Jesse Granger (3:24)

Yeah, I don't think we've ever had a division winner since they went to four divisions. A division winner under 100 points and the Pacific winner might not get to 90 points. They probably will end up getting to 90, but it's going to be hard. Like they're going to need to finish strong to get to 90. It's crazy how bad this division is. I obviously am covering the Golden Knights on a nightly basis here and they keep losing and yet I check around the league and so did every other team in the Pacific. So it doesn't matter how many times they lose, they never drop in the standings.

Max Boltman (3:54)

You know, luck for them. It's like you kind of make your own luck in some ways. Not in the way that you're in the Pacific Division, but they have a great roster. I don't think any of us are surprised to see the Vegas Golden Knights in first place in that division. It's more so seeing them in first place with only 31 wins on the season, with only, you know, to your point, 76 points. 14 of those are from overtime losses. When I watch them, they still have flashes where they look like a team that's going to really make some noise. The problem is, and I saw them live a couple weeks ago, or maybe only one week ago, time is a little bit of an illusion right now around the coming off of the trade deadline and a road trip for me. But they started real slow in Detroit and they managed to come back and win. The second half of that game looked like the Vegas Golden Knights. The first half of that game, I was like, what am I looking at here?

Jesse Granger (4:38)

That's been every game for them this whole season, basically that one. They were able to come back and win, but a lot of the times they just fall one goal short at the end. This team has really, really struggled to score goals when the game is at a neutral game state like when. When the other team isn't sitting back on its heels protecting a lead and you've got a forecheck and you've got to actually gain the offensive zone time. They're not just going to give it to you by backing up. The Golden Knights are struggling. They. They look. This is a team that has traded draft picks and traded young players in order to win now. And when you do that for nine years in a row, eventually you're going to start to get a little bit older and a little bit slower. I think the Golden Knights still have a ton of talent. They've got plenty of scoring on the roster, but they look a little slow and that's hurting them, especially on the four check. And it's helped. It's. It's leading to. They're not spending the offensive zone time that they're used to because teams can just break the puck out too easily against them and it. Especially early in games when teams have their legs. The Golden Knights have struggled. They've fallen behind a ton. I think they're the luckiest team in the league for a million reasons. One of them is being in the Pacific. Two is the fact that they can just trade for every player who's unhappy with his situation and they know that they'll just sign him to an extension because Vegas is awesome and they get to play golf year round and they have no state income tax and they can just. So it's like every single player that's not happy with this team. Rasmus, Anderson, come on down. We already have Noah Hannifin and a whole like Mark Stone go down the list. I think that's part of the reason. I would count them as lucky now, although there, there are other teams that have all those benefits and don't take advantage of them the way the Golden Knights do. They don't operate as aggressively. So they. They deserve credit for that. It's not. They didn't luck into this roster, but I do think that there have been things that have played in their advantage and not only is the Pacific the worst division this year, it's been the worst for basically nine straight seasons since the Golden Knights have come into the league and they, they have crushed those Pacific Division teams for the most part. And that's what they're doing this year. And it's part of the reason I'm a little skeptical of this team doing well in the playoffs. Their last 17 games against playoff opponents. How many wins do you think the Golden Knights have in their last 17 games against playoff opponents. You want to take a guess?

Max Boltman (6:46)

Well, my hope would be at least like eight. But I'm guessing based on the fact you're asking me this, it's going to be more like five.

Jesse Granger (6:53)

Yeah, you were. It was. It's two and Detroit was the second one. They were one and 16 prior to that win against Detroit. They are. Sorry, sorry. Detroit was the first one and then they got Pittsburgh the other night, which is technically still in playoff position. This, this team, my, my point being when they've played good teams, they have not looked like a good team and the names on the roster are good. The history of what we've seen from this team for nine years says that they are good. And Bruce Cassidy is a hell of a coach. They' got great players up and down the roster. Can they turn it on at some point? Yes. They have yet to show me a single reason this season to believe that they can win in the playoffs.

Max Boltman (7:32)

And usually if you're, if you're going to talk about a team that kind of flips the switch, that knows the early season games, doesn't matter. The switch doesn't flip on April 16. The switch has to flip sometime in the month of March. So the clock is ticking a little bit. I don't think either of us is going to be shocked to see them still end up in the conference final and maybe playing against a beat up team that emerges from the Central, maybe emerging from it. I don't think we're going to be shocked if that happens. But in order for them to happen, in order for that to happen, they need to kind of flip that switch pretty soon. Here you talked about Detroit and Pittsburgh. Those are both candidates for this. When we first hatched this idea like a week, week and a half ago, there were teams that I think we might have been talking about Detroit Negative goal differential had been the healthiest team in the league up to about a week ago and probably, I think probably still is by man games lost. But now they're down three of their four centers plus their top center prospect. Their, their lineup is very banged up as.

Sean McIndu (8:23)

As.

Max Boltman (8:24)

So I, I think we take them out and I think we take Pittsburgh out certainly. I mean Crosby was already hurt by then and again I was looking at kind of the OT loss metric and all the those points that they've piled up in that manner. But it's pretty hard to call a team that's playing without Crosby and Malkin lucky too. So I think we got to exempt them from This, I was thinking just though, in the Atlantic, like, Boston is a team that has really outperformed their underlying numbers all year long. And I'm trying to kind of get my head around them. And do I think they're lucky or do I think Jeremy Swayman has just been that good?

