32 Thoughts: The Podcast - 32 Podcast Tour

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

Vegas, baby! Jeff and Elliotte are in Sin City for the Player Media Tour and they have some big news. They are hitting the road for a podcast tour (00:10) starting September 22nd to October 6th hosted by Boston Pizza.Get your tickets at www.32tour.comSeptember 22nd - LondonSeptember 23rd - MarkhamSeptember 26th - KitchenerSeptember 27th - KingstonSeptember 29th - TrentonOctober 2nd - PeterboroughOctober 6th - HamiltonOn this week's podcast, the guys discuss the Jordan Kyrou deal (5:00), Bo Horvat (10:10), Jason Robertson (12:40), Jim Nill extension (14:15), some unsigned names (15:00), Tyler Motte signing Ottawa (17:00), MacKenzie Weegar talks (18:00), Nathan MacKinnon gives the guys some insight into his extension talks in Vegas (18:30), and Steve Mayer (Chief Content Officer at the NHL) talks the guys about P.K. Subban and what the league is planning to do at this seasons All-Star Game in Florida (20:00).Music Credit: Tōth - TurnaroundListen to the full single hereThis podcast was produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

Preach, you good to go? I'm ready whenever you're ready. Elliot, today on the podcast, and welcome to it, 32 Thoughts from Vegas, by the way, NHL Players Tour, more on that in a moment. We're going to start the podcast off with an announcement. Teased this on the podcast we released a couple of days ago, 32 Thoughts, your favorite podcast, is going on tour in association with our friends at Boston Pizza. We'll be on the road, Elliot, and it seems like you and I have been on the road with Hamel now

for about two months, three months. How long has it felt? We're a thruple. We're a thruple, and we're going back out on the road. 32tour.com is the website. Here are the dates. These are all at Boston Pizza locations. It kicks off Thursday, September 22nd.

We are in London. We are in London Knights country. Friday the 23rd, we will be in Markham, home of the Royals, Stu Hyman's team. Try to throw a little hockey flavor puck here with all these. Monday the 26th, we are in Kitchener. By the way, here's an insider scoop for you, Frege.

Philip Mazar, who is a Montreal Canadiens' second first-round pick. Look for him to join the Kitchener Rangers after Montreal at training camp. Scoop! What, you're saying he's not going to make the Canadiens' second first-round pick. Look for him to join the Kitchener Rangers after Montreal training camp. Scoop! What, you're saying he's not going to make the Canadiens? Well, I know they're a young building team, but there's going to be a lot of young kids on this team, however. And many wonder if they have the inside track on the Memorial Cup for 2024.

Tuesday the 27th, we will be in Kingston, home of the Frontenacs. Noted Frontenac Anthony Stewart will be there with us on the 27th we will be in Kingston home of the Frontenacs noted Frontenac Anthony Stewart will be there with us on the 29th we will be in Trenton home of okay I'm going to do a list here

I'm going to leave one person out I'm going to see if you get this person because and here's the hint they're a colleague of ours at Sportsnet okay Trenton

we think of hockey players like Mel Bridgman former first overall draft pick we think of hockey players like Mel Bridgman, former first overall draft pick. Yeah. We think of George Ferguson. We think of Jaina Hefford. Is there anyone else that comes to mind?

Maybe someone who does Vancouver Canucks broadcast. Maybe one of our favorite goaltenders. Maybe- John Garrett's from Trenton? Born in Trenton. Wow, I didn't know that. That's right. Our man Cheech. They love ketchup in Trenton. I should have known't know that. That's right, our man Cheech. They love ketchup in Trenton.

I should have known. They do finger foods all around. Trenton, the home of the Golden Hawks, OJHL squad, and of course CFB Trenton, which we will always mention Canadian Forces Base there. October 2nd, we will be in Peterborough. So on the way over here, I don't know how many times I've read this book.

