The Athletic Hockey Show - Will Ovi catch Gretzky this season?

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

With 29 games left in the Capitals regular season, Sean, Frank and Sean discuss Alex Ovechkin's chances of breaking Wayne Gretzky's all-time goals scored record this season. On the heels of the Sabres players only meeting, Frankie takes us behind the scenes on how that works, the guys give their opinion on the 10 game suspension handed out to Ryan Hartman, and they audit the Athletic's NHL player poll.Hosts: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frankie CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff Domet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. What up, what up? It's the Athletic Hockey Show Wednesday edition. I'm Sean Jettel. I'm here with Sean McHen-Doo and Frankie Carrado. This is a player-centric podcast today, even more so than usual. We're talking players-only meetings. Had a big one of those.

We're talking player pulls, part two of the athletics. Man, it's such a huge project. You have 20 people talking to dozens of players. we broke it up into two separate two separate posts this year part two drop yesterday interesting stuff I mean Frankie I know you got some thoughts on that

that's coming up in segment two but first boys we have a I don't know if we want to sit here and dissect every Alex Ovescun goal for the rest of the season we can't get too high or too low because the odds go up and down you know based on based on how he does in a given night

we had an empty netter with less than a second left last night. That pulled him and I need to pull up the doc here because I close it. 17 goals from surpassing Wayne Gretzky. Dom's odds have him a 15%. The most likely outcome is finishing five goals short, which is interesting. How many empty net goals have we seen? Alex can score A. And B, how many are we going to see him score for the rest of the year? because the caps are good. He's going to get some minutes out there. Has he scored on a goalie this year?

I don't know that he has. They shouldn't count. That was a big argument at some point. It's going to be, this is where we have to remind everyone that Wayne Gretzky, I believe, holds the record for empty net goals. So settle down if you're going to use there.

Just tell me the number. I know you have it. I don't. I don't. I don't have a committed to memory. I thought that would have just been in your holster. Like you just, you have a great, you're at the gas station. Like, Gretzky had this many empty netters.

Didn't Gretzky? When he did 50 and 39, wasn't the 50th into an empty net? It was yet, right? I mean, the thing about Ovechkin is, when you think about locking down a game, you know, late in those big moments, he's not exactly the guy that you would think of that would be out there. You just think of like the gritty checking line guy who's going to block shots. Meanwhile, how about you just score a goal and put a guy on the ice that can score from his own end?

And OV's done that a lot in his career. And now, like, are we trying to do the math to think about if he can do it this year? Because I was just doing, I was just doing some quick math here on my phone. And keep in mind, like, when I was in high school, I needed a tutor for math. So he's got 25 goals in 37 games this year. That's 0.67 goals per game. and he needs 18 in his last 29. Is that correct now?

17. It's 17. He's 17 away from breaking it. 17 away from breaking it and he's got, what, 29 games to go? So, or 28 games to go? Let's call it 29. So that's 0.58 goals per game. Like he's currently scoring at a pace, I think, that would exceed what he needs to do in

order to break it this year. And he's having an outlier year when it comes to his shooting percentage. He's he was hovering around 20 for the longest time. He's now down to 18, but he's a career 13% shooter. And Ovechkin has never had the one outlier year that stands above the rest. Like he's had the 15% years. He's had the 12% years. Like this is the outlier. So if he was ever going to catch a heater that was different than what he's done in the past, Like this is the year and I'm sure the empty nets help with that. But I don't know. I don't know if any of us expected him to score at the rate he's scoring at this year coming off last year.

Yeah. And we saw him get hot already, right? Because he didn't score a ton in October and then for about two weeks there where he was unstoppable. I, I, Dom's got the tracker where he's running through the model and he's got it at 15% chance right now. I tell you, man, I would take those odds. If somebody was offering me, you know, five to one or whatever that works out to, I think I would, I would jump on that. Because partly because this is a guy who's always had a, you know, when it comes to those personal numbers and those milestones, he's always had a flare for the moment. Like, yeah, he's, he's had a couple times where he's got 50 goals in the final game of the season and all of that.

And they're very clearly trying to feed them, including the empty net goals. and I do have to apologize to Wayne Gretzky, who does not hold the record for empty net goals. He was passed a year ago by Alex Ovechkin. I was about to correct you because I looked that up to. Yeah, it was 57 had been the, it was the record. So, but again, like the more goals,

Gretzky scored a ton of these. And he was a very similar player in that he wasn't like a defensive shutdown guy. They threw him out there. I do think scoring to put your team up three with 0.3 seconds left into an empty net is maybe the archetypal fake empty net goal. But let's all you have him. He's actually 17 and a half goals away from breaking. It's one of you say that like 17 and a half because there's a conversation that constantly gets brought up at TSN. And I'm not going to out this person.

But basically they have said that there should be a column. You know, when you look at the stats page that says, this is how many empty net points this person has, this is how many empty net goals this person has. And we should take that into context when we think about them and, you know, the heart or, you know, all these different things. And it's like it can skew how you feel about the player. But I always make the argument that, listen, if that player is on the ice at that moment where the net is empty, chances are like they, you know, yes, there's a. certain level of trust. The coach wants him out there, like, but there's a certain responsibility that comes with it. So like that, I think, you know, could skew it the other way and say, like, it actually, it still is earned. Like, you can't just say it's a complete freebie or else he wouldn't,

like, he wouldn't be on the ice if he was, you know, not trusted to be in that situation. There's also a really easy way to account for that. It's just a look at five on five stats, which we do increasingly. So I feel like when we decide who gets these awards, you know, Like, it counts like if you want to, if you want to weigh who's the better five on five player, it's really easy to do that. Like, it's, it's not, it's not tough. Yeah. I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to guess who would really, who would

really, who would really die on the sale of TSN. I have some, I have some, I have, I have, it's not an on air, not an on-air talent. Interesting. What's going to be worse? Is it going to be Ovechkin breaking the record into an empty net? Oh, and giving us that, like, big historic. moment that way? Or is it going to be when he breaks the record in a dramatic, you know,

he beats Sorokin or Schisturkin or whoever it is? And then the goal gets called back because there was an offside 45 seconds ago on the zone entry. Oh, Jesus. Because that's what I'm rooting for. Dude, I want this goal to get called back six times. I want Gritsky and Betman. You were to travel around for weeks.

