The Athletic Hockey Show - Why Buffalo won't win until Pegula sells the Sabres

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

On the final two Sean's and a Frank show of 2024, the boys discuss the implosion of the Buffalo Sabres, who are currently riding an 11 game losing streak, and owner Terry Pegula's role in the failure of this franchise. Frankie takes us inside what it's like to interact with NHL owners, and Sean and Sean take a look at the Eastern Conference playoff picture with the red hot Senators poised to take the next step, and the Lightning, Penguins and Flyers battling for the final wild card slot, ahead of the Rangers, Islanders and Blue Jackets.Hosts: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frankie CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff Domet 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 Wednesday edition. Corrado, McIndoo, Gentilly. Today we're going to talk about a little bit down the line, the Eastern Conference playoff picture, I think, because A, we always do. That's a fallback for us here.

But B, it's gotten a little bit more interesting over the last week. So we want to sink our teeth into that. We also have an interesting development with a player signed out West. but before that we need to talk about the Buffalo Sabres again the lens has changed here a little bit we had our Terry Pugula meeting a couple days ago it went really well

they came out and in crush the Montreal Canadians last night right they look motivated and ready to roll actually I'm sorry getting a quick text here they lost badly yet again in the building for that one was Frankie Carrata who but before before you before you talk, I saw a post on blue sky last night, gassing you up. You have entered the realm of people just blindly quoting you on off the broadcasts on social media. Confidence is building

evidence with your own eyes. That's a direct Frankie Carado quote. I think you said that last night at some point and people loved it. So what's up, man? Wow, that's, uh, it's nice to hear. Um, it is like confidence, it really is. Like, You have to see it with your own eyes and you have to have like the highlight reel going in your head. And the highlight reel for the Buffalo Sabres could not be any further from confident. Like what is the highlight reel right now? You're getting scored on. You're having meetings with the owner.

That's, it is a wild scene around that team right now. That was, that was a dejected group. And it started like 19 seconds into that game last night. That, Lindy Rough can't find the words. He's coached over 1,800 games in the NHL. And if that guy can't find the words, like, what are we supposed to say? Like, how do we have the words for this? It's crazy what's happening there.

It feels like 20 years coaching should be enough to find the words. Hey, maybe cover Patrick Liney on the power play. Oh, my God. Maybe send a dude over there. Maybe you have just have a guy on that side. Was that the second goal? Dude, I'm so happy. I'm so happy you went right for that.

Thank you for doing that because, so Lainey had three power play goals. in his first four games. And then, of course, everyone catches on like, hey, we got a, it's a bull rush every time he gets the puck. And then you know a team is bad when they don't do what everyone else has consistently done since Patrick Linae has come back because the first power play last night, they have all four of their guys on one side of the ice and who's all alone, right by himself in the one-timer spot, Patrick Line, and I'm watching this thinking, that's why you're the Buffalo

Sabres right there. Everyone knows you got a Bull Rush line ace and it's like the second game that he's played, but you guys refuse to do it. He's the one guy on that power play that's like a true, a true, like what have we seen from Montreal's power play over the last couple years? It's been a disaster like in terms of generating chances in terms of actually scoring goals. That's been like the thing for the Canadians that hasn't worked is the power play has been terrible.

And then this is it over two years. Not even over two years. I got to give a shout out to this. There's a Twitter account called Habs on Reddit. And every once in a while, they'll tweet out like, since 2011, 2012, the Habs have the worst power play percentage in the NHL. It's a long time to have the worst power play percentage. And then the guy, the guy comes, the guy who shows up and changes stuff immediately, it's like, no, we're going to let him. We're going to, we're going to let him hang.

Someone asked me, it was Tom Dran on his show on Vancouver Radio yesterday. We were just BSing about a bunch of stuff. And the question was like, where do you start with the Buffalo Sabres? Like, how do you fix this? Is there like one move that you make before all the other ones to try to try to get this thing back on track? And I couldn't think of anything initially. I'm like, is it trading? Like, what is this?

When you look at this roster and you look at things are going, let's confine this to the on-ice question first. Like what is even what what can happen like like Frank you saw it you saw it first hand last night like is there is there some kind of is there some kind of fix there on the roster like Kevin Adams keeps saying and Terry Puguel keeps saying that you know seems like it can it can write the ship because it doesn't feel like it's not in there. I'm telling you right now it's not within that group there has to be something there. But you know go ahead and trade Dylan Cousins if you want. He's a pretty good player. He has, like, he's, like, he's, he, he, he scored 30 goals in this league before. And the history lesson, like this, this has to be right up DGB's alley. The history lesson with the Buffalo Sabres is incredible in the sense that so many young guys have gotten, have been asked to do too much, too early with that team. Well, you know, the players have come and gone, but a Buffalo Sabre being asked to do too much, too early, too young, and then go somewhere else and have. and has a little more support, a little more stability, a better situation, and then we get to see what that player really is, whether it's Eichael, O'Reilly, Reinhardt,

Jake McCabe, like, I don't know, you want to keep going down the list of guys that Yoki Harri, I was talking to someone before the game, right? Remember when Yoki Haru was playing with Duncan Keith in Chicago, and Duncan Keith was saying, like, his kid's really good, like, just offensive guy, I'm just going to hang back for him. you put Yoki Haru away from Duncan Keith, well, he's not that. And he doesn't have the stability. And so what is he?

