The Athletic Hockey Show - Will Shesterkin’s next deal cripple the Rangers?

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Sean Gentille, Sean McIndoe and Frank Corrado, in the best shape of their podcast lives, discuss Igor Shesterkin and his camp trying to reset the goalie market, Frankie takes us inside NHL arbitration, and the hard feelings that remain for Jeremy Swayman and the Boston Bruins. Plus the guys tackle McIndoe's Bizarro-meter, measuring which Eastern Conference teams had the strangest summer, including the Lightning, Capitals, Flyers and Hurricanes. 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. Well, well, well. The Wednesday show is back. It's a new season of the athletic hockey show. It's a new season for us. I'm Sean Jantilly. I'm here with Sean McIndoo. Big, big announcement.

The frankening is permanent. Let's go. Frankicorado. Buddy, every week, every week it's going to be the three of us for at least the first couple of segments of the show. Awesome. How are we doing, man? Good, man.

Good. Looking forward to it. Happy to be back with the two Sean's. It was a good time last year. It's going to be a good time this year. And yeah, I mean, we're always going to have stuff to dig into. That's just the nature of the NHL news cycle. There's always stuff happening, whether it's the Leafs, not having music at practice, which is just huge, huge news, you know, actual hockey stuff, contracts. We got it all. Sean, are you okay sharing duties with Frankie on a permanent basis? honestly. This is fantastic. This is great. And are all three of us in the best shape of our lives? Are we good to go? Yeah. I think so. I think so. Yeah. This is the time of year. We're in podcasting shape of their lives. Yes. I could see us all on camera. We are absolutely in podcast. What does prime podcasting shape look like? Somewhat of a pair. Apple? Apple body type? Some kind of pair. I'll tell you what, though, man, like getting the viz of all these teams going through their skate tests, there are certain things I miss about playing. Is it weird that I miss that a little bit? Like, there's a part of me that misses the feeling when you're done that and you're like, you're exerted to the max and it's over and you're like, I did it, I conquered it.

Now I can go about the rest of this training camp. Like, there's just a sick part of the back of my head that misses that. It's like 5%. is it like the the the the the simpsons church thing where it's like this is now the maximum amount of time until the next time i have to do this yeah it's like happy gilmore when he's in the bad you like a workout warrior or more days till next season's training camp were you like a workout warrior like did you come in did you like it because you came in and just left everyone in the dust no no no no i was never that but i was taking you out the show if that was no no no i i gave an honest effort i was always middle of the pack you know Never stood out for good reasons, for bad reasons. Yeah. I think that's what my business card says. Blended in.

Yeah. My slogan was seven out of ten. Yeah. Seas get degrees. Yeah. Were there any particularly memorable skate experiences? Well, I did the torts. Did you ever throw up?

No, no. I was only a throw-up guy between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. after a long night out. That's the only. time I would throw up. Noted. Noted pure. He means a long night out at the gym for you kids out there. That's right. Working on my shot in the driveway.

Doing wall sits. It's 3.15 in the morning. Let's go. In the rain. In the rain, man. Yeah. No, it's all good. Nice to be back. Everyone's in good shape. And we'll see. We'll see where everyone's going to line up this year. We had some late, I don't want to say late break. We have some relevant goalie news.

This is something that's been a, been a story. in the preseason. It's been a storyline, you know, going back really to the, to the end of the regular season. Igor Schisturkin has one year left on his deal. Jeremy Swamon is unsigned in Boston. Pierre LeBron dropped some nugs about both those guys on the site this morning. Shistercan looking for the richest goalie contract at all time, or at least of recent history. He wants more than the 10.5 annually that Carrie Price got. Jeremy Swamon seems like things are tracking a little bit better, but he wants eight years. And that seems like that's been the stumbling block there. What do we think about each of those situations? We'll start with

Schisturking, because I think there's arguments in both directions. Yes, a lot of people think he's the best goalie on earth. Does that mean he should make $11 million, $12 million, $13 million, especially on the Rangers as they're kind of lined up moving forward? I'm not sure. Dude, I just think for Shasturkin, it's almost like a goalie union kind of summit or referendum for these guys where it's like every year we get into the playoffs and we talk about certain teams that can go far because they have a goaltender and certain teams that can't go anywhere because they don't have a goaltender. And it's like it's at such a premium. And if you have it, you have it. And if you don't, you're screwed. and, you know, what's a good goalie make like one of the best like $6 million.

It is somewhat undervalued in the grand scheme of things because it is so important. So like if if Schisturkin is not going to push the envelope and try and get the most he possibly can to push that bar up for the whole goalie union, who's the next guy that's going to do that for these guys? You know, it's like the next guy up from, I guess from the players union, you know, kind of mentality has a little bit of a duty on their shoulders to try and push the envelope for the next guys below them. So I, I kind of, I get it from that point of view, because if he's not going to do it, who's, who's going to do it? But that's a big, it's a big cap hit for, you know, for a player that doesn't play 82 games. And, you know, it just doesn't leave a lot of

the pie left over for the rest of your roster when, when a goalie's taking that much money. And we talk about this sometimes when you see it like a quote-unquote undervalued deal when Sidney Crosby takes his 8.7 or whatever have you. And sometimes people say, well, I wonder if the other players are ticked off. And usually the answer is not really because you get, the players get 50%. And the rest of it is just how that money gets distributed. There's no rising tide here because the tide is fixed. So when you're talking about, you know, the skaters and, you know, this and that, hey, somebody leaves some money on the table. Maybe it hurts comparable players, but it doesn't overall, you know, hurt the players in general.

