The Athletic Hockey Show - Why the NHL’s suspension problem isn’t going away

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

In the wake of Florida Panthers forward AJ Greer’s three-game suspension for boarding Calgary Flames forwards Connor Zary, Max and Laz discuss whether the punishment fit the crime, how the NHL could do more to curb these kinds of dangerous hits, and the major obstacle preventing those changes. Plus, The Athletic’s own Aaron Portzline joins the show to discuss the surging Columbus Blue Jackets, who despite a 1-0 loss the New York Islanders on Sunday night, remain one of the league’s hottest teams. And, to close things out, the guys talk about the teams with a lot at stake down the stretch towards the playoffs.Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusWith: Aaron PortzlineExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlanneryWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hey, everybody, Max Bolman here alongside Mark Lazarus for another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. Fun show on tap today. We're going to talk about what is at stake and which teams have the most at stake on this NHL playoff race. Aaron Portsline's going to join us shortly to talk about the Columbus Blue Jackets, who have been one of the best stories in hockey since the Olympic break and even actually before that.

But first, I want to get to kind of the news of the night here as we record this Sunday evening. And that's the AJ Greer suspension. It is a three-gamer for the Florida Panthers forward after the boarding hit on Conner Zeri. And it's kind of the second, you kind of have to view this in tandem, I think, with the Matthews suspension from last week. The Radco Goud has hit on him. That gets five games because of that one, Department of Player Safety, I think, and because of the high-profile nature of Austin Matthews, the Department of Player Safety was under more spotlight, more scrutiny than even it normally is. It's kind of a constant conversation that we have year-round in the NHL.

and I think the Greer one is going to be another lightning rod in this. I hate that we have to qualify everything, right? Oh, it's a bigger deal because it's a star player. It's a bigger deal because the player got hurt. It's a bigger deal because it's a playoff game. Is it a dirty hit? Is it something we're trying to get out of the game? And whether it's the Goudas hit on Matthews,

which was a dirty hit that we won out of the game, whether it's Greer on Zari, which was a dirty hit we want to get out of the game, whether it's one of any number of Matt Rempe hits in the last couple of years, or Jacob Trub or any of these headshots, do we want to get it out of the game? And if we want to get it out of the game, it's got to be better than this. It can't just be three games, four games, five games, two games,

phone hearings and all this nonsense. Nothing is going to change with the kind of punishments they're doling out. And the Greer suspension is absolutely laughable. Laffable. That was such a violent and dangerous hit. And to get only three regular season games for that, I don't know what we're doing here. All right. So a couple things there. So the first one is the hit itself. And the hit is a bad hit. It's one of the more dangerous hits you can make in hockey is it. It's actually in a lot of cases more dangerous to hit at that distance from the boards. And really, this wasn't necessarily even a hit. It's more of a shove. But he shoves him down far enough away from the boards that he is going to run basically head first into the boards with the stumble. And that's, I think, where the fear comes in here. And then that's the reaction that you're having, right? Is that this is a head and neck.

you know, super risk for a play like this. I think the issue with the suspension length is always comes back to precedent. And you look at like, okay, if we wanted a higher number of games here, you would have to find precedent, I think, to deliver that. Why? The precedent is bad. The whole justice system. The precedent is not sufficient. It's failed us for years. Why? Just because they screwed up three years ago and they screwed up two years ago and they screwed up yesterday. Do we have to screw up today? Because you are going to get an appeal.

You are going to at some point go before a judge and you're going to be asked why you're drawing the line here. I guess you could raise the minimums for certain suspensions. But the issue that I think is going to keep coming up here and is going to be, it's the defining issue with trying to get higher suspensions is in order to do that someone's going to have to file a grievance. You're going to have to fight for it. who would file that grievance, Las?

I don't know, but part of the problem with this is the... No, there's an answer. It's protecting both. That's the answer. So the body that is responsible for trying to pursue that is the same body that represents Greer. And at some point, whenever there's a guy injured, we take the, you know, the sympathetic look, I think for good reason and be like, hey, you know, someone has to stand up for this guy. But who's going to file that grievance on the players and say, hey, we want all the, you know, the same thing. all of our guys to get five games, 10 games, to lose 20% of their salary, to lose whatever it might be,

sitting out these games because of this hit. I don't think that's ever going to happen. Well, no, and that's the problem, is the union is representing both the victim and the perpetrator here, right? It's a flawed system, and I know the union has to represent all of its members. Everyone who plays in the hockey game is a member of that union. If, you know, if I was at work and I got decked by somebody who was in my union, it would be complicated and weird. I understand that. But we have to figure out a way to better legislate this, to be more consistent, to be more severe, and to actually get this stuff out of the game. Because this just keeps happening because the punishments are so weak and pathetic. Well, that's, I think, like, what I wanted to talk about is I think that you can make an argument they should be more severe.

I don't think it's going to happen at a dramatic scale. Maybe you could go get this from three games to five or six. I don't think it's ever going to be a 10, right, unless it's like a consistent repeat thing, which is a factor a little bit for Greer. He is considered a repeat offender here, but it's not on the level of like a Goudis or even like a Matt Rempe who I think we're going to talk about in a second here. The consistency, I think, can be missed. I think that's one of the most common complaints is that it's completely wildly inconsistent. But I went and looked for, I just searched, you know, NHL boarding suspension. And the plays that came up, you know, there's a couple recent ones, right?

So there's Miko Ranton, you know, with what we talked about earlier this year. He had the consecutive boarding penalties. And so his was, I think, a mandatory suspension for that reason because he had condoms. boarding penalties and consecutive games. Obviously, this hit, I would consider worse than either of the two ran than hits against Alex Romanov, or I'm spacing on who the second one was against that he actually got the suspension for Matt Coronado. So also against the Flames here. There was the J.J. Moser one, and that was two games. And that was against the Florida Panthers here.

