0:01

I'm Ryan Lambert

0:03

from Elite Prospects.

0:14

I'm Sean McEnally from The Athletic. And

0:17

he's back. Folks, we got

0:19

him back. We saved him. He

0:21

was in danger for a while there, but now... I

0:24

had to go last week without me. Everything followed

0:26

the pieces completely. Yeah,

0:29

it was a fucking terrible show. And

0:32

I think we all know who to blame here, you

0:34

know? Yeah. I get

0:36

you. Who'd you get to replace me? Just

0:38

some random idiot or...? I

0:42

mean, not an

0:44

idiot per se, but definitely a fool.

0:47

Alright. You know what I mean?

0:50

Yeah. Like there's a difference. Fool with

0:52

an E on the end kind of deal? Yeah. I get

0:54

you. That's exactly right. So

0:57

yeah, let's just get right into

0:59

it. I saw this news yesterday. This was really

1:02

making me laugh. The

1:04

Board of Governors meeting is going on right now.

1:06

It feels like almost nothing's going to happen down

1:08

there. Everything's going great, man. There's

1:10

no need to change anything. No.

1:13

Look, I know that. You don't have to explain it to me, you

1:15

know? But yeah,

1:17

so one of

1:20

the few big pieces of news, I guess, to

1:22

come out of all this is that there's

1:25

apparently going to be like an Amazon series next

1:27

year following 10 to

1:30

12, I believe Chris Johnston said, of

1:32

the league's biggest stars, like behind the scenes

1:34

and things like that. You're kind

1:37

of doing, you know, Netflix drive

1:39

to survive and whatever the tennis one

1:41

is. I

1:44

think that's the idea. That is the

1:46

idea. I saw a lot of people

1:48

being very excited about this. And

1:51

I don't want to... Okay. I'm

1:53

not going to dump on that, but

1:56

I'm firmly in the, like... I'll

2:00

believe it when I see it from

2:02

the NHL. Cause we've seen, like we've had

2:04

this with

2:06

the, with the winter classics. We

2:08

had like the Leafs one with

2:10

the playoffs. That

2:13

was pretty good. I thought though, I never watched it.

2:16

Yeah. I, you know, I

2:18

get that, but it was pretty good.

2:20

It was pretty good. Um, but none

2:22

of them have ever caught hold in like

2:27

any sort of way, the, the

2:29

way some of those other sports have like,

2:31

no, I mean, or whatever reason, none of

2:33

them have ever clicked with the public outside

2:37

of diehard occupant. Well,

2:40

I think, I think, I

2:43

think there was definitely some genuine

2:45

interest in the winter classic one

2:47

back in whatever, like 2012, you

2:51

know, I think people enjoyed those. What was

2:53

the first one of those today was, was

2:55

it the capital capitals, capitals penguins, or was

2:57

that the second one? Yeah. I feel like

3:00

the, that the capitalist was the first one

3:02

I remember. I don't know

3:04

if they did one for like Sabers

3:06

penguins or anything like that, but they

3:08

like Bruce Boudreaux with the wing sauce

3:10

and Mike Green on his

3:12

little scooter, I do remember that. Yeah.

3:16

I think that was the, I'm pretty sure that was the first

3:18

one, but, but

3:21

like even, even the one about like the Rangers

3:23

they did when the Rangers had the winter classic

3:26

and all that, I feel

3:30

like that, that was like people were talking about that

3:32

people were enjoying that. Um,

3:35

but I think Greg pointed

3:37

this out yesterday. What happened was on the

3:40

HBO one, it was good

3:42

because the NHL could like object to things, but

3:44

they didn't produce it. Like they could be like,

3:46

don't put that in there. Um,

3:51

but then on

3:53

the subsequent ones, like I think they did

3:55

a showtime version or something like that, the

3:58

NHL was like a producer on it. it. And

4:00

so it immediately got like boring

4:02

because they were trying to protect their business

4:05

interests or whatever. Yeah. And

4:07

then it, I'll say this,

4:09

the, there, there was not, not

4:11

controversy about the Amazon Leafs one,

4:15

you know, because there, I don't know if you know

4:17

about this, but like they showed

4:19

Jimmy Veazey, like getting sent to the miners or

4:22

something like that. And it was uncomfortable.

4:26

Okay. And so like

4:28

there was a lot of, oh, they put Jimmy

4:30

Veazey in a position where he looked bad or

4:32

whatever. And I didn't agree with that take, but

4:34

like, you know, there was something

4:36

approaching controversy about it. Okay. And

4:39

I gotta tell you, controversy

4:41

is good for these kinds of shows. I

4:44

don't, you know, I don't

4:46

feel like I'm speaking out of term when I

4:48

say that, you know, controversy creates cash as a

4:50

wise one. Yeah. One of the

4:52

wisest men in the history of the business once

4:54

said it's true

4:56

though. Like it, it, it made it

4:58

interesting there because something compelling happened. Yeah.

5:01

And in the NHL that

5:03

leads to controversy. We can't have anything compelling on

5:05

the screen. We, we

5:07

gotta have, we gotta have these like, uh, these

5:10

fascinating videos of, uh, of, uh, of

5:12

a player's son reading the

5:14

starting lineup and everyone's like, this is the

5:16

coolest thing in the world. This is so

5:18

great. So

5:21

I look, man, I would love to see it work. That

5:25

would be fantastic. I mean, I've

5:27

never, you watched the, uh, the racing

5:29

one. No, I

5:31

don't. I haven't watched it, but I

5:34

have heard about it and I've heard

5:37

people have become fans because

5:39

of that show. That

5:42

is the crucial part. That is

5:44

the crucial part. That show is apparently so

5:47

good that people are just like on a,

5:49

on a Saturday morning or whatever, tweeting out

5:51

like Ferrari's in the mud and you're like,

5:53

well, I don't know what the fuck you're

5:55

talking about. Shut up. You

5:57

know, but like they all have opinions on like. who

6:00

the best

6:02

race team is in this. And I'm just like,

6:05

I can't relate to that, but congratulations.

6:08

I'm glad you enjoy it. That's

6:10

extremely not for me. But

6:13

it's all because of this stupid show. So why

6:15

shouldn't the NHL do it? But

6:18

it does depend on, I don't

6:20

know that Ferrari gets to say

6:22

what goes into the show. You

6:24

know what I mean? I saw

6:26

that movie, Ferrari. That was pretty good. Adam

6:31

Driver's in it. Michael Mann

6:33

directed this one. Do you remember this? Your

6:35

name is Adam Driver. You kind

6:37

of have to be. He doesn't

6:39

really do that much driving in the movie. Now he

6:41

should have been in Baby Driver, is

6:44

what should have happened. He

6:46

was in a different movie about a baby. It was called Annette.

6:48

It wasn't very good. Okay. Anyway,

6:54

so again, the thing about this show is

6:57

that it's gonna follow stars and not a team,

6:59

which I think is the

7:02

right call. But

7:07

the question is this. 10

7:09

to 12 NHL stars will be on

7:11

this show. Who are

7:13

the 10 to 12 stars? Because I don't know

7:15

that there are 10 to 12 people that I

7:17

would consider like, I

7:21

mean, obviously there are 10 to 12

7:23

star players, but like star players with

7:25

personality, I don't know where they're getting 10 to 12. You

7:28

know what I mean? Yeah.

7:32

Well, yeah, okay, so let's cast it. That's

7:36

why I bring it up. We've got 10 to 12 and

7:38

nobody can say no. Okay.

7:42

I think the one that immediately

7:45

occurs to everybody is Austin Matthews. Yeah.

7:49

I would admit. Say what you want about him. He

7:53

is one of the best players in the world, and

7:56

he has like famous friends who he can

7:58

get to appear at the NHL. all-star

8:00

game seemingly

8:03

against their will. Sure, yeah.

8:07

You know they're there. You can't say they're not there. And

8:09

I feel like

8:13

you wouldn't also go Marner

8:15

then? No, I mean you just

8:17

on personality, Marner or Nylander could

8:19

both work as well but I

8:22

don't think if you're only doing 10 to 12.

8:25

You don't want to double it and it's the same

8:28

thing with beliefs but

8:30

even beyond that like I'm talking about

8:32

like McDavid and Drycile.

8:34

You don't want to do both I don't

8:37

think. No, I don't think so. So

8:39

that's okay. So Matthews,

8:42

McDavid. Yep. I

8:46

wonder if they do either McKinnon or McCarr. Yeah,

8:48

I think you got to do one of those

8:50

two. But they just

8:52

seem like I don't

8:54

know the perception around that organization and those

8:56

two players I'm just like would

8:59

they do it? Again

9:02

maybe it's like they can't say no thing. I

9:04

think in our world they can't say no. Okay.

9:07

For the purpose of this exercise. Yeah,

9:09

I think that you are not allowed to say no. And

9:12

I don't know which one I go but

9:14

I mean I think McKinnon is

9:19

more interesting than people give him credit

9:21

for and also he's

9:24

got the reputation as being like the

9:26

crazy competitive guy because that's right one

9:28

story about like the you know

9:31

white pastor or whatever it was. Sorry

9:35

I know people like it when I say that word but

9:39

it's I that

9:41

could be a very interesting contrast like

9:44

you could cut from like Auston Matthews

9:46

hanging out with Justin Bieber to Nathan

9:49

McKinnon going to bed at eight o'clock at

9:51

night because he's got

9:53

a game the next day. Yeah and I

9:55

think that could be fun. And

9:58

he's speaking of white past. David

10:01

Pasternak. Nicely done. Thank you

10:03

so much. Very nicely done. Marcia, is the other

10:05

one that you could do there? Yeah, one of

10:08

the two for sure. Again, like you can't do

10:10

both of them, but one of the two definitely

10:13

makes sense. And I

10:15

think the league would go for the one with the

10:18

crazy hats, you know? Yep. That

10:20

works. Matthew

10:23

Kuchuk is, I think, another obvious

10:25

one. What

10:28

does that bring us to? I think four or five. Five.

10:30

I think we've got five. I

10:33

think we're in trouble here, so. Oh, no.

10:35

We can keep going. I think

10:37

you want to go Jack Hughes. Get a young

10:39

guy. Yeah. I

10:42

think you want to go Conor Bedard to get the

10:45

really young face of the league soon to be

10:47

sort of deal. Yep.

10:55

I would go – do you go

10:57

Pederson or Quinn Hughes out in Vancouver?

11:01

I think

11:03

you go Quinn Hughes probably,

11:05

but like I don't know. Especially

11:08

if you got Jack, that kind of

11:10

gives you an interesting angle. But then

11:12

is that too many Hughes brothers? And then you've

11:14

got to act like we've got to talk about

11:16

Luke? Come on. That's a good point. You

11:20

know what? Let's go Pederson because we'll say

11:22

that like by getting Jack Hughes in, we

11:24

sort of are going to get some Quinn

11:26

Hughes coverage. Yeah. I agree. So

11:29

that brings us to eight. You've

11:34

got to get a goalie. Who's a goalie? Yeah. We

11:36

need goalie. Who's a – could we

11:40

do Shasturkin? I

11:43

don't know. I don't know. Because I mean

11:45

we need a ranger, right? You

11:48

need a ranger. That's right. Yeah. And

11:53

I mean there's a few candidates on the Rangers,

11:55

so – Sure.

