The Athletic Hockey Show - Why has the Habs rebuild worked so quickly?

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

The Montreal Canadiens are one of the hottest teams in the NHL right now, currently sitting in the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race. Max is joined by The Athletic’s own Arpon Basu to talk about the Habs rebuild, Lane Hutson’s game, and how the playoffs could work in a 36-team league. Before that, The Athletic’s NHL insider Chris Johnston joins the show to recap last week’s GM meetings, including changes to next year’s All-Star weekend, potential Houston expansion, and the great playoff races happening as the season winds down.Host: Max BultmanWith: Chris Johnston and Arpon BasuExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris Flannery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Hey, everybody, Max Bulbin here for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show, this episode presented by E-Trade from Morgan Stanley. Laz is out today. Arpin Bass, who's going to join me a little bit later on to talk about the oncoming freight train of late that is the Montreal Canadiens. But first, I want to welcome in our NHL insider at the athletic, Chris Johnston. Fresh off the NHLGM meeting, CJ.

Let's start there because Gary Bettman had some interesting comments at those meetings about reevaluated the All-Star game for 2026. Obviously, the huge success of the four nations, the impetus there. But he was kind of purposefully vague on what that means when they say re-evaluating. Do you have any thoughts on what that might look like things the NHL might be considering in that format? Well, the one thing I can say for sure is we're not going to have what we're used to on All-Star weekend, right? So it's no All-Star game, three-on-three tournament. That's wiped away.

I think where there are discussions happening now is deciding, will there, be an on-ice component at all on that weekend because there's still going to be something in Long Island just before the break, you know, to go over to the Olympics in Milan because there's all sorts of reasons for that. For one, just announcing that you're going there. It's been included, I believe, in the Islander season ticket packages. So there's, you know, there's a whole element of making good that needs to be done. But the question is, do you still maybe have something like the skills competition we've seen. Do you mix and match that with an off-ice component, some kind of fan fest? I mean, I do believe that there's a number of different options that are being discussed in

the NHL is trying to decide which is best. I will say personally in this case, I think they made the right call by veering away from what's happened. I mean, it's not just the four nations face off being such a home run. What happened at the same time as that? The NBA held its All-Star weekend and it got panned. It got panned by players in the All-Star weekend in real time. Forget all the know-it-alls like us that are on X or other platforms, you know, just commenting on on how lame it was. And I think the NHL recognized, like to go from the level of engagement and enthusiasm, they created it to Four Nations to something that sort of, we already know, was tired, wouldn't

be a good look. And so they're going to try something new. And they've only got a few weeks here, I think, to really settle in on what it is. But, you know, it's kind of interesting that they've made this call in real time. Because if we were having this discussion, honestly, even at the start of February, I I don't think that would have been even remotely on the radar, but it just shows you what a sea change moment that four nations face off might be for the league, just in terms of reevaluating how it does what we'll call special events or events held outside the regular season. Well, I thought that was one of the interesting things at the time of the four nations because you would see, you know, on ESPN or whatever, they'd say how look how good the NHL's all-star game is. And they're talking about the four nations.

And I'm thinking about it. I'm just going, they can't do that every year. You can't have a full four. And you're not going to get that level of buy. And certainly you can't do it in an Olympic. year. I wonder if like a really souped up skills competition is kind of the answer. If you could get real buy in at a skills company, that's probably the best you could do, I think. Yeah. And, and, and do you know, maybe there's ways, because I know they've sort of flirted with this in the

past, but to involve, you know, former legends with current players. Like, like the, like, I guess that's maybe what you're getting at with the souped up version. But yes. You know, I think that there's ways to do things we still haven't seen in the skills competition. To be fair, look, I'm not a big fan in an all-star game. I've got this gray in my beard. I think it's probably somewhat of age-driven thing for me. But, you know, the one thing I didn't mind the last time we did an All-Star game in 2024 in Toronto was the skills. I thought that they did create a format where the players, other than Nikita Kutrov, you remember, but everyone else was pretty engaged.

And it was an entertaining two to three hours, whatever it ended up being. So I do think that there's probably more threads to pull there. And that that's likely the answer in addition to something off-ice. I mean, one of the main reasons actually, I didn't mention that this. is still going to go on is every player that's going over to the Olympics has to come to the New York area anyway to get charter flights to Italy. So the NHLs, in addition to the fact they've announced that the Islanders and UBS Arena are supposed to get the All-Star weekend, they also have all the best players in the league coming through New York next February already. And so I think as much

as it's, yeah, it might be a contractual type of things. It's also just knowing, hey, this is a pretty rare opportunity right before the Olympic tournament to make use of having all these guys or so many of the league's impactful players there. And so, yeah, let's see where they land. I'm willing to be open-minded, but I'm with you. If we're comparing it to the Four Nations face-off, like, I don't know if anything will ever compare quite again. I mean, a lot of elements had to come together to make that even more special than just

a hockey event, even some of the political stuff, no matter where you fall on it, I think it just added tension to it. It added attention for sure. Like, people that don't normally watch hockey were kind of tuned in on that. And so you can't recreate that, but let's see if they can find something maybe the fans will enjoy, though, that looks a little different. Yeah, it's something that won't ask the guys to put their bodies on the line at the level that, you know, obviously before in Olympics, you're not going to do that. But you're never going to replicate that with nine years between best on best. That was a key driving factor in why that was such a good thing.

And we hope to never have it go that long again. So that's kind of inherently part of the problem there. One of the other things I thought was interesting, they talked about kind of the Canadian dollar and its potential impact on the cap. You know, we just got these really tantalizing cap projections. Significant growth could be coming to the next couple years. I'm excited. I think everyone's excited. But now there's this wrinkle is we don't know exactly what's going to happen with the Canadian dollars.

The tariff situation unfolds. I'm not going to ask you to predict that. That would be impossible. But how worried do you think the NHL actually is about that? Or is it more of an acknowledgement just to kind of keep it on people's minds? No, I think the fact that Gary Bettman's talking about that publicly suggests it's more than just an acknowledgement. And like, I, you know, generally speaking, he doesn't want to fend, you know, the speculation on something. But, you know, that's a very real issue. And it's obviously way beyond anything the league controls in any way.