And I think that's interesting because to me the Moser hit is a more violent hit. It's probably not a more dangerous hit, but it is like head. right into the dasher pressure applied. It's fortunately, this is the instance where we talk about the proximity of the boards. He swung his arms. It looks worse. Yeah, it's probably not as dangerous because the board in some ways is actually bracing and he's not going to crumple his neck in that way. But it looks worse. And that got two games.

If you go much beyond that with the Florida Panthers, they're going to go to you and say, how did our guy only get the protection of two games? And you're going to give it against our guy for four, five, six, seven, double. triple the suspension link. So they gave him more, probably because Greer is a repeat offender. But both of those two recent examples tell me that this actually is, we can have the debate about severity, but it is consistent. No, no, I always laugh when people say that it's not consistent because it is, because they always underdo it.

They never give out an adequate suspension. You know, the one that I thought about was a Vander Kaine on Nazim Kodry in the playoffs a few years ago in Edmonton. It was kind of that same thing where there was distance from the boards. Yeah. When you hit a guy in the back four or five, feet from the boards, that's where the neck injury comes in play. That's where they're really scary. If you get smeared into the, into the, into the glass, that's not fun. Nobody's looking for that.

But it's not as dangerous really. You can still get a concussion. It's certainly dangerous. But the neck injuries that can happen when you get flung into the boards from distance is so much worse. So that Evander Kane hit on Cadre and Kane got one game. Now we all know the rules. One playoff game is two regular season games. Still not enough, right? It's still just two games. And again, just because it was bad last time doesn't make it good, doesn't make it right to be bad again. Two wrongs don't make a right. At some point, and maybe this comes with a change of leadership at the Department of Player Safety at some point, but we need to change the scale here. We need to drop the hammer on some of these guys if we ever want to get this stuff out of the game. The penalties are just not

severe enough. Do you think that Greer in that moment, like he's, he's not really battling for it? I think that's the most damning thing is this is not, even the goodest one, you can make an argument that he's scrambling to just trying to get any piece of Matthews. I think you still need to be accountable and responsible for your body and your hits. This one is not a scrambly play. Like Greer has the time to gather himself here. He's kind of been holding or hooking him on the way in and Zeri breaks free and then he gives him the shove. I don't know that I fully expected, or if I was AJ Greer, I don't know that I would be fully expecting it to be as bad as it was. But I think it's a case where you're accountable for your body and for your hits.

Right. And it was a violent hit. It didn't have the arm pendulum swing that we were talking about with the Mosier hit. But it was a violent two-handed shove. And when you violently shove a guy who's bent over at the waist on ice skates, on a sheet of ice, what do we think is going to happen there? But there's no way he didn't think that guy was going down. That play away from a corner, you see five, six times a game. And I think that's like constantly what I think about when I look at DPS decisions is that, like,

You know, one of the things that drives people crazy is the cross check, right? And there can be some brutal cross checks in front of the net that do not get called. And so then when you see one and you're like, well, how is that not more? It's because there is some element of hockey play to some of these moves, even if it doesn't look like it, even if it's kind of like inconceively like, no, he's not going for the puck. He's just shoving this guy down. We let defensemen shove guys down. And the issue is where it was on the ice. But if this occurred at center ice, this is not a suspension of any kind.

It's a suspension because it's boarding. because it's near the boards. And I think that's like, once you kind of establish that we're in a framework here of like, this is a problem. If it's a little light, it's probably should have been a four or five gamer. But I think the conversation shifts a little bit. We're talking about, okay, it should have been one or two games longer instead of this is a, they're allowing this horrible thing that they would never otherwise allow it.

They actually do allow it elsewhere on the ice. They do. That's true. And the funny thing is they actually initially called this interference. That's what the penalty was. The puck was right there. It was not interference. Like he was bored.

playing the puck and Greer was playing the body while Zari was playing the puck. That's allowed. It's the manner in which he approached playing the body. That is, you know, you hit a guy directly in the numbers, basically, lower back and just shove him to the ice like that right near the boards. I don't know. Five games, I would have been more, I would have been happier with that than I would am with three.

But to me, that's seven, eight, nine games. The only way we're going to see a change, the only way you're going to actually affect change and change the way these guys think on the ice. And we do need them thinking. I know it's an instinctive sport, but you have to think in these moments. I am near the boards. He is bent over at the waist.

This is a dangerous hit. And the only way to do that is to knock him down for an eighth of the season, a tenth of the season. Take that money away from them. Take those playoff race games away from them. That's the only way that's going to get these guys to change their mindset is three games is nothing.

It's a drop in the bucket. It might be the case. I mean, you might be right that that is the line that would become thoroughly enough disincentivized. I just, I struggle to see them going. that far when it would be a doubling or a tripling of all the past precedent. And when you think about the money at stake, and that's obviously the disincentive. I fully agree. But the body that I think is the most likely to address this is the body that you said represents both sides. And that's why I

don't think we will see like it get dramatically larger than this. I mean, maybe this is something that needs to be negotiated into the next CBA. Because I think about, you know, 20, 30 years ago, you used to have bench clearing brawls all the time. Guys would leap over the boards and get involved in these line brawls and there'd be 10-20 guys out there. Then they changed the rules. It's a 10-game suspension for leaving the bench now. And it's five games for your coach if you leave the bench.

It is a massive, ridiculously over-the-top penalty to get involved in what happens, you know, 10 times a night. But it changed the way people think. It worked. If you get dramatic with this, you can. We can get headshots out of the game to like 90% degree. if you just make it 20 goddamn games, if you hit a guy in the head. That's the only way you do it.

And this league is never going to do it. And the union's never going to go for it. And I understand all that. But that doesn't make what they're doing right. And it doesn't make it sufficient. It's a very good point that there are examples of this that things used to happen. And as significant enough, severe enough punishment was established to deter it completely. I mean, this is maybe a little different than that.