And every time this. school happens. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You are placing a personal hex on me, your friend, yep, co-host, because whenever the plan, you know, my plans change, I probably shouldn't be saying this, but who cares? The plan is for whenever Ovi gets close, whenever we're like within six or eight, I'm going to be on Ovecun duty. Like, I'm going to be traveling to wherever he ends up. So you say, this just guarantees that it's going to happen. And I'm not,

I'm personally. Counterpoint. If I had the ability to do that, look at me, I'm a Maple Leafs fan. Do I look like I have the ability to alter the outcome of, I see a lot of pain in those eyes, man.

There's a lot of, there's a lot of scar tissue there. But here's how it could set up. It could set up for scores the patented one-timer on the power play. And then now the coach has a decision to make. Like, he just got word from the video room. This could be off.

What are you going to do? OV went nuts. It's in Washington. The jumbo tron. They got the confetti going. Red carpet. Betman's on his way out there. I'm in the press box. We're challenging for offside 45 seconds ago. We've, wait a second. We've made it clear that there is no time limit on these on these reviews. Right. I mean, we've seen teams call time out. We've seen teams like just take forever. and then decide to review it. I say you do the whole ceremony, have Betman and Gretzky come out with the gold stick or whatever they're going to do, and then after you clear off the ice, that's when Mike Sullivan,

let's face it, calls over the wrap. In the final game of the season, correct? We want to take another look at this, and then you wipe it off. That'll be fantastic. Dude, I'm rooting for this. I want this to happen.

I would need Sully's post-game scrum after that to just hear him, like, walk us through that. I'm actually like I'm looking at the capital schedule because I want to see now who they're going to be playing towards the end of the year. Yeah, it's it's the Penguins on April 17th. Correct. And then before that, it's the Islanders.

So it could be Patrick Waugh that potentially pulls the trigger. God, you're, you're, you have two, you have two hard asses to finish to finish the season. Like, also the Islanders might be might be in a playoff chase by that point. Like they're, the Islanders may have, they may have two, one. their way to like a potential playoff spot at that point. And Patrick, what, the goal union, man? Like, screw this guy in his goal scoring. I, I, I want to see it happen.

And I hope the review takes eight minutes. And I hope that, and even then, like, even if, even if the goal stands, at least then you've ruined the moment. And I know everyone's like, well, why would you want to ruin them? I'm willing to sacrifice Alex Ovechkin's big moment in order to get rid of these stupid offside reviews. Would that do it? I am willing to do that.

to make that thing that moves, like we, we have this big Ovechkin moment and then confetti comes down. We get the word, coaches challenge, upside,

whatever. There was someone skated by the crease, whispered in the goalies ear, and now it's goalie interference. Would that be enough to bring this up at like the GM's meeting or the board governors and say, we got to change the thing?

That's the Brett Hall skate in the crease. Yeah. Because that's what this league does, right? They make mistakes. Everybody points to the mistake. mistake. They don't do anything until the inevitable outcome of that mistake happens. And then they go, okay, we'll fix it now that it's too late. That's what they did with the skate and the crease rule.

Maybe we'll do it here. And I'd rather see it happen to Ovechkin than game seven of a Stanley Cup final, which is the other, the other option. I'm trying to think, if I was on the team, if I was on the team that got scored on, and I'm sitting on the bench and I see this thing happen. And I'm like, all of a sudden, the coach is going to like get the officials attention because he's doing the challenge. I think in my head, I'm like, maybe we just don't do this one. Like, I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe I'm,

would you rather be on the team that he breaks a record against or just one of the other 30? I don't want to tell you what, man. I don't want to be that cold. You'd be on the ice? And I don't want to be on the ice. Not that I ever would be. But that's like that's the clip that lives forever, right? You're getting chalked up for that minus for the end of time.

I don't think any, I don't know. And here's the question. I remember like, you know, guys hitting historic home runs and going around the bases and like the other team like high fiving them like or giving them a pat on the back. Do you do that? If you go back and watch when Gretzky breaks the record, I want to say the goals record.

It might have been the points one. But like he does it against the oilers. And I swear Yari Curry skates by and pats him on the back. it's like right after the goal goes in. Like gives him a little like, hey, bud. Is anybody doing that or? The question is whether Sidney Crosby will do that whenever Alex, and Alexander Overskin scores and empty netter in the game.

Gary Suter, this guy right in the mouth at the exact moment that the puck's going in. It's a good question though. Like Sid is such a, he's such a first class guy, right? Like everything about him just exudes class. He's always handled himself like a step of, above everyone else. And I'm not saying like, if OV did it against the pens,

that it would be unclassy of Sid to not like have a gesture. But I could totally see him just being like, we just witnessed a record broken that many people thought would never be broken. Yeah. And it's like sometimes you just got to tip your cap, man. He's going to have plenty of time to do it too because it's capital one arena. There's going to be pyro and confetti and a full, a full video tribute break.

Like, well, it's not just going to come and go. Like, they're going to, they're going to bring all the pomp and all the, all the circumstances. I don't mean, I don't mean to shoot down an interesting conversation, but it's, it's not, it's not going to, it's not going to be an option because they don't play Colorado down the stretch. So Crosby won't be, won't be there for the big event. So I, I, I keep going back to the, to the, to the Ovescan odds thing. And I, like, not to not to dump on Dom's projections, because 15% on it and a lot of regard sounds right and it's like a there's plenty of methodology behind it like it's legit math very

understandable but like the sample size is so small now man like if he has a hat trick he can have a hat trick in any given game he could do it on on Thursday and then what like we're talking we're talking a major job and all of a sudden we're back up the 25% in in the in the tenant of the of the talk is very man it it feels 50 50 to me it really does And again, this is just if he gets close, like I've said all along, the one scenario I can't conceive of is like he misses by a goal. Like once he gets within range, I just, I can't see him falling just short. I could see him falling seven or eight goals short because he gets a little cold streak or maybe he gets hurt again. I don't, I don't see him.

