0:01

I'm Ryan Lambert

0:03

from Elite Prospects.

0:14

I am Sean Macnew from The Athletic. And I

0:16

got two things right off the top I want

0:19

to plug really quickly. Number one, the

0:21

Elite Prospects draft guide is out, came

0:23

out yesterday. It's big, it's

0:25

good. I

0:27

guess we can talk more about that later or

0:30

whatever, but that's

0:32

the big thing everybody works on all year. The

0:36

culmination of many

0:39

people's hard work over the course of a

0:41

whole season in PDF

0:43

format. And then the other

0:45

thing I want to plug, our

0:48

new-ish theme music is by Dan

0:51

from the band Joywave. And

0:53

they have a new record out. Came out

0:56

a week or two ago, I think I

0:58

missed the official release date. But that's okay.

1:00

It's called Permanent Pleasure. It's good, check it

1:02

out. Those are the two things

1:04

I want to plug right off the bat. And

1:08

find me at The Athletic. Thanks for listening everybody. Okay,

1:10

have a good one folks. No

1:13

I just wanted to get all that out

1:15

there really quickly. And

1:18

now we can talk about very

1:21

important stuff. We

1:23

have a beautiful Stanley Cup final lined up

1:26

here. I think we talked about this

1:28

a few weeks ago. Someone was

1:30

on the mail bag said like,

1:32

what is the most

1:35

entertaining possible final? And

1:37

I think this was when there were like six or eight teams

1:39

left. And I think the one

1:41

we both landed on was Florida Edmonton, right?

1:44

I think that would certainly be up

1:46

there. This is

1:48

super good. I know this is like usually

1:50

the two crusty

1:53

dudes complain about hockey for an hour

1:55

show. And we'll get there. Don't

1:58

worry. The The

2:00

final is scheduled to last for seven weeks, so

2:02

we'll have plenty of time. And

2:04

by the way, when Sean says Krusty, he means

2:06

he's like a big fan of like nausea, the

2:09

band nausea. That's exactly what

2:11

I meant. That and cartoon

2:14

clowns. Amoebics. Yep, that's right.

2:17

But this is, this matchup rocks, man.

2:19

This is gonna be so good. Yeah,

2:21

it's gonna be like,

2:24

okay. For example,

2:26

right, one of the things that I saw the

2:28

other day, is it the 2015

2:30

draft? The top four

2:32

players taken in the 2014 draft. Top

2:35

four players taken in the 2014 draft

2:38

are all in this final. Two

2:40

on each team. Awesome. That's

2:42

sick. Mm-hmm. Connor McDavid.

2:46

Where he was drafted, the

2:48

Florida Panthers Arena. Oh,

2:51

I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah.

2:55

I believe the athletics preview

2:57

had like a portrait of

3:00

McDavid and Kachuk. And

3:02

it's like, is Matt

3:04

Kachuk even the

3:07

biggest star on his own team? He's probably

3:09

the biggest star, but he's certainly not the

3:11

best player. Yep. At this point,

3:13

you would say, I think. And

3:15

it's just like the fact that like, huge

3:18

names, like Drycidal

3:21

and Kachuk, were just

3:23

like, yeah, I mean, that's not even the best guy though. You

3:25

know what I mean? Like, that's

3:27

sick. Like, you've got the star

3:29

power. You've got marketable

3:31

stars. You've got the storylines,

3:34

the Canada drought. I

3:36

mean, other than it's not, I'm

3:39

sure, the dream matchup for like ESPN

3:42

or TNT or whoever's got it

3:44

down there as far as the

3:47

markets themselves. Well, we talk about Miami, like

3:49

it's some small fucking market. You know what

3:51

I mean? It's more hockey it is. I

3:53

mean, I mean, maybe, but like people are

3:55

going ape shit down there. Let's

3:57

put it this way. Anytime A team is in the championship.

4:01

People. Are like this is fucking so set. Let's

4:03

go cheer for the guys in all day or

4:05

two gals. And so

4:07

like you know, the other thing

4:09

is. With the Panthers and their fan

4:12

base or whatever. When.

4:14

They have all this success. Year after year, which

4:16

they've been having for for I'd say three

4:18

or four years now, right? People.

4:21

Like natural, you're going to care more.

4:23

We we used to say Carolina was a

4:25

fuck it. Does anybody say Carolina's a joke

4:28

market now? Know because

4:30

they had a lot of success and know

4:32

people care about them so it's the same

4:34

thing. As.

4:37

And was a in the Real Joy Nord. It's

4:39

members and we always see when. When.

4:41

A markets not doing all right if you go

4:43

like hey maybe they should have more than seventy

4:45

people shown up for the games. They always say

4:47

well you can't judge a mark until the when

4:49

it is chicken and egg cell Sure winning just

4:51

as easily as So I athletic but at the

4:53

Saints I mean. You. Know this

4:55

isn't like Rangers, Blackhawks or something. as

4:58

far as all. Other than that, Members.

5:01

Of glass box or job for its

5:03

own. Cared about your rangers gonna do

5:05

mine you numbers in Canada. Post.

5:07

It on E n t course if

5:09

you can't. It

5:12

as the Nhl if you can't, market

5:14

economy gazed in the Stanley Cup Final.

5:17

That. Get out I'd be like, don't Absolutely.

5:20

I thought about this on. A

5:22

show yesterday I'm I'm hosting

5:24

it three different podcast this

5:26

week so ah, that sox

5:28

me. I myself will be

5:31

tired of hearing myself talk

5:33

by tomorrow. But

5:35

I I made the point that like you know

5:37

people talk about why you can't. You

5:40

can't market Connor Mcdavid disease in Edmonton whenever

5:42

it like Brett Farr was in Green Bay.

5:44

Assists right? All his mark in the and

5:46

of Peyton Manning was in Indianapolis. And.

5:49

The Nfl was like guess what? You're going to be

5:51

the biggest superstars in this league. Because.

5:54

We're gonna just tell people that over

5:56

and over again. Ah, and until they

5:58

believe us. And. work and

6:01

it can work you know who's the

6:03

biggest isn't there like a huge NBA

6:05

star in like Milwaukee yeah

6:08

yeah yeah yeah has Victor Wamben Yama Tony

6:13

was had the best player in the league for like 40

6:16

straight years you know it's it

6:19

is LeBron James was in Cleveland oh

6:21

hi yeah right like do it

6:23

like yes it would be easier if Conor McGave it

6:25

played for the Rangers but he didn't

6:29

survive that Panther series

6:31

though if you play for the Rangers

6:33

all that he's getting the ditch

6:35

right now that those those choir boys

6:37

from New York man I feel yeah terrible for

6:39

them well we'll talk about that in a bit

6:43

but yeah I mean this is gonna right by point

6:45

yeah it's gonna be this is gonna be you know

6:49

what real you know what really sells it I'll be honest with

6:51

you what really sells it is

6:56

is the fact that like the

6:58

hockey is gonna be really good right like

7:00

that that's what you can sell to like

7:02

oh I don't give a fuck about the

7:04

Oilers or the Panthers well do you like

7:06

good hockey yeah you know like it's

7:09

that simple yeah

7:13

I absolutely it's

7:15

gonna be I'm

7:18

very interested to see how it plays out because

7:20

it is the bet

7:23

the number one offensive team pretty much against

7:25

the number one defensive team like I don't

7:28

think it's exactly works out that way as

7:30

far as goals scored and that but the

7:32

Oilers are the most dynamic terrifying team

7:34

when they're on totally

7:36

and Florida has kind of transformed over the last

7:39

couple years from an offensive

7:41

team to a defensive one which I

7:43

hate I hate that in this league

7:46

that can happen that you know some some team

7:48

that like is near the top of the league

7:51

in goal scoring says oh the only way we

7:53

can win is to completely flip this around but

7:55

that's life and they did so how did

7:58

it Now, you know, let's

8:01

see Paul Maurice, if he can take time

8:03

out from writing jokes, what

8:06

do you got, man? If he's, if

8:09

he can figure out how to shut down Connor McDavid in

8:11

a Stanley Cup final, he's punching his ticket to the Hall

8:13

of Fame this week. Absolutely.

8:16

But like you say, he's got to, he's got to,

8:18

you know, churn out another 30, 40 jokes for Bill

8:21

Maher this week before, you know, he's got

8:23

that too. So it's, it's busy. It's going

8:25

to be a busy time. Yeah. So it's

8:28

like you say, if you can't sell this, don't

8:31

sell anything. Just quit the sales business.

8:34

That's what I would recommend, you know,

8:36

Willie Loman style maybe. I've

8:41

never actually read Death of a Salesman. I

8:43

had no idea what you were even talking

8:46

about. I thought that was, I thought that

8:48

was the raggedy guy from the Simpsons. So

8:50

that's, you're ahead of me. Yeah.

8:54

Anyway, let's

8:56

talk about how these, how these two teams

8:58

got this far. Both

9:00

teams. Well, both teams for the Panthers.

9:04

It goes without saying, I think. Both

9:08

teams won in six games and

9:11

I would say won in kind

9:13

of convincing fashion. And

9:15

am I wrong that both teams were down to

9:17

one after three games? Isn't that right?

9:20

I think so. Definitely. Edmonton

9:22

definitely was. And yeah, New

9:24

York won the two overtime games. Yeah.

9:27

So, but I would

9:29

say that, you

9:32

know, kind of, you

9:34

can't dispute that they,

9:36

that they kind of really

9:38

earned it and showed like why

9:40

they were just a cut better

9:42

than their opponents. Do you

9:44

want to do Florida or Edmonton first?

9:46

I'll let you choose. Let's do, let's

9:49

do Edmonton first. Okay. Canada. Here.

9:53

I don't like that angle on it at

9:55

all, but okay. It's

10:00

this simple. The

10:04

Edmondson-Oylers penalty kill hasn't allowed a

10:06

goal since like 1992. Yeah.

10:12

Getting close to record level

10:14

of... Well,

10:18

I was going to say production. Success, I guess. Yeah.

10:22

Production stoppage. Maybe, yeah. Yes.

10:26

No, they just... They

10:28

took a... I would say

10:31

like a not insignificant number of penalties,

10:33

let's say. And

10:35

they just gave the Stars nothing. Mm-hmm. Just

10:39

absolutely... You know

10:41

what? I'll take that back. Five

10:44

on four power play time for Dallas in

10:46

the series. Only 14 and a half minutes.

10:48

That's actually really good. Mm-hmm. But

10:53

how about this? It's not just the goals

10:55

thing, right? It's...

11:02

Oh, you know what? I had that flipped. Dallas had 28 minutes

11:04

of power play. That makes

11:06

more sense. That was what I remembered. But

11:08

28 minutes of power play, they only

11:10

put 20 shots on net. They didn't

11:12

score. They did give up a short-handed goal.

11:16

If you can hold a team like

11:18

Dallas to two and a quarter

11:20

expected goals on the power play over the course

11:22

of the six-game

11:24

series, it's not

11:26

just that like Stuart Skinner made all the saves. You

11:29

know what I mean? Mm-hmm. It's

11:31

that they were off. Or a

11:33

couple of shots go wide, you're right. Because

11:35

you could look at something and say, all

11:37

right, 28 straight penalty kill.

11:39

Maybe that's just a hot streak. Maybe that's just a

11:42

little bit of luck. Yeah,

11:44

totally. That's what I'm thinking. And at which

11:46

point you go, well, if that's what they wrote

11:48

to get to the final, then maybe

11:50

that's not a great sign because you'd like to be writing something more

11:52

sustainable. But they did look...

11:55

They looked stronger. Now, obviously...

11:57

Four high danger chances. Four...

