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This is the athletic hockey show.
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Hey everybody, Max Boltman here alongside Mark Lazarus for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show, Fun One on tap. Today we're going to be talking about some of the best and worst aging Acquisitions of the offseason, at least so far. We're getting close to two months into the season here, but I want to start out well up north with Murat Attesh, our writer who covers the Winnipeg jets, and Murat, one of the most important players in the NHL. Of course, Connor Hellebuck, the reigning mvp. He is going to miss and announce four to six weeks after arthroscopic knee surgery. Again, it says it all. Most valuable player like this is not a guy the jets can really afford to be without for long stretches. How do you think they can respond here?
F
Well, their first two games have been losses, and I think that there's going to be a temptation to panic around the NHL or in Winnipeg about their current situation. I think that's legitimate just because of how important Conor Helbuk is. But you'll also notice Winnipeg didn't score in their most recent game, a 3 nothing shut out to the Minnesota Wild. So there are things that the Winnipeg jets need to be doing better anyway, irrespective of this situation. What this gives us a chance to investigate is this myth about the jets for the last several years. Are they just Connor Hallebuck propping up a very mediocre team at times. They have been in years past, at times more recently. It's been a great team game. But this particular version has struggled with their consistency. And now we do find out what they're really going to be about.
B
I kind of want to approach that from a different angle and I'm not. Let me preface this. I am not saying Conor Hellebuyck is like a system quarterback here. Obviously he is one of the best goalies in the world, has been for a long time. But for the last several years, the Winnipeg jets backup goalies have had phenomenal numbers. Comrie in a couple of stints, Laurent Persoan a couple of stints, David Riddick in there for a year. The jets seem like they're relatively easy to play behind. Right? Like it shouldn't be the end of the world to go six, four, six weeks without your number one goalie, given this team's history of backup goaltending.
F
Right. I think that that's ambitious if you're a Winnipeg jets fan. But I understand what you're saying. I understand what you're saying. There is one line of thought that says their goaltending coach, Wade Flaherty, is a bit of a. Bit of a wizard. And people come here to, to take the benefits of that. But I, I think that evaluating Winnipeg's defense and trying to say this is an easy team to play behind or a difficult team behind to play behind varies wildly season by season. This year, medium. Last year they were a great team to play behind. That was a really high quality defensive effort by a lot of people. You go back three years, four years, and that includes some of the previous backups numbers that did have good seasons. And that defense was absolutely porous. That Connor Hellebuk did drag a couple of teams within the precipice of playoffs.
B
Now, this is like the first major injury of Hellebox career, right? Like, this is not a guy who misses a lot of time. It's called a minor procedure on your knee. But if you're a goalie, nothing's minor when it comes to your knee. What do we expect from hell? About? What do you know about Hellebock having covered him for so long now, that leads you to believe that he'll be able to bounce back from this. You know, Marion Hos used to always say coming back from injury mid season is like jumping on a moving train. Very difficult to do. I got to think it's even more difficult for a goalie. So much is about timing, so much is about being in the flow, and that's what training camp is for. He's not going to have that. What is your level of concern for when Hellebuck comes back? That he might not be the Hellebuck that we know.
F
Well, I think it's reasonable to wonder about that. They have used this language, and by they I mean the Winnipeg jets have used this language, that it's a minor knee procedure. Right? It's a minor surgery and you get into a knee with a scope and it's the world's best goaltender. Depending on your perspective. That doesn't give me a lot of confidence. As a general rule, knees make me squeamish. Knees are an important part of a goaltending repertoire. Right. That needs to work. I think the thing that I've learned, at least in thinking about this so far, is that the jets shared with us, Scott o' Neill shared with us the other day, that this is something that's been nagging Conor Hellebuyck since roughly the end of training camp. And we talk about his workload all the time, right? When he bombed in the playoffs, in that series that you and I covered blazing. One of the things we wonder about is, is this guy playing too much? Is this guy playing too much? And then to think that even with this nagging item to start this season, he wasn't number one. In starts like he usually was. I think he was 14th or something like that. But he was still getting the volume, the large volume of Winnipeg's nights and workload. And I wonder about that. I wonder if that was the right play necessarily. He can answer that. When he gets healthy and when he tries to return to form, from Winnipeg's perspective, what they've got to do is make the playoffs and pray. Right? They have to get to that threshold and they're below it as of today and hope that his January, if that's bad, well, hey, he's got the Olympics. And if those are bad, then he's got March and April, and then by the time that the playoffs come around, he'll be at his best. And that's. That's the bet that the Winnipeg jets are making with this timeline.
C
And you could also make a pretty strong case that the workload he's had. Laz, is one of the reasons for kind of the trend you were alluding to, of how good their backups have been. When Conor Hellebuk's taking on such a big workload and you can kind of feed your. Keep your backup so fresh, feed them, like, the starts you really want them to take and put them in a situation to succeed, that helps a lot. Let's talk about the guy who's stepping into it in Eric Comrie, because I don't know that the league, because Connor Hellebuck is who he is, has really ever had to pay too much attention to the Winnipeg jets backup goalie situation. But here's what I know about Eric Comrie from having covered him for all of one very funny week in Detroit where they claimed him on waivers and then lost him on waivers. Probably one of the five nicest human beings I've ever met.
F
Yeah, I would put him up there as well. I remember talking to Paul Maurice about him when he was new, and we had this conversation where both of us were wondering, and Paul Maurice brought this up. Like, when he met Eric Comrie, he had to ask himself, is this real? Can a guy be this nice? Or is he putting this on just because I'm the coach? And then he said over the next few years, he realized that, wait a second. No, Eric Comrie doesn't have that ability to. To, I guess, lie about who he is. That's just who he's always been. And that's been my experience in the years covering him as well. He's a. He's. He's one of the sweet ones in the NHL.
B
Let's. Let's. Pull back a little wider on Winnipeg here. You know, Nikola Ehlers and the Hurricanes just swept through. Kind of a reminder of what this team is missing. There's so much to like about this jets team, but they are slow. This is not a, this is a very fast league now and the Winnipeg jets just do not play a fast style. Can you win with that kind of lack of foot speed in the modern day NHL? Are the jets, you know, concerned about that in any way?