I mean, a main driving issue, what makes the NHL unique, I'll put it this way, is you have seven of the current 32 franchises based in Canada, which make a lot of the revenues, if not all of them in Canadian dollars. But most of their expenses are in U.S. dollars because that's how pairs are players are paid. obviously they're traveling a lot in U.S. a lot of different bills are paid in U.S. And so there are two currency league. And right now from a guy who just spent a couple days in Florida at those GM meetings you're mentioning, like I just noticed on my credit card bill, the Canadian dollar, you see a change in what it is as someone who makes money in Canadian dollars who has to

go spend U.S. dollars. And so, you know, I think it's going to have to unfold over a bunch of time here. You know, a lot of the tariff talk that's going on between the two countries' governments, you know, could have some impact. on what happens. And at the end of the day, the NHL basically has to be a bystander. I mean, we've seen,

you know, I'm going way back into the past year, but there was a time, I'll call it 25 years ago, where the Canadian dollar got very weak at one point and the league came up with basically a program that helped subsidize some of the teams that were struggling with that,

particularly at the time in Alberta. So, you know, in the past, there's sort of been what we'll call emergency measures enacted by the NHL if things get really bad. And, you know, I'd have to imagine they would do something like that again. Because, you know,

the league is a collective. It's 32 individual franchises. Obviously, they're all operating on their own balance sheets. They're all trying to win. There's only one Stanley Cup each June. But, you know, the health of the overall 32 is important to the league as a whole. And so, you know, I, no matter how this shakes out, I think the league will be on top of it, but it's definitely a big issue. And it's probably doubly so because some of those markets are seeing the cap potentially going to, you know, $95 million next year, up to $113.5 million in three years time. if the projections that were released in January are true, that's a lot of money in U.S. dollars if you're a small market Canadian team as it is.

And then if the dollar goes down even more, I mean, this will be a red alert thing up here in the country I live in. We got about three, four weeks of really enjoying the, oh, we're about to have this boom before there was a new wrinkle thrown in. So very fitting. I wanted to talk to you all about the playoff races today because they're both really good right now. The East has five teams within five points for their final spot.

West has four within four. St. Louis has won six in a row. They got a couple more games played than the rest of the field there. So that's a factor that just won again right before we're recording this on Sunday night. I know every year there's some good playoff drama, but I just feel like this is one of the more compelling, you know, last month setups that we've had in a while. For sure, I think especially having both conferences where there's a fair bit, you know,

with 10 to 12 games-ish left on most team schedules, it could go a lot of different ways, even in terms of the matchups. There's very few that are crystallized to this point, which I think makes it compelling, even if you're cheering for a team that your confidence is going to make the playoffs. I would be so scared of the blues right now. And I know it's almost a little irrational because right now they're occupying the last spot, the wild card two spot on the Western Conference side. But it reminds me it's like echoes of a few years ago when the Panthers had the rally to get in late.

And then they upset the 65 win Boston Bruins in round one. Now I'm not predicting St. Louis is going to. upset a Winnipeg or Vegas or whoever they ended up getting in the first round. But, you know, I think how a team plays down the stretch is critical. And the Blues now have, you know, they, if you look, like their hot run started even before the trade deadline. I mean, in the days leading up to the trade deadline, I had Braden Shannon, a few other blues players pretty high up on the trade board.

I was doing at the athletic because I do think there was an internal debate about, you know, do we or don't we with some of their players. Obviously, they ended up not selling. They've won a lot of games. And when you look at strength of schedule, they're actually, you know, have a pretty favorable schedule left ahead of them. Now, you have to go win those games just because you're playing weaker teams. It doesn't guarantee you get the points.

But, you know, I think they're set up in a really good way to maybe be a spoiler, not just to get into the playoffs. And that adds to it for me, too. I mean, on the eastern side, you know, Montreal's kind of had a similar vibe here the last little bit. I know you're going to have ARPIN on later, but, you know, the Canadians have done a lot of winning since the four nations break. And that's how that's propelled them into a playoff spot.

And they were another team, like right up until Marpen. March 7th. Internally, they had players like Yuel Armina, David Savar. They had some guys that they were looking at potentially dealing that they had interest in them and they were sort of wrestling with that decision. And I think they're probably pretty happy. They didn't, even if you're talking about taking off a third line or a third pairing defenseman, I mean, that they didn't weaken their chances because they have something

special brewing. And so, you know, I look at the game that was played on Saturday, the Rangers and Canucks, like not necessarily the most compelling hockey game ever contested, but man was a compelling because it's two teams with a lot to play for. They had goals going back and forth in the third period, even though the Canucks had a huge advantage on the shots clock and they ended up losing that game. So I think that's, to me, that's what this time of year is about in the NHL and it's, it's been a great weekend. And I think we'll have a few more good ones before we get to the playoffs. Kind of the textbook Rangers game for this season too. You come away not particularly

impressed by them at all and you can't deny, you know, they're right there and they've got one of the three or four best goalies in the world and how could you even bet against them even given all that. Right. And they really haven't got hot. Like that's how I've, I've been waiting all along for their burst of winning five in a row or something, you know, which most teams that are at about the level they are can do. They haven't really had that. They feel like a win one, lose one, win two, lose two kind of team.

I'm with you. I, until they're officially eliminated, I'm not going to believe they're not making the playoffs. That's almost the way I view the Rangers. I know that they've given you lots of reasons not to believe this year, but given how successful they've been the last couple seasons and they've remade themselves in season. I don't even know what they are at this point, but all I do know is they still got a chance. I do think that Canadian there's such a compelling story. The Islanders are making it a little interesting too, and we'll obviously talk plenty of Montreal with ARPEN, but man, that is a young team that I don't think knows that it's

not supposed to be doing this. And that's like the most dangerous thing you can have at this time of year when guys like Cole Cawfield, Uriislavkovsky, Lane Hudson, get on a roll. The vibes there are remarkable. Yeah, I mean, for me, it's like going to the Vatican. If you're Catholic going to a game of Montreal, like I, I've always called it my favorite experience of any of them. And there's tons of great buildings around the league. It's not to, I don't say that as a negative about anywhere else.

But I just think it's so unique in Montreal. And especially when you get to big games, like part of what made that four nations face off, frankly, so cool was the first couple games being in Montreal, the Saturday. night, Canada, U.S. game with the three fights. I mean, it just, it feels like an amphitheater or something for hockey. It's just different than other arenas. And you, I think that that actually plays in their favor. I mean, like, they come back on Colorado Saturday night, down four, one and the third. I know they lose still the game, but they get it, maybe what turned out to be a crucial point in that one. They've had a couple other comebacks recently. Like, like, there's sort of a,

it's almost like the 13th man of football. Like, there's a seventh man kind of vibe to what the bell center can be for the Canadians. And I think especially, when you're talking about with it being a young team. You know, who knows that they're going to get in. But again, I still think if they make it as wild card one or two in the Eastern Conference and they're going to be playing obviously a team that's heavily favored, I mean, it could be an upset kind of potential just because they're definitely on borrowed money, house money.

