn't just stop there. Like Mitch Marner was a 2015 player. Noah Hannifin was a 2015 player. Like you would have basically somewhat a, copy of what the Panthers did with the 2014 draft happening with the 2015 draft in Vegas, which I mean, you would own the top 10 of that draft, which was, refresh my memory, one of the best drafts we've seen in a long, long time. Yeah, that would be, that would be wild

to see that come to fruition. McDavid to Vegas and dry saddle to Florida. That's crazy that Frankie's reporting this. Don't even go there, man. I don't need Euler fans coming at me. Meditory credit, Frank credit. TSN. He doesn't actually work for the athletic hockey show. Yeah, you can just generally credit TSN in general. It's fine. There's more, there's more stuff from the poll on the, on the site, and there's also more coming. There are a ton of questions that we've asked. We should also say, by the way, that the polling timeline, it started in September. Like, these questions, you know, they've been, we've been amassing the responses over the course the last couple months. So things change. You know, we've seen how many times have we swung back and forth

on the Oilers alone this season. So that's worth pointing out. And it's also worth saying that there's more coming. There's more on the site that we haven't discussed. It's always fun, man. It's always, it's always really enlightening. I just want to, I just want to poke a little needle into DGB before we go to break. No. And, and the one I was going to ask about, does state income tax actually matter? Yes or no? Oh, this is it. Yes or no. He's going to keep arguing that it actually does.

And the responses, 117 responses, yes, 86.3%. I don't feel about that. So if people listen to my other show on Puck Soup, we got into a downright argument yesterday, which we don't often do. Because, look, five years ago, I was one of the first where I was one of the first where I was. I wrote, this is an overblown issue. It doesn't matter. Stop talking about it and on down the line. I'm at the point now where I'm willing to say, I think I was wrong.

Wow. I think I was wrong. Not that it, you know, not that it's the be all and end all, not that there's some massive advantage for teams. Not that it can't be countered by other things and that other markets have to offer. And I still, I don't believe the league should do anything because I don't think the league can do anything. but I was surprised at how overwhelming the majority was on this one. I don't know that you could get 85% of NHL players to agree on whether ice is cold. Dude, on which hotel they like to stay at.

Like, honestly. But here's the crazy thing about it. Like, they all seem to agree that it matters for them. And it's hard to. argue, man. Like, they're the ones that are going through it. They're the ones that have to work with their financial advisors on doing all these things. So given the option, like, as long as the team's good or semi good, they're taking that option.

Like, it kind of all the speculation around does it actually matter? No, it does matter. And the fact that not only that the number was so overwhelming, but some of the quotes where the players are basically saying, like, look, come on, are you, you'd have to be an idiot not to think. Yeah, like, be real. Although, one thing to bring it back, okay, so if no tax states have such an advantage, why do we think Connor McDavid is Edmonton, Toronto, New York are the top three options? Like, it just feels a little... I don't think they should be.

Well, McDavid will always make up for it with like CIBC and whatever else he wants to sink his time into. but I mean the headline for this is, spoiler alert, guys who make a lot of money care about retaining a lot of money. That's a bottom line. Rich people don't like taxes. Oh, okay. That's interesting. That's the news.

Frankie, you should have brought out your little adding machine and your green visor and done the accountant bit. Frankie, the accountant, he's back in the house. Dude, the amount of things that I used to use my calculator on my phone for is astonishing. all the teachers that said you're not going to be able to carry a calculator with you wherever you go for the rest of your life. Lyers. Where are you at now? Because I'm using it and I'm loving it.

You hear that Mr. Walker? My algebra teacher? We had Mr. Dimitri. I think he was Russian. He wrote the textbook that we were working out of. That's a dagger. Wow. He wrote the textbook.

His name was in the textbook. Like, yeah, this guy I guess knows what he was. he's doing. Yeah. Well, like Frankie's, you kind of said there's some, there's some banger quotes about the tag situation. There's some good stuff about plungeable faces and whatever else. Lots of posts on the site and there's, and there's more coming.