But here it's specifically one position. And it sounds like, you know, according to Pierre LeBrunn in his piece this morning, he says the Rangers are okay with going over 10.5. They will make him the highest paid goalie cap hit wise of the cap era. but the question is, where do you go from there? Is it, is it 11? Is it 12? 13, 14. For a guy who is, in theory, the best at the most important position, we often say in the sport.

And it's a reset. It is, it sounds like this is a conscious effort by Shestirkin and his camp to reset the goaltending market and say, hey, things are a little bit out of whack here because Pierre has a little chart where he's got the, The last three superstar goalies to sign big extensions. Sorokin, eight years, 8.25. Connor Hallibuck, seven years, 8.5. UC Saros, eight years, 7.74.

So we're all in that, like, low to mid, $8 million range. You look at the guys in the league right now who are making that. And I'm not going to pick guys who are, you know, who have bad deals even. But this is the zone of Dillard. Larkin, Sam Ryanhart, Mika Zabanajan, okay, Philip Forzberg, Bo Horvott. These are all good players. These are all first-line players, but none of these guys are MVP-type candidates. None of these guys are franchise players.

They're players that you're perfectly happy to have. They may be one of, maybe even your best forward, but they're not superstars. And to sit there and say, hey, if goaltending is the most important position, and I'm the best at this. Why should I be making Dylan Larkin money? I should be making Leon Dricidal money. I should be making Nathan McKinnon money if I'm in that range. And the Rangers are sitting there going, yeah, maybe, but that's not how the market works

now. And Shisturkin wants to change it. And if Shasturkin doesn't make that money, if he doesn't reset the market, who is it going to be? Because there's nobody who's better. there's nobody who's more important. The Rangers system in a lot of ways is just hang on for dear life and hope he bails them out with the real degree of consistency. So if that dude isn't worthy of making $11 million or $12 million a year, it's not just that nobody else is.

It's that there's nobody else coming up that projects the beat because the way things work now is such where look at the young, look at the young guys in the league. Who are we talking about here? There's a dearth of like stud number one guys that are ready to take over and take up the mail and be that next wave of guys who can, you know, kind of reset things. Are we talking about Ascarov? Are we talking about, you know, Seb Kasa when he ends up in Detroit? Like, we're a long ways away. Those dudes, exactly.

And those dudes generally don't exist in the ones that could potentially do it are way, way, way far away still. And you, you know what? You can listen to the argument that if the goaltender takes that much money, you know, how are you spreading the wealth around for your team? The Florida Panthers just went to two Stanley Cup finals and they won with Sergey Babrovsky making $10 million. And prior to that first run to the final, that was looked at as a horrible deal. But now they have a Stanley Cup to show for it.

And Brebrovsky is largely considered one of the top five goalies in the NHL. Like it's crazy how quickly things can change. now that contract is completely justified. And, you know, when it comes to the contract comparables, like a guy like Crosby is always just going to be one of one. Like, you're not going to use any young player comparable when it comes to Cid, even if the points are exactly the same because his career, you know, earnings and what he's done, like, no one's ever done that.

So that's so separate from everything else. But this, this is going to be when Shisterkin sets the market, you're going to have your Shisterkin market, then your next tier of goalies, and everyone's going to fall in line. And it really is going to kind of reset how teams maybe value these goalies when they're available or unrestricted free agents. And yeah, if he's not going to do it, I don't know who is going to do it because Vasselowski didn't do it. And the three guys that you mentioned, Sean, they didn't do it either. So, so here's what, here's what scares me a little bit if I'm, if I'm the Rangers. And we've made it in, I know, we're 10 or 15 minutes into the show. So I'm going to do my first, how does this affect the Leafs of the year?

Great. And it's not so much how to. We need like some kind of sting or like something for that. And this isn't how it affects the Leaks, because the Leafs are, the Leaves very, very smartly have avoided this problem by not. having a goalie. But this is, it reminds me of the Leafs and I'll tell you what it reminds me up is about five years ago when they had Marner and Matthews up on their first contracts. And they gave Matthews like 11. Something million. And they gave Marner that infamous $10.9 million deal that's just expiring this year. And an awful lot of people looked at that and went,

whoa, that is crazy. That is completely out of whack for what guys are supposed to be making on their second deal unless they're a Connor McDavid level star, which neither of those guys were at the time. And a lot of people were shocked by that. But the argument was, yeah, but the market is out of whack because these guys on their second deals, they're in their prime. This is, we know, a guy's 22, 23, 24, those are very often the best years for a forward. They should be making more. They shouldn't be making five or six or, you know, eight million to be your best player. the market is out of whack.

This is a reset. And should Mitch Marner be making $10.9 million? Yeah, maybe he should. And if it's shocking to you, hold off. Wait a little bit because Miko Renton is up next. Braden Point is up next. There's a couple of guys every year. And in a few years, the market will have reset.

And Mitch Marner at 10.9 is not going to look strange at all. Guess what? The market did not reset. Miko Rantanin and Braden Point immediately signed deals that fit the old. market in like the $8 million range. And then, of course, we had the pandemic and we didn't really get to see what would happen from there. But all these years later, the market didn't reset.

It didn't change. And the Leafs are paying a couple million dollars more to a Mitch Marner than the market says that he should get. That's what scares me if I'm the Rangers, is that you go, okay, we will reset the market. Here's 13 million. And then the next guys up are like, like, all marks, the next. UFA. He's kind of the only big one coming up. Jake Ottinger, I think, comes up soon.