And, you know, they've played well to get there because they would have had to win a lot of games, you know, basically from February 20th on. And whoever they're playing is going to be expected to win that series in four or five games. And I've just seen enough playoff hockey, you know, it usually doesn't have. happen that way. Well, I'll say this, as we talk about the NHL's, you know, potential dollar issues and gate issues, Montreal or the Rangers getting in doesn't hurt that one bit. Certainly Montreal, especially after being out for a couple years. Yeah, if you're on the HRR team, that's what you're,

you're cheering for like, you should get hats. Like, you know, like Rob Lowe's like NFL hat, we should get HRR hats. I mean, there's people literally in the league office and the players associations office who think about that stuff because, you know, every playoff game, even seeing series go six or seven, it's just more gate revenue that's that's brought into the league. I know at the end it might be a rounding error with how big the business is, but every little bit helps. Yeah. One last thing before I let you go.

Arpin and I are going to talk a little bit later on about expansion. And obviously there's the reporting that came out last week on the potential for Houston. Obviously, we're in early stages here. I know there's a CBA negotiation coming up in the next week or two here. So is it a week or two or is it in the next, within the month of April, right? That's kind of the time frame on that. Exactly. Start of April.

So let's call it a week or so. Yeah, a week or so out here. Obviously, we'll probably jump in the car before the horrors to do it before, to talk too much about it before they do the CBA. But where do you think the league stands on expansion? I mean, we hear this stuff about could it go to 34. Obviously, Houston's the hot city right now. I don't know how much of this is, you know, routine. And I know the league always meets with it.

But usually when you start to see names get out of potential owners. That's when my ears really perk up. Right. And in this case, Dan Friedkin is a pretty appealing name when you, when you, look at him owning, you know, a couple big level soccer teams in Europe, you know, was, was part of the bidding for the Boston Celtics and ended up getting that team. But, you know, someone who's emerged as a pretty ambitious sports owner, you know, in other leagues. And, you know, the bulk of his auto business is based out of Houston. I mean, there's, there's just

a lot of synergies there. He's a relatively young guy for someone with, with multiple billions to his net worth. And, you know, he's someone that's that's really emerged on the NHL's radar and has had multiple conversations with them that the league's acknowledging publicly. So, you know, I don't think we're putting the card too far before the horse to discuss that for all those reasons. You know, it's certainly not like Houston's coming in next season or we're not saying anything like that, lest we be misinterpreted. But, you know, I do think in a world where the CBA negotiations go smoothly, which

everyone seems to think they will, you know, there's a Canadian TV rights deal that has to be done here in the next few months, which is a big piece of business for the league head office to handle. and then maybe the next major item after that is figuring out what expansion looks like. And so I feel like it's less of a discussion of it's almost like how many teams are we doing it? How are we staggering it? How do we introduce this? There's a lot of once you get to a point where you want to have a team there, then logistical issues get into it.

You know, what conference do they play out of? Are we changing the playoff format? We know the league doesn't want to do that right now. But if you're introducing a 33rd or maybe 34th team, are you really going to go to 35 and 36 in somewhere in the nearer horizon. I think a lot of that still has to be played out. But Houston as a market has been on the NHL's radar for a long time. I think what you have now is a really attractive ownership situation there.

You have this situation, frankly, where pro sports teams, the value of them is skyrocketing across all of the leagues. And so you're going to get a huge expansion fee if you go to Houston. You've got two groups right now bidding to build arenas in the Atlanta area and bring a team there. So I mean, as much as I know Atlanta has been tried and filled twice, wouldn't surprise me if there's a third attempt on the horizon. And then it's almost like, okay, so that's 33 and 34, kind of unofficially spoken for, you know, I don't know where they go with 35 and 36 because they're, you know, you think Phoenix again, some attempt at Phoenix again, right? If, if they could build an arena

there. I mean, hopefully they do it by my retirement, man. I'll move out there. That's where I'll cover that next, uh, Arizona team at some point before I hang up the, the notepad. Maybe that'll be a perfect end of my career. Yeah, you're Bob McKenzie era when you come out with your signature cocktail too out there, right? Well, I do want to still work. So that's why we need the hockey team there. And then we'll, it's a perfect ground trip. But I think quite honestly, look, and I was raised in Canada and there was a lot of cynicism at the time around sort of the Sunbelt strategy. I mean, I think over time here, it's proven pretty great. I mean, one of the things we're talking about is to these Sunbelt teams, whether it's Florida, Vegas, Tampa, do they have

too much of advantage with this, you know, no state income tax and the great weather. I mean, it's flip from this is this terrible strategy the league has to where I think they've got lots of big U.S. markets that are attractive from media standpoint, from just having a lot of people there that could be interested in hockey. And I do think the league is growing up. And this is a, this is a really prosperous time for the NHL. Awesome. Great stuff. As always, from Chris Johnson, NHL Insider at the Athletic. We're going to take quick break right there. I'll be right back with Arpin Basu. All right. We are back and we are joined now by Arpin Basu from the Athletic in Montreal.

are been covering maybe the hottest team, if not the hottest, one of the hottest teams in the NHL right now, the Montreal Canadians. I just wanted to start with a kind of broad look from you at where this season turned around for Montreal, because I remember looking back in early December, this was not going well there. And you flash forward a few months, there's been a couple changes, but they just are riding some immaculate vibes. And I don't say that to diminish it.

I think there's something tangible to the Canadian success. I want to hear from your perspective. What's gotten into them? Well, there's definitely a demarcation point for the Canadian season turning around. And you can pick a bunch, right? But the one for me is on December 18th, the Canadian sent Justin Barron to the Nashville predators for Alexo Gare. Right shot defensemen undersized, but like super quick, great defensive instincts,

and filled a glaring hole on the right side of the defense. Frankly, a hole that Justin Barron was unable to fill. He was given every opportunity to do it. Couldn't do it. It's a young player. He could still pan out and have a great NHL career, but right now he wasn't serving the Canadian's purposes. Carrier comes in.

Since that trade, the Canadians are 21, 11, and 6. That's a 632 points percentage over a pretty large sample of games, pretty much half a season. So we're just shy of it. So it's, you know, they had a blip. They, you know, heading into four nations, they had, they won one out of nine games. But since that trade, that's really the only time

where they have not been the least bit competitive. They had an insane road trip that was frankly supposed to kill their season over the holidays. You know, they went after Christmas, heading into New Year's. They had a game in Chicago in Vegas. Or no, sorry, I'm getting that the wrong order. Vegas, Chicago, Colorado. And before that, they had Florida and Tampa. And so of those games, guess which one they lost?

The one in Chicago. Yeah. So, but yeah, it's just been, you know, it looked like going to the four nations, it looked like, okay, this is over. And frankly, I think Canadian's management looked at one win in nine games and we're like, okay, we're selling again, same old, same old. But they came out of the break. They won their first five games out of the break.