He turns into a guy who can't make the Finnish national team. That's what's happened to Henry Yoki Haru over the last couple years. Yonai Hockenpa made the team. And he's not even playing. He's got half a knee. He might not be able to play. He isn't playing and might physically be unable. And the Finnish national team is still like, all right, we'll take this, we'll take this guy over Yokiari.

There's no one thing. Like, DGB, you tell me, like, you've seen the history of this kind of stuff. But there is no one thing that that Buffalo can do to turn this around. And it's not a quick fix at all. It's, I can't imagine anybody thinks it's a quick fix. And you're right. Like we're at that time of year. We're all watching Christmas Carol, right?

The ghosts of Christmas past, present future. The ghost of Sabres past hanging over all this is Sam Ryanhart. That's the worst case scenario, right? The guy that you have, you invest a high pick in, you develop him, you think you've seen the level he can get to. goes somewhere else and becomes an MVP candidate. I think the first step is the first of many, obviously. There's nobody out there who thinks there's one step here. But when you've got Kevin Adams sitting there going, well, guys, we don't have palm trees.

We can't, we can't side a bunch of free agents. Veteran players have us on no trade list. Okay, that's all true. So you got to make deals for younger guys, and that means guys might be leaving. You've got to have the confidence in your evaluation process. And clearly there's something wrong in Buffalo when it comes to development. I think that goes without saying. And I don't know the inner workings of that team, but knowing the owner, I'm guessing they don't have the most robust development group out there.

So, I mean, that's a big part of it. Honestly, I think the first step is you just got to get the billionaire to fly in in his private plane and tell everyone to work harder. that's clearly that's the message that that works i mean i when i saw that boy i i should i should have thrown thrown down a few bets on montreal in this 100% because i've never been a high level athlete my athletic career topped out just short of frankies um but i will tell you man i have sat in rooms of teams that were demoralized, not sports teams. I'm talking like in the work world where morale is bad, the results aren't there. And the boss comes in, the CEO that you haven't seen in months comes in and goes,

everything's fine. I'm not going to change anything. Just everybody work harder and then leaves. And everybody just looks at each other like, screw this. What was it? What was the name of that software company work? I could. I don't want to give many free advertising.

I think they changed names recently, which the Sabres might want to consider too. Frankie, like, had you ever seen anything like that with an owner coming in and basically preemptively saying, we're not going to make any changes, nothing's going to change, nothing's going to happen, and how would that play? I have never seen anything like that for the general manager to come in and address the team, Like to have a formal, guys, be in the room at 930 in your stalls because the GM is coming in and he's talking to us. That is a big deal. Like Lou Lamarillo, I've seen do that.

Kyle Dubus I've seen do that. I mean, I think one time Jimmy Rutherford came down after the first period in Carolina and ripped us. It was horrible how bad we were that game. And Jimmy Rutherford came in. Those are big deals when that happens. for the owner of the team to have to fly in and address the team. And maybe he was flying in anyways because he likes to go watch games in Montreal. So be it.

But owners don't typically address the team. The, you know, player owner kind of exposure is, hey, we're having Thanksgiving dinner at Larry Tannenbaum's house. And you say hi. And you say thank you for everything. And you're very gracious about things. And every once in a while, you'll see like, I used to see Francesco Aqualini after a game.

say hi, thank you, appreciate everything. Same with Larry. Hi, appreciate everything. Thank you. And you're gone. And that is it. Owners addressing the team is just not something that happens. It's drastic enough when the GM has to do it.

That is wild. And for that team to go out there and put out that kind of performance after the owner came to talk to you, like that would leave Lindy rough with even less words than he had before. And like, don't let Lindy off the hook either, right? Like, everyone is guilty. around the Buffalo Sabres. It's not just Adams. It's not just the players.

It's not just Pugula. It's not just the coaching. You would have to go in and undo 13 years of mismanagement and missteps that have led you to this point. And also to like take it back to maybe a more normal workplace sort of thing because I've worked at places like this too.

Not the current place for whatever that's worth. You know whenever the people, the people you're working for are cheap. And you know when you don't have the money or whatever, the resources necessary to improve. And if you're a dude on that roster and Terry Pugula shows up and he's like, no, you guys are doing great. Like I think the answers are in here.

Everybody's got a phone. Everybody can check Puckpedia or sport track or what. whatever spot rack, whatever the salary tracking site of choice these days in is, and everyone can see that they're $10 million under the salary cap. Everybody knows that. So it's like, okay, like, the answers are here. A very quick answer would be trading for someone on the middle six who can help or signing someone in the offseason.

That's why the preemptive strike from Kevin Adams, where it's like, people don't want to come here and do that. It's bogus. It's not true. And you don't need to trade Dillon cousins. Money talks. You don't need to trade Dillon cousins to do that because you've got a million prospects and you've got the cap space. Yeah.

So you could go and add again. There's lots of teams out there looking to sell pieces. So it's there if you want to do it. But apparently Kevin Adams has convinced his boss that he doesn't have to do his job. Yeah. Well, guys. there's other comparable markets to Buffalo where they have to draft well, they have to develop well. And in order to be a good team, like, that's their bread and butter because there's other teams that are on those 10 team no trades that free agents, I don't know, they decide against.

