The Athletic Hockey Show - Will Tristan Jarry be the last goalie the Oilers trade for this season?

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Tristan Jarry faced Stuart Skinner, as the Oilers played the Penguins 5 days after the teams swapped starting goaltenders. Sean Gentille, Sean Mcindoe and Frank Corrado discuss if Jarry is the answer in Edmonton, or will Stan Bowman go goalie shopping again before the deadline? The guys stick tap Leon Draisaitl scoring his 1000th career point, the unstoppable Connor McDavid who is on an absolute heater and they talk about Kevyn Adams failure in Buffalo, and the job ahead for Jarmo Kekelainen with the Sabres as the NHL trade freeze and the deadline for salary trade retention soon comes into effect.Hosts: Sean Gentille and Sean McIndoeWith: Frank CorradoExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff DometWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. What up, what up is the athletic hockey show. It is December 17th, eight shopping days before Christmas. Is that how, is that how that works? I don't think the 25th counts. For some of us, it might. It might. You've left it too late if you're at the gas station at 6 a.m.

I've done, I've done Christmas Eve presents. I've done it. I've been, I've been at the east. Eaton Center in Toronto on like the 23rd or maybe even the 24th. And I was playing for the Marley's at the time. And one of the news, I can't remember it was like CP 24, one of those news people, they were in the mall. Like here are the losers at the mall on December 24th?

And they were like, they had the camera going. And this guy's grabbing people for interviews, essentially asking them, hey, why are you doing your Christmas shopping on the 24th? And he grabs, like, not grabs me, but he's like, hey, sir, can we talk to you? I'm like, you know what? I probably better not. I don't need to be on the 6 o'clock news. You have like the thought bubble with a loo, like flashing above your head.

You're like, uh, probably not the best idea. Look at that loser shopping on the 24th. Wait, I recognize that loser in a second. Yeah, my boss is a jerk. He doesn't give me any time off. So I've done airport gifts before. I bought my mother a gift at a Brookstone in an airport. You could make it happen.

You honestly could make it. There's some airports. with some pretty like pretty snazzy little outlets and you could no one could know the difference yeah they're not giving you much of a discount it does they know you're paying you're you're you're you're you're you're paying the jackass tax on on juice baby that all right i'm sean jintilly they are sean macandue and frankie carrado fellas let's just start in pittsburg as we as we so often do we had it's so funny to phrase this as like a revenge game for for tris and jari last night tris and jari versus stew skinner oilers versus pens oilers win six four we had the we had the living

manifestation of the hockey version of the spider man like meme pointing pointing at each other last night where you have two guys who are traded for each other five days ago they have of course of course end up facing off last night. Let's start with that. We can't, we can't call this a Tristan Jari revenge game, right? That's, that's, that's incorrect. No, no, we can't, we can't call it the Tristan Jari revenge game, but man, I wonder if at some point of Stuart Skinner, like, does he have any way of getting revenge on Connor McDavid for what he did to him? And you know he would have seen that, like a million times as a spectator in a game and maybe, two million times as a as a goaltender in practice. But there it was, Connor McDavid, flying right

through the middle of the ice. And I think that could have been prime Marty Broder. And he still wouldn't have gotten to that post to make that save. Like there was no one making that save. And then Stuart Skinner, even after the game was talking about it, he goes, I've seen it so many times. I just don't know what you could possibly do. Like I didn't want to overplay it. But he goes, next time, I'm just going to be aggressive. And I'm just going to go for it. And like, I don't know if you get a next time on that one, man. That one happens pretty quick. I, look, I'll just say this. I, I kind of can't believe. And I'm, I'm very happy that they, both teams started the guy after the trade. Because I was putting together the, uh, the newsletter

that went out Tuesday morning. So I'm putting it together on Monday. And at that point, they haven't announced starters yet. And I was like, you know, this is a good angle. The two teams are playing each other a few days after a trade, but they're not going to start these guys. They never do. Goleys are such, you know, fragile little snowflakes that they're not going to, maybe we'll get one of them.

We're not going to get both. And we did. And that made it great. That made it. It was the most intriguing game of the night for sure. And, uh, yeah, hopefully you bet the over under of nine and a half because, uh, it, uh, it hit. And yeah, both teams, I'm sure, feel amazing about their new goalies after.

Okay. So if we were, like, if we had to guess the score prior to this game taking place and we looked at who was in that and we said it's Skinner versus Jari, it's the Oilers versus the penguins, would anyone have said it was going to be a three-two game or did we automatically go to like the five four six four range? I think I think I specifically would have said six four Oilers. Like I should have actually done like the exact score bet if I. if I would have had the, had the interest in tracking that down.

It was going to be six to four or one to nothing. That would have been the other option. One of those nights where the hockey gods go, oh, you guys all think you know, all right, we're going to flip it the other way. But no, three, two was the last score that it was going to be. No, for sure. We knew we were going to get something.