11:59

for Dallas, 28 minutes

12:02

on the power play. That's

12:04

crazy. Now

12:06

you go into, now you

12:08

look at a matchup

12:10

with a whole new team, right? So that dynamic

12:12

can certainly change. Um,

12:14

but it's, it was apparently it's Mark

12:16

Stewart who's running the penalty

12:18

kill. Uh, doing a

12:20

great fucking job. Yeah, I didn't, I, I, you know,

12:23

I, I know I'm not as

12:25

up on my assistant coaches as maybe I should

12:27

be, but yeah, like Chris Noblock was basically like,

12:29

I have nothing to do with that. He

12:32

said, I deserve credit for giving that job

12:34

to Brad Stewart and getting out of the

12:36

way and that's Mark Stewart. Sorry,

12:38

Mark Stewart. Yeah. The other Brad's through it's

12:41

a different, uh, the other defensive defense. 2000,

12:43

uh, Bruins, defenseman. Yeah, that's

12:45

right. That's right. Thank you. You're

12:48

welcome. But, uh,

12:51

that's going to be a big story. And

12:53

then obviously the Edmonton power play, which we've

12:55

been talking about all playoffs at

12:58

first, because it was unstoppable. And then

13:00

because it was stoppable. And then towards

13:02

the end of the series, like

13:04

you, you kind of felt like in the Dallas series that,

13:08

all right, the stars need to be the team that figures

13:10

out the special teams first, and

13:12

they were Edmonton did. And that was all

13:14

she wrote. Yeah. For

13:16

four goals for Edmonton and 14 minutes

13:18

of power play time at

13:20

five on five. Um, that'll

13:24

do it. You know, that like you, here's

13:27

the thing. I would say holding

13:29

that power play to 10 high

13:31

danger chances in 14 minutes is

13:33

pretty good, honestly. But also,

13:37

uh, they don't need much

13:39

more than 10 to score four times. You know, they're

13:42

just like, yeah,

13:44

we're going to effortlessly pass this into the fucking

13:46

back of the net. And

13:50

like you said, there were, there was a, there

13:52

was some moments there earlier in the playoffs where

13:55

it's like, uh, oh, if

13:57

the power play is not going for these guys, what,

13:59

what? You know and they

14:01

were like, we're actually fine. You know you

14:03

want to talk about somebody got hot at the right time

14:06

there was a brief period where The

14:09

penalty killing for Vancouver, I think specifically

14:11

got got a little hot and then

14:14

not so much. Yeah after that yeah,

14:17

the The

14:20

special teams was the difference in the series at

14:22

five on five it was It Was

14:26

probably a little in Edmonton's favor,

14:28

but not hugely and especially well

14:30

Like it was probably more so

14:32

but the that last game the

14:35

game six was like, what

14:37

did they have like 12 shots on goal?

14:39

in the game, yeah, I Even

14:42

less than that might have been 10. Yeah, it was yeah By

14:45

far a record for a clinching game, which it

14:48

was they were they got out shot 34 to

14:50

10 in game six So

14:53

but they were also up

14:55

to nothing basically right away. Mm-hmm So

14:58

they were just like, okay, we're not letting anybody

15:00

anywhere near the the net, you

15:02

know as best we can We're not playing

15:05

offense anymore. What once we got up to

15:07

well, they just said we're not playing They

15:09

did what everybody says you got to do

15:11

even when you have the best offensive players in the world

15:14

Shut down stop playing offense Write

15:18

it out We all love that

15:20

style right up until it doesn't work and then we say why

15:22

didn't you try to score the third goal? That would have put

15:24

it out of reach, but it did work and

15:27

it has been working like this team has Showing

15:30

that they can play that defensive style when they

15:32

need to yep Where

15:35

are we at on Stewart Skinner? He's

15:38

adequate he's been

15:41

more than adequate since he Since

15:43

he got shut down for being

15:45

terrible Yeah that you're

15:47

right about that. That's true. I'd say on

15:50

the balance. He's adequate. Okay, but Like

15:53

he's been like 920 since then I refocused

15:55

or whatever for sure, you know, we're up

15:58

to seven games. I Eight

16:00

games since then? Yep. Um...

16:05

I guess, I don't think anybody's picking Edmonton

16:07

as having the best goaltending in this series,

16:10

just like every other series they've played,

16:12

but... I think it is at worst

16:15

for Edmonton a push. Really? If

16:18

not, I would rather have Skinner than... Wow. Okay.

16:22

Because, again, I just think Bobrowski is so

16:24

insulated, you know what I mean?

16:28

In a way that even Skinner often

16:32

isn't, because he does

16:34

play behind Darnell Nurse sometimes, you know? Um... I

16:40

might give a very slight edge

16:42

to Edmonton, and

16:47

mostly I'd call it a toss-up, though. Okay.

16:51

Is that crazy? I mean... I don't think it's crazy. I think... ...

16:56

playoff Bobrowski has been very

16:59

good for two years now. Sure,

17:02

Skinner, I just don't... Man, I just... I

17:05

don't know, but, again, he absolutely did the job in Dallas. Yeah,

17:10

you don't want a goalie who

17:13

loses his job for any amount of time

17:15

in the playoffs, for sure. But...

17:20

I don't know, but I feel like Bobrowski has the odd

17:23

stinker where you're like, Whoa, what just happened here?

17:25

Mixed in, you know what I mean? In a

17:27

way that... I

17:31

guess I don't. Like I said, I guess I think it's

17:33

a toss-up. Because,

17:38

like, I think both goalies are

17:40

capable of having bad games. Really bad

17:42

games, you know? So,

17:47

yeah, I don't know. I

17:49

think they're both very good

17:53

when they're on and not so much... Like

17:57

when they're bad, they're really bad, and when they're on... tough

18:00

to beat. I mean that's

18:02

true of I guess any fucking goalie on the planet.

18:04

But you know, I don't I

18:06

don't see either one as being like particularly

18:08

that guy. There's a guy that can steal

18:10

a game for you. I guess is my

18:12

point. That's

18:16

fair. Yeah. I mean, it's it's I

18:19

guess the way I would look at it. I

18:21

wouldn't say Edmonton's got an edge, but I would

18:23

say if I'm Edmonton, I'm not worried about goaltending

18:25

in this year. Yeah. Beyond the fact that yes,

18:27

any goalie can just go on a heater for

18:30

four to seven games and end your

18:32

whole season. That's the end.

18:34

You know, we saw we've seen Bobrowski do

18:36

it to teams, but

18:38

I'm looking at this going. We have never asked

18:40

Stuart Skinner to be the best goalie in any

18:42

series. We've asked him to be good enough. Lately,

18:46

he's been more than that. We

18:49

should be okay. I

18:53

guess that's. Yeah,

18:56

I like I say, I think both teams

18:58

are going to be like, oh,

19:00

we're confident in our goalie and their right to

19:02

have that opinion, but not

19:05

in the way that like the Rangers or

19:07

even the Stars, you would have gone

19:09

into that. Their respective conference

19:11

finals going. Those guys have a lot

19:13

of reason to be very confident in

19:16

their goal pending. Yeah. You know, yeah.

19:18

Anything else with

19:20

the Oilers,

19:23

obviously like McDavid is

19:25

just going psycho right now and, and, you know,

19:27

they, they just have

19:29

so many weapons and I don't

19:33

know that like they are as deep as Florida. Like

19:36

I don't know that I could say they

19:38

have three lines that can score like

19:40

Florida does, but I don't know.

19:42

I just, the high end is so high. I don't know. I don't

19:44

know. I don't know.

19:49

I just, the high end is so

19:51

high that how do you, the

19:54

high end is so high and it's, I mean the

19:56

days of this being like two

19:58

guys and then 10. is

20:00

long, long path. Oh, for sure, yes. Absolutely.

20:03

In fact, it was good towards the end of the Dallas series

20:05

where Ryan Nugent Hopkins scores two goals

20:08

and you're like, oh right. They have

20:10

a guy who had 100 points last year and

20:13

is probably like the fifth most important forward

20:15

on the team right

20:17

now. That's pretty, pretty good. Yeah,

20:20

and obviously like Zach

20:22

Hyman is, we've

20:25

said before, like he's a really good player,

20:27

but he's not as effect, like he's just

20:29

the perfect compliment to Conor McDavid. You

20:32

know? And like

20:36

even he, like he shot that puck

20:38

from my, by relative standards.

20:40

Like he shot that puck from distance.

20:42

It wasn't for the blue line obviously,

20:44

but he's a guy where it's like

20:47

all his goals come from some

20:49

part of him or his stick or whatever is

20:51

touching the blue paint. And,

20:56

you know, if that guy is shooting the puck too, that's

21:01

a real problem for any defense. But

21:04

to your point earlier, it

21:07

does feel like Florida could be

21:10

able to, you know, get a rope around these

21:12

guys and maybe, you know, wrestle them

21:14

to a draw or that kind of thing. And

21:17

if that happens, you

21:19

can probably put Paul Maurice in the Hall

21:21

of Fame because probably Florida wins the cup.

21:24

If they can, again, not even shut down

21:26

McDavid. I don't think that's a real thing that

21:29

you can do. Shutting down McDavid is like a

21:31

pointy game you hold him to. That's

21:33

exactly what I mean. Like you're not gonna

21:35

keep him from scoring. What you need to

21:37

do is keep him from scoring twice in

21:40

a game, you know? Which

21:43

isn't fucking easy as the Dallas Stars were

21:45

a very, very good team who McDavid, I

21:48

think scored 10 points in six games. A

21:50

great team and a very well coached team

21:52

that I'm sure had a million

21:55

different angles and approaches on how to

21:57

stop Conor McDavid. And then like, you know, you saw

21:59

in the clinching. He's just like I'm just

22:01

gonna go through the entire bye-bye See

22:04

you later like you go back to the bench on that

22:06

and you know, you're looking at the iPads It's like what

22:09

did we do wrong? Nothing,

22:11

we played that absolutely perfectly

22:14

and the best player in the world was like doesn't matter It's

22:17

gonna score anyways, so yep Let's

22:22

do the Florida side let's do the Florida

22:24

side they they

22:26

kind of Did to the

22:28

Rangers what we all thought they would do to the Rangers, which

22:31

is put them in

22:33

the meat grinder and Just

22:36

you know grind out Grind

22:41

isn't the right term I guess because

22:43

that kind of implies like you're You're

22:47

doing what Edmonton did in game

22:49

six and just like getting outshot by a wide

22:52

margin and then still Finding a way to win

22:54

a 2-1 game or something like that. That's not

22:56

what the they I mean it was a lot

22:58

of One

23:00

of the little games it was a low scoring series other

23:03

than that one game game three But

23:07

it was a low scoring series because

23:10

they played Igor Shastirkin You

23:12

know what? I mean like all

23:15

things being equal average goal tending

23:17

Florida scores three or four

23:19

goals a game Mm-hmm Shastirkin

23:22

was God. What was

23:24

he in that series? He was unbelievable, right?

23:27

I've got her right in front of me was 930 And

23:33

they and they they let's

23:35

just say it Six

23:37

games what do I always say means you

23:39

get your ass kicked. Sorry You're

23:44

gonna try to tell me the Rangers didn't get their ass kicked,

23:46

you know there were three

23:48

overtime games and Basically

23:50

what were basically three other one goal

23:52

games. Obviously game one was a Three

23:56

nothing when I want to say honestly game one

23:58

was a three nothing one goal That's

24:01

what I mean, like it was the the the late

24:03

own goal in an empty netter. And we'll talk about

24:05

the Rangers later in the show, but like, this

24:08

is absolutely one of those series where you look back

24:10

and go, we needed one

24:12

more goal to really maybe

24:15

change the whole thing. Why didn't we get

24:17

it? Given the guys

24:19

that we have, but the reality is that other

24:21

than those two overtime wins by

24:23

the Rangers, it was the Panthers who kept finding

24:27

ways to get those, the

24:29

Rangers zero regulation wins in the, uh, that's

24:31

not a thing in the conference final doing

24:33

that. People have said, I'm just saying, somebody

24:36

say that I'm just saying the stars and

24:38

I had three regulation losses. That's it's the

24:40

beauty of the playoffs is we just, we

24:42

don't have to talk about that stuff wins

24:45

and losses, man, because in the playoffs overtime

24:47

is real hockey. Sure.

24:52

No, I totally, what, what all I'm

24:54

saying is there,

24:56

there was not really a point where after

24:58

60 minutes, you were like, Rangers are really

25:00

running the show here. You know what I

25:03

mean? There was never a point in

25:05

that whole series where you felt like the Rangers might

25:07

be a better team by

25:09

any kind of margin. Yeah, that's

25:11

right. Um,

25:16

so it's the,

25:18

by the way, the Matthew Kachuk show because.

25:22

He we've all decided that guy. Uh,

25:26

Sam Reinhardt continues to make himself a lot of

25:28

money. Yup. Or

25:31

at least a lot of theoretical money before he

25:33

signs in Florida for 9 million. And I don't

25:35

know if you've heard about this. They actually don't

25:37

even, they pay you taxes

25:39

when you live. Wow. Okay. Is that

25:41

how that works? Yeah. That's yeah. Got

25:45

to change the salary cap so

25:47

that my personal favorite team has an

25:49

advantage. I think that's, that would make the league

25:51

better. Yeah. Uh,

25:54

let me, let me say this by the way, Florida

25:58

Panthers held the new. New York Rangers

26:01

high-flying power play to one goal.

