The Chris Johnston Show. Let's go. Your number one destination for a behind-the-scenes look at the game of hockey. Is this thing on? Here's NHL Insider Chris Johnston and host Julian McKenzie.

Before we get going on any hockey topics today, a very belated happy birthday to one Chris Johnston.

Happy birthday, man. Very belated. You're only 10 hours late. It's not even that bad.

Ten hours? I mean, by the time people get this podcast, it'll be a lot later than 10 hours. Well, thank you, sir. Happy birthday, buddy. I hope you got to enjoy your special day, another year older, another year wiser. Couldn't think of a better person to get to enjoy their special day than you, of course.

Oh, that's sweet of you, man. Yeah, it was a good day. Very low-key. The birthday days as you get up there become a little less wild. No big parties or anything like that. But had two nice meals, great lunch and dinner. Nice. Obviously, work during the day. But yeah, feeling very grateful for another tour around the universe. I'm gearing up for a half marathon this weekend, so I didn't want to do anything that would get in the way of that, i. E. There wasn't even a glass of wine drank. That's how committed I am to being in the, whatever I'm going to end up being, the 50th percentile of men in age 43 running the half marathon in Toronto on Sunday.

Red or white wine?

Red would be my preference, normally. Almost exclusively. I will have white wine, but red would be where I would normally... That's what I would have had with dinner last night in a where there was no race this weekend.

Okay, well, that's a future gift idea from me. But yes, happy birthday. We had to start off the episode, at least by giving you that shout out. Also, another milestone, two milestones were set in Pittsburgh yesterday. Sydney Crosby reaching the 1,600-point plateau and Evgeny Malkin at 500 goals. Big milestones for future Hall of Fame players in Pittsburgh. Did you get to watch any of the goals, the plays? What did you think of it?

Yeah, I saw the first period and the the time of that game, which there was a lot of chaos in between those two things I know that happened. Perhaps the best part is they didn't split the milestone. There was some thought, what happens if Crosby setting up Malkin's 500th goal, and it's his 1,600 point, what do they do with the park? Crosby did later say it would have went to Malkin because he knows 500 goals was so meaningful to his teammate, but ended up being academic because Sid got it on a first period goal by Brian Rust. And Malkin ultimately scored later in the game on a pass behind the back pass from Crosby. And you're talking about monumental numbers now. I mean, 1,600 points. The last player to get there was 13 years ago. I believe it was Jarmir Jagr. It's only 10 players in NHL history that have ever climbed those heights as Crosby has. Alex Obechkin is not too far behind them, so we're probably not going to have to wait 1,300 years to see another player do it or 13 years to see another player do it. But we know what these guys have been in Pittsburgh.

When you start to see the numbers and look at the history, I mean, everyone else with 1,600 points, we could give it the one-name treatment, and you'd know who I'm talking about, the Gretzky-Hau, Jauger, Lemieux, Class, Sackik. So That's the company that Sid is keeping. And even Malkin, 500 goals, used to be an automatic for the Hockey Hall of Fame. I think Malkin would have been in... If he stopped at 490, I'm sure he still would have been... We would be talking about him as a Hall of Famer, but that It used to be a benchmark that pretty much guaranteed it. And so pretty cool. They do it on the same night. Even more important for the Penguins trying to cling to whatever they have. They were part of a big comeback after going behind Buffalo, coming back, taking a lead, losing that lead, but win an overtime on a Crosby goal. Pittsburgh's three and two to start the year. I don't know that I believe in the program anymore than I have. They're three and two with a minus goal differential, but they've won some games. So credit where it's two.

Hey, the goal differential is minus one. If it was minus five or six, I'd be a lot more concerned at that. But you're right. You know what? Minus goal differentials, not necessarily what you want, but hey, a three, two start, second in the division right now in the Metropolitan, the Pittsburgh Penguins. What have you thought of that start, generally, but also their goal tending? I have to admit, I didn't know who Joke Blumquist was before the season started, but he's played a role in the team's early success so far.

