32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Canucks on the Clock

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

Vancouver is having a hard time finding its groove. Jeff and Elliotte discuss the struggling Canucks (1:30), what might be going wrong, possible changes, and how the market is reacting to the slow start. The guys also touch on Montreal (29:00), the Islanders coming home last place in the Metro (35:15), feedback from the Mike Forde interview (19:30), protecting the stars and how it might increase attendance (38:30), the situation with the Omaha Lancers (45:30) and they take some emails and your voicemails (50:00).Find the full transcript for this episode hereMusic Outro: Keys n Krates - CrescendoListen to their latest album “Orginal Classic” on SpotifyThis podcast is produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: MSG 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

Yeah, I don't disagree. Welcome back to a Newsy edition of 32 Thoughts the Podcast brought to you by the all-new GMC AT4 lineup. Jeff Merrick and Elliot Friedman along with you. And Elliot, we'll start today's podcast with a game of Who Said It? Quote, it's wearing on all of us. I would bet that that is Jim Benning. Correct. That was part of the press

conference on Thursday afternoon. We all understand the pressure that everybody is under. We understand it at every level. We all understand the frustration. We heard the chants. We saw the signs. Both of those things on Wednesday

during a 4-2 loss at the hands of the Avalanche. What did you make of the Jim Benning press conference on Thursday? Well, first of all, I think Jeff, on behalf of you, me and Amal, and I don't profess to speak for Sportsnet and everybody else who works there, but I'll say on behalf of the station,

you know, there's a lot of Vancouver Canucks fans who are going through a really, really hard time right now with what is happening in that province with the flooding. And we just want to send our best. That's the first thing I think we all want to do. Absolutely. Look, it's been an awful start to the year

for the Canucks. The interesting thing about this is you and I and David Amber, we all thought the Canucks had a chance to be pretty good this year. I thought it was going to be Vegas, Edmonton, jump ball for third, but Vancouver was going to be in that conversation. The other thing about that is that I had several of who I think are the really good analytic people around the league reach out to me and said, you guys are nuts. Like there's, that's what they said. They said,

and a couple of different guys reach out to me and say that on the analytic models, we really trust. They didn't like the Canucks this year. So they were, they were saying to me, score one for the analytics over the eye test. And I was kind of laughing.

I was like, okay, I'll, I'll give you that one. But that's what they said to me, that the models were not very high on Vancouver. Right now, it looks like that's correct. And we'll talk about the Benning Media Conference too,

but one of the reasons I think that you haven't seen changes is because, number one, I think ownership has been caught by surprise benning and green still have time on their contracts and i don't think they envisioned making changes at this point in time so they kind of want to slow everything down like everybody's on the clock now this happened a lot faster than canucks ownership wanted to. And I think what Monday was about was, okay, we're shocked here. We weren't expecting this. What are we going to do to address it? And if it doesn't change, what are we going to do about it? So I think everyone's on the clock now,

but I'm not surprised they didn't make changes at this time. I think the other thing that I'm getting a lot of feedback on is that ownership doesn't want the players to skate on this. They feel that it's not just the GM, it's not just the coach, it's not just the front office, ownership, whatever you want to blame, that the players are in on this too. And so I think that's why nothing has been done yet. Benning's press conference. The one thing that surprised me. Now I do a Nashville radio hit at two Eastern time on Thursdays. So I didn't listen to it live and I went back and listened to it later. And the one, the thing that caught me by surprise was that when i was reading the tweets was he didn't give green the vote of confidence and i was like okay what's this about but when i went

back and i looked at it it was kind of like it wasn't that he wasn't giving him a vote of confidence he was basically saying you know we all know what the reality of the situation is. If we don't get this going, there's going to be changes. And that's kind of the impression I got. So my reaction to all of this is there was nothing that Jim Benning was going to say that aside from throwing himself on the hot coals and allowing him to be scalded beyond belief that was going to make anybody happy. But I think we all know what we're seeing here. If this doesn't turn around and soon

we are coming to the end of this particular management era in the Caducks. I think we all see that do you think i'm wrong on this interpretation uh no i don't the only question i have is does the general manager have the authority to make a trade to try to change things we've seen gms do that before to try to save their jobs to try to turn around the situation my question is and on the radio show today ellie you and i talked about how this is happening in front of everybody in slow motion we all think that it's marching towards an inevitability but it's crawling to get

there but we all know where it's heading my only question in all of it, and I don't disagree with anything that you said, is does Jim Benning have the authority to make trades to change it? One, to save his job. Two, to your earlier point, to make sure the players know that they're not getting off the hook on this one. I think the players kind of know. You know, one guy who I think really has a good pulse, and there's a lot of good reporters out in vancouver but one set of tweets that really opened my eyes was after they lost in anaheim erf kafar who used to work for us and is still pretty prominent out there he had some pretty powerful tweets about not absolving the players from responsibility. And I just think that the people who report out there, they're pretty plugged in. And I just don't think you're doing that without,

you know, some sense of that's how the organization feels. And I kind of took notice of those tweets from IRF and I asked around about them and I think the players have to know that that's how everybody feels and Patterson's struggling they're not trading him they're not trading Hughes I don't think you're trading Demko I've seen that suggestion made I think that's crazy the thing you have to be careful about is and we talk about this a lot is when you're reeling like this like Vancouver is the other teams aren't throwing you a life preserver they're throwing you an anvil the sharks are circling and they smell blood how many gms do you think have called jim benning in the last couple of days going oh yeah hey uh jim um what are you what are you thinking about out

there while they're licking their lips as they're doing it? Let me help you with your problem. Boy, I'm really feeling for you, Jim. How can I help out here? Have I got a player for you? You know what? Our program stinks, but if you get this guy into your system, well, I look like an idiot, but I'm willing to do that for you, Jimbo. Can I interest you in this used vehicle?