Basically, forced Ken Hughes to keep a promise he made to the team at the beginning of the season where he said, like, we don't have it to say. set plan on how we're going to run for the first time since he's been there. They left it up to the players to determine how they would manage the trade deadline. He said that in training camp. And so when they won five games coming out of the break, I think he had opportunities to sell a few of his players and get like pretty good prices for them. But he would have lost a lot of credibility in the room because they had basically done

what management asked them to do. So, you know, credit to them. I think they've, they're far from a perfect team. You look at some of their underlying numbers. Not great, frankly, in many areas. But there's a certain gamer quality to these guys. Best evidence on Saturday night, they're down 4-1, deep into the third period against a powerhouse Colorado Avalanche team,

pump in three goals, tie the game, make it to overtime, get a point out of it. It's just what they do. They did it three games in a row last week. So seriously, resilient group. that's really, you can kind of see them maturing before your eyes if you watch them closely. What you mentioned the underlying numbers, that's one of the places I wanted to go to, particularly with Lane Hudson, because he was a player who, for a lot of reasons, was a lightning rod and has been, continues to be through the season.

But this is a stat that kind of blew my mind. I noticed it when Corey and I were talking Calder Trophy a week ago. So from the start of the season to the Four Nations break, over three, expect the goals against Per 60, 3.12. It's one of the highest numbers in the league. Since the four nations, it's stellar. 2.29, like you're talking Zach Wrenski, Devin Taves, neighborhood there on the numbers in that time frame.

Is something changed there? Is that like, you know, when we talk about these on ice five on five numbers, a lot of it is, you know, hey, when things are going well for the team, it's going to look good for everybody. But you see anything in Lane's game that's ticked that up? Or is that more product of the team game as a whole? Yeah, definitely. He's learning the NHL game.

You know, when he arrived and when he began the season in Montreal, And I got to give Marty St. Louis and the coaching staff in Montreal a lot of credit. They let him play through it. But, you know, Lane Hudson wanted to score a goal every time he wanted a goal scored. He didn't necessarily need to score it. But he wanted to see a puck go in the net every single time he was on the ice. And so every opportunity that he could find to do something spectacular, he would try it. And occasionally, it wouldn't work out for him.

And bucks would go back the other way. And really, great A chances would be allowed. he has over the course of the season learned that if you let those opportunities come to you and not force them, then you can use your otherworldly skill to exploit them. You don't have to force it all the time. And that's been through discussion with Marte-San-Louis. It was interesting. One thing Marty said, so before the season started, you know, and everyone was wondering,

are they going to keep late Hudson? Or they get some of the H. And in their minds, it was never even a question. and it became obvious very early in training camp. But at one point, you know, since Marty St. Louis himself played four years of college and had to make the transition to pro hockey, we're like, you know, how do you see this transition happening? He's like, well, I think Lane's probably used to having the puck on a stick a lot in college.

He's not going to have it on his stick as much in the NHL. Then what does Lane Hudson do? He starts the season. The puck is on his stick constantly. Like, it's always, always, always on the stick. He's making incredible plays with it. But I think Marty's point was still valid in the sense that it should. shouldn't have been on his stick that much.

Like, he held it too much. And to be a pro NHL player, you got to move it sometimes. And sometimes it's got to be like that not the sexy moves. Just bank it off the boards. And like, and that's like one thing Lane Hudson does better than anyone have ever covered. Just as an aside is his angles on using the boards for passes is just the most insane, insanely accurate board passer I've ever, I swear to that. Like that's, that's honestly, I can say that safely.

I've covered hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of players on this team. No one's ever done it better than him. But anyhow, he's learned when to be Lane Hudson and when to not be Lane Hudson and just play the game and just manage it even. So I think that's why he can still make highlight reels, but he's not trying at every single shift. And that's why those expected goals numbers have gone down so dramatically because it's just him learning. And his rate of learning is phenomenal, just because he's like a highly, highly intelligent player. And, you know, what this guy's going to be in three years, I couldn't even predict because I think there are layers of his game that he's going to add that we could not even foresee right now. Yeah, I mean, that quick learner aspect is a huge element of it too, right?

Because both the games he played in Detroit this year, the only two times I've seen him live. I've watched him on TV plenty. I know he's had better games than the two of Detroit. Right, but I would see players or I'd go, what are you doing there? Right? And they would lead to big chances or goals. And it's, you just don't know how quickly a guy is going to get the message. Some guys, it takes their whole career, right?

Like, how long it takes Shane Gossis beer to kind of get the memo. Yeah, talk to his teammate Mike Mattson right now. He's been doing his whole career. He's been trying to find that risk reward line. And Lane's still looking for it. Let's be honest. Like, he still takes some undue risk. But it's vastly improved from October.

It was a vastly improved from October to December. and it's been vastly improved even more coming out of the Four Nations break. And I think honestly, like, we need to talk about the influence that the Four Nations face-off tournament has probably had on a wide array of young players in this league because they've been hearing their coaches at the NHL level be like, don't take risks, put it behind their D, go four check, you know, no turnovers of either blue line, all this stuff that they probably get sick of hearing. And they're like, listen, I'm this great player. have been this awesome player coming up.

And then they see Canada, USA, doing it over and over and over again, just chipping pucks, go for a check. And then they're like, oh, well, Connor McDavid can do it. I should be able to do it. You know, I think for the Canadians, it's, honestly, that's what they've done coming out of the break. They're just playing a really responsible, simple, hard forechecking game, much like we saw in the Four Nations. And that's from their best players.

That's Lane Hudson. That's Cole Cawfield. That's Nick Suzuki. That's their skill guys who kind of were reluctant to do that, have flipped that switch and are now not only willing to do it, they're like eager to do it because they're seeing it produce results. And so, you know, as far as like a big infomercial for like responsible hockey, like the Four Nations face off,

I think did a lot of favors to a lot of coaches in the NHO who have been trying to convince some young players to get some responsibility in their game. Yeah, I mean, those are players who want to be on that team in Milan in a year, right? like Lane Hudson just saw Kyle Connor get scratched, right? And he's going to go, oh, if Bill Conner can get scratched, I guess there's something to this, right? Right. You know what that board passing thing reminded me of just before I forget?

Remember, like, year two or three of the athletic? Justin Bourne did that article. I thought it was amazing where it was like, it wasn't like the typical traits. And he was like the best at all these like skills. Yes, he did. Absolutely. That would have been absolutely one of those is like Lane Hudson's board passing. Yeah, yeah, it would have been.

