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LAST CALLS - 002
79 Plays21 days ago
James, Luke, and Varada take stock after the dust has settled on what only the most bitterly sarcastic observer would refer to as "The Ottawa Senators' 2026 Playoff Run".
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
At the tone, please record your message.
Comparing Hurricanes' Series Performance to Lincoln
00:00:03
Speaker
Hello, it's me, James. Breaking my legendary silence on the Carolina City Hurricanes, Ot, Cento's first round ah I guess you'd call it a series. There was a number... Small number of games played.
00:00:29
Speaker
So I think that qualifies it as a series. ah As everyone knows, I'm the Abraham Lincoln of this podcast.
00:00:41
Speaker
Maybe some even say a bit better than Abraham Lincoln. um And as the Abraham Lincoln of this podcast, I put my hater-ass voicemail...
00:00:54
Speaker
in a drawer before sending it and slept overnight for a couple of weeks ah before before submitting it.
Respect for Rival: Carolina Hurricanes
00:01:06
Speaker
um And here I am the morning after, so to speak,
00:01:14
Speaker
and it is with a very heavy heart that I must announce that have have
00:01:23
Speaker
It's
00:01:26
Speaker
be hard to
00:01:30
Speaker
I have... I I...
00:01:39
Speaker
I have... I have respect. but I have respect for the Carolina Hurricanes.
00:01:54
Speaker
That is a good fucking hockey team. i Going into this, um I think we Sens fans, by and large, pinned our hopes to the fact that Carolina and Ottawa play a similar game And lo, though the hurricanes sit atop the standings and we scrape in they were not befouled by, in some cases,
00:02:36
Speaker
ah historically terrible goaltending. ah So we were a bit of a ah sleeping giant. And now that, you know, we're backing off the cracks, we'll show them that we can go toe to toe.
Team Performance Observations and Penalty Kill
00:02:55
Speaker
My ah feelings on that series was, for the most part, I was watching a team that... Led their division and crews to a playoff spot playing a team that fucking barely scraped in to the playoffs. ah I believe it was what the third last game of the year. Yeah,
00:03:25
Speaker
yeah I just thought that it was ah it was they were on a completely different level. Yeah. In fact, so much so that they made the sense that we watched be incredibly well coached, incredibly disciplined. You know, again, terrible goaltending, but, you know, great performances from the forwards and defense after the, you know, penalty kill debacle was sorted out. Which, by the way, not for nothing in the series, I thought the Sens penalty kill was...
00:04:04
Speaker
Excellent. Like, excellent. ah Unfortunately, also, Carolina's penalty kill was excellent. But as I was saying, i thought that Carolina played such a more advanced version of Ottawa's game that they made them look uncharacteristically scrambly and panicky.
00:04:26
Speaker
Um...
00:04:29
Speaker
through through pretty much most of the series. I thought in game two, ah ah but after the first period, they actually looked like themselves again.
00:04:42
Speaker
And at the end of the day, the games were tight, you know. There wasn't really any blowout games, but that doesn't really matter for much other than, you know...
00:05:00
Speaker
i'll get I guess I'll get to that. But
00:05:05
Speaker
the I will say the difference between this series and the Leafs series last year was we cheered the team off the ice, deservedly so. We love our big burly boys and proud of them we are.
Facing Hurricanes Again: Acknowledging Need for Improvement
00:05:27
Speaker
But I came out of that, and I'm sure you could go back in the archives, and I said this, is that I'd roll it back. I'd roll it right back. If we had to play the Leafs again this year, i would do it in a heartbeat.
00:05:43
Speaker
I don't know what happened with that. I'm not sure why we didn't face them in the first round this year. But anyway, i digress. um I would not roll it back with the Carolina Hurricanes just yet. I feel like we got a little bit of work to do ah before I'm in ah roll it roll back the rim to win mode. ah And it's it's a real shame because Sens fans...
00:06:18
Speaker
This is not a thing we can hang our hats on. We got one of the best goaltending performances in franchise herstory from Linus Aloysius Olmark.
00:06:33
Speaker
He was... We got... Game two killed me. ah Like, we got Vezna Olmark for four fucking games. And we didn't win one game.
00:06:48
Speaker
That's... Like, I don't know if we get Vezina Allmark again next year. We might get, like, pretty good Allmark like we got the year before. ah and Yeah.
00:07:01
Speaker
I don't know. Things like... Things like Timmy being snakebidden, I don't really have anything to say. I guess we'll do a full autopsy at some point.
00:07:12
Speaker
Um... Thanks for listening. But, uh...
00:07:19
Speaker
I just felt like game two was was the beginning of the end in that I thought, you gotta win that game. You gotta close that out. for you can't You can't get a goaltending performance like that and lose.
