The Hockey Show: The Life of a Rose Arias

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I've never seen a more demoralizing playoff team where you think you have them and then suddenly they score three goals and you're like, we do not have them.

Welcome to the hockey show.

My name is Roy Bellamy.

Rosie is in the shipping container, and Ethan is in the studio with me.

Who let that happen?

You know who would let that happen?

David Dwark, who of hockey news.

He is currently on assignment.

And by assignment, I mean he is.

His wife made him take the family on vacation.

The only assignment that matters.

Yes.

David, where are you?

What's going on?

I am in South New Jersey where my wife grew up.

We're visiting her home right now, but we're about to head up to the summer camp where we met all the way back in 2002.

You guys met at summer camp?

We did.

That's

a long time ago.

We were teenagers.

We haven't been there in a while.

She went there for like her whole life.

I only went there for like three summers working as a counselor.

But now we're going back with our kids for the first time.

And like, I haven't been there since 2010.

She hasn't been there, I think, since like 2015 or something.

So it's been a minute.

So we're pretty pumped to go.

What's the camp called?

B'nai Brith Perlman Camp.

Wait, where is this?

Is this in Pennsylvania?

It's in Starlight, Pennsylvania.

It's in Starlight, Pennsylvania.

I went to camp.

It's in Wayne County.

Oh, God.

Oh, my God.

This is great Jewish geography.

Jewish geography.

Oh, yeah.

This is great Jewish geography.

Classic Wayne County camp.

No, I went to Waquayak.

Okay.

Should we bore them all with camp stories, David?

No, dude, I'd like people to continue watching.

15 minutes.

We don't have time for that.

You're familiar with Alice's, I'm guessing, right?

Cow Palace.

Yes.

And Jared Mosey in it.

Those were the places that they would take.

Hancock, New York, baby.

Yeah, the red, the red.

Oh, what's the red awning over the movie theater?

No, what's the red, the bar right there when you get into Hancock?

Oh, Oh, God, the two-story bar.

Yeah, it's called the red something.

That was always how I knew I was like 10 minutes away from camp.

What was the MLB All-Star game that ended in a tie?

I watched that game from that bar.

The game in the world?

It must have been 2010.

Or 2007.

It must have been 2007.

That's crazy.

Don't you have pictures to show us or something?

Oh, he's cutting it.

Well, I gave you a picture of like my wife and I from the day that we started dating from July 14th, 2002, which is like 25 years ago or whatever it is now.

My math is terrible.

But, you know, that's all my wife and I have been together.

That's when we were at camp.

So if you have the picture, you want to show it.

It's very, very period in terms of I have the frosted tips rocking and all that good stuff because it was 2002.

I actually got really bad with the frost thing.

So I was playing hockey back then.

I was living up north.

So I started just bleaching my hair just to do something fun.

At one point, I kind of looked like Slim Shady from like that 2002 era.

It wasn't pretty.

It wasn't pretty.

Wow.

Well, a lot has changed.

Is 2002 the first time you met uh your wife wow so what 23 years huh man yeah yeah like i said my math is terrible but yeah it's now let me ask you something david in this picture it looks like you have something hanging from your ear do you still have like is your ear still pierced no the the holes are closed up like you can see like the little dimples from the earrings but uh i think i maxed out at five at one point.

I had like two on the bottom of each and then I had the cartilage at one point.

It's what we did.

How handsome is that?

What we did?

Rosie, what people did back at that time.

I don't know.

It's common.

How handsome is Jorky?

Yeah, you were.

Were.

Thank you.

That's

that's he's a professional now.

Jesus Christ.

That's how we rolled back then.

That's when I was when I was a hockey player trying to do my

is that an MJ Bulls jersey?

No, that's a Dennis Rodman Bulls jersey.

That's even cool.

That might be even cooler.

Rosie, you have a video.

Is this going to make me upset?

So I have a video.

It might make me upset, but

David, you're the only one that can tell us if this is right or it's not right.

Because when I saw it, I started laughing.

I'm like, oh, I'm gonna ask David because he's the only one that has played hockey and two is a goalie.

So, hit it, boy.

Left

right

left.

What comes after left again?

Oh boy, my favorite part of the game.

Cut off!

Yeah!

Did they make Mackenzie Blackwood British?

So, yeah, Mackenzie Blackwood

is a great strat.

What's your lateral movements left to right?

Honestly, Rose, I'm amazed at the accuracy of this.

Right?