26:03

So the two teams coming into the conference,

26:06

or the Stanley Cup final, have

26:09

allowed one power play goal in their

26:11

last combined 12 games or whatever. So

26:14

I mean, if you're the Panthers, that's, you're

26:16

feeling, you're never feeling

26:18

good about facing the Oilers power play. No, you

26:20

are not, brother. Who are the two teams in

26:23

the league that everybody says are, you know,

26:26

especially driven by the power play, Rangers

26:28

and Oilers? All right. Well, one down,

26:31

bring on the other one. So,

26:36

and Sergey Borotka, we already talked about, but he was

26:38

9 21 in that series. So

26:40

he was a Neigor Shasturkin, but he was more than

26:42

good enough to, to match

26:45

Igor Shasturkin as far as

26:48

giving his team a chance to win. Totally. Um,

26:54

beyond that, I don't know. Sasha

26:57

Barkov's almost been quiet ish

27:01

in the playoffs, like just for a guy

27:03

who could be, you

27:05

know, who, who probably is the best player on

27:07

that team, hasn't

27:09

been. Phenomenal.

27:14

So pointing. Yeah. I was

27:16

thinking about this. If he, uh,

27:18

you talk about Paul Maurice, if he shuts down Connor

27:21

McDavid, I don't know if we'll get the

27:23

Barkov McDavid matchup. But if we

27:25

do and, and

27:28

Barkov can hold his own that moves him

27:30

into like well

27:32

and truly this generation's Patrice Bergeron instead

27:35

of the guy who was just available

27:38

to fill that role when it, when it came

27:40

up. For sure. I'll

27:43

say this. I think it's very

27:45

obvious who's winning the Kon Snipes. If the Edmonton

27:47

Oilers win the Stanley cup, it's

27:51

the Canadian guy, you know, uh, probably,

27:54

yeah. The fast one. Sak Hyman. Yeah. That

27:57

lightning quick, Sak Hyman. If

28:00

the Panthers win the Stanley Cup, I do

28:03

not know who is gonna win the cons

28:05

might Which is like

28:07

probably speaks well for them and

28:09

like why more here and But

28:12

you could just their leading scorer, but he

28:14

has only five goals in three

28:17

series You could argue Matthew could

28:19

Chuck you could order argue Carter

28:21

for Hagee you could are it argue?

28:23

Sasha barkov you could maybe argue Sergei

28:25

Bobrowski, especially if he stands on his

28:27

head in this series. Mm-hmm and

28:30

everybody like Gus Forsling is the guy that

28:32

is like I'm

28:35

not sure I've ever seen somebody have a

28:37

trajectory quite like this where they've

28:39

gone they've gone from the so underrated

28:42

He's overrated like that usually

28:44

takes two years. I Feel

28:46

like this guy's done in two months Totally

28:50

yeah And

28:53

and even you know, Sam Reinhardt is would

28:56

not get you'd have a lot

28:58

of consideration there today, but but he's a

29:02

Few big goal like this is if the Panthers win, it's

29:04

gonna come down to who does what in the final? Sure,

29:07

that's yeah So

29:10

he's got eight goals this this postseason. That's a

29:12

good number. Mm-hmm, you know Yeah,

29:19

I look at that's what I'm saying though is like

29:21

they've got like four or five guys where you could

29:23

make at least

29:25

some kind of a serious cons my

29:27

case and That

29:30

is I would say to their benefit I think

29:32

the fact that you can look at Three

29:36

different forwards one defenseman one goalie

29:39

and go that guy's been their best player

29:43

You know again, we'll see what happens

29:45

in the Cup Final But

29:49

like that's That's

29:51

why they're this they got this far and

29:54

that's why They're

29:57

having like so

29:59

much success is like you can shut down Barkov

30:02

even though he's probably on paper their

30:04

best player. You can shut down their

30:06

biggest star in math you could chuck.

30:09

And it's like okay some other guy's just gonna

30:12

score like three goals on you pretty easily it

30:14

turns out. You know like it's

30:16

really impressive how much they

30:18

have I guess

30:21

like you would have

30:23

said it you know everybody needs depth at this

30:25

time of year or whatever but like you would

30:27

have said their strength is their depth and that

30:29

has fully come through in a way I would

30:31

say it probably didn't even last year when they

30:33

went to a cup final. So

30:36

the less said about what happened when they got to the

30:38

cup final last year the better as far as they're concerned.

30:41

And by the way I can you

30:45

remember do you know the last team in

30:47

NHL to lose back to back cup

30:50

finals? I

30:54

guess I do not. Because I'll tell you

30:57

I didn't I sat down I was like yeah I wonder

30:59

who that is and I started going backwards in my head

31:01

and I just kept going and going and I was like

31:03

what the like it it. It's

31:06

probably a long time ago now. The

31:10

1970s Bruins 77

31:12

and 78 I would say which

31:15

is yeah anything

31:18

that happened before you were born doesn't count as

31:21

a real thing. Beyond that

31:23

the number of teams that have come back

31:25

to the final obviously we've seen a

31:28

few teams win back to back teams

31:31

that have lost and then come back the

31:33

following year the

31:35

Penguins to win in 2009. Yep

31:38

for sure. The Oilers in

31:40

83 and there's one more in between that

31:42

I'm missing I think but

31:47

not a lot and then you know obviously

31:49

the teams like Tampa have won and then

31:51

lost the following year but to lose back

31:53

to back would

31:56

basically be something that we have not seen in

31:58

this I was

32:00

thinking about that actually. Which

32:02

is my way of thinking if they don't win the cup, they're

32:05

huge losers. Yeah, pathetic. They should all point them out. One of

32:07

the worst teams in the league. Like,

32:09

why are they wasting everyone's time? Just

32:12

lose early. Get it out of the way like a

32:14

good, polite, efficient Toronto

32:18

team would do. No reason to waste everyone's time. I

32:21

was thinking about this though, in

32:23

terms of it does

32:25

feel like we're

32:28

getting to the point where

32:30

like, you know, Gary

32:32

Bettman would call parody is kind

32:34

of in terms of who's going

32:36

to like deep playoff runs is

32:38

kind of like way less

32:40

of a thing now than it was like 10 years ago. Well,

32:44

this year, you know, maybe feels

32:46

like an outlier, but

32:49

yeah, this year has been pretty

32:52

close to Chuck as far as certainly

32:55

for the first two rounds, you could make the

32:57

case that the favorite won

33:00

every single series. Totally. Because

33:02

the home team won every series other

33:04

than Colorado beating Winnipeg, which I don't

33:07

think shocked a lot of people. And then

33:09

Edmonton beating Vancouver with

33:11

the Canucks down to their third-string goalie, I

33:14

don't think was a huge upset. And

33:17

then by the time you got to the Final Four, it was arguably

33:20

the four best teams in the league left. So I

33:23

don't know that there's any surprises left

33:25

to be had. It was a especially

33:30

predictable year in that sense, which made it

33:33

unpredictable, said the guy who likes

33:36

to pick underdogs and is getting slaughtered in

33:39

the athletics pick

33:41

competition. Well, I guess what

33:43

I'm saying is like that's everything

33:46

you said is, of course, true. But

33:48

I'm talking about like Florida back-to-back

33:50

cup finals before that Tampa three cup finals

33:52

in a row. The Rangers have been to

33:54

two of the last three conference

33:57

championships. The

34:00

Penguins won two Stanley Cups in a row Seven

34:04

eight nine years ago. However, you know, I I

34:06

guess I'm doing the math right on that one

34:10

Even like Chicago winning three and five

34:12

years the Kings winning two and three

34:14

years like Am

34:18

I crazy that this is like more

34:20

of a thing in the past decade then than

34:23

it used to be or I mean

34:25

I guess Pittsburgh and Detroit was the comp was

34:27

the cup final like you said Back

34:30

to back years but for

34:32

a while there it just felt like things were

34:34

at least a little a Little

34:37

more. I mean really

34:39

since anybody's real since the Montreal run

34:43

It's been pretty Wouldn't

34:48

say expected but You

34:52

you couldn't look at any of the like there hasn't

34:54

been a great Cinderella run since and then I know

34:56

Florida last year They were the

34:58

eight seed. So I mean maybe we're sleeping on

35:00

that but yeah I think the fact that they

35:03

won the president's trophy the year before I think

35:06

we can like the end and then you look

35:08

at This year. I think we can clearly look at the

35:10

Panthers and say the regular season with

35:13

the outlier There that it took them

35:15

so long to figure it out and get going under

35:17

Paul Maurice. Yeah, I think

35:19

that's probably true And

35:21

the other thing is that that that Canadians

35:23

run totally fake not real.

35:25

Mm-hmm. I agree So every

35:28

lots of people are saying this. Yep. You

35:30

you got anything else to say about the

35:32

Panthers? Um, I just think

35:34

you know, just How

35:37

dirty can we be man? That's what it's gonna come down

35:39

to. Yeah, it's Okay,

35:42

well, you know what about this? Let's take a

35:44

break. We'll come back. We'll talk about that Yeah,

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wait this week's episode of puck soup is brought

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40:09

All right, we're back. Let's talk

40:11

about those Rangers. I

40:14

have written down here what

40:16

went wrong and well, our

40:19

good friend Larry Brooks let us know what went wrong. I

40:22

love Larry, man. Let's preface this

40:25

by saying I'm a big fan. I

40:28

like when he's not writing about how

40:30

the Rangers have been cheated at every

40:32

turn. I have told the story before

40:34

of one of my favorite Stanley Cup

40:36

memories was sitting next to him in

40:39

the press box about his square gardens during the, I

40:41

guess it would have been what, the 2014 final? 14

40:45

final, yeah. What

40:47

I didn't realize at the time but

40:49

now understand in retrospect was a gigantic

40:52

laptop. And

40:55

they squish us in there and he

40:57

sat down next to me and I was like, oh cool, that's Larry

40:59

Brooks. And for three hours did not

41:02

say one word to me other

41:04

than like grunting in annoyance to indicate

41:07

that my laptop was taking up too much

41:09

space. And at the end it was like,

41:11

that's exactly the experience I wanted. Hell yeah.

41:14

Yeah. It was great. Like if

41:16

he had been like a super nice polite dude, I would have been like, sure.

41:20

Don't meet your heroes, you know? But he did have

41:23

a tweet. Yeah,

41:25

so. And it was a

41:27

journey, that tweet. It's.

41:31

Multi-layered for sure. Let me see if I can

41:33

pull it up very quickly here. I've read books

41:35

that didn't have as many twists and turns

41:37

and character development. That's exactly

41:39

right. Let me keep

41:41

scrolling up here. Hold on one

41:43

second. Okay. This is

41:46

a tweet from Larry Brooks. Yesterday,

41:48

5.12 PM Eastern Standard

41:50

Time. There is a

41:52

daylight saving. I never know which one. Nobody knows.

41:55

Um, I wonder how the final is going

41:57

to be officiated. Will the Panthers be allowed

41:59

to. headhunt the way they were in the first

42:01

three games of the Rangers series will

42:03

be official to attempt to protect Caitlin Clark I

42:06

mean Connor McDavid so let's

42:10

let's not read into it that

42:13

he's being sexist

42:15

let's not read into that I yeah

42:18

I'll take it as a given he is

42:20

let's hope that he's not doing the Katy

42:23

Perry Corey Perry thing here well what I'm

42:25

saying is let's let's just put aside that

42:28

aspect of it on a day where somebody

42:30

else said something I would say worse

42:32

about Caitlin Clark let's

42:37

instead just imagine that

42:41

he's talking about the league

42:44

overly protects its stars you

42:47

know what I mean like let's give it that

42:49

read good

42:53

the league should protected stars

42:56

that is fucking baseline again

42:59

marketing the game thing that is that is just

43:01

how it ought to be yes

43:04

and if people don't know Caitlin Clark

43:06

obviously the now WNBA star

43:08

there was like a controversy because

43:10

she took a hard foul and there's

43:12

that's a lot of so there

43:14

is a read of that like if you're like

43:16

why did he randomly compare Kate Connor McDavid to

43:19

a female athlete because

43:21

that female athlete is currently embroiled in the

43:25

how do you protect your stars debate

43:27

is the charitable

43:29

way to look at it from yes

43:31

right I don't I don't think

43:34

this tweet earns being charitable but I'm saying

43:36

like you even even if we're taking it

43:38

on its face like as

43:40

a as a he's just talking about

43:42

the thing that Sean just said it's

43:44

still fucking a stupid point that's my

43:46

point well even I think here though

43:50

maybe is less about they shouldn't protect

43:52

Connor McDavid but the implication being that

43:54

the league did not do this for

43:57

the Rangers they did not seek

44:01

to protect the Ranger stars

44:03

from the headhunting Panthers

44:05

in the first three games of the series which is

44:07

kind of a weird... I wonder

44:10

what happened... Given that the Ranger has won

44:12

two of the first three... What happened in

44:15

game four where the thing about headhunting might

44:17

have gone out the window a little bit?

