The Athletic Hockey Show - Will Quinn Hughes play in the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game?

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Sean, Frank and Sean discuss Quinn Hughes possibly being added to Team USA's roster ahead of the championship game between the States and Canada on Thursday. They guys provide an update on the injured Charlie McAvoy, and Frankie presents 5 dudes who have impressed him so far in the tournament, and the boys stick tap Brandon Hagel as an honorary dude, after his electric comments on Canada's focus on winning the 4 Nations Face-Off.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? This is the athletic hockey show Wednesday edition. I'm Sean Gentile. I'm here with Frankie Carrado and Sean McIndoo. Fellas, this might be a short show for me because I need to catch a flight to Boston. They called me up just in case LeBron sprained his finger ahead of the championship game. Are you allowed to type while he is still in the press box?

Or is there an incredibly convoluted series of rules about that? I think you have to watch from a sports bar, and then once LeBron exits the arena, then you can enter. He's allowed to use his phone, but not his laptop. I think that's where we landed. He can tweet,

but he's not allowed to actually write a column after the game. So it's a little bit of a problem here for us at team athletic, but we're figuring out. As long as his jukebox button pressing finger is okay. Dude, then it will be all right. You know what's going through. Repetitive motion injury.

in his index finger over it he is from that one. Sadly, the repetitive motion injury is like the most common injury for a player post career. I was shoveling like chunks of ice off my driveway the other day. And I'm like, this is it. This is what it's come to. I'm going to have a repetitive motion oblique injury from shoveling this nonsense.

You know what was, you know what came to my mind watching Thomas Harley, watched Canada's practice from half behind a closed door? Did you have like a flashback? or something? No, they were kind enough to let me on the ice for practice in the NHL, which was really nice of them. But the thing that came to mind was like,

okay, this guy was somewhere warm, presumably, you know, having a good time, he gets the call. He can't say no. Like,

what are you going to do? Thomas Harley, you can't say no. Team Canada called you. You have to go. And then I saw that every player is getting a quote unquote appearance fee. And I'm like, that dude better be getting this appearance fee,

regardless of whether he plays in a game because he is watching practice from behind a closed door waiting to go on the ice once Kail Makar has to go into the bathroom and vomit. We need to figure out whether the appearance fee is just like one size fits. As soon as you show up, does Thomas Harley get like one fifth of the appearance fee? Or like what's the percentage here?

Is it a daily per diem? Is it like as soon as you show up in Boston, you get it? These are the answers. answers that we need coming out of this tournament. I really hope for Thomas Harley's sake, it's better than the half day per diem that you get when you're a black ace in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Because when you're going to have, Sean, we got to have this conversation one day.

Today's not the day for it, maybe on a slower day. But when you're living in cranberry PA for months at a time, making half day per diem, go in a juniper grill and table 86, it just, it's just not cutting it. It's just not cutting it, my friend. I'm a full episode during the cup final. We can recount Frankie's hellish 65 days in the Pittsburgh suburbs in 2017. Hope you enjoyed a, yeah, I hope you, Juniper Grill is just like the ideal reference there. This is for six people who are listening to this.

Anyways, the championship of the Four Nations face-off is tomorrow. And we're here to talk about that in detail. Segment two is going to be Frankie's guys, his top five guys for this tournament. So that's why everybody's here. We're going to make it wait 10 minutes or so for that. There is news coming out of the last couple days. We're starting with Quinn Hughes. We already kind of alluded to that.

We're 36 hours or so away from the second period of the game, let's say. Still no clarity on whether Quinn Hughes is. headed to Boston at all, whether he'll play, certainly seems like it's cruising towards not. We have this conversation because Charlie McAvoy was injured at some point over the last few days. He's dealing with an infection stemming from an upper body injury, which sounds gnarly. How important, fellas, is it for Quinn Hughes to play in this? I scale on one to ten.

Let's go there. Like how much of this game hinges on that dude being in the lineup? Well, listen, I don't think the game necessarily hinges on whether Quinn Hughes can play or not. I think if he can play, they've added a difference maker and a guy who can do things that, like, not everyone can do. It's the equivalent of Kail McCar coming back into the lineup for Canada and what that did for them. All of a sudden, you had a guy that could make plays under pressure. And guess what? Canada was under a lot of pressure against the United States. And the Americans are going to be under a lot of pressure against Canada.

having a guy that can control the game from the back end the way he can. Like, you can't talk about it enough, how important it is. Can they win the game without Quinn Hughes? Well, of course, they already beat Canada without Quinn Hughes. Of course, McAvoy was in the lineup and he was like physical and punishing and was so good against the top players for the Canadians. But I don't think this necessarily hinges on Quinn Hughes's availability. they've already shown that they're a very good team

without him in the lineup. But not having that punishing physicality, like that's something to talk about from the McAvoy standpoint. Yeah, I feel like Connor McDavid's probably okay with McAvoy not being there. It's tough, right? Because we don't know Quinn Hughes' health status fully.