So enjoy the player pull stuff. And we'll be right back. We're going to talk about some games. It was a weird, I know we don't typically go super in on stuff that happened last night, but it was a weird, it was a weird night. So we're going to hit on that. our buddy Connor McDavid might figure another conversation as well. Stick around. All right, we're back. Fellas, bizarre night of games last night. We saw four game time goals in the last 15 seconds regulation. Two within the last two seconds. The last time that happened was October 8th, 2009. We'll start in Pittsburgh because the goal was scored by a player, Frankie. You've watched a good.

bit gassed up at certain points on the show back at Seneca. Scored a shorty with 0.1 seconds left in Anaheim Pittsburgh, which one of those things, it just seems like it's physically not possible, and yet here we are. The thing that makes it even more crazy is the puck not in, the puck is in Anaheim zone or it's in Pittsburgh zone coming up ice with like 10, seconds to go was like it was really bizarre how that whole play kind of transpired. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah, really crazy. And Beckett Seneca, like we talked a lot about Matthew Schaefer, rightfully so. We've talked a lot about Yvonne Demadoff at times this year

when it comes to the rookies. But like Beckett Seneca, you wake up today, this guy leads all rookies and points and he's playing almost 17 minutes a night. You know, we just did the World Junior show. There's no chance this guy's going. And they didn't even take them last year. Like he was omitted from the team. Think about how stupid that looks today. I don't know if we're allowed to say that where JD, you might have to do your handiwork there. Yeah, I think you're allowed. But that's what it is. That's what it is. It's crazy that we're in that situation and these high flying Anaheim ducks, the cardiac kids, if you want to call them that, like are almost being led by this youngster who could play in that tournament who's almost a point per game. Pretty crazy stuff, man. What a player,

though. First rookie did 10 goals too. Like, I would not have If you had asked a day ago or two days ago, who's going to hit that mark first, I think you'd get people saying, you know, whatever, maybe not Schaefer. But I did Demidov. Like, I don't think people, I don't think people would drop Seneca necessarily. Well, Demidoff is more of a playmaker. Schaefer is a defenseman. Caponin's got nine very quietly, the young rookie in Montreal, who by the way, like, they're in crisis mode right now. I don't know if you guys saw this after the. game. They lose 6-1 to Tampa. The game finished at, what was the game finish at 9-45, let's say? At 1022, they came out with a press release saying they've called up Owen Beck, Adam Engstrom, and Jacob Fowler, the goalie of the future for them, who really should not be getting called up at this point in his career. Like, they obviously want him to play in the minors for a reason, but they can't get a save at all. Like in games that are close, forget about it. Montreal can't

even can't even get there right now where Dobish can't make a save. can't make a save. And now they're, they're essentially expediting this kid who, is this not what happened in the past? Like with Patrick Waugh, hey, you're right into the fire. Carrie Price, go ahead. You're right into the fire. Now the next quote unquote goalie of the future, you're right into the fire.

It's pretty crazy that they've gotten to this point. Did work out pretty good for those two guys. Yeah. That was all right. Hopefully he's not the next Steve Penny for you, my fellow olds out there. but yeah they're they're forcing they're forcing the issue like poor jacob fouler it's like well we're pet patrick won carry price okay yeah we'll see we'll see all that goes come be the savior for us that typically is not a great situation for a young goalie to be in but um desperate times man

it feels like it's crisis mode do you think how does that play in in a room does that is that the wake-up call is that you know are they happy that reinforcements are coming or is it like oh okay so we're not doing the job, so they're going to bring a bunch of kids in to take their spots? I think that's my take on it is like, and I've kind of seen that situation before where you're almost saying, like the coach is saying young guys are coming, like whether you guys like it or not, and they're going to get opportunities. And if they play well enough, there's jobs that are on the line. And that's the thing that makes it the most, I guess, like grabbing is that your job