Like the Winnipeg Jets, they have to draft well, they have to develop well. They're playing under the same conditions the Buffalo Sabres are. And here's the crazy thing about, you know, the palm trees and the recruiting things. like you had Jack Eichel. You just chose that you didn't want to let him have the surgery that he had for whatever reason. You had him though. You drafted him. You had, you had O'Reilly.

You had Reinhart. You had Jake McCabe. You had, like, go down the list. You had Evan Rodriguez, DGB's favorite player. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you had all these guys. And it's just the mismanagement is crazy to me. and like you you you drafted them like you didn't have to recruit them but you let them go for

whatever reason because it wasn't going to work there and now we we know the answer the answer is it's the buffalo sabers it's not those players so dylan cousins if he moves on and goes somewhere else i'd be buying his stock because i think he's going to be he's going to be good wherever he goes and he's going to get away from that black cloud where at one point Ryan O'Reilly. I can't think of too many guys that love hockey more than Ryan O'Reilly. Like I know him a little bit personally. That guy lives for hockey.

He loves it. He lives and breathes it. For that guy to say that he's lost his love for the game years ago when he was there, that's like I'm blown away by that. And that's what the Buffalo Sabres have done to players over the years. If you have an owner who isn't willing to spend and isn't willing to do what it takes, nothing else matters. It doesn't.

Like you can say that in any sport, not just the NHL. And there's plenty of stuff that's gone on with the Sabres over the last five years, over the last 10 years, outside of that first initial boom whenever Pugula bought the team

that suggests that, that dude doesn't have what it takes. He doesn't have the stomach for it. And if you're not spending the money and if you're not putting money into the team, and this is not just the roster either. This goes back to issues with the arena there. Like there is an output issue when it comes to that ownership group.

And if you have that looming over your head day after day, when you're not a cap team and you're playing like, there's clearly things that they're just not willing to spend money on, that underscores everything. That sets the tone. And that causes problems just across the board. Because at some point, the fan base realizes it. You realize, and I'm saying this,

someone who lives in Pittsburgh and has been a diehard Pittsburgh Pirates fan for most of my life. There's there's nothing more demoralizing than knowing you have a dude who doesn't care at the helm. And I think that's something that Sabres fans are, if they haven't come to terms with it, then they certainly are now. If you have someone who's not willing to do what it takes from a financial standpoint to truly compete and to make hard decisions and spend money to make money, nothing else matters. So that brings it back to what we said earlier. Like what is the fix with the Buffalo Sabres?

What can they do? And we're sitting here like, who can they trade? And like is Owen like what is the fix for Owen power and blah, blah, blah. We're asking hockey questions about this. And there aren't hockey answers. The answer is someone else probably needs to own that team. Or Terry Pugula needs to have some kind of Christmas Carol Scrooge moment where he realizes

that, you know, this isn't the way to live. This isn't the way to be the steward of a professional sports organization. So there isn't an answer. And you go back to the summer, okay? Like it's funny that you bring up the cap because everyone was so underwhelmed by what they did this summer. Where, okay, you bring in Ryan McLeod, who's actually played well and is going to have career highs this year. No problem.

You needed some speed. But you had money to spend. You bought out Jeff Skinner. And all you did was you brought in guys like, hey, you brought in Obey, Be Kubell and Sam Lafferty and Beck Malenstein. And it's like, that's not moving the needle. And one vet, Jason Zucker, like, that's a guy who's going to, he'll give you an honest effort for sure.

And he's been around and, you know, that's a good guy to have in the locker room. But that's one guy. Like, and, and they just, they kind of sold it as, well, we just needed speed. We were a slow team and we signed speed. Well, how about you sign speed plus, you know, players that can help you win? Like, if you're really trying to get somewhere. And then you left money on the table. Like, it's wild.

Everyone in Buffalo was pissed about that. And like, that should have been a precursor into what was going to be this year. I don't think anyone expected them to go on this kind of slide. And, hey, you don't have Rasmus Dahlene for the last seven games. Like, we can understand that if you were, you know, you lose some here and there. But the way they've lost, multiple games where they've had leads, seven games out of this 11 game winless streak, they have had leads. Some of those multi-go leads, they have chased multiple goaltenders from games and they haven't been able to. finish the job.

Like, and, in games where you got depth scoring, like you get Jack Quinn giving you two goals against Toronto on Sunday, those are the first two goals he scored on a goaltender all year. And then the big boys don't give you anything. It's like you almost can't pinpoint it at any given time. What's going to go wrong with this team on a game to game basis? So how do you have a chance?

You don't. It's a moving target, man, because at times the first line's been good overall, you know, the overall, the, Peturka, Tage line's been solid, but also they have games where they're, where they're, where they don't show up, right?

And then like to the point where Petrca's gotten scratched and whatever. So it's like a moving target from a, from a hockey standpoint. But the through line again, man, like we don't have palm trees. We're not a destination city. Like whatever. Find a good middle six player and give him $500,000 more a year than that than his other offer. Beat someone's offer because this is a, this and theoretically, is a win now, like, it's a win now team.

