The Athletic Hockey Show - Zach Parise gets benched, the Jack Eichel situation, and a big day for Mario Lemieux and Teemu Selanne in This Week in Hockey History

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss the Maple Leafs running away with the North division and being a Stanley Cup favorite. Then, Zach Parise gets benched in Minnesota and a look back at when Cam Neely was benched by Steve Kasper. The situation is bubbling over in Buffalo, what is the move the Sabres need to make with Jake Eichel? Also, the Habs fire their goalie coach mid-game, a chat about bad narratives in response to a listener voicemail, and in This Week in Hockey History, a look back at a big day for both Mario Lemieux and Teemu Selanne.Have a question? Email [e-mail] or leave a voicemail at [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Ian Mendez alongside Sean McIndoo on this episode of the podcast. It's another week, another strange firing on the Canadians coaching staff. Speaking of strange, we've got ourselves the situation brewing in Minnesota between the Wild and Zach Porese. We'll take some of your listener questions via email and via voicemail. We'll talk about bad narratives in the NHL that maybe we've got to get rid of. and also talk about the idea of four-on-four hockey. And we'll wrap it up as always with this week in hockey history

featuring one of the most memorable days ever for Mario Lemieux and Tammu Salani. Sean, before we get to all of that, I got to ask you, Toronto just goes in and dominates Edmonton on Wednesday night. Okay? And it feels weird because it's like this one, this entity that transfers between or amongst Canadian fan bases, where sometimes it's Calgary. It was Ottawa earlier.

It's Vancouver. Now it's Edmonton. They're panicking. I just need to know what is the psyche. Is it fair to say that the Toronto Maple Leafs fan base has the most solid, like, psyche of any fan base in Canada right now? I mean, we should, based on how the season is going. Do we?

I don't know. I think a lot of that depends on how long you've been a fan. If you're relatively new to this, you're like this. this is great. They got the best team on paper. They're way ahead and the standings. We're going to finish first. This is fantastic. If you're a bit of an old timer like I am, maybe not as much confidence

because you're sort of waiting for things to go wrong. But I got to say, this is, in all my many years as a least fan, the only time that I could point to and compare to what it feels like right now is probably the beginning of that 93-94 season, where they start the season 10-0. Said an NHL record, best start ever. They had just gone on the long playoff run in 93.

I don't know if you know about that. We don't talk about it very much as League fans, but there was a playoff run in 93. It was pretty good. It's now year two of Pat Burns. You're sitting there going, well, was that real last year? Or was that just one of those fluke things?

And they come out of the gate 10-and-o. And I've said that was the only time in my entire life as a Leafs fan, playoff regular season, off-season, where I think you could have legitimately said that Toronto Maple Leafs right now are this Stanley Cup favor because they were just rolling over everybody. And then they went pretty much 500 for the rest of the year and ended up having a good

playoff run but didn't win a Stanley Cup. So that's kind of the caution point if you're looking at right now. But that was a long time ago. And it's taken along. I've seen some good leap teams and some bad leaf teams, but I've never seen a team that is just rolling over everybody like this. And yeah, it's the Canadian division. Yeah, the North is maybe not as strong.

They're not beaten Boston or Tampa or anyone like that. But when you go into Edmonton and you face a team like the Oilers that have won like, what, seven or eight out of nine, and you just, you know, to win three games and regulation is one thing. They just dominated. I mean, that was, that looked like just a big lead team against a bunch of tykes. It was not anything I expected. All sorts of fun to watch. Who knows, we got a long way to go in this season. We may look back and go, yeah, that was the peak.

But right now, this team looks real, real good. Yeah, it was with surgical precision that they took apart the Edmonton Oilers in those three games. And like I said, it feels like the Oilers fan base is now the one kind of scurrying and trying to figure out what is going on. Hey, we're trying to figure out, Sean, what is going on in Minnesota where the Wild on Wednesday, their head coach Dean Eveson made Zach Parise a healthy scratch for the first time in his career. Now, Prizzi had been a scratch maybe late in the season when they had locked up a playoff spot. This is the first time in nine years. Parize is a healthy scratch.

And just to paint the picture, just so everybody knows how this or why this all came to be. Monday night, Minnesota is playing Vegas. Wild have a lead late in the game. They're up by a goal. Marcus Felino has two goals in the game, has never had a hat trick in his career. He's on the ice with Porese. Parisi has said to him, hey, have you?

You ever had a hat trick before? And Marcus Villeney says, no, I haven't. So Preezy says, I'm going to get you the puck at some point. Well, his final shift, he gets stuck out there. He was trying to get Fleino the hat trick. It doesn't work out. He ends up, you know, kind of being on the ice for, I think, a buck 30, buck 33. And everyone points to finger at him.

Dean Everson says, I'm going to scratch him. Preezy says, it's disappointing. I don't agree with it. Then the wild get pumped again on Wednesday night. I'm always interested, Sean, when elite players with big, or at least big time players with cap hits like Preezy, four more years at that seven and a half million is a healthy scratch. As you and I look at this kind of from 10,000 feet away, what's your takeaway from Preezy and Dean Aveson this week in Minnesota?