You know, those guys go, no, we'll stick to the to the UC Saros market. And now you're paying $4 or $5 million more to a great goalie, but you're paying $4 or $5 million over what the market says, much like the Leafs kind of ended up doing. And you go, uh-oh, maybe we're a little bit screwed. Okay, so now that begs the question. Like, what is the hold up with this Jeremy Swindler? Weiman deal. Right.

Because, you know, if you were looking at what, like take the Markstrom deal when he signed it in Calgary, it's like six or six and a half, it's in the sixes. They're a really good goalie. Number one guy has been a Vesna candidate at times in his career, but that contract now is probably undervalued compared to the guys that came up that you just mentioned, the Hella Buck, the Sorokin, the Soros. Like, how did Boston not know where this was going? And I guess at the same time, if you're Swayman's camp, like, you're not the one to reset the market.

Shasturkin's going to do that. And you're going to fall somewhere in line. Like, we know where the truth lies on the Swayman deal. So how did they not know where it was when Allmark got traded to Ottawa? You just look at that situation. You feel like there were fences to mend at the start of it, right? Like peers or pierce saying now that it seems like, you know, there's a, that there's a chance that this gets done closer to opening night, which is closer than you think, right? So they're moving in the right direction. But you look at this, you look at the arbitration situation where those two sides had to duke it out a couple years ago. Yeah, this took longer than we thought. And it just feels like, you know, there were some, there were some work to do at the start of it, whether that's men and fences, getting back on the same pages, whatever. They've come together. you know, on the length.

That's what Pierce says. Like everyone wants us to be a longer term thing. I guess there's still some work to do on the salary number. But yeah, I think they were starting a little bit farther away from a deal than maybe people initially anticipated. And I think a lot of it has to do with the way things went in arbitration because that's something that everybody tries to avoid for a reason.

The arbitration thing is weird for them because they had, they had filed for ARB last year. This year comes around. No one files for ARB. And I guess maybe the strategic aspect of that is let's leave it open to an offer sheet. Like, hey, why not? Because if you go to ARB, like you're, you know, you have to get it done. Like there's a deadline.

It's going to be done. This is a little more open ended. Now, no offer sheet came and that's fine. But arbitration is a brutal process. Like I filed the one year when I was in Toronto. And I ended up settling with the Leafs the night before. I was actually on my way down. downtown Toronto. I was going to stay the night because the arbitration hearing was early in the

morning. So I'm literally pulling into the hotel parking lot when my agent calls me and he goes, okay, we kind of have a fair deal here. Do you want to take it? It's one year, one way. It's just above league minimum. Like this is basically what you want. You want to take it. I said, yep, we don't need to go through to the arbitration case because prior to that, like you exchange briefs, both sides exchange briefs. And my agent had warned me. He goes, you're going to get an email today. It's their brief, their case on you.

He goes, it's going to be a big package. It ended up being 52 pages long. I'll never forget this. And it's just 52 pages of how bad you are as a hockey player. And at the same time, like, they didn't think, like, you know, for me, it's different because Swayman is much more valued in that organization than I ever was. but I can imagine what he would be feeling in the arbitration hearing, let's say, or like the briefing, where like, okay, you think I'm the goalie of the future. You guys love, you know, everything about what I do here, but you still manage to find a big, you know, package of how bad I am.

What gifts, right? Like, that's, that's tough to kind of comprehend. So, you know, there's basically some history there. I don't like arbitration with goalies. I think it's such a weird position. The guys, like the goalies are just weird individuals. And, you know, I think for a player, you can kind of, not that you can just cancel it out, but it just, you can move on from it a little easier.

I think goalies are just, they're very different, unique individuals where I would be apprehensive if I was a team when it comes to really putting my, my stake in the ground in those situations. I just feel like it's harder for goalies to get past that. Did you read the phone? I've often wondered, like, oh, I read the report. Oh, yeah. Part of me as a, if I was a player, I'd be like, don't send it to me. You're my agent, you go to the hearing.

I'm going to be out on the golf course and you just tell me what we got because I don't need to sit in there. Yeah, why do players have to be at the arbitration hearing? What's that? Why do players have to be at the arbitration here? Do they have to be there? Are they not? Sit there with like those baby headphones that, you know, like bringing a kid. It's like bringing a kid.

to a divorce hearing or something. I don't have to do this. Let me just, Frankie, just from the player's perspective, so Swayman obviously, not in camp, not a holdout because he doesn't have a contract,

but he's, he's not there. And Pierre saying probably gets done by opening night, but, you know, he's a goal, he's not just going to come in and start opening night and be great.

As a player, when you have a key teammate, who's not there, because of contract, stuff. Are you sitting there going, dude, get the bank, do what you need to do. We all understand it. Or is there a part of you that's like, dude, get to camp, please? Because I mean, if you're the Bruins, you're sitting there going, we trade it away. We have two great goalies. We trade it one away. And now we're sitting here and you're not here. This could torpedo our whole season.

You got to, you got to remember that we're all part of the union, right? Like, we're all part of the NHLPA. And that kind of stuff is so important when it comes to making sure, yeah, you want to make sure there's enough of the pie for the team to be successful. But when it comes to like union biz, you got to take care of your backyard. And no teammate is ever going to fault you for doing that. You know, if you go out the night before a game and you show up drunk to morning skate the next day, you've let your teammates down. And guys are going to hear about that.