F
Well, you can win sometimes. You know, they're, they do have 12 wins on the season and they've been able to pull that off despite being the slowest team in the NHL or second slowest team in the NHL. Pardon me. If you look through the NHL edge data and compare it all as Dom did and then I went and looked and saw how poorly Winnipeg ranked, which you probably don't need a chart to tell. I think that there are ways that a team built like the Winnipeg jets can win and one of them requires all of the decisions that they make in all three zones to be fast and effective in a way that their overall foot speed is not. And what I mean by that, if you can kick start a puck retrieval by making the right decision where one defenseman relieves pressure to the other, that defenseman kickstarts a breakout. His winger is in the exact right spot that works well. The transition game is, is a well oiled machine and get into the like. There are ways where if the decisions are efficient that works. But the Winnipeg jets are running a third pairing right now that they can't trust and they don't get breakout passes from I'm going to say a third of their defensemen right now. It's off the glass and out. There's a lot of dusting it off. There's a lot of those moments where you're wondering like that defenseman's just running behind the net to hide for a moment and everything has to start again. The jets used to be wave over wave against teams and that's more than Nikolai. Either is being really fast. It was the fact that they were able to make great decisions all the way up the ice. I think that they can be an above average team, a good team this year at this pace. But they've got to figure out some puck management issues and that probably takes cleaning up some defense as well.
B
Well yeah, the bar is so much higher for execution and the margin of error is so much narrower when you don't have the speed to make up for mistakes defensively and offensively. Right. If you're not precise with the puck and you're going up against a team that's faster than you, and just about everybody's faster than them, you really need to be so precise. It's asking a lot of this team.
F
Yeah, I think that's the perfect way to put it. The margin for error disappears in a way like you have. There are so many different ways to win a hockey game. And by not being faster than the opponents, you've given yourself a 0 out of 10 in that one score. Right. Like that way is not the way that you're going to win unless it's Kyle Connor on one particular play. So that is not an option. I'd also say, though, you know, in playoff hockey, sometimes teams pack the house so well that the slower teams do win. Connor McDavid couldn't get to the middle against Florida in game seven. And there are ways. Right. It's just you have to be really unbelievably good at everything else. At Winnipeg as of late has not been unbelievably good. They've just been one of the, the mid tier teams in the NHL.
C
Let's talk about Jonathan Taves here. Who's one of the more interesting players in the league this season. A guy who was away from hockey for years, comes back in, how have you seen him kind of take back up to the NHL grind and what it takes to play an 82 game schedule?
F
The first thing I did at his very first training camp practice was call Laz and say, hey, he looks like he belongs. He's not washed. He's a real NHL player. In this group of NHL players, he didn't stand out. But as we were talking, you're like, well, that is a story in and of itself, right? There is a version of this comeback where that was it. And that was all that could happen based on his health. So then, next steps. It's been a game by game situation where he would do something clever. In game one or two, a reporter would ask coach Scott Arneel, hey, doesn't that mean that he's, he's great? And Arniel would sort of pump the brakes on that and say, we're not really evaluating this guy yet. This is an April player. This is a give this guy some time kind of deal. And I think that's wise. He was buried in his own zone for, you know, 35% shot metrics just to start the season. It's only in the last four or five games where that's turned around and that's partly because the jets have gotten healthy around him. But Jonathan Toews, man, he is a clever, clever player. If I can keep going on just on just him, his internal computer of what the next play is going to be might be the best I've ever seen. Might be like his sense of, okay, this scrum is happening, where do I need to be positioned? His sense of this defenseman is leaning this way. That stick's going to move and Elaine's going to open up, I think is absolutely elite still. And it's just a matter of foot speed and execution that's costing that brain a chance to be a real driver at this league. In this league.
B
Yeah. I mean, the jets are being outscored 15 to 6 at 5 on 5. With him on the ice, I, I think putting him as a 2C was just, it was way too big of an ask for a guy who hadn't played in a couple of years. But with Lowry back, are they, are they kind of rethinking the way they're using him now as the jets get healthier? Is he, is the burden on him a little less now, you know?
F
Yes and no. Right off the hop, it wasn't. You look at the minutes and Jonathan Toews was still very much the second line center. Adam Lowry was the third, which is interesting because last year one of the things that a lot of people don't know is Adam Lowry was Winnipeg's second line center. If you go by minutes, people talked about the ERS line as the second line. It wasn't. If you add it all up at the end of the day, Lowry did so much work for the Winnipeg jets and I think for them to have success again, they need him back from hip surgery. Up and running, dominating minutes against top competition because you can't give up, up 15 to 6 lead with your other center. The other. The other thing I got to say though is that Tape's linemates to start the year, one of them was you stapled to Nikita Chibrakov, a rookie who's not there yet. A lot of plays died. And it wasn't just Taves killing them. You know what I mean? There was a lot going on around him. He had a line in the last few games of with Cole Perfetti and Vladislav Namsnikov. That actually did win the shot metrics though they continue to get scored on. And then most recently Adam Lowry and Jonathan Tobus have switched spots and, and you may see Lowry become the second line center and tapes fall to third where I think A lot of people think is most reasonable for him.
C
All right, so that's Winnipeg, second and third center. Let's broaden out here. We're going to talk about their top center now, Mark Scheifele, and broaden out and talk about Team Canada here because as guys who were not on Team Canada last year go, he's making one of the very strongest cases to be on that team this time around.
F
100%. He's. He got as close as next man up last year. Right. And the story in Winnipeg is that when he got, quote unquote, snubbed or simply just didn't make the initial lineup. Mark Scheifele went on an absolute heater last year starting in about November through the four nations face off. And a lot of people had counted this player out, said in his mid or early 30s, he's not going to produce like he used to. There were a lot of questions even then about the Winnipeg jets and his ability to lead them offensively. He crushed it. He covered that off. More than cover that off. Started this season on that same exact terror. He's one of the league's points leaders. He's up there on the table, not number one or two or anything like that. And the big question for me is, can that player make Team Canada when there are so many other brilliant offensive players who are known for better two way play? Even if there's. Even if I can tell you, I watch games where Scheifele is a great defensive center, I don't think he has done that consistently enough throughout his career to have won you guys over or Team Canada brass over as, hey, we can play him on the third or fourth line and play him against Auston Matthews and life will be fine.
