Archive.fm

Locked On Blackhawks - Daily Podcast On The Chicago Blackhawks

Utah Hockey Club's Inaugural Season w/ Robyn Leano From Locked On Utah Hockey

Friday's episode is a special crossover with Locked On Utah Hockey Club co-host Robyn Leano! LOB host Jack Bushman and Robyn dive into the vibes surrounding the Utah Hockey Club heading into their first season, the impact of adding Mikhail Sergachev on the blue line, expectations for Connor Bedard, Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther this season, and thoughts on the Central Division.

Broadcast on:
13 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
other

Friday's episode is a special crossover with Locked On Utah Hockey Club co-host Robyn Leano! LOB host Jack Bushman and Robyn dive into the vibes surrounding the Utah Hockey Club heading into their first season, the impact of adding Mikhail Sergachev on the blue line, expectations for Connor Bedard, Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther this season, and thoughts on the Central Division. All that and more on Locked On Blackhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your Team. Every Day.

 

SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/@LockedOnBlackhawks

PODCAST: https://linktr.ee/JackBushman

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/LO_Blackhawks

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/lockedonblackhawks/?hl=en

 

Now through September 22nd, ALL FanDuel customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get a THREE WEEK free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. 

 

Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.

 


For parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit at eBayMotors.com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.

 

Still searching for a great candidate for your company? Don’t search, just match–with Indeed. Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed.com/LOCKEDON. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. 

 

FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COM and add a big win to your summer bucket list!

 

FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

(upbeat music) - It's the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. (upbeat music) - You're Locked On Black Hawks, your daily podcast on the Chicago Black Hawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Locked On Black Hawks and Locked On Utah Hockey Club. As always, I'm Jack Bushman, joined by Robin Leonyo for a fun little crossover episode ahead of these two teams, getting into training camp and also both of these two teams facing off on the opening night of the regular season. We'll be recapping what's gone down for both of these clubs in the off season, the buzz around the Utah Hockey Club and their inaugural season. Then we'll wrap things up, talking about the central division a little bit for segment three. But before we get into that, just a quick reminder that today's episode is sponsored by GameTime. Be sure to go and download the GameTime app right now and when you do use the promo code LockDownNHL in all caps to get $20 off to the sporting events, concerts or theater events near you. Robin, it has been a while since we have last chatted. It has been an eventful off season for both of these two clubs before we kind of dive into that. How are you doing here on this Thursday afternoon? - Oh, not too bad. You know, now we're not hitting September, getting ready for hockey season to come close. In fact, for Utah hockey fans, hockey season is here already. The rookie showcase coming up this weekend. So they're excited for hockey to come back. - Same here in Chicago, the Tom Kervers prospect showcase in St. Louis, a first little taste of Black Hawk's unofficial hockey going down tomorrow and then training camps, opening up the following week. Pre-season hockey, less than a couple of weeks away as well. Next thing you know what, we're gonna be full swing into the regular season in the middle of the fall. Very excited for things to get underway. But Robin, first things first, when talking about this Utah hockey club, obviously it's a big change for you and for the organization. There have been lots of rumors around the future home of this team for years and years and years and you have been covering it for this organization and been there through it all. So I'm just kind of curious as to the emotions when the decision became final for this team to move out of the state of Arizona. Your initial reaction to that and also just kind of your feelings around this team now that it is in a different state, what's kind of been the feelings around just that entire process really, 'cause I'm sure it's been a lot. - You know, I think it's really real, Jack, when people talk about the stages of grief and everything like that. Like the same applies for losing a hockey team, right? You go through those stages. I'll tell you right now, I went through those stages a little bit quicker than a lot of still remaining coyote fans out there. And all of them just will not just still cannot accept it. I know that for a fact. And I don't blame them. They still feel like their heart was ripped out. They were coyote fans for years. I was a coyote reporter for about eight years. So like not as much as a lot of these fans were, but I still had the emotional connection. I still felt that when the news came out that the Arizona coyotes were moving to Salt Lake City to become what we now know. And as the Utah Hockey Club for this first year at least, probably gonna be Yeti after this. But the, I think initial was shock and then sadness for me, honestly, even, because I was like, I'm losing the team that got me my start in my career. But now here I am, like, you know what? This is an opportunity. I have an opportunity to finally get back to just not even worrying about arena's drama or ownership drama anymore. I get the focus on the hockey. And I think that's one of the most important things is to be able to talk about the hockey, it's such a breath of fresh air that I, honestly, I couldn't be more excited. - Well, I'm glad to hear that you have that perspective because I'm sure there are those difficult times where you're missing like that baby of years, like that you've known for so long. But as you said, this is kind of a cool, different opportunity than what you've gone through these last few years where there were all these kind of, all these behind the scenes dramas, whatever they were, there were so many different of them. Now it feels like this is this fresh start and this new ignite into a better direction that I think is appealing. And you can just get to the actual on ice stuff and believe me, I know about off ice, unfun activities that you have to talk about and how it can kind of take away from the fun of the game almost, Robin. So it feels like you're at least going into this year with a very positive atmosphere in that. It's just gonna be cool. The focus is just about what's going down on the ice with this Utah hockey club. Oh yeah, so many times I have made the joke while I was doing the Coyote Show because you could see my gray hair is coming in on my, like it was because it gave me so much stress. And don't make it wrong, I love doing it. I love covering the coyotes. Like I said, the team that got me my start, I live, I still live here in Arizona and I still have a huge connection to the team. Heck, if it weren't for them, I probably wouldn't be playing hockey. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see my jerseys that I have that I just got from a tournament. It's, again, if it weren't for the coyote, I wouldn't have made it to fall in love with actually being on the ice on top of my career. So I had a huge connection on that case, but as I said, at the end of the day, the business and just being able to talk about hockey though is like I said, it's nice. And especially how good of a team this is supposed to be. It's not gonna be a phenomenal team. It's not gonna be the back-to-back lightning. It's not gonna be the Chicago Blackhawks of the early 2010s. It's not gonna be that. We're looking at a team that's on the rise and has so much rising star potential that you wanna tune in to watch this team play. - And we'll get there in just a second, Robin. But first, I do gotta ask about the Utah name because I personally love the Utah Yeti. I feel like most people have kind of agreed upon that they hope that will be the name of the future. Or do we have any official update or anything on that sort of news front whatsoever? - There is no official news in what the name is gonna be yet. To me, I feel like what's happening is they are waiting until the fans are able to put in orders for jerseys for the Utah Hockey Club first. Again, this just shows you the business side of things so they can get those jerseys. And then it's like, oh, by the way, our team name is gonna be the Utah Yeti. But it seems for all other cases, you talk to Clayton Keller, you talk to Bill Armstrong. Bill Armstrong, he even leaked it during the draft. And Clayton Keller mentioned it just a couple of days ago. He's just like, yeah, it just feels like it's gonna be the Yeti, isn't it? Everyone says that. And if that's the case, they just got, honestly, why not just say it now? - Yeah, it almost feels like it. It sounds like it's one of those open secrets. That's like, you know, it's not officially written down yet, but everyone's kind of expecting things to go in that direction. But Robin, it sounds like you have a lot of excitement about this Utah Hockey Club in their first season in Salt Lake City. Kind of give me a little bit of an explanation as to why you feel this way about this team. - Yeah, you know, if I feel like for the first time, you're gonna, first of all, you're gonna see a nether full season under that, under like, you know, some of the top six players like Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz and Lawson Kraus. But you're now able to factor in doing Gunther again for another second, for another year. Slogan Cooley in a sophomore year. Josh Jones gonna come in as a top nine player. A lot of these players are moving on their way. Matthias Mitchell only had a phenomenal rookie year before he got injured. And then his sophomore year even, actually even surprised expectations then too. They're only getting better year by year. The only question mark really, I'll be honest with you, Jack right now is their goal tending. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just who's gonna be, who's gonna rise to be the de facto starter. They don't really have a true elite starting goaltender, but maybe in the competition, one comes up this year because of how good the rest of the team's gonna be. - And one of the main things that I noticed, Robin, when kind of taking a look at Puckpedia now as Cat Friendly is unfortunately no longer in use, poor one out because that was literally my favorite website about time for like a decade. And that's like how I feel about Cat Friendly leaving is probably not the same as how you feel about this organization leaving Utah. But that was all like a heartbreaker for me, seeing Cat Friendly go. But when diving into Puckpedia, one thing that looks really solid is this top four defensive unit for this Utah hockey club after getting Mikael Surgachov here in the off season. Can you talk a little bit about how big of addition that is on the blue line and how big of a piece he is along with Sean Dursey there in that top four? - Yeah, Mikael Surgachov certainly was like, certainly the big piece that everyone's talked about that Utah picked up, especially it was dropped in the middle of the draft, just like in that day. He was like, oh, here's a trade. Surgachov going to Utah, he really is going to be the number one defenseman. I feel like that's kind of a no-brainer, especially looking at what he's capable of. He's coming off an injury, so that's going to have a huge question mark on exactly how much of an impact he's going to make. But in my opinion, given what happened to the original coyotes in the last couple of years in their blue line, it's kind of struggling a little bit. It makes sense to say, all right, yeah, definitely. Surgachov is going to be the number one guy. But you add Dursey to kind of go into that the rest of the top four. Honestly, I don't think he's going to be the top line. He's not going to be the same pairing as Surgachov, despite what NHL.com and so many other people think is going to happen. I just don't think that's possible. You put them as a decent one side on a first pair, second pair. That just shows you where the debt's going to look like. And for the case with that, Surgachov trade, yeah, sure, you're losing a pretty solid defenseman in JJ Mosher and also a rookie, and a rookie, or probably a prospect in Kono Giki, prospect forward in Kono Giki. But again, you're getting a guy like Surgachov-Buez, like despite the injury, has a potential to be in all-star defenseman. - In trading away Giki in that deal, you do still have Dylan Gunther and Logan Cooley. The last question I have for you, Robin, before we turn things over in segment two is what are kind of the expectations for both of those players going into the season? - I feel like they're the expectations. I don't know. I think it's, I'm looking at where they're going at right now. They've only been getting better, right? You take a look at, for example, Logan Cooley's first year, right? He looked phenomenal. I was that first. I was like, at first he was a little bit slow. I was like, damn, I'm not sure if he's gonna get to that, get that colder caliber, but he's been getting better. He's been showing, he's been getting more comfortable with this line, and he understands his role at the NHL level. And Dylan Gunther, I've talked about