00:07:40
Speaker
It's kind of like, Actually, Patrick Lilliam's numbers in the playoffs are actually like, hey, who gives a shit? You know, ah you got to win the games. That's ah that says there's no way to spin it other than we got swept.
00:08:00
Speaker
And I think that as a fan, I put a lot of money up and I'm hating in the sense that I'm getting a bit tired of being the underdog going into every like, well, watch out. the otawa Like, I want these guys to scare people.
00:08:22
Speaker
That's my takeaway. I heard that basically because I'm not watching. i don't know. These teams, one less interesting than the next.
00:08:36
Speaker
I had heard that the Florida City Panthers, did what Carolina just did to Ottawa last year. And they were kind of, they thought they were this like kind of squared away, disciplined team ready for like the tight checking, shrunk down game of the playoffs. And, and Florida just bullied them into oblivion and that they learned from it and came back and did it to us.
00:09:07
Speaker
ah We got to do that.
Encouragement Against Drastic Team Changes
00:09:11
Speaker
Ottawa's got to do that if we're going to go anywhere with this. You know, I'm not unrealistic to like, it's a pretty unique window that we are in the middle of And um
00:09:27
Speaker
I hope management, I trust that management recognize, like fans, let's, Let's calm down a little bit. Like I said, put your voicemail in a bedside drawer and and think about it. is This is a good team.
00:09:46
Speaker
This is a very good team that got shook. And it just happened to Carolina ah last year and it happened to us this year.
00:09:58
Speaker
I hope they can learn from it. Can the team be improved? You know, the fucking Colorado Avalanche thinks that they can improve. You know?
00:10:11
Speaker
ah
00:10:14
Speaker
So, don't... to Don't do anything drastic. Let's... Get better than a historically bad backup goalie.
00:10:26
Speaker
Lena Salmark. I will give you the password to my BetterHelp account. You know, just like, let's... Do box breathing and stay exactly where you were in the playoffs. It's all good, brother.
00:10:41
Speaker
You know, we're just aloha over here. And do it again and be better and be the favorite going into the series. I feel like a big problem the last two years that the Sens need to graduate from is that their playoffs has been getting into the playoffs.
00:11:02
Speaker
You know? I think that teams above them, their playoffs is the playoffs and they're getting in there comfortably and they are beating us. And hopefully, you know, we recognize that, look, I don't know about you, but when Sanderson was out, it was like, this is over.
00:11:27
Speaker
Like, you know, like the same way, like, If Kale McCarr is injured on Colorado, they're like that's a huge blow to the team. We're we're like a much lesser version than that of that. rather um We had some tough health issues.
00:11:49
Speaker
I hope that they that there's a bit of luck to that. I don't know how much can be helped there, but let's not... ah Let's not do anything drastic and learn from it and come back and be a stronger team and be the big dog.
00:12:10
Speaker
Okay?
00:12:13
Speaker
I love you. i miss you. and a Message deleted. Next message. So the summer I turned 23, had just graduated from undergrad, and I was determined to take a solo backpacking trip across Europe.
Financial Struggles and Backpacking Reflection
00:12:40
Speaker
And in fact, I did do this. And i had a great time. It was definitely a formative experience for me, as you might guess. And when I got back to Canada, I did actually have a job lined up i was going to start a master's degree and my research was going to be funded and so this was great and but the problem was is that by between the time when i got back to canada and i got my uh master's funding the coffers ah were missing there was there was nothing there was nothing going on the bank account i was i was broke i was super broke
00:13:22
Speaker
Like I wasn't going to get it all on the street or anything like it wasn't like so dire, but it was definitely like into like two boxes of craft dinner a day. And that's your meal sort of territory.
00:13:36
Speaker
And I think I had ah somehow still like $120 in cash leftover. I don't know why. I think maybe I had some money that I just like put in a drawer one day and then I found it. And I was, i found it one day and I was like, oh good, here's my, like, here's my budget for fun for the entire rest of the summer until ah the paycheck hits in September.
00:14:03
Speaker
And somehow I got it in my head that it was a great idea to take the only cash I had and head down to Gananoque Casino And play Texas Hold'em poker against the old man coffee regulars there.
Lessons from Casino Poker Loss
00:14:24
Speaker
And within about an hour, I was dealt, I think, like pocket sevens. ah The flop came like queen seven three.
00:14:36
Speaker
Me and another guy went all in. I had three sevens and the other guy had three queens and I lost my $120. Yeah, within 45 minutes, shall we say.
