The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 262: Apologies to Mike Smith

Episode Date: November 20, 2018

Nick Mercadante joins the show to continue our annual tradition of ranking the best puck-stoppers in the world. In this episode we discuss: 4:00 Unpredictable aging curves for goalies 22:45 Big name goalies that have fallen on hard times 28:30 The tantalizing potential of Antti Raanta 32:10 The ageless wonder of Luongo and Lundqvist 45:10 The ascension of Hellebuyck and Andersen into the elite 56:45 The undisputed Top 3 Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $10 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Also sponsoring today’s show is PuckPedia. It’s the ultimate resource for hockey fans, containing salary cap information, basic and advanced stats, draft and transaction history, news feeds, game previews, and injury updates. It’s also the exclusive home of the Agent Leaderboard, which shows who the top agents are and lists which players they represent. Regardless of what you’re looking for, it’s got it, which means that you no longer need to be switching between multiple different sites in the pursuit of information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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and joining me for the first time this season, return guest, Nick Mercadante. Nick, what's going on, man? Oh, yeah, it is the first time this season, huh? It is. You know what? It's always a blast because, you know, a little behind the scenes for people.

You and I record over Skype, and it shows, like, the last time we've talked. And it was in, like, I want to say May, maybe. Holy shit. Yeah, so it's been a while. Wow. That's crazy. I can't believe we're already,

this far into the season. I know, it's flying by. And listen, we are recording this while Nashville, Tampa Bay is on, and while the Chiefs and the Rams are playing. And we're still recording this podcast anyway. So don't say we never give you anything because this is, we're taking some quality time here away from watching some pretty damn good games to talk about goalies.

So it is a interesting choice on our part, but I'm sure we're going to have a blast. I think so. I think so. Before we get going, I do want to remind everyone to go on iTunes and rate and review the podcast. Please give us your five stars. And also, you can listen to Nick and I talk right now on Spotify if you so choose. So the PDO cast is on Spotify, so that gives people another avenue or outlet to enjoy this fine show. And with that said, we're going to do our annual, I believe I've had you on for probably like the past three years.

ranking our top goalies. I never know how many goalies to cut it off at. I chose 10 this year. It is obviously a bit of an arbitrary thing. But I feel like, you know, we're going to talk about a bunch of guys in honorable mentions and stuff. But let's cut it off at a, you know, a relatively elite number. Because I feel like if we start going to like top 15 or top 20, you're really, I mean, it kind of defeats the purpose. You're just basically ranking everyone at the position. Yeah, as I recall, I was trying to find my notes from last year when we did this. And I couldn't. So that's fun. If you have my rankings, I'd be interested to see where I fall this year in comparison. But as I recall last year, we did the honorable mentions and then we ended up spending all

this time on like numbers like 12, 11, and 10. And then like five minutes on the top five. That's usually how these rankings work though, because I feel like the top guys are usually pretty self-explanatory. I mean, I guess for goalies, it's a bit different than for like centers, for example, where you're like, yeah, you know, Connor McDavid is pretty good. Whereas for the goalie, we probably will differentiate a little bit and there is a good conversation to be had. But last year's podcast, I actually didn't have a chance to go back, listen to myself. I wanted to. I just ran out of time in preparation for this show. But I feel like it was a pretty insightful one because I remember you talked me into John Gibson.

I remember I was a big fan. I was just skeptical about putting him really high up on my list because he still hadn't really done it for a full season. It seemed like he was always on and on and off again and would have injuries. And obviously now he is very, very, very. high on my list as a bit of a teaser for later on in the show. So that was a positive development to come out of last year's ranking set. So yeah, we'll go with, we'll go with all my, you know, all the ones I got right and then forget about the my, my failures that I'm sure I had somewhere in there as well. Okay. So let's do some honorable mentions here. I kind of lumped a bunch of guys

together and we can rattle through them quickly. I did want to give a, um, a little bit of love, and I'd never really consider them for my top 10 by any means, but it's interesting. The goalie position is so weird. And having guys like Keith Kincaid and Carter Hutton now all of a sudden looking like, at least like average, if not slightly above average starters for relatively good teams after years and years of sort of being middling backups is quite the development. I just wanted to give them a bit of love because that's obviously not a very common career trajectory, although I may be, I guess, at this position, it's slightly more common than it would be

if we're skaters. Yeah, and it's interesting, too, because then you've got some ones that have kind of gone maybe the other way a little bit, even though they, so like take Grubauer, for instance, Grubauer was kind of a super backup for a while, but obviously he's behind Holby, who I know we'll both talk about, you know, somewhere in our rankings. So, you know, Grubauer, everybody said, okay, well, now he's going to, um, uh, yeah, I, for all intends, and purposes, a contending team, and has an opportunity to, opportunity to at least, you know, establish himself as in every game starter. And he's kind of struggled.

So, you know, some other guys have gotten the injury bug. What I've found is there's this changing of the guard that has happened over maybe the past, call it two years. You could kind of set your watch to guys like Lungwist up until maybe, about two years ago, right? And look, guys get older and that's what happens. Hey, he's still on my talking.

Oh, no, no, no, he's on mine too. Okay. Don't be disparaging the king of sexy. Oh, I'm not disparaging. I'm just, you know, being rational. I'll call it. So people don't, you know,

accuse me of just piping my guy. So, but what I was going to say is what I've noticed is in that changing of the guard, I think there were some guys that we thought we're going to really take the torch and run with it for many years to come. And some of them have stumbled. And it doesn't mean that they're gone forever, the Matt Murray's of the world, right? But, you know, because a lot of them are very young. But it's what I've said for many years now is everybody has to exercise caution and exercise patients with young goalies.

It takes time. they're up and down, and their window of a peak might only be two or three seasons. So by the time you realize that they're good, they start to fall off again. And I think it goes to the amount of parity there is in goaltending. And really how good the level of goaltenders across the NHL is. They're incredibly high. But how rare it is to see a goalie that just, you know, where you're like, this guy is a top two, top three, top four goalie for the next decade.

It's hard to make those predictions. Yeah, it's obviously very challenging. I mean, there's only 62 jobs with the 31 teams. And for a lot of these guys, especially the ones who aren't relied upon to play 60 plus games, it's not like, you know, if you have a bad night, all of a sudden you could go two weeks without playing a game. And that could obviously really affect both your rhythm, but actually just purely the numbers themselves. so it can be sometimes really tricky to evaluate. And I'm glad you brought up Murray because I don't know where he was on our list when we did this like two years ago.

But I imagine he was pretty high coming off that first Stanley Cup victory. And obviously he's come crashing back down Earth and has looked like a work in progress this year to say the least. Casey dismiss seems to kind of taken that job from him for the time being. And we'll see how that plays out. And obviously, you know, he's still so young and he has the physical tool. to, you know, write this ship eventually. But it is just a good reminder that sometimes you don't want to get too carried away with young guys.

