In the return of the Friday Grab Bag:
- Comparing the NHL to Wrestlemania
- An important request for fan bases of bad teams
- An obscure player with an epic playoff stat spoiler
- No comedy stars because Brad Marchand deleted his twitter
- And a YouTube guide to all the new safety rules introduced in 1992
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On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We count down to the trade deadline
- Where we'd want to see Taylor Hall end up
- Should the Blues be sellers?
- The races for the final playoff spots are shaping up to be... bad
- The Canucks' COVID situation
- How the awards race is shaping up
- The NHL's top ten centers, the best wrestling heels, and more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, listen on The Athletic or subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
It’s been four weeks since our last dip into the mailbag. In that time, Alex Pietrangelo became a Golden Knight, Taylor Hall became a Sabre, Joe Thornton became a Maple Leaf, Mike Hoffman tried to shake the weird feeling that there was something he was supposed to be doing, and literally every team in the entire league got a new goalie. We had a draft, the second day of which is still going on, and started to get just a little bit of clarity over when (or if) next season will start.
It’s been a busy month. Let’s see what weird stuff you folks managed to come up.
Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.
Hockey players have notoriously boring, head-down, pucks-in-deep personalities. In the interest of finding the good and praising it, what is your all-time All-Personality team? Fun, funny, crazy, self-absorbed, and zany players qualify. Not necessarily the people you’d want to grab a beer with but the ones that might spice up a press conference or make a splash in the Twittersphere.
Let’s say this all-star team is a starting six (so you’ll have to find five skaters and can only pick one wacky goalie). Also, we are only counting what players did during their careers, so people like Don Cherry probably won’t make the cut. – Josh B.
You did say it’s an all-star team, so I’m going to try to find guys who were legitimate stars at some point. That rules out some true characters, like Eddie Shack, Gilles Gratton, Tiger Williams and Ron Duguay. Here’s my starting six:
Goalie: I mean, just about every goaltender is deeply weird, and it’s really just a question of how much of that they let out. Ron Hextall, Billy Smith and Patrick Roy all check the ‘crazy’ box you were looking for, and we could make a case for Dominik Hasek or Ilya Bryzgalov, not to mention the dozen guys who played the position before going on to successful broadcasting careers. But at the risk of being too predictable, I think we have to go with the obvious choice here and pencil in Roberto Louongo as our starter.
Defense: I’ll start with another obvious pick in P.K. Subban. He’s dialed the personality down a bit in the last year or two, partly because he took so much crap for it and partly because he hasn’t been as good on the ice, but he’s still an easy call here. The other spot should probably go to Brent Burns, and I could make a case for Chris Chelios, Rod Langway or even Chris Pronger. But instead, I’m going to sneak in a homer pick here and go with Al Iafrate, a four-time all-star who was also one of the craziest personalities ever. Fire up a dart, grab a leather jacket, hook up a mullet/bald spot combo, trim those sweet jean shorts, and give me a guy who was somehow the fastest skater and the hardest shot in the league at the same time while also being interesting.
Forwards: I’ll take Phil Esposito as my center. I can’t pass up a legendary player who was making terrible novelty pop albums in his spare time. I want Jaromir Jagr too; when you think of his personality, people remember him being the self-aware veteran in his later years, and that was great, but don’t sleep on his younger days when he was rubbing peanut butter on his groin and redefining the concept of hockey hair.
The last spot is tough. I’d love to find room for Alexander Ovechkin, and might have to if we do this again in a few years. Brendan Shanahan was occasionally hilarious, in addition to being a secret super-villain. Wayne Gretzky at least tried every now and then, even though he seemed to hate every second of it. Jeremy Roenick has a case, and you did say it’s playing career only so we’d ignore his recent transformation into a certified idiot. But I’ll go with a Team USA alumni in Brett Hull, a better player who never seemed to take himself or the league too seriously, whether that was cracking a joke or feuding with a coach. Even his son is funny.
If you could retroactively apply an NHL rule change to any other era in the game, what would you go with? (e.g. putting in the trapezoid in the 1980s, goalie pad sizes in the 70s, etc.) I feel like an easy one would be implementing Rule 48 several decades ago, but if you’ve got any else that stand out, I’d definitely be curious to see. – Rob R.
I think we have to exclude any safety-based rules here, otherwise we look like monsters. Obviously we’d want to go back and make helmets mandatory for the Bill Masterton game, or put in the breakaway goal pots for Mark Howe. Stuff like that and Rule 48 are the right answers, but they’re too easy.
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In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Breaking down the pros and cons of the HHOF class of 2019
- A debate about free agency that gets kind of taxing
- An obscure American hero who tried to slam Yokozuna
- The three stars section says goodbye to a legend
- And a YouTube look back at a time when goalies could be interesting
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In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We break down last night's blown OT call
- The Bruins on the verge of sweeping the Hurricanes
- An NBA-inspired media meltdown
- Ralph Krueger takes over the Sabres
- What's the hockey equivalent to the Bret Hart/Tom Magee match?
- I put my undefeated quiz streak on the line
- And lots more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Brad Marchand trolls Mitch Marner and the Maple Leafs
- The Oilers GM candidates include some interesting names
- Final thoughts on John Tavares and Islander fans
- The wildcard races heat up
- The GM meetings don't bring much news
- The passing of Ted Lindsay
- Greg ranks the ten best movie performances by pro wrestlers
- And lots more...
>> Stream it now:
>> Or, subscribe on iTunes.
>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- A rant about Artemi Panarin and players who won't negotiate during the season
- NBA trades: Still way more fun than the NHL
- An obscure player who wasn't good but kept getting traded for guys that were
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube look back at the time Brett Hull saved Bill Goldberg from the NWO, kind of.
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This weekend is one of the stranger ones on the sports calendar. We’re in the middle of the two-week break between the NFL conference championships and the Super Bowl, and with the 800-pound gorilla of the sports world going quiet apart from the Pro Bowl, there’s a chance for everyone else to strut their stuff.
That includes the NHL, who’ll be gathering in San Jose for their annual All-Star weekend. But if they want to steal the sports spotlight, they’ll have some tough competition, because the WWE will be putting on their annual Royal Rumble pay-per-view.
Granted, we’re getting a little loose with the definition of sports here. But the NHL and WWE have a lot in common, and it’s possible that some fans might get them mixed up with both running major events over the same weekend. So just in case, let’s walk through some of the key differences to help everyone tell the two organizations apart.
WWE: An anguished voice screaming “Burn it down!” signals the arrival of former world champion Seth Rollins.
NHL: An anguished voice screaming “Burn it down!” signals that another Los Angeles Kings fan has just looked at the roster.
WWE: Fans are expected to suspend their disbelief and play along with the show despite the occasional presence of wrestling demons, cult leaders who can teleport, and 7-foot-tall zombie morticians with superpowers.
NHL: Fans are expected to suspend their disbelief and play along when Gary Bettman swears he doesn’t want a lockout this time.
WWE: Phrases like “shattered dreams,” “rock bottom” and “tombstone” refer to popular finishing maneuvers from the sport’s glory days in the late 1990s.
NHL: Phrases like “shattered dreams,” “rock bottom” and “tombstone” refer to experiences a Blackhawks fan can look forward to before the team is ready to win another Stanley Cup.
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The Athletic Hockey Show runs four days a week during the season, and will feature me with Other Sean Gentille on Wednesdays.
Puck Soup is a podcast featuring me and Ryan Lambert. We release one free episode each week during the season, plus mailbags and other bonus episodes for Patreon subscribers.
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