00:14:50
Speaker
And this taught me a very important lesson about how much it sucks to lose money playing poker. But if you play poker more regularly,
00:15:04
Speaker
you realize that there's supposed to be like hundreds of these types of hands in your career and sometimes you're on the winning side and sometimes you're on the losing side and if you've got pocket kings like that you can't spend all your time playing being afraid that the other guy may might have pocket aces like pocket kings is a good hand a that that like That is the straight up second best hand in poker. You have to play aggressively with that hand. And you can't just be afraid of what's going to happen if the other guy has the one hand that can beat you.
00:15:46
Speaker
And on the occasions in which the other guy does in fact have that one hand that can beat you, you just have to say to yourself, sometimes it's your time to die.
00:16:00
Speaker
And that's kind of how I feel right now. is no it was the its It was just the sense time to die. Look, game four, like we knew which way this thing was headed after game three, I'm pretty sure.
00:16:14
Speaker
And you know Sanderson was out, Zub got hurt in the first half of game one. Everyone was snake bit except for Drake Batherson for some reason.
00:16:25
Speaker
Dylan Cousins scored, which was nice. But everything that was going on and with like the major injuries the Sens had, like let's not get it twisted. This is like... This wasn't a long run getting shut down.
00:16:40
Speaker
ah This was Ottawa's ah pocket kings getting stacked by Carolina's pocket aces. And, you know, shout out to them.
00:16:52
Speaker
But for us, I think, you know, we just have to... shuffle up and deal with the next hand, just buy right back in. like i I've seen some people saying that they they've they wish the Sens didn't make the playoffs at all, and I i just don't understand that because for me, you know the last three months is way more meaningful than the past four games.
00:17:15
Speaker
And you know even those four games were were're pretty close. And, you know, Ottawa didn't look out of the series ah for too long and I think there's going to be lots of time to talk about this summer, what what we should do.
00:17:36
Speaker
But ah for now, i absolutely ah don't regret the fact that the Sens made the playoffs only to win zero games. They had the shortest possible playoff run.
00:17:51
Speaker
It's fine. It would been more dire if they got swept by the Leafs last year. This year, you know, I've seen a lot of Sens teams get swept. I've seen him get swept to against Toronto. I've seen him get swept against the Penguins. At least this Sens team had, you know, more ah heart and balls and spine and other anatomical parts that have to do with courage.
00:18:18
Speaker
Uh... yeah For me, it was Ottawa's time to die, and that's just the way she goes sometimes. And yeah, I think Tim Stutzler, let's work on finishing a bit.
00:18:37
Speaker
Drake Batherson, let's work on winning some board battles. ah Brady Kachuk, let's... talk about that later.
00:18:49
Speaker
um Thomas Shabbat, you're perfect. ah No notes. um We'll do a podcast soon well We'll get more into the future. But for now, I think Sens made the playoffs. That's all we really wanted.
00:19:06
Speaker
Got the worst possible opponent. ah Got their asses kicked. And yeah, lawyer fucked me. the way it goes. So ah yeah, that's what I got.
00:19:17
Speaker
Verrata, looking for you ah come through in the clutch with some ah choice Camus quotes now. Message deleted. Next message.
Internal Perspectives on Hockey Strategy vs. Defeat
00:19:27
Speaker
There are two wolves inside each of us.
00:19:31
Speaker
The first wolf is the one who fell in love with the game of hockey, who can enjoy hockey in the abstract, objectively, unmoored from the fact of our fandom, the fact that we love Ottawa and feel like Ottawa is underappreciated and we have the chip on our shoulder of growing up in Ottawa and and understanding how people feel about it.
00:19:59
Speaker
This first wolf is the one that's able to look at the Carolina Hurricanes and think maybe there's something genuinely interesting going on here. You know, as I'm recording this, they've obviously swept the Sens and they're up 3-0 against the Flyers.
00:20:15
Speaker
um They're going to have to play Buffalo or the Habs in the conference finals. And I don't think they'll have any trouble with either of them either. um Although, who knows?
00:20:25
Speaker
If they beat, let's say, the Sabres in four or five, there's something that needs to be written about how the Hurricanes have cracked the code of hockey.
00:20:37
Speaker
They've done something. And the fact that it's a, you know, we're all interested, at least conceptually, in data-driven decision-making and analytics.
00:20:48
Speaker
And I think, generally speaking, most of us, when we think about data and analytics, we mostly just think about um referring to data before you make a commitment to a contract.
00:21:03
Speaker
But at a systems level, at ah a gameplay level, it seems like the Hurricanes have distilled this like marriage of data-driven decision-making and strategy at the gameplay level and have developed basically like the perfect defensive system.
00:21:22
Speaker
And you could say, well, how perfect could the defensive system be with Freddie Anderson in net? Well, it's such a perfect defensive system that they can make Freddie Anderson 97% save percentage of coaltender.