44:19

Is there anything that might have happened in

44:21

game four where the thing about headhunting couldn't

44:24

be considered anymore? Maybe Larry's just

44:26

like T-vowed the series and he's

44:28

only three... You know when you

44:30

get three episodes in you're like... Sure yeah hey

44:32

look I haven't finished Shogun yet you know I

44:34

got two episodes left. So

44:37

as you can imagine

44:39

this is... the tweet

44:41

did great numbers. Bossed

44:44

engagement for Larry. And the

44:47

it is just most

44:49

of those numbers are just people

44:51

replying with various Jacob Truba screencaps

44:54

and yeah that's right animated

44:57

gifs and the occasional Matt Rempe just to

44:59

mix it up. Sure hey

45:01

you got a variety of the spice of

45:04

life as they say you know. Yes and

45:06

I will say that there is

45:08

nothing directly in this tweet that he

45:11

is trying to claim that the Rangers are Quarroboys. That

45:15

the Rangers don't also you

45:18

know like a lot of people are like does this

45:20

guy not realize that Jacob Truba and Matt Rempe are

45:22

on his team and I imagine he

45:24

probably does know

45:26

that. He's talking about

45:28

the Panthers and look man the Panthers are a dirty

45:30

team. They sure

45:32

are. Yeah. But I

45:37

don't know that the headhunting... what did the Panthers do

45:41

to headhunt? So that's kind of my

45:44

thing with it where I'm like I

45:46

watched this series. Yeah. I don't remember

45:49

and so I went back and looked. Generally dirt

45:51

like they're a bunch of scumbags but did

45:54

they go back and... I went back

45:56

and looked at Larry's writing and

45:59

tweets about... this because I'm like, you

46:01

know, maybe I missed something. This is a guy

46:03

who watches the Rangers a lot more closely than

46:05

I do just by the nature of his job.

46:07

Right. So maybe I missed something and

46:10

he didn't, the only thing I could find

46:12

that like kind of even alluded to the

46:15

Panthers or taking liberties or whatever

46:17

was that, uh, that

46:19

Mikala hit at the end of game one, was

46:22

that on he'd all or it was, it was

46:24

on one of their skill

46:27

guys or what, or whatever you would want to say.

46:30

And the

46:32

thing Larry wrote about that was like, well,

46:35

look, he was just playing to the whistle. Like, why

46:37

was that? Literally he wrote in the column.

46:39

Why was he out there at

46:42

that point in the game? It doesn't make a lot

46:44

of sense because like he could

46:46

get hit because there might be shenanigans at the end

46:48

of a, of a close and hotly

46:50

contested game or whatever you want to say. Okay.

46:54

And so, and so, uh, Larry's

46:56

conclusion there was, uh, that's

46:59

why they should dress Matt Rempe, which they

47:01

did immediately. And,

47:03

uh, look, they, they won the

47:05

next two games. So Matt Rempe, you know, it

47:08

worked right up until it didn't, but

47:10

it was just like that

47:15

you didn't have a problem with this. I

47:20

go back and look, the Panthers

47:22

took seven minor penalties

47:24

in the first three games. Then

47:27

we're not offsetting seven

47:30

power plays, just not a lot, but

47:32

also not ridiculous.

47:36

So maybe, maybe you would say it is just

47:39

because the sheer volume of hockey they played in

47:41

the first three games, you know, they played what,

47:44

like 10 and a half, 11

47:46

periods of hockey. Yeah. But overtime

47:48

doesn't count as far as penalty

47:51

penalties. Sure. Yeah. But

47:53

like, I, my, my point is I didn't see

47:55

him complaining about this. I will say though, in

47:57

scrolling back through this, I saw a tweet that,

47:59

uh, I guess I had missed,

48:01

which was Angel Hernandez, the

48:03

horrible major league baseball umpire, was like, I quit.

48:06

I can't do this shit anymore. Everybody's mean to

48:08

me all the time. You know, that kind of

48:10

thing. And Larry,

48:12

I don't have the tweet in front of me

48:14

now, but Larry said something about like, let's hope

48:16

Kelly Sutherland is next. And I was like, big

48:19

salute, brother. That's a good tweet. All right. Very

48:21

good. Although it turns out he was

48:24

mad that Kelly Sutherland called Jacob Truva

48:26

for the elbow. Right.

48:31

Because he was the ref in game four, I

48:33

think. I'm pretty sure. He's mad that

48:36

he called the elbow. That was an elbow.

48:40

Yeah. Well, because he's saying like it wasn't a headshot.

48:42

So what are we getting mad about? That

48:45

was Larry's argument. The, uh,

48:48

I will say this, and then

48:50

we can, we can move on to more of

48:52

the Rangers autopsy. His

48:56

larger point is

48:59

absolutely valid. It is going to be interesting

49:01

to see how this series is

49:03

officiated because like I said, Panthers are

49:05

scumbags. Yeah. I've been saying it. I

49:07

would say this is going to be his larger

49:10

point. This is kind of the point he's like, like

49:15

he's using that. He's using it as like

49:17

a Trojan horse stepping stone point that he

49:19

used to then complain about.

49:21

Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. But

49:23

I mean, we talked about how scary

49:25

that Edmonton power play is. Yeah.

49:28

I think the difference of the series could

49:30

be, do the

49:32

dirty scumbag Panthers take four

49:38

penalties a game or two? Well,

49:41

the answer is it'll probably be four in games one and

49:43

two, and then two the rest of the way. And then

49:45

zero in game seven. Yeah.

49:48

If they make it that far, giving Edmonton,

49:50

you know, four power plays a game at

49:52

any point, really, probably

49:54

not a good recipe. Oh,

49:57

I forgot to mention this. They

49:59

were talking. talking about Mattias

50:01

Ekholm. I can't remember

50:03

where I heard this, but Mattias Ekholm

50:05

was like, they were like, what's your

50:07

big message to your

50:10

team since you've been through, you're the only, you know,

50:12

you're one of the only guys on this team that's

50:15

been to a cup final before. Don't ask Corey Perry

50:17

how the last few he's gone to have gone. And

50:20

Mattias Ekholm was like, I would tell

50:23

them like we didn't start on time

50:25

against Pittsburgh. Like we were down 2-0

50:27

in the series and it's impossible to come back from that.

50:30

And it's like, is that like wisdom

50:32

do you think? You

50:34

know what I mean? Where it's

50:36

like, it's true that you don't want to be down 2-0 in

50:40

a series against anybody. You

50:42

think like Chris Knoblock had go

50:46

behind 2-0 in series written on the whiteboard and

50:48

then someone scratched it out. Well I don't think

50:50

that's the strategy. I don't think like the strategy

50:52

is let's rope-adope them and hand them to game.

50:55

But I do wonder where like again, just who

50:57

needs to be told like, boys,

51:00

I got a good one for you

51:02

here. Try to win the first two games. What do you

51:04

think? Yeah. That

51:06

time man, this guy's got a career in coaching after

51:09

he finishes. That's right. So the

51:11

Rangers, what happened to the Stars? That is

51:13

the big, that seems to be the big.

51:15

Well we'll get to those guys when we

51:17

talk about the others. Ah, you knew it.

51:20

Swish baby. Yeah. They all

51:22

cut across the blue line with your head down

51:24

Sean. What happened to

51:27

their star players? Because

51:30

that feels like, and you know we

51:32

will get into this with Dallas as well. There seems to

51:35

be a level

51:37

of dissatisfaction with the conference

51:39

final losers that feels higher to

51:41

me than most years. Yeah,

51:44

I think. You've won two rounds. Obviously

51:47

it's disappointing and you're going to be frustrated in the

51:49

aftermath. But it feels like both New

51:51

York and Dallas feel like teams where

51:54

at least a large chunk of the fan base feels like

51:56

there's a mini crisis happening

51:58

here. Yeah,

52:00

so I think what happened with them

52:03

is that like, I don't think they've

52:05

done like their getaway day or whatever

52:07

you want to call it like, I

52:10

don't think they've gone through like, oh, it

52:12

turns out, you know, Jacob Truba, his

52:14

ankles been broken for six months.

52:17

Like, I don't think we're getting that

52:19

yet, right? That's probably today, as a

52:21

matter of fact. But

52:26

I think that's got to be part of it that like, Panarin

52:29

was playing hard or Zabana Jett, Zabana Jett,

52:31

I guess would be in particular, the guy

52:33

where you're like, what the fuck happened with

52:36

that, you know? Yeah,

52:38

I mean, all of it, like, or Timmy Panarin had

52:40

one goal. Yeah, in the in the

52:42

series. I mean, I really feel like the Mika

52:45

Zabana Jett only three goals in the playoffs. That's

52:48

the only one that people are wound up with. Yeah,

52:51

yeah, a lot of, you know, and

52:54

it's that sort of like question that,

52:56

you know, to be honest, you've kind of had about the

52:59

Rangers for a few years now, which is Mika

53:01

Zabana Jett, great player, is he a number one center

53:03

on a cup winning team? The

53:07

only like the Rangers Adam Fox was not

53:09

good, really the whole way. Jacob Trubo was

53:11

really not good, even to the extent that

53:13

Ranger fans are. They want them

53:15

gone. Like, I read

53:18

multiple articles about the Rangers

53:20

post their loss

53:22

that were like, feels

53:24

like there's going to be a lot of buyers

53:26

for Jacob Trubo, which makes sense because like, he

53:29

won the Mark Messier leadership award and he hits people. These

53:32

are the two most important things any GM is looking

53:34

for in a guy that they're trading for, you know?

53:38

Like, it makes sense that you would trade

53:40

him because he's expensive. He's not nearly as

53:43

good as the fucking reputation, you know? And

53:49

he's only got two years left, so he's like tradable. Does

53:51

he only have two years? Okay, I was going to ask.

53:53

I was like, that's kind of a great big contract. And

53:57

crucially, his full no move clause drops

53:59

to either... 15 or 16 team no

54:01

trade. Um,

54:04

which is, you

54:06

know, if you're looking for someone to offload,

54:08

you're possibly fourth or fifth best defenseman who

54:10

makes 8 million bucks. I know he's your

54:13

captain. I know he's in the

54:15

commercial about, uh, going to the

54:17

doctor. I don't, do you

54:19

have that commercial up in Canada? Yeah.

54:23

Um, Gold spoil it. Gentilly might be showing it to

54:25

me this after. It's not, I

54:28

talked extensively with Gentilly about this. Okay.

54:30

Were you part of the planning committee?

54:32

Yeah, I like to think so. Uh, I, I,

54:34

I like to think I put him on one

54:37

or two that he, he was, that weren't really

54:39

as on his radar, but he's like, yeah, that

54:41

is an annoying fucking commercial. I guess we'll see

54:43

when the article comes out if he takes any

54:45

of my suggestions. But, uh, yeah,

54:47

anyway, um, I

54:50

don't consider that to be a super annoying, but like

54:52

the guys in commercials, the guy's the captain of the

54:54

New York Rangers. He makes a lot of money, but

54:58

also he has, again,

55:01

he's like maybe their fourth or fifth best defenseman in

55:03

that. And it didn't, it's going

55:05

to be tough. It's square. Didn't didn't have great

55:07

numbers as far as, you know,

55:09

but it was more, this was

55:11

kind of one of

55:13

those eye test things where there were,

55:16

I know a lot of Rangers fans

55:18

and you gotta be careful with this

55:20

because especially with defenseman fan bases have a

55:22

tendency to zone in on one guy.

55:25

Totally. And suddenly, you know, confirmation bias kicks in where

55:27

you're like, oh, he's on the ice again for this

55:29

guy, but there were a lot where

55:31

I, you know, I saw Rangers fans going like, what the

55:33

hell is he doing? What is

55:35

he trying to cover here? What what's going through?