That's almost like that's what goes through my head every pregame.

I'm literally going, left state, right skate, left state, hop over the line, left state, right skate.

So So, yeah, it's

there you go.

When that is when I'm just like, wee, we,

water,

the puck's over there, but it's not coming over here.

Now that guy has it again, but you better get off the, yeah, what goes on in my head, it's it's very childish.

I'm very accurate.

Yeah, that's uh

his mentality right there.

All right, so we were off last week, and we didn't get to talk about this news that came out.

The sports division over at Electronic Arts announced that Matthew Kachuck would be the cover athlete of EA Sports NHL 26.

All right.

Now, on the deluxe edition, they have Matthew, Brady, and Keith Kachu.

So,

and

they got Keith Kachuck, by the way, in a blues jersey.

And they got him like this playing weight.

The thing I like, right, is that it's the video game versions, kind of, of the player.

So, like, it's a very young version of Keith Ka-Chuck, and he looks awesome.

I love that they did this.

This is such a cool touch.

Yes, that's nice.

There's a good-looking big Walt right there.

So, yeah, that's great.

Dad and son, they look alike.

Brady,

Brady and Keith look so much alike.

It's a solid analyzation, Rose.

Father and son look alike.

It's the first Panther on the cover of a video game since John Van Beeswick on NHL 97.

Now, I've had my complaints about the EA Sports NHL franchise.

I mean, it's been bad for the past 10 years.

I'm hoping that it is much better.

They seem to be rewrapping the Be A Pro mode.

So, yeah, I'm really hoping that this is going to be a good game this year.

It has something to do with my fail of the week.

Oof.

That's always my favorite.

I always like to be a pro mode.

Like, people always kind of play it for, like, ultimate team or dynasty, but I always like to be a pro because it's just, it's fun.

You feel like you're...

I mean, you created a player.

I mean, it's just so much work.

Like, I just like to log on.

I like to be my favorite team, and I like to make them beat everybody and win the Stanley Cup.

That's why I play Madden.

It's the only way to make the Dolphins anymore.

Oh, that's a good point.

Yeah, so you're a franchise mode type of guy.

Yeah, no, for sure.

I want to start my team.

I want to play.

I want it to be accurate to the current NHL team, And I want to make them do the best possible stuff.

It's like fantasy land for me.

I think I got a Vitchkin on the Panthers back in the day.

Well, he technically was almost.

The draft was not.

That is one of the sneakiest things any team has ever tried to do.

And I absolutely love that the Panthers.

Can you imagine if that had become the norm, though?

And like every draft year, you had people calculating leap years for guys and trying to sneak one in there.

Like that would have been crazy precedent to set.

It's very, very smart.

It's why Rick Dotley's name is on the cup.

Wins and ferals of the week is presented by Jagameister.

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David, from currently in New Jersey, please give us your win.

My win of the week from Mount Laurel, New Jersey goes all the way over to Australia.

Oh, my God.

The Australian Ice Hockey League.

Former Florida Panther David Booth is tearing that league up right now.

They're about halfway done with their season.

He's played only 11 games, and yet he still has 25 goals and another 25 assists in 11 games for the Melbourne ice.

And I think you just played the replay of this ridiculous masterpiece spinning goal.

He scored against the Brisbane Lightning, another great name in the Australian Ice Hockey League.

David Booth will be 41.

Oh, is it Brisbane?

Not Brisbane?

Well,

that's my Miami accent.

There's an Olympics there in like 2032.

Well, I hope ice hockey.

It wouldn't be summer Olympics.

It would be that would be summer, not winter.

But anyway, David Booth is like almost my age.

He's 41.

He is still tearing it up in hockey.

We just saw him.

Wasn't he at that alumni game when the All-Star game was here?

Yeah, a couple years ago.

Now, can I ask you something, David?

Sorry.

I don't know a lot, admittedly, about the Australian Hockey League, but I saw the score in that game was like 8-7.

Are the rules different or do they just not give a shit about defense over there?

Excuse my language.

The rules are not different

from the games that I've watched.

I mean, the rules look pretty similar.

I think it's just more,

for lack of a better term, Australia, it's more beer league for pro league than what we see over here, which look, it looked like a lot of fun.

The fans were having fun.

You couldn't hear the announcers on that clip that we played, but even they were like going crazy for it.

So it just sounded like everybody's having a great time over there, especially David Booth.

I got a great win this week.

This is coming out of PWHL, the Professional Women's Hockey League.