11:57

Yeah. huge

12:00

star power and just go Matt Rempe just

12:02

have him. Do

12:07

you think they get Sidney Crosby to do this? I think,

12:09

I mean, I'd Crosby and Old

12:11

Vetchkin. I think you have to, I think you

12:13

have to have Old Vetchkin assuming you can do

12:15

it as he's chasing

12:18

the goals record. I mean, it would be. Hey,

12:20

he's got up to 20 last night. Got up to 20.

12:23

He's going to, that was weird, wasn't it? Like when

12:25

he's like suddenly on your timeline, it's

12:27

like, Old Vetchkin hits 20. And you're like, is

12:30

it December? What? Yeah. Is this, um,

12:34

but yeah, and then yeah, I mean, Crosby, I'm going

12:36

to force Crosby to do it. Okay.

12:39

It's got no choice. I want to see Sidney Crosby.

12:42

I want every candid moment as his

12:44

team dismantles. Yeah.

12:49

And I believe that that's kind of to 11 guys. Oh,

12:53

wow. Yeah. So who's the last one?

12:56

Who's the mystery? I

13:01

have a lot of good players. They

13:03

do. This is going

13:05

to be my answer. If the league is, is

13:08

like a, is pretty hands off, it would

13:11

be fascinating to see someone in Arizona. They

13:13

would never do it in a million years,

13:16

but it would be fucking fascinating

13:18

to see people in Arizona. It

13:21

would be really interesting also to

13:23

see somebody who

13:26

was like expected to be on the

13:28

trade block. Mmm.

13:31

Somebody like a, like a Patrick Kane

13:33

last year sort of deal. Yeah.

13:36

Get to see, like I would love

13:38

to see that. So

13:41

the thing is, apparently it's going to debut

13:43

in the fall. So they must be shooting

13:45

it now. Hmm. And

13:50

I don't know. I don't know that there's anyone, you

13:52

think they're going to do like season playoffs or do

13:54

you think it starts in, I don't know how long

13:56

it starts in the fall. Something around like this, but.

13:59

Well, I mean, they were doing. the Winter Classic

14:01

one, you know, kind of week off. Yeah,

14:03

so I mean, I don't... Back in the old days. They

14:05

should... I straight

14:08

up don't know how Drive to Survive works. Yeah. I

14:11

know that like the only show I watched that's

14:13

kind of like this is that the one with

14:15

Ryan Reynolds' soccer team. And

14:17

that runs a full year behind. Oh,

14:20

okay. So,

14:22

like the one, the season that just end,

14:25

the season of the show that just ended

14:27

a few months ago, they were like, damn,

14:29

I can't wait for us to get promoted.

14:31

I hope it happens. And meanwhile,

14:33

you can just like Google it and they go, oh

14:35

yeah, they got promoted very easily, it turns out. And

14:38

so it kind of takes... It makes like, it makes

14:40

it dramatically inert in a lot of ways, you know?

14:44

But I don't

14:46

know, it's still a pretty good show. But

14:50

yeah, I wonder if they're... If

14:54

they're gonna... Like if they're doing it live,

14:56

that's... You know what I mean, not live. That

14:59

would be really difficult. But

15:01

if they're doing it kind of like, as

15:04

the season goes on next

15:06

year, that would be fucking cool. Yeah.

15:10

That would be... I don't know. Yeah. I

15:14

mean, the Leafs one was relatively... Like...

15:19

Yeah, that came out like kind of... Wasn't it?

15:22

Yeah. Like I want to say kind of

15:24

end of summer the Leafs one came out. I

15:27

might be remembering wrong. That might

15:29

just be when I watched it. You

15:31

know? Sure. Who

15:34

do we not want to see on this?

15:36

Is there anyone that we're like, yeah, they're

15:38

gonna try to put... Like

15:42

it feels like if the league has a say

15:44

in this, like, are they gonna continue to try

15:46

to push Trevor Zegre's on us? Which

15:48

now that I say it, that

15:53

could be. At least he

15:55

is a guy that maybe is in

15:59

trade talks. on a struggling team. You know

16:01

that? He dates famous people. Allegedly.

16:04

He's dating a famous person, allegedly. I

16:07

feel like I saw that that's happening, yeah.

16:09

Good for Trevor. Yeah.

16:13

So yeah, I mean, you know, we'll uh...

16:17

I'm not not excited for it. I think this can

16:19

be good, but also it's

16:21

the NHL, so you do have to take it

16:24

a little bit skeptically. Wouldn't

16:26

mind a Vegas Golden Knight either. Yeah.

16:31

Mark Stone, Jack Eichel. Mark

16:33

Stone, so you could just see him being like, Oh

16:36

no, I'm hurt, and then winking at

16:38

the camera while everybody laughs and twirls

16:41

mustaches. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the

16:43

most evil thing that

16:45

ever happened in the NHL. Which

16:47

fan base is going to be most insufferable

16:50

about not having somebody picked

16:52

for the show? And

16:54

why is it... Oh my god. Yeah,

16:59

and I mean, when you got big stars like they got,

17:01

you know, you got... It

17:03

would have to... It would take some kind of a conspiracy

17:05

to not have a Canadian on the show. It really would.

17:09

Um, yeah, I

17:12

don't know, like somebody from just like kind of a

17:14

middling team, like, I don't

17:16

want to pick on them, but like if they were like,

17:18

Oh, we're doing Bo Horvat, you're just like, I don't... I

17:20

mean, the Patrick Woz it all might make it interesting, but...

17:24

Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's a few

17:26

teams where I'm like, I kind of want to see

17:28

the coach or the GM more than... That's...

17:31

Yeah, I mean, you know, at that point

17:33

you're getting into, again,

17:35

like original, like, HBO version.

17:40

Remember when Phil Kessel said, Good

17:42

one, Randy? Oh, pretty funny. So

17:44

funny. Pretty funny?

17:50

Anyway, and by

17:52

the way, like 40% of our listeners

17:54

are going, I don't know what the fuck they're

17:56

talking about. Yeah, that's... Because we're old.

17:58

Yeah, but that's... I feel like... like that 50

18:00

years ago about the average for most things that

18:02

we discuss like we're yeah for sure anyway

18:08

yeah I'm looking forward to it that'll be a

18:10

good show I am pretty

18:13

this way I will be waiting on the reviews I

18:15

am NOT gonna pencil this one into my viewing

18:18

lineup but I

18:20

would love to know that first round goes on I

18:23

would love to see it be a hit but yeah

18:25

absolutely I'm be we

18:28

yeah see it be a hit would be

18:31

the I mean imagine cuz like f1's

18:34

having enough of a moment that

18:36

like they started making an f1

18:38

video game yeah f1 my understanding is

18:41

the f1 has been like just

18:44

like an enormous unqualified gangbusters yes now

18:46

have any of the others been I

18:48

thought I saw that like the tennis

18:50

one was sort of yeah didn't

18:52

they do it I think I just read that

18:54

like a golf one got canceled or something golf

18:56

okay maybe that was the one I was thinking

18:58

of words did I think I think people like

19:00

the tennis one yeah okay so

19:03

it's not like you know it just just

19:05

doing it doesn't certainly doesn't guarantee anything and

19:07

but I like

19:11

that they're trying better

19:15

than them not trying you know that

19:19

is true but let's find out how much

19:22

they actually try yeah

19:24

again you know cautious optimism let's

19:26

say what this one that's the name of the game

19:28

on this show you know we're always we're

19:30

always very positive we're all going on with the we're

19:32

always looking at the the absolute

19:36

absolute why why would anything bad happen

19:39

in the NHL why should it

19:41

yeah yeah absolutely okay

19:44

let's move on to what I feel like is kind

19:46

of the only real big news of the week here

19:49

it's yet another round of

19:51

relocation slash expansion roundup

19:54

and this time they've

19:56

been not gonna believe who's involved Yeah,

20:02

so I was, as

20:04

people know, away on vacation. I

20:06

was not off the grid in

20:08

any sense, but

20:10

I was not following things as closely,

20:13

perhaps as I

20:16

normally would. Would you please explain to me what

20:18

Anson Carter is doing in the middle of all this?

20:24

Yeah, he

20:28

is part of a ownership group, the kind

20:30

of public face of an ownership group, that

20:33

depending on who you believe, either

20:36

did or did not really have

20:38

the go-ahead from the league like

20:40

the Salt Lake City

20:42

group does, to get out there

20:44

and say, by the way, we're

20:46

interested in getting ourselves an NHL

20:48

team. How do you guys feel about that? I

20:52

saw some people saying this caught the league

20:54

by surprise. I saw some people saying there

20:57

was the kind of tacit endorsement you might

20:59

expect. And so

21:02

the idea is that they

21:04

would get a team, and

21:06

if I can pull from the article,

21:10

the AP article about this, where

21:14

is it? The group is proposing a

21:16

new Frank Geary designed arena – nice

21:20

touch there on Frank, getting Frank Geary involved?

21:22

Wow – that

21:24

would be constructed at a redevelopment of

21:26

the North Point Mall. And

21:29

then blah, blah, blah, it would be not just

21:31

the arena, it would be like a whole thing.

21:35

The proposed redevelopment would include a

21:37

stadium that could be used for

21:39

soccer and lacrosse, a performing arts

21:41

venue, an e-sports center, practice

21:44

facilities along with retail, dining, hotel

21:46

and residential elements. Insurance giant

21:49

New York Life would be a partner.

21:59

I mean... I

22:02

get why the kind of

22:06

instinct is to roll your eyes at this because

22:10

it hasn't worked twice. Yeah.

22:14

But… I will say one

22:17

of the times it didn't work was like

22:19

1980. It was a long time ago. It

22:21

was in the 70s and back then. I

22:24

mean I think you just – you write that

22:26

off completely. Yeah, 100%. Now

22:30

the other time it failed was

22:34

like 12 years ago. So… Right.

22:39

I don't know. It

22:43

feels a little quick to be going back to it.

22:45

Maybe not. I mean Minnesota got a team back quicker

22:47

than this. A lot quicker,

22:49

yeah. Winnipeg wasn't quite –

22:53

Winnipeg was around the same timeline, assuming this is

22:55

something that isn't going to happen

22:57

immediately. It's

23:02

a big market. I mean if it worked in Atlanta, that would

23:04

be great for the league. Yeah. It's

23:07

just that this is – unlike with the

23:09

TV series, we're like hey, if it works,

23:11

great. And if it doesn't work, at least

23:14

you tried. There's no at least you tried when

23:16

you're talking about franchise relocation

23:18

and or expansion. Failure

23:21

is disaster. For sure,

23:23

yes, of course. I

23:29

guess we see – there's so much

23:32

smoke around this. I

23:35

feel like it was – was it Kevin Weeks

23:38

was kind of the first to mention Atlanta.

23:41

And I think a lot of folks were like, oh, come on.

23:43

No way. They're going to do Houston. They'll do

23:45

– go on down the list. But

23:48

it just keeps coming up. Sure

23:51

does. Well,

23:53

it sure sounds like there's something there, which

23:55

doesn't guarantee anything, but there's

23:58

something there. Well, the other – thing that

24:00

I feel like has been reported less in

24:04

part because like you know Anson

24:06

Carter, that guy used to play in the NHL, he's on TV

24:08

you know. But here's the thing, Atlanta

24:12

businessman Vernon Krause has

24:14

proposed an 18,000 seat arena as part

24:17

of a massive mixed-use development in southern Forsyth

24:19

County less than 10 miles north of the

24:21

arena proposal by Carter's group. Last week Krause

24:23

told WSB TV that he and his wife

24:26

recently visited New York and met with Betman

24:28

and Daly to discuss a possible expansion team.