55:38

I can't remember if it

55:40

was the first or second Panthers goal in

55:42

game six, but they, but like, I saw

55:44

multiple people just be like, watch Truba on

55:46

this play. He goes to the, like, he

55:48

tries to check the guy who doesn't have

55:50

the puck. Yeah. I think

55:53

if you're the Rangers, the only two guys, it's a

55:55

little, it's a little unusual that very often when a team. go

56:00

as deep in the playoffs. There's

56:02

usually a lot of like positive stories where

56:05

you look and say this guy outperformed, this guy

56:07

showed us something. And I really feel like with

56:09

the Rangers, there were guys,

56:12

certainly Schusterkin among them, that were

56:15

good. And Lefrennier. Yeah, absolutely.

56:17

But Lefrennier kind of

56:19

had the continued the coming out story of

56:21

like, this guy's a legitimate number

56:23

one picky. This guy's scary.

56:26

And the other one is Vincent Trojic, who was

56:29

very good all season long. Sure.

56:31

Probably didn't get enough attention. But

56:34

in the playoffs was

56:36

probably their best player, or at

56:38

least their best forward. Their best forward.

56:40

I'd say their best skater for sure. Yeah.

56:43

Yeah. Yeah. Non goalie department, who had

56:45

a better playoff. Chris Crider was a

56:47

weird one because he did have, you

56:49

know, he had the one big game,

56:52

shorthand goal, like he's, but

56:56

then also stretches where you're like, right. Yeah.

56:59

Chris Crider is on this team finishes with

57:01

12 points in 16 games,

57:03

which is like a respectable number, but

57:05

not like again, is he, is, is

57:08

he the number one wing or a number two

57:10

wing or I guess on a, on a cup,

57:12

when he, you look back at their trade deadline

57:15

where they kinda were rumored

57:17

to be in on some of the big names. They should

57:19

have got Gensil. Didn't

57:22

get Gensil ended up getting Alex Wemberg, who

57:25

had the one goal for them. Two points, one

57:27

goal and two points in 16. Now

57:29

the goal was an overtime goal. Yeah. So

57:32

what's that worth? I'd say that's worth whatever

57:34

they traded for him, like a third round

57:36

pick or whatever. And I'd

57:38

say they'd take that again. You know, they

57:40

didn't get Jake Gensil, but they beat Jake

57:43

Gensil. So, yeah, but I think there

57:46

will be some fair questions

57:48

to, you

57:50

know, Chris Drury, as far as like, Hey, you

57:52

had the president's trophy winning team. Did

57:55

you do enough? Especially

57:57

since the

57:59

only The only championship that any

58:01

of these fans remember the 94 team

58:07

Famously had Maybe

58:09

the most aggressive deadline of any Yeah,

58:13

champion ever they just said we'll take

58:15

half the Oilers, please Yeah, don't take

58:17

his word like we're gonna make we're

58:19

gonna trade half our roster for a

58:21

completely new half. So I

58:24

don't know man And I

58:26

don't know if this is resonating with with you at

58:28

all or if this is a location

58:30

thing for me Seem

58:33

to be a lot of Brady Kaczuk rumors around

58:35

the Rangers or a lot of the

58:38

Rangers need to go and get Brady Kaczuk and Here's

58:41

what that trade would look like and then

58:43

yeah a lot of Ottawa fans As

58:46

you can probably imagine not taking very kindly

58:48

to that Because

58:51

if people don't know there was a Jeremy

58:54

Rutherford from the Athletic Who

58:56

is a st. Louis guy was on

58:59

some radio show and they're like, hey Any

59:02

truth that you know, we're hearing that Brady Kaczuk wants out

59:04

and he was like, oh, I I don't know about that

59:06

I mean, I I don't

59:08

know. I don't know if the Blues would even have enough to

59:10

get him and people

59:12

ran with that as Jeremy

59:15

Rutherford confirms Brady Kaczuk wants out

59:18

Here's what you're about the blue and then he was like, no, no,

59:20

no, I didn't do that You know, I was

59:22

asked this question on the spot and I said I hadn't

59:24

heard anything so that seems like

59:26

one of those things where there isn't any

59:30

Smoke to or any fire to the smoke

59:32

but that as well every Ranger fan from

59:34

trading capital caco Ke'Andre

59:36

Miller Three draft picks

59:38

and one miscellaneous player for Brady Kaczuk

59:41

Yeah, so I You

59:44

know, I don't know if people know this at the end of

59:46

my column What

59:48

we learned every week I go and I

59:50

look for like the silly trade proposal on

59:52

a Jeff Jeff Or is it so good

59:54

my favorite feature? Well, I would

59:56

I would hope you would like all the Good

59:59

takes right. No, don't make those. But on there it was traded

1:00:01

like basically it was the

1:00:10

Rangers fans trading like every

1:00:13

once this is on Sunday after they

1:00:15

get eliminated. Just like oh let's do

1:00:17

the Bantage ad for Shane Wright. Let's

1:00:19

do this this overpaid guy

1:00:22

who underperformed in the not

1:00:24

even necessarily overpaid. Let's do this guy

1:00:26

who's a veteran who underperformed in the

1:00:28

conference final. Let's trade him for like

1:00:31

a 22 year old superstar

1:00:33

in the making. Every

1:00:35

single one. Brady Kachuk obviously

1:00:37

not really 22 not really a superstar

1:00:39

but same idea right where it's like

1:00:42

let's just let's just magically upgrade and

1:00:45

give up you know the classic thing of you

1:00:48

know like calling in the sports radio you

1:00:50

know what do you think a second

1:00:53

round pick for LeBron James. You think that

1:00:55

you think that'll work go to the Celtics

1:00:58

and the guy's like yeah baby I don't know.

1:01:00

Mm-hmm. It's that kind

1:01:02

of shit which is why HF boards is still

1:01:05

a good website after all these years. Many

1:01:09

people are saying the greatest website. They

1:01:12

do have one of those fucking very annoying

1:01:14

like oh we notice you're using an ad

1:01:16

blocker. To go

1:01:18

to HF boards you're gonna do this to

1:01:20

me. Look I don't

1:01:23

like it when it's the local newspaper

1:01:25

or whatever that is annoying. Fuck you

1:01:27

get lost. Again

1:01:29

I've never. Yeah

1:01:32

but like don't do it no again like you

1:01:34

go to fucking the New York Post website and

1:01:36

there's 14 pop-ups that are like do

1:01:38

you want to get notifications? Do you want this? Do you

1:01:40

want that? Like I just want to

1:01:43

read this Larry Brooks column. You know

1:01:45

what drives me crazy is when they it pops up

1:01:47

with the hey you're using an ad blocker would

1:01:49

you please fit it like I like that they give you the option

1:01:51

they kind of guilt trip you but then

1:01:54

they still let you in. I think I said

1:01:56

this before there is there are very few buttons

1:01:58

I click on the internet more than continue

1:02:00

without supporting. Yeah. But then... No

1:02:03

thanks. Well that's... Here's the thing. It's when... Instead

1:02:05

of that, it's I'll fix it next time. I'll

1:02:07

fix it next time. And I'm like, don't play

1:02:09

your little psychology games on me. I'm not...

1:02:12

Like I'm gonna click that and then

1:02:14

later that day I'll be like, did

1:02:16

I tell somebody I was gonna do

1:02:18

something? I did... You know what? I

1:02:21

made a commitment. Yeah, I'll fix it

1:02:23

next time. It's legally binding. Yeah. They

1:02:25

send a cease and desist. Stop going to

1:02:28

our website without fixing it. That is like

1:02:30

among the least followed rules. That

1:02:32

is right up there with like, you must have a

1:02:34

full shower before going in this hotel swimming pool. Oh

1:02:39

I forgot to

1:02:41

say this about Larry Brooks too. Anybody

1:02:44

who puts that they won the Elmer

1:02:46

Ferguson and are in the Hall of

1:02:49

Fame in their Twitter bio, which

1:02:51

there are some writers who do that. Instant

1:02:53

red flag for bad

1:02:56

takes ahead. Turned back now,

1:02:58

you know. Come on man. Hey,

1:03:00

shut up. Scotty Burnside. Did

1:03:02

he put it in his Twitter bio? I don't know if he did or

1:03:05

not. I'm concerned about it. But Sky Rules. Congratulations.

1:03:07

One of the nicest guys. Super good dude. Thrilled

1:03:10

for him. Let's have a look-see. We

1:03:13

might have to walk everything we

1:03:15

just said back. Hockey

1:03:17

writer, broadcaster, podcaster. Big salute, brother. Don't

1:03:20

put it in there. Honestly, putting a

1:03:22

podcaster in your bio is a big

1:03:24

red flag for me. You

1:03:28

aren't lying, brother. You aren't

1:03:30

getting it all. But

1:03:33

yeah, so I'm looking

1:03:35

at this and again, this is just what

1:03:37

Larry Brooks says, but it's, well

1:03:42

basically what Larry's column said was like,

1:03:44

they need to get tougher. As

1:03:46

though that was the fucking impediment to beating

1:03:49

the Panthers, right? Like not

1:03:51

that their starter players got fucking

1:03:53

eaten alive, swallowed whole, you know.

1:03:55

That's not what happened here. They

1:03:57

just didn't have enough magic. Rempy

1:04:00

in the lineup, you know, if he did been a

1:04:02

game one, it wouldn't have gone down like that, etc

1:04:06

But the guys who said like Understanding

1:04:09

that you can't just

1:04:11

fix the depth here

1:04:13

that there are bigger problems He

1:04:16

said the guys he would expect And

1:04:18

again, I'm paraphrasing but like the

1:04:21

names he put out there are Truba,

1:04:23

Kryder, Zabanda, Jad Those are the three

1:04:25

so like names man, like those are

1:04:27

huge names You very rarely think Yeah,

1:04:30

yeah that hat for game Ranger

1:04:32

everybody's like this is one of the great Ranger

1:04:34

performances of all time. They're gonna retire his number

1:04:36

a Week and a

1:04:38

half later. We got to trade this fucking

1:04:40

guy. What happened? You play

1:04:43

the team that was so much better than

1:04:45

you and to your point earlier What

1:04:49

happened was all The

1:04:51

stuff that I wrote about this in like November

1:04:53

like the Rangers are gonna do the Rangers thing

1:04:55

where they they're like a 48 percent

1:04:59

Expected goals team at five

1:05:01

on five, but they ride the power play in

1:05:04

the goaltending. That's what happened in

1:05:06

this series Tell me I'm

1:05:08

fucking wrong, you know and Again

1:05:13

the thought is what if we traded one of

1:05:15

the big-name guys who's like again

1:05:18

Like you said is the bandage ad like a number one

1:05:20

center on a cup winner Probably he's

1:05:23

not But like the

1:05:25

thought here is get rid of the guy who

1:05:27

would be a really good number two center on a

1:05:29

cup winner like you can't if you're the Rangers you

1:05:31

can't go out and get a Number

1:05:33

one center in all likelihood, right? Like that

1:05:35

just isn't how it works But

1:05:40

I mean that's that's what makes this interesting though

1:05:43

is like You know,

1:05:45

I don't think and Larry certainly not

1:05:47

the only one throwing some of these names out there I

1:05:49

don't think the idea is you got to dump these guys

1:05:52

Addition by subtraction. It's the

1:05:55

Rangers need a different mix.

1:05:57

They need you know, maybe

1:05:59

you know Upgrades high-end and

1:06:01

and they're gonna make a hockey trade to do it Which

1:06:05

will yeah, but like you you very

1:06:07

rarely see this level of names Even

1:06:10

on the even in the rumor mill for a

1:06:13

team that's not rebuilding Okay, obviously if

1:06:15

the Rangers are like we're gonna rebuild then yes,

1:06:17

you trade all the veteran guys on big contracts

1:06:19

But that's not this this is like

1:06:21

it almost feels kind of old-school Yeah, we

1:06:23

didn't we didn't win. So we're gonna trade

1:06:25

our number one center and our number two

1:06:28

defenseman and Well, I don't

1:06:30

our best wingers if we have to raid you

1:06:32

trade any of these guys Do you get better from

1:06:35

doing that? I don't think why not like no stop

1:06:37

doing that this Whatever.