And also that, you know, it's not always that stepwise upward trajectory. Sometimes there are downs as well as the ups when it comes to developing young prospects, which is, you know, with a guy like UC Saros. So how many guys are there in the league right now as backups or, you know, 1A, 1B types that are like young players, young goalies who still haven't really taken the job for themselves that you think have the upside to crack this top 10 in the years to come. Like it's, it seems like it's a pretty, pretty shallow list. I'm sure there's going to be a bunch of guys to come from the NCAA and the HL that we

aren't expecting right now. But in terms of currently established young goalies, it's like Soros, and I guess people are still waiting for Eunice Corpus Solo to be that guy. But the list seems pretty short and it definitely seems shorter than it's been in years past. Yeah, and I think what you see more of is you see, you know, some, Some guys that are, I guess, what, you know, maybe a casual fan or somebody who doesn't really pay as much attention to goalies would think are either a flash in the pan or a surprise guy.

So you mentioned like the Carter Hutton's of the world or even Aaron Dell. You know, some of these guys are Grice, right? Some of these guys that really kind of dabble in, you know, 1B or starting roles. And some of them have gotten those opportunities and they've done varying things with them. But again, I think it goes back to, you know, look, great goaltending can turn on a couple misses, right? You can go, especially in a smaller sample. So in 20 games, people are flipping out early in the season, five games in, 10 games in, 15, 20,

they're still flipping out over really what is small sample size results for goaltenders. The reality is that, you know, the margin for error for goal tenders. is already a very, very small. The difference between a 91 save percentage and a 93 save percentage, right, might be a couple goals. Even when you get out to an entire season, you know, it's really not enough to establish whether a goalie is good. So when you go back to what I was saying earlier, which is that the window for a

goalie to perform at their peak level might only be one, two, or three seasons, and it might come at their 28 or 29-year-old season, as opposed to 22, 23, 24, 25, you can see how, you know, one of these guys like an Arandelle all of a sudden comes along and he's just playing the best that he can play for a short period of time. And everybody goes, wow. By the time they realized that he's pretty good, he's probably already coming down off that peak. Right. The younger guys, it's a roller coaster. And some of these guys that we thought were going to be the, you know, the guys to take the mantle. I mean, obviously, the example we said stands out, Matt Murray taking it from Flurry, right?

While Flurry goes to Vegas and he's still doing his thing, and Matt Murray has had his ups and downs. It's just the way it is for a young goalie, and we'll see. We'll see if he can start to push up. But hey, look, I always go back to Steve Mason, and how everybody said he was a terrible goalie before he had essentially four really good season three, elite seasons. And then everybody,

and then he started getting bad again. And everybody said, see, he's still, he's a terrible goalie. And it's like, no, he pretty much had the trajectory

of most goalies coming into the league around 21 years old. It's just the way it is. Yeah. You know, you're up and down. You have your peak.

And then that's it. Yeah. Teams are still, I mean, for the mind, and this isn't a shocker for anyone that's followed NHL, but I still think,

uh, they're way too conservative with how they, uh, you know, how they develop their goalies. And, when they're willing to finally give them a chance. I mean, like, how is, how is Carter Hart not playing games for the Philadelphia Flyers this season?

Like, I find it shocking to believe that he's not one of their best two options in that, you know, go on down the line, like, with all of Jake Allen's struggles in St. Louis, and I know he's righted the ship a bit lately, but Billy Huso just kind of toiling away in the H.L. And you're, obviously, the aging curves are different for goalies, but we see time and time again that you're probably wasting some very valuable cost-controlled seasons by letting these guys develop past their sort of expiration date at these lower levels. So I'd like to see that change quite a bit moving forward. But I'm not holding my breath because as we know,

NHL teams are super conservative and particularly so with their goalies. There's a lot of teams that would rather go with what they consider to be established backups, which are essentially career HL guys or career poor performing backups, like a Curtis McElheny stands out. And then they have confirmation bias. When that goalie might get hot for 10 games, they say, see, we made the right decision. When really all said that probably they probably didn't. That happens across the league.

You look at teams like the Calgary Flames. I mean, just unwilling to give their younger goalies a chance, even when Mike Smith is terrible. So now they catch lightning in a bottle and they say, well, see, that was the right choice with what's his name there, Big Save Dave. Dave Riddick? Yeah, yeah. And so now it's, you know, see, well, we made the right choice again. Hey, you got to foster some of these goalie prospects and give them a chance at some point. And give them a leash, you know.

Let them play for a little bit. Especially if you know that your starter is, A, injury prone, or B, just has proven over time that they're not very good. Yeah. My new favorite obsession in terms of goalies, young goalies, they aren't in the NHL right now is, have you been following this Capo-Cakinen guy for the ILO Wilde, I believe? Yeah, he had some ridiculous string of shoutouts, but he was a guy I was watching because he had been doing really well overseas in the S&L League, I believe, and he finally came over this year in North America, and I'm very fascinated to see, I don't think, like, Devin

Dubnick's pretty safely established in his starter's job, but I feel like, you know, if there's an injury there or if Alex Thelach struggles, that could be a name to watch, especially for those people out there that are playing in fantasy. leagues. But anyways, another honorable mention I had here, and neither these guys were on my top 10 list, but it's remarkable. We thought the 2017-18 New York Islanders were historically bad defensively. And then now you watch what Thomas Grace and Yarrowhoak are both doing. And it's like, wow, how bad was everything defensively there that both those guys looked like they were going to be run out of the league and now, in a shorter sample obviously, and Yarrowalak is in a better situation

in Boston, but both guys are playing out of their money. mind and look like they're at least going to like stick around for the time being. Yeah. And look, say what you want, but new broom sweeps clean type of thing. You know, new coaching staff, new management, new focus, tighten things up, the team plays better. And, you know, goalie results are intrinsically tied to how well the teams are performing defensively in front of you. You know, we've been kind of bagging on Matt Murray here, but he's essentially got, what, one-and-half defenseman in front of him?

You know, it's really hard. And then you go to Nashville, Soros has had probably the best environment to develop in that you could ask for possible. And I do think he's an excellent goalie, and he's going to make a great starting goalie. Pecorine has had the ability to play through essentially several seasons of injuries, adapt, and now he's come out the other side as a much better goaltender than he showed when everybody, including myself, said basically his career was over. So, you know, the quality of your defense and the quality of your team in front of you makes a big impact and affects how you perform.

And look, those guys for the Islanders, they're good goalies. They've been good goalies. Halak is very, very inconsistent. But they're playing pretty decent team defense and they're scoring. So, you know, the one-two punch, I think they'll be all right. Do you think we as like a bigger picture question, not to get too meta, but do you think we have nailed or do you think we do a good enough job of accounting for team effects when it comes to our valuations of goalies?

Because obviously, you know, with the adjustments we do have, we do take that. into account, but it still feels like, I mean, it's obviously, I don't think it's ever going to be an exact science by any means, but it feels like there still is a bit of room to grow in that regard. Yeah, there is. I mean, look, I think, you know, all the folks that are smarter than me that come up with the, yeah, I know, I know it is. But the specific, specifically the ones that come up with the, you know, the all in one formulas for rankings, wins above replacement and the variations of that.

