32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Big Daddy Kane

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

It’s getting busy! Jeff and Elliotte kick things off by talking about Patrick Kane and his current situation (1:00), the statement from Jonathan Toews (7:50) and the big three-team trade between the Maple Leafs-Blues-Wild (9:50).They then get into what the Blues might do going forward (18:00), the latest on Timo Meier (20:45) and Jakob Chychrun (30:10), what teams like Boston (33:10) Tampa Bay (34:20) and Colorado (36:45) might be looking to do as we near the trade deadline, a few thoughts on the Stadium Series (39:15), some decisions for Vancouver (45:15), Tyler Motte traded to the Rangers (47:10) and Tyler Bertuzzi is staying in Detroit (49:00), explain why Joonas Korpisalo might be a good trade chip for Columbus (52:40) and lots of talk around the Flames (55:10).And finally, the guys tease their upcoming interview with Jake Allen (1:01:10) and answer your questions (1:04:02).Email the podcast at [e-mail] or call The Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemailMusic Outro: Parker Louis - VibeListen to the full track HEREGET YOUR 32 THOUGHTS MERCH HEREThis podcast was produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: CBS Sports, ESPN, Luke Fox (Scrum Audio) and Sportsnet.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.

Hi, this is Frank from Lloyd Minster. Love the show. Freed, you're killing it. Love it all. Hi, Jeff and Elliot. Jim Earhart calling from Brockville. I've been a Leaf fan since 1959. Hi, Jeff and Elliot.

First time listener. Oh, shit. That would be me. That would be me calling sports talk radio stations in like the 80s and 90s, Elliot. That was great. Emil Delic, well put together, including the gentleman at the end who stepped all over his tongue. Welcome to 32 Thoughts, the podcast presented by GMC and the new Sierra AT4X. A lot to get to.

And you know what? It's going to be tough to sort of sift through and filter through a lot of the emails and voicemails we got this week because the inboxes for both are overflowing, Elliot. But we'll get to those towards the back end of the podcast as we always do on your Monday morning edition of 32 Thoughts to Pod.

You've recently come home here. It is 9.45 on a sunday evening you are working the toronto maple leaf chicago blackhawks game alongside anthony stewart and david amber and the story of the game is patrick kane gonna get to him we can't talk about kane right now without talking about jonathan taves we'll get to him but rewind to 88 the hat trick a natural hat trick i I might add as well, which brings him up to five goals in his last two games.

Did we fire up the rumor mill once again with Patrick Kane talk? We don't need to fire up the rumor mill. Patrick Kane fired up the rumor mill. What were we talking about last week? We need a signature Kane performance. It had been a dreary week. You know, one of the things I'm convinced

about now is there was a little bit of controversy because Kane and the Blackhawks played on Montreal on the Tuesday. So there was no morning skate in Toronto on the Wednesday, but he did not talk to the media after the game in Toronto on Wednesday night, much to the disappointment of the local reporters.

I definitely think that after he made some very honest and blunt comments the week before, which I support, he was told, dial down the temperature, let the situation play out, don't pour any more gasoline on this fire. However, on Sunday night, he didn't just pour gasoline on the fire. Name every flammable material you can think of, cyclohexane, whatever, and he poured it on the fire, but in a good way. We needed to see Patrick Kane at his best. He scored two goals against Ottawa.

He scored three on, as you said, on Sunday night. But it wasn't just that he scored, Jeff. Look at those goals. The third one, the snooker shot. That was awesome. You know, it's funny. I said on the air, those aren't goal scorer goals. And after I said, I was like, well, that's dumb. But we think about goal scorer goals is guy comes down the wing and rips like a wrist shot or a snapshot or a rare slapper now past someone and the goalie has no chance. These were the thinking person's goal scorer goals. This was using the defenseman as a screen on the first one. You just give that kind of player that kind of time and gap and you can see he uses his defenseman Lilgren as the

screen and that quick release up and over the reaction of Samsonov is he didn't pick it up through the legs of Lilgren there faking and forcing Samsonov to open up between his legs on the second one I mean this is just such composure watch as he holds he holds he's got now Samsonov who is down on his knees. As soon as he makes this first fake, he knows he's got the goaltender in a precarious spot and he slides across. That's just a heads up play.

No panic in Kane there. And then as you said, the bank shot on the third one. It was genius. Pass for Murphy and Samsonov to stop a rebound. Kane tried to pick it in. And did he? Fans react.

Keene is celebrating. He manipulated the game to his advantage. It was vintage Keene in so many ways. And, you know, what did we hear on the weekend, Jeff, as we were doing all of our research for the Saturday segment, teams were pulling back. They weren't sure. They thought the price was too high.

We aren't talking about a first router here. I don't think. Teams were unsure. Well, now everybody's going to be jumping back into the pool and there's going to be interest and we'll see where this goes during the week. Again, though, I have to stress, this is up to Patrick Kane.

There'll be a lot of teams that will jump back into the pool. But as we talked about, was it the last podcast or last week? The homework assignment that I got from someone was, it's your job to figure out where Patrick Kane's heart is. As long as the performance is there and teams covet him, and how could you not after seeing what we've seen the last couple of days? The job is figure out where Patrick Kane's heart is. Where is it?

I think it's some combination of Vegas, Dallas, Edmonton, and we'll see if anyone else shows up here. Like the one thing is that when it comes to Edmonton, I think they have interest. I do think it intrigues the Oilers. He's got a resource there in Duncan Keith. You know, he could always call Duncan Keith and say, hey, Duncan, what's it going to be like to spend two months or longer, hopefully longer for the Oilers sake in Edmonton.

And he can ask him about that. I think this game actually opened up maybe more questions than answers. And that's the great thing about it because Jeff, I honestly got the impression and you can tell me if you think I'm wrong based on what you were hearing that on Saturday we were moving out of the Keene conversation that everybody was looking

to move on. And now we're right back dab in the middle of it. So one team that I talked to was nope, too expensive. Nope, too expensive. But having said that, teams will say this now, you know, in the middle of February, but then just lurk. Like you've been at this longer than I have. You know the GMs that lurk and you know the ones that shut doors. I think there are probably teams out there that initially said,

no, too rich for us, we're not in, but are still lurking around. I can see a lot of teams still lurking around Patrick Kane. And I think they're going to be doing a lot more than lurking. And we're getting to a point here anyway where Kane has to make a decision. You know, you could tell, like, he's pissed off. What went through your mind when Toronto traded for Ryan O'Reilly? There's some, you know, speculation that that might have been a team that... Oh, yeah, I don't think there's really, I mean, at least that I know of, much discussion of that being an option, so I think

that was, I don't know was I know there's there's a lot of different reports out there and not all of them are true so gotta be careful what you listen to he's pissed off at everything he's pissed off at the comments about the hip he's pissed off that the Rangers didn't trade for him he He's just mad. You know, what really stood out was the celebrations. Those were emotional, honest celebrations. And I think I mentioned on the podcast the other day that there's one person I was texting who knows Kane really well. And he's been saying, look, he's going to go somewhere. He's going to make a difference because he's determined to make a difference.

And after the third goal on Sunday night, he texted me and said, told you. So we'll see what happens here. Jonathan Taves issued a statement on Sunday detailing what he's been going through, most notably symptoms of long COVID and chronic immune response syndrome as well. He needs to focus on his health.