So what percent of Quinn Hughes do you need to do you need to, be an upgrade over a healthy Charlie McAvoy, which is what they had to start on Monday night. And I think there's, you know, he maybe ends up being the replacement and not much more than that just because we don't know if he's 100%. Now, that said, this is a great storyline. This is so fun. I mean, I love that he was at practice in Vancouver yesterday, but it's like, okay, what about now? Does anyone have eyes on Quinn Hughes now?

like do we all assume that he's playing right we all assume we're getting the big dramatic he just touched down you know he's all good to go uh you know queen hues is going to be there etc etc but how is it going to be unveiled where's you know all of that it's going to be great it's going to it's going to just be one more added element of this i suspect and you know if he ends up not playing everybody's made the same joke about jake sanderson you know be careful You know, don't, be careful. Cross in the street. Be careful.

Don't stub your toe on anything in the hotel because I don't think it would take much for the Quinn Hughes charter flight to suddenly be jetting across. I think I almost tripped over an Ottoman running to my phone to make that joke as soon as like, oh, yeah, Jake, Jake Sanderson's going to go spend time in a daycare or something. Like, he's definitely, he's definitely coming down. Bill Garron shows up with room service for Jake San. Don't eat it. Don't do it, Jake. It's like, it's Bill Garon with like a mustache and like some glasses on. So he's in disguise. I was thinking that like there's there's guys walking around sick, right?

Like we just know guys are like dealing with stuff. Someone accidentally on purpose is going to sneeze in like Sanderson or Hanifin's coffee one morning. And it's, uh, but think about this. Like we know it's so obvious, right? If Quinn Hughes can play, of course you would want him to play. The rules have been so murky when it comes to this kind of stuff because it's not like this is a longstanding tournament where there's like a board and you have to go through all this red tape to make things happen. They just they threw this thing up and it's been an unbelievable successful tournament. But some of the nuanced things kind of got left by the wayside.

So they are making it up as they go, which I'm okay with. It's a made up tournament. It's a great tournament, but it is a made up tournament. so they're making up the rules. Like, don't you think we should just kind of say, listen, in the spirit of this thing, this is, we want the best players playing against the best players. If Quinn Hughes can play and he was originally on the team, why not just let him play? Like, it's not like you plucked someone that had no business being there and you said, like,

you know, we're just going to throw him in now. Like you're not trying to get a mulligan on someone you overlooked. You know, if you called John Carlson right now, I would say, hold on a second. You had a chance to take John Carlson and put him on this team, and you didn't. But, yeah, I mean, Quinn Hughes was going to be there anyways. And if they were going to redo the Four Nations again, knowing what you know now, wouldn't you allow each team to pick eight defensemen? Because think about it, we are in the middle of the season.

All these guys are already playing through stuff. They've already played a significant amount of games. And now you just added game sevens in February. And they're ramped up. And so, like, guys are banged up. With that being said, it's like, if you were going to redo this and have eight defensemen, then you can let Quinn Hughes play. You can let Thomas Harley play.

I mean, it's just, it's the nature of where this tournament is at right now. And I think they'll do that because part of the reason why I think we had such limited rosters here is that we weren't completely sure what this tournament was going to be and what the reaction was going to be. And I think there was probably some pushback from the players going, hey, man, don't name me as the eighth or ninth defenseman and I got to lose my, you know, week and a half off just so I can skate around and be a black ace or whatever else. Whereas the way it's gone, as good as the tournament's been,

I suspect now they wouldn't have any problem getting guys to show up, saying, yeah, you know, I don't even have to play. Let me just be part of this because this rocks. We needed to learn that this tournament had the juice. And I don't think anybody knew that 10 days ago or six weeks ago or whatever. After a week's worth of watching these games and seeing the environment, and seeing the caliber of play and seeing how, you know, the sport has surfaced, certainly in America on a level that it hasn't in a minute.

Like this is, I, I, like my standard for this always, honestly, is if my uncles care about something like this, if I'm getting texts from my uncles being like, you know, who is Brandon Hagel, who is like, like, XYZ, I'm like, okay, this is it. because those dudes are not having that conversation. God love Panthers Oilers. That was a great series, but they're not asking me who Sam Reinhardt is. They're not asking me who.

They don't know who Etta Lucerne is. Yeah, it's shocking. They're not like, wow, Evan Bouchard, you know, crispy on the on the neutral zone transitions. Like they're not doing that sort of stuff, but they're asking, they're texting photos of themselves and in Team USA hockey jerseys

that they, that they dug up from somewhere. So I think we've learned that over the last seven days. And I would be shocked, shocked, shocked if, you know, forget the Olympics. If in 2028, whenever we're talking about a more robust World Cup of hockey, if the rules aren't significantly different. So yeah, whatever. Like let Quinn fly to Boston if he wants to. Just make it happen.

Because we're making this stuff up as we go anyways. The world has shifted on the last seven days. He can fly, but he can't land. that's the compromise. Get a parachute, if you're this, if you really, you know,

you really want to be there. Let's, let's see it. Prove it, brother. Yeah. And if, and if you can't land in Boston,

we will rewrote you to Newark, because that's where all airplanes go. Newark. I think, I think that's actually my least favorite airport on earth. We can have that discussion. Oh, I love,

we'll get into that. I like New York. I like LaGuardia now. I like Newark. Oh, this is great. I don't like O'Hare. Anyways. Moving,

like, New LaGuardia, great. Love it. Yeah. Love New LaGuardia. If you go back to the start of this tournament, okay, and people were having the conversation, is this going to be a no-hitter?

