32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Blood, Sweat & Stitches: The Tampa Bay Story

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

The Lightning are on a roll! Jeff and Elliotte talk about the hunger they see in the Bolts and their drive for a third consecutive Stanley Cup (00:15), St. Louis mixing things up on their power play (13:30), and what we should expect from Calgary-Edmonton (32:00) as well as Carolina-New York (35:50) this weekend.The guys also discuss the John Hynes extension in Nashville (27:50), what teams might have to do to talk to Joel Quenneville (30:00), and if clubs should be looking for coaches with an edge (18:55).Check out the limited edition 32 Thoughts merchandise line HEREMusic Outro: Hoorsees - JansportListen to our 32 Tracks playlist on Amazon Music. All the tracks you hear on this podcast during the playoffs are featured there.This podcast is produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: AM 970 WFLA and KSMO Radio.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.

Somebody tweeted at me today that my hair looked like Liberace. That's a tough look. Where was your candelabra? I liked it. I liked my hair today. It was very poofy. It was flowy. It was flowy. Welcome once again to 32 Thoughts, the car cast presented by the all-new GMC AT4 lineup. You know what I was thinking tonight, Elliot? The last couple of days, the last couple of games,

well, the last four games specifically, the first four games of the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, have really given us a lot of what we love about playoff hockey. And Thursday night was no exception. We're going to get to St. Louis, making this a series against the Colorado Avalanche

with a really impressive and hardworking performance. But how about Tampa and Florida? How about let's win the Stanley Cup two times in a row and still everybody's going down to block shots, risk injury, get stitched up, come back, and then a goal with around three seconds remaining to just sink a dagger into the heart of the Florida Panthers. Your thoughts on the Bolts and the Cats.

2-1 is the final. Ross Colton with the heroics. 23 seconds left in the third. Forsling punches it to center ice, intercepting his Palat, tried to fire it in. Wieger knocks it down, but he gave it right to Ruda. Across the blue line, right point Kucherov. Kger knocks it down, but he gave it right to Ruda. Across the blue line.

Right point, Kucherov. Kucherov, a little pass. Finds a stick of Ruda. Back for Kucherov, right circle. He is checked. Held in Palat, the right point. Find it at Kucherov. Five to go.

Kucherov, put it in front. Score! Score! Ross Galton with.9 seconds left. Incredible! 2-1 lightning. Kuchu have magic.

And what a shot by Colton. Quick, quick release. The people here are in shock. What a beautiful play by Kuchu does it again. So here's my question to you,

because I listened to all your advice. Do you think we should talk first about the goal at the end of the game or the injuries and the stuff that Tampa fought through? What do you think is the bigger story? There's a lot to that last goal. There's a Kucherov pass. There's the McKenzie-Wieger brain cramp. There's a perfect shot by Ross Colton.

There's a miss by Sergei Bobrovsky after making a great save against Andre Palat to keep this thing 1-1. But to me, the story was the Tampa Bay Lightning just surrendering everything and jumping in front of every puck that moved off a blade. The thing that stands out to me most about this jeff is that everybody understands that the tampa bay lightning have won two stanley cups and nobody would look at them in any way poorly or negatively if they failed to win the third or didn't put out the same effort to win the third but no

no no no no that's not the way it's going to be they're out there to win a third one and the perry thing you know thankfully we can laugh about it a bit because you know he didn't get hurt when he his own shot ricocheted off the crossbar and hit him but stamkos like i didn't get hurt when he, his own shot ricocheted off the crossbar and hit him. But Stamkos, like I didn't think there was a chance that guy was coming back. Two guys took pucks off their face. You know, Hagel got hurt. That shot of Hagel being helped into the dressing room and Stamkos waiting

and then coming back out that our cameras caught. Revolving door of injuries was a great shot. Cernak having the blood cleaned off his jersey because you know the league doesn't like blood on the jerseys kevin was saying watching that that he'd have situations before where equipment people would say we got to get that clean because the league won't like it they have every excuse in the world to say you know what that's enough we've won two in a row. But no, it's not acceptable to them.

It's not the way they're wired. And I don't know if you can keep paying this price and win. I mean, we know people do it, but I think there's a difference between maybe one or two players being that beaten up and, say, 15 of them beaten up. But, geez, that was so impressive to me like we had marty san luis in the podcast a couple weeks ago and he's talking about how hard it is to win in this league i wanted to tweet out that montage that our crew put together our excellent crew put together because i think everybody needs to see that's what San Luis is talking about.