It's one of my favorite hockey books to read, certainly on flights, because it's like a stream of consciousness hockey book written by a really smart hockey writer by the name of Stephen Smith. The book is called Puckstruck. And in there, he's from Peterborough. And one line that always stuck with me, and I've always tried to find a place for it in a podcast or on TV or wherever, and now it'll find its rightful home here on the podcast, there's a great line where Stephen says, Peterborough is a hockey word.

And I thought about that, and I can't think of anything that I associate with Peterborough closer than hockey, whether it's the Peets, whether it's people like Greg Millen or Bob Ganey or take your pick. Or Gary Lawless. Or Gary Lawless, that's right. Noted former Peterborough Pete reporter. I think of Peterborough as hockey country. And we're going there. And then we'll wrap it up on the 6th of October in Hamilton.

Hamilton, we think of the 87 Canada Cup. We'll think old school junior Fin Cups. Now we'll think of the Bulldogs, former Calder Cup champions. We think of Steve Staios there with Hamilton the last finishing school before the NHL for Mason McTavish that's the tour folks London, Markham, Kitchener, Kingston, Trenton

Peterborough and Hamilton 32tour.com is the website we're looking forward to it and I want to thank Boston Pizza for sponsoring it I want to thank all of you in advance who buy tickets to come we're looking forward to it and uh i want to thank boston pizza for sponsoring it i want to thank all of you in advance who buy tickets to come we're looking forward to it we're going to have some guests some of our co-workers are going to be there some alumni and some local people who

are going to be there we're really looking forward to it we uh we're very lucky both the podcast and sports net to have a lot of loyal fans and uh we're looking forward to coming to you we very much are so uh check out the website 32tour.com for more information and i really am looking forward to chicken wings i love chicken wings they have vegan options by the way at boston well then you can listen i go like i live in stouffville so i'm at the boston pizza at 48 keith acton shout out yeah keith acton's uh boston Boston Pizza on 48 in Maine there in Stouffville. So shout out, Woody. Coming up on the podcast, we're going to play a couple of clips from an interview we recently did with Steve Mayer,

who is the Executive VP and Chief Content Officer for the NHL. We'll play a couple of these in a few moments, but we've got a lot of news to catch up on. Well, let's make it quick because this is a tight edit for Amal. This is going to be quicker than some of our more recent pods we've got to blow through them because it's a packed schedule here in vegas and amal wants to go see aerosmith on wednesday night so amal's under the impression he's going to aerosmith tonight no because jeffy's going broadway um all right let's talk about jordan kairu uh the deal is eight years 65 million dollars it is the robert thomas deal and it seemed like yesterday, as we're in a junior hockey mood,

talking about our tour coming up, that I used to watch him play with the Sarnia Sting on a line with Nikita Karestilev. There's a blast from the past. And Pavel Zaka. That was the line in Sarnia. Now he's $65 million richer, Elliot. I think this was a deal that heated up over the last little while.

When the news got out that Cairo was going to be signing for the same number as Thomas approximately, there was a little bit of surprise. I think people understood why that happened with Thomas. I think they were a little more surprised it happened with Cairo. And one of the things I really believe that's happened, Jeff, over the past couple of weeks and months, and we've talked about this, is that I think what happened to Calgary has affected business all around the league. And you look at Johnny Goudreau saying yes and then saying no,

and you look at Matthew Kachuk saying, hey, you can keep me, but I'm not signing long-term. And I think there's a number of teams that looked at this and said, look, we've got to get control over our players. And look, we've seen it in Buffalo. Now we're seeing it in St. Louis. And I know I've made this point several times, but the more people I talk to around the league,

we saw it with JT Miller. The more I talk to people around the league, the more I hear that players made it very clear this summer that they will wield their power. If they see they have it, they will wield it. And especially in Goudreau's case, you don't want to get caught into a situation where a player wavers and you lose. And I think Kairou's agents, Jeff Jackson, Dave Gagne, they saw the market, they saw what was happening and they said to St. Louis, if you want to do this, this is what it's going to be. And, you know, it's interesting. I had some interesting reaction to it.