I think there's a little more pre, I don't know, decision. to decide to jump off of the bench, like you're a little more, you're in a seated position. You're not meditated, yeah. Premeditated, that's the word I was looking for. But I, look, this is a bad hit. Like, I think it should have been another game or two that more than it was. And this is like, I think one of the more dangerous plays in hockey. I, when I see a guy go down two feet from the boards, you cringe every single time because you just don't know what's going to happen when the head hits and if the neck, you know, is, is in a vulnerable position.

It's one of the scariest plays in hockey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we need to start legislating the hit, not the result of the hit. It's got to be the intention and the act. It can't just be, oh, this guy wasn't hurt, so we don't need to suspend this guy. That's nonsense.

Oh, for sure. I mean, you can get hurt. And it goes the other way, too. You can get hurt on a play that wasn't a penalty at all. And we're not going to be suspending guys for that. And so likewise, certainly, you can't be saying, oh, well, because he didn't get hurt, we're going to let him get away with it. No, because the next guy might get hurt.

I mean, the Rantan sequence earlier this year, like he gets nothing for the first one on Ramano. I thought he should have got a game for. for that. The mandatory one only came because it was two boarding penalties. We don't know if he would have gotten a penalty on the Coronado hit at all if it wasn't a mandated thing for the two consecutive games with a major penalty for boarding. So you might have, Matt Coronado might have avoided that play had they suspended, I mean, would have avoided that play had they suspended Miko Ranton for the Romanov hit. So I just wanted to say Zeri's day to day. So to your point,

like this one, he was not injured. And we don't know if that factored in. And you brought up Matt Rampi. He had the eight game suspension for hit on Miro Heiskenen. And now that was that wasn't that. I think that was a reputational suspension, right? Because that hit wasn't so bad. That was a close up hit. Like when you hit a guy against the boards and he's already basically against the boards,

you're not doing a lot of damage. Rempi is massive, but it wasn't violent. He didn't swing his arms. It wasn't a two-ended shove. He just used his gigantic body to smush Miro Heiskinin against the boards. And he got eight games for it. just because he was Matt Rempe. The other part of that was they ruled that it was both boarding and elbowing,

so I assume that went into it too, that it was like you violated this on every level. But I agree. I thought the Rempe on Hayeskin and was less dangerous than Greer on Zeri. And so that one, I think it's a reputation. And you know what? To your point, again, they gave me eight games. We don't hear a whole lot about Matt Rempey suspensions anymore and it haven't really since. So I think you have a point.

I'm just trying to kind of say why I think it historically has not gone that way. and why I think it is more consistent than we give credit for sometimes. I agree with you. It will not change because this is the NHL. I'm just saying it should. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break right there.

When we get back, we'll have a happier conversation, I think, about one of the most exciting hockey teams of the last two months. We're doing it at an interesting time. I will grant. But Aaron Portsline, I'll be with us when we get back from the break to talk about the Columbus Blue Jackets. All right, we are back.

And I feel a little bad at Laz. I think we're going to jinx or we did jinx the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight because we knew we wanted to have Aaron Portsline on to talk about the blue jackets. They've been the hottest team west of Buffalo for the last two months. And as soon as we booked Porty, we, I see you there, Porthy. As soon as we booked it, of course, the blue jackets get shut out by the New York Islanders tonight. But they are still in a playoff spot.

They have still been red hot. 40, the biggest reason is. Rick Bonus. Right? Rick bonus has to be. Came in January 12th. They were 199 and 7, and they've been on a tear since. And I've got the number 18, with tonight, 18, 3, and 4 under a bonus in his time here.

So, I mean, barely two months and they've turned it around. Yeah, it's all over the place. It started with communication. It started with him demanding more engaged defensive play, which is the sexy answer. but that's resulted in more offense. And life is better for the goalies. Elvis Merslickens even is steady. But Jet Greaves looks like a star now.

And yeah, it's just this team is kind of playing how they thought they could play. And, you know, Jim Don Woodell made the change. It's a bold move in the middle of the season, but he doesn't make that change if he doesn't think that this team should. have been performing better than they were. And I thought it was a little early. I thought maybe he would wait till the Olympic break, but he didn't think it could because he thought this thing would be a lost cause

if they waited much longer. It turns out he was right. It's really crazy. I mean, on January 10th, Columbus was dead last in the conference. They were behind the Rangers. They were, what, nine points out? They had by far the least amount of regulation wins in the conference. They had no chance of making the playoffs.

And here they are showing you actually can make up ground. in the NHL, even with the loser point out there, you just have to win every single night. How does Rick Bonus? How does one guy come in? And I was looking at some of the numbers. In those 24, 25 games, whatever it's been since bonuses come in,

you've got 10 guys with at least four goals. You've got six guys with at least six goals. I know Connor Garland's not going to shoot 30% forever, but how does a coach get this much offense out of a team? We see Barry Trots come in and make a team defensively sound. How does a guy come in and make a team offensively dangerous? Yeah, well, strangely enough, by making them better defensively.

They have the puck now. They work harder to get the puck. They check now. I sound like Ken Freaking Hitchcock here. Actually, Rick Bonas sounds like Ken Hitchcock a lot. If you just look at the transcript, if you listen to how he says it, it's much more congenial.

It's much more, it's said with a, he has like this default smile. You know what I mean? And I think guys like Marchenko and fantastic, Tilly certainly is a guy that's really up to his play defensively. There are others. Look, this team finished seventh in the league in scoring last year. They scored as many goals as the Maple Leafs did. And that got missed a lot because they missed the playoffs. There's some offensive talent here, Werenski, Marchenko. Fantilli had 31 goals last year,

as a 20-year-old. There's some firepower here, but they were playing without the puck so much. They were gagging up leads in the third period at an alarming rate. There's probably 10 plus points that they've left out there by blowing leads in the third period. So confidence was absolutely an issue. And Bonas doesn't say we're going to try to do this. We don't, there's no real problem. It's just bad bounces and this and that, which is what they heard before. And what Rick Bonas says is we know what the problem is. This is what the problem is and we're going to fix it. And again, that's the same kind of stuff that Tortoella would say, Hitchcock would say, the coaches who've had the most success here. Bones delivers it in a much more appealing way, especially to today's players.