B
Well, this is where we're at with Team Canada though, right? There's. We've been talking for two months now as the season's gone on about this guy's got to make Team Canada and this guy's got to make Team Canada. Connor Bedard's got to make Team Canada. Macklin Celebrini's got to make Team Canada. Morgan Geeky leads the league in goals and he's not going to make Team Canada. Tom Wilson has, you know, 21 points and 11 goals in 22 games. He's 14th among Canadians. Like, you know, Scheifele has 11 goals, 17 assists in 21 games. He's on the bubble. This is an insanely difficult team to make. And the question is it's going to come down to do they want Guys like, you know, an Anthony Culli, do they want a Brandon Hagel and Seth Jarvis who could play a certain role and kill penalties and play more defensively, or do they just want to load up with the very best players in the league right now? Because some of the guys who we thought were locks are not among the 12 best forwards, Canadian forwards in the league right now. And I just don't know what kind of team Canada wants to build here. Do they just want to load up? Because then Scheifele's got to be there, Bedard's got to be there, celebrity's got to be there, Geeky's got to be there. But that's going to come at the expense of guys who are established, who have won with Team Canada in the past and who play perhaps more well rounded games.
F
I don't know that Canada is the country that goes against the group of players that they won with before. I think that one of the lessons you learn as a Canadian is that the brass chooses players that they've won with. And because there are so many great players in Canada from Canada, that usually works out just fine. I'm not like Tom Wilson, wouldn't that be a pretty dramatic overreaction to that everybody drops the gloves game with the Tkachuks and everything like that at four nations? Are we, are we really expecting Olympic hockey to follow that same?
C
It will not. I'm expecting that it will be the very opposite of that.
D
Right.
C
Double IHF officiating is so different from NHL. Like, I think Tom Wilson's a really good player who belongs on the bubble on merit. And I think if you take him, you're asking for trouble because if you, if you get a flying elbow in the wrong game, you're going to put yourself in a really tough spot. And like, so I'm with you, Marat. Like I, I think you could bring him and be like, oh, we'll see what the Chucks did. You got to have someone to counter that. And if you do, I think you're asking for trouble.
F
I mean, I think so. I think penalty minutes are going to be one of those things that cost teams. And in a small tournament like that, I also understand, like Team Canada has generally they got scorched for a player named Rob Zaminer at 98. Nagano.
B
Right.
F
I don't know if you guys, if this is part of your lore as Americans, but this is something we grow up in Canada being like, why, why did they take Rob Zamner? He was a checking center that's why they, and I don't, I don't know that they go down that road again exactly. But I can, I can definitely imagine Team Canada being scared of running celebrity Bedard Scheifele as their fourth line. Even though they play against top defensemen every single night, top forwards, every like you, Laz, you tell us, can, can Chicago shelter Connor Bedard? That's not how these guys play.
B
He, he went up against Nathan McKinnon's line on Sunday night and did very well against it. He's a much better, well rounded player than he, than people think. But again, there's just so many guys, you know, this isn't like Team USA bringing Justin Abdelkader to the World cup in 2016. We're talking about elite. Like Tom Wilson is an elite player. Brandon Hagel, Seth Jarvis, these are fabulous hockey players. It's just, do you take the 12 best or do you create the best team? This is always the decision you have to make. When you're an Olympic general manager, it's difficult.
F
You can make Canada look good in so many different ways. And you know, I say that with a little bit of patriotism in it for sure. You know, I think that Team Canada has a huge wealth of players to choose from. So you can probably make the wrong decision, the quote unquote wrong decision, and still come away with a gold medal contender based on who's driving the bus for that team. Right? Like, geez, you can argue about Seth Jarvis, who I just had a front row seat for against Carolina. Winnipeg, played them a couple of days ago. The wheels on that young man and the way that he can forecheck and I believe in that player as a penalty killing selection, if that's the route Team Canada goes and if you put Mark Scheifele there and seventh, Jarvis somehow misses the team, I'm like, well, you know what? I've seen Scheifele carry the offensive mail for the Winnipeg jets so many times. I also think that's a good idea that contributes to a good, good Olympic hockey team.
C
We're going to do a whole, whole episode on Canada coming up here soon and well on the Olympics I should say coming up here soon. But to me, the bubble guys are the ones that you have the pace question on. It's Brad Marchand, it's Mark Stone, it's Sam Bennett, I think probably the most vulnerable in this regard, even though he was a huge piece of the back to back defending cup champs. And I think to Marat's point, like when You've seen a guy win, it gives you a lot of good feelings about him. But that, to me is, is the one that you got to watch is, is the pace guys. And I think all, all these guys that we're talking about can play at pace, and that's the best thing they have going for them.
F
I think that's it. I, I worry about Brad Marchand on Team Canada, but he's played with Sid Crosby and had success with him for so many years. That's exactly right. And what that brings it back to is the guys who make these decisions are human beings. And if you've tapped, you know, like I think about this with Jonathan Toews in Winnipeg, if Scott or Neil has the opportunity to Tap the jersey 19 and the nameplate Taves in front of him, he's seen that guy have so much success so many times that the fact that, okay, maybe one offensive play isn't going to happen because he can't turn the corner on somebody doesn't really occur to him. The feeling you get is the same thing when you've seen it for over a decade.
C
Yeah. All right, let's take a quick break right there. We're going to come back. Thank you, Murat, for joining us. We will talk soon after the break with Jesse Granger about the worst and the best aging deals of this offseason.
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Device connection charge credits and imbalance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Contact Us Finance Agreement 256 gigabytes 830 required. Visit T mobile.com all right, we are back and we are joined now by Jesse Granger. And I want to start here. We talked in the first segment about one central division powerhouse in the Winnipeg Jets. Let's move to Dallas here. And Miko ran and is is very much in the news right now. He gets suspended after consecutive misconducts. Laz, this is not really how I see Miko Rannan as a player, as someone who's a suspension risk. It's an automatic one, obviously. Different hits. What do you make of the whole Miko rant in saga right now?
B
Look, I don't think Miko Rantin is a dirty player, but these were two dirty hits. Like they were bad. The Coronado one in particular, you know, he was lining them up right in the numbers, swung the elbow out and was ready to drive it into the numbers. Like there's no excuse for that kind of hit. The Romanov one is a little farther from the boards, but perhaps even more dangerous because of that. And I don't like the. It's a consistency issue, right? Like the. I don't like that the NHL regulates the injury, legislates the injury, but that's what they often do. If a guy gets hurt, the suspension is worse. Well, Romanov's out for pretty much the season now and Miko Ranton is missing one game kind of by default because of an obscure rule that very few of us even heard about. I just don't. It feels kind of like a cop out to not suspend him for further for having two hits like this in a three game span. One of which, the Coronado one, which he was not hurt on, was really, really egregious. I don't know, this felt like a multiple game suspension to me and it feels like the NHL is kind of hiding behind this rule.