Like some guys said to me, it is very clear that the blues is an organization believe in kairu that's number one but number two kairu and coach craig berube they've butted heads in the past you know if you take a look at last year kairu his points per minute number was among the best in the nhl he didn't play a ton he produced. I don't want anyone to say that I think that Craig Berube is necessarily wrong. What I think it says is that Craig Berube has a certain way he wants you to play, and if you don't play that way, you're not going to play for him. And what the St. Louis Blues have said is, Craig, you've got to make this work because this is our guy for a long time at a big number.

And you may not always have liked his game, but we're committed to him. So you have to find a way to make it work. And he brings an element to the game that the St. Louis Blues, well, this version of the St. Louis Blues hasn't really had, and that is speed. It was a great summer, by the way, for the Cairo family. Yeah. Not just the contract now for Jordan Cairo, but Christian Cairo, defenseman, drafted in the second

round by the Dallas Stars. So what is next then for the St. Louis Blues? Is business done? Do you put your feet up if you're Doug Armstrong, or do you still have more business? Well, Doug Armstrong met with the media on Wednesday, and he didn't give a lot away.

That's kind of typical of him I don't think anybody would have expected it to be any other way I do think they will take a run at Ryan O'Reilly what I don't know is Ryan O'Reilly is going to be 32 now the one thing about Ryan O'Reilly is he takes care of himself it's going to be interesting it's very clear that the blues said at this point in time their priorities were thomas and cairo before o'reilly they got those deals done the last time the blues had a major free agent cornerstone player he ended up in vegas petrangelo so armstrong's not afraid to grind he's represented by newport o'reilly which is the same organization or agency that, Petrangelo. So Armstrong's not afraid to grind. He's represented by Newport,

O'Reilly, which is the same organization or agency that had Petrangelo. So they'll expect to grind. I think it's going to be a fascinating negotiation because he's still a great player. It's just, you know, the age is, it's a bigger number. But I do think St. Louis will take a run at him to see if they can avoid, you can avoid the kind of the situation, the way it played out in Petrangelo. We'll see. The big one here is going to be term. St. Louis was very careful with David Perron, who was older than O'Reilly, but they were not willing to do a ton of term there. So I think that's the big question here is what term are they willing to do for O'Reilly and will he

consider that acceptable what does the Nazem Kadri deal if anything do then to a Ryan O'Reilly negotiation I don't know if I can see St. Louis doing that if you're Ryan O'Reilly look if Ryan O'Reilly has a great year this year and there's no reason to assume that he won't he's going to say that's my market so we just want to fire through a few players here and their futures so Amel can get this put to bed and go see Aerosmith tonight as he nods. Jeff, come on, come on. Bo Horvat, met with the media. Obviously, I want to be a Vancouver Canuck, and I want to stay here, and I love our group. My wife and I love the city.

If I wanted to play for one team for my whole career it'd be the Vancouver Canucks so obviously it's a long process and and we'll see where it goes. Are you surprised at all if someone had said at the end of last season we've talked a lot about Bo Horvat's future what's the latest? Well I thought it was really interesting first of all Horvat said I'm going to be here all year. And that says to me that he's got in his mindset that they're going to have a big year, and he's going to have a big year. And that's what a captain should say.

To me, that is Bo Horvat saying, you're not going to be able to trade me at the deadline because A, I think we're going to be too good, and B, I not going to be able to trade me at the deadline because a I think we're going to be too good and b I'm going to be having a monster season that's key to this team being very good so I thought that was interesting I thought it was interesting that he admitted that the conversations had been tougher than he expected I think the thing to remember there is that what what did Vancouver show us this summer? Like I always think the surest predictor of future behaviors, past behavior and Vancouver this year showed us that they can talk a big game about what they're not going to do.