He has, and I think he's giving management something to think out here because Alex Nadelkowitch has been injured to start the season. You'll recall, he started 12 or 13 games down the stretch last year when they were making a run towards the playoffs, basically supplanted Tristan Jarry, who's better paid and was meant to be the number one goal tender last year. And lo and behold, here we are to the start this season. And there are some eyebrows being raised around the league about Jarry in particular. I think it started right from their game three. They were blown out on opening night by the Rangers with Jarry and Net. They go to Blumquist, who's a 22-year-old making his first set of NHL appearances here. Certainly a well thought of prospect in the Penguins organization, but not one necessarily you were expecting to see playing NHL games now. But The injury situation is necessitated. Blumquist wins in Detroit in game two, and they go to him on Saturday night in Toronto with the start. And already that suggests, obviously, that it's a bit of a jump ball for the goal-tending position. He did lose in Toronto. They went to Montreal, and Jarry went in and won that game, although with a bunch of pucks going in.

And Jarry gets pulled after allowing three goals on five shots on Wednesday. That's a summation to basically say Tristan Jarry with over $5 million a year on the cap and a long-term deal, is already in danger, I think, of losing his job. And I don't know that we're at the place where Penguin's management, when Adalkevitch gets healthy, and I should mention, he is getting very close to being healthy enough to get back in the net. I'm not saying they're going to wave Tristan Jari at this point, but it starts to become a conversation if his struggles continue, I think. And the good news for the Penguins is they appear to have a goal tender in Blumkist who certainly has a lot of promise, and he's showing well here. He's got two of the three wins now since playing some of these early games. I would imagine it's going to be Jarry Nadelkowitch when Nadelkowitch is healthy. But at some point here, if Jarry's play doesn't turn around, I think the Pittsburgh staring down the barrel of a Jack Campbell, Cal Peterson situation where you've spent a lot of money on a goal tender, but I don't know how much longer They can be patient with him.

I think certainly they can be patient beyond the second week of the NHL season, but that patience can't last forever. And so there's a lot of heat already on Tristan Jarry, even though we're five games into the season, and he's already seen one start go to a rookie that it wouldn't have been his. And then he seeded the net on Wednesday by having a tough first period.

For sure. At least as a silver lining for Pittsburgh, seeing that a goal tender they drafted in the second round in 2020 has at least played decently to start his NHL career, that at least should bode well for their future in net.

It does. But I mean, there's cap implications to be considered, too, right? I mean, it has to get pretty far before you're waiving someone. Look, in the last year, we saw Peterson wave a number of times. He was waived in LA. Obviously, Philly's waived him since he was traded there. Last season, it was Jack Campbell getting waived. Ilyas Ampson off making over three million last year with the Leaps got waived in season. I mean, teams do reach, with at least some amount of regularity, teams reach this point with goal tenders who have significant money or term on their contracts. But you're signing Tristan Jari to the five-year deal that they did soon after Kyle Dubas was hired because you believe he's going to be a rock for you. The fact he lost his job last year and it started this year, you can only imagine. His confidence has certainly been shaken. I know that Mike Sullivan is trying to say the right things in the media. He's trying to calm things down. He's trying to keep things level. But I do think there's only so long that they can continue with that, especially in a year where they are trying to make the playoffs.

They're trying to climb. I just don't think you can keep rolling him out there if he's a liability. Just stay tuned here. I don't think this is an action item just yet, but this is a little more critical than I would have thought this early in the season, just because it really has been a rough first week. And I guess there's the other positive. It really has only been eight days into the season that we're having this discussion. I mean, there's certainly lots of time for Tristan Jarry to play well enough to make us forget this even happened. But if it keeps going in the wrong direction, I think the penguins are going to be faced with a tough decision.

I didn't mean for this to turn into Penguin's corner all of a sudden, but maybe we should touch on Rutger McGroady getting sent down to the American Hockey League. Obviously, we talked about his situation in the offseason, the fact that he wanted out of the Winnipeg Jets organization, the penguins get him. He starts the season on the roster, but now already eight days in, as we've mentioned, he's already being sent down to the AHL. That's an interesting situation, too.

