Transcript of The Hockey Show: 'Hey F***ers, Listen Up'

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Welcome to The Hockey Show. My name is Roy Bellamy. David Dworak is to my left. He writes for The Hockey News. The Florida Panthers started the season a little bit bittersweet because they got the rings. They did. They raised the banner. They did. And they won the first game. They did. Against the Boston Bruins. It was nice. But they went to Ottawa and lost their first-line center. That sucked. Yeah, that sucked. We'll get into that in-depth a little bit later. But we're going to start with a couple of slap shots here. These are our hot takes, and we're going to try this out for a little bit. See how it works.

We're trying something different. We're going to listen to Rose for a change.

Yeah, this is a Rose idea. So if it doesn't work, blame Ethan. Because Ethan's here.

Ethan's in Rose's seat this week.

Ethan's in Rose's seat this week. So yeah, that's the situation.

Ethan already broke his laptop this morning, so he's already having a rough time.

Wasn't my idea.

Yes, it wasn't your idea. But you're Rose. Yeah, but right now you're Rose. You're in the chair.

Okay, so I take the fault for Rose's ideas? That's right.

The backup quarterback goes into the game and throws an interception, he's going to get it.

That's the backup quarterback's fault.

No, but you're wearing the helmet. Technically, I'm the quarterback. Yeah, that doesn't make sense.

Maybe you're the kicker. I don't know. But anyway, Slap Shots. Hey, how are you doing? All right, so in Tuesday's Home Opener for the Florida Panthers, we saw a bit of a situation That led to Max Jones slashing an official. It was by accident.

But still, you can't do that. You can't do that. You can't touch the referees.

You absolutely can't do that. Here it comes. Yeah, here it comes.

I don't blame him. I don't know what E-Rod was doing. I mean, obviously, he's trying to piss him off, and that was probably the best case scenario. No flat to the linesman, obviously. But I mean, Rodriguez is probably thinking this is exactly what I wanted to happen. Yeah, exactly. But that's... Oh, God, that's such a bad look. T.

J. Luxmore was the referee that was closest to the play and ended up given the unsportsmanlike penalty to Max Jones, he figured it was incidental contact. I mean, be in control of your stick, dude. That's suspendable. He needs to be suspended for He didn't get- Intent doesn't matter.

You got to set an example. You got to say you cannot accidentally, intentionally, you got to be aware, you cannot... Because we're lucky that the linesman didn't get hurt, seriously. Really, really. He got a hard slash to a part of his arm that's not patted.

There's no padding there. Any discipline for that outside of the penalty.

Two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct. That's it?

Nothing from the league?

No, we would have heard about it by now.

Oh, my good God. How does he get away with that?

This was just a prime example of what the last two years of Boston and Florida has been, which is Boston trying to bait Florida into being dirty, into playing rough. Florida just playing their game, going on and kicking their ass and winning the game 6-4. It was the perfect example where E-Rod just baited them. They slashed an official, they go on the power play. They didn't end up scoring on the power play, but still, this has been the story of Florida and Boston for two years now. Am I wrong?

Yeah, and we're going to get into that later because Boston, they did not keep their cool in this game. No, they didn't. Not whatsoever. David, your slap shot.

All right, feed me a one-timer. I'm going to take my slap shot. There you go. My slap shot is Alexis Lafrenier on the New York Rangers. I think he scores 40 goals this year. I think he might actually score 50 goals this year. Oh, wow. I think a big year in coming for Alexis Lafrenier. We saw a lot of that during the playoffs last year. His confidence grew by leaps and bounds. He's starting the year playing well with the Rangers. Obviously, he's going to get a lot of ice time. He's going to get power play time. I think this is going to be his breakout season. Look out for Alexis The fact that he did against the Penguins is even better.

I'm going to bring that up in a little bit. But now let's go to the wins of the week, at least for our opening day. Our wins. Yeah, we have Ws. All right, I'm going to start with the Canadianans, depending on the Maple leaves' first game in the season, 1-0 on the back of Sam Montefault. I got some stats here, and this is interesting because he had 47 saves. That is an NHL record for most saves in an opening day shutout. Most saves in a season opening shutout.

Yeah, he was pumped, too. Good for him. Good for Sam.

Yeah, good for him. It's the most saves in a shutout versus the Maple leaves in the Canadian's head-to-head history against the team. That is a very, very long time. The Maple leaves were shut out for the first time since November 20th, 2021. That doesn't make any sense to me, but that's what the stat Was it Cole Caulfield that scored that goal for them?

Yes. Wearing the number 13 for the first time?

Yes.

That's pretty cool.

That's pretty cool. The Blue Jackets played at the Wild. They had their moment of silence. Their home opener is against the Panthers. Panthers.

Tuesday.

Oh, boy. That's going to be emotional. And wow. Oh, man. I'm telling you, once they do that in Columbus, Columbus might win 6-2 in that game. It's going to be an emotional night. They're going to carry that one with them for probably the entire series.

There's going to be a lot of emotions that night. In the stands, I'm just trying to play it out in my head. The results of the game, really, it's secondary, right?

Yeah. Not a dry eye in the house. Let's go to your W of the Week.

Perfect segue. My W of the Week is to my Bretherin in the goalie Union. Just all of you. Congratulations. I feel like it is becoming our time. Our time is if I'm going to benefit from it.

You got pads.

We got Jeremy Swayman getting his contract. He's getting 8.2 million. And Lena Solmark doesn't get the same term, obviously. He's a little bit older, but Lena Solmark gets the same 8.25 million from Ottawa. And then you got Igor Shesterken, supposedly turning down an $88 million offer, what would have been the richest goalie contract ever handed out. He passes. He's like, No, I'm going to hold out. I think it's awesome.