could be not yours if these guys play well that they're going to call up and give the opportunities to. So that's the big wake-up call. Like, you know, as much as it's a team sport, no one wants to lose their job. So you should be willing to do a little bit more now. One of the other last-minute games or last second games we saw Pavlovaksev scores to send Vegas Isles to overtime. Isles bounce back. Bo Horvatt scored two more. You know, he's one of those players or he's not

going to make the Olympic team, but I think the way he's played so far this season, you know, it's an indicator of how, of what his talk. And Frank, he's a guy who you've talked about at length before, too. I love Bo. I know, I know you're

a big Bo guy. Is this gratifying for you to see? Because it seems like it's been an odd couple years for him. He's just putting together now, though. No, I'm really happy for Bo. For a couple reasons. The Vancouver situation plays into it for me.

Like the way that his contract and his dealings were not necessarily prioritized there, where he was the captain of the team, does everything the right way. Like, no one's ever going to say a bad word about the guy. And it was like, actually, you're not high on our priority list, so we'll move you. And then he goes to the island. and listen, for a long time, the island, like the islanders have been a, call it what it is. It's been a tough kind of stale watch and they're not the case this year. And Schaefer comes in there and there's a different voice and GM and now it's like the

islanders are fun to watch. Bo is playing great. Like he's kind of popped offensively more than he has in quite some time, maybe ever. So yeah, it's great to see Bo doing what he's doing. And it kind of just reaffirms that like, you know, this guy who's a really good two-way player and has always kind of flown under the radar. But now, you know, the fact that he's kind of popping off, it's good. Like, I'm really happy for him.

Emil Heideman producing on that top line, too. I mean, he's a player who, you know, we saw a good bit of in Montreal. I know Arpin was, you know, all over him down the stretch and made a point to say whenever he heads back to the aisles in the Dobson trade, like, this is a potentially very useful player, and he's, and he's shown as much. He's like, he's, he's settled in on a line with, on a line with Warvat. He's got, he's second on the team. He's got, he's got 10 goals. Well, he's cooled off a little bit recently, but he was on a really hot, like, his, his shooting percentage at one point was like 30%. Like, it was, it was really bloated.

But I'll say this, like, he has done well because there were times last year where they gave him opportunities on the first line and the second line. And anytime he got elevated, it just never worked for him. Like he just couldn't, he couldn't play in that elevated role. And he'd go back down and he'd have his sort of, you know, success, modest success. But now he's getting the opportunity and he's making the most of it, which is not always an easy thing to do, man. Like there's pressure, there's nerves.

You're like, I can't mess this up. I'm playing with good players now. So he's, yeah, he's done much better this time around than last time. Let me ask this on the Islanders because I saw a, I got one of those lists a few days ago, the first coach fired lists. And it still had Patrick Waugh way up near the top, which I get because it was a GM who didn't, you know, when the GM didn't hire the coach, you're always kind of wondering when that shoe might drop. But do we need to start talking about Patrick Waugh as a Jack Adams candidate right now, given that none of us thought the Islanders were going to be doing what they were doing? And not only is it, are they winning, but we're seeing, you know, Matthew Schaefer's playing out of his mind. We're seeing guys like Bo Horvah have the years that you've been waiting for them to have that maybe hadn't been there before.

Like is Patrick Waugh? Are we going to get saved by Waugh chapter two out of this? Because he wins the Jack Adams for the New York Islanders. He deserves some recognition. Marco Stern deserves recognition like Boston's tied for first right now with Tampa. but John Cooper, you know, considering all the injuries that they've had, they had a big win last night, 6-1, he deserves a little love for this. I mean, if you keep going down, Dan Mews.

