32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Burning Bright

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

All smiles in Calgary. Jeff and Elliotte discuss the Flames restructuring their front office and hiring Craig Conroy as their GM (01:00). They also get into the statement that as released by Kyle Dubas (19:00), an update on Toronto’s GM search (29:00), Ottawa sale (34:00), Salary Cap (37:00), and what’s happening in Nashville (38:40).Plus, the guys recap the Eastern Conference Final (50:20) and the Western Final (40:00),  and take a very interesting voicemail (54:30). Thanks to Tom Embery, VP/GM of PNC Arena.Watch the full Jim Nill feature hereEmail the podcast at [e-mail] or call The Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemailOutro Music: Art Lown - Deep Blue SeaListen to the full track hereThis podcast was produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: KKGK 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.

I think they like... That's not coming from me, by the way. I should state for the record. Licensed registration, sir. I even pulled over when I sent out the link to the blog. I want everyone to know that. Well done. So, it's my pleasure to introduce the next general manager

of the Calgary Flames, Craig Conroy. Thank you, Rick. Appreciate that. So, here's a question, Elliot. Are we about to see two sweeps? Welcome to 32 Thoughts to Podcast, presented by the GMC Canyon AT4X. It is Friedman. It is yours truly.

It is Amal Delic. And we're going to get to both the conference finals here in a couple of moments. But first, we'll start with the Calgary Flames. And if you wanted to change the mood of your organization, Elliot, the Calgary Flames kind of taught a master class in how to make things happy. Tuesday, making it official with the announcement that Craig Conroy is the next general manager. Dave Nones comes in as the senior VP of hockey operations

and assistant general manager. Brad Paschal is now the VP of hockey operations. And Chris Snow is the VP of data analytics and assistant general manager. And like that, from pretty much the opening words that Craig Conroy spit out, just the mood and the timber of the team changed. Your thoughts on the announcement,

the naming of all these people in their positions, and we're going to get into some of the things that Conroy said because it was a pretty newsy press conference, an opening presser here by Craig Conroy. But just open up with wide-brush thoughts on Conroy as the GM of the Calgary Flames. So basically we're doing almost the opposite podcast of Monday. Instead of Toronto-Calgary, we're doing Cal the opposite podcast of Monday. Instead of Toronto, Calgary, we're doing Calgary, Toronto,

and then we're going to talk about the series that are being played. It's almost the exact podcast, but slightly in reverse. Pretty much. Well, you know what? It's the era of good feeling in Calgary. Craig Conroy comes, and he's smiling. And obviously, we hadn't seen a lot of smiles in Calgary craig conroy comes and he's smiling and uh you know obviously we hadn't seen a lot of smiles in calgary this year the one thing i want to say about this is when the job got

open and everybody knew that there was going to get this job yep and i think it has been such a hard year and you can't be a happy person all the time and your boss just being a person of a general sunny disposition doesn't solve all your problems. But I just think the year was so hard there that everybody just wanted something different. It's just instantly a better feeling. Now, Conroy obviously has to show he can do the job, and we'll get to that in a second. I agree with you. It was very newsy, and he in a second. I agree with you. It was very

newsy and he had a lot of interesting things to say. And sometimes I think people mistake kindness for weakness. You treat people right. Oh, you can take advantage of that person. That's wrong. You can still be nice and allow people to take advantage of you, but you can also be nice but you can bury your fangs when it's actually important and jeff i've always believed that the people who bark the least when they do bark they're the scariest and i think craig conroy his entire strategy is to show his fangs when he actually needs to and therefore make himself more effective as a leader when he does have to roll up his sleeves and get himself dirty well to the business and to some of the the more newsier of this press conference, I think the big one that everyone takes away from it is his mentioning that Johnny Goudreau can't happen again in Calgary and that there will be changes to the core. And listen, we've talked a lot about this on the podcast, the pending UFAs, Backlund, Lindholm, Toffoli is another one, Noah Hannafin, Chris Tanev, Nikita Zdorov, etc.

If he's not going to let that happen, again, to the Calgary Flames, players walking for nothing, you know, it's time that, you know, he hits the ground running and has to roll up his sleeves and start to make, as he says, changes to the core. And he did mention as well that they'd be looking at adding some youth to the mix next season. Well, I think we're going to change the core a little bit. Not the core pieces, but I think we're going to add some youth in the lineup. You know, like Don said, my big thing has been drafting,

watching players, you know, and what I've watched and learned is you need young players in the team. You need that excitement. You need that, you know, what they bring day in and day out. And it's nothing against the older players, but when you watch the league, you see what these kids are doing at 15, 16, 17 years old. I can't even imagine doing that. And so, you know, you have to bring that into your team. You have to give them a chance. You have to give them an opportunity. And it might not be seamless all the time. And it's easier to play veteran players, but we need to kind of move forward. And we have a salary cap,

you know, and young players definitely help the salary cap. So we're going to look at all that. But, you know, I never want to say we're, you know, this team can't win because probably that 0-4 team, I didn't think we were going to win either. I thought we were a good, hardworking team, but we made it to the finals. So I never want to count a team out, but I definitely think there needs to be some changes. We'll get to that in a second, but the first order of business, who's going to be here and who's not wanted on the voyage? The youth, I think, is the first thing you have to mention, Jeff,

because that's where I look at the roster. Where's the youth coming? Cause if you're bringing youth in, people have to go out and it could be some of those UFAs to be. So one's in goal, Dustin Wolf. Yep. So whether it's Vladar,

if for whatever reason you're thinking they're moving Markstrom, there has to be a change there. I think upfront there's Pelche. There's the possibility of Coronado. There's the possibility of Zari. And I understand today on Pat Steinberg show, after the media conference, he was asked about Phillips Conroy, and he said he would like to bring Phillips back. But, you know, Phillips is a UFA and he doesn't know what Phillips is

going to do now. How close do they think Poirier is? I heard some interesting reviews. Like I had someone say to me, he took a big step this year they're not sure he's ready particularly on a team that wants to stay in the race but it's not like he's really far they don't think so that's my first question is who's ready to play then i go to their roster lynn holm he's number one They kind of said he's number one. Lindholm's a Newport guy. Bo Horvat just signed for eight times 8.5. Newport guy.