Tim Hortons and Barbie have released a hockey player Barbie doll.

Let's buy one for the hockey show.

Let's buy one for Claire.

Well, for Claire, but also for the hockey show.

Well, that's going to be difficult because it's currently sold out.

In Canada, every $5 from each sale will go to the Grindstone Foundation, who will help girls who face financial barriers play hockey.

There's also some limited edition dolls of Sarah Nurse.

That's...

That's my girl.

And Marie-Philip Poulin are, well, they were available.

I say they were available because I just said they are currently out of stock.

They have so.

Will they be coming back into stock?

Like, can we get them?

Yeah, that would be that's really cool, though.

Yeah, that has very what took so long, though.

Why are we just now in 2025 getting our first hockey Barbie?

Because it's there's like a Barbie for everything.

There's like, you know, ventriloquist Barbie, mime Barbie.

Why are we just now getting hockey Barbie?

I don't really think that they've ventured into sports all that much.

So that would probably be one of the problems.

I'm sure there's a cheerleader, Barbie.

Two years ago, so

Caitlin Clark Barbie.

We need Rosie.

We need the Barbie version.

We need Rosie instead of Barbie.

That's a winning Barbie.

That's a good idea.

Oh, man.

Everybody will buy it.

The Rosie line.

Ethan, you'll win.

My win of the week, guys.

Not normally somebody I would hand out a win to, but I mean, this is one of the great moments in his life.

I mean, he finally got a ring.

Leon Dreisidel got hitched this summer.

Congratulations to him.

It's the first ring that he has.

You got it right.

Hopefully it'll be the last because it seems like the Panthers and the Division of the Canada.

Hopefully he doesn't get a divorce.

But no, I'm talking about him.

I don't want him to get a stay in the cup ring because I want the Panthers to keep winning the Stay in the Cup.

Anyway, this picture of Leon Dreiside will rule so hard.

It's his wedding.

He's taking off his dress shoes and putting on his slides that he'd been wearing around all weekend.

He needs a grip and a dart.

Yeah, that's the least surprising thing I've ever seen.

That's exactly how your night should end at your wedding.

Yeah, with a cigarette getting lung cancer.

His wife would have kicked kicked my ass if I smoked a cigarette.

No, you know what?

It's your wedding night, man.

It's your wedding night.

Have some fun.

Yes, and I'd like to enjoy my wedding night, if you know what I mean.

Let loose a little.

Yeah.

Rosie.

Piss off my wife on day one.

Okay, so don't cut me off.

Okay, my win of the week goes to the broken.

That's a great intro.

I'm telling you, this girl knows what she's doing.

You're controlling the nights.

Yeah, I know.

This girl knows what she's doing.

She's very intelligent.

And this clip is going to just sums it up because I think we have to talk about her.

And she just announced her new album.

So let's go

as we all know you know you guys have a lot of male sports fans that listen to your podcast

and

I think we all know that if there's one thing that male sports fans want to see in their spaces and on their screens it's more of me

that sarcasm there is just epic she knows she's like nobody wants I really like her talking voice like I know she's like known for singing but I really like her talking voice like it's nice she's so calculated that that's why she's a billionaire.

So she's.

It's a good joke she had at the end.

It's true.

It's true.

The last thing I want to see more of when watching sports is Taylor Swift.

I've seen it all.

She's very sarcastic.

Well, that was pretty good, though.

When she was on with the Kelsey brothers, I mean, I've seen a lot of that over the last couple of days, and it's actually entertaining.

For somebody that's not, you know, I've got Taylor Swift's songs on my phone.

My kids love them.

I'm not like a Swifty, but I did enjoy the.

What you made me do.

What's your favorite Taylor Swift song, David?

Oh, God, I don't know.

I don't know if if I have a favorite.

I like one.

Like, I could name, like, shit, get on belonging.

Yeah, I don't know.

That's the one I like to say.

I don't want to hear your favorite swift song I like.

I'm moving on to fails.

David, what's your fail of the week?

Naming Taylor Swift songs.

No,

my fail of the week came on Wednesday over at the Helinka Gretzky Cup, which this year is taking place in Chechnya and Slovakia.

There was a really cool moment between a U.S.

player, a referee, and a German goaltender.

So if we can put the audio up for this, the U.S.

US player shot it on the goalie after the bit of a crowd.

Why is he getting the penalty?

Hey, six!

Six!

Go to the goalkeeper!

Go to the goalkeeper!

Go to the goalkeeper!