But when the moment came down to it, they did it. So if I'm Bo Horvath, I'm thinking that just because they're saying no to me right now, it doesn't mean they're not going to turn around and saying yes to me later. I think the other thing i make that makes it wonder is that if bo horvat is not signed by the deadline i think you have to assume at this point and i still think the canucks are going to get this

guy signed i it just doesn't make any sense to me to let it go the other way what about the chill that's gone through all these GMs we keep hearing about? I still think they're going to get him signed. But what that says to me is he's not thinking about signing with another team before free agency. It's either the Canucks or he tests the market. It's not him getting traded and saying, unless someone throws a huge deal at him, I'm going to sign there. But what's Vancouver showed me at the end of the day, if they want to get a guy signed,

they get them signed. And there's no need to worry. There's only 31 other teams that would want them. That's right. And it's Vancouver and they never worry about this stuff early. Jason Robertson, watch. Are we going to do this every single week?

Maybe, probably, but here we are. Another week goes by and no robertson deal i think these deals for kairu have pushed robertson's number higher like if kairu's worth stutzla started yeah well i mean but that's the thing like you know how i feel if you have a good young player you sign them for as long as you can because the price is only going to go up now it's interesting like i had someone from a team tell me, and another person backed this up, that when it comes to the cap, I think the Players Association, some of the agents are hopeful it'll be a million this year, and then it'll go up. Some of the teams tell me they're

hearing it's going to be a million this year, go up, then the cap will go up another million next year, and then we'll get a bump. So we'll see what turns out. What that says to me is at some point, the league and the players are going to have to have a conversation about this, about what they're going to do. But I think Dallas could do a long-term deal now with their cap space, especially depending on what they do with Hudobin. But the problem is that eight times eight,

I'm not sure that's going to do it for Jason Robertson anymore. So to me, it still makes more sense with the bridge. I'm not convinced at this point in time, Dallas is going to have the ability to do a long-term deal with him. And I'll be honest, if I was Robertson, I'd probably bet on myself. If Dallas comes in at eight times nine, for argument's sake, then you probably have to say yes. I'm not to say that eight times eight is poor money or anything like that, but I just think maybe he's been priced out of that range because of some of the deals that have been signed. Speaking of Dallas, Jim Nill, who had one year remaining on his contract, signs a one-year extension. Yeah. I'm not surprised

at that. They kind of hinted that that would be the case at the end of last year. But I still think the question is process. What it says to me is they think they can win. They think that Nils put them in a good enough position that they can do well. I still think they think about, okay, what's our succession plan? Who's the next person? Who's the next GM of the Dallas Stars? And I think that's what they're trying to figure out.

Is it internal or is it external? So Elliot, a couple of restricted free agent defensemen out there, Rasmus Sandin, Toronto, Nick Haig, Vegas, but not Shondur ZLA anymore. Or Mikey Anderson, who signed on the weekend. See, that happened like three days ago, and Jeff's got like the memory of a cat. Like if it doesn't happen the last nine hours. pointers welcome to my life man uh so mikey anderson signed one

year just past his qualifying offer and i got the sense that the other three of those guys didn't want to do that now the one thing i wonder about with anderson that i kind of heard was i think the kings had talked to him about a long-term deal. I just don't think they had the ability to fit it in. So he can now sign an extension on January 1st, and I'm not saying he's signing an extension on January 1st, but one thing I do think is that the Kings have an idea of what a long-term deal for Anderson could potentially look like. So I think they punted.

Dersey does two years at 1.7. He does one, four, and two. And then if he keeps putting up the numbers, he looks like he's going to put up. That's the future backbone of the Kings blue line. Anderson, Dursey. Yeah, it's pretty good. Brent Clark coming too.

They had a lot of D. And the thing with now, I'm always one down, two down. You think three and four down. Look, we're taping this. It could change at any second. It's Thursday at 1110 Vegas time. I don't think these guys wanted to do their qualifying offers.

I think they prefer to do a little bit higher. You know, Sandin. I got to think he's probably now looking. Like these two deals, like the teams are undoubtedly going to Hague and Sandin and saying this is where we're going. So Sandin, I'm sure, probably wants to get as close to two as he can. Hague, unless it picked up recently, and I'm sure it probably did. I heard it had been pretty quiet.