this on the locked on Utah Hockey Club show, a lot of my every dayers already know this, is he has become, as what scouting reports have said him to be as a true goal scorer. That is his job. He goes out, finds the right lanes, it just gets a beautiful shot on. I have never seen a guy that, you know, that just has the IQ to get where he needs to be and get the shot on as a true goal scorer like him at his age. - Well, I'm really excited to see both of those guys go up with Connor Bedard multiple times throughout the course of the season, especially on opening night. The first game in the history of the Utah Hockey Club. Coming up in just a moment, I'm gonna turn it over to Robin for some black Hawks related questions. Make sure to stay tuned. (silence) But first, I gotta talk to you all real quick about game time. You shouldn't have to worry when you're buying tickets to the next ballgame or big event that you wanna attend. And I'm here happy to announce that game time is an official authorized ticket marketplace for Major League Baseball, which makes getting tickets both faster and easier. Plus, prices actually go down the closer that the game gets to the first pitch and with killer last minute deals all in prices and their lowest price guarantee, game time takes the guesswork out of buying MLB tickets. And for those who are tuning into this episode from Lockdown, Black Hawks, you'll know my spiel. I actually have been using game time for probably close to a decade now when I was going down to the United Center in high school watching the Black Hawks in their heyday. I always use game time and I still use it to this day going down to the UC or when I wanna go check out Wrigley Field or even go and see a comedy event with one of my friends. I highly recommend you all go and download the game time app because it's the fastest, cheapest and easiest way for you to purchase all of your tickets. And again, go and use the promo code Lockdown NHL when you download the app and create an account. And that way you'll get $20 off with your first purchase. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed game time. - You know, we love talking stats here at Lockdown Wild. Here's one that's super simple to remember. Discover automatically doubles the cashback you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cashback match. That means with Discover you could turn $150 cashback into $300. That's right. You could put it towards some memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network. You earn and discover doubles. See terms at discover.com/creditcard. - All right, back here on the Lockdown Black Hawks and Lockdown Utah Hockey Club podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thank you all for making these two shows. You're very first listen. And just a reminder to make the Lockdown NHL podcast your second listen of the day where the action never ends with local perspective from all of our great Lockdown NHL hosts. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Robin, for segment two, gonna turn it over to you. If you got any Black Hawks related questions, the floor is yours. - Yeah, yeah, I think the first and foremost, I feel like the big question to just talk about what's Connor Badard looking like? We already know about his first year. We already know how great of a rookie year he had. And now he's going into a second year. What's the expectation for him going into year two? And again, yeah, we'll just start with that. And I'll have to follow up from there. - Okay, sounds good. Yeah, for Badard, you know, obviously a lot of people are gonna be expecting him to take a massive leap after a pretty solid first year in which he netted the call their trophy, which I think he rightfully did. I know Minnesota Wild fans and my very good friend, Seth Topal might think differently. That Brock Faber might have deserved it, but considering who was out there on the ice with Connor Badard last year, I know he didn't reach that point per game margin, like some of us expected him to. We didn't hit the 30 Gold Plateau, but he was injured and so were the Black Hawks over the majority of the year. And even one healthy, they really didn't have a whole lot of help to put up alongside Connor Badard, Phillip Kershev, who I give a lot of credit to for taking that opportunity, getting that top line job and running with it and having a career year. I mean, that was a guy who hadn't posted 20 points in a season until last year with Badard. And that was basically his right-hand man and Nick Felino, you know, who I absolutely love and is a great and respected veteran leader, Robin. But at this stage of his career, he can't be playing top line minutes along with Connor Badard. So for the numbers that he put up last year and also how he handled all the pressure, I think it was a really smashing year. And quite honestly, now it's just time for him to really pick up where he left off and take advantage of the new help that this Black Hawks front office has brought in, whether that comes in the form of a table, Terravine in who's returning or maybe it's Tyler Bertuzzi or maybe even Phillip Kershev sticks around, maybe Taylor Hall comes back off of injury and gets that job. We don't exactly know who it's going to be, but undoubtedly Robin, the Black Hawks top six, the top nine, their power play is gonna be much more talented than it's been particularly then last year in Badard's first year. And it's just he's got to take advantage of that. And I think the biggest kind of growth that we saw from Badard last year was in particular in his first hockey IQ. And that really translated, I think, over to the playmaking abilities. He was a little bit of a one trick pony early on last year in terms of his goal scoring was really the thing that translated over immediately. But as the year went on, and again, he didn't have