The Athletic Hockey Show - Will the recent news cycle affect Alex Ovechkin's legacy?, Kyle Davidson named Chicago Blackhawks GM, troubling games for the Toronto Maple Leafs

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

To kick off the show, the guys give an update on the search for the Las Vegas anthem singer. Then, with the current news cycle, will Alex Ovechkin's legacy be affected, and will fans be less interested in his quest to pass Gretzky? Also, the Blackhawks' GM search is over as they officially name Kyle Davidson to the position, how will he handle Kane and Toews' contracts moving forward? And a discussion about which game Maple Leafs fans should be more concerned about, the 10-7 win over Detroit, or the 5-1 to Buffalo, which leads to a Sean rant. In Granger Things, Jesse Granger takes a look at overseas betting odds for the upcoming trade deadline, a listener analyzes NHL parity in the mailbag, and in "This Week in Hockey History", the US wins Olympic gold in 1960.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always in these seats on a Thursday, it's your M&M crew. Mendez and Mac with you for the next hour or so. Coming up, we're going to talk about Alex Ovechkin, certainly in the news cycle. Does this affect the excitement level for fans as he tries to potentially chase down Wayne Griskey's all-time goal record?

Chicago's got a new general manager in Kyle Davidson. He's got a couple of big decisions to make down the road here on Patrick Cain and Jonathan Taze, we'll talk about that. It's March, which means it might be panic time for Leafs fans. Sean will weigh in on that. Jesse Granger for Granger Things. We've got a couple of great voicemails from listeners, an email question. This week in hockey history, we're going to talk about the time. The United States won the gold medal at the Olympic Games. And no, it's not that time. It's another time. So all of that coming up. But tell you what, Sean, I want to actually kick off the show by bringing our producer Danielle in. Daniel Lehman does a great job producing the Thursday edition of the podcast. Because last week, we left things on a bit of a cliffhanger, which was we were talking about anthems. And buddy who sang the anthem at the CFL game years ago, Greg Bartholomeur was his name, sang the anthem, O Canada, to the tune of O Christmas Tree.

And we said, you know, maybe we should chase this guy down for the Thursday pod. So I want to bring Danielle in to kind of let it, because she was a chase producer this week. And Danielle, maybe you can tell Sean and I and the listeners what happened in your pursuit of the Vegas anthem singer. So we went to his website, got his email. And I, like, honestly, as soon as we stopped and I posted the episode, I'm like, I'm in. I'm going for this guy. I sent the email.

And about, oh, 15 minutes later, got a response. Not that guy. And he was not happy to hear from me. I'm not buying it. And like I expressed to you, when you told us a story, I think it's the guy and he's just sick of being, he's just stuck in us. Yeah. He's sick of like, you know, Canadians or, you know, Canadian adjacent people randomly dropping

in to make fun of his, his anthem screw up. I get it. Like, you know, I've done embarrassing things. I wouldn't want people emailing me 20, 30 years later about it. I think it's the same guy. And I think the only thing, the only option here is, is, we just got to keep on him. And, you know, we've got to go stake out and prove that it's him and get him on the show. He's got to wear him down.

I like it. Yeah. And again, his name was Greg Bartholomew. And when Daniel looked it up and you guys looked at, like, what are the odds that another musician's named Greg Bartholomew, right? There's zero. It's the same guy. Same guy. It's him.

You're not fooling anyone, Greg. Yeah. We're on to you. G. Bart. Yeah, we know what's going on. Awesome. So, like I said, we left last week's episode on a bit of a cliffhanger. So that's the reason why we don't have the anthem singer.

Danielle tried to chase him down, but to no avail. All right. Like I said, Sean, huge show coming up, a bunch of things to get to. But it certainly feels like the story of what is happening and developing in Ukraine is dominating all of our new cycles and our feeds. And it certainly put sports and hockey on the on the on the on the back burner and rightfully so. And so we feel somewhat it feels somewhat trivial to be, you know, having a hockey podcast. But we also understand, hey, we can serve as a distraction for people.

So what I do want to talk about is Alexander Ovechkin is front and center in this because his support for Vladimir Putin has been certainly more than any other Russian athlete in North America. right? Like Ovechkin has been more used his platform to amplify Putin's messaging more than anybody else. Certainly the most prominent athlete to be doing so, yes. Yeah. And so we've seen sponsorship deals now being put on pause for Ovechkin. My question is, and I know it's early in the game here, do you feel, do you sense that Alexander Ovechkin's legacy and the feel around him is changing here? I think it is whether that ends up being temporary or not, we'll have to see. Certainly people are looking at this connection and re-evaluating in light of events. And it's completely fair and valid to do that.

How long that and what form that takes will have to see. I mean, the thing that obviously you could say about this is, that unlike a lot of people in the sports world who might have controversial political views, say what you want about Alexander Hvichkin. He wasn't hiding anything. He was very clear and upfront about his feelings and very public with it. And it's not like we only, it's not like this only came to light in the last few days. And it's not like we only found out that Vladimir Putin is a bad guy in the last few days.

Obviously, the situation in Ukraine is a major world story and is affecting people's views, but it's not like this is somebody who previously had an unblemished record revealing themselves as a bad guy. So the question would be, you know, why did nobody put this together? Why did nobody have this discussion or seem to want to have this discussion years ago? It was, I believe, 2017, when Ovechkin first set up his, you know, went very public with the connection and, you know, set up his website and all of that. And a few months later, he's rolling around in a fountain with the Stanley Cup. And we're all talking about what a wonderful story this is and isn't this great. And he's, he's our favorite personality in the game.

And when I say we, I'm counting myself in this. So I think there could certainly be people who would say, well, wait a second. why what's changed now other than obviously the you know the war that's going on is a huge story but what has actually changed as far as what we know about Alexander Obechkin I think that's a fair question and it's a question that you know that a lot of us will have to sort of think about and think about it going forward because this this is the sort of thing that yeah it could tarnish somebody permanently it could also be the sort of thing that within a few weeks unfortunately knowing the world we live in, people get tired of talking about.