I was hoping for a goalie fight. Didn't work out, but, you know, maybe next time. Okay. So now that this trade is made, like, you know, we'll see how. Like there's a lot of hockey that needs to be played and playoffs is the big one. Like no one's going to be judged on their regular season success now that both these, you know, goalies are in different areas.

And really we're watching Jari more than Skinner. Like that's where all the eyes are going to go. Like for me, how much better does Jari make the Edmonton Oilers or how much of an improvement is he over Stuart Skinner? Like if I had to put that in a percentage, am I thinking like 10% at the most? That's kind of how I feel.

And that's if Jari plays well versus Skinner playing well. Because we have seen it where Stuart Skinner in the playoffs, last year against Vegas, last year against Dallas, is sharp and dialed in. And man, he can really do it for you. But the highs and lows, like the lows are really low for him. I think Tristan Jari has a higher ceiling as a goaltender. But Stuart Skinner is more proven in the playoffs. So how much better can we possibly say the Oilers are at this point? Although I give them a lot of credit for finally making a trade and saying, we're going to do this.

We've got to do something. It's changed for the sake of change. Yeah. I think that's that's it, right? Like, that's one of those GM cliches. We don't make a change for the sake and making it. You need it to here. Going in to the playoffs with Stuart Skinner as your number one again was not something that would work.

And I'll say, I'll say two things here that it sounds like they're in conflict, but I really don't think they are. Number one, the Oilers absolutely had to make a change. They absolutely needed to move on from Stuart Skinner and bring in somebody else who could be an upgrade. Absolutely had to happen. If Stan Bowman for some reason couldn't find a way to put this together, we would have all been all over him and rightly so. That's point one. Point number two, Stuart Skinner is not as bad as he's made out to be. Stuart Skinner is not some bum that was the sole reason that the Oilers didn't win multiple Stanley Cups. You know, Stuart Skinner had his ups and downs, and some of the downs certainly cost that team.

But, you know, he's not a bad goaltender in this league. So I get why the Oilers had to do something. Certainly, I mean, I can't, me and guys like me have been banging this drum for over a year now. you've got to go out and get a goalie. I can't turn around now and go, oh, why did you do that? Not that one, yeah. But maybe not that one. And that's part of this is the timing on this.

It's only mid-December. We've got a couple months to the deadline. Is there a scenario where if Tristan Jari isn't presenting himself as a clear upgrade? I mean, the Oilers do still have time to make another move. do they have the assets to do it? I don't know about that. But maybe there are scenarios here where Stan Bowman isn't completely locked in here. But clearly, you only get so many swings at it.

And he took one of the swings. And this was the guy that he landed on. And it's, I can't say it's the right guy. But then again, who else was out there when you've got to make a move? I think the really frustrating part of Tris and J. of the Tris and Jari experience is that if it's say we're right before the Olympic break or whatever and he's been in the tank for five games, that's not any kind of indicator on what he's going to look like a game from then or 10 games from them or a month from then or a year.

He's the most volatile goaltender I've ever consistently watched. And I think that's kind of indicative of something that Frankie said or sort of reinforces that that I think the floor, frankly, is lower than Skinner. And I think the ceiling is maybe a little bit higher because he does have, you know, plus athletic ability for the position, I would say. He's not, you know, he's not Mark Andre Fleury out there. But he's, you know, good at scrambling and he's quick and reactive. And I think to some extent, you can see the.

argument where, you know, that'll play better for, for Edmonton, since they're so prone to giving up 10-bell, you know, catastrophic chances, you know, based on, based on what we've seen from the Evan Bouchard to the world over the last however long. But, man, it's just such, it's such a dice roll. And even, even moving forward, you just don't, you don't know what you're getting from that kind of game to game basis, let alone month-a-month basis. And I think that makes it hard to assess it in any real way and also hard to predict, you know, whatever they're going to do next. The Stuart Skinner thing, I think we all forget that he sort of got thrust into this position at a necessity. The Edmonton Oilers went out in for the 2022, 2022, 2023 season,

they signed Jack Campbell to a five-year deal at $5 million. Stuart Skinner was supposed to be the guy that plays, I don't know, 35% of those games. Yeah, right, 24 games of season. Yeah, right, 24 games a he was he was not meant at the time to be the starting goal tender but credit to him when Campbell sort of you know faltered out Stuart Skinner played well enough to earn the trust of his staff at the time to say okay well we're just going to go with this guy it's an internal solution for us and at times has played well in his career but I think we should never lose sight of that that he didn't get like his sort of long runway, he got thrown into the fire. And, you know, how has that affected his development as time has gone on?

You know, and the other thing with Jari, like I played with Jari. We played together in Wilkesbury before he kind of arrived at the NHL level. He's going back somewhere where he's comfortable. And it's familiar. It's Edmonton. He won a WHL championship. I believe he won a Memorial Cup. there.