They've tried with goalies. There's certainly been progress that's been made, I mean, especially since what we'll call my peak several years ago, and now I'm past my expiration date. But there's been progress made across a bunch of different fronts to evaluate goalies. But at the end of the day, it really comes down to our any, is any one measure or combination of measures predictive of future outcomes? And we really have not been able to find much that's predictive of future outcomes for goalies.

And I keep coming back to the same things over and over again. Team effects have a high degree of an impact. And that's shown between the correlation between a starting goalie and a backup goalie, which you see across the league. And that's pretty consistent season over season, meaning the starter and backup kind of performed not the same, but their variations in performance are similar, which shows there's an impact for team that maybe we're not accounting for.

And then the second thing is I think that it's the stuff we were just talking about. The goalie peak is pretty narrow and it can get impacted by injury or just be fleeting. So by the time you have a big enough sample size to predict the goalie, they've already gone out the other side and it's past performance and you're just not going to be able to predict the future with them. Well, I was just thinking like

when you mentioned Yoroalak there and his inconsistency, I was thinking like, who's the last Bruins goalie that wasn't at least respectable? Like, especially with backups, it seems like, you know, they had Chad Johnson,

they had Anton Hudobin. They had like, who was like, I was like, Nicholas Vedberg or something for a while there? Like, it seems like they just had like this rotating door of backups and now Halak

is having an amazing start of the season and it seems like for whatever reason it's like the anti-Carolina hurricanes for whatever reason. Well look there's there's there it's just interesting there's in Carolina you've got this

you know where goalies have been consistently bad for many many years and we want to say is there something wrong with the team that's causing this but you can kind of microanalyze it a little bit and say, okay, but the goalies were Cam Ward, Eddie Lack, Scott Darling, you know, a Petter Marazek who's really fallen on hard times over the past. Geez, yes, because that's add that guy to the Matt Murray alumni list of guys we were extremely high on that looked great coming out and then really have faltered since.

Right. So, and his problem started before Carolina, so it's not like he, you know, he went there and fell apart. So, you know, the McElany experiment is over, I think. So, so, you know, I think my point is, is, you know, is it the environment? Maybe, maybe there's something to do with it. But I tend to think that those guys are not like premium top shelf talent to begin with, and they haven't had somebody come through that's like that, and that's just been the luck of the draw for them in some respect,

and maybe partially goalie talent evaluation or coaching. I don't know. But yeah, yeah, there are teams where, you know, they're synonymous with great goaltending. I mean, even the Rangers, it's not just Lundquist. Every single backup that's come through there has been phenomenal, right? And gone on to have starting careers elsewhere. Cam Talbot was great, and he was great for, you know,

a short time after he left in Edmonton, and now he's kind of fallen back to the pack, Ranta will talk about. So, you know, I think there's some environmental impact there, and some of it may be the coaching, and some of it may just be the defense and the team structure and things going on around the goalie.

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Okay. Actually, so I have my 10th spot open here. I feel pretty good about my top nine. And at 10th, I have a long list of guys who are very, established in the league and in the past have been in the top ten and have had a long illustrious run in the NHL to varying degrees but have really fallen on a pretty shaky times of late whether it was last year or this season and then I'm lumping into that group ben Bishop Mark Andre Fleury Braden Holteley John Quick Carrie Price and

Samyano Varlamov and then I have Devin Dubnick who just year over year you're going to get like 918 to 922 save percentage from him, but we're for whatever reason, and I guess part of it might be the defense in front of him whenever we do use the numbers we have for adjusting and accounting for stuff, especially if you look at the goals saved above replacement metric on Corsica, the man he does, and ever seems to like Dubnick for whatever reason. So you need to consider that, and then I have Antiranta. And I think he's definitely a top 10 talent at this position, but, I feel very uneasy putting him into this group of players before he's ever really had even a 50 game sample size of a season.

Interesting. Interesting. That's a, that's, so let's unpack that. Yeah, so let's unpack it. So that's, those are, those were kind of all. So really what you're saying is that your 10 through 15 is kind of mush, right? Yeah. It's kind of, you know, a bunch of guys that you could, eh, that could be a 10, could be a 15. And I kind of felt the same way. When I was making my list, I had a list,

and some of the same names were on there. Luongo was on there. Price was on there. Quick, I mean, quick spent through all this injury stuff, so how can you even say where he belongs, right? And then I had a couple newcomers like you. So you had Ranta as kind of your newcomer. I had Grubeauer is my newcomer. So, you know, and I even kind of threw sorrows around, even though the sample size just isn't there to, you know, to really realistically with a straight face put him there, you know, I kind of wish I could, right?

I kind of feel like I know what he's going to be. And he's just not there right now. If I was making this list and saying, hey, this is my top 10 for, you know, the 2019, season. Or who you could have on your team moving forward or something like that. Right. Who I could have. He'd be in there. No doubt in my mind. So kind of how you feel about Ranta. I give Ranta a little bit more leash because Ranta's been in a league longer. And so we'll talk about that. But yeah, I kind of had the same feeling. I ended up, so my number

10 that I actually went with was Rene. So I haven't met at 7th, which is surprised. Yep. Yeah. Well, that's surprise me. Yeah. I mean, we were, I feel like we were very down on him in the past. And obviously last year, he had a very strong season playing behind a really good team. And so far, he had a bit of an injury there in late October, I believe.

But he has once again looked really good. And I think, you know, he's gained at least being somewhere in this top 10, whether it's 10th like you have him or whether it's seventh. Like I think the track record over the past, whatever, 70 or 80 starts, he's had, speaks. for itself. Yeah, and he does things where he still does things where if you watch, I watch a lot of Nashville, and he still does things that people notice when it comes to playoff time and you're watching him game and then game out, you start to say like, like, boy, is he sometimes just strange with anything from like mid-distance, like a medium-distance shot, he just misses him sometimes. right. There are flaws in his game when he's getting back to his posts. When plays are coming

from buying the net, which is not uncommon for anybody, he just seems to get lost and kind of wobbly and he doesn't get a push and then he's swimming around in his net. There are things that you can microanalyze and hyperanalyze about him that haven't gone away, but what has come back is his health. And I think that he's adapted as he's, you know, he's adapted to his team. He's grown comfortable with his surroundings and he's gotten better so I can't I can't knock him anymore I mean he's a top 10 goalie to be um I put him at 10 well just like just like with uh with defensemen who always have the puck on their sticks and they make uh mistakes sometimes like with goalies we do need to um you know not let those horrible goals against kind of cloud the bigger picture and I feel like

you know with right with Renee like that performance in game against the Jets last year, it's very easy to kind of have that as a lasting image right now and be like, how could that type of player be in your top 10 when he single-handedly cost his team, which could have realistically won the Stanley Cup last year, a chance at that. And it's, that stuff just unfortunately kind of happens sometimes, and it happened in a very an opportune time for both him and his team. But I'm not going to let that, I'm not going to completely scrub all the games that came before and after that just for that one sequence. And so I think that is something that kind of biased, cognitive bias.

we need to eliminate. You still haven't talked me into my 10th guy of all those names I listed. Who do you think? I think your 10th guy has got to be Ranta. He certainly has the highest upside right now, I believe. I mean, even this year, you look, I mean, he's already been injured and it looks like he probably won't get to 50 plus games again. But, I mean...