That's how hard it is to win. I have so much admiration for that. And yes, the Lightning win because they have great players who took less money than they could get on the open market to win in Tampa together. But they also win because they're fierce competitors and they will run through a wall to win games. You know what I think of, Elliot, when I look at the Tampa Bay Lightning? I think of cliches. And a lot of them apply.

Like all those things that we hear about what it's going to take to win. You know, you've won two Stanley Cups and you're still going for more. What's the old saying? If you're not hungry, you'll never eat. This is a team that's still hungry. This is a team that's not pushing away from the table yet.

And this is a team that doesn't just want to be good. It wants to be great. What's that old Jim Collins business book? Good is the enemy of great. All these cliches just keep popping in your head as you watch Tampa play and put themselves on the line to make sure everybody knows that they're just not good. They're great. Like don't you get the feeling somewhere in the back of everyone on Tampa's mind is this idea that, you know, there have been teams that have won back-to-back Stanley Cups, but it is so hard in the salary cap era to win three Stanley Cups in a row. We really want to

put an exclamation on this and show that in this cap era, the Tampa Bay lightning are the best team period. That's the feeling that I get watching this team right now. So I had an argument with someone and I thought their argument was the stupidest argument I've ever heard. And what they said to me, this was about a week or two ago. All right.

What did Kevin say? What did Kevin say? It wasn't Kevin. It was someone else. And they said to me, although Kevin, like you, comes up with a lot of dumb ideas. Hey. But he said to me that he thinks Tampa wants to win because the last two Stanley Cups weren't real Stanley Cups.

And I'm like, that is super dumb. There used to be, I can recall, I mean, Rangers fans would be all over the New Jersey Devils always for winning half a Stanley Cup. Yeah. Right? When they, it's like, oh yeah, the lockout year, you won the Stanley Cup with 48 regular season games. Yeah, you won half a Stanley Cup.

But that's ludicrous. I think that's a stupid argument. It's a stupid argument. You won a cup in a bubble or during a pandemic back to back. And everything was completely screwed up. And I think it's super dumb. But what I kind of think could be true. And we have to ask them to find out is do they look at it as, you know what?

We could win a cup in a bubble. We could win a cup in a COVID crushed year where players were going in, out of the lineup, like crazy. And then we could win it in an 82-game season. And I think great people think like that. They challenge themselves to think that kind of way. So if you told me they were looking at it that way, I might be inclined to believe you.

But to say that those first two cups aren't real, that's ridiculous. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Yeah, that's ridiculous. But what was real was a heartbreaking two-to-one goal, the Ross Colton goal, 3.8 seconds remaining, a gorgeous pass by Kucherov. And I just love the – man, there's so much to love about Kucherov. But, like, how nonchalantly does he fire, like, the most perfect, gorgeous pass to Ross Colton from behind the net as mackenzie

wieger challenges him and i'm sure that's one that mackenzie wieger is not going to want to watch over and over again well can i debate you on that for a second sure yeah so one of the things i've learned over the years to look at is you know who's really at fault in a situation and because i remember years ago paul maurice got mad at a commentator and i won't say who it was because one of his players was made to look bad in making a defensive mistake and he pulled the commentator aside i will say it wasn't me but it was someone i knew and because they told me about the conversation and they said it might look to you like it was this player's fault but it wasn't he was in the right place in our coverage and somebody else

made a mistake so what my question is was it wieger's mistake or was it the forward up high in coverage? So here's my thought on that play. A lot of this is of course contingent on the clock and you play the clock. Yes, I agree. In that position behind the net, is Kucherov a threat to score with under five seconds left? No. But if you leave the front of the net to try to two-on-one kucherov behind the net knowing again it's kucherov who has the ability to feather passes like a few other players in the nhl does that leave exposed a player who could score a goal and the answer is yes i would say that's a very fair counter argument young young Eric. The other thing too is he shoulder checks. When you watch

him go behind the net, he shoulder checks. And that's what all great players do. They shoulder check in advance so they know what they're about to do before they touch the puck. And he shoulder checks and he sees Colton coming. What a heartbreaker. The thing too for Florida is