Yeah, well, I mean, they're going to have to work it out. That's the short answer. This is in a situation like Pereluk de Boogging and scratched in Columbus and you go, okay, this isn't going to work. They're going to trade them. There's lots of teams. Nobody is lining up to get Zach Creese at 7.5 million for four more years. So they've got to figure it out.

And I think they will. You're talking about a veteran player. You know, he doesn't strike me as a sort of guy who's going to go off and sulk about this. He'll learn from it. And they should be able to move on. But it was an interesting move to me because you're talking about a veteran. veteran player. You're talking about a relatively new coach. You know, this is Dean Evanison. This is his first full season behind a bench. And to have it happen at a time when things were going

really well in Minnesota, they had rolled off six or eight wins before that, that loss on Monday. They were playing exciting hockey. There was a buzz around this team for the first time in maybe forever. I can't remember the last time I was excited to talk Minnesota while, but they're a fun team this year. If there was ever a time where you think maybe a young coach might say, you know what, I'm going to let this go. I'm not going to rock the boat right now. That probably would have been the time.

And that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing because you want to have your expectations and your rules and you want to say they apply to everyone. And there's no better way to make it clear that the rules apply to everyone than to enforce them on a older popular veteran player. I thought the whole explanation about getting a hat trick was really interesting. I've heard some fans who are very much on Zach Creeze's side. They thought he was doing a good thing.

There's other fans not so much. It's one of those funny things in hockey. If he had been hanging out there to get himself a hat trick, there'd be no discussion about right or wrong here. We would all be criticizing it that you can't do anything in hockey for your own numbers. But if you're trying to help out a teammate and get his numbers, we all love that. And we see it all the time, right? How many times do you see a guy go down?

He's got a shot in an empty net, but he stops. He pulls up. He makes a pass and tries to get a goal for somebody else who's struggling or looking for their first goal or whatever it is. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The problem here is it did lead to the tying goal going the other way. And yeah, I mean, I get why you would want to send that message. Say, guys, there is no personal accomplishment. There's no personal number for you or any teammate.

that is more important than us winning games here. And I would assume that Zach Prys is going to be back in the lineup after one game. It's message delivered and you move on from there. But it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Because we have seen over the years some younger or rookie coaches take this action with veterans and have it not work out very well for them. You know, as you mentioned that, the first thing that comes to mind, and I feel like this might have been a game against the Leafs, you would know.

Steve Casper coached the Boston Bruins and he stapled Cam Neely to the bench. What I find fascinating is like nearly played, right? Like it wasn't like he dressed, sorry, he dressed for the game and didn't take a shift, right? That is the all-timer. That is the all-time example of a young coach kind of getting out over his skis. And because it was, first of all, it was hockey night Canada in Toronto in Maple Leaf Gardens. So, I mean, the biggest spotlight that you can have in the hockey world. And it's Cam Neely.

I mean, has there ever been a player who's more heart and soul to a team who has literally bled and fought and sacrificed his body for a team? And to do it that way, like you say, it wasn't that Cam Neely made a mistake during the game and got benched. It wasn't that Cam Neely made a mistake in previous games and got told head to the press box. You're not playing tonight. He put him in the lineup. Cam Neely suited up, got everything on, sat on the bench,

and then Steve Casper didn't put him out for a single shift. It was just an over-the-top attempt to embarrass him. Kevin Stevens, too, got the same treatment, another veteran. And the Steve Casper era in Boston never recovered from it. Because there was no way you were going to win a popularity contest with Cam Neely in Boston. And that was where the fan-based media, everyone just kind of turned on him. And he wasn't the coach for much longer. That's the extreme.

This is nowhere near that, thankfully, and hopefully won't be allowed to get anywhere close to it. But yeah, that's always the one that I think of as the all-time great, what was a coach thinking going this hard after a guy that he knew he wasn't going to win that battle with. Look, I don't mean to put more work on your plate. But when I hear the name Steve Casper, there's one thing that it eats at me. And I'm like, this is a down goes brown column, if ever there was one. in 1982, Steve Casper wins the Selke trophy as the league's best defensive forward. He's a minus 18.

Like, I love your deep dive pieces, trying to figure, put some pieces together, puzzle something. Can you do me a favor at some point? It might be an off-season story. Yeah. How did a guy who is minus 18 win the Selke trophy as best defensive forward? And I think if I'm right, he was like. like 20 years old at the time too. So it wasn't even like this was some lifetime achievement award to some guy who had been like close for for a decade. Yeah, a 20 year old minus 18 was

the Selki Award. That might have to be one of those oral histories where we track down each of those voters and, you know, catch them outside and put a microphone in their face and go, what were you thinking? Because I would, I'd love to know too. And that one is, that's an all-time mystery. I bet you he probably had one game where he like, shut down Gretzky and then they were like, this guy is great. Probably had a big game. Yeah. Hocking on Canada at Maple Leaf Gardens.