We obviously know why he's holding out. I mean, he's waiting for that cat to go up.

Yeah, dude, right now the power is in the goalie's hands, and I love that. Look, you could argue, but you can't win without a good goalie. You can't get through the playoffs without a hot goal tender. And Igor Shisterken is probably the best goalie on the planet right now. So the fact that he's turning down the most lucrative offer ever offered to a goal tender, probably, definitely, is surely going to get a even bigger offer. So that's my win. Good job on you, goalies. Our Our time has come. And just don't forget the little people.

So just touching on Shosterkin, I was listening to the 32 thoughts this morning, and they were talking about the situation, Friege and Kyle Wukoskis. And basically, he was saying that the Rangers don't seem inclined to make Shesterken the highest paid player on the team, even though Shesterken wants to be the highest paid player on the team. He's probably the best player on the team, especially with Panarin on the wrong side of 30. I just am curious, with the cap situation going up. They said that Panarin's number is 11, 6, 4. Doesn't that mean Shesterken would want something like 12, 12.5? Plus the fact that he said he wants to reset the goalie market. With Bob making 10, 11 wouldn't really be a reset of the goalie market entirely.

Bob's contract was handed out what? Five years? Six years ago now, 2019. So absolutely. I think Igor is probably going to get 12, 13. It's probably in the area view what he wants. Maybe he wants a bigger number. Who knows?

2019 numbers is definitely not going to be 2025 numbers.

He can do that, though. He has been one of the most consistent goalies in the world for a long time. Before he arrived in the NHL, he was tearing up the KHL with SKA. He has been consistently good. The track record is there. So I got I got no problem with this.

I know you're congratulating Swayman, but if he had waited one more night and saw that Corposalo performance and saw that O'Mark at 8:25, I think it was the next day, Swayman could have cashed a lot more if he had just waited a little bit.

Well, he's young enough. He's going to have to wait until that next contract once that happens.

It is his next contract. He just signed for eight years.

Well, who knows? He'll get the veteran minimum.

Who knows? Swayman making 8.25 million. If he continues on this path in two or three years, that's going to seem like such a bargain. All these contracts are going to seem like a panthers contract.

All these contracts are going to seem like such a bargain because the cap is expected to go up so much in the next few years.

It's about time because- And there's no restructuring in hockey, right?

They can't, in a few years, guys be like, Pay me $13 million because that's market value now. This is what they're stuck with.

No, that doesn't happen.

No, I mean, compared to all the other sports- Well, like NFL, every other year, there's restructuring, Tyree Kills contract. I mean, it's not just that. The players are just under made compared to all the other sports.

Well, yeah. The other day, I know we don't have this sound, but Paul Maurice said at Panthers Practice the other day when he was talking about Cardiff or Hades contract, he's like, I know hockey players and hockey coaches are overpaid, and let's start with that. I'm like, Maybe compared to Joe Schmo, but in the hierarchy of professional athletes, they are severely underpaid.

Yeah. I want to talk about the long term contracts for the Panthers later in the show because they got basically everybody they need locked up and build around them.

Bill Zito is the man. But I know you want to get to, we got our fails coming up, and I know you're excited to talk about your fail of the week. So let's clear the path. Okay, let's stretch. Let's get nice and ready here. So, Roy, drum roll. What is your fail of the week?

Solo on me, please. All right.

Smiling.

The Pittsburgh Penguins. What about the Pittsburgh penguins? Big guy curbstombed. 6-0 by the aftermentioned New York Yeah. Vincent Trochack had two goals. Alexis Lafayère had a goal.

That was a shorty, I believe. That Kreider goal right there.

Alexis Lafayère, a goal and two assists. Timmy Panarin, three assists. Cindy Crosby, minus one, two penalty minutes.

No points? No, I guess not because they got shut. No, they got shot out. No points?

Solo on me again, please. Yes. That was my big L of the week, the Penguins' smiling. That's it. That's all. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Dave? There's a movie out right now about people who are like, when they smile at you, you're cursed and you get killed in a gruesome way. I think it's called smile. When I see Roy, I'm like, Oh, my God, somebody's going to die.

Yeah, that's the Penguin franchise at the moment. They are dying.

Dying. Nicely done. Yes.

We're going to talk about Mike Sullivan possibly losing his job a little bit later because Shana Goldman from The Athletic is going to join us in a little bit. But Dave, what's your L?

That's a nice tease. Hey, thank you. My L is another big opening night loss. This one is the Edmondson Oilers. As I get the L into there.

The Edmondson Oilers.

So much hype about the oilers this year, and rightly so. A lot of people have them picked as their Western Conference champion, maybe winning the Stanley Cup this year. They went out and they got... What was the word used? Curb stomped? Curb stomped. They got spanked on their home ice. American history X. Which we know that building must have been going nuts. That building must have been so rocking. Winnipeg goes out and just puts the pank-pank on the oilers. And look at that guy. He was probably at the final, too. 6-0. I'm not saying the oilers are going down the penguins' path at all, but just one of those situations there in Edmonton.

I'm sorry. Did you say the word 'pank-pank'?

Yeah, I think I did. Am I not allowed to say that?

I'd never heard that before. Ethan, have you heard that?