Six!

It was us and the missile!

The referee is yelling at the US player.

You go to the goalkeeper.

Go to the goalkeeper.

Go to the goalkeeper.

Go to the goalkeeper.

You don't want to give a penalty.

Go to the goalkeeper.

Now that's going to be our.

And the goalie's like, you leave off.

You're going to apologize right now or I am giving you a penalty.

So that's definitely a major fail.

I love that the referee is like getting the back of the goalie.

You don't shoot it after the whistle.

Everybody knows that's a no-no.

But the apology instant, you know, I kind of like it.

All right, my fail of the week is a promotional video shoot, and this one went a little bit too far.

This is crazy.

Yeah, Bowie, as you know, is the Seattle Kraken mascot.

And Bowie and some others went fly fishing at Katmai National Park in the Pacific Northwest when a brown bear showed up.

Please play the video.

Now, while we were fishing,

we had a pretty close call with a couple bears.

Oh my god.

Look at that thing.

It's a big bear.

It's so cute.

And Buoy didn't even run.

Like, I was like,

who hired the bear?

Ron mcgill told us you don't run low and slow right low and slow and slow i would have ran there i'm gonna scare it away with my head oh

it doesn't like buoy the bear charged buoy yeah

when the bear starts galloping

this that's where my whole look so we got out of it okay but uh it was it was uh a close call Like the bear's galloping at them and nobody's moving.

Like they're just like strolling.

What the hell?

I was listening to What Chaos yesterday and they were doing a whole segment.

Shout out to What Chaos, by the way.

Love those guys.

What would they have done if Bowie, if something had happened to Bowie?

Hey, bear.

Hey, bear.

Ethan, you fail.

My failures

comes from...

I don't know exactly where this comes from, but this is Patty Kane's kid, Patty Kane III, and Alex DeBrinkett's kid, Archie DeBrinket, going at it with each other.

Having a little tussle on the ice here.

You got to love these kids just going at it.

Not the greatest fighting strategy, I would say.

None of them stayed on their feet, just kind of rolling around on the ice, but you got to love it.

Rosie, you're from.

Hey, my favourite, I just want to put the picture there because

EA Sports did a simulation, and we can laugh about it.

Yeah.

That was my fail all the week.

How about that?

Yeah, they were definitely wrong.

For those on DKN, we have Don Lucisian from the Athletic coming up next as our guest.

You can find us on YouTube, Lebatard and Friends.

You can click on the playlist tab and click on our folder to see Donald Decision.

Who's coming up next?

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Don Bushiftson is on the show right now.

He's the national NHL writer for the athletic.

He recently wrote an article about how the 32 franchises in the National Hockey League are efficient in their roster building and using their money.

Now, I can give you the top five and the bottom five to save time.

All right, the top five, we have Tampa A plus, the first.

Second, Carolina, A plus.

Third, Colorado, A plus.

and then we get into the A's Florida has an A, the fourth Ottawa has an A, they are fifth.

And the bottom five, 28th is Anaheim at a C.

The Islanders 29th with a C.

Nashville D plus, they are 30th.

Chicago D plus, 31st.

That's a big woof right there, by the way.

And Seattle D plus at 32.

So that's the Chandler-Sevenson contract.

That is true.

That's a bad contract.

What went into this formula, Don, Dom, and

can you tell me why the New York Islanders aren't dead last in this situation?

The streak continues, Dave.

So what goes in this formula is I first rate every player, and I have a model for that where I look at how many points each player scores, how they drive play, who they play against, who they play with.

And I have something that's sort of like war-like if you follow baseball.

So when's a bow replacement?

And then I just convert that into

how much that should cost on the open market.

I then apply an age curve using comparable players from the past to see how each player ages.

And then I apply that to the future cap growth to get how much each player's contract should be worth.

I add it all up for every team, see how likely the contracts are to be valuable.

And you end up with the Islanders in 29th, not 32nd.

And that is because they do have some good contracts on the books, and they don't have a lot of horrible ones like Seattle or Nashville.

Have

you have

Tony D'Angelo at a B plus?

Why?

I think if you look at someone like Shane Gossespear on Carolina, where they are a pure like power play quarterback kind of vibe and bring offense, usually those players don't cost a lot on the open market, but a model like this might view them more favorably for their offensive output.

And with Noah Dobson gone, D'Angelo should get the bulk of the power play time

for the Islanders.