No, no, don't look under the hood um you mentioned a couple players there and uh Pedersen and Hughes specifically one I'm still scratching my head over uh Pedersen recently as well Hughes the play on Samuel Gerrard in the game against Colorado I understand getting hit and the anger and the frustration and then chasing him down the ice and breaking your stick over his back is as un-Quinn Hughes a play as you're going to see him make. Yeah. Gerrard turns inside the line. Hughes goes right back at him and breaks his stick,

and he's going to get a penalty for that for cross-checking. Quinn Hughes lost his cool after the hit by Gerrard. He went the length of the ice looking for number 49 and he puts his team shorthanded again. 43 Vancouver, 10 minutes cross-checking. And another one of those four-on-three power plays. Here's Quinn Hughes. It's hit by Gerrard.

And no penalty called. And so he retaliates and you can see he breaks his stick on the cross check. You know, it's the third period. Your team is very much in the game. You start the third with a lead and then it all starts to get undone because we all know a lot about the Vancouver penalty kill, which is last in the NHL hovering around 60%. So Pedersen and Hughes, the two players that took a little longer to get their deals done and show up in camp, Hughes is frustrated.

Pedersen, I have no idea what's happening there. Hughes, you know, obviously I don't think anybody liked that play that Hughes made, but you'd probably look at him in general and say he's played pretty hard he's competing it was a bad penalty at a bad time but overall you're not looking at him and saying he's the problem you know you say to him you got to be smarter than that but generally i think you're looking at him and saying you know honestly quinn we know care, and you've been playing hard. You know, the other way with Pedersen, there was a play in Wednesday night's game that, you know,

I had people texting me about, and it's in the third period with about nine minutes left. He gets a chance on an odd man rush to put his head down and drive to the net and shoot. JT Miller against Jason Megna on this faceoff. 9.20 to go in the third. Megna wins it. Back to Gerrard.

Tries another shot. Blocked by Pedersen. Sounded like it might have broken his stick, but he's going to take his chances. Moving in. Slows. And now just passes one around for Brock Besser. Back to the blue line.

Burrows. Left point. Miller makes a move down the boards. Pushed to the side by Sherwood. The play doesn't stop for another minute and a half and John Garrett goes back to it to talk about it on replay. And they'll face off in neutral ice. Elias Patterson, it looked like he was going to get a chance. Blocks the shot, checks his stick.

Okay, it's alright. Now go, go, go, go. Keep the legs going, keep the legs going. Go, go, go. Yeah. And you see that's the hesitation right now in his game. And people are wondering, well, to me, it's a matter of confidence. He didn't have the confidence to keep the legs going and cut to the net. Try and create something. He ended up just throwing it behind the net. And, you know, people saw that play around the league

and they're like, what is going on here? Like, what's happened? And I don't know what's going on there, but, you know, people, I know they're upset at the GM. I know they're upset at the coach. I know they're upset about the owner, but the number one problem the Vancouver Canucks have to deal with is him.

You know, it's never about one guy it never is jeff but he is influential enough in terms of what he does for them that when he falls apart like this it has an enormous effect on their offense and it doesn't matter who's coaching that team or running that team if petterson doesn't get back to what he can be there's nothing's going to change nothing's going to change your star players everybody has a night off but your star players have to be your star players 70 plus games a year and he's got no goals from the slot this year in 17 games. Okay. I'm glad you mentioned the slot there because there's actually two things and that refers to one of them. Two plays for me stand out of recent note.

One of them was in the Anaheim game and there's Elias Pettersson in the slot alone on John Gibson and it's almost like Pettersson is frozen and it's the easiest poke check of John Gibson's career. There's no shoulder fake. There's no shoulder fake. There's no quick snap. There's no, you know, sophisticated deke that we've seen from Pedersen before. There's just nothing. It's almost like he forgets what to do.

His brain is spooling. We're not sure what's happening. And then there's a play in the third period in the Colorado game where he's at the blue line trying to keep the puck in. period in the Colorado game where he's at the blue line trying to keep the puck in. And instead of like a little clever chip up the wall, maybe to himself, he kind of, you know, the way that I've been phrasing it, you know, ever since is like, it's as if Tyler Mott was on the point pretending to be Elias Pettersson and do something that Elias Pettersson can normally do, but he can't do it.

And Elias Pettersson tries this little spin move and ends up putting his team offside. And we're, we're off to a face-off instead of keeping the puck alive in the offensive zone. He just looks profoundly different. And whenever 40 is on the ice, I can't take my eyes off him. And I think you're probably the same way because we think of that Elias Pedersen that we saw not too long long ago where every time we touched the puck,

something phenomenal happened. But I don't know what has happened. It's a confidence thing. I don't know. I'm not there. I'm not in Elias Pettersson's brain. I don't know what's happening with the player. All I know is,

man, this guy is better than this. Elias Pettersson is better than we're seeing right now. He has to be because we've seen it before. Like I'm stunned. I'm completely stunned at what we're seeing from Pettersson. Yeah, I'm with you. I don't know if it's simply between the ears or all his time where he's been out because of injury

with the wrist injury last year. He's not even close yet and he missed most of camp. It's funny, like this whole idea that I have that it doesn't matter if players miss camp because they all stay in good shape. You know, it's really getting shot through full of holes because of this. And that's the thing. Like, you know, obviously the Canucks have multiple problems they have to deal with, but to me, this is problem number one, and it might even be problems number two and three. Until you sort this out, you're not going anywhere.