And then years later was like, well, this is the place. Right. I'm magic here. I, yeah, that might have been it. I could do no wrong in Maple Leaf Gardens, says Steve Casper. Hey, we're talking about Porese and the Wild and that is, you know, certainly a soap opera. It's got nothing on Jack Eichl and Buffalo, Sean. And since you and I have last spot, you know, did the show last Thursday, it feels like the

temperature's been turned up even more in Buffalo. So as I look at this, I see there's three possible outcomes for Ikel. One is they trade them before the deadline, April 12th. The second would be at some point in the off season. And then the third, I guess the third would be to hang on to him. But the key to the whole thing with Ikel is his no trade clause kicks in next summer. So the summer of 2022, at that point, then Ikel can control where he goes. Up until next summer, Jack Eichel can be traded anywhere and he really can't say anything.

I'm looking at this and I'm wondering, what's the move here? If you're the Buffalo Sabres, what's the move? Kevin Adams, we talk about rookie coaches, rookie general manager. Man, Sean, this is quite a spot to be in. Yeah, this is a tough one. I mean, the move is out of the three options you just laid out, the strong preference is option three. If there is any way to make this work, if there's any way to have Jack Eichael be the guy that you build, build around. That's what you do. Because guys like this don't come around often. We saw what the

Sabres did to get this guy. I mean, they basically punted two years. Just a full on 2014-15, full-on tank job knowing they were going to get Eichel or McDavid. And all the damage that came with that and all of the ridiculousness with their fans cheering for the other team and all of that stuff to get this guy. And to hit the reset button years later, I think would be a last result. work, but they may not have a choice. I mean, it is just, it is not working in Buffalo. We saw the back-to-back shutouts over the weekend. There's, yeah, you can fire the coach. Yeah, you can move some other guys. But at some point, and I don't think it's a Jack Eichael problem at all in Buffalo, but at some point, you just have to say, do we just have to amputate here and just completely start

over? And that's when you get into the trade situation. And look, I'm almost always on the side that says if you're going to move a guy and it's during the season and you've made up your mind that that's what you're going to do, do it at the deadline. Because then you should be able to get a better price because the team that's picking them up is getting that extra playoff run out of them. They don't have to pay a lot of his salary this season. I remember Eric Carlson a few years ago in Ottawa. I remember feeling like they should have moved him at the deadline. They tried. Apparently things fell through. They waited until the off season didn't get as good a deal for him as they were hoping. But that was a guy who had one year left on his deal. Jack Eichler.

still got a lot of time left on this. And I really feel like, especially at his price tag, $10 million on the cap, even late in the season, there's not a lot of teams that are going to be able to take that easily. I feel like this is probably one of those moves where you've got to say, we're going to wait until the off season. Take some phone calls now, plant some seeds, throw some names around, get other GMs thinking about what would need to happen. But then, yeah, you wait until the offseason and you hope you get a real bidding war. and you can end up naming your price. If it feels like you're being forced,

this is that old Elliot Freedman thing, right, where the other GMs never throw you the, they never, they don't throw you the life wrap, they throw you the anchor. There's going to be a lot of anchors getting thrown towards Buffalo these days. Kevin Adams has got to figure out a way to turn this into a bidding war,

and he should be able to. You only need two or three teams, and there should be 30 teams out there that are interested in Jack Eichel. If you can do it during the season and you feel like you have to, of course, go ahead. I think he's going to get a better,

a better situation in the offseason and take your time a little bit because this will be a franchise-defined move if it happens. And as I look at it, he's got five years left at $10 million per season. And so I think you know what you get in an Ikel. I'm a huge Ikel guy. I believe when he's at his elite level,

he's one of the best 10 players in the game. And because he plays that central position, I'm looking at this, and you're saying 30 teams, should be lined up for Jack Eichael. But if I'm, look, if I'm Kyle Dubus, I'm not, I'm not kicking the tires on Eichol, I got that. If I'm in Edmonton and I'm Ken Holland, I don't think I'm kicking the tires, right?

Am I, like, I'm saying Edmonton and Toronto would be on the no-go list. Like, are there other teams that you would say would be on the no-go list for Jack Eichol? That wouldn't even make the call. I would say every team should make the call, including Toronto, including Edmonton. Now, look, realistically, if I'm Edmonton, I'm sitting there going, if I could get Jack Eichol, that means I can put your siddle. back on Connor McDavid's line and have an insane first line and then I come back with Jack Eichael in my second line. Of course I'm interested in doing that. Realistically, there's no way

that deal works, right? There are no other assets that Edmonton has that they can turn around and use to get Jack Eichael without moving one of those two guys who they wouldn't move. But make the phone call. Maybe Kevin Adams has an irrational admiration for Darnel Nurse and he really wants that guy. And like that can somehow, you know, it's a phone call. It's a little bit of, you know, It's worth making the call and finding out. Same with the Leafs, same with a team like Pittsburgh, where they've another top heavy team that's already got two centers. But yeah, I think those teams are going to drop out of the bidding pretty quickly.