Or maybe he gets suspended. That'd be another fun one, wouldn't it? You think maybe he gets a 10 gamer for pile driving? Someone's heading to the end drops a D. He on somebody? Maybe. The caps play the Wild on March 27th. So Ryan Hartman will be back in the lineup for that one, you would imagine, unless he does something else.

Ryan Hartman, a Wayne Gretzky fan? There's something else. He's not going to have the opportunity to pile drive or to give Ovechkin, you know, the triple-H pedigree off a, off a faceoff. in that game. We're days out from this. He's been suspended for 10 games. Ryan Hartman has. Again, that agrees. Tim Stutzel on a face off a couple days back.

Suspended for 10 games. He's appealing the suspension, which is... Is he really? He's going to appeal it. Absolutely. Let me just say this. Before you get further into this, Gary Bettman, when they called to appeal this, he should have said, if you guys are even thinking of

appealing this, I'll go through the process with you, and then I'm going to tack on an extra two for even thinking of bringing this to my attention and wasting my time with this nonsense. 10 games? No problem. You could have given them more and I still wouldn't have a problem with that. But like the fact that you're even trying to have a conversation that this should be less

is assonine. So fourth time you've been suspended. You tried to take Cole Perfetti's head off last year off of face off. You've had countless like greasy plays like the one against Eilers that he got away with. it's just like there's there's no excuse for it and if you watch the game Stutzla slashed him okay big deal you got slashed everyone gets slashed in the NHL like and that's your like premeditated retribution is to pile drive the guy's head into the ice and he's bleeding and let's just put it out there that could have

been way worse of an outcome like way worse and if it had been we'd be talking about way more than 10 games too like Ryan Hartman was lucky that that didn't end differently. Right. So that's kind, that was kind of my question coming into this. Frankie, like, I look at that. I'm like, that's, that's trash. That's a rat move by, by Ryan Hartman from a player who's got plenty of a track, plenty of a track record. By the way, came up in the, in the suspension video when Damien Etchevaryette of the league is just like, the whole tone was like this guy, right? Like, that's, that's, that was kind of the, the underlying, uh,

the underlying context there. But like, I rarely get annoyed over, over stuff like this anymore. Like, I've just been, I've been doing it long enough and I've seen enough of it where the stuff comes and goes, right?

Like dirty hits or dirty plays or, or part of the league. And you, you're watching them and you maybe have to analyze them and you move on from. There's something about the Hartman thing that just, it bugs me. Even, even days later.

So is that, is that me being sensitive? Is that the two of us being sensitive, Frankie? Because it seems like it's, it seems like it seems like it was garbage. You know what is like a buzz term we hear all the time when it comes to suspensions? Hockey play. You know, is it a hockey play. That is the furthest thing from a hockey play.

So I don't think you're being sensitive because it's not like, A, it was a hit that went awry. The guy turned at the last second and I, listen, I just had to, I had to finish the hit or hey, just, you know, instinctually. Yes, I got my elbow up, but, you know, like it was just, it was bad luck. And I, yeah, I didn't mean to get my elbow up. This is like, I know off this face off, I see your head there and I am like driving it into the ice. It's just, it's not even close to a hockey play.

So no, you're not being sensitive at all about it. And that's what makes the appeal interesting to me in that Hartman's defense, as per the suspension video, was I did not, I was not intentionally trying to drive us head in. I see he said he lost his balance. He put his arm over the overstoods old to try to break his fall. Yeah, lots of people use their forearms to drop themselves up after. Yeah, it happens all the time. But that's, you know, as far as appealing it, I mean, you almost have to say that the, the basis of the appeal is not, oh, hey, you know, 10 games is too much for driving a guy face first into the ice. it's it's I I'm not guilty I did not this was accidental I lost my balance in which case like

Gary Betman's not going to say you know what I've I've seen the appeal zero games drop it yeah we or like we believe you now yeah we actually we actually think you did you did this by accident we didn't four days ago but we do yeah I actually have a different view on that I think it comes down to the money he's losing by being suspended for 10 games games. It's almost $500,000. So, I don't care. The PA probably wants guys to push back on this. Yeah, I, I buy that for sure.

But, like, I don't care how much money you make, man. Like, 500 grand's a lot of money. And so, you know, if you can find a way to even clip it down by two games, like, that's not insignificant. So as much as it's a precedent thing. Don't get finder suspended every 65 games in your career or whatever, whatever is turned in for Hartman. Yeah. No kidding. But that's one, that's one, like I like to see a suspension like that every once in a while because I just think it kind of puts people on notice that like, hey, if you are on the books and you have been warmed, we will at some point drop the hammer on you. Right. Like at some point, you just got to like, you got to come to the table and say like, this is the one where we got to drop the hammer. And it doesn't happen all the time. There's, there's some things that happen where you're like, hey, Stefan Nason on Tage Thompson. There's a. it, right? But haven't heard anything on that.

Let's table that for the second segment. We're doing, we're doing players only meeting. We're doing player polls here on the athletic hockey show. That's after the break. All right, we're back. And we have another dirty hit to talk about a little bit different set of, set of reactions to it, to put it mildly. Stefan Nason crushes Tage Thompson illegally, gets a match penalty on Monday, not going to get to suspended. That's part for the course, I suppose. But man, the fellas, the big thing coming out of that still, players only meeting in the wake of it. Buffalo side, you know, their most electrifying offensive player get got. And then there was no real pushback. Lindy Rough, not psyched about it. Sabres, after the fact, not psyched about it. We see Alex talk. We see Jason Zucker. Not thrilled with

with the lack of pushback. And that's, that's still, especially as we find out that Nason's not going to get suspended and all that. Buffalo goes out and wins last night, so credit to him.