Miller's playing really well. Obviously, they've got a lot of problems on their blue line until everybody gets back healthy and everything. I just think that Pedersen is the number one thing you've got to fix, and it's the thing you can try to fix in the short term. And again, it's more than one player, but Besser, he's a shooter, right? Yeah.

He needs somebody to get him the puck. It's like what happened last year in the playoffs. Everybody in Vancouver loves it when you compare it to Toronto. But when Marner lost his confidence, it took down Matthews with him. Yeah. Because he's the setup man. Now I see Besser, like Patterson not playing well, it's taking Besser down too because he needs that. And the

number one thing in the short term is what do we have to do to get this guy going? Here's where it gets, because now my question is, is the season done for the Vancouver Canucks? And here's what scares me if I'm the Vancouver Canucks? And here's what scares me if I'm the Vancouver Canucks or a Vancouver Canucks fan. I'm going to go through this team by team and you tell me whether they've improved. I'm going to take two teams out of this and that's Edmonton and Vegas.

Okay. So remove Edmonton and Vegas. We all know that they're going to be there. Edmonton is, you know, when they're on and they're getting goaltending. And I understand that that has been an issue lately, but Edmonton is just fine. Thank you very much. Vegas will be fine. Thank you very much. We all believe that when they're healthy and they get Jack Eichel in the lineup. So I'm going to go through this team by team and based on our expectations and what we thought of these teams at the beginning of the

season you let me know if they're better than we thought they were at the beginning of the season and let's also talk about this at a time where vancouver is six points out of a playoff berth and all of these teams you're going to mention except for calgary and Anaheim, will have played less than them. Okay. Let's start with those two. Calgary, are they better than we thought? Yes. Anaheim, are they better than we thought? That is obvious. Yes. Good question, Jeff. Real hard hitting. I know. I am hard hitting here, man. The Los Angeles Kings, are they better than we thought?

Yes. The San Jose Sharks, are they better than we thought? Yes. That's what vancouver is looking at when they look north and as you mentioned vegas they're gonna have you know eichel coming in when they get all healthy and they have eichel coming in i got zero concerns for vegas they may win the stanley cup when all is said and done you're if you're looking at a crossover you know st louis is also six points ahead with a game in hand. Colorado is three points ahead,

and Colorado has four games in hand on them. Yeah, so that's the thing. If you're Vancouver, that's what you're looking at. Math is not your friend, and you can't give up on the season as it is, but it's a challenge. They've put themselves into a really bad spot, and the heat's really on.

And, uh, you know, that's, that's just a fact. And I wrote it this week and I said on your show, I like to spar with the Canucks fans, but you know, their, their passion is, is a major reason we're all employed and you can't, and you can't blame them for this one. Like they, you can't look at the last few years and say the fans are being unrealistic here they're they're over the top like they're right about this one their their frustration is fair very fair well the next two games for vancouver one is against the winnipeg jets on friday as you listen to this podcast that's tonight so winnipeg's paying back to back against the oilers and then Vancouver on the Friday.

And then Sunday they'll face off against the Blackhawks who will play the Oilers on Saturday as well. I don't know if you believe in guaranteed win nights or scheduled win nights, but if you do, aren't those two games scheduled wins? Jets, Oilers, we started this podcast, the first intermission.

Yeah. That first period was a really emotional first period you know if you're vancouver you've got to be thinking we're going to have a team that could be ready it could be a trap game for the jets right sure chicago yeah i know where you're going here but chicago they have to be looking at that Vancouver game as if they still really have any hope of doing anything, that's a must-win game for them. And the other thing about Chicago is they're getting the new coach bounce, right? Yeah.

I mean, I get where you're coming from, but I think it's much more of a trap game for the Jets than it is for the Blackhawks. You think Blackhawks, regardless, come out playing hard on Sunday? You know, they can't afford to have nights off anymore. I'll tell you what, one guy, just as an aside, who's playing berserk right now for Chicago is Alex Dabrinkit. Yeah, he looks really good. He looks fantastic right now.

It's the setups. It's the goals. It's a fight from Alex. He looks great right now, Dabrinkit. Like, you want to talk about the new coach bounce? Dabrinkit is feeling it. what type of feedback have you gotten because i've got a lot of it a lot of it's from scouts and there's a lot of scouts listen to this podcast because they're on the road a ton and they need something to listen to and we love them listen to every other podcast on the planet and they're like oh my god this is the last thing left i guess i'm that bored i'll listen to american freed i'm so bored and there's nothing else find the life of a scout zamboni fumes and bad coffee i chose this i chose this imagine what they're thinking about when they're like okay we've got the 32 thoughts podcast or i've got this podcast about ceramics okay you know what

i'm gonna listen to the ceram. Okay, you know what? I'm going to listen to the ceramics one first. No, you know what? There's one that I heard about, about efficient ways to sort out one's sock drawer, which really sounds interesting. I'll get to Friedman America another time. What feedback from the industry have you heard from the Mike Ford podcast?