But no teammate is ever going to fault you for trying to, you know, get the most financial security for you and your family. family for a long time. So I think if there's any, you know, if you could get a look behind some of the text messages that would be being shared between Swayman and some of his teammates, I think a lot of it would be encouraging and just checking in and see how you're doing. And, hey, man, you got to take care of what you got to take care of and everyone understands that. I think that's when it comes to these kinds of things, that's first and foremost.

He's, he's in, for me, he's not letting his team down by not being there. it's just they're they're waiting for a certain pressure point you know in order to get this deal done and no teammate is ever going to fault him for that we love it that's great insight that's why we have that's why we have a former pro on the show every week for like for like 35 minutes or however long it ends up being yeah listen if one of you guys had a contract pulled out I would be on your side no problem talk to talk to me next summer I don't know I don't know I don't know where Sean is in his negotiation process. I'm not up yet. Dude, I will be texting you like, just, get on here. The first time I have to do an ad read, I will be like, get back here.

No joke, dude. Don't make, don't make promises. You're not willing to keep. We're going to bring in the big guns whenever, whenever the time comes. All right, segment two is coming up. We're going to talk about the weirdness of the off season. This is a DGP special coming up. It's late September. That means that there's tons of set pieces and season preview content and all these things that we do to prepare as writers, as media guys, to actually get back in the swing of thinking about this sport and recapping what's gone on over the last few months as we've taken vacations or what have you. So all those are rolling out. One of the good ones is always, is always Sean's bizarreometer index for the

league overall. It's where he rates the off-seasons based on a very scientific scale of weirdness from 0.0 to 10.0. Sean, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you land on these scores, how you decide between the decimal points. There's a degree of sophistication there that I think that I'm sure our listeners are interested in not hearing a little bit more about. I see, again, I don't get the confusion here. It's explained in the article. I have a giant machine, I plug it in, I blow the dust off of it, and I fire it up, and it spits these things out. I don't know why people, everyone, you know, Dom sits there and goes, oh, my model this, my model that, and everyone gets it.

But when I have my, I mean, it's a giant mainframe computer, but I put in punch cards to feed it what happened in the offseason. And it spits out these ratings. And again, with the caveat, when we're talking about a weird offseason, that is, neutral as far as good or bad. A lot of times people take this to be me ranking, you know, who had a good off season or bad off season.

I'm not doing that. Lots of times, good teams especially will just not do very much in the off season. That's fine. You're a good team. Lots of times we see teams kind of just sit there and not do anything. And you look back and you go, they should have been more creative.

They should have done something. So I'm not saying good or bad. I'm looking for the weird stuff. And the bar has been set pretty high. other teams in the past, but it's, this, this, I would say this was a medium weird off season. Nobody is

really pushing the, the fable 10 out of 10, which I think I've only handed out once in the history of this gimmick. When was that? Was that, was that, was that the Clarkson off season? No, the Clarkson off season was the very first time I ever broke this out. This was back in the Grantland days, and I did it just for the Leafs

on that very weird David Clarkson. Dave Notice gets an extension, you know, all sorts of strange stuff they were doing. The magazine cover, magazine cover with the bleeding blue. Yep, bleeding blue with the mustache.

He was, you know, Clark dash son. Oh, I can't figure out why that didn't succeed in this market. That was, oh,

man. The only 10 out of 10, I believe that I've ever given was to the Ottawa senators. I want to say like 2018, 2019. Remember that offseason from hell? There was the Carlson,

Mike Hoffman thing. There was all sorts of it wasn't even the Uber year. That was my initial. That was my initial. I was like, I was going to say, oh, yeah, that must have been. I feel like the Uber came later, but this was the off season where at the end of it, the cherry on top was, do you remember Eugene Melnick making, I can't remember who the player was. He made somebody like one of the, one of the few.

It was Mark Stone. Oh, no, it was Boroweki. Boroughke interviewed Eugene Melnick. He had to sit him down and they made that. The borough had a riftly cringy video. The hostage video. It looked like he was doing it with a gun. is back. I remember that.

He's a great dude, too. Awesome guy. He's so much better than that. And he had to sit there and like stare directly. Like your campaign has the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so wonderful interview with the guy? He's holding up a newspaper with today's date on it just to make sure it's like a proof of it. Oh, my. Yeah.

Nasty work. That was, it's a 10.0. Okay. That was, that was a phenomenal off season. And the bar was set, so very high.

But, uh, yeah, it's, so, so what I was hoping to do is the, the, the,

I would split this by conference, Eastern Conference went out today, Western Conference coming tomorrow, Thursday. I, I want to know where you guys are read. I've got my rankings, but,

you know, you guys can let me know, like, what struck you as especially weird. And I think, John, you've got like my rankings

there as who had the weirdest. It looks at least. It weren't weird. Screw. That's boring. Nobody. You got the hurricanes at number five in the east at 6.5. Again,

these are very scientific, uh, computer back. These were conducted with floppy disks. That's right. Yeah. Punch cards floppy disk. Um,

I'm not sure. I, I think you, I think you nailed on this one because everybody. looked at the Seth Jarvis extension and was like, wow, okay, this is this is something else. And it kind of a little bit of a much about nothing there. That one day where we thought the hurricanes had discovered this massive loophole

that was going to change everything. And then it turned out like, no, not real. It's vaguely interesting, but everyone could have been doing this the entire time. I actually think that the hurricanes definitely fit the bill for this. Because, NACUS at one point wanted to be traded, didn't get traded, and then was happy to come back. That kind of just resolved itself, and he's back on a two-year deal. You know, every year, like Jake Gensel went out the door, and every year we talk about, yeah,

they could use a little more of like a natural goal scoring ability. Gensel left. Where was the goal scoring ability that came into the lineup? Like it was a lot of like just, you know, smallish names. They added more grit and kind of beef to their lineup, which is what they do really well. They didn't really address their main need. And they're probably, you know, right where they would normally be. But you're right.