1:06:39

No, no, no, I'm saying like if you

1:06:41

can get better. Someone's gonna get better. I

1:06:45

would say it's the few trades That

1:06:48

take that like look the only way you

1:06:50

get better Lots of teams should be calling them

1:06:52

if they're gonna like you you get better

1:06:54

if it's a hockey trade First

1:06:56

of all, you can have a hockey trade that makes

1:06:59

both teams better if it fits You know if it's

1:07:01

moving assets from from place to place in the lineup

1:07:04

Or if it just comes down to you know, do we

1:07:06

know our guys better than you and you know, can we

1:07:08

get better players? Do

1:07:11

you trust your GM or not? Do you like

1:07:13

if you if you already think that Chris durey

1:07:15

can't trade Because advantage ad

1:07:17

and get better doing it then you

1:07:20

don't have the right GM I

1:07:23

guess what I'm preemptively losing You

1:07:26

know again hockey trades not because you know Truba

1:07:29

if you're if you're trying to dump a room

1:07:31

is the only guy where I think it's I

1:07:33

think it's like You could get

1:07:35

better by trading him it but my

1:07:37

I guess my other point is you're

1:07:39

selling these guys at the absolute like

1:07:42

the deer of their value right like

1:07:45

When is Chris Crider's value ever gonna

1:07:47

be lower than it is this week?

1:07:49

Zabana jad same idea. Yeah, right

1:07:53

Like Truba, you know again, I'd

1:07:55

be all in favor of trading an eight million dollar

1:07:57

guy who's like a middle-payer defenseman for me That

1:08:00

makes perfect sense again i know he's in all

1:08:02

the commercials or whatever but like it

1:08:05

makes perfect sense that. You

1:08:08

know his only real

1:08:10

value is that he does seem to have

1:08:12

the ability to elbow people in the head

1:08:14

with relative impunity. Right

1:08:17

like that is that is a character buff

1:08:19

that like work. It

1:08:21

is demonstrable it's got it

1:08:23

does have value to you in some ways were

1:08:25

like people are afraid to come across the blue

1:08:28

line because they know that if he elbows them

1:08:30

he might get a five minute major and he'll

1:08:32

only get a fine out of it or whatever

1:08:34

you know. But

1:08:38

like the

1:08:41

problem this is the

1:08:43

other thing i don't think either the bandage

1:08:45

out or cried or making like a crazy

1:08:47

amount of money so like trading them to

1:08:49

get better quote unquote like your high kind

1:08:51

of villages at eight point five. And

1:08:53

it's. Yeah i guess that's true. Yeah

1:08:56

his contract is a concern if you're not

1:08:58

sold on him cryder is six point five

1:09:00

for three more years so that's reasonable that's

1:09:03

totally reasonable you can get. But

1:09:06

again like the fact that it's reasonable means

1:09:09

that you can trade him without

1:09:11

the other team going ah we can't if we're

1:09:13

taking this contract we can't even give you anything

1:09:15

you yeah well dump them right the other thing

1:09:17

is the bandage

1:09:19

ad has a full no move clause

1:09:22

so good luck. And

1:09:25

cryder has a 15 team no

1:09:27

trade list which is that's

1:09:30

starting july one so if you want to so

1:09:32

if you're thinking they're going to trade him at

1:09:34

the draft no they aren't like that's just he

1:09:37

has a full no move clause until july

1:09:39

one. And chris cryder is

1:09:41

also you know as i said he's 33

1:09:44

is a lifetime ranger so you can absolutely see

1:09:46

him being like no don't even

1:09:48

come to me with anything under

1:09:50

no circumstances am i going to wave or

1:09:52

you know do whatever and here's

1:09:54

my list here's my no trade list

1:09:57

which contains every team that could reasonably.

1:10:00

Right. Go home, get me. The other thing... Do you

1:10:02

know... I feel like there's an audience answer to this,

1:10:04

but do you... Is it time

1:10:07

to trade Capo Caco? Well, there's still some value

1:10:09

potentially at 23. Again,

1:10:12

I just feel like you're healthy scratching

1:10:14

him in the play out. Like,

1:10:16

I think that there's a very

1:10:18

good reason to be like, yeah, we'll trade

1:10:20

this guy. It's not working. He needs a

1:10:22

change of scenery. If he succeeds somewhere else,

1:10:24

we'll just kind of accept

1:10:27

that with the knowledge that he wasn't going to succeed

1:10:29

here. That's all fine. But

1:10:32

like, again,

1:10:35

I don't know that you're getting a game-changing

1:10:39

talent or anything close to it for him.

1:10:41

You're not. I mean, it feels like he's

1:10:44

an add-on to a trade where...

1:10:46

That's exactly right. If you want to... Some GM

1:10:48

out there will be like, I can sell my

1:10:50

fanbase on former

1:10:52

number two overall pick who hasn't

1:10:56

done it in New York, but you know what? Change

1:10:58

of scenery, blah, blah, blah. This

1:11:01

is a guy that if I'm Utah, I'm like, you know

1:11:03

what? I'll fucking take a flyer on this. Here's

1:11:05

a third round pick in a seventh or

1:11:07

something like that. The

1:11:11

Rangers free up some money because he's

1:11:13

appending RFA with arbitration rights. I

1:11:17

guess that's the other thing we should say on

1:11:19

the Rangers is, Lefrenia's got one more year of

1:11:22

the cheap deal and then... And so does

1:11:24

Igor Shasturkin. That's the

1:11:26

real issue. That's

1:11:29

going to be an eight-digit, I think,

1:11:32

with the cap going up and all that. Both

1:11:35

those guys are eligible to resign on July 1. I

1:11:38

don't know about Lefrenia. And

1:11:40

Ash Shasturkin is UFA after

1:11:42

Lefrenia wouldn't be, but you would assume that's going to

1:11:44

be a situation where they're going to try to get

1:11:47

him eight years. Depending

1:11:49

on him being a hockey player, he'll

1:11:51

probably take way, way, way too little

1:11:53

to lock in for eight years. He'll

1:11:56

take like six and a half or something like that. They

1:11:59

have taxes in New York. You

1:12:02

might take 14

1:12:04

then because of

1:12:06

all these taxes.

1:12:08

I think that's a number where it

1:12:11

starts with a 1 and it isn't

1:12:13

followed immediately by a comma. Let's put

1:12:15

it that way. Well,

1:12:17

put it this way. It's going to – if

1:12:19

they don't get it done, but

1:12:25

at the same time, how many

1:12:27

times do we see a goalie sign a big

1:12:29

contract as an extension and then

1:12:32

have a bad year? General

1:12:34

4 and the extension even kicks in. It didn't happen

1:12:36

with Connor Hellebok, obviously, but yeah,

1:12:39

it's – but yeah. Okay,

1:12:41

so they need to free up some money for

1:12:44

down the line at least. Yeah, because

1:12:46

they don't have a lot coming off the books besides

1:12:48

that. Although

1:12:50

our Timmy Panarans only got two years left. And

1:12:52

Ke'Andre Miller also will need a new

1:12:55

contract and whether you

1:12:57

like it or not, he's a top pair

1:12:59

of defensemen for that. Which is why he's

1:13:01

getting thrown into every

1:13:03

trade that the fans are putting together. So

1:13:07

it'll be interesting. Again,

1:13:09

I think the autopsy is that this team is

1:13:11

what we thought they were. And

1:13:16

cause of death being mid at 5 on 5. Yep.

1:13:22

I don't – again, we were saying this

1:13:24

in November or whatever. We were saying this

1:13:27

two years ago. They

1:13:30

didn't do anything to address it two

1:13:32

years ago. They won

1:13:34

the President's Trophy by

1:13:36

accident, like let's be honest here. I

1:13:38

mean, they won the President's Trophy. They're

1:13:40

a really good team. Right, but like

1:13:42

what I'm saying is – and again,

1:13:44

we've had this discussion before. Teams

1:13:47

with good goaltending and good power plays

1:13:49

or whatever, like high-skill players, can be

1:13:52

PDO teams. That's like – I'm not saying

1:13:54

that's a knock against them. Like

1:13:56

in the regular season, what I'm saying is that

1:13:59

shit doesn't work. work in the postseason unless

1:14:02

it's just the goalie in which case you know

1:14:04

kind of that's a different thing

1:14:06

but like when that's the way you have

1:14:09

success in the regular season it's

1:14:11

just not gonna work in the playoffs once you get

1:14:13

deep enough and the other thing is they

1:14:17

went to the conference finals two years ago they

1:14:19

played a bunch of second and third string goalies and

1:14:22

Freddie and playoff ready Anderson then got their their

1:14:24

brains beat in right this year fake

1:14:26

opponent which they get to play a

1:14:28

fake opponent because they won the president's

1:14:30

trophy again I don't begrudge them that

1:14:33

but then they played playoff ready Anderson again and

1:14:35

then they got their brains beat in by an

1:14:37

actual good team happens two out of

1:14:40

the last three years like I don't know how you get

1:14:42

to be surprised by that outcome you

1:14:44

know fair enough

1:14:47

what about Dallas what

1:14:49

about Dallas kind of the same

1:14:51

thing happened with them powerplay

1:14:54

went cold star players didn't

1:14:56

really show up except for that one game Jason Robertson

1:14:58

and rope a hint had they

1:15:01

didn't have rope a hint for the first few games

1:15:03

of the series if I'm remit first two or three

1:15:05

maybe yeah he

1:15:07

came back in what I think was

1:15:10

game three that they

1:15:12

won yeah yeah but

1:15:14

apart from that they just didn't really

1:15:17

get a lot going and they were

1:15:19

in a very similar situation to the

1:15:22

Rangers where it's like oh they gave up the

1:15:25

they gave up that goal yeah

1:15:27

there if they're trailing after one period I'm

1:15:29

not liking their chances you know I was

1:15:34

surprised when they lost I you know

1:15:36

just tweeted something where I was like

1:15:39

you know it's a tough loss but this is a team that's really

1:15:41

well set up for the future and

1:15:44

I got pushback on that then you look

1:15:46

at their cat friendly page and it's like

1:15:48

oh maybe not yeah well I got pushback

1:15:50

on that from Dallas fans that's what I

1:15:52

mean like Dallas fans are intimately familiar with

1:15:54

the fact that they're their future cap

1:15:57

situations not that good so

1:15:59

let's let's get into it.

1:16:01

Tyler's against still Jamie Benz only

1:16:04

got one year left on that contract that we

1:16:06

thought for years was bad. Tyler's against still got

1:16:08

three more and look I mean it wasn't

1:16:11

a great contract at the time but injuries have done their

1:16:14

thing and that is part of why you don't sign guys

1:16:16

into their 30s but here

1:16:18

you are. I just

1:16:22

look at this team like Jason

1:16:24

Robertson, Wyatt Johnson,

1:16:28

Logan Atenger, Mira

1:16:30

Heiskin and all under 25. Yeah they have

1:16:32

so many good U25 players

1:16:35

it's crazy. Like you if

1:16:38

you could go around the league and you know this is arbitrary

1:16:41

obviously but if you just said like five

1:16:44

guys under 25 to build around for

1:16:46

the future like does anybody have a better

1:16:49

mix than probably not no you

1:16:51

know maybe a few guys but few

1:16:54

teams but there's not a lot you know

1:16:56

top to bottom. Yeah

1:16:58

maybe maybe you just take Connor Baddard

1:17:00

and whoever but and

1:17:02

yet they are

1:17:05

you know they're they had some

1:17:07

older guys but to me the older guys weren't the

1:17:10

key pieces even you know obviously Matthew

1:17:13

Shane was a really good addition he's

1:17:15

a UFA that was a one-year deal. Joe Pavelski we

1:17:18

don't know if he's gonna

1:17:20

be back. He did not look good in

1:17:22

the playoffs it has to be said he

1:17:24

looked good right up until

1:17:26

the playoffs so like yeah that's what I mean.

1:17:28

Defying the age curves and then it just

1:17:30

it caught up with them went off a

1:17:33

cliff or he had a cold streak that

1:17:35

happens to guys and people who are all

1:17:37

saying I don't I don't

1:17:39

think it was just he had

1:17:41

a cold streak I think he was like actively not

1:17:43

good I could pull up the numbers here really quickly

1:17:45

but like I just think he didn't have a good

1:17:47

playoff like period not not like the puck wasn't going

1:17:49

in for him you know what I mean. The

1:17:53

thing with the stars that

1:17:55

you look at is they

1:17:57

have Marahyce is

1:18:00

signed through 2029. 8.45, that's totally reasonable. You're

1:18:02

thrilled with that contract if

1:18:07

you're Dallas. Still a

1:18:09

good chance that in those remaining five

1:18:11

years, you get a Norris trophy out

1:18:13

of that. But from there, they have

1:18:16

only two other defensemen signed each

1:18:18

for one more year. Essel

1:18:21

in Del and then Ryan suitor, a guy that

1:18:23

maybe, you know, he's rumored as a buyout. So

1:18:26

you really wouldn't even want that. And then it's

1:18:28

five guys who are free agencies here. Now,

1:18:32

you know, you're Thomas Harley's not going

1:18:35

anywhere. Neil's long quest isn't going anywhere.