Now, Mike Ford was the gentleman we spoke to executive chairman of sportsology a couple of days ago if you haven't heard it easily i think it's one of our favorite podcasts that we've done it's rare that i'll go back and listen to an entire podcast of ours but i did so uh for that one um what type of feedback have you gotten a lot of people asking for an email yeah contact information it was interesting i had some really interesting philosophical discussions with people about it and one of the things they really talked about was you know the league office obviously likes its power in placing people in certain spots right yeah they really like that

and the league office has a lot of power. Who wouldn't? If you were the league office, you'd want to do that. And one team that kind of went against it recently was Buffalo. When they brought in Kevin Adams, they were like, no, no, no. We don't like where we've been before. And we know Kevin Adams and we trust Kevin Adams. And obviously, I don't like how they handled the Eichel thing with the

medicals, but I think in a lot of ways, Buffalo was trying to do a lot of smart things in building their organization. But generally, you know, the league office has a lot of say in who goes where. And some of the biggest feedback I got was he talked about how,

sorry, he didn't talk about it, but it was in the article we linked. And Ted Leonsis was good enough to send me a couple of quotes for the blog. And he said that he got Mike Ford's number from the NBA commissioner, Adam Silver. And that really stood out to some people i spoke to just the difference between the nba where clearly adam silver trusts mike ford and says you know you're looking for someone you should speak to this individual and the nhl which is you know we kind of prefer to handle that and you know most commissioners and owners and really high level executives are control freaks right sure and they're really curious to see will the nhl want to see that the way the nba to some degree certainly has that was some of the more interesting feedback i got

what about you uh the feedback that i got i I had one person who said that he had already sent an email to Sportsology asking about their interest in hockey and if they are hiring. And I think a lot of, from the people that I communicate with in the industry on a regular or semi-regular basis, it was eye-opening. One person told me that they always just assumed that the way to populate an office was to surround yourself with people you know, people from your past, people you trust. That is a word that kept coming up over and over again. You surround yourself with people you can trust, people that won't politic for your job or politic upwards or stab you in the back. And this one person said,

I had my mind completely turned around on what the smartest way to run a front office is. And I hadn't even considered that because of how long I've been on this single narrow way of thinking about the proper way to do business in this sport. And I'll tell you, one of the things that struck people that I spoke to more so than anything was the idea that people outside of the game of hockey could actually benefit a front office, right? Because there's always been that arrogance in the game of well if you haven't played or if you're not a hockey person then you have no business here when really i mean you want to

widen your frame of reference and your scope and open yourself to different ideas then stop just hiring hockey people that's the feedback i got the thing that i really appreciated jeff was that see i really disagree with out with the old and with the new because old still has some value there are always things that work that should stay and yes we need new 100 we need new nobody would argue with that but i don't like that people are like well just throw everything else out like no of course not i don't think anyone's i don't think anyone's suggesting that well i think there are people who are suggesting that that's foolish and it is foolish and that's why i kind of like like one of the reasons i was most intrigued about it was that you know the

devil's search there were a lot of other people interviewed and they stayed with Fitzgerald. And the Washington Wizards search, there were a lot of other people interviewed. They promoted from within, Tommy Shepard, and he just got a three-year extension this week because the Wizards are in first place in the NBA East, although it's early. And that's the way I think about it is that don't get rid of all of your institutional knowledge. Don't. Yes, sometimes you have to make changes. Sometimes you have to make enormous, enormous, enormous alterations, but it doesn't necessarily mean you say, ah, everything. There's always things that are going to work for you in your market and your previous process. And that's what I liked most about his approach was it doesn't necessarily mean you have to

get rid of everything, but you have to be willing to look at new things. I just thought it was smart. I liked it. Yeah. I hope you all enjoyed that podcast as much as Elliot and I did enjoy talking to Mike Ford. You mentioned Tom Fitzgerald there a second ago, general manager of the New Jersey Devils. And when I had him on the radio show, I don't know,

I think maybe a month ago, I asked him about the Amazon series that the Maple Leafs did. And I said, would you be interested in that? If Amazon came with the New Jersey Devils and said, hey, we'd like to do one on the Devils. And he said. I mean, I think it would be great as long as we get to edit it.

No, I think, you know, just seeing really what it's like every day to walk in the coach's shoes or GM's shoes and being around our players and, you know, really who we are as people and understand.

I think it would be great. I've done a couple in my past, but I have no one promoting our team is, that would do it. So I would love, I would love to do it. So I'll put New Jersey down as a yes. I think that would be really smart of them. I think it'd be smart of them too,

specifically because they have Jack Hughes. But I think you're also, you're trying to grow in an area where it's extremely competitive. Yes. Look at all of the different sports teams in the different leagues. Like the Jets and the Giants aren't very good.

The NFL is still powerful, but you don't have to deal, worry about playoff runs with them, right? But you're still dealing with everything else in that area. I think it's really smart for Tom Fitzgerald to say, yeah, we're interested in that. Not only because they have good personalities there, but because it's good for the devils.

You're tied in with Amazon. That's good for you. Well, the reason I bring it up, because you mentioned this in the 32 Thoughts blog at our website, sportsnet.ca, who's next to get the Amazon treatment? It is wildly believed that Montreal has indicated that they would be interested in

perhaps being. They're lucky they're not there right now. Right now, it would be fascinating though, Elliot, and you know that. Thank you. Oh yeah, of course. I don't think people in Montreal, Canadians organization may feel that way.

But you have a note in the blog this week about teams that would be, what was your name? Was it seven? Seven teams? Some of the most feedback on any of our podcasts this year, Jeff, like people were like, you think Amazon ruined the Maple Leafs? And like, you wouldn't believe the stuff we got after that one. Someone said to me around that time that there was definitely interest. And so I checked back before I wrote this week

and I was told approximately seven. Now there are some teams that have said no or say that that's not for us. But the fact that you've got seven, like there's probably some good teams there to pick from. I would honestly, I know I glibly threw out there just because, you know, Jack Hughes is on the team, but that's a huge draw i like honestly if i was new jersey i would be doing that and ed hughes would be a big star there's no question they would love him so brief

interlude here i'm just recording this quickly on friday afternoon before the podcast is dropped we recorded this montreal section before the news broke that Marc Bergevin, the general manager, has tested positive for COVID. So we just wanted to make sure that was mentioned and send our best to Bergevin, a speedy recovery for him and everybody who was a close contact to him. By the way, you know, speaking of Montreal,