You have a bunch of guys who should be getting better. Tage Thompson's not going to be better in three years than he is right now. Recognize that. Show some urgency. Be realistic about your situation and find ways around it because other teams that are in cities like Buffalo, Frankie, like you said, they make it work. So if you have to pay more, pay more, try to make the playoffs, fix problems on your roster. And they haven't done that.

seems like they're not, they're going to continue to not do that. And they're doing this all while meanwhile, the Ottawa senators, the team that was neck and neck with them for years, is making the leap and making the leap on the strength of their big aggressive offseason acquisition that they probably overpaid for, but they went out and they got it. I think that's a great way to set the table for segment two, I think. Frankie, unless you have something you want to leave us with about the Ottawa senators, we might save that for after the break.

Who are you talking about? Was that a goalie that used to play for Buffalo? I just want to make sure we don't leave anything on the table. I just want to tell you guys a quick owner story before we go. So every year, we would do Thanksgiving dinner at Larry Tannenbaum's house, which is very, very nice. Okay, hold on a second. How many people were there? I'd like this like full on.

It's a huge thing. Everybody? Okay. So it's all the leaps, all the raptors and all the staff and spouses are invited. and a lot of like the big corporate sponsors are there. How big is this guy's a living room? It's not a living room. It is like, yeah, it's real deal, Holyfield.

Is there like a kids table, like a little card table set up for like the scratches and that? It's hilarious that you bring that up because initially, this is my first experience there, I was seated at what you would call the kids table. I am, you know, in the corner somewhere, me and my girlfriend, who's now my wife, and we're just like deer in the headlights looking around it like holy smokes this is this is really cool what a place we're at and we're with like you know we're with leaf staffers in a corner table it's all good we're happy and someone who's like organizing the event comes up to me taps me on the shoulder and goes hi mr carrato um we actually have to move you to a different table um is that okay with you

and i said uh yeah sure no problem so we say bye to everyone at that table um and then they moved me to a table which is like not the head table, but very close to the head table where like I'm now sitting with like Shanahan's like four seats down. Like I'm like the Bell CEO is like right next to me.

The Rogers CEO is like across from me and Jess. And we're looking around. We're like, do they realize? Like did they get the wrong person here to put here? So we sat there all night. We had a great dinner. I was not like a regular player on that team.

I'm sitting with like some of the biggest heavy hitters in the MLSC, you know, world. And then it dawned on me that all the other, you know, guys, dudes per se would have been accounted for by, you know, like other corporate people. So they went all the way down the list and they're like, okay, like he's taken, he's taken, he's taken. And they finally got to me and they're like, oh, he's not taken. We'll just move him there to fill a couple steets. So we went. Yeah.

So we went from, we went from the kitty table like DGB. mentioned to basically the head table and had a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner there. And it was, it was awesome. It was a great time. But it was very, it felt very, very foreign to be sitting there with, with that company of people. Meanwhile, a furious Frank Mahavolich was sitting at one of the outsider tables going. How come I'm not up there? Yeah, there's, DeMarreauze and's like eating, eating, you know, a plate of a plate in his lab because Frank's because Frank's at the big boy table. Dwayne Casey did like, he did a speech. And Babcock did one too. Casey's was way better.

But Dwayne Casey did a speech and somehow he found a way to mix in getting Damar and Kyle to buy into playing defense into his Thanksgiving dinner speech, which was wild that he could weave that in. Never turn off a coach. That's fantastic. And by the way, just since we've done a fantastic job of working this back to the Maple Leafs, the Buffalo Sabres, 11 games in a row that they've lost, they've been on the road, which is probably a good thing for them. They're back home. They get a couple of days off for it to percolate.

And then they're back home Thursday night or Friday night, I believe. The Toronto Maple Leafs are in town. So half the building is going to be Leaf fans and half the building is going to be furious Sabers fans. And I don't know who's going to boo louder. But this has the potential to be very, very ugly on Friday night. Yeah. You look at the schedule right now after losing 11 in a row and you go, can't win that one. Not going to win that one. And you're like, how long? Like, after 11 games, you're like, I guess I'm not going to give them credit for winning any of these games. Like, their last win came against San Jose. That was November 23rd. The previous win was Anaheim. It was the night before. But like, the last two wins are against San Jose and Anaheim. My goodness. Like, there's,

there's a lot of work to be done there. But I think we solved it. I think we should, we should have all the answers. They just got to listen to us. Sell the team. It's that simple. easy easy peasy frankie merry christmas buddy uh we'll talk to at some point down the road hope you and jess and the girls have a have a good have a good first christmas together dude same to you guys thank you merry christmas taking a look at the eastern conference playoff picture is next this is the athletic hockey show all right we're back it is time to take the obligatory look at the eastern conference playoff picture like i said at the top of the show we do this a lot because we are the Das or the East Coast media.

We have nothing else to add to the proceedings, but it's also relevant. You should really think about adding a second conference at some point, you know, like that. There's going to be Eastern Conference and then way Eastern Conference. That's right. Dude, the picture has changed a little bit over the last week. This isn't just as defaulting to our natural state to talk about,

you know, the Metro Division and the Atlantic Division. things are shaking up and I think in the last week or two that goes doubly. Doesn't Frankie alluded to it or you alluded to it. I think at the top of that is the Sends, break them up. They look like they're good. I have been writing for the better part of the season about that trio of Detroit, Buffalo, Ottawa, saying each of these teams is one four-game win streak away from being right in this thing. And the senators were the first one to get there.