Like, this is, this is somewhere where he should feel pretty comfortable. And if anything, you know, I think we talked about this last year with the potential of like a John Gibson trade, right, where things weren't going great for Gibson. They were fine in Anaheim last year, but it was like, you know, there was this year after year after year where you're like, okay, is he ever going to find his game again? And I kind of said, well, maybe he goes to Edmonton, he feels rejuvenated. You're playing with two of the best players in the world. you're on a team with Stanley Cup aspirations.

Like, that does something for you mentally. I think there's two things that go well for Tristan Jari here that might help him kind of, you know, find that consistency. But I'll tell you guys quickly, like, Jari as a rookie in the H.L was pretty funny, you know, he, he would, we would start practice at 10.30 in Wilkesbury. Jari would start practice at around 1040 because the first warm-up draw, everyone would score on him and would just feel like, ours, wake up.

Like, practice has started already. Like, let's go. Like, you just go on low blocker, low glove, low blocker, low glock, like, let's, like, let's, we've been on the ice for 20 minutes already. I think someone should have told him that overtime started against the Islanders in that playoff game. Oh, yeah. The few years back.

That's always, he's a nice guy. I hope nothing but the best for him. Oh, he's always seemed like a nice dude. And, yeah, he's, he always gives people the time of day, very well thought out in his answers. You know, he gets interviewed. So I truly hope it works out for him at Edmonton. One more note coming out of that, Oilers game.

Leon Dreisettle, 1,000 points. He hit four last night. It's shocking. He hit a big night against his former guy. First German player, fifth vastest non-North American player to hit it. The 103rd overall player to hit 1,000 points, which is, or does that seem high or does that seem low to us? that seems appropriate to me. I probably would have guessed 100 dead on.

But I don't think, I wouldn't have guessed there's going to be 500 players. I also wouldn't have guessed that there's going to be 50. I don't know. It feels a little high just because, I mean, that's one per year basically in the NHL, but obviously for the first, you know, however many years, and nobody's hitting that. So I guess it's about right. I guess it's, and it's nice to see guys still hitting it now. Half that list is probably 1980s guys.

Yeah. Three good seasons back then. Did you guys, did you see the t-shirts, the Oilers all wore after the games? Those were phenomenal. If you haven't seen it, it's Leon Drysidal. I guess at one of the Oilers' weddings this summer, maybe it was his wedding, smoking a dart, and they put it on the t-shirt and the t-shirt said something like smoking, was it smoking his way to a thousand? It was so good.

Well done. Here's my question on that. If they don't win, do those? shirts still come out or like what's the protocol there? Yeah. Did they get shipped to some third world country with the, uh, yeah, there's kids, you know, with the Blue Jays World Series gear? Kids, kids running around in Blue Jays World Series hats and dry

settle smoking t-shirts. Yeah. Yeah. How many former teammates, you don't have to name any names here, Frank. How many teammates like ballpark would you say would, that you would classify as, as smokers? Like, like guys that hacked darts? Consistently.

Not just like, not just like, not just like, yeah, we'll, okay, I'll tell you this one. We'll bang a couple at a wedding. A few for sure. In junior, you know, my first year. He's thinking about this. I can tell. Like, I can see the, I can see the gears turning. I got to tell you this story while I racked my brain around how many guys would

have hacked darts, but in, not consistently. It's more like if it's a night out at the bar and it goes a little deep into the night, that's when maybe you might see a dart or two come out, maybe a dart or three. But in junior, my first year, I didn't have a car, right? I'm 16 years old. I don't have a driver's license. So you rely on veteran guys to give you rides. And I walk into, and you got to keep in mind, like, I'm 16.

I'm like bright eyed, like really green. And I step into the passenger seat of one of the guys' cars and there's a pack of darts sitting in there. And I like, I don't know. We're all athletes aspiring to be NHL players. And like, why the hell would you have darts, man? Like, what's going on? here. And I look at him. I look at him and I go, what's going on with the darts? He goes, oh, I'm trying

to quit chew. Like, okay. I'm sure that's going to help. So incredibly relatable ping ponging between nicotine products when you're trying to quit one or the other. I've been there, my man. So I got a pack of Belmont lights today. The other thing coming out of that game. Connor McDavid Conner McDavid Two goals, two assists Fellas, he's played seven games Since we've floated

Maybe we'd rather have McKinnon and him Don't say we Some of us were maybe stronger In that sense of much I blame the Quizmaster That's who I blame 20 points in seven games He's oh god

He took the scoring lead Briefly last night McKinnon and ended up And ended up taking it back So good God Yeah but you're welcome You're welcome Edmonton I suppose is the way to put it.

I just called his game on Sunday in Montreal, and him and Drysidal had a fairly quiet night after kind of going gangbusters the night before in Toronto. But what this guy's doing right now is he's shooting the puck. Like he's actually saying shooting the puck has become an option for me. It's not option three. Like last night, six shots. He had three against Montreal, two against Toronto,

four against Detroit, six against Buffalo, five against Winnipeg, seven against Seattle. That's when it all started, the Seattle game, because they got shut out against Minnesota. And then after that, it's like, I can get so many looks at the net because of my speed, and I'm taking them. And this guy's on fire right now.