Jesse Granger (8:56)

Yeah, I mean, the, the PDO numbers are through the roof for that team, which is typically the luck stat that we like to look at. And that's mostly. It's not really the shooting percentage, Buff. Boston's not really, like, shooting the lights out. And, and that's something that you can always, like, count to. To go the other way at some point. It's the safe percentage that's through the roof with Jeremy Swayman. And it's. And it's. It's specifically when you look at the, the dangerous chances, like when you look at the quality of shots, because Swayman's safe percentage, I think it's like 9.05The last time I checked, which this season, that's more impressive than normal just because the league average is 8. 96. So it's, it's better than average, but it's not like sky high. But then when you look at the goal saved above expected, which is always my favorite number for goalies, Swain is right up there near the top of the league. He's been phenomenal. He had a disappointing first season under that big contract, and I think a lot of Boston fans were really down on him and thinking he didn't deserve that contract in the first place. And now we've got him and he's not. He never proved that he was a number one, and now we've got this huge deal in year two of that contract. He is absolutely living up to it and showing that he deserved the contract. And I think you can feel good moving forward with at least that part of the team. If you're the Bruins, I never know

Max Boltman (10:02)

how much to make of pdo, which, which if you're, if you're not familiar, it's basically the sum of a team's shooting percentage and save percentage. And we figure that most teams are going to shoot most players. Most teams are going to shoot right around 10, 10.5%. And we figure most teams safe percentage is going to be right around 90%. Add those up and you get an even hundred. Right. And so if you're, if you're way higher than 100 or way below 100, like, if you're like 103, 104, we tend to assume you're getting lucky in some regard. But what if you're just shooting average to your point about the Bruins, you're shooting your 10, your 10.2% and you get a goalie that's giving you like a.925, which is what we expect from the goalie that leads the league in safe percentages. And he's one of the best goalies in the league. Well, you're going to end up with 102, 103 PDO. And so to me, like, that doesn't scare me if that's how it's coming. It's really just the shooting percentage that should scare you if you're shooting the lights out. That doesn't tend to be repeatable.

Jesse Granger (10:55)

If and if you want to look at like the top PDO teams, well, what's funny is the top three are just powerhouses. It's Colorado, Dallas and Tampa Bay. Those are the top three teams in pdo. I wouldn't expect that they're going to fall apart. Right behind them is Seattle and Boston. We brought up Boston. Seattle's another team that they're making a run in the. Again. We talked about how weak the Pacific is. Seattle is taking advantage of that. They've. They're kind of right there on the borderline of that wild card slash, third spot in the Pacific. And when you look at the roster, it's. It's very unimpressive. Like, there's not a lot of firepower there. Chandler Stevenson, I know, well, he played in Vegas.

Sean McIndu (11:32)

He's.

Jesse Granger (11:32)

He's doing a lot of work. And every time I watch a Seattle game, he pops. But he's not a Superstar. He's not 100 point player. They don't have a lot of firepower, but they play pretty well as a team. That's a team. When I look at the pdo, it's like, okay, maybe that team is due for a little bit of a letdown.

Max Boltman (11:48)

And that's happened the last time they made the playoffs. This was kind of the case too.

Jesse Granger (11:51)

Right.

Max Boltman (11:52)

Didn't they just have a bunch of guys that scored like 15 to 20 goals on like 12% shooting as a team or something? Like, I'm trying to remember the exact stat, but they, They've done this before.

Jesse Granger (12:01)

It was insane shooting percentage that year. I remember that. Yeah.

Max Boltman (12:04)

Yeah. The team that they're jostling closest with, there's really. There's two that the Kings, who I wouldn't call very lucky, especially with some of the injuries they've had, but the San Jose Shar are in a Playoff spot as we speak, as we record this on Sunday night with a negative 25 goal differential. But the reason that I'm going to say that they're one of the luckiest teams in the NHL is just the fact that they happened to win the draft lottery in the year Macklin Celebrini was eligible. Because as this year winds on Macklin, I have a hard time envisioning Macklin celebrity not being at least in the top three on my heart ballot. Like, this is. We. We throw the word generational around too often. This is what it looks like. This is what it actually looks like.

Jesse Granger (12:42)

Yeah, I mean, it's. You talk to, like, players and coaches that got to play with him and coach him in the Olympics, like Bruce Cassidy here in Vegas. It's like, what was your biggest takeaway from the Olympics? Macklin Celebrini is terrifying. That's my biggest takeaway. Like. Like that. That guy. He is. He is so. And then you look at the numbers and it's. It's unbelievable. The difference in, like, in like, he's. He's up there. He's not quite as many points as McDavid or McKinnon, but he has 94 points. The next highest player on the Sharks has 45. That's Will Smith with 45. Less than half the number of points that Macklin Celebrini has. He is unbelievable. I will push back a little bit on calling them lucky for getting Celebrini because they actually, if the odds would have played out the way they should have, the Sharks should also have Matthew Schaefer, which at this point, if you gave Matthew Schaefer to that team, the way Askarov looks for the future, they've. They're set in that the way Will Smith and Celebrini and Ecklis look. The only thing they don't have is an elite defensive prospect. If you put Matthew Schaefer on that team, it's like, I'm ready to. To call three cups before they all retire. They still have some work to do without him. But can you imagine if Schaefer was on that team?

Max Boltman (13:53)

Well, that's how dynasties and Laz is not here. So I'm allowed to use that word. End up getting built, right?

Jesse Granger (13:59)

It's. It's.

Max Boltman (13:59)

You get Taves and Kane, it's. You get Malkin and Crosby. Like, this is how the great teams, Headman and Stamkos of our. Of our era have been built. And if they had Schaefer, who, by the way, celebrity and Schaefer are also like the two most mature 18, 19 year olds I've ever seen. To have that like you, they would be the team that we're talking about for the next decade plus. Yeah, absolutely. No question.

Jesse Granger (14:22)

So maybe they're a little unlucky.

Max Boltman (14:24)

No, I'm not going there. You get either one of those guys and you're going to have a chance to become. That's fair in elite team. If you got both, then they, then they would be the lucky, I think. Although.

Jesse Granger (14:32)

Right.

Max Boltman (14:32)

That's not necessarily the spirit. We're trying to do this with luck. Luck comes in a lot of forms, but I think when you combine it with the year they're having, it was a fair, fair point to broach for sure.