Like it wasn't a huge step forward. Definitely wasn't a huge step back. But there was a lot of interesting or weird stuff that happened. And a new GM and the. now semi-regular Rod Brindamore contract weirdness where he gets lowballed and then it's always like, okay, but you got to take care of this assistant coach and all this stuff, which I know people in Carolina get mad because people in other markets go, oh, Brindamore's going to leave. I mean, the Leaf's going to hire him.

That means the Habs can hire him. And it wasn't that. But it is very weird that the best coach in the league has to do this dance every three years. It's him negotiating for like better snacks in the coach his room. He's like trying to get the free vending machine from Moneyball, like, locked in. And it's, it's, it's, it's weird. It just is. It was funny seeing Hurricane fans have to react to losing Gensel.

Because there were a lot of people out there that it was like some kind of crazy, crazy betrayal because he played there for three months and then split. That's how it works sometimes. I know they're not used to their team going out and acquiring rental players and having them walk. that's the way it goes. Like sometimes you take the swing and it doesn't work out and people leave for greener pastures. Like you don't have to lose your mind. You'll lose your minds over it.

It was like he called their bluff, right? It was like he called their bluff where it was like there was nothing happening contract wise. And then at the last second it was here we go. We're going to throw you the money, the term, and we're going to do this. And by that time, it was like, actually, I'll take a peek and see what's out there. And there was more money in Tampa Bay Lightning out there. So I can't fault.

guy at that point. I just love, I just love seeing guys sign big contracts with teams that they, that they weren't already a part of. Like the fact that Gensel actually jumped and signed the big, like, didn't just say like, oh, yeah, actually, uh, Carolina. I know I wasn't expecting to be here in January, but now it's February and I love it and I'm going to sign here for eight years. Like I'm, I kind of love that he didn't do it. It's all, it's fun to see people move on. You know what that is? Like, you go to, you go to Tampa for a road trip and you get off the playing. It doesn't matter where you're playing. Carolina's a beautiful place. The weather's awesome, right? But you get off the bird in Tampa, you get downtown, you check into that hotel,

and there's the nice rooftop pool and the arena's right there. And you're like, man, it would be cool to play here. And that's all you need. That's that like, it's all, it's planted. The bug is planted in your head. And you're like, if I could, if I could grab something with some term here, I would take it. And then sure enough, they're giving it to a brink. truck? Like, you don't have to think twice about that. All the money, all the years. Like, yeah, that's, that's fine. That'll work. Number five, you got the flyers at, it's 7.4. I want to know, Sean, exactly how many bonus points you gave them for Jay Woodcroft showing up and dropping in on practice. You said you gave them bonus points. I want to know exactly how many

it got. It's, again, the machine gave them, it was 0.23 bonus points for that weird. Jay Woodcroft is here. We're not sure why. Turned out. And then towards his like, he just doesn't have a job and came to hang out for a couple days. It's really not that complicated.

Yeah, that's it. So, yeah, there was that. But mainly for the Flyers, it's the Ryan Johansson thing, which is strange. Especially since, like, did you see in Danny Breyer's press conference where he was like,

well, as far as I know, the contracts term, like, as far as you know, you're the GM. You should know. not that that should not be as far as you know that should be you know pretty definite one way legal team will sort that out you know it just that is good managers know how to delegate you know it's about delegation and it's about plausible deniability and i think that's i think that's part of what dandy breer was saying there yeah uh number three is the number three is the bruin's there is seven point eight a lot of that revolves around around swamen uh we've we've already we've already talked about

That's really mainly the Swayman thing and the... By the way, though, with Philly, like, are you intrigued to see the Mitchcoff kid play for Torts? Because I think that's the biggest thing that I want to see. And I think the kid, like, I think it's hard to tell, right? But I get the sense he's like just a no-nonsense kid that loves hockey and wants to work his tail off and all that kind of stuff. And Torts is great for that.

But there's just always that little, and I love torts. I've said it on this show countless times. I think Torz is a very good coach. I think he's an even better human. But Torts runs, like, he'll, he will not let anything go, you know, and that's a kid that's coming over learning and Torts. Like, I'm just very intrigued as far as how that dynamic plays out with Torts and Mitchcock. How much of a whole do rookies have to dig out of with Tordella right off the bat?

Like, are they already starting, you know, are they starting below par there immediately? Just as a rule? No, you're not. You're always, you're starting at even par with him. Like, he's, he doesn't do anything, um, that is out of the realm of normal. You know what I mean? Like, he's not going to do anything that's trickery or playing with you. It's just like, if you can play, I'm honest with you.

And we're going to, you know, we're going to work through things together. That's, that's fine with torts. Like, he's not doing anything that, um, you wouldn't be prepared for. But I just, I don't know, it's, it's interesting with,

with the kid coming over, he's such a big part of their future. Right. And the whole cutter goge thing that happened. And it's like, this is the guy. This is the guy that you need as an organization to kind of turn the corner.