C
Yeah, I think with me, the Coronado one, at best what you can say is he maybe thought that Coronado was going to turn into a different way. Like the. Usually when you hear a guy defend it's that, oh, the guy turned at the last second. This was almost the opposite. The only defense would be he thought he was going to turn. And I think it's flimsy. I think that's one where you kind of gotta just take accountability for, you know, yourself and your body and your hit. And it's just one that I have a hard time seeing the explanation for. So it's probably a little bit of a reason I have more patience for the one that's farther away from the boards. I don't know that you always know how a guy's gonna. When you're bumping someone that far away, you don't necessarily know how it's gonna go. You can probably see that play fairly often, but I don't know. Jesse, what do you think?
D
Yeah, for me, the first one on Romanov, I was kind of defending him a little just because like you mentioned, you don't know how the guy's gonna fall. I also thought Rantman looked off balance, like out of control. Like now that's not an excuse for an illegal hit, but it's. I don't think it was malicious. I could see a world where he was just off balance and kind of out of control, like lost control of himself and hit the guy, whereas the Coronado one. And plus you add in the fact that he had just had all the like spotlight from the one hit and now the Coronado one was obviously a dirty hit. He, he was lining him up from a long ways away like Mark said. So yeah, I was, I was very shocked at the Coronado one. The first one I was like, yeah, that's Renton. He's a big guy. He throws his body around sometimes you're going to lose. You're going to hit somebody in a way you're not expecting to. The Coronado one was very out of character for me, for him, but that's.
B
What I'm Talking about there's a cumulative effect here. Right. We talk about players with a history and Ran in is not a guy with a history of a dirty play. But when this happens twice in a week, I feel like the NHL needs to step up and say, whoa, dial it down a little bit here. And that means more than a one game suspension in November. One game is not that big of a deal. I'm sure it feels like a big deal to Miko Rantin, but it's a much bigger deal to Romanov into Coronado. And you guys are kind of, you know, little kind of pussyfooting around the Romanov hit. But those are so dirty. When you hit a guy low and he's already crouching and he's at around the goal line, he's going face first or shoulder first into the boards every single time. Those are almost more dangerous than when you just sandwich a guy up against the boards because he's got forward momentum carrying his face basically into the boards. Like the risk of concussion, the risk of a shoulder injury, the risk of breaking your face is very high. When you board a guy from that far away, it's almost more dangerous.
D
Oh, it's definitely more dangerous if he goes down. Yeah.
C
But at least some of the time you're pushing him that far because you're trying to push him upright into the glass.
B
He, he was already kind of going down. Like he, his body position said like, if you hit me here, I'm going to get killed. And Mo Ran. It went right through him anyway.
C
Yeah, well, obviously that's why Patrick Wild was upset and that was quite the moment. I don't know if we want to talk about that or not, but two in a row for, for Moo Ran in and it's, it's a, it's becomes a trend now. Right. Like anything that I, that Jesse or I could say about the Romanov hit kind of gets washed out by the fact that one game later it's the same thing. It's actually, I would say a little worse with Coronado. So something to watch with Miko Ran. And I would imagine to your point last, this is not a track record situation for him. I don't expect we're going to see a ton of this going forward.
B
But, but it is now, now he's got the track record. If this happens again, you know, then you got to throw the book at the guy. Right. You got to tell him like, this is. You're a big dude. He's a big strong dude and a good skater. So he can crush people this way if he chooses to. He could be a Tom Wilson out there. He's going to have to dial it back because now the track records there.
D
That's exactly what I was wondering is like if you're Dallas, you almost. I almost would rather them give him like throw the book at him now. Give him the whatever, three games, five games other than just this one automatic game. Because now he does have the reputation. If this happens again later in the season when the games mean more, I could see the NHL giving him a longer suspension just because, like you said, he. Now he has the trend, the track record.
B
Quick poll.
C
How many of us knew that consecutive misconducts was an automatic suspension? This was new to me.
B
Yeah, new idea.
C
Always fun when you can discover a new rule through the course of the year. Our producer, Chris, actually did some research on this and maybe Stars fans will get a kick, I don't know, out of this. It's only happened three times that we could find all of them were to players on the Dallas Stars. So interesting little tidbit. I don't know that there's any causation there. The main thing that we wanted to talk about today is the moves from this off season that are aging best and worst. And we're going to start with. Let's start with the ones actually that are aging the worst here because there's one in particular that I want Jesse's opinion on, and that's John Gibson in Detroit. I think Red Wings fans are really dissatisfied with. Gibson's play is an.870 save percentage. Jesse, I'm sure you have a little more on the advanced stats front for this, but it's a tough one because I don't think all the goals that are going in on Gibson are like no doubt or soft goals. There's some tips. There's some point shots that were screened that I'm sure are hurting the goal sit above expected. But you get to 21 games into the season and it's an 870. There's not that many other things you can look to besides that. It kind of takes up all the air.
B
Yeah, it's.
D
I feel very similarly to you in that when I watch Detroit games, he isn't giving up a bunch of soft goals. Like, this isn't a team that's defending incredibly well and the goalies killing them because he's given up these goals that you just cannot give up. But there are some goals that are tough saves. They're like. They aren't easy saves that he should make, but they're tough saves that you need a goalie to make and that when you trade for a John Gibson the way Detroit did, thinking he can get them over the top, get them into the playoffs, be the guy. He's not making those types of saves, at least not enough of them. I think you can ask for more from him. Obviously the.870 save percentages is miserable. He's had a lot of like pucks getting tipped in front of him, chaos in front of him. And I think that for me that's like the biggest worry here is that is he going to be able to control the game? Because I think when I think of high end goal, he's like Jeremy Swayman. This year to me is the best example of, a positive example of this. He has looked phenomenal and he controls the game. He's controlling rebounds, he's absorbing shots, he's. When he can't absorb them, he's kicking him into the corners. Whereas Gibson, I feel like he's making his own job more difficult because he's not controlling these rebounds as well as he can. And that's not necessarily been a strength of his. He's kind of an old school guy who makes saves in like untraditional ways. Like he's, he's one of the last kind of guys, like a little bit like Mark Andre Fleury was, doesn't do it as successfully as Mark Andre Fleury. But I worry is he going to be able to, to control the puck and settle things down and not have to make these saves? Because at this age, I don't think he's acrobatic enough to make those, those spectacular saves that sometimes you have to make when you get that chaos in front of you.