1:18:37

But you got to come up with new deals for those

1:18:40

guys. And then obviously Chris Tanev, that was

1:18:42

a rental. So who knows? I just

1:18:46

they want to bring a lot of

1:18:49

yeah, they they

1:18:51

do. But you know, it's it's going to be a

1:18:53

big number then. Yeah, I mean, this is

1:18:56

like Tanev that a guy, he's a

1:18:58

guy who had 34. And

1:19:00

especially with his style, like if I'm his agent, I'm saying

1:19:02

we're going to get your term. We're

1:19:04

going to get you three or four years somewhere. It's

1:19:08

going to be a contract somewhere that looks

1:19:11

like a mistake. And

1:19:13

probably will be but that's

1:19:15

the beauty of a 32 team

1:19:17

market. I like I get that

1:19:19

there's a lot of issues here. I'm just sitting

1:19:22

here going. Every

1:19:24

team's got issues, every team's influx.

1:19:28

But as far as a core, those

1:19:31

in a five, you know, I throw

1:19:33

Harley into there as well. Five,

1:19:37

six, seven guy core,

1:19:40

I'll take it. I can still win

1:19:42

with this. I totally agree, especially with Jim nil, a

1:19:44

guy who's a very, very good GM. I

1:19:47

don't feel I'm

1:19:49

not overly concerned. And I, you

1:19:52

know, I also get that some of the vibe from Dallas

1:19:54

fan seems to be this

1:19:56

is two years in a row now. They

1:19:59

got to the conference. ran out of gas

1:20:01

like is this a team that's plateaued like is

1:20:03

this a team that has leveled out at not

1:20:05

quite good enough Maybe

1:20:09

but I I'm not I it's

1:20:12

weird for me to be more optimistic about a

1:20:14

team than a fan base seems to be but

1:20:16

I Think you're

1:20:18

also it's the same thing with the Rangers like

1:20:20

you know If they ran

1:20:22

it back with the six act same group next year They wouldn't

1:20:24

win the president's trophy in all likelihood, but they'd be a good

1:20:26

team. You know, they just wouldn't be necessarily

1:20:31

cup competitive Barring sha-circuit

1:20:33

going ape shit in the playoffs, which is always

1:20:35

a possibility when you have a great goalie But

1:20:40

I want to I want to say a theory that I

1:20:43

have That I

1:20:45

think really applies to Dallas and I've

1:20:47

had this theory for a good long

1:20:49

while now I think

1:20:51

that if you have like a huge age gap

1:20:53

between Let's say

1:20:56

your stars of yesteryear who are making a lot

1:20:58

of money and Your

1:21:00

stars of today who are just like really

1:21:03

good young ish players Like

1:21:06

and and very little in the middle like

1:21:09

not a lot of guys who were driving the bus were like 27 28 years old.

1:21:11

I Think

1:21:14

you have a hard time winning in the

1:21:16

playoffs Mmm, I

1:21:19

I'd be curious to see like if someone ran the

1:21:21

numbers on this or whatever This is not like a

1:21:23

thing I feel like I could look up quickly and

1:21:25

easily but I just feel like a

1:21:28

lot of the teams that win the cup have

1:21:30

a lot of guys in the like 27

1:21:33

to 31 range that are making a

1:21:35

big difference for them and I don't see

1:21:37

Dallas is really having that right like

1:21:41

Marchment and hints are the only two forwards

1:21:43

in that age group who you

1:21:46

would say are like Kind

1:21:49

of needle movers and they don't have anybody

1:21:51

in that group on the blue line Unless

1:21:55

you want to say Esselindel which like I

1:21:59

would say you're stretching the definition a

1:22:02

little bit, but sure. I

1:22:04

think having those guys who are like more,

1:22:08

again like on the wrong, what you'd

1:22:10

say is the wrong side of the

1:22:12

agent curve, but also like they've

1:22:15

played in the playoffs three, four, five

1:22:17

times and I think that does matter. You know that

1:22:19

kind of thing. The good thing is they're making their

1:22:21

own guys who fit that description. Right,

1:22:23

so what I'm saying is the problem right

1:22:25

now for this team is

1:22:27

that enough time hasn't passed for Jason

1:22:30

Robertson to reach that age range or

1:22:32

Miro High School, well I guess they're

1:22:34

basically the same age, but you know

1:22:36

what I mean like and

1:22:40

their older guy, like their

1:22:42

veteran guys who have been around the block

1:22:44

of time or three, those guys are like

1:22:46

32, 33, 34, 35 years old. You know, do you see what I'm

1:22:51

saying? Like you

1:22:54

know, especially on their blue line, it's

1:22:57

like Esselindel is the only

1:22:59

guy in that range and

1:23:01

like all the other quote-unquote

1:23:03

name guys are either

1:23:06

like Thomas Harley style

1:23:08

22 year or 21 year olds, whatever

1:23:11

Thomas Harley is, and like

1:23:13

Chris Hanav and Ryan Souter. And

1:23:17

I don't think you can win with

1:23:20

that mix personally. I'm

1:23:22

sure there are like counter examples to this or

1:23:24

whatever, but like for the most part I think

1:23:27

you need guys who are just

1:23:30

on the wrong side of that age and curve and not, you

1:23:33

know, Jamie Ben Sage. Yeah.

1:23:38

And the problem is a lot of those

1:23:40

guys are signed for next year. Ryan Souter,

1:23:42

I think they'll probably buy him out. That

1:23:45

seems like an easy buyout decision there, but

1:23:48

you know I don't know what it

1:23:50

cost them to buy out Jamie Ben. I don't know what his

1:23:53

contract looks like for next year, but it probably isn't. Well,

1:23:55

he's at 995 or something I think. Oh, he's not buyoutable. He's

1:24:01

not buyoutable because he makes 5.5 million

1:24:04

in signing bonuses next summer or this

1:24:06

summer. And realistically, you're not gonna

1:24:08

buy out your captain. No, no, but like

1:24:10

I'm saying, you know, if they wanted to

1:24:13

take a more extreme route, they just can't

1:24:15

do that. It doesn't make financial sense for

1:24:17

them to do that. So

1:24:22

again, I really like this team. I like

1:24:24

the core a ton, right? But

1:24:28

you know, you're gonna re-sign Matt Duchain. That's the

1:24:30

solution here. You know what I mean? I don't

1:24:33

know what their path forward looks like. Pretty good.

1:24:35

It was pretty good last year. He's

1:24:38

also like 33. And

1:24:44

again, this is a guy where his agent's gonna

1:24:46

be like, we gotta get you that one big

1:24:48

last contract, brother. He

1:24:50

might be also remember he got bought out,

1:24:52

so he does have kind

1:24:55

of the steady stream. Yeah. Income

1:24:57

already. So maybe he's more willing to say, hey,

1:24:59

this is a good fit in Dallas. I like

1:25:01

the way it's going on here. No, like I'm

1:25:03

just saying if you want to take a step

1:25:05

and you don't – you have kind of limited

1:25:07

cap space. They have 13 guys

1:25:09

signed and under

1:25:12

16 million in cap space, and

1:25:14

they have to extend Stank

1:25:16

– or not Stank-Oven. Thomas

1:25:19

Harley. That's their big RFA

1:25:21

name. And like

1:25:25

it's a tight squeeze. Even ask me

1:25:27

to buy it. I guess what it comes down to is

1:25:29

if you're gym-nailed, do you look at this team and say

1:25:32

we're right there? We've

1:25:34

gotta keep it together. Obviously, it's not – you know, you're

1:25:36

not gonna bring back the same 20 guys. But we've gotta

1:25:38

keep the same basic

1:25:40

structure, and we take another swing at

1:25:42

it. Or do you say we're

1:25:44

not good enough. We need to get better, which

1:25:47

is probably – I think they need to get better for sure. But

1:25:50

again, I don't know how that

1:25:53

works if you're – unless you do something drastic

1:25:55

like pay Jamie Ben the signing bonus and then

1:25:58

trade him. You know what I mean. I

1:26:00

mean, which again, I just, I

1:26:02

can't know. I agree that they probably won't do that.

1:26:04

But like, if you want to, if

1:26:06

you want to take a drastic step to be

1:26:08

like more

1:26:10

competitive, because this

1:26:13

is a thing that doesn't get set a whole lot. Right. Is

1:26:16

that, uh, if you lost in the conference

1:26:18

finals, you only won two out

1:26:20

of four rounds. You know what I mean? Like

1:26:23

there is, there is a stratification there that kind

1:26:25

of doesn't. I

1:26:31

guess I'll put it this way. The New York

1:26:33

Islanders a couple of years ago made two conference finals in a

1:26:35

row. Right. Like you don't have to

1:26:37

be a great team to make the conference finals. It

1:26:41

helps obviously, but you just

1:26:43

catch it. Stray's here. I love it. Tell me

1:26:45

I'm right. What happened since then? Yeah.

1:26:50

Yeah. And again, fake playoffs. So, you know, take it

1:26:52

all with a grain of salt, but, um,

1:26:56

yeah, to me, like I think that

1:26:58

Dallas is on the cusp of being

1:27:00

like one of the truly, like

1:27:03

potentially great teams of the era, just

1:27:05

because of the age and the quality

1:27:07

of some of their, their younger players,

1:27:10

their, their more impactful players, but. So

1:27:14

those like, uh, mid

1:27:17

2010s decisions that they

1:27:19

made really hurting them. That's

1:27:23

fair. Yeah. I

1:27:26

like the team, but I,

1:27:28

I, I'd like to see, I'd like to see him get

1:27:30

a little creative this summer. That's all. Okay.

1:27:34

All right. Why don't we take another break? We'll

1:27:36

come back and we'll wrap it up with

1:27:39

some news and notes. This week's episode is

1:27:41

brought to you by AG one folks. It's

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All right, we're back. And it

1:31:45

seems like Major League Hockey is, I

1:31:48

mean, it seems like it's still fake, but it's

1:31:51

in the news again this week because they launched

1:31:53

a website, which famously you need to be a

1:31:55

real league to be able to do. Yeah, they

1:31:58

don't let you put things on the internet. The

1:32:05

Major League hockey.com says

1:32:07

get ready to witness an exciting

1:32:09

new era of professional hockey in

1:32:12

North America set to launch in fall

1:32:14

2024. Now you

1:32:16

click on learn more it scrolls

1:32:18

you very slightly down

1:32:20

the page. It says three on three.

1:32:24

Hockey it's overtime all the time. A

1:32:26

unique three on three hockey format I don't

1:32:28

know what would be unique about it. Featuring

1:32:32

teams of professionals with a 30 million dollar

1:32:34

salary cap per team and a 100,000 dollar

1:32:40

victory bonus for each winning team. So

1:32:42

does that mean every time you win

1:32:44

they give you a check

1:32:46

for a 100,000 dollars that you then split

1:32:48

up between. That would be

1:32:50

the implication yeah. Okay.

1:32:53

Locations Major League Hockey has targeted

1:32:56

franchises in 16 cities in

1:32:58

the United States and Canada. Along

1:33:01

with a very cool map in which they've just

1:33:03

cut off the top of Canada. Buzz

1:33:06

saw it right off. Well they've also

1:33:08

this is the interesting thing to

1:33:11

me where they're like saying they're going to have a

1:33:13

team that state or

1:33:15

province is in white not like

1:33:19

where the

1:33:21

city is. Okay. Yeah.

1:33:24

But just the state or province is in white.

1:33:27

Yes. And then

1:33:30

it gives you these

1:33:32

examples folks. New York, California,

1:33:34

British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec,

1:33:36

Minnesota, Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska.

1:33:39

These are being presented in a

1:33:41

very strange order I would say.