It is. But I think it's as simple as wanting to get a young player minutes, right? And give him some situational experiences down in the American Hockey League that he's not getting now in the NHL. When he was in the penguins lineup for those handful of games, he was a third-line player for them. I would expect you'll see him play a lot more minutes and get some five-on-four opportunities and things like that with Wilkes-Barre. Part of this is that Brian Rust was injured and has returned to the Penguins lineup. The other part is Yasi Pouly-Arvi has been really under the radar good story for Pittsburgh. He came back last year and signed with the Penguins after having the same hip procedure as Patrick Cain had, the resurfacing surgery. Maybe never got back to any version of himself he was proud of. I actually had a chance to chat with him on the weekend, and he said he feels much, much, much better after just having more time to work out and start this year well. He showed really well in training camp. He's put up some points early in the season. One of the comments I've heard is just he's skating so much better, which I think is a reflection of the positive aspects of his recovery from that hip surgery.

So in some ways, it's not all bad news. I mean, I'm sure Rekker McGroady would prefer to be in the NHL, but for his development, I think they're taking a long term view here. And let's see how long it lasts. I mean, if there's an injury, if some of the performance slips from whether it's Pooley-Arvie or someone else in the lineup, I'm sure We'll see Migrodi back in the NHL at some point soon. But I think there might be some misunderstanding about some of the circumstances that led to him wanting not to be in Winnipeg. Obviously, I don't think it's fair to say he and the Jets didn't have the same view of what was best for his path to the NHL, but I don't think it was ever... He didn't want to play at all in the AHL. I think there's a little more nuance involved there. So I don't anticipate this is going to be any big picture issue for the Penguins and McGroady. I think everyone's on the same page, and go down, get him some minutes, and I think we'll see him back in Pittsburgh at some point here in the near future.

Cool. Also, small thing with Yasi Bilyarvi. One goal, three points in four games for him this year. He had four points in 22 games last year with the Pittsburgh That's just if you need the statistical evidence that he's better than he was last year, there it is for you.

Yeah, this is getting in the weeds a little bit, and I'm actually working on a story about this, but- Please go in the weeds. The hip resurfacing surgery used to be a career ender when players got it. Players like Carl Haglen got it at Jovanovski back in the day towards the end of his NHL career. Essentially, when you had that surgery, it was the beginning of the end. It's interesting now. Patrick Kaine has I had a pretty good year last year coming off that procedure, and I think he's feeling even better to start this year. You're seeing elements of it with Pooleyarvie. John Klingberg is a player who's unsigned right now, but he had that procedure done in January, and I know he's working his way towards a comeback. And so there's a bit of a lifeline here. Andy Murray, the tennis player, actually got this in his career and came back and played well. And so there's a positive story, big picture for guys who have hip troubles. And let's face it, it's more and more players now. I think the action of hockey, the way players move, obviously I see the intense training and the number of games they play, you're seeing more and more players have hip-related issues.

And if this can be a surgery that offers a path to a second chance or a renaissance for these guys, I think it's a great story. So it's something I'll be watching. Poojaarvi is a young man. He was drafted in 2016. He's not even 10 years past his draft. I think it's fair to say if he can get healthy, that there's going to be a good player in there. Maybe not the player he was once forecasted to be when he was taken forth overall by Edmondon, but I think you have to adjust those projections over time. And he's offering hope, I'll put it that way, to those that maybe have hip issues or a player like John Klingberg who's working his way back from them right now.

All right. Let's go from Pittsburgh to Colorado. I know we talked about them earlier this week in terms of their start, which at 0-3, at the time we were talking about them, you were already hovering your hand over the panic button, considering what they were going through. They lose to Boston on Wednesday, five, three losers. Only four players on the abs get points in that game. And of course, three of them are the main suspects in Ranted in, McKinnon and Kael Mccar. They're 0 and 4 now. What do you think of this team as they are right now? We know they're dealing with injuries, but this is not the start we expected from them.

It's not, but we also have to talk real here. I mean, they have $37 million of contracts and cap space sitting in the press box or unable to compete if they're not watching from the press box. The point is, there's not a quick fix here. I mean, maybe the the quickest fix would be trying to tighten up defensively, hoping for a few more saves. I mean, that might be in the short term, the best route back to them to get some wins, to ease the pressure, to try to get things along. But the reality, I just don't see an easy answer. This is not a front office that can make one move today that's going to make us feel significantly better about the roster or their positioning. Certainly, we all love their start players. They've got a heart trophy winner, they've got a Norris trophy winner, a Kohn-Smith trophy winner. They have everything on this team, but they don't have enough of it. And if you go and look at their lines, they just have players playing much higher in the lineup than you would expect for a team with big ambitions. They're trying to just do something to get through until the Calvary comes back, till everyone gets healthy, till they can infuse their lineup that way.