B
Here's the thing about John Gibson. He hasn't been very good for a long time now. Like he had a decent year last year and I think, I think the goalie union there, like you and Jesse and your, and your cohorts have been quick to write it off. Oh, he's a great goalie behind a bad team. Right? He's a bad. It's not his fault. But this guy hasn't really had a great year since 2018, 19. He's like an 895 goalie since then. This is a number of years now. Is it possible Detroit saw what he did early in his career and just assumed he could get back to that and that all of his struggles were just a Ducks problem when really Gibson's been part of the problem?
C
Yes, it is possible. I mean, the Red Wings have been fairly desperate to upgrade and I think, you know, they've tried so many different places, right? They tried Alex Nadelkovich, they tried Villi Husso. You know, they brought in Cam Talbot. I think Kim Talbot's been probably their most successful goalie acquisition of recent years. But this has been a, basically a decade problem for them looking for a guy. And I think when you see what John Gibson has done in his career, you can certainly tell yourself that story. As much as I would love admittance to the goalie union, Laz, I am not part of it and I think they would reject me roundly. I think, if anything, I'm a little bit of the other side. I'm maybe goalie management kind of thing on that side of the bargaining. So I'll let Jesse take over here, but I think it's very possible as.
D
Yeah, and I also think you playing behind that bad of a defense can kind of erode at your game. And like, I think it actually, like, that was the, like. Part of the reason John Gibson's game has gotten worse is you start cheating on plays. You start. You don't trust your defense. Like, in any situation, you're reading the play, you're reading the chant, the threat of the shot in front of you and the pass behind you. And as a goalie, you have to focus on that shot in front of you. But if the team regularly lets the backdoor pass, you're going to eventually start to creep back into your net a little deeper along your goal line. You're going to start to flatten out, getting ready for that pass. And those are just bad habits that creep into your game. And when the NHL is as fast as it is, just tiny little details like that, we're talking your. Your skate blade is an inch further backwards than it should be. You're now, you're not square to the puck, and now that shot that you would normally save is getting by your glove. And he has been beat by a lot of shots. I will say that that's the other thing. And like John Gibson plays a. He plays out of his crease like he's. He plays with a lot of depth. Usually those types of goalies don't get beat by a ton of shots because you are cutting off the angle so much. The fact that he's been getting beat by shots is worrisome. My question, though, and this is probably for Max, because you follow the team more closely. I know the team is backing him now, and I know it's still early and they, they obviously committed to him. So you're not going to jump ship this quickly. But it's been getting worse lately and Trey Augustine is looking really good in Michigan State and Cosa is still sitting there in the hl. Like, at what point do they give one of these young guys a chance like to prove like specifically Cosa because he's more in the position to do it right now. How long do you wait before you give that guy a chance to prove that he, that he can play better? Because like you said, Gibson hasn't played well. Talbot's been better, but still I think he's below a 900. It's not his numbers haven't been great.
C
I would say Talbot's pretty influenced by one disaster game on Long Island. Like I wonder what it would look like if he took that out early in the season. Just everything's so sensitive that I think Talbot's been really steady on Kosa. I think the answer is just a little bit longer. Right. Like I, I think you're not going to go away from John Gibson after six weeks here. Right. Like he was your big off season acquisition. Even if it hasn't worked out well. You kind of need him to work out if you're going to go anywhere. And so you're going to give him, I think, every opportunity to do that. And, and Cos has had a good start at six games. We just saw him in the preseason and one was clearly better than the other. Right. And so you're going to give Gibson as much opportunity as you can possibly justify, especially while you're in a playoff race if you fall out of it. You know, I still think you're going to see Cosa this year, but it's not something I think you can rush to do. I think you kind of have to let it happen organically.
B
At least Detroit has some options. If we go to another team that we're talking about the worst off season decisions, you got to go to Edmonton and their decision not to add at goalie. They're fourth worst in the league and goals against, they're still a top three power play. They still got two of the best players in the world and they're a middling team because they got crappy goaltending. Jess. Stuart Skinner is A. An 885 Calvin Pickards and 851 Jesse. What can they do? What's out there? Laurent Brassois is practicing with the Blackhawks right now. He is starting to get. He's still a ways away but he is on the ice. He exists. I. You got to do something if you're Edmonton, don't you?
D
Yes. And I mean even if I've been saying this for a while now, even if you can't find a goalie who is a clear upgrade over Stuart Skinner, because those are not easy to find like that, we're talking top 20 goalie in the world and teams that have those don't want to trade them. You've got to at least add another goalie who like Calvin Pickard is a great guy, he's a great teammate, he's a professional as a backup. The players love playing for him. His technique is not good enough. I just, I think he's an AHL goalie and I would want to add a high end backup. If I can't add like UC Soros to me is the dream scenario. I don't know if Nashville has any interest in trading him. They appear like they're not going to be ready to win until UC Soros prime is over and he's not good enough to do it. So if I were the Predators, I would be trying to cash out. While his value is high, if you, if he plays behind this team a couple more seasons, he's going to be John Gibson. He's like, right, he's going to be in that situation. So if I was the Oilers, I would really be looking hard at that. If Nashville has no interest in trading him, then there's nothing you can do there. I would be looking more towards in Boston. Eunice Corpusallo. His numbers aren't great, but man, when I watch him, he has looked good. I think the eye test, I think he passes the eye test more than he does the numbers so far this season season. And like Max was saying early in the year, a couple bad games can kind of ruin a goalie's numbers. I would be looking at players like that if I was Edmonton. I don't know if Boston's interested in trading him. Corpus all has got quite a big contract, so it's not like it's super cheap to add him, but I think a goalie like him could, could flourish behind a talented Edmonton team.
B
It's really incredible if you just took, you say Soros and added him to Edmonton. Everyone's so down on Edmonton right now. You put Saros, everyone's like, oh, they're going to the Stanley Cup Final again. It's, it's such an. Obviously you very rarely like it was like Colorado needs a second line center. You very rarely have these like the most obvious need imaginable. And if the Oilers just had a good goalie and Saros is the only great, potentially great goalie out there, you add him, whatever it costs, almost, and they instantly become a Stanley cup favorite again, right?