Vegas and Toronto are tight to the cap. But I guess this is what the market is but i i think as many of these guys as possibly wanted to wanted to avoid just doing their qualifying offers uh and we'll finish up here with tyler mott that's the latest coming out of wednesday there's a lot of solid players who have to get ptos right now yeah and you know i'll tell you evan r got $2 million for Colorado, and Colorado was looking for another center, and they got him.

I'd heard Colorado had kind of thought maybe they weren't going to do that, and then they came back to that. And I had some teams tell me that that was a good number for Rodriguez to get considering a lot of guys were signing for PTOs. And people said the same thing to me about Mott, that there's a lot of guys were signing for PTOs. And people said the same thing to me about Mott, that there's a lot of guys who you would have thought

for sure would have gotten 1.35 or getting PTOs. The one thing about Rodriguez and Mott, it's interesting. Both those guys had long-term deals available to them at the deadline. They chose at the time not to do it. And, you know, they got squeezed and I think they got good numbers considering where we are now, but it'd be interesting to see where we

go in the future. There were a lot of guys who got squeezed. That Ottawa team, I think they're going to be really interesting. I think Mott is a great get for Ottawa. It's going to be a fun team to watch. We should also mention Mackenzie Wieger. So at the Flames Golf

Tournament on Wednesday, he said they're working on something and hope to get it done. I have a feeling that something is going to be around Hampus Lindholm's extension in Boston. If you look at when Lindholm was traded from the Ducks to the Bruins, he signed for eight years at $6.5 million.

I think that that's kind of the general area where the Flames and Uyghur are looking at here. We interrupt this program to bring you a special report. Okay, one more quick insert from the NHL NHLPA Media Tour in Vegas. Nathan McKinnon, one of the things that we've talked about on the podcast, the possibility he becomes the highest paid player in the NHL. We got a chance to ask him about that. Here, the Pat he is referring to is his agent, Pat Brisson.

You've got one more year on your contract. I've heard that it's possible you could end up as the highest paid player in the league. Will you end up as the highest paid player? the league will you end up as the highest paid player you have to ask pat uh i don't know i i'm hoping we're gonna done pretty soon and colorado's the only place i want to be that's for sure so love joe and c mac those guys are great it's just you know a little business but sorry to not to answer your question but i'm not gonna answer that question i'm not gonna answer you but what you're saying to me is there's nothing to worry about here like this is on the path to getting done yeah totally yeah okay yeah no i mean myself pat the team we

all have good intentions there's no bad blood or anything it's just it's been a longer process than i thought i guess my head it's like oh first day I'm eligible, it'll be done, you know? But things don't work like that, I guess. But it's okay. I think it should be done shortly, I'm hoping. That's my goal. If not, I guess I'm feeling good. So whatever happens, happens.

Now, back to our program. Elliot, before we wrap up, I want to get to a couple of clips from Steve Mayer. Now, Steve joins us, it seems, at least once a year, sometimes twice. Interesting guy to talk to.

A lot of ideas. That's his job. He's the executive VP of the NHL, also chief content officer. We go into a lot of things and we'll present the full interview at a later date, but a couple of things

really raise our eyebrows here. One involving an nhl superstar defenseman and the other involving a game well so a lot of people have been wondering it's it's one of the questions i actually get a lot of my dms is what's up with pk subban and you know as we tape this on Wednesday night, Subban has not yet announced a decision on where he'll play this year. But one thing that has happened is he's reached an agreement with the NHL to work on another entertainment project for them. And here is Steve Mayer with more detail.

Listen, PK, we started talking about players and personalities, and he's always been one that's thought about him himself and been comfortable getting out there you know so we're we're actually quite excited because we we've been awarded the production at NHL original productions to produce PK's places which is the Peyton Manning hockey version of Peyton's places. So we're going to begin production this fall. And when we started and got the job PK, whether he was playing or not playing,

still going to host the show and we're going to work around his schedule. And actually the show doesn't air until may have 2024, believe it or not. So we have that much pre-production. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's incredible.