Do you think we start there? Probably. Don't you? I think we're around there. If Calgary wants to do this, they're around there. Michael Backlund, another guy who sounded kind of unhappy but i think with backland it's gonna come down to two things number one is contract the guy is 35 so you know we'll see everybody's got to be happy here the other thing about backland is i think he badly wants

to be captain of the flames conroy said that they will have a captain next year and i know in the exit meetings that came up there was no player who specifically felt the role to be the buffer and the players felt that was really missing and it was a big problem backland wants that role if that role is offered him, I think that's a big factor in his decision. If that role is not offered to him, I wonder if he says, you know what, it's time. It's up to him, but I've heard that's a factor. But then, you know, the other guys, you know, what does Tana feel? What does Hannaannifin feel to fully just had a massive year you know what's his number gonna be he can't keep them all jeff so i look at where do you think

the young players can replace who asked for what contract but the other thing is i still think they want to stay in the race so it's not like they're getting rid of all of them. Like, you know me, I look at what's the big piece and then I go from there. I think the big piece is Lindholm and we go from there. I think we should probably also throw Walker Dewar's name into that mix as well. Yeah, that's a good one. But then, you know what I come back to as well, Elliot,

and also if you want to consider Phillips, Matthew Phillips, you know, is maybe coming back. i think one of the questions becomes how many kids are you comfortable blending into this lineup well that that's fair let's not forget like you you can look at okay well maybe coronado is there peluche is there walker doers there uh poirier on on the back end one of the questions too is if you want to stay competitive how comfortable with a whole bunch of new kids because the learning curve is steep in the NHL how many kids are you comfortable going with? I know the temptation

is big because everyone wants the shiny new toys let's see the kids Christmas morning get the wrapping paper off but I don't know I'm just sensitive about how many you move in on a full-time basis all at once i think it's a combination of how many kids you think are ready and who you think you can pay and what the negotiations are right but i i think you start with lindholm and you go from there

one of the most interesting ones here is what do you do with the goalie situation well wolf has got to play dustin wolf look like what i don't know what more he's going to be why is he playing in the american hockey league anymore like that that becomes a question but then the further question is okay if he's in who's out elliot like the potential for whoppers are here like absolute whoppers of deals if ladar is the guy and i think most of us think that he's probably the guy that gets moved. He's signed for two more years. Yeah.

Don't you think there's going to be somebody out there who's going to be, yeah, we'd be happy to do that depending on the price. Of course. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I think you can do that. A hundred percent.

And a lot of that is, you know, get them into our system with our goalie coach. Your thoughts on Dave Nonas coming in as Senior VP of Hockey Operations. A nice bump for Brad Paschal and you also mentioned on television, a nice bump for Chris Snow as well.

Well, that's just such a great story and you know, I'm really happy for the Snow family and I think it's important that the Flames do the right thing here. And that is, you know, making sure that Chris Snow is involved to the best he can. I think it's a really nice, nice story. And if I was in charge, I would hope I would handle things Nonis was interviewed, I had somebody who sent me a note saying, you know, great call.

Don Maloney loves Dave Nonis. And someday I'm going to ask what the whole genesis of that is and where that comes from. But also, you know, Bob Murray is there, and Dave Nonis and Bob Murray work together. I know that's going to make Berkey happy because Berkey's a big Dave Nones fan too. Like, I just think experience matters. I really do.

I think you have to do both. I think you have to be able to find newer and fresher and different ideas. And I think you have to surround them with people who have kind of been through and seen stuff before. And Dave Nones has been through a lot and I think he'll help now the other thing too I think is really interesting is I heard that every candidate they spoke to was asked why has Canada not won a Stanley Cup in 30 years and Jeff they got a lot of the answers that you would expect taxes weather. And their conversation I heard was, how do we remove those

things as an obstacle? And, you know, some things are easier than others, some things you can do and some things you can't, but that's the only way to attack it. And I think that's kind of the way that the Flames are looking at it. And if you look at Nones, he's been in Vancouver. He's been in Toronto. The Vancouver situation in particular, he got fired. I know that one of the things that Nones has told people before is that he always wished he could have seen through the Vancouver situation. You know, Mike Gillis came in there brought in some ideas very different ideas very ahead of the curve ideas and they got to within one win of the cup and you know i i think

notice even though that he was in toronto after vancouver i think he's always kind of remembered that feeling that he was on the cusp of something there he he really felt, and I think he'll be really glad for this opportunity for that reason. Okay, so then the attention for Craig Conroy, Dave Norris, etc. will turn to who is going to be the next head coach of the Calgary Flames. That is a tall order of business as well for this new management team. What do you hear? What do you know? Well, one of the first things I heard was that there's some desire to reach out to peter laviolette to hear if he's interested in coaching

in canada like laviolette's a pretty hot candidate here he's got columbus and the rangers after him as well i don't know the answer to that but it says to me they're going to cast a pretty wide net i mean you know my feelings on mitch love like the calgary flames have to decide yeah is mitch love their guy or not he's been hl coach the year twice in a row like at some point in time you gotta say hey is he a flame or not and you're getting you're pretty close to there right now so i think you have to decide that but you know we've mentioned a lot of the names you know brunette huska muller i think muller's got a couple of other interviews scheduled or he's done them already i think columbus was one of them tange you've mentioned mark savard galant's name's now

been mentioned i think there's a lot of candidates here it's those, like, let's reach out and then let's see where we land. But I think when you're trying to sign all these guys, I don't think you can wait a long time. That's the one thing. If you really want to be serious about signing some of these guys, you probably don't have a tremendously long runway. Well, here's the thing, which is why I always come back

to Mitch Love on this one. Um, the beginning of this conversation, we talked about the, the next wave of Calgary flames players that are coming in, whether it's Poirier or doer or Coronado or Pelche and, and Wolf. I mean,

they've all been developed under Mitch love here. Yeah. So as the players, you know, actualize as Calgary flames players, it does make a lot of sense. And again, we've just seen one, you know, actualize as Calgary Flames players, it does make a lot of sense. And again, we've just seen one, you know, major internal promotion. I don't think you go wrong doing the same thing with your coaching position.

