The Sheet with Jeff Marek - Leaving A Legacy ft. Greg Wyshynski

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Greg Wyshynski and Jeff Marek get back together for another MvsW. Discussing Alex Ovechkin's legacy, the possibility of expanded playoffs, Binnington and Perry going at it, and much moreShout out to our sponsors!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼 Ninja Kitchen Canada: https://www.ninjakitchen.ca/products/ninja-crispi-4-in-1-portable-glass-air-fryer-cooking-system-zidFN101CGY?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=olv&utm_campaign=25Q2-Crispi&utm_content=enReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Jeff Merrick here. Let me tell you about Cozy. Everyday home furnishings made easy. Cozy is modern, built for real life, practical, and designed to make your day-to-day feel a little lighter. You need to refresh your living room? Cozy makes it simple. Shopping for furniture shouldn't feel like a chore. Cozy makes it easy to breathe and easy to enjoy the process. It's your home, your way. With Cozy, you can unlock endless possibilities. Its modular design grows with you. Add, rearrange, or swap pieces on your sofa, no problem.

Stylish selections and design assistance to help you every step of the way. Transform your living space today with Cozy. Visit Cozy.ca, C-O-Z-E-Y.C-A, the home of possibilities made easy. You want to peek into my life? You want to peek into my phone? You want to peek into my conversations pre-show? So I try to leave the one hour before the program clean. This was taught to me many, many years ago when I used to host a show called Leave Sun Trip at Waters.

Jeff Domette was our producer, now an outstanding producer, podcast producer with The Athletic. And the agreement we had was you can do whatever you want all day long, but the hour before you leave that clean for your producer. So that's when I'll actually pay attention to Zach. Listen to what he says and actually obey. I just want to sit around. I don't do anything. I spend a lot of time on my phone. I spend a lot of time thinking about goofy stuff. So I sent Colby Cohen a text. What time is I send this one at?

Oh, this is actually just before two o'clock. So before my one hour. I sent this to Colby. What are the odds Ryan Leonard fights Jalen Chatfield tonight? Just thinking about Carolina and Washington and McMichael and Chatfield. And he said, nothing would surprise me but I wouldn't go sniffing for that guy. I sent back to him, would be a massive team move for him. This is how bored I am.

And he comes back with, yeah I fought Jerome McGinlin my second game. The boys loved it. My face did not. What do you think about that one, Zachary? We're going to get to Washington and get my the boys loved it. My face did not. Game two, fighting Jerome McGinlin. Yeah, I mean, the only thing is Ryan Leonard looks like his face could handle that kind of stuff. Like he kind of has the same, which I'm gonna do this and just open a can of worms for no reason here at all. But the face, the neck, Matthew Nyes like came in

out of college with where it was like, whoa, that guy is like, you know, it's big, heavy. You're like, oh, that guy could take it. That's like the kind of thought that I have. So it's like, okay, I think he'd be fine. But did you check the notes on chat fields? Or like, you know, that's what they talk about on spin checklists, right? Check the game notes. Did you check the game notes? Do we know? It's like Nathan Villanova should have checked that on Scott Sabarin yesterday in the American

hockey league. Maybe learn something too about who's this Sabarin guy? Can he throw? Oh, is he a left ear? Is he a righty? Maybe do some more. Look, Jeff, that one would have been pretty easy to do some research on. Like kudos to him for stepping in there, I guess, and deciding to take that flight. But it would have been, the story you told Rosie about Google's your best friend

with Pearson. Yeah. This would have been a pretty easy like, oh, Sabran, maybe not tonight. I just wish I was like, I was in a position in my life where I could say something like, yeah, my name is Sean Pearson and right now Google is your best friend. Colby did want me to remind you as well, frozen for in St. Louis, today 5 o'clock eastern, western Michigan facing off against Denver and BU facing off against Penn State and Colby said,

promote it this way. Tell people, tons of stars, great hockey. There you go. It's pretty simple sales pitch. That's how you do it in the business, Derek. Kid, promo machine right there. There's no I&T, but there's two I's in invoice. Where do I send the bill? There's no I ain't team but there's two I's in invoice. Where do I send the bill? You mentioned Matthew Nyes a couple of seconds ago and the one thing that I Yeah you did and the one thing we're gonna get into this with Greg Wyshynski here in a couple of moments from ESPN a lot to get to with Greg including his final awards watch which is always intriguing and some surprising risers and fallers in this latest edition you can read at espn.com. I learned something last night that I'd always suspected.

Everybody loves offer sheets until it comes to their player. Oh, yeah, Montreal. Stick it to Carolina with Ajo. Yeah, you go, you show them. That's right. Oh, yeah, Carolina. You fire back with Kotkin. Yeah, you do it. Woohoo. Go, you fire back with Kotkin-Yem. Yeah, you do it.

Woohoo! Go, army! Take those kids from Edmonton! Woohoo! Stick it to them! They got rid of Kenny, he's your buddy! Go get their kids! Matthew Nyes, whoa, whoa, whoa!

There's a line there, sir! You know, there's an old saying, Zach, that, well there's a couple of old lines. One, it's only a problem when your bull gets gored, and the other one is your problem is your problem, but my problem is our problem. And when I put out there yesterday, mainly just to troll you, I'm really enjoying this in our relationship, just trolling you about Matthew Nyes and offer sheets and the maple leaves. When I threw out there something about

Dubus and the penguins and an offer sheet and Matthew Nyes, who I'll remind everybody, was drafted by Kyle Dubus and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Paid college at Minnesota. Have you seen how much salary cap space Minnesota has next year? Now that they're getting that relief anyhow. Man, did people go at me hard.

Yeah. I thought offer sheets were cool. I thought we all liked them. I thought they were fun. I don't need to get personal. I don't need to fire and victims at your boy over here just for having a little bit of fun. Just trying to poke young Zach.

How was your phone last night? You lit my phone up after that because, and I mean, I imagine yours is doing the same thing but you responded to me with that and then it was just angry Leafs fans and then Super excited penguins fans Bruins fans wild fans. I'm like get out Stop this. I'm trying to do a post game show to talk about the game, talking about how much I love this guy and it's just non-stop. Good. Now, he always looks good against Tampa. I've been saying, oh man, you know what, if

I'm the Toronto Maple Leafs, I don't want Tampa. Then I think, well, first of all, they just won the season series and then like Matthew Nyes turns into Rockett the ghost of Rockett Richard whenever the astronomy police play Tampa Bay Lightning it's incredible. Anyhow we're gonna get to Wish here in a couple of seconds. Want to get to our daily outline of the program today brought to you by and powered by our friends at FanDuel make every moment more with North America's number one sports book. And normally we reserve this show for Tuesdays, but because of scheduling conflicts and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, once upon a time had it down to an hour. Like one of the most entertaining sidebars to watching hockey every night was following Greg and watching Greg argue with people relentlessly on Twitter. That's before Twitter became litter.

And it was actually like a decent place to have arguments. Now it just gets depraved, like really fast. And as everything in our world has been politicized, it gets there really quickly. Anywho, Ovechkin's legacy, one of the topics we'll talk about here now that he has a gold record. We'll talk about his place in hockey history and as he's going to have

probably one more year in the NHL and then shuffle off and maybe play in the KHL for one or maybe two years. What is the legacy that he leaves? Awards Watch, ESPN.com, Greg does this, and it's always interesting from professional hockey writers, some of the people that vote for these awards, polled as always and will reveal the, I believe this is the final time of the season that Greg is doing this, and Greg wants to talk about the playoff formats and I don't know extending playoffs, extending season. I'm you know as we bring Greg Wyshynski from

ESPN on you know I'll tell you Greg I've had the argument so many times that just at the point now where I'm just saying you know what you know how everybody in like the normal world gets two weeks vacation let's just do that with hockey just do that with hockey. Just do that with hockey. You want to keep extending the schedule, let's you get two weeks at the end of August and then we're right back into it in September.