Jesse Granger (14:42)

And they've won a bunch in overtime. That's the other thing is like the Sharks, they get all these points in overtime and like we can argue whether that's real hockey or not. It's not going to be here when the playoffs get here. So they are collecting a bunch of points in hockey. That won't help them when, when the playoffs arrive.

Max Boltman (14:56)

12 as of the time that we're recording this, they have 20 regulation wins and are in a playoff spot. There's certainly some luck involved with that. The coin flip. That is three on three in the shootout. All right, let's take a quick break right there. We're going to come back with Sean McIndu. We'll be right back.

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Max Boltman (18:25)

All right, we're back and after talking about some of the teams that have been the luckiest in the league this season, change course and talk about one of the unluckiest NHL teams this year in a multitude of ways. It's a novel concept to do a segment on in hockey media about the Toronto Maple Leafs, but I I think I'd like to take a stab at this and and to do that, we're going to bring in Sean McIndu. No one knows the Toronto Maple Leafs as well as you and I wanted to. Let's start with Austin Matthews here right now because that's the big talk around the Leafs and the Radko good is hit. It ends in a five game suspension. It's a, it's a substantive suspension, but it certainly feels like there's an appetite for more. Connor McDavid is kind of stumped for an, in an interrogation or an investigation or a rethinking of the suspension process with the Department of Player Safety. First, your thoughts on Matthews the hit and then the suspension.

Sean McIndu (19:16)

Yeah, I mean, dirty hit, that's the, the neon knee hit is kind of one of the few ones that we don't really have to get into a ton of parsing about intent or any of that stuff. It's. If you stick your knee out and you hit another guy in the knee, that's a dirty play because if you, if I'm not saying Raiko Goodis went out trying to hurt someone, but if you went on to NHL Ice saying I want to hurt somebody, that's, that might be the single best way to do it is to get them knee on knee when, when they've got the weight on there. And yes, significant injury took one of the better players in the league, certainly one of the best known players in the league, one of the highest paid players in the league, out for the rest of the season. From a guy with a pretty decorated history of, of getting suspended and yet got five games, nobody seems to be happy. I mean from a, from the Leafs perspective, welcome to our world. I mean, the Maple Leafs fan base and organization has not been happy with Department of Player Safety going back quite a few years now. And I don't know, maybe this is the play that convinces everyone that for once we weren't being raving lunatics. Or maybe this is just the one off exception that, that proves the rule. But dirty, ugly hit and honestly, whether the suspension is five games or eight games or 10 games, it doesn't really impact the Toronto Maple Leafs because they're without their most important player now for the rest of the season. And then initial reports are it won't affect him beyond that. We'll see though. You know, these injuries are, are serious for a reason. We don't know yet if surgery is an option. This, this could have an impact even going beyond this year one way or another.

Jesse Granger (21:06)

What, what was your reaction? I saw a lot of people saying that they Wanted the Maple Leafs players to stick up for him more, maybe go fight Radco Gutis, whatever it is. BXA and Pronger were both pretty adamant that they thought that there should have been more done by the players. We're not here to call NHL players cowards. But what was your thoughts on the way that really nothing happened? It didn't even look like they. That, that I. That idea entered their mind until a period later.

Sean McIndu (21:36)

So here's, here's the funny part of the story from my perspective. I didn't tune into that game until the third period and I did not know what had happened earlier in the game. So I had no idea that Auston Matthews had been injured. I had no idea what the circumstances were. I just, after a long day, thought, I can flip on the third period and watch my team. And I watched with no context the Maple Leafs come on that third period. And I was like, hey, looking pretty good. Look at these guys actually dropping the gloves a little bit. They're getting physical. They're, you know, that, that's. I wonder what's lit a little fire under these guys. And I got to feel happy about the Maple Leafs for about five minutes, which brings, I think my season total to about five minutes. And I then saw, of course, the Austin Matthews situation from earlier in the game. And very clearly what happened is they, they did not have the response at the time. Clearly they went in and during intermission, Craig Berube tore a strip off them. And rightly so. I mean, for goodness sakes, I mean, Craig Berube, this guy fought his way to stay into this in the NHL for about 15 seasons, and he's got to watch his team respond like that. I mean, it was pathetic. It was awful. It was everything that people are saying it was and deserving of all the criticism. The, the one thing I would say, you know, Jesse, you mentioned, you know, does somebody have to go and fight? Raiko Gutas Racco Goodis knows how to fight, and he's done it a lot in the NHL and in these, in this era, not too many guys in the NHL can say that. And certainly of the guys that were on the ice for the Maple Leafs at the time, it's that that's not something in their skill set. So I don't think anyone is saying you've got to go and fight Raikou Gudas. You've got to go and grab them and pull them out to center ice and pair off and, you know, it's just 1v1 and you're going to get your face caved in and take a moral victory or whatever. This wasn't about a fight. This should have been four guys on one guy immediately, and whatever you want to call that, it's not a one on one fight. This is, this is a situation where, I mean, the fact that nobody even made a move in that direction just kind of tells you how fundamentally broken this team is on the level of what it even means to be a team. Because, you know, we saw comments from a couple of the guys who were on the ice saying, well, you know, we didn't really see the play. It doesn't matter. You turn around, there's. There's the meal ticket and he's down on the ground holding his knee. There's the guy with a history of dirty hits five feet away. There's the referee with his arm in the air. I don't know. Put it together, guys. You know, it probably wasn't a puck over glass or something that that happened. So, you know, go figure it out. Go do something about it. You know, this no Leaf fan wants to hear anything about, oh, you know, we made him pay on the power play. That's. If it's game seven of the playoffs, go ahead and do that. If it's game one of the playoffs, maybe that's what you do. It's game 60, something of a season where you're not making the playoffs. You're playing the Anaheim Ducks. Nobody cares who wins this game. You don't get. Nobody cares who scores on the power play. This was the easiest possible way for this team to make some sort of statement. And, you know, it doesn't matter how low you put the bar with these guys, they just still trip over it. And they did again and they're getting ripped for it. And they deserve it 100%, I don't think. I can't imagine anybody could defend what we saw from these guys.