And they just want to see him score some goals. Yeah. And seeing him score goals is what I think up until a couple of days ago, most people are, I think we're very excited about OV's pursuit of Wayne Griskey's all-time goal record, right? Like it's certainly within reach. And now I'm curious and I'd love to hear from our listeners. Does this recent news cycle affect your excitement level for OV? And I can understand if it does.

I can understand if you don't care. what I think about, you know, what I've thought about the last couple of days is, you know, years ago, Sean, I was on, when I worked for SportsNet, I got put on the Barry Bonds beat when Barry was chasing down Henry Aaron's all-time home run record. And it, the disdain for bonds in these cities I would go to, like Milwaukee and I went to, you know, and he just booed beyond belief, L.A., San Diego, all these places I went to. And bonds was vilified. But when you would go to San Francisco, it was like he was the golden child. They could do no wrong. They loved him. And I wonder, you know, as Alex chases down, Gretzky, are we going to see something where, you know, maybe Alex is super popular in Washington and it's a similar kind of feel where it's like, ah, the people in Washington love him. But elsewhere, they're kind of holding them at arm's length. Yeah.

And, you know, I'm not sure how it'll go because there's two ways you could look at that. The comparison with Barry Bonds is one. you could say, look, I mean, Barry Bonds, whatever you think of him, he cheated in a game. What we're saying in the Ukraine, this is life and death. This is life and death on a massive scale. It's, you know, the level of seriousness of the stories is, is not even comparable. Or I could see some fans flipping it around and saying, you know, what Barry Bonds was doing had to do with baseball. It affected the game on the field. Alexander Ovechkin's political stuff is his own stuff. I just, you know, I want to just see him and enjoy him.

an athlete and and and and he hasn't done or said anything that affects the game that's being played on the ice so i you know i don't know it does make it interesting i i think that uh you know you look at where he plays right because you you put somebody in any other market and that's just how it goes right the fans the home fans tend to support the home guy uh through the controversy through through almost anything they'll they'll cheer them on as long as they're still productive um being in washington dc i don't know. I mean, that that's, in some sense, it's almost the worst place for him to be because he's not going to be able to avoid, you know, the questions. He's not going to be able to avoid the connotations that they go with his past political advocacy. And, you know, I say past it,

we haven't really seen any indication that it's changed significantly. So we will see. Like I say, you know, you're talking about the Gretzky record. That's years down the line. There's, I don't know what the world looks like years down the line, but it'll be much different from where we are in the early days of this situation right now. And there's a lot of different ways it can go. But, you know, I will say this. The questions are fair. It's absolutely fair. And I'm not somebody who thinks that every athlete has to put their politics front and center and justify themselves to us.

And I think, you know, very frankly, most of us wouldn't want that because I don't think, you know, I think there's probably a lot of people out there who you cheer for who have views that you would be not very happy to hear. But they keep it to themselves. And that's they're right. Alexander Ovechkin chose not to do that. He was, he's been very, very public with this. And as a result of that, the questions are absolutely fair. And I think about it too, you know, hockey and politics don't often converge in this manner. And I think about it like, you know, Tim Thomas is the one that I always think about when you talk about athletes in the hockey realm sort of, you know, voicing their opinion politically.

Tim taken a pass on visiting the White House in 2012 is certainly probably the most polarizing political moment in hockey. And I also think about, you know, Bobby Orr kind of came out and had his support of Donald Trump. Whatever that was a couple of years ago. Took out an ad. This was last year's, or 2020. He heading into that election, right? He took out an ad and himself and full promotion. And a lot of people were horrified by that.

And yet I don't sense that that has stuck to Bobby Orr in the same way. And obviously he's not an active player. And I'm not suggesting that Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin and given the situation we're in now. But I think that was a case. of a guy in Bobby Orr, who is a beloved hockey figure. And I think a lot of people kind of cringed and then sort of went about their business. You know, you don't see a lot of people putting out their top five greatest players list and not having Bobby Orr in there because they find his politics and options. Maybe Alexander Ovechkin gets the same treatment.

But again, it's really a different scale of things, obviously. Well, I'll tell you what, there's no, like, listen, there's no easy. way to move off of a conversation like this one and, and move into some other topics around the national hockey league. And hey, listen, it has not been a fun year for the Chicago Blackhawks. And they named their general manager this week. And it's, and it's Kyle Davidson. And I'm curious what you, like, when Chicago said that we were going to go,

you heard rumors they might go outside the box and they might do something different. And don't be. And then they just end up hiring a guy. who has been in the department since 2010. I'm curious what you, like, for those of us on the outside, what's our view of Chicago internally hiring somebody who is there during all of this alleged tumultuous activity from 2010 onwards? Yeah, I mean, I don't know that there's any connection to 2010.

And, you know, we want to draw a line between people who are in an organization. and in a position where they have some sort of authority and some sort of ability to affect change. You know, that said, this was kind of sold as this is going to be the big, you know, the break from the past and looking ahead. And even from purely hockey terms, the idea that this team needed a rebuild, they needed a fresh set of eyes. And would they go out and they talk to all these people and they did something that I really liked, by the way, which was they told us who they were talking. talking to. They treated it the way football teams treat, you know, when they're interviewing coaches and they're very public on that. Chicago did that. So we knew every name of everybody they talked to. And they were talking to some really interesting people, including going outside

of the hockey world, talking to somebody from the Cubs, somebody from the Raptors. And, you know, it certainly did feel anticlimactic after all of that, that they go, you know what, the guy who's already here is the guy we want. That doesn't mean it's not the right. choice. Obviously, the incumbent, so to speak, always has an advantage. And, you know, he knows everything that's gone into the decisions that have been made. And he can, in theory, hit the ground running right now without needing a bunch of time to acclimate himself. But at the same time, you look at some of the decisions this team has made recently that you might question. He was right in there, right part of that.