the power play there it's awful it's close i think the record is 0 for 28 to start a playoffs and they're within striking distance of that you know what i really liked and i wish it kind of would have been rewarded was that brunette went for it he said i don't care it's a one one game and i don't care we're down one one in the series and we're late in the third period i'm going five forwards yeah i'm going for it and i and i think that's the kind of decision making you you want in the game because it's going for risk and it almost paid off like they had good chances so two things i was thinking about with the florida power play one is hornquist do you put them there and just say, drive Vasilevsky crazy

like you've driven goalies crazy for a decade? And the other thing I was kind of wondering is, do you take a shot down 2-0 and go to Tampa Bay and go for Joe Thornton and just say, like, we're going to try this and we're going to try it once and we're going to see if just his presence like will there be players who look at joe thornton and say we got to get another level to play for him that's interesting because one of the things that i was thinking about after ross colton scored that goal is if I'm Andrew Burnett

first year coach mind you coach it's now up for the Jack Adams yeah what am I thinking here like this is my first major crisis this is my first major on ice crisis how am I going to handle this we just lost two games at home to the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions. What do I do now? Who do I lean on? What are my decisions? He's in like one of the more unenviable positions of any coach in the league right now. This is a huge decision for a rookie coach. What do I do? I'm just glad that I'm not in that position because honestly, Frege, I don't know what I would do.

I'm sticking with the five forward power play. That's what I'm doing, number one. Because here's the thing. I don't think Florida played bad. No. At all. Again, it's a split second. And I understand, like, man, you take your eyes off the road for one second

against the Tampa Bay Lightning and they'll turn your car into the ditch. I get it. We've seen it happen before. We saw it happen on Thursday night. But Florida played a really good game. Yeah, they did. Florida was really good. And that might just be one of the more frustrating things about all of this.

I'm going five forward power play. I'm sticking with it. Yeah. But I think about Hornquist. I also think about the presence of Joe Thorne. This was a really physical game too. Yeah. That's another thing.

And it was right from the get-go. These two teams came out and hammered one another. And that good-ass hit at the end on Cernak. Woof! That was a whopper. Well, you mentioned five forward power plays, and we saw that in the St. Louis-Colorado game. The St. Louis Blues on the 2-0 David Perron power play goal.

We saw Thomas Perron, O'Reilly, Teres Tarasenko and Bushnevich firing it around there's no defenseman on the ice Joe five forwards for the Blues Butchnevich straight away to Perron down low again and as it's pulled away by Thomas he's chased that held on to gets it in behind the net onto his forehand and rolled on him he feeds it over to Tarasenko. Two-man advantage for the Blues. Straight away, Butch Navich to Perron. One-timer. He scores! Perron! Power play goal! A one-time slap shot in. 33 seconds to go in the second period. 2-0 St. Louis. 2-0 St. Louis. Oh, we saw the low-to-high play there by O'Reilly didn't take.

Bucinavich kept going to Tereschenko, and they were setting up this one-timer. It went Bucinavich to Tereschenko, back to Bucinavich two or three times. And that's where Colorado was really being drawn into Tereschenko's one-timer. I think as soon as Bucinavich sees that PK drift to the left, that's where then he's going to slide it over to the right, and he's going to find David Perron, and he was just hungry, feet set, and waiting for that one-timer. This one was interesting.

The St. Louis Blues, and listen, you've talked plenty in the last couple of days about what happened to Colorado last year in Game 5 against the Vegas Golden Knights. Tonight was Game 5, again, not game five of the series, but the fifth game of the postseason for the Colorado Avalanche. Four to one is the final score, and St. Louis gets their split heading back home. Your thoughts on this one?

Well, I thought St. Louis played great. I thought they sat back a bit more. They basically said, we're going to let you come to us a bit, but we're going to collapse on you when you do. You know, a few things. O'Reilly won nine of 13 face-offs against McKinnon. And face-offs aren't necessarily the be-all and end-all, but I think in this particular case, McKinnon was chasing the puck a lot. I thought that was one thing that stood out to me. was chasing the puck a lot. I thought that was one thing that stood out to me.

I mean, obviously St. Louis raised their level. You've been talking about St. Louis in the second period. Yep. And I looked it up. They were the number one team in the league in second period goals this year. And their plus 51 differential in the second period, I think was 30 ahead of Colorado for second place. They got caved in on the second period the other night, but they were better tonight.