He's reached that point of the season where we say, you can't slow McDavid down anymore. Terrifying. Because I still maintain that that one year that he had, what was, 64 goals, whatever it was, and won the Rocket Richard. Like that was,

I am convinced because we all blew so much smoke up the behind of Austin Matthews as this great goal score that Connor McDavid was like, all right, you want to see goals?

We're going to do goals this year. And then he went back to be in the, you know, 150 point guy who's mostly a set up guy. If he's back in that mode now, if he's going, you know what, all right,

I'll just do it on my own. That's, it might be over for, a lot of the Pacific division at the very least and maybe beyond. Yeah, and like we said, thank you Connor McDavid for

subscribing to the show for watching our YouTube channel. He's obviously in on it. Send him a ring to Sean Gentilly in June. Or just send him one of the DART T-shirts at least. You guys got extras for sure. That's fine. I might take that

over the ring, honestly. I would rather I would rather have that. I think that's more fitting for me. All right, folks, stick around. We'll be right back. We're going to talk trade board. We're going to talk Sabres. Maybe a couple other things will pop up.

All right, boys, we are back. It's a little more, as we record this, a little more than two days from the trade freeze. It starts on December 19th. It lasts until December 28th. And also, like, kind of crucially, it's the deadline for someone to be moved in a salary or retention trade.

while maintaining eligibility to be moved in a second salary retention trade this spring, whenever the, whenever the trade deadline freezes. It's something we've seen more over the last couple years where you, you know, you see players teams start flipping, flipping guys retaining and whatever else. It's a CBA thing. You got to wait 75 days until you can do it again. And because the way the schedule is shaking out, 75 days from now will be after the trade deadline. that's an important little bit of business.

Isn't it Mac and do? And I know this is something that caught your eye. Yeah. And this is, you know, if people are confused or what, this is one of those things that's in the new CBA, that the CBA doesn't take effect for a year, but they fast track some of the stuff. Because, you know, it's the NHL. If you can make it, if you can make trading less likely and make a, you know, make the rumor mill less fun for fans, you got to do that as soon as well. You can't wait another year. So, yeah, this is yet another way to tie the hands of GMs.

And you're going to hear it. Like in January and you're going to hear GMs go, oh, we can't do double retention anymore. Well, I mean, you can. But now's the time to do it. Yeah. We'll see. I'm not, I don't have my hopes up. We're going to see any major moves.

But maybe not. Maybe they'll surprise us. They showed us last Friday. It actually is possible to make trades during the season. So trade your card. But you know what feels like it's more possible and it seems like it happens more often than a big trade? Like the Quinn Hughes thing is such a massive colossal thing. That's almost like it's a one of one.

It's an outlier. It's like guy is unhappy with situation. So he goes to the team and says, hey, can you guys move me? GM says, well, we'll try, but you kind of make too much money. So no one wants to take on your contract. So you want to terminate it. And then you'll sign for pennies on the dollar. somewhere and that's probably how you end up going somewhere else.

Like it feels like that's been, that's sort of been the work around this year in a couple different scenarios. But I almost wonder now, because this rule is in place and there's not that much happening. And like quite honestly, as much as I just said, like teams don't want to overspend on players, they're not in the same kind of cap crunch that they used to be where they had to have, you know, all this double retention going around. I kind of just wonder if it's like it's obsolete in a way. Like we're just, we don't need to do the double retention.

And if you do, then yeah, you have a little bit of runway that you have to do it. Yeah, it's less of a necessary thing. Maybe this year than it has been in the past, but it can still affect prices, I think. And it might, it's not going to stop a deal. It's certainly less likely to stop a deal from getting done, which wasn't the case in the past. But it could affect the overall package, which. is kind of where I'm looking at on it. Like here's a great example. Just talk for a while about the jari-skinner trade. No salary retention in that, which is kind of wild on Kyle Dubas's

and the end of thing. So that's, that's decent work by him. But because there was no salary attention at all, that means that if he wants to, he can trade, say, Brett Kulak down the road. And it doesn't have to be in two days. Like he could do that, he could do that in February and still and still make it happen. So it is, it's interesting. It's in the weeds, but I think it is, you know, it's an interesting piece to have on the board moving forward. It's just whatever. It's just, it's fun to talk about trades since we never actually see any of them because they're just so hard. They're so hard to do. Who complained about salary retention? Someone did. But, but whose problem was it? Because if, obviously, if I'm a contending team, if I'm a buyer, I like it,

because I can get somebody and fit them under the cap. If I'm a seller, in theory, I like it because it broadens the market of teams that can get my $5 million guy because we can knock the price down a couple of times. And if I'm one of the teams in the middle, okay, I spend some money, I get a free draft pick out of it. I don't, I would love to know who had a bug up there behind and said, not only does this need to be in the CBA, but we need to fast track it. Well, it's like, it's like LTIR adjacent, right? It's like cap circumvention adjacent where people were just so, you know, angry and pissed over, over the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the main machinations there that I think stuff like that just kind of got, uh, got, got dragged along.