But it's essentially the same message. You check to create offense. You defend, you work hard to get the buck back. You can't just rely on your skill, the National Hockey League. think they've taken that message to heart. I want to go back to Greaves because to me, he's one of the big stories here. Three or four years ago, Elvis Merzleekins was the rising great hope of the Columbus Blue Jackets Post-Babrovsky. And it didn't stay that way. And that was my biggest fear about the Blue Jackets direction was like, this was supposed

to be the answer in goal and it wasn't materializing. Greaves had a storied H.L career. But like, when did it start to turn to this level where he's been a bankable, like, every night starter in the NHL? You know what's so great about Greaves, and I hope I don't go on too much with this because it's one of my favorite topics. He came to rookie camp in Traverse City, and actually you were probably there as an invite. It wasn't drafted. Played well.

Okay, kid, we'll keep your name. You know how the rookie tournaments are. They signed him the next year when he was still in junior with numbers that frankly weren't that great. Entry-level deal. Invited to the rookie camp. But there was really, and I don't, I would say this to Jed, I think he would probably agree. At the time, there was no expectation that this was going to be a national hockey league goalie. And then it was the East Coast League.

And they put that before him and he devoured it. They brought him to the HL. He's only going to be a backup in the HAL. This is who he is. He devoured that and just kept pushing for more and more and more. And every little thing they've put in front of him, he's not only meant. but exceeded. And one of the things with the struggling franchise, right, a franchise that's in a tough

spot is they either don't wait or they can't wait long on players that are having the least little bit of success. And if Jet Greaves were a draft pick, first, second, round, third, whatever, he was a player that they had high expectations for. There's no way he would have developed and been able to develop and allowed to develop as long as he did in the American Hockey League. So I think their own sort of skepticism or doubt towards who this player could be in a weird way, help them develop him the right way by just letting him play in the American Hockey League.

I mean, you would hear it. People would say, we're not, I mean, maybe we call him up for a spot start, but that's not the answer, right? And then you go back to Cleveland and win eight in a row with three shutouts. He's a beloved player in Cleveland. He's a beloved player here. He's a wonderful person. He's the kind of guy that people root for in the dressing room. And we've seen that already.

He's a great story. He's a great story. His dad's a firefighter. His dad played goalie. He plays goalie in a men's league. And it's great. He's really grabbed things and run with him. Not a rookie.

He'd be really, I think, challenging Schaefer for the rookie of the year with his numbers, but he's played too many games previously to count as a rookie. It's the small goalie effect, right? I mean, like, none of us want to believe in these 60 goalies, and now you got, Alex Lano think is quite as small, but like another guy, just he was in the HL forever, and now he finally gets the runway in Buffalo, and he's leading the way.

It's pretty incredible. How big's Bussie? Let me look. Is he 6-1? Brandon Bussie is. They list him at 6-4. I think that's generous. Oh, really?

That's really, James. Might be 6-2. Yeah. Okay. Columbus has to lead the league in likable goalies between him and the Merseleekins. I mean, what a tandem that is to work with as a beatwriter. Elvis is a, wow. Elvis.

Yeah, we have had some dozzies, that's for sure. He was my favorite guy to talk to at the Olympics. I went to him like four different times for stories that had nothing to do with them. I just wanted to talk to Elvis and Merzleekins. He was fantastic. But tell me about Charlie Coyle. He had this incredible goal binge right when bonus was hired and came in. but his defense, I mean, he is maybe the leading Selke Trophy candidate right now.

Since Bonus has been in running things, he's only been on the ice for 11 goals against at five on five. I mean, his defensive numbers are terrific. He's really owned that third line center spot. What has he meant to this team this year? What void did he fill? Yeah, well, that's going to be the Monday, the Monday gathering lead is the players on this team that deserve awards. And Charlie Coyle, I think, does design. deserve the Selke or at least a lengthy consideration for it. First of all, he is such a, I've always thought this before you played here, one of the most underrated players in the game.

Every team he's on, he's never missed the playoffs, and that tells me something. He's never missed the playoffs for 14 years. He is a luxury as a third-line center. And one of the things that probably isn't appreciated enough in Columbus is that this organization for 25 years has never had enough depth at center. They've never had high quality centers. Usually it's at the top. Sometimes they have a decent one or two center,

but that has been a weakness forever. And now to have Fantilli emerge, Monaghan, Charlie Coyle, Boone Jenner is the fourth line center on this team. He was the first line center two years ago. That's how much things have changed here. Charlie Coil, I think there could be a revolt in that dressing room if he is not re-signed. And ownership was very care.

Ownership, GM Don Waddell was very careful. He didn't even really get into contract talks with those players. It's him. It's Jenner, it's Marchman. He didn't want to upset the Applecart. He didn't want to sign one guy and not the other. Charlie Coil has centered a line with Cillinger, with Olivier. That is the third line, but they use it.

It's become a scoring line a lot of nights, mostly because of Coil, but Olivier's got 14 goals again. It checks. It can defend. It can possess the puck. And Charlie Coil is just a really smart guy. The power play numbers since January 6th, it's one of the top 10 power plays in the league. And what happened on January 6th? Not that January 6th.

This January 6th is Charlie Oil came in. and join the Blue Jackets' first playoff unit. And just having him in the middle, the right shot, they wanted him because of his presence, his leadership, all of those great things. They also wanted a right shot to take faceoffs, and they finally figured out to put his right shot on the power plate. And it's really opened things up. And that unit has been dangerous.