a lot of help around him, but he really developed those playmaking abilities, started to take over on the power play, started to recognize how defenders were going to kind of attack him and define those open teammates. So now it's just kind of putting it all together with having a little bit of more talent around him. I don't necessarily wanna go and put any numbers on Counter-Badard, but I think we'll all know what we're kind of wanting to see from him. It's just taking that next step. Another big thing I think is remaining healthy, right? Missed some time last year due to a fractured jaw. And quite honestly, there was a little bit of controversy over that hit. I had no problem with that hit. That's just one of those situations where Counter-Badard's got to keep his head up. He's a smaller guy and people are gonna be haunting him. So just continuing to learn cliche, but getting better day in and day out. But I think the biggest thing is just to continue to really take control of this team now that he has some better pieces alongside him. - One of the other things that I always thought about to me is how each team focuses, looks on the specific way they address the rebuild and exactly how they're going to do that. From your perspective, what's it look like that Chicago is focusing on going through their rebuild? - Yeah, so first, when Kyle Davidson stepped in as the general manager a couple of years ago, he pretty much tore it down and really accumulated as many assets as he could. And now we're kind of starting to see the positive effect of that. The Black Hawks have, by most accounts, a top three, if not the best prospect pool in the entire NHL. That's when you put Counter-Badard and Kevin Korsinski in there who are probably not considered prospects. But under 22 Black Hawks and Jose Anaheim, I think those are kind of the big three that a lot of people talk about. And now we're starting to see some of those guys step onto the scene. At this point in time, what it feels like though, Robin, is first off, they recognize that they've really been testing the fan base these last couple of years. And it's kind of time to take that next step. I don't think they're wanting to rush anything or I don't think they're getting in over their heads and expecting to make the playoffs, but they know they need to get better. They need to start winning games. And just based on all the moves that they made this off season, bringing in some of the veterans that I mentioned earlier, Tera Vainen, Bertuzzi, of course, got free agent deals, Alec Martinez and TJ Brody on the back end. Even Laurent Persuade has served as the backup goaltender, like that's really rounding out this team now. And I think the next thing for the rebuild is to really go from this quantity perspective that Kyle Davidson entered the rebuild with into quality. That's really where the Blackhawks are at. They have a deep prospect pool and they have a couple of key guys at the forward position at the defensive spot. But it's just about rounding out those prospect pools with a couple more high end guys. And I don't know if they're gonna be able to do that in the draft these next couple of years because I knock on wood, hope they're gonna be getting better. But it feels like those might be some holes, those high end players. Those might be some free agent additions or trade additions and using some of the assets, the draft picks or some of the middle tier prospects to kind of use in trade capital and kind of fill this team and put all the puzzle pieces together. That's really what's kind of missing right now, Rob. And outside of Connor Badard, Frank Nazar is a high end prospect upfront, but they still don't have a ton of like super skilled forwards for the future. And that's why I kind of wanted them to take Ivan Demi-Dov second overall, that's a conversation for another day. But that's really where we're looking at for the Blackhawks rebuild at this point in time. They just need a couple more quality players on the high end, I think to take this team from being middling into playoff contenders once again, like they wanna be. - Since you somewhat kind of brought it up, the draft pick that Chicago did take in an art of left-shunov, is there an expectation he's gonna, how is it, what's he gonna look like next year? I don't know if maybe he's gonna be on the roster or not, but how is it gonna look? - Yeah, so he did forego his sophomore season at Michigan State to make the leap to pro hockey. The expectation is probably for him to be in Rockford for the majority, if not all of the season down in the AHL. He was actually Robin supposed to play in the prospect showcase that the Blackhawks are in over the weekend in St. Louis, but is out with a right foot injury and is expected to miss a couple of weeks. It was a long shot for him to make the Blackhawks. I mean, like a real long shot. He would have had to been a standout standout in training camp for him to have made the NHL roster. The Blackhawks have a lot of bodies on the blue line. I had of him, but now because of the injury, it's even more likely that he's gonna be going down to Rockford. But I think that's a good place for him. The Blackhawks have developed a couple of defense been nicely down there these last couple of years. Alex Vlassik had a phenomenal rookie year last year. It was kind of, wasn't my favorite draft pick in particular, Robin, because like I mentioned earlier, I wanted them to go with Ivan Dimidov. But if it wasn't gonna be him, I did believe that it was going to be Lebshinov. I felt like he deserved to be the first defenseman off the board. I think he has a really high future. And I think he really is just scratching the surface in terms of like getting acclimated. He's only been over in North America for like a year and a half and really had a whirlwind leading into his freshman year, which