That's the big problem. I mean, the big problem is that he hasn't been able to do it for a real. starters full season. To me, that's the big problem. And I think that's a skill. I mean, obviously part of that is luck, but I think part of it is like, so you look at some of these guys

and their ability to constantly just give you 60 rock solid starts every season, like eventually that should count for something. Right, right. And that's where, you know, you've got your goalies like, like some of these elder statesmen that have lasted forever.

Luongo and Lungu has come to mind, obviously. Tuka Rask even. You know, he had a little bit of an injury bug and kind of, you know, more or less fixed it. But now Halak is kind of taken his, you know, taking his role away. And I don't know what's going to happen. But I think some of these guys that have done it season, over season, over season, there has to be some kind of value that you put in for the, the ability to eat up games.

I don't know how else to say it, right? Well, that would be definitely the argument for Devin Duminick there. But, yeah, I feel I feel better about, like, Ranta's obviously the sex year option there and has a chance to wind up obviously making us look very, very smart. If you can stay on the ice for long enough, got off to a great start again this year. And, you know, the coyotes were a very trendy sleeper team after how they finished last season, and they signed Ranta to this very intriguing middle-term contract that could wind up making them look very smart.

And one of the keys for them realizing that potential was they're going to need Ranta to finally give them that starter's workload. And, you know, Kemper's been up and down, but at least he's given them some decent performances compared to what they were getting last year when Ronto was missing time. And I guess we didn't account for the fact that Pacific Division was going to be such a tire fire. So the coyotes are right there and that it's here behind the sharks. But I'm very curious to see how that develops. And, you know, he's still at the age where there's no reason to believe that he can't.

play that starter's workload. Like I know he's been banged up the past two years, but if you look before that, a lot of it was circumstances and being on Chicago and New York and teams that had firmly entrenched starter. So it wasn't like... That's why he wasn't playing 50 plus games,

not because he wasn't capable or because he was injured all the time. Yeah, and I think that the coyotes saw the value. You know, when they did that trade with the Rangers, they were obviously trading for a guy. They thought could be a starter. And it just, I mean, look, he is the starter.

It's just bad luck to some extent. So I'd love to see him put in more of a sample size. I hate seeing goalies that have repetitive kind of lower body type injuries, knees, hips, things like that, because they start to run the risk of just breaking down to the point that they're not going to give you the performance anymore. but I still, I'm a big believer in him. Okay, so I'm going to put him at 10 on mine.

And then I've actually got, you've mentioned them already, so I'm going to get them out of the way here. I've got Luongo at 9 and Lungu's at 8 for like the 567th straight year. Both those guys are in my top 10. And I guess it's kind of a contradictory that I have Luongo in here after I just said that I'm docking Ranta points for not being able to stay on the ice long enough. But I mean, just look at this season. I think he's been arguably like one of the most valuable players in the league just from the perspective of without him, both Reimer and Hutchinson

and whatever they were throwing out there. And it was just such a complete disaster. And they were like 30 at the 31st. And in overall, say, a percentage for the longest time there. And he comes back and he just gives them so much stability and also the opportunity to steal games. And I'm not sure how much at this point of his career with all the miles he's accrued what you can expect from him from a workload basis, but he's going to give you at least 40-ish, just really, really strong games. And I don't think anyone,

any of those names that I mentioned, has dethrone him from his top 10. So, you know, with him and Longquist, part of his track record and part of the fact that they are still producing on, like, some of those other guys, like the whole piece and quicks of the world that have fallen off a little bit. Right. Yeah. The, the amazing thing with Luongo is that he really does,

you know, even when he's out for any period of time, whether extended or not, he comes back and he just performs just as well. I mean, it's, I don't know that there's another guy, I mean, aside from Lundquist, that has that level of durability that even when they do experience injury, they come back and it's not like, it's like, oh, okay, well, now he's taking another step back. Or he's falling off a cliff. It's kind of like, oh, okay, he's the same old longo, right? It just doesn't. Well, and also, I like that anecdote from Elliot Freeman in one of the recent 31 thoughts where it's like, because, you know, he was out for a while with that injury and he wasn't really expected or I think even really medically cleared fully to come back yet.

And he traveled with a team to Finland and things were going so poorly that he basically just like made the executive decision to put himself in there. And instantly the team's performance improves. And it's like, hmm, that's a guy that's still got it, man. He doesn't have his full fastball all the time, but it's still good enough to be amongst the top 10 in the league. Yeah, it's, there's always a couple guys in, in beer league that are like 10 years older than everybody else. And they get on the ice and they're just kind of cruising around. And you're like, this guy really shouldn't be out here. And then, you know, you look up at the end of the

game and he's got like five goals and three assists. Luongo and Lunguze kind of are doing that with the NHL in terms of goaltending where it's like, yeah, I'm ready to. go. Yeah, I'll hop in. Yeah, what the heck. How do you feel about this as our resident rangers fan? I think at some point, the team might need to just like San Lunkwist on a paid two-week vacation to Mexico or something and just like, get him to take some time off. I feel like he's like legitimately playing too well at this point. Like, this is a nice story and the Metro is really topsy-turvy so far. And, you know, there's with Hito and certain guys like that, like there's potential for the future and reasons for fans of the team to still tune in and be invested in the team.

But it's like, you know, they're not planning on competing this season. And he's still so good that it's going to make it tough for them to fully bottom out while he's still there and at. Well, and here they are. They won again against Dallas. So, you know, they're right in the thick of it. I think they're second in the metro right now. I don't know, third on point percentage, whatever. And, yeah, and he's on pace to play a.

as normal like 65 games. So, one of the issues, so believe it or not, I actually did write an article about this and pieces of it got used for an article in the athletic by Shana. The great Shana Goldman.

That's right. So, you know, something I said is part of the problem is that there's a little bit of an age gap with the era parent for Lundquist. uh shes yorkin who's still over in russia no so you know if they were ready to bring him over this season i'd say okay time to scowl it back like let's give this kid the time georgev's not or georgev whatever uh i'm i just refuse to call him georgiev i'm just not going to do it it's

he's just a guy he's yeah he's a he's not a real player um or he doesn't actually exist he's one of those types of goalies he had a good he had a good and to the last season. Yeah, yeah, I did, but it was kind of ugly to watch. Yeah. So the issue is, this is like how many games are you actually going to give him, you know, with a straight face where it's like, you know, it's not like right now. You're like, oh, let's give him some games, you know, when you guys, when the Rangers are

actually in the playoff hunt right now, you can't just like, be like, ah, we're going to give him two in a row. You can't do it with a straight face. Whatever happened like you're trying to win? It's a good question. Just disappeared all the phase of the earth. He really disappeared. The Rangers have a lot of goalie prospects,

and they're all kind of vying for time. But nobody is really, none of that group really ever kind of rose above the pack. So they all kind of got washed out by the next wave. Yeah, that's a good question. Boy, I haven't thought about what Skapsky's been up to. run. I think he had like a pretty major surgery at some point there, but yeah.

