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Not available in every state, based on coverage selected, subject to terms, conditions and availability, savings vary. Welcome to the Tell It Abs It Is podcast. You're home for everything Colorado Avalanche on the hockey podcast network. Here's your hosts, Griffin Youngs and Christian Boulay. Hello everybody, welcome back to another edition of the Tell It Abs It Is podcast on the hockey podcast network. I'm Griffin Youngs joined by Christian Boulay. As always, it's getting to that point of the offseason where we're not quite there yet. But the news is slowly starting to dry up and it makes me a little more nervous each time because it's a little less obvious what we should be talking about every single time and actually have to, you know, try and write some things down and make like a show plan and lame shit like that. But we still still do have some things to talk about for now before the offseason just completely grinds to a halt because signings and trades have kind of stopped altogether around the league outside of a couple slipping through here. Now that we're more than a week after the opening of free agency, but for the abs, they get one more signing to come through. It's not a free agent, but it is the one that we've been waiting for for a little while now and that is Cal Richie, their first pick in last year's draft signing his entry level contract with the team for the standard three years. Now, does this actually change anything about Cal Richie? Not really, but coming off of his development camp performance where the sentiment really is that he was the most NHL ready guy there, this says to me at least that he's going to get a very fair shot to make the team. Yeah, it's a good sign. And I mean, I'm probably in the minority here where I was thinking like, I'm just glad he signed it and he didn't pull like a cutter go TA and was like, oh, I don't want to play for this team. I'm happy he signed. And like you said, he's going to get a fair shot in training camp to make this NHL roster. Now, will he stick for more than the nine games he's allowed to to be determined if I had to place a bet on it? I'm going to say no, because it's tough to burn that entry level contract for a kid that first year when, yeah, those first nine games, he may get a ton of like top six minutes. But then after that, is it really going to be the best for this 19 year old kid to be played 10 minutes a night with the fourth line? Right. And again, with a guy like Cal Richie, still 19 years old, the abs have really not had a prospect of this highly touted really sense like a car and buy them who kind of feel like different animals altogether because they were both fourth overall picks. So in terms of like late first round picks, it's been a minute since they found themselves a Cal Richie. And I agree with all your points that I think he's going to have training camp with the team. He's going to have every opportunity to impress. And if he does, they're going to give him the nine games that he's allowed to play without burning the first year of his entry level contract. And for them to go beyond that for this season, he's going to have to really impress and show that not only is he ready that he's irreplaceable, and that's going to be the key word when he actually is playing this year's. I personally think from everything I've seen that Cal Richie can play at the NHL level, but is that top six NHL level, or can he get by in a bottom six skill role at the NHL level at 19 years old? It's a really tough ask to go from playing against people closer to your age, 16, 17, 18, 19, and have been pretty much doing that for most of your life at that. Yeah, and dominating to now. Okay, now you're no longer not only one of the best players in the league, you are not even close to the best player on your own team, and now you're going up against 30 year old men. And they're also trying to kill you because you're small and vulnerable. And I think the best case scenario we can hope for for this season, and it might not work out this way, but I think the best thing I can hope for here is he impresses a training camp and earns himself a spot on the opening night roster. And they play him for the nine games, the nine games would conclude on, I believe, October 27 on the first half of the back to back when they play Ottawa, and they send him back to the OHL after that, let him absolutely dominate. You get his feet wet in the NHL, and then probably for next year, you start to really consider Ken Calrichi come in here for 82 games and make a big difference because it's not a bad thing to let a 19 year old really physically mature for another year start to rush him and also when you are where the abs are at, if you can push that entry level deal another year and get that what I believe is under $900,000 for three years out of someone like Calrichi who if he lives up to the expectations could be very, very valuable. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I will absolutely leave the door open to be wrong and he just blows the doors off this year. Yeah, and can you imagine going from playing in the NHL to back to the LHL like that is going to be just like, it's going to be like he's going back to preschool when he's 18 years old, he's just going to dominate. And like you said, I hope I'm proven wrong, like I hope he comes in, dominates these nine games and we have our own little Wyatt Johnson on our hands. But the thing about why Johnson is those don't happen very often, like why Johnson is one of the few players who was drafted in the 20s and he worked out really well he was a day one starter. It's very rare for that to happen. So, as much as I wanted to happen, I just don't think abs fans should get their their hopes of that's going to happen right away. I think what's more than likely to happen is exactly what you laid out he comes in plays the opening night plays as nine games goes back to Oshawa for the rest of the year comes back next year in training camp and that's when they'll take a real good look at him I'll be 20 by then he'll be not really a man but he'll be out of his teenage years. And that's when you can start to really look at burning those three years of that you'll see. It's just that's the realistic option. That's that's more than likely what's going to happen. Right and also when it comes to a prospect like Cal Richie who is again 19. The most important thing for someone like that is to keep playing hockey and. Yeah, there might be a spot for him on the abs roster for most of the season. For the start of the year you're not going to have Val and you're not going to have Landis Gogg by most accounts I would be very surprised they had Landis Gogg by the time Cal Richie's on the team. And so there might be more room for him to play then but as you get into okay vowels looking to return the lineup if that's of course what happens okay Landis Gogg looking to return the lineup at this time. Then you get to the trade deadline you're adding guys where. You just want him to be playing you want him to be playing as much hockey as he can and if he's playing top line minutes on the Oshawa generals and also playing for Canada in the world junior championships again this year. That stuff is going to be more helpful to his development than just immediately coming in here. And because I see a lot of sentiment out there and I'm not trying to be a spoil sport or anything like that or try to damp or anyone's expectations but I'm seeing people come in and be like Cal Richie fourth line center full time but also he's still going to have 50 points. That's not really viable that's not really how that works where if he plays the full year with the team there's going to be a certain portion of the fan base that's going to be disappointed with the lack of production that that role would bring for him. And why did we send him back to your cell or why doesn't he play top six minutes and it's probably full at that point thing that happened with Alex Newark. Right. And why rush. Why rush when you have a Cal Richie fall into your lap where the injuries knock him down the draft for and even when the abs drafted him this sentiment wasn't fully that the abs just got this unbelievable still like yeah it's a pretty good pick. You know there's some some room for improvement he had some injuries last year, and then he tore it up last year, and now you have this situation on your hands where now you finally have a steal on your hands. Don't ruin it. You treat him like any other prospect, and if it's best for him to still go and play in the OHL and then next year when he's a year more mature a year more physically dominant, and he's able to come in after that and help you save a lot of money against the cap when you'll probably need it once new contract with whatever that ends up looking like kicks in. I hope we're wrong. I hope we're wrong and he comes in and he you said off air if he gets like 30 points in those first nine games which isn't going to happen. Like maybe even if he gets 10, he's a point per game player, it's going to be really hard to send him back down to the away Joe, but even then even let's just say hypothetically. It's 10 points in nine games at nine games or 10 games have I just been wrong. I think it's nine. I honestly thought it was seven. Okay. Because I've seen people say seven I've seen people say nine I remember it being nine off the top of the seven to nine range. Yeah. In that ball, the start of the season, October, let's just leave it at that, where let's say he is a point per game. Is that still worth burning the first year is also the question because that doesn't also say that