But as they say, we shall see. One thing we want to make sure we got on the podcast today, Tuesday night we aired a feature interview that I did with Dallas Stars general manager Jim Neal. We talked about a few different things, most notably the 2007 NHL draft where his team picked up Haskinen, Ottinger, Jason Robertson. You knew that story, but did you know which team were right there as well and were really upset that Dallas took two of those players

before they got the chance to? Well, you'll hear it now. Here's part of my conversation with Jim Nill. When we go back to 2017, how much do you look at your team right now? Because that was Haskinen, that was Ottinger, that was Robertson as well. How much do you look at that draft and say, that's the core of our team right there in the first two rounds? What probably redefined our team and probably saved us, we're getting to that point. You know, I came here, I've been here 10 years now.

And for six to eight years, we've had a pretty solid core. That core now is starting to get 30, 32 years of age. You know, you add the Pavelskis and Suitors, there's 36, 38 years of age. So I knew there was coming a time when we might have to change what's our next direction. And that 2017 draft really changed the course of direction. All of a sudden, the Merrill Haskinons, the Jay Gottingers, Jason Robertson, these guys start to show up and they changed our team. We went through it in Detroit. It was Steve Eisenman, Shan Had Lindstrom. We're all getting towards the back nine a little bit and all of a sudden Zetterberg and Dak Suits showed up and it gave the team another push for the next six to eight years.

That's what these group of guys have done here. I want to ask about Robertson specifically because I can remember this moment at the draft. I don't recall how close your table was to Florida's, but when you drafted Robertson, did you hear the Florida Panthers table? I can't repeat the words, but were you aware of Florida's radar? They were taking Robertson and when Dallas took them, they were audibly upset. How about that? Yeah, actually, there's two instances in that draft. Jake Ottinger was another guy that I know that I'm good friends with, Dale Talon. And he came over after the Ottinger pick, and then we did the Robertson pick, and it happened again.

He came over. You got him twice? We got him twice, but we were fortunate to be in the right spot at the right time. Hope you enjoyed that little part of my interview with Jim Nill, General Manager of the Dallas Stars. To watch and listen to the entire interview, visit our Sportsnet YouTube channel. Link will be in the notes. Listen to the 32 Thoughts Podcast

ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. Okay, then let's move to another big story from Tuesday, and that was the statement by Kyle Dubas. And we'll read the opening paragraph for you. The whole thing is on his social media. While I understand there is interest surrounding the circumstances of my departure, I will not get into the specifics of what I consider to be reasonable and consistent but private discussions. In the days that I felt I needed to assess and evaluate my own view to the future, both with respect to the necessary

direction of the club and ensuring that I had the full support of my family for what I knew would be required in the offseason and years to follow, the organization, as is their right to do, decided to go in a different direction. How did you greet that statement? Someone said to me, Elliot, you burned down the internet on Monday.

Are you going to do it again in this pod? And, you know, I have a written blog that more encapsulates my thoughts there about the whole week. And I would encourage people to read it. I think the keyword there was consistent. And that is on his level, Kyle Dubas, his way of saying that I did nothing that surprised them. It's like a breakup. It's like two people in it. One person says, this is my story. The second person says, this is my story. And the truth is somewhere in between. You know, I talked about this in the last pod. You've got the pro Shanahan people saying this, this, this, and this, and you've got the pro Dubas people saying this, this, this and you've got the pro dubas people saying

this this this and this and it all can't be right so the truth is somewhere in the middle but the word that stuck out to me was consistent and i think that was there on purpose from dubas to say i didn't do anything last second maybe we'll know, but that is the key word. Like it's possible we could hear from Dubas soon this week. He's talked to Pittsburgh. I don't know where Dubas has been. I have been given some tips. Nobody's confirming anything at this time,

but there are some people who suspected he's met them in person. I don't know. I can't confirm that 100 but they've definitely talked he's their number one choice if he takes the job it's his job and you know they're trying to give him a little bit of time to figure it out but that's where we are and um you know the other thing is like, I know we're going to talk about Ottawa, but you know,

people say, Oh, he, he'd rather wait for Ottawa. Wouldn't you rather do Ottawa? They're going up. Pittsburgh's treading water a bit. You know,

the one thing about Ottawa is that I think some of these groups, and there's four final groups, I don't know if they've committed to people but they've got people in mind now if kyle dubas comes available one of them gets the team maybe they change their mind maybe they keep the group that's already there but i don't know that it's a slam dunk that the winner of the ottawa bid is gonna go to Kyle Dubas. I'll say this too. I had one guy say to me, even if Pittsburgh has had a rough couple of years

and there are some big questions about their goaltending, their defense, their cap situation. I had one guy said to me, if I knew I was getting three to five years of Sidney Crosby, I would want that job. If you could tell me I could work with Sidney Crosby, I would want that job. If you could tell me I could work with Sidney Crosby, I would take it. And you know, Fenway, they burn to win. They do. To say nothing of the resources that Fenway can provide here. Like that's the one thing that I keep reminding myself here. Kyle Dubas or whomever isn't just talking to the owners of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

This is Fenway Sports. And their branches and their tentacles go in a lot of different directions in a lot of different places, and it continues to grow. So where you might look at, to your point, why would the Pittsburgh Penguins job be so attractive? I would always come back with, it's Fenway Sports. That's why this whole thing is attractive because it's the new model for sports ownership. Like I always catch myself and say, don't just think this is the penguins.