Just treat hockey like any other job because everyone just wants, we got to add this, we got to have this tournament, and then we got to have that tournament, and then there's this All-Star, and we want the playoffs to be longer, and the NHL wants to go from 82 to 84, and we need more hockey related revenue, and fine, just play all year long. Go ahead. Just play all year long. We've been covering this sport for a long time. Wouldn't you say that our summers have become more contracted? I think when I started first covering hockey, like I felt like a teacher I felt like a teacher that had the summer off and now I kind of feel like we do get roughly three weeks

Where there's nothing happening, where there's stuff happening again. I can't complain about it though, like honestly. Like, I don't know how many times you've said to your wife or said a planet of mine like, okay, I gotta go to work now. And she spins around with, you have to go watch hockey games.

No, no, no, I'm going to work. You're going to watch hockey games and talk really loud on your phone. Like don't, don't give me this like thin veil that this is work somehow. I, I kind of felt that way on Sunday when, when I said I had to go cover the Allenders game because of Ethkin was going to break the record. Like there's a, there's a legitimate reason for me to be there, but it is also watching my favorite thing at 12 30 on a Sunday. It could be home on the couch, having a coffee and doing the crossword,

playing with the kid, what have you. But I'm there on a long Island watching history get made. Um, let's, let's just start with the playoff format thing. Cause it's going to be quick. I'm not, I'm not looking to belabor the point. I just want to point out that if you, Mile High Hockey gave me this notion of, hey, what if we did one through eight, what would it look like?

And I was curious about it the other day and then someone went ahead and looked at it. And so here's one through eight if we did the old format that Gary Bettman recently said at the GN meetings, he has no interest in revisiting, even though like the vast majority of the players prefer it because they grew up with it. I have a theory on that by the way. Washington Montreal would still happen. The Leafs would play the Devils. Tampa would play the Senators. Carolina

would play Florida. So I believe under the current format we do have some forced rivalry series and and so the current format might win on this one. In the West, it'd be Winnipeg and St. Louis, VGK against Minnesota, and then— Oh, those are good games. Those are good games. —Dallas, Edmonton, Colorado, and the Kings, which means we would not get round 1 billion of the Oilers and Kings, which I'm in favor of not seeing again. I am.

So I think it's different this year. The West gets a little bit spicier. I wanna see LA and Edmonton again. Like honestly, can you not feel like the changing of the guard here? Like you've, like I know they beat St. Louis last night, but you've watched Edmonton recently. You've watched Edmonton all season.

There was like that one month stretch where they're like, okay, the Oilers are back. But then after that, the Oilers have not looked overwhelming at all or haven't looked like Stanley Cup contenders. We just keep saying like, they're going to turn on the switch here come postseason. I don't know that I'm saying that anymore. I want to get to Darcy Kemper and your awards watch. And I'm really glad that he's in that conversation for the Vesna because very quietly Darcy Kemper's had an excellent season for the Los Angeles Kings. But I think that that's, I don't think that that series is, is the, okay,

here we go again. Oh, Oilers and five. Like I do not think that at all. Now the other one and I'm just curious about that. Can I ask you a question about the Kings series? Nah, cause I'm rolling man. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Connor going to play in that series? Yes. There's no way that Connor would give it. Leon gonna play in that series? Yes.

Okay. Then the Oilers will be in the second round of the playoffs. Stuart Skinner gonna play in that series? Stuart Skinner gonna play in that series? Oh, I heard the other day that Calvin Pickard had defeated some elite teams this season. I heard that on a fan line as I was waiting to get on Edmonton radio and I'm like, no, the goaltending will prevent the Oilers from going back to play for the Cup, but they're gonna look across the ice, they're gonna see those Kings jerseys again, they're gonna look over at Connor, they're gonna look over at Leon, they're like, oh, you guys are

here, great, let's just get through this and go to the next round. I have no interest in seeing that series again. I understand you're thinking, this is a different Kings team. They have Dorsey Kemper. That's great. And Byfield's, you know, found his game. I'm excited to see the Kings. The Kings are great.

They're not super fun, but they're a solid watch. They're not gonna beat the Oilers. They can't beat the Oilers. We've seen this movie too many times before, and I'm not gonna be tricked into believing that they have a chance to advance past them this year. You wanna hear my theory? Remember the other day we were talking about,

last week as a matter of fact, we were talking about the new NHL Canadian TV package, and we're talking about the legacy, and we're gonna talk about Ovechkin here in a second when it comes to legacy. We were talking about the legacy of Gary Bettman and winding down all the boxes that he needs to check before he,

how did we phrase it? He's not, he's just changing titles before he changes titles. He's gonna be, he's going to be some level of emeritus probably in this league. Yeah, yeah. Now I think a lot of this is because we're going into an extended period of peacetime

between the NHL and the Players Association. That seems like how, where this is headed headed I wouldn't be surprised if we have even have like an announcement of something I don't know like how awesome would it be like right before the playoffs how incorrect as far as like you know when Gary Bepman always does that State of the Union address but on the first day like how amazing would that be and all of a sudden BAM again this is just me pie in the sky like, oh wouldn't this be awesome? But we're headed to an extended time of peace. There's some expansion on the horizon, but the one box has been checked and that is a Canadian TV deal done. The other is

another CBA and the other is another round of expansion. And then you hand it off to Bill Daley. And the one thing that I really wonder about here, now Bill has been a loyal soldier for Gary Bettman for a long time, joined at the hip. And one of the things that I, and this might just be a conspiracy theory, but here I go, I wonder if part of what Bettman is leaving behind when he changes positions is a couple of easy wins for the next commissioner. And is one of them changing the playoff format? I like it. Right, exactly.

Then Bill looks like a hero. Bill changes the playoff format, maybe expands the playoff format. Sure. That's a good thought. I like that thought. Just a theory. Just a theory.

Like, cause honestly, like I don't, he's again, like how many times you've ever heard, like whatever room he's in, like he's the smartest guy just the theory like, cause honestly, like I don't, he's again, like how many times you ever heard, like whatever room he's in, like he's the smartest guy in the room, thinking a few steps ahead. And I'm thinking, okay, so he's gonna solidify this legacy and then he's gonna wanna leave some tap-ins here

for the next commissioner, leave some layups here for the next commissioner. It's a good make the people happy win, but not a I'm better than Gary win. But it's true, right? Maths for Betman as well. But it's going into peacetime. If I was Betman in the NHL and if I was John Della Pina and the press department at the NHL, I would leak the news that next season is Betman's last season on the eve of the Stanley Cup being awarded.

And so when Betman comes out to award the Cup, he is then cheered. You know what I've always wondered about? And it would never happen because I can't see the players, the player doing it. I really can't. But I am, and again, like this is just like the old guy that's read too many history books on hockey. I love the idea of whichever team and this might like for back to back winners you can't really do this but let's say the Florida Panthers are not in the Stanley Cup final this year. Traveling with the commissioner is Alexander Barkov, who hands the cup to the next captain who wins the Stanley Cup for Lineage's sake. Are there any other sports that do that?

It's their cup and they're passing it on to the next team. But so you know, you know how sometimes during the NHL awards it looks like the guys are being held prisoner because they'd rather be on vacation with their families? No never seen that before. I'm here for the lady thing. Your idea has merit if it's not it can't be a player obviously but what if it mean what if it was like when I'm a player as kid? No play honestly it has to be a player, obviously, but what if it was like when I was kid? No, play honestly, it has to be a player.

A player is so private. Why would you do that? To stop him to captain. Given his he gives his whole life to the sport. He plays an 82 game regular season. He goes into the playoffs. He plays three rounds. He's getting his ass beat up.

OK, bruised, he's beaten. And now all he's thinking about a beach. We're going back to Finland. And hang knocking it off a little bit. You're like, no, you gotta spend the next week and a half with Gary Berman traveling from Edmonton to who knows where in case the cup gets awarded. Okay, a couple of things. One, a few people in the chat, JP, Sean, a few people already mentioning, this is like the green jacket at the Masters. Sure. That is what this is like.