Max Boltman (25:18)

When you talk about it kind of being a broken something being broken there, I think that's kind of the place I wanted to take this today because, look, this season's lost. I mean, they, they may or may not finish with the worst record in the East. It still seems unlikely, but the Rangers are getting a little hot. The Leafs are now down. Matthews. You know, you don't, don't know what can happen and that's a bad spot to be in. But I don't know still if the best move for this franchise is to try and rebound, retool, or obviously rebuild. And the rebuild one is the scariest one. For them, because this was the product like, like last year's team really was the product of the whole big build and it didn't go where it was supposed to go. And now you lose Marner. And I think we all knew that that was going to take some figuring on how to respond to that. Obviously poorly worked out poorly this year. There was really no one in free agency then. There's no one in free agency now. You're going to go into this one. Potentially, depending on how bad it goes, it could save them their draft pick. It's top five protected pick, the one that they sent to Boston for Brandon Carlo. If you're a Leafs fan, the only good thing that can come out of this with Matthews is that maybe now you have a slightly better chance to keep that pick. But it feels like it's a fork in the road moment yet again for a franchise that we've talked about fork in the road moments with at least three consecutive off seasons in a row. Sean, and I'm curious, like, what do you think the path is at this point?

Sean McIndu (26:33)

Well, I mean, first of all, let's. Let's be clear that when you talk about the Toronto Maple Leafs, any kind of conversations about what big, bold, brave decisions should they make are theoretical conversations. It's a nice hypothetical. The reality is, as you said, this team's been at a fork in the road for years now and they always choose the same path. Which is the path of least resistance, what's easiest, what's going to involve the least amount of work from our super highly paid front office? What is the, the one thing that we could do that isn't much of anything, but we can kind of sell it as something and you know, it'll. And then everybody puts their feet up on the DES and hangs a Mission Accomplished banner and waits for the results to change. And of course, they never do. So look, should this team be open to making a big move, potentially even evolving an Austin Matthews or William Nylander? Yes, they should be open to that and they should be willing to have some tough conversations around it. Both players have no move protection, obviously, because everybody on the Leafs who is eligible has no move protection because again, that's the path of least resistance when you're putting a roster together. But yeah, that, that should be the start of a discussion, not the end of it. And they should absolutely be open to moving everybody. I know there's been a lot of concern or sort of confusion in the Toronto fan base because there were reports that Matthew Nies may have been in conversations last week leading up to the deadline. Look, Matthew Nyes is a great young player. I enjoy watching him a lot. I hope to do it for the next decade. He's not untouchable. This guy isn't Sidney Crosby, you know, if there's an offer out there, of course you have that conversation. They should be doing that with all of these guys. The frustration level in Toronto and in the Toronto fan base, which as you guys know expands well past the city limits of Toronto is extraordinarily high right now. I think you could, you could very easily sell a lot of this fan base on a total tear down. A total. Let's just start over. The problem with that is that they don't own their next two first round draft picks. And that really makes it difficult to execute on any sort of a tear it down to the studs kind of rebuild situation because as you said, that they've got to pick this year, which if they finish in the bottom of five, which they might still unlikely, but it's possible, then they get to keep the pick. Otherwise it goes to Boston. But they, it's, it's also next year's pick that's already been traded to the Flyers, that was in the Scott Lawton trade. The guy that's already come and gone and turned into a third round pick. That pick hasn't even come due yet. That's not till next year. And if they were to keep their pick this year, then it becomes Boston next year, Philadelphia the year after that, completely unprotected. So, you know, to tear it on down, we're going to trade Austin Matthews for picks and prospects. We're going to do it with Nylander. You're going to finish in last place then and you're not going to have a pick at the end of the rainbow to look forward to. So I almost feel like it has to be a retool by default. But again, it's not. That's not a case of a team making a decision. That's a case of a team making a bunch of bad decisions and easy decisions that box them into a corner where they can't do what they, they probably really need to do.

Max Boltman (30:06)

Which really fits the path of least resistance thing.

Sean McIndu (30:08)

Right.

Max Boltman (30:08)

Like I was going to bring up the pick situation. It makes it impossible to properly do that full blow it up and rebuild move. Unless you traded him to Philly, I suppose, and got the pick back, but which, you know, I guess can't be ruled out. I don't know if that's the place you'd most want to send him. But it, the path of least resistance theory makes it likely that they have to almost keep trying for the next two or two or three years, which is brutal because Matthews only has two years left on the deal after this. So they're, they're in a very tight situation here and I, I don't see a good way out of it.

Sean McIndu (30:38)

And, and look, Austin Matthews is the centerpiece of all of this because you know, a, he's the best player, he's the highest paid player. We don't know the health outlook now, although again, like it, it, it certainly doesn't sound, I mean this wasn't an ACL or something that would have potential long term impact. They, they dodge that bullet at least. But it really comes down to what does he want over the next two years, as you say. So he's, he signed two more years after this one, which means next summer would be the one where they would want to get an extension done. He has total trade protection. They cannot trade him without him coming to the table and saying yeah, I'm willing to go. And, and here's where that would be. So again, they have, they have conceded any sort of leverage before the situation even begins because that at some point was the easy thing to do. And so that's, that's what the organization did. And a lot of this is going to be up to Austin Matthews. There's been reports and talks that, you know, he, oh, he, he's not going to leave him in the lurch. He's not going to pull a Mitch Marner and, and string him along until the end and then walk if he does want out. There'll be communication and that sort of thing and that'd be nice. Certainly the, the organization has, has more than bent over backwards for this guy over the years to treat him as well as they possibly can and to give him pretty much everything he asked for. So it'd be nice if, if some of that loyalty came back the other side, if there was a scenario where there was going to be an exit. But who, who knows? I mean, it's easy to say that now. Who, who knows what it might look like in a year or even this summer if, if he says, you know what, I've made my decision and the time to move on is now. There may be scenarios where it works for everyone and maybe that ties into hitting that reset button and doing the total start from scratch, or maybe it's something else or maybe it does still involve an extension that's Absolutely on the table. But until you know, one way or another, it's, you're sort of in wait and see mode. And again, absolutely critical stuff for a very important and critical franchise for this league. And for the most part, the decision making is out of their hands before it even starts.