D
And like I said when I tweeted it out and I got a lot of, well, they can't fit it on the salary cap. And I'm like, but you are the same fans on Twitter that are so upset when the Golden Knights make 17 trades a season and you're all like, well, the cap doesn't matter for them. That's the point. Make it work. You can if you want. If the Edmonton Oilers really want UC Soros and the Predators are willing to, they can make it work. We'll give you, I don't know how many, how many years in advance you're allowed to trade draft picks, whatever that limit is. That's how many first round picks we'll give you. And we'll give you whatever contract you want. It's like, just do it. And then if you win a Stanley cup with Connor McDavid and UC Soros, who gives a crap about all those first round draft picks?
C
We've talked about all the parody in the east and how hard it's going to make it on teams to find any separation, to feel any safety. There's 16 teams in the Eastern Conference. Where would the Edmonton Oilers rank on teams bothered by the east parody? Because one thing it's going to do is clog up their potential trade options. Even, you know, you guys talk about sorrow. So that's one out West. But like, if the Islanders were not, like, looking like a potential playoff team, maybe we're having that same conversation about Ilya Sorokin. Are we talking about Artur Sealovs on the Pittsburgh Penguins, who's having a pretty good year, but the Penguins are still right there.
D
Yeah, and that's another guy. Like, if the Penguins were bad, she loves isn't. Again, the Vancouver gave him away for free. Like, they didn't ask for a king's ransom from him and Edmonton had no interest. I, I don't understand why they're so satisfied with this goalie tandem that has proven that they aren't good enough.
C
Yeah, we could probably have a similar conversation on not doing enough on the Toronto Maple Leafs. I think we kind of did it with Shayna a week ago. So we can, we can speed run that one, I guess. But it does feel like this is a team that, you know, I know options were limited. They got one of the worst case scenarios out of it all, well, they.
B
Lost the best player available in Mitch Marner and then didn't really do anything to add to it. So you take a team that was stagnant and make it worse and hey, why are we a bottom five team in the league? I don't understand. It's, you know, it's GMing101 and I.
D
Keep going to the goaltending, but that's, to me, that's the difference. They got elite goaltending last year from a pair that isn't. Like, they didn't come out of nowhere. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe they're good. But nobody expected Anthony Stolars to have the season he had. Joseph Wall had an excellent season. Now all of a sudden, Wall's been missing for most of the year. Now he's come back a little bit. Stolars isn't playing at the elite level. He is. And now those. When, when your goalies are playing the way they did last year, it covers up errors that you're. You just don't notice because the goalies are making up for it. And now all of a sudden, the goalies aren't making up for it and you're seeing a lot more. That team.
C
Yeah. Another one we talked about before St. Louis, trading away Zack Bullduke for Logan Mayu. That one. Obviously, when Mayu gets sent down like that's probably the leading candidate for toughest move of the year. It does help slightly, I guess, that Bulldo's not letting the world on fire in Montreal. But I think right now, if you could get an undo, you're hitting that button. If you're Doug Armstrong.
B
I did think it was funny that JR in our. In our. When we did our all 32 on what's the. What's the trade you most regret? As in a franchise. JR went right to this one. He went to Baltic for Mayu. That might have been a little bit of recency bias there, but I love just how when things are so bad in St. Louis, they're like, well, if only we had Zach Bolduc, we'd be fine. That's just how bleak things are right now in Missouri.
C
Everything will be solved. All right, let's take a quick break right there. I'll be right back with some of the moves that have aged best early on this season.
B
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E
Yes.
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Everything Fire everything.
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C
Robert Mays from the Athletic. This time of year always gets busy, but that's when having peloton in my life really makes a difference. The new Peloton Cross training Tread plus, powered by Peloton iq, helps me fit in great workouts no matter what's on my schedule. It's peloton's most advanced equipment yet, giving you real time guidance and endless ways to move. Peloton IQ plans your workouts, tracks your progress, and corrects your form so you can train smarter and make the most of your time. Let yourself run, lift, flex, push and go. Explore the new peloton cross training tread +@1peloton.com. All right, we are back. Jesse had to run out to morning skate for Golden Knights Mammoth tonight. So we're going to do the best aging acquisitions of the off season so far. Laz, with just you and I and let's start here. I mean, we'll, we'll take out the obvious, we'll take out Mitch Marner, we'll take out Nick ers. These are the ones that kind of had to work.
B
But of the ones the Panthers resigning, Bennett and Martian, everyone like, yeah, exactly.
C
Of the ones that kind of could have gone either way, is there one that stands out to you is like, wow, that, that looks really good.
B
Two months later, you know, I know it happened earlier, but like the Chris Kreider trade for Anaheim is just, it's like we all wrote him off. He had one down season in New York. He had 22 goals which isn't even that bad. And we all wrote him off. I know he's in his mid-30s, but this is still one of the fastest guys in the league and just pure straight line speed and he's on a team with guys that can keep up with him and he's got what, 10 goals in 18 games even after he's on a little bit of a, he's cooled off a little bit these last handful of games, but he's still just producing so much top line winger. He's power play one. And look, his shooting percentage is high, but his shooting percentage is always high because that's his game. He's around the net. He's one of those guys that's just going to score on a quarter of his shots or a fifth of his shots just because he puts himself in the right positions. But with the tips and the rebounds, I know the Rangers felt like they had to do something, but Chris Kreider would look pretty good on the New York Rangers right now and he looks really good on the Anaheim Dogs.
C
Well, it's true of both former Rangers that Pat Verbeek went and got and he took a lot of crap from people saying like, oh, you let the Rangers off the hook too easy by giving them anything for contracts they had to move. When I, when I've, I've seen the Ducks live twice this year and in both games Chris Kreider and Jacob Truba were like legitimate positive impact guys on the game. So that those are both working out very well. I know Truba was last year, but yeah, I think Kreider's a great shout. One of the ones that first came into my mind. This is the second year in a row that the Buffalo Sabers are getting a little bit of like and I told you so moment here on a trade. And this one was not one that I saw coming. The JJ Paterka for Josh Doane and Michael Kesselring one. But Josh Doane's production is nearly identical to what JJ Paterka has done for the Mammoth. He's doing it obviously for much cheaper. You got Michael Kesselring and Doane is much more the player type that the Sabers have been missing.