I know no Price and no Allen, but, you know, 5-0 tonight to Pittsburgh. The Penguins also struggling. It's a tough year from a ticket sales point of view to be bad because you're coming out of COVID and you're trying to get people into your building and you're trying to get fans back in and you just, that's for everybody. And for them, they just came off the cup run, at least to the final. You've heard me say it. You're punting on this year

and you're going for the highest draft pick you can. I just wonder, does Montreal get to a point where they start to say, okay, we're in big time sell mode? Well, the first one to me has been Sherrod. Sale, sale, sale. That's what I've been asking for a couple of weeks now on the radio show. To me, the only question in Montreal is who's going to pay the most for Ben Sherrod,

who's on the expiring contract. You seem to think they can get a first round pick. Again, like I would just be surprised if they didn't. One, because you're going to have BX just slobbering all over him every week. Oh, Sherrod, he's so good. Yep. And the thing is, he's got experience. He's a good player.

Montreal could probably eat some of the salary to make it work for even more. I just look at charotte and tell me there aren't going to be a ton of teams interested in that guy i think there will yeah and that drives your price up right one of those he's listen he's one of those guys that you bring in before your cup run yeah like okay we're planning to go deep here we got to load up on defensemen specifically tough defensemen we know what it like. It's a war of attrition on the back end in the playoffs. We need someone like around the room, around the room.

Anyone? How about Ben Sherratt in Montreal? That guy. Yes. Go get that guy. I know what you mean. Absolutely. That guy's valuable at deadline.

I don't think that there's any question about that. I guess the only other question then becomes who else? Bergeron will do anything. You know, he will. else? Bergeron will do anything. You know, he will. He's shown that he will do anything. And to me, the bigger question is who wouldn't you trade? Now there's certain people in contract situations you're looking at and you're saying, okay, they're not doing that.

They're not doing that. They're not doing this. They're not doing that. But I would bet there's a lot of guys there that if they are tradable and if someone's interested how many guys are not tradable or is he going to say no to well here's my other question about it yeah if they go the full okay we need to tear this thing down you know we had our run we're going to try to get as high a draft pick as we can in the summer at the draft. Let's say you're 29-year-old Brendan Gallagher or you're 29-year-old Tyler Toffoli,

and you're saying to yourself, if we're going through a rebuild here, if this is going to be, let's just say conservatively, three years of this, do you think that that's good years of this. Do you think that that's good for your career? Do you want that? There's no one who's wearing the frustration in Montreal right now more than Brendan Gallagher. And you saw that in the Ranger game with the sucker punch

on Barkley Goodrow. And defiant. He is frustrated. And we know Gallagher. Love him. How do you not love a guy like that? But do you think he wants to sit through three years of a rebuild if that turns out to be the direction they go in here?

I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's also now what Tyler Toffoli signed up for. Well, that's the thing. That's what my point is. He's going to say at some point, who do people want? And he'll see where it goes.

One final note on Montreal. I'll tell you what. I don't think it was the smartest move, and it wasn't the smartest move. But man, that was really gutsy of Michael Pezzetta. Oh, yeah. And Reeves is telling Pezetta to come on in. I don't know what set this off, but Prezetta sacrificed himself. yeah that's that's one way to get yourself known around the league and it's to fight one of the toughest guys there's pesetta there's the hit good solid hit

taking on ryan reeves yeah like i always wonder i remember asking josh anderson this when he fought zidane ochara like what happens that moment where you both have your gloves off and it's, you haven't engaged yet, but you realize I'm about to fight Zidane O'Chara. Like what goes through Pizzetta's mind when, because there was distance between them and they're fading back to center ice. What's going through Pizzetta's mind when he realizes. Yeah, it's. I'm about to fight Ryan Reeves. Like it's not like spontaneous in the right there. It's like you have some time to think about it with the gloves off. Like what goes through someone's mind?

I just can't imagine it. The thing about Pazetta that's really interesting is I think there's other teams that really like him in the league. Montreal put him on waivers and I don't know how worried they were they were going to lose him. But one of the teams I heard that was that really liked Pizzetta was Philadelphia. Shocking.

Well, and then it made sense. They didn't claim him, but then they went out and they claimed Zach McEwen, who looks like he's a good fit there. Right. Yeah. And they also claimed Patrick Brown is now hurt. Yeah. But, you know, the person who told me, look out, they think Philly likes Pizzetta,

they were wrong on that, but they were right on the idea. I want to ask about a couple of other things here. The Islanders open up the UBS Arena on Saturday. They'll face off against the Calgary Flames. We've talked plenty, and listen, elsewhere has been a lot of chatter about the 13-game road trip to open up the season. They find themselves eighth in the Metro, 5, 6, and 2. This is not where we expected the Islanders to be at all,

13-game road trip notwithstanding. Do you have a thought on the Islanders right now? And now that Robin Salah has been called up because Ryan Pulak is injured. There have been moments where, wow, look, man, Oliver Wallstrom can really fire a puck. There have been a couple of moments where the Islanders will turn a head or two. Some of the performances from Ilya Sorokin come to mind right away.

But do you have a thought on where the Islanders are at right now? I got worried for them when I saw trots after the Tuesday game that they lost in Florida. So they lose the lightning on hall of fame night Monday, and then they got wiped out in Florida on Tuesday. And I watched trots after that game, or at least I watched the, the media conference. And he like, I think he's generally the same a lot. You get your trotsisms and you get your kind of mood from him. He looked worried. He looked worried.