Yeah, Schistorkin obviously is very exciting. And, you know, it's between him and Ilya Sorokin as like the two guys that aren't in NHL right now that look like, you know, they could be like the next big thing. Now that Ilya Samsonov, especially, has come over to North America. So yeah, it's I guess you're right. Yeah, you're kind of biting your time

there. But, you know, at the same time, it's like you still have to, you know, both give, throw the fans a bone a little bit, but also it's not like you're necessarily like detrimentally taking time away from anyone that's going to be a big part of the future. So it's like you may as well just keep using Lundquist for 60, 65 games if he can hold up physically. And, you know, yet again, he's hovering around a 927 percentage, which is just perfectly Henrik Lundquist. Yeah, he's just a rock in watching how they defend night and night out.

Although I have to say that the recent run of games, they've been much better in the defensive zone. and even some of the kids like Tony DeAngelo have surprised me. I was on another podcast saying, like, I can't believe I'm saying that this guy is actually doing a pretty decent job. So not to turn it into a Rangers podcast, but the defense is playing better, which is kind of scary for the rest of the league, when Lundquist has basically been playing with the trash fire

for, you know, a decade. Scary for the rest of the league? Is that, are you implying that it's unfair that the Rangers are this good? other teams should be concerned. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're going to steal games from other teams that, you know, I mean, we're going to get to mid-season and the Rangers are going to be in the hunt, so to speak, for a playoff spot, which should worry other teams that actually should be in the playoff hunt, right? Yeah.

Yeah, especially with them and like the islanders actually looking like they are competent at least, whereas heading into the season, you would have kind of penciled them in as like easy wins for most of these other teams that are going to be competing at the top of the metro. So you're right. Throw it's a bit of a monkey wrench into that. Okay, so we've already done my 10, 9, and 8. So let's get a bit more into your list. Yeah, yeah. So I said, we talked about Renee at 10. I have at 9, Flurry, and at 8, Crawford.

And I'll tell you, I'll start with Crawford. I only discounted Crawford because of injuries. That's him. I really do believe that Crawford is a top five goalie in the NHL. He's come back now and he's, you know, he's in a tough situation with that team. He's still been good, though. He's been really good. He's been really good.

So, and they're at a weird crossroads, obviously. I mean, you know, switching coaches, Quinville's like a large, he's one of the few larger than life NHL coaches, right? And so that's a crossroads for any team, but then on top of it, they're really going through a transition in terms of their talent. So it's a weird time for Crawford to really be in his prime or peak years. So we'll see if he can have an extended period where he's not injured and play really well, kind of like Lungquist-esque carry the team type of thing.

Then I hope more people start giving him credit. I only discounted him because of, you know, that he hasn't played as much over the past two seasons. Well, that's the thing. you know, you'll mention the fact that the, like, hip and lower leg injuries are scary or at least, like, a red flag for goalies, and that's certainly true, but for a guy like Crawford, it was like, you know, he was

about dealing with vertigo and concussion, post-concussion symptoms, and it's a very scary stuff where it's one of those things where it's not like, you know, necessarily, oh, you can get a surgery or you can rehab it and all of a sudden, you're going to be good to go. Like, it was, I say status was very up in the air, especially how his season ended last year, and the fact that

he wasn't ready to go to start this year, and kind of like you mentioned with Longer, the fact that he was able to come right back in and not really miss a beat and look as good as he has so far. I believe he was one of the top three stars of the week or whatever in his past week in the NHL and he's over 920 again. And just the fact that you're going from Cam Ward to him is such a massive gap in terms of performance and talent. And no, you're right.

I mean, I had a mental boost. Yes. I mean, I had a fifth on my list. And I just. And I think that's fair. Yeah. Like, I'm with you. I'm, especially with some of these other names that I put behind him that aren't so much significantly worse than him.

Like, you can make an argument that he should be a bit lower down this list just because he does have some of those red flags and some of the other guys slightly behind him might not. But at the same time, like when he is out there, he's just so good that I felt like when I got the five, I was like I can't pump him down any further. but yeah we're both obviously very high on him and hopefully knock on wood he can stay healthy and give the black hawks a good good season because it's been a couple years since he's been able to do so right right yeah and i don't need to i don't need to talk a ton about flurry um flurry for me kind of falls in the same um yeah i mean he's like luongo and lunguist light if that makes any sense like he's just always pretty pretty darn good um he has spectacular season last year right um spectacular in terms of the whole, you know, the whole team, obviously, the playoff run and everything else.

They're struggling this year. I still think that they're going to start, you know, climbing and be in the thick of things at least. You know, will they reach the heights of last season? I don't know. I doubt it. But I think Flurry, it can still be Flurry. And you see how the team looks when Suban's in that. it's kind of scary. So that's why I flurry at 9. Yeah, I mean, obviously he wasn't, I don't think anyone should have expected that he would repeat last year's performance just because it was such an aberration

from what he'd been in the past, which was a very respectable and reliable goalie. But, you know, there's probably a middle ground there between what he looked like last year and what he's been able to do so far this year. And I mean, it is a bit concerning, obviously. I mean, from the moment it was announced, and I understand there's, you know, off the ice factors there for what he means to this organization and franchise and as an ambassador and all that. And that's all well and good. But the fact that his contract extension still hasn't kicked in is obviously concerning because just from a business perspective, it's like, you know, they sort of were bidding against themselves there and in a rush to do so just to keep the momentum going from last year's high. And if they had waited a bit and negotiated now, I imagine that price could have come down. quite a bit, but, you know, it is what it is, and we don't need to rehash that because it's not,

it's not even like the benefit of hindsight thing. It's stuff people were saying as soon as he's announced. Yeah, and look, when your contract extension is kicking in and he's turning 34, I think soon, like in a month. Yeah. I mean, he's in a good place financially. Yeah. And for the rest of his career, obviously, and he'll get to kind of exit gracefully, I think, if, if they can find some goaltending prospects that they can fill the net but from a contractual standpoint um oof yeah it's rough um okay so wait i have uh so we've done my 10 9 8 7 so i had um connor halibuck at 6 okay i think that's fair that's the only name we haven't mentioned because we've pretty much on everyone outside my top five so uh let's get into hell who did you have at 7 uh i had rinea at 7 okay sorry yes so for those

keeping track home i'd rent at 10 uh i had Luongo at 9, Lundquist at 8, Renee at 7, and Hellebuck at 6, and Crawford at 5. All right. I've got, I had Renee at 10, Flurry at 9, Crawford at 8, and then I have Ranta at 7. Okay. And who's your, let's go to 6 and 5 for you? My number 6 is Freddie Anderson. Okay.