So he has signaled very clearly that he intends to do a full rebuild on this team. He may be the status quo candidate, but he's not pushing for the status quo going forward. Maybe that's just what they needed to hear. And maybe the rest of it, honestly, it was a case of, hey, let's get some very smart people into a room and find out what they would do. and then we go along and hire the guy we were always going to hire anyways. And you mentioned a full rebuild potentially on the horizon in Chicago,

and that brings up Jonathan Taves and Patrick Cain, who are heading into their final. Next year will be the last year of those mega deals that they signed. I find this interesting and fascinating because they are legacy players, right? And you've got to be careful as NHL teams. And we're seeing this to some extent,

I think in Philadelphia with Claudeaureau. But you want to make sure that that's handled properly, that it's not a messy, awkward divorce. And it's okay. Sometimes teams need to grow apart and things don't line up and you move on, but it's got to be handled in the right way. And I'm wondering what Chicago does with Taves and Kane because they got one year left on their deals. And this is what I think is interesting, Sean. For both of them, their contract is structured exactly the same, meaning in the summertime, they will each receive a $4 million bonus. Okay. After that, because these are, these were front-loaded salaries, their base salary next season, is under $3 million for each of them. Like their actual, their salary next year is $6.9 million and four of it is paid out in a bonus. But given the $10.5 million cap hit,

are Kane and Taves essentially untradable until they become free agents? I don't think they're untradable. Certainly, you know, there's different lenses to look at this through. There's, do they have value as assets that other teams would? would be willing to trade for. Absolutely. Yes, they do. I think Patrick Kane is still a guy who plays close to an MVP level. Jonathan Taves, given his health situation, the comeback this

year is less certain, but he's viewed as a guy who's, you know, an absolute fantastic leader that you can absolutely imagine teams talking themselves into him being a guy that, uh, that you want to bring in. At a 10.5 million dollar cap it, it's tough, but the Hawks can retain salary. I don't think they have any retained salary right now. If you're going to rebrand, build, why not go out to people and say, yeah, we'll retain half. We'll take half of that cap hit. We're already paying the bonus anyways, presumably, if you wait till the new year starts. We'll eat the cap hit because we're going to be rebuilding anyways. That makes, you know, suddenly, you know, Patrick Kane at five and change is an extraordinary value. You would absolutely

get a ton for it. Now, the second lens you got to look through is the one you mentioned is how do we handle this? How do we treat this? How does our fan base feel about us moving on from these players? What kind of messages that send? Should these be guys who just retire as Blackhawks? Is there value in that? Do we talk to them about an extension? Do we see what that looks like? And then the other piece of it is what do they want? Because both guys have got no movement clauses. So you can have all the plans that you want if Patrick Taine says, I'm not going anywhere. I only want to play for the Blackhawks, then you're not going to be able to trade him. But then you potentially can get into some difficult situations where Kyle Davidson has to sit down with one or both of these guys and say, look, you have no movement clause.

You have full control. We can't trade you without you agreeing to it and we won't. But you're not in our plans going forward. There's not going to be an extension. we are not looking to retain you past 2023. So is this a situation where it makes sense for both sides to move on and to seek out a trade? Tough to say. It's a real tough one for a rookie GM to have to handle.

Would have been tough for whoever came into handle. And I'm sure the fan base will have some views on it as well. It's always tough when you have a player who's been, you know, these are the two, most important players in the lifetime of most Chicago Blackhawk fans. It's got to be handled carefully. But that handling it carefully doesn't mean you just kick the can down the road and say, I'm not going to deal with it. Because if you're doing a rebuild, these are two of your most valuable assets to rebuild

with. And if it's a situation where it makes sense to move on you, you have to explore that. That is your job. You know, and as I said, so Kane and Taves, after they get their bonuses, their actual base salary next season, just 2.9 mill. million. It's interesting, I think, as you start to look at some of these guys and the way that their contracts are structured, like Sidney Crosby, I don't know if on all the fans know this, and Cidney Crosby, I don't know if all the years left on his deal, okay? His base salary in the

final three years of his deal is three million dollars. Like, Cindy Crosby is going to be paid $3 million in real cash in each of the next three seasons. Think about that. It's mind-boggling. We don't, we don't get like a lot of the crazy backdiving deals like we had for a little while there where guys were trailing off with $1 million seasons. But yeah, there's a lot of this is dropping. And, you know, you see that with most teams, most contracts, it's a drop. The occasional player, you see it go up, Matt Murray being one that we know well where it's, you wonder how that's going to play out.

Yeah, the flat, the way the cap works in the NHL is nice and simple and easy to get our heads around, but it does disguise that there to be some things happening behind the scenes that can really have an impact on a player's trade value. And I like that you brought up Sidney Crosby. I didn't know he was on the trade block, but that's a big scoop by you. And that's big news of you to report that. You know that the Arizona Coyotes are like, wait a minute,

he's got an $8.7 million cap hit and he's only being paid $3 million. And then they're like, wait a minute. We also got a call from Ottawa here. What's going on? What's going to be bigger by the end of the draft? the Arizona Coyote's list of players signed for next year or their players retained and bought out and LTIR and all the shrapnel that they're picking up from around the league. Yeah.

I think it might be the latter. Yeah, that's a great point. That's an over-under. Let's get Jesse on that one. Yeah. Yeah, well, we bring Granger in and we can ask him that. Hey, I want to ask you. And let's give a little bit of a plug here for our Leafs Report podcast.

James Myrtle, of course, is a big part of that. and you were just on the Leafs Report podcast and obviously no shortage of things to talk about in Toronto. And I know last- We're pretty chipper. Yeah. It was a good vibe. I know that last year, like you kind of wrote,

and to paraphrase kind of what you wrote after the Montreal series, you were kind of like, I think this might be it. Like I'm emotionally detached. I don't know how I could be heard again. And I think you display, you kind of expressed the sentiment of a lot of Toronto fans, which was like- Yeah, I was expressing what I was hearing from a lot of fans,

which was that it felt different after that Montreal series. Yeah. There were a lot of people telling me, I'm done, I can't do this again. And yet here we go again in a season of which they absolutely have Stanley Cup aspirations, in the season in which they will absolutely make the playoffs. And yet, here we go with a bunch of troubling games back to back to back. And just in this week, I ask you, like to you, what was more trouble? The throwback Norris Division game in which they beat Detroit 10-7 or obviously taking the Buffalo Sabres too lightly and losing 5-1.