Is this going to be, you know, a glorified all-star game? We should have known better for a couple reasons. The first reason why we should have known better, especially if you're a former player or you spent a lot of time around the dressing room, like with the guys. I have seen poker games on the airplane, ping pong.

games that mean nothing. Beer pong games that mean nothing. All these silly, mundane golf games in training camp that really don't mean anything. And guys lose their minds over these things.

It is so competitive. And it's like meaningless. It literally means nothing, but guys are so competitive over these things. And then the second reason is you add national pride. Like if you're going to wear Team Canada, Team USA, Sweden, Finland,

and you have to represent that, I just don't think you can go out there and have a no-hitter and make it a glorified all-star game. It means something more when that is involved. And all these guys, I think, like, right from the drop of the puck, recognize that.

And regardless of whether it was made up or not, it all of a sudden turned into, wait a second, we're gathered here as Americans and we're playing against Canada, who, you know, hashtag owns the game. Well, guess what? We own the game now. And we're going to try and run your ass out of the building.

And I love it. Like, I think that alone just sparked so much of the competitive nature and the juice in this thing. And it, like, we'll never have this conversation of whether it was or going forward is going to be a glorified all-star game when you're playing for your nation. And part of that, full credit to the crowd in Montreal, because if any players had shown up with that attitude, playing in front of that crowd, I think, would have put an end to it. They were absolutely on fire. And I'm particularly saying the Montreal crowd, because we haven't quite seen it from Boston yet just because they haven't got to watch Team USA in a game that mattered. So we haven't seen that. But I suspect pretty strongly that Thursday night we're going to see it big time from the Boston.

fans. But, you know, yeah, I mean, the crowd can make a sporting event. And the crowd in Montreal was was fantastic. And that that fed into it as well. I want to say that I'm worried about seeing the platinum seat effect in Boston because tickets are going for $1,500, $1,500. Like, it's a all-rich person event, it seems like at this point. Like, I want to try to gin up that as a possible thing to watch, but I, I just, I just can't. I think people are going to be losing their minds there. Yeah. Like, we always, like, frankly, we, like, we always, I'll speak for myself here.

Like, my concerns about this tournament were never about the players, right? Like, you, we know just from paying attention and being around it a little bit over the last however many years that those guys were going to care. The, the thing that's been a little bit of a pleasant surprise is how much the public at large in America, at least is cared. And we're talking. Isn't it amazing? It's wild. We're talking 10.1 million combined viewers for the first Canada USA game.

That's the most of any NHL game non-Stanly Cup Final Division in more than 10 years, which is wild. People just locked on immediately. And I don't know that I was fully expecting that. Listen, we knew everyone in Canada was going to be watching because everyone's been craving this, right? But in the States, to see the push from ESPN where, you know, P.K. Suban, is on every show right now that ESPN has to offer. And he's, he's on get up, he's on first take,

like he's on SportsCenter, and he is going through everything, like just promoting this. And I think one thing comes to mind with that. Yes, it's been great. There's a lot of eyeballs on it. Like this is,

you know, the fights, as much as people talk about fighting and saying, you know, is it going to be part of the game in the long term? Guess what still sells? Three fights in nine seconds. That still sells in a big way.

Like it just, it gets, eyeballs, it gets attention, and it can get new viewers. And the thing that comes to the forefront of all this is the timing with the NBA and their All-Star game was such a disaster and no one cares about it. And it's such a waste of time. And at the same time, the NHL has found a way to eliminate their All-Star game and play this best on best.

And the timing could not be better for the league and getting eyeballs on it because this is intense. It matters. It means something. guys are given they're all. And you know, like how hard it is to grab viewers from a league like the NBA that's so deeply ingrained and well established into the homes of everyone. But this, like, it feels like it's been a little bit of a turning of the tide here with people

locking on to what the NHL is doing. But here's the flip side of that. And I was on a radio show last night. It was some, it was an American show and it was very clearly not a show that does a lot of hockey talk. And this was the question they asked me. They said like, you know, boy, everybody hate it with the NBA put in front of them on the weekend. And everyone's talking about hockey and how did the NHL pull this off?

And the answer was they did what we have been begging them to do for a decade. You know, it's like we hate the All-Star game too in the NHL. I mean, it's it's completely pointless. It's completely useless. It's maybe even worse than what the NBA puts out there. We've been begging for some sort of best on best. and the NHL finally listens. And because of that, because of the timing, because of some other issues,

it's like it's just all clicked perfectly to create this environment where this feels like it really, really matters. And that's great. And full credit to the NHL, I guess. But it's also like I don't want to give them, I'm not going to give them flowers for finally getting around to the obvious answer that we've all been saying for a decade now needed to come back. but they've lucked into the timing because this really has sort of jumped the track and become not just a hockey story, but something bigger than that. And I guess we will see if that translates to anything beyond Thursday, but I think that

the numbers are going to be fantastic on Thursday night. You know what's crazy about that from an American perspective? If you went back and looked at the roster of the 2016 World Cup of hockey team to now what the Americans have. Like, the level and skill in a decade has jumped up just a massive amount for the Americans. It's a totally different feeling team. Although they play... It's not one single player from 2016 is back for this team, which is amazing. And they had a lot of guys on that under 23 team North America. Like, they had, the Americans had more guys than the Canadians had currently playing, which is interesting. But like, it's the same mentality for the Americans, I find, like,

still they want to play the meat and potatoes, heavy kind of grind you down style game. Like that's been American hockey on the international level for a long time now. But now they have the skill where they can kind of beat you any way you want to play it, which is pretty scary. And it's come a long way in the last nine years. Like we're definitely going to talk more about that in segment two, right? Because we're talking about guys who've shown Frankie, you know, that they're dudes. in the first leg of the tournament.