I think better than its numbers would suggest, but it's still a top 10 unit in the NHL since that January 6th, the coil inclusion, if you will. Yeah. All right. I want to go to Zach Werencki here because he had such an outstanding year last year. He made my heart ballot. He was runner up for the Norris. And all he's done this year is get himself on pace to surpass those.

And I'm thinking very strongly about him at the very top of my Norris ballot this time around. I just wanted to get a little bit of your take on Werenski season. And, you know, you don't often hit a new level up at this point in a career. Usually that happens at like 24. Yeah. Can I read my Monday gathering for you? Please. You know, so I think there's a couple things here.

I think there's a few reasons why I think he may have a better shot at the Norris this year. I think there are more people that more people are going to vote for. I don't think it's just McCar this time around. Like I think Schaefer's going to take some votes. I think Hudson's going to take some vote. Montreal is going to vote for Hudson, right? I think there's going to be some votes for Schaefer. Quinn Hughes.

Quinn Hughes, for sure, is going to get some votes, especially the way, and he should, the way that the Minnesota's turned around. I think Werensky, I think with these awards, and we've seen it before, you have to have a great season to get yourself in the conversation first. And when you're in the conversation, sometimes you stay in the conversation longer than you deserve to, But you've got to get into that conversation first. And I think last season got Werencki into that conversation. And now people are paying attention to him.

The other thing I think is going to be really big is everybody has seen that golden goal by Jack Hughes. Everybody saw the play that Werenski made out battling Nathan Freakin McKinnon. That is a hell of a play. Like Hughes gets the credit because he scored the golden goal, of course. But watch the – have you seen it a million times? I'm sure. The play that Werenzky makes to get the puck from McKinnett to pass the puck basically right at McDavid's feet. I think, and I, I, double HF play is not supposed to impact the Norris. But damn it, people saw that, right? And it burns in people's mind. I think he's going to,

I'm not sure he wins it again this year. I'm not sure there's a better candidate this year. And last year, it was hard to look at Kail Makar's goals and not be blinded by those goals because it's a stunning number. He's right there with everybody now. Points, goals, leads the way or second maybe in Ice Time. So he's got a hell of a resume. And I think he's really put himself in the back of people's minds, maybe in the front of people's minds now.

I think you nailed it. The Norris more than any other award is a narrative award, right? It's always whose turn is it? It always feels like that's what we're doing. And not only is it Werenski's turn, but he also deserves it. And that's the perfect storm for how you win your first Norris. And then once you win your first Norris, you're in the Norris conversation until you retire, basically. Right.

So I think you're right. This is going to be it's year. Let me ask you about, I mean, not to again spoil your story, but Rick Bonas, can he win coach of the year having only coached like 30 some odd games? So little research on this today. There have been three coaches who have come on midseason and have won the Jack has. Adam, not mid-season, in the season that have won the Jack Adams. It's rare, but it has happened.

No one's come along as late as he did. I think one thing that will really help Bonus is I have yet to meet anybody who does not like Rick Bonus. He's worked for a ton of teams. These are broadcasters who vote on this, right?

Remember that. Don't blame the writers on this one. But the broadcasters love bonus, he was one. He worked to TNT before he got back into the coaching biz here. I think that helps him. But I also think Werensky, I think Coyle, and I think bonus, all of it obviously depends. They have to make the playoffs. That carries so much weight with voters. None of it happens. I don't think any of them win any of them if they don't win, if they don't get into the playoffs. But if they do get into the playoffs, I think people will

will consider all of them. I think bonus absolutely deserves it, but there are lots of candidates out there this year, too. It's interesting because we're going to have a similar conversation about Buffalo and executive of the year. And does Yarmow get it for basically everything that was done by Kevin Adams? This is at least different because it's bonuses. You could clearly see the bonus impact.

For sure. But the answer to any problem in the NHL seems to be fire someone. Yes. That's been a punchline. Like the answer to everything is just go fire someone. Right now it actually is. the answer to everything. Isn't it funny too? You hear players say all the time, like, coaches can only do so much. I say that. And it's like, I've just been proven completely McClellan in my market, right? Sips and

similar deal. I was very coaching agnostic. And now it's like, well, I see it every day and it's happening in Columbus. Yeah. Yeah. I remember hitch taking over here. And the first day, they practiced Rick Nash on the penalty kill. And we're all like, this guy's crazy. Like, Rick Nash killing penalties. That's not a thing. It cannot be a thing. And he turned out to be one of the best penalty killers in the NHL in his career. Completely changed his game. Yeah, coaches matter.

John Tortorella, same thing. Oh, my God. This guy is a lunatic. And within like two weeks, the players in the room absolutely loved them. Other times they wanted to murder them, but they loved them and they played their asses off for him. They made the playoffs four years in a row under Torts, which is Oregon. It's never done. What they, what they, where they differ in kind of demeanor, bonus and tortarella, they, they re-diverge or reconverge on experience.

They've both just seen a lot. And I think that's the secret sauce to all of this is when you've seen every kind of situation, you know what buttons to push. Yeah. And like bonus is 71 and like, you know what? Hell with that dude. 71, he looks like he's about 54. He kind of looks like Lou Graham a little bit from foreigner to. He's got that 70s boat.

Like, tell me he's not yacht rock on his boat. Right. I'm expecting that story sometime around August from you. I'm going to go to ride the boat with him this. I hate water. He was a head coach in the NHL in the 1980s. Yeah. The 1980s.

He has seen like five different NHLs. You know why he got fired for Boston? Because he was told he talked to the players too much directly. That's so long ago it was that he was the coach. You're supposed to fear your coach, not versed with them. Unbelievable. That's so good. All right.