I haven't heard that before, but I just wanted to say the oilers, it has to feel like deja vu all over again with the way they started last year. Coming off a Cup final lost in game seven, they're as close as you could possibly get. Everybody's staying in the Cup final champion pick, apparently. That was a bad start. It can't get any worse than getting shut out on your home ice when you have the most high-flying offense in the league. That has to feel like, what do we have to do to get off to a good start? I know it's one game, but opening night, you always want to come out and look hot, look fresh the way the Panthers did, the way the Rangers did. That has to be a deflating loss for the oilers.

I bet that the oilers will be really, really, really good-looking after they go 0-3.

It reminded me of the 2007 Miami Heat because they won the Championship. Oh, God. The home opener, they played the Chicago Bulls. I was in the building for that one, and they lost by 40.

They got killed that night.

Didn't they win like 15 games that year, though? The oilers are not going to do that.

Yes, Shaq got traded for Sean Marion that year. Dwyane Wade got hurt. That was like the Kisib Powell. I'm trying to remember some of those guys. I interned with the Heat that year. That was like my break into the industry. And that was a great, great, great season to start working in pro sports.

I remember because I was in the building and during the fourth quarter, we left early to go to Bubblegum's shrimp at Bayside. Nice. Yeah. We had been there for a little while. Yeah, I got solicited by a stripper who was passing out flyers for a strip club. And my friend Tommy, he said, No, I don't want that. She threw the pamphlet at him. Like one of those playing cards. Just threw the pamphlet at him.

That's a disgruntled stripper.

Yeah, she was not happy with that.

Maybe she was upset about the heat getting...

She was probably upset by not being in the building. But yeah, she would have been even more upset if she was.

Well, I imagine a big heat win leads to a bit more lucrative night in that region of the employment in Miami, in the clubs and the strip clubs and everything. So the Panthers.

All I know is I enjoyed the Peel & East trip.

Somebody said, Ethan's ear, get them back on track.

All right, we will get back on track. Before Before we go to Shana, we had a meeting of the minds with a guy named Stanley. Finally. Finally. On Tuesday, David and I, we had a little meet and greet with Stanley. The media did as well. We were in the saw grass room at the Amherent Bank Arena, and look at that guy. Just looking all shiny and beautiful. I'm not talking about David. I'm talking about the Stanley Cup. Yeah, that was great. Because for me personally, I've been chasing that trophy down- All summer. All summer. I wanted my chance to celebrate with that trophy just like everybody else did for no apparent reason. I was the only one, and maybe Chris Cody, who did not get to celebrate with that trophy. And I finally got to do it. It happened. It happened. It finally happened. And so did our families.

Yes, which was really cool, too.

Yeah, that was really cool because on Wednesday, Well, your family actually did it earlier than that.

Yeah, well, it was when the Panthers did their Fan Fest training camp thing, they surprised everybody and the Cups showed up. And I was there to cover practice. My family was there to watch practices and all that. You were going to come. We had been talking about it. So as soon as they said, Oh, we're going to go do that, I'm texting them. I'm like, Roy, where are you? You got to get here right now. It's the cup.

Yeah, I was in South Miami. Oh my God, dude. I was so far away.

My heart dropped. So thank goodness that it came around again. It came around again. You had a chance to see it. I know Claire had a chance to see it, which is so cool.

That happened on Wednesday. Aneed, my wife, and Claire, my daughter. Apparently, the Stanley Cup was in Miramar, and they were able to see it. And that one really, really-Thanks, Milton. Yeah, it took a hurricane to do that, unfortunately.

An act of God.

Yeah, but we're thinking of everybody right now who's affected by the hurricane. So hopefully, you guys get back on your feet. Claire and Aneed, the fact that they were able to share time with the Stanley Cup, something that's been my passion for the past 32, 33 years, because I was a Sabers and Blackhawks fan before that.

A bit dominant fan. Yeah.

Thank you. I was following his entire career. The fact that they were able to share that moment with the Stanley Cup really filled my heart with joy 100 %, and that was awesome. So I'm hopefully When I show Claire the picture when she's older and she's fully appreciated that, that would be a great story to tell.

It's like you said to me the other day when you're talking about Claire and seeing the cup, and it's this next generation of fans that are now being introduced to this amazing, just a great team. The Stanley Cup has been around town. It's just a totally unique time to be a Panther fan and to have our kids, which is just crazy to even think about, our kids, the Panthers or Stanley Cup. This is It's all mind-blowing.

They only know winning hockey down here.

I saw a kid at the game the other night, and I'm like, You have no idea, kid.

Well, that's the thing. You have no idea, kid. That kid is us as Dolphin fans in the late '80s, early '90s. They didn't get a Super Bowl, but they were there.

They had a whole bunch of ASE Championship appearances.

Hopefully, these kids don't feel the heartbreak that we've been feeling in our football fandom for the last 30 some odd years. But yeah, I didn't mean to take that in such a dark place. No, yes, you did. Stop hurting me, Dolphins. Please.

Oh, man. Yeah, that was amazing. The fact that this Stanley Cup has been in this state because both teams have been in the Stanley Cup final for How many consecutive years now? Five years.

The road to the Stanley Cup has come through Florida. It doesn't always stop in Florida, what, three times in five years? Yeah. We'll see if we can keep that going.

Not according to the bubble, I guess.

Well, yeah, but they brought it back to Tampa eventually.

Yeah, on a boat, I'm sure.

But either way, state of hockey.

The state of hockey is Florida.

All right, coming up next, we are going to talk to Shane Goldman from The Athletic and the Too Many Men podcast. I cannot wait because she is an encyclopedia of hockey knowledge, and I can't wait to hear what she has to say.