Yeah, he had because at the time it was, because he kind of consulted some of the writers and it's like he asked me and like yesbury cock and yami used to be really good at like kind of the hook pass like he would sort of like push the puck ahead and then just turn his wrists over and just flip things and I was like I was like watch the video man like honestly he does it twice a game it's pretty impressive and and then so he did actually watch the video and he put it in the story but but yeah the board passing would be I mean he does it every night it's it's uncanny and they're not like little passes from like the goal line to your blue line.

They're the goal line to the opposing blue line off the boards on in stride, hitting a guy in stride as he enters the offensive zone. He does it regularly. It's really quite remarkable. So right now, our friends at BetMGM, which is the official betting partner of the athletic, have the Canadian's odds to make the playoffs plus 140 for yes. That surprises me a little bit. I know that the Rangers are coming on hot.

They're only one point back. Well, I shouldn't say they're coming on hot. They're kind of coming on neutral, but they've got this huge advantage in the regulation wins that I think makes them scary as well as Igor Shosturkin. Right. They have fewer games to play. Absolutely. Right. So they're a point back with two fewer games left.

I feel like plus 140. Like that's pretty good for Montreal. If you're a Montreal fan or if you're somebody who believes in the KADians, plus 140 is not bad at all. Well, I mean, they've definitely played themselves into a good spot. You know, like they don't have all the, they don't have the tiebreak advantage on. anyone, really. I mean, you know, as we're sitting here right now, the Rangers are far and away ahead in regulation wins, but the Islanders have more regulation wins. The Sanders have more regulation wins. Columbus is won back, but even Detroit. Detroit's tied with Montreal right now

regulation wins. So that's not an advantage for them, but their strength of schedule gets a lot easier. Like getting through Colorado and actually getting a point out of that has made their schedule a lot easier to handle. Like New York still has to go to California at one point, which just can mess with the team, even if the teams themselves aren't that difficult to face. But like changing time zones at this time of year is not ideal. So yeah, I think. And plus they're just, they're ahead right now.

I mean, in terms of points percentage, they're 22 points ahead of the, you know, they're 543 to 521 for the Rangers. Like it's, you know, 529 for the Islanders, 514 for Columbus, 507 for Detroit. like 543 is a pretty strong numbers. So the one thing the Canadians have done is that they have, they've played themselves into a situation where they largely control their own destiny. And if they maintain this pace, or even the pace they've set since that carrier trade that I mentioned earlier,

they should be fine. And frankly, you know, they still have the game left against the senators. There's only four points behind them. So, you know, even that might be possible, which would be quite something because that would probably allow them to stay in the debate. vision. So yeah, I think the odds have changed drastically in a very short period of time because I don't know if you have like the historic how that odd how that line has changed but like coming out of four nations, I don't, I think you probably would be sitting on a pretty good bet if

you had taken if you'd taken that bet on the Canadians coming out of four nations. You'd be looking at a good payout right now if they if they can close the deal here. Well, I'll tell you in terms of markets who would not be thrilled to see Montreal make the playoffs and pull this off. Let me guess. That I reside in, you know, because the Red Wings have been at this for, you know, they've been out of the playoffs for eight years going on nine if they miss again this year. Montreal was in the Stanley Cup final four years ago, and they have already turned this thing over and to have now seemingly at least met, but very possibly surpassed the Red Wings in this rebroad. Just to zoom out big picture, why have they been able to do this so fast?

I don't think there's been like a magic formula to it. You know, they've... They believed in their guys. And the one thing they have going for them right now, so this Nick Suzuki-Kolkofi-Faafkowski line, I don't think you could look at it and say they're one of the best lines in the NHL, even though for the last little while they have been performing like it, for sure. But you can't objectively say that that's the case.

However, they have them all signed to what's going to basically become pretty standard second-line contracts, I think, going forward in this new sort of financial landscape. And so they're all in the sevens, which seems a little rich based on their history, but you look at their upside, you look at their age, and you look at how well they perform together, they're all playing on second line contracts, playing in top line roles. And so, you know, they didn't, one thing I think they did smartly is they did liquidate some players, but they didn't get rid of everyone. They didn't go full tear down.

They kept some veterans around to, maintain some level of mature. You needed some adults in the room, right? Yeah, countenility. Yeah, that's it. Like, Jake Allen's a perfect example, right? Like, Jake Allen, they extended him for two years to make sure that his influence remained in the dressing room.

And when it became clear that maybe he wasn't as needed anymore, some guys had matured, they moved him along and moved him to a team where he has a chance to win because they had great respect from Sean Monaghan's same kind of deal. You know, they brought him in. got what they could out of him and actually allowed him to play his, you know, to get his career back on track, frankly,

in Montreal and wind up getting a second first round pick. Like they got one to take him and then they got one sending him out. So that's been the other thing is that a lot of their trades have been pretty shrewd. They haven't missed on too many of them, you know, and the one that everyone in Montreal kind of screams about is like, you know, they traded Arturi Lekinen at the deadline a few years ago to Colorado and got Justin Barron in

return. Yeah. which wasn't looking great, but now they use Justin Barron to go out and get this guy who is frankly, it's completely changed their season, you know? So it's, they do, they do trades well.

They haven't overdone it. And their drafting remains to be seen, but so far, so far it looks okay, you know, I mean, it looks pretty good. And so Slavkoski is still not a consistent finish product.

But if he hits, his ceiling, that guy's going to be like a highly unique player in the NHL. There's not many guys like him. So it's a long answer, but like they've just done a lot of things right. And they haven't made that many mistakes, honestly. And it's it's hard to look at all the other teams around them. Like we've talked about it forever. Like, you know, Buffalo, Detroit, Ottawa, Montreal, who's going to get out of their rebuild faster? Obviously, Buffalo, it's just not, it's just not going to be them. But just the mistakes that have happened. And like Ottawa, like how many goalies did they have to acquire before they finally found one that works?

Detroit, some wonky contract additions and like just some wonky veteran ads that just didn't seem like a good fit. It's, it's, you know, Montreal hasn't really had too many of those. And the ones that they have had that have been mistakes have not really been overly crippling. So it's, I think that's the key is just don't make mistakes. Like, I guess that's either getting out of a rebuild is that you can't. screw up. Well, no, I think that actually there's something definitely to that. I mean, when I look at what you just said, you talk about the Atlantic Rebuilders. And with Ottawa, I think I can always kind of say, yeah, I get why Ottawa did it faster than Detroit because they had

the Eric Carlson deal that really allowed them to reset. It got them. Yeah, but they had to nail that deal. And they did 100%. They messed up the stone deal. Like, but you go 50-50 on those, right? But you get out of that, Tim Stutzla and now, you know, after one more trade, Dylan Cousin's Yeah, Dylan Cousins. Yeah. For the future, right? So I can, the And the Rubings couldn't do that, right? They had to pay to get off Pavel Datsu because he was going to Russia. So that, so that I can understand why it was Ottawa. The Montreal one has been the one that's mystified me. But it very well could just be the mistakes. The ribbings have given out contracts and free agency that look very quickly like, what were you thinking? There's certain trades. You know, the Jake Wallman one is the one that gets all the buzz here where you attach a second round pick to him last summer. He goes for a first, a year later. Those are, you know, whatever you think of the situation. I know people have plenty of different theories. It just wasn't the best way to manage the asset. The one, yeah, no, for sure. The Walman thing, and the Walman thing was obvious as soon as they did it, right? People were puzzled at the time.