But the dynamic, man, it play there is, is fascinating to me, where you do have something that happens and players are against it, and the coach has a problem with it, and it gets to the point

where there needs to be a player's only needing after it. Like, frankly, this is, uh, this is, this is interesting. I got to,

I got to make one thing clear off the top. fighting is not comfortable for everyone, right? Like not everyone feels like they want to get punched in the face. So I can totally understand that. Like it's just not everyone wants to do it or can do it. But if you know that if something like that goes down and you and three other guys are all going to go into the pile at the same time and, you know, throw some jabs or grab someone, at least do something, you feel a little more comfortable.

You know what I mean? Because you're not just that one guy who's going and fighting. someone who might be out of your weight class or bigger or stronger and all that kind of stuff. So with that being said, clearly it was obviously the wrong reaction by all the Buffalo players on the ice. And even if you didn't see it and you see Thompson down like that, it's like we have enough of a sample size in the NHL where it's like teams just get into it, throw punches, ask questions later, you'll figure out the rest. And there would have been in that players only meeting, there would have been a lot of words thrown around.

like embarrassing. Like that's, that's what guys would have said. Like, guys, that, that is flat-out embarrassing because there's probably guys

on the bench that if they were on the ice, they would have done something and they couldn't because they didn't want to jump in. And I get that. But like, that just needs to be like ingrained in your team culture mentality where like, you could go through countless examples of teams like Tampa Bay for years. And they're probably still like that. But like lesser than they used to be.

Anything around the net punches. Florida. Same thing. Austin. Same thing. It's like, you either do it or you don't. And Buffalo doesn't. And that was, that was the wrong reaction. Um, and that's, it's not a good look to like, think about if you're Tage Thompson. Yes, you're a star player. It doesn't matter though. If you're any player, you're down on the ice. You just got hit in the head. You get back to the room. You kind of, you know, get your bearings and you're like, well, who fought? No one. Oh, that, that's weird.

Like we live in a world where clean hits weren't fights. And that wasn't a clean hit. He got a match penalty. Is it just a situation where you have four guys on the ice and everyone thinks the other one's taking care of business? Then you realize after the fact, like, uh-oh, like we went, I don't care for further. I remember, I really don't care about that kind of stuff. I remember, like, it was my first year in the minors. My D-partner got like mangled from behind.

And it was, I think Cody Beach. tough guy. I think he was with Chicago's farm team at the time. And I was like a scrawny wet noodle. And I just went over to cross-check him. And this guy fights and it's like, oh, his gloves are off. And I'm like, I got beat up.

But at the end of the day, like, you know, at least you did something about it. And I was not comfortable with it. And I was afraid of getting punched in the face. I would flat out admit that. You taught him a lesson because he became a referee after that. You knocked it right out of him. He's like an official now.

got, I would say he probably got 10 shots, 7 to the helmet, and then helmet just like flew off and then another three right to the bare skull at least. Okay. So when that happens, like when we, can we find this on, can we find this on hockey? I was trying to look it up and it wasn't, uh, there was a YouTube video, but it got deleted somehow. I don't know who you know copyright claim filed by F. Carado 22. Interesting. That's what happens when you spend a little time with Lou Lamarillo. You can just find ways to get things taken care of. Make things disappear. But Frankie,

like, so when that happens, when your guy doesn't fight, but you respond, you jump in there against somebody who does, you eat a few, what's the reaction as you're coming off the ice? What's the reaction as you're going by your bench in the room after? Like, do people like recognize

it or like, what kind of exception did you get? No, for sure they do because, you know, obviously, guys are going to recognize that that's not something in your wheelhouse, right? So guys will give you a little more juice that way. And if it happens to be like, you're a guy that that falls under your roles and responsibilities, it's like, yeah, that's part for the course. Like, you got to do that kind of stuff. But anytime you do something in a game that's like, you know, a big block shots or, you know, take a hit to make a play, those things go a long way,

you know, in the bench on the room. Guys will bring that kind of stuff up. You know, it's like one of those nights where everyone's battling and then, you know, in the room, it's like, man, we got, you know, gentilly over there blocking shots. It's like, boys, like, let's, you know, let's go here. Let's rally around that. This guy's in the fight and, you know, that's one of those ones where, you know, someone who's not necessarily comfortable in that situation, you know, steps in. It's like the bench all of a sudden is saying, boy, like, let's go. We got to do it for, you know, we just had this big moment. Like we got to, and they end up winning the game, but they also gave up a shorty on the

on the five minute power play. A few seconds in. Yeah. And even if, even if you were worried about the instigator, you would have played four on four for two minutes and then you still would have had a three minute power play on the back end of that. So there's, there's just, there's no excuse for, for the response to that hit. And, yeah.

That is what I was going to ask, right? Because the Sabres, their season's been a mess. They're, they're probably out of it. But they're, you know, maybe you still believe you're saying, okay, we, we got to like run the table in the second half to get back in this thing. You're up by two goals. The hit happens. You see the ref's got his arm up. We're going to get a power play.

Is there any part of you that's thinking, I don't want to jump in here? Because at that point, you don't know what's going to be five minutes. Maybe it's going to be two. So I negate a power play. Man, what is this the sort of thing where, you know, you always hear, there's certain people will always say, no, no, you get your revenge by scoring on the power play. You don't need to jump in or anything like that. What's the balance on that? I mean, it clearly didn't work.

But, you know, is there an element of that where you're thinking, man, the coach isn't going to want me to jump in here because we got to win this game because we got, we need two points every single night. You know what? Like if someone, let's say, goes and hits your goalie and you're getting the power play, I think that's one of those ones where you'd be like, okay, we'll live to fight another day here. Like, it's all good. Like, we're going to take this power play.