that's sustainable the whole time where even if he does dominate. Second line winner unless he just looks so comfortable. And so like yes, there's no going from playing children my age to going up against our Tammy Panerin and Brady Kachuk. Yeah, no problem. It still might be worth the explanation of listen. Yeah, he killed it. We're going to let him kill it even harder in the OHL again this year and then come back next year. And this is a top six player. Can you imagine if that happens and they still send him back down to the OHL? How mad fans are going to be? I can I just sorry for seeing that. That's what I'm trying to prepare people for because that might happen. That might happen. And that's the thing too. Like you said, land is gone. Hopefully coming back at some point this regular season. I think that's an expectation because they would have spent his money if that was not the case. Nachushka, say what you want about the guy. He's going to be back at some point next season. Cowriechie as a fourth line center is going to do nothing as we've seen with Jared Benar. He doesn't play his fourth line. He just does it. Like when he had a good fourth line of Darren Helm, Logan O'Connor, and Andrew Carcano. Yeah, he played him, but the past couple of years, they haven't had that depth. And even when they got Jakuk up training, I feel like he didn't play that fourth line that much. Right. Because at the end of the day, the abs are going to live and die off of their big guys. In a tie game, a big game, Nathan McKinnon, Mikko Rantonin, Kael Makar are going to be the ones that carry the boats and get them out of any situation. And the NHL is not a developmental league. The Avalanche are there to win right now. It doesn't matter if it's October. They're trying to get off to a good start and put themselves in a good spot to make the playoffs and win the division. And if Cowriechie can help them with that, that's great. But I still just think, and I'm saying all of this to temper expectations a little bit. Because I think Cowriechie is going to be really good. I think Cowriechie, if it all works out, is going to be a very important part of this team for at least several years to come. I just don't want to ruin that and start burning years of the contract. Because finally, we have the youth we can put in the lab. We can save some money. We need to just do what we can for right now and worry about the rest later. Because that's how you get a Tyson Jost situation. That's where you get a, they just wasn't ready for the NHL and having to learn on the fly. If you have a guy that you can have in your top six for under a million dollars for three years, you want to make the most of that. Where the NHL is just, it's not like other sports in that regard. Where rookie contracts serve such an important purpose for cup contending teams that you have to absolutely maximize those windows. And when you pick, what was that pick for the abs? Twenty, like six, twenty-seven. Six, twenty-seven. Yeah. That season where they picked Cowriechie, that late in the first round. If you get a guy like that, that late, you have to treat that pick with the utmost respect. You do not rush it under any store. And also the abs are fine. They don't, it'd be really great if Cowriechie came in. And dominated. And was just there for the whole season at under a million dollars. They don't need that though. It would be nice. But even still, let's just say again, I've said this probably every episode. Let's say Land of Scott does not come back in the regular season. Let's say Val does not play on this team again. They still are getting answers on those and they're going to fill those roles. Would it be nice for one of those roles to be Cowriechie? Sure. But it doesn't need to be. You know, Cowriechie is right now going to be a luxury. If it works out, that's awesome. This is house money for a team in the cup contending window that the abs are in. You don't get guys like this when you're at this portion of the window. If he works out for you, that's great. If he doesn't regularly play in the lineup, even for two more years, that's fine too. They're going to find ways to still be a very good team whether or not Cowriechie is playing every night. In my ideal world, he could go play in the HL here, but that's not allowed. Not the my ideal world. He goes to the HL, which is the developmental league. You get him with the Eagles. He's playing in the ab system. And that's my ideal world. That's my ideal world. But that's just not how it works. It's not how it works. So he's going to get another training camp with the team. You know, he didn't make it last year. I don't think anyone was shocked that Cowriechie did not make the team at 18 last year. He's going to get another crack at it. It's going to be his second training camp with the team. And if he impresses, then he's going to stick around with the club for a little while, get his feet wet at the NHL level. And that stuff's all good for development. Goes back to the OHL, dominates, and comes back with a taste of what it takes. I agree. I'm going to present you a hypothetical. We didn't prepare for this, but what player would you be comfortable trading for Cowriechie? I knew that Cowriechie was ready to be traded. What's the one player you'd be like, "Okay, I can eat that," because it's not a very long list. Because now that we have middle stat, my first instinct is centers. How do we have middle stat? That's three pretty good ones. You've got three pretty good centers. Because what do the abs need more than anything now? Because you can't say second line center anymore. Because Casey middle stat has solved that where, okay, you're looking for, let's say for this season, for the purposes of this exercise, Land of Scott goes on LTR to the playoffs. Okay, so let's say you're looking for a top six winger. Off the top of my head, there's not a lot of names that come to mind. I'm trying to think of guys that are realistically available, that I would be at all comfortable trading Cowriechie for. And to buy me some more time, the list is not long. It's not long. My initial thought was maybe Patrick Linae, but again, that contract section. No, not for Linae. Yeah, you couldn't do it for Linae. Mitch Marner would be a nice luxury to have. Retained. Yeah, retained. And then Richie's the centerpiece of that. I wouldn't hate that. But then again, that's only one year of Mitch Marner. And he's going to go get paid. Like, would you trade it for a goaltender? The list of goal tenders, like if you're trading for a goalie, it's just Durkin hella buck. Like, it's a top five goalie. Yeah, I agree. It's that's that was all points. Actually, it's it's going to be very hard for the apps trade Cowriechie. Very. Very hard. Unless you are landing a superstar. That is also affordable and also is like guaranteed. Like, as I say, no to Patrick. Or an affordable or two words that don't go together. And that's ultimately the point. And the reason I say no to Patrick Linae immediately is that there's risk there. If you're trading Cowriechie, there's no risk. There's risk going to come in and dominate. Yeah. There's not a lot of players I would trade Cowriechie for. Like, obviously, like, if you're telling me I could get Conor McDavid. Yeah, obviously. But let's be realistic here. They were talking a realistic trade option. There's probably honestly, like, like, you could talk me out of every single one. Like, Marner would be cool, but that's only one year. Like, that'd be cool. Uh, I really don't think of anyone else. Like, maybe, like, would you trade him for Adrian Kempe? Mm. That's an interesting proposition. Like, Kempe could be an interesting one. I want to say he just signed a new deal. So that's probably not realistic at all. I'm trying to find some cat friendly still here. Thankfully, I don't know when it's supposed to go. Wasn't it supposed to go down last week? Yeah. I think it was like July 1st was when it was supposed to go down. Oh, it's July 9th when we're recording this and it's working just fine. Okay. Adrian Kempe, 5.5 for two years. That's something I wouldn't say. Kempe could be an interesting one. A previous 40 goal scorer, like proven in the league. But again, you only get two years with Richie, you get three and he's making significant a lot less than that. Like, but that's, that's okay. That's a start. Like, that's the kind of thing I would be looking for. Preferably, I'd want something longer. Yeah. Like Adrian Kempe is like one of the ones I could come up with. I've just always loved Kempe's game. I think he's just a phenomenal player. Chandler Stevenson. No kidding. No. No, thank you. They can keep that one. Yeah. I really think that that's what you had to go all the way to Adrian Kempe. And I'm like, okay, maybe. Like, maybe would you do Ryan Nugent Hopkins? Do we need Ryan Nugent Hopkins? That's what I'm saying. Like, that's another real issue when you could possibly get it's the whole point of sex. It was to say, like, it's going to be very hard for the ads to trade cow Richie. And if it's not a blue chip, like asset back, that's going to be really hard for Chris McFarlane to sell to the fans really hard. It's the kind of thing where they're going all in and they don't see Richie and their plans in the next season, either. And I mean, I don't have a problem with the idea of trading cow Richie. If the right deals on the table, I'm really not super attached to anything outside of the work. I'm jettison pretty much just about anything. If it brings the team closer to winning a cup is nothing. There's two players on the abs that are untradable. And that is Nathan McKinnon and Kilmercar. Right. In terms of, like, they're never