Like they're both troubling in their own. But is there one game out of those two that you look at it and you're like, ah, you know what? That one bothers me more is last night's game. The Saturday one, I know everybody was, you know, it was such a ridiculous game that there was a lot of, you know, a lot of takes and a lot of people going, you know, this is why the Leafs can't win in the playoffs. and this and that. That was just a freakishly bad goaltending game by both teams, by both goalies on both teams.

This was, you know, what happens when four goaltenders all have a terrible night at the same time? That's what happens. And, you know, I've said this in a few places, but,

you know, people say, oh, at least can't play defense. Like, what defense did you want them to play on that night? You know, like,

what's the defensive strategy that says, what, don't let the other team shoot from the boards along, you know, in the corner next to your net. Like, that's, the Leifes and the Red Wings were fine-ish defensively. It's just the goaltenders couldn't stop anything.

Now, let's put a pin in that because I do, I have a rant I want on the 107 game that I want to get back to. But as far as your question of what a way, you know, the bigger concern for me was the Sabres. Because first of all, you know, the Leif's just no-showed that game. And if people didn't see it, it was the first game back with a full crowd in Toronto, but you wouldn't know it because it was dead silent. There was no energy from the crowd, no energy from the team. And, you know, one of the things that we just talked about this on the Leafs report was they brought in this, this psychologist and Shanahan and Dubas really talked about after the Montreal series. We need that killer instinct. This team, and I've said this before, there's a myth about this current Maple Leafs team that they quit when the going gets tough.

They don't quit when they're going Get Stop. In fact, this team has had a bunch of crazy Comebacks and they're down three goals And they come back and they come back And whenever you write them off, they seem to pick up. When they seem to quit is when things are going well. As soon as things are good, they pat themselves on the back,

they hang the Big Mission Accomplished banner And they take a night off. And again, they have the Detroit game. Some people freak out. They come back, they play a real good game against Washington, beat a decent Washington team. And again, it just, and then it opens this section. You look at the Leaf Schedule.

They got six games against not very good teams. Vancouver is the best team they play over the next six. It's Buffalo, Seattle, Arizona, teams like that. This is where the killer instinct would kick in. You say, you know what? Yeah, everybody yelled at us over the Detroit game, but we won that game. We just beat Washington. We're on a three-game winning streak.

We got six, in theory, easy games ahead of us. This is where we put the pedal to the medal. This is where we churn out some wins and we're in first place in the Atlantic by the end of this. And instead, again, it wasn't like they played great and they got goalied. It wasn't like they had the bad breaks. It wasn't even like they got let down by their own goaltending.

They just no-show at that game. That worries me a lot more than a game where a couple of goalies just look awful and the whole thing turns into a farce. Yeah. Now, you said you also had a, you wanted to go back for a rant about that? I do. Okay.

And this is not. Take my word. I am not coming at this from a Leaf fan perspective. I promise you. And in a way, it stinks that it was the Leafs involved in this game because I know people are going to say, oh, he's a Leafs fan. He's just trying to say that it's, you know, that it's no big deal that they gave up seven goals. But the fact that everybody looked at that game, that 10-7 game,

and immediately focused on the seven and went that you can't win like that in the playoffs. What a disaster. this is the Leafs are write them off as a Stanley Cup contender because they you know they just had a 10-7 game they won that game by three goals and I don't think anyone who's assuming that you know you can't win like that is wrong but what does this say about what hockey is these days what does this say about what this sport has been allowed to become that we have all internalized it so much that this sport is so defensive mind that it is so built around defense and goal tending only that we look at a team that wins a game by three goals and we say that's a

disaster we can write them off as Stanley Cup contenders you don't see this in other sports you know you and I we're both sports fans we watch lots of other sports if a baseball team wins a game 20 to 15 we don't immediately go well they're not going to win the world series because they're pitching and bullpen are obviously garbage you know we we don't skip right over the 20 runs they scored and all the guys who, you know, the guy who hit four home runs and go right to the pitching sucks. You might think about that. You would, but you don't skip everything, all the good stuff and go right to they gave up too much. Do you remember a few years ago in the NFL? Remember the Chiefs and Rams Monday Nighter?

From Mexico to 52. Yeah. From Mexico City. Yeah. Crazy again, right? People aren't football fans. Two really good talented team played and it was a 54 to 52 game. Just absolutely scoring off the chart. Did you see anybody at the end of that go, well, the chiefs, obviously the chiefs aren't can't win the Super Bowl because they just gave up 50 points. No, people went, wow, what a great offensive performance. What a great offense the chiefs have. Obviously, you know, both the defensive coordinators on those teams would have had a lot to answer for. Nobody was happy, you know, you'd rather win 50 to nothing than 54, 52. But nobody looked at that and said these two teams can't possibly win because they gave up a lot of points. It's only

hockey where you can win, you can score more than the other team, but we still consider it a disaster. And 10-7 is the extreme, but you see it all the time. A team wins six to four, or six to five, and you go, that's not how you win in the playoffs. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying it should remind us all of how demented this game has become as far as it's just all-out focus on defense and structure. And, you know, we both know, absolutely.

Without question, if the Toronto Maple Leafs, instead of winning 10 to 7 had lost 2 to 1, everybody would just shrug. It wouldn't be interesting at all. But the fact that they won by three goals in what was the most entertaining game of the year, and it's a crisis and a disaster, just shows you how broken this sport has become. You know what? We're going to bring Jesse Granger in here, but I think we need to have a new regular segment where you rant. And I'm thinking we give you the nickname rant, rant fewer. or rant ledgered, but no, maybe rant fewer.

Rant Ledger, Miko, Miko Rant again. I don't know. Yeah, Miko Rant again. We might have to work on that. Yeah, rant fewer, I think. But you just take two minutes and you rant. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I do that every day anyway. It's usually in the shower, you know, I'm driving, shoveling the driveway or something. So this might work. But we need some suggestions for the names, though. So, yeah, somebody. somebody ranty ranta.