Instantly, yeah. Only to be even more puzzled when sharks are managed to get first round out of it. To me, like, you know, back to back years like Comfer and Cop, right? Like, it's kind of like. Redundant. Yeah. What are you doing? Same off season, Hall and Petrie, right?

And you sign Hall before you know you're going to trade for Petrie. That's like the stated rationale. Right. No. It just makes it, but even even acquiring Petrie made no sense. You know, like it's, it's just like, I think they needed a stable guy. Like you talked about some of the guys who have been around. I think that was one of their attempts to try and do that.

Right. Then it's who you let go versus who you keep. Like, you don't make the extra effort to keep Shane Gossus bear just so you can go get Eric Gustafson, who's kind of like a, you know, Shane Gossus bear, but without quite as much punch. Yeah. It's just kind of weird, you know? Well, it's also, I think the difference is that like the Canadians kept guys like that.

They didn't actually go out and acquire. guys like that. They already had the guys in place who already were setting the culture in the room and had set a certain standard and had played in that Stanley Cup final in 2021. You know, like Josh Anderson, Brendan Gallagher, you know, that's actually that's about it, you know, Nick Suzuki and Cole Cofield. But, you know, Gallagher and Anderson are guys that you look at now, they've looked at forever like these anchor contracts, the Kings are never going to be able to get rid of them. They're ineffective. This, that's this. And you look now, like, those are two of the guys who are driving the bus right now.

You know, like, I mean, honestly, like, they are, like, just valued veteran and presence on this team. And so sometimes I just think, like, you know, like, and some of this is honestly just, it's just intuitive. Like, if you had given Kent Hughes and Jeff Gordon the option to, like, just slash $11 million off their payroll in the form of Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher and get, you know, a couple first round picks or whatever, they probably would have done it.

They just, they weren't going to, they weren't. And the one thing they've refused to do is they don't let people walk out of the door for nothing and they don't pay to liquidate guys. And that's another kind of standard that they've held. And like they hate losing guys on waivers. They will not, they just don't like losing things for nothing. And so sometimes that's been weird. And it's like, you know, Caden Primo is like a third goalie for like three quarters of the season last year until Jake Allen could get moved because they weren't, they didn't want to lose them on waivers. but it's made it so that some of their veteran guys could sort of get through some troubles

and actually become contributing members when the young guys make it so that the team is competitive, all of a sudden those support players look more valuable because the players playing above them are actually playing really well. So this is what I always tell like fans who, you know, there's a strong, they probably, they're not very vocal right now, but there's a strong percentage of Canadian fans who would have preferred that they tank this year again and get another high pick.

One more year is what so many people said. And the thing I tell them is that there's no magic formula to running a rebuild. And frankly, I think teams are looking at Washington right now and being like, wow, they did that really fast. Like you talk about Montreal. Like those guys almost, they went to a rebuild for like a month. You know, like they basically like,

dipped out for like a brief moment in time, sold some guys at the deadline, acquired some others at the same deadline, had a shrewd summer, all of a sudden they squeak into the playoffs last year, they have that goal differential that everyone's laughing about, which could very well be the Canadians this year. And boom, best team in the best team in the league, just like that. So I would not have predicted that with the way Washington's gone about it. And so I don't think there's a, I don't think there's, there's no try and true formula to this.

Otherwise, every rebuild would work. And it's clear that every rebuild doesn't. You could argue Edmonton's rebuild hasn't worked yet because they haven't won the cup yet. And they've been at it for 15 years now, you know, or whatever. Washington's approach could have blown up spectacularly, right? Like the guys that we're willing to invest in were not guys who the entire league was lining up for, no one was, no, I shouldn't say no one. The entire league was not lining up for Dylan Strom or Pierre-Luc Dubois.

No. The Jacob Chikrin thing in Ottawa went okay. I don't think that went amazing. They go get Logan Thompson. Like these are your difference. I think everyone pretty much like Matt Roy, but a lot of these guys that have been huge contributors for that. I don't think everyone like Matt Roy at the number he got in Washington.

He got paid, you know, like that was a risk for them. And he's a good player. Everyone acknowledged he was a good player, but it just goes to show if you're a defenseman and you shoot from the right side, you're going to get rich eventually. Like if you stay in the league long enough,

you're going to make a lot of money. But yeah, they took, they made some shrewd choices. You know, the Dubois read was not just a swing, like a shot in the dark, you know, like they actually put some consideration into that. And I think they realized that Dubois is a guy who needs to play a prominent role. He needs to feel important on a team in order to get the best out of him. And he just wasn't, he wasn't bad in L.A. He was like the third guy. And so that's pretty intuitive stuff, you know, to be like, okay, well, we know his personality type.

Let's go nurture that personality type. Let's go give him an important role. Tell him he's amazing and tell him we need him really badly and then he'll play well. That's not standard hockey evaluation. You know, that's like, that's going pretty much, that's going a lot deeper than a normal scouting trip would tell you. So, yeah, I think they, you know, but you know what? The reality is also like, I'm not convinced that they're just going to turn into this dynasty all of a sudden. Like, it could blow up at them very imminently, you know, but for now.

It was kind of a every other year guy in some ways. Yes. You could look different than it did this year. And who knows? And who knows what the goal tent is that goal ten is going to hold up? You know, like they've been great. And it's great that they got them both signed. Like that was pretty, that was pretty, you know, some good business that they did there.

But would it shock you if one or both of Thompson or Lingren just kind of fizzled out? Like it happens with goalies. There's no offense to either of them, but it just happens sometimes. And so like it did with Kemper in Washington. he's founded again. So it's like there's, that's why I just, I just feel like looking too far down the road now more than ever in hockey is not wise.