And here's the other thing that I'll say to you. If you said to Alexander Barkov, before the playoffs, you're gonna win the Stanley Cup, but you're only gonna win it, you're gonna win the Stanley Cup, but here's the deal. You win the Stanley Cup and you're not in it next year. You have to follow the cup around and hand it out in game seven. What would Alexander Barkov say? Of course I'll do that. He would say, oh, he would say that's fantastic. So what will the owners give us in the CBA for agreeing to do this?

that's fantastic. So what will the owners give us in the CBA for agreeing to do this? Oh, I'm not. Oh, listen, listen. Alexander Barkov gave up amateur status years ago, sir. This is this is like what Red Fisher used to tell me about. I gave up amateur status years ago, son. But your point is taken. Your point is taken is that if this were the way it was always done. Yes. Then it would still be done today Tradition, but I don't start at any time a new addition Why not just got done talking about how the season gets done in August and you're asking one of the best players in hockey To have that rest his body get obligations of captaincy around the Stanley Cup final obligations either to Just to acknowledge his defeat How many?

How many zeros you want on this check sir? How many zeros am I putting on this thing right now Mr. Barkov? Does it count against the cap? The other thing I wanted to mention Escrow free check here sir, escrow free check Obviously when Commissioner Daily takes over We'll go back to 1-8 but hopefully we also get the expanded playoff that I want when we get our fresh two new sparkly teams. If we had an expanded playoff under the wild card format, the two play-in series would

be Ottawa vs. the Islanders and the Canadians vs versus the Detroit Red Wings. And sign me up for that shit, by the way. And then in the West, it'd be Minnesota and Vancouver and St. Louis and Calgary. And then if we had an expanded one through eight. Hang on, a one gamer? We could do, I would do one game. I know people get really pissed off about the idea of,

oh, your whole season gets boiled down to one game. Yeah, it does. Don't finish seventh or eighth or ninth or tenth. That way you don't have to do it. But the whole point of doing an expanded playoff would be what if we had extra game sevens is what if we had a game seven in the first preliminary round that you had to win in order to be in the playoff bracket? That would be awesome for me. Probably not for a lot of the playoff bracket. That would be awesome for me, probably not for a lot of the viewers and listeners. I don't care, it's the format I prefer. Expanded one through eight,

it'd be the Devils against the Islanders in the 7-10 series, and then Montreal and Detroit again in the 8-9, Minnesota and Vancouver, St. Louis, Calgary. Like, last season was not the argument to make season for expanded playoffs. No. Right now the playoffs are done, man.

The races are over. Like it's Montreal in the last wild card in the East. I think last night probably put a stake in the wild card race in the West. Caprizov. Caprizov came back and put an end to the Calgary Flames with that overtime win. Right, exactly. So this is now my season to make the argument that if we had a play-in round, seven, eight, nine, 10,

it would extend the excitement, extend the joy, bring more people into the playoffs this season. Ian, Ian in the chat says, the last three weeks of the regular season is the play-in. You know how you make the Eastern Conference Playoff Race exciting? Is you do you do a play-in series. I don't, maybe you guys have found it very exciting to see. I've likened it to the animated race that they do with the concession items at

games when you look up the Jumbotron and it's like the Fries racing the Shake racing the Pretzel and they all have to fall down at some point in order to have the other one race ahead so all the kids can start cheering because their Shake might win. Like that's the Eastern Conference Playoff Race this year. They're all falling down all over each other. Finally, Montreal, AKA the Fries, gets up and again goes to the finish line to win the race. But the rest of it is just tomfoolery. It's comedy. It's just pret falls and nonsense.

If you had an expanded playoff format, you'd actually have an interesting playoff race rather than Montreal emerging from just a pile of feces to climb out. Like they just escaped a prison to finish in the wild card. If you had the expanded playoff format, you'd actually have something watchable this year. Uh, you okay? Everything's fine.

You're pretty fired up about this one, eh? I had a colon exam on Monday. That's why I had to kind of rearrange stuff this week. Okay, yeah, yeah. You get a little older. Is that what we didn't get you on Tuesday? Everything's fine. Everything's cool with your boy. Good.

Which was all checked out pretty nice. Good news. It's not really the way you want to start your week. It kind of set this whole thing adrift down a fork in the river that I didn't really want to go down. You know what I mean? It's like a Monday should be, you grab a bagel, you're in your coffee,

you're getting ready for your work week. Instead it's like, don't eat anything forever. Oh, by the way, I also had to prep for this during the Ovechkin game on Sunday. That was the other thing I wanted to mention to you. Give me, okay, let me, okay. The secret history of Greg Wyshinski is that I was fasting and prepping for a colon exam whilst Alex Ovechkin made hockey history. In the arena, no less.

It's like, knock, knock, knock. So forever, forever, it's gonna be like dueling memories at the UBS. It's gonna be like, it's like, so for forever forever, it's going to be like dueling memories at the UBS. It's going to be like, Oh, Vechkin breaks the record and I'm prepping for a colon exam. It's like knock, knock, knock. Mr. Lamarello, you mind if I use your washer and real quick, there's a line between periods. I could, I could be, I'm, you're not supposed to like eat any, any like solid food for a while.

So I'm like, I'm out of my mind hungry. I'm sitting there with Emily Kaplan, you know, my, my good friend from ESPN and former podcasting partner. And, and she sits down next to me at the beginning of the game with a goddamn ice cream Sunday. Are those nachos? That's awesome. Good job.

Oh my God. First star of the premier at 12, Emily Kaplan from ESPN. Well done, Emily. Okay. Luckily, I've got you in score and it took my mind off of things. My point being is that if we had the expanded playoff format this season, it'd be a dandy. Is my whole point.

Okay, I will resist the pain in the ass jokes. They're too obvious. I'll pause for one second. You can make your own jokes out there in In the chat, we're in the chat chat room whether you're listening or watching on YouTube. Okay, so take us into the rink then All right, give us that like going into it There must be that sense that you're about to watch something that there's a potential for history here I'm not gonna cloud it with a wordy question. Just like go back to when he scored. Go back to the Wilson pass and then the whole place just erupting. Visiting

arena erupting for Alex Ovechkin. Well walking in, I wrote a story about it. Maybe people saw it, but if you haven't, it's still on ESPN.com. Walking in, there was a guy who had a Jeep that was... It's great. Oh, so good. You see that? So good. Yeah, I saw it. I read the pieces. It was a mannequin of Ovechkin diving after a goat with a Gretzky jersey on it. I had seen this guy's car at the Stadium Series when they played Carolina,

and he used to drive around with a giant replica Stanley Cup. Now he has on top of the Jeep the scene of O Ovechkin diving act with a goat to try to catch it. And the funniest thing he told me, this guy, because I interviewed him for the story, is he forgot how many overpasses there are in New York on the way to UBS Arena. So he actually had to add like an extra two hours to his trip because he had to avoid all the highways in New York lest the Ovechkin and Goat get knocked off by an overpass. So the Capitals played kind of poorly for most of this game and Ovechkin looked kind of invisible for most of this game.

And I was texting with a bunch of people in the first period and stuff. I'm just like, this is gonna be one of those games where they're gonna have to give him a power play. And if he gets on the power play, he's got a chance to break it, but I don't think it's gonna happen five on five. So the minute they got on the power play- Who took the penalty?

They just, people started chanting Ovi, like in the arena. Who took the penalty? They knew. Who took the penalty? They knew. Who took the penalty? Was it Sazekis? Yeah, attaboy, you'll always remember that now.

There you go. It's Casey Sazekis, good job. So people started chanting Ovi's name the minute the referee started to announce the penalty. And I mean, you know, when it happened, it was incredible because the pass came across and it said that he's in the Ovi spot and he takes the shot and it's through a bunch of people,

and all of a sudden the celebration starts, and he does the belly slide into the middle of the ice, and you're just like, wow, wow, he did it, he pulled it off. And my second thought was, I do feel kind of like a schmuck for being mad at him for not scoring the empty netter to complete the hat trick, because this is, I get the vision now. It's better this way.

To have him score it from the spot in which he scored most of his goals really kind of tied a bow around the whole thing. The thing that I'll remember from the ceremony, there's two things. One was, there's two things. One was, there's three things. One was Gretzky referencing Nassau Coliseum and how poorly the Oilers played there, which I thought was really, like give a little bit of a nod

to the Islanders fans in the crowd, right? The second thing was the moment when all of the capitals kind of assembled on the carpets while Ovechkin was speaking, and then he kind of turned and spoke to them almost like a teacher addressing an assembly. And I thought that was really cool. It was kind of like, here's all your friends.