We better let Porti get out of here so we can go keep covering the hottest team in the NHL, the Columbus Blue Jackets. Thank you so much for doing this with this party. Before we do, I just wanted to give our thoughts and condolences to the family of Jesse Pierce. And that is a tragic story and a beautiful story on our site today by Mike Russo and Joe Smith that we would highly encourage everyone to check out. out. Yeah, our thoughts are with them. All right, we are back. And Laz, before we head out today, I just wanted to talk about a really extrapolate on a story that we ran on the athletic over the

weekend about what's at stake for some of these teams. And some of them, the answer is nothing. I thought that was very funny reading through them today and see how many. A lot of it was nothing. How many markets were like, no, there's no stakes here anymore. But there are some teams where those stakes are very high. And I'm in one of those markets, Las, where in Detroit right now, they officially fell out of a playoff spot when the Islanders moved back ahead of them with their win over the blue jackets just a few minutes ago as we record this. And I haven't really scrolled around to see how the fans of Detroit are taking it. But I know they are living. Well, I bet.

They are living and dying every period, let alone every game right now. So it is, it's high stakes hockey here as the Redbings try to break a nine-year playoff drone. I mean, the stakes all across the league, there's a lot of teams, especially in that Eastern Conference, a lot of teams that are fighting to get in for the first time in a while. But honestly, I went through that list. And the one that stands out to me is to Florida Panthers. They're top 10 pick. They traded a top 10 pick to the Blackhawks along with Spencer Knight to get Seth Jones last year. They're not going to regret that.

They won the Stanley Cup and Seth Jones played a big role. But that pick is top 10 protected. And right now the Panthers are kind of right on that line. I think right now they're at number nine. But they're neck and neck with like Seattle and San Jose, L.A., New Jersey, all these teams that could change that up. And if they can get a top 10 pick and hold on to it, this is a team that's expecting to get right back into the mix next year, right?

This is a team that, you know, we could look at the Brad Marchand contract and say, oh, boy, I don't know about that one. But this is still a team with a bunch of guys signed in their primes to team-friendly deal. Sasha Barakov comes back next year. Matthew Kuch will be healthy after his first long summer in a while. This could still be a Stanley Cup contender next year. And Stanley Cup contenders don't get to add top 10 picks. So in terms of the long game here, I feel like the Florida Panthers,

mini tank and players don't tank. Organizations do. Players don't. I understand that. This is a huge deal if you're a Florida Panthers fan right now to make sure you get to keep that pick because next year's might be the 28th pick. So you're saying that the Florida Panthers actually would be okay with a longer suspension for A.J. Greer. I'm not sure A.J. Greer is the guy that's going to really make the difference in that, but yes. Yeah. Now, it's interesting too because of the 10 range in this draft, like if you ask Scott and Corey about the tiering of their lists, you can go look, it's right around eight, nine. Yeah.

You're getting a premium prospect if you're picking in that eight to ten range with the panther, which the panthers still have a chance of doing right now. And you're right. Like that's, that's the only way to keep a dynasty like theirs, or I won't use the word, a wagon like theirs rolling at a high level is to keep loading up. And they've traded away so many assets. There's almost no way for them to do it barring something like this. And imagine if you're Chicago, you're going to have a top five of your own.

you might have two top 10 picks in this draft, or you might have one and then like the number 27 pick next year. Like this is a huge deal for two franchises, neither of which has any hope of making the playoffs. It's very funny. Like there's a player in this draft, Ethan Belchis, and he's a Florida Panther if you've, if you've ever seen one, right? He is a big physical, skilled winger, plays for the Windsor Spitfires. And I just pulled up Tankathon to see where they sit. They sit right in line. The mock draft right now has them taking Ethan Belch's. There you go. The world will explode, I think, if this is the way it plays out.

Imagine if they win the lottery and they just get number one. It's just anything could happen with the Florida Panthers. They are, they are charmed or cursed depending on who you talk to. Yeah. I think there's some other teams that I think have very high stakes too. And maybe we could circle back to the Red Wings toward the end of this and flesh that out. But the Pittsburgh Penguins is one that coming into the year, I certainly, I remember an early season episode that we did. And we were talking with Rob Rossi about it.

and the penguins. And I was very ready to just say, like, this season is pointless for them. They need to trade everybody. That might have actually been a prospect series. I don't know if it was with Rob or not. I probably did both. We were talking Gavin McKenna since the middle of the summer for the Pittsburgh Penguins. And somehow here they are.

And not only that, like they're in line to potentially have home vice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Like this is a legitimately good team. I owe a cupa there, especially when they, what they were able to do without Sidney Crosby. I have been thoroughly impressed. I'm still not sure that at how long. a run that they can really go on, but it's very hard to continue questioning them at this point.

I think you should trade Sidney Crosby like you were planning to anyway. He's clearly not that important to the team. There's the takeaway from all this. Don't, don't make that the social clip. It's a, it would be a validation, I think, of how they've approached things that they're able to kind of start this rebuild without completely punting and tanking. I still think at some point they're going to have to pick really high. And, and it's up you, you always have to pay the bill at some point. But as long as you're getting into the playoffs with Sidney Crosby without mortgaging the future, which they've done, they've found a way to kind of get younger, better, more strategically positioned for the future and not sacrifice the present. I'm floored by what a good

job Kyle Dubas has done. Absolutely. I'm fascinated to see what the long-term effect of this penguin season and this Bruin season, to a lesser extent, this Islander season, because they did luck into a number one overall pick. But does this end the era of just these teardowns like Detroit had, like Buffalo at, like Edmonton at, like Chicago had, like San Jose had Anaheim to a degree. Does this end that because, oh man, we don't have to go through nine years of abject misery in order to get good again? I mean, it helps to have a core to build around. But like, I'm curious to see if this changes the way not just GMs think, but ownership thinks. Because owners are the ones who allow these GMs to tear everything down and give them these long leash.