I don't know. Antie ranta. Yeah, exactly. I was saying, Ranty ranta. Actually, that's perfect. Ranty ranta is the one. I think that's the winner.

I don't know. I feel like there's something else out there. We'll workshop it. All right, Sean, as always, it is time, as I just mentioned, to bring in our pal jessie Granger for a little segment we'd like to call Granger Things, brought you by a bet MGM,

the exclusive, a betting partner with us, at the athletic, and we got to let you take your victory lap here. Because last week in this time slot, a certain somebody said, take Columbus over Florida, which on the surface you would have thought there's no way that the Columbus Blue Jackets would take down the Florida Panthers. And yet you were screaming from the hilltops. Look at Columbus on the money line. And hopefully some of our listeners took advantage of that.

Yeah, we have lots of listeners who are listening to this driving around in new sports cars or new high-end stereo systems that they've just installed all thanks to you. Well, you're welcome. Seriously, I don't make mini-bets. This is a betting segment. I try honestly not to make, like, I don't want this to be a pick segment because that's just not me. I don't consider myself a betting expert.

But that one, the plus 300 money line was pretty insane for a team that was six and one. So glad I got lucky there. Yeah. I'll tell you, Ottawa was around that same against 10. Tampa this week and they were up to nothing in the first period. And I thought, oh, man, somebody should have put some money down on that, but then the lightning woke up and it won the game five to two. But hey, listen, we want to talk a little bit about the trade deadline coming up because,

you know, we're about two weeks and change away. And this is kind of the window where we're going to start to see some action here. So maybe you can walk us through a couple of, you know, from a betting perspective. I know people don't often equate the NHL trade deadline and maybe the ability to wait. on it, but, but there are some, some things that are, that are kind of interesting here. Yeah. And this, like I said before off here, this is kind of more for fun. These are offshore books. These are not, you can't go down to that MGM. You can't go down to an actual sports book and bet on these. But there are lines and I think they're fun to just look at just to see what we

think's going to happen. And I think one of the more interesting ones is how many players will be traded on trade deadline. And you can bet over under and the line is 36 and a half players, which I thought was really high. You look at last year's deadline and there were 16 trades and it's trades on the day of the deadline. Okay. I mean, part of the reason we're doing this two and a half weeks earlier than the deadline is because I feel like action might happen earlier this year. So if I'm thinking about betting that, that would definitely scare me off. Last year, there were 16 trades and 30 players were moved. So they're looking at 36 and a half. That's a pretty big increase. What do you think, Sean? Yeah, that does seem high to me. I used to do this.

this on some of the old podcasts where I kind of try to set my own overrunners. And it usually did end up being higher than I thought. And the reason for that is, you know, I'm sure you're sitting there going, I can't remember 30 guys getting traded on deadline day last year. There's a lot of contracts that move around. There's a lot of teams that make either deals involving minor leaguers or, you know, guys are thrown into deals because of the 50 contract limit. So that does tend to inflate the number. But this is players, right? Like, we're not counting things. picks. So it's actually a separate pick. The over under for how many draft picks will be traded is 19 and a half. So you've got 36 and a half players and 19 and a half draft picks, which to me seems

aggressive. That definitely and certainly, I guess maybe we might expect that number on players to come down if they're adjusting it if we see action over the next couple weeks. But that does strike me as a a little bit high, even though we certainly have seen some busy deadlines over the years. Just a question on those draft picks. Is there a specific over-under on first-round picks that might move? No, I haven't seen that. Just players and draft picks. Yeah, there's no more specific than that.

I'm wondering, do you guys think this is going to be a busy deadline? Like my, maybe it's just because I'm, like, in my bubble. And sometimes, like, you just kind of are in your zone and you think everything else is like that. And like Vegas is so salaries like cap strapped right now. Like they've got no money. I feel like there are so many teams in the league that want to make moves but just don't have money. I feel like this deadline is going to end up not being very active just because of having to make the money work. Yeah, it's, yes.

But I feel like we say that almost every year. And guys, teams do find ways to make some moves, not always the big ones you think. but yeah, I do think we're going to see some moves. And again, you know, you get the old cliche, the dominoes start to fall. And I think you could see that, especially somewhere like the East where we know the playoff teams. But, you know, maybe a team like Tampa is sitting there going, okay, we feel good with what we've got.

But then Florida makes a move. Now do we have to respond to that and go and do something? So it feels like every year we predict Doom for the trade deadline. and every year and then every year by noon on deadline day we're all saying, yep, this is it, this is the quiet deadline, we finally had it happen,

and then it picks up as the day goes on. So I guess we will see, I don't think it's going to be super quiet, I don't think it's going to be 36 and a half trades on deadline day, loud either. Remember last year it was fairly quiet. Then, bam, Steve Eisenman pulled off that big one with Washington that kind of surprise everybody.

Where I think it could be an active deadline is I'm looking at the buffaloes, the Arizonas, to a lesser extent, Ottawa, because they've been reluctant to do it. But as you guys talk about the lack of cap space, these teams should be all in on saying, hey, you need someone to pick up 50% of a salary. You need to dump a player at the deadline because I am going all in if I'm those teams. You're not making the playoff.

Columbus to some extent. Like weaponized. Maybe that's where you get the high number of traits too, right? because maybe it becomes, you know, Claudeau-Juru trade isn't going to be one trade. It's going to be two because he's got to be filtered through some other team to get the cap hit down. That's an interesting angle to look at. Yeah, I was looking. You could actually bet on, like, which teams will be involved in a trade?

Like, will Team A be involved in a trade? And the odds are pretty much even for most of them. They're all right around like minus 450. But then there are a few teams that are minus 350. So they're indicating that they're more likely to make a trade. And they're the exact teams that you just mentioned, Ian, And it's the teams with the cap space that people think are going to be used as middlemen. And it's like there's no way Arizona is not going to make a deal at some point to take on some kind of salary or work as a middleman somewhere is what they're thinking.