And they're doing it, as we said, on the strength of goaltending. This is what the plan was. Go out and get a veteran goalie. Go out and get a guy who can steal a few games, but also just give you the good goaltending that lets you win the games you deserve to win where you're not. sitting there going, oh man, we gave up that one bad goal. We had this or that happen. And it didn't really work for the first month.

It's working now. And, you know, this is certainly not a lock. We have been down this road with the senators before. Every senator's fan can tell you that they have had multiple seasons where around this time a year or a bit earlier, it looked like it was going well. And then it falls off a cliff. But for now, this is what the plan looked at. like in Ottawa, good young players taking steps forward, doing what you expect them to do,

and finally having the goaltender back there who makes it work. Now, they're certainly not running away with anything. They're just sitting in that last wildcard spot, and a big part of the reason they're doing it is because people like me for weeks have been saying, oh, man, things are bad in New York, but the Rangers aren't going to actually miss the playoffs. Well, now the Rangers are missing the playoffs. And that's opened the door for Ottawa. Pittsburgh, kind of back in this again.

Even Philadelphia is hanging around there, which, you know, it's a race. And it's going to be one of those races where probably every week we do the show, there's going to be some new team cycling into it that we have been ready to count out and someone else is dropping back. But for now, it's Ottawa show and they're earning it. It was 8, 2, and 1 in their last 11. That dates back to November the 24th. In that span, they're getting 926 goaltending from Lina's Walmart, right?

Like, it's that. It can be that simple. They have the best, they have the best or highest say a percentage in the league. By a site, we're talking 12 points ahead or thereabouts of what Edmonton's getting from, from Stu Skinner and company. So when you have the best goaltending in the league for a 10 or 15 game stretch, and that's what we're talking about with Ottawa right now. You're going to win some games.

But it's also not just Allmark. I think that's important to say too. Like this is a team that's, you know, their top 10 expected goal differential in that span at five on five. You know, they're making it stand up behind Allmark. The easy, the tough part is settled.

Like, we can agree on that. 926 over 11 or 12 games, man, you're you're sitting pretty but I think the most um the most interesting part and I think the most encouraging part for sense fans is it like this isn't just a goalie heater either they're playing better across the board and I think one hand washes the other on this right like you get goal you get good goal tending it's easier for it's not a coincidence that all of a sudden the guys the guys are playing better around him we've certainly seen it go the other way right where a team

seems to be playing well but the goalie isn't you get a couple bad goals and the team just seems to collapse. And look, the other part of this is, you're right, goalie heaters happen. Any team in the league can get 926 for 10 games. It's just the nature of this sport and the randomness and guys getting hot, cold, and pucks going in and bounces happening or not. Any team in the league can get 926. But not every team in the league went out and spent $8 million a year on getting a goaltender

who recently won a Vezina. Like it's not like they just went and overspent on some guy who coming up one hot year or whatever. They picked their guy. And we'll see. We'll see over the four years, five years, if it works out long term. I mean, we could certainly, the nature of goal to ending a month from now, we could be sitting there going, hey, didn't play out properly. But for now, this is the plan. And this is, it's, it's, if you're a senator's fan, this is what you wanted to see, right?

You had to, Dorian's gone, DJ Smith is gone. All of the guys, all of the, the scapegoats from Eugene Melnick on down, have all left. And yet the season was playing out exactly the same way. And you're sitting there going, oh, no, I mean, this, this Ottawa team, 10 games ago felt a lot like the Sabres, where you're just sitting there going, what is it that's fundamentally wrong that we just can't get out of neutral? here and the tires keep spinning and we can't make any progress. Suddenly it's happened. Maybe that gives you hope if you're a Sabres fan or a Red Wings fan or maybe it just makes you want to kick a wall because you're sitting there going, how come they can figure it out?

Well, part of the reason they can figure it out is they sat down. They said what's our biggest, the biggest hole in our roster right now. Yeah, let's fix it. Go out and let's be really aggressive. Let's fix it. Let's overpay if we need to. but let's do it and not sit around and make excuses and talk about while the, you know, the answers are in the room and it's really hard to make trades and we don't

have palm trees. I'll tell you, I'm in Ottawa. I'm looking out my window right now. There's no palm trees there. I don't see any. Right. There's no sign of life period. But there's signs of life on the ice for the senator.

You know, I've never, I've never been, I've never been Ottawa in my life, not once. Really? Yeah. We've got to get you up here. I think that live podcast, everybody. Oh, baby. From Ottawa. From DGB's dining room table.

We're doing a live show. It's the athletic hockey show. The reason we're talking about this, I think, is they gave us a good peg. Ottawa did. They beat Seattle 3-0 last night. It's a late-night game. Allmark made 30 saves. They get goals from Pinto and Noah Greger and Stutzla down the stretch.

So that's like, you know, what more can you ask for? Seattle's a half decent team. You get a great start by the goaltender, a goal from your franchise center and secondary scoring and whatever. Like, it's like, that's textbook. That's what good teams do. With that win, they moved back into the wildcard spot, briefly held by the Pittsburgh Penguins who beat L.A. in Pittsburgh in overtime last night. That makes them 7-2-1 in their last 11 games.