Jesse Granger (32:58)

Well, I mean, the other part of it is everyone's under contract. Like when you look at the contracts for next year, it's Cali Yarn Croak and Troy Stetcher, Those are the two expiring deals that are on their UFAs and everyone else is under contract. So like you said, if you are going to make big changes, going to be just kind of the one that's right in front of you. Let this guy go sign a free agent. Like it's going to have to be bold moves, trades something in order to change something. Because it's not going to be easy with the way the contracts are set up.

Sean McIndu (33:28)

And that's the way it is with, I mean, you know, what is essentially a core two now with, with Matthews and Nylander being the highly paid guys still in their prime. John Tavares is still there, but as an older guy and on the discounted deal he signed, he's not a guy you're going to necessarily look to turn around and flip. You know, again, it's the, the easy way is to sit back and you wait and then maybe you get a phone call from Austin Matthews this summer or next summer saying, you know what, I want to be a Florida Panther or I want to be a Vegas Golden Knight. And then you sit down or whatever the team is and you try to trade him for 25 cents on the dollar because he's already picked his, his destination. And even if, even if he gives you two or three spots, you know, you're basically looking at the Artemi Panarin package at this point, which was not much of anything. But you know, the Rangers took what they could get. The tough way to do it would be to sit one of those guys down and say, I know you've got a few years left on your contract. We are going to move you. Give us a list of 10 teams and if that ticks somebody off or if that bother, if that upsets someone and that creates friction, then you deal with that because you've got a highly paid GM and 18 assistant GMs or whatever they have. And the whole reason you have this big expensive front office should be to handle tough scenarios. Is that hard to do in Toronto of all places? Yeah, absolutely. That would be really? That'd be real tough stuff. Is anyone in the NHL allowed to say my job's hard so I'm not going to try? I don't think anybody other than GMs are allowed to do that. I certainly know nobody on this roster would be allowed to do it. You know, if William Nylander comes out after tonight's game and says, you know, I know I didn't play well, but it's hard, it's hard to score goals. So I just didn't. He'd be ripped 10 ways from Sunday and rightly so. So I don't see why Brad Tree Living or whoever it is replacing Bradshaw Living should, should get the easy pass. I mean look, there's, there's a couple of scenarios that are going to happen coming into the summer. Either Brad True Living is somehow going to work Jedi mind trick on Keith Pelly and keep his job, which will tell us everything we need to know about, you know, how, how broken this organization is on the inside or he will be replaced. And then we see who comes in and we see if a replacement comes in and says I'm gonna roll up my sleeves and get to work right now or if they come in and do the whole it's gonna take me a year to get the lay of the land and all of this. This team doesn't have a year. They don't. I mean they don't have this year. They, they've got to make as I say some hard decisions very quickly. And you know that that's got to be the first question Keith Pelley is asking Bradshaw Living or anyone else, what hard decisions are you willing to make today? Because there's a whole bunch of them need to happen and doing it the easy way has not worked.

Max Boltman (36:26)

Let's just say yeah there are a couple interesting like contracts especially with a Baron free agent market. I wonder if you know the return for like an Anthony Stolars. I just think about what Edmonton. Not that Edmonton has all these great assets that Toronto wants, but they're, they're going to be goalie needed teams. The Florida Panthers might be a goal in 80 team this offseason potentially. The guy like Anthony Stolars I think could command quite a BIT A Jake McCabe although he's got a full no trade Brandon Carlo even on, on this free agent market. Like these are guys we saw it at the trade. I don't to your point Sean, I don't have no idea how that didn't extend to Scott Lawton. Some of the guys that drew first round picks at this deadline and Scott Lawton doesn't as you would.

Sean McIndu (37:01)

Mind blowing. But, but, yeah, you're right. And, and I mean, until the deadline, Brad True Living had not made a single trade since July 17th. Yeah. Which is madness. So, I mean, right there, priority number one, the GM doesn't get to take two months off in the summer. You know, I'm, I'm sorry, there's. And, and the GM doesn't get to take the whole first half off. If things go badly and you sit there and go, I'm going to get Troy Stetcher off waivers and then I guess my job's done because I can't do anything else. Maybe I'll, I'll fire the assistant coach in charge of the power play and that's all I'm going to do. You know, that's all I'm going to do was kind of the mantra of a lot of the Kyle Dubas, Brendan Shanahan era. It's not going to play in Toronto anymore. And I hope they understand that. But I'm honestly, at this point, I'm not completely sure that even the Maple Leafs themselves realize how ugly this whole thing might be about to become if they don't get off their behinds and actually do something this summer.

Jesse Granger (38:03)

Yeah.

Max Boltman (38:04)

Very interesting summer on deck in Toronto. Sean, thanks for doing this. We're gonna take a quick break right there. We'll come back. Jesse, we're gonna talk about your goalie tandem rankings.

Jesse Granger (38:10)

Be right back.

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Max Boltman (40:18)

all right, we are back. And Jesse, I teased it a little bit there in that, that last segment there talking to Sean about the Leafs and talking about Stolars and I realized that as I say, you know, could you trade Stolars? You have the Toronto Maple Leafs in this great article, your NHL goalie tandems which just came out, you have the Toronto Maple Leafs ranked 28th. So maybe that's like a little rich for me to talk about moving Anthony Solars, but I just feel like if they're going to head in a more rebuilding direction, that's an asset that could really help it. Am I crazy for saying that?