Tampa Bay, too. And then the thing about the LTIR was, you had to be a team that was willing to play a large portion of your regular season without a star player. and know that everything is going to be okay. And trust me, other teams could have done it. But did they have the appetite for what could have gone wrong if the Toronto Maple Leafs decided we're shutting down Austin Matthews for four months, five months, and we'll see him come playoff time?

I don't know, but those teams had the appetite to do it with, whether it's Stone or Kucharov, and not everyone sort of has that appetite. I wonder, like, to DGB's point, like, there's a GM group chat out there. Who's the most likely, who's the most likely to say, I need to speak to the manager? Or like, who's the Karen of the NHL GMs that has to go to Gary and Bill and say, how are we allowing the double retention to happen? Like, who is that? Yeah, it's some GM who's like, guys, my fans and my media and my owner are asking me why I'm not making trades with this double return. Get it out of here.

We got to fix this so that nobody expects me to do my job. job. But yeah, you're right. There's a group text, group chat with all of them, and then there's a separate group chat with the ones who actually get to speak. Because remember, like, Kyle Dubas wasn't even allowed to talk his first few years when he went to these meetings. I'm guessing on job number two, he probably is allowed to, you know, maybe make a facial expression at least every now and then. But yeah, I wonder, so if you're an NHLGM listening to this and you're like, no, no, there's only

one group chat. I got bad news, man. This is just, this is just, yeah, then you're not in the good one. This is the equivalent, like, anytime stuff like this comes up, I think of situation at a restaurant, like it's like the old bit from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Dennis orders their food from them, orders off the menu from them at the restaurant. I assume it's just like Doug Armstrong or something being like, yeah, he'll have the, he'll have the, he'll have the, he'll have the, he'll have the, he'll have the fetichini Alfredo actually when it comes to this kind of stuff. Does Yarmot get to order his own stuff now?

It's a good question. Or like, because he's grandfathered in from the decade in Columbus, or does he go right to the back of the line? And, uh, you know, he's, he's sitting there with Can't Hughes and whoever else. What a, what a weird, like,

what a whole weird transaction? Like, when Yarmot gets hired, Kevin Adams has to be looking at over his shoulder thinking, like, yeah, my replacement is literally sitting right next to me. And if things start to go south, like,

you can see the writing on the wall as far as what's going to happen. But, man, I texted my buddy Marty Biron and I said, Pick up that name all you can. Yeah. I said, Marty, it must be so depressing being a Sabres fan. And he said, why?

I said, constantly you have the opportunity to start this thing with like a blank canvas and bring in like, I don't know, like people, a team that like can get this thing going right and they've messed it up so many times, whether it's coaches, players, general managers, and here's the opportunity again, and you're just going to bring in, and maybe he's gotten better, like maybe he's learned from what's gone down in Columbus, but you're going to bring in a guy who's kind of known for, I don't know, like, is it shooting from the hip in Columbus and doing some things that were questionable and not bringing that team anywhere? I don't know, man.

It's, uh, it was weird. You have this great opportunity and it feels like you're almost just throwing yourself right back to where you were. I think Yarmos tendency to say what you will about his time in Columbus. I mean, the dude had a prejudice for action, right? Like he wasn't, he wasn't afraid to make moves. Say what you will about the efficacy of those moves. But I think that's, if I'm a Sabres fan, that's like the solace that I take, is that you have someone in the chair now who, you know, actually seems like their default setting is to do stuff.

And that is not, you know, I know we're, I know we're thinking of the, of the Josh Norris and Dylan Cousin's trade, maybe put that off, put that off to the side. But ultimately Adams's issue there was that he just didn't, there was paralysis there that were always, always waiting. Yeah. And, I mean, that's, that's certainly not unique to Buffalo. But that wasn't the Yarmotakakaline way of doing things. in Columbus. And no, of course, they didn't all work out. He was there forever. I mean, you're

going to find some things that didn't work. Obviously, the Mike Babcock situation, he wears that. But that's the one that sticks out to me, man. I'm sorry. I forgot about that. That one, no, but that's the one that sticks out to me. And I'm like, it's a fireable offense when it happens. And then to like, two years later essentially say, you're our guy. When there's a lot of very talented, smart individual sitting out on the sidelines. I guess that's the one that I can't wrap my head around. Here's what I'll say about that. I totally agree with you.