Yep. That makes a lot of sense. That's right. Can we bet on specific players going anywhere? Yes, you can. So they've got a few guys up. Claude Jureux is probably the biggest one. I think that's probably, I mean, Philip Forsberg's name's getting thrown out there now.

So I guess he would be a bigger name. For the most part, all season long, Claudeau's kind of been the guy. Right now, so the flyers are actually the favorite for Claudeau's post-de-de-line destination. I think you're going to see that for most of these guys. I'm not sure that I would bet on the flyers for Claudeau. He's plus 120 to remain a flyer. And then you've got the avalanche at plus 230, Minnesota Wild at plus 500, Boston at plus 500, and Toronto Maple Leafs at plus 600.

So you can get five or six to one with Minnesota Boston. Boston and Toronto, and then you can get pretty good odds with the abs also. What do you guys think, Claude Drew ends up? Do any of those stick out to you as a good value? I mean, the Flyers being that much of a favorite surprises me, although the way the odds work, that is the odds makers saying that they are still more likely than not to trade him, but certainly not to the extent. The one that jumps out of me there is Minnesota.

You know, Colorado is the team we've all been thinking for a while, but at those odds, maybe that's not enough for you. Minnesota, to me, as a team that is facing salary cap Armageddon next year, they should be in hard on any short-term rentals. And Drew is potentially the biggest name in that category. Yeah. And I look at that list too, and I think, you know, Boston's in that mix. But if I'm Boston, I'm looking at Thomas Hurdle and thinking,

I'd like to get a younger guy with some term, or sorry, get a younger guy and get him to an extension because he might fit. Like, look, Boston's still trying to fill David Crachey's shoes, and they might have to fill Petrie's Bergeron shoes this summer. Thomas Hurdle would be an automatic, but I just can't see Boston going all in on Giroux, because that's not really how Don Swinney's operated. Like, for the most part, he's like,

if I'm trading for you at the deadline, I either want term or I want guarantee that you're going to sign an extension. And I, man, I just don't know that Jeru's the guy there. Yeah, definitely. They've gone with like the longer term of not very many rentals there. Yeah, I mean, Taylor Hall was a rental, but they got it done. Yeah, right. So they were willing to take some uncertainty on that. But yeah, I don't, I don't think you're going to get Claude Jureau and then sign in them for five more years. Right. Yeah. The one guy who is almost certainly a rental would be Mark Andre Fleury. I mean,

he's got one year left in his deal. We just saw actually report yesterday that they may not even trade him if they're, I guess the GM is saying if, if Fleury wants to stay in Chicago and doesn't want to move his family again. They might just let them there. And the Chicago Blackhawks are even money to keep Mark Andre Fleury after the deadline. And then you've got the capitals at plus 200, the Oilers at plus 400, the Pittsburgh Penguins at plus 550, the Avalanche at plus 800. And the Vegas Golden Knights at plus 800. Love it. And your job is to keep hitting refresh this week and let me know when the leave show up on that list because I feel like that.

that'll be next. But you got to go Oilers there, don't you? Yeah, I, man, like just in terms of like storylines, I'm really hoping Flurry ends up on the avs or the Oilers just because they seem destined to play Vegas in the playoffs. And that's obviously the storyline that would be fun. Penguins, I, like, I wouldn't put it past them. They're, like, it's weird because you see the goaltending. People change their minds on if a goalie's good or not so often, so quick. We were actually talking about this on yesterday. yesterday's pot. And it's like with a scorer, he can go 13 games without scoring. And nobody legitimate, like nobody actually thinks that that score is not good anymore and needs to be

replaced. Pretty much anyone logical looks at it and says, well, he's going through a drought. But Jack Campbell can be a Vezina quality candidate for half the season. And then he has a bad couple months and everyone's like, well, Toronto needs a goalie. And like, you look at Pittsburgh and like, they had a goalie here for All-Star weekend a couple months ago and or a couple weeks ago. And suddenly now they need a goalie. So to me, it's fascinating how fast people can go from Jack Campbell's The Answer. He's a Vezna candidate to the Leafs need a new goalie. Yeah.

And I thought it was interesting too. Mark Andre Fleury was rocking some new Chicago gear this week. Like I think his blocker was kind of deck. And people are like, oh, man, now after Kyle Davidson said he's not going to, he might not trade him. And now Fleury's got new Chicago gear. But maybe this is all one big ruse to see where he ends up, right? or to create a little bit more scarcity in the goalie market. It's interesting to me because I think there's a couple of teams,

and you mentioned them. Toronto might be one. Edmonton is one. Like, that need some sort of help in the blue paint. Like, there's no question that these teams need something at the deadline. And Brayden Holdby sitting there.

This is going to be an interesting, this is going to be an interesting trade deadline when it comes to goalies, for sure. Yeah, and I don't think there's any position that impacts, like, chances to win the cup more than a goalie. You can bring in a Claude Giroux and he's a great player. But if Edmonton were to add Flurry to me, that may, or even Holtby, like, that makes, if you can get solid goaltending, it just makes the team feel so different. No, exactly. Hey, listen, Jesse, this is always great to get you on and had a lot of fun chatting about the trade deadline.

Listen, thanks for this and we'll get you again next Thursday. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks, Jesse. All right, always great to get Jesse Granger on talking all things, NHL and kind of with an eye towards some betting. lines around the trade deadline. I want to open up our mailbag here. And we've got some great voicemails, emails to get to a reminder via email. You can hit us up the athletic hockey show at gmail.com, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail at 845-4-45-8459. That's exactly

what Matthew from New York did. Have a listen. He's got a kind of a question, a little bit of analysis that he's done when it comes to parity in the National Hockey League. narrative out there that I also, you know, ascribe to, which is that the NHL is too random and there's too much parity and everything's a coin flip, anything could happen. But I was looking into it a little bit. And if you look at the actual Stanley Cup winners, the actual champions, in the cap era, the last 16 cups that we've had in the cap era, there's only been 10 different teams that have won the cup, which if you go with a 30 teams in the league, that's about a 33% win rate for the league. Whereas in the 16 years prior to the cap, there were also 10 teams,

but there were average fewer teams, you know, average about 28 teams in the league at the time because some teams, you know, we got expansion in the 90s and the 2000. So that's like, that's actually a higher win percentage for the league pre-cap era. Is this narrative of parity overblown? Is it not quite as random as we think? What do you guys think? All right. Boy, Sean, Matthew from New York has certainly done his research. they're looking at Stanley Cup winners in the cap era, the kind of the window before that. What do you think?