But something has egregious. as that. And then also, like, you should kind of realize in the moment, it's like, there's got to be an original on them. So, like, hopefully there's something here that like saws this off and then we still have the original power play to begin with. But I do think in that situation, you're up in the game anyways. Um, you know, so like you just, sometimes you can rally around the moment a little more than just like, it felt dull after that because nothing happened. And then you go to this power play that isn't sharp is not great and and you actually get scored on like i don't know there's there's something to be said about like you know rising to the moment and what that does for the energy of the group and

just saying oh not going to do anything we'll take the power play it's also it's also not you know being the third man in on a on a face wash scrum in front of a net like you have your best player laid out after that right that seems like that's the variable where it's like i'm not going to worry about what the, about what the, even up, make up call is, or what have you. Like, that, that seems like that's the, I would imagine that's what those guys were,

were truly pissed about when we start talking about having the players only meeting. Like, he's like, Tatea Thompson is, is sprawled out over there. That seems like that should be enough. Bad look, man. Everyone's talking about it around the league and then people question, like, your commitment, your jam, all that,

you know what I mean? Like, it's not, not pretty. So there, the, the, the, the, The term, the word embarrassing would have been floated around a lot in that player's only meeting. That is for sure. And then they come out last night and there's a fight three seconds into the game. Does Gilbert fights, Matthew Oliver, Olivier, sorry. Is that part of the, is, is, is that explicitly said in the meeting that somebody better get out there and drop the gloves right away? Or is it just one of those things that you don't have to say and somebody reads between the line?

lines. Yeah, that's that's read between the lines. And I think if you're the guy that can fight, you know, you're like, I'm going tonight. You know, like, and it doesn't even matter that it's not New Jersey. It's just like, I just got to fight tonight. Does that say the situation at all? The code is such a weird thing. The web, the web of the code is crazy. The code would have been very offended by no one standing up for Tage Thompson. Makes sense. What would the code think about players, talent journalists, like the coach that they'd least like to play for,

the coach they'd most want to play for, best facility is worst facilities. Because that's the other thing we're talking about today. Part two of the athletics player pull dropped. It's always a big, big time project for us. Thank God I had nothing to do it this year. That's always the worst.

I've had to do that in the past. It's always terrible because it's always guys that I barely know. And I'm like, hey, what teammate would you like to fight the most? Get out of here. Who are you again? But, man, Frankie, Frankie, Sean, there's some interesting stuff in here. We'll skip over the no trade list discussion, I suppose.

I mean, we kind of know every year. It's the same thing. It's nothing new. I will say, though, there's a couple. Let's just hit on this. Yeah, let's go. Let's go through this. First one, first one, if you have a no trade list, what's the first team on it?

Winnipeg has 49%. I was surprised Winnipeg was that far ahead. and that Buffalo and then down to San I mean San Jose is not a good team but like I thought for example Ottawa would show up more

than it did on that list 3% yeah Ottawa I I get Ottawa's got a weird view from people because if you just go there on the road

you stay in Kanata in the hotel that's kind of away from everything you just it feels different doesn't have like a city vibe But my point I want to make is, you know, San Jose, Anaheim, New York. Those are teams that are in the top seven on this list. And I think there was a time where San Jose, you wouldn't have found it on many people's no trades just because it's California and such a good team and all that kind of stuff.

But like that goes to show you, you can be in California. And if your team's bad, guys don't want to play there necessarily Anaheim same way. Like Anaheim's an unbelievable place to live. yes, expensive. You make a lot of money in the NHL. But like if that team was half decent or better than what they were, that wouldn't be high on a lot of lists. And then New York, it's like I think some people look at it and say,

it's suffocating. It's, you know, you've been to New York for longer periods of time. You're like, I need to take a breath, right? And you live there, you play there. So I can understand why those cities are on there now. But, you know, I think in years past, San Jose, Anaheim, those probably would not be high on that list.

But that's what that's scary if you're a Winnipeg fan because you see that, you know, when you see San Jose and Anaheim, clearly winning and losing is a big part of this. You're in first place in the whole league. And you're still, in a survey done this year,

you're still number one by a mile. That's concerning. I will say this on, you go ahead. No, but Mark Sheifley and Connor Hellebuck signed long-term extensions there. Right?

Like, there's, there's, they, they have a good, they've done it. They have a good track of retaining their talents, which should, should tell you a lot of what you need to know about what those players think about the market and the city and the fan support and all that kind of stuff. There's a thing going on in baseball right now. The, the, the big story is they did the, the Hall of Fame voting recently. And a very, very good player, I, uh, Yitro, uh, Suzuki was nearly a unanimous pick. there was one guy who didn't vote for him and it's anonymous, that person hasn't revealed their ballot. And there's like this hunt going on to figure out who was the guy who didn't vote for each row.

I want to know who was the guy. If you go down to the small print, other teams receiving votes, who's the one guy who voted for Vegas as the number one team on their no trade list? I want to know this nice story. I want to know what the deal is that this guy was like, you know what, the one team that I would not want to go to. Oh, don't send you to Vegas, man. Someone who's had to call 1-800 gambler a time or two, probably.

Married with a few kids and maybe the wife was looking over the shoulder during that particular answer. I don't know. If you think you have demons from watching the leaps play in the playoffs, this guy's got 10 times the demons from sitting at the blackjack table. There's a story there, man. He's been in the Belagio poker and won too many times. one more on this on this question then we'll move on look maclin salabrini's young he's not going to move the needle maybe on questions like this just yet how much do you do we think individual players play a role in in pushing in the results on stuff like this because at the end of the day you know if you're trying to break a tie and you're trying to figure out what the single team that you that you want to play for at least is at some point soon in the future, you're going to be able to say like,

well, McIntyle bringing us a star, and we're going to have a chance because we have an elite player. If nothing else, that can kind of break the tie? Can single players move the needle when it comes to feelings like this?