I think he's probably priced fairly, and my model is probably wrong about him and wrong about Gossaspear because there's a reason teams don't pay those sort of players a lot, but that is why he's rated high and same as Gossaspa for Carolina.

Seems the model doesn't account for some of the things you don't like about Tony DiAngelo Roy.

Yeah, that's true.

The content of one's character.

Convince my producer Ethan here as to why the Florida Panthers shouldn't be number one on the list.

I mean, I was personally surprised they weren't number one.

I think the reason is they have won two Stanley Cups.

They can sort of do whatever they want right now, and that includes the Marsha and Bennett contracts, which I think are

probably on the more expensive side compared to what they usually do.

Usually they get incredible deals.

You saw in Reinhardt, Barkov, Kachuk, Forsling, even Ekblad this year.

But Marshawn Bennett's seen sort of like luxury contracts where both guys wanted to get paid.

And I think aptly so, considering they've been underpaid for a fair bit of their career.

Marshawn, I think what's important here is the cap hit, which is 5.3, which for the next three years is going to be incredible.

But there is no precedent for a player, even of his caliber, playing to 43 years old.

So that is where the value just drops off significantly because the expectation is he's not going to be very good when he's 42 years old.

But he may prove us wrong.

He may prove me wrong.

He may be this incredible player still at that age.

But

the term length is the big thing.

It's the same with Sam Bennett, who

I think is a very complicated player to price because during the regular season, he might be a 6 million player.

During the playoffs, he's a 10 million player.

So you see how you get to 8 million for the Panthers.

And I think 8 is probably the limit I would go to for him as well.

I wrote about that extensively because I just do think it's a fascinating deal.

But the model is really only considering his regular season output erroneously, obviously, because he's such a playoff demon.

But those two deals...

There are deals Florida had to make to extend this championship window because they are firmly in it.

And the next three years are more important than the four years after that where those contracts might become a bit more problematic.

So Dom, I

love the athletic and I think you guys do a tremendous job.

And I was reading the 10 worst.

No, I do.

I do.

I read the athletic all the time.

And I was reading the 10 worst contracts article.

The guy you just brought up, Sam Bennett, made the list at number eight over Cody Cece.

I understand that that's simply what the model is putting out there.

And it's not you saying it.

And I think you do a great job job in the article of clarifying look we all know that this isn't really what sam bennett's value is that he's more of a valuable player in the playoffs so i guess my question is kind of hockey has always seemed to me like a very difficult sport to quantify so and you do a lot of quantifying of hockey so Where do you, in your analysis, kind of let

the quantification end and start doing things with your eyes?

Yes.

And how do you make up the difference between what your eyes say and what the numbers say?

I think I just try to always bridge the gap as much as possible between analytics and the eye test and improve my model in that way.

Two years ago, I think one of the biggest gaps was

that it would often rate third pair defensemen a little better than it should and it rated first pair defensemen a little worse than it should.

And the if you talk to any hockey person who's just watched the game, you're like, there's a reason this guy is is playing top pair minutes.

There's a reason this guy is not getting in the top four.

And I think the numbers sort of obfuscate the difference between playing the top lineup and playing the bottom.

So I worked fairly diligently to account for quality of competition, better, quality of teammates, and

get to a point where it's not overrating players that play soft minutes and giving credit where credit's due to players like Forsling, players like Slavin, who play these extremely difficult minutes.

And there'll still be lapses in judgment.

And a lot of time it's just trusting your gut and trusting what you see as well.

But

understanding that where there is a gap is always where things are interesting.

And when you talk about Bennett, what he does is quantifiable in the playoffs.

And so the gap is not between the eye test and the analytics.

It's because it's between what's quantifiable in the playoffs and what's quantifiable in the regular season, where in the regular season, it does seem like he saves a bit of energy because if he played the way he did in the playoffs all year, he would not make it to the playoffs.

I think that is something where you just have to use a bit of common sense and also use the numbers to see, is this just something that's random?

For a lot of players, it is.

They might be like a one playoff wonder.

Villy Lino comes to mind from a decade ago.

Bennett seems to do this every year to the point where you watch him, you see him do it every year, and you think, I think this is probably real to the point that the next thing I do want to look at this model is

how much of the small sample size playoff data should I be incorporating?

Because right now it is none.

And generally, for like 90% of the population, that'll probably work.

For players like Bennett, for players on the team I cheer for in Toronto, it also does not work.

So there's that gap I think I still need to bridge.