It's far too soon to predict which way this is going to go, but it makes you start to think just with the Dax decked against them and some of those realities. I mean, this could just be a year where it isn't quite their year that they might have to reload a little bit and come back. I mean, I'm not saying the Avalanche aren't making the playoff at this point. I think it'd be foolish to get too far ahead of ourselves. But I mean, your brain could start to go there. And I'll point out, too, the Avalanche don't own their 2025 draft pick. At least conditionally, it belongs the Philadelphia Flyer is the only way the Avalanche would get to select with that picked is if it falls in the top 10. I'm not sure, even with the team that's currently constructed, I'm not sure they're a bottom 10 team in the league. So they're just in a tough spot. There's no way around it. I like the ownership you've seen, some of the top guys calling themselves out or trying to take, not making any excuses, not looking at who isn't here, looking inside where they can be better.

But I mean, for this early in the season, they're certainly feeling it because, as I mentioned, I don't see one transaction, one thing that's going to change. They have to find a way with Gordiev being very leaky, with their defensive play not being where they'd like it, and they haven't been able to outscore their problems. I mean, that's maybe the biggest difference, say, between a Pittsburgh and a Colorado, is Pittsburgh can give up five in a game like they did against Buffalo on Wednesday, but they scored six. The Avalanche haven't been able to do And I think in part is they're missing three or four, certainly of their top nine forwards, three of their top six forwards in my estimation in Lekin and Natchushkin and Landeskog. And so they're also down Jonathan Drew. I mean, this is just no The way around it, this is just a bit of a shit show to start the year. It'll be one of those ones where if they come back from it, they'll talk about how the adversity was good for them. This could be a rallying point, or maybe it's a sign that this just isn't their year because of how many things are stacked against them.

But I don't think they should be looking outside the walls for help. It's got to come from within.

I imagine if you're Jared Bednar right now, too, it definitely can't be easy for him going through all these injury issues.

No. And it's a reminder of how close the league is, I think, too. We think of certain teams as absolute cup contenders. I think Colorado would have been on most lists, honestly. Before the '04 start, if we were doing tiers, they might have been in most people's top tier. They certainly would be no lower than the second tier in terms of whatever you want to call that, but like cup contention or where they are in their window. And here they are at the bottom of the NHL standings after eight days. It's a tough league right now. The margins aren't huge, but I think that bodes well for them, too, because when they do find another gear, this is a team capable of ripping off six or seven straight wins and erasing some of this early start. But they need to get to it quickly because time It's time to tick in.

I say they do find a way to rip off some wins because we all know when Nathan McKinnon gets going, he's one of those fun players to watch, and he'll find a way to get that back. I don't like the 0-4 start. I'm not worried. I'm not worried, nor should anyone else be.

I can't remember where he landed on the worryometer, concernometer, whatever. I'm getting to about a seven out of 10.I think it's worry. Just because of the 37 million the press box and not a lot of returns coming in the next week. It's just a lot to overcome. I'm not saying they can't, but my Wurio meter is pretty high based on what I've seen in the early going here.

We'll revisit this at American Thanksgiving for our annual tradition of teams where they're stacked.

We'll be revisiting it as soon as next week if they don't get some wind soon. I mean, this story, it's like a snowball starting to roll downhill, and it's only going to get bigger and bigger if they're not able to reverse the a bit.

Let's do a leafs corner really quickly here. Let's talk about Anthony Stollars, who's been really good for the Toronto Maple leaves from our friend Jonas, a. K. A. Beanie Siegel. Anthony Stollars has stopped 79 of his first 84 shots as a leaf, a 940 save percentage through three starts. What have you thought of his play? Is he their long-term fix in net? Even if Joseph Wall comes back healthy, would you still keep Anthony Stollars in net?

Well, he's certainly going to play. I would be still a little hesitant to overdo it, workload-wise, for Stollars. It's no discredit to where he started. I mean, it's as good as you could map it out, pretty much, for him to start the year, especially with Joseph Wall, a surprise late scratch on the opening night. He hasn't yet played for the Leaps this year through their first four games. For him to step in and play three of four to get two out of three wins in the one game he lost was a one-nothing loss. So he's played well enough, certainly, to give the Leaps a great chance to win every game he started. That's all well and good. The reality is he's a big man. His previous high in the NHL is 27 games in a season. I would just be worried about the workload that you might be putting on the chassis there. If you're giving him north of 40 starts, if you're trying to think about making him the 1A option and you're looking at 50, 55 starts, I just think it's a lot to ask of him to do that just because he's never done it.