Do you think the idea is kind of overrated when we talk about this being a pretty balanced league and that parity rules the day in the NHL? It's a fair point. It's a point I hear because I'm one of the people who's always out there crying about how the playoffs is, you know, we're just flipping coins and nothing that happens in the season really matters

and there aren't upsets anymore because nothing can be an upset in the league where everything is 50-50. And then people say, okay, if all that's true, how come it's the same few teams winning all the Stanley Cups? How come it's, you know, it certainly doesn't seem like, where are all the miracle Stanley Cup winners? And you don't see that certainly in the cap air

and even going back before that. I think it's a fair point. And in fact, after we got this, I saw our colleague Thomas Durantz, had a similar bit of a rant on on Twitter about the concept. I think it makes sense. I guess my argument would be that you've got to pull back a little bit.

You've got to say, okay, don't just look at who wins the Stanley Cup. Who makes the final? Well, we've seen a lot of miracle teams to make the final. I mean, Montreal last year being the obvious one. Who wins each round? Who wins the series? Do we see, you know, do we feel like the regular season records actually tells us anything about who's going to win the series?

or as much as we would expect it to, or do we seem to see a lot of upsets? And I would argue that when you look at all the other rounds, including up to and including who makes it to the final and loses, you see a ton of upsets. You see a ton of surprise teams. You see a ton of teams that don't hold up well and that support the idea that we're flipping coins here, which suggests one of two things.

Either there is something about either the Stanley Cup final itself or about just going those four rounds. that is different than just winning around here or there is different than the rest of the playoffs and that even though most of the playoffs might be flipping coins that eventual champion is not. That's one explanation. And it's a good explanation.

It's the one you want as a fan because it's much more satisfying. The other is that we've just kind of gotten lucky that these playoffs are very random, but as part of that randomness, we've lucked into having a few repeat teams that have turned out to be winners. And, you know, that makes sense, too, to me. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was that.

But, you know, the fact that the lightning of won the last two certainly would seem to support the idea that there's something to the concept that maybe as much randomness as there is in the playoffs, they are still doing a good job at what they're supposed to do, which is deliver an actual worthy champion to us at the end. Yeah, and I think if you look back, you know, Cinderella, even in the pre-cap era, Cinderella could get to the Stanley Cup final, but it would always, the clock would strike midnight, right? Like, think of the 91 North Stars or the Knotx in the 80s. The capitals in 97. Yeah. Now, the one flip side of that is there were certainly some times where Cinderella got to

the final, won the Stanley Cup, and then turned out wasn't really Cinderella. You know, like a lot of people thought the 95 Devils were a Cinderella team, but then they end up winning, you know, and the, obviously the 2012 Kings were probably the best example, an eight seed, goes into the playoffs, goes on a run. But the difference being, first of all, they won again a few years later. And of course, all that was back with all the analytics guys were saying, no, no, no, this is not, this is a much better team, take them seriously. But yeah, Oilers in 2006, flames in 2004, it, it just seems to be a pattern in Dallas to some extent a couple years ago and obviously Montreal. So, you know, I guess the question is,

why do these underdogs always seem to lose in the final? And is the answer anything other than dumb luck or bad luck, depending on, I guess, your perspective? All right. We've got another caller here. And let's play this voicemail. This is, unfortunately, it's an unknown caller. Like, you know, when you look at your phone and it says unknown caller or whatever. I'm not picking up. I'm not picking it up. But this one isn't one of those, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, what do you call it? Why am I blanking? We're not getting scammed here.

Yeah, like a scam. Robocall. That's what I was looking for. I don't have to give up my social security number because they're seizing my. Yeah, okay, good. Yeah, yeah, your assets have been seized. You've got to phone the authorities right away, yada, yada, yada. But this is an unknown caller, but I wanted to hit on something that we talked about

on the podcast last week. I totally remember Ray Shepard being acquired for the Rangers or by the Rangers for $1. I want to say it was one of Neil Smith's first moves as GM when he was a young man in 89-90, and there's a VHS videotape. I think it's available on YouTube called Poise for Glory, or it might be the one year of the rookies the year before that, but they talked specifically about Big Deal Neal and how he acquired Ray Shepard for $1, and how that was maybe the smallest deal he'd ever make, but one of the best.

And so I brought that up last week of the podcast. I was like, remember when the Rangers got Ray Shepard for a dollar? So there you go. It was one of Neil Smith's first big moves in the... But one of his first big moves, although he was, it's, it was his second offseason. Really? Like, he was hired in 89 off season. Didn't do a lot.

But he made some big moves during that season and then the Ray Shepard one. Let me just give you the first, because I went back and looked this up. The first year of the Neil Smith era in New York, his first major trade about halfway through the season, he trades Tony Granato and Thomas Sandstrom to the Kings for Bernie Nichols. You remember this move? This was, you know, Bernie Nichols was like a year removed from that insane season. And he gets traded to the Rangers, which course ends up being crucial because a few years later, he goes in the Mark Messier trade that changes everything for that team. A couple weeks after that trade, he trades Alt-Dallon and draft picks for Mike Gartner. Another huge name coming in that he goes. And then maybe my favorite one of all, a few days before the Ray Shepherd deal, he trades a quasi-prospect minor leaguer named Greg Johnston to the Toronto Maple Leafs for goalie, Mark LaForest and a young kid with a couple of games of NHL experience named Ty Domi.