So let's do that. We also have a special six member, I think, of that, of that top five that we're going to talk about after the break. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Grado, McIndoo, Gentilly, Four Nations Faceoff Championship on Thursday. We're talking that.

In the lens that we've chosen to use here in the second segment of the show, this is a concept we've brought up a couple times in the past. Frankie Crato has five dudes who've impressed him in a particular way so far in the tournament. But before we get into the official Crato stamped top five, I want to talk about Brandon Hagel, who seemed like he was the star of the media proceedings on Tuesday after, you know, a series, really, of pretty strong games. I'm not surprised I see it from Brandon Hagel. He's shown himself to be. a high-end NHL player over the last couple years,

but he's, he's, he's been really good. He all, he has, he has the big moment when he, when he fights, you know, he fights J.T. Miller.

Big deal. He's part, part of that circus on, at the star, he fought Matthew Pichuk. He fought Matthew Kachuk. My God. Yeah.

Another brain fart, which people will hear this one. Not the, not, not, not the one that we had to, Frank, you and I had a couple.

We don't, for the record, J.T. Miller fought Colton Perako, and also fought J.T. Miller because he managed to punch himself in the head, which I think was the biggest. He was bonguing himself.

The biggest shot that landed that entire. It was so amped up for that fight. He accidentally uppercutted himself as well. I think Brandon Hagle might have been more amped up than anybody. I think Hagle is more amped up than J.T. Miller, both Kachucks. He's talking yesterday. And this is in a story by Arpin Basu on our site, but it was picked up everywhere because it was fun stuff from Hagle.

We're out there playing for the flag, not the cameras. That's a part of Canada that we have. You know what, Jeff, let's just drop. You know what drop in the audio there? What happened the other night? I think I did it for the flag and not for the cameras. Fellas, where are we at on the Brandon Hagle, the Brandon Hagle scale of impressiveness here?

My Brandon Hagle Team Canada jersey is on the way. This guy won me over. And I'll tell you, he won me over yesterday with the comments more so than even on Saturday night. Because my view on Saturday night, I loved it. I love the start of that game. The old school hockey fan in me thought that was fantastic. But I kind of viewed it as, hey, hostile crowd. You're on the road for Team Eose.

They did what they feel they need to do. team Canada wasn't going to back down stood their ground did what they needed to do great and then and then we got on with the game but I got to tell you the and and maybe this is maybe this is a little bit me as a you know living in Ottawa having a front row seat to half of the Kachuk brother experience the whole we do it for the team not for the cameras line dude that was a direct hit that was a direct that was right down main street on these two guys And I fully get it. If you're an American fan, you love the Kachuk Brothers right now. I totally get that. But that was, you know, and we don't need any group chats to figure this stuff out. I'm on board.

I was a little, I was a little disappointed to hear about the group chat element of it. I got to say. I've never experienced anything like that where guys fire up a little group chat the night before the game and say, let's drop the gloves early tomorrow. all. I don't know. Hey, all the credit to them for wanting to do it and initiate that. I think that's awesome. It was great for everyone to watch it. It was great for the intensity of the game. I give the Canadian guys a lot of credit for not backing down in any of those instances. But for Hagel, you know what that says to me? That just says like, by the way,

it's still our sport and we still do it better than you because you got to fire up a group chat to get this going and we just kind of know that it's just it's just part for the course this is just the price of doing business baby and it's just a little bit of a shot it's a little bit of like a just going to put you back in your place over there you'll simmer down and then we'll play a nice hockey game and we'll see what happens i wonder what other stuff that kachshunds and j t miller talk about in that group it could be anything really to see you pay a thousand dollars just to see the screen grabs of like hey man i'll i'll i'll get hagel uh little brother, you get Sam Bennett.

And then J.T., why don't you take on the 6-foot-5 guy? By the way, Colon Perrako throws bombs. He throws absolute haymakers. Dude, he's only been, he was in one fight in his career in his NHL. I was shocked to see that. I figured he'd been in more. I guess no one wants a piece of him because he said, who the hell wants to fight that? It makes sense.

Look at the reach he's got, man. Oh, man. These are the dudes, Sean. I mean, Frankie. Let's get started here. Are we going five through one? Or all five dudes created equal in your eyes here? No, no, no, no.

There is an order. Let's do it five through one. And here's the thing, okay? This is best on best hockey. There have been some unbelievable performances. And like we just talked about with Brandon Hagel, like as much as the quote we really loved, this guy has played big boy hockey.

Like he has been outstanding, defensively physicality. He has been everything that Canada could have hoped he could have been. There's been a lot of guys like that. And there's also some names that you just can't ignore. So this is kind of like an arbitrary thing, but it's my top five dudes so far of the Four Nations face off. Are we ready?