And we're not talking about a brand new player the league. This is someone who's been around. I certainly expect, and I would have expected this no matter how the season went, that he's going to play more than those 27 games that represent his previous high watermark. But I can't immediately jump to like, yeah, he's starting two-thirds of the games from here on in. I think that the reality is the Leifs need Joseph Walsh to get healthy. My understanding is there's a lot of optimism that he'll be back quite soon, ready to play in the lineup for the Leifs. And then I think at that point, It'll depend on how well he plays, how well Stolar continues to play. I think the Leifs will have a semi-open mind about how the rotation goes, but I think it's going to be a rotation should both of those guys get healthy. So tip of the cap, great start to the season for Stolar's. But let's not get too far carried away here, because if you get to a stage... I mean, last year, he played one game in October for Florida. He was their backup, and the way the schedule went.

I mean, he's already played three times. It's mid-October. The Leaps have a game Saturday. They have games Monday, Tuesday, next week, back to back. There's a lot of games to be played here. And so whether it ends up being Joseph Wall coming back or Dennis Hildaby, who won his only start so far, is actually the Leaps' number four goalie. I think the Leifs still considered Matt Murray, their number three. But he's coming back from that big hip surgery last year. They want him to get up and running in the AHL rather than backing up a bunch of games in the NHL. The Lefs are getting by with their number two and number four to enter the season right now. And then we'll see where Joseph Wall lands. But the big picture story here in Toronto is this team is playing very well at five on five. I mean, defensively, they've not given up a lot. It's been helped by the goal tenant. The guys are making the saves they should, not giving up ill time goals or what I call bad goals. And early, early days, the same caution we're putting on the stories that haven't started well.

But this has been pretty much a dream start under a new head coach. And I think particularly with the signings of Chris Tana and Oliver Ekman-Larson in the offseason, the least are getting exactly what they want out of those players. I mean, the least top four defensively has been vastly improved through four games than where they were last year. Those players in particular have performed well, which I think it's a good news story, right? Look at the least free agent signings of a year ago. What were we talking about? Ryan Reeves had a very tough first 10 games. It was something like minus 10 or 11 through 10 games. John Klingberg was in and out of the lineup already and was dealing with ultimately what led to that hip injury and hip surgery. We had, but that wasn't going well. It's a totally different story now where the least newcomers, Stollars, Ekman Larson, Tanev in particular, have been really good to start the year. Even someone like Steven Lawrence has been a nice addition on their fourth line, brought a lot of energy, scored a goal, throwing checks. It's just a different vibe than where they were at last October.

And really, the last couple of October, they struggled. So this has been an encouraging start in Toronto, and Stolar has helped make it that way, but it's also the play in front of him that's helped, too.

One other person we should mention who finally getting off to a decent start for themselves after yesterday's game, anyway, Austin Matthews finally getting his first goal of the season. We got to mention him, too.

We should. I will say I'll give Toronto credit for a change because we all like to hate on the media scene here, the fan scene. But no one did seem to freak out too much by Austin Matthews having a zero, zero, and zero in the goal assistant points column across three games, which is a good thing because anyone who's watched the last eight years should probably give him the benefit of the doubt. And of course, he has a goal and two assists in his fourth game. I will remind you a couple of years ago when he had a 60 goal season, he did go zero, zero, zero through three games that year, too, which is not to say That's the recipe to a 60 goal season. But it's only to point out that we've seen this before. I don't think there's any concern about Austin's play. In fact, he had eight shots on net on Saturday against Pittsburgh, didn't score. But the chances have been there. The least have been absolutely dominant with his line on the ice at five on five to this point. Now he's got a few points on the board, and I imagine he'll continue to roll from here.