Well, they lucked into a prime piece, right? He fell down farther than he showed of. They, they didn't, like they were a team that had the first pick or the second pick,

the year they drafted him. And she's like, all right, here. And now he's really their only prime, young, offensive piece because it seems like they're, you know, maybe not contenders, but they're also not going to be one of the three or three or four worst teams in the league, right?

So it's like, yeah, you're at, you're the guy, in fact. Do, DGV, you can file this into your program and see what this spits out. But the picture of Keith Jones and Danny Breyer picking up Mitchka from the airport and the smiles on their faces, I have never seen, I like, I have never seen a hockey picture like that before where the president and the GM pick up the kid from the airport and the smiles they have just like the biggest you've ever

seen. I mean there was Mitchcott. Was he smiling or was I couldn't even tell. Couldn't even tell but they were happy to have them just like you know what I'm sure the Bruins are happy to have Zodorov and Lindholm like they needed a center they got one guy that's been

rumored to go there forever and they get another tree stump on the back end in Boston. They're the heaviest team in the NHL. I saw on elite prospects the other day. Average weight, 208 pounds to play for the Bruins this year. Like, they are a massive, heavy team. Do you think Lindelm's good enough to give them what they need from it once you? Well, the thing is, if they did it last year with like Zaka and Coil and Trent Frederick, like, he's an upgrade over those guys. So, yeah, I mean, if you're getting an upgrade over something that already worked well for you.

I can't see how it would be worse. Like, Lindholm's still a good player. Mm-hmm. He's a good player and he's playing with a great player again, right? Like, it seems like he's going to play with Posternak. And when he was at his best in Calgary, he was the guy on the Kachukh, on the Kachuk-Gadry line. Like, that dude, aside from being a skilled player himself, like, he's got major experience, productive experience playing with, like, elite players.

So I can see how it's going to work. I'm just, I wish they had, I wish they had one other dude there. I don't know. Yeah. All right. We have a tie at the top in the Eastern Conference, in fact. We'll start with, we'll breeze past the lightning because we mentioned Gensel already. That's the, that's the main part there.

And just Stamco is leaving. And especially, like, I still remember being on the draft floor in Vegas when the Circushev trade went down. And everybody just looking around going. one there's the stamp ghost money. Look at that. We got, we walked right up to almost July 1st and now they freed up the money and, no,

he's literally like, I, like, I don't know if me and you were together, but I literally saw like while that was going on, like Breeze Barth was on the phone, like walking around by the, by the media risers.

Yeah. Okay. Like he's going, no, the steel's getting announced. He's making the stamp coast call right now. Like, like three feet from me.

And it turned out to, it turned out the case. And now we get to look at Stephen's stamp coast and a predsterze. which is still deeply disorienting. I don't know if I'm ready for that. The other number one team in the East, in the bizarre meter rankings, again,

this is determined by a very large cutting-edge computer. Number one, the Caps. Yeah, also. Oh, yeah. The Caps, it's for a few things. One of which is, there's always a team that,

when I sit down to do this stuff, Because it doubles as like my off-season refresher, where I look back and I go, man, they did a lot of stuff. You know, they got Jacob Chickren. They got Logan Thompson at that trap while he was signing autographs, which was very funny. They switched GMs, which I had completely forgotten about. They did the old kick Brian McClellan upstairs. He's still making all the decisions, but like, like, yeah. Yeah, that's fine.

But mainly the two things they did that were very bizarre were they bought cap friendly, which ticked everybody off. I'm still not over it. We're still not sure why exactly they did it, but that was easily one of the strangest stories of the off season. And then the other thing they did was they voluntarily said, we want Pierluke d'clock, which I think at this point qualifies as weird on its own. And they wouldn't got the contract.

And obviously they were dumping the Darcy Kemper deal. And, you know, there was that sort of switch of toxic assets and maybe change a scenery and all this stuff. But I think at this point, like fourth times the charm, man, this is where this guy locks in. That's right. Well, not, not you forgot to mention. Like, we don't know when we're going to see T.J. O'Shee.

Yep. Right? Like, he's, he's battling some injury troubles as well. So another thing to add. And so, yeah, like, a really. Washington, to me, is just a very interesting team because they made the playoffs last year. Everybody, and I mean everybody, when you sat down to do your playoff list this year, everybody took Washington right off immediately.

No team in the cap era has made the playoffs with the worst goal differential than they did last season. I don't think you would find a set of predictions this year that has Washington in there. You would think only seven teams made the playoffs last year the way everybody's talking about, Well, I mean, geez, if the islanders are good again, there's only one spot available. I mean, is it's Pittsburgh going to get it or is it going to be one of those teams of the Atlanta? And, you know, if you're Washington, you're sitting here going, that's our spot. Like, and we brought in all these guys.

We, in theory, have improved. You know, we did all this stuff. If you're asking people about the playoff picture in the East, this is the year everyone, or not everyone, a lot of people could see five from the Atlantic in three from them. if it was ever going to happen because Washington, the islanders, maybe you want to throw Pittsburgh, like kind of clumped together as that fourth team that could make it out of the metro.

And everyone's got Jersey back in the playoffs. We've all got New Jersey back in the playoffs even though they were an 81 point team. And, you know, yes, they fixed the goaltending, but goaltending doesn't usually add 20 or 25 points, but maybe it does. And in this case, healthy Dougie Hamilton and all the other stuff. My favorite part of the Washington thing was the theory that I included, somebody tweeted and included in the piece that the reason they bought cap friendly was that so nobody could look up the period of the contract for the next seven years. It's a puckpedia for getting that to us. The other thing that, you know, I don't know if it's weird, but it's the storyline last year with Washington.