It's not. It's Fenway sports. And that's so much bigger. The way you've got it all set up, he's going to be the GM of the penguins, the Red Sox and Liverpool at the same time yeah i just think that would be the great swerve uh of all time i'm throwing a dart and seeing if that one lands there one quick thing just to sharpen the pencil on one quick point that you make in your blog yeah safe to say that you know as the days go on here and

you know more conversation starts to to coalesce around what exactly happened here. Safe to say that the main problem was Dubas wanted to move up a rung on the ladder and Brendan Shanahan said, not on my watch. I think there's two main problems as I look back at it. Number one is that Dubas opened the door to, am I still all in? Whether you agree with that or not, that definitely opened up the door for Shanahan to wonder. And number two was, yes, I do think he wanted at least the ability to deliver his message himself. Okay, Elliot, before we get to what's happening

with the general manager search with the Toronto Maple Leafs, something you and I should probably spend a little bit of time on, and that is we heard so much over the past few days about deals that were nixed, deals that were proposed that went nowhere, deals that were encouraged. Do you have a second look at what happened with the matthew nye's situation around trade deadline last season i don't honestly know where this came from but tonight when i was driving to work someone called me and i honestly i don't know

where the genesis of this is but somebody somebody called me and said, have you heard this story about Dubas wanting to do the trade with Chicago with Florian and Hegel for nice and Shanahan vetoing it? And I started laughing and he goes, what's so funny? And I said, that was one of the craziest nights at hockey night in canada and i told them the story and they said you've got to tell this on the pod and i said well i thought about it okay so i'm going to tell as much as i can so basically what happened was that was the sat Saturday before the trade deadline. And the stories got out that day about how the Maple Leafs and Blackhawks were talking about this deal. And the Maple Leafs decided not to do it because they didn't want to trade

Nyes and the first rounder and whatever. So what happened was on Saturday night, you and I are working. We're preparing our 32 thought segment for the second intermission i'll admit this when i'm doing that segment i don't pay attention to the first period basically because you and i are finalizing our stuff and preparing to present it to ron and the producer brian spear uh right at the start of the second period so i have no idea what's happening in period. So I have no idea what's happening in the first period. I have no idea what's happening in the first intermission.

And all of a sudden I get a text on my phone, like just a nasty foul mouth rant. Like basically what the bleep are these guys talking about? And it was Ron, Kevin, Kelly, and Jennifer. And let me just say for the record, I believe a thousand percent Jennifer had nothing to do with this. It was probably Kevin, if I remember correctly, but they were talking about that deal.

And I still to this day have no idea what they said. Okay. deal and i still to this day have no idea what they said okay but let's just say that the maple leaves were not happy with the conversation because they made it sound like i guess we made it sound like they were considering the deal and the maple leaves were like we never were going to do that deal it was presented to us and basically I think I think I could say it now both Dubas and Shanahan made it very clear they were like how stupid do you think we are that either one of us would consider making that trade and they were adamant that neither one of them wanted to do it. And they defended each other.

They were like, the other guy didn't want to do it either. I think the story I was told, if I remember correctly, was I guess Shanahan was asking what's going on out there. And they were talking about their talks with Chicago. So Dubas showed it to shannon and shannon's like we're not doing this and it was like of course we're not doing it i'm just like showing it to you and apparently they both laughed but i'll tell you this jeff they were not laughing that night watching hockey night in canada because i had to go on the air in a second

and kind of correct it oh my god it was it was funny like i just remember like all of a sudden my phone blew up with just some of the like what are you guys talking about are you guys idiots and like i was like i have no idea what was happening so I just wanted to tell the story because that night was carnage and hockey night and how angry both of them and others were at us. Peek behind the curtain on Saturday nights and hockey night in Canada, angry texts. It's a consistent thing, Elliot, as you all know, it is a consistent thing.

Okay. So to the GM search in Toronto, then Brad for living. We all know about that. You mentioned in your blog Scott Mellenby as well who went down the road with the Philadelphia Flyers. I just wonder about him. I do. I'll tell you, I've wondered about Mellenby

for a number of different positions here. I wondered about Mellenby with the Vancouver position. I'll wonder about Mellenby here with the Toronto position as well. I keep saying to myself it's only a matter of time for Scott Mellenby. Do you not say the same? He's been so close so many times.

I have a personal reason. I kind of really root for Mellenby. So I hope his chance comes. Like I heard he was really far down the path in Philadelphia. I heard he was, he was right there near the end. So it would make sense to me. And since this whole Doug Armstrong thing,

I think it's hilarious. Like, you know, like, come on. Like, I will say this till I'm blue in the face. That's a guy that Maple Leafs would love to get. I just don't even know if it's possible. That's all I'm saying. But Mellenby works in St. Louis with Armstrong. police would love to get i just don't even know if it's possible that's all i'm saying but melanby works in st louis with armstrong assuming armstrong's not possible and a lot of people

sure are going out of their way to make it sound like it's not possible then i could see a guy like armstrong recommending melanby so i'm looking for that profile. Like who are the experienced people out there? There's Bergevin, but Bergevin at the end in Montreal, he was tired of the media. I don't know if you can bring that here. If you're going to be that distracted and that upset by it, you can't come into this. Although I think he would really like the job otherwise, but you know, those are the people I'm kind of looking at. Like, who are those individuals? I wouldn't be surprised if Tree Living is already here.