I have my 4, so I'm right there with you. And, okay, well, let's do Hellebuck, because, you know, spectacular. year last year, earned himself a Vezna nomination, made such a difference for that Jets team along with all the other stuff that was going on in front of them, but after years and years and years of highly suspect and unreliable goaltending and having a deal with, you know, bouts of pal electricity, just having Hellebuck season in there was obviously a very welcome change in development for Jets fans and the franchise. And he looks so far this year like he's building off of that obviously with his pedigree there was no reason to believe that it was going to be a one-year aberration.

So I don't know, like I, for whatever reason, it's not a very interesting, uh, guy to sort of profile or talk about because it's like, yeah, he seems like he's very good and very reliable. Uh, I don't think he necessarily has the sort of standout potential or upside of the couple guys I have ahead of him on this list, but he's so good at, especially from a game to game basis where it seems like his range of outcomes is quite minuscule at a very unpredictable position. and I'm giving him a lot of credit for that. Yeah, and I think, I mean, look, I have hell of book at five. So, you know, I think my read on him, it kind of goes back to what we were saying earlier in the show. Young goalies, they have their ups, they have their downs, right? And he kind of had a brief up, you know, a low low, right, where he really struggled. and then, you know, this kind of strange confluence of events occurred with Mason, with the, you know, the concussion and all these, and he started off so poorly.

Hullabuck had to come in, kind of not think, jump right into the role and play, and in front air behind a, you know, a team expected to do things, and he did. And then he just took it and ran with it. I think, I'm, I differ a little bit. I actually do think he has greatness in him. And I think he's right there. And what I like about him is that he has a high degree of consistency that's kind of surprising to me for such a young goalie. It just seems like every single game he plays, he's giving you a pretty solid performance with very few errors. And when you look at him statistically, that bears out, at least last season, which is a good thing.

So, you know, is it a little bit of a reach for me to put him at five? I thought about it. I almost kind of flip-flopped him around with Anderson and Ranta. And then I thought more. I said, no, I think he's in that top five now. I really do. And I think he'll be in it for several years. So, yeah, that's how I came out on him.

Yeah, I think that's fair. Obviously, you know, he's in a pretty great position himself, but at the same time, like, you look at what was going on in Winnipeg before he elevated his game to this level, and it's pretty clear that it's not as simple as you can just plug and play anyone in there. So, yeah, no, he's very, very good. Let's take another quick break here, and then we're going to get into our top fives. Let's chat a little bit about puckpedia.com,

which in a short amount of time has, Immediately vaulted up my list of invaluable resources for when it comes to preparing for the show and doing all my research. They only recently launched, but they've immediately become an ultimate source for hockey fans. Whether it's salary cap information, basic or advanced stats, draft and transaction history, game previews, injury news, they've got it all. And they're also the exclusive home of the agent leaderboard, which shows who the top agents are and lists all the players that agent represents. And obviously on today's show, we're talking about Sergey Bobrovsky amongst the top goalies. And he has one of the most fascinating situations coming up with his impending free agency. And it's a very valuable resource to be able to go and look and see who his agent is and try to figure out whether there's any historical precedence for what they're going to push for or how they're going to play it out.

It's also become my go-to resource for preparing for the show because it's so easy to navigate and it's so user-friendly. And also it has all this information in just one place. So I don't need to be bouncing between one site to another and opening up a million different tabs just to get all my information. I can just go there and just sort through everything and be in and out rather quickly and save time and effort and energy. So you can do two things. You can go follow at Buckpedia on Twitter where they constantly are tweeting out useful cap information and news as it's broken. Or you can just go to Buckpedia.com and sort through all their information like I do myself. and I bet that you won't be disappointed by what you find there.

Anyways, with that said, let's get back to the show and finish off this list with Nick Mercadonte. Okay. So we've done, we're actually into our top four here, I guess. It's pretty exciting. So I have Freddie Anderson at four. Yeah, we just flip-flopped those because I had him at six. Well, let's get into it because I know that you, and this must be a very proud moment for you, because you have been quite high on Anderson.

I believe last year you were much higher on him than I was on this list. And obviously so far this year in particular, he's really taking his game to a whole new level and looks like he could be a very likely vet as a candidate. Yeah, and it's interesting. I think last year, if I'm not mistaken, I had him at six. And I kept him in the same spot. And the only reason that I kept him in the same spot is because I hate the Maple Leafs.

So I like to, you know, do things like, you know, yeah, I think he's a, you know, he's right there. He's probably a top five goalie, but not quite. He's a number six for me. No, no, I really, I have been. How analytical of you? I know. I've been banging Freddie Anderson's drum far before the least ever knew who he was when he was out in Anaheim. And I was calling him steady Freddie and saying, look, guys, he's, he is not getting,

the credit he deserves because he's not flashy. He's a conservative style of goaltender, and he just makes saves. And, you know, now that he's in Toronto, finally, I think he's gotten the fanfare, and he's gotten better over time, too. So, yeah, boy, what a, you know, a top NHL media market can do for your notoriety, at least. If he was in Anaheim doing this still, I'm not sure that, I think people would be like, like, what are you guys talking about? Number four, number six, what?

Well, yes, but I will say, like, to his credit, I do feel like, you know, while he was in Anaheim, and this is why I was a bit lower on him, he, I felt very comfortable with having him in that discussion of that, like, 11 to 15 tier that we said there with that little jumble there. But he's really taking his game to a whole new heights. Yeah, he was above league average back then,

but closer to league average. Now he's above league average, but closer to league. Yep. So, yeah, I think that's fair. You know, I, yeah, could I, could I flip-flop him into my top five? Yeah, I could. But, you know, like I said, screw the Mapleys. The opinions of my guests are not shared by myself.

I'll have people who are still not. My Twitter mentions aren't filling up with people angry that you just said that. I'm just trying to further my brand, my Twitter brand, which has basically been about 80% leaves trolling content. Yeah, you've been gone pretty hard after that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I have Freddie Anderson at four.

Then again, to my top three here, which I feel very good about, Andre Velasilovsky at three, Sergei Bobrovsky at two, and John Gibson at number one. I like it. I like it. That silence there were worried to me a little bit. I have the exact same top three. Yeah. Okay, well that makes for a riveting content. I know. My, my, my, my, my, my, shows over. My number four is Lunkwist. I have Vasselowski who, who, well, so, so look, I mean, this was a kind of a tough one because I, I just, I am biased towards Lundquist, I got to say.

I, I, I also, here's something that we haven't talked about. So neither of us have Holt be in our top 10. Yeah. We mentioned him. Yeah, we mentioned him. He's in my kind of mush of top 15. And same thing with Price. How crazy is it that, you know, two years ago we were talking about them is probably the era parent one and two, if not current one and two. Last year we were talking about could Price make a comeback?

And yes, it's Holpe's time. And now this year, they're not even in the top ten. Yeah, I mean, both guys have been very shaky to start this year. year and, you know, it's a bad last year too. Yeah, for long spells. It's a very unforgiving position. I mean, the thing with Holby is, like, obviously, he was so great in the playoffs for them.