Damn Mews. Like, they're Pittsburgh's done really well, considering where we all thought they were going to be. Talk, like the fires are in a playoff spot today. Like, it's a deep. Joe Quinville will get some. Quinville's going to win. Quinnville's the one that's like people don't want to hear it. But listen, he's allowed back in the league and he's done well with Anaheim.

So, I mean, there's something to be said for what he's done in Anaheim this year, considering there's been some changes as far as the personnel on the team for sure. But the way that team looks and plays last year compared to this year, you're not even watching the same, you're not watching the same operation. Such a predictable. Such a predictable thing, too, with them. You know, you just, you know, for all the back history and all the baggage, and all the things people rightfully focused on with Kwenvo

whenever he took that job. The undercurrent there was also like this is, from in a strictly hockey standpoint, this is the right guy to coach this team right now. And to see it bear out this way, it's just, I couldn't be less surprised by it. Boys, the Aves lost. They lost to the Nashville.

Wait, I'm confused. I thought they weren't I was on the impression that they weren't allowed I just want to say I If anyone out there who subscribes to the Red Light newsletter which you should subscribe to I called this many many many people do I will I'll come out and say it

People people love the work that Mac and do And Myrtle are doing on that it's really good I will tell you right now it's it's a lot of fun And if you like it I'm glad you like it And if you don't like it It's it's the other Sean who handles it So it's don't worry about it I did it once.

I had the, because we have a feature in that, and it comes out on Tuesdays, and it's like the games tonight, and I had Nashville versus Colorado. I said, this is like last place, almost against first place. I said Nashville is going to win this game, because this is the NHL and nothing makes sense. I think I had them winning in regulation, so, you know, Colorado did. You were, dude, you were eight seconds. You were eight seconds away from hitting on that. McCar tied it with eight seconds left.

You were almost dead-ass correct. I hope you didn't have the Oilers winning because Evan Bouchard would have jammed you up in a big way there. There's somebody out there who's got a Sabres Predators Parlay. And I just want to tell that person, nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear about your stupid parley.

But congratulations on the new big screen TV or whatever. You turned your $2 to. When the Oilers made the trade for Eckholm, one of the players they gave up was Reed Schaefer, the former first round peck, going to Nashville. And now he's gotten called up. He's played, I believe, six games, and he scores his second goal last night. He's only playing like eight to ten minutes a night. But, like, we're always talking about who does Nashville have coming up?

Like, who are the young players? Like, do they have to move off guys? It's nice to see that, like, one of their young guys that maybe has flown on a, of the radar a little bit if you, you know, weren't privy to who was coming back in that trade, who's a former first round pick, is now scoring, at least a small sample size. But I'm happy that there's a little bit of that kind of youthful hope that you see in, you know, in Nashville. I'm just glad to have some other player that's worth talking about in any capacity, like, in, say, like a power rent and splurb. Like, we're trying to find stuff to do every week, Domini.

And it's like, we can't, I mean, God bless Luke of Angelica. He's having a good season, but, like, we can't we can't focus on that dude every every single every single week yeah big big up big up see your boy ab in bouchard though in the oilers in the oilers game it just it just looks when when those things happen players make mistakes like last night in the sense game tyler clevin goes back for a puck he tries to make a play gets picked off one second later it's in the back of the net but when clevin does it it looks like more like he's digging in more when bouchard does it it just looks so casual all the time. There's just an optic thing that it's

crazy to see, but it's happened quite a bit now. He's a hell of a player. He's a hell of a player, but these things happen and it looks so casual. You know what else is a hell of a player? Cunned, David. Yeah. Two goals in the 30,

he scores with two seconds left to send now that one to O.T. That was the fourth of the four last second, air quote, second goals that we saw. He's got five goals and three assists and in the three games he's played since we last spoke. He's got, he had six shots last night. He, for a guy who will never shoot the puck, like

shooting the puck is his third option, it seems like, when he gets into like scoring areas. Last night he had six shots. He is so much more dangerous when he has a shot threat. And listen, it's never going to be like a top whatever, top five, top 10 shot in the NHL. But the guy scored 64 goals in this league before. It's a better shot than maybe he even gives himself credit for. If he's willing to do that, that's an even more dangerous version of

McDavid. And it feels like that's more like the guy we saw the year that he scored 64. And Sean, you said since the last time we talked, refresh my memory. Did one of us trashed Connor McDavid? I wouldn't say trashed him. I think I... Somebody has... Somebody pulled the bear.