24:33

So it looks like there's two

24:36

interested parties here, which

24:39

to me you know makes

24:42

it even more like

24:44

this isn't just like Anson Carter going

24:46

that'd be nice this is two different

24:50

would-be ownership groups going team please

24:53

and that makes me go well

24:55

this is fucking happening. Yeah it

24:58

definitely creates emergency if

25:01

there's a sense of coverage. The league probably loves

25:03

that. Yeah absolutely. Now

25:05

you got two people I don't know I

25:07

don't know how it works do you like bid

25:10

against one another for like at the

25:12

expansion fee you know what I

25:14

mean like if whatever

25:17

Seattle maybe was like a one was

25:19

only ever like a one bid team

25:21

or Vegas right yeah if

25:24

I don't know how it works like

25:26

I'm not I wasn't really paying attention to

25:28

the NHL when they were doing expansion

25:31

in the late 90s early 2000s so like did multiple

25:34

ownership groups try to get like the

25:37

predators there there were in some cases

25:39

multiple ownership groups in the same market

25:42

but I think they sort of got weeded

25:44

out through the process before okay that makes

25:46

you yeah yeah because

25:48

you know you've got to check into

25:51

to everything you know what's the arena

25:53

plan what's the what's the group look

25:55

like it's it's

25:57

significantly easier to put your hand up

26:00

at this stage of the game than it

26:03

is to still be there at the end. But

26:06

yeah, I mean, if there were two

26:08

viable groups of viable plans, then presumably

26:10

the NHL just sits down and says,

26:12

all right, we're going to start naming

26:15

really high numbers until somebody... Absolutely.

26:18

So here it is. Both arena

26:20

proposals are along the Georgia 400 freeway

26:22

that cuts through Atlanta's sprawling northern

26:24

suburbs. Studies have shown

26:27

the area contains a huge number of

26:29

potential NHL fans and would mark a

26:31

striking change from the arenas that the

26:33

city's previous team called home, both downtown.

26:37

And this is, I

26:39

think, the under-considered aspect

26:41

of this, is that,

26:44

you know, as

26:46

much as the NHL would like to reach a

26:49

different audience than it has right now, in addition

26:52

to, of course, keeping that current audience, this

26:57

is a sport that is primarily

26:59

enjoyed by white people. And

27:02

white people, I would say, you

27:05

know, stereotypically with

27:08

like some connection to northern cities, you

27:10

know, like, oh, snowbirds go to

27:12

all the Florida Panthers games or that kind of thing,

27:14

you know what I mean? And

27:19

the northern suburbs is, to my

27:21

understanding, where a lot of the

27:23

white people in Atlanta or

27:26

in the Atlanta area live. And

27:28

I think to some extent, it

27:32

was kind of the same problem that like the Coyotes

27:34

had in Glendale, where it was just like, oh, I'm

27:36

not going all the way over there. And

27:39

especially to watch the fucking Thrashers, who can blame anybody

27:41

for not wanting to watch that team, right? So

27:44

the idea that you would put a team maybe 20,

27:47

30 minutes closer to people, to

27:50

your primary audience, I guess you would say,

27:52

I think

27:56

that carries a little more weight for

27:58

the NHL than... Let's try it again

28:01

where the Hawks play. Yeah,

28:06

it certainly

28:08

could. I'd love

28:11

to see it

28:14

work. And

28:17

I don't think the fact that it didn't work

28:19

before precludes

28:22

it working, because it is a big

28:24

market. It has been an enormous market. Not

28:27

to be simplistic, but

28:30

it's been working amazing in Vegas. If

28:32

it can work in Vegas, it can work in Atlanta.

28:35

Now, you could very

28:38

easily get yourself in trouble following that line

28:40

of logic and starting

28:42

to think that because it

28:45

worked great in Vegas, it is

28:47

so far working fine in Seattle. But

28:50

even in Seattle in year three, you don't feel

28:52

like it's quite a runaway hit. No,

28:57

and I mean a big part of that is

28:59

Vegas was instantly good. Well, that's

29:01

it, right? I mean, is it just all

29:03

it comes down to? And

29:05

of course, famously, Atlanta, the

29:07

Thrashers were never good. Not

29:10

once, yeah. Did

29:12

they ever win a playoff game? I don't think so. They

29:14

got swept in the moment. I think they got swept, yeah.

29:18

So I mean, there's an

29:20

awful lot of people who would say, hey,

29:22

man, put any team,

29:25

give it 11 years, never win

29:27

a playoff game, and show me the success.

29:30

Show me the market where that's going. 100%.

29:33

Absolutely. And you could argue that there isn't

29:35

one. So we said

29:37

throw the 70s out the door as

29:39

far as the Atlanta Flames. Maybe

29:41

you throw the Thrashers out too, just based on – of

29:45

course, they came in in

29:48

the era where expansion teams were given

29:50

nothing. And

29:52

they were unable to dig their

29:55

way out of that nothing. But

29:58

I don't – at the same time, I

30:00

don't know. think anyone's being unreasonable to be a

30:02

little bit skeptical here. Totally

30:04

agree. Yeah, kind of goes

30:06

without saying to me that you

30:08

should be skeptical of this. But

30:13

also again, just like the

30:16

reasons to be skeptical is not, I mean

30:19

Atlanta, come on, you know, like that's

30:21

not why you should be skeptical. You

30:23

should be skeptical just because, you know,

30:30

we don't know about Seattle. There was that

30:32

article that was like, oh, if they don't

30:34

start, you know, winning again

30:36

soon, this could be

30:39

a problem for the market. Yeah,

30:41

you know. And like, I don't think

30:43

the fact that the NHL was there

30:45

recently, like

30:47

that could hurt

30:51

the perception locally a little bit, you

30:53

know, that now you would hope

30:56

that there are some fans who

30:59

love hockey in Atlanta who are still there

31:01

going, oh, this is great. It's back. You

31:03

know, I'm on board, you know, maybe you're

31:05

not starting from zero the way it may

31:07

have been in Vegas. But

31:09

there's also gonna be some people there going like,

31:11

didn't we have this already? I thought

31:14

I heard that we had this and it sucked and nobody liked

31:16

it. Why is it back? I'm not even gonna give it a

31:18

shot. Whereas, you know,

31:20

Vegas, in addition to being good, the

31:23

NHL did kind of stumble into that

31:26

first mover advantage of

31:28

being the first in a

31:30

wave of sports. Yeah, that's a city. And

31:33

so, I don't know, it

31:35

is gonna be a challenge. But hey, look, get

31:38

two groups seriously looking

31:42

at it. Then again,

31:45

there's some fact that there's a second.

31:47

Yeah. Yeah. And for the

31:49

record, according to the

31:51

latest Nielsen data, Atlanta

31:54

is the seventh largest media market

31:56

in the United States. Right.

31:59

New York, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas,

32:02

Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Washington, DC, and

32:11

the San Francisco Bay Area. I

32:14

thought Arizona was higher, wasn't it? Phoenix

32:17

is 11. There

32:20

you go. I'm trying to think or

32:22

look and see if there are any other in the... There's

32:25

actually a few in the top 20 that don't have NHL teams. Orlando

32:29

is 16. Dayton...

32:33

I'm sorry, Canton, Ohio, Cleveland,

32:35

Akron, that kind of thing. 19

32:39

and Sacramento 20. Where's Salt

32:41

Lake City in all of this? Salt Lake City is

32:43

27. Indianapolis 25.

32:46

Portland, Oregon 23. Charlotte

32:49

21. Those seem to be the

32:51

other really big ones. It's

32:59

all possible though. That's what I'm... You

33:01

know. But

33:03

I guess we should talk about this. Since

33:06

we're talking about Atlanta and

33:09

maybe getting a team via expansion, maybe getting a team

33:11

via relocation, we got to talk about the team that

33:13

might be relocating. Elliot Friedman

33:15

over the weekend said, relocation

33:18

is on the table for

33:23

the Arizona Coyotes. And again,

33:26

I get that it's an instant eye roll because we

33:28

feel like we've heard this a hundred times, but I

33:31

don't feel like we have heard somebody

33:33

as plugged in as

33:35

Elliot say, okay, it's actually on the table

33:38

now. That's exactly

33:40

right, yeah. The

33:43

thing that Elliot's been saying for

33:46

months about this, I feel like,

33:48

is that everybody

33:50

with the league is trying to be super cautious

33:53

about this because they don't want to create something

33:55

that could come back to bite them in a

33:58

lawsuit if like... the

34:00

coyote's owners are like they fucked us out of the

34:02

team or whatever. Right. And

34:05

so with that caution

34:08

comes, ah, well, I mean, they're trying

34:11

to figure it out. They're trying to make it, you know,

34:13

that kind of thing, which you want to talk about eye

34:15

rolling. Right.

34:19

Um, but that's why

34:21

they're being cautious for, for lawsuit reasons.

34:23

But the fact that Elliot is saying,

34:26

you know, it's kind of now or

34:28

never with these guys, that is

34:31

significant. Um,

34:36

so the, the, the big development

34:38

with this, uh, this week is

34:40

that, um, a plot of

34:42

land that the coyotes were interested in is

34:45

being put up for bid in, uh,

34:48

the North Phoenix area and,

34:52

um, that's

34:55

going to be like a month's long

34:57

process. Apparently the auction must be advertised

34:59

for 10 weeks. And

35:01

then there is no, uh, date set for the

35:04

auction at this point, but that obviously puts you

35:06

in late May, early June. And

35:10

if the coyotes lose that

35:12

bid feels like that's

35:15

going to be just about it for them in Phoenix.

35:19

It's, it's kind of a fascinating situation,

35:21

right? Because it's

35:25

one thing to say like, Hey, there's

35:27

a referendum or there's a city council vote

35:30

where it's kind of out of your hands, but

35:34

in this case, an auction. I

35:38

mean, will, will there be

35:40

other bidders how motivated are the,

35:42

I mean, in, in, my understanding is

35:44

this is the coyotes basically hand

35:47

selecting what they want and going to the

35:49

city saying, please put this up for auction.

35:52

So you would imagine that there's

35:56

somebody else isn't going to swoop in and be

35:58

like that happens to be. But

36:04

what's their number? How high can they go?

36:06

Clearly, they're doing this in

36:08

an attempt to get good value on what

36:11

they're going to spend. I don't

36:14

know. Yeah,

36:16

so part of it is definitely

36:18

– they

36:22

aren't necessarily the only bidder. And the

36:24

way this works is apparently

36:28

they'll also say – I think it's

36:30

the state is putting up the auction. And

36:34

so people with the state government would be

36:36

like, okay, but you

36:38

don't just get to buy

36:40

this land and put a nuclear waste dump on it.