being moved for the duration of their contract. Ranton is just a tier below. And if he was signed for nine more years, I'd put him right back. Once he signs a new contract, it's right there too. He's not going anywhere. Right. He's not going to go anywhere. I'm like, I'm like, I'm thinking along the lines of like Tim Stutzla kind of thing, where the senators lose their mind. Yeah. That's a very affordable country building again. Brady Brady could chuck kind of thing. Okay. Chuck wants to go to a contender. That one I'd be cool with. I'd be cool with getting to Chuck because that one has four years left, but it's also at eight million. But he's also 24. Not terrible. Eight million isn't terrible for a top line, like he'd be a top line winger. So like that, that's, that's really where you look at it. And I think it's pretty telling that he wasn't traded last deadline that the abs kind of think pretty highly of Richie. So I'm excited for a man. And I will probably say there's an 85% certainty he's on the opening night roster when they go to Vegas and then he'll be there for the Columbus home opener. I was pretty confident in that. And I agree in the sense that they gave him the ELC now right after development camp. I think that shows that they're rewarding him for showing up looking to be kind of NHL ready and that he is put in the work to take the next step and they're going to give him a fair shot. And it's going to be up to him in training camp to impress because he might not make it. Like we have to consider that too that he might not make it just get sent back to the generals. And again, I just want to temper expectations that, again, that is a real possibility that Kyle Richie might not play on this team this year. And that's also fine. That's also fine. He's not behind. He's not going to be like anything like that. He might just might not just be ready. You know, might just still be a 19 year old that needs another year to dominate other 19 year olds at hockey and come back next year and have a really good shot at 20 to make the team. And again, I'm 23. I cannot imagine four years ago trying to step into an NHL roster where of like, I have over the last year at like 22 and 23 continue to still like physically develop, like develop a more like leaner, muscular form because I'm just a stud like that. But I told you this, I'm just built like an offensive lineman. I used to be I used to be a lineman back in the day. For Kyle Richie, he's still got a long way to go physically. And if the best options he plays nine games here, great. If the best option he plays 82 games here, great. If the best option is zero, I'm fine with all of that. As long as it makes him long term, the best fit for this team, because we might get into next off season. Kyle Richie had one of the best seasons in NHL history ever and it's almost a foregone conclusion that Ross Colton's not going to be on the team next year. No movement clause though. But then it becomes a modified note, no trade clause once he hit July 1st. Oh, true. Yeah. Who knows, man? There's so many things that can happen. I'm just excited that Cal Richie signed his deal and we get to have these conversations and we're having a fun conversation about the Amazon July 9th at the time of recording this. Right. It's going to get much worse. Yes. He came to the office and we're much, much, we're really going to talk ourselves into things over the next three. Oh, 100%. I mean, if it's off season, I'll probably say Ross Colton's going to be a point per game player. Yeah. Because is it three months from today? It is three months from today that the abs open the regular season against Vegas were three months from yesterday by the time you're listening to this. But yeah, October 9th, open tonight. We're already three months away. Think about it. I don't think it's. It was April, three months ago, we were starting the playoffs. It's really not that long ago. Feels like an eternity ago, but there was a little bit more abs news. I think we can pivot to it. There was an interview. Val Nachushkin did with a Russian podcast, shout out to our guy Evan, and I'm forgetting the other girl who translated it originally for Evan. That's going to drive me crazy. I'm so sorry. I doubt you listened to this, but shout out to you as well for originally showing Evan the tweet. It talked about his incident in Seattle and boy, oh boy, I'm going to let you take it away because you have the actual transcript of what was said, right? So Evan had someone who speaks Russian translate what Val said about what happened in Seattle. And so according to Evan's translation, here's what Val had to say. He said it was the most difficult season. There were a lot of injuries in the team all season. I missed two months due to bursitis. You know what bursitis is, I don't, okay, I'm not looking up while you're still reading this. I imagine it's, I don't, I'm not going to guess because I know, but continuing, I also had a shoulder injury, which constantly bothered me. I always had problems sleeping, but because of the pain in my shoulder, the situation with my sleep got worse. They did an MRI and they just, they couldn't decide whether to have surgery or not. In the end, they decided not to do it and gave me injections in my shoulder. These injections stopped helping and they decided to inject me with another drug. When we flew to Seattle, they decided I would not play the match due to a shoulder injury because I needed to not bother my shoulder for a while until the drug starts working and everyone on the team knew that I would not play until the end of the round. It puts a lot of pressure on the psyche and was very annoying. I had friends in Seattle at that moment and I made the wrong decision. We hung out with them at night and in the morning, I flew to Denver. This girl in my room has nothing to do with me. The club advised me not to give any comments and I myself was not emotionally ready to explain all this. This was probably the wrong decision and it was necessary to tell the whole situation right away so that there weren't a bunch of different rumors. If we had made it to the second round, I would have been ready to play. So there's a couple of tidbits that we didn't know in there. We can start with the, I'd say, the most… Oh, before, urcitis is a painful condition that affects the small, fluid-filled sacs called a bursae that cushion the bone, tendons, and muscles near your joints. I've literally never heard of that in my entire life. Neither, but in most common locations for urcitis are shoulder, elbow, and hip. Ow. That sounds really painful. But continuing on that, the biggest thing I took away from this is the shoulder injury that we just didn't know about. So this adds a little bit of context and also there was context that this happened, this interview happened before the Dallas series. So that does not include any of this. I'm not sure why this is now coming to the forefront now, but this was something that was talked about in interviewed before this most recent fiasco with nutrition. So this is an entirely different thing. So basically what I learned from this is that there was a shoulder injury involved that was never reported and was getting treatment and that he was already going to miss the Seattle series. Yes. Yeah, there's a lot that's going on here. I'm not going to rush to judgment of anyone or anything, but it doesn't sound like giving someone who's had trouble with addiction. All these painkillers is a suitable thing to do, but also that's what- Well, we also, I mean, it's easy to jump to that conclusion. It doesn't say it might be killers. It might have been something else. I am not here on the show to call anyone a liar. I don't have any information that says otherwise. I'm just reading verbatim the information that we are given. Yeah. So my next question is if this wasn't- if he was planned to go home the entire time, when did he enter stage one of the Players Assistance Program? There are gaps here. Right. Because right now we are in stage three of the Players Assistance Program. In January we were in stage two. This is kind of glossing over that this was stage one, where I think my problem here is that there's not a lot of responsibility to get taken and that there's really only one sentence in here where it says, "I had friends in Seattle at that moment and I made the wrong decision. We hung out with them at night and in the morning I flew to Denver." I feel like that's glossing over some very important injury. Very important facts. That maybe we're just not privy to. But also the hotel room thing is just like, "Yeah, coincidence, I guess." Like there's just things that don't really add up here. And the shoulder thing, "Okay. Why was that not communicated? That Val was already coming back?" Why wasn't it just said he had an upper body injury and was going to miss the next two to three games? Right. Because what about that would have been bad. He was like you just say, you don't even say he was already coming back. You just say that he's coming back to have shoulder surgery or whatever injection that he was supposed to get and he's going to miss the rest of the first round. That's happened before. I'm not calling anybody a liar. I'm not saying things in here are not true. I have no information that says that anything here is not true. And also, this was in a different language. So there is always the possibility for stuff to get lost in translation, that kind of thing. Stuff to be said one way and be translated another way where it's just it gives off a completely different tone of sentence. So you don't want to read into things like this too much. I'm just saying that from the information