Dude, how many guys want to play in Edmonton because Connor McDavid or Leon Dreysetle? I was going to say that, got a chance to win a championship, man. We always hear about guys not wanting to play in Canada. You've got Calgary, Ottawa,

and obviously Winnipeg showing up high on that list. You've got Toronto, Vancouver, showing up below Montreal as well. The only Canadian team, no votes, Edmonton Oilers. I think that's your answer right there, because 10 years ago they would have been right there next to Winnipeg as a place that nobody wanted to do. Yeah, like when they had nail Yakopov,

it's probably neck and neck with Winnipeg. right Connor McDavid Leon Drysidal different story you think you can win and like we'll talk about this I'm sure as we get down in the playoffs but every playoff run at the beginning of it someone says boys

team says to team success equals individual success and it's true because all these guys that go on long playoff runs they end up signing really nice tickets for themselves next question what coach would you like to play for other than your own uh john cooper not not surprisingly leads the field there at almost 25 percent yeah um man there's some interesting stuff on this list too because we see almost the entire league like literally

only a few coaches didn't get any votes whatsoever and of course me being where i am i i mike sullivan zero votes not not showing up out of like out of like and 28 other guys did i think Sully's a great coach, man. He's got a great track record. He's detailed. He's prepared. I like Sully. I think that just speaks to Pittsburgh being in the situation they've been in the last few years

because coming off their two cups, there would have been a lot of guys that would have wanted to play for Mike Sullivan. It's just, I think he's a victim of where that team is at. My personal one, like if you were interviewing me and I was still playing and you asked me this, I think I would say Rod. I would love to see what Rod is all about and how he conducts things and just how he talks to you on a, you know, man to man level. I think that would be, that would be the one for me.

Yeah, I, I've talked to players about, about what it's like to play for Rod. Because, like, you come into those discussions if you're me, everybody talks about a great idea is. Everybody talks about, you know, whatever, the quality of, quality of humanity is and all that stuff, which is all well and good. But it gets to the point sometimes where you're like, is this is, or do we talk about this too much? Like, is this too much of the narrative here? And for the most part, like, guys like, no, he's, he's the best.

He's the men. Like, it's not, it's not overplayed. Rod's, Rod, is that cool. Two things that stood out to me on that list. First of all, a couple of guys on the list who weren't even coaches, DJ Smith gets a vote, and Rocky Thompson was another one. But speaking to Rocky Thompson in,

in Philadelphia, John Torrella, not high up the list, but higher than you would think. And ahead of guys like Martin Saint-Louis that we think of as player coaches, you know, we will, Tortorella is also going to feature pretty prominently in the next question. But the idea that there are certain guys that want to be coached the way Torterella coaches, you know, his, his straight, they always say, you're never, you never question where you stand with this guy.

Now, half the time where you stand is he hates your guts and he wants to. make your life miserable, but some guys would rather have that tell me right to my face than some of the friendlier lighter approaches. Ask Rasmus Ristolin if he would have had Torts earlier in his career and what that would have done for him. Actually, I was doing overdrive yesterday and we had Scott Hartnell on and he's like, I wish I had Torts when I was younger. He would have helped me so much. And you know what? So that leads us into our next one. You want to tee this one up? Yeah. Yeah. which coach would you least like to play for?

93 responses to this one. So some guys passed. 38% of the respondents, 38.46 to keep it specific. One John Tortorella. So he's at the top of the least like to play for list. There's a certain, there's something that comes with torts

that like is not for everyone. Like I remember, I like torts. I wish. I got to play for him longer. But I do remember very vividly sitting in video waiting for him to start the meeting and he would start at like three minutes early and it was like your fault if you're not in your seat, if you were getting treatment or dealing with equipment, whatever.

And like you're just dreading a clip of yours coming up and having to face it. But once you get over that, which is not easy, you're better for it. But man, like there's some days where you're like, I could really, I could really use like, a little reassurance here. It doesn't all need to be tough love. Just need some love love. Which by the way is exactly how the producers handle this podcast as well. So it's pretty tough.

How about Mike Mapco? I'm fine being yelled at. I always have been. How about Mike Babcock showing up number three on the list? A guy who almost certainly is not going to coach again still right up there. What was one of the quotes about about bavs? Ben there lived it is what one player said after voting for him. Dude, I feel that.

You'll hear that. You'll hear that. The one that's, I think, there's one that's concerning here. I don't care that Bruce Cassidy is second because the guy wins. Like, he's won. So, like, whatever. You can even deal with it. And, well, maybe, you know, like, you still have to treat people a certain way, right?

Greg Cronin. It's a young team in Anaheim. You need to have a certain personality around a young group to kind of cultivate what they can be. And that's the one that probably concerns me the most is that he's there. He's a hard ass.

He's a hard ass. And I can see how that's not, if you're losing a bunch of games, it's in your, you're not an NHL coach. I mean, granted Greg Cronin is accomplished and plenty of other areas as a coach. But in the NHL, he's done nothing. Yeah.

So he's not John Tortorella. He's not John Torrella. He's not John Torrella. So that is a tough one. By the way, a shout out to the one player who listed Rod Brindamore and then gave the explanation that it was because Rod Brindamore is in better shape than everyone.

And it, it intimidates. Makes me. Makes me like that. I love the honesty. I wonder who that was. Well, so many HL team.

Good shape is Rod Brindamore. So that narrows it down to only 99.9% of the league. Which NHL team has the best facilities for opposing teams? This was pretty competitive at the top. We have 110 responses. Detroit's at 24%. Seattle's at 22%. Edmonton's at 20%.

So it's a cluster at the top of that one. This is right up my alley because of a career healthy scratch, I got to explore all the facilities and get a real good feel for them. Detroit being number one, absolutely. couldn't agree more. Great road dressing room. You get to use the Pistons gym, which is awesome. There's so much room to warm up. If you do have like a day off or a practice day in Detroit, you just skate guards on. You walk over to the practice rink. You turn right instead of turning left. Unbelievable. I've never been to Seattle. Can't comment on it. Edmonton's visitors room is like a home team's dressing room. It's that good. It's really nice. It's like there's a lot of room for stuff. Like it's kind of glitons. Litsy.

I have actually really liked Pittsburgh's. And I don't know if it's on here. Yeah, Pittsburgh's is on here as well. But their road area is awesome. And then Utah, I've never been. Islanders,

I've never been. Obviously, they're new in the league. But Montreal's sneaky, sneaky nice because you get the big gym and you have the best soccer playing area probably in the league with the really high ceilings.