And as far as last year and moving forward, the main storyline was going to be this team is just assembled. So Alex Ovechkin can beat the goal scoring record. And that's all it's about for the foreseeable future because there's no long-term prospects of this team making the playoffs or going far in the playoffs. And now to turn things around to this year, you've changed, you know, you got rid of the goalie. You brought in Pierre Luke Dubois. You brought in Andrew Munjapani, Jacob Chickren. Like, they've actually in one off season kind of flipped the script to it's not all about Ovi.

While it is a little bit about Ovi, and we're going to say. celebrate that. We're going to try and get him as many goals as we possibly can. We're actually trying to, you know, build a team for the future here. Or maybe not even, like, I don't know if you want to call it the future. Like, it's, it's somewhat immediate. Like, they'd be looking for the results with, with where this team is at and the guys they've brought in. So there's, there's, like, there's, there's plenty of storylines around the caps. The only option they had was to try to be as good as possible for the next couple years. That's it. Like, you can't tear stuff down because, you know, Lavechkin, basically. And also, like,

Like realistically, you don't want to completely hem yourself in with throwing monies at whatever. Go out and sign the Chandler-Stevenson's of the world. And I know Dubois makes a gazillion dollars for a gazillion years. But outside him, you know, I think they did a pretty good job of not committing a ton of money down the line for whenever Ovechkin's gone. And Dubois, like, I'm coming perilously close to, like, truly defending the move and, in. No, you're not. I am. Really? Who else? They needed a center. Well, like, what else you can, like, you might as well try to be good. If, if they're stuck here in one way or another for the next year or two with waiting for a vet's going to get this done, you might as well try to be good. So then center is overpriced. So go, so go get a guy. I can see the logic in it. It's probably not going to work out. Let's be real about it. But I can, I can at least get on board with the process. Here's the thing now about this Dubois thing. You know, when he goes from, Columbus to Winnipeg, there's a price to pay for that.

You're already making me feel stupid for this. Hold on. No, no, no. I get it because I'll give you an example. Two years ago, I talked myself into Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonoff all the sudden, just like, I came around to it and no one had played any games. You know, it was like, by the end of the summer, I'm like, I think this could work. I think this is going to be good.

And, you know, we know how it all played out. the thing with Dubois goes from Columbus to Winnipeg, there's a price. Then he goes from Winnipeg to L.A., there's a price. Now from L.A. to Washington, there's a price. The price is going to get lower. You know what I mean? Like, your value coming back. At some point, people are going to say, no, thanks. Like, we're done here. So if it doesn't work in Washington, you're going to take your medicine and then some to try and get rid of that at some point if it doesn't work. Like, it really, I don't know, it's got to work for him here or else, like, how many teams

are lining up to kind of give him a fifth shot? And if you're Washington, what do you bring him back in return for that? I don't know. Boys, give me your best guess for tomorrow's Western Conference, Bizarro, I like it. I would guess it's somewhere, it's Nashville or St. Louis. not bad only one team changed cities

right there's it's it's it's got to I don't know what you're referring to we have a brand new franchise in Utah

there's only one expansion franchise completely new team that just happens to have all the players uh from a different team very intriguing

you guys want to file something into your weird category yes um apparently Claude Giroux's car was stolen last night. His wife tweeting that out this morning that his car was stolen in Ottawa. So you don't see that,

you don't hear of that happening very often to get. Bring this over to NFL discussion. I knew that Kenny Pickett was doomed as the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers when someone stole his SUV while he was doing an appearance at a car dealership. Someone just someone, someone jacked it from like, like from behind the place. and went for a drawer.

And his playbook was in there. It was like, it was a local, it was like leading local news. Can you pick its car stolen with playbook in it? Like sound the alarm. But put all the cops on this very important. I hope the senator's playbook wasn't,

wasn't in the car. And, yeah, be good luck and be careful to the, uh, police officers who have to, uh, talk to Claudey Roo for that story.

You may want to just watch yourself. Watch your butts. Frankie, thank you, buddy. All right, boys. This has been fun, and again, we get to do this every week, so pretty tight. Looking forward to next week. See you. See, yeah.

See, bud. Me and Sean, I'll be back in a second, but before that, we need to tell you there's a ton happening on the Athletic Podcast Network. Check out Tuesday's edition of Scoop City, it's our NFL podcast with Diana Rossini and Chase Daniel. They had Chris Long on this show. Chris Long, former Super Bowl champ. he's been a podcast star since before he retired.

They had him on to play red light, green light on all things of NFL. You can find that on our site, and you can find it wherever you get your podcast. Next up, what we learned. All right, we're back. And for the first time in the league's new calendar year, let's say, Sean, what have you learned? What have we learned, Sean? I learned that I'm annoyed by the fact that the NHL season starts four days before the NFL season starts. I forgot.

I forgot these games where they can play us. When do I get my previews out, this and that? So if people don't know, you've got New Jersey and Buffalo going over to Europe, which is great,

grow the game, blah, blah, blah. But they're playing October 4th and 5th in regular season games that count. And then the rest of the league starts on October the 8th.