Here's all the people that helped make this happen for you. And Ovechkin kind of addressing them whilst we're all watching it. And the third thing, cause I saw Steve Maher, the NHL genius who comes up with all of their event crap, whether it's the outdoor games or the OVETRON thing or whatever, he's just, should be probably in the Hall of Fame one day in my opinion. He's great. He's done, yes. I told him after the game, I'm like, what a flex by you to get an assemblage of sports celebrities and also Danny DeVito, to do a video that basically opens with Michael Jordan

and closes with LeBron James talking about the greatness of Ovechkin. Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Derek G. Basically, everybody you could imagine outside of maybe Lionel Messi was in this video congratulating Ovechkin. And I'm just like, I loved it because it, it bought that record into the pantheon where I think it belongs. And I'm not entirely sure the outsider perspective of the goal race got there in pop culture, at least in the US. But it did frame the record.

I'm clouded because in Canada, everywhere you went, everywhere you went and everyone was aware of it, and I would argue, you know, the lion's share of hockey fans and maybe even non-hockey fans who would at least have the conversation about it. Because I heard about it, like wherever I went, you would hear like conversations behind you, in the grocery store, wherever, there would inevitably be someone would be talking about it. So it's different in Canada. I can't speak to it in the United States.

Well, let me speak to it in the United States. People were aware of it. Every hockey fan was into it. A lot of other people outside the hockey bubble understood it and knew what was happening. But my bar for this is having lived through the Barry Bonds record chase. Right. Which, at the time, probably was a bit more virtuous than it's now seen in hindsight. Time stopped every time he got to the plate. And it was kind of the same way with Sosa and McGuire too that summer. Like time stopped.

Like people made an effort to be near television when he got to the plate. And I didn't necessarily think that the casuals reacted in the same way to the Ovechkin chase. And maybe it's because it's a Sunday afternoon. I don't know. But I love that that video reframed it in, in a, in a sports psych guys thing for me. The thing I wanted to ask you, Merrick, is this. Yup.

Is this a debate I've been having with everybody in my life since Ovechkin broke the record? Okay. And we touched on it, I think, on a previous MVSW, but let's put it into sharp relief here. Okay. Is he top 10 all time? Yes. Absolutely.

Absolutely he is. I have seven from the modern era that I would put ahead of him. And you tell me if you disagree with any of these. Seven? Seven. From the modern era. Let me give you, okay? Because we're doing skaters and goalies, okay?

We're doing the entirety of the league. We're doing everybody in the top 100. Gretzky, Mario, Orr, Sid, Hasek, Lidstrom, Bork. Is Ovi better than any of those? Yes. He is. First of all, I would flip Lidstrom and Orr. That's not sequential.

That's just seven guys. I understand that. flip Lidstrom and Orr. That's not sequential. That's just seven guys that would have my top. I understand that. Okay. The job of hockey is to score goals. Nobody scored more than him. I think you can put him, there's Gretzky,

there's Lemieux, there's Hasek. You could probably put him right after those guys. Are you gonna do it? You did it, you did it, you sick bastard. You could put Ovechkin over Crosby. You could, yeah. For that record, the most goals. Wow.

Like honestly, like we're giving this,, I don't know, honestly think about what just happened. Think about what just happened. Like honestly, is it possible that the goal record is underrated? This is like almost 900 goals in the NHL. This is not to say that Cindy Crosby is not an incredible player. He's a freaking total incredible player. 900 goals. It's the hardest thing to do in hockey. Score goals.

He's done it almost 900 times. In the hardest area in which to do it, no less. It's a phenomenal record. I thought the Gold record might be underrated until I started to kind of... I don't think it was said enough or written enough how pissed off Wayne was that this record was broken. I'm sorry. I know he's put on a happy face and I know that he's doing the thing that, oh, I'm doing

the thing that Gordy did for me You know Gordy Gordy was there when I broke the record. I'm gonna be there I'll be the first one to shake Alex's head. He's super pissed. Come on. We know he's super pissed that he lost the goals record He's got the points record. He's got the assist record. He'll always have those the goals He knows hockey better than anyone he's the guy who wears disguises and goes to the Hall of Fame You know what? I want to be the king of goals forever and ever. You know what guys talk about? First of all, the thing that I've learned

about hockey players when they retire and they talk about like their colleagues and all that, they talk about players. The one thing they always come back to, which is a real badge of honor for a lot of guys is how many games did they play? Oh, that guy played 500 games in a show. Now I wonder if part of that was,

there used to be that threshold for full pension at, was it 400? Like that used to be the magic number for guys. When you got to 400, that was like full pensions. Everyone's counting games, counting games, counting games, and games became a big, but a lot of guys put a real premium on how many games did you play? How long were you in there? And then after that, it's goals. How many goals did you score? And I know that Bossy goals per game was the best. When you look at how in that brief spell where we had Mike Bossy, nobody scored like that. And probably, and this, I mean, this is one

for someone who's really bored in the off season to figure this out, probably scored the most five hole goals of anyone. And he put pucks through goaltenders, a vet can put pucks around goaltenders, bossy put pucks through goaltenders. That's for another conversation. Yeah. Um, but they could do, cause they were wearing, they were, they were wearing throw pillars In the 1980s, I could put up with the puck five hole too. They had no equipment on Well, like like honestly, I don't know listen. Listen, this is the era

I've always made this joke, but I I know I offend a lot of goaltenders when I say this It took so long for goalies to figure out how to play the position It took so long for goalies to learn how to play this game Effectively and still a veteran said that matter It's fine. I'm still scoring. I don't care. I I I'm fascinated by your a veteranchkin-Sid take.

I still put Sid over him, because I think Sid's one of the most complete players I've ever seen. Like I am astonished by how good he is, even at his age now. 895 calls. I know. The one I'm gonna struggle with though is McDavid,

when it's all said and done. Because like his numbers are gonna be sick. He's probably the single most astonishing talent I've seen since Mario, if I'm being honest, as far as just like, how does this person do this? Kind of hockey. That's the one I'm curious about when it's all said and done is where he ranks in the top 10.

I've come around to the idea that Ovechkin should be in the top 10. I used to say that because of the deficiencies in his defensive game, which are very real and should be acknowledged, but it also isn't his job. Sid's a more complete player. Like no one's gonna, no one's gonna disqualify that, but as far as doing the main job of hockey, the main job of hockey, there's this, let me grab my Mac 30 here and pretend it's a puck. There is like this little round black thing that you're supposed to put over a red line

more times than the other team. And we call that hockey. No one has taken that little Mac 30 and put it over the red line. What are they a match kid as? I'm sorry. That's the game. That's the game. Ask wish I could travel back in time and ask Reg Dunlop, ask Reg Dunlop,

if my cohost uses a tin of foundation to represent the puck, is that a good way to represent hockey? I think I'm just saying. No, I- A shiny on the floor. I've come around to it. You need to clean that up a little bit.

I don't know if I can put him ahead, Sid, but that's a debate a lot of us have been having. I will say the Athletic in their ranking of the top players post expansion, 67, that Ovechkin was sixth on that list. When was that done? I think this was done, I don't remember when it was done, but it was pre goals record, obviously. So that's gotta change things. It's the most important thing in hockey is scoring a goal. And I agree with that. And he does it better than anybody. And even if he didn't have the record, Merrick,

he'd still have done it better than anybody. And so because of that, I think he probably has to be top 10, but I struggle to figure out where in the top 10 he is. So SpinFrog, Jeff just devalued all goalies ever. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. But hang on, but do you not see that though?

Like, would you not, you know, snuggle up with me on that one and say like, it took goalies like, almost a hundred years to learn how to play the position. It did. Oh, come on. It's no disrespect to say that the goal-turning technique since say like the late 1980s to now has improved exponentially.

I will say one thing. There are two goalies that played a style that winks at how goalies play now. One is Glenn Hall, the other is Tony Esposito. Those were the two that come to mind, but by and large, and there's like evolution, Jacques Plante was, that's a goalie we don't talk enough about,

but Jacques Plante was a piece of that as well. But like it really didn't hit, it's like, ooh, that's how you should be playing the position. That makes a lot more sense. Really until Patrick Guanalear. Do you think expansion has hurt goaltending too much in 2025? Expansion has hurt goaltending? Yeah, do you think they're too thin right now?