You know, Pareko, I thought, had a hell of a game. They were just better. I think that's what it was. I think they just arrived and said that this is going to be a series. And I don't necessarily think this is Colorado panic time yet. I don't think we should have expected anything different. St. Louis proved to us this year they're a really good team and they're a load to handle.

But I'm not panicking about where Colorado is and what this means. I have a couple of things I want to ask you about this though. There are more big picture questions than serious questions. Number one, David Perron.

And Kevin made a really good point. Like Perron's going to be 34 next week. And he said that Perron is smart enough to know that he's got to be in a good fit for him. And he's not the fastest guy. So he's got to play for a team that will allow him to play in a system where you don't have to be like a blinder. You don't have to be Usain Bolt, the player, or Andre DeGrasse to play on that team. Let me ask you, if you were a GM right now,

how many years would you offer Perron? How many years would you offer Perron? If I felt that it was a fit, it would be two years. Because like most people these days, I'm hesitant about players in their 30s in any contract with Thurm. I don't know if I buy that anymore. I think these guys keep themselves in pretty good shape. I don't think three years is going to kill you here.

I really don't. What's undefeated, Elliot? I know father time is undefeated, but I think these guys are smarter than ever about not beating father time, but maybe holding them off for a couple more rounds. Let me put it this way. If it's St. Louis, I go longer because the fit is so good. If it's someone else, if i'm another team i'm not sure that i'm going that term you know what i would do i would probably front load it a little

bit so that if you had to buy out the third year it wasn't a killer wasn't a killer yeah but st louis i could see like doug armstrong we've talked about him before he makes hard decisions and he's unafraid to make hard decisions oh yeah i wonder if he's got some other things he's gonna keep in mind to make sure that he can keep baron because that guy is such a big part of that team yeah but if i was another team that was good and had room i would be looking hard at that guy. Okay. Here's my second question to you.

Okay. So I'm looking at these playoffs and you've got one kind of younger coach in Jay Woodcroft. You've got Jared Bednar who all I would put him kind of in the middle but Jared Bednar has got some edge to him. And then you've got two really

kind of old school guys in Daryl Sutter and Craig Berube. And Craig Berube I think doesn't get enough credit for how good a coach he's proven he is. So we're talking about coaching availabilities and things right now. And people are talking about fresh faces, fresh faces, which I think is important. It's important to listen to new ideas, and it's very important.

Like Steve Eisman came out and said, demanding. I wonder if there's going to be more teams saying we need old school demanding or we can't forget old school and demanding and old school and demanding is maybe not making a comeback, but it's still very much there. You know, who's the hot candidate? Barry Trotz. There's a lot of coaches who are a little bit older, like Claude Julien, 62. They still want a coach. You know, Rick Bonas is in his 60s. I'm looking at this, Jeff, and I'm wondering, are teams looking at the Berube's and the Sutter's

and to a slightly lesser degree, the Bednar's? Because he's got an edge to him too. And saying, you know what? This is still the way we want to go. So I think this discussion is more than just coaching though. Because I think what you're talking about is both coaching and roster composition. And the example that I'll bring up is the Carolina Hurricanes.

Now the Carolina Hurricanes going back years have always been considered, you know, the, the forward thinking team, the analytics team. A lot of this is fueled by some of the great work done by Eric Tulsky, but that's always been their reputation. They want to be the smartest team in the league.

They want to be backed by all the numbers. Okay. And you look at the Carolina Hurricanes. One of the things they do the most in the NHL, actually, I think their number one is dump-ins. Yes. They're number one.

Now that flies in the face of what the fancy stat set always talks about, which is controlled entry, controlled entry that leads to scoring chances. Carolina, who's an analytics first team, they dump the puck in more than any team in the NHL. You know what else they do? That's number one retrievals.

Nobody retrieves the puck with as much success consistently as the Carolina hurricanes. So you have a collection of hockey players whose underlying numbers are outstanding, but you also have them playing in a way that looks like it's an old school team. I think in that situation, you have the best of both worlds. Like I've never looked at it as a binary proposition, either this or that. I look at it as this and that.