I think he's supposed to come in this week. It wouldn't surprise me. They did want to talk to him pretty quickly. He won't be the only guy they talk to. You know, I'll say this. You know, we mentioned Mike Gillis on the last pod. You know, Bx is hot on that one and and the reason is is that bx thinks that the maple leafs right now are the same as the

canucks were in like 2009 like a team that is on the cusp and bx is a big gillis guy again could they work together you know how do they feel about all this you know gillis was another guy by the end who couldn't stand the media in vancouver i just you have to be able to deal with that but bx is big and gillis he he really is so i i just go through those names but the reason melonby's name came up to me was because like i said he went far down the path in philly and b i just think his proximity to a guy like armstrong i could see him recommending him for it how much of a and you wrote about this one one final note here on toronto i don't want to pivot to Ottawa here and a bully bid, but how much is all of this? We've talked about it before,

but I don't know how much clearer the lens is now. How much is this completely thrown a wrench into the Austin Matthews plans from Austin Matthews point of view? I just think it's going to take a little bit longer. Like to me that the idea that, you know, Kyle Dubas leaving his GM cost them Austinthews like i don't get that but what i do think is that it just pushes the timeline back you know that's the thing like you just talked about conroy saying i'm not doing that again and who was the gm when that happened

it was tree living let's see let's say tree living gets the job you know how does he feel about all that these guys are talented i would bet on talent this whole thing with dubas is like i said the last pod a player reached out to say he doesn't think matthews was signing july 1st with dubas there well now if there's more uncertainty i think it just pushes the clock back. And I think as an organization, you owe it to yourself to have that conversation. Like, what does this mean? And I do believe Matthews wants to stay in Toronto.

You know what my theory is on his contract, but you may have to take the chance that you don't get to do it by the time his no trade kicks in. So you just have to decide as an organization how you feel about that. Big gamble. Major, major gamble.

Okay, to the other Ontario team, Steve Apostolopoulos and the Ottawa Senators, and could he be the one with the bully bid? Your thoughts on Steve Apostolopoulos. Like, I know there's people in Ottawa, they're frustrated. They're like, okay, let's end this. Let's get over this.

Let's get the bidder in. The only reason that it's happening this way is because this is the most public sale process. Like, aside from Jim Ball silly, really, this is like the most public sale process in aside from Jim Ball silly really this is like the most public sale process in NHL history and it's got some of the biggest names so it's a crossover normally it's not like this you don't even know this is going on so you've got reportedly a billion dollar offer and like I said there's some people who wouldn't be surprised if it's apostolopoulos because it's kind of the reputation he has as a guy who's not afraid to go in there hard but if you have a billion dollar offer a week ago and you still don't have an announcement of who's got the right to negotiate that says to me that nobody's sure about this yet and as you and i have

been talking about they're going through. They're going through the ownership structure. They're going through the funding. They're having all their conversations about how much is the debt load. So they're still going through it. I think we're going to know soon, but, but it takes time. Like these are incredibly complicated things. You know, I have my suspicions on who's got the strongest bid or the least craziest bid, but I could be wrong. So I'm just going to keep my opinions to myself for a second. But like I said, there are some people I've kind of got into who know Apostolopoulos a bit. And they said that a big bid like that is right up his alley, right up his alley. And you write that if, uh, he's successful,

Justin Bourne may be in the, uh, in the business of finding a new co-host. Nick never used to read the blog. So I want to see if he does now. Uh, uh, throw a log on the fire there. You know, one of the things that you write about, uh, with the Arizona coyotes is Clayton Keller. And we've talked plenty about it here on the podcast and there's no need, uh, You know, one of the things that you write about with the Arizona Coyotes is Clayton Keller. And we've talked plenty about it here on the podcast, and there's no need to revisit that. But Clayton Keller is not the only person of interest on the Arizona Coyotes.

You write about Lawson Krause and the interest there. I think there was strong interest there last season as well in advance of trade deadline. I would put Karel Vemelka in that conversation as well. That's a good call. I know a lot of that depends on where Arizona feels Ivan Prosvitov is and how close he is to becoming a legitimate full-time NHL netminder. But there would be a few players here that would be desirable on this Arizona Coyotes team should they go that direction, Elliot. Yeah, I don't disagree with you, Jeff. That would be a desirable on this Arizona coyotes team. Should they go that direction? Elliot?

Yeah, I don't disagree with you, Jeff. I just, we just don't have a lot of clarity here right now. And, uh, I just think what these players are asking for is some clarity as, and the sooner,

the better. And again, I don't think that that is about honest concerns. I think they, they see where they're going. Obviously, that's all off-ice. Okay, a couple more things here real quick. NHL, NHL Players Association will meet on Wednesday.

Salary cap top of everybody's mind here. So we've talked about the hope that maybe they can get the cap to go instead of just $1 million up, $1.5 million or $2 million, because they think there's some wiggle room there without asking the players to raise instead of just one million up one and a half or two because they think there's some wiggle room there without asking the players to raise their escrow caps we'll see if that gets any traction on on wednesday i mean we're getting close it's the second last week of may teams want to start making their planning we'll see if there's room there to make it happen you know obviously there was a lot of talk and we mentioned it on the pod about Larry Brooks' article about CBA violations made by the Coyotes.

The issue here is the word violations. I don't think there were any violations, at least not that were brought up to the Coyotes or the league. I think there were some complaints made from time to time. think there were some complaints made from time to time and like i said i do think that since the players are so unhappy about the arizona situation it's kind of like what can the players association do to put pressure on it's these kinds of complaints but you know i did speak to one player on tuesday and he said to me for all the stuff that the coyotes get and he said right now we're not that happy with them because of everything that just happened he said for the most part whenever they had a problem last year it got addressed but i see what the players association is trying to do here

they're trying to show that we can do something to show that the players are unhappy about this and this can't continue. And also Elliot, we'll finish off the news portion of the podcast here by mentioning the, the Nashville Predators and their situation. You write about, you know, it's kind of quiet around Nashville. We haven't heard much here from Barry Trotz. Does that mean he's considering options or does that mean he's staying put?