Where

if you don't mind me,

sorry, I don't want to interrupt you, but if you don't mind me asking, do you not incorporate playoffs?

Because

some guys play in the playoffs and some guys don't.

And some guys play a number, you know, go deep in the playoffs, and some guys play one round in the playoffs.

So it would throw off the data.

Like, what's the reasoning there?

There, it's a, it's a bit of that.

It's a bit of the fact that it's a small sample where if a player plays really poorly for four games in the regular season, it means nothing.

If he plays really poorly in the playoffs, it means everything.

And sort of that can throw off the data, but it's also us taking steps to improve things

in the right order.

So if I was not

quantifying quality competition very well before, I would not be able to look at playoff data appropriately because there's a big difference between

the Oilers playing a Soft Kings team every year and Florida and Tampa battling it out.

Huge difference in quality competition.

Where you'd want to account for

how difficult it was, where

you might be able to make a bit more excuses for Nikita Kuchrov playing not as well, because he is constantly going up against Barkov and Forsling every shift compared to the regular season, where he's getting a nice mix of not just Florida, but also Buffalo.

And this year, Boston was pretty terrible.

So it's something you just can't just do everything at once.

And I'm only one man.

So

this is the next step where now that I have a better understanding of quality competition, I can apply it to playoffs and see how

predictive it is adding.

Because I have looked at it before when I didn't have proper quality competition data.

And it said, just use regular season data.

The playoff data is noisy.

But now that this is accounted for, I think.

the answer will be different.

We're seeing that transpire with a player like Bennett.

Tom, I wanted to ask you about some teams that I think made some big improvements this offseason.

I know you kind of covered on it a lot last month after free agency and everything kind of shook out, but two teams out west who nobody really thinks much of at this point.

Talking about San Jose, who was bottom of the league last year.

I think they finished like 40 points out of a playoff spot.

And Anaheim, who they were okay.

You know, they were still like 20 points out of a playoff spot, 10, 20 points, whatever it is.

But I think both of them did a lot to improve this offseason, whether talking about San Jose bringing in like Skinner and Godette and Orlov, the Ducks, Kryder, Granlin.

You know, they got, you know, our buddy Chicken Wing out of New York last year too.

So they've got some decent guys there as well.

But just in terms of off-season improvements, San Jose and Anaheim for sure, but who do you think are going to make the biggest jump this year from last year?

It is.

Always a tough question because a lot of times when you see these big jumps, they're sort of unexpected.

Like last year,

Montreal, I think a lot of people expect them to be at the bottom.

And they just had a lot of tangible growth right off the bat.

And throughout the season, they got better and better.

And I think they can be a team that staves off regression because they added Dobson, because they added Bolditch.

And Columbus, as well as another great example from last year, where no one really saw it coming.

But the one thing with Columbus that I think applies to a team like Anaheim is they got a new coach who knew what he was doing and Dina Vason.

They got a lot more out of players already on the roster.

And I think that is something we can see with Anaheim where even just beyond the numbers, beyond who they added, beyond the fact that there are a lot of young players who are expected to grow this season, they have a new coach in Joel Quinville who is one of the best coaches in the world.

And I think he can get a lot more out of this roster than

I forgot who their previous coach was.

I'm not going to lie.

i i don't i don't like what he what he did with it like every year like oh anaheim's gonna do something and they never did anything and i will blame the coach i whose name i forgot and i i do think they'll be better for that reason where i look at what my model has for this year and i look at what the betting market has and it seems like the betting market believes that where I might think the roster is 74 point capable the betting market thinks it's 80 or 85 that's the coach bump that they believe Quenville Quenville can have.

And I think it's hard to argue against that, where I would expect Anaheim is definitely the team to make the biggest jump.

Utah is another popular one as well.

Although as much as I like some of the ads they made, I think there's

some question marks on their depth compared to what they had last year.

I also wanted to ask you about a team that I think is going to be better this season, not that they needed to be that much better, but Carolina, a big move that they they made this offseason was getting Nick Ehlersch from Winnipeg.

I just think it's a great fit.

I think you wrote something about also just how it just seems like he's going to be a good guy there, just, you know, a good two-way player with high-end offensive capabilities.

Obviously, they lost something in the Ranton trade when they sent Nietzsche out west.

But I feel like this isn't getting discussed a lot in just terms of I think Carolina, even though they went to the conference final last year and, you know, second in the division, all that, I think that they're going to take a step forward this year i think this is a big signing for them and i just wanted to get your take on it yeah carolina is interesting because they're always near the top of the league but they're also extremely young which i think people underrate right now they are not better than florida obviously they keep losing to them in the conference finals in

incredible fashion, but they are younger than Florida.