00:21:35
Speaker
This first wolf inside you is able to look at this and say, this is genuinely interesting. Something is happening inside the game of hockey. And we should either think we should either admire it or we should be afraid of it because somewhere down the line,
00:21:51
Speaker
Maybe every team is going to learn from this and we're going to end up back in like 1990 style defensive hockey where every game is one nothing and every goal is a garbage goal of just a total random outcome.
00:22:04
Speaker
You know, you see what's happened in baseball and, you know, the game the game is basically ruined at this point. um there's There's very little that happens outside of what is projected to happen. um You know, obviously there's exceptions to that.
00:22:21
Speaker
But for the most part, when I talk to baseball fans, they say, you know, the magic is gone from the game. Now it's basically the output of a spreadsheet algorithm. So this first wolf inside you might look at this and say, yeah, okay, the Sens were swept, but they're part of this grander narrative about what's happening inside decision making and hockey. And that's genuinely interesting. And you know, i I mostly think hockey journalists are trash. They're like soap opera writers. I think um I mostly think hockey journalists are like TV guide soap opera journalists where they're just detailing the latest thing that happened and like the the latest thing that was said and what it might mean. Like basically gossip.
00:23:07
Speaker
I very rarely see somebody write about um systems level ah decision making and what it might mean um and do ah do a deep analysis like what makes this Carolina team special.
00:23:23
Speaker
The second wolf inside you is of course like fuck all of this they swept us this is humiliating fuck them fuck the game fuck every single uh adversary that that we have uh this is a ah boring ass southern state team that doesn't deserve to win um you know we have the passion we own the game this is this is injustice you know and these are equally i think valid perspectives these two wolves inside you um and it's going to take some time i think for us to be able to go from one to the the other you know i'm definitely
00:24:03
Speaker
in that place where you know i I feel like we saw something that was close to a Hamburglar run to get us into the playoffs and then getting swept. you know It feels like the Hamburglar run where we got in and then we just lost against Pittsburgh in the first round.
00:24:21
Speaker
I think that was Pittsburgh we lost against, but we lost in the first round. And it just it felt like such an injustice after that magical run. um
00:24:31
Speaker
Or the year that you know the Sens went to the finals and then the next year they started in this like completely dominant fashion and then they they spiraled and they barely made the playoffs, then they got swept.
00:24:43
Speaker
And it just again, it just feels like an injustice that how can a team do something really special in a season and then be so unceremoniously dispatched of?
00:24:55
Speaker
And you know, it's gonna take some time for it to not hurt. You know, i i I look at the team's Instagram account and I see the fan appreciation nights and like Stutzla and Olmark out there signing autographs and I just think, you know, how can anybody celebrate Ottawa Senators hockey right now?
00:25:14
Speaker
And of course, our cooler heads will prevail eventually. We'll look at it and we'll say, we didn't have Zub, we didn't have Sanderson for a couple of games. uh it was pretty close um but eventually i like to think we'll get to a place where we can just admire what's beautiful about the game i don't know if any of you watched that first colorado minnesota game but uh that was a lot of fun you know i hope you can get to a place where you can derive joy from from hockey again one last thing i'll sort of say is i thought that you know the sen's power play in that first round was obviously pathetic
00:25:50
Speaker
I think it scored about 23% in the regular season.
Power Play Analysis and Series Outcome Reflection
00:25:53
Speaker
And I said to myself, and it made sense to me, that if the Sens scored at a 23% rate in the first round, that first round would have been completely different.
00:26:03
Speaker
um Especially because they had a number of five on threes. Well, I did the math and it turns out it it probably probably not. Obviously, these things are, you know, game states change whether you're up or down. So it's it's not apples to apples comparison here. But if you just took the games as they were and you just superimposed on that, the Sens scoring at a 23% rate in the power on on the power play, it doesn't turn into the Sens winning in six or something like that.
00:26:34
Speaker
What it turns into is it takes three of those losses and turns them into a coin flip. which they kind of already were. You know, it doesn't really turn those into a definite win state.
00:26:44
Speaker
You know, it basically gives the Sens an extra goal per game in games two through four, and they lost all those games by one goal anyways. So, you know, it's kind of a wash.
00:26:57
Speaker
yeah I thought this might comfort me to to think, okay, if the Sens just scored at 23% rate, we'd be in the second round. Learning that we probably would have lost anyways You know, you go back to that first wolf. You have to sort of like find your love of the game itself in order to just not, you know, wash your hands of it and walk away.
00:27:18
Speaker
Or you know what? Fuck it. Wash your hands of it and walk away. You'll come back. You know, the draft will draw you back in or or next season will draw you back in. Take a break. Go spend time with your family. Go watch a movie. There's a new Dune movie coming out. Go watch the trailer. It looks really great.
00:27:33
Speaker
Message deleted. End of messages.