36:42

You know what I mean? You have to

36:45

present us with a plan for what

36:47

you're going to do with this land. Better not

36:49

let go of standings then. I

36:53

could cook their asses. So

36:59

yeah, obviously

37:01

I don't think they'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't

37:03

put an arena there. I don't

37:05

think that would be the case. But again, other

37:08

people who might bid for it might

37:10

have something

37:14

to say about the process, I guess, is

37:16

what I'm trying to say. It's

37:19

not just like the road is

37:21

being cleared for the Arizona coyotes to buy this

37:23

land. But

37:26

the thing that Eliot said over the weekend

37:28

too, and I think this is important, is

37:31

the perception around Morello,

37:34

the owner of the team,

37:36

is, as you can imagine,

37:38

insanely bad. And

37:41

he's a billionaire who doesn't

37:44

want people to think he's a fucking joke, so

37:48

he is highly motivated to

37:50

make this work for

37:53

more than just the

37:55

financial reasons. He's highly motivated to make

37:57

this work to show that he's a

37:59

good guy. that he can do it.

38:02

Wow. A billionaire with a

38:04

massive ego and thin skin. Isn't

38:07

that crazy? Who would have guessed? Yeah. Um,

38:13

but that is, that is the other thing that

38:15

they might, they might go a little crazy on the

38:18

bid, not just. But what is

38:20

crazy is crazy for them? Like, you

38:23

know, 50% of fair value. Yeah,

38:27

I don't know. Is, are they, is their whole

38:29

financial plan that they get this thing at a

38:31

20% of fair

38:33

value and if somebody else comes

38:35

in and bids 25, it blows them right out of

38:37

the water or, or not,

38:39

but it is, it's fascinating. And I don't know what

38:41

the mechanism of the auction is. Yeah.

38:44

But I mean, it could just literally be

38:47

a case of, all right, man, if we don't

38:50

put our hand up for this next

38:52

round, we

38:55

lose the team. Yeah. The uncut gems

38:57

auction scene. That's it.

38:59

You know, that's what I'm assuming. I'm assuming there's going to

39:01

be an auctioneer. He's going to do the fast talking thing.

39:05

Um, they're going to, everyone's going to have paddles.

39:09

That's what I'm looking for. I'm going to be very

39:11

disappointed. Yeah. I'm going to be very disappointed. John Hirsch

39:13

is going to be there. Yep. Kevin

39:15

Darnatt. Mm-hmm. Um,

39:18

but yeah, that's, uh, who

39:21

knows? Who knows? I,

39:27

I think the other thing that's probably tough about

39:29

this is that, again,

39:31

based on the dates and everything, Oh, when's

39:33

all this taking place? Oh, during the Stanley

39:36

cup, uh, playoffs, like during the conference finals

39:38

and maybe the cup final. Cool. I bet

39:40

the league's psyched about that one.

39:47

Yep. One other thing

39:49

that, uh, we got to talk about with this,

39:51

this is from Connecticut insider, and this was published

39:53

yesterday. Governor Ned Lamont says

39:56

we are ready. And

39:58

he's talking about the coyotes. We're

40:00

ready. We're ready to do Excel. Referring

40:02

to the Excel Center venue in Hartford

40:04

where... That's right, the Hartford Whalers played

40:06

in like 1996 or whatever. We're

40:12

doing it. I

40:16

don't know if you know this, but they had a little song

40:18

days to play after goals. It

40:20

was quite catchy. That's right. This

40:24

is in the article. Last

40:27

May, the news broke that Lamont was

40:29

meeting with the NHL commissioner about the

40:31

potential relocation of the coyotes during a

40:34

wave of nostalgia. That's the important part

40:36

here, I guess. Hockey fervor among Whalers

40:38

fans. The meeting came amid a $100

40:40

million renovation project

40:42

at the Excel Center. Then

40:47

there's another really good quote here.

40:49

Michael Framus, maybe, the

40:52

executive director of the Capital Region Development

40:54

Authority said last June, we

40:57

can make this work. Is it going to be

40:59

the top of the line top shelf, sexiest building

41:01

in the NHL? No, it's an old lady. You

41:03

can make it work. God.

41:07

That is... Oh my God.

41:09

Is that not such a great quote? That is

41:11

one of... That might be an early

41:14

top 10 NHL quote.

41:17

That is... I

41:20

think we've all had that friend at the bar around 40 times.

41:25

We can make it work. We can make

41:28

it work, he says. Yeah, absolutely,

41:30

brother. That's it.

41:32

Screw it. I'm 100% on board. You're out of

41:34

luck, Atlanta. We're going back to work. Critically, I

41:36

feel like that's what the NHL wants to hear,

41:38

too. Is this arena good? No,

41:40

it kind of sucks, actually. But, you know what?

41:43

It's an old lady. But we

41:45

can make it work. It's really

41:50

sick. Yeah, look, as

41:52

a guy who lives half

41:55

an hour, 40 minutes from the XL Center, I'd

41:57

be happy with this. So

42:01

how old is the XL Center? And what

42:03

did it use? Like, did this used to

42:05

be… It

42:08

was the Wailers Arena in the 9th. The Civic Center

42:11

or something? I can't remember. It was, oh, what? Wow.

42:14

Right on. Let's look up when the

42:16

XL Center… Good job by XL really jumping on

42:18

those naming rights when… Strayk,

42:21

while the iron's hot? That's

42:23

right. Capacity

42:26

for hockey, 14-750, by the way. Opened in 1975. You

42:38

know what else did it made its debut in 1975?

42:41

Me. And I'm

42:45

too old for the NHL, man. This is… Can I

42:48

ask you this? I cannot make it

42:50

work. Did you also suffer

42:52

a roof collapse in the late

42:54

70s, early 80s? Oh, man.

42:56

I tell you, man, my roof is not what

42:58

it used to be. That's

43:02

right. Oh, boy. Yep.

43:07

14,750. And that's

43:09

with it, like, renovated and stuff. Look, I've

43:12

been there a couple times this season. Kind

43:15

of a shithole. Okay. Kind

43:19

of a shithole. All right. I

43:24

would guess… I mean, look, say

43:27

what you want about… about Mullet

43:30

Arena. It's very little, you know? It's like

43:32

new, though. And

43:35

so the question becomes, do they want, like,

43:38

new and nice

43:42

or old and slightly bigger,

43:44

but not, like, that big, really, if you think about

43:46

it? For

43:50

some reason, I'm not super

43:52

optimistic about Governor Ned Lamont's

43:54

efforts to bring back the

43:56

Hartford Whalers. Yeah. I feel like Ned

43:58

is maybe… I feel like

44:00

he's done all he can at this point. I think

44:03

that's right. He's like look I expressed a vague interest

44:05

I Will head

44:07

down to the arena in a

44:09

few weeks and see if there's an NHL team there and if

44:11

not I've done all I can that

44:14

look they are putting a hundred million dollars into

44:16

the rink and that's Probably

44:18

about what? Molot

44:21

cost if I had to ballpark it Let's

44:24

look that up, too But

44:27

yeah It's not gonna happen.

44:29

I'd like I just thought I just 134 for for mullet

44:34

I Just thought it

44:36

was a funny quote. That's that's mostly why I bring it

44:38

up So

44:42

yeah, there you go very good. We

44:45

love you Ned Shout out

44:47

to Ned shout out to the guy who said

44:49

the old lady thing. Yep Got

44:52

a great group down there, you know Why

44:56

don't we take a break and we'll be right

44:58

back to talk about some more like actual hockey

45:00

stuff How's that sound this week's episode of puck

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49:27

right, we're back, and as promised,

49:29

let's talk about some actual on-the-ice

49:31

hockey stuff. The

49:33

Washington Capitals are now,

49:36

according to multiple sources, above

49:38

50% to make the playoffs. Look

49:43

at them go. Look at them go. I

49:47

don't want to go ... I feel like

49:49

we've done this the last

49:51

few weeks. It feels like every couple weeks

49:53

with a different Eastern team, where

49:56

we're like, oh, the Red Wings. The

49:58

Islanders. The Islanders. uh...

50:00

so this could be that again the

50:03

hell the story for a team that nobody

50:06

was really talking about anything that with

50:10

with full-on seller at the deadline absolutely

50:14

if your cap's that you can't sit there and be

50:16

like a nobody believed in us if you actually watch

50:19

the game to double about your own g m was

50:21

like now not

50:23

based on the cap stands i know i

50:25

don't i don't think anybody is acting like

50:27

that i think everybody's just kinda like wow

50:30

okay really yeah uh...

50:33

uh... you say so that really

50:35

does seem to be the prevailing

50:37

opinion among cap stands these

50:39

days which lake obviously

50:42

makes perfect sense why that would be they're

50:45

feeling on all that right like they can't

50:47

be watching the team that's got

50:49

like a negative thirty gold difference or something

50:52

like that going into last night's game and

50:54

going and of course this is a

50:56

playoff team everyone should believe enough they

50:59

watch the capital here you know what i mean uh...

51:03

and someone i think it was on the pucks

51:05

with discord put it perfectly which

51:08

was like when they lose

51:10

they lose by six and when they when they win

51:12

by one and

51:16

that is how you get a negative

51:18

thirty gold difference in a fifty percent

51:20

chance to make the playoffs fifty three

51:22

and a half according to uh...

51:24

money park as of this morning yeah

51:29

it's uh... it's

51:32

crazy that this is happening yet i don't

51:34

i don't have another word for it forty

51:36

four percent according to don's model so i

51:39

mean really this this the same

51:42

when you're talk about that and

51:44

and have been bouncing up as i believe they

51:47

were because i wrote about them over the weekend

51:49

and i think going into the weekend he

51:51

they had about fifteen percent and then

51:55

up to thirty by

51:57

sunday it did beating the connex was a big

52:00

you, because obviously all of these

52:02

models look at your schedule upcoming

52:04

and sort of assign you

52:06

probabilities. And that would have been a game

52:08

where they would have been considered underdogs,

52:12

you know, probably a loss.

52:14

And then you go and bank two points

52:17

out of that in a regulation wind on

52:19

top of that. We're at the point of the season where you

52:21

got to start looking at the tiebreakers. They're

52:24

in good shape there. That

52:26

was a big needle mover for them. Yep.

52:30

And... Which is not to say that, you

52:32

know, we all throw confetti at them and then they lose

52:34

three straight in regulation. And

52:37

this time next week we're like, can you believe the sabers are going

52:39

to make it? Right. Yeah, well,

52:41

I mean, the sabers had that

52:44

middle of last week. Whoa, look out for

52:46

the sabers. And then... Now are we

52:48

back to the penguins? Are we going to have to do that again? No. We're

52:51

not. No. Definitely not.

52:54

Penguin's at 9.3%. Well,

52:58

higher than Buffalo and New Jersey who

53:00

are tied at 7.2%. But

53:03

well below like Detroit and the Islanders

53:05

and certainly the Caps and Flyers. Yeah.

53:13

You know, I'm not like super optimistic that

53:15

this is going to work out for them

53:17

because how they're the Washington Capitals, you know,

53:19

like they're just getting 930 goal tending

53:23

from Charlie Lindgren right now. From Charlie Lindgren, yeah.

53:26

And their leading scorer is Dylan Strome. Okay,

53:30

that's crazy. Right? Yeah.

53:33

No, I think you're right about that. Yeah. I

53:36

don't have their stats page open, but I think you're

53:38

right. It was, unless that changed... In

53:41

the last like two days, yeah. So

53:46

yeah, I mean... He is one point ahead

53:48

of Alex Ovechkin. What

53:51

a world. And two goals ahead of him too.

53:55

Geez. Well, I mean that's less of a feat these

53:57

days, you know. There was a

53:59

time when if you... said someone was two goals ahead of

54:01

Alex Ovechkin, you'd be like, well, so he has 70 then?