that we have here, there are just portions of it that don't really fully explain everything. That's the thing too. If he entered stage one after this, how could he have played him round two if he has where to get to round two? I need to refresh myself on what stage one, stage two and stage is because technically what if Sam Gerard now since he is he going to be in stage three? If something got forbid happens to him, I really I don't think much stuff that's still unanswered. Like if any of this interview just made things more complicated, right? Because it introduces the shoulder, which is a different dimension that we didn't have. We thought he had the ankle injury for he had an ankle surgery earlier in that year. And it might have been both at the same time, but at that moment of time, we had no information on any sort of shoulder injury that I think that's the part I'm stuck on the most is okay, this everything I have here is speculation that all my thoughts on this, this isn't. If there was a shoulder injury that he was already coming back for, that should have been communicated. And why do you even fly out there to play? Right. Like he got out there to play, then they changed their mind and he comes back at nothing else. The only real problem that I feel comfortable expressing here that is not just speculation is that should have been communicated, that there was a shoulder injury or just an upper body injury that needed to be evaluated further in Denver. That would have not fixed anything, but there would have been significantly less speculation going on at the time. And I don't know if it has more to do with what Val said at the ends that the club advised me not to give any comments and I myself was not emotionally ready to explain all this. Again, what's emotionally not ready to say something about a shoulder injury that's like that's where things are not adding up. Okay. So you went out and made some poor decisions as he words it. And the hotel room thing, nothing to do with anything. I was already going back for shoulder stuff. Right. That that's where I get I get lost here. I get lost and how could you imagine being the apps PR team and this interview comes out and it's not even the fact that is after everything that happened in the Dallas interview, it's just on top of it. Like I'm sure the apps PR was just loving hearing this. Yeah. And they put out the thing like we have no comment. What would they say? What are they supposed to say? What would they say about them? Of course they have no comment. Yeah. And it adds even more confusion to a complicated story already, right? Where we had no information before. Only really speculation and a very heavily redacted body cam footage. And now we have this. And again, like where it's a year and a half ago at this point, like it doesn't change anything. But it does like because if it truly wasn't injury, like you said, he didn't abandon the team. Right. And if they won game seven, he would have been able to play against that was not the verbiage. We were getting that like that's the first I'm ever hearing of that is that now would have played against Dallas because it seemed like that whole summer that we weren't even sure really if he was going to be there at training camp like we've had a pretty good idea he would be, but there was no guarantee, right? And so if it isn't injury, that changes the whole thing. He missed it because of an injury, not because he abandoned his teeth. Right. Like that that change is a very important narrative surrounding this where apparently he would have just been ready two days later, but also again, this is just hockey mindset. So he wouldn't have played in game seven, but he would have played in game one. No, he left in game four. Yeah. Game was three or four, I think it was four games, three, I think it was before game three, but I'm like, okay, but from what I know about hockey, hockey culture and hockey players as a whole, there's just another part that's not adding up to me that they were willing to sit him out for a game seven, right, but not for a game one, two days later, and this is literally a guy who played a game six of a Stanley Cup final with his foot shattered broken foot. Again, it's just the more I think about it, the more my brain hurts. Yeah, it just adds more confusion. And if you came to listen to the show to hopefully we can come and give you some knowledge about it, we're just as confused as you are. Like, I'm reading this and I'm just like, what the fuck is this supposed to mean? Like, I have no idea what's going on here, right? And I'm not trying to lead anyone down any sort of path of thinking or anything like that. You can think whatever you want about stuff like this. I'm just confused. At the end of the day, this didn't clear anything up for me. If anything, I'm more confused. I'm always confused first off, but then this just adds even more. Right. And again, it's what I said about Val, like back when the off season started for us is every single thing that happens with this guy. Every time his name appears is going to be a conversation. Yeah, at least one to two days online. Bunch of jerks like us are going to have 20 minutes segments on their podcasts about it. Just I again, I imagine within the next month, there's going to be a picture of him at a sandwich shop and we're going to break that down. There was a picture of him at a monastery. I saw that. And people were genuinely having discussions about that and what that means. It's a very complicated situation. And I'm very tired of saying that. I'm ready for a resolution and I don't think there is going to be one until November. And even then, as the earliest it would happen. And that is if it's all just water under the bridge, which I just don't think it's that easy. Nope. Agreed. Agreed. But yeah, that was, that was our 20 minute segment on the most confusing story in the NHL right now about nutrition. And we'll probably talk about it at least five to six more times the rest of the summer. Yeah. And I think there's another portion of that interview coming out, but it's not really anything. Yeah, it's not really anything super impactful. But if it is, Evan will listen and tell us. Yeah. Yeah, it was just follow Evan if you want the Tushkin updates because this is the best I got is that I got nothing. Same. So I think that's pretty much it on abs news for July 9th. Like I said, I'll take it because that was a good chunk of the show. Yeah. And we got one of our top prospects signed. Everyone's favorite off season topic in Val and the Tushkin. I'm sure there will be a lot more of that coming. So in terms of the rest of the NHL, one of the things I wanted to talk about today was looking at the league as it stands right now after pretty much after free agency, like they're still signing that's going to come through. I'm sure there's a trade or two that's going to happen. But it feels like teams are like 95% set going into next year outside of a couple of signings. I just I don't think there's going to be anything that shakes the league that much. And that's looking at the balance of power in the NHL right now. Because last year, there really wasn't a power in the league where two years ago it was the Bruins, the best regular season team of all time. Obviously, they bowed out in round one. This year, you had the Rangers win the president's trophy with 114 points. The stars were a point behind them at 113. And you can go down to 10th. And that was a 12 point difference, which there were years where the difference between first and second was 12 points. But now we're talking the difference between first and 10th is 12 points. And the avalanche finished eighth with 107. So they finished seven points behind the Rangers. They won four more games. They would have won the president's trophy. That's two better gains from a key or a give and two better performances on the road. And we're talking they won the president's trophy last year. And now we sit here after free agency. And I'm kind of coming to the conclusion that there's really not going to be many bad teams in the league. Like there's going to be teams that are at the bottom, obviously. But I look at the bottom. A lot of those teams added this year and got better, where I feel like the league for the last several years has been shifting closer towards there being no real top of the class in the league, where teams now are just so close. And there's going to be even less of a margin of error for really any position positions in the league. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a pretty good representation of it. I mean, Florida won the Seattle Cup and they finished fifth in the league. They tied in points with Winnipeg when a peg was the first round exit. Like it's just it's a it's just a crapshoot when it comes to the playoffs. And if you look at the rest of the league, I think we can comfortably say like Calgary, not going to be great. Columbus, I think probably finishes last in the league. But San Jose and Chicago added a bunch, like you said, in free agency. San Jose is not going to have 47 points. They'll probably be closer to what? Like, what would you say? Like 55 60? I'd put them in the 60 range. Like they've got a long way to go. Long way to go, but they aren't going to be 47 points bad. Right. And that's kind of what I mean, where the two worst teams last year, the sharks, they had 47 points worse than the abs did in their worst ever season. And the Blackhawks, 52 points that was after they added the dart and they they added some pieces to that team this year and so did the sharks. And the ducks did their best, but they really didn't wear. I just don't think you're going to have those bottom of the barrel teams this year. And we will be one team that's really bad, but I don't think there could be 47 points bad. But me and you, we were going through like every team right before we started the show. And we were getting to the point where we were all the way down to Arizona slash Utah now be like, yeah, they'll be better probably in like the 85 point range. And that's the 27th already where a lot of these bad teams are starting to get better. But there's teams at the top that aren't getting worse either. So we kind of there's only so many points to go around in this league. And I just wonder if we're ever going to really see dominant teams again, like there's going to be a team that wins the cup. Obviously, there's going to be a team that wins the president's trophy as the best team, obviously. But it's been last year where everyone was so close. And now I feel like everyone just got closer again. Yes, you could look at the top 10 from last year Carolina, probably not going to be 111 points. They're still going to be a good team, but they lost a lot, a lot of pieces. They're probably going to be closer in that 105 range, which would put them right where like still top 10. But they're going to arguably be a little bit worse Winnipeg, probably going to be a little bit worse, probably the Rangers. I would love to say they're going to be worse, but I still think there are 105, 105 point team. It's just going to be like, I don't think there's ever going to be another team like the Bruins from two years ago that just dominates the regular season like they did. I just don't think that's how it is. And I think kind of think the philosophy around the league is changing where it's like, we want our players healthy for the most important time. We could give a shit about October and November. Right. That's kind of what I'm starting to see now too, is where I think the closest we'll see to those teams again are teams that are bad right now, and teams that are accumulating top talent, where does a Connor Bedard still on a cheap deal turn the black clocks into a juggernaut or something like that? Because I just, even with how the ads were built, which I still believe is as well as you can build a team with having McKinnon and McCar and Ranton and all their supporting pieces still came in eighth and still have several problems where I think basketball is starting to see the same stuff as well, where there's really no dynasties anymore. I think we saw the end of the dynasty era in the league. And I just don't think we're ever going to see that in the NHL. At least not where it's like, okay, Tampa was close for a little while. They won back to back cups. They went to another three and six is probably the closest we'll see three and six. The Penguins were close for a while there. You can, you can argue that the Crosby era was a dynasty. They won three and made the playoffs every single year and made a lot of money. And the one was at eight years between cups? Right. And that was still in a time where you had stars dominating the league. And you are, you are going to have stars dominating the league still in this NHL. But I just feel like this offseason, which is really what I want to try to get at now, didn't really shift the balance of power all that much, or okay, the Devils look like they're back in contention. Okay, Nashville got a lot better this year. Edmonton might be loading up for a case for the president's trophy. Outside of that, it feels like there was a lot of bad teams that made moves to get better. And a lot of good teams lost some pieces. And now even in a year like last year, where everyone was so close together, we're destined for another season where that's just going to be the case again. Yeah, I completely agree. And the thing is, is the salary cap, all the players, the good players that were on these good teams want to get paid so they go to the bad teams. That's just, that's the circle of life when it comes to the salary cap. And like you said, I, you could tell me any of the eight teams could win the president's cup trophy next year, eight teams, feasibly. Like, I don't think there should be a solidified favorite. Like I could see Dallas winning it. I could see the Rangers going back to back. Could see the Oilers winning it. Shit, I could see Boston going back and doing it again. Like there's so many. I could see it. Yeah, I could see the abs doing it. I don't want them to, but I could see them doing it. Yeah. And again, you look even where, again, the difference between first and 10th was 12 points. You had 10 teams finish above 100 points. Then the next four teams after that all had 99 and 98 points. Or so you had 14 teams, like at 98, you're a win away from 100. It's not technically 100, but I'll still put you in that category. You had 14 teams that were still in that ballpark. And even Vegas, who was an eight seed was still considered when they played Dallas, if they just get past Dallas, they're a cup favorite kind of thing. And the quality of competition in the NHL continues to go up the parody in this league. It's really unlike any other sport. And it's up to your own interpretation as to whether or not that's for better or worse. But that is definitely the league that we have here, where it's just kind of a weird, mushy middle, where we might still be sitting in game 50 and being like, yeah, I don't know, you'll be sitting in game 50 and we'll have no idea what the fuck's going on. Right. Just everyone's so close. Even the sharks are not going to be a joke and an easy two points next year. I mean, even that team last year still won 19 games. And now they're adding celebration into the mix and they put Tafoli into the lineup and they got Jake Wallman on defense now where it's like, okay, they're not a playoff team, not even close to that. But you do look at some of the moves they've made. Okay, that's a roster you have to take somewhat seriously. What are they going to do when they get good and they're still paying half of Thomas hurdles contract? How long is that contract? That's like six or seven more years, right? It's only 1.3. What? Oh, they're only the Oh, I thought they were eating 50% of it. No, it's like 15. But still 2030. That's a lot of the money when you're a cup contentor. Yeah. And that's a very valuable retention slot that you just don't have for years. Yeah. And the Carlson still has three. And I forget which other one they're eating on to rent burns for one more year. Okay. So those will get one back at the end of this year. So that also means they can't retain at the trade deadline this year, which is going to hurt them a bit. But they also I don't think they care. Yeah, right now. Yeah, they'll be fine. But that's going to be, you know, that's going to be really funny because the sharks feasibly should be good by the end by 2030. I think they should be a pretty salty. You would certainly hope so, right? Yeah. Feasible. They should be a playoff team with celibreony will Smith and the rest of the prospects come out. They should be good. But then again, they're also going to pay those guys by that time too. So that could be the salary cap has gone up enough to the point where it doesn't matter. Yeah, fingers crossed, but you never know. I just love that they're literally retaining on hurdle for the next six years, right? But even that you look at the moves that got made this off season. And I feel like most of it was very status quo Nashville got better. Okay, they got Stephen Stan coast. They got Marsha. So they got Brady Shea. We'll see how those contracts age. But for this year, they should be better. New Jersey got better. But I feel like a lot of teams just kind of stayed stagnant, got a little better or a little worse where it almost feels like we're, I keep waiting for like there to be a big shift in the balance of power in the league and it just kind of never comes. It's not going to happen this year. I mean, I think what was the last major trade we had was Kachuk for Hubertow, which like changed the fortune. I haven't seen that trade this off season, right? And the biggest trade this off season was surrogate chef, but that was a playoff team, making a non playoff team better. Like the non playoff teams were the ones that made a majority of the moves outside the predators. Right. So we'll have to see man. I'm I think this is going to be one of the most exciting NHL seasons we see in a long time coming up. It's got one to live up to with last year that in hindsight is going to, I think, age as one of the most exciting seasons we've ever seen that season ruled. We had three players with 130 plus points. Like that's, that's crazy. Crazy MVP race, the drama with the Oilers and everything like that. And of course the others going to the final game seven of the final. It's going to age is a very, very nice season. But as it stands right now, like I, we're still three months away from the season starting. I'm just like, man, I got no idea how the stuff's going to go where it felt, it felt like in most seasons you had a pretty good idea of like who the better teams are going to be. But then there's always the injury conversation too. Right. Because you have all these conversations, you do all these previews and then someone breaks their ankle on the fifth game of the year and misses the entire season. It changes the whole complexion of it where if Doug Hamilton doesn't get hurt last year, the devil's playoff team, maybe who knows? Jack Hughes got hurt. Yeah, like that entire team got hurt the wild. Like that entire team was hurt last year. Right. There's just in a salary cap league. I just think there's only so much room for change where you just see teams die of attrition eventually and just get replaced by a team that's been on the up. But you really rarely ever see half the teams that made the playoffs last year miss. Yes. Correct. 