And I think what we're seeing, and I think the success of the Carolina Hurricanes, and maybe one day, because I'm pretty sure the New Jersey Devils want to behave this way as well. Maybe the Devils will be an example of this somewhere down the road. I think that's the model that I think a lot of the wisest teams are going for. Let's not throw out everything that's old. There is still value in that wisdom. You know, that wisdom, you know, still needs to be massaged. But that wisdom comes from years and decades of trial. Now, that doesn't mean that it should be, you know, cast in stone and absolute rules of how you play. But there is still, you know, a lot of a lot of wisdom in the way that people have traditionally played the game. To me, the successful coaches are the ones that can recognize what they have and

figure out what the right way for their team to play is. So I don't look at it as an either or proposition at all. Like we either need an old school coach or a new school guy. I don't look at it that way. I think that's very reasonable and very fair. And like, I forgot to mention some of the other coaches still in the playoffs too because they aren't really playing tonight. Gerard Gallant,

Rod Brindamore. Gerard Gallant, Rod Brindamore, those are old school guys. I think Cooper has a real edge to him. I don't know Burnett yet. That's one that I haven't spent enough time around him to really have an idea. Cooper can have a real edge to him. He can be a very

demanding, edgy guy. To me, it's just really interesting. And I think a lot of it about, you know, Colorado as a team plays hard. For St. Louis to get back into that series again, you've got to play them hard. And, you know, we've talked about in Tampa tonight and Marty's San Luis, winning the playoffs is hard. Like, if winning in the playoffs is as hard as it is, and it is hard, I'm looking at all this and,

and Craig Berube has got a edge to him too. Although I think he really cares about his players. I think it's a great way to put it. You've got to care about your players. You've got to make them think you care about them, but you've got to be hard on them because winning in this league is so hard and that's a it's a really tough line but like I wrote in my notes this week about how you know people are looking for fresh names and fresh faces which I think is important but I got a call the other day yesterday and someone just said to me that we are looking for fresh faces no

question about it but the one thing about a lot of the people we know is we know that they can be as hard as you need to be it's like you almost have to draw them back and say okay you can be hard but there's lines you can't cross and we're going to make sure you know what those lines are. But I think they feel that you have to be unafraid to push your players to places where they're not comfortable to go, and that's not easy. In this day and age, if you ask a lot of teachers now about their interactions with students or anybody who's in a position where they oversee people, it's harder than ever now. And it's a real skill.

And I think it's the same for coaching. But I think people look at how hard it is to win in this league right now. And they say, boy, you need somebody who's not afraid to push. And I just look at all these coaches that are in right now, and the good teams, I think they really accept this kind of coaching. And the best players, I think they accept this kind of coaching. But boy, it's a real tight line to walk. You know, further to that, you know who had a great game on Thursday night?

Who's that? Craig Berube. Yeah. Now, the St. Louis Blues have done really well with that Bushnevich-Thomas-Tarasenko line. Yeah. And what Berube did, and it worked out perfectly for them on Thursday night,

he put each of them on a different line. Yeah. So Bushnevich was with O'Reilly and Perron. Tarasenko was with Shen and Barbashev. Thomas was with Cairo and Sod. And that Robert Thomas line is one of the lines that St. Louis dined out with all season long. And he's been unafraid to make a move like this. We're not putting two of you together anywhere.

We're splitting up the entire line. Think about how gutsy a move that is for a second. This line has led us to the playoffs, and I think this is going to be the right move. But Schnevich, you're here. Thomas, you're there. Tarasenko, you're going over here with Shannon Barbashev. I think it says great things about the coach,

and I think it says great things about the players, I think it says great things about the players because everybody here made it work. They really did. And the St. Louis blues made it work. And all of a sudden now we are at one, one in this series. You have a final thought on that series before we get to some notes.

See, I'm not convinced all of these series are going to go seven. Like I have this weird feeling and I might turn out to be totally wrong, that the second round will not go as long as the first. We only had one series less than six games in the first round. I have a feeling these ones aren't going to go as long, but I think the one that will will be St. Louis, Colorado. As good as Colorado is, I think St. Louis is going to push them.