I think the '69 goal season of last year will be difficult to replicate, but certainly to say For me, the floor for him is probably 50 goals this year. If he gets somewhere in the 50 to 60 range, I think that that's probably where my expectation would lie. And you might say he's only got one in four games. He's off pace. But just seeing enough of the guy to know it's probably not a worry that he can score in bunches. The Toronto market, for once, maybe because the team has actually played pretty well and has been winning some games, didn't freak out about this one to the degree. It might at other times in years gone by.

That's very true. Maybe if it had gotten to 10 games, Oh, yeah.

I mean, 10 games, that's an eighth of the season. Now you're getting a meaningful sample. But the other guy, too, that played excellent on Wednesday was William Milander. He was on the ice for five of the six goals, had a direct hand in a couple of them. Yeah, It's for a place where it seems there's always some controversy or storyline. It's been very quiet so far in Toronto. I mean, everything has gone well to this point. Again, though, it's eight days. A lot happens in a league. There's a lot of ups and downs for every team, every organization. And I'm sure there'll be something here. There'll be some chaos in leaves corner to come. But so far, so good.

As long as we keep having leaves corners. Look, I get it. It's quiet. We need material for these segments. People We'll like these segments. It'd be a lot better if we had stuff for the segment, even if it was just quiet.

Yeah. I mean, look, there's material. I mean, the Leaps are still missing Joseph Wall. I mean, I just pointed out they got three games in four days starting Saturday. I mean, if Wall isn't back, if the goaltending springs a leak, I mean, if four days from now, the whole picture might look a little different. But I'm just saying through the games they've played, based on what we've seen, based on what we can make judgments about, it's been a pretty solid start from top to bottom for the Leaps.

For sure. I want to get to the Utah Hockey Club. Again, we talked about them earlier this week. We bring them up again on Thursday. But I'm curious about their back-end. Sean Dersy looks like he's going to be missing some time with an upper body injury. John Moreno has been missing for a bit of time with another upper body injury. It's really early. I think eight days might be the front runner for a title of this episode already. But if you're the Utah Hockey Club, you have those two guys out, you have what? 8 million in cap space, according to Puckpedia. Do you make a move? Do you stand pat? Is there something that can be done with the space that's there? Are we just projecting? What are we thinking?

Well, I think the first move you might see them make is look to their American Hockey League team to see if there's help there. Keep in mind, the Utah HC, formerly Arizona Coyotes, have made a lot of draft picks in recent years. They feel they have some depth. And so I think They've put Robert Pertuzo in the lineup who is a veteran that they signed off of a PTO in the wake of these injuries. They're not replacing Sean Dersy. We should say that right off the hop here. He's a first-pairing guy for that team. He eats up a lot of minutes and plays important junctures of the game. But I think that they're more inclined for the time being to look internally. It seems like Moreno is still a fair way off. He missed training camp with his issue. Dersy injured earlier in the week and not a firm timeline yet on how long to expect him out. But I suppose if time goes along, maybe the internal option starts to look a little less appealing and you're looking externally. The trade market hasn't yet taken shape. We know that, for example, Timothée Lilligren with the Leifs, he's played one of the four games so far.

No secret that the Leifs would be at least open to considering moving him to another team. But beyond that, it's hard for me to to pinpoint a bunch of defensemen that they could go make a deal for that might be a bolster to what they're doing. At this point, I think Utah goes to the farm, maybe, and makes a call up and tries to get through this patch that way, lean on a veteran like Bortuzo, who's played a lot of games in the league and hadn't been in their lineup when the season began. But they're going to have to patch it together, I think, before any types of moves are made. But But again, if this is two weeks down the road and the team starts to leak oil, they allowed five goals in a loss in Anaheim on Wednesday, then they might have to rethink things. But right now, I think they're just going to get by with what they've got and see where they end up if they can get through this little period here without two of their top D.

Okay. Anything you want me to bring up before we get to stick taps?

No, I don't think so. I can't remember. I got lost in the show. There's nothing on my mind, though.

I'll tell you I don't know. This show's run by pretty quickly. So just wanted to make sure we cover all of our bases here before we get to our stick tap segment that we normally do on Thursdays, where we show some love throughout the league. Crosby and Malkin getting stick taps would be a very worthy mention for this segment. But we should go to Columbus in Florida from earlier this week, the tribute that they paid to Johnny Goudreau. I watched some of the tribute earlier this week. I'm going to be thinking about this story for a long time. I know you've thought about this story a lot, too, with Johnny Goudreau and what their family has been going through. But seeing both teams wear the number 13 before the game, all the players wearing 13 on their jerseys, the opening face off goes. They let 13 seconds elapse off the clock. They pass the clock over to the left-hand side where Johnny Goudreau would have been. Just really Really, really touching. Sean Monahan scoring in that game, too, pointing towards the banner raised at the arena for Johnny Goudreau. Just, I'll say this, as sad as this tragedy is.