Like Yarmo is, you know, I try not to use the retread word because that makes people angry. But, you know, he is, right? Like, he was a replacement level GM in Columbus, ultimately. But I think when you look at the way things had worked in Buffalo and Matt Fairburn's done a great job of of laying this out on the site really over the last couple years, starting, starting particularly last offseason when it, when the question, you know, the fundamental question to the story that Matt wrote is like, how does Kevin Adams still have this job, basically? The default mode in Buffalo was the basically not, it was, it's, it's,

basically to not hire anybody. You know, you have, you have Kevin Adams, a guy who'd never done the job, whose rise to that job was, you know, completely, completely non-standard. And then the people that he had working under him were also, you know, not experienced in any real way whatsoever. So I feel like when you look at the way the Sabres do things, you know, the fact that they even made this change is kind of,

is kind of shocking. Because it truly felt like Kevin Adams was going to have the job for life, despite the results. So if this is what it took to get someone else in the job, the most uninspiring, you know, mid-level. replacement level dude in Yarmo, I think the Sabres fans should should just take it. You say like, yeah, this guy wasn't great. He had the humiliation of the Babcock thing on his record. Like, so be it, we probably weren't going to do any better because of the shackles

that have been placed on them by the ownership. Well, that's it. That's it. And, you know, you can say, well, there's, would there be better candidates out there, maybe fresh sets of eyes, maybe somebody who hasn't already been around the block a few times. Yeah, maybe. Of course. Buffalo's tried that, right? You know, not just Kevin Adams, which was a weird kind of out of left field hire, but they did Jason Bauderl. They did Tim Murray.

They have been, you know, trying to get the young up and coming GM and it hasn't worked. One thing I do like about this from the perspective of a Sabres fan is Yarmot's been there, I think, the right amount of time, right? He was hired in May as an advisor. So he hasn't been around so long that you just pointed him and say, well, he's just part of the problem. I mean, you know, you see teams do that sometimes where they say, oh, you know, it's not good enough. We're going to fire this guy, but we're going to promote the assistant who's been there for five years. And in theory was part of all these decisions anyways.

That's not the situation here. But he's at least been there long enough that unlike bringing in somebody brand new right now in December, he's not going to play the card you would hope of, oh, I got to get the lay of the land. I need six months to figure out what's what and what's going on and, you know, to really see everything with my own eyes. He's had his six months. He should be ready to go and ready to hit the ground running. And at the end of the day, you know, could there have been other candidates out there?

Almost certainly, what's the lineup look like of people who want to work for Terry Pagula in this stripped down front office? This is beggars can't be choosers for Sabres fans, honestly. Like it would it be great. Especially in the middle of a season where you can't be, you're not getting someone else's assistant or, you know, something like that. That's off the table. Well, you'd have to hire someone who's not currently working. Right. And then that's a totally different pool and how long have those guys been out?

And then you're talking about that six months lay of the land, right? So he does have a head start. I guess now, like if you're a Sabers fan, you're like, please just save us from whatever this is. is. But I, I don't know, I'm sure there's Sabres fans that look at this and they look at the standings and they say, that's probably where we're going to be. That's, no, I, I, like, how likely is it that we're moving up? I, I sat there and just quasi defended it for, for five. Like, do I think it's going to work? Like, no, I don't. I, I don't think this is going to work out for Buffalo. I, I, but I think, like,

given the totality of the situation and, and how, and how much of a joke, it, it, it has, turned into over the last couple years. I'm like, okay, you might as well roll the dice on this one. And Frankie, you kind of alluded to this. We did, both you guys did, really. We saw Yarmow come in, and he said specifically about Alex Tuck. I think that's the kind of talk that if nothing else, like, that should bring some degree of relief to Sabres fans. Where Alex Tuck, he's, you know, almost a point per game player, he's been the most reliably, you know, the most reliable, you know, the most the most consistent, well-rounded forward, certainly on that, in that group for the last couple years, local guy, yada, yada, he's a pending UFA.

He's number three on CJ's new trade board. Yarmou comes in and says, like, I'm going to take charge of this. So, like, now saying that and doing it are certainly two separate things, but the fact that he's that he's at least capable of coming in being like, saying in one way or another, like, this is a mess. This has gone on too long. do figure out what we're going to do ASAP, like that represents an actual upgrade on what the Sabres had been getting for the last few years.

At the end of the day, like that taking charge of that means I'm going to open the pocketbook. That's what it means. Like you can convince Alex Tuck to stay in Buffalo and sell him on your message if the price is right. So you're going to have to find a price because he ain't taking a discount. And if anything, he probably wants a little bit above market value. And Dregs was talking yesterday on. overdrive here in Toronto that Alex Tuck wants Adrian Kempe money, which is north of $10 million,

like all the contract sort of projection companies that we use to nail down these things, no one's really suggesting north of $10 million. So if Yarmos taking charge of this deal, you can guarantee it starts with a 10 and it only goes up from there. Oh, the bills probably need a second wide receiver for next season. So, Pigula's got his money. Yeah. One last thing just on Yarmal that makes me, again, gives me a little bit of optimism if

on Buffalo, because we've been, we're all kicking Kevin Adams when he's down. And that's, look, that's the nature of it, right? It's a tough job you get evaluated for it. The success wasn't there. I will say one thing in defense of Kevin Adams. He was right about the palm trees and the taxes and all that. I realized that felt like an excuse and everybody got mad and fans brought the inflatable trees and all that, which is very funny. They're still mad about that, by the way. They're not getting over that one.