was a very standout season. But it's gonna be interesting to watch his development over these next couple of years, along with Ivan Dimidov's in Montreal and kind of comparing where these two prospects are at, which I'm sure people are gonna be doing for you know, five, 10, 15 years down the road. - People always love to analyze those draft picks, don't they? - Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. It might be the favorite of an NHL armchair GM's. We're like, why didn't you take that guy? I mean, we're still getting crap about Kirby Doc in 2019, but it's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. - It happens, hey, a lot of people talk about the coyotes in years back in Stromer, Marner. So it's-- - I recall, I recall, things happen. We've been on the wrong end of them, both of us, and I'm sure it'll happen unfortunately. It happens to the best of them in this game and in every league, Robin. But segment three, we're coming up on that in just a moment here. Make sure to stay tuned as Robin and I are going to be breaking down what things could be looking like in the central division for this upcoming season. But first real quick, I gotta talk to you all about Indeed. We're all driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search, but match with Indeed. And if you need to hire, then you need Indeed, because Indeed is the best matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors according to Indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates in an instant. And Indeed doesn't just help you hire faster. 93% of employers agree that Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites according to a recent Indeed survey. And one of the things that I personally love about Indeed is that it makes hiring all in one place so simple and so easy because you can skip out on the countless job sites that ask you unnecessary info and don't wind up leading you anywhere. Instead, go and join the more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent in an instant. And listeners of this show, you will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility. If you go and check out indeed.com/lockdown. Again, a $75 sponsor job credit that'll get your job posts more visibility if you go and check out indeed.com/lockdown right now. Do you need to hire than you need Indeed. - You know, we love talking stats here at lockdown wild. Here's one that's super simple to remember. Discover automatically doubles the cashback you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cashback match. That means with Discover you could turn $150 cashback into $300. That's right. You could put it towards some memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network. You earn and discover doubles. See terms at discover.com/creditcard. - All right, segment three. Before we wrap things up, a little central division, Shatter, Robin, I think it is going to be a rather interesting year for the central division. As I told you off air before we recorded, I've had a couple of crossovers with other central division hosts and I think most of us still feel that Colorado is the head honcho even though there's a lot of question marks about Gabriel Landiscog as there's been ever since they won the Stanley Cup. But other than that, it kind of feels like things are really up for grabs and there could be potentially a passing of the torch changing of the guard like situation happening in the central division. Maybe not necessarily this year, but coming soon. I'm kind of curious, how do you see your outlook of the central division right now? First, just starting at the top, which teams do you expect to see there at the top of this division this year in the central along with, I'm guessing, Colorado? - Yeah, if you look at the top three to me, I feel like the top three, I feel like I'm pretty confident in knowing who they're going to be. They're next going to be pretty close behind, but yeah, you're right. Colorado is certainly going to be up there. I still feel like they're going to be number one. I feel like it's going to be quite a bit until they actually start falling, but they were still up there. They were still up there. They still got some really high end time. - The interesting question is though, who you have at number two? - So that's the interesting thing. I, here's the thing. I feel like two, my two and three, I feel like I can swap depending on my mood, right? But as of right now, it is a Dallas Nashville two and three. I feel like Dallas is still a really good team. And hey, look, we're talking about a team that has multiple times made it deep into the Stanley Cup playoffs, you know, to the Western Conference Finals to maybe just right before they're like, they look really, really good. And Nashville is dressed in the win now mode. They are beefing up. You look at all the all the pick ups that they made of the offseason. You're like, yeah, this team wants to win. - Yeah, they finally, finally made the push after being in limbo for like, I mean, seemingly ever, finally put all their chips in the go for it basket, which I'll give a tip of the hat to Barry Trost for finally picking a direction. But I have the same thoughts about the top three. I will say though, I am admittedly, maybe this is foolish. I am more confident in Nashville than I am Dallas. Based on the offseason moves that Dallas made, I personally wouldn't be surprised if they took a little bit of a step back to where they've been these last couple of years. Now, with that said, it is still a veteran group. There's a lot of guys who have been there and done that. And I absolutely love Jake Onger. It's been a big reason why I've been high on the Dallas Stars these last couple of years. Not this past season, but the prior two, I had them winning the Stanley Cup in each of those seasons because I loved what they have on