But I don't have the, the answer, but you know, we right now, as we speak, PK hasn't signed with the team and we're talking to them and his team about his schedule and, and how,

you know, how much time he'll be able to dedicate for, for our show, you know, and if he doesn't play, we'll have him for more time. And he will, of course,

end up on one of the broadcast networks and potentially take your job. But yeah, he, yeah, he – He's dim your light a little bit. Yeah, just – but don't worry. I wouldn't – no, but he – I'm already sweating. Yeah, he's great on camera. He's definitely somebody that – and I could speak to the U.S. networks

that he would be very sought after if he wasn't playing. That's interesting. If you ever watch Peyton's places, it's really good. So I'm curious to see how the league comes up on this. Now the other one, Jeff. This is something. We just wanted to put this in for the sheer comedic value of it.

The All-Star Game this year is in Florida, and we asked is there anything unique or different that they're going to do sheer comedic value of it. The All-Star game this year is in Florida. Oh, yeah. And we asked, is there anything unique or different that they're going to do like they did with the Bellagio Fountain last year in Vegas? And then in Florida, we're taking over the beach. I mean, the uniqueness of that particular All-Star game will be, you know, the sun and the heat meets the ice and the cold.

But we're literally taking over all Fort Lauderdale Beach. We're going to do concerts. We're going to do a fan fair, which is typically in a convention center. Going to do it all on the sand. And we're also going to do and bring back the events that we had in Vegas that were outside the arena. We're going to do those in Florida as well. So with the fountain, with the Bellagio fountain. Yeah, we've got a couple of extremely unique ideas.

One is a work in progress that if we pull it off, I think our fans will talk about it for a long time. It involves something that's very Florida, something that is that area, but not beach necessarily. How's that for a clue? And it involves an animal. A dolphin. No, no, no.

A Miami dolphin? Don't go in the water. You go in the water, but don't go in the ocean. Come on. Put it this way. I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate alligators into our outside event, and we're getting there. You're kidding.

So there's a moat around the rink. I don't want to get into the details. Someone's got to shoot a puck into an alligator's mouth? Put it this way. Put it this way. Elliot is much closer than Jeff. Wow. I mean, these are the kind of things that I think would be fun.

There's a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do a lot of work to do but um this reminds me of when i was a cub scout they trained you how to defend yourself against certain animals and i was like if an alligator attacks remember like eight years old i'm like if an alligator attacks me i'm gonna lose but okay humor me they said you're supposed to run in a zigzag and also the alligator can close its mouth with incredible force but can't open it so you have to jump on it when the mouth is closed like i'll get right on that so it's very interesting that you remember that from when you were eight years old oh i remember lots of stupid stuff i can't remember

the name of my family but i i can remember stuff like what to do when being attacked by an alligator. Yeah, we want to have some fun with this and other things. We're going to definitely also do something on the beach like we did on the strip. It's so iconic. The creative minds at the NHL are getting together. We're in that process now, but that's the direction we're heading. I have to say, if you do get a skill event where you have to shoot the puck into an alligator's mouth, people will be talking about that for a long time.

How about if it was a meat puck? Wow. Frozen meat pucks, Elliot. Frozen meat pucks. I'm just laughing thinking about it. On that note, I can say nothing more. Well done, Steve. Elliot.

I want to see it. I really do want to see it. Hashtag meatbox. On that, we'll wrap. And remind you once again, the 32 Thoughts Tour with our friends at Boston Pizza. The locations starting in London, Thursday, September 22nd, the 23rd in Markham, 26th in Kitchener, 27th in Kingston, Thursday, September 29th in Trenton. On the 2nd, we're in Peterborough, and then on the

6th, we are in Hamilton. 32tour.com is live as we speak. Taking us out as an artist who embarked on a journey of transformation and self-discovery while surrounded by cascading folk rock, celebratory horns, and lovely piano melodies with strong lyrics. Alex Toth, stage name Toth, teamed up with a talented producer named Noah Georgson for his latest project. From his latest record, You and Me and Everything,

here's Toth with Turnaround on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Enjoy. Turn around, I should have turned around There was something inside that made me wanna I'll be free someday, I know I will