And look, I mean, at the end of the day, we're everyone should be interested. We've always seen teams that always emerged that we don't expect. But I think everyone's looking at two teams here. And that's the Rangers and the Kings, two teams with lots of youth, lots of prospect picks, lots of cap room. and it's going to be interesting to me to see, you know, is that, if that's what it comes down to, or do we actually, does Kevin Adams pick the best offer, or is there a preference to say, you know what, if I'm going to trade this guy, I want to trade him out west, where I'm not going to be running, running the risk of running into this guy early in the playoffs, running into him multiple times the season.

I want him out in L.A. where my fans aren't going to be watching him every single night in a Rangers uniform going, that's what we could have had. Like I look at those two teams you mentioned the Rangers and the Kings and they just happen to have Sean the first and second pick in the most recent draft, right? And Alexei Lafranierre and quitting Byfield. If I'm the general manager in New York or L.A., right? If I'm running things in either of those spots, I would 100% be willing to give that a plus, obviously, something else. That's just me. I hear from Rangers fans, we've thrown this out, Rangers fans like, I would never do that in a million years. I would never trade Ikel for Lafranier plus plus.

But I'm thinking, I know what I have in Jack Eichel. And I think he's a legitimate, like you hope that's what you get in Quentin Byfield and Lafranier. I don't think that their ceilings are as high as Jack Eichol. That's exactly it. I mean, and it's funny because we had a similar discussion on my other podcast on Puck Soup, where we were asking, would the devils give up Jack Hughes for Jack Eichael? And Greg Wischinsky, who's on that show, is a. devil's fan and he was like, oh no, I wouldn't give up Jack Hughes. And Ryan and I were like,

you're crazy that you have to give up Jack Hughes plus plus plus to get Jack Eichel because Jack Hughes like Quentin Byfield, like Alexis LeFranier, although it's a different position, those are all guys where you look at them and say, what's the ceiling, what's the best case scenario here, is that you get a Jack Eichael type of player. And Jack Eichael is already a Jack Eichael type of player. Now, he's older, yes, the cap hit is higher, although his cap hit is very reasonable for what he brings to the table. I can understand that if you still feel like, and maybe this is where a team like the Devils would be, you're still in rebuild mode. You want to hold on to the youth. You feel like your window is open three or four years from now.

But the Rangers think their window is open now or should be soon. The King's window is clearly opening right in front of us the way they're playing this year. That's absolutely a move that you're willing to make. And it's going to cost you more than that. And I know every fan base, in every sport falls in love with the prospects. You always see the best case. You always, you know, somehow that ceiling turns into a sure thing. But in this case, I mean, the ceiling for these guys is that they become the next Jack Eichel. So if you can turn them into the current Jack Eichel, of course, you look to do that if you feel like it lines up with the timing of what you're trying to build. Yeah. I think that's going to be so fun and interesting to watch to see how that situation

plays out in Buffalo. Last week when we did this show, Sean, we talked about how Montreal Canadians shocked everybody. They let go of Claude Julian. And they had another change to the coaching staff this week. And I would say certainly not to the magnitude of letting Claude Julian go, but from a surprise factor, this was up there. And the way that they shook down for people who aren't familiar with the situation, Montreal Canadiens are playing the Ottawa Senators this week in a game. And they let go of their goaltending coach, Stefan Waite, and they did it in the game during the second period of the game. Mark Bershvan then says later on, look, we've we've made the decision.

Carrie Price was not consulted. And I'm curious about this. They brought Sean Birkin and I almost feel like they were like, well, if we do it in the game, it's like, there's Carrie's alibi. He was on the ice. He obviously had nothing to do with it. But I...

Where were you Monday night? Yeah. Oh, look. It was right there. Yeah, I was on TV. Yeah. It couldn't have been me. But I find it odd that you would have done it.

And I, you know who I actually felt bad for? Dominic Dushar. This guy wins his first. game in the national hockey league, which, look, he didn't want it to have to happen this way. It did. And you finally get your win behind the bench. And guess what? Oh, by the way, you fired your goalie coach during the game.

So I just thought the whole thing, I'm going to use the word awkward. I felt it was awkward. It was. It definitely was. And God bless Montreal, where this is front page news. My Twitter feet blew up. He would just, wow. Oh, my God.

And it was like over a goalie. And I realized at the time, and this is true, I was like, do I even know who the goalie coach of the Maple Leafs is? And I didn't. I had to go and look it up. I'm willing to bet most fans listening to this probably don't know who the goalie coach of their own team is. Who is the Leaf's goalie coach? It's a Steve Bernier, something. Like, I'd have to double check it. But it's not, you know, it's not like a well-known ex-NHL guy. And that's, you know, very odd. But unless you got Mitch Corn or Freswa-A-Layer, you probably don't know who your team's goalie coach is. But it's Montreal and the way it went down. And this is one of those things where a lot of times when somebody says something and it seems unreasonable and people go, oh, he's lying. Mark Bergerman is lying here. There's no way that Kerry Price didn't have a hand in this. A lot of times it just gets down to you just parse what they said.