There aren't enough goaltenders? I wonder that there's, and I think this is a concern that's shared by the NHL about, about expanding too fast. Um, and this did happen by the way, in the late sixties, early seventies, a lot of it was necessity and we'll get to that in a second. Um, I just think that there's considering how many teams there are in the NHL, I don't know

how much more you can expand. So I think that goes for every position. I really do. And the place where, where where goaltending has fallen down more than any other place in the world is Canada. That's not a secret. We've completely fallen down.

When it comes to producing elite level goaltenders. Sorry, that athletic list was 2023, by the way. In case of 2023, he was so, he's probably moved up a couple rungs in the past few years. I mean, ultimately expansion waters down the league to help boost the offense. So hang on a second. So are you saying then, let me see if I can lead the witness, are you saying then that a league that perhaps, let's say, oh I don't know, doubled and then in a couple years added two more

and then in two more years added two more and then in two more years after that added two more and then had an entire rival league start up that perhaps that era's stats we should all take with a grain of salt sorry P or sorry, P.S. Bizzito. I have my entire life argued that. The list by the way was Gretzky, Mario, or Sid, Jagger, Ovechkin.

Jagger over Ovechkin is an interesting one. I did not have Jagger. I guess Jagger would be in my top 10, but I certainly didn't have him ahead of Ovechkin. Was there a goalie in there? There wasn't a Hasek in there, was there? Hasek, yeah. Was there a Hasek?

I think there was, right? Yeah, he was set. Oh wait, no, he was seventh behind Ovechkin. See, I can't in good faith put Ovechkin ahead of Hasek or Lindstrom. That's where I'm at. This is for one of those conversations where I should really prep and you should really prep. So we can really, we can really go at it.

But I, I think that getting, getting the record just sends him into a different stratosphere. Haven't you ever seen first take here in the US with Stephen A. Smith? We could have this debate every other day. It'll never change. Haven't you ever watched Canadian hockey television where every week we do the Olympic team? Haven't you ever seen that? Yeah, I know that's what this is what we do. It's right after the table I would sit at is the who should be on the Olympic team table and then you go to the social media table after that. I love trade deadline. What do you want to do? We got nothing. Olympic team, let's go, fire it up.

People love it, but people still do. It's instant debate. Anything else you want to say on Ovechkin? I mean, you were there, you covered it, you've followed him. I mean, you used to live around the corner from the rink for the longest time. Anything more to add on Ovi before we, oh geez, we're getting late already, before we move on to actually play other things? Yeah, we're getting late. I'm just happy to have seen it. I mean, again, like I've written about him a ton. I'll continue to write about him probably even after when he's retired. Like, the idea that this kid from Russia became a rock star revitalized the franchise created a surge in popularity in hockey in Washington DC that I never thought I'd see

went from skating around with Matt Pettinger to breaking Gretzky's goal record 20 years later like it's just nuts to me. Could you mean that's to me that, we all got to experience that. Could you make the argument and sit us in this list too, that in the history of hockey, considering what he meant to that franchise and all those sold out buildings and the jersey and Rock the Red and all of it, the revitalization of that hockey brand. Is he not the most underpaid player in the history of the game? Oh God, yeah. Crosby's there too.

Crosby's there too. But Crosby by virtue of his own decisions. Like he could have gotten the Taves and Kane contracts if he wanted them, but because he's superstitious and a company man, he didn't. The other one, oh, one more final note on it. And this I really did like, and this is not gonna surprise you.

And I'm sure you've mentioned this too and thought about this. Who got the primary assist on the Ovachkin goal? Tommy Wilson. Who got the primary assist on the Gretzky goal? Who? Marty McSorley. It's pouring out for the tough guys, boys.

It's pouring out for the tough guys here. That was the other takeaway real quick before we get to awards that I had from that. It was, I interviewed Wilson after the game and like, he's getting like weepy about having his name next to Ovechkin. It's not because it'll be referenced in the annals of NHL history as being the assist on the record-breaking goal, but because of, and what he said in his words was what Ovechkin means to this team, the city, and being, you know, close with Ovechkin's family.

He's got such a personal connection with the guy that it was pretty emotional for Wilson after the game to be forever linked. Although, let's be honest, if you could wave a magic wand and make anything happen, it would have been backstroom. I saw him in the locker room too. I talked with him for a little bit, him and Oshie. Like two guys that, I mean, their injuries

certainly played a role in Ovechkin breaking the record this season because of the cap, the cap's cap flexibility that allowed them to make this game exponentially better. But man, seeing those two guys and the impact that they had on this, on that guy's career, especially Backstrom, I wish it could have been Nicky out there. That was such an insanely dynamic duo for so many years in Washington.

Crippy in the chat says, Jeff oversimplifying the game right now is driving me insane. Am I oversimplifying it by saying the game is goals? Score goals. Hey, what was the score of the game last night? I mean, it's not oversimplifying it to say it's the most important thing in hockey. You're trying to score them to win the game.

The goalies are trying to prevent them. Like a goal, it's all about the goal. It's all it is. Okay. I have a lot of other things that I wanna get to here. And like no time to do it. What's most interesting to you? Oh no, I wanna do awards.

Let's do awards. I got a whole man. It's like, I don't know even why I bothered planning programs when you're off. It's just remember like, oh, it's the old days. Like me and Wish will start talking. Awards watch, is this the final one? ESPN.com, you can read it right now.

It's one of the best things that you do. I love that you do this because I could do the awards show all the time. I just love it. Let's pick out a few here that are most interesting to you. And if we could park a little bit of time, although we already kind of did mention them, to talk about Darcy Kemper and the Vezna,

that would be great, even though Conor Hellebuck is running away with this thing. Like it wasn't that long ago that Jordan Bennington, he wasn't gonna win it, but Jordan Bennington was right there with the St. Louis Blues when you start to look at the underlying numbers and look at the season that he had. Which one most interesting to you, sir,

and your awards watch at espm.com? Well, the Vesna Hellebuck thing, like I people ask me all the time, like how many voters do we survey? And I will tell you that it is a statistically significant number. I can't I'm not going to give you the actual like raw number. Thirty. Thirty five. But it's a statistically significant part of the of the voting population. Hunter. significant part of the voting population. The fact that all of them had Hellbuck winning the Vesna,

like not a single one put in anybody else is something I don't think I've experienced for any of these awards. I mean, it is stunning. That's the GMs. Yeah, that's the GMs. Like we don't vote on that, the PHWA, that's the GMs. So maybe the math is different there, but the writers at least see it as a unanimous deal.

The Heart is interesting because Dreisaitl has moved to the top of that race with 40% of the first place votes at a time when he's not playing, which I think is kind of interesting. But there seems to be some consensus there. Hellebuck and McKinnon were the other two finalists, and then Kucherov is like right behind them.

I would not be surprised at all to see Kucherov get into the top three over one of them, but it seems like Dreisaitl has the inside lane right now. Would you agree? It does feel that way. I'm still surprised that there isn't, and again, we spent like the whole show talking about Ovechkin, but I'm still surprised that there's not much

discussion about Alexander Ovechkin. To be honest with you. It's wild to me. Like I know that the broken leg, what did he miss? 16 games? But still, like I do not have Ovechkin. At least in that conversation for, I understand like Eichel get it Kucherov get it McKinnon of course Leon Dreisleidl obviously but how is not how is Alex Ovechkin not in that mix? If you I mean even if it's just for the launching pad that he provided them like 15 goals in 19 games or 18 games what the hell it was like I, I mean, that basically just said, you know, you're on your way, boys.

Here we go, boys. Yeah. Yeah. He was extremely important. But I think they, maybe it's because they played so well while he was out. I don't know. But anyways, um, so yeah, that's the heart race. It looks like dry sidles got this thing. The, the, the Calder was hilarious in the sense that Lane Hudson, when we did this in March, had 11% of the first place votes and now he has 87%. But hang on. Celebrini just put up a five spot last night. You had the hat trick. I know, I know.