We need to maybe take Pittsburgh seriously again. I was ready to ignore them as much as I can personally and professionally with the way they were playing a month ago. But man, this is a team that has been pretty good. And they don't have the cheat code of getting 926. goal attending. It's been pretty average across the board, but they've found a way to grape together some wins.

They're obviously ahead of the Rangers and the flyers and the blue jackets and that extremely mediocre bottom part of the Metropolitan Division. I think I don't want to say we wrote them off too quickly because that remains to be seen. But they are a relevant team

in the playoffs. push in December and I was I was ready to discount that as a possible. I'll say that I wrote them off too quickly because I said you know what window slam shot and now Kyle Dubas has to figure out how to fix this absolute mess and you know there's I wrote a piece where I was like let's look back at other

guys like Sidney Crosby who finished their career never making the playoffs because Crosby was staring down you know he hadn't been in in two years this was going to be year three they probably weren't I was writing them off for next year and the year beyond that. And they're not in, but they're in the mix. And that is surprising.

And you're right. I'm sitting there from a distance going, how are they putting this together? And is it real? And is this sustainable? Or are we seeing their absolute peak is they can get back to 500 and get to like ninth or 10th in the conference and then they fall back again? I mean, it's easy when you're, if you're playing half decent hockey, which they are, I think that was a good win for them against L.A. last night. The Kings are a good team. They scored an early one. Pittsburgh dealt with it and pushed back and end up winning in overtime. Another goal for McCartarkell, which is just wild, wild to watch. Rob Rossi dropped this in his post this morning. This is where a lot of it starts for Pittsburgh. 23 combined points by the New York Islanders,

New York Rangers, and Buffalo Sabres dating back to November 23rd. Like we can sit here and gas up the Penguins if we want and look at the games that they've won despite getting kind of whatever goaltending still and Sydney Crosby's on a goalless streak and all this stuff, whatever. We can play up the Penguins and act like we were wrong. Whatever.

at the end of the day, their greatest quality over the last month has been being not horrible. That goes a long way whenever you got those teams behind them that are playing the way that they're playing. I mean, we just talked about the savers for 25 minutes about what a joke they are. But the penguins are the direct beneficiary at that. Like some team is going to sneak in that doesn't necessarily deserve it because of how badly things are going, you know, in some key spots there. And that starts with the Rangers. Like they lose and lose again to the worst team in the league. They've now lost twice.

I saw Arthur Stable say this. Twice in a week to the 32nd ranked team in the league based on points percentage. Last night it was the Nashville Predators. They're trending even further down. I didn't think that would happen after the way things have gone over the last couple weeks, but this is a team that well and truly seems like it's lost its way. And there's a part of me that's like tired of having this conversation. Yeah, me too.

It feels like we're now into week four of what's wrong with the Rangers. But we have to because they, it keeps playing out. This is the longest running dramatic miniseries in, uh, in the NHL right now. And, you know, we can't say they haven't done any. They made the trouba trade, but that obviously wasn't there. And that wasn't a trade that was designed to make them better in the short term. But it just is completely falling apart. And you keep wondering, what's next for Chris Durry?

What do you do right now? We talked about ownership in Buffalo. Well, we know what the ownership is like in New York. So who even knows what those conversations are like? And whether they're being spoken or screamed or maybe sung. but in any event it can't be fun to be Chris Dury right now

but you know what happens? What do you go out and do? Do you go out and try to make a big trade? Can you even do that? Are there palm trees in New York City? I don't know. But it's

I mean you have to you feel like you have to do something. It's the same with Buffalo, right? Like there is a world I get it where coming in and saying, I believe in you guys. I believe you guys are the answer. I'm not going to come in and make a bunch of changes.

Works. It's a vote of confidence, sure. But again, like, having been in even somewhat related situations, the people you're talking to, in this case, the players, they know when it's BS. They know when they need help. And to tell them that you're not going to provide it, either explicitly, like the Sabres did, or just by your actions, the Rangers. where it's, I mean, we're into week four of this. Who have they added? What have they done to try to get better?

I don't know, man. And I get it. It's the middle of the season. And yes, we have a salary cap and blah, blah. It's hard to be an NHL GM. It's a hard job. You get paid a lot of money to do it. Go do your job.

I've said this before. General manager in the NHL is the only job in all of hockey that you're allowed to say, my job is hard and we're all supposed to go. okay, don't worry about it. Igor Shisterkin goes, guys, making saves is really hard. We go, oh, okay, then don't worry about it. Mika Zabanajad says, guys, scoring goals is hard. Backchecking, stopping the other team's top forward in that matchup, it's really difficult.

If he said that, we would all just dump all over. If Peter Lavio Lett, you know, like Lindy Ruff, we're dumping on him for basically saying coaching's hard. And yet a GM is allowed to say, my job's hard. And we go, oh, well, don't worry about it then. Just the level of egotism it takes to say that sort of stuff and speak directly to fans in that capacity too. It's like you don't get it. Like it's difficult.