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The Athletic has released It's predictions for the 2024-2025 NHL season. We have Sheena Goldman from The Athletic and from Too Many Men. Oh, that's a beautiful podcast, man. I'll tell you right there. That's a great podcast. I'm a big fan as well. So we're going to start with the Florida That is considering that they won the Stanley Cup. On the predictions side, you guys have them at 104.7 points. That's ranked fifth in the league. I'm going to round that up to 105.Thank you very much.Nicely done. 92% chance of making the playoffs, that's also ranked fifth in the league. 8% chance of winning the President's trophy, 29% chance of winning the division, 17% chance of winning the conference, and 9% chance for repeating as Stanley Cup champions. That's also fifth in the league. You want to explain how you came up with that tabulation, though, Shaina?

No, that's a Dom problem. Okay, that's a Dom problem. Dom builds the model, and he does all the projections for this. Our job is to make them make sense, contextualize them, and to pick them apart if we see something that maybe doesn't add up a little bit. But a lot of the data, it's based on three years worth of data for skaters, and for goalies, it's five years worth of data. It's weighed for recency and adjusted for age. So that's why some players look the way that they do in the preview. So you'll see guys like Boquist. They don't greet out very well or Nate Schmidt. And it's because of what they did in recent years. We can try to understand what they're going to do in Florida and assume Nate Schmidt is going to be shelter it a lot, and that's going to work well for him. And we know that worked for him last year. And account for that. But a model does its job, and then we do everything around it. It's always funny to me because everyone always looks at the number and they're like, That's it. That's the bottom line.

And it's like, Wait, but there's more.

Yeah, there is more because we are not accounting for injury. And what happened last night to Alexander Balkoff affects those numbers now. I would think so.

Yeah, just a little bit. That's something that moving forward in the projections will be accounted for. So every day, Dom updates them, and he'll put in a player's injury, the length of injury. So with these preseason previews, we were trying to project for that. So say, Drew Dauti, it's like if he misses X time, this is what it looks like, if it's longer. So all of that does get wrapped in there. But with the Panthers, you lose Barkoff, and that's going to throw everything off kilter, which what works for them is their depth, and they have a lot of center depth. So someone like Lundell, we know, can step up and play a bigger role if they need them to. And they have this versatility within their lineup that Sam Reinhardt, he's played center before. So Evan Rodriguez. So you can have players shift into different roles. And I think that's a huge strength of the Panthers. And it's the reason we like them so much, right? They have all these options for line combinations that maybe we don't usually see that they have in their back pocket to help mitigate any injury loss. It's going to be very difficult to mitigate this one because he's that important of a player, and he plays in all situations in the most important minutes.

But they do have some really good talent to help keep everything afloat while they're missing key players. Just look at last year, what they did with that Montaur and Eklad to open the season.

I wanted to ask you about the Calder prediction or whatever we call it. Yeah, predictions, right? Yeah. Stumping over my first words of the interview here. I like Michkov. I'm very excited to see him this season whenever that ends up happening in Philly. But last night we saw Maclin Celabrini's NHL debut. Kind of a funky goal, but still found the back of the net. I'm really excited about San Jose just in terms of the youth on that team. Do you agree that Michkov is perhaps the Calder leader in the clubhouse as we enter the season or are you more on the Cellebrini train? I'm just curious what your thoughts are.

Yeah, the Calder Trophy is actually one of my least favorite to talk about and analyze. No, it's my least favorite to analyze because we don't have a guideline for it, and it's just based on rookie vibes. You look at the Norris and we're saying, Okay, you need to play in all situations. You have to kill penalties. You have to go up against top competition and play number one minutes, right? For the Calder, we don't have that. Every year we're like, Well, this guy does this, and this guy does that, and you're comparing apples to oranges, like the Bedard versus the favorite conversation last year. So it's going to be interesting to see how it shakes out this year because someone like Lane Hudson might get his name in the mix, and he looks really good so far in a very short time in Montreal. But now you're comparing a defenseman to forwards, and you might be comparing his offense because it feels like A defenseman needs to score a lot to even get his name in the rookie race. But Mitchcroft for Celabrini, I think, is going to be a really fun race because you have a ton of skill there.

My pick going into the year is Celabrini because I think, one, he's the bigger name, and that recognition is going to work in his favor. Two, I think that a lot of people can be biased when it comes to Russian players and nitpick their games in ways that maybe won't apply to someone else. We hear a lot of Russian players in the early years get beat up for their defense, even though the Americans and the Canadians might have the same issues. But I think the fact that San Jose has so little going on outside that top line, we're going to be so drawn to seeing what Salabrini does in his minutes that I think it might get more attention versus Philly, when you have someone like ConnectMe who's going to be getting some attention as well. And I think already we just see with Salabrini that he's so comfortable at this level. To pull off that first goal, which was a pass attempt, right? A spin around a pass. To try to do that at the NHL level in the middle of a game is really gutsy. And it shows a comfort level to do that at this level already that I'm very excited to see what it looks like in game 60.

Amen.

Getting back to Alexander Balkoff. He was the clear-cut favorite to win a Selky Trophy. If he is out long term, who takes the mantle now?

Yeah, that's a really good question because it feels like we've been, not we, but people have been lazy with their analysis.

Yeah, we've been. We've been lazy.

