Thursday, June 29, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: Nashville meetup

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Sean, Ian and Jesse, in the same room from Nashville
- Reactions to Wednesday night's quiet first round
- Thoughts on what's still to come on the trade market
- Scooters?
- Remembering the heartbreak of the Wendel Clark trade and more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)




Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Which year gave us the best draft class at each position?

Today’s draft week time-waster is a simple one: Which entry draft produced the best class at each of the five positions?

That’s a nice easy one to work with, right? I’m not even sure we need the traditional ground rules, other than to note that we’re doing the entry draft era (meaning back to 1979), and that we’re not counting left and right-shooting defenseman as different positions because we’re not lunatics.

There is one question to figure out before we can start, though: What exactly does it mean to be the “best” draft class for a position? How many guys do we need before we make a call?

On the one hand, I don’t think we want to go too deep, because then we’re debating the 14th best left wingers taken in competing years, and neither is a guy you’ve ever heard of. But I also don’t think we want to go too top heavy – after all, you could make the case that whichever year produced Mario Lemieux or Nicklas Lidstrom is the best one no matter who else was involved, but then we’re just listing the greatest players of the era and nobody’s learning anything.

In the end, I made the call that I want enough players to fill out a full roster, plus a spare. That means three goalies, seven defensemen and five each at center, left wing and right wing. That feels like it’s workable without being too daunting. After all, it can’t be that hard to find a bunch of drafts that have that many stars at a given position, right? Huh, interesting, the “ironic foreshadowing” symbol on my dashboard just lit up, I’m sure it’s nothing.

Let’s build from the net out and see where this takes us.

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Monday, June 26, 2023

Making a case for why every team should trade their first-round pick this week

With the draft now just hours away, most GMs are no doubt working the phones to see if there’s a trade to be made. After all, this is the time of the year when most of them have a valuable asset burning a hole in their pocket: Their first-round pick.

Draft-week trades involving firsts are rare, but maybe not as rare as you think. Last year, we saw six trades involving first-round picks get made on the draft floor or in the days before, including deals involving Alex DeBrincat, Kirby Dach and Alexander Romanov. Whether it’s flipping picks, dumping bad contracts or adding a big name to the roster, the first-round pick is the coin of the realm once the draft draws near.

So who should trade their first-round pick this year? Well, everyone.

At least, that’s the premise of today’s piece. I’m going to try to make the case for each and every team to trade away their first. Admittedly, this will be easier for some teams than for others. For a few, it might seem completely ridiculous, no doubt leading to many very serious people being angry in the comments about a fake trade their team will not make. That’s fine, it’s almost July and my brain hasn’t been working since early March, do your worst.

We’ll work in tiers. (As opposed to working in tears, which is how I cover the playoffs.) Let’s make a deal, starting with the easiest cases to make and building up to the tougher ones. We can do this.

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Thursday, June 22, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: The good and bad of the HHOF class of 2023

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- We discuss the HHOF class of 2023
- The listeners have their say
- Setting the stage for a week of big trades(?)
- I get an excuse to tell the Durno story
- This week in history and lots more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)




Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Puck Soup: Hall of Fame before and after

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Ryan and I discuss who should get the HHOF call, then reconvene and react after the announcement is made
- The OEL buyout, Bratt signing, Karlsson trade maybe coming
- What's the deal with Matvei Michkov?
- We try the Immaculate Grid game, NHL style
- And more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.




Welcoming a second class of inductees to the Hall of Very Good

It’s Hockey Hall of Fame day, with an announcement of the class of 2023 coming this afternoon.

None of the guys you’re about to read about are going to be part of it.

I’m pretty sure on that. Granted, we do get the occasional Guy Carbonneau-level surprise, thanks to a committee that never tells us what it talks about or how close any of the candidates come. Still, it’s not all that hard to guess who is or isn’t being considered, and lots of very good players fall into that latter list.