And you realize that actually there's a middle ground here that can make sense. Was Carey Price in the loop on this? Did carry price go out on the ice Monday night knowing that? his goalie coach was getting fired? No, probably not. Did at any point on Monday, did he know it was happening? No, probably not. Did Kerry Price have no idea that this was a possibility

and he was perfectly happy and wanted to continue and this was a total blindside to him? No, that does not pass any sort of smell test on something that would make sense. There's no way that you fire your franchise goalies coach if that relationship is going great and the goalie loves. and you're not going to blindside a guy like that, especially to do it on a night where for the first time and forever, Kerry Price played pretty well,

had one of his best games, and it just kind of all got overshadowed, and maybe only in Montreal where something like that could happen. But it's, it is, the timing of it does make it a story, because we just saw two coaches get fired, head coach and an assistant. If you had fired the goalie coach then, I don't think anyone even really raises an eyebrow,

but the fact that you wait a few days into this new coach's tenure and suddenly it happens, that that's going to strike people as unusual. Speaking of awkward departures from coaches, that was kind of the theme of your column this week where you looked at mince season. And I love, I don't know if you choose, because sometimes I'll help, I'll have a hand in choosing the photo that goes with the article, but you have the Gerard Galland getting in the taxi cab as the photo. as you went back and you basically looked at every in-season coaching change since the 0506 season.

Was there any like, was anything that surprised you? Like I think a lot of times when I go into articles, I'm like, I have an idea of what I think it's going to be. And then you do the research and it's either it confirms what you thought or it takes you down another path. Anything surprised you about your research and doing this piece about the in season coaching changes? I mean, the first thing that surprised me was how many there were. Because I came up with this idea and I pitched it. And then I sat down like, listen, there's probably like 20 of these things. And then, you know, I go and I find that there's almost 70.

So that was the first thing. It surprised me how often we see in-season changes where the GM takes over. Even GMs who don't have coaching background or at least at the NHL level. Obviously, Lou LaMerello has done it. Don Waddell did it once. Bob Ganey a couple of times in Montreal, although he had had the coaching experience, even Bob Murray a year or two ago doing that. And it's never a good sign, right?

When the GM is like, yeah, I want to get a look at this roster. It's like when the boss shows up and everyone's got to act busy. So that surprised me. And then the other thing was just that there are certain names that just show up over and over again on this list. And if you've ever felt, I know a lot of people feel like coaching names. NHL is an old boys club and it's the same names coming in and out all the time. And I don't know that's totally true. But when you're making a list of like 67 of these moves and there are guys whose names show up five times.

Like Claude Julian, this has happened five times to him. Once getting hired, four times getting fired. You know, even guys that are lesser profile, like John Stevens keeps showing up in these things over and over again. Ken Hitchcock, certain interim coaches just keep showing up. They keep getting the job for a few months and then they go back to being an assistant. So if you've ever felt like the NHL is the same names getting cycled in and out, looking at a list like this probably reinforces that because especially if it's during a season where maybe a team has limited options, they just go for the familiar and it's the same guy's

just showing up all the time. John Torshetti. That's the guy. Torshetti and Horacekucker, the two permanent interim coaches who never get the job, 20 games and then see you later. Sean, let's open up the mailbag. And in fact, today we're going to open up the voicemail once again. We want to remind all of our listeners here to the Athletic Hockey Show, you can drop us a voicemail.

We'd love to hear from you, and we'd love to answer your questions by hearing your voice. All you've got to do is drop us a note. It's 845-4-4-4-5-845-845-845-845-49. To the voicemail we go. Let's listen in from James from London. Hi, this is James from London. I was just wondering, what's one popular narrative around either a player or a team that you completely disagree with? All right, Sean, so we're talking about maybe narratives that don't quite fit.

Is there anything that jumps out to your mind or comes to mind for you to answer James' query? There is, yeah. And this is one that it drives me crazy. and I've been banging this drum for years and I'm not seeing any progress so I'll try again. It drives me crazy that we attribute everything that happens in this league

to character and compete level and heart and grit and basically how bad everyone wants it. That stuff exists and that stuff matters and yes, some players work harder than others and some teams work harder than others and there's ebbs and flows and that does have an impact.

But my goodness, to hear the way that we as fans and we as the media talk about this league these days, we make it sound like every single year there are 31 teams and one team works their very hardest and that team wins the Stanley Cup and then 30 teams don't work hard enough and they have to then spend the whole offseason trying to figure out how can we work harder, how can we get better workers, how can we learn to compete and get hard and be hard to play against and all of this stuff. And there's so much else that goes into it. You almost never hear these days anyone say, this team didn't have enough skill,

or this team didn't have enough speed, or this team didn't have got out-coached, or this team didn't have the strategic approach or whatever it is. It's just always, always, always they didn't want it bad enough. And like I've said before, at a certain point, this becomes kindergarten thinking. This is when you tell like a five-year-old that if they just try their very best, they'll always win and they'll always succeed and they can do anything they want. You just got to try really, really hard. That's not how it works.