Hockey takes a backseat here now. Elliot. Well, obviously the number one thing you're concerned about is his health and you hope he's okay. I don't think this came as a huge surprise to anybody who was thinking about potentially trading for him. You know, he didn't want to say anything because you don't want to guess on someone's health and you don't want to be wrong about this kind of thing. But it was definitely trending last week, Jeff, that he was not going to be traded, that he was going to play through the deadline and then we were going to see where this all went.

And that's exactly what happened. So I don't think anyone was shocked. The thing I feel right now is we don't know if he's going to play at all again this year, what this means for the future, but I hope we get to see him again, play again this year because that means he's healthy enough to do it. And so that's the kind of thing I'm, I'm looking at right now. What it is he's dealing with, I think it kind of took him out of in-season hockey shape. hockey shape. Like, I think he's also, not only is he dealing with what he's dealing with, I think he has to

get back to the condition that he, you know, is going to be able to play in. And like I said, I hope it happens because that means he's healthy. You know, it's pretty tough to get a headline if you're a Blackhawk whose name isn't either Kane or Taves on Sunday, but I really do want to mention congrats to Cole Gutman for his first

career NHL goal. Put it across the goal mode and now back the other way in transition in chicago with a chance first national hockey league goal it took until his 23rd year on this earth sharing oxygen with all of us, but congratulations to Cole Gutman. Great call. Great call. Lots to get to.

Let's talk about the blockbuster. And now Kyle Dubas has the blockbuster trade on his resume. The Ryan O'Reilly slash Noel Achari deal, Toronto and St. Louis. You talked about this Saturday on hockey night, but there are certain time restraints that we have on the Saturday edition of 32 Thoughts.

But here you can just freestyle it and let your tongue flow. So what's the backstory about the Ryan O'Reilly deal? Okay, so I think the basic way to describe this is that right now there's the market for forwards and then there's the market for defensemen and the market for forwards really appears to be shrinking. Bo Horvat is off the table. Vladimir Tarasenko is off the table.

As we mentioned, it does not appear like Tyler Bertuzzi is available. So I think what happened was Toronto just said we have to make our move or we might miss out because I think Toronto made a decision. They're not going to be in on Timo Meyer. I think they looked into it. They thought about doing it, but they just ultimately decided that it was a more prudent thing to do to pay the price for the two players, O'Reilly and Achari, rather than an even larger price for the one player Meyer. That ended up being their decision. And after the trade was made,

I heard that St. Louis was letting people know that they wanted to make their move when it came to this particular transaction. And Toronto just said, you know what, we're getting it done. And I think that's basically what happened is the Maple Leafs said, if we don't do this now, we may lose out on these players. And then how are we going to feel about what's left in the market? So they were aggressive.

They got it done. By the way, there was one great line, Jeff. One general manager said to me, Doug Armstrong probably wanted to do it before the Blues won any more games. That was the great line I got on Saturday about the deal. Speaking of the Blues, really quickly, you

talked about this on the last podcast. You talked about this a couple of different times, the idea of moving not just one player at a time. We've seen teams do that. We saw Montreal. I mentioned this on Saturday, we saw Montreal do this last year around trade deadline time, whether it was Tyler Toffoli or Arturi Lekanen, et cetera.

It was one player goes and then another player goes. It was the drip, drip, drip of the trade deadline. It seems as if St. Louis has wanted to do theirs in pairs, at least in the two that we've seen. We saw Tarasenko and Mikula go to the New York Rangers. Now we see Ryan O'Reilly and Achari both go together to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Is this something deliberate or just coincidental

from the St. Louis Blues, you think? I think that's a great question. I just think it comes down to what's the best trade you could make. And with the Ranger one, they were looking for depth D, so it made it easier for them to do it all at once. And to be honest, Jeff, I think it's possible. I don't know this for sure, but I think it's possible the Leafs asked for all three guys.

Oh, wow. Adding Barbashev to that deal too, but I just don't think it was possible for them to get it done. Then you go into the roster. Yes. The one thing that Dubas talked about like then you go into the roster yes the one thing that was talked about saturday morning was not touching the roster how concerned are you that you've spent too many picks from this draft in the next draft i don't like to i'd be uh lying to sit up here and

say that isn't a concern of mine my view of it is that i would much rather uh keep our the guys the young players we've got signed. We know them. We know what they're about. We have our projection of what their potential is without overdoing it. We've also been able to find players that have come in in-depth roles, which is really what you're expecting from the second, third, well, third, fourth-round picks, like whether it's the Alex Steves, McMahons,

we have Joey Anderson in a different trade. Our ability to have some success in that realm has kind of dictated this. I don't think it's sustainable for the very long run, but I think with where we're at right now, we have to do what we have to do. And I just was more comfortable moving the picks than I was moving the people who we know and got a deeper insight into their potential, also how they work with our development staff. And the picks are not as certain. So I know not everyone would agree with that and there's an opportunity cost to that, but that was the route we decided to go down. If you do all three, I'm skeptical that you can do that without touching the roster.

I don't think you could. And I don't know what the conversations were, but I suspect they did ask for all three. And I think it would have been exactly what you talked about there. You know, watching the game on Saturday night, there certainly was a new level of energy. You could tell both those players, O'Reilly and Achari were very happy to be there. O'Reilly did a really good interview with our guys after the early game. In fact, I don't know how many hockey night and can of towels you have, but that one looks really good on you.

I think you'll have some more coming forward, but you just mentioned new teammates. How was it like playing with Marner tonight? Just came back from the All-Star game and Suzuki and Larkin were raving about playing with him. What was your experience like tonight? Oh, it's unbelievable. You see every time he gets the puck,

you know, he's ready to make a play and it's just, it's so much fun playing with him. And I felt today I was kind of over-skating a lot of things and kind of need to be a little bit better with him. But you can tell just the playmaking ability, the vision he has. It's going to be very, very fun. You touched on it, Ryan. The thing that really stood out to me, Jeff, is you're sitting there,

you're wondering how is Sheldon Keefe going to use them the first game? And when Toronto lost to Tampa last year in the playoffs, one of the biggest questions I had personally was, are we going to have to get to a point sooner rather than later where John Tavares is going to play the wing? And does Toronto have to commit to that? And I thought it was really fascinating in the first game last night. That's exactly what they did. I thought they'd start O'Reilly at center, but I thought maybe they'd try him on one of the, like the third line and see what combinations they liked. I found it really fascinating that it was a choice was to put him between Marner and Tavares. That's going to be a really high IQ line if it stays that way.

I think everybody wonders about the foot speed of two of the players involved there, but that's going to be a really high IQ line if it stays that way. And as for Achari, the one thing I heard, I forgot to mention it on Saturday night, I wish I hadn't forgotten, is that I heard that Toronto tried to sign Achari last summer when he went to St.

Louis, but they couldn't make it work. After they signed Yarncroke, it just wasn't possible for them to do it, but they had interest. So he's a guy who'd been on their radar for quite some time, but was showed last night that he's now their number one right shot faceoff guy. Like that was the guy that Keefe put in, in a couple of situations last night when he had a

right shot draw. So that is one of the biggest impacts that he's going to have in addition to everything else he does. You could tell that team was excited last night and Kelly talked about it in the pregame and he actually asked O'Reilly about it. It's the most important thing I thought was

it would have been easy to wait and go from St. Louis to Chicago on Sunday where the Maple Leafs played and instead they made sure they were in the game on Saturday night. It's like going into cold water. I think it's better to jump headfirst into it. We talked about it. Let's just get with the team, dive into it, and go from there.