And so there will probably be at some point an inflection where Carolina might surpass Florida because of how much youth they have, how they are doing contract efficiency stuff at the same scale where they have all these great long-term contracts and deals.

And Elers, I think, gives them pretty much exactly what Netches was, which is a chaotic, dynamic player with the puck who can bring it up the ice and not depend so much on 4check and dummy chase.

Give them a different look up front.

And you combine that with the fact that they ended up with Stankoven as well.

I think they're a lot deeper now.

They have a lot more four weapons.

They have, I think, a big three up front, which is really important.

If you look at all the contenders, they have three incredible forwards.

And I think Ehlers slides in with Aho and Jarvis in that way.

Sveshikov, too, if he bounces back.

The one question mark I have with them is if their 2C is Yes Berry Kot Kunyami, I am a bit worried about just how high they can climb, but they are very clearly the class of the Metro this year.

Daily Faceoff has Seth Jarvis listed as their 2C.

Just Berry Kot Kuniyami as a 4C, which we kind of, I think we've all come to the conclusion that's kind of more of his spot.

But, I mean, Carolina, they still looked so far away.

Like, the Panthers demolished them again in this series.

And it's not like the Panthers got any worse.

So I just, you know, is the model really high on Carolina again?

Because it's a team that, you know, numbers always kind of love.

So if you only use XG or Coursey, you're going to love Carolina a bit too much.

I do look at goals.

as well.

And I have Carolina, I think, an appropriate spot, which is seventh.

But

they have a softer division, so they might jump up ahead of some of the Atlantic teams just by virtue of the Atlantic being, I think, the deepest division in the league.

Same with the Central is pretty tough as well.

I like Carolina a lot.

I think they have a lot of room to grow.

I don't know how fair it is that they're extremely far away when you compare them to Florida because based on the playoffs we saw, everyone is far away.

It seemed like Toronto at some points was close and then they got demolished.

Tampa Bay at some points was close, then they got demolished.

Carolina at some points were close.

Sorry, they got demolished and then at some points made it close.

And then same with Edmonton, where at some points they were close.

And then Florida just, I, I've never seen a more demoralizing playoff team where you think you have them and then suddenly they score three goals and you're like, we do not have them.

It is, it was wild to watch.

That line just, oh,

I love hearing that.

A surprising thing that I saw in the article was the philadelphia flies and just how much money they have towards the salary cap what happened

i don't

i i i was absolutely stunned going through uh cap wages and puckpedia seeing them at the top of the salary cap list and then looking at their roster and wondering where

oh where did all this money go apparently a lot of it is spent on the league war schooltending for some reason

Dan Vladar.

Yeah,

you got like 3 million for Vladar, 3 million for Fedatov, 3 million for Erson.

None of them are good.

Makes perfect sense to me.

I do like the Trevor Ziegris bet for them because they do need to take those high upside risks.

But at the same time, Ziegris was...

not great in Anaheim.

I think has stumbled a lot in his development.

So he's obviously someone that's pricey who could get to his cat pit in terms of value.

It's just not something you can reasonably bet on now.

I think the big thing is, obviously, Sean Gutturier, when he signed his deal, was absolutely worth it, won the best two-way centers league, got injured, just isn't that guy anymore, unfortunately.

And finally, yeah, you have to explain this to me.

You've been pouring over the rosters for a long time now.

Why exactly hasn't Bill Zito won the Jim Gregory Award?

Great question.

And will he win based on your model for this upcoming season?

Will he win next season?

I don't know how he does it.

He hasn't won one yet.

This

last year seems the most egregious because he added Marshand and Seth Jones.

And meanwhile, did Jim Nil win again?

He had a course

who else would have won.

Yep.

It's just,

I

unfathomable that he hasn't won because he is the gold standard.

And

I wonder if this is the year just because he was able to

bring everyone back, basically.

It's just Nate Schmidt gone, I think.

Even if he doesn't do anything at the deadline, even if he doesn't have to maneuver in any way,

just bring this team back.

And if they go to the conference finals again, I don't know how you don't give it to him.

Yeah, the year he does the least will be the year he finally.

Right, exactly.

Yeah.

He lost out to Jim Neil, who brought in Alex Petrovic and Cody Cece.

And well, and Miko Randon.