Like as if the response a hundred times out of a hundred from a fan base shouldn't be like, I don't, I don't care. I don't care. Like go, you know, like your fan base is like you think your fan base? Anyone out there has a hard job that they're then taking a huge chunk of their page? check to drop on tickets or or merch or whatever it is to to watch your team. And you make, you know, 10 times, 10 or 20 times what they make. Yeah. It's hard.

It's a very hard job. Get out there and do it. Get out there and do it. And also like, like, is the team winning games or not? That's the only, that's the only thing anybody cares about. It's every other spot in an NHL team from the backup goalie to the start. to the star forward, to the assistant coaches,

the coaches, the scouts. Everyone else, the mantra is it's a results-oriented business. And yet GMs are the only ones who are allowed to see. They don't even have to say. We say it for them. I mean, do it. Go on Twitter and say,

man, the Rangers should make a big trade to shake things up and see how long it takes for someone to explain to you that there's a salary cap in the NHL. And, you know, gosh, this stuff is really tough. And meanwhile, you know, and I've done this rant a million times. And people out there who follow me and listen to me are rolling their eyes right now because they've heard it a hundred times. But the NHL, they sit there and they go, well, you know, we want to add this third line winger.

It's going to take months to put that trade together. Meanwhile, in the NBA, some team has a three game losing streak. They make a four team trade. I guess NBA GMs are just smarter than the NHL guys because they seem to be able to work through this. They seem to be able to figure this stuff out. But in the NHL, it's just, Sean, it's hard. Trades are hard.

Writing articles about the NHL is hard. I think I'm just not going to do it for a few weeks. It's difficult and see, and see what happens. It's not, by the way. It's so easy. It's, it's the easiest job I can imagine.

Yeah. Yeah, because there's, there's just a general lack of accountability. And I think GMs, for the most part, so many of them now, you know,

or if they're not tethered to a president of hockey operations, they are the president of hockey operations themselves. And then above that, it's like, who's mine in the store? Like, half the time it's a, it's an absentee owner and in some capacity.

And they're all, they're all just trying to save their jobs. That's it. Like, this is, this is guys who are trying to stay in the big chair and keep getting paid. And that's fine. Um,

but they're packaging it as, as something else. But I, and I don't appreciate that. I think that applies to a lot of guys, but I don't feel like Chris Drury is that guy, if only because even heading into this offseason, they won the president's trophy last year. I've got a piece up this morning where I'm like, hey, do you remember last year when they had the best record in hockey?

And even coming into that, like Chris Drury was sort of like, I'm going to make changes because from what he saw in the playoffs, it was almost as if he didn't feel like this team could quite get there, quite. get to the ultimate goal, which course is the Stanley Cup. And so, you know, he was going to make the changes, but then he didn't. And it's almost like that's the worst thing you can do. In a league where the default setting now is nobody changes everything and everyone just drafts and develops and then stance Pat and hopes it works out.

To say we have higher expectations and we're going to do something and then not do it, maybe it was the worst thing. But I don't feel like Chris Drury is just sitting. there trying to rack up service time. Like I feel like he wants to. But at some point, wants to, has to turn into found a way to

because this, this Rangers team is, is spiraling in a way that we've, we've almost never seen for a good team. Yeah. Teams like the Sabres, we've seen it. But teams like the Rangers going from 114 points or whatever,

it's not supposed to be this way. Yeah, I should be clear. I would like, jury say what you will about him. That guy, that guy cares and he wants it. I was more defaulting to talking about the Sabres again,

where it's just like, yeah, I have an obligation to the guy that signs my checks, not necessarily the fan base. It's just a repellent way to go about business. To say one more thing about the Rangers before we jump over to segment three. And Sean, you kind of alluded to this. They're three and 11 in their last 14. Luz of the Preds last night, as we said, 5231 goal differential in that stretch.

painful. Their next set of games, this is their schedule from now until, basically for the next month, from now until the 16th of January. Stars, canes, devils, lightning, Panthers, Bruins, caps, Blackhawks, Stars, Devils, Knights, Aves, Utah. Wow. Yikes. Things are going to get worse. Things are either going to get a lot worse or a lot better because, I mean, if you, look, if they were playing the Sabres tomorrow night and they beat the Sabres, we'd all go out to Sabres. You didn't prove anything. We won't be able, they brought off three wins in a row. We won't be able to say that. But holy smokes, that the, I had not seen that. It's nasty. That is something else. That is frightening.

Shout out to our buddy Adam Gratz, who posted that after the game last night. By the way, The Rangers don't play the Sabres until the end of February. If you're a Rangers fan, oh, man. That's going to be a tough one when the, when, when the Rangers lose to the Sabres, snapping the Sabres 37 game using streak. That's going to be a tough.

Drury might have to do something by then. It's hard. It's hard, though. It is hard. You know what? I take it back. Be right back for segment three. All right.

We're back. It's time for what we've learned. What have we learned, Sean? Yesterday, and I saw this from our buddy Marat who covered the Jets, the Winnipeg Jets, then Kevin He to an entry-level deal. He is the first China-born player to sign an NHL contract, which I can't say I'm surprised by that, but it's still cool as hell. He's 18 years old.