It's definitely one of the most nerve-wracking and awkward experiences getting here. I kind of knew half the team, and just getting to know guys and getting into it. I'm glad it worked out. It was a big win for us. It's a very good team here. I'm't really, you know, I kind of knew half the team and just getting to know guys and getting into it. But, you know, I'm glad it worked out. It was a big win for us. You know, it's a very good team here. I'm very excited to be a part of it. I just think that that gives everybody a lift

when people make that commitment. As our researcher on Hockey Night, Stan Narotka, mentioned to me on Saturday, this now only leaves five players on that St. Louis Blues team from the 2019 Stanley Cup final. Five players who played in that game seven, I should say, that are still on this team. This has been the teardown of a Stanley Cup champion here in a few seasons. What do you think this now means for maybe some of the older players on the St. Louis Blues? Maybe some players that have term

attached to them because this was a team that was, you know, even when they lost Alex Petrangelo, they were still trying to load up and to still go for it. Hasn't worked. So I guess one of the questions now for St. Louis is how much of a step back did they take here?

I think that's a great question. They got three first round picks this year. They got theirs, the one they got in the Tarasenko deal. Now they got the one in the Toronto deal. You know, what are they going to do with those? You know, someone said to me last night, if St. Louis wanted to make this quick, they could probably trade for Meyer.

Now, I don't know that I see that happening, Jeff, but I thought about it. I think it's going to be really interesting to see what the Blues do because obviously I don't think Shen is going anywhere and I don't think Bucinavich is going anywhere. I do think it's possible one of their D could go somewhere, but they all have control over where they get moved. They all have clauses.

I'm really curious to see what the Blues lineup is going to look like at the deadline. Because A, they could make this really quick if they wanted to this summer. They're going to have flexibility. They're going to have all these picks. And they've got an organization I don't think that's interested in long, long, long rebuilds. They tend to be aggressive. The GM is very aggressive. Like the thing I like about Armstrong is he's not afraid to make tough decisions.

I mean, I don't always agree with them, but he's not afraid. And I don't think in this league as a general manager, you can be afraid to make tough decisions. You know, it is interesting because we talk so much about timelines. We've talked about the Vancouver Canucks and the idea of timelines and whose timeline are you doing this on right now? And we focus on Patterson, we focus on Hughes,

et cetera, and that those are the obvious ones. When you look at the St. Louis blues, you say to yourself, okay, it makes obviously the most sense that they're doing this on the Robert Thomas-Jordan Cairo timeline. So if you don't fit that timeline, how much of a spot is there for you on this team? I'm not saying that there's not a spot for a 29-year-old

or a 31-year-old on the Jordan Cairo-Robert Thomas timeline. I just don't know how many of those players, Elliot, you can have. Certainly you can have one.iot you can have certainly you can have one maybe you can have a couple but i just don't know that you can populate much of your roster with players that don't complement that timeline if that is indeed and we strongly suspect so that that's how st louis is going to do this thing you know what i mean yeah i totally understand i totally understand where you're coming from totally understand elliot timo meyer we got a an update which sounds bad upper body injury did not practice but do we

know how bad it is i don't think it's that bad it sounds like you know the the thing that dave quinn said was that he didn't practice on sunday but he didn't know if it was going to be unable to keep him out of the game on Monday against the Kraken. So I had heard that they weren't too worried about it. We'll see. It's bubble wrap season could happen, but I definitely got the impression on Sunday that this wasn't alien invasion style mass panic. To me, this whole thing looks like it is headed. Now the St. Louis wrinkle is an interesting one of the

St. Louis question is an interesting one. And don't report that as a fact. That's just me and another guy spitballing. We'll see where it takes us. No, everybody who has access to a Twitter account, please quote Elliot. Let's just blow things up here.

Timo Meyer. It looks and feels as if this thing is headed towards New Jersey, which generally means he won't because that's the nature of how things go. But it does seem to really line up here for the New Jersey Devils. If you look at what a team like the Maple Leafs were unprepared to pay for Timo Meyer, I look to the New Jersey Devils and I say, well, you know what? The New Jersey Devils can pay that price. Plus they have a need. Plus it seems like a real fit.

Plus it's a playoff team. It's a young right. Like everything seems to line up with Timo Meyer and the New Jersey Devils. What are we missing? If anything, I don't think you're missing anything, Jeff. We just don't have a deal. See with Toronto being out. I don't think they were the number one contender or even the number two contender, but they were in the race.

And they were a bit more of a long shot, but they were there. I agree with you. is not only the most likely place that he ends up if you're handicapping it, but what someone said to me was they're probably the place that needs him the most. And I said to a couple of people, what do you mean by that? And what they said is that, look, the Islanders have gone out and they've added Horvat for eight years. The Rangers went out and got their guy Tarasenko and they could win the Stanley Cup this year.

Yes, they could. One of the things you think about is, is just like the local arms race. When you're in New Jersey, you're always battling for attention. You're always battling to get noticed. This is the year that you guys have a great team and Meyer is available, Who's a difference maker

of a player who could be yours for many years. And they just said like for on the ice reasons, cause he's a hell of a player and New Jersey is a bit of a small team. People also talk about that being the perfect place for Meyer to go because he's exactly what they need in terms of a bigger, stronger forward who can score. Really talented guy. So people look at it as the fit from an on-ice perspective and the off-ice perspective of, hey, we're the Devils. We think we're the best team in New York. We have been for most of the year. And now we're going to show while the Islanders and Rangers are adding, well, we think we're better than them. So we're going to add two. Like it's a really fascinating conversation. The one thing that someone said to me is they feel that Mike Greer

is prepared to slow play this a bit. And when you're a new general manager people want to understand okay what is this guy's mo like every general manager has an mo like doug wilson they called the dentist because he would just drill you and uh and and that was that was his nickname yeah brad tree living has a reputation as a guy who he likes to be on everything he He likes to know everything that's going on around the league. Yep. There are the GMs who are very tight with the information. Bill Armstrong in Arizona, he's developing a reputation as a bit of a salesman. He's very good at talking to you and selling you on why what he's going to propose is good for you.

So everybody's got their rep, right? So people are trying to figure out the way Greer handles this, what is his rep going to be? And what one person said to me is he's slow playing this. Okay. And if you play cards and you're a slow player, what that means is that you wait you wait and you wait and

then you make your big bet and the only reason you slow play there's two reasons you slow play number one is because you don't have anything and you're bluffing or number two you have a really good hand and you're trying to draw in the people to find out who's really in this game with you. You want to see who else might have a good hand or who else is really going to be there with you at the end. Well, it's obviously B. He's got the best player available. They think he's going to wait this out, wait this out, wait this out, wait this out, and then see at the end who may bend to him a little bit. Now that I've said this, he'll probably trade them like two seconds

after the pot drops, but at least that's the early read on the market. Oh, email from San Jose coming in. Yeah. I think that's really interesting because you want to see how confident a new general manager appears to be with the key piece of the deadline. And people think he seems to be really confident. Now, one of the things I've heard about the Sharks is they don't feel that their prospect pool is as good as they'd like it to be. I believe that 100%. 100%, Elliot. And I'm not talking about one or two individual prospects. I'm talking about the entire pool.