That’s what today is about. While the committee debates the Hall of Fame, we’re here to celebrate the Hall of Very Good. We did this last year, honoring names like Saku Koivu, Eric Desjardins and Tim Kerr. This year, we’re back with a new list of 20 names, each alongside the team they represented best.

As with last time, this isn’t the place to argue borderline cases. If you want to fight about Rod Brind’Amour or Henrik Zetterberg, you’re in the wrong place. In fact, this isn’t about fighting at all. We did the negatives on Monday; today is all good vibes, as we build a team of players who weren’t good enough to be legitimate HHOF cases but are still worth celebrating.

Hockey fans throw “Hall of Very Good” around as an insult, using it to diminish a player’s HHOF case. Not today, though. Today is about remembering some guys, and remembering that you don’t have to be Hall-of-Fame-worthy to have been all sorts of fun to watch. Many of these are based on your suggestions from last year’s column, so keep the nominations coming in the comments section.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Monday, June 19, 2023

Making the case against the HHOF candidacies of 15 NHL stars

It’s Hockey Hall of Fame week, with the mysterious committee holding its annual top-secret meeting on Wednesday, leading to the announcement of this year’s honorees. As always, the top candidates are a mix of slam dunks, borderline newbies, and holdovers from the past whose cases are strong but maybe not quite strong enough.

This is the time of year when I’d typically write a post laying out the strongest arguments in favor of a bunch of players. But there’s a problem with that approach – it just ends in disappointment. With a limited number of spots up for grabs each year, most candidates won’t make it. And that list will probably include some that you feel are deserving, especially if you’ve just seen guys like me pumping their tires to convince you they should be in.

So today, let’s flip the script. I’m going to give you a list of candidates, and then try to convince you that they shouldn’t make it. Yes, I’m switching sides, and arguing to keep stars out. That will be just fine for some of you Small Hall types, and infuriating for at least a few of you when it comes to your favorites. But the important thing is that I’ll be proven right on Wednesday, when the committee agrees with me on the vast majority of these players... and maybe even all of them.

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Thursday, June 15, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: It's over

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Jesse Granger on the Knights' win
- Is this going to be the most iconic Cup celebration ever? - Our Conned Smythe picks
- Next years' odds are already out, and there are some surprises
- Ian has the latest on the Senators' sale
- Hat trick ettiquette, the best final of the cap era, and lots more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)




Which team should win the 2023 Conned Smythe for the worst Golden Knights trade?

About a year ago, I proposed a new NHL award: The Conned Smythe, earned by whichever team made the dumbest trade with the biggest impact on a Stanley Cup winner. We went through all the winners of the cap era, up to and including last year’s Avalanche, and retroactively awarded the Conned Smythe to whichever team they’d taken advantage of. Some of the calls were tougher than others, and a good time was had by all.

Which brings us to this year: the Vegas Golden Knights, and what might be the most fiercely contested Conned Smythe race of all-time.

Most winners have had at least a few candidates, but the Knights are stacked with them. That makes sense, since this team started from scratch just six years ago, has never really had any high picks, and has been notoriously aggressive on the trade front. So we’ve got a ton of options to choose from. Maybe too many.

So who wins? Let’s figure it out.

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Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Puck Soup: Good knight, Panthers

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Golden Knights win
- What might be next for Florida
- Conn Smythe and other playoff thoughts
- The offseason begins; the latest rumors, signings and hires
- The Senators are finally sold
- And lots more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.




Take the NHL ‘Who Didn’t He Play For?’ quiz (Stanley Cup-winning goal edition)

The Vegas Golden Knights have won the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history, meaning the players, coaches and staff will get their name engraved on the Stanley Cup. That’s history, the sort of honor that they can never take away from you (for roughly 60 years or so, but that’s another story). One player made a particular kind of history: Reilly Smith, who scored last night’s winning goal. That makes him a member of the Cup-winning goal club, a wonderfully eclectic list that includes legends like Wayne Gretzky, Mike Bossy, Patrice Bergeron and Guy Lafluer, but also a bunch of lesser-known players who made the most being in the right place at the right time.