If I'm the owner, if I'm like Danny Wirtz in Chicago and I'm looking like, well, what the hell do they do over there? Why couldn't we have done that when we had Patrick Kane and Alex, to Brinkett and Dylan Strome, why is this taking the years when we could have just done that? If that is the case, I don't know if that's going to be the case or not, but if that is the case, it's going to be fascinating for what it means for teams like the Chicago's in the next year or two, like all these teams that are now on the rise that have spent all this time stockpiling capital, expecting to be able to at some point trade either those prospects or their future picks for ready-made players. There's no more free agency.

You're not getting veteran help that way. you really have to rely on teams that are starting a tear down to get better and build up with veteran players. If teams kind of stop tanking, I am fascinated what that's going to mean for how teams like your Chicago's, like your San Jose's that are starting to come out of these rebuilds and how they approach it. Absolutely, 100%. Like the Blackhawks have made it clear that they're basically just doing this exclusively through the draft. Like they've got 11 first round picks in four years. They've got two more coming potentially this year, two more of the next year.

two more of the next year. But how many have to hit for you to actually be able to build a championship team without real free agency, without there being a Marion Hosa you can add to supercharge your rebuild. So like it's going to be really fascinating to see how this summer plays. This summer could be absolute chaos because there might be a lot of guys with term getting traded or absolutely nothing might happen. I'm fascinated to see how this will all play out. I'm living it right now in Detroit.

I mean, they've tried to do that style of rebuild, right? And eventually, you know, they've gotten to a point now where, you know, They traded a first round pick for Alex to Brinkett a couple years ago, kind of a unique case, like star player with the hometown ties, and they had a second first round pick that they traded. This year was the first time that they traded their own first round pick under Steve Eisenman. They traded it to St. Louis for Justin Falk. I like that move. I still think that's a good move, but they might miss the playoffs. And that pick may be a lottery pick.

And it's probably going to be like the 15th or 16th pick, but it could still move up as high as five or six. And if they don't make the playoff, the only way that could happen is if they don't make the playoffs. and you don't make the playoffs and you've traded your first round pick. I mean, I talk about the high stakes. That is a really uncomfortable position because you find yourself just hoping that these guys are, these young players are going to click. I mean, I thought this would be the year, Nate Danielson really clicked. He got some games, still spent a lot of the year in the HL, spent a lot of the year hurt. You don't know when it's going to happen for these guys, even the top 10 guys.

And it's tough too, because I look, I've been very critical of the Izer plan. I think it's been ridiculously long and they were still, they were still trading guys for first round picks as recently his last. year, I think. So I've been critical, but this is a good team that's going to have mid-90s points. If this team was in the Pacific Division, they're running away with the division and they're looking at them as a potential Final Four team. The East is so strange this year that the Red Wings could finish ninth and it could feel like a disaster, but it actually was the step forward that they needed and that one was waiting for to get to that tier because 95, 96, 97 points, that should get you into the playoffs. And this year in the Eastern Conference,

It might not. So it's, it's kind of like the Red Wings are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing, but so are nine other teams. And it's really complicating the big picture analysis of what these teams are. That's the frustration here, right? And one of my preseason bold predictions this year was that they would finish with, I don't know if I said 92 or 93. I think I said 92, because that's a number that would have gotten them in in each of the last two years

and that they would still miss this year. And I thought that that was possible because of the way that the East was kind of structured. There was no real heavy weights, but there was a lot of teams on the rock. I thought that it was possible they were going to have a number that would have gotten them in in the past and wouldn't get them in this year. I never in a million years would have thought that number could be 97 or 98 points, which looks entirely possible. I mean, they would be leading the Pacific Division right now, as with basically every team in the Atlantic. And yet they're not in a playoff spot. And I think that's going to make it a really complicated offseason if they're not able to get it done.

Because how do you assess that? They would have taken a step forward by like 12 or 13 points. They would have been a team that in years past would have been a divisional seed with that point total. And yet, by definition, they wouldn't be one of the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference. You know, I have no reason to think that Steve Iserman's on like a hot seat. And so you talked about kind of the criticism of the Eiser plan, hot seat in that traditional sense, at least, where it's like, right, you keep your job. But yet the public pressure, I think, is just going to keep, until they get into the playoffs, the public pressure is going to just ratchet up and up and up. I see it every single day.

I get, I've been getting tweets from fans for like eight years. years now, and I can tell you the temperature is as hot as it's been. It's not quite, you know, at the level of like what the Toronto Maple Leafs were experiencing in the first round year after year. But the Red Wings fan base's reaction to the month of March and anytime something goes wrong in the month of March is significant and notable and it's only going to get worse if it happens again this year. Absolutely. In the Western Conference, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, teams that are just guaranteed to make the playoffs and have been making the playoffs. I think there's a lot a stake for Colorado and Dallas. To a less degree, Minnesota, I don't think Minnesota can win

that division at this point. I think there's too much ground to make up. But Dallas, you know, Colorado was running away with this thing and Dallas got right up on their heels with that incredible like it was like 14-0 and one run they went on. Dallas, if they can get out of that first round matchup with Minnesota and let Colorado worry about that, that is a huge deal for a team that has to win right now, that has been to the conference final three straight years, but has not reached the Stanley Cup final. If they can get that top seed and play some garbage team for, from the Pacific Division or whoever gets in as the fifth place Central Division team, that is a huge advantage because that first round matchup between either Dallas or Minnesota

or Colorado or Minnesota is going to be an absolute knockdown, dragout war. That's going to take a big chunk out of one of those teams. So getting out of second place in the Central and winning the Central Division, if Dallas can do that, that is a massive, massive deal and it's just as massive for Colorado, which lost in the first round last year to Dallas to secure that first place bid and their that same pitfall themselves. Totally. Those are the right two teams to identify there because those are both all in win now teams.

And I think Dallas is a team like they're young enough. They have enough good young players that they'll still be around for a while. But we don't know Jason Robertson's coming back. This is their best chance this year right now. I agree. And Colorado, same deal. I mean, they were one of the best teams we've ever seen through the early part of this season.

