32 Thoughts: The Podcast - It’s A Gusher!

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

Jeff and Elliotte are in-studio! Thanks to a power outage in Stouffville, the guys are in-studio to break down the news of the weekend and recap the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. They discuss the Battle of Alberta (3:25), the Rangers finding their edge (12:30), Tampa’s dominance (14:40), and what took place between Colorado-St. Louis (19:10).The guys also touch on the Bryan Rust contract extension (23:00), the Leafs signing Mark Giordano (26:00), the latest on the Barry Trotz interview tour (27:45), what the Stars might be doing this off-season (30:45), New Jersey and their 2nd pick at this years draft (34:10), Sharks GM search (36:40), and some big news out of the CHL as the Saint John Sea Dogs fire their head coach ahead of the Memorial Cup (38:50).Get your limited edition 32 Thoughts merchandise line HEREMusic Outro: Jitwam - OpendoorsListen to our 32 Tracks playlist on Amazon Music. All the tracks you hear on this podcast during the playoffs are featured there.This podcast was recorded by Austin Maki, produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: Bally Sports Florida, CHED and SportsNet New York.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.

Testing 1, 2, 3. It does, yeah. I can hear myself, that'd be great. Testing 1, 2, 3. Testing 1, 2, 3. The podcast you're about to hear may not sound different, but for me and Elliot, it certainly feels different. Welcome to 32 Thoughts, the podcast presented by the all-new GMC AT4 lineup.

Normally, I'm used to staring at a wall while I do this podcast, Elliot. Instead, I'm staring at you. What's better? The wall. That's what I thought. Although, I'm staring at you. What's better? The wall. That's what I thought it was. Although I really did like you in Klondike garb tonight on Hockey Night in Canada. I really did enjoy that.

I really had a... I have a soft spot for dress-up shows like that for TV. I love Ron bringing in the stuff. And Klondike, he gave me a little preview of it yesterday at Hockey Night, so I kind of knew it was on the horizon. Wasn't sure whether everybody was going to bite, but you and Kevin and Jennifer and clearly Ron all went for it. And I was here to love it, Elliot.

I have to say that I don't want to find out what else Ron has in his closet. You know, he did leave some of the stuff at the station tonight saying that we might need this again. So I have a feeling that this might not be the only time we see it. We should explain why Jeff and I are doing this from a Sportsnet radio studio and not the regular car cast. For those of you who do not live in various parts of Ontario, we were hit by, depending on where you live, on Saturday,

a windstorm, a possible tornado. I don't even know what to call it. Yeah, see, where I live, it borders Stouffville and Uxbridge, and so we're still without power, and we'll probably be without power. The last time we saw any communication from Hydro was 4 o'clock Eastern on Monday. And we've been out since Saturday at 1 o'clock. Yeah, you know, I think we should make it very clear that we don't want to knock any of the great workers at Ontario Hydro. We know they're putting the province back together again after a lot of people lost power. So Sunday night, you don't have power yet.

One of my friends who live in Thornhill got his power back Sunday afternoon. Lucky dog. The weird thing was, so we were at my brother and sister-in-law's place for a family birthday on Saturday. And all of a sudden, it got really dark and the wind picked up and we started taking the kids inside. And I got hit in the face by a branch that flew off a tree. No scar, though. Or you still have your makeup on from TV. I can't quite I can't.

It wasn't that bad. Like it was a glancing blow. I like on the side, but I was like, you know, holy smokes. Like this is actually bigger than I thought it was. And there was in my neighborhood, obviously there were a lot of trees down. I saw, we saw one car get smashed. It was pretty crazy out there. It was.

I can only imagine what, because it happened suddenly, and it was a really nice afternoon too. I can only imagine what was happening to people that were having lunch on patios, because it was fast. Yeah, it was quick. It came out of nowhere. Alright, let's get going. Hope everybody is safe. Anyway, so Jeff didn't have power, so we're doing this together, and we have to thank Austin Mackey,

who's producing for us here in one of the radio booths. Jeff offered to let me drive home so I could still do my part of the car cast, but we are teammates. We do this together. Elliot wanted to be a hero. The hook of the podcast, Elliot, is that you are driving home. You've destroyed the gimmick now.