Jesse Granger (40:46)

No, I don't think so at all. It's. And yeah, they're 28th.

Max Boltman (40:48)

It's.

Jesse Granger (40:49)

The thing is that tandem of Wall and Stolars clearly outperformed a year ago. They were arguably the biggest strength of that team a year ago. And like it wasn't like they went into the season thinking we've got two studs in net. Like it was a surprise that Stolars and Wall were as good as they were this year. They've crashed back to earth a little bit. I think that they're somewhere in the middle. I don't think they're as good as they were two years ago. I don't think they're as bad as they are this year. Probably somewhere in the middle. But if you're looking for somewhere to clear some cap space and possibly get something in return. I think one of those goalies is probably a good way to do it. Part of the reason is I think Dennis Hildeby, who is the third goalie, he's come up and played a few times, he might be the best goalie on the team now. I like Joseph Wall a lot and I think he's got the potential to be like as high as like a top 10 guy in the league. But he hasn't been so far and he's been hurt a lot over his career. He has a really hard time staying healthy. Denn Hildeby has come up and I've loved what I've seen from him just in the limited time. He is gigantic. He's 6 foot 7, tied for the tallest goalie in the league this year. There are a handful of guys that have, that are that big that have been in the league, but he moves so fluidly. Like most of those guys when they're 6 foot 7, they are kind of lanky, kind of awkward. They move like you'd expect a 6 foot 7 person on ice skates to move. Hildeby doesn't. He's like, he's fluid. He's not the fastest guy, but for a 67 guy, he moves really well. He's. I like what I've seen. If I was the Maple Leafs and I could get something for Stolars, I would be comfortable with the tandem of Hildeby and Wall going forward.

Sean McIndu (42:16)

All right.

Max Boltman (42:17)

It's a really good list. It's an interesting list for sure. No surprise at the top. You know, the New York Islanders led by Ilya Sorokin. Who is he the Vezina favorite at this point? Him or Vasilevsky? Some order.

Jesse Granger (42:28)

Yeah, I mean they're definitely in terms of the odds, they are all on their own. I was arguing on Twitter with people that Jeremy Swayman should be in that argument. Like, I think he's the third. I think he's third, but I think he should be in the same kind of stratosphere as those two. According to the odds, he's not. It's clearly Sorokin or Vasilevsky. Sorokin has deserved a Vezina for a while. He had a season a couple years ago that was like his goal, say to have expected were insane, like the third highest ever. And he didn't win the Vezina. It was all Mark that year who also had a great year. But I think Sorokin is finally going to get his deserved Vezina. And the numbers for Sorokin this year are Absolutely. Just ridiculous. I mean, he's. He's first in just about every stat. The thing that, the one that impresses me the most is his high danger safe percentage is just bananas. I mean, the guy. It's his just. Just for like, so you, like people can understand. High danger. 29ft and in. Basically this is right in front of the net average. Yeah. Slot shots right in front of the net within 29ft, like inside the dots in the slot. The league average on those shots is.813. So they are very hard to save. Like 8. 13. You're doing pretty decent. Sorokins is 8. 79. Not only is that the highest of any goalie in the league for high danger chances, he's. His safe percentage just on the most difficult chances alone is higher than Sergey Bobrovsky's total save percentage for the whole season. Freddie Anderson, Jordan Bennington, I can go down the list. There are a bunch of goalies whose total save percentages, everything they've seen is lower than Sorokin on just the most difficult saves. He's like just in his own universe. He is unbelievable. He's so good. He's the only reason the Islanders aren't one of the worst teams in the league.

Max Boltman (44:10)

See, that's the Jesse Granger difference, because I was about ready to say there's definitely goalies in the league with below at 8. 79 save percentage. You know who they are and that they were good. I was not going to guess that there were good goalies with less than an 879 on the season. Obviously, you know, Bobrovsky not having a great year. Anderson's getting toward the tail end. But these are not, you know, guys who had a call up for five games and got shelled. These are legit NHL starting goalies and that's a really good stat. The rest of the top of this list, I don't think the first four, not too surprising, Minnesota, they were very high on your last. This might have even been number one on your last version of this list. Washington, Colorado, both in there. Buffalo at number five. I don't think I was expecting that one. Alex Lyons had a tremendous year and we've seen him the last three years. He has these stretches where he gets red hot. This is the, this is the year. It seems like where he's found a way to take that hot stretch and just kind of keep it going.

Jesse Granger (45:00)

Yeah, when. When we talk about Buffalo, and rightfully so, we mostly talk about the offense because this team can just pour goals in the net, but their Goaltending numbers are right up there with the best in the league, and Lions a big part of that. Upl UKO Peka Lukonen has come back and been awesome, but he's been out for most of the season. It's mostly been lion carrying the load. And. And like you mentioned, this guy gets hot. We saw him in Florida. He took Sergei Bobrovsky's job the year they went to the Stanley Cup Final. Bobrovsky ended up getting the job back and carrying him to the. To the cup final, and rightfully so. But Lyon got him there. He got him to the playoffs. He's had hot stretches. You saw him in Detroit. And to me, when I look at his style, it makes sense. Like, it. I understand why he's a hot goal or a hot and cold goalie. And he. And he has these stretches because he plays way out of his net. He is heels on the crease like he is. He is challenging shooters aggressively. And when you do that, when you're reading the play right, no one's going to score on you, because when you're standing way out there, if you're in the right position, there's absolutely no net to shoot at, and the puck's just going to hit you every time. Now, if you play like that and you read the play incorrectly or you're a half second behind, it's going to be a disaster. And we've also seen that from Alex Lyon. The reason he isn't thought of as an elite goalie is because he doesn't maintain this high level of goaltending for long stretches. Can he continue this through the playoffs? I think he can. It's been a long enough sample size. Early in the year, I was talking to Matthew Fairburn, our awesome Saber right up in Buffalo, and he was like, goalies don't do this at this age, like, become a starter. And I'm like, yeah, I'm a little skeptical. Like, I've seen a month like this out of Alex Lyon, and I don't. I wouldn't bank on that happening longer. But now that we've seen it for basically the entire regular season, like, I don't know if it's the Buffalo system that is just clicking with his game. Maybe something clicked in his own game. Like, maybe he. He, like the goalie coaches he's working with, he found something. Whatever it is, he looks phenomenal. And when you watch the film, the numbers are good, and the film backs it up. Like, he is playing great hockey and the Sabers are a good team. And I, like, I don't. I don't think goaltending is a weakness for that team at all. And if at any point he does cool off. UPL has been lights out since the Olympic break. And he's a goalie that, like, in the goalie community, goalie coaches have been saying, that guy has so much talent for so long. Like, it's. He's like. Mackenzie Blackwood is a similar one, like, goalie. People who know goalies think the world of upl. He hasn't lived up to that yet, but I think that they've got two good options in good form. You get. If you're a Sabres fan, you got to feel good about the goaltending going into the playoffs.