Good luck to the rest of the NHL. McDavid's mad now because... efficiently motivated him. Miscellaneous shot. He's mad because we had the McKinnon-McDavid conversation. That's right. Look out. Joker.

I wanted to end with like a quick little trivia game. We don't do this that often, but I thought this one was fun. Dallas beat Winnipeg 4-3. Their point streaks at 11 games. Also like from a point percentage standpoint, they're creeping up on the abs. They're there. I don't want to say that they're breathing down their neck. necessarily, but the gap between those two is probably a little smaller, a little smaller

than you would have guessed. Dallas playing really well. Miko Renton had three points, so he's got 60 in his first 50 with the stars. This is an incredible fake stat, courtesy of the NHL. 10th most by a player in their first 50 games with the franchise since 2005, 2006. There are 9 players who scored more points than he has in his first 50 games with his team. How many do you think we can name of those nine? So this is coming from a trade or just new team? No. So do you like Crosby and Ovechkin would they qualify as rookies? Okay. They would. They may or may not have. Oh, okay. McDavid. Most points through first 50 games of the franchise. McDavid is not on the list. I think, okay, well, let me first give my first guess, which I think is the only one that I'm completely sure on is Joe Thornton.

Joe Thornton, number one, 74 points in the first 50 games. I think Crosby and Ovechkin are on the list because they both got to 100 points, I want to say, as a rookie, so that'd be about on pace. You have, you have one strike between the two of you because of Frankie's guess. Okay. Do you want me to take another guess? I'll give it to Mac and dude I'll be generous and not give you a strike here Crosby not on the list Ovescun is he has

he had 65 points in his first 50 games with the cap Wow He's two of nine Is Malkin on the list? Malkin is not on the list Which which was a bit of a surprise I mean because I feel like he he came out He came out on a fire

Brutal did Jack Eichel get there in Vegas Jack Eichel did not get there in Vegas. Wow. Strikes, you guys blew this, my God. How many strikes do you get? This isn't a baseball podcast. You can get, you get 10 strikes. I think it's like, it's not like strikes.

It's like cross checks to the back when you're a defenseman in front of the net. Like, you get the first date, but the ninth one's getting called. Now I'm quite nervous because all the players that I'm thinking of, I don't think they are. They are like, uh, awesome. Austin Matthews? Not us and Matthews. These don't have to be rookies. Yeah.

See, I'm thinking through the rookies and I don't, they're not a ton. I'll give you a hint. There are no more rookies on the list. Because Matthew Barzell, I think, is the highest scoring rookie in the, you know, since the Crosby year. And he, I don't think would be there. What about Jake Gensel?

No Gensel. No Gensel. Okay. I love questions like this because everybody is. I love this. People are losing their minds of this. No Tavares. So furious.

Artemi Panarin with the Rangers. Artemi Panarin, 71 points in 2019-20 with the Rangers. He is number three. So you have one three and then five. Matthew Kachuk in Florida. Matthew Kachuk is 71 points with the Panthers in 22, 23. So he's tied to Panarin. You have the top, you have the top three.

I would also like to cast a vote for not Jonathan Hubertoe in Calder. That is number one is not Jonathan Hubertoe, yeah. Yeah, you just keep going. I'm useless in this. Oh, man, that may it tap me out. Michael bunting. No, I'm just kidding. Like furiously scrolling to find bunting on the list.