54:04

Is that right? Their, uh,

54:07

Strom Ovechkin Carlson, do you know who their fourth

54:09

leading scorer is? I'll give

54:12

you a hint. He doesn't play for the Washington

54:14

Capitals anymore. Anthony

54:17

Mantha is still. Yeah. Yeah.

54:21

They sold Mantha. They sold, uh, Kuznetsov.

54:23

How about this? Someone pointed out. If

54:26

the, uh, if

54:29

the Capitals do make the playoffs, probably

54:33

their most likely opponent is,

54:36

uh, is the Hurricanes. Ooh,

54:40

that could be spicy. Yeah.

54:43

The question, this was on the puck soup mailbag

54:45

and, and, uh, someone was like, uh, I

54:50

can just pull it up and tell you

54:52

what they, uh, what the, this is from

54:54

Justin. Was like, when's the last time like

54:56

a team was such an obvious seller still

54:59

made the playoffs and then in the first round played

55:01

one of the guys they sold? I

55:05

don't think it's ever happened or not.

55:08

I shouldn't say never. I

55:10

can't remember it happening. I'll say that. It

55:13

has, it's been a while. I, I certainly,

55:15

there were a couple of those

55:18

blues seasons where they sold. Yeah.

55:22

Well, famously Oshi was one

55:24

of those guys, right? That

55:26

was an off season, I think. Oh,

55:28

you're right. Yeah. They, they, they created, and Shattankirk.

55:32

Shattankirk. That's in consecutive

55:35

years when they were on the playoff

55:37

bubble, but, uh,

55:39

did not, I don't believe run

55:41

into, Yeah.

55:44

I think they've traded both those guys to Eastern Conference

55:46

teams. So they couldn't have. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

55:50

No, I, I, I'm guessing it,

55:52

it must have happened before, but.

55:55

For sure. Could I

55:57

tell you who did it? No. Yeah. No. I mean, to, to see

55:59

it. make the playoffs after selling

56:02

this aggressively both quality

56:05

and quantity. Right? Like

56:07

this wasn't like, Hey, you know,

56:09

there's, we got one guy

56:11

going to be a UFA. We know we're not going

56:13

to resign and we got to move them for assets. But

56:15

then, you know, we

56:18

keep pushing on. They, they stripped down pretty

56:21

significantly. So I, I, I put

56:23

this in my column this week. Like are we, if

56:27

they make the playoffs. Like Spencer Garbrey has to

56:30

get a little bit of Jack

56:32

Adams. Oh,

56:34

I think you should get a ton if they

56:36

make the playoffs, especially the way that like a

56:38

lot of a lot, like,

56:41

you know, you just said Rick talk it, but look how

56:43

the Canucks have been doing lately. Yeah. You

56:46

know, and I think that's true of a lot

56:48

of like, whoa, that seems

56:50

kind of surprisingly good to have,

56:53

have kind of, you know, same thing with the

56:55

Flyers. By the way, I

56:58

mean, obviously this is kind of related to

57:00

the Capitals, right? Because you know, the Flyers

57:02

would probably lose their spot

57:04

to the Capitals if they, if the

57:07

caps make the playoffs. It's quite positive. It

57:09

feels like, feels like a pretty likely outcome. I

57:12

looked this up the other day, you

57:15

know what the Flyers team save percentage

57:17

since, since

57:19

January, I think it's January 20th. You

57:22

know what their team save percentage is? I

57:25

do not. Eight 54. Oh.

57:31

Eight 54 for the

57:33

five. You know what they should

57:35

do about that? Make

57:38

their captain a healthy scratch, which is apparently

57:40

what's, it sounds like may

57:42

happen tonight with Sean Couturier. He

57:45

apparently has been struggling. I

57:48

don't watch enough Flyers games to know

57:50

for sure that that's true. But like

57:53

from, from the Intel I've seen that

57:55

hasn't, it hasn't been going great

57:57

for him. But

58:00

you know, he's coming back from

58:02

pretty significant injury, missed a lot

58:04

of time. Him hitting

58:06

a wall here, like I can't

58:09

be surprised by that, you know? But

58:14

yeah, so 854,

58:17

I think it was the second worst team in

58:19

the NHL over that time was like the Senators,

58:23

and they're at like 885. It's

58:31

just unbelievable how it's not good. And

58:34

I mean, while

58:36

it's unpleasant to talk about,

58:39

they lost their number one goalie for the year. Right,

58:43

no, so that is your thing is... 100 different

58:45

circumstances than we would normally... This

58:47

stretch of them being like horrible in

58:50

goal starts in Carter Hart's final game

58:52

for them. Mm-hmm. And

58:54

like he got lit up in that

58:57

last game, and then, you

59:00

know, the two guys they've used

59:02

in his stead have been... Like,

59:05

bad is not the right word for

59:07

how bad they've been. Yeah, like 850

59:10

is. This would

59:12

be like historically bad if they did

59:14

it. But again, by a mile,

59:16

not just like, oh yeah, that would be like

59:18

one of the worst safe... No, this would be

59:20

the worst safe percentage in the NHL ever

59:23

by a lot if

59:25

they did this like for a full season. So

59:31

yeah, like I saw that stat and I

59:34

flat out could not believe it. But

59:36

I... So I double checked with a different

59:38

fucking stat site and was like, no 854,

59:41

okay, here we are, you know. That's...

59:46

That'll open the door for a team like

59:48

the Capitals. I think

59:50

it's the best way to put it. But

59:53

yeah, it'd be fucking cool if the

59:55

Capitals made the playoffs. Would

59:57

it? Or would they just get their doors blown off?

1:00:00

Well, so here's the thing, right?

1:00:04

Name a team in that wild card race

1:00:06

in the east that's any fucking good at

1:00:08

all. Name one. Can you

1:00:10

do it? Nope.

1:00:15

So yeah, I

1:00:17

guess given that, I guess I'd

1:00:19

rather have the cool, fun story of the Capitals

1:00:21

make it even though everyone rightly

1:00:23

thinks they suck versus

1:00:27

like, oh, and the Red Wings

1:00:29

did it by shooting 800% and

1:00:31

everyone was like, it's actually sustainable

1:00:34

because of the way they do it. Yeah. See,

1:00:37

they passed the puck around until they had to get

1:00:39

an open net right in front. No one

1:00:41

else has thought of this. Well,

1:00:44

it's not that no one's thought of it. It's

1:00:46

just no one has been good enough at it

1:00:48

until this huge Detroit Red Wings to make it

1:00:50

sustainable. That's how you got to think

1:00:52

about this. It's,

1:00:54

boy, I don't know what would be more frustrating if

1:00:56

I'm a Red Wings fan. Nearly

1:00:59

missing the playoffs after

1:01:02

my GM does nothing at the deadline or

1:01:05

narrowly missing the playoffs after my GM does

1:01:07

nothing at the deadline to a team that

1:01:09

actively made itself worse at the deadline. I

1:01:14

think because the second option

1:01:16

is conditioned on the first one, I think the

1:01:19

second one is worse. That's fair. But

1:01:25

yeah, to me,

1:01:28

I just look

1:01:30

at the entire East playoffs

1:01:32

and I just go, we don't have to have

1:01:34

a first round. That's

1:01:36

fine. Everyone gets a bye that's in

1:01:38

the top four right now. Because

1:01:44

like even if you're saying like, oh yeah, obviously the

1:01:46

Leafs are a good team. Yeah, sure. That's

1:01:48

true. But like, are

1:01:50

they? You know what I mean? Who's

1:01:56

their goalie? You know? And then they, oh

1:01:58

yeah, right. I forgot about that. Okay,

1:02:00

but I mean who's their ninth defenseman? So

1:02:03

well, okay really solidified that position and

1:02:05

it only For

1:02:07

the round graphics to do it. So It's

1:02:10

actually all going great for them now Yeah,

1:02:15

the other the other team I want to talk about in this

1:02:17

whole mess is the

1:02:20

Tampa Bay light These guys

1:02:22

are getting a little bit hot chugging

1:02:24

along starting to look a little bit scared

1:02:26

now they They

1:02:29

beat the Florida Panthers Yeah

1:02:32

in a game in which the Panthers

1:02:34

absolutely kept their doors in for that

1:02:37

Really the whole game but definitely the last two

1:02:40

period like Tilted

1:02:42

ice Panthers had like 50 something shots

1:02:44

on goal. Yeah, and the Lightning

1:02:46

had like three so That's

1:02:50

hockey sometimes But

1:02:53

that would be a fun first-round matchup. Oh,

1:02:56

yeah, of course Panthers lightning I could I could

1:02:58

go for that Yeah, that would

1:03:00

be sick But

1:03:04

the thing with the Panthers or the

1:03:06

Lightning rather is this That

1:03:09

thing you said they're getting outshot not

1:03:11

just by the Panthers by everybody and

1:03:13

winning now, right and so Maybe

1:03:17

this is my question to you

1:03:22

I don't think we're gonna sit here and go this

1:03:24

is an elite team, right? Obviously not But

1:03:27

how good do you think they are based

1:03:29

on like their talent level and things like

1:03:32

that? Like how again to do the the

1:03:34

Red Wings thing? How repeatable

1:03:36

and like how how solid is

1:03:38

this in your opinion? You

1:03:40

know what I mean? Like they're

1:03:42

just How much do you

1:03:44

believe in the Tampa Bay Lightning to? You

1:03:48

know make the playoffs and have

1:03:50

this At least a little

1:03:52

bit turned around from where it was. I mean

1:03:55

they're They're

1:03:58

scary on paper Yeah,

1:04:01

and not

1:04:04

just based on like, oh, you know, you plug

1:04:06

all these players in and, you know, we've

1:04:08

seen them do it now. We've seen them

1:04:10

do it a couple of years ago and they're a couple of years

1:04:12

older. And, but

1:04:14

I know they would scare me. Anytime

1:04:17

you see a team that has, you know,

1:04:20

they went to the final three years in a row. Lost

1:04:24

last year in a first round where they probably

1:04:26

were the better team. Yep. Absolutely.

1:04:30

And when you've got a team

1:04:32

that's that good and has tasted

1:04:34

championships and then they have like

1:04:36

a bad half season and they start revving up the

1:04:39

playoffs, I get worried. Other

1:04:41

teams in this situation, I would probably go, yeah, it's

1:04:43

a hot stretch. Every team's going to have a good

1:04:45

month and a bad month. And this

1:04:48

might just be their good month. What I

1:04:51

do, I do believe there is something to the

1:04:53

idea that you get a

1:04:58

team that not that you know how

1:05:00

to win, but a team that knows what

1:05:02

a winning season feels like does

1:05:05

understand how to let off the gas a little

1:05:07

bit in November.

1:05:10

And the fact that they got like right into,

1:05:13

okay, now we got to get serious about

1:05:15

the playoffs and then absolutely

1:05:17

started crushing everyone again. Right.

1:05:20

That scares me a bit. Really does.

1:05:24

Yeah. I, um, I

1:05:26

guess the thing is right. That like we've

1:05:29

talked about it a decent amount this season.