And you can have a massive circle. You get some great soccer games going before the game in Montreal. all. Me and DGB did that at the 2023 draft or whatever that was. Just Lafokovsky draft, 22. We were playing some kick around by the dust. I've had the experience of like walking into that building and having to like walk through a soccer game to get to the press area.

It's the most intimidating I've ever. I stood there for five minutes because I mean they don't they don't stop and go, oh, go ahead. There's people waiting. You got to wait. You got to wait, man. you gotta wait. I sprinted, man. I would rather,

I would rather run across the ice and interrupt a game, like an NHL game than interrupt the pregame soccer. There's no way. Paul Martin may have accidentally on purpose kicked the ball at me one time. I don't know,

I don't know if that's true. That means they like you. Yeah. Did you kick it back? Did you like to make sure it didn't touch the ground? It was 100% accident and I scurried, I scurried over to the press box elevator. Frankie, by the way,

we have Coke products in the press box in in Pittsburgh now. It's not R.C. Cole anymore. Oh, that's important. You don't have to drink diet. I'm not there this year. We didn't, we didn't have the Pittsburgh game. Yeah, because they stink and they're not worth traveling to. Which NHL team has the worst facilities?

We have Carolina Hurricanes in a runaway here, boys, almost two-thirds of the vote on their own. what makes Carolina's setup so uniquely bad? Because as a visiting media member, I've never been all that impressed with it either. I will tell you, and no disrespect to Carolina, but I think 65% is shockingly low. I thought this would be like high 80s.

Okay, where do you start? First of all, the dressing room was way worse. I guess it was renovated recently, and guys still don't like the renovation. The quote in here used to be, Carolina, but they upgraded and somehow it's still Carolina. There wasn't enough stalls in the room. So like the backup goalie and like if you were an extra D man or forward,

you had to sit in like a partitioned other area, which is like right near the bathroom and shower area. And it was like dark and dingy. And then you walk out of there, the soccer area is like low ceiling. so you can't get any elevation on the ball. There's like it's a tight. They should have been a specific question.

Like not even about facility. It's like like let's talk about the, let's talk about the soccer areas. We need to ask that next year. Well, that's part of it. And I'll bring it full circle here. The soccer area is small and tight with no high ceiling.

So everything's constantly hitting the ceiling. Like it's not a fun game. And that game takes place next to the tunnel, which you go onto the ice, which is colder than Antarctica. like for some reason the cold from the arena just like gets siphon through this tunnel and then comes out and you're just freezing and then where you would do like your jogging and you're kind of like dynamic stuff you're like dodging tables and chairs and old seats and there's just no room to do anything there and the showers were always bad it was not like a big shower room like all the rooms have like just a big shower room with a bunch of shower heads and this one has like blocked off per shower. So like you'll go and you'll be like,

hey man, like are you done getting wet? Like can I just get wet? And then you'll soap off and then like, you know, you like switch and you're just like two dudes just trying to like maneuver around one shower because the next shower there's two dudes like one guy's getting wet. The other guy's soaping up. Then they're going to switch.

It's just it's chaos. It's shower chaos is what it is. And no one has time for that. And it is the worst in the NHL. I think that's the title of the. episode is shower chaos it's shower chaos frankie where are you the rest of the week do you have to travel i've lost track of you again i'm uh i'm nocturnal i am doing uh i did 10 30 habs sends panel last night doing uh la kings habs uh panel tonight doing leifes cracking panel thursday

and then i'm off to montreal for a back-to-back jersey and tampa uh for super bowl weekend so looking forward to that you got a play line up to watch the big game. I'll be watching it on Air Canada Flight 402 from Montreal to Toronto at 7.15 p.m. As God intended.

Have a good week, brother. We'll talk to you next Wednesday. All right, thanks to Frankie as always. Sean, it's me and you at the end as it so often is. What have we learned? I learned that we may have to think about unengraving

that Spencer Carberry Jack Adams, just because the Red Wings might never lose again. We need to explore the possibility. How many wins in a row before Todd McClellan gets in? On the other show yesterday, somebody wrote into the mailbag and they wanted to know which coach had coached the fewest games to win the Jack Adams. And if there would be precedent for somebody like Todd McClellan coming in and only coaching I think it was 48 games. Is it Pilesma?

Well, it's no, it's not because of guys who won the Jack Adams, obviously they're in short and seasons, there were two guys who won with 48 games, but there have been several guys who have won the Jack Adams not coaching a full season. The lowest amount was Bill Barber for the Flyers. And that was, he, I think, had 51 or 52. game. So not really a precedent, but close enough that, I mean, if Todd McClellan, this, this team is a

juggernaut right now, I don't think getting them just into the playoffs is going to be enough. When Bill Barber won, he took over a 500 team and basically had him like 31, 10 and 10 for the rest of the year. It was, it was, but if I mean, if McClellan can get some version pacing above that right now. Yeah, then I think it's you absolutely have to have to talk about it. And it's going to be fascinating because if Detroit makes the playoffs, Todd McClellan, making that coaching change is going to be the turning point of the season, obviously. If they cool off and they end up missing, okay, that that happens too. If they miss the playoffs by a point or two,

a number of people who are going to be looking at Steve Eisenman going, where was this move earlier? Because we were all waiting for it for weeks and weeks and weeks after the lackluster start that the Red Wings had. But we'll get to that bridge when we come to it. If we do for now, the Red Wings look fantastic.

And we spent a lot of time for weeks talking about this Eastern race and this and that. We're waiting to see teams get hot. Ottawa did. last night, Detroit, still unbeatable. So maybe starting to turn into a bit of a runaway. If I'm a Boston or a New York or one of those teams, it's time to go now because these teams are flipping the switch.

15-4-10 under McClellan. A lot of that's either the power play has been killing it. They're outscoring opponents, 69, 54 in those 20 games, man. But like, yeah, we're at the point now where you got to assume he's going to show up on some ballots. I think the, I think the field is just a little, it's a little stronger. I mean, whatever, it's early. It's February 5th. Who knows what happens?