B
Well, that's right. I mean, Paterka and Dolan have been basically a wash, right? But it's cheaper and you get a legitimate defenseman in the group. Kesslering's got that big shot. He's eating up a lot of minutes. He's, he's. It's a two for one. You trade one guy, get basically the same guy back and a viable defenseman on top of it. It's a great move. And the Sabres were just kind of starting to see them kind of get their feet underneath them after that Horrible start. I don't think this is a playoff team still, but they're a better team because of this trade and Doane's a very exciting player for them.
C
Yeah, I don't think they're a playoff team either, but it's just when, if. If they ever are. I don't even know if we could say when.
B
Right now.
C
Josh Stone seems like the kind of guy who's going to be better suited to it than JJ Paterka too. And that's rhymes to the Ryan McLeod trade from a year ago where you trade away Matthew Savoy and you get back Ryan McLeod. Ryan McLeod consistently. When I see the Sabers as one of their most important players, it's really.
B
Interesting when you think Donut, but Turka, they're both 23. They have the. I think they have like almost the exact same stat line this year. Like, it's a weird trade in that respect until you factor in the, you know, the Kesselring of it all. And just it's, it's. It's making the team deeper, it's making them more well rounded and you didn't really take any step back by losing a very good player in JJ Paterka. You very rarely see trades like that where both teams get a guy that they're happy with an actual hockey trade. God forbid you get an actual hockey trade. That's not just for futures. We want to see more of this.
C
Sandwich in the middle of. It is a really bad hockey trade or one that looks really bad right now. And that's the cousins for Josh Norris.
F
1.
C
But, you know, injuries obviously a driving factor of that. So we'll move on from there. Colorado, Victor Olfson. I mean, Colorado has been the story of the year. I think I'm now of the opinion that everyone just goes to Colorado. It's at that Carolina level now where it's like, oh, they're going to go there and they're going to be amazing. Happened with Marty Nachess. Now it's happening with Victor Olufsen.
B
Yeah, and he's playing on that third line with, I think Jack Drury and Parker Kelly. And this is the problem with the Avalanche in recent years is they've been top heavy, right? They got two amazing lines or one and a half amazing lines. They address that hole at second line center with Brock Nelson. Now they got some scoring depth, some actual scoring depth. Someone on that third, third line that can score. I think he's got what, six goals already? He's got 15 points. This is what they've Missed. They've been top heavy on the back end. They've been top heavy up front. They're getting great goaltending and now they have some scoring depth to go with it. That's how you go this far into the season with one regulation loss. They look just absolutely phenomenal right now.
C
Yeah, I think right now they have to be the cup favorite. I mean, they're.
B
Oh, no question.
F
Yeah, they're.
C
I mean, I know they, it was a close game against Chicago, but they've taken some really good teams and humbled them so far this year.
B
Yeah. And you got two goalies that are just playing out of their minds and Blackwood and Wedgwood and I don't know how sustainable that is. The Wedgewood is kind of playing over his, you know, over his skis right now. But when you got that team in front of you, this is, this is probably the best start we've seen since, like the Bruins had their record setting year since The Blackhawks in 2013 went 21:03. That's the kind of start we're talking about. You don't see teams go this far into the season where we're at Thanksgiving week and they got one loss, one real loss. I mean, it's kind of incredible what they're doing.
C
One regulation loss. They've won nine in a row. A lot of good things going on in Colorado. How about Trevor Zegras? I mean, we talked about some, some guys that the Ducks brought in. Trevor Zegras in Philly looks like quite the reclamation process there.
B
God, wouldn't it have been fun to see him on this Anaheim team though? To see him like with his offensive creativity on a team that's this offensive minded. See what Joel Quinville could have done with him as a player. But yeah, no, he, he's been a great fit. Philadelphia seems to have, have toned him down. I don't know how that happens. Not like he's playing for John Tortorella, but it's, it's, it's, it's working there. They, they've reined him in without stifling him, which is what the whole concern was. If you, if you, if you rein in his personality and his style, will he still be able to produce? Well, he is. He's the best player on that team right now. He's making Mitchkoff slower start a little more palatable because he's another young guy that's producing at a high level. He's been a great fit there and I think all of us were like that's. Going to be a terrible fit. When that trade happened, we were all expecting that to be a horrible trade, and it's been quite the opposite.
C
It is an interesting. What if you talk about, like, you know, seeing him with Joel Quinville like it. I think he needed a fresh start. Could Quenville have been the fresh start is a valid question. But what we know is he went to Philly and he got it and he's returned to being something like the Trevor Zegras that we knew from his rookie year and even the second year. And the key to that is that he's been that player productivity wise. I think without. I didn't even really mind that he was pissing people off in that way.
B
I loved it.
C
But it's come without some of the kind of like, outside stuff that I think people would term a distraction. Right. And so there's been no distraction. It's just pure, uncut, good hockey from Trevor Zegras.
B
Yeah. And when you. And when you're. When you're playing well, it's easier to behave. Right. It's easier to play within yourself and not be a distraction because things are going well. But I hope he gets. I like when he's a pain in the ass. I like it. He's out there stirring up like that's. I want to see more of that from him.
C
Yeah. And I think this is. It's important for the Flyers that Trevor Zegras is hitting because they needed a guy like this. I know right now he's playing on the wing in the middle six and so like, yeah, ideally in a perfect world, he would have come in and been this point per game center for them. Either way it goes, they needed high end talent there. Based on where they've been picking. I mean, they have Porter Martone on the way. Obviously they have Mitch Kov in the fold. They could be on their way to having one of the more dynamic winger groups in the NHL. I'm sure they'd love the center, but what they needed was just the talent. And so he's a big infusion of that at a very still young age.
B
Yeah, they're kind of almost in that Detroit style where it's like they never really got the top two or three pick. They were always picking kind of in the bottom half of the top 10. And it's. You could get a lot of good players that way, but you don't really necessarily get the. The generational guys that really change the entire, you know, direction of your franchise from that position. So Getting a guy like Zegrus to add to that mix. He's still a young guy. I think he's what, 23, 24? I mean, he's been around forever. These guys come into league at 18, 19, and we think they're so old, it's like, oh, God, this guy's still a young guy. So the ceiling is still very, very high for him over there.
C
Can I give you my answer to this question? The. The better off season acquisition so far that I did not expect to be giving at all.
D
Okay.