I enjoy the Cup-winning goal club a lot, as you might have guessed. So today, let’s honor this group by dusting off the Who Didn’t He Play For quiz. It’s nice and simple: I give you a player and four teams, you tell me which one he never played for. Then you score yourself based on the chart below:

0 – 3 right: You lost in the first round. You should decide to fire your GM.
4 – 7 right: You lost in the second round. You should decide to keep your GM, then somehow end up firing him anyway.
8 right: You won two rounds and then got swept. You are the Hurricanes.
9 – 11 right: You came close. Nice job driving up expectations for next year to unattainable levels.
12 – 15 right: You fell just short in the final, but will surely be right back in the mix next year, just like the Habs.
16 right: You won the Stanley Cup! (By cheating on this quiz.)

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Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Who wins, a roster of players who won the Cup in their first year or their last?

We’re going to build some rosters today, and we’re going to start with a simple question that feels appropriate given the stakes of tonight's game: Who’s better, a team of guys who won the Stanley Cup in their first year in the NHL, or guys who won it in their last year?

That’s it. I don’t even feel like I need some long preamble breaking down how the question works. You get it. But as per DGB by-laws, we do need to say: But first, a few ground rules™.

  • The important one: Once he’s on the roster, you get credit for a player’s entire career, not just what they did in that Cup-winning season. We’re dealing with rookies and old guys, those rosters would be pretty bad.
  • That said, a player has to have appeared in at least one playoff game for the winning team to qualify. Anyone who has traded, waived or in the press box doesn’t fit the spirit of the thing.
  • We’ll start the clock at the Original Six era, which prevents us from having to deal with old-timey players you’ve never heard of, not to mention guys whose “rookie NHL season” came well into their pro career after the arrived from other leagues.
  • First and last year means the years they played their first or last NHL game – no WHA or other leagues count – which is not the same as full seasons. Note that a player’s first year isn’t necessarily their rookie season, because they can maintain that eligibility for multiple years. Everyone only gets one first or last season.
  • Active players can count for the first year team, but (obviously) not for the last. Also, anyone who won a Cup in both their first and their last year is ineligible for both teams. And also, let’s just say it, kind of greedy.
  • We’re building a full roster, featuring two goalies, six defensemen and 12 forwards, but won’t worry about position beyond that.

I’m kind of interested to see where this goes, and I’ve already gone back and forth on which teams I think will win. My first thought is that Team Last Year will take it, because of the Ray Bourque factor –legends who want to go out on a high note and retire immediately after winning a Cup. Then again, the Ray Bourque story is great in part because it’s relatively rare, so maybe there aren’t as many of those guys as you’d think.

As for Team First Year, we know that there won’t be any top draft picks on the team, since those players go to bad teams and have to wait at least a few years for their Cups. So no Mario Lemieux, no Sidney Crosby, not Alexander Ovechkin. But we should still be able to find enough talent to fill out a roster, even if it may not have the elite-level guys that Team Last Year has.

Let’s find out. As always, we’ll start in goal and build from there.

Goaltenders

Team First Year starts off with a pair of agonizing near misses. Patrick Roy won the Cup and the Conn Smythe as a rookie in 1986, but he played a single game with the 1984-85 Habs, so he’s out. We also can’t use Ken Dryden, who memorably won the Cup a year before winning the Calder, because he doubles up by also winning in his last year.

That said, we can still find a Canadiens’ Hall-of-Famer in the criminally underrated Bill Durnan, who was winning everything as the league’s best netminder as soon as he arrived in 1943-44. He’ll be capably backed up by Cam Ward from the 2006 Carolina run, with Jordan Binnington on speed dial if we need depth and/or someone to throw water bottles around.