Let's get to some notes. John Hines' contract, extension Nashville Predators. Your thoughts on this one? Yeah, I'm not surprised. They know Hines. They like Hines. I have to say,

I talked about it a bit on the podcast here I've been a little bit surprised at some of the reaction in Nashville at the end of the season I know it's disappointing that they got wiped out that the Soros got hurt and they got wiped out by Colorado and you know I think their fans wanted to see a little bit more I thought they played hard I I just thought they were outmatched and outgunned but again like this whole year in nashville i don't know how many people thought they were gonna even gonna make the playoffs and they played hard and they made the playoffs and you know the other thing too is they kind of resuscitated johansson and dushane a bit and to me that's a good organization you know

they wanted to try to trade both those players they couldn't do it so they made them better and I think Hines deserves credit for that I will tell you this that when the trots rumors were going around and I had said that I thought he might end up in Nashville in a management role I had people say to me that they're not going to want trots there as kind of looking over Hines' shoulder. That people were going to take it as, okay, well, Barry Trotz is here in management, but if they don't like John Hines, well, they can bring in Barry Trotz behind the bench.

I don't think that was ever what was being talked about. I think that if Barry Trotz goes to, say say a management job in Nashville, it's not because they don't believe in John Hines. I think they really were happy with the job Hines did this year. And I wasn't surprised he was extended. You know, you mentioned Barry Trotz there. Real quick note, there have been a couple of reports about Barry Trotz interviewing with Philadelphia on Friday, Elliot. I'm not so sure that that's going to happen, but that's not to say that Philadelphia isn't interested. I believe they are.

I'm just not sure that the interview is happening on Friday, but I would imagine at some point the Philadelphia Flyers would have a conversation with Barry Trotz. Joel Quenville, is there any latest with Joel Quenville as we discuss coaches here? Well, obviously, as the commissioner said, that Quenville has to apply for reinstatement if he wants to coach again. As far as I know, that has not happened. I've had some people around the league, like on various teams, kind of hint to me that they think that what might have

to happen this time around is if an owner is interested in Quenville and calls the league and says, can I interview him? And they think that that would be the way that this year, that something like that would happen. If a team went to the commissioner and said, we'd like to know if we can interview him, because obviously they're not going to waste time interviewing him if they can't hire him. Like, for example, say, you know, Vegas wanted to hire Joel Quenville as their coach. they think that you know that's the kind of thing that could potentially get things moving but we don't know that that's going to happen but that's what a couple teams said to me that they think will have to happen is an owner to get involved and say okay we'd like to talk to him like I have no idea what Bettman would rule I don't have any insight into that but they think in terms of this hiring phase that would get it going you know i know

there's a lot of people who feel certain ways about quenville and i understand for me i am going to reserve judgment until you know hopefully at some point in time his testimony will come out or he will give a more detailed statement of what he told the investigators. We've only seen bits and pieces and what other people have said. I would like to see Quenville's full testimony before I make any judgment right now, but I think it's going to take potentially an owner calling and saying, I'd like to talk to Quenville before this moves this year. We have a couple of game twos on Friday night, Elliot.

It is game two of the Battle of Alberta. Game one was wild. Game two between the Carolina Hurricanes and the New York Rangers, a game that was interesting and had a gorgeous overtime winner. That, of course, by my standards. Maybe not yours so much, Elliot. I know you like your pretty goals. I know you like your pretty goals.

Pretty goals for a pretty man. No, I know. You love it. You know, you love it. You want to put a nice bow tie and a top hat on the puck and finesse it in. I get it. Edmonton and Calgary.

We knew it was going to be a wild series, but I don't think anybody expected that. And I don't think we should be used to that. And by used to, I mean not used to it. Nine, six scores on a consistent basis i don't know that we're gonna get a performance like that again out of jacob markstrom like when you look at like all the freakish things that happen in that game to me the the weirdest thing about that game is that's not a jacob markstrom game at. Like that should be a nine to one game, maybe at best a nine to two game.

You know, we focused a lot on, you know, as a, you know, Luchich and, you know, going at,

at Connor McDavid, we focus on, you know, the Oilers tying it up six, six, and then Koskinen surrendering too quick afterwards and focus on the Kachuk family having a good time in the stands. To me,

the weirdest thing was the performance of Jacob Markstrom. I don't know who that guy was, but it sure wasn't the Jacob Markstrom that I know. Yeah, he had a really rough night. The thing is, like, he's had performances like that when he gets tired, and I thought he'd be okay. I mean, he had a really tough seven-game first-round series. He did have a couple of days off.