Hold on a second. Here comes Celebrini. The two major happenings last night before awards watch went out were Celebrini's 5 point night and the fact that I was saying that Braden Point could probably win the Lady Bing and then he had a fight. Probably not. Which is really funny. Hudson seems like he's got this thing in the bag. And the problem for Macklin was always going to be that the Flames and the Canadians were both going to play important games down the stretch that were going to get more attention

than whenever the Sharks were doing. And the real problem for Celebrini and for Wolfe is that Hudson played so well in getting his team to a playoff spot that the voters that treat the Calder as the most valuable rookie along with being the best rookie are obviously going to cast their lot for Lane Hudson. playoff spot that the voters that treat the Calder as the most valuable rookie, along with being the best rookie are obviously going to cast their lot for Lane Hudson. Okay. But, but here's the thing that I've wondered about. I'm glad you're on on this one because here's the one thing that I've wondered

about. Okay. I want you to take Macklin Celebrini and I want you to take Lane Hudson and I want you to flip them and Hudson plays on the San Jose sharks and Celebrini plays on the Montreal Canadians.arks and Celebrini plays on the Montreal Canadiens. How different are the seasons? Oh, no, no question. No question. And I think that an argument could be made that Celebrini is still the best rookie. I mean, he'll win the points per game argument. Anyone who's watched him comes away blown away by how good he is. I mean, again, you were one of the first people to float the idea that Macklin Celebrini will

end up being a better player than Connor Bernard. Hang on. Pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. Stop, stop. Crowding on that bandwagon. Say, say that again slowly. Starting with you were the first. You were, you were one of the first people to say that Macklin Celebrini will be a better

player than Connor Bernard. And I think other people are following that. Go over all my bad takes. Now go over all my bad takes. You never have a bad take. Just for, oh, God. Dustin Wolfe is my, it might be my guy though, in like hindsight. I probably have to still meditate on the Celebrini part of it. And I'm not disrespecting Hudson's season, but I mean, what Wolfe did, I mean, he's clearly the best rookie goalie.

I mean, I don't know how Michkov is ahead of him in the odds to win thing. It's nuts to me. I don't think Michkov's got a prayer of winning this award. But like what he did for the Flames and- And- Don't disagree. Compelling them this season to nearly a playoff spot,

I think is a remarkable performance. I think he's been great this season, Dustin Wolf. Yep, don't disagree at all. The other interesting one is the Selkie. So Barkov's still the leader, but his share of the first place votes has declined over the last three months consecutively in the awards watch.

I wondered about, and I started to wonder about this last year, I wonder about Barkov and Reinhardt splitting. Yeah. Well, do you not? That I'm glad you, I'm glad you bought it. There's the two guys that are the finalists behind him and the awards watch or dry settle in Reinhardt dry settle was a surprise to me, but I think that there is a real clamor right now for people to recognize how good his defensive game has been this year and it's resonating because he's probably going to be a finalist for the Selkie. Reinhardt though is the one that bugs me because he should be the leader right now.

He's got a better expected goals against per 60 than Barkov does. If you go by Dom from the Athletics defensive rating thing. Could you not have said he should have won it last year? Yeah. So what we have with Barkov right now is the Bergeron effect, which is that people just pencil them in and keep them penciled in the entire season. It's not to say that I think the fact that he's having a down year is a bit overstated because his defensive numbers are still really, really good. Barkoffs.

Um, but I just think that like any statistic measure, ride hearts having a better defensive season than his teammate is. But like we said, like you're, you're right. It's a reputation award and people now are very much of the mind that Barkoff is finished for Bergeron. That's what it is. Barkoff is finished for Bergeron. That's what it is. Barkov is finished for Bergeron. Any other words, Santa? Because there's a sponsored item

that I want you to be part of on this show. Please, go ahead. Because it's an MVSW question. Okay? Yeah, no, it's a fun one. So here we go. Now warm up the band. Time now for the Crispy Inbox,

presented by the Ninja Crispy 4-in-one portable glass air fryer watch this wish Watch this dude. Meet the first of its kind the ninja portable The power of a full in the palm of your hand so you can cook big or small batches just Crisp it I know it and store it all in one. I know, I hope you're wearing dark pants. I know. The power of a Ninja Crispy in the palm of my hand. Now hold on, now hold on a second here young man, calm down. It is an all-in-one system that includes four quart, six cup tempware glass containers, two storage lids. The Ninja Crispy is thermal shock resistant and can go from frozen to crispy in minutes.

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Oh, yes, sometimes yourself sometimes for the young kid You know those like veggie chicken nuggets that they make they're like not chicken. They're like fake fake chicken nuggets. Yeah The ninja air fryer is like ideal for those they cook quickly You can make a bunch of them at the same time. A life-saving appliance in our house vis-a-vis making food quickly. Now, think of that one, take it on the road. Wherever you go. Now we're talking. I'm going to be hitting the road in about a week, so I will... Get yourself one.

...be the most popular boy in the press box when I am. I can make you chicken wings in my hotel room tonight if you'd like. The second intermission. What's Greg Goods? Greg Freinup. Okay, so here is the email of the day in the crispy inbox. Is one that we that that uh who is it is Greg from Phoenix wanted us to read with you. Greg has been very open about Quinn uniting with his brothers in New Jersey. But what if the Canucks could bring Luke and Jack to Vancouver this summer? It starts with

Brian Burke being brought in as the quote special advisor to sibling related team building. I love that job title, special advisor to sibling related team building to help facilitate the deal. Alvin, Burke and Rutherford trade Elias Pettersson for Jack Hughes with Vancouver retaining salary to make their cap hits identical before Pedersen's no trade kicks in. Better hurry July's approaching. Then the Canucks offer sheet Luke Hughes. The Devils

so dejected and disgusted with the Hughes boys don't match the one-year 10 million dollar offer and take the picks. Let's speculate wildly for fun while we wait for the playoffs to get started. Greg from Phoenix on that one wanted to make sure that you are on for that one Greg Wyshinski. You look stunned and maybe a little bit disgusted. Boy the Sun is intense in Phoenix. This one really warps the brain. Is it coyotes or peyotes? Yeah, it's like he's just seeing visions. What's that worm at the bottom of this bottle all about?

A cartoon character is roaming the desert and all of a sudden sees just a fully cooked steak and then starts eating sand. Listen, the reason, first of all, the Brian Burke part of it is hilarious and really insults me as a Devils fan because obviously he's the guy who united the Niedermeier's in Anaheim as well. He did, took him. Took Scott. Along with the Sadeen.

Got robbed here. Yeah, but listen, I'm not a mathematician, but I can count. And by my count, the Devils have two slices of the Triforce whilst the Vancouver Canucks have one. And are the vibes better with the Devils? Not really. It's kind of in some bad times in Jersey. Some stuff hasn't necessarily worked as well as they thought. Vibes aren't great in BC, Greg.

They just got eliminated in BC, Greg. They just got eliminated last night, Greg. If you're asking about what teams have worst vibes, they're going to have to fumigate in Vancouver before next season. So I still think, again, because we have two pieces of the Triforce in Jersey, and if you look at, again, as I've mentioned before, the doubles cap situation, you could buy out the last year Dougie Hamilton, Palak comes off the cap. It lines up. It lines up.

You have plenty of cap space to go and make a run at Quinn. I still think that's the most likely scenario. I don't disagree. All I know is right now it's Operation Keep Quinn Hughes Happy All I know is right now it's operation keep Quinn Hughes happy. With the Vancouver Canucks. Um, okay. Anything you want to add before we depart? Anything else on your mind? I'll say this just because he's leading for the Adams right now and he's obviously gonna win I think. But Carberry? Like, I'm endlessly impressed with Spencer Carberry.

Like I don't know, I don't know how everybody missed on hiring this guy before the Capitals got their hands on him. And maybe he was always gonna go there because it's just through the franchise. But there were teams, there were teams where a lot of people pushed internally for Spencer Carberry.

There were teams, I can't obviously never, it never got there, but there were a lot of people. Again, it's one thing, it's like me. It's like any of us in this industry that don't have either hands on the wheel or hands on a pen to actually make the decision.