He was a fourth-round pick in 2024. Born in Beijing, he moved to Canada with his family when he was six. So he came up through the hockey canada system, obviously, but that's still, that's, it's always cool to see stuff like that. And Marat covers that stuff better than anybody too. So I can imagine there being an interesting story about Kevin He, coming down, coming down the pike. So congrats to him. I wanted to point that out because like I said, anytime you see a first like that, it's a cool

thing. He's the second China-born player drafted, but the first assigned an entry-level deal. And again, it happened yesterday with the Jets. So stick tap to him. That's very cool. I had not seen that. So my thing that I learned is that I'm a huge Ray Bork fan. And one of the stats that I always used to pump up Ray Bork is the fact that he led the league in shots multiple times, which is pretty amazing for a defenseman.

Last night I learned that Luke Shen is apparently going to take a run at Ray Borg because Luke Schen did something absolutely amazing last night. He had six shots on goal in a three-second span. And I saw it floating around. I saw the score sheet floating around, and my thought was this has got to be an error. Like somebody hit the button too many times, but you can find the clip. He was by the side of the net and the puck was bouncing around,

and he basically got six wax at the puck, each one of which just went into Igor Shisterkin's pad. Like Schisturkin didn't even really have to move, but he hammered the same puck into Schisturgen's pad six straight times, giving him six shots in three seconds. I don't know what the record is. That has to be it. And I can't imagine anybody breaking that. And I can't imagine that if you had just dropped down from the heavens this time yesterday and said, somebody's going to have six shots in three seconds tonight, anybody would have been like, well, that sounds like Luke Shen's music right there.

how many how many active players are there in in the nchl like 600 whatever seven or 800 probably yeah depending and he has to rank like 790th on the i'm watching this i'm watching this clip for the first i'm watching the clip for the first time i hadn't seen until you were talking this is like it's bubble hockey it's a bubble hockey player who's like who you know is where the where the puck is just in such a position that it's never going to make it past the That's the goal tenure. And you're just, it's,

it's, it's, or it's like a video game where, like, you know, the, the puck just starts bouncing between the goalie and the guy and, you know, it just glitches for a few seconds.

And it's, it's very funny. Somebody who's good with computers, uh, needs to find a way to turn this into a, uh, a looping gif that is done well enough that it just looks like Luke Shen infinitely shooting on like.

Cause I mean, it, it summarizes the Rangers season too. Like, I mean, I, on the one hand, part of me is like,

how do you let a guy get six shots? from point blank range. But also part of me is like, there probably isn't on Peter Lavillat's whiteboard, a how to cover Luke Shen section. Like I don't know whose man Luke Shen is, but what are we doing? Are we going to crease clear Luke Shen?

Like how is that going to work? Did Luke Shen get? I feel like if you went out like Luke Shen in the other team's crease would just start clearing it himself out of force of habit. Like he would just get confused. And this is the guy who, I still remember him. He was like in his second or third year with the Leafs.

Again, it always comes back to the Leafs. And like he took a slap shot and everybody was blown away. They're like Luke Shen learned how to take a slap shot. That's fantastic. Good for him. Uh, yeah, six shots in three seconds. Uh, I don't know, man. I don't know that I can do anything six times in three seconds.

Stees? But maybe. Are you like a triple sneeze guy? Do you ever do back to back to back to back? I am like that's a back sneeze. And I also, this is this is a bit of a sensitive topic because I've been told multiple times that I sneeze like a duck. And I now have that that was a mild point of contention for most of my life, but I now have two teenagers in my house. So I just get roasted.

And then, you know, I'm a dad. So I have to do dad sneezes. I have to shake the whole house. And I mean, people come out of their rooms just to roast me for my duck like sneezes. We need to get like a running list of all the, of all the rows from, from the kids on you. No,

no, we do not. It can be, it can be private. You can just, you can just, you can just send that to the group. They're the meanest people in the world. Teenagers are so mean,

especially to people like me where there's lots ample opportunity. Ample opportunity? It's a target rich environment, let's just say. I gotta pass along the Shen News to Haley Salvean. She's a, she's a charter member of Luke's troops back in her day,

as a as a as a as a as a as a as a as a as a as a we're saying um all right buddy i think that's it for us rules court is back talk about that real quick buddy come on that's right yeah i'm i'm excited about it the people demand it we've got it uh we we we were abandoned by our our third member uh so we've got uh we've got a newbie coming in and uh you know what i'm not even gonna say who it is we're gonna let that be a surprise, but I will tease it by saying this edition has what might be my favorite suggestion that we've ever received. My previous favorite had been the person who wrote in and said that if a referee has their arm in the air for a delayed penalty and another penalty is committed, that the referee has to put their second arm in the air and skate around like that. That was my favorite up until now. I think this one might be in that territory.

And, yeah, I know spoilers, but I think we unanimously pass that one. A plus, yes. Yeah. And you think Mendez is going to get his name on the cup whenever the Sends win it? That's a great question. I didn't even think of that. Time to find out. We got seven months or whatever.

All right. Thank you, bud. And thank you folks for listening to The Athletic Cocky Show. Haley and I got the next one. That's tomorrow. Frankie McIndoo and I are back, Jan 8th, 2025. So that's when you can catch us in the new year. It's closer than you think.

But until then, Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Happy holidays. I'll talk you tomorrow. And like I said, the three of us will see you folks in a couple weeks.