This is a league with 31 teams. And sometimes the other team's just better. Sometimes the other team's goalie gets hot. Sometimes you're the better team, but you don't get the bounces. And we should be able to talk about that too. But it just feels like these days absolutely everything. Every game, every playoff series, every season all comes down to who tried the hardest and who wanted it more and who had the best compete level and all these different ways.

that we've come up to say the same thing. And I think we're doing a disservice because there's so much more interesting stuff to talk about instead of turning this whole league into a contest over who wants to try the hardest. So now I need to know, like, what's so what is the message to the kindergarten kid? They're five years old. What do we tell them? Yeah. Yeah.

Here's the thing. Kid, if you're out there against Connor McDavid, he's going to score on you no matter how hard you try. Yeah. And if the other team's goalie gets hot and stands on his head, that's the end of it. And you could have tried as hard as you wanted. it wasn't going to go anywhere. Yeah. That's what I tell my kids, by the way.

It might explain why they're, why they sit there, that can't get them to make their beds now. No, no, sorry, Dad. There's no point. The effort level into it. It doesn't matter. Thanks for the pep talk. Yeah.

Like, you know, for me, as I look at this, and you kind of did a column on this, and I think, I can't remember what it was. It was a couple of weeks ago. But the idea that, you know, you always hear people say, you know, if Canada had a B team at the Olympics, we could win the silver medal.

or we, and I, that day is over. Like, it's over. I, it's done. And it was great. Like, when we were kids and we grew up and like, like, Steve Eisenman would be cut from a team or we'd be like, wow, we would, Steve Eisenman would be on any other team's first line and look at us. I got to tell you, that day is done.

That ship is sailed. I don't think we could ice a second team from Canada and expect to, to end up on the podium anymore. That's just me. And your article, again, my timing is just off. That was like, it was a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks ago. Yeah. But it's just like, like the goaltending, first of all, I was like, woof.

Like this ain't, this ain't Marty Broder and Patrick Waugh and Ed Belfour and Curtis Joseph. And like, this is like what? Like, it's over. Like, we might have a hard time getting the goalie position for the 8th team. Forget about this B team, right? Well, first of all, I want to say congratulations in advance on all the Devils fans and McKenzie Blackwell. truthers who are now going to be tracking you down to explain to you why he is actually an A team goalie.

Yeah. Yeah, you know what? That's, it's certainly not to the same extent it used to be. They're, I do think that a team Canada, B team, if there ever was such a thing, would be competitive with a lot of nations A teams. But yeah, on the podium, they're not going to beat Canada A, obviously. I don't think they're going to beat Team USA because Team EOSA looks really strong heading into next year and the Russians are always good too in the Swedes as well.

So yeah, you're probably on the right track on this one. It's certainly not like it was 20 or 30 years ago where, yeah, probably a B or a C or a D team would have been competitive against pretty much anyone other than the Soviets. So again, appreciate that voicemail, James. Anybody can leave us a voicemail. 845-4-4-5-8459. 84-59. You can also drop us an email, The Athletic Hockey Show at Gmail.com. The Athletic Hockey Show at Gmail.com. We got a couple here into the mailbag, Sean. Mark writes in, can you guys

imagine a world where it's just four-on-four for the entire game? Was watching the Leafs and Oilers play almost two full minutes four-on-four earlier this week. It was eye-opening. More room to move, more things happening. It was like somebody turned the game. speed up to one and a half times the speed. You could even keep the same numbers on the team. Maybe you would roll out five four-man units, and so that way you wouldn't have to lose any jobs. I know hockey will probably never change,

but I can dream, right? Maybe if we keep proposing wild things, they'll give up and just make the nets bigger. That comes in from Mark's... Oh, I like it. Your job, Mark. I'd like how Mark jumped on the bigger nets bandwagon at the end there. He was starting...

I was getting a little shaky there, but he brought me back at the end. I know. And don't you love it how like all of us have been screaming for years about maybe make the nets bigger than Ken Dryden's like, here's a very thoughtful essay on why. And then we're like, oh, okay, well that. But what do you think about this? Like we've heard this tossed around for a long time, Sean. Four on four is so much more fun and exciting.

Why not go four and four for the whole game? Yeah. And look, I think we should be open to ideas like this that maybe seem a bit crazy or at least, that go against the tradition of the game. There was a time in my life as a fan. I would have shut the door on any of this and said, nope, the game's great as it is, but I'm more open to this stuff.

You want to talk to me about how we should get rid of off sides? Okay, I'll listen to that. You want to talk to me about four on four? Yeah, let's talk about it. I would caution two things. First of all, we don't know what four on four would look like for 60 minutes just in terms of the fatigue on the players. And obviously, yeah, you could rotate more lines.

but we see it in short bursts. We saw it in overtime for a few years there, but we haven't seen it for 60 minutes. Who knows? The thing that really worries me is that I still think that part of the reason that four on four looks so different from five on five, you're sitting there going like, it's one fewer player.