2, 3, maybe four teams out of 16 that interchange. I mean, look at the West last year. What was the team that made the playoffs that didn't make it the year before Winnipeg? Winnipeg was the eighth seed. They played Vegas. Winnipeg made it. Dallas made it. Minnesota missed. I've never seen a nation in the last year. National took their spot, right? National took their spot. Vancouver made it. Who missed in their place? In the Pacific. Was it Seattle? Yeah, that's the one. Yeah. So it's two teams in the West. So he had six of eight teams made the playoffs again last year. And in the East, the Rangers made it. The Devils missed and the caps came in. And you had the same match up with the hurricanes and the Islanders. Tampa and Boston both made it. Florida made it last year. They obviously made the final and so did Tampa. So you had one team interchange in the East. And that was because the Devils were incredibly injured and the caps were the worst playoff team we've seen at night. Correct. So yeah, I agree with you that this is going to be a very fun, like fun debate. We can have all off season, but we'll have to wait and see. But any other thoughts on that before we move on to, are we going to new mailbag next or did you want to do what we had talked about before? I want to have this conversation that you brought up. Okay. I think that's better than what I brought anyway. Okay. Alright, for those of you who don't know, EA Sports is coming out with its new college football game. They'll be releasing Sunday night if you pre ordered. I think it's Wednesday if you don't pre order. And it'll be the first time the game has been released in almost I think it's 10 plus years it came out in 2014. So this will be the first time that we get a college football game in 10 plus years. And the reason behind it, the players rightfully were like, Hey, they look like us. Why are we not getting paid for that? They won the court case. So EA Sports was like, fuck you, we're not going to pay the players. And now with NIL and all that stuff, they figured out they can pay the players, which awesome players deserve to get paid for their use in their image and likeness. But EA sports, it was announced probably two or three years ago that they were going to start developing this game. And it's been two to three years of, oh, it's just going to be a reskin of Madden. And if you haven't played Madden recently, Madden's terrible. It's just, it's a very poor game to learn OG listener of the show. You know, my thoughts on EA sports games, right? It's just a reskin. Like they just do a little bit and all that stuff. But over the past two, three weeks, we've been getting clips from this EA Sports College football game. And holy shit, it looks awesome. They did a really good job of redoing all of the like traditions that go along with college football, which if you're not a college football fan, I get it. But if you're a lunatic like me, you love the tradition of college football. It's 150 plus years of tradition. And you see the detail they put into each and every single aspect of it. They really redid a lot of the mechanics and the movements of the players. And just watching it, it looks like an awesome game. And I'm very excited to play it next week. I'm going to be honest with you, Griffin. I'm probably going to play that game for 300 plus hours this summer. That's going to be my for you what hell divers was that's going to be my hell divers. I will play. I'm currently hell divers at 250 hours. Like that's going to be me. That's going to be when this college football game. I love the college football games. But it brings up the bigger question. If they can do this with college football, why not do it with NHL? Because the NHL product, I still buy them every year because I love the games. Like I play them all the time. It's the exact same game it's been since 2019. The exact same game. It's a broken fucking mess. Yeah. It's the exact same game. The exact same intro. They changed it like with the Stanley Cup because I love playing dynasty modes. I'm that age where dynasty modes are fun for me. I don't like playing online because I get too mad and I'm not good enough to play online. So I will just play the dynasty modes. And the change they made is when you win the Stanley Cup, you can choose which three players you want to pass it to. That's the big change they made which probably took a couple of days in terms of animations, programming, coding and everything. I'd be shocked if that took more than a week. Yeah. And my favorite part is they've made Kilmer car was the cover athlete last year. And he still doesn't look like Kilmer car in the video game. Like he was the cover athlete and they give him black facial hair when he was in the playoffs. And it just cracks up and they give him a go to you. I was like, Kilmer car can't grow a beard. Like we know this. Like it's some guys can't grow a beard. Kilmer car can't grow a beard. But he's one of the best hockey players on planet earth. Me and you can grow good beards. We suck at hockey. Like there's given takes in the world. So it just makes you wonder like I'm a devoted EA sports NHL player. I would much rather just have a bunch of downloadable content for 24 while they make NHL 26 just the best hockey game we've ever seen. I don't think sports games should be numbered by year because I completely agree with you is that there should just be a game that releases that gets updated with the rosters over time. Because there is there is not another form of media, not just video games, another form of media that is as much of a ripoff as NHL Madden FIFA. I think 2K as well. I think to a lesser extent because I think 2K does a better a slightly better a slight bear job but starting to go down. But I've also not played it in 10 years. But when I played it, they did a much better job than EA and I think MLB the show is the least offensive with this. But it still falls in the same trap. I don't play that game. But I've seen it. It was fun because it's a lot of like you can build stuff like the fun to show is you get to build a stadium and like you can make a stadium. That's what it's been missing in a lot of other things. There's more content to that game, but it is falling into the same trap. Back to my point is that there is no other form of media that sells you one thing once a year, full price. And then comes back next year, makes very minimal changes and sells it to you again for full price. Really the only the most significant change in the NHL games each year is the rosters. Yeah, and they update those throughout the year. I can do downloadable content all the time. Right. So it goes back to my point two of like the best part about this cultural ball game to my knowledge so far. I have not played this. My attitude can change completely by next Tuesday when we're recording again that this game sucks and they ruined it. But as of what I've seen, if they could do that in the NHL where it's not just the same pregame intro every single time and you just see the fans like holding like pom poms do like there's a bunch of stuff that happens in NHL games before the games start that you could do like we were talking about it with the Oilers. What do they do that's super memorable? They have the anthem singer sing it in the crowd and the crowd sings the national anthem. That is like something you could do. It's just the problem with the NHL games for me. I am a big fan of the NHL games and that for that reason, I do not play them anymore because they're no longer the same games that the ones I played when I was younger because there's no immersion surrounding it anymore. I played the games for GM mode and I also just I just liked to play and it felt like I was playing a broadcast where I was able to immerse myself in whatever story I was creating at that time and the the NHL games now are not built for that anymore. They are built around ultimate team. Madden is built around ultimate team FIFA or FC, I guess it's called now because they lost the rights to that is built around ultimate team and about squeezing as many dollars out of the experience as they can. And the reason it's done like this is because it prints money. It wouldn't be done like this if it didn't make money. If people didn't buy the game every single year, go right into ultimate team, which erases all of your progress every single year. If you're one if you're one of those people who buys packs and spends hundreds of dollars on packs a year, it erases all of your progress and you have to do it again the next year. They have found the formula to print money. There's no reason for the games to be any good. It doesn't matter. People buy them and yeah, people are getting sick of them, but they still make money. And so I am rooting for college football to be a good game and for this to be their greatest success. And hopefully the rest of the games can follow suit because I miss playing NHL. But even when I played it, like it's the last one I've got. I don't even remember what I think it was 22 or 21. Yeah, that was, I want to say McDavid was on the cover for that one. Right. And it's been a couple of years. And I just, I didn't recognize it anymore. It wasn't fun. The game felt like shit. The GMO just felt so barren. It felt like the same thing I played in NHL 18 with a couple of minor tweaks where you look at the feature lists every year that they add to the game and I get offended. Like this is free update content in any other video game. This is the kind of stuff you get