No, I'm going to say the voters of years past. It was like, Okay, we know Jonathan Taves, we know Anzai Kopitar, we know Berjaran. Let's just pick one of the three. I know it's morphed into more of a two-way award. And it's always interesting because guys like Adam Lowry was getting hype last year when he was just a great shutdown center. So it's nice to see it still can be judged that way. But there are definitely other names that are going to emerge. If Jordan Stahl repeats what he did last year, maybe he gets a little more hype. Or if Seth Jarvis, very rare for a winger to get Seltky hype. But if he can do what he did last year away from Stahl a little bit more, maybe that'll help him. Austin Matthews could gain a little bit of traction. He's killing penalties. He was very good defensively last year. But I look at a guy like Nico Heesier. I've been waiting for him to get his moment, and last year, it just didn't happen because of the injuries. It's like, Here's a Patrice Berger on less field. Can anyone step up? And Barcalf ran away with it.

I really wonder if Heesier could be the guy because he has all the two-way talent, but he's just that good of a shutdown center and can go up against top competition. With the Devils being better in general and having a little bit more, I don't know, injury luck, better coaching, I think it's going to put him in a better position to succeed.

We talk about the Devils and the Jack Adams Award. Right now, the favorite is Sheldon Keith. He's gone in. He's implemented a new system down there in New Jersey now. And leaving the Devils is Lindy Ruff. And the Buffalo Sabers are 0, 3, and 0 right now. They have the international games against- It's pretty rough. Yeah, it's pretty bad in Buffalo right now. So why don't you talk about the Jack Adams candidates right now?

All right. I think new coaches get a lot of hype because it's easiest. You have the more tangible results. They walk in the door and see what they do. I think some coaches get knocked when they have elite talent, like Jared Bednar has never wanted. John Cooper, generally, isn't in the race because you look at the players that they have and go, it's not the coaching, it's everything else. And obviously, it's a mix of both. Someone like Keef is going to get a lot of hype. I I'll be interested to see what Craig Berubey does if maybe Toronto has a better regular season and just looks like a bonafide contender that has a playoff shot. Maybe he'll get a little bit of hype. But I'm looking at guys like Thierrygny in Utah. Sorry, Arizona is floating in my brain. Utah, I think he was such a good coach last year, and I think that they're going to be in the playoff mix, and that's going to get him a little bit more traction in the conversation. I think someone like Andrew Burnet, he could have gotten a little bit more hype last year. Those are the guys for me I'm watching.

And even just a full season of Chris If Chris Nablack was there all year last year, he probably would have gotten a little bit more hype in the race. But since it was only a midseason coaching change, someone like Taket was already the winner before Nablack even took the job because we saw how well Vancouver did out the gate.

So looking over the predictions, I see a lot in the Metro that jump out at me, which is, I know, in your backyard. Let's see here. We've got Carolina is the biggest disappointment. Got the Devils as a Dark Horse contender, got Mike Sullivan as one of the first coaches out. I'm really excited to see what the has to offer this year. Obviously, the Rangers are super high. Pittsburgh, I know Roy is very excited to see their demise, potentially. Washington, I think, could be a fun team to watch this year. Just wanted to get your take on the Metro and what you're excited to see play out this Yeah, there's a lot of good teams, and it's really competitive.

I think that makes for a more exciting time. Last year, you had the Flyers as the surprise team. And while I think they're going to be better than last year in some ways, because we're going to see more progression and development from their younger guys, I don't think they're going to be as much of a fixture in the playoff conversation. For me, I'm watching a team like the Devils. Can They Rebound? Some people are talking them up as like, yes, they're going to reach the Stanley Cup final. And some people have a ton of doubts. I feel like there's no in between with the takes on the Devils. The Islanders are an interesting team because you want to see what can a full season of Patrick Wall look like when he had such a great impact on their defense. And you saw what happened last night and the response goals back and forth. Can they be better in the third period? Can they defend leads better? It's going to be a really interesting question moving forward. The Penguins and the Caps, it's like the end of an era for two different franchises. And it feels like the Capitals last year, we were all counting out, and we didn't account for Spencer Carberry and what he would do with a pretty diminished roster.

And they got a lot of reinforcements. So I feel like they're more of a team to watch, but it does feel like everyone around them got better as well. And then Pittsburgh, like you said, what's going to happen there? It's such a big question because everyone wants to see... Well, not everyone, but a lot of people want to see Sydney Crosby go it one more time.

No, no, no, we don't.

Listen, I love watching Sydney Crosby play. I absolutely love it. He's still one of the best players in the world. There's no doubt about it. Do you want to see new teams get in the mix? I personally do. I think we've seen a lot of the penguins for a long time that I don't mind us zoning in on a new, fresher option out there. But I'm curious what he can do, and I'm curious if the team could be a little bit better around him. What's the impact of just changing an assistant coach? Something they really probably should have done last year when you saw how horrible their power play was, I don't know, week one of the season. It was like everything was screaming at them to make that move sooner. Did they wait too long? And now Ronzi, you're older, so you screwed yourself. Like, maybe.

Well, Pete Blackburn had the line of face-off. I had one of the lines of Face Off on Amazon Prime. He said that the Capitals vomited into the playoffs. Yeah, that's pretty much it. He's absolutely right.

So real quick, though, out of that division, though, Do you have three playoff teams? Do you have four, five playoff teams? What are you thinking?

Okay, definitely. Well, definitely have three. Well, obviously.

Three would be the minimum. Yes.

Okay, let me think. Five would be the maximum, wouldn't it? I'm going to say the Rangers of the Canes, and the Devils because I'm going to cheat and say, Yeah, one, two, three, in. I'm going to say the Islanders definitely make it.

Oh, wow. That's real Metropolitan right there.