I'm just looking, I'm looking at names. I'm looking at names. Nothing is even like refreshing my memory. now at this point. It's tough because, I mean, it's going to be trades or free agents. The ones still, the ones you haven't done yet are in the, are in the first, there, it's 2010 or earlier. Would you, would you just, 2010 or earlier?

Yes. Okay. Jeff Carter. Not Jeff Carter. We have, and I would say that certainly two of these guys are Hall of Famers. There's a, there's a third that's probably questionable and then one that's, it's not, that's, And then two they aren't going to make it. Hall famers switch teams in, let's say, the first few years of the cap.

Man. Only one of them was a free agent, if I remember. I got no idea. Okay. Number four with 68 points. Oh, hold on. Yeah, okay. Heatley and Hosa probably both.

That's right. Yeah, all right. Got traded for each other. All right. and then Peter Forsberg The Flyers No 506 people

Forget how good he was With the Flyers in his first In his first season in Philly He was incredible Would not have got that in A hundred guesses A million trillion years And then

The other one in the list The final one in the list Marks of Art Bruins 06-07 I never would have got that I was actually Well I was thinking him But I was thinking him with Atlanta, and you're right, he went to Boston and had like the 90-point season. That's a good one.

It's a good way to close out our time together. The three of us is with a trivia contest that you do poorly on. No one wins. Poorly run. When we talk, no one wins. Frankie, you have a drive ahead of you today, my man. Yeah, buddy, I got to drive to Pittsburgh today. Lord help me. It's snowing. I'll see you. Driving from Toronto to Pittsburgh,

couldn't be me. Never heard of such stuff. Let's get dinner at night or something, then. Okay, I'll let you know when I get in. Midnight here. Yeah. I don't have to be better to do. Okay.

Drive safe, brother. Talk to you soon. Bye. All right, there goes Frankie. Me and McAdoo will tell you what we've learned in a second here. But before that, folks, a college football playoff bracket is set. It was a roller coaster season.

We got the final 12, minus Notre Dame, he-he-he. They're going to fight it out to make January's national championship game. The Audubal, which is the Athletics Dedicated College Football Podcasts, led by Bruce Feldman, Stuart Mandel, and Ralph Russo. They're covering every blade of grass on the field. They got you covered there. So in the run-up to the CFP, tune in there. It's a great show.

And again, Notre Dame, not involved. What a shame? What have we learned, Macon-Doo? What have we learned, Sean? I learned I think I got to write a new article because about it was a few years ago now. I got sick and tired of listening to people performatively pretend that they didn't understand how goalie efforts works. Fake outrage. Fake outrage.

And to be clear, if you're a fan and you don't get goalie interference, I understand. Read the article and hopefully it'll help. But if you're like in the media or if you're somebody in the game, like just say, call went against you and you're mad. Apparently I got to write a new one because now I went from a week ago having never heard of this to now we're up to like three or four different teams complaining that nobody knows what a hand pass is. Lindy Ruff, the latest to say that. So I got to do two things. I got to write an article about what a hand pass is and before I do that, the other thing I got to do is I got to learn what a hand pass is because I have no idea, but I got

to figure it out and then I will write a piece where I act like I knew all along. I'll probably just get Chad GPT to explain it to me. It'll be fine. That's what I do now. He's checked GPT for everything. It's where you pass your hands. It's where somebody's hand is on the ice and you pass it to another play. You can't do that. It's illegal. Unless you're the oilers and you get away with it. Lindy rough and is a man. Are we just going to keep seeing this every couple days? Like for the for the rest of this.

Like is this one of those things where it truly turns into like an epidemic sort of. Yeah. And then we're going to get weird shared psychosis where every single coach in the league decides that they care about it at the same time. Every fan's ears perked up, right?

Because this is the two things that fans, no fan ever says, I just want all the calls to go my team's way and I'm going to complain about any call that goes against me. Nobody would ever say that because it would be too honest. So instead we go, nobody understands the rule. And I just want consistent.