It's just not wise. And that's actually something like Montreal has pretty good at is that they just, they look in relatively short windows, even though they have like a long window view. But everything they do is based on short, short windows, which is kind of counterintuitive when you're trying to rebuild a team to like be a Cup contender in three to five years, but they always look at things in like three to six

month windows. And that's like just a point of view thing that I find interesting. Well, that kind of preempts my last question for you here, because I got this a lot last year when the Red Wings were pushing and they ended up losing out on a tiebreaker on that last playoff spot. And the question I was getting was, do you think this, they have the pieces, you know, if you're not going to be picking in the top five, top 10, do you have the pieces in the system that can make this more than a playoff team and make a playoff team and make a, a cup contender. Obviously, Demadov on the way, you know, we're going to see more out of David

Reimbacher, right? Like there's more, there's going to be more internal improvement from guys like Hudson Slavkovsky. Do you think, I mean, they're going to potentially, if things season today, they're picking 17 and 18 with their pick in the Calgary pick and what variable could be a 14 or 15 player draft. You think what they have in the system right now is enough to get them into that tier

of real contenders? No, and I don't think they think that either. I think those picks and many other picks are going to be readily available this summer. Like, I think what, I think where they are is they're at a point where draft, not that they're not going to draft any players, but drafting players to add to this core is not seen as the most efficient avenue

to adding to the core. So they've reached a stage where I think they're going to take some big swings this summer. I think they took some big swings last summer and they just didn't connect on any of them. They're ready to sort of use their draft capital and monetize it and not in the form of players. not in form of drafting players, but as a way of acquiring players. And I think we're going to be surprised to see some of the names that they might offer up this summer. Like, you know, you mentioned some of the young, like they have a lot of young players. You know, team can only sign 50 contracts a year.

It's just reality. And so there's a lot of guys that they have that they're not even to be able to sign. So I wouldn't be shocked if some pretty prominent young players, prospects, maybe even players who are on the roster are in discussions because the Canadians know that they need, well, they need two more top six players. You know, I mean, they have four. If you count the Madov as one, which I do,

because I think you will naturally slide in there. So they got four right now. Kirby Doc, they can't count on him being that. You know, Patrick Klein is there for another year. I don't foresee him being there longer than that. So I think this summer is going to be a real make or break summer for this organization, for them to be able to add some of those elements. And they have to hope that they coincide with teams with, like, for instance,

like just I'm not starting a rumor here, but like the New York Islanders are a team that have like been on the verge of needing to rebuild forever or do something. I know Lou Lamarillo hates that term, but they need to refresh themselves in some way. You know, a team like that that's lacking draft capital, lacking prospect capital. That is just, that is catnip for the Canadians. You know, like they can go and if it means going after a Boeravat or something like that, an older guy that they might want to move on from, like that would be a perfect fit in Montreal.

And there's any number of teams like that. You know, Pittsburgh obviously added a ton of draft capital and a ton of young players of late, but I think they're going to want to continue doing that. And they have to find this like basically this sweet spot of teams that are kind of crossing them on the highway. Like, they're going one way. The Canaan's are going the other. And if they meet in the perfect sweet spot, they could probably do some good business that benefits both teams. I think the canons are going to actively look for that this summer.

Let's take a quick break right there. We're going to come back and talk a little bit more about expansion. One more thing I want to talk before I let you go, Arpin, is it kind of the expansion buzz in the league. And we obviously saw earlier this week some reports about, you know, a potential owner in Houston. Obviously, that gets expansion talk revved up real quick. And I just wonder, do you think, where do you think the line is? I think it looks very clear at this point, we're going to get to 34 and quite possibly 36. Is that a good idea?

Obviously, the league has huge incentives to do it. Every owner wants a piece of an expansion pie. The Players Association is going to love 32 to 64 more jobs. That seems like a given. At what point does it stop being good for the sport? Well, I think that the one thing that you need to keep in mind, And I think, you know, where I am in Canada, a lot of people worry about the talent being diluted. You know, we're not a league where, you know, 90% of the league comes from the Canada and the United States.

And plus, we're not even a league that where all the, like, 90% of the U.S. players come from New England and Minnesota and Michigan. You know, like, it's expanded across the United States. Like, the pool of players has never been bigger. And so I think the pool of NHL caliber players is. starting to get bigger and bigger. So I think that's less of an issue now. My concern is they've already changed the landscape or the balance of playoff races so many times over the last little while. And I would imagine that if they go to 36 teams, you know, if Gary Batman's still around at that point, I can't imagine he will still resist the urge to add

playoff teams. If he does, then that would just be a complete moronic thing to do. But I mean, it's Like it's got to be more playoff teams if that's the case. And what does that, you know, what does that, what does that, what does division alignment look like? What does travel look like? Do teams play every other team every year? I don't think you can with 36 teams. I don't know.

I've never done the schedule matrix for the NHL, but it's already complicated enough, getting into every rink at least once. I don't see it happening. It's 36 teams, which is fine. The NFL functions just fine with not being in every stadium every year. year. I just feel, you know, the billions of dollars that would come in is so enticing that they better do their laws of unintended consequences, you know, practice really diligently and just go through every scenario and every possibility of what can go wrong with these

billions of dollars coming in. And the problem is that the billions of dollars coming in is going to make everything look like it's going to go right. So they're really got to put that aside and decide, are we hurting the game here? And I'm not convinced that they would be. I'm just concerned that there's going to be something out there that they did not foresee that's going to be a real factor going forward in the 36 team league if they ever get there. Because 37 would just be weird. You'd have two 17 team conferences.

Like that would be, how do you even, how do you even do that? It's strange. Well, I feel that way about the playoffs. I actually am okay with it's to get at 8 even if they expand. Unless they can find a way to do that first round, NBA has something fairly quick. I don't think you want teams sitting, especially in hockey for too long.

We already see in baseball. The teams that get that buy and are off for a week seem to be at kind of a disadvantage in those playoffs to the teams that had to play in the wildcard rounds and are still in their rhythm. I would not want to be a one seed getting a buy in the NHL. No, definitely not. that was coming in hot? No, but you can do

Best two out of three in four days or something. Best two out of three in three days. Like honestly, as soon as humanly possible. And if it goes to the limit of three games, that so be it. Then you're playing three times and three nights. Both teams are doing it. So there's no advantage.

And you deserve to be at a disadvantage if you were the ninth best team in the conference. Well, that's it. Exactly. And it's all in one building. Like, no travel. Like, I would have. So if it winds up being seven,

versus 10 and 8 versus 9 to get in, then three games in the building of team 7, three games in the building of team 8 on three consecutive nights. And if it goes that long, then that's what happens. And then they get like a day off and then they start round one. And that's it. And then you have a serious disadvantage playing in those plans. And the team with the buy actually does have an advantage. Even the rust that's going to set in, maybe game one that'd have a disadvantage. But by game three, the advantage would clearly be on the team that was rested. There's also that plus one idea or whatever where you start. It's a two game series, but it's really a three.

