As I listen:
– Tampa is an awesome team. Their core has been together for years and they also have a bunch if young guys mixed with veterans who have serious playoff experience. The one thing that could sink them is their goaltending, which is what almost happened against the Avs.
– It would have been a miracle if they beat Tampa. The way that team is built, they don’t need to rely on any one line or defensive pairing playing well to win.
– That Compher non-call was bullshit.
– I totally agree that there’s a “should-win” bias. The other bias I see is where certain players (MacKinnon for example) get fouled constantly to such an extent that the refs just stop calling it because otherwise there would be like 20 penalties drawn by him each night. And because he’s so good that he can play through the fouls, the refs don’t feel bad about not calling them.
– The distance between the sun and the earth is the distance between the Lightning and the Avs in terms of Stanley Cup chances this season.
– All I wanted out of the Tampa game was the Avs not getting blown out and outplayed all game long. They gave me that so I’m happy.
– Varly seems to take it personally when teams try to beat the Avs. I like this.
– The difference between this years team and last years team is that this team doesn’t have a *bunch* of guys who aren’t good enough to play in the NHL any more because they’re too old/slow.
– I’m not picking Tampa to win the cup. I don’t believe in Andrei Vasilevskiy fully yet.
– I don’t think the Avs stack up very well in terms of their top 6 players. I’d say they’re about league average at best. Landeskog is barely a top line winger, Rantanen still makes a lot of mistakes, EJ is good, but he’s not elite, Varly is average, and who exactly is our other top pair defenseman?
– I think you need to start recording these podcasts in empty, windowless rooms.
– Barrie changing when he did was inexcusable. It directly led to a goal against.
– Every once in a while I think MacKinnon realizes the defenseman in front of him is a scrub and that’s the result.
– On the 4 minute powerplay, I was worried about 2 goals being scored against – I genuinely would have been relieved at only 1 goal against.
– Other than the goal, Kerfoot was indeed invisible to me. I don’t want him to be invisible. I want him making at least one noticeably good offensive play each game (ideally each period).
– I really think Kerfoot needs to be a winger. Put him on Soderberg’s wing and see if you can actually make a 2nd line.
– There’s no way Jost is 100%. That many injuries don’t just go away, and your conditioning doesn’t come back that quickly. If he’s still not producing a month from now then it may be something for fundamental.
– Man oh man if they needed to win this game. They really should lose their next two games at least if the best team wins.
– I’ll be happy with an 82 point season. Anything less is a disappointment to me.
– I think the 7 forwards thing is based on the fact that whichever line has Yakupov/Bourque ends up sitting on the bench too much. This way those two extra guys can get some genuine ice time. The solution would be if Bednar found another player he could trust to play consistently all game. Maybe Yak becomes that but I’m not sure. The other factor I think is if they went to 6 D Gerard is the one getting benched, and they don’t want to do that because he needs to play to develop.
– I think the coaching is certainly affecting Gerard because he has to think now. Give him time to get used to the system and once he doesn’t need to think any more we’ll see the old Gerard again. I think you’re seeing the same thing with Kerfoot and Jost right now as well.
– I really hope they’re sellers at the deadline.
– If Bednar gets fired, I think Dave Tippett is available…
– The running gag among Flames fans is that they’re moving to Houston for sure.
– Ottawa is too good a team to stay at the basement of the league the rest of the season. They’ll turn it around just in time to lose their pick to us and have it be middle of the first round, which is the best possible scenario for the Avs
– I want Jost to go to the WJCs. I think it’s better for his development than playing 10-14 minutes a night with the Avs.

Thanks for the podcast boys. Keep up the good work.

Wish I could get to this pc (haven’t). I do appreciate and enjoy them when I can tuck them in.

Last time: Curling

This time: Bar Trivia

What will AJ and Jesse be distracted by next week? Stay tuned!

During this podcast you mentioned the Lomachenko fight. Just for grins I’ll tell you that I am a huge boxing fan, and always catch any matches of any consequence. I’ve even been to a couple in person. Hockey and boxing are my two favorite sports. Don’t know if you also like boxing, AJ, but for what it’s worth, I think Loma’s skills are superlative. According my own list, he and Terence Crawford are the top two pound-for-pound fighters in the game currently. Didn’t mean to get off-track, but after all, you mentioned it. Ha ha. 🙂