Have you pitched this format to TV yet? Like, is this going to show up on TSN? Do we have to file some kind of copyright claim? No, no, make this IP for the... No, that's got a... No, this is... proprietary to write here Wednesday podcast. Thank you.

The dude rankings. Okay. I didn't want to just make it Americans and Canadians. I don't have a fin on this list, but I do have one suite. And that suite is Lucas Raymond, coming in at number five, Detroit Red Wings. I have been so impressed with Lucas Raymond. And I know he doesn't have a goal, but the way this guy has kind of stolen the show a little bit, I would say Eric Carlson has been really good for Sweden.

as well. Cats out of the bag. We know what Eric Carlson is all about. If you haven't been paying attention to the Red Wings, and maybe there's a chance you haven't, because they're just, they're not, they haven't taken that next step.

Lucas Raymond has been the driver for team Sweden. I think he's been, like just in and around it, a lot, having the puck. And with the absence of centermen on that team, that can really kind of get you going offensively. Like Zabandajad,

It's been Zabanajet, which we've seen it this year for the Rangers. Pedersen has somehow looked worse in this tournament than he ever has for the Canucks. And Lucas Raymond. Quite a feat to imagine to manage that by him. Which is crazy. And Eric Seneck, you know, he's really good player, but he's not a top center. And he's, you know, he's been their best centerman, really. And Lucas Raymond from the wing has been like really driving the bus for them.

So I think credit to him, he has looked like a dude, and you're probably going to pay more attention to Lucas Raymond now. We had a question because we did one of our all staff surveys ahead of the championship game where we just ask questions based on the way the tournament's gone this far. One of the questions was, who's your early breakout, start to watch the 2026 Olympics. And I voted for Lucas Raymond, and I think only one person, one other person on staff did. And I was shocked by that because I feel like if that's if that's the rubric like who to watch moving forward, I think he's like a no brainer because everybody else is for the most part that's in that bucket in that group are known commodities. And I'm not I'm not like dismissing what Lucas Raymond's done over the last couple years for the Red Wings. He's a he's a top five like whatever really, really good young player and he's on pace to be there. You know, he's going to be a point per game player this season.

He's been great. but I think he's announced himself as a cornerstone for Sweden's roster moving forward. And I wasn't, I wasn't. I don't think that was a given. And just a little honorable mention to Dylan Larkin, who hasn't played playoff games since his first year in the NHL. Like this looks like a guy that is dying to get back to the playoffs. He has been so good in, you know, a role lower in the lineup. But he has like, he has been very noticeable.

So those two kind of go, go hand. in hand. Number four, Charlie McAvoy. And for no reason other than he was so punishing against Canada, so much so that I saw Connor McDavid get hit and be airborne horizontally. When have we ever seen that? And he got him a couple times. He got Crosby behind the net. And I'm like, that was, like that is a dude doing his thing in a big way, in a big game. And it made a difference. It really did. And can we just say based on the statement that the Bruins put out about his injury,

that is just kind of coming out as we're recording this, Charlie McIvoie was hurt in the first game, according to them. And then they don't seem to, rating between the lines, they don't seem to like how he was treated by the medical staff for Team USA. But he was hurt. going into that game and was still throwing those hits. And you're right. I've never seen Connor McDavid get hit like that.

It's sort of like, you know, when you, when you go on YouTube and you type in like Wayne Gretzky hit and there's three results for a 20-year career, that's sort of it with McDavid. You just don't catch that guy like that, let alone to do it when you're already hurt and apparently getting worse. In McAvoy specifically, he had a sprained AC joint, an AC joint injury. He's been in the hospitals since. yesterday we're recording this on Wednesday at 1015.

He had an irrigation and debridement procedure, which sounds brutal at Mass General yesterday. And he's still in the hospital. He's getting IVs. He's on antibiotics. Like he's whatever happened has been bad enough to keep that guy and then in the hospital overnight. He's having surgery.

He's continuing to get IV antibiotics on Wednesday morning. So yeah, man, all credit to home. Throw a hit like that with a messed up shoulder. Yeah. Man. He had one, too. He had another hit where, where McDavid kind of got him on the reverse. Like, it was, and that is just as impressive to me in a lot of ways.

Like, he's making, he's making Connor McDavid have to think about throwing reverse hits. I think that says something for the level that that dude was bringing it in, in, on every shift. I'll tell you, like, I've played with a with a sprained AC joint. You can. No, like, you can. And you can play for a significant amount of games and get through it. But to start throwing your body around like that with the sprained AC joint, like it just,

it doesn't get any better. And it just, every time you take contact, it hurts a little bit more, a little bit more. And, you know, that's,

that's big time dude status right there. Number three, hard to ignore, Connor McDavid. Like, you can't have a top five in this tournament and not have Connor McDavid be a part of it. And here's the thing about McDavid.

I think, the first two games, he was doing a lot of it on his own. He had to. It felt like, you know, Marner was there playing on his wing, but just didn't have the right cadence for him. And same with Sam Reinhart. As much as they played well defensively, it was a lot of individual effort from McDavid.