in free updates where you look at game like I'm, I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to this stuff. Like you look at games like cyberpunk or even I'll just use my other one. Hell divers, for example, they're not charging you money to update the game. They just fix things and put it in there. Right. That's how it's supposed to work where it's like, okay, we couldn't fit this feature in before release because our publisher forced it out ahead of time. Here it is for free because it was supposed to be in the game from launch. Imagine if they just were like, hey, there's a new update coming to GM mode where you can like relocate the team when they put that feature in where you can do that. Imagine they just, they just put that you load it up. They update the game. It's just there. That's just how every other game is designed. So I've never understood why I understand the business model because it's all the business model prints my like, because you have idiots like me who buy it every year. Right. Where it's just, it prints money. But at the end of the day, no other medium is like this. Imagine you just like have a movie that's like, yeah, well, we added a couple of things in the end credits. Your new special effect. Like come buy it again. Kind of like, I guess they do do that for some stuff. Yeah, they do kind of do it. It's not it's not to the same extent. Not to the same. And this isn't a mean thing. I don't want this to be as mean. But we went from Doc Emric calling ES or NHL games to now the commentators are James Sobolsky. Do you know who that is? No. Carolyn Bath and Cheryl Pounder. That's Sue's commentating ES or EA sports games now, where you look at the college football game, you have Kirk Herb Street and Chris Fowler. When you think of those two, those are the ones that call the playoff games. They call the national championship. They call every big game. You want to make it better. Get the big name announcers. I'm sure Doc Emric will take the paycheck just to go do like probably not Doc, but get just. I'm a broadcast snob. You guys know this. I'm a snob for broadcast. I'm a snob for everything that comes with the second they got away from the NBC scoreboard and started putting the scoreboard at the bottom and made it feel more like an arcade thing. It just it stopped feeling like hockey to me. It just it'd be different if the game was fun. You can do the Michigan. You can do that. Does it even work ever? Um, I've tried. I'm not good enough, but I've watched people on TikTok be able to do it. So it's just the kind of thing where I completely agree with you. I'm genuinely excited for the college football game. And I don't think I've been excited for an EA sports game, I think, since NHL 15, which was the greatest disappointment of my life. Yeah. Is Angel 12 and Angel 14 were good edge. The before it went to PlayStation four and Xbox one, I spent so many hours in the show. I mean, me and my brother used to just play each other and play together nonstop and then they went to the new games. And we loaded up NHL 15. We were like, what is this? Yeah. We thought we were still in the demo version because that's what we we used to buy the demos for the game every year and play as the two finalists before the game came out. And we thought it just we were still in the demo version. I think the only reason I bought this year is because Kale McCar was on it. That's different. But even you even Kale couldn't bring me back. Yeah. The game's hurt. If you want, it's free on EA play right now. You have to pay me. Now it's a moral thing. You'd have to be me. I was kind of pissed. My roommate was like, yeah, dude, like, how much did you pay for NHL? I was like, Oh, I paid like 60. Like I waited a couple of months after was released by and he goes, Oh, it's free on EA play right now. I was like, fuck you. But that's how it is with all the games. They come out full price. They have no shelf life. No one buys it after a month. And so they sell it for five bucks or you can play it for for free on EA play. Bullshit. But I just love the fact that we're both. Well, I'm almost 30. You're almost in your mid twenties and we're still talking about video games because video games rule and I will not going to stop. Yeah. Video games rule. I'm on like the like, I wouldn't say the older generation because I do think there's some guys in their forties and fifties who play video games. But like, I was really the first generation that had like bad ass video game systems. I mean, I will always play video games. Video games are relaxing to me, even though I end up screaming at the most of the time, but they're relaxing to me. And I just think it's badass that we just had probably a 15 to 20 minute talk about video games on the show because video games fucking rule and I can't wait for EA Sports cultural bond Sunday night. I will probably be up till three, four a.m. just grinding my dynasty and figuring out the transfer portal. I will be loving life, loving life. I really hope the game is good. Yeah, I do. I just want more than anything for it to set the standard of okay, the old model doesn't work anymore. The game suck, stop buying the ones that are like that. If college football is good, buy it. I'm going to buy it because I, I believe in supporting things with your money. I do not support the NHL games or Madden so I don't buy them. I want college football to be good because I want that to be the standard. I want good sports games. I don't hate the NHL games. I hate what they've become because they used to be so fun. They didn't like I think it was three or four years ago, they introduced like the three on three in the NHL and that was fun because you could just, you played all the teams in like a three on three circuit and you got mascots to play in your team. Legends like that was fun, but that was four years ago. It was also like, it was fun, but it was also like an arcade, right? Which is like, I enjoyed it. It's like, well, that was like the whole selling point of the game. I played it for like a week when it came out. I think that was, I think that was the last one I got was when they introduced three on three for the first time. I played it for like a week. It's fun. It wasn't what I was looking for out of the game. If you just make the base game great, do it. Add whatever modes you want, but the base mode, the play now mode should be good. Yeah, it's like the part that I always mean now is they in 24, they reintroduce like broken glass and you'll fire like a slap shot from the blue line. It gets deflected and you'll break the glass. It's like, why, why are we stopping this? And how often does that happen? Right. It happens once every 82 game. I really love that they brought banality back to the NHL, whereas they're like, Oh, we got a chip glass. We got to take a 20 minute. Just like, wait a second. Like, why, why is the glass? Like, how the? Let's just do the whole thing. Bring in concussion spotters. Yeah. Bring in, bring in offside reviews. You want to bring me immersed, you want to bring me back? Give me a full five minute. Remember when they had the referee game? That ruled. That game was awesome. I don't think I ever played it, but I remember yeah, you got to be the referee and you were like, ha ha. See, and that's the part that pisses me off so much about you went from 14 to 15. And there's like an eight page list of content that got removed. And they've introduced some of it back slowly over the course of 10 years. And it doesn't even scratch the surface. Well, when are classic mode, such as simple, easy mode that I just like, here's the selling point. I can't tell you what the angel 25 is going to be. You can do the four nations face off. Four nations. Yeah. Team USA. Team Canada. And then like, I don't want to be like, they introduced like you can play like, you can't even do like the P. W. H. O. Maybe they'll put that in 25. But like, they introduced all the female players in 23. But you can't play with like, because there was no professional women's hockey league. So maybe they'll put the P. W. H. O. And then in H. L. 25, and you can actually play with it. But it's like, when they introduced all the female players, it was like, Oh, cool. I can just do team Canada versus team USA and play for nothing. Right. Like it was just like, it's cool. They put the women in the game, but at least give us a mode to play with the man other than a scrimmage. It was so empty. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's there. Yeah, we put it right to play once. Yeah. There was no substance. And they put Trevor Zeiger on the cover. And that's really weird. Sorry to go down. Weirdest cover athlete ever. Dude scored in Michigan. Yeah. Got put on the cover. Yeah. That should have been Cale's year. That should have been Cale's or McKinnon's. But we digress. We've talked enough about video games. We're well past an hour on the show. Let's do the mailbag and send these people on the merry way. I'm also just proud of us. We stuck to our schedule for the first time in a while. So I want to give us a pat on the back. No, I'm saying schedule releasing episodes. We said we'd be back like Monday or Tuesday this week. We're back. I just want to give us a pat on back for that. We did. We did great, even though we did Monday last week. But you know, that's all right. We said it was going to be Tuesday. I worked last night. Yeah. It's fine. I'm sure it's fine. Okay. We're done with. I think that's the jumping the shark into the offseas when we bring up the NHL games for the first time. We started talking about video games for 25 minutes. Yeah. I think that's when you can officially say, "Yep." Stuff slowed down. It's the top seed. So we'll get to these mailbag ones really quick. We got two mailbags. Our first one from Jake asking, "Who's lying in the Seattle Game 3 disappearance, the club or the player?" We kind of answered that. We're not going to speculate, but I think a little bit of both. A little bit of both are lying. I think there's truth to each side. I mean, like, can you say the ads are lying if they just never said anything at all? Right. I think there's a little bit of truth on the Truscan side. I think the ad didn't say anything, so I believe the abs. Yeah. The abs are exercising plausible deniability. Correct. Correct. That would be the fifth. Yeah. Where, again, I'm not here to call anybody a liar. I'm not here to say anything Val said was a lie. I'm just saying there are portions of that story that don't fully explain what happened. Correct. They're missing some details. Whether that's intentional or not, I don't know. Maybe that's just how he told the story. I don't know. But in terms of who's lying, I couldn't say I wasn't there. Wasn't there. Do you want people to know what happened or not going to say anything about it? Yeah. I can't prove anything in the court of law. Agreed. All right. Moving on to our last question. Sit from Katie asking if, and that's a big if, Cal Richie is on the app's opening night roster. Do you think it would be better to play him on the wing on one of the top two lines or to play him at his natural position at center on the fourth line? Personally, at least during the preseason, I would love to see what he can do centering McKinnon and Drewann or McKinnon and Miko. Can he keep up with them and help create slash score goals? I like where your head's at, Katie. The thing is, as we've learned anything, Nathan McKinnon and Miko are entering a play two preseason games? Yeah, this might be a very short window to try this out. Like maybe like 10 minutes of a preseason game McKinnon and then we'll play. I personally, if you're going to have Cal Richie start the one, start the year with the big club, I want him playing top six minutes as a winger on the second line with middle stat and McKinnon. That's where I want him. If he's going to make the team, that's where we want him because, like we said earlier at the beginning of this episode, it's going to do nothing for the kid if he's playing seven minutes on the fourth line. It's going to do absolutely nothing for him. So, if he's going to crack the line up, I want him playing top six minutes or at least probably what Ross Colton's playing minutes. If it's third line, I'm fine with that. Whether that's at center or wing because you're going to have spots open. So, if you want to have O'Connor on the second line and put Richie on the third line for the first nine games, I don't have a problem with that. I just want him to get as much playing time as you can realistically give him. There might not be times where him playing on the top line or the second line makes much sense. It's like a Vegas opening that is that really what you want to throw him in there with? Probably not. But if he's playing on the third line and you're putting him with wood and Colton, like guys who are not going to let him get thrown into the 400s, okay with that. If there's a game he has to be on the fourth line and play a couple of minutes, that's not the end of the world. But again, like I said earlier, I want him to play as much as he can. I want him to get as good of a shot at the NHL level as you can give him. I almost, I feel like putting him on the wing just gives him more opportunities. It's just easier to play on the wing than at center. And at fourth line center, I don't know what we're getting out of that really. We're getting him some cool pictures. Right. There's like, okay, he's taking face-offs at the NHL level. That'll, that'll help. But if you're, if you're matching him against other fourth lines, those guys are gonna fucking kill him. Yeah, the fourth line is the scariest line. But it's just the worst possible thing you could put a 19-year-old into the fourth, fourth line center role. You're gonna get Kyle Klutterbuck punching you in the face. And nothing against Parker Kelly. That's not the talent that he- Right. That's just get the best out of him. Parker Kelly, Kyle Ritchie, you'll keep you on to just- I'm not interested in that. Yeah, I'm good. I'd rather have Chris Wagner there and Ritchie up a spot. Agreed. Agreed. But yeah, I still am wholeheartedly like, if he plays the nine games, it's a winger, and I want him playing at least 15 minutes a night. Right. And just, you just want to, you just want to give him a taste of the NHL level, kind of thing. Give him a taste. I also just love this episode was just a peek into what Griffin and I talk about for most of our contact with each other. If we're not talking about hockey, we're talking about video games. And this was just a good insight into what Griffin and I as friendship is like, because that's just what we talk about. We got to start gaming together. We're gonna get college football. Did you have- Are you Xbox or PlayStation 5? I'm a both. Oh, I don't limit myself. Yeah, I am too. I am too. But see, I can't play heldivers. I'm too far behind when it comes to heldivers. There's no too far behind in held- Oh, I'm terrible at shooting your games. I'm terrible. Everyone's terrible at it. You learn. No, I can fuck people up in Halo. Halo 3, one of the best in the world. I could guarantee that. So now I'm a hard carry in heldivers. I can do four player missions by myself. Yeah, see, like my role in like Fortnite was very big was I was the guy who carried the med kits and would just give him to my teammates. I was that guy. I'd occasionally get a kill, but I was the guy who was like, hey, give me the potions and the med kits. And I'll carry those for you. Oh, I found a golden scar. Who wants it? Like that was me. I gave those. I gave those guns. I'm terrible at first person shooters. Like Call of Duty. I played Apex back in the day. Even Fortnite, I wasn't very good at just heldivers. They don't shoot back very well. Bear, bear. But yeah, this was a good insight to Griffin and I's brain. We're both adults, but we still like to pretend we're children when it comes to video games. So I mean, what else am I going to do? Right. I feel like it's like this is a mature thing to do. We're not going out drinking at bars. We're not getting like into trouble. We just play video games. I go to work. I go to the gym. I play video games. I don't talk to women. That's my life. We're kind of nerds. We're kind of nerds, but we love it. So this episode was a good insight of the way Griffin and I brains work. Yeah. So I mean, what are you getting college football on? Are you getting that PlayStation? Yeah, I'm being five. Yeah. I'm going to get it on PlayStation and I'm going to relearn how to play football games and we're going to play it together. Yeah, you just let me know when you're ready because I played the Madden last year. When I was unemployed, I had a lot of free time. So I played a lot of Madden and I got pretty good at it. I have not played Madden in closer to a decade at this point. Yeah. I was the first Madden game I'd bought in a long time, but I was unemployed and bored. So it's waited. That's what all the important unemployed people do. They just some maddens somehow find its way onto their system. Right. Exactly. So yeah, we'll do that and then we'll update you. We'll find like a like a random ass team to like take a dynasty all the way with. Yeah, but it is just very funny because my roommates now I live with a boyfriend and a girlfriend and me and the other dude have already told our girl roommate like you're not going to hear from us when this game comes out because that's all we're going to be doing. So if you want, he was like, if you want to go on dates and all that stuff, like let's get down the way now before the game comes out. You got to schedule that ahead of time. You got to contact my secretary. Right. Where you do do not touch the blinds, I will hit you. Right. Right. So it's going to be very funny. But for an off season episode, I feel pretty good. I always love our off season episodes because they're just so random and fun and when we leave them, I just go, that was fun. I had a good time. Yeah. There comes a certain point where we're just making it up as well. Like when you're in the season and in the playoffs, it's all very structured and very serious and all this stuff. Off season is just who really cares, right? Half of you aren't even listening anymore. Yeah. For the people who do listen, you actually enjoy hearing Griffin and I talk. If you're this far into an off season episode, like hats off to you. I don't even know what to say. Yeah. Hats off to you. And I think if we ever met in real life, we'd probably be buddies because that's where we'd get along. Yeah, we'd get along because your brain's pretty similar dollars. Right. Anyway, it's been what? Or like an hour 20. Yeah. I think half of it's just been mostly nothing. So I'm pretty content to wrap this one up here. Thank you also very much for tuning in to another edition of the Teletabs. It is podcast on to the hockey podcast network. You can use promo code Teletabs. It is on Seakeake for $20 off your first order of $50 or more. If you want to follow us on Twitter, you can follow me @gyoungsnhl. You can follow Christian @Christian_balay. You can follow the show @teletabs. I think I need to change my Twitter name. The NHL thing in hindsight doesn't really make any sense, but I'll think about that. But again, thanks. Thank you also very much for tuning in and we will catch you all next time. But until then, let's go ads. [Music]