their blue line, plus the goal-tending combo. But I didn't really love the offseason that they had. And I think Nashville, I mean, probably not a hot take here. I think Nashville probably had the best offseason of anyone or at least the most active. They made big-time moves. So I have Nashville in that number two spot as of right now, but I do still have the Dallas Stars in that top three. But outside of that, to me, it's a whole lot of question marks. I mean, St. Louis, who knows? They have some talent, but they haven't been able to piece it together these last few years. - They're weird. They're a weird team. - They love spending money. That just doesn't make sense to spend money. And I mean, I respect them making those offer sheets quite honestly, like, but to go and pay Frick, why am I forgetting the defensement's name, who they just claimed off the offer sheet? Do you know what I'm talking about? It's going to drive me crazy from the Edmonton Oilers use a former, Broberg, they gave Phillip Broberg $4.1 million. And I'm like, this is a team that has learned nothing. Long-term money in tenure has ruined this team from ever having a chance of repeating what they did in 2019. And they continue to throw out dough. I don't know. I feel like they could be the next national predators in limbo for quite a while. Like, I feel like they're not bottom level. They have Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyru, but I don't see them competing for the top of the division either. No, I'm not sold on St. Louis either. I kind of have them probably floating at that five spot. So maybe they might squeak in the playoffs. But I don't have them floating around there. Just because they're just so many question marks about them. I just don't know exactly where that's going to be. And you're right, they're spending money where they don't have to. And it's like, do you really want to get into cap hell? That's going to make things even worse. So that's going to be like, okay, you can't make it to your max. And then you're going to just falter down and become the next San Jose Sharks and just go all the way down to the bottom. Right, right, right, right. So Robin, the last thing I'll kind of bring up and I'll turn it over to you for your thoughts on where you see Utah finishing in this division. I don't expect the Blackhawks to creep into playoff conversation this year, right? I think they're going to be a hard group to play against. I still think they lack that true upside. My goal though, the Blackhawks just can't finish last this year. That will be a failure if they finish last in this division once again this year. What are kind of your expectations for this Utah hockey club in their inaugural season shaping up with the rest of the central division teams? Yeah, so to me, I think based on the trajectory that Utah has been dating back to the past couple years for Arizona, if you look at Arizona's first half of last year, they were phenomenally at everything going right. They beat everyone they shouldn't have beat and we're in the playoff conversation. I feel like we're going to see a similar thing. Maybe they're not going to just come out full swing ahead. But I have no doubt that they'll probably, this Utah team will probably be in the playoff conversation for a lot longer than the last year's Arizona team. I don't think they'll make it. I think they'll just be on the outside looking in. But they're getting there. I've made this comment in my co-host Tom. He has talked about it many times too, is give this Utah team about two years and they're in the playoffs. And they're going to be a competitive team in the playoffs. Well, I think a lot in the playoffs. But right now, they're right outside. They're just barely right outside. I think in a couple of years down the road that we could be looking at more promising days and perhaps central division playoff battles between these two franchises. I know both of us have been dying for those days to come, hopefully sooner rather than later. But Robin just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to join me on this crossover here today. For those on the Black Hawk side of things who are tuning into this episode, whether it be through video or audio, please go ahead and let them know where they can check you and the show out throughout the course of the season. Yeah, absolutely. The show, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple, on YouTube. We're at three, if you're Amazon prime prescriber on Amazon Music. You can follow us on social media on X, on threads, Instagram, at l.o. underscore, n.a. shall Utah. We're also on TikTok, if you want to follow us there. It's at l.o. underscore. Utah hockey. I'm personally at Robin underscore leonio. It's Robin with the Y underscore L-E-A-N-O. And my co-host Tom Callahan, who's not on today, but you see him on any of my shows for every dayers. He is at Callahan on air. And for anyone from the Utah side of things who wants to check me out or lock down Black Hawks throughout the course of this year, you can find the show on X or any social media channel at l.o. capital l.o. underscore Black Hawks. Me personally, you can find me on X at Jack Bushman 2. Robin, been a lot of fun looking forward to chatting again, maybe even a crossover before the season opener on. I think it's October 12th, I believe. October 8th. October 8th, October 8th. Thank you very much. Could be in the future. We'll definitely be in touch about it. But looking forward to our next chat whenever it may be. And everyone who tuned in, thank you for catching in on another episode of Lockdown Black Hawks in Lockdown Utah hockey club, part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team, every day. (upbeat music) A Prime members, you can listen to this Lockdown podcast ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. [MUSIC PLAYING]