Maybe the right answer is we don't know, or I don't know. Do you know? I don't know. I just like, I think that there's just people there, obviously, who would like to know the answer one way or the other. But, you know, I mean, you just wonder it's, it's been a long time and, you know, we haven't gotten any clarity. And I just think people are just wondering like

like when you're a gm i just automatically assume that you're considering your options if you're taking this much time that's all okay uh and that concludes the news portion uh quick pause we'll step away and we'll come back with checks notes oh yeah Oh yeah, the games. We're looking at two sweeps here. Stay tuned. Off the boards, Vegas clears the zone. A dozen seconds to play. It'll skip back towards the Dallas Inn. The final seconds tick off in Dallas and the biggest star of the night is Aiden Hill. A shutout. Golden Knights four, star zero. The first shutout in Aiden Hill's playoff career.

34 saves on 34 shots. The 11th shutout in Golden Knights playoff history. He's met by all of his teammates. After the last couple of Golden Knights wins, he had to chase after them. Welcome back to the podcast. Elliot, we'll start with Vegas and Dallas game three. The final is 4-0. The series is 4-0. The series is 3-0. The Knights are doing a job.

And was the die cast on the Jamie Benn five in a game cross-check on Mark Stone? That's kind of how it felt. And this is a huge moment in the game, and we're a minute 53 in. Where does it get him? That's going to be the thing they're looking at. Where does the cross-check get him?

Is it in a vulnerable spot? Is it not? I mean, it's a cross-check, and it's done with veracity right he's coming from way up to right down on the ice and we'll see what the referees decide once they've had a better look at it and see exactly where this cross check ended up there's steve casari after reviewing the play it's a five in a game misconduct for cross check so jamie ben's night ends a minute 53 into the game for the dallas stars that and ottinger like two things went really wrong ottinger really rough night and then ben gets ejected i think you can just you can make argument, Jeff. Which one do you think was a

bigger problem for Dallas? I would say it's Ottinger, but it's not like the Ben one was good. The Ben play was shocking. He's your captain. You expect him to lead. It was just an awful play at the worst possible time. They just missed a

chance. He was frustrated. He was wired. They're already down and he lost his composure and you can't do that. And it was just so bad, Jeff, and so egregious. We interrupt our program to bring you this important message. this important message. Update from the gym. Yes, I actually do go to the gym. Jamie Benn has a hearing today.

And in 99% of the cases, if you have a hearing, you are getting suspended. I'll be honest with you. I'm just glad that Mark Stone was okay to finish the game. It was okay to play because that one looked nasty. The first angle that you saw was kind of from the side, but then when you saw the angle from the front, it looks, and it was.

It was a really bad play. It was a really dangerous play. It was a really thoughtless play, and it was a play that flat out because Barbashev scored on the power play, it's a play that you know flat out because barbachev scored on the power play was a play that hurt his team yeah you know during the game i can't remember you mentioned this in the pre-game or one of the intermissions you mentioned the coming out party for jack eichel yeah and the more that these games go on like right now sergey brovsky is you know the best player you know know, goalie, defense, forward, mineral, vegetable, animal, whatever.

He's it. He's the story of the playoffs. But when it comes to forwards, is Jack Eichel not that guy as well? He's been phenomenal. I like to read a lot of Corey Schneider stuff. He does a lot of microstats. like to read a lot of cory schneider stuff he does a lot of micro stats and if you look at the stuff he's tracking with eichel and that's exits entries the stuff he's doing that you know you saw the brilliant assist tonight on the first goal that was incredible oh eichel lays it off for marshall

so Lavin Berners-Schmidt to the corner, flips it out, that goes down, throws the pass across, they score! Jonathan Marcheseau, a minute 11 into the game, makes it 1-0 Vegas. One minute 11 seconds into the first period. Jonathan Marcheseau, just like at the end of game two, Eichel sets up Marcheseau for a critical goal. And the Knights, for the first time in this series, score the game's first goal only the fourth time in what is now 14 games. The Knights have scored the first goal of the game.

But the stuff he's doing, entering the zone, exiting the zone, he's killing it. He's absolutely killing it. And you're right. We joke, the first day Brent Burns was my consummate winner then it was Dreisaitl and you know it kind of changes all the time but you know I think Bobrovsky has to be your guy right now but Vegas's top guy is Eichel he's been absolutely brilliant. Just a brilliant, brilliant performer. And you know what?

I think the thing you want for people is trade should be win-win. And, you know, for a long time, Buffalo was like, oh, we're better off. We're better off. And people are like, oh, Buffalo, they're better off. They're better off. Well, maybe they are, but so is vegas all the promise that people had for jack eichel about who he could be and what he could be it's all here now jeff it's arrived look vegas looks awesome and they have a legit chance to win the stanley cup and it would be the second time the buffalo sabers send a player to a new team and he wins the Stanley Cup. Ryan O'Reilly, and we'll see what happens here with Jack Eichel and the Vegas Golden Knights.

But you're right, as much as we talk about how great Buffalo is right now and the shape that they're in, and they are, Ryan O'Reilly went and won a Stanley Cup. Jack Eichel is one win away from getting a chance to do the same thing that Ryan O'Reilly did as well. The Jake Ottinger thing is concerning. And I'll be honest with you. I thought that Wedgwood was going to go in just to give Ottinger a little bit of a timeout.