1:33:43

New England, Oklahoma,

1:33:46

Ontario, Texas,

1:33:48

Florida. That's

1:33:52

it. And when they say New England the

1:33:54

map shows both the

1:33:56

state of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. So

1:34:00

that is really that

1:34:02

is a list that definitely was in alphabetical

1:34:04

order at some point and then they started

1:34:06

getting their subtract But then they were like

1:34:08

well of course, you know, Quebec so

1:34:11

it wasn't okay It

1:34:13

starts with New York then California

1:34:15

then British Columbia. That's reverse alphabetical

1:34:17

order But then Saskatchewan which is

1:34:19

after British Columbia and so now

1:34:21

we're back to a weird alphabetical

1:34:23

order then Quebec Nope, we're back

1:34:25

out Minnesota. Okay, we're going backwards

1:34:28

again It seems like then Arizona

1:34:30

then Missouri then Nebraska what

1:34:32

right and then we hit the

1:34:34

alphabetical order Right. I feel like they

1:34:36

had it and then they're like well put them

1:34:38

in California first and then they're like now they're

1:34:40

gonna then Florida Oh And

1:34:44

the other thing is like all the states are really

1:34:46

big as you scroll past them except Florida Which is

1:34:48

so small you can barely see it behind the R

1:34:51

in Florida. I Don't know

1:34:53

what's going on over there. Web design is

1:34:55

my passion. Yeah Two

1:34:57

24-minute games per night with a short intermission

1:35:01

The games will be played with family

1:35:03

friendly admission prices will be played

1:35:05

exclusively on Friday and Saturday nights

1:35:09

14 roster players 12

1:35:12

skaters two goalies three marquee

1:35:14

players And now people

1:35:16

were dunking on they were spelling

1:35:18

marquee wrong. Okay, they were spelling it like

1:35:20

the Marquis de Sade Okay

1:35:26

Which I think you're allowed to do

1:35:28

but not I mean that's wrong, you know MLH

1:35:32

teams can sign three and then this

1:35:34

is in all capital letters world-class players

1:35:37

These can be free agents in North America Europe or

1:35:40

Russia. Of course, Russia is not part of Europe, I

1:35:42

guess Well,

1:35:44

you know what? Geopolitically everything that's

1:35:47

going on right now these days I've

1:35:50

got some thoughts on that. So what I would

1:35:52

With Major

1:35:55

professional level hockey or professional

1:35:57

level experience teams will then

1:36:00

fill out their roster with talented players

1:36:02

from the NCAA or Canadian youth sports

1:36:04

plus major junior players in Canada, the

1:36:06

United States and Europe. We're proud to

1:36:09

announce that qualified female players will be

1:36:11

considered equally. Like

1:36:14

I said, $30 million salary cap, a $100,000 win bonus for

1:36:16

each game. You

1:36:21

can buy merch, which

1:36:24

they have a jersey, a

1:36:26

hat, two different bottles of

1:36:28

wine, it looks like commemorative

1:36:31

coins, t-shirts, hoodies. Yeah.

1:36:36

All of it has logos on it already,

1:36:39

but you know. And

1:36:41

if you zoom in there like Napa Valley

1:36:43

or something like that, I don't

1:36:46

know. Anyway. Then it says

1:36:48

time to get involved. Scouting. Player

1:36:50

scouting complete. MLH scouting staff has

1:36:52

already completed the 2024 player draft,

1:36:54

which will be released shortly. Oh,

1:36:57

completed. That's what it says. Not

1:37:00

completed the draft list. So

1:37:02

they just secretly did a draft and they haven't told anyone?

1:37:05

It seems like that's the case. And by the way, I

1:37:07

should say, Elliot reported

1:37:09

yesterday that there

1:37:12

will be some kind

1:37:14

of announcement probably during

1:37:17

the cup final. Sure.

1:37:21

Again, do I believe any of this? Not

1:37:24

really, folks. I sure don't. I

1:37:29

mean, I believe that they did a draft. I

1:37:32

believe that they said, oh, this guy goes

1:37:34

to this team. Do I think

1:37:36

any of these teams are going to exist in the

1:37:38

fall? Well, that's a different discussion.

1:37:41

How would you do a draft already? Presumably

1:37:44

you're going to try to plug free

1:37:46

agents, I guess, out of the NHL? Well,

1:37:49

what Elliot said was that there

1:37:52

is at least one player from the final four

1:37:55

teams who

1:37:57

has at least had his agent inquire.

1:38:00

to what the deal with Major League Hockey

1:38:02

is. Like

1:38:05

he's just gonna come out with

1:38:07

a draft and say like

1:38:09

yes Sam Reinhardt was the number one

1:38:11

overall pick. Yeah Connor McDavid's gonna play

1:38:14

for the Massachusetts New Hampshire Metro Stars.

1:38:16

Yeah. Okay

1:38:18

sure. Do they have any prominent professional

1:38:20

level coaches and or management personnel? I

1:38:23

have great news. MLH has

1:38:25

retained prominent professional level coaches and

1:38:28

management personnel in many

1:38:30

markets. Says here markets almost full.

1:38:33

Great news. Even

1:38:36

better news, spots are still open. MLH

1:38:39

is seeking experience, professional executives

1:38:41

and coaches for select markets. If

1:38:44

you have a professional if you have professional level

1:38:46

experience and wish to be considered send

1:38:49

an email to this thing. End of website. I

1:38:54

can also read it to you in

1:38:56

French if you would like. Yeah I

1:38:58

think we would all enjoy that. Si

1:39:01

stay. Nouvelle.

1:39:04

I'm running into words.

1:39:07

Again set to launch

1:39:09

in fall of 2024.

1:39:12

Yep that's right. That's

1:39:14

like three months. Okay just for what of

1:39:16

everything we just read what is the least

1:39:19

believable aspect of this? 16 teams.

1:39:21

Okay I'm

1:39:23

gonna go with the 30 million dollar salary cap.

1:39:25

Here's the thing. I think

1:39:28

and I think Jeff Merrick brought this up

1:39:31

on 32 thoughts yesterday. I

1:39:33

think the important thing to say here is

1:39:36

cap and

1:39:38

not floor. Oh

1:39:40

yeah. Yeah okay. The salary cap

1:39:42

here is ten trillion dollars. Turns

1:39:45

out we're only gonna spend one million dollars on

1:39:48

these or whatever the number is you know. Like

1:39:50

I think you

1:39:52

know they would love to be able to... what's

1:39:56

the word I'm looking for? Like to have the

1:39:58

coup of sign. a prominent

1:40:01

NHL free agent who,

1:40:04

you know, let's

1:40:06

say it's Joe Povelsky, getting up there in years,

1:40:08

but like, yeah, as you said,

1:40:10

he can still play at the NHL level,

1:40:12

right? If they give

1:40:14

him $4 million next year, he's

1:40:17

probably not getting that in the NHL in

1:40:19

all likelihood, $5 million, whatever the number is,

1:40:21

right? Like, I think a guy like that,

1:40:23

they would be willing to spend that money

1:40:26

for if they exist, which I, again,

1:40:28

kind of don't think they do. But

1:40:30

let's go with, again, go with the premise

1:40:32

that this is a

1:40:34

real thing. I

1:40:37

would, I bet they would love to give

1:40:40

Joe Povelsky $7 million, or whatever. It

1:40:43

lends them legitimacy, like, they're buying

1:40:45

his legitimacy, right? Famously,

1:40:50

the WHA, which is

1:40:52

really the last legitimate competitor to

1:40:55

the NHL, gave

1:40:58

Bobby Hall the first ever million dollar

1:41:00

contract in sports history to

1:41:04

sign with Winnipeg for that

1:41:06

exact reason, to make a splash to

1:41:09

signal that they were a real league, etc,

1:41:12

etc. And,

1:41:15

you know, famously, the legend is that they

1:41:18

were pestering

1:41:20

Bobby Hall about and he,

1:41:24

in an attempt to get them to go away said that

1:41:26

he would only sign if they gave him a million bucks.

1:41:28

And they said, Okay. And

1:41:30

he was like, crap, no, I gotta, I

1:41:32

should have asked for 10 million guys. Yeah, that's

1:41:34

exactly right. I mean,

1:41:37

there is no world

1:41:40

in which this

1:41:43

league can be

1:41:45

financially viable. No,

1:41:48

I wouldn't. Anywhere near these numbers, at

1:41:51

anywhere near this scope, anytime

1:41:54

soon. Which

1:41:57

means it is either Either

1:42:01

the money is coming from someone who doesn't care if it

1:42:03

makes money, or there

1:42:06

is a legitimate long-term plan

1:42:09

and path to profitability here.

1:42:13

Which I don't really think there is. Or it's

1:42:15

fake and it's just not

1:42:17

going to happen. Right. Like, okay. I'll

1:42:20

just give the example I always love to give.

1:42:23

Let's talk about professional wrestling, right? Why

1:42:25

is AEW viable in a way,

1:42:28

like long-term viable, in

1:42:31

a way that, you

1:42:36

know, your impacts or your major

1:42:39

league wrestling really

1:42:41

aren't as true competitors

1:42:43

to WWE? The reason

1:42:45

why is, one, it's also

1:42:47

owned by a legitimate real billionaire

1:42:49

who actually, his family has more

1:42:51

money than the McMahon family. That's

1:42:55

step one. And number two, and

1:42:57

this is the important part, they

1:43:01

were willing to lose money for the

1:43:03

first five years. They just hit their

1:43:05

fifth birthday, or whatever you

1:43:07

want to say, fifth anniversary, like last week.

1:43:11

They were willing to lose money for

1:43:13

the first five years with the idea

1:43:15

that they could get a huge national

1:43:17

TV contract after their first

1:43:19

five-year TV contract. And

1:43:21

their contract is up sometime this year, maybe

1:43:23

end of this year. And

1:43:26

the thinking is that they are not profitable

1:43:28

right now, but when they

1:43:30

get this new deal, which will pay

1:43:32

them however many million dollars per episode

1:43:34

of TV they produce 52 weeks a

1:43:37

year, that

1:43:39

will make them profitable. So,

1:43:42

like, as you say, major

1:43:45

league hockey needs to have a, basically

1:43:48

a TV partner that is willing to

1:43:51

put them on national TV and

1:43:55

pay them kind of a lot of money to do it.

1:43:58

It's not like AEW is going to the world.

1:44:00

on TNT for free. Which you're not going to

1:44:02

get. That's what I'm saying.

1:44:04

Like that we've seen the

1:44:07

other comparison would be the various football leagues

1:44:09

that are constantly trying to start up as

1:44:11

spring leagues, XFL, USFL, you know,

1:44:15

different versions, they,

1:44:17

for the most part, you

1:44:19

don't get a great TV deal to start. In fact,

1:44:21

if anything, you get a TV deal where the

1:44:24

network is like, we will give you the

1:44:27

time we will sell ads you're in charge

1:44:29

of producing and you know, filling the air

1:44:31

time. Right. That's what AEW did. And, you

1:44:33

know, it mostly worked for them because they

1:44:35

had the, the, the billionaire

1:44:38

willing to lose a bunch of money in

1:44:40

the first five years. And I

1:44:42

would say they probably because, you know, the

1:44:44

billionaire gave it to his wrestling

1:44:47

obsessed son and

1:44:49

said, go, go play with this

1:44:52

and get out of my air. Probably

1:44:56

you weirdo. But,

1:45:01

but the point is

1:45:04

they, they had a passive

1:45:06

viability where, because they could financially

1:45:08

compete with WWE in terms of

1:45:10

the contracts they gave us. And

1:45:12

we're willing to lose money for

1:45:15

years to do it. I

1:45:17

don't know, man. I don't. Again, like

1:45:19

this could maybe work as like, uh,

1:45:23

the fact that it's going head to head with the

1:45:25

NHL, if it's running in the

1:45:27

fall is crazy to

1:45:29

me. Like, I don't know what they're thinking there.

1:45:31

It's like, Oh yeah, no, uh, we're, we're a,

1:45:33

uh, we're a professional football league, we're going to

1:45:35

compete with the NFL and all our games are

1:45:37

Sundays at one and 4pm. Well,

1:45:40

I got bad news for you about how that's going to

1:45:42

go for you, big dog. You know, it

1:45:45

seems like, again, like if they're saying these are

1:45:47

family friendly prices or whatever, it seems like what

1:45:49

they're really trying to do is compete with the

1:45:51

AHL, which

1:45:54

is, uh, you know, maybe they could

1:45:56

do that if they can get your

1:45:58

like Joe Pavelski's or Ryan. or

1:46:00

whatever, you know. Again, just stick with

1:46:02

Dallas Stars examples because I still have

1:46:04

their cat-friendly page open. You

1:46:08