There’s a lot less to choose from in Team Last Year, partly because old goalies often stick around forever. Luckily, we only need one starter, and we can find that in Dominik Hasek, who didn’t play much for the 2007-08 Red Wings, but still qualifies for the team. That saves us from total disaster, because believe it or not I’m pretty sure our only other option is Cristobal Huet of the 2010 Blackhawks.

So far, Team First Year has better depth while Team Last Year has higher star power. Let’s see if that continues on the blueline.

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Friday, June 9, 2023

An American and a Canadian forced to watch each country's worst NHL playoff ads

 Three years ago, with the NHL working their way through a very strange bubble postseason, an idea was born. This league and its broadcast partners love to bombard hapless viewers with the same awful commercials, over and over again. But those ads are different depending on which side of the border you’re on, meaning Canadians don’t get to see the ones that are driving Americans crazy, and vice versa.

So I found an American – Sean Gentille – and we agreed to force each other to watch our country’s three most annoying ads, and then react to them in real time. The concept was a hit, thanks to Jim Hughson’s hair, Tony the Tiger’s celly, and the infamous Tara Tara earworm. People loved the resulting post, and pretty soon Sean and I were doing national media hits for some reason. We brought the idea back in 2021, featuring the Sportsnet life coach, Rupert the Turtle, and a very real Oiler fan who thought Leon Draisaitl was the best in the league. More good times were had.

And then… nothing.

We took last year off. We considered doing that again this year. It’s not that we’re too busy (we are) or that we’ve run out of jokes (we have not). Something more shocking is going on.

For the last few years, the ads… haven’t been that bad?

Oh, they haven’t been good. But most fans seem to agree that nothing has approached Tara Tara levels of awfulness. And the ads that are bad don’t seem to run quite as often they used to.

Did… did we do that? Did the world’s biggest advertising firms see us making fun of them, and radically change the way they did business?

We can’t say for sure, so let’s just go ahead and assume that yes, that’s exactly what happened. And if so, we have a duty to keep doing the lord’s work, if only so that society is never again plunged back to following our dreams into taxidermy.

We’re back, baby. Let’s see where this goes.

Pre-game strategy

McIndoe: The first step in building a solid list of terrible ads is to reach out to the public, and this is where I ran into my first problem. When I tweeted out a call for nominations, one ad was the clear leader: That Rogers commercial where a coffee shop gives out a free cookie and we’re supposed to be inspired. That one really bothers people, to an almost comical degree. But tragically, Rogers seems to know this, because despite airing the ad constantly through the playoffs, they’ve managed to scrub any versions of it off of the internet. If I can’t show it to Sean, it’s of no use to us. Sorry, cookie haters. (But don’t go thinking you’re off the hook, Rogers.)

I considered making him watch one of those annoyingly obtuse yet uniquely Canadian drug ads, where they’re not allowed to say what the thing does, so it’s just catchy music and vague references. There’s the weekly exercise in overwrought Canada’a Got Talent treacle. And of course, there are the dozens of gambling ads that have infested our hockey coverage over the last year. It’s almost impossible to pick the worst out of that bunch, although it’s fun to imagine the meeting where some executive said “You know who Canadian hockey fans love and respect? Chris Pronger!”

In the end, I went for three brands that have been all over our playoff coverage. My next problem was narrowing it down to just one ad each, which was tougher than it sounds. But this is important work, so I had to persevere.

Gentille: My strategy begins and ends with one thing: earworms. I ruined my guy’s life with the aforementioned Tara a couple years back — look at her go, then and forever — and I’m trying to do it again. “Find something that works, then run it into the ground” is a personal mantra.

That means a few otherwise solid contenders had to get the boot. The Pete Davidson “Breakfast With Peter” Taco Bell bit, combined with his Peacock show, have me legitimately worried about whatever buddy’s next step is going to be. Also, the performance by co-host Rhonda made the whole thing a little less unfunny, and there’s no earworm to speak of.