We'll see. Like, I don't think it's going to be like that again but obviously in his history if he's been tired he's had some rough games like that the weirdest thing for me jeff is we had a highlight pack that showed i think there were seven goals between all the goalies that it hit them and went in and that just is not supposed to happen yeah one of my buddies said, you know who the best goalie was in the game? And I said, no, who? And he goes, God, because God only gave up one empty netter. And I said to him, you know, how long were you thinking about that one for?

I think, I think Smith will be better. I think Markstrom will be better. I'm not surprised Edmonton's going back to Smith. You know, McDavid, he's going to single-handedly keep Edmonton in the series. But I think there were a lot of things that if you were the Calgary Flames, you take out Markstrom's performance, you believe it's not going to be like that. I think there were a lot of things that happened in that game that you looked at and said, we liked it. And the Oilersers they were really sloppy you know really sloppy especially

early they have to be a lot more detail oriented against that team how physical do you think game two gets and yeah we saw Milan Lucic have no problem taking a good healthy and clean uh run at Connor McDavid do we expect Oilers players of the more robust variety to start going after some of the calgary skilled players well i think they probably might the thing is though jeff is that's in calgary's dna like that's their game and i don't know if that's the oilers game so much like they have guys who can be physical there's no question about it but they don't go out of their way to do it. Like Calgary does.

I think you just have to like, who are the guys who hit McDavid? One was Luchich. Another was good Branson. And a third is Zdorov. Like that's who all those guys are. Right. So I just think you have to know that if you're playing Calgary,

that's the way it's going to be. This is a tough, tough order for Edmonton. It's different if Markstrom doesn't find his game in, but it is a tough, tough order for Edmonton. It's different if Markstrom doesn't find his game in, but it's a tough, tough one for Edmonton if Markstrom finds his game. You know, the other series the other night, I thought the Rangers played as well as they could. They controlled a lot of that game.

You know, for a lot of that game, they weren't making the same mistakes that they were against Pittsburgh. They weren't giving up as many chances as they did against Pittsburgh. But then once the Hurricanes took over the game, they were really under siege. You know, there's three teams are going to look at game one and they're going to say, boy, you know, we could really regret this when the series is over. And those teams were the Rangers, the Oilers and the panthers and now the panthers are down to nothing you know the blues you know they were even lucky to get into overtime but i gotta think if you're the rangers and you're the the oilers you're looking at game one and you're saying

we let those ones slip out of our hands unfortunately you score six you should probably win the game elliot you score six you should probably win the game elliot you score six you should probably win the game jeff before we wrap up the show tonight uh between games the uh the two games of the double header uh we interviewed chloe primarano who was the first female skater to be drafted into the canadian hockey league the western hockey league's vancouver giants drafted her 268th overall kevin bx has a connection with her the skills coach she has is uh derrick popke i believe and and bx knows him you know we we watched some highlights of her we had her on she was a good talker that was a great interview that was really good she got a congratulatory phone call from

michael buble who's a co-owner of the Giants. She said her favorite player is Duncan Keith, who she models her game after. And she picks the number eight because her dad picked it when she was first skating. So, I mean, this is a huge day for her. And congratulations to Chloe. She'll always be that person. Nobody's ever going to be able to take that away.

She'll always be the person, the first female skater to be drafted in the Canadian hockey league. Chloe, on behalf of all of us here, as Elliot just mentions, congratulations. Uh, you are the first well done.

Um, quick note as well. 32 thoughts, merchandise presale is still on the merge link is in our show notes. So, uh, check that out. I recommend the yellow Laces specifically,

but I may be a little bit biased. Oh my God. So good, Elliot. You love it. All right, Freach. Taking us out is a Parisian indie rock quartet who just released their sophomore record called A Superior Athlete.

While making the album, Horsies spent time watching classic movies such as Weekend at Bernie's and Ferris Bueller's Day Off while investigating the relationship between their athletic fantasy and their apathy of domestic life. From this 10-track masterpiece, here's Horses with Jan Sport on 32 Thoughts, the podcast Gems fall Gems fall It's a Russian word choice, it's an addict type world life Add a little bit of rum and the olive juice I got it bugging tight, yeah but if I'm in the gutter With the gems falls on my shoulders

Get out of my way, get out of my way I think I'm fine Just go Just go