That's unacceptable. I don't, like, when do I, I feel like we've all kind of universally just decided that those games on the fourth and fifth don't count as far as when we're allowed to put our predictions and our previews and all this stuff out because otherwise we're going to have a really boring weekend if all the stuff gets out on October 3rd and then we all got to wait a week for games that actually matter with apologies to the Lindy Rough Revenge Tour. I just don't I get I like the idea of having the games count

and I do understand that it really messes with teams when you go over to Europe and you come back and you got to get back in the swing of things but for my own personal convenience I am willing to sacrifice the Sabres and Devils start to their season to make it better for me

So when are those games on on the East Coast? Oh I don't even I cares 4 a.m. Who cares? I'm not going to watch them. You're a sickle. If you're not a Sabres or a Devils fan

and you're watching those games, that's sicko stuff. How about this? How early would a game have to be for your... At what point in the morning would you watch a hockey game? Would you wake up at 6 o'clock for it? No. Me neither. I mean, Olympic gold medal game, yes.

But absolutely. Yeah, absolutely not. Dude, I don't even get up for the European NFL games. Producer Jacksonville. get sent over and forget it. I'm actually kind of, I'm a big fan of those because I, you can just whatever, drink coffee. Always fun when you have a CTN on your fantasy bench and you wake up to.

Game over. Oh no. Producer Jeff says 1 p.m. Eastern is, is his personal limit for, or no, wait, the games are on at 1 p.m. Eastern. I see. Game 2. Saturday 10 a.m. That's a little early on a Saturday.

Yikes. I don't know. I don't like that at all. I got two teenagers in the house, I'll be the only one awake. two teenagers now. Yeah, that's too many, by the way. Don't do that.

Too too many. I learned that the Amazon Prime show, I think, might be actually good. I have expectations for it based on the trailer, which came out a couple days ago. It's good. The trailer is good.

It's compelling in a way that you rarely see from NHL-related content. And yes, it revolves around McDavid freaking out in the in the in the in the in the locker room but it's it's more than that man I'm I'm psyched to see I'm psych this might be the William Nealander show we need to be realistic about this like I yeah I think one episode for for one episode and let's just let's just say they create this really interesting character called the Toronto Maple Leafs and then they get killed off at the end of the first episode so it's spoiler alert sorry for anyone who that's

Anyone who didn't, who doesn't know how the playoffs work, but still listens to this show for some reason. Sorry for spoiling it. There's two people floating around that are, they qualify as such. I got to be honest, when I sat down to watch that trailer and it started off like, hockey is the greatest game in the world. I almost, I almost zoned out immediately. But the big one, you know, for me, and again, you know, leaf centric here, but they, they got the Willie Nealander clip. Yeah.

Mitch Marner stopped crying, bro. that had been, as far as I know, speculated, but never confirmed. You know, this was kind of online lip readers. They got it. And that's good because, first of all, it was neat to see. And second of all, it shows that this is going to contain at least some content that a squeaky clean lead PR department would not want and teams would not want. Chris Johnson wrote a story today. I think it was some combo of him and Russo kind of.

delving into the kind of stuff we can expect from this. And it seems like Neelander gave him a ton of access. They were in his apartment when he was too sick with migraines to play. Like the cameras were around for that. These guys played ball. And I think, and I think McDavid did too. So I think there's always a cap on how interesting this stuff's going to be

when you're talking about the NHL. But I'm certainly more interested now than I was a week ago or 10 days ago. because it does feel like, I don't know, man, like I have a certain level of fatigue when it comes to this stuff because, completely.

Like, it was really the, the winter classic stuff was the first time we saw. And remember there was the, Bruce Boudreau had the wingsauce and white, green scooter and we're like, oh,

this is great. And then, like, they kept doing it. And then you had, like, there was the Leafs one from, from the,

uh, once that, once it went off HBO to, once it ended up, it was a, on whatever random channel it ended up being on it was and even now there's like some

tabs rebuild the rebuild is like getting advertised a lot up here I don't even know you guys probably Every team every team has So many teams have their own versions of that And it's all state media you know Like it's it's not There's no real honesty to it

The only honest clip we've ever Gotten out of any of that stuff is the Bruins Trading Tyler's again I forgot about that one Remember the they them in the room With like Shirelli and all them talking about like, oh, but does he play the Bruins way and all of this? And, uh, yeah, once he, is he, is he, is he good at showing up to breakfast on time or whatever,

whatever, whatever they were all honked off about in Boston. Yeah, I, I don't know. I, I feel like this is, I feel like this is going to, the bar's low for me, but I think, I think this is going to clear it. It all drops on October 4th, I believe. So the fact that I'm excited about this or interested in this to any degree is, is, is, I can't wait. for this to be a big hit, take the world by storm, get people who aren't interested in hockey, interested in hockey like the racing one, have them come over and just existing hockey fans

immediately slam the door shut and tell them to kick rocks. And then complain that hockey doesn't have a big enough audience. I can't wait. That's my favorite thing to do as a hockey fan. Nobody gate keeps like a hockey fan, baby. That's right. All right, that's it.

Episode one for us again in the new era of the show. with Frankie every week is officially in the books. Thanks to Sean, thanks to Frankie, and thank you for listening to The Athletic Hockey Show. If you're a Spotify listener, this is big news. You can now leave comments on our episodes. Ali and I have our first show of the season tomorrow, and Shana and Dom are around for this.

We're going to talk player tears because that dropped on Tuesday as well. It's coming tomorrow, and it's coming for the rest of the season. Thanks again for listening.