But, yeah, I mean, we're coming up on a decent sample size here of him not being that same guy. And you look at, like, Corey Schneider when he fell off. I mean, obviously, that was injury induced, but, like, for years and years and years there, he was, like, 9, 25, save percentage money in the bank, probably the most consistent goalie this side of Lundquist. And now it's, like, he can't make a save. And it's crazy how far.

we've gotten into a short period of time. Yeah, my boy, Steve Mason, isn't even in the league anymore. And that's a tough one too because he, I think there's, I'm speculating, but I think there's more to the story with the whole concussion thing. But, you know, you think about a guy who was a starting goalie in the NHL a couple years ago. And now he's not even in the league, period. Well, the crazy thing is the Jets brought him in because they weren't trusting

Connor Hellerbeck at the time. And that was like a year ago. Yeah. So if the theme of all this is, you know, take all these rankings with a grain of salt and they might, you know, they might expire after a season, you know, I mean, just look no further than some of these guys that were really considered the elite cream of the crop and are no longer in the list. And that just makes the staying power of guys like Luongo and Lungwist that much more spectacular. Yep. No, you're 100% right about that. Okay, let's get into this top three. So Vasilavsky, you know, obviously. The pedigree had been there for a long time. And then last year, they finally handed it over the keys to him. And he got off to a ridiculous start and wore down a little bit as the year went along and admitted as much himself that, you know, just not ever having to really deal with that kind of workload got to him a little bit.

And he came out great this year and now he's banged up. And what I will say about him is it's very easy to reflexibly look at a team like Tampa Bay or, you know, what we get into with Renee with the predators and just go like, okay, well, this team is great. and they obviously make it very easy on the goalie. So let's not give this guy too much love because you could just plug and play whoever else in there. And as I've seen with what I've seen from Louis DeMang so far this year, that is not the case. You cannot just put anyone into Tampa Bay's net

and expect the 925% percentage. I don't know why I always had a soft spot for Louis DeMing. Like when he made that one little series of spot starts for Arizona and he was kind of like on fire, I was like, I like him. And it's just like one of those guys you develop a soft spot for no reason where you root for him. But anyways, yeah, Vasilevsky, you know, as I recall, I think last year I had him like somewhere just outside my top 10. I think I had him at like 11, right?

And he looked great last year. But he wore down. And there's an argument for fatigue and how that impact. different goalies in different ways. But it was clear to me that he wore down. Yeah, and this year, she's a little banged up. So you hope that there's not, you know, that you're not kind of, you know, we've been talking a lot about injuries and how they impact goalies,

but you hope that he's not a guy that feels the fatigue more and it results in injuries and things like that because he's so spectacularly talented. I mean, you talk about physical gifts and ability. there's not many goalies that are as athletically gifted as he is. Yeah, he seems like he's at that super top echelon of talent where like sometimes he kind of gets a bit bored with how easy it is. And like he just tries. Like I remember like last year he tried, he like randomly tried that like save with his glove where he turned his back and like wasn't even waking the buck. He's just like, oh my God.

Like this guy's on a different plane right now. And he, yeah, no, the talent's obviously there. and I think he's very important to Tampa Bay as we've seen. And it's not just a matter of him being on a great team. So hopefully he can come back from his injury and string together, starts to show off that talent. And then that kind of concern was the only reason really that I had him locked in there at the third spot because the two guys ahead of them are just so

insanely good and reliable that I felt much more comfortable with them at this point of their career, as if we're having this discussion next year or the year after, maybe I'll change my tune. but for now, just what we've seen from Bobrovsky and Kipsen has them as a pretty clear one and two in some order for me. Well, look, and there's the unscientific, you know, factoring in reliability into the rankings. But I think it's fair. It's fair to say. I've, you know, I've been thinking, is Tampa going to be a team that's going to go out and try to find a, you know, 1B backup just in case they might.

and that speaks to the goalie's durability and reliability. And I mean, obviously the team is going to be relying on them. I think you're right in that. But, you know, they have to think about those things. Whereas I don't think the ducks, I mean, not that the ducks are going anywhere, but I don't think the ducks have to think about Gibson at all. Columbus is lucky because they've got a little bit of an embarrassment of riches, but they don't have to think about Bobrovsky at all.

I mean, it's just, those guys pencil them in, right? Well, they don't have to think about Obrowski for the next, like, 60 games. And then this summer, they're going to have to think about him quite a bit. That's true. Yeah, that's going to be an interesting one. What happens at that point? Because, you know, Corpus Sala was looking a little bit more ready than he's maybe looking now. Yeah.

Like a season or two ago, which is weird to say. But anyways. Yeah, Gibson, I was high on him last year. I was happy that he proved me right and made me look smart for once. What I think was the big change for Gibson was that he learned what Vasilesky maybe still is learning, which is that you don't need to always be making the spectacular save. You don't need to be flying across the net in a split every single time to, to, you know, to get to a rebound.

Sometimes you can do it in a controlled fashion and control your rebounds better. And when he started to kind of rain it in, and we saw it two years ago, really, the results were like immediate because he is that gifted in all facets of his game, not just physically or athletically.

So, yeah, I think the world of Gibson, and I think Bobrowski, we know by now what he is, right? Yeah, we do. With Gibson, I think this is the most kind of just mind-blowing stat of the year so far. So he's played in 17 games, where like about the quarter of the way through the year. He's already at 15.9 goal saved above average. Yep. So to put that into perspective, we only have this information going back to 2006, I believe.

Bobrovsky's 41.9 in 2016-17, and Tim Thomas is 37.7 in 2010-2011 are the two high benchmarks for that stat. And, you know, we'll see, obviously, I don't know if we can expect anyone to continue for a full year of what Gibson's done so far. But if anyone can, it's probably him. And he could be entering some truly rarefied area if he can keep this up. And obviously, he's pretty much the sole reason that the ducks are even, like, still. In the NH. Yeah, I mean, like, they'd be the, they'd be worse than the Los Angeles Kings, I think, without him, which is saying something because the kings are, uh, an embarrassment to the league at this point with how bad they are.

Yeah, but at least the Kings have some star power where you go, oh, that guy was good, right? I could buy a ticket. If I knew nothing about hockey and I saw some of their players, I'd be like, oh, yeah, sure, I'll buy a ticket, see what's going on there. The Ducks, seriously, if there was an argument for relegation in the sport, like their roster top to bottom is, you know, they're like Stoke City. in the Premier League. They've got like one player that's worthwhile,

and he's probably going to get out of Dodge if he can. So, yeah. That, you know, you mentioned Tim Thomas and Bobrovsky with those standout seasons. The one difference there is that those teams were competitive. Gibson, in spite of how well he's played, I don't think you're really going to make Anaheim very competitive over a full season.