1:05:31

Vasilevsky has been bad this year. Like not

1:05:33

just, not just like kind of bad, like

1:05:35

bad, bad, not bad

1:05:38

for him, bad for any

1:05:41

NHL goalie. And so

1:05:44

he's been very good lately. Part

1:05:46

of that again is that he's being asked to make

1:05:48

40 saves a night or whatever. Um,

1:05:51

but he's doing it and

1:05:53

he has, this is the

1:05:55

bigger thing to me. He has the track

1:05:57

record of. This

1:06:00

can be one of the best goalies in the world, you

1:06:02

know and so That

1:06:06

would be if I'm if I'm you know

1:06:08

playing with the lightning in the first round

1:06:10

My big concern is we can't let the

1:06:12

big cat get going if the big cats

1:06:14

going we're screwed. Yep, you know Again

1:06:20

how much do you again? I don't know last

1:06:22

year in that leaf series. He was Well,

1:06:25

I don't know if that's a let's use bad but

1:06:27

his numbers were awful like everything was going

1:06:29

in against him And

1:06:31

they were still one goal away from

1:06:35

Probably taking out the lease again Yeah,

1:06:38

I mean a vasile esky stands on his head you're

1:06:40

screwed, but that's true of any goalie, but

1:06:45

If he they might only need him to be 900

1:06:48

905 in a playoff series and if I

1:06:50

had to bet on anyone to do it Boy,

1:06:53

can you imagine like going through the whole season

1:06:55

winning your division? Be

1:06:58

it like the Panthers or the Rangers or whoever and

1:07:00

oh look who we get to play great

1:07:03

I know right the brutal turn like

1:07:05

we don't favor whatever but a Tampa

1:07:07

Bay Lightning team That's doing like the

1:07:09

big exaggerated yawn and taking off the

1:07:11

stocking cap and being like, okay We're

1:07:14

ready to play for real now Yeah

1:07:18

the The

1:07:20

thing is again like the underlying numbers for

1:07:22

this team are not good and Again

1:07:27

like maybe you say they have the talent

1:07:29

to outperform it but they're

1:07:32

they're not good Underlying

1:07:37

numbers some of the worst goaltending in

1:07:39

the league over the course of the full season and

1:07:42

yet because the East is so bad We're

1:07:45

like well, I mean they look like a playoff team pretty

1:07:48

comfortably and That

1:07:51

is I don't I don't

1:07:53

know what to make of it. I guess you know Cuz

1:07:56

it's like art. Are they good? I Can't

1:07:59

tell I I guess I would say I don't think they are. But

1:08:03

doesn't really seem to matter. Yeah,

1:08:12

it'll be more interesting to see this than

1:08:14

I think just about any other east

1:08:19

playoff possibility, you know? Just

1:08:22

because. It does feel like a lot

1:08:24

of the other wild card races we're getting excited for.

1:08:27

And I know this can come back and bite me, but

1:08:29

they all kind of feel like teams trying to make the

1:08:31

playoffs so they can say they made the playoffs, but

1:08:33

not really be much of a threat. Right.

1:08:36

And the Lightning are. The

1:08:40

Lightning might be in that exact same spot

1:08:43

though. You know what I mean? Like, oh yeah, we made

1:08:45

the playoffs. And

1:08:47

then, I mean, if they play the Leafs

1:08:49

though, right? Like that's. No,

1:08:52

they can't play the Leafs. Nevermind, they can't play the Leafs. Would

1:08:55

be, well, not in the first round.

1:08:59

Yeah. Yeah. Which

1:09:01

means they can't play the Leafs where we

1:09:03

can. Right,

1:09:05

imagine the confluence of events that allowed

1:09:09

the Tampa Bay Lightning to advance out of the first

1:09:11

round and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah,

1:09:14

hard to see it coming. What

1:09:19

else happened this week? Anything? Not really. We

1:09:21

talked about this on the show last week.

1:09:23

The West wild card seems pretty

1:09:26

much sewn up. I don't know if you have

1:09:28

any talk. Or thoughts on that.

1:09:32

Well, I mean, I guess my thoughts are. Man,

1:09:37

I think Vegas has gotta

1:09:40

make the playoffs. But, oh boy, they could run

1:09:42

off a couple of wins. 89%

1:09:45

according to Moneypuck. Four

1:09:48

points up, five points up

1:09:50

on the Blues and Wild respectively.

1:09:52

Game in hand, all of that stuff. Looking

1:09:56

good for tiebreakers. That

1:09:58

would be an all-timer disaster. Imagine

1:10:02

if Vegas misses the playoffs and Washington makes

1:10:04

it after the, what happened at

1:10:06

the deadline. You're

1:10:10

going to have every GM in the

1:10:12

league being like, actually I should sell.

1:10:14

This is the new strategy. Absolutely.

1:10:19

Yeah, there are, as

1:10:22

much as there's sliding and everything, like, you

1:10:25

don't just look at like what the gap is.

1:10:27

Like you said, four points with a game in

1:10:29

hand on St. Louis and five with a game

1:10:31

in hand on Minnesota. Those are the only two

1:10:33

teams that are really in it because they're eight

1:10:35

points up on Calgary, also with a game in

1:10:37

hand, you know. You're

1:10:41

just like, yeah, but they're the blues in the wild. You

1:10:45

know, like you just can't, you can't

1:10:47

look at that and be like, this is, this

1:10:49

is of course very serious team that we have

1:10:51

to take their, their chances at the play. Again,

1:10:53

anybody can rip off like, you know, four wins

1:10:55

in a row or whatever and make it at

1:10:58

least interesting. But, you know, we

1:11:01

can also be serious about this. We

1:11:04

don't have to pretend, you know. Yep, fair enough.

1:11:06

It is that, it is the time of year

1:11:08

for pretending though. Like, hey, you know, they're only

1:11:10

six points up. Did I

1:11:12

see someone say something about like the Penguins getting back in

1:11:15

the playoff race the other day? Could that have been something

1:11:17

I saw? They are only six points out.

1:11:22

Yeah. Six

1:11:24

points back in the Capitals. They're right there.

1:11:28

And of course we're also at that point of

1:11:30

the season where like a team like Montreal or

1:11:32

Ottawa gets hot and gets to

1:11:34

within six points by the end of the

1:11:36

season. And we then

1:11:39

go, dude, there were three wins away from making

1:11:41

the playoffs. They're right there. We

1:11:43

call that Ottawa fan

1:11:45

disease. That is kind of

1:11:47

the Ottawa. I was trying to

1:11:49

pick another team other than Ottawa to point to. They

1:11:51

are. That is them. I've

1:11:54

used the example for a very... The

1:11:57

Deers version. I

1:12:00

used the example for a very long time, but

1:12:02

that was always the Blue Jackets. Whoa,

1:12:05

did you see their record after the All-Star break? They

1:12:07

played at like a 98-point pace. They're

1:12:10

about to turn the corner, blah blah blah. And

1:12:12

then everyone was like, oh wait, no, they're the

1:12:14

fucking Blue Jackets. You take out all of the

1:12:16

stretches where they played bad. Yeah, correct.

1:12:19

I mean, we got that article this year, right? They played

1:12:21

at a 96-point pace, man. Remember they

1:12:23

beat the Avalanche that night that they were playing

1:12:25

their 7-string goaltender? I

1:12:28

gotta tell you, no, I don't. No. But

1:12:32

the point is I could have. I could have remembered

1:12:34

it. And then there you go. That's

1:12:37

what it's all about. But

1:12:39

yeah, so I don't

1:12:41

know. We just don't have

1:12:44

to pretend. There was like a thing, again,

1:12:46

in the Seattle newspaper the other day, they

1:12:48

did the weekly or

1:12:51

monthly power rankings. I don't know how often they do them.

1:12:54

But they did their power rankings, and they were like,

1:12:57

could this be the last chance for

1:12:59

the Kraken's playoff hopes or whatever? And

1:13:02

then you click on it, and they have

1:13:04

the Kraken 23rd in the league in their

1:13:06

power rankings. And it's like, so even you're

1:13:08

not really pretending. You're

1:13:10

just putting it in the headline. So I click on it and me,

1:13:13

I get mad. Clickbait. It

1:13:16

was clickbait. Sorry. Clicks.

1:13:18

We don't say clickbait anymore. Everyone just says

1:13:20

clicks. Gotta get those clicks. You gotta get, look,

1:13:23

you're gonna tell me you don't need to get the

1:13:25

clicks. I need those clicks. I

1:13:27

need them folks. Every time somebody clicks on

1:13:29

one of my articles, there's like an intricate

1:13:32

series of tubes and a little penny falls

1:13:35

into a jar in my kitchen table,

1:13:38

direct from James Myrtle. That's how it works.

1:13:40

That's our business model at the Athletic. People

1:13:42

crack the code. Clicks.

1:13:45

It's clicks. Do you ever get this when

1:13:48

you post an article and

1:13:50

it's like, it gets retweeted

1:13:52

by like a local beat writer or something like that?

1:13:56

Which happens to me occasionally. Oh, RL wrote about

1:13:58

the flyers or whatever. Pretty

1:14:00

interesting what he had to say. I

1:14:04

get this sometimes, people

1:14:06

go like, paywall, it's

1:14:09

like yeah, bug bugger, that's right. Like

1:14:12

you're gonna be like, oh thanks for letting me know. Oh shit,

1:14:14

let me take care of that for you. Here's actually a

1:14:17

code that you get all the articles for free. That's right.

1:14:23

Paywall. Paywall,

1:14:25

can you summarize this for me? Yeah,

1:14:27

you're cheap. End

1:14:31

or my content is not worth paying for. It's definitely

1:14:33

one of those two things. Oh,

1:14:36

do we want to talk about the Islanders really quickly? I

1:14:39

forgot about this. They were hot for a minute there and

1:14:41

then they lost a bunch of games in a row and

1:14:44

turns out, like we were saying, even

1:14:47

bad teams can win some games in a row. Yep.

1:14:49

Still right there though. It's

1:14:52

hard not to be in the Eastern Conference. I

1:14:54

get the water point of everything we're saying. Because

1:14:58

not only do you look at that wildcard race,

1:15:01

and maybe it's just the race for the one

1:15:03

now with Tampa, but as the

1:15:07

metaphor I used in my column this week

1:15:09

is that the Flyers are doing the Simpsons,

1:15:12

he's just spinning the ball on his finger,

1:15:14

just taking it with their

1:15:17

spot. I mean you talk about

1:15:19

teams selling at the deadline, the Flyers didn't. I

1:15:22

mean they brought in some guys as

1:15:25

well to kind of balance it, but

1:15:27

boy they don't... They're kind

1:15:29

of like... And they shouldn't have. So wait, you're saying

1:15:32

we make the playoffs, we get to play the Hurricanes?

1:15:34

Cool. We're good. No,

1:15:37

right, like they should not have been big buyers

1:15:39

or anything. That would have been crazy. That's right.

1:15:42

They're the Islanders, you know? But...

1:15:45

I don't

1:15:48

know. If

1:15:50

they make the playoffs this year with the new

1:15:52

coach and everything, that's just like a

1:15:55

way for them to sell more tickets next year.

1:15:57

That's kind of what it boils down to. And

1:16:00

nobody, again, nobody's gonna be like, oh,

1:16:02

the Islanders, they're right there. Mm-hmm.

1:16:06

But next year, you can maybe

1:16:09

sell that a little bit. I

1:16:11

don't know. Anyway, we

1:16:14

mentioned him earlier. His name's TJ Oce, he

1:16:16

played his thousandth game in the NHL the

1:16:18

other night. Looked like he might

1:16:21

not for a second there. I don't know if you saw

1:16:23

that. Yep, there was a... But...