The last cut was the Amazon ad starring a young woman who, with the help of Queen and some conspicuous consumption, learns to love her unwanted upper-lip hair. Did you know Olivia Wilde directed that one? I didn’t until a bit before we wrote this, but I’ve never been less surprised in my life. Either way, sometime in early May, I heard “Cool Cat” at a Chipotle and almost broke into tears, but I’ve since healed.

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Thursday, June 8, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: The word you can't say

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- How worried should the Panthers be headed into Game 3?
- THe pros and cons of a Florida goalie switch
- The Golden Knights and the luck factor
- Contract length in the year before the cap goes up
- Listener mail, this week in history and more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)




Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Quirks of the Cup: Examining the Evolution and Oddities of Hockey’s Holy Grail

With the Stanley Cup Final underway, we’re only days away from seeing what may be the most famous trophy in sports presented to a new team.

That team really will be new this year — neither the Florida Panthers nor Vegas Golden Knights have ever won a championship in franchise history. That will add some extra drama to what’s already one of the greatest moments in the modern sports landscape, as the captain of the winning team is called to center ice to lay his hands on the Cup.

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Puck Soup: Are the Panthers done?

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We react to the first two games of the final
- Matt Tkachuk gets a whole lot of penalties
- The goalies have been the story
- Thoughts on the Jack Eichel hit
- A busy week for Kyle Dubas, Mike Babcock and Greg Gronin
- A big three-team trade
- Plus Cole Caufield, Chris Chelios and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.




Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Every series that led us to the 2023 Stanley Cup final, ranked

We're two games into what looks like it could be a very good Stanley Cup final. At the very least it's an intriguing matchup, one featuring two teams who've never won a Cup. It's one conference's top seed against the other's eighth, but there's plenty of star power on either side. Both teams have been aggressive when it comes to building their rosters, and we've already seen some highlight reel plays and more than a little nastiness.

It could be a classic. Or maybe it won't be. You never really know with the Stanley Cup playoffs, where a can't-miss series can turn into a dud while one you were barely paying attention to ends up reeling you in. With some extra time before Game 3, let's look back on the road that brought us here with a ranking of all 14 series up to now, from worst to best.

What makes a great series? Pretty much whatever I say, since it's my list, but I'm looking for the same things you probaby are: Lots of drama, as much overtime as possible, some controversy that doesn't make me want to quit the sport forever, and at least one defining moment that we'll remember for years to come. And of course, the more games the better, although the other stuff is more important. Let's see where that takes us.

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Friday, June 2, 2023

The Panthers prove the playoffs are broken. Or they don’t. A debate with myself

I have no idea what to make of the Florida Panthers. Let’s start there, if only to set expectations.

I’m pretty sure they’re the year’s best story – a legitimately great team coming off a Presidents’ Trophy that made big moves to get to an even higher level, took some time to see those changes gel, almost missed the playoffs, and then went on a postseason run that almost nobody saw coming even though we should have. They’re everything that’s great about the Stanley Cup playoffs. This rules.

Unless it doesn’t. Maybe they’re just the latest in a worrying long list of playoff flukes – bad teams that luck their way into a few series wins before inevitably losing in the final. Put them there with the 2021 Habs, the 2017 Predators, the 2010 Flyers, the 2006 Oilers… we see this every few years in the cap era. Hell, a brand-new expansion team made it all the way to the final a few years ago. The NHL playoffs are just random chaos that doesn’t tell us anything at all, and the Panthers are the latest proof. This sucks.

Unless it doesn’t. And around and around I go.

I’m tired of it. So today, I want to figure it out. And like every other annoying internet dweeb, I’m going to get to the bottom of things with two simple words: Debate me. Specifically, I’m going to debate… me.

What can we learn from the Florida Panthers, if anything at all? Let’s see if I can figure this out by arguing with myself.

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Thursday, June 1, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: Breaking news

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Ian breaks the Kyle Dubas news to me in real time
- Previewing Knighs/Panthers
- Thoughts on Brad Treliving
- A Senators sale update
- Lots of listener mail, this week in history, and lots more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)