I don't want people going to William Eklund and say, hey, the Sharks think you're not very good. No, that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about, I think, just the overall group of it. The depth of the pool is not where they would like it. That's safe to say. I've heard that from multiple people. So, like one team said to me that they think

what Greer wants is he wants a ton of draft picks so he can move around the first round this year. Like St. Louis is going to be able to do that because they're going to have three of them depending on what they decide to do. But they think the Sharks want that too.

They want multiple first rounders so they can move around the pool and they want a lot of picks. So, I mean, we'll see what turns out to around the pool and they want a lot of picks. So, I mean, we'll see what turns out to be the truth. This is all speculation right now. We'll see what happens when he makes the deal. But they think that Greer is content to wait until he gets what he wants. And, you know, who's left standing here is Jersey, obviously.

And Jersey wants an extension as part of this. Carolina is still there. And the thing about Carolina is if you look at the way that Carolina does business and you look at their cap situation, I would think that they are comfortable with acquiring for this year, even giving him the qualifying offer next year and just playing this out for

a year and a half. Now that may not be what they decide to do. Wow. But if you look at the way they do things, they slap a value on you and then they work around that value. I could see Carolina doing that because they have the ability and flexibility to do that.

So that's number two. And I do wonder about Vegas. It makes a lot of sense for them. I wonder if there's sort of like a Vegas tax. Now I know Nevada is a no tax state, but I look at San Jose dealing with Vegas and I wondered is, does San Jose say if he's going to go to Vegas, it has to be a bit more.

We're going to find out. But the other team I do wonder about is Winnipeg. Now the thing about the Jets is I think this is a year they should be going for it. I think they've got a good team in a wide open Western Conference. The one thing about the Jets is they didn't

like their last foray into rentals with Kevin Hayes. The Stasny one turned out really well. Yeah. Here's the thing about the Jets is Wheeler, he's got one more year. Dubois, we all know that his situation leans towards Montreal. So Mark Shifley also has one more year

and then he's a UFA. And what Winnipeg could do if they wanted was they could trade for Meyer because they can do it and they could basically decide we're rebuilding our entire team around him or our front line around him and in theory it's a really good plan and if I was Winnipeg I would consider that there's one flaw in the ointment with my plan and that is does Meyer want to stay in Winnipeg long-term? And I just don't think

Winnipeg can make this deal with what it's going to cost them without that assurance. If it was me, would I say I take a shot at Meyer for a year and a half and see where this goes? Yeah, in a regular situation, I would, but I don't think Winnipeg can do that. And I know the way they think, and I understand the way they think and I understand the way they think I don't think they would do that without assurances and I always assume there's teams out there I haven't thought of Jeff always a couple of things there from that one as I'm listening to all of this going back to St. Louis with the three first rounders and they already have some young prospects that are on the horizon.

Whether we think of, you know, Joel Hofer, whether we think of Scott Perunovich, Jake neighbors is another name that we have to include in these conversations as well. And we look at, listen,

I've talked about timelines and complimenting timelines and who fits where, and do you fit this age demographic seems to be around like the 23 24 25 year old range going back to last year one of the teams we heard and one of the teams that were attached to jacob chickering with the st louis blues They have the assets to do this. Yes, they do. And we know that Arizona does not want to take on a whole lot of money, if any at all.

I wonder if the St. Louis Blues jump into this thing or maybe they already have. It makes perfect sense to me, Jeff, particularly if they do move one of their D. Like I said before, people were wondering about Meyer. It's an aggressive general manager. And what's one of the things. Like I said before, like people were wondering about Meyer. It's an aggressive general manager. And what's one of the things that we've talked about all year is that that's not a typical St. Louis physical defense.

To me, Chikrin makes a lot of sense there. Yes. I don't disagree with you. Again, this all goes back to my feeling that I don't think that St. Louis is a team that's really interested in a long rebuild. I agree. It's just not their MO. It's not what they do. Never has been. I have to say it makes perfect sense to me. Is he going to do it? No idea. But if you handed me an assignment today, an essay at high school or university that said why the St. Louis blues are going to be aggressive with all this new capital.

I'm not giving you an F. Okay. So if it does happen, everybody say, oh yeah, that was Merrick's idea. If it doesn't happen, I want everyone to say Elliot was an idiot for agreeing with it. Just ignore the original idea. That's like saying he started the fight when

he hit me back. Um, the other thing that I want to thing that I want to point out here too, Horvat to the Islanders, Ryan O'Reilly to the Maple Leafs, Tarasenko to the New York Rangers, and we'll see about Timo Meier if he ends up with the New Jersey Devils. I don't want to call it the Eastern Conference anymore, Elliot. I want to call it the Eastern Octagon. It is going to be a scrap of the ages the playoffs this year i agree

with you i think it's really fascinating you take a look at the nfl standings right now and we're doing this part of the pod on sunday morning and and we'll see what we update on sunday night but you go by points percentage oh i know yeah boston carolina new jersey toronto rangers tampa bay and then you get the next group of teams are all western teams you get to vegas dallas winnipeg seattle los angeles colorado and edmonton that's the one of the most fascinating things for me is is that all the east teams are the ones going. And what have we also talked about? Boston, Jeff, the reason I don't think the Boston deals have happened yet, especially with DeBrus coming off LTIR, I think Boston has things they've got to do.

I think they've got to figure out their roster, their cap situation. How do they make these moves? And that's what I think Boston's figuring out right now. I really do think they like Gavrikov from Columbus. Yep. And I think Gavrikov was pulled from the games because I think they were talking to Boston. And, you know, this whole thing with Chikrin,

I still think LA's there. Your St. Louis point is a good one. And I do think on some level, Boston has has considered do we just go right for Chikrin ourselves instead of just you know playing the if Columbus is going to do this like being the team that helps Columbus gets them but Boston I think is going for a lefty and we'll see what else they come up with Tampa is definitely going to add I don't know if they have what it takes to get to Barbashev but I think they're going to add. I don't know if they have what it takes to get to Barbashev, but I think they're going to add

somebody like that. Like the Eastern teams aren't done. And so I'm looking here and I'm like, hello, Western conference. Anybody? Did your alarm not go off this morning? Like that conference is wide open. Yep.

Wide open. And who's going to be the team that's going to step up and do something. And I'll tell you this, the two or three I'm really looking at here is we know LA is in on Chikrin and has had a standing offer for them. We just talked about Winnipeg. I do think they're going to add something, but the two teams everybody's looking at Vegas, cause it's Vegas. going to add something. But the two teams everybody's looking at, Vegas, because it's Vegas.

And I know Kelly McCrimmon hates the we're in on everyone. They are. They are though. In this particular situation, it makes sense. You've lost Mark Stone. Yeah. You've got a good team. Like they beat Tampa last night in a really

good entertaining game. That was a good game. You've got a good team. Like they beat Tampa last night in a really good entertaining game. That was a good game. You've got a good team. You missed the playoffs last year. You're plus 27 in goals for, that's a really good number. And everybody's looking at them saying they know the owner. They know the way last year went. They're going to do something.

What is it? And the other one is Edmonton. Like, you know, Saturday is a big phone day for me and I'm talking for it to someone and they're saying, okay, I see all these Carlson rumors with Edmonton. I see all these Patrick Kane rumors with Edmonton.