Yeah, I bet on them last year to make it, and I think they're going to do it again, especially I feel like the Sorokin is healthy enough down the stretch. I feel like that's going to be a good time for them. Trying to think about the Atlantic. I'm going to say one Atlantic team gets in as a wild card. I'm going to say it's going to be four and four this year. There we go. That's what I'm going with. It's cheating a little bit, but I'm going to say the Penguins just miss out, and it's going to be on goal tending. I'm going to say the Capitals don't make it because everyone around them got better. I'm going to say the Islanders are the team that sneaks in. It's going to be very tri-state area heavy with the Carolina Hurricanes at the top. I like it.

Easy travel, though, which I think we can appreciate after last week.

Yeah, just take the bus or the train. It's all good. Finally, a bit of history was made this week in the NHL with Jessica Campbell in Seattle, becoming the first woman to be a NHL assistant coach Coach. And you got to say that the cracking are pretty much the most progressive team in the league. Why don't you go over what's going on in Seattle?

Yeah, they are definitely progressive. They hire the best people for the job. And everyone wants to jump and say, Oh, it's a diversity hire, and this and that. No, this is the best person for the job. There have been mediocre white men, exhaling, not exhaling, just surviving in the NHL for oh so long. So we don't need to be judging now that someone who looks a little bit different gets a job because we have watched a Million Men Strike Out, and nobody has any questions about hiring them again. It starts at the top. You have Alexander Mandracky as the assistant GM, and that's a brilliant mind in hockey right there. And not only is she a woman, but she's a nerd. So you have two things that the hockeymen hate altogether, and she's doing a great job there. But it trickles down the entire organization, and I think it's fantastic. And with Jessica Campbell, it's great to enjoy the hype of what she's doing and the historic moment. But I love just when this is going to be normal. And when you look at, I think it was in the third period, you saw her drawing up a play and all the players huddled around her with the whiteboard.

And you just look at it and go, That is what I want to see all the time. That, to me, was the most normal moment of the game that we can all just focus in on and just go, wow. Now, when that starts happening on the regular, that's the day I'm personally pumped for, but it's a great start.

Yeah, no more Mike Babcock's of the world getting jobs for-Yeah, we don't need to manifest that ever.

Anytime there's a coaching opening, we hear all the insiders saying his name. Don't even speak it into existence. There are other people out there besides Quinville and Babcock and the Bowmans of the world. We can get a little creative. There are not only 35 men to choose from.

Yeah, no more Bo Peters. Exactly. Amen to that. Shana Goldman, from the athletic and You may, you may, you may. Thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

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All right, it's time for a quick Florida Panthers recap. Let's go over the week that was, and the week that was was...

Mixed bag, but now it's like a vomit bag after the way the second game ended with injury to a very important player. We'll get to in a minute.

Yeah. I'm going to treat this like Ahmad Shah on Inside Stuff with Rewind. Oh, yeah. Monday. The Florida Panthers got their rings, and It was a private ceremony because it was going to be public at Amherent Bank Arena, and the fans were going to celebrate with the team getting these rings, except there was a bit of a storm coming the state's way, unfortunately. So they had to It was private. They moved it to...

Look at that ring, man.

That's beautiful, man. They moved it to the Royal Memorial, to the practice facility, the building next to it. It was nice. It was actually a nice building. It was the first time I actually been in the It looked like a place where you could have a high school graduation. It looked nice. Everybody was at a table. Everybody got the rings. It was in a box that had a damn video monitor on it.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Personalized boxes, everybody's name on it. It was fancy, man.

Yeah, the rings were beautiful, and the players were surprised when they opened that box. They looked really nice.

So nice. Well deserved. I mean, look, we know that last 10, 20 years, whatever, that Championship rings have gotten pretty ridiculous. Bigger and bigger? It's basically going to be like, what do they call me? They put four finger things, brass knuckles. Brass knuckles? They're going to be like brass knuckle rings at some point, for sure. But I love the personalized touches. I love that there's palm trees in it. I love that there's a rat in there. They got a Championship belt, which is pretty quirky, but it's important to the team.

That's the WEE belt that they bestowed on. That's the new thing that every sports champion in North America, at least, is getting a WEE Championship belt. That's a nice to do. Good job, Paul Levesque, for that idea. Good job by him.

I like that they had the word freedom in there.

Freedom. Yeah, that back to the parade. That was the thing that Paul Maurice screamed out to the players as he turned around and faced them with his back to the crowd and yelled, Freedom, like Mel Gibson on Braveheart.

I don't get the reference, but that's okay.

Okay, well, there you go.

Yeah, I blocked that guy out of.

Yeah, I understand. Tuesday, the Florida Panthers opened the season against the Boston Bruins. They raised the Stanley Cup banner. It was a beautiful banner, if I do say so myself. It was pretty cool. It's a gold outline. The actual banner is white, and it says Stanley Cup champions on the top. They got the Stanley Cup in the middle, the logo a little bit below it.

It's simple. It's beautiful. It's perfect. I love that it just hung above the ice for the entire game. Obviously, they're going to move it.

Yeah, it's going to be between the conference championship banner and Roberto Lorango's retirement number.

I'm just like, watching this.

I think that's the great thing about this was, and Paul Maurice referenced this either the other day or after the game or whatever, that the ceremony was just quick, simple. They brought out the cup, the guys gathered around it, Barky gave it a kiss as he handed it back to Phil Pritchard. They put the banner in the sky, and that was it. And they went and played hockey. And I just thought, like Maurice said, with everything going on, he felt that was right, and I felt like that was perfect. It would have been cool to have a bunch of fanfare and stuff, but it was simple, it was quick, it was easy, and it was absolutely beautiful to see that banner hanging there.