That's all I want you. I've got no problem. If all the calls go against my team, as long as it's consistent, you liar. You are absolute liar. You want all the calls to go your team's way because you're a little baby. And damn, I'm going to win the punchable face pole now. Great. You tricked me into saying that.

Now I'm going to win. It's a battle between you and I. Who could imagine punching Frankie? I'm just going to tell you, in general, as a real thing, rule of thumb, if you got a choice between punch and three guys and one of them as a former NHL defense, like former pro athlete, punch one of the other two guys. Taller than you'd think to, Frank O'Reado. Yeah.

Yeah. Sean, I learned that about 60% of the mashups on the NHL scout schedule can accommodate a color on color matchup. Really? I learned that from Brian. I did not know if you did analytics on. I did not do analytics myself. I heard that from Brian.

Jennings, who is the chief branding officer for the league. Had a nice talk with him about the color-on-color situation in the league's plans for it moving forward. I think we can expect to see a few more games on the schedule with color-on-color. It starts tonight, actually. We're getting Blackhawks versus Rangers, another red-and-blue game. We'll see what happens the rest of the season, but the push is on from the league.

And it started, you know, or kind of continued this week at the Board of Governors, meetings in Colorado. They want to see this happen. And they want decision makers and stakeholders with the teams to know that this is something we want to happen. We're ready to accommodate it. Of course, the only thing that matters is to get both GMs signed off on it.

And once that happens, you're free to watch, you know, all the yellow on blue games that your heart could desire. And every GM is going, is this going to make my job more difficult? If yes, I vote no. If yes, I vote no. care. But I just, I don't want to, I don't want to correct you here because you kind of corrected

yourself. This didn't, this didn't start at the Board of Governors. It continued there. It started with you writing the article about it. And that's what started the ball rolling down the hill that has now become this avalanche of, so if you're watching a game and you see color on color and you think it looks cool, Sean Gentile is the guy who made that happen. And if you think it looks bad. Sean McIndoo is the guy that made that happen. Problems. Yeah. Direct your criticisms and complaints and praise.

All I want is consistency in the uniforms. That's all I'm looking for. I'm just a rational, normal guy. That's the big problem with the Angel officiating. It's just, just make it consistent. As long as it was consistent, I'd never complain. Incredible. I can't, I can't, I can't,

what people are still trying to go and out, no. Tell some respect for yourselves. Stop saying stuff like that. Stop lying. We know the only thing you care about is whether your team wins or loses, and that's the way it should be. Yes. Make me sick. What are you doing the rest of the week, Sean?

What's on the docket? I've got a piece that's going out, I think, tomorrow, and then I've got another going out at the end of things. But I took a look at a question that on the surface doesn't make a lot of sense, which is, is who is the worst GM of all time to have their job for a long time with the team, which I define as five years or more. I was going to say, man, that's a tough. That is a stacked field. That's it, right?

Because there's a lot of bad GMs. And some of them have certainly stuck around longer than the fans would like. But five years is a long time in the NHL. even like, you know, some of the guys, the John Ferguson juniors and guys like that. Honestly, I've been hanging out with you too much because he was the first person that came to honor. He got about four years. He felt just short of the cutoff. And I got to tell you, as a Leaf fan, that felt like decades of that era. So the fact that that was only four years, to get to five plus. And I mean, some of these guys are plus plus. So anyways, that's a list of 10. And of course, it's a ranking. I can't.

I can't do anything without ranking it. So you can feel free to. I was going to say and get mad at, but no, you're going to get to number one and go, oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. And again, if you agree with it, Sean McIndo and if he disagree with it,

Sean Chintilly. Yep. All right, bud. We'll talk next week. You, me and Frank, you're back. Tomorrow is Haley and I on the Thursday show, reunited because I was out last week.

stay tuned to that. Have a great week, and we'll talk to real soon.