I just don't see it's going to get healthier here And with how bad the Pacific is I could see them squeaking into one of those last playoffs Spots and then getting swept again But yeah I mean like the only reason that it's even A slightly plausible statement is purely Because of how great he's been so far And he's a joy to watch

I mean you know you say that He's learned that he doesn't need to make those spectacular saves All the time and obviously that's true Especially over a full year But he's still shown I was watching a I think it was like a Predators game That Ducks played recently And uh it's

overtime he was just making just these like series of ridiculous saves where he was stretching out and pretty much stopping it with every single uh with every single possible tool in his uh in his toolbox and it was just breathtaking a watch and there's very few goalies that you can say that about and um yeah he's he's he's number one on my list of bovrofsky started off really shaky has been unbelievable since i believe since the calendar turned to november he's like given up one or two goals in pretty much every single game against and uh you know he's just you know he's turning, he just turned 30 and you mentioned that he's going to be hitting the unrestricted free-age market this summer. And I'm very curious to see how that plays out purely like,

you know, I had Allison on who covers the blue jackets and does a great job for them at athletic on the summer. And we were talking about this and I don't know if you can add to it, but like what's the last big money goalie that hit the open market and change teams in the recent past? Like, I think Ben Bishop is the best example of that, right? And, that wasn't even that massive of a contract, which is, it's such a rarity. So it's so tough to even, you know, put this into historical perspective that a guy at this level is going to add at an obviously very, you know, unpredictable position that you don't, we wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable giving him a six or seven year contract like

you would, maybe a skater who is as good as he is. But still, like, these guys very rarely come available. And if you're a team that could potentially add him, even if it's going to be a bad contract, like for the next two or three years, he could suddenly turn you into a very viable contender. Yeah. And, you know, look, we all know what Montreal did with Kerry Price. And there was no way that they were not going to do something with him because they had shuttled off so much around him. And it's Montreal.

And there's obviously a microscope there. But this is Columbus. I don't see Columbus given the guy a seven-year contract. I just don't see it. So it'll be very interesting to see what happens with him if somebody's going to give him some crazy, you know, term and pay him, or if he's going to get less than he maybe you'd think he maybe should,

considering a stature just because it's so rare that this type of goalie gets out there. You know, we always talk about skaters. They get out on the open market, get mad that you know john taveris and um guys like that malkin coming up right so um what happens with with a goalie of of that equal type of stature um i i truthfully don't know yeah well there's no very very i think he might get shorted i think he might get shorted a little bit yeah i mean if you especially if you look around a league like there's very few natural fits of like teams that

need a goalie that have money and that are competitive. Like, you know, you can go with like a team like the Canucks or something and be like, okay, we're going to throw a ton of money at Borowski just to reach a level of competency. But like, is that really that appealing to him? I guess maybe if it's the only option, but there's very few teams like, I can't see a team like Carolina, even though there is a need there shelling out that type of money for him, especially with the people they have in their front office and the fact that I'm sure they'd be very concerned about handing out that type of contract.

I mean, you go on down the line, like maybe the flyers, I guess. He could go back there. Like, there's very few teams that seem like a very natural landing spot. Well, I mentioned that. What's the point of that? Like, why, if you were Bogorowski, is that very appealing beyond just purely catching those checks? Yeah, no.

He's been linked to the Islanders. But once again, I'm not sure how far that takes you. But, I mean, obviously, I don't know. It's going to be. fascinating to watch. And obviously, I think Columbus looks much better now that he's playing back to his regular standards. And I think that's a really good team. And all, you know, playoff failures aside in the past, I think once again, they look like they're going to be a competitor and a contender to make a run. So it's going to be very tough for them to sell him and Panarin off for parts here and think ahead,

because that team has had so little success in the past that when you have a team this good, you kind of need to strike while the iron's hot. So there's so many factors there to consider. and it's going to make for a very fascinating situation to follow. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I, you know, I think it would be great for, I think you're right, teams like Columbus just got to go for it in a window, because I think that they can get through four or five years of darkness and kind of obscurity, you know, better than maybe a higher profile team in a big market.

it. So when you have your chance, you got to take it. Whatever happens with the future happens. It's just a slap in the face to your fan base, too, right? If you're like, okay, you've been with Boston, they've had a very loyal fan base who has been going to those games even during the dark times. And it's like, all right, now we're really good and we're one of the best teams in the league. But can I interest you in a 2020 third round pick that we just got? It's like, oh my God. Come on.

You really doing that to us right now? So they'll obviously get more for that. But it's like one of those things where, you know, in that type of trade. not like they're going to get back a surefire thing that's going to immediately help their team as well. So it would be a very, not even lateral, quite a backwards move. And I just can't see them doing that. So it's just going to ride it out, I guess. And, you know, he's back to his usual standard and usual greatness.

And he's going to be in that Vezna conversation. And it's going to be something to watch for. Nick, let's get out of here. I know it's well past your bedtime. As you mentioned, you're very washed up. And those are your words on mine, by the way, so the guests don't. think I'm, so the only listeners don't think I'm insulting by guest. I'm just parroting your own words at back at you. No, it's, it's true. I think it's true at this point. Look, my kid goes to bed,

you know, at whatever time it is, 7.30 and on a nightly basis, when he's going down for the night, I'm like, you know, I can go to bed. Yeah, I could do that. I could sleep for, you know, 13 hours. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm glad this list turned out good. I think, you know, we cover pretty much every scenario. There's obviously a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability, but I think for the most part, like the big takeaway here is you and I do value track record and consistency and reliability quite a bit. Like rent was the only guy on my list here, I guess Corey Crawford decided that I don't feel very solid about giving whatever team they're on like 40 to 50 very, very good above average starts. Yeah, I think, yeah, defensible lists is, is very strong.

what I would call it. And yeah, if I, you know, if I had to say, you know, I stuck my neck out for for Ranta and we'll see. But, yeah, by and large, I think the reason that we came back to a lot of the same people, maybe in different order, is because they're reliable and, you know, they, they, you can count on them. And in some of the new guard at the top, the Vasselowski's and the Gibson, we'll have to see. You know, who knows, a year or two from now, one of the, those guys or both of them could hit injury skids and and then we're treating them like holpey in price and saying, oh, these guys aren't even in our top ten anymore. So, yeah, you hope that doesn't happen for the sake of watching great goaltending, but that's just the way the position

goes. Okay. Everyone can follow you on Twitter, although I guess they probably shouldn't, based on your leaf slander and medley of topics you get to, although I feel like you do touch on quite a few different things. Where can people follow you on Twitter? Let's give you that. If you like pizza, and a lot of good pizza content. A lot of good pizza content. A lot of good Italian soccer content. I think it's good. And then some hockey content, which is so-so. I'd say it's mediocre. You can follow me at N-M-M-R-C-A-D. Yeah, I would say your pizza content on Instagram blows your hockey content on Twitter way out of the water and you can't really

have been compare those two. Listen man, I'm glad we finally got to do this. It was a long time coming and apologies to Mike Smith. We didn't have time to get to him on today's show. Nick, we'll chat soon. All right, Bill. Thanks. You know,