You know who appreciated that short-The media. Not the media, but the Boston Bruins. That's true. They were hanging around in their locker room for 15 minutes as opposed to what? 20 or 25, which is how these things used to go. It was celebration time and the Panthers kept it quick and that was good on them. But I'm sure the Bruins did not appreciate the ass-kicking that the Panthers gave them.

Nobody to blame but yourself. I'm just saying.

You should have signed Swayman earlier. Because he wouldn't have missed training camp if he would have been in net.

He could have been in net. Fans wanted him in net. They sure did. They were chatting, We want to play. That was awesome.

That was the moment where I'm like, This fan base has arrived. We're making fun of other fan bases now. That is awesome.

Adam Boulkrist got hit in the face with a puck. He left early. He did not play on Thursday in Ottawa.

No. Hopefully, he's going to play on Saturday. Yeah, hopefully. But at least that means that he's close enough that it's nothing serious.

Yeah, hopefully. Following the game, we were surprised as a group of media because Bill Zito came in with Cardo Verhege and announced the contract extension eight years.

Eight years. Cardo Verhege joins the Panthers Corps that's now signed long term. Barkoff, Kachuk, Forzling, Reinhardt, Lundell, all these guys locked up through the end of the decade at very team friendly numbers, which I know makes us all very excited.

Yeah, I want to go through this list here. Cardo Verhege now has nine years left on his contract with the extension. Gustave Forzling was the guy that was signed before him. Actually, was it before? No, no. Sam Reinhardt was the one that was signed before him.

Reinhardt was in July. Forzling was earlier. But it's all in this year.

Yeah, it's all this year. So both Forzling and Reinhardt have eight years left on their contracts. Alexander Barkoff has six years left. Matthew Kutchuck has six years left. And Anton Lindell, who was the guy that was signed before Gustave Forzling, has six years left on his contract. Those guys are all locked up. And I think the Panthers are pretty well in set to build their team around them. Yes.

What's the numbers that they're locked up to? That's even better. That's even better. Barcob is the biggest one at 10 million. And look, Barcob, K'Chuck, Reinhardt, these are all guys that should be getting that double-digit number. But K'Chuck is 9.5, Reinhardt is 8.25. Lundell is at 5 million. Forzling. Gus Forzling is 5.7 million for Gus Forzling for the next eight years.

We're talking about making it up on a signing bonus, though, right?

Well, that's how Bill Zito structures a lot of these contracts, which is very friendly to the players. He structures it as a $1 million salary, and the rest is all given as a signing bonus, which the players then receive as a lump sum. I don't know if it's the first day of the lead year or if it's September first, but I know that they receive one big lump sum as opposed to a salary, which if there's a lockout or if there's some thing that stops play, a pandemic, that could impact when you're getting paid your salary, not your bonus. Your bonus money goes straight to you. So that's something that Bill Zito has structured a lot of these contracts to make it a bit more player friendly.

One defenseman locked up long term, though.

Well, two, if you count Kulikov. Kulikov is locked up through 2028.

I have to imagine that Ekblad, they're going to pay him. I would assume. I know that he's an interesting trade candidate.

Ekblad wants to stay.

That they might open up some salary cap by moving on from Ekblad. But he seems like a guy that even if he doesn't get a big extension the way these other guys have, he might take a cat friendly deal for them to stick around because he wants to be here long term. I know that His plays decline. He's the guy that could be the odd man out. But it seems like everybody wants the same thing, which is him to be a Panther for life. Am I wrong on that? What's the sense inside of the building?

When you say everybody, internally, The team wants him there. He wants to be there. They're going to have to come meet in the middle on a number. I don't know how high they're willing to go with that plan. I think he's such a big part of the team on the inside, and he's been around forever that you've got to... And Bill Zito does right by his guys. It's what he does well. It's why he's such a beloved general manager on the player side. But yeah, look, at the end of the day, it's a business. Because they've also got Sam Bennett, who we haven't talked about, who's also going to be a agent this summer.

They're going to need Sam Bennett.

Sam Bennett, he's such a crucial part of this lineup. When Sam Bennett is out of the lineup, the Panthers, it changes a lot. Because while they're very deep down the middle, the centers have so much drive in what Florida does. That's why Barcob and Bennett and Lundell are so important to driving this team, which is why I think the priority would be to Bennett over Eklad.

I was reading the athletic season preview for the Panthers the other day, and they were saying that Bennett's not an ideal 2C, but eventually, the plan is for him to be a 3C, would it not be? And have Lundell move up the ranks?

I don't know if they look at it in terms of a hierarchy, I think, because Bennett right now has been a perfect fit on that K'Chuck line, whether it's for Heidi or Rodriguez, whoever they pop on there. They had Tarasenko there for a little while. It doesn't really matter. If Lundell supersedes Bennett at some point or overlaps him or whatever the word is, then that would be awesome.

I want to talk more about actually how they're going to deal with the replacement of Balkoff in the short term because of his injury. But we're going to do that because Thursday. He got hurt.

Got to keep it to continuity.

Yeah, thank you. They lost to Ottawa 3-1. Now, listen, don't let the score fool you because the Panthers were so close to scoring on O'Mark in that game after the first period. If you look at the coursey numbers, look at the shot attempts here. I'm sorry, 85 shot attempts. Eighty-five shot attempts.

Yeah, they had 31 blocks or something, Yeah.

I'm looking at the Finwick right now. The shot attempts without blocks, it was 52. Yeah, that was a lot of block shots in this game.