There's a lot of guys like me talking shit from the back seat, like, oh yeah, they should hire Spencer Carver. Look what he's done. Like he's all the American league and ECHL and all of it. But it's a different thing when you're holding the pen and you're making that decision, but make no mistake about it. Like there were a lot of people at various teams that I've spoken to who say that they lobbied for Spencer Carberry. It just went again. It's so in some,

it's gutsy. It's gutsy to bet on someone that doesn't have an NHL track record. Now, I will come back with something that I was mentioning on the program yesterday and I've mentioned before, there are only three coaches in the history of the NHL that have won Stanley Cups with multiple teams. Okay? That's why I for everyone that says that,

my coach has won a Tommy Gorman, Dick Irvin, and Scottie Bowman, only three in the history of the game. You're much more, the odds are much more in your favor if you have a coach who hasn't won a Stanley Cup. Then bring in someone who has won a Stanley Cup. You can discuss or theorize what those reasons may be, but nonetheless, like that's the reality. You can discuss or theorize what those reasons may be, but

nonetheless, like that's the reality. But I'm with you, like, Carberry has been well thought of in the industry by a lot of people for a long time, but something happens when you get the big chair. You start thinking about how am I gonna sell this upstairs? I always talk about the one of the things that's hard, you have to have as a GM now is managing upwards. When you say I wanna hire Spencer Carberry as your coach, a lot of people in organizations say, yeah, right on. But as the manager, you gotta say to yourself,

okay, now I gotta sell this upstairs to Ted. Two things, first of all, you're not doing Peter Lavillette any favors with Mr. LeCouille about guys who win the cup. Three. Two things. First of all, you're not doing Peter Lavillette any favors with the guy who's in the cup. Three. Second of all, second of all, the thing I was going to say about Carberry, and maybe it's on my mind just because I saw this guy recently, but like the last time I felt this

way about a coach was John Cooper. Like the last time I came across a guy who thinks the game a little bit differently, who has insanely good interpersonal skills, who understands his roster, who can speak, who can speak about the game in a way where I want to keep listening. And like last time I felt this way about a guy who came on the scene was Cooper with the lightning. Pause on or rewind to the point you made about communication. To me, that's so much of it.

Like, there are a lot of people that really understand hockey and get it and are excellent X's and O's coaches, understand the game and do all the seminars and are really smart, but for whatever reason, don't have the one piece. And that is the ability to communicate that to people. Right?

Like how many times have you, Pat Quinn used to refer to these players as morning glories. Guys that in the morning would look great at practice, but then the game at night, it'd be like, where did, where did that guy, can't play. What happened? What happened to that guy that used to call him morning? Oh, the guy's a morning glory. Yeah, he's a morning glory. But like there's so many, and that, like that communication piece, Cooper's got it.

Like we all know that by now. And I'm with you on Carberry. Carberry has a way of being able to communicate exactly what he is thinking. And I think the Cooper analogy is an interesting one. They're a good comparison rather. I think, I know we're way long, but like the, he's gonna win the Adams for a lot of reasons, but one of them should be navigating your team

through the insanity of what's happened with Ovechkin this year is something that none of us have experienced. And yet he found a way to harness it. He found a way to maintain focus as much as he could. I think got away from them towards the end a little bit. But I just think he did a remarkable job coaching this team this year. And frankly, we credit with the front office with surrounding Ovechkin

with the talent. Carberry said it himself in the post record breaking press conference. He and his coaches huddled and came up with a thousand ways to try to get OV the record this year. And they spent a lot of time and a lot of gave it a lot of attention away from prying eyes and not looking to get credit for it. But the coaching staff did a really impressive job in helping to, you know, fuel the flame of this record this year and they deserve credit too. Absolutely. Okay, good stuff. Read Greg's latest awards. What? There was a lot there.

There's a lot on that patching button. Fuck me. I like he was there. Thanks Wish. We'll chat. Are you back Tuesday? Do you have anything going inside you next Tuesday that will preclude you from coming on the program next week? Oh man. Yeah. Urology next week. We'll do the other. We'll do the flip it around. All right. Do the B side. Okay.

Very good. Excellent. Well, I will talk to you when we do perhaps Tuesday. Thank you, sir. Be good. The one and only Greg Wachinski from ESPN.com. A lot to get to still here on the program. Thanks so much for hanging in a little bit extra with Greg Wachinski, who was getting

poked and prodded last week. I'm going to get to the end of the show. I'm going to get to the end of the show. I'm going to get to the end of the show. I'm going to get to the end of the show. I'm going to get to the end of the show. I'm going to get to the end of the show. I'm going to get to the end of the show. I'm going to get to the end of the show. I'm going to get to the end of the show. I'm going to get to still here on the program. Thanks so much for hanging in.

A little bit extra with Greg Wyshinski who was getting poked and prodded last week as we find out, or earlier this week rather, as we find out. Zach, as he bellowed, Zach, anything stand out there? Anything you have any questions about? Whether it's things going inside, Greg Wyshinski? We used to do a segment by the way, in the old MVSW days, where Gregg would talk about his favorite foods

and we called it, things Gregg Wyszynski has put in his mouth. Is that tasteless? No, I'm trying to decide which one is more disturbing of things that have been inside Wischinsky or in his mouth. You know, like specifying somehow may be better than it is it, but I don't want to ask any more questions.

I don't want to know anymore about anything that's been inside Wisch. I'm good at that. I am very much opposed to the expanded playoffs thing. I don't like it at all. I don't like expanding. I don't need to kind of touch on too much, but you know, I already gave you my thoughts on expanding the league, and you guys talked about the goaltending and if there's not enough good goaltenders, etc. I thought about something while the show was going on when you guys were having that discussion. I'm okay with continued expansion if the NHL's higher ups, let's call them, have a distinct idea in mind and a goal. And it's probably not something they would ever tell you publicly until that started

to come to fruition. But this is the one way I would be okay with it. Relegation. An A league and a B league and relegation. I know what you mean. That's it. If you get to 34, that's the next stop, right? You're already, in my opinion, stretched real thin here. If they want to keep going and get to 36, that's when I'm

like, nope, you got 20 and you got 16. And that's the way you do it. And then if you really want to get funky with the way you play out the season, and you want to get rid of the All-Star game, but you want to have something competitive and you want to have other things or games or tournaments, that's when you do like the crossovers like they do in Europe with the soccer leagues where you have, I don't know what it's called. So I apologize to anybody who likes soccer and is offended right now, but where like the premier league plays against the B league, C league, D league, et cetera. That's where you start to have those. Cause it doesn't work with NHL to AHL or to Europe. It's just not really like that feasible or

manageable schedule wise travel wise But if you wanted it here, that's where I could see it making sense. Otherwise, I'm good at 32 Show down don't change the playoff Don't expand the playoffs is more so what I should say. Okay, so Here, okay Here's the way go on expansion This is all sort of under the umbrella of and and I'm always reminded of this, and you've heard me say it before, and you're going to hear me say it plenty of times.

The commissioner of the NHL's number one job is, and you can maybe even make the argument it's his only job, franchise value. And franchise is now, for expansion, we're talking two billion. Okay? We're talking $2 billion. Okay? We're talking $2 billion. And the reason that we're at $2 billion is, and one of the main reasons why we're at $2 billion is they changed the expansion draft rules. Right? You look at what Minnesota, Nashville, Columbus had to go through. Like, with all

due respect, nothing. Right? Vegas, successful, right out of the gate. Seattle, they get a team. Next thing you know, they're beating the defending Stanley Cup champions in the first round. Yeah. When they changed the draft and teams were, had the opportunity to be competitive right away, all of a sudden you don't feel like you're thrown away, in Vegas's case, 500 million dollars because, wow, we just made it to the San Laco final. We're one of the more competitive teams in the NHL because the expansion draft allowed for that to happen. What did that do to all those other teams that complained about it?