And then he was going back. Did you think the same? No, I think he knew he was done. I had a really interesting text exchange with one of the true goalie experts, not Kevin Woodley. I usually talk to Kevin Woodley. It wasn't him. This time was another true goalie expert. And you know, this is what he said to me. Look at the games this year. Ottinger, 62 games. Anderson, 34 games.

Bobrovsky, 50 games. Hill, 27 games. That's regular season, okay? He said Anderson is playing great. Hill is playing great. Bobrovsky is playing great. Ottinger, he said he's hit the wall. He said great goalie who's hit the wall. And I think that's fair. And his point, and he says he really believes it,

55 to 57 games in the regular season, and that's it. He says the schedule is now too demanding on goalies today when you include practice and playing. And if you do look at minutes, I was looking at this the other day, I think Ottinger is 1,000 ahead of Bobrovsky, who's second of the four goalies, starting goalies remaining. And so maybe it has happened. Maybe Ottinger's, you know, hit the wall. Like, you know, he's a great goalie,

and he's going to be a great goalie for a long time in the last round jeff i said edmonton should start skinner you know my line yeah the last dance of the prom you take the girl you brought okay but it didn't work so now okay do i do i feel differently or do i you know do i do the same thing do Do I make the same call twice? For me, Jeff, it's Ottinger's my future so I'm inclined to say go with my future but I've also got to win a game. What did you think about Wedgwood in that game? What would you do? Would you start Wedgwood? I thought he looked good. I'd be really tempted to. I think it's one of those

in case of emergency break glass moments. If it were only the one time that it happened to Ottinger, I'd say you got to go back to him. But we've kind of seen this a couple of times during the playoffs, Elliot. This isn't new territory. And if it's exhaustion, it's exhaustion. I don't know. I don't envy Pete DeBoer's decision here

because if I were him, I'd have to really think about going Scott Wedgwood for game four. I really, really would. I'm guessing you're the same. The only thing is, I just, if we're ever going to win the Stanley Cup

down the road, Ottinger's my guy and that would be part of my decision-making process. Unless I think he's really tired or can't do it or emotionally battered, I'd lean towards putting him back in. You know, there was plenty of frustration we saw in this game. I mean, it started with Jamie Benn.

You know, you could tell that Ottinger was, you know, completely frustrated at his performance as well. We saw Max Domi on the first shift go right at Alex Petrangelo and catch him, and then later in the game go after Nick Haig and go at him hard. You're starting to really see the Dallas Stars' seams start to come apart a little bit here as what was supposed to be a special season

start to slip away here at the hands of a really good Vegas Golden Knights team. You know what though, Jeff? My message to the team for Game 4 will be, guys, if we're going down, we're not going down like that. We're going down like the team that made the Western Conference Finals. We have to recollect.

We have to calm ourselves. And we're going down like the Dallas Stars. Not like a team that fell apart a bit in game three. And credit to the Golden Knights. They had a lot to do with that, obviously. They're really good. And one final note on them. Again, we talked about this when it happened

and talked about under the cover, great moves and pickups at trade deadline. Telling you, man, Ivan Barbashev looks like money again. He looks so good in that game again. Elliot, holy smokes, Barbashev is on that line. He's fantastic with Eichel and Marcia. So anyway, okay, so we'll see what happens here. At least

one more game as the Dallas Stars look to try to stave off elimination at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights. And the Carolina Panthers, Elliot, look to stave off elimination at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights. And the Carolina Panthers, Elliot, look to stave off elimination at the hands of the Florida Panthers. Tonight, as you listen to this podcast, we'll be getting ready for Game 4, and we may see handshakes. And if you've watched any of Sergei Bobrovsky,

you say to yourself, well, of course there's going to be handshakes because that goaltender pretty much is guaranteed that there will be. I don't know what to say about Bobrovsky at this point other than, huh? Like no matter what Carolina does, Elliot. Well, I would say this.

First of all, it's a pretty funny thing. Like I'm trying to reimagine which you're doing here. Cause there's a lot of good ones over the years. Yeah. First of all, I think this, like for Carolina, if you asked me to pick, okay, there's two teams down, three, nothing here. Which team's in the better spot? I would say Carolina.

Carolina is. Because the one thing you can argue is no matter how good Bobrovsky's been, and he's been phenomenal, you've lost one game in four overtimes. You've lost one game in overtime phenomenal you've lost one game in four overtimes you've lost one game in overtime and you've lost one game one to nothing like you're not getting killed you're right there the one thing I think with Carolina is I know it's not 1985 you can't run over goalies anymore but they're not doing enough to bother Bobrovsky you know and I was talking about this I think today with Marchese on your show and that is that you know you okay you risk a goaltender interference penalty well you got to do something different and that's the one thing you can really

do different you know you take that risk I think you have to get in his grill like Kelly showed a package in game a highlight pack in game three. Like they were nowhere near him. The guy that Bobrovsky was moving out of the way was good. It's because goodest was too close. And I, and I think,

I think the Panthers deserve a lot of credit because they're playing really disciplined hockey in front of them. And they know, they know to clear the net and they know where to try to get the shots to come from, but you have to clear the net and they know where to try to get the shots to come from, but you have to crash the net and go to the net hard.

Like that's the one thing I think the hurricanes can do a better job of is just grinding right in front of them. Just get light on your skates around the crease. Absolutely. Oh, the gravity is stronger here in blue ice. I don't know why that is, but for some reason,

gravity is just that much more profound. We've seen it's a history of hockey here, folks. Okay, so we'll see about this one. And it does very much appear, but again, like we'll see what happens in game four, that any concerns we had about Alexander Barkov not playing may be a little bit exaggerated. Yeah, it is exaggerated.