And certainly even a month ago, if you had told me they're not going to win their division, I would have been, I would have, you know, not even entertained. the idea. Now it's at least in play, and it's going to be fascinating down the stretch. You know, Minnesota, you're right, is kind of in the sweet spot here where they look, you know, completely on the rise. They're the team that Colorado and Dallas have to be worried about because if they keep Quinn Hughes and you're able to go forward with Caprizov Hughes, Faber, boldie, they're going to have to find a center at some point. We all know that. They have as good of a core in the league, I think, as anyone right now. Yes, 100%. But that's also

a fan base that has seen a first round loss like every year for the last millennium, it feels like. So they have all this excitement and they have a really great team. They have the, they have the third best team in the league, if you ask me. They're better than any team in the East in my mind. If they go out and they lose to Dallas in five or six games or they lose to Colorado in five or six games, that's going to be crushing for a fan base that deserves better and wants more, even though, yes, they are better situated in the long run. I think we all think Quinn Hughes is kind of falling from Minnesota and is going to stick around long term. They are situated to be good for a long, long time. But man, it would be

such a letdown, such a buzz kill if they can't get out of the first round again this year. It would. And, you know, we're going to go back to the Leafs, I guess, a little bit with this. But there was an element to that, too, in the Toronto saga where, you know, they were, okay, clearly better in some of those series that they still lost. And it was, you know, the famous quote was like there was more respect in the handshake line. And that obviously is not a good quote to have out there.

And yet I completely understood what it was because I respected them more after watching that series, too. And I could see something like that happening with me. Minnesota, where I'm willing to write it off and say, oh, well, this is not the same five or six game or seven game, even first round loss is what we've seen in the years past. And yet, you know, how much are people willing to tolerate it? My guess is Minnesotans will be a little more patient with them. I don't know, man. That's a fan base I'm well acquainted with over the years. I, I covered three straight Blackhawks wins over them in 13, 14, and 15. Well, they want to win.

They are desperate for it. They need it. It's been there. It's such a great fan base. and they've had nothing to celebrate basically the entire existence of this incarnation of the franchise. And it's funny because, like, you know, I'm an advocate for going to 116 seating, to saying to punish the Pacific Division for what they are and to let more Eastern teams. And this is a perfect example of what I've been harbbed on for years is you do have years like this. At the least go to 1-8. But, and I hate to say this, it kills me to say this, I sort of agree with Gary Bettman.

The NHL first round, the Stanley Cup playoffs first round, is so far in a way the best round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It's so much better than other playoffs first rounds because of this kind of matchup that we get. Because the series go longer, because it's unfair. It makes for better entertainment. The first round is so much fun. It's chaos. There's four games a night.

There's all these great series. And then the second round's like, oh, God, we still got like six weeks left of this. This isn't that exciting. And then it ratchets up again in the conference final. The Stanley Cup playoffs first round is the best round in all of sports. except for maybe the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. So Gary Betman is not wrong and oh my God, it's painful to say that. When he says that this playoff system does what it wants to do, it accomplishes its goal.

Yeah, because the conference finals and the cup finals sell themselves. So all you got to avoid is what the NBA has, which is knowing that all your first round series are pretty much going five games. They're meaningless. They're just, they're worthless. Yeah. But to go back to Minnesota, like I'm not disputing that they're desperate. And I think they're, they deserve to be desperate.

I think they're good enough that they can, I think they win the Stanley Cup. They can win the Cup, absolutely. I think they can win the Stanley Cup. But I'm just saying, like, because of the positive momentum, I don't think it's quite the same stakes there as it is in the other places because I think everyone would agree that it's Arrow Up in Minnesota and that they should be here for a few years to come yet with more and more improving quality chances. That's fair.

How about Edmonton, speaking of Arrow Up? It depends. They have to make the playoffs here. They have to make the playoffs. It's true. I thought about bringing them up earlier, but I was like, well, do they have that highest stakes in the regular season? But if we're talking about, you know, doubting whether they're going to make the playoffs. And in fairness, like they are five points up on the Nashville Predators right now.

The Predators have a game in hand. It's a little hairy there. We've talked about them all year, though, in the light of just get in. And then it's McDavid and Drysidal. Sure. The rest of it doesn't matter. But they got a hold on to that lead without Leon Drysiddle, too. Yeah.

And they should get Drysidal back for the playoffs. at some point, at least in the playoffs. And, you know, is it the end of days if the Edmonton Oilers go in and they have to have a really tough first round series? No, but I certainly wouldn't want the one against Colorado. Like I think Connor McDavid can beat anybody, but. You are in the Connor McDavid, prove to me we can still win phase. These might be the most important years, most important two or three seasons in the history of the Edmonton Oilers short of the cup years. Oh, I'm not saying that going out in the first round wouldn't be a disaster.

saying like I still think they could win a series against anyone in the NHL because they have Connor McDavid. So I'm saying like if they get that stuff with Colorado, that's still, it's, you know, you still have a chance in that series. Yes. And in that Pacific division, they can still make it to the conference final relatively easily. But they could also miss the playoffs. And oh my God, that would be quite a scene in everything. If they get a divisional seed, I'm going to expect them in the conference finals. Like as long as that they're, as long as their path is through the Pacific and not through the central. That's going to be. Vegas is trash. Anaheim's not there yet. San Jose's not there yet. I mean, Edmonton's the only

team in there. You can have any faith in whatsoever. Which is shocking to say after they made one of the worst trades of the NHL season. Somehow trading, we asked for a goalie trade and the genie had a cruel sense of humor on that one. It was one of the monkey paws curling. Yeah, ha. A hundred percent. All right. Let's wrap there. Good show today. Thank you to Aaron Portsline for joining us on this one. Shans will be with you on Wednesday, as well as Frankie Carado. Don't want to leave him out there.

We'll talk to you soon.