It is unbearably sad. It's something that we're going to think about for a long time, and I can't imagine what this family is going through. I'm comforted at the fact that the hockey world has responded the way that they have for this situation, just offering their support to the Goudreau family whenever, and not just teams. That's fans, that's players, that's everyone. Just seeing the tribute and seeing how people have responded in wake of this tragedy That's at least a silver lining, a positive to take in. I just wanted to say that Columbus and Florida came together to do a great job with their tribute earlier this week.

Yeah, the Blue Jackets really, they struck all the right notes with that. What really got me was seeing his parents on the ice, how emotional they were, understandably. Sean Monahan holding one of Johnny's kids during that ceremony. It's heartbreaking. It's hard to believe, honestly, for players on both sides that they had to go play a game after all that. But credit to everyone. I guess it's the same as you're saying with the family. What can you do? You band together and you just got to keep moving forward. It's not to say you're not looking back, but you're trying to do right by honoring the lives lost, celebrating the lives lost, and the joy and love they brought to your life. But it's a tough thing. I think that I can only imagine what the discussions must have been like about how do you honor this thing, how do you do it justice. I really can't imagine the Blue Jackets and also the Panthers as a visiting team doing a better job. I think that was And a real testament to them on Tuesday night. And I'm sure the tributes won't stop here. I mean, we've seen them all around the league already, and I know there'll be other opportunities to do it the same, but that was the right one to do.

Columbus and Calgary haven't played each other yet, and they will in November. I think they play against each other twice within a span of a couple of days. A bit of a home and home situation. Yeah, in terms of tributes and tracking that, I'm circling those dates because I'm very curious to know how those will go in those cities.

Yeah. And it's tough to know what to do there because Calgary, as we mentioned on the show earlier this week, did a really nice job before their home opener on the weekend. Columbus has done this. I don't know what the right tone to strike is later in the year when those two teams, the two teams, of course, that Johnny Goodrow played for in the NHL meet. But whatever it is, I'm sure they'll find the right thing. But it's tough to I don't know what to say in terms of words on a podcast like this. It's even tougher to put on what amounts to a show or presentation in front of 20,000 people and nationally televised audiences. But yeah, tip of the cap to what the Blue Jackets put together this week.

Yeah, I think that's good enough to have to represent for both of us for stick taps on this one.

Yeah, the other one I want to mention, it's really not a stick tap because it's a tragic story, but you don't want to I'll give it some eyeballs in this part of the world in case you might have missed it. But I guess a tip of the cap to the Finnish Liga, which had a moment of silence before every game played on Wednesday. And that's because a former player, Yane Puhaka, was murdered over the weekend, a suspected murder. Puhaka was the first openly gay male player to come out after his career, and he was suspected to be murdered by his partner. And so that person has been apprehended by police, but obviously a very tragic situation. This is a player who played nationally for Finland internationally, won a Bronze medal with the World Under-18 team in 2013, played in the QMJHL for Shikudimi for a couple of seasons, and then played professionally at home in Finland and also in France, and unfortunately, died at the age of 29. So a tragic story. Obviously, I don't have any personal touch to that player, but one that I know is felt through at the hockey world and is making big headlines back in Finland.

And obviously, he's being honored there by the people that knew him and played with him as well.

Yes. We obviously send our best to his family and everyone else close to him. Yes. I am glad that we were able to mention that story, actually. I know you wrote about it for the athletics, so I'm really happy we were able to mention that, too. And that'll do it for our Thursday show. A bit of a somber end, but these things happen, unfortunately. We'll be back next week. We'll have Ask CJ. We'll have more great content. Something will happen in the NHL, and we'll get to that. Subscribe to our podcast in the meantime. We'll talk to you all next week.

The Chris Johnston Show. Follow Chris on Twitter @reporterchris, and follow Julian at JKA McKenzie.

The Chris Johnston Show.