It's obvious that at the very least they're thinking about taking a big swing, a really big swing. And so the guy says to me, even though you guys make up everything he said i said thanks fair it's obvious by the noise that those two teams are thinking big you know i think to colorado they're quiet man yeah they are quiet i think they were in on o'reilly i do i think they liked o'reilly i did well listen it makes sense they i don't know if they were the team toronto was

competing with but i think they were the team toronto was competing with but i think they were in and i'll tell you this i wouldn't be surprised if the others liked o'reilly also but to me the teams that made a lot of sense were toronto colorado edmonton and i wondered about boston but i know boston's tied up with the lefty see the thing about the avalanche for me and ryan o'reilly mean, it fits for the Maple Leaf for the same reason it would fit for the Colorado avalanche, and that is O'Reilly's versatility and the way that he can play in a lot of different situations. I know Toronto right away defaulted him to the center, but he can also play a wing position

as well. Oh, yeah. It's these types of players that you look at going into the playoffs when you sort of game plan against teams and having someone who can play multiple positions is one of the best luxuries you can have. Specifically, and someone told me this on Saturday, specifically even have someone with that type of versatility in your top six. He said, don't discount that. Like that's huge in all of it. So when I hear, you know, a remarriage or a getting back together of Ryan O'Reilly and the Avalanche,

I could see it. Now, of course, now he's trying to make belief, but that makes complete sense to me. I'm looking at Colorado and last year it was Josh Manson and Arturi Lekkonen and Andrew Cogliano and Nico Stern. It was like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And this year, quiet so far. And there's one huge spot sticking out for all of us here. And don't forget Nathan McKinnon's whopper of a deal

doesn't kick into next season. And that is that second line center hole. And you've heard Landis Goss getting close to skating, right? Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, the Colorado talked about this the other day, but it sounds like, yeah, they are being, as I was told, extra cautious, but that's still the plan as far as I was led to believe

as late as Saturday. One of the things I wonder, Jeff, is when you win the Stanley Cup, are people that eager to help you? Whew. If I'm those top teams in the Stanley Cup are people that eager to help you? Whew. If I'm those top teams in the Western Conference, I am terrified of Colorado in the first round. Yeah, I don't think that, I don't. You grind your way through 82 games to get a top seed,

maybe the number one or number two seed in your conference, and here's your reward, Colorado. Enjoy. By the way, congratulations on winning your division or finishing first in your conference. And here's your reward, Colorado. Enjoy. By the way, congratulations on winning your division or finishing first in the West. Here's your present. Nathan McKinnon, Kale McCarr, and the Colorado Avalanche. Congratulations.

Oh, geez. That's tough. Listen to 32 Thoughts, the podcast, ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. Now, my default is always that outdoor games work better in baseball venues than football venues.

Yeah. But Saturday at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, that looked awesome. I mean, everything about the presentation looked fantastic. Looked like everybody, maybe outside of the Washington Capitals, were having a great time. What'd you think of Stadium Series this weekend?

I thought it looked great. That whole scene with the intros, it was, it was, just as a TV person, credit to the people at ESPN who produced it. Those walk-ins looked fantastic. They really did. And now, and now, introducing, here comes the Hurricane! Make some noise!

People told me that they thought the uniforms were really ugly. I thought they looked great in the setting. I really did. I thought they were fantastic. And as an old basketball guy, you know, David Thompson, you guys have to understand, like David Thompson in the 70s, he was one of the first real high-flying basketball players.

You know, he had some off-court issues and he had some knee injuries, which really limited him. But in the 70s, when I was young, there was nobody like this guy. Nobody. And he plays college basketball at NC State, and they won a national championship when nobody was winning NCAA titles

except for UCLA, which went through Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, known as Lou Alcindor at the time, and Bill Walton. And they won one. And they won it because this guy was like nobody else. And just to see him last night i thought that was really cool the other guy who was there introducing the teams was derrick wittenberg and i i didn't realize this until i read it today they're cousins and wittenberg won a famous ncaa championship game for north carolina state in the early 80s. That was when Houston had Akeem Olajuwon and they had Clyde Drexler,

both who were in the Basketball Hall of Fame. And that was one of the biggest upsets ever. And Wittenberg threw up a shot that was like a wild shot, Jeff, like a total prayer at the end of the game. And one of his teammates, Lorenzo Charles, grabbed it and dunked it at the buzzer and they won the title. Down to 14 seconds. Oh, almost stolen by Drexler.

Boy, is he good at that. They've got a drive to the basket. It's down to seven seconds. You can see the time. Wittenberg. Oh, that's a long ways. He's down. They won it.

I'm the dunk. It was cool for me to see it. The thing that I really liked about this is, I don't know if validation is the right word because I think Carolina has become a big part of the NHL, but for that team, that was just a weekend to puff out their chest. I remember when Carolina won the Stanley Cup in 2006, they missed the playoffs the next year and I remember having a conversation

with Craig Button at the time and I think he was still in the NHL at the time and Craig just said to me he said this is bad it's bad for the league and I go what do you mean he goes it's not good when you're in a market that the NHL is trying to grow when you win the Stanley Cup and the next year you miss the playoffs. It's not good. And, you know, I remember about that and it did kill some of their momentum.

Uh, they made a final four a few years later, they got wiped out by Pittsburgh, but now, you know, they're one of the top franchises in the league, just in terms of the way they run themselves. And I sent some notes to some people there, wish them good luck. They had the cam ward hall of fame.

They had this like the visuals from that last night, they just looked beautiful. The game had a beautiful look to it. I really liked it. I had to say, like I was watching it on TV last night. I was like, ah, would have liked to have been there.

It's kind of, kind of the way I thought about things. It looked like a party. It looked great. And I know you're going to roll your eyes because here I go talking about 88 again, but whether it was the pass to Tara Vinen or whether it was the one-timer,

the second one-timer on the power play. And it went wide from the top of the far circle. They'll try again, and this time it's a goal. Martin Natchez was a star natchez let it rip with an offensive zone penalty by kuznetsov martin natchez again was like the most dynamic player on the ice although i really did and i always do because i think he's got one of the best smiles in the game you know watching that first goal yesterday of the game. So I'm always, always intrigued.

I think we all are looking at, you know, the first goal of any outdoor game because there's that instant euphoria. The look on Yusperi Kotkaniemi's face was awesome. Yeah. When he scored that goal, that was, that was tremendous.

But Martin Natchez was outstanding yesterday. Just outstanding. They're looking next year at Raymond James Stadium. I think they want to do it. It's another football stadium. It's Tampa Bay, Florida. That's the second one they're talking about

next year. Well, I guess it would be the third one. Math was never my strong suit. You know, Seattle on the Winter Classic, the Canadian game in Edmonton, the Heritage Classic. They're talking about Tampa Bay, Florida at Raymond James Stadium, but they are worried about this.

I think they'd really like to do it. I think they feel the Florida teams deserve it. But, you know, Jeff, for All-Star, we had two beautiful days and then all of a sudden we were hit by a monsoon. Like I remember trying to get to the airport on the Sunday and the water's up to the top of the wheels on the cars.

I think that that scares them. But this is why every market should have one of these. Every market should get the chance to puff out their chest and say, this is us. And I just thought that one looked dynamite on Saturday. Really quick. And you can whisper this if you don't want to start a fire. Vancouver Canucks, JT Miller, go.

You know, the one thing is, is that Vancouver has made it very clear they're rebuilding around petterson and hughes petterson you know last night or sort of saturday night i guess i should say uh new career high in points and they still got 26 games left awesome he's uh he's across 70 points for the first time and just forget the contract for a second he's a good player he's had a really weird year but it's that whole team has had weird year but he's a really good player i think last year there were some teams that asked about him and so you separate okay do we like the player yes i think there are teams out there who like the player. And now, okay, well, we've got the contract.