Have you seen their like their their defensive?

I mean, yeah, the Randon move, obviously, big, but I still don't think it's up to par with what Zito has done.

He took from when he got here five years ago, when he took this franchise to where they are now, it's like mind-blowing.

And he's, I mean, he's gotten credit in terms of the Stanley Cup.

He's won it twice now, but credit from the outside, like, what are we doing, people?

All right, I'm done.

It almost feels like if he wins this year, it'll be like

Leonardo DiCaprio winning for the revenant, like kind of like a career lifetime achievement award there's better things right but he gets his trophy yeah we we all

bill Zito stands around you know Dom Luchisen thank you for joining us thanks for having me guys all right that was great with Dom man I and yes Bill Zito sure won the damn trophy damn come on let's what we're doing here can we just make like I just want to clip off Dom saying the Panthers are the most demoralizing playoff team I think I've ever seen or whatever exactly he said and just like play that on a loop forever Every time I get mad at the aesthetic for doubting the Panthers and regression candidate, Samson Reinhardt, and all that stuff, they say.

The five hockey teams that they have played the most in the playoffs, the Lightning, the Maple Leafs, the Bruins, the Hurricanes, and the Oilers.

Oh, boy.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

I mean, just thinking back on it, don't you, like, you see the Cup days, you know, recently, Roy, and you think back on it, and it's just, it's unbelievable what they've done the last couple years.

Yeah, the Cup is having a great time in Europe right now, man.

That's not done.

And they don't seem to be done.

Just getting started.

We're probably just going to do it again next year, right?

Like, I mean,

certainly be more annoyed with us talking about the Panthers because apparently you guys don't think we talk about the rest of the league enough, even though we just did it.

No, the rest of the league needs to start winning some Stanley Cups, dude.

I'm sorry.

I love talking about the rest of the show.

If we would have been doing the hockey show five years ago, we would have been talking about Tampa.

We would have been talking about Colorado.

But we're doing the hockey show now.

We talked about the best.

It is what it is.

I say next week, just to piss everybody off, we should just do a segment on like the San Jose, like the no, not the Islanders.

Let's do a segment on the

Penguins.

Who's the most like boring team we could possibly talk about?

That just like is,

yeah.

Let's do a segment on the Seattle Kraken just for no reason next week.

Just okay, we talked to you all about hockey.

Somebody else besides the Panthers.

Rosie, any closing thoughts?

Yes, let me close this with an amazing video, boys.

Hit.

Oh, Jesus.

Sharky, the San Jose Sharks mascot, got kicked in the face

by a soccer ball.

And it does look like Celebrating.

No, that's Celebrini.

I think that might be Will Smith.

Will Smith and Mackie Celebrity.

He even said it's

murder.

So we're very close.

It's murder.

We're very close to it.

50 of the men.

Murder.

I think we're seven weeks away this coming Tuesday from opening night.

Mackelin Celebrating.

I said Mackie because Sam Escavidge had the cup recently.

He took it to New Town.

That was beautiful.

He brought it to the Sandy Hook News.

Yeah.

Memorial.

That was great.

That was a good idea.

That's how Panthers-centric we are on this show is that none of us taught that.

Yeah.

None of us taught that.

Yeah.

Mackey celebrating.

I didn't want to.

I mean, I knew it was wrong.

Like, hey, wait a minute.

It's not Mackie.

It's Macklin.

Oh, shit.

Let me correct myself because I miss Panthers hockey.

I miss hockey.

Seven weeks, Roy.

I'll be there.

I bought my tickets last week.

Yeah.

I'll be in the press box with Dave.

Careful.

Yeah.

All right.

So that's the show.

We thank you for joining us.

Rosie, thank you for doing whatever it is that you do.

I don't know.

I know why you're in here because Dave's not here.

Dave, come back to me.

Probably a bad idea to let me in here.

Okay, just because we have to close and we don't have time, but whatever it is what I do, you should know by now what I do.

I know.

I was being facetious there, Rose.

Bye, everybody.

All right, for our Gino and whoever else is in the video studio, I'll go.

Jason.

Jason's over there.

He's directing the things that we are doing.

Ethan, don't come in here anymore.

David, come back.

Never come.

Rose, thank you.

My name is Roy Bellamy.

Thank you for watching and listening to the hockey show.

We will see you next week.

And we'll talk to you as well because we're also on the audio podcast, aren't we?

Smooth, Roy.

Very smooth.

Very smooth, Roy.

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