Das 2025-2026 NHL Regular Season Thread: If Connor McDavid were a real team player, he’d sign for the league minimum

[sutterfamily]

Last tampa game, SNES had two 30 second PPs where tampa did some mildly dickish thing to obviously goad someone (Brady) into a penalty and they took the bait. Can't do that tonight.

[sutterfamily]

Timmy took a retaliation penalty immediately after I typed that to void a potential PP

[sutterfamily]

(It's the NHL and refs are the worst so decent chance the ref wasn't going to call the original cross check anyway but still...

[sutterfamily]

nother breakaway, nother not goal

[sutterfamily]

Horrible penalty call to give Tampa a PP.

[sutterfamily]

Tampa has Guenztel on one dot, Kucherov on the other on their power play and it's scary.

[sutterfamily]

This game is super even and it's stressful

[sutterfamily]

Stutzle absurdly lucky to not turn it over on a weird pass in his own zone ends up in a 2-1 goal for Spence, I'll take it

[sutterfamily]

Right back at them, lucky bounce off a broken pass goes right to Paul

[sutterfamily]

Why is Tampa winning every single draw

[sutterfamily]

Zetterlund with an even luckier bounce to score of a nothing shot. Hold the friggin leeaaadddd

[sutterfamily]

Sanderson you beauty

[sutterfamily]

Sanderson you beauty

[sutterfamily]

SNES last four games: 6th easiest in the league.

FLA, NYI, NJD, TOR

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Congratulations on making the playoffs, must be nice

[sutterfamily]

Eh, it's looking good but also easy to see them missing still.

Either way, I feel for you. Losing a shootout in a game that means something is the worst + the late tying goal AND looks like the last couple of months have just been a series of moments like that. You deserve better!

[sutterfamily]

Plus the worst schedules last four games are:

#1: CBJ - BUF, BOS, MTL, WAS
#4: NYI - CAR, MTL, OTT, TOR
#5: PHI - CAR, MTL, DET, WPG

So there's still a shot for the wings to finish ahead of those teams.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

But they'd need to finish ahead of Ottawa in order to get a spot, so I don't see it happening. One of those Metro teams will make it as the third divisional seed there. The only good thing about the Wings finishing ahead of those Metro teams would be that St. Louis gets a worse draft pick. Otherwise it's just another spoonful of salt in the wound like missing the playoffs on the tiebreaker with Washington when the Flyers pulled their goalie tied and the Caps won on an EN goal.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

It also sucks that I basically have to stop reading or listening to all hockey coverage, because not only is Wings-specific stuff excruciatingly doom and gloom (not that it shouldn’t be, but I watch the games and don’t need to relive them), but national guys like Gentille, McIndoe, and Lazerus have their cake and eat it too in terms of the Wings’ struggles. Detroit should’ve gone all in at the deadline and picked up a big time center! (Even though the price for Trocheck was astronomically high and who knows if Robert Thomas was actually available) They shouldn’t have moved their first if they were going to miss the playoffs! They need to completely rebuild! (Even though these guys think quick turnarounds are possible when you win a draft lottery and get a top prospect.)

I don’t need to hear any of that! They got close yet again and fell off, in large part because most of their key guys are playing through injuries (Larkin, Edvinsson, Raymond for sure), the young guys hit a wall, and the old guys are out of gas.

Their season could’ve pivoted on half a dozen games that they should’ve won or at least gotten a loser point out of.

I don’t see how trading Larkin is going to make them better, now or down the line. They’re not going to get bad enough to win a lottery, no impact players are available in free agency, and they can’t move all their forward prospects for someone like Trocheck when Kane is coming to the end of the line and they need reinforcements soon.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Wow you’ll never guess what today’s Athletic podcast is about!