And then once Braden Point got there and Mark Stone got there, it felt like it was the right mix. But if John Cooper didn't get to that point where he put those, those two guys with him. And Canada didn't beat Finland. The number one conversation we would have had is why do you not have Zach Hyman on this team? Because you spent three games trying to figure out who was going to play with your best player

and you need him to be a rock star and you had the guy sitting on vacation somewhere and you didn't take him. But not the case. Canada is going to be playing in the finals. McDavid had an unbelievable goal against the Americans. He basically played the first period against Sweden. in like times four fast forward. He was that much faster than everyone on the ice.

Like, Connor McDavid has been, he's been Connor McDavid. And he hasn't had as much help as he usually does. Number two, Brady Kachuk. This guy is dying to play play playoff games. Is he not? Like, don't you just see him out there and you're like, how have the Ottawa senators not found a way to get this guy playing these types of games? It felt like, you know, the first round of the playoffs,

watching guys go smashing their face into the glass, hard on the forecheck. Like, he was, he's, that's what he's been doing. And he can be such a difference maker. He is going to be such a difference maker. And you can see it kind of being shown here how badly this guy wants to play big time games. And he's risen to the occasion. It's, I mean, for him to have to sit there and watch his brother, in some cases literally sit in the stands and watch his brother go deep

of the playoffs. It's got to be eating them. And you're right. He's, it's, it's good for the senators that they certainly seem on that playoff track this year because if not, after seeing him get a taste of this, I might be a little bit, a little bit concerned about the future there. If it wasn't already looking reasonably bright. And you know what else is crazy? It was a nothing game, their last game against Sweden, didn't mean anything.

And he's like, now dropping my shoulder, going hard to the net. Like this is just what I do. This is the big stage. And I just, I only know one speed and it's all out. I'm like, that's a dude right there. That's the benefit of this being a short tournament too, right? Because you know that it's whatever. It's one playoff series, if that.

Like you don't have to save yourself for anything. You know that there's not going to be another game of consequence. There's not going to be seven of these. There's not going to be 11 of these. There's not going to be 16 of them. You know, it's going to be a hard cap. on how many you can play.

And it seems like he got that. He gets that better than anybody else because it's like we're going, we're doing, you know, foot to the pedal to the metal foot all the way down on the, on the accelerator from shift one.

He doesn't know any way else to do it. That's the only way that he knows how to play. And I would say this guy at number one, he only knows one way how to play. And he's a winner and he rises to the occasion, seemingly every time. that is number 87, Sidney Crosby.

If there has been, you know, one main takeaway from this entire thing is that meaningful games are better with Sidney Crosby and Sidney Crosby relishes all these big moments

and he's still, I don't know, like he's not the best player in the world, but he's got to be the best big moment leadership style guy and always brings it internationally playing best on best hockey. Like what more can you say about

Crosby based on what you've seen so far in this tournament. I have a suggestion for you guys, or a topic to raise potentially. Crosby's MT net goal as the moment of the tournament so far for me. Like I don't know what, like something about that entire sequence. I was, I was taken by it. Not just him. Credit to Sam Reinhart too for. We're sitting here talking about all, Brandon Hagle said this.

and this can be such a great final. Canada was one goal away from being plunged into a national crisis. If they had blown that lead from 4-0 to 4-3 with a big chunk of time left, and I've said it in a few places, it was the energy of like, Dad's going to turn this car right around.

Like Sidney Crosby was not having it. But, I mean, it's the margins in tournaments like this can be really thin and we were not very far away from, I mean, we'd be having a national conversation up here right now about what is wrong with Canadian hockey and Sydney Crosby saved us from that. It's crazy. So if you go back to the first game, three assists in that game and the overtime assist to Mitch Marner still blows my mind that this dude was into the offensive zone, but still looking behind him because he's like, I'm actually, actually going to make a drop pass if I can.

And I'm actually going to make it a 60-foot backhand drop pass. And I'm confident to do that because I know I'm going to make that work. And obviously Mitch Marner scores the goal. I'm still mind blown by that. And then you guys are right. That might be one of the best

empty net goals I have ever seen in the game of hockey. Because you think about what was on the line, how things were trending. By the way, Canada probably need to work on their five on six play before Thursday's game. I think maybe drilled that yesterday a little bit, maybe. Yeah, that's probably going to lead the video session.

But then for him to say, like, I'm hopping over the boards here. There's a blazing fire on the ice, and I'm going to put it out. And lays a big hit at center ice. Sam Reinhart chips it over to him. He buries it. And it's like, of course, that was going to be Sidney Crosby. That wasn't going to be anyone else. It was Crosby who was going to say, I got us.