And I think right now their blue line is worse than I thought it was going to be. I always think they're a team that because of the way they play, they overcome their problems. But that's not working for them right now. Again, you know, we talk about math. When I was, when I went into media, I was told there'd be no math, but look where they are right now. You mentioned it. They are seven points out of a playoff in the

Metro and six out of the crossover. Now, the one thing that really helps them is because of their schedule, they've got games in hand on almost everybody. Yeah, they've only played 13 games. Not everybody, but almost everybody. And as we know, the rest of their season is going to be 41 at home and 28 on the road, right?

Yep. So, but the math isn't good for them. And the thing that concerns me the most is they don't look like the Islanders. They don't look like the islanders they don't like they're not the group erasing the individual's mistakes as much as they're used to now the other thing that's happened is lamorello has cleared room right he has komaroff is out that's opened up room well then he traded boy chuck yep so all of a sudden he's gone from cap hell to cap room you know there's going to be something coming he's going to do something it's just a matter of maybe he's one of those guys that called jim benning this week

wouldn't surprise anybody do you think i should send a text right now to Lou Lamorello asking, are you working on anything with the Canucks? Who did you ask Jim Benning for? Who did you offer to Jim Benning this week, Lou? Wake up with a horse head in my bed next to me. Better get the part, better get the part. Okay. I thought you brought up a couple of really interesting points. Drawing in your blog this week drawing a line between connor mcdavid drawing penalties protecting stars and attendance look i don't want it to be a soft league i like hard hockey i like battles you're not going to call everything it's like the Jordan rules on Michael Jordan Pistons and you know Michael Jordan before he won his first titles

they believed in we're going to foul him every time he touches the ball and they're not going to call all of them and that's always going to be the way it is you know what that was? that was the Fred Shiro flyers they can't call everything it's like the NFL.

They could call holding on every play. They don't, right? I understand that. As you know, I've said to you, I think McDavid deserves one or two more calls a game. Some people like when I say that. Some people don't. But the reason I was looking at this,

and I got a lot of good tweets about it from people who are saying the attendance problems. It's people don't want to wear a mask for three hours that, you know, maybe you have to be vaccinated. Maybe people aren't comfortable enough going yet to arenas with a lot of people in them. You know, people have been hit hard by COVID economics and they don't have the money anymore. Um, you know, people, someone pointed out to me that there's been millions of people who've died and, you know, hockey fans sadly are, are part of that group. Like people have brought me a lot of good reasons to why attendance is down and attendance isn't only down in the NHL. You know, one of the guys I read right now is, I think is a really interesting writer

is a guy named Ethan Strauss, and he does a lot more NBA work. And he did one on the NBA's attendance last week. That was really interesting. You know, basically what all of these sports are finding out, not just hockey, is that the scan rate on tickets is much lower than they were used to. And I don't think we have all the answers on this yet. You know, another one is, you know, only now are kids under 12 going to be able to get the vaccine, right?

So people don't want to expose their kids if they don't, not everyone's comfortable with that, which I totally get. And the honest truth is it's too soon to draw any major conclusions. But if you're running a league or you're running a team and you've got millions you've been spending, you don't want to hear it's too soon to draw any conclusions. You're like, Jesus, I want to stop this as fast as I can. So my point, Jeff, is that I think we should at least be asking the question of, if we want to get fans back into the building, what are we doing to make sure that we're giving them the most entertaining product we can?

And if Connor McDavid is getting fouled 10 times a game, and he's only maybe getting one call, is that good for our entertainment? And again, I don't think it means we have to be a soft league. If someone hits him cleanly, if someone slows him down cleanly, as hard as that is, no problem here. If someone battles him hard along the boards or in front of the net for a puck, that's hockey. It's the fouling. for a puck, that's hockey. It's the fouling. And look, in the NFL, which is the most successful league in North America now by miles, you look at the top rated broadcast in the US, it's all NFL,

it's all football. They're killing it. What have they done? They've basically said, you can't touch the quarterbacks and we're going to create offense and i think that we might have to go in that direction i'm not saying that you can't touch connor mcdavid i'm not saying that you can't make his life miserable but i do think this if the fans that are paying a ticket they're going to see connor mcdavid and you better put him into a situation where him and others like him give the best possible chance to give fans their money's worth and i know that's sacrilege to some people but it's a conversation we gotta have that to me is the main point out of all of it because if we're going to make this a player driven industry right now, more so than ever players are being asked to put

themselves forward, put themselves in front of the camera, in front of microphones, social media, all of it to create themselves, help create themselves as stars in this game. And that's what they're going to surf on. I think it's crucial that if you're going to see the Edmonton Oilers, that you better walk away from that game feeling that even if he didn't even score a goal, you saw something from Connor McDavid. Yeah. You saw the Connor show.

You saw the rush. You saw the speed. You saw the creativity, whatever. But as you know, the game has constructed. There are just going to be some games where, whether it's Sidney Crosby, whether it's Alex Ovechkin, whether it's, you know, pick your superstar, that it's just not going to be there. And we sort of looked at that and said, well, that's just hockey sometimes.

Sometimes it's just not going to be there for those players. I think if you're going to make it a player first game, and I agree with that, you better make sure that there is runway for those players to do their thing, to be able to do that. Like I know a lot of people that, Oh, you want to make to your point earlier. Oh,

you're going to make it a soft league. I don't care. Call it whatever you want. If soft means entertaining, then I'll take a soft league. That's fine. If it means less cross checks, less battles. Okay. I don't want league. That's fine. If it means less cross checks, less battles, okay. I don't want that.

That's fine. I don't want that. That's fine. I don't want less battles. I don't. I want hard battles that are tough but clean. One of the best bench interviews I ever did, it was 06, 07.