It's a best of three, but the higher seed already has one in hand. Right. So the other team will win twice on the road if they want to steal it from them. I think that's right. That's, yeah, that's not bad. I mean, I think a play in would be cool. Like I just, and I just think it would just, you'd have more teams in it. You know, you think about it now, like you're talking about,

Detroit, right? Like, we were talking about Detroit earlier. Like, you know, Detroit would be, they'd be three points out of the play in right now, instead of being five out of the playoffs, which doesn't sound big, but it is big. That's a big difference, you know? So, oh yeah. And they're chasing the islanders instead of, you know, instead of the Caneans. And not that the Canaan's, but they've been like a really hot team. They've been hard to catch. They've lost once in regulation in their last 10 games are collecting points really regularly. Like, so it's, it just creates more drama. it creates more excitement. Like, you know, the Islanders would be in right now.

And instead of thinking, like, where are we going? We're in no mainsland, which they still would be. But I mean, it's like, it's still, they're in a playoff spot right now if there's a play in. But it would suck for a team like the Senators, honestly. The Senators would be at a play in. And they don't deserve to do that. Like, I feel like they've been one of the better teams for a long time. Like I talked about the Canaan's records since September 18th.

I don't have it in front of me, but the Senators record since right around that time is insanely. good. It's really, really good. And so they've been good for a very long time. They don't deserve to have to play a play in, but if that's the system, that's the system, and you just deal with it. And then, you know, and then the onus is on them to, like, not be in the

wild card. Get into the top three spots. And there's certainly a chance that the Senators, you know, catch the New Jersey devils here down the stretch. I think they're actually ahead of them already on point percentage. Devils would certainly deserve to play in a playoff series the way things are going to go to them lately. The one other thing I want to say, you mentioned

like the quality of player pool, I completely agree with you. We have plenty of forwards and defensemen that are NHL caliber. I worry about it in goal, though. I worry about adding four to eight. I say bring on, bring on more bad goalies. Bring them on. I say bring them on, honestly. We deserve an era of bad goaltending.

Like, all due respect to the goalies, you know, we had such an era dominated by goaltending for so long until very recently. Like, we're now in an era where the goaltending is not dominant for the first time. in over a decade, you know, like it's, and more than that, probably this century when goaltending has not been the dominant position in the game and the games are so much more compelling as a result. So if we have more bad goalies in the NHL, I'm all for it 100%. Bring them on. I just worry about like how big of an advantage are you creating for one of the teams that just

happens to have one of those eight to 10 bankable money guys? Well, you know what's going to happen is that when those bankable guys come up in the draft, you're not going to wait. They're going to go top. five, like you're going to, you're going to use a tight pick on them, you know, like, the Canadians got Jacob Fowler in the third round and they're laughing about it now. And they said, you know, Ken Hughes said recently, like, we would have taken him in the second round and they traded that pick for Alex Neuhoek and they still got him in the third round.

Like, it's, that's insane to me. Like, he's one of the top goaltending prospects in the world right now. But, you know, the days of like Andre de Vasselisky going, well, what do you go, 16th overall or something like that? 19th, right? So I think we'll see that again, you know, the real blue chip goaltending prospects. in that environment would become more valuable. And you know, you had to ask Rob, you had a few others, you know, Walsett and obviously

COSA and all that. But what's wild to me is that, so let's say Houston comes in for the 27, 28 season, which is probably the earliest they could conceivably do it. That would be 10 years after the Vegas expansion draft. Yeah. That is actually not that fast when you frame it that way, you know. That is a wild, wild thing to me that Vegas will have been in the league for a decade and will have fleece the entire NHL 10 years prior to that.

Like honestly, like the greatest, just the greatest fleece job in NHL history was that expansion draft and what they did. I was just looking at it earlier when you told us, when you told me that we were going to talk about expansion. Like, I had forgotten the extent to which the hoops through which Dale Tallon and the Florida Panthers jumped. Did you read Craig's book, Craig Constance's book yet? The franchise?

I have not yet. No, I need to. It's really good. There's some really good stuff on that expansion draft in particular, talking to George McPhee and just, you know, the way they did it where it was like, not only do they make the deal, they told the other GMs, like, you can't tell anyone what our deal is because they knew it would mess with their other deals that they were. Of course. I mean, if you, like, if you just go to the Wikipedia page for that draft, like, all the trades are there. The Sabres traded them as these. There's some trades that you just forget about.

And like in hindsight is ridiculous. Sabers trade a sixth round pick in the 2017 draft. for Vegas to take William Carrier. Like, they said, please take this guy. We don't want him. I think he was first to take Shea Theodore, if I'm not mistaken. They did. And they also got Riley Smith to take Jonathan Marciusso.

Oh. Yeah. Like, in exchange for taking Jonathan Marcioso, we will give you Riley Smith. So they got two of their original misfit players in the same transaction. It's just wild. Like, it's honestly. some of these are just so crazy but I was actually kind of thinking of

which teams are going to be like I guess most impacted and honestly like you think of like the teams that are trying to come out of a rebuild at that time in theory Detroit Montreal God willing Buffalo at some point but teams that have like gathered all this draft capital

drafted all these players and and have like this big pool of promising young players who are still, who have been professionals for three years or more, which was the rules back then. Like I think you couldn't, any player would have been a professional for two or fewer years

was ineligible for the expansion draft. I'm not mistaken. Yep. Like those teams are going to get dinged, right? Like, they're going to get dinged pretty hard by this. And it's hard. I don't think anyone's ever going to do anything like this ever again. Oh, actually, you know what?

The Shay Theodore thing is worse. The Ducks traded Shay Theodore to Vegas in exchange for Vegas selecting Clayton Stoner, who still has one of my favorite names of all time, Clayton Stoner. But yeah. They got a first to take somebody. I don't know if it was, was it William Carlson? William Carlson, yeah. Yeah, okay, that's who I'm thinking.

Yeah. The Blue Jackets traded their first round. It was an immediate huge impact player for them. Yeah. They traded a first round pick, a second round pick in 2019, and David's. Clarkson. They unloaded the Clarkson contract for Vegas to take William Carlson, who became a 40-gold score almost immediately. It's just brilliant. It's amazing. We're not going to see one that good ever again, unfortunately, no matter how many. I think the owners in Seattle are wondering what the hell they did.

It's like, honestly, like, I think they're a little... They're doing it the typical way, though, right? Like, they're going to, they draft Natty Baneers and Shane Wright and Berkeley Cat. And that's just the normal way to do it. They just didn't get to do it the... The Vegas Way, the George McPhee special. No. All right. That's going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show.

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