Why does it seem so much more wide open? Why does it seem so much more back and forth? And unfortunately, I think the answer is because the coaches haven't had a chance to really set their teeth into it. And I think if we ever switch to four and four, there would be a time where it would still feel wide open, but pretty quickly, all of these 31 head coaches that are all defensive-minded coaches, because that's all you can be these days to be a hockey coach, would eventually figure it out. And it would be kind of like it was

with three-on-three, right? When three-on-three overtime first came in, it was just chaos, and it was beautiful. And then it started to get more structure, and you started to see some coaches, and they've kind of grinded it down to as defensive as it can be, which is still, pretty wide open and fun, but I feel like they do the same thing with four-on-four. So I'm not against the idea. I just caution that when you see the Leafs and Oilers play it for two minutes, they probably haven't practiced four-on-four barely all year long. Don't assume that that's what a whole game would look like if we change that rule permanently.

Okay, here's my proposal kind of piggybacking off of that. You get to have one period a night that's four-on-four, and the home team determines before the game, which period it will be. First period, second period, third period. And one period will be played four on four. I like it. In fact, you know what? I'm going to go, I'll go one further on you then, okay?

Let's, because I love the element of the strategy of the team picking. Yeah. Let's say we do 10 minutes of four on four, but the home team gets to pick when, and they just, they don't have to do it in advance. They just call the ref over and go, we want to go four on four right now. And that's it. The ref goes over to the other team says it's four on four for the night. And then however long that shift lasts and then they can, and it becomes really,

really strategic then, right? Like we got, oh, we just got you on an icing where we're going to throw our, we're going to throw McDavid and Dracidal out there. We're going to play four on four against you for a while. And of course, if you're late in the game, you could, you could do it then. More strategy, more wide open. And it would be rare enough that maybe it doesn't get all the life coached out of it. Man, we might be on to something on this one. Yeah, I think at some point we got to do like just a show where it's just the, just give us your craziest. No idea is too nutty. Like, you know, no idea is too nutty. And then we workshopped them on the podcast. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. I'm a, we can, we can save this league with some crazy ideas.

Yeah. Hey, listen, we love to wrap up every week, Sean, with this week in hockey history because it's so much fun. It usually sends us down a fun little rabbit hole. So let us start as we're in the first week of March here. Let's start with this. March 2nd. See, Sean, I didn't realize these two things happen on the same day. That is, Mario Lemieux comes back. It's one of the most memorable comebacks in the HL history. Lemieux comes back from cancer treatment and goes to Philadelphia and scores a goal and gets cheered by the Flyers fans while playing for the penguins on the same day where Temu Salani

breaks Mike Bossy's single season goal scoring record and then does that infamous goal scoring celebration where he throws his glove up in the air and shoots it down like his stick is a rifle. I mean, you want to talk about one of the most memorable iconic regular season days in NHL history. Boy, Sean, it'd be hard to top March 2nd, 1993. That's right up there. And I'm with you. I had forgotten until you showed me this, that those both happened on the same day.

That's crazy to me. And it just, again, I got a couple years ago, I did a piece where I ranked every NHL season and I put the 92-93 season as the number one best season in NHL history. And I stand by that. And this is just the fact that you have a day where both of these things happen, the Mario comeback story, an all-time great story. I mean, in January of that year, when he announced as he has cancer and he's stepping away, there were a lot of us who wondered if we would see him again, period, in the league.

And you certainly didn't think you would see him that season. And, you know, he goes and I think he finishes his last chemo treatment and, pretty much heads right to the rink almost straight from there and goes in place. Just unbelievable, amazing comeback, amazing emotion to it and everything. And one of the all-time great seasons, he then spends the last month of the season in overdrive, catching Pat LaFontaine for the scoring title. Just phenomenal. And then, yeah, the team with Salani goal that we've all seen a million times is the fact that that happened on the same night, what do you even lead with as your lead story if you're if if you're the nightly highlight show it's that's a great one and this this is

fun because we I was actually talking to somebody about this a couple of days ago uh do you know it's it's one of these fun trivia questions when team of salani throws the glove up near it shoots it down which teammate tries to catch the glove uh I got it is it is it Dallas Drake it is no you know what you're oh you're close I thought you had it's Dallas Aiken actually The current coach of the ducks. And here's the thing. The reason it came up is because I've mentioned that a couple of times.

And I've always phrased it as which teammate caught the globe. But I had people point out to me, he actually doesn't catch it. He muffs it. He kind of does this cool, like one arm, go to catch it. And he drops. I need somebody to ask him. I feel like that's the sort of thing that still bothers him. Like almost 30 years later, that's got to grind on you a little bit that, like, you know,

this cool celebration and, you know, you go to like be a part of it and you muff the catch. I mean, I know he's got a few other probably bigger things to worry about these days. But yeah, someday when I get my big sit down with him, that's going to be the lead question. And we're going to get to the bottom of it. Okay. Now, help me out because I don't know why I had that in my mind. Did Dallas Drake play for Winnipeg? I'm sure he did at some point.

