Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Take this quiz to see how well you remember the best and worst of Leafs trade deadline history

The trade deadline is days away, and Leaf fans probably have some mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s an exciting time of year, especially for teams that think of themselves as contenders. On the other, the Leafs’ history of deadline dealing is decidedly mixed.

If you’re a Leaf fan, you could be forgiven for blocking out some of the memories. But here’s hoping you didn’t, because we’re going to test your knowledge of Toronto’s history of deadline and deadline-adjacent deals over the decades. See if you remember who went where, how much it cost, who all those precious picks turned into, and the occasional weird detail.

There are 20 questions in all. Do your best, then scroll back up to the top to check your score on this handy table.

0 – 2 right: You are the Tom Kurvers trade of quiz-takers.

3 – 6 right: You are the Rask-for-Raycroft trade of quiz-takers.

7 – 10 right: You are the Phil Kessel trade of quiz-takers.

11 – 15 right: You are the Schenn-for-Van Riemsdyk trade of quiz-takers.

16 – 18 right: You are the Tiger-for-Vaive trade of quiz-takers.

20 right: You are the Doug Gilmour trade of quiz-takers.

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Monday, March 14, 2022

Weekend rankings: Deadline week arrives, questions for the Rangers and Canucks, good times for the Sabres and Coyotes, and more

This is usually the spot where I do a long lead-in to the column, focusing on the league’s biggest stories. Most of you skip that part and go right to the rankings so you can get super mad that your 16th place team isn’t in the top five. It’s cool, we all know what we signed up for.

But there’s really no need for any of that this week, because we know what the big story is: The trade deadline, which is officially one week away. It’s been quiet so far, without a single trade since way back on March 2. It could stay that way, with Hockey Night in Canada suggesting that some of the bigger names might stay put and Pierre mostly backing that up. Lots of GMs are putting out the word that the market is slow, which they always do at this time of year.

On the other hand, I just wrote about the lack of trades, which usually means that a dozen of them will happen between now and when I hit “send” on this post. Let’s see how much the hockey gods hate me these days.

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Thursday, March 10, 2022

The Athletic Hockey Show: Phil in the blanks

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- I have to yell at Ian about Phil Kessel's ironman streak
- Should Michael Bunting be a legitimate Calder candidate?
- Why would the Devils terminate P.K. Subban's contract?
- Is Jaromir Jagr overlooked in the all-time GOAT discussion?
- A surprisingly large amount of baseball talk for some reason
- Plus this week in history, the goalie quiz, Wayne Gretzky as an analyst 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)




Puck Soup: Sources are telling us

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Trade season heats up, but will your favorite team make a deal just for the sake of making a deal?
- Who's selling and who's buying
- Do rumors about P.K. Subban or Shea Weber make sense?
- The Western playoff race is chaos
- The Coyotes are a juggernaut, and also Phil Kessel made a baby
- Are people getting weirder about awards?
- And lots 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.




Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Get warmed up for the trade deadline with the ‘Who Didn’t He Play For?’ quiz (goalie edition)

The trade deadline is less than two weeks away, with plenty of rumors and big names in play. Maybe the most interesting position to watch is the goalies, with a handful of contenders potentially shopping for an upgrade. While midseason goalie trades are rare, more than a few of them have worked out well. And it’s not unusual to see even some of the best goalies move around to several teams over the course of their career.

Why yes, that last line was a segue. It’s time for another round of “Who Didn’t He Play For”, the quiz in which I give you a player and four teams and you tell me which one he never suited up for.

The first edition featured players from the Hall of Fame, and you all said it was too easy even though the average score was only 9 out of 16. That was followed up with a Hall of Vey Good edition, which saw you collectively up your game and raise your average all the way up to 9.1. At this rate, we only have 70 of these left to go before you guys are perfect, so let’s enjoy them while we can.

This time around, we’re going to focus on a group that was conspicuously absent from the first two editions: The goalies. These lovable weirdos have a habit of bouncing around the league, so let’s see how many of their stops you remember. Take your best shot at the 16 questions below, then submit your answers and scroll back up to see how you did.

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