Max Boltman (47:23)

The thing about lion, too, that's interesting. I get what you guys are saying. Like, it doesn't happen at this age. Nothing happened for him at the age it was supposed to happen for. He had to wait forever. He had to go through the minor league grind forever just to get an opportunity as a number three and then a number two in the NHL. And so, yeah, he would have these hot streaks. And I think it shouldn't be surprising that a guy who had to wait that long just to see NHL action couldn't sustain, you know, 40 game workloads or whatever right away. But over time, it's like anything in life. Like, you learn how to, you know, you adapt to whatever the new surrounding is. You go up a level, something gets harder, and it takes some amount of time. Maybe you can do it in bursts, but over time, it just becomes this. This owned skill. And so that's the one thing I'll say. Like, I certainly have a soft spot for Alex Lyon. He's the kind of guy who, I think, when his playing days are done, can do anything. He can work in hockey, he can work in tv. He's just an incredibly bright guy, very driven guy, and I'm very happy for him. But I'm also buying it kind of on those grounds of just, like, I don't see why he can't be the exception to become a starting goalie at this age. Because it took him longer than everyone else just to get here.

Jesse Granger (48:27)

Yeah. And like I said, I've. He's made me a believer as the season goes on. Initially, it's like, okay, I've seen this story before with this guy. Like, it's a month, okay. But six months, five months of good goaltending, the level he's playing at, like, you don't accidentally stop that many pucks for five months. He's, he's been awesome.

Sean McIndu (48:44)

All right.

Max Boltman (48:44)

I'm not trying to pick my second Andre Vasilevsky fight with you in a two week span, but I was interested. Like we talked about how it's like Sorokin and Vasilevsky, like, you know, one or the other. And by the way, the Vezina odds, per our producer Chris vasilevsky is actually minus 135. So the slight favorite here, Sorokin at even money and then Thompson, Logan Thompson way back there, plus 1800. That's a huge gap. I was surprised that the Lightning were as low as 6. Like I get what you're saying and that the backup situation on the island is much better. David Riddick versus Jonas Johansson. But you wrote in the article the tandem is just Vasilevsky and given that, I kind of thought they'd still be top three.

Jesse Granger (49:21)

I, you know what? I really wrestled over Tampa Bay and like I'm, I'm putting the rankings together in my sheet and I moved them up and down a lot and they, I think they probably, I did have them, I think as high as three at one point. They are a tough team to rank in terms of goalie tandem rankings because it's such a gray area. Like there isn't a black and white like way to do this. I try to. The way I try to do it in my head is whatever percentage of the games that goalie can play and play it well. That's how much of a percent I'm going to give him. Like in my head in terms of ranking. These are like a guy like Vasilevsky is going to get more. I'm going to give him more credit than I will a guy like Logan Thompson, who's also been awesome but doesn't play 65 games the way that selves he does here. The thing I don't like about the tandem in Tampa Bay, and I've been complaining about this for years, they don't invest in the backup position. They basically do league minimum salary and we'll just put whoever we can there because we're going to play Vasilevsky 65 games. I think if they gave him a better like Sorokin, he had Varlamov before that awesome partner. You see these guys like even, even Hellebuk when he got Eric Comrie and Laurent Bersois when they had their best seasons, that's when Hellebach won the heart. I do think that there's value to having a good backup goalie, even if you've got a superstar who's going to play 60 games. You can give him more nights off. You can keep him fresher for the playoffs. If Vasilevsky doesn't play well in the first round of the playoffs, which is what happened last year, he didn't play very well in that first round. Now, Florida was awesome, and it wasn't Vasilevsky's fault that they lost, but he didn't stand on his head and get you through the round like he has the potential to do. It bothers me that they don't put more emphasis on that position and try to get Jonas Johansson. I wrote in the story, teammates love him. Awesome guy. He, he fits the, the role, but he's not good enough to give enough starts to keep Vasilevsky as fresh as I'd like. So in a purely tandem ranking, I did, I, I do knock them down a couple pegs because of that. If, if we're going into the playoffs where everybody just plays their number one and we're just ranking goalies, fassie's right up there at the top. The guy's awesome. I believe in him more than pretty much any goalie in the world when, when the playoffs get here.

Max Boltman (51:28)

So it is interesting how 60 has just kind of become the, like, magic number. Like it, it. I'm not saying it's random. It seems like 60 games or so, that's what you want your, your ace number one goalie to be at. It's not 68. It's not 58. It's, it's like 60 to 62. It's a very, you know, fine sweet spot. And the number of back to backs factors into that too. But it just seems like the right workload on the other side of the state of Florida is what I think is going to be one of the most interesting goaltending situations next year. Because we heard Sergey Bobrovsky's name going into the trade deadline. He's getting up there in age. Is he 38 now, Jesse?

Jesse Granger (52:03)

Yep, yep, yep.