1:16:25

Will he won't he drama around that? Apparently

1:16:29

his teammates were like, you're fucking

1:16:31

playing, dog. Ted's not... We

1:16:34

gotta have something to cheer for these days, you know? So,

1:16:39

he did. And so he became, let

1:16:41

me scroll down here. He

1:16:44

became the... 382nd

1:16:48

player to play in a thousand games in

1:16:50

the NHL. Okay. And,

1:16:54

oh, you know what? 383rd, they have

1:16:56

not added him to the list. Wait,

1:17:02

I'm confused. Oh no, no, okay,

1:17:04

they did add him to the list. He's just one of the

1:17:06

guys who, one of the like 14 guys

1:17:09

who did it this year. Yeah. 14,

1:17:12

wow. All right. One,

1:17:16

two, three, four, five, six, seven,

1:17:18

eight, nine, 10, 11,

1:17:20

12th guy this year. And then there's

1:17:22

a couple guys who I think could still get

1:17:25

there this season, maybe. They're

1:17:27

within, you know, enough games at the end of the

1:17:30

season. So,

1:17:33

in honor of TJ Oshi, we're

1:17:35

gonna do once again, a

1:17:38

couple of quick games of

1:17:40

20 questions. One each,

1:17:43

we're gonna feed one back and forth here.

1:17:45

Okay. What

1:17:48

did I say the number was? Yeah, 282. Let

1:17:53

me pull up a guy here for

1:17:55

my friend Sean. The guy is...

1:18:00

Okay, you may

1:18:02

ask any questions you like about this

1:18:04

player Actually,

1:18:09

let me make sure we didn't do them before

1:18:11

I'm pretty sure we didn't but Let's

1:18:15

see here Nope

1:18:21

we did not do him yet great That's

1:18:25

what it's all about. All right. Let's go. Is he Canadian? He

1:18:27

is Is

1:18:30

he has he played

1:18:32

in the 2000s? No,

1:18:35

wait. Yes. Oh Folks

1:18:39

see how I tricked him into giving some extra

1:18:41

information away. That's right So

1:18:44

that would put I'm gonna say He's

1:18:47

like we're talking like mid 80s through the

1:18:49

90s and then just tail end of the 2000s.

1:18:51

Awesome. Is he a forward? Is

1:18:55

he a forward he is yeah, is

1:18:57

he a center? Yes, he is Did

1:19:02

he ever win a major

1:19:04

award? Yep See

1:19:07

when the heart Nope.

1:19:10

Did he win was he ever a

1:19:12

top five heart? No

1:19:17

Do you have a thousand points No,

1:19:21

did he win the silky Yes All

1:19:26

right, we're humming now was that nine questions

1:19:29

by my count, yeah Canadian

1:19:31

Center won the

1:19:33

silky but was not a top

1:19:36

five. That's interesting because Did

1:19:40

he Can

1:19:44

I throw a guess out I don't know if I've ever shot

1:19:46

him before is it Mike Pekka No,

1:19:48

no did Mike Pekka play a thousand games

1:19:51

Dude you could have at least sounded intrigued when

1:19:53

I threw the guess. Oh those I was I

1:19:56

I thought you had it Based

1:19:58

on the information I gave you I gave you more

1:20:01

than enough information to get this guy for sure Because

1:20:08

I'm just thinking like that is the

1:20:10

sort of time where a Lot

1:20:15

of the guys who were who were winning the

1:20:17

selkie were winning That were were

1:20:19

heart candidates like they went through the phase where they

1:20:21

gave it to like Francis iserman Gilmore

1:20:24

Fedorov. Oh Is

1:20:27

this guy in the Hall of Fame? See

1:20:29

in the Hall of Fame he is is

1:20:32

it key carbonyl it is okay Should

1:20:35

he be in the Hall of Fame? That's

1:20:37

a different question. That would have been a

1:20:39

very different question. Okay. All right, okay that's

1:20:41

that's That was all right.

1:20:43

I that's that was quicker for me than Then

1:20:47

it often is yeah I'm

1:20:50

happy with that Yeah,

1:20:53

no you did a good job on that one

1:20:55

for sure thanks. Hey, all right I'm gonna pick

1:20:57

one for you now and yep I'm

1:20:59

gonna sort of scroll through the list and make sure

1:21:02

I've got somebody my my buddy RL will That

1:21:05

is the tricky part for me. All right. I

1:21:07

got a guy. I got a guy for you.

1:21:10

All right. All right Is

1:21:14

he Canadian yes not

1:21:18

helpful is he a forward yes Did

1:21:23

he have at least a thousand career

1:21:26

points No

1:21:29

Okay, I'm in trouble already Forward

1:21:33

thousand career points Did

1:21:40

he ever win any major awards No,

1:21:47

okay Did

1:21:52

he ever win a Stanley Cup Uh,

1:21:56

no No

1:22:01

major awards, no Stanley Cup. Um...

1:22:11

Is he most associated with

1:22:13

an Eastern Conference team? Uh,

1:22:18

no. Okay.

1:22:26

Um... Was

1:22:29

he ever in the

1:22:31

top five of a major award

1:22:33

voting? Um...

1:22:38

Only the Calder. I will say

1:22:40

to give you... Only the Calder. Alright.

1:22:43

And I will... In... In...

1:22:46

To add to that, I will say that

1:22:48

he... He did win all rookie honors. Yeah,

1:22:51

that doesn't count. That is not a major award. No,

1:22:54

absolutely not. Um...

1:22:58

Is he... Did

1:23:01

he play in the 2010s? Yes.

1:23:09

Okay. Never won a major award, never won a cup.

1:23:13

2010s... Mostly

1:23:15

a Western Conference guy, probably. Um...

1:23:22

In center. Hmm...

1:23:30

Dunedin

1:23:36

center. Is he active? Is he an active

1:23:38

player? Yes he is. Oh, okay.

1:23:40

That's interesting. Um... Is

1:23:42

he a center though? He's

1:23:52

a Western

1:23:57

Conference. Western Conference. Let

1:24:05

me think here. Does

1:24:07

he currently play for a Western Conference team? Yes,

1:24:09

he does. I believe that was

1:24:12

question number 10 for you. All

1:24:14

right. I'm

1:24:18

just trying to think of guys who are active

1:24:21

players who are… Let

1:24:28

me… Okay. I'll ask the question I asked

1:24:30

last time. Would I say he sucks now?

1:24:36

No. I don't

1:24:38

think he would.

1:24:40

Okay. That's cheating a little bit just

1:24:42

because of… Would

1:24:44

you say he sucks now? No. No, you

1:24:46

wouldn't. Okay.

1:24:50

It's a little cheating because that's obviously not on

1:24:52

the hockey reference. No, it

1:24:54

actually is. I have a browser

1:24:57

plug-in that just… As

1:25:00

I scroll, there's a little picture of you

1:25:02

either shaking your head disapprovingly or giving a…

1:25:04

Big thumbs up. Yeah, giving the big little

1:25:07

kid on a computer thumbs up. The

1:25:12

number of NHL players I actually would…

1:25:15

You know what? Like, if hockey reference

1:25:17

wants to put that as a feature

1:25:19

on the website, I'd be

1:25:21

happy to pose for the photos. Actually,

1:25:25

I shouldn't say that. They're a competitor. Yeah, I was going

1:25:27

to say, you've got your own site that you did. Okay.

1:25:32

Let me think here. Active

1:25:36

player. Did I

1:25:39

ask if he's currently in the Western Conference? I did

1:25:41

ask that, right? You did, yeah. Okay.

1:25:43

The only guy I can think of…

1:25:49

Oh, this will be a helpful way to

1:25:51

do it. Did he cross a

1:25:53

thousand this season? Yes.

1:25:57

Okay. I

1:26:00

was just looking at this list, so this really helped

1:26:02

me. There you go. Yep.

1:26:05

Western Conference Sky just passed it

1:26:07

this year. A

1:26:09

center, a forward, a Canadian,

1:26:11

no major awards, no Stanley

1:26:13

Cup. The

1:26:16

only guy I can think of who

1:26:19

I think hit it this year is a Sam

1:26:22

Gagné? It is not Sam

1:26:24

Gagné. Oh, okay. Pretty

1:26:30

sure he hit it this year. I'm

1:26:32

going to look up Sam Gagné now. Sam

1:26:34

Gagné did appear to have hit it this

1:26:36

year. Another

1:26:38

center, never won a cup, never won a

1:26:40

major award. You

1:26:46

know Sam Gagné has played for seven teams. That

1:26:49

sounds about right. I

1:26:51

believe that. Including four for a year or

1:26:55

less. He

1:26:58

was one of those guys for a really long time, yeah.

1:27:00

Well-traveled. Yep. Decent

1:27:03

player, and I wouldn't say he sucks. Oh,

1:27:06

you wouldn't say? Okay, well then you definitely wouldn't say this guy

1:27:08

sucks. Okay. Because this guy's better

1:27:11

than Sam Gagné. There's a little freebie

1:27:13

for you. Wow. Who the

1:27:15

fuck else is there? Played

1:27:18

a thousand games this season. Western

1:27:22

Conference Sky. The

1:27:26

only other guy I can think of is

1:27:29

like Ryan O'Reilly. Nope.

1:27:32

Not Ryan O'Reilly either. Holy shit,

1:27:34

man. Also,

1:27:36

you're definitely getting warmer now. Okay.

1:27:48

Okay, let me narrow it down this way. Is

1:27:52

he in the Pacific Division? No.

1:27:56

Okay, he's in the Central. Okay. You

1:27:58

have five questions to go. This

1:28:00

is tough. Did

1:28:06

it this year, mostly a

1:28:08

Western Conference guy. Let

1:28:12

me think of guys in the

1:28:14

central. Let's see, nobody from St. Louis did it

1:28:16

this year, I don't think. Dallas

1:28:21

had... So,

1:28:24

who the fuck was it? Who Dallas have this

1:28:26

year? Is

1:28:28

it Matt Duchain? It is

1:28:30

Matt Duchain. Nicely done. Has

1:28:34

actually played exactly one game more than Sam

1:28:36

Gagne, according to hockey

1:28:39

reference. We're

1:28:42

close on that one. I

1:28:44

was trying to subtly nudge you when I pointed

1:28:46

out how many teams Sam Gagne had played with,

1:28:48

because you had gone down that list. Matt

1:28:52

Duchain on team number five. Yeah,

1:28:55

I guess I don't think of him being on

1:28:57

that many teams, but that checks out for sure.

1:29:04

Can I name all the Matt Duchain teams? Oh,

1:29:06

that's a fun one. Obviously

1:29:09

Colorado, Ottawa. Dallas

1:29:13

is his current team. Played

1:29:16

in Nashville for...oh, Columbus. I guess that's all

1:29:18

right. Yep, that would be the one to

1:29:20

forget. Yep,

1:29:23

famously they traded for him and it went

1:29:25

great, I think. I'm remembering why it went

1:29:28

great. I think they most successful playoff run

1:29:31

franchise history. And

1:29:33

what else can you really ask for, you know? That's it. That's

1:29:36

all you can do. So

1:29:39

yeah, oh, you know what? I had this written down and then

1:29:41

I forgot about it. Do we

1:29:43

want to talk very quickly about Connor

1:29:45

Bedard? We sure can.