Like, oh, Vegas is in the final. We haven't been in the final in however many years. Your franchise values grew because all of a sudden now expansion teams, here we are in 2025 and we're saying $2 billion. So the main driver in all of this is, and I understand relegation, oh, if your team is not going to do it, the problem is with expansion, every time a new expansion team is sold, everybody's franchise value rises. And that is the core that is the job the Business of the NHL is for all of these owners to increase the value of their franchises Sure, it's Stanley Cup and selling cup doesn't increase the value of your franchise when you win brand association all these types of things

But the game is increase the value of your franchises Yeah, that's the game. That's where you're not gonna get it. I get it. One of the reasons why you're not gonna get relegation. I get it. You're not gonna pay $2 billion and start in the B-League. That's true, that's true. That does make it difficult.

I'm just like looking at the schedule, or the schedule, the standing, sorry, and being like, okay, you expand. I mean, let's say you go out further to what you already have. The Washington Capitals play, I don't know, the New York Islanders. Is that the first round I want?

Or like, the Islanders and the Red Wings play to figure out who gets in, or the Islanders and the Blue Jackets. And'm like like this is not it this just doesn't do it for me the X-Men playoffs is so in my opinion so perfect right now it's half the league that makes it in now listen I'm from an era. Here we go and gather rounders, honey. I remember when the league was 21 and 16 teams made it. I tell people this. It's like what? Yeah. Like dude, I grew up in Toronto. So for a lot of it, it was both the Adams division and then later the Norris division. And the Norris division and the Norris division was really good it was Toronto

Detroit Minnesota st. Louis Chicago any points you needed to make the playoffs in that division ready I don't know how many games were there at that point I think was seven I think was seventy-eight I think was 78 or maybe 76 60 points you made the playoffs in the Norris division with 60 points that's that's something do we go back to when it was only four teams that didn't make the playoffs? And essentially the regular season meant nothing. You gotta be really bad. Like you had to be really bad in the Norris division not to make the playoffs.

Really, really bad. You had to be awful, Zach. And there were some awful teams. Toronto was one of those teams quite often, but still. Um, okay, we're not going to take people's time here. We got a couple more things to do here. Um, want to get to the games tonight because there's a number of them and a lot of them are intriguing for a couple of different reasons. So, time now for the games of the evening. Uh, the sheet powered by FanDuel, home of the same game Parlay. Make every moment more on FanDuel.

FanDuel, proud to connect fans to the major sports moments that matter to them. Some good games last night. Tonight we have 10. Got Chicago and Boston at TD. Detroit, Florida, face off against each other. We've got the team that's the best at the worst time, the Buffalo Sabres, facing off against the team that everybody's cheering for. Damn it. The Columbus Blue Jackets. Rangers, Islanders.

Which you're hoping when you look at the schedule at the end of the year like, oh man, this one could really mean something here. Carolina, Washington, a Capital One arena. I want to get to Winnipeg, Dallas here in a couple of seconds. And I have one question for you. Does anything happen tonight to Jalen Chatfield? Carolina, Washington, a Capital One arena. I wanna get to Winnipeg Dallas here in a couple of seconds. And I have one question for you. Does anything happen tonight to Jalen Chatfield? Yes, I think so. If so, who is it? I think the caps respond.

Who does it? Is it Tom Wilson? Or is it like my idea that I mentioned at the top of the show, like, all right, kid. Or the kid just does it on his own and Ryan Leonard goes out there and says, I'm gonna show that I wanna be part of this team. I kind of get the vibe that Tom Wilson would just say,

like, I'm handling this. Yeah, yeah. So there's not really a debate. There's not a, is someone going to do something within the room at least. Ryan Leonard is not thinking, ah, you know what, I'll be the hero tonight. Everybody knows.

Tom's got it. Tom's gonna handle this thing. Tom's got this one. North Toronto Tom. That's just the assumption I make. That's how I feel about the type of guy he is and like what he means to that room and just him being like, this one's on me. Vancouver Colorado Vancouver out

officially the news today Nathan McKinnon shut down for the remainder of the season. Nathis and Gerard return for Colorado in that one. Nashville and Utah Utah eliminated officially yesterday so they joined a lonely club. Seattle facing off against Vegas at T-Mobile, Anaheim and LA. We talked a lot about Darcy Kemper on today's show and I think for good reason he gets a start. But here's one scenario that I'm really curious about. So the Winnipeg Jets face off against the Dallas Stars tonight, American Airlines Center. If the Dallas Stars win regulation, they close the gap for first to two. The mission here is stay away from Colorado in the first round.

So let me give you a scenario here. Let me just point something out quickly. So we have Winnipeg and Dallas facing off against each other. Here's the remaining schedule for both. For the Winnipeg Jets after tonight, it's Chicago, Edmonton, Anaheim. For Dallas, it's Utah, Detroit, Nashville. Okay? So for Dallas, they have an easy schedule. Yeah. For Winnipeg, they got the Hawks and they had the Ducks. Ducks are still tough out. And the Edmonton Oilers.

As injury-preg is a new- Easy schedule as well. You got Edmonton, like, you beat the Blues last night. You beat your boy Robert Thomas. If you're Dallas, if you're Dallas and you're tied with two minutes left, do you pull the goalie? Because you don't want to give Winnipeg a point. You both got three games. Look at your schedules. Winnipeg could run the table. You'll need to run the table.

Two minutes left. Tie game. Dallas, Winnipeg tonight. If it gets to overtime, Winnipeg automatically gets a point. Do you pull the goalie? You know, I think you do, but that said, I thought that was going to happen in Detroit, Montreal the other day there was three and a half minutes left Detroit was down 3-1

correct me if I'm wrong on that but I think it's 3-1 yeah final yeah okay so maybe it was like 2-1 and there's a couple empty nets or something but it was tight anyways up point I was anticipating McClellan pulling goalie there early, because you needed desperately to win that game against Montreal and you ideally win it in regulation. So I thought it was going to come early. Not only did that not happen, but it was like late late that the goalie was pulled, if anything, and sitting there going, what the hell is Todd doing right now because there was It was like you needed the points or you were done and they did not pull the goalie

I think that there's a like a very strong possibility that happens tonight Jeff I Don't think it's a guaranteed that it does is what I would say because I just saw where I saw it was Dallas needs this. You want a shot at getting first in the division. Here's your chance. You need to beat Winnipeg in regulation. You can't give them a point because even and even if you win, you're two points back. And you both have one easy and one easier schedule. And it doesn't hurt you to lose in reg.

It doesn't. Like, you're not going to get caught on the other side of this, is what I'm trying to say. No, you're not. So the downside to this is minimal, unless you're going to lose every game for the rest of the season and, you know, miracles. I don't even know. You're fine. But it's like you're good.

You're okay. You're good. You're six points up on Colorado. You're good. You're good. You're fine. Yeah. And McKinnon's out.

I think we see it. Pulled the goalie in a tie game. Watch for it tonight. Alright. We kept you long today. Apologies. We'll give your teacher a note. We apologize for your...

for being late to wherever you have to go next. What was that Mitch Hedberg line or your big Mitch Hagerberg guy about fishermen that catch fish but then throw them back? They didn't really want to catch the fish. They just wanted to make the fish late of something. All right. Thanks for joining our little act today. Much appreciated. Thanks to Greg Wyshynski from ESPN who stopped by on a Thursday. Normally it's a Tuesday encounter. He'll be back next Tuesday, of course.

Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Appreciate the attention. Appreciate the likes. Appreciate the subscriptions as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 10 games on the board tonight. Enjoy whatever you may. We're back tomorrow with Berkey. He's had a couple of days off, a couple of weeks off, rather for various reasons. Berkey returns tomorrow.

So get your questions in. The sheet at thenationnetwork.com. Also for the crispy inbox. The sheet at thenationnetwork.com. Have a great rest of your day. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Don't forget, oh no, no morning Cup of Hockey tomorrow, because it's Friday.

Daily Face Off live at noon and then our little act here. Three o'clock Eastern, me, Zach, and the gym behind me. Got it? Got it. Talk to you. This week, every day, this month I can't get out my head Lost all ambitions day to day Guess I can call it a ride I went to the dark man

He tried to give me a little medicine I'm like, nah man, that's fine I'm not against those methods, but no It's me, myself, and this gon' be fixed in my mind I do wanna break it I turned on the music I do wanna break it I turned on the music

But you turn up, down, loud and then you're sometimes losing Helping on the days that went wrong