It was the year Ottawa went to the cup final and it was New Jersey, Ottawa. And I interviewed Jim Dowd at the bench and he went into, he asked me if he could be the bench interview. And I said, okay. And he went into a passionate speech about, I understand they don't want interference. I do, but you have to let us battle. And he said, they're not letting us battle and it's not right. It's not what the game should be about. And he says, I understand if I'm interfering someone or I'm hooking someone or I'm holding someone, I get a penalty, but let us battle. You have to, that's what playoff hockey is all about. And I've, I've always been with that.

Honestly, this year I think has generally been better, but I thought last year, especially with no fans, there were too many regular season games that were passionless. We can't go down that road. But you have to give your stars a chance, and you have to give people the willingness to believe that if I'm spending a ticket to go see Conor McDavid, then I will get a chance. And the NFL, the most successful sports league

in North America by miles, they understand that. All right, another situation on the radar right now, and the USHL has released a statement about it, and we're going to get to that. A situation in the USHL with the Omaha Lancers. Head coach Chad Cassidy, head coach and GM, is out. The Lancers players have threatened to boycott games this weekend. And now the USHL has announced that the games this weekend are going to be postponed.

The USHL, I'll just read this. USHL has been in contact with Omaha Lancers players, determined it's in the best interest of the players to postpone this weekend's games. USHL representatives will be visiting Omaha on Friday, November 19th to meet with the team. The USHL will begin an investigation into the reports regarding the Omaha Lancers. the USHL will begin an investigation into the reports regarding the Omaha Lancers. The Omaha ownership has pledged its full cooperation and support this weekend's Lancers games against Waterloo Blackhawks,

Lincoln stars, Des Moines Buccaneers have been declared a no contest. The USHL will work with the affected teams to reschedule the games. A lot of this is citing cutting budgets cost cutting as well Elliot this evolving and story that's very much not even close to be concluded now this is out of my kind of area of expertise but I've been following it as much as I can and I have sent some notes to people saying you know what can you tell me about this? And one of the things I was worried about was the league in trouble.

Like when you hear about cost cutting like this, and we all know what this is, it's post COVID and you're trying to make up for all the money you've lost. And that's no excuse for treating people poorly of course but i kind of wondered if that means it's it's an alarm for the rest of the league and you know people have told me no like i'm in chicago you know they're basically the new york yankees of the whole situation and but generally i've heard that most of these teams seem to be okay but you know the one thing i did hear tonight was that somebody told me you're going to see players

start leaving the team. There's definitely a lack of trust between the players, the coaching staff, and the upper management there. No question about it. I've heard that now agents and coaches that some of these players might be committed to for the future are advising people to leave. They've got a crisis here

there's no question about that and i don't know if they it's proper to say that omaha was investigated for roster manipulation or anything last year but there was something so this is a team that kind of got on the radar last year for some of the way they used its roster. And now this year, they're under this. And it's obviously a crisis point. Anytime you get put to the point where players are boycotting, your coaching staff is resigning en masse, and players are boycotting because the coaching staff is all leaving, you've got a massive problem.

And now you've got players being told, we're going to find you somewhere else to play. You can't play here. It's bad for you. That's not a weekend problem. That's a big hole to climb out of. That's huge. We'll see where this story ends up.

Okay, some emails and voicemails. The email 32 thoughts at sportsnet.ca the thought line 1-833-311-3232 please use liberally but as elliot mentions numerous times don't go broadway not too long don't make amal edits don't make elliot listen to the long messages everyone knows he doesn't listen to ours so he won't listen to yours i start typing while jeff is talking what do you think i'm going to listen to it hear that in the background i know that's lovely uh we'll start with that we'll start with an email this is an interesting one from paul quick hockey history question looking at old hockey photos i noticed that a lot of times fans are just wearing their business attire, like the Bobby or photo flying through the air.

It's like, there's no jerseys in the crowd, but today when you go to a game, there's jerseys everywhere. And I guess my question is when exactly did fans start to wear their jerseys? And it became something that was just like culturally and socially acceptable to wear a player jersey to a game. Thanks, guys.

You have a better answer to this, I thought. We were talking about it. Honestly, this is nothing more than just a reflection of the times. I think that all through the 60s, people dressed more formally for sporting events in general. But that all got laxed. Outside of sports like boxing and horse racing, where people still did get dressed up, in other sports, it was casual. It was casual attire, and I think hockey just dovetailed with that as well. I really do like looking at the old pictures and seeing everyone get dressed up like it's a big event, like they're going to the

theater or something. They're not going to watch a hockey game. There is a charm about that. I think I've mentioned this to you before. You know my favorite thing about looking at old photos of hockey games, Elliot? What's that? That we don't see in photos? Shadows.

We don't see shadows in hockey pictures anymore. Oh, because they're better lit? Yeah. So here's a question. This is a debate that friends and I have, okay? Okay. How old is too old to wear a jersey? I don't think anyone's too old to wear a jersey.

I agree. I know people who are like, you shouldn't wear a jersey if you are... This is probably the dumbest argument I've ever heard. But he's like, if you're over over 40 you shouldn't wear a jersey and i said well what if you're 40 you've got a young kid who wants to wear his or her jersey and they say like you know dad you know i want you to wear your jersey with me what are you supposed to do to your son or daughter say no so i think the whole argument is stupid and you should go wear whatever you want. But I know people who think there's a certain age.