Don't worry. and now like that is like it's just that's Sidney Crosby leadership in a nutshell right there and we've seen it so many times throughout the course of his career but again national pride wearing the Canada jersey like there's just something about it where this guy anytime there's a big moment he's the guy and and he always like he just never never seems to have a like a misstep and even the turnover like okay the turnover against the Americans right like the puck is on his stick he turns it over at the blue line, the Americans go down

2-1-1, they score. I could tell you for free that that would be driving him nuts. And he would do everything he can to rectify that. And sure enough, he recognizes against Finland, like, I'm going to have to take matters into my own hands. And it will be interesting because

we mentioned that that amazing stat of Team EOSA having turned over the entire team from the last best on best 2016. That means they don't have the Sydney Crosby. They don't have the veteran who's been in this situation, you know, a million times. And, you know, there are probably going to be moments in a tournament like this,

probably even on Thursday night where things aren't going quite right. And maybe in Team Canada, you're looking around. And you look over and you see Sidney Crosby just staring straight out on on the ice, not bothered, nothing he hasn't seen before, nothing he can't handle. That might be it. And you're right, Frankie, that pass to Mitch Marner was so fantastic. It apparently sent Marner to the shadow realm, because he hasn't been seen since in the tournament after scoring that goal.

So that's just, that's what Sydney Crosby can do. Yeah, I don't want to make this about the Leafs, but let's just make it about the Leafs for a couple minutes. If you don't want to, then don't. For a couple minutes.

If you were going to make an anti-Dudes list, there would be a couple Toronto Maple Leafs on it. And there would be a Vancouver Canuck on it in Elias Pedersen. Like it hasn't been a great showing for, for the Leaf players. No. And, and, you know, just to throw one more out there, it'll be, speaking of Canucks, it'll be great if Queen Hugh shows up because we might get our first contribution of the tournament from one of the Hughes brothers. Oh, love it.

This is fun. I love taking a small sample size and just being like, look, man, I know Austin Matthews, I know you've played all of these games and you've scored all these goals. Jack Hughes actually not that good. You know what? I'm going to tell you, man, if I'm a Leafs fan. Which I am. I'm not coming out of this tournament feeling great about the playoffs. Yeah.

I wasn't like, I wasn't like, I wasn't thinking, like if you're a Leafs fan, you're not coming out of this tournament thinking, oh, it's just, you know,

these guys haven't had playoff success, just based on a byproduct of who's been around them in Toronto and the situation there, because they went to this best on best tournament, and they were so good, right? It's just now they got to bring that back to, wait a second. They haven't been great.

Like, Marner scored the overtime winner, which, by the way, like, the big moment has eluded those guys. So credit to Mitch Marner, he scored the overtime goal. Like, he deserves the credit for that. But outside of that, like, he's been filtered down now, lower end of the lineup, and he's going to have to play a certain role. Austin Matthews, great defensively. But you're the best goal scorer in the world.

You got to score goals. William Nealander hasn't, like, hasn't been great. I think Lucas Raymond clearly, Jasper Bratt, like those two guys have clearly outplayed. I played William Nealander in this tournament. So I think you're still, you know, if you're a Leaf fan, you're still thinking, okay, like, are guys, they're still not the dudes yet in these big games, you know, for sustained periods of time? One of them will walk out of the TD Garden as a champion on Thursday night.

Then who cares about how it happens? Well, and guess what? You'd agree on the Leafs now, baby, regardless of who it comes from. If one of those guys scores the game-winning goal, narrative flipped. Winners, big moment guys, huge stones. That's how we're opening on next week. In fact, if Mitch Marner scores the winner for Canada, I'm taking credit. I'm the one who fired him up.

We called him out here and he was disappointed in his lack of dude status. You know what you should do? What did you try doing? Work supposedly, he should fight him. Okay. Sounds good. But I'll do it. I'll do it for the team, not for the cameras.

There we go. Frankie, what's the one thing that you're watching early on Thursday night? Like, what's the X factor? What's the key to the game here? I think, okay, so I will put it to you this way. I think the previous game that these guys played on Saturday felt like the first round of the playoffs, where everything goes and it's the Wild Wild West and we saw the fights and it's craziness. I think this game is going to feel more like a traditional game seven where yes, it's intense.

Yes, no one wants to give an inch. Yes, it's territorial, but also no one wants to take that extra two. No one wants to put their team in a deficit situation. So I think that's what I'm looking at. Like who's going to make the most mistakes? Who's going to manage the game and the emotions better? And ultimately, you know, the team that makes the least mistakes, the teams that manage, the team that manages the emotions of this thing better,

that's the team that's going to end up winning. Avoiding mistakes and managing your emotions. That sounds like an American trait to me, my boy. Right? Right? Right? All right. Talk to you next week. Enjoy the game.

I'm sure we'll be annoying you throughout it. Can't wait. All right. Frank's gone. We're back. Sean, we have an important bit of news that's broken over. last four days and that's what I've learned. Courtesy of Ryan Kennedy of the hockey news. What have we learned, Sean?

This is Ryan on February 15th. I'm told the NHL might switch back to white jerseys at home and dark jerseys on the road of the next CBA. Just when I've gotten used to teams wearing dark jerseys at home, they're going to make this switch potentially. I'm shaken to my core at this, but I think ultimately, I think ultimately it's a good thing, A, but B, this has to open, between this news and the fact that we've watched color on color matchups at the tournament, that has to open up the door for that, right?

And like, let's go. You would think. And obviously, you can't do it for every matchup. We know that. But when it works, as we've seen, Canada, U.S., Sweden, we're in the yellows, and then you had Finland and white, everybody looked great in that tournament. I'm not much of a uniform guy, but this, you know, even I had to take a step back and say, everyone's looking sharp out there.