So you talk about a guy, you know, shaping the future of a team going out and get guys like that. And then Ray Shepard is, you know, a little bit after that. This, I will just tell you, this is what GMs used to do. Back in the day, you know, this guy had been on the job. That was his first year on the job. Back in the day, GMs didn't come in and go, I'm going to need three years to figure out what's going on. Nobody expect me to do anything. They came in and they got to work right away.

and not too many guys did better work than Neil Smith did with that Rangers team. All right. We've got an email here from Chris, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Again, if you want to drop us an email like Chris did. You, Sean, have become the goalie interference guru in hockey. Anytime there's a controversial, it's going to video review. I'm sure your Twitter timeline gets flooded with, hey, is this an interference or not? You have tried in the past to lay out very clearly what constitutes goalie,

But again, Chris wants to know about what happened between the jackets and penguins on Sunday, in which Jack Roslavik and Sidney Crosby were kind of tied up there in the crease. And Elvis Merslikins was the goalie, right, in Columbus. And Chris wants to know what happened here, because Sidney Crosby scores for the penguins up three to two. Brad Larson challenges it for goalie interference. The call is upheld because they say that Elvis Mersleekins initiated the contact. But the NHL statement then later he said, it was because Elvis was out of the crease.

It feels to be like Columbus got screwed over on the call. That's from Chris. So what happened here? I'd have to go back and look at it because this one honestly off the top of my head, because I've written so much about interference, everybody sends me every interference clip on Twitter and wants to know. If it's the one I'm thinking of, I believe it was pretty clearly contact outside of the crease.

Both of those things that he describes, the goaltender initiating the contact and the fact that it's out of the crease would negate the interference if it was, if it's on the white ice. A goalie can initiate contact in his crease because that's his area. I guess what I would say is unfortunately, and this is one of the many problems with our current replay system, neither the explanation we get on the ice if we get any at all or the nether. NHL's subsequent explanation that they post on their website tend to be very insightful. And as Chris points out, sometimes they can contradict each other. But no, that was a situation. If it's the one I'm thinking of, the contact was pretty clearly on the white ice. And at that point, if it's if it's on the white ice, it's only going to be goalie interference.

If it's intentional, if the referees or the reviewers decide that this was intentional, non-incidental contact and frankly you rarely see that and I don't think you're nailing a guy like Sidney Crosby on a call like that. And Chris also says, look, guys, I also have an interesting rule idea. Not sure if it would be practical, but could the NHL ever implement a shot clock? And you know, it's interesting because, you know, I coach a sport ring at and I think for a lot of our American listeners, they probably would have no idea what ringette is. But it's essentially, it's very similar to hockey. A lot of the rules are the same. But there is a shot clock. And it's fascinating to me. We get 30 seconds. As soon as you take possession of the ring, you have 30 seconds. No matter where you get the ring on the ice, could be in your own zone, attacking zone, whatever. But you have 30 seconds. And what it does is it does create the need to generate offense and shots on goal and chances. I don't know that it would work in hockey. Like I feel, and I don't even know what the number would be. Like 30 seconds would be. too long, I think.

But I don't know. What do you think about the idea of the NHL adopting an NBA-style shot clock? Yeah, I'm just not sure what problem that solves because I don't feel like there's a lot of, you know, in hockey it is, you can set up around the perimeter, but even that tends to be pretty difficult. And I, yeah, I just, I'm not, you could do it. I'm just not sure what problem we're solving. some people get upset in overtime when a team will come in and then double back and go in again,

they might feel like it would come in handy there. Beyond that, I mean, if it's a power play, if you want to pass the puck around on the outside, go ahead. I'm not sure that we need to push you to get the shot off. That might not be the shot that you won. All right, wrapping up the show, as we always do with a little this week in hockey history. And I only have one for you this week, Sean, and I really don't know anything about this story. And maybe you do and maybe, and if you don't, it's almost it's almost perfect. But this week in 1960, the United States captured the gold medal

in the men's hockey tournament at the Olympic Games. And I think if you ask a lot of people, if you pull people aside and said, okay, I got a trivia question for you and you get to win $1,000, what was the first year that the United States won the gold medal

at the Olympic Games? You'd be like, oh, 1980, Lake Placin, Miracle on Ice. Why do none of us know about what happened in 1960? where the Americans entered this tournament as a massive underdog. They weren't even supposed to medal, and they end up with a gold, Canada with the silver, and the old Soviet Union with the bronze.

What happened here? Why do we not talk about this? They ran the table. I think it's two things. It's number one, it wasn't on TV, at least not in the way the 1980 was. We all know that story that the game was shown on tape delay, but, you know, you didn't have the 19, equivalent of Al Michael, the memorable call. You didn't have that moment of, yeah, yeah, I remember watching that at home and going crazy.

And the other piece of it is, you know, there wasn't a dramatic showdown with the Soviets. And the Soviets in 1960 did not, that did not mean what it meant in 1980 with the way that the world had evolved. So I think that's simply it's because that was something, you know, and I know the other reason is that it was so long ago. But you know, you and I grew up in an era where 1960 was distant past to us, but not to, you know, our parents. And you never heard about the 1960 Olympics. I think that was just something back when not too many people paid attention.

And it just kind of shows you the power of the power of television, for sure, to shape narratives and memories. Because it just wasn't there back then. and the big, the big dramatic, you know, they did play the Soviets and they did beat them, but it wasn't, it wasn't the same because it wasn't presented in the same way. And, you know, an interesting fact there as we wrap up the show, that 1960 American team that won the gold medal, do you know who the final cut from that roster was? Of the 1960 team?

Yeah, of the 1960 team. No, I go. The last cut, Herb Brooks, who would later go on, who would later go on to be the coach of the Miracle on a nice team. There you go. That's our fun little fact for the show. All right, this was a lot of fun. The hour flew by.

Have a great week, and we'll do it again next Thursday. Sounds good. All right. And a reminder for all of you that are listening here, thanks again to listening to this latest edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. I want to invite you that if you've got the opportunity to drop us an email, we love to get your questions, the Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com, or like we've got a couple of voicemails this week,

It's 845-4-45-8-8459. If you're not, it's got a great deal going on right now. Athletic.com slash hockey show. The athletic.com slash hockey show, you can get an annual subscription for just $1 a month for the first six months.