And what I think at the very least people are going to ask the Canucks is, what are you willing to do here, if anything? So we're going to find out the answer. And Jeff, the other Canuck that we should just mention is Luke Shen. Had a big night on Saturday night with three assists and Anthony's putting him on the Leaf

blue line because of that. You know, one of the things I just heard on him, there's been a debate on moving him and we've talked about there are people in the organization who want to keep him. And I think this just comes down to the draft pick that the Canucks want.

I could see Talkett wanting this guy all day. I think there's a conversation there about if we don't get a good enough draft pick for him, and this is my guess. This is purely a guess. I want to stress it. Like minimum third rounder. I think there's going to be a push to say maybe

if it's a high fourth, but I don't know that for sure. This is a guess. I definitely think there's a feeling that if they don't get a good enough pick, then they shouldn't do it. We'll see. We'll see what wins out.

Elliot, we had a trade on Sunday. It is Tyler Mott in exchange for Julian Gauthier and a conditional seventh. I was thinking about this on Sunday night, Elliot. You know how whenever he got a chance, Jim Rutherford would always bring back Matt Cullen. No matter where Jim Rutherford went, it seemed that Matt Cullen would follow. Is Tyler Mott now Chris Drury's Matt Cullen. No matter where Jim Rutherford went, it seemed that Matt Cullen would follow. Is Tyler Mott now Chris Drury's Matt Cullen? This is the second year in a row

and he's brought him back again. He can't quit him. He can't quit him. I think we have to go, Jeff, to see if next year he either gets re-signed or they trade for him for a third consecutive season. I don't think anybody should be surprised at this. I believe that with Mott, the Rangers

wanted to re-sign him for this season, but they just didn't have the cap space to do it. It's the same kind of thing we talked about with the Leafs and Achari. They wanted him. They just didn't have the space to do it. So I'm not surprised at this in the least. If you go back to Saturday's game against the Calgary Flames, in the third period, that fourth line for the Rangers barely played. Now, they were chasing the game a bit, so that might have been Gerard Gallant's plan, but I also just wondered if it was kind of an admission,

and I think the acquisition of Mott was, that he just wasn't sure that he could use it that much. So I don't think anybody should be surprised that Mott got traded. And I don't think anybody should be surprised that it's the Rangers that he's going to. Okay. So the Rangers have done Vladimir Tarasenko. The Rangers have done Tyler Mott. I get the feeling that they're still not done.

And maybe it's just because of the presence of Vitaly Kravtsov. Agree, disagree? Yes, there's no question. And they've traded some draft pick capital. And they're looking for as high as a pick that they can get on Kravtsov. So yes, I would think that that's something that's going to happen. It wouldn't shock anyone at all. Okay, Tyler Bertuzzi and the detroit red wings i had

a conversation with someone on saturday and mentioned tyler bertuzzi and this person said to me i don't think that the detroit red wings with this rink and these playoffs starved fans even though it's essentially using your own rental even though you haven't made the playoffs, are in any position to let go of Tyler Bertuzzi. How do you go back to your fan base and say, we got this close and punted? You talked about Tyler Bertuzzi on Saturday, Freach. I think this, and this is where I understand skin in the game. When I was first starting to cover sports, I would say things and I remember, I think it was Gord Ash was the general manager of the Blue Jays at the time. He told me, you have to understand skin in the game and the people who make the financial decisions

and why the choices that they make are different than what a fan would make. And he wasn't discounting fans and he wasn't ripping fans. He says, when it's your money, it's always different. And I'm looking at the Detroit Red Wings with one of the most beautiful new arenas that has never seen a playoff game. And it's been six years. They've gone six seasons in a row without a playoff game. And that's a lot.

That's a lot. I was also reminded of this morning, Jeff, when Hockey Day in Canada was still at CBC, we once did a piece on the business of the Red Wings. And we interviewed Christopher Illich, and he talked about, at the time, they were still in the Western Conference. And what percentage of their games were played like after nine o'clock. And you said, look, we have young fans here. How are we going to make them into Red Wing fans

if we're starting X percentage of our games after nine o'clock? Yeah. So it's a business. It's a hockey team, but it's a business. I understand this. Now they lost Saturday night in Seattle, but if you look at their math,

their math is good. And by points percentage, they're in the playoffs. And our pod dropped on Friday. We're talking about Bertuzzi and all these teams that like them. And someone calls me and goes, Err, Elliot, nice pod,

but Bertuzzi's not on the market anymore. And, you know, I had you check with some people you you know and we all kind of got the same like i do think that's one of the reasons the leafs made their trade when they did because they liked bertuzzi and and i think they realized he was off the market too so you couldn't risk it now i spoke to one red wings fan who didn't like it, but I said, you got to understand, I get why they might be doing this. Now, I will say I lived in mortal fear, Jeff, that the moment I said it, Eisner would go, oh yeah, and then like deal them in some blockbuster. And we'll see, like I always leave room, things can always change. Of course. But I totally get it.

At some point in time, you have to show your fans that, you know what? There's a reward and your players that there's a reward for competing the way that they're competing and their fans that there's a reward for your fandom. Like even if they lose in the first round and just imagine what your building is going to be like to see this group of red wings in the playoffs, it's going to be dynamite. And there, and there's, there's really

something to be said for that. I completely understand it. Uh, I want to talk to you about Jonas Corposalo. Please do. You know, we look at players around trade deadline and the first thing you look at is, okay, who's on an expiring contract and who's motivated to sell and we all know how the season has gone for the columbus blue jackets corpus sallow going back to december now first of all he's all he's recovered and healed up from

the hip surgery like he looks real good and for teams that are out there looking for either goaltending depth or goaltending insurance, like we all know last year, the conversations between Edmonton and Columbus about Corpus Allo. And I think they're asking for, what was it, Elliot, a second and a fourth for Corpus Allo and Edmonton wasn't going to pay that. I think there were some talks with the Florida Panthers to bring Corpus Allo and Edmonton wasn't going to pay that. I think there were some talks with the Florida Panthers to bring Corpus Allo in last year as some insurance or as some depth. When we look at teams that want to pull the sneaky good move come trade deadline time, the move that people

look at and say, hmm, that's an intriguing one. I wonder why they did that. If you look at how Corpozalo is played, going back to somewhere around December the 9th, December 10th, he's been one of the top goaltenders in the NHL. And we saw it last week in that game against the Winnipeg Jets, and we saw it Saturday night as well against the Dallas Stars. Don't look now, but we always talk about bubble demko bubble demko you know we might be seeing bubble corpus allo here again and this is according to steve alicat's clear sight analytics if you're going back to the beginning of december and this doesn't include those most recent two

games if you look at adjusted save percentage for yonas corpus all He's top nine. He's ahead of Sorokin. He's ahead of Ottinger. He's ahead of Shishturkan. You know, he's running a, an adjusted save percentage of, of 1.9. Like he's playing at a very high flirting with elite clip right now.'s on an expiring contract 1.3 million dollars is the aav and i can't help but feeling as we talk about i think it was the last podcast we talked about teams are going to use tandems in the playoffs or need tandems or can't just use one goaltender and burn one goaltender out if they're going to go deep i just wonder if there is a team or teams out there that are looking for that goalie insurance and might do well by looking at Columbus and Jonas Corposalo. I like that call a lot.