Carberry is still my pick. I think he got robbed last year in a lot of ways. He was seventh on the ballot. I looked this up yesterday. That seems unfair, given what he was working with. And now they make some additions and, you know, they're one of the best teams in the conference. So I think he's, I think he's a good coach. And he's still the pick.

Also, Dean Aveson is going to get a ton of votes because, you know, Columbus has stubbed their toes a little bit over the last few days. But, man, that's still doing great work under tough circumstances. But I think beyond those guys, man. It's his, it's his award if Columbus makes it. But that's a huge, with all those injuries and everything. It's such an F. Carol Marchenko breaks his jaw. Like, he's been fantastic for them.

That's a major, major loss. So, yeah, man. And Bricks is just sitting on the bench. I mean, what are we? talk about you know, just having everything go against you. It's tough. Tough, tough.

Red Wings are in the wild card right now. And they are one point out of third place in the Atlantic Division, by the way, in case anybody's keeping track of that. That's turning into an interesting thing now too. Like, is it Ottawa? Is it Boston? Is it Detroit? Like specifically

the Atlantic Division third seed versus wildcard races. And not only, and not only, that, but with, you know, almost 30 games left in the season, the Leafs and Panthers have not pulled away from that group either. I mean, it's not, whole mice is not out of the question if you're a team like on Ottawa or Detroit, but it is tough, though. Like you look at the senators, they have been fantastic for two weeks. They go in last night. They lose in Tampa. And it's, it's like, they lose in regulation. Tampa obviously gets the win. Boston wins. the islanders win, the red wings keep winning. It's, it's just, it's such a grind, right? If you're the senators, you've, you've been winning and winning and winning and winning and gaining all this ground. And then one night, you give back two points to almost everybody.

I mean, there's no nights off the rest of the way. We've seen Ottawa's still in very good shape. We've seen all these teams be terrible at the same time. And now I feel like we're seeing two men and then be good at the same time. It's an interesting, interesting dynamic. What I learned is that the Utah NHL team is going to have kind of a kind of a lamb logo. I was just made aware of this. Frank Saravali reported, well, whatever, shared a photo of,

they're not mockups. These are actual logos for Utah Hockey Club slash mammoth slash outlaws. they're underwhelming. I like the color scheme and I guess Mammoth is the best of the bunch but those look like those look suspiciously like

AI generated mockups to me. I don't know if that's just, I don't know if that's just poison my brain because we've seen so many of those over the last little bit, but they do, they do kind of all look similar. Now, the team has been clear that these are not final,

final, which is, is I think, a nice way to say like, cave. We've already seen it once with the names, right? Where they said, like, here's what we chose. And the fans are like, that stinks. And they're like, we lied.

We're going to change this. I think they look pretty close to final. Because that's why all this is happening, like the timeline on getting gear printed and all that sort of stuff. Like, they're up against it. Now, if they want this stuff in place for next season, like the deadlines are here. So yeah, they might not be capital F final. But yeah, care about as close.

They're close to you can get. So if you're in the booth, you're one of those Utah fans who gets a vote here, what are we doing? I think Outlaws, I mean, as someone who's just, dude,

we've talked about this on, off mic, whatever. Like, I need an S at the end of the team team. Yep. Outlaws wins based on that alone. Like I don't mind,

I don't mind Mammoth all that much if we're grading on a curve. I think the mammoth logo is the best of the three. but I also don't think that's reason enough to pick it. So I would go, I would go outlaws just because I'm tired of not even, I was going to say, I was going to say plural like plural now like plural nouns that don't end in

us, but mammoth like the plural of mammoths. If they wanted to call them the mammoths, they, they could. It's not like heat or lightning or something where you can't really pluralize it or wild or whatever like two. Yeah.

You have one mammoth standing next to another mammoth. You have mammoth. mammoths. Yeah, exactly. But apparently, apparently the team is just going to be one mammoth. Like they just all

Voltron together into one. Yeah. It can't be ridiculous. It can't be a herd of mammoths. That would be crazy. It would be madness. You can have Clayton Keller

as one tusk in Mikhail Sergachev is the other. Yeah, that's it. But yeah, they look like minor league baseball logos. Anyways, uh,

that's it for us. Three games a night. Bruins Rangers. Oilers, Blackcocks, Canadians, Kings. Frankie gets to stay up until the middle of the night for that one. So congratulations to him. Sean, what are you working on right now?

I know one of the things you're working on. That's the main one. Should we tease it or should we just say that it's an extraordinarily dumb premise for a piece? It's taking four of us to work on it and it involves the four nations. And I will leave it at that. and you can watch for that, I think on the weekend is now the plan. Okay.

Because there's no other sports happening on the weekend. So it'll get, it'll get a lot of attention. You drop that at 6.30 on Sunday. That sounds about right. It should be published. Yeah. I got yelled at at dinner last night because I was texting one of our,

one of our collaborators about, all right. You'll see. You got to text me, buddy. We have, oh, no, we need we. We got it.

We already. We hash it out. Yeah, it's the other two. This is, this will all make sense. at some point in the next few days. It may not.

Or it weren't. This might be, this might be different. But this way, you're either going to read the whole piece or you're going to read the first two sentences and be like, yeah, this one's, this one's,

got a little too far in his bag on this one. Yeah, got a little ahead of his skis. But if you do feel that way, be sure to scroll past the entire piece and just drop into the comments to let us know that you personally didn't like the premise. We love when that happens. That's always so useful. We calibrate that, you know, Tom didn't like this.

And then, you know. Comment section, bro. Always great. It's better every day. Yeah. Thank you, folks, for listening to the show. Haley and I have the next one tomorrow. Frankie, Sean Mack, and I return next Wednesday.

That'll be ahead of opening night of the Four Nations face up. We will have decided once and for all by that point whether we're interested in the tournament or not. Who knows? Could go in either direction. Sweden host Canada on Feb 12. We'll be there for that. Enjoy your week. Talk to you next Wednesday.