I don't know if he was playing. Because he played for Detroit, right? Do. Yeah, I feel like Dallas Drake played for you. He played for pretty much everyone except for Dallas, I think. Yeah. But I think he was a jet at some point. but he wasn't the guy that night trying to catch the glove,

trying and failing to catch the glove. I appreciate you not making a joke about a guy from named Dallas, knowing I'm a Cowboys fan, muffing an easy, an easy, fair catch there. That's a missed opportunity. Now I'm mad at myself. Now Aiken and I have something to talk about. Okay, but in a weird way,

I'm going to bring this back to the Cowboys for a second and Mary Lemieux because here's what I find fascinating about that night where Lemieux came back into Philadelphia. If you think about Philadelphia sports fans in the 90s, and really this has been the reputation forever, like ruthless, right? Like, you think about them, they cheer,

Michael Irvin is, he's laying motionless on the turf at the vet, and they're cheering, okay? This is the same decade in which they cheer for Mario Lemieux coming into the spectrum and playing against him. Like, to me, that's one of the most remarkable exhibitions of sportsmanship from a,

fan base that has the exact opposite is the reputation, right? Like that was, what a tip of the cap from the Philly fans to Mario Lemieux. For sure. And I know that there's a certain segment of the Philly fan base that that hates this narrative and this idea that they're, you know, they're so mean and they threw things at Santa Claus and all of this. But they did. All of that stuff actually happened. And I don't want to sound like an old guy here, but this was back in the early 90s. It wasn't like today. These days, anytime anyone gets. heard. Everyone's expected to, you know, be very quiet and stand up and applaud. And everyone was

mad at Raptors fans when they cheered and Kevin Durant went down and all of this stuff. Back then, it was just expected. Somebody got hurt. You stood up and cheered and pointed and laughed as they, as they went off the ice. And that was just how it was. But obviously with Mario Lemieux, it was a totally different thing. You're talking about a guy getting cancer. You're talking about a guy who looked like his career is in danger. And just, Mario is one of those guys that, and there's maybe not a lot of them even in NHL history. But you obviously hated watching them tear your team apart, but it didn't matter how big a homer you were.

You had to appreciate that this guy was in the league and this guy was doing what he was doing. I think it was a rare moment where even a fan base that would probably be the last one to give a rival an ovation, you had to appreciate what he had just overcome and just what he was as a player, the fact that this was now back in the game. And then, of course, he goes and scores on you because, of course, he does.

What else is he going to do? He's Merrill and you. Yeah. Also on this week in hockey history, Sean, March the 6th, 2000, one of the most memorable trades in and around a deadline. The Boston Bruins send Raymond Bork to the Colorado Avalanche in a deal that obviously shook the Bruins fan base. What people often forget is they think that Bork goes to Colorado and wins the cup that year. It didn't happen, right? Yeah.

You lose in a game seven in a conference final to Dallas. And then come back the next year and win it. Bork to Colorado is the gold standard of deadline deals, right? In terms of like star power, guy moved to go try and win right now. I mean, I don't know if we even have any guys like that sitting around this year. But that to me on this date in 2000 is one of the most iconic. Deadline moves of all time. Yeah, I mean, anyone who reads my stuff knows that I've got this,

this recurring bit that I love of the old guy without a cup. The story of the veteran guy who's done everything in the league except win a Stanley Cup and goes somewhere. And we've got guys like Joe Thornton would probably be the great example right now. Henrik Lundquist was one of those guys. Patrick Marlowe would be another. And yeah, it comes down to, you always want to see them lead their team to the cup. But if they can't, there is something about that late season deal of, okay,

send me somewhere where I can go in. And Ray Bork was the classic of that. And it wasn't a good deal for the Bruins. The Bruins didn't get the best deal possible. They got the deal that worked for this guy who had given them 20 years. And it ultimately did work out a year later. And yeah, I don't think there aren't any Ray Borks who are going to be available this year. I don't know. The sharks have tried it with Patrick Marlow a couple times. I don't know if they do again. A guy like Ryan Getslap is a veteran. He does have a cup already, but he's a veteran on a bad team who maybe you could see going somewhere. I think this year's deadline is going to be a very strange one. We might not see any sort of these kind of moves. But it was. It was great. And to this day, you know, you can find the most grizzled angry hockey fan.

And you talk about Ray Bork lived in the Stanley couple. His son cries. in the background and you'll soften them up a little bit because it was an all-time great moment. So are you suggesting the Leafs might flip out Thornton and Spetsa then at some point? To a contender. Absolutely. To a contender who's not in the North Division because we all know the North stinks and no one from there can win anything. Yeah, that was a fun narrative this week. All right.

Sean, that does it for this episode of the podcast. Fun as always. Who knows what we'll have to sink our teeth into next week. But look, enjoy the games coming up this weekend and we'll chat again next week. Right on sounds good. All right. And thanks everybody for joining us. Like I said, we'll get you again next week.

You can always drop us a voicemail, like I said, 845-4-4-5-8-4-59, or an email to The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. And if you're not a subscriber with us at The Athletic, you can join at theathletic.com slash hockey show. I'll be back at it to wrap up the weekend on Monday with Haley Selk.