But he's right. He's, you know, Buffalo is not a desirable place for players right now and they won't be until they start winning, which is what Kevin Adams was making at his point. I would argue that if you're looking at comparable markets, I'm not sure there's a better comparison for Buffalo than Columbus. another smallish market, doesn't have the weather, doesn't have the tax benefits, and all of this other stuff, the fact that you're getting a guy from there, and by the way,

he did okay attracting players. He got Johnny Goddreau to go to Columbus. Not bad for, you know, for a market that wasn't supposed to be on anybody's list. So, you know, at the very least, you've got it, to me,

if you bring in somebody from Tampa and suddenly they're going, okay, I'm going to do all the same stuff what we did with the lightning and uh oh wait a second why is nobody picking up the phone you got you got a different you got a different toolbox that you're working with there's a challenge here that is not unique to buffalo but is you know something that doesn't exist everywhere in the league and they've got a guy who's used to working under that situation and in theory at least knows how to handle it to give him some credit on some of the trades that he's made um like he's taking advantage of some

situations, right? So he traded for Severson. I believe at the time, New Jersey, like, they, they couldn't afford that contract anymore. They traded for Proverov, going back, like, they traded for Matthew Olivier, who's become a really good player for that team. At the time, I believe, getting, he traded Vorichick for Cam Atkinson. I don't even remember if Vorichick was playing at that point. Anyways, I'm going back in time, but those are a few, like, right off the top. The Olivier's become a staple there. and Proberov and Severson are, you know, obviously good, talented defensemen. So it's not like there's a horrible track record. It's just, you know.

He's also showed that he's like, whatever. It didn't always work, but he's shown the guts with Dushain and Panarin and Bobrovsky and rolling the dice on on rentals in some way, which like, if I'm the Sabres, man, I'm taking it. But, man, Frankie, you said it, it always, it comes out of the money. The blue jackets, the, the, the blue jackets spent to the cap in the, the, Sabers have not. And that is the single most difficult thing to overcome.

If you got a cheap owner, it doesn't matter what sport it is. Like if that's the way it goes, and if you have the reputation for, you know, being a place where guys aren't going to get paid, bad stuff happens. And I could go into a 15-minute long monologue about the Pittsburgh Pirates as it relates to the Buffalo Sabres. But the vibes were they in on someone? Were they in on a big-time player? We're not. We'll talk.

We'll talk off mic about this. That's made. They were in there, man. You hear the pirates come up. You're like, what? No, they're not. They were offering Kyle Schwerber less money than he was certainly going to get on the open market. It was complete, complete, complete, complete Fugese nonsense.

Like I said, we can text. It was AI generated. Frankie, before we let you go, I have one question I want to ask. Quinn Hughes back in the news, obviously. He's got a new team, Minnesota. but is 2-0 with him, 11-2 goal differential. So it seems like Quinn, he's pretty good at hockey. The specific thing I wanted to ask is that a new group of people are being exposed to the insane way he gets over the bench.

When he like swings his entire, I'm like if, if you're listening, I'm drifting out of phrase here. Like he throws this whole, throws both legs, throws both legs over the side. So people who did not know that that's how Quinn get on the bench are getting exposed to it now. I need to get the ex-player. And now the Minnesota Wild are like must-see hockey, which even with Caprice off there, the Minnesota Wild were never really must-see hockey. But it's our last show for a little bit. And this is something that I sort of develop as the year goes on.

I like to watch every team early, right? So I watch all 32 at some point early in the season. And then I sort of develop like a do not watch list. And it's derived from my golf. do not play list. You know, people invite you to certain courses, and it's like, oh, we're playing at this course today. I'm like, not going.

That's on my do not playlist. So you watch some bad hockey, and you're like, that team has a very good chance of being on my do not watch list at some point this year. Maybe we get into the new year. We'll let another month play out.

We do the top five do not watch NHL teams in the new year. What do you guys say? I love it. I love it. And we piss so many people off. Rick Tocket, you were on the clock. Yeah. You got a month to get more interesting.

I did their game last night. I did Philly and Montreal last night. This is the kindest compliment I could say to the Philadelphia Flyers. They are terrible to watch, but they're actually not a bad team. Frankie Sasser of his hat pulled down over his eyes the entire game. Yeah. That's a compliment. If you say that to a coach, they're walking around like your chest popped out.

They're giving you a hug. That's nice thing. You can say. By the way, all the listeners out there, save your jokes about the former Maple Leaf playing so much golf that he has a list of courses. He doesn't want to play anymore. You're not going to be the first one to get there, so don't bother. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Merry Christmas, buddy. All right, boys. Like I said, I'll send you a 15-minute-long audio note about the Pittsburgh Pirates. And we can disconnect for a couple of. couple weeks and enjoy and enjoy your time away from us. All right, boys.