As far as the white jerseys at home, hey, shout out to all the old folks like me who've been complaining about this for 20 years or whatever it is. I feel like this is one of those things where whatever you grew up with as a kid is what you think that should look like. And I grew up with the white home jerseys. So I'm happy to see it switch back. I'm fascinated to this apparently is something that has to be. in the CBA. That's the other thing.

That's great. Collectively bargain situation here. Yeah. Shout out to the players who are somehow going to get tricked by Gary Batman into giving up guaranteed contracts or something just to get this. For a mere 1% of hockey related revenue, you will be allowed to wear red jerseys on the road if you're the Canadians. Okay. Well, I mean, speaking of potential change. that we'd have to get by the players, what I learned.

And like a lot of things that I learned on this show, I learned something I already knew, because I'm already very smart, but I confirmed it. The smartest. 10 minute overtime is fantastic, man. What are we doing? Oh, baby.

You know, we talked about, we talked about the Mitch Marner goal. That came six minutes into three on three. Was anybody at the five minute mark of that being like, oh, man, I wish there was a shootout right now. Oh, if only. No, nobody wanted. at that. And, and do 10 minutes of three on three overtime in the regular season. You will get very,

very few games going to the shootout. The games that do go to the shootout will feel unique and special again. So maybe you will actually want to watch one of these things. I don't know who could be against this other than Nathan McKinnon who came out and said it was, you know, he was too tired. He got too sleepy after five minutes. I don't know. Do you pass the puck maybe? Take a shift off. do, you know, go to the bench or something. Like, this is part of it. And I'm being glib, but I'm not trying to, you know, clearly the fatigue could be an issue.

Work a third line in there. You know, it doesn't have to be the same time. You don't have to have four or five forwards who get to play. Let's see some third. Let's see some guys in overtime that we don't necessarily see. It's, uh, it would still be far better than getting to the end of this. And then a three on three shootout that features three guys on each team who aren't even the best players,

but they happen to be the guys who have mastered this one random skill. I feel like these two things, color on color jersey matchups and 10 minute overtimes, this is like the litmus test for the NHL as to whether they've taken, they've brought their thought process to the next level coming out of this tournament, right? It's easy to watch this and say,

wow, people love international. Like, of course, we all knew that already. Like, no one's, we talked about this in segment one. No one's breaking new ground by saying, like holy hell international hockey is awesome like it it doesn't take a genius to draw that conclusion if they take the right lessons coming out of this beyond that is is a big part of of the success of this tournament right so there's a couple little things that they can grab from and integrate into the into the larger product and we'll see how great was it you know we talked about the

the the feeling of crisis with with team Canada when they almost blew that lead against Finland. How great was the added dimension that the 3-2-1 points system put on that game? You've got to win this in regulation. You know, that's a situation where, you know, you put that in the regular season in the NHL. For the first few months, it's not going to, it's not going to change much. I think teams will still probably play pretty much as is. But it adds that extra dimension down the stretch. No, we need the three points.

This isn't a situation where, oh, we blew the lead, but hey, we still got a 50% chance to win in overtime. And that's not going to matter. It would have mattered a lot. So that's another great dynamic that's in there. And it's encouraging to see, I get why they do it, right? It's a short tournament. You've got to differentiate on the points and everything. But the fact that this is an NHL controlled thing.

Correct. And they're doing 3-2-1 and they're doing 10 minutes. This isn't like them having it forced on them by the Olympics or the IAHF or anything. They're choosing it at least cracks the door open that, yeah, maybe we can actually do this the right way. And we're saying all this and we're still a day out from the championship. chip game, which is why we're all here, right? Like everyone's loved thing A and thing B, and it's been a smashing success so far, right? And we're still, we have, we have the reason, we have the reason for the season yet to be,

yet to be played. And I got to be honest, the only concern I have, it's not even a concern, but there's a lot of victory laps being taken right now by, by fans, you know, media, everyone's saying, this term, no matter what happens on Thursday, this tournament's already a huge success. Well, slow down. We got one game to go. We have made it through six games. There had been no significant controversies, no significant blown calls.

There's been no challenges, no nothing like that, no stupid stuff. We've all been in the situation where we've been watching a movie and three quarters the way through. You're like, this is a classic. I love this. And then you see the ending and you go, maybe not. Let's get to the finish line. Let's cross the goal line before we spike the football.

but we're certainly on track for this to be an all-timer of a tournament. Let's see how it ends. Let's hope nothing stupid happens on Thursday because we're one game away from this being an unqualified success. And folks, that's Sean McIndoo speaking. So whenever something, you know, if your favorite player gets hurt or the game turns out to be a dud, you can blame him. I get, I get, I get, we'll put his address in the show.

No, no. I get accused of jinxing and all that stuff so often, and my answer is always like, dude, I'm a Leafs fan. If I had any ability to control what happened, would the last 50 years look like this at all? Are you a Leafs fan? No. It doesn't come up often, but. Thank you folks for listening to the Athletic Hockey Show.

DGB is going to be back with Haley and I, along with Brian Boyle, long-time NHLer, NHL network analyst now to preview the championship game officially. That's going to run tomorrow. Are we recording it immediately after we're done here? Who knows? There's simply no way to say. But stay tuned for that. Enjoy the game on Thursday night.

And we'll talk to you next week.