First of all, Elliot, about the Calgary Flames, we're going to get to their game here in a second, but really enjoyed the interview that you did with Milan Lucic, where you tried to play a part-time broadcaster, part-time Don King, trying to incite some ultraviolence, as they said in Clockwork Orange, and infuse it into the Calgary Flames, New York Rangers game. I really did enjoy, I think we all did, his walk-in to the arena, how he did it, the scowl on his face, and most specifically, his wardrobe. And all of it, by the way, we lay at your feet, Frej. You know what?

Just got to come in with a snarl and, you know, attitude to be ready to play for a big game. You know, a lot of people tend to say that hockey players can be kind of boring, but, you know, it's nice to have some personality and individuality in the game, so I'll come up with something good for you guys. I felt like the Crockett brothers promoting in those old mid-Atlantic wrestling. Wahoo McDaniel, an early lad comes to town.

That's awesome. First of all, good on Lucic for understanding that this is supposed to be entertainment on some level. That's awesome. I like the hair too. As a guy who had frosted tips way back in 2003 when I first showed up at Hockey Night in Canada.

Yes, you did. That looked a lot better. The game, as you would expect, like he ran over Trouba once, but the game, as you would expect, was a lot tamer. It wasn't, you know, what the other game was, but it was still a great game. That was a great hockey game.

And it came at a big time for the Flames. They, obviously we all know what's happened over the last 24 to 48 hours there and they get a two nothing lead early. And the other thing was, you know, the Flames, if you've watched them this year, they have a lot of games where they do something really good and they immediately give up something really bad.

They got a bit of luck with some posts, but Markstrom made some huge saves that didn't allow the Rangers to get back in right away. Now, credit to the Rangers. They're relentless. I felt like I was watching the same game against Edmonton on Friday night. They came back and they tied it.

We're all sitting there. We're going, oh, God, the flame's going to blow this again. And they found a way to win. You know, the one thing is Kelly and Kevin and I had a debate in the first intermission of the late game. They don't think Hubert O knew at all. I disagree. Okay, so the Alan Walsh tweet after the Detroit game

with the Calgary Flames. So Walsh tweets, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Also, negativity sucks the joy right out of players. CC at NHL Flames. And for the purposes of those that don't know, Alan Walsh, as we say, happens to be the agent for Jonathan Huberto.

Look, I've dealt with enough of this over the years that I generally understand whether you like Alan Walsh or you don't like Alan Walsh, and I understand that there's no middle ground here. You're one side or the other. The one thing he'll do is he'll protect his players. He'll take all the blame. He'll take all the heat.

He wants you to be mad at him and not the players and one of the things he's definitely doing here is trying to take some of the pressure off his guy but there's no way he is doing this historically without the player have an inkling or a tacit acceptance or understanding of what he's doing. I'm sorry. I just disagree. Kelly and Kevin can feel the way they feel. I just disagree. They had a team meeting. I heard about this the other day where they met and they got together.

And like, I think they just said, forget the noise, forget everything that's gone on. At the time they had 27 games left. They were two points out of the playoffs. And I believe the message was the season is not over. Like for everything that's happened so far this year, we can still make this work and we're better than we are. And there were a lot of things they did really well on the Saturday night. They got the early lead.

They didn't fold. I guarantee to you every Flames fan thought when the Rangers tied that game, they thought the Flames were going to lose. And they found a way to win that game. And we'll see. Maybe this is the one that turns around their season. We'll find out.

But I heard the substance and source of the meeting was, forget the noise. Forget what happened. We've got 27 games left. We can fix this. And and for one night it was better markstrom i don't care if he's perfect he's got a battle and he battled on saturday night he really did so did halak and you know halak i think we all wondered it was gonna be eight nothing after two minutes another walsh client by the way yeah that's right that's right

that he's tweeted about in the past. Yes. Halak gave the Rangers a chance to win that game, but Markstrom beat him. I did like Jonathan Huberto's quote, though. Yeah, Walsh, he fired me up, I guess. No, I felt good. I mean, I got to.

Really enjoyed that. Nice touch by Jonathan Huberto. That says to me, Jeff, agent and client, they were on the same page. Also, did the Flames catch a break with the Kadri misconduct? Yes. I was looking at that, and a week ago, Bunting got into it with Kevin Pollock, and he got a two-minute penalty, an unsportsmanlike conduct.

That's a killer. And I remember Simmers saying on the air, Craig Simpson saying, boy, you want him to get the misconduct. You don't want to kill the paddly in the third period. So Francis Chiron, who was mad at Cadre, and I don't know what was said, he gave the Flames a break. He could have given the Rangers a power play at overtime, and he didn't do it.

And as we've seen with power plays in overtime, that's about as close to an automatic as you're going to get in the NHL. Ron Wilson, when he was coaching the Sharks, he said, if it's four on three in overtime, you're going to lose. Not wrong. Okay. One thing we should mention here, Elliot, we sat down last Friday with Jake Allen,

net minder for the Montreal Canadiens. Real good, like a thorough, like this is one for the geeks. And if you listen to a podcast like this, you're one of us, you're one of the hockey geeks. And when it comes to goaltending, Elliot, Jake Allen is one of the best to talk to, period. Really insightful, really intelligent,

understands the position. One of the things I like about him, not that he understands the position, he's still curious about the position as well. And that's why I loved this conversation we had with Jake Allen. One of the things that we talked about too, or one of the things that we asked was, here's your hypothetical,

your Dr. Frankenstein build the perfect goaltender. Here's a clip from the interview we're going to release on Wednesday, our conversation with Jake Allen, Jake, here's the assignment, build the perfect goalie. Can it be from different eras?

Any era. It doesn't have to be today. This is a blank sheet of paper for you. All right. We'll start off with Pricer's skating ability. We'll go with Shosturkin's hips. His hip mobility is with his skating mobility within this crease around his post, Pecorini's glove,

Mariburder's way to read the game, understand the game, Patrick Waugh's competitiveness in battle, Dominic Asik's way to be unorthodox but effective, go with Marty's mental side. You you know i think he's a guy that didn't face many shots but he made the saves when he had to make you know i heard a lot of that but that before my time about grant fear as well you know in edmonton when he won those cups you know made the saves that he had to do and it's probably the hardest thing to do in hockey

mike smith's puck handling and uh ben bishop size that is by the way one of the things as a as an Mike Smith's Paul Canning and Ben Bishop's Eyes that is by the way one of the things as an English student where I have my degree in English and read a lot of Mary Shelley I always refer to it as Dr. Frankenstein the monster is just called the monster we just call Frankenstein the monster Frankenstein

but it's Dr. Frankenstein the monster is the monster Elliot I know I'm wrecking things for you and I love it. This is why we never pick Jeff's questions as inserts for these interviews because he asks a great question. The guest gives a great answer. And by the way, Alan was fantastic.

He was great. And we get anal retentive Jeff to ruin the whole thing. I can't, you know, I was thinking about this the other day. I wonder how many times in my life I've said, well, actually. You're that meme. I'm Cliff Clavin. I can't. You know, I was thinking about this the other day. I wonder how many times in my life I've said, well, actually. You're that meme. I'm Cliff Clavin. It's embarrassing.

Okay, Elliot, we had a lot of questions this week, either on the thought line, 1-833-311-3232, or the email box, 32thoughtsatsportsnet.ca. So let's dive into a few of these. And we got a lot about the Ryan O'Reilly deal. Here's one.