C
Corey Perry to the Kings. This has been a match made in heaven, and it's bizarre because it feels like Kings fans don't even want it to be because of all the memories in Anaheim. Corey Perry's been quietly huge for the Kings.
B
Hey, he's second on the team in goals. He's, you know, he's. This is what he does now. He's on the fourth line, doesn't play a ton of minutes, but he plays on PP1. He can play up in the lineup when you need him to. You need a goal late, you just throw him on that top line, plant him in front of the goal. It's so funny. He's 41 years. Think he's coming up on his 41st birthday. He has. I was looking at the NHL Edge stats. It's hilarious. He has zero speed bursts over 20 miles an hour this year. Zero. Not even. This is the slowest guy in the league, potentially. He's so effective, though. He's just so smart. He knows how to play around that. It's like Chris Kreider minus the speed. Right. You put him around the net and the puck's going to wind up going in there, whether he's the one scoring it or he's the one causing the screen. Like, nobody screens quite like this guy does. This is just what he does. And, you know, again, wouldn't he look good on the Oilers right now? The Oilers are a middling team offensively right now. Wouldn't they love to have him back? I don't know why you would let him go. He had, what, 10 goals in the playoffs for Edmonton last year. Just keep him like he's a guy that just seems to succeed and you need him in the playoffs. That's when you need him most. And you know he's going to be effective in the playoffs. That's where he's. He's at his best. It's a great acquisition for the Kings. It's exactly what they needed, was a little bit more scoring punch and everywhere he goes, Corey Perry provides that.
C
He's matching Anze Kopitar so far production wise. I never expected to be saying that when I saw him live. The Red Wings were out in LA. Red Wings had like a 31 lead late. I think Corey Perry got both goals right just by being right around the crease getting a stick on something. That's what he does. It's why he's so good in the playoffs when. When that's sometimes about the only way you're going to score. In some of those games when things get really structured, he's a cheat code to it because there's just not very many guys in the league that have the skill that he has around there and just that can withstand the beating that you have to take to be there.
B
He's just one of those old school power forwards that we just don't have in the league anymore. We have skill guys, we have speed guys, we just don't have a whole. Like Tyler Bertuzzi in Chicago is having a monster start to the year. He's another one of those guys who can just. He somehow manages to stay in the, in the, in the corner of the goal mouth and pucks bounce in off of him. It's a skill. It's really hard to do that. You have to have the will to stay there while you're getting slashed and cross checked and the goalies whacking at your ankles. But you also have to have the hand eye coordination to follow through on it. And Perry is one of those few guys. There's a lot of guys in the league like this in like the 90s, right? This is like a, this is what a prototypical high scoring forward used to look like. Now it's like a unicorn in this league, a guy. Nobody can do this anymore. And it's just that. And this is how you play into your 40s, right? This is how you succeed into your 40s. Because again, zero speed bursts. Guy does not have a single. Like nothing he does is. Can be qualified as a burst, right? He just doesn't have burst ability. But he's just so effective at what he does. And I don't know why more guys don't try to emulate that and have these long careers. It's, it's. Yeah, I get. Everybody hates him, right? Everybody hates Corey Perry. Chicago hated him. LA hated him. Edmonton hated him. When he's on your team, it's like Daniel Carcillo. All of a sudden you love him. Him, right? It's like you hate him until he's on your team doing what he does best and being a pain in the ass and scoring those kinds of goals. Corey Perry, man, he can do this at least 45, easy.
C
Yep. No, I mean, maybe we go back and retroactively add not keeping Corey Perry to Edmonton's not getting a goalie in the previous seconds.
B
He's so cheap. He's like. He's like a million bucks a year at this point. He just wants to keep playing. Comes at no cost. And he's, you know exactly what you're going to get from him every time.
F
Yeah, no doubt.
C
All right, that's gonna do it for. For us. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show. Remember, you can subscribe on YouTube@YouTube.com TheAthletic Hockey show to watch full episodes. Sean, Sean and Frankie have you covered on the next episode on Wednesday. We'll talk to you soon.
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Date: November 24, 2025
Hosts: Max Bultman & Mark Lazerus
Special Guests: Murat Atesh (Winnipeg Jets), Jesse Granger
In this episode, Max Bultman and Mark Lazerus, joined by Murat Atesh and Jesse Granger, dive into the NHL’s most notable offseason moves and analyze which ones have aged best—and which have not—roughly two months into the 2025-26 season. The episode is split into deep dives on Jay major injuries (notably to Connor Hellebuyck), reflections on team building and aging transactions, and candid debates around goaltending, player fit, and trade regrets.
Guest: Murat Atesh
Timestamps: 02:44–15:39
Timestamps: 15:39–22:42
With Jesse Granger
Timestamps: 24:57–29:59
Timestamps: 31:34–42:41
John Gibson in Detroit (31:34)
Ongoing Red Wings Goalie Shuffle (34:25)
Oilers’ Goalie Neglect (37:00)
Other Misfires
Timestamps: 44:45–55:55
Chris Kreider to Anaheim (45:57)
Buffalo’s JJ Peterka for Josh Doan & Michael Kesselring (46:36)
Victor Olofsson in Colorado (48:16)
Trevor Zegras’ Revival in Philadelphia (49:45)
Surprise Standout: Corey Perry to the Kings (52:33)
| Segment | Speakers/Guests | Key Topics | Timestamp | |-------------------------------------------|-----------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Winnipeg Jets Check-In | Max, Mark, Murat | Hellebuyck's injury, backup situation, team speed, Jonathan Toews | 02:44–15:39 | | Team Canada Selection Debate | Max, Mark, Murat | Scheifele, defensive play, Olympic roster bubbles (Stone, Marchand, Wilson, Bedard etc.) | 15:39–22:42 | | Rantanen Suspension Discussion | Max, Mark, Jesse | Two dirty hits, NHL’s handling, Dallas’s odd rule history | 24:57–29:59 | | Offseason Moves Aging Worst | Max, Mark, Jesse | Gibson/Detroit, Oilers lack of goalie, Leafs regression, Bolduc trade | 31:34–42:41 | | Offseason Moves Aging Best | Max, Mark | Kreider/Anaheim, Doan/Buffalo, Olofsson/Colorado, Zegras/Philly, Perry/Kings | 44:45–55:55 |
This episode delivers a sharp, detailed, and entertaining analysis of roster decisions and their ripple effects—illustrating how both analytics and chemistry, stars and role players, make or break an NHL season.