Max Boltman (52:03)

38 years old. If, if he wants any term, you're a little nervous. And even if he doesn't, I mean, he's played a lot of hockey the last three years, and for that reason, I'm kind of willing to write this season off and, and say, okay, like, let's see what happens if he gets a full off season to rest. Daniel Tarasov's had a better season than him this year, and if the Florida Panthers wanted to, they, they ranked 21 on your list, which is, you know, that's, I think Factoring in this season's Bobrovsky at ceiling, they're probably much more like a top 10 potential panther.

Jesse Granger (52:33)

Yes.

Max Boltman (52:33)

How much patience should they have though with a 38 year old Sergey Bobrovsky who has done everything for their franchise, but he's also 38 and this year would certainly, you know, hint at a cliff.

Jesse Granger (52:43)

It's, it's interesting because they are both UFAs, not just Bobrovsky, but Tarasov is also up for a new deal. And I, if, if I were them and I do think this is probably one that they end up doing, I would like to sign Bobrovsky to a one year deal like you said. If he wants term things get more complicated, I would prefer to sign him to a one year deal and we, and you can pay him a lot of money. Like I think Sergey Barovsky capable of being elite. Like pay him the way he deserves, but for one, only one year. And then you can get Tarasov, who shouldn't be expensive because he hasn't proven that he can be a top goalie in this league. He has like Columbus had a lot of high hopes for him. He never ended up reaching him. They finally moved him so that they could put Jack Greaves in there. And Jack Greaves is awesome. Tarasov has looked much better under Bobrovsky. I think if I'm Florida, that's still my future. I think Daniil Tarasov is the future number one for this team, but he's not ready yet. But I want him to play more. When I looked at, I was looking at the like goalies who are playing the highest percentage of their team starts. Harel Vamelka is number one in Utah and I don't think people give him enough credit for being the workhorse that he is. The guy's played 77.8% of Utah's games and he's doing it awesome. He leads the league and wins. UC Soros right behind him, Dustin Wolf right behind him. And then fourth in the league is Sergei Bobrovsky at 69%. For a 38 year old who's into the cup final three years in a row, we don't need to play him the fourth most of any goalie in the entire NHL. What are we doing? Especially when Daniel Tarasov is above league average in just about every stat. Like it's not like he's cratering them when he, when they put him in games. He's better than Bobrovsky statistically. So for me, ideally for the Panthers, like in a dream world, I think you get Bobrovsky on a reasonable one year deal. You sign Tarasov longer and he's your future and you play him 40% of the games. And give Bobrovsky. I don't want it a 50, 50 split, but I think it should be much closer to that. Give Tarasov some more responsibility, take some off of Bobrovsky and then hope that when you get to the playoffs, when you're healthy and everybody's back and that team is what we expected them to be this year, you've got a healthy, fresh Bobrovsky ready for the playoffs and try to try to win one more cup.

Max Boltman (54:53)

When you say it that way, it seems pretty simple. So I guess maybe I'm overthinking it by saying it's this, this big dilemma.

Jesse Granger (54:57)

That.

Max Boltman (54:58)

That sounds like the obvious solution. If it, if it's doable.

Jesse Granger (55:01)

If. Yeah, but like you said, if Sergey Bobrovsky wants three years, all of a sudden it gets real complicated because you could. They've already signed Brad Marchand through the year 3046 or whatever year that is that he's signed to. You can't do that with Bobrovsky too. Like, I mean, I guess you can. And if you win a cup, then who cares how screwed the cap situation is. But I. It does get more complicated if Bobrovsky wants more than a year.

Max Boltman (55:22)

Yeah.

Jesse Granger (55:22)

All right.

Max Boltman (55:23)

I don't want to spoil this whole list for people because I want them to go read it. The NHL goalie tandems on the athletic. But I do want to ask you just one kind of open ended one here. The next time you do this list will probably be either in the off season or going into next year or early next year. Between now and then, who do you think has the most approve or the most to gain? Which, which teams? Goalie tandem.

Jesse Granger (55:41)

That's a great question. I think Calgary is one that. That can move way up because Dustin Wolfe is having a sophomore slump. This happens. He came in as a rookie, he was amazing. Teams start to get a book on you. He's a smaller goalie. They started to find ways to score and they have done that this year. As I just mentioned him in that last segment, he's playing a ton and it's only his second year in the league. He's a really young goalie. They have put everything on him. And Cooley leads the league in safe percentage. He's been awesome. He only had six games of NHL experience coming into this year. He hasn't played a ton, but in his limited time he's been good. I think Devin Cooley. Cooley is one of the better backups in the league. So their, their ranking is actually being carried by the backup right now, Devin Cooley, who's having a great year, but only because Wolf stats are so bad. Like I, when I watch the film, I still think Dustin Wolf is going to be a Vezina caliber goalie for most of his career. So I think that if he returns to that now, the play in front of him's got to get better. Calgary's a mess if they can improve if Dustin Wolfe can get back, back to playing like he was as a rookie. And I think that that's absolutely in the realm of possibility. And Devin Cooley remains one of the best backup goalies in the league. I could see Calgary's got a lot to fix, but I could see them saying, wow, we are set in net and they are one of the top five top 10 goalie tandems in the NHL for the long foreseeable future because these guys are both young. Dustin Wolfe I think is 24. Devin Cooley's only like 27, 28. These guys are very young. They can, could be they love each other. They're like, they're, they're not quite Swayman. Omar Hugs after every, like it's not quite that level. But these two guys love each other. I think that could be a great tandem that, that shoots up the rankings if Wolf kind of rounds back into

Max Boltman (57:20)

form and probably an underrated one, right? Like, I don't think Calgary is going to get a whole lot of national attention here for, for the next couple years here so that one could fly under the radar. So that, that's a good, that's a good shout. All right. That is going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show Wednesday. We're going to find out how many Sean's is too many when we have McIndu Gentile and Frankie the honorary Sean Corrado. So make sure you tune in for that. We'll talk to you soon.

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