Dan in the Netherlands. Wow. I know, right? I love this. I've just been reading about the Ryan O'Reilly trade, and I have a question because this is a three-team trade with two teams retaining salary. Does this mean he now receives three checks? And how does that work with taxes since every state and province have their own taxes? Also, all in American dollars?

That's the easy one. Yes, it's all in American currency. The only people who sometimes make Canadian dollars, there are some Canadian teams who pay their coaches and executives in Canadian dollars. I don't know if they all do, but some of them do. But it's part of the CBA that it's all in US dollars. Yes, I think it goes through who's paying you. Now, sometimes that's more determined by your

residence and things like that, but who's paying you determines the rules of the pay, the location and things like that. But who's paying you determines the rules of the pay, the location and things like that. So that's the short answer is the best answer. By the way, I did have someone who asked, like for example, if you trade for the Carlson's contract, can you only pick up salary for like one year and not the rest of them?

The answer to that question is no. No. Once you make a trade, if you pick up the rest of the contract, you can't pick and choose if you're paying salaries. And the maximum per team is three. Okay, so here's one more on the Ryan O'Reilly trade. This is from Graham in Shedden. Could Minnesota verbally agree to be the middleman,

but once they receive Ryan O'Reilly and Achari from St. Louis, pull out of the trade to Toronto, or the opposite, receive four picks for Pilar and and Achari from St. Louis, pull out of the trade the Toronto. Or the opposite, receive four picks for Pilar and not send them to St. Louis. You can't sign two pieces of paper simultaneously. This would ruin all future relationships, but could be a gutless way to win a player.

I'm assuming there's a video call with NHL officials, but don't really know. First of all, Graham, very creative. This idea is so ridiculous. Merrick, you can just ask the question on the pod. You don't have to write in as some quote-unquote person and say, I want this answered. No, man.

I saw it and it had to be on there because it's so creative and sly. But no, there's a trade call. I'm just trying to imagine what it would be like like Billy Guerin says, yeah, I've got O'Reilly. I'm refusing to trade him to Toronto. Sorry, he's ours.

Sorry, we had this deal. Yeah, too bad. He's mine now. Sorry. That's really funny, actually. Okay, let's get to a voicemail here. Here's Cameron. Hey, Jeff and Elliot.

This is Cameron from Dallas, Texas. I keep hearing talks about the Stars potentially trading for big players, but I'm not sure what they could give up. So what would you think would make sense for them to trade? Thanks for the pod. Keep it going. Cameron.

What do you think, Barak? You know, I know a lot of teams for a lot of years have called on Radek Faxa. And listen, when Radek Faxa is healthy, he's always been a low-key, sulky candidate. So that's one player that I wonder about from the roster. But when you look at the way that Dallas has drafted and developed, and this continues now, you know, I would imagine that when teams call, it's, you know, right away, everyone's trying to get Maverick Bork, you know, I would imagine that when teams call it's, uh, you know, right away, everyone's trying to get Maverick Bork, you know, who probably might've been able to make this team

at a training camp this year. And we probably look at being on the roster as early as next season. I would imagine that, you know, if you're Jim Nill, you don't want to let go of Bork and you don't want to let go of Stankhoven. Like they got some really good players on the horizon here. To me, if you're giving up anyone on the roster, I would imagine at a certain point to make room

under your salary cap for players, I've wondered about Radek Faksa now for a while. But I'm sure that when teams call, they're trying to get Maverick Bork. I think Dallas is all in though. I do.

I just don't think that they want to let go of Bork or Stankhoven. I think if you're Jim Nill, you try to do it without letting go of those guys. And he's a grinder. He's been doing this a long time. He understands how it works. Okay.

This one from Slink. Would the NHL ever, that's a great name by the way. Yeah. Would the NHL ever consider changing the shootout rule to the same as a double IHF? Five shooters are more entertaining for the fans and gives teams more of a chance to get

the extra point. You also get comebacks than a five shooter shootout, the don't in the three, but nonetheless, I don't think they'll look at changing it, but what do you think? I don't think they will. I don't think they want to make games any longer than they are.

And also I do think the shootout has lost a bit of its luster. So I think it stays. The one rule I love from international hockey for the shootout is. Same shooter? No, actually that's not bad either. I'll say that too.

Although we don't get the Merrick Malik moment if we have that. True. I love the fact if you've got a penalty that isn't done yet you're not allowed to shoot yep that's the rule i like yep i like that one too uh here's one from ryan in chicago who pays for players sticks in the nhl given the cost of a one piece these days i'm always amazed seeing players generously toss 400 twigs over the glass in warmup.

I'm assuming it's the club. And if so, do they try to control it at all? That's a great question. I always find it funny when a player gives a young fan a hockey stick and the announcers are always like, oh, look how generous this player is. Well, it's not the player who's paying for the stick. It's like, look how generous this team is. Or look how generous this player is well it's not the player who's paying for the stick it's like look how generous this team is or look how generous this player is giving away a 400 stick that the team is paid for

the teams pay for them that's a great question well you notice now that they have those kind of like fake sticks now that they give which i think is a great idea like i think that's a a really nice and smart touch. Yes, the teams pay for them. And there have been times over the years where it's become an issue. The composites used to break a lot more than they do now. Yeah. It was a big deal.

Teams were like, this is ridiculous that we're paying for all these sticks that break all the time. And I know that there were some GMs, like Glenn Sayther was notorious for being hard on stick budgets and, oh, you want another stick now or something like that. It was, at times it was a real, a battle, a big battle. All right, Elliot, this is from Ben and his son Henry in Minnesota. My son and I love listening to the podcast on

drives to and from school. We never miss an episode and love the interviews we've listened to nigel kirwan podcast four times and the holiday party twice wow wow that's that must be a long drive we appreciate your determination and your loyalty we do question about salary retention are the percentages fixed 10, 25, 33, 50, or is there a range that teams have to stay between? Are there a certain number of retained salaries you can have on the books at once?

When it comes to double retention, is the second retention off the base or the remaining salary? Okay, good questions. First of all, there's no set number. It's from zero to 50 and you can pick whatever number you want. 50% is the max.

50 is the max. That's up to you. You can pick 18, you can pick 12.2, you can pick whatever number you want as long as it's between zero and 50. Basically, the salary has to add up. Okay, so if you look at Ryan O'Reilly, his cap hit is seven and a half million. If you take a look at all the figures between Toronto, Minnesota, and St. Louis, it adds up to

seven and a half million. That's the best way to figure it out. St. Louis takes 50% of that number. Minnesota takes 25 and Toronto takes the other 25. That's how it works. That's the best way to explain it. And you can only have three retained salaries on your roster for any time, and it's there forever. So, like, for example, Arizona, they're retaining an Oliver Ekman Larson. That's one of their slots until his contract is up.

All right, we hope those are all good answers. If they're not, we'll hear about it. And we appreciate that. Taking us out is an artist who grew up in Akron, Ohio, before moving to Huron on beautiful Lake Erie. Parker Lewis found his musical touch in 2012 while performing with his previous project, Forest and the Evergreens,

until 2017 when he decided to branch off. His sound is a mix of R&B and soul, and the live show is full of energy. From his 2018 record All Good Things Part One, here's Parker Lewis with Vibe on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. I'm in a room Caught looking lonely I see much of the wind Something I can't describe Making a move Cutting a line Stars in the moon alone

Won't satisfy tonight Cause I need you babe Cause I need you babe Cause I need you babe And I can't say goodbye Nothing like you Nothing like you Nothing like you