He's back from the bar mitzvah i guess oh it was so good elliot that was really funny didn't want to disappoint the kids paul first any updates on sasha um talking to the guys uh they talked about our mitzvah his neighbor had a yeah that's what we'll go with bar mitzvah and he didn't want to disappoint the kids. Is that upper or lower? The Bar Mitzvah? Yeah. It's on two floors. It's on both floors.

It's a big one. But it was weird. Like, you couldn't figure out what happened there. Like, some of us were actually wondering if Barkov had a pre-existing injury that just got aggravated by that play. Yeah. You know, there were a couple of different things you kind of wondered. Did he get his hand or an arm jammed? It looked like maybe it was knee on knee or his ankle but he didn't

go to the bench like really shaking anything or anything like that and it was not a dirty play by Drury it was completely harmless looking so I guess the news is good that he's he's okay and you know the amazing thing about this is one of our narratives have been florida worries about bovrowski getting tired if they close this one out early then he's resting again he's resting again uh all right and we'll uh we'll rest the podcast there but before we close out elliot uh i want to get to a phone call. And our man Amal Delic actually doing some really good work around this one. Again, I keep mentioning, we're going to get back to doing emails, 32thoughts.sportsnet.ca,

and taking more of your phone calls at 1-833-311-3232. We got one that we want to highlight here because i know i love stuff like this i think you do as well and clearly amel does elliot let's play this call that we get from wes first and then we actually got someone to provide a really good answer first of all here's wes hey guys uh wes here uh i was just, after watching the four overtime saga between the Panthers and the Hurricanes, what happens with all the building staff and all the necessary personnel that's needed to put on a hockey game?

I imagine that's a lot of extra hours. Is the team on the hook for that, or is that something the league helps out with? I would love to hear your thoughts. Yeah, good job, Amo. Great job, Elliot. Hey, hey. Wes is a jerk.

But thank you for the phone call, Wes. Much appreciated. I like Wes. No kidding. So Elliot and I could bloviate about this one or we could go to the source. My name is Tom Embry, and I'm the vice president and general manager of PNC Arena. With a great answer to Wes's question. He's the

guy to get to. So when generally speaking, we have such a great staff and we're pretty much prepared for anything. A lot of times our general call time for or general hours work for any number of staff is anywhere from 4.75 to 5.25 for a hockey game. Now, during the course of the year, we've done several esports events where their shifts have been, you know, 8, 10, 12 hours or more. So in this particular instance, they weren't necessarily working longer shifts than what they have in the past for certain other events. It was more about the timing

of it and going obviously into the next day past midnight and into the next day. So really what we're focused on as we get into those late hours into the overtimes is to be sure that we do have enough staff on hand in order to service the guests that we have in the building. So from that standpoint, by the end of the game, by that fourth overtime, we still had about 14,000 people in the building. Now there was some of our staff that were able to be cut based on job duties, based on other ramp downs that we had throughout the evening, and just based on regular call times for what they were needed. But generally speaking, we probably had probably 60 to 70% of the staff members still there at two o'clock in the morning when that game ended. We do have policies and

really SOPs in place from a food and beverage standpoint, because I'm sure a lot of people kind of wonder how that piece of it works for us. In the regular season, we do have ramped down procedures starting in the third period as that third period begins. And because of the overtime regulations are different in the post-season, they differ from the regular season. What we do is we have our regular ramp down that we would normally have during the regular season during that third period. However, if it does go into overtime, essentially we reopen most of all of those stands. Now there's a few options that aren't open, but by and large, all the concession stands are open for that first overtime intermission. There are additional ramp downs during that first overtime period. And then for that second

intermission for the second overtime, we also have additional ramp downs. By the end of the night, we were no longer selling alcohol based on that would be the most responsible thing to do at that time at night. But we have ramp downs throughout the night, but we still had stands open selling snacks for everyone. So they had candy bars, snacks, popcorn, salt snacks, those types of things, and soft drinks. I think for us, it was a learning experience as well, because I've never been a part of a four-overtime game in my entire career, and I don't think anybody in this building has. So some of our policies, we were actually making adjustments on the fly. So we learned a lot and we already have policies and procedures in place that will set us up for five overtimes at this point. I'd also like to just say that

we have such an incredible staff here and none of this is possible without them and having them dedicate their time to the team and to the arena and i would say during that night by and large a large part of the staff was out by probably say 3 3 15 a.m there were still individuals here by 4 a.m and that excludes housekeeping staff which was working overnight and into the next day they had a full crew here to get our building cleaned up and ready to go for the next game. That is a great answer, Tom. Thank you so much for that.

So no suds. Elliot, staff still there around 2 o'clock in the morning, 60% to 70% of the staff, and the last staff are left around 4 a.m. And we should point out as well, Elliot, do players get paid extra for overtime? No. No. They don't get paid extra for overtime? No. No. They don't get paid extra for overtime. That was pretty funny.

Tom Embry, thank you, VP and GM of PNC Arena, for that very thorough answer to Wes's question. And Elliot, with that, we'll wrap up, and we'll head out with something special this episode.

Art Lowen plays the melodic country psych pop style of music and he's only released one album and it was back in 1976. An unknown musician during his time, Art wanted to create a record that documented heartbreak using a group of session players and a modest budget. As time passed, the internet discovered Art and his only lonely record. From Piper Oz the Hound, here's Art Lowen with Deep Blue Sea. 32 Thoughts to Podcast. I'm a sailor on this dark and dreadful sea

And I need courage just the same as you need me I've been fishing for a cup of sympathy I need courage just the same as you need me. I've been fishing for a cup of sympathy. But I keep getting waves that just won't let me be. And I'm going to be late getting home tonight if the tide won't come in. And I'll be tired from the journey journey but I'll be seeing you again thank God for you

and me and the deep deep blue sea the world ain't been the same since you hit upon the rock Thank you.