Take it easy. Have a good one. All right, we're back. There goes Frankie. Sean, it's time for what we learned. What have we learned, Sean? Yeah, for me, it's not so much what I learned, but I was reminded that Joe Bowen is awesome. Love Joe Bone.

Voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs, long time, TV and radio voice in his final season got Got his flowers last night. Was honored a pregame ceremony before the Leafs took on the Blackhawks. And very cool. Just a good dude. I think every market has that one local broadcaster that is maybe a bit of an acquired taste. Or maybe it's not the other fan bases don't quite appreciate as much. But as a Lee fan, I love Joe Bone.

I've met him a few times. He's always been very nice, even though I stole one of his catchphrases, always makes the same joke about how he's going to send me an invoice or get his lawyers involved. But so far, it has not. So, yeah, thank you to Joe Bowen for everything, especially being a voice of a lot of very cool moments over the years. And it was really nice to see him honored and really nice to. to see the Maple Leafs be fired up and go and play seven good minutes at a 60 for him last night.

Whatever. The result worked out. It was enough. Isn't that a cool part of this job? Like, is being able to meet those guys. Like, I can remember the first time I talked to Mike Lang here in Pittsburgh, and it was just like a holy hell kind of thing. Sometimes yes, sometimes, no, but I got to say, like, it's. My experience has been overwhelmingly positive.

I mean, that's one of those things where when people find out what you do, like a lot of times they think you've got like inside dirt and like, okay, who's a jerk? The list is very short because most people are pretty, including some that maybe come across differently. And then you meet them and you're like, oh, he's actually a cool guy. I like him. I know. Dude, I remember, I remember talking to you, we won't say the name, and I don't even know if you remember this, but I remember talking to you in a press box in, God, we're, I think in Calgary. And we ended up in a three-person conversation with somebody who is not always super well liked online.

And they walked away and you were like, I hate that that guy is such a cool guy. That's, that's, that's too bad. Oh, well. It's an occupational hazard. Is it you have to humanize people who you've made fun of on the internet for years and years and years and years? Wait, you're like an actual person, not just a Twitter account that occasionally makes people mad? I don't like that. Speaking of that, it's a pretty, it's a tangentially related topic.

I learned that Dylanstrom says he'll cheer for the USA at the Olympics. If Canada doesn't take Tom Wilson to Milan, that comes from Katie Adler of Russian machine. never breaks. That's that's that's saucy, saucy stuff for Dylan's for for for for for Dylanstrom. Um, I think we're probably at the point now where Dylanstrom I think I Connor Bedard's injury makes a lot more likely that Dylan Strom is is going to be able to cheer for Canada. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just say that. Well, I mean, the the the the Connor Badard injury gives cover for team Canada to do. what they were probably already going to do, which is take one guy.

And the fact that Macklin's celebrate, I mean, geez, you saw what he did last night. He's certainly putting the finishing touches on whatever the argument is. But yeah, I mean, good old Tom Wilson. And here's my question. 17 goals and 33 games, man. When they put Tom Wilson on Team Canada, are they? they going to mention the the the those missing four feet of ice is that going to somehow be spun as a i think that might i think that might come up as as as an ad hoc justification for

sure okay that's good to know that they've got uh that their their system is so finely tuned that they enter in the the rink size and they adjust it and then it spits out oh no actually it's tom wilson is going to be on there team canada has a 35 person front office for the Olympics. I guarantee, I guarantee more than one of them after finding out that Connor Bedard has an upper body, body injury and is probably going to be out until after the roster deadline, there were people who were relieved in that room. And he's going to be healthy for the Olympics.

The roster deadline, though. The rostered, gosh, I don't know. Think of the roster deadline, Sean. New Year's Eve, baby. I didn't have any plans at night. That's fine. What's going from you this week? Got anything good on the way?

Yeah, I got a few things, including one where this is something that has somebody asked me a while ago. We're going to do all-time teams. Team Canada of Canadian players playing for Canadian teams versus American players playing for American teams. Who you got? we're going through the whole roster and then it was maybe a mailbag on Friday.

Oh man, we can, we get, we get Quinn on the roster now. Hell yes. That's exactly. You know what? Is that the newspaper?

There was a whole, the after the post talk newspeg, the classic. Yeah, that's always a good one. I don't know, man. Does Quinn qualify?

Does he not? There was some dispute. I'll leave that, I'll leave that to the reader. I can't. I'm shocked. You haven't done this already. It seems like something that.

Don't say that. I always worry about that. They should have been on the blog spot in 2011 or whatever, dude. It might have been. It's positive. If I dig it up, I won't say anything. All right, folks, there's five games tonight. We've got a double header on TNT in the States.

That's Utah, Detroit, and then Devils Vegas. I'll watch those games. That's good enough to hold me interesting. enjoy that and enjoy your holidays that's it for me and maccindu until until after christmas will frankie return yes of course frankie will return happy holidays we'll talk to you soon