1:29:49

He... A holder trophy winner. Well,

1:29:52

there was a question for a little while there. There was. But

1:29:55

was there a serious question or was it not just wild fans

1:29:57

going to bat? Well,

1:30:01

I wish you wouldn't talk about Mike Russo that

1:30:03

way, but it's,

1:30:09

I think, I think that if he

1:30:11

had come back and not been, well,

1:30:14

let me put it this way. In his

1:30:16

last four games, Conover Dodd has 10 points. And

1:30:20

if he doesn't go on that kind of a run

1:30:22

to really push himself up to around a point in

1:30:25

the game, I think

1:30:27

we're 100% having the Brock

1:30:29

Faber conversation. Because

1:30:32

he missed, what did, what did, what

1:30:34

did, uh, Baddard miss, like 15

1:30:36

games, something like that? Something like that,

1:30:38

yeah. That's a lot of games to miss. And

1:30:41

I think that gets you at least into the

1:30:43

area. And again, there's no guarantee he's going to

1:30:45

play the, you know, every one of

1:30:48

their games the rest of the way either. You don't

1:30:50

hope, you know, you know what I mean. You

1:30:53

don't wish for that kind of thing, obviously, but like

1:30:55

he could get hurt again. It's that's hockey, you know,

1:30:57

some could Brock Faber. But if

1:31:00

you get to the end of the year and

1:31:02

Connor Baddard is, you know,

1:31:05

like at 0.85 points

1:31:07

per game or something like that. And

1:31:09

Brock Faber's played all these monster minutes

1:31:11

and has played every game and

1:31:14

Baddard's missed 15. And

1:31:17

so you're like, Oh, I guess Baddard's like a little

1:31:19

below 60 points. I don't think you can

1:31:21

give him the award. But

1:31:23

if he gets up around 70 and

1:31:26

especially considering like the

1:31:29

just awful rosters he's played with

1:31:32

at various points this season due to injury and trades

1:31:35

and all this kind of stuff. I

1:31:37

don't know. I don't know. I

1:31:40

don't know how you deny him the

1:31:43

award. I'll put it that way. If

1:31:46

again, he keeps up, well, if he keeps up this

1:31:48

level of production, 10 points every

1:31:51

four games, he's going to get to like 85

1:31:53

and it's not even a conversation, you know, big,

1:31:57

big, huge win for the Hawks beating the Sharks.

1:32:01

on the weekend not

1:32:03

quite clinching dead last for

1:32:05

the sharks but pretty close they

1:32:07

play one more time this week but don't

1:32:13

we love cheering against our own teams although

1:32:15

I have I have noticed there's been a

1:32:17

like a strong kind

1:32:20

of vibe out of Chicago that no no

1:32:22

it's okay this time we

1:32:24

want to win down the stretch we don't want to

1:32:27

watch this team lose just for lottery off yeah

1:32:31

we already got like a generational talent

1:32:34

baby and did it without anything last

1:32:36

last year so right so we're actually

1:32:39

we actually think tankings bad yeah

1:32:42

yeah we did it that one time no let

1:32:45

me get freaking Kyle from Chicago on the

1:32:47

phone okay folks you'll

1:32:50

tell you what's up but

1:32:55

yeah oh this question this question was

1:32:57

posed the other day greater

1:33:00

evidence of NHL

1:33:04

conspiracy okay Chicago

1:33:07

wins again or Pittsburgh wins oh

1:33:10

dude Pittsburgh winning would be

1:33:12

so funny it really would be

1:33:16

I mean Pittsburgh clearly would have to be I

1:33:18

mean Chicago if they do win it's

1:33:21

gonna be one like a 15% chance or

1:33:24

something yeah something like that right

1:33:26

but oh boy if Pittsburgh would

1:33:29

be really funny I would

1:33:31

be giddy with the excitement

1:33:33

of just watching people lose their

1:33:36

absolute minds look

1:33:38

I love a conspiracy theory

1:33:40

yeah right I'm a fan

1:33:43

of the of the the form let's say

1:33:47

I don't even think it could be theory at that point

1:33:50

you know like if they're like oh the craziest

1:33:52

thing happened the penguins had a 1.2% chance

1:33:55

to get the yeah Macklin celebration

1:33:57

oh isn't it crazy They

1:34:00

did it. Yay. I just

1:34:03

do like I'm Yeah Not

1:34:07

not doing the Sidney Crosby wing

1:34:09

rescue press conference anymore. No

1:34:13

Doing Mario a solid yeah. Yeah Anyway,

1:34:17

I guess that's it for this week's

1:34:19

show not again like this is the part of the

1:34:21

season we're doing a Podcast

1:34:23

and just being like or not going

1:34:25

like see that a capital's

1:34:27

game last night You know, that's

1:34:30

tough. It gets really difficult. Yep

1:34:33

No trade. I'll talk about no. Nope Probably

1:34:37

not any more firings. Don't though We'll

1:34:41

see. Yeah Getting

1:34:43

a lot of them in college hockey We were talking I

1:34:45

was talking about this with someone a couple of weeks ago

1:34:47

I was like, oh it doesn't feel like there's gonna be

1:34:49

that many if any at all in college hockey Okay,

1:34:51

and then there's been like four this week, I

1:34:53

think Which

1:34:56

is a you know a decent chunk of

1:34:58

the church of what you usually

1:35:00

get some and the season

1:35:02

isn't even over for a lot of teams, so we'll

1:35:04

see but Lots of

1:35:07

I mean, this is this is the time of year in the NCAA, you

1:35:09

know Conference championships

1:35:11

through this weekend what it's all

1:35:13

about So,

1:35:16

yeah, why don't I why don't I start the plugs off

1:35:18

this way Pay attention all

1:35:20

my college hockey stuff. I have a lot coming out

1:35:23

in the next Three

1:35:25

weeks four weeks because the frozen four is about

1:35:27

a month away little less and You

1:35:31

know, I'm gonna have a lot of

1:35:33

like wall-to-wall NCAA tournament coverage Very

1:35:37

cool though. How do I not know?

1:35:39

That's right Head

1:35:42

on over to EP ringside use the code. I love

1:35:44

EP You'll get 15 months

1:35:46

for the price of 12 Everything it

1:35:48

from what I understand. It's the only

1:35:51

Coupon code we're gonna have up

1:35:53

until around draft time probably so

1:35:57

Get dialed in now get all the the

1:36:00

NCAA free agent. Oh, maybe people want me

1:36:02

to talk about that. All the guys that

1:36:04

are signing with NHL teams

1:36:06

out of college. We are getting to that

1:36:08

time, right? Where some guy who

1:36:10

didn't get drafted four years in a row will

1:36:13

suddenly be the best prospect. Yeah,

1:36:16

my advice on all these things

1:36:18

is like, look at the guy's

1:36:21

age. First of all, if

1:36:23

he's like 24, 25, you do

1:36:25

not have a prospect on your hands. Just, you

1:36:27

know, like that guy might

1:36:29

play in the NHL, but like he's not going

1:36:31

to be like a huge difference maker or whatever,

1:36:33

you know? Yeah. Those guys are very

1:36:36

few and far between. If you get a guy who's like

1:36:38

21, 22, that's maybe

1:36:40

a different story. But

1:36:42

then you got to also look at, and this is critical,

1:36:45

the conference that those guys are coming

1:36:47

out of. If you're getting like guys

1:36:49

who are good players in the NCHC,

1:36:53

you know, that's one thing. If you're getting

1:36:55

guys who are like good players

1:36:58

in the CCHA, I'd

1:37:01

be less excited if I were you. Again, it

1:37:03

doesn't mean like there are, you're getting a

1:37:05

bad player. There are plenty of good players that have come

1:37:07

out of the CCHA over the years, but

1:37:11

you know, the odds aren't in your

1:37:13

favor. That's all I'll

1:37:15

say. Again,

1:37:18

we have a really good like free

1:37:21

agent guide for college over

1:37:23

at an EP rink side.

1:37:25

Like I think we did

1:37:27

the top 20 college free agents, something like that.

1:37:31

And if your team signs

1:37:33

one of those guys, maybe that's something to be excited

1:37:35

about, but otherwise, you

1:37:38

know, rain it in a little, you know? What

1:37:41

about you? You find

1:37:43

me at the athletic. I have not

1:37:47

really much idea what I'm writing for a lot

1:37:49

of the rest of the week, but I'm

1:37:52

going to have

1:37:54

some fun

1:37:57

stuff. Plus, tomorrow, me

1:37:59

and Sean Gentile with

1:38:02

brand new dad Frank

1:38:04

Corrado. Wow. There

1:38:09

you go. On a

1:38:12

podcast, I guess I should say. Yeah, I

1:38:14

mean I knew, but... I didn't

1:38:16

write an article where I was like,

1:38:19

hey Frank, how's the diaper changing?

1:38:22

Yeah, we'll read those articles where it's like supposed

1:38:25

to be a conversation between two people. Yeah.

1:38:29

Yeah, they're articles. But also,

1:38:31

there's nothing easier than just opening

1:38:34

up a Slack channel and... For

1:38:36

sure. ...you got yourself an article. Well,

1:38:39

I mean that's why they write them, right? But

1:38:41

the one... Here's

1:38:43

every one of those articles ever. Are you ready

1:38:45

for how they go? They

1:38:49

go like... Sean, make any

1:38:51

point at all. Just... The

1:38:55

Tampa Bay Lightning are going to make the playoffs. It's

1:38:57

interesting you say that, Sean. Ha ha ha ha. Dot,

1:39:01

dot, dot. The words to me are

1:39:03

the ones where it's like a group, and

1:39:05

there's always the one guy

1:39:07

who's trying to be silly about it. He's trying

1:39:09

to be ironically

1:39:11

detached. That's a classic.

1:39:14

That was the old 538 special that

1:39:17

he's always had. Yeah. It's

1:39:20

good times. Don't

1:39:23

write those kinds of articles if you're a sports writer or

1:39:25

anything. Those ones? Me and Gentilly are going to write at

1:39:27

least four more of those. The

1:39:30

other really bad one for

1:39:32

me is the imagined conversation.

1:39:35

Here's what would

1:39:37

be said if freaking Gary Bettman was

1:39:39

in the room. What

1:39:42

about the ones where I debate myself

1:39:44

and just do both sides of a

1:39:46

conversation? Is that still okay? Yeah,

1:39:49

those are good because I've definitely written...

1:39:51

I remember when... Oh,

1:39:54

who was it? There was a guy on the Blues that signed

1:39:57

a huge contract. Get

1:40:00

why they did it. I wouldn't have done it

1:40:02

and here like here's the like the plus and

1:40:05

minus of all that and Like

1:40:08

I like writing those articles where you're just kind

1:40:10

of like talking out like what do I think

1:40:12

about this? Sure, I don't know. Those are those

1:40:14

are good to me. But as a guy who

1:40:16

has written them I get to say they're good

1:40:20

But I've also written though like That's

1:40:23

a really good point Sean I've

1:40:26

written those too and I hate seeing that you

1:40:28

say that All

1:40:31

right, thanks so much Oh the pucks to

1:40:33

patreon patreon.com/puck soup all kinds of bonus episodes

1:40:38

Check it all out. I don't know whatever

1:40:41

or don't who can't coat The

1:40:44

choice is yours. It really is up to you.

1:40:46

We can't get worse you lately We've checked with

1:40:48

our lawyers and it's apparently not something we're allowed

1:40:50

to do. That's right Yeah,

1:40:53

so thanks for listening folks, and we'll be back next

1:40:55

week. Have a good one You