Over 50 for the first two games of the Panthers. It's a trend that we saw last year that I know you track It's good that they're getting pucks to the net and that they're controlling the puck a lot, and that's all good, but they've just got to get to the results.

Twelve high danger chances in that game, too. Yeah, they put forth the effort. Mark was great. He was great. He was great. Absolutely great. High No pressure in that game. But with an empty net, Bob was pulled for the extra man, and with Alexander Balkov in high slot, he had a chance to get a shot off in traffic, but his stick broke. Now, if I'm Alexander Balkov, I'm changing sticks. I'm changing stick companies. If I have Bauer, I'm switching to warrior in this situation. Or I'm going to CCM because that one led to a troubling sequence of him trying to stop an empty net chance from happening with Tim Stutzler, and Stutzler ended up scoring. But both men fell. Stutzler ended up landing on Alexander Balkoff, and both of them ended up sliding into the boards, skates first, with Balkoff colliding. And now we don't know what's going on. We don't even have what he injured yet.

Yeah, Jamieson. I just went to his Twitter to see Jamieson Olive, and he basically said that with no practice today, we won't know until at least tomorrow.

Yeah, Friday's morning skate would be the first time that we hear from Maurice.

I did see somebody post a picture of Barky walking, and I heard he was walking afterwards, okay, in the locker room. That could be huge.

He's not in the boot.

No boot, no crutsches.

If he's walking, then that's a great thing.

Without assistance. That was scary, man. I mean, especially seeing Barky, it looked like he was crying for a second there. That really terrified me.

The head shake. It looked like you were saying, No, I can't put any weight on it.

But again, in the moment, you don't know exactly. You don't want to take any chances. So I get that. You want to get off the ice, get your state off, see what happens. That's why you don't want to jump to any conclusions. This is what we see. Barkov gets hurt. He doesn't want to put any weight on it. He's hopped off the ice. Maurice doesn't know anything. They're evaluating him. Fine. There's no jumping to conclusions. We know if it is X, Y, and Z, what that will mean, but there's no point in assuming that's the case until you know anything. Remember the final last year, game two? Barcov took that hit from dry sidal, and we were freaking the bleep out like, yeah, Florida's up 2-0 in the series.

Yeah, we thought he had a concussion.

We thought he was done for... Who knows? If he's in the protocol-A game or two, probably.

Yeah.

He was on the ice.

There was no penalty on that, right?

No, I don't think so. He was on the ice the next time they practiced. We don't know. But let's just hope. I know Rose is listening. Let's just hope and pray and whatever we need to do. That's her boy.

I'm good if he holds out for a few games.

Let's just say that. He's early in the season. We don't need him for Buffalo.

It's the second game of the season. Yeah.

You don't need him for Buffalo.

Buffalo. You just don't want something that requires surgery or that requires an extended time to recover. We just don't know. So just hopefully for Parkoff and the Panthers' sake, it's nothing long term.

Tomorrow, they play the Buffalo Sabers, not Not really much to talk about. They're Buffalo's 0, 3, 0 right now.

Parkoff can take that one-off.

Yeah, he can take that one-off. So let's get into a moment of Pucks in. Let's go back to last season during the Stanley Cup final. We have a couple of videos, and we're going to need the the sound for this one, Ethan, because we have Paul Maurice. We have two videos that came from Face Off inside the NHL from Amazon Prime. Yeah, it was a beauty. He is a beauty. I can tell you that right now. We came to the conclusion of... We found out there was a still shot of everybody paying attention to Paul Maurice on the bench, the players, the staff, and the fans next to the bench.

Everybody was just locked on.

Yeah, we trying to find out what exactly did he say, and he said this. You, makers, pay attention.

Nobody's hit the fucking thing.

You get a three-one lead, and now you want to make plays. Fuck, the plays. Pound their fucking D. In game seven, they got nothing left. Hey, now. Hey, yo. That would make me skate through the boards.

The production value, you f and even Swayman, Huh? Even the other goalie is looking up. I'm sorry.

Yeah, that's an F-bomb. That's an F-bomb. I mean, you heard the video. Rose took out the audio of him saying the F-bombs.

I guess in my head, I just give Paul Maurice the credit. But sorry, Ethan. I'll make you do a little extra work there.

But you just wanted to make my job harder. It's okay.

Yeah, exactly. We have one more video, and we have it in the locker room of Paul Maurice, who doesn't know anything about goal tending.

He says he doesn't know anything about goal tending. I think we're going to have to call him out. Next time we go to a practice, we're going to have to say, Paul, you always tell us you don't know anything about goal tending. Talk to Tali. Talk to Addy. This video, the evidence says otherwise.

Hold on. Let me explain this one right quick before we do this. He's taken one of the goals. It was either still lost or it was still lost his pants. He took the block and he took the glove, and he went through a little bit of visual aid of what he wanted the Panthers to do when facing Stuart Skinner. He wanted get them to shoot up high. Let's play the video. This is fucking tough for an old man. All right, look at... You get in tight, he comes out like this at you.

So don't get in that fucking tight on him.

And the play is not here. Under the fucking You are. Are you guys good here? We're good, man. We're a good team. Let's go fucking enjoy what we do. Yeah, and they definitely enjoyed what they did.

That was good for him, man. He was down in the butterfly. He had the gloves out in front of him. He knows more than he's letting on. Yeah. You're not fooling us anymore, Paul.

That was the Hockey Show for this week for David Dworak, for Ethan, whatever the your last name is. For Rose Arias, who's not here.

Shana Goldman.

Shana Goldman with Jason and Gino on the back. We will see you next week. Okay, goodbye.

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