And you know where this argument really started? And now we're really going off the rails. We're basketball singlets. Like they said, no adult should wear a basketball singlet to a game, especially if you're not wearing another shirt underneath. Ooh, okay. Which I got to say, I'm with them on that one. Yeah, that is a tough look. Okay, you got me on that shirt underneath oh okay that is which i i gotta say i'm with them on that yeah that that is a tough look okay you got me on that yeah okay for that one yeah that's that's a tough one but no any any age wear a jersey absolutely that's like i said imagine your your kid says wear a jersey with me what am i going to do say no no don't you understand the

daddy's in his 40s and i'm not allowed to say i can't do this anymore sorry all right sorry son or daughter i can't make your day okay here we go uh from jeff g i'm currently reading through brian burke's book burke's law which is great by the way any suggestions on some other hockey books that have come out lately that someone should pick up what do you got I've got a couple of them that just arrived. Klon Dykers by Tim Faulkner is a story about, or is a book about Dawson City's Stanley Cup challenges would have been 1905 Dawson City challenging the Ottawa Silver Seven for the

Stanley Cup. So it's this, well, this one hits me where I live for age. So that was going to be real good. I do love that stuff. So it's this, well, this one hits me where I live for age. So that one's going to be real good. I do love that stuff. And I love this one. And I know I have a feeling you'll like this one as well. I'm a little bit biased because I grew up watching him on television.

I was a big fan of Peter Puck. I live in Stouffville and so does he. And I see him around town and talk to him on the phone. And whenever I get a message from him, it warms my heart. Just when I hear his voice, Brian Mccfarland's memoir just came out yeah his stuff is excellent yeah he's a hell of a life in hockey i cannot wait to crack the spine of this one as a matter of fact i'll probably start when i uh when i get upstairs after this podcast before i go to bed so uh those are a couple for me anything Anything stand out for you, Freed?

So two non-hockey books. I just finished, during hockey season, I do try to read some other things in my down moments. It's called Built to Lose, How the NBA's Tanking Era Changed the League Forever. It's a book by Jake Fisher. I like that. There's a lot of really good stuff in there.

And I think even hockey fans would read some of this and it would really resonate with them. There was some stuff in there about the decision-making process and what players think about it that I thought was really interesting. Because look, we have teams right now like Arizona and the player reactions I thought were really fascinating and the book i've got in my hand because i just finished that built to lose book today so i'm really looking forward to this is a biography of roberto clemente now i have a fascination with great outfield arms i used to

have a oh it's like the cobra yeah dave parker for sure that throw from i guess was the 78 all-star game it's also yes so and vladimir guerrero of course had the unbelievable arm sean green had a great arm i used to have a very weak arm and then one year i read i can't remember i read it if you just throw a ball against the wall for 20 minutes every day, your arm will get better. And I did that, and I actually had a pretty good arm for a while. And Roberto Clemente, like if you go onto YouTube and you see his throwing arm, he had a cannon, like an unbelievable arm.

And plus, you know, very heck of a ball player. Carlos Delgado wore 21 for him, and a very sad, the way he passed away, just very sad. So I've always been fascinated by Clemente and I just picked up a biography of him and that's going to be next. One of my favorite podcasts ever was the Roberto Clemente special that Dan Schulman put together. Oh yeah. I don't know if you heard that one. That one was fantastic. That's another one to search out when

you're dealing with Roberto Clemente. There's so many great things to consume. Yes. Yes. Amel Delage produced that as well. I'll throw that one in there for you. God forbid you should give Dan the credit for it and Amel just has to pipe in and

say, yeah, that was me. That's why it sounds so good, guys. That was a great podcast, Adam. You guys did a great job of that. Let's finish up with a voicemail. I like this one about the number of games. This is a voicemail from Brian.

Hello, Jeff. Hello, Elliot. Long time, first time. I was curious, what do you guys feel is the perfect length for an NHL regular season? I'll tell you mine, 76 games. You play each team in the division four times, and then the other teams in the league two times each. Just wondering what you guys think. Thanks. I'll hang up and listen. Perfect message. Perfect time. Nice, quick, to the point. Oh, yeah. First of all, I do think that they should consider playing a few less games.

But we all know we're fighting a losing battle. You know, number one, it's all about arena dates. And number two, the players would have to take their pay based on 76 games instead of 82. And you know how they're going to feel on that. Hang on. The point that Elliot is trying to make here is the minute the players signed off on salary linkage to hockey-related revenue, the idea of reducing the games went out the window. Would it be better on everybody's bodies?

Yes. Would it be better on travel? Yes. But we know what the economics of this kind of say, right? So it's probably never going to happen. But I like the message and um we appreciate everybody who leaves a comment on the thought line 76 games i'm cool with that i could go even lower with mine as well just to make the games mean more um i think you can frame it also

as a player safety issue as well we know know what rest and recovery does for athletes slash human beings, but there's no chance that they're going to shorten the seasons at all. Having said that, the one thing that I've always maintained is whatever the league can do, I don't know how they do it. I don't know. I know there's never an appetite to start the season sooner. But are you with me, Frej, that if they can get their game out of June, they should get their game out of June?

I just think the U.S. teams feel the exact opposite. Trust me, I'm saying this from a Canadian point of view, and I get that. I know that there's not a lot of appetite for it, specifically from U.S. teams. Again, I think there's a difference between what makes sense and what's actually going to happen. That's the truth.

Okay, hope you enjoyed the podcast today. Welcome back to some newsier podcasts. what makes sense and what's actually going to happen. That's the truth. Okay. Hope you enjoyed the podcast today. Welcome back to some newsier podcasts. And once again, if you get a chance, I would really encourage you to go back and listen to that Mike Ford podcast. The minute you get a couple of moments in and a couple of thoughts in, I really think you'll be hooked on some really interesting ideas in there and different ways to look at constructing an organization. Elliot taken us out today.

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