This is just a regular podcast. We can't even call it a car cast. So we just finished watching the Battle of Alberta, and the whole time that I'm watching this, and it's an Edmonton Oilers win, and Calgary can't slow down the Edmonton Oilers rush, and watching Conor McDavid do essentially whatever Conor McDavid wants to do. And I'm saying to myself, there's one person who could probably do something about this, but he's not in the game.

And that's Chris Tanev. This whole time, how many times do you find yourself thinking, man, the Flames really miss Chris Tanev? This was the first night I really thought about it. And let's be honest. Chris Tanev, while a good player, he's not Clark Kent, and he's not single-handedly going to play the role of Superman to— He has always played great against McDavid.

He's played him very well, but he's not single-handedly going to be a Superman to Connor McDavid's Lex Luthor and completely shut him down. But I do think Jennifer showed a phenomenal pack of a lot of blown coverages that Calgary had, and I do think if Tannum's out there, Calgary might be picking things up a lot better or handling things a lot better. There are certainly some situations during those games where they're losing people or not doing the details in their own zone or in transition that they need to do. I mean, look, McDavid is having a special playoffs.

He's at 23 points in 10 games. There's only been two people who've ever gotten 40 points in a playoff year, Gretzky and Lemieux. And the last player who really had a big number was Malkin at 36 in 2009. And McDavid's at 23 and we're three games

into the second round of the playoffs. And now you look at, Kane had a natural hat-trick in six minutes. But now it's Dreisaitl off to Connor McDavid with Kane, centers Kane for the hat-trick in six minutes. But now it's Dreisaitl off to Connor McDavid with Kane.

Centers Kane for the hat-trick. He scores! Evander Kane! A natural hat-trick in the second period! And Edmonton running Calgary right out of the building! The Oilers pouring it on for nothing! He had 10 hits, which tied for the most in the playoffs. Dreisaitl had four assists, and he's still having trouble planting to shoot the puck,

but he's still doing some unbelievable things. You know, Hyman is really starting to go. And melt the remaining time. Forcing on net, shorthanded. Mike Smith makes a save against Michael Backlund. Hands off to Leon Dreisaitl. McDavid back to Dreisaitl. One-touch reach shot. Score! Zach Hyman, game winner in game two. First goal of game three. It's going to be an

even straight goal. Dreisaitl realized that the neutral ice hey, they got to take off the ice here at the end of the shift. Smith is really starting to go. You know, the one thing that worried me was CeCe took that shot off the hand. I was worried he really hurt himself there. But the one thing I look at, Jeff, is

I went through all the teams. McDavid heading into tonight's game, and I'll check the math, was averaging 22-06. You have to go back a decade to find a team that won the Stanley Cup with their number one forward playing over 22 minutes. That was Kopitar in 2012 for the Kings. Like, for example, last year, and obviously, you know, Tampa Bay's a much deeper team, Point played 18-55. He was Tampa Bay's

leading forward. You know, there were some guys, Kucherov was the closest. He was 2140. But, you know, a lot of them are at top forwards around 2021. And also, there's such an imbalance between Edmonton's top forwards and everybody else. You just wonder if it can last. But, boy, this McDavid ride is incredible. So, here becomes the question. Do you have

to play in the final to win the Conn Smythe? It's never happened before. Remember in the first round, I was saying Jake Ottinger was going third on my ballot no matter what. No matter what? But Edmonton, you can see the confidence.

I'm just thinking one thing. You can't let Edmonton skate like this. No. You can't let McDavid skate like this. You can't let Kane. You can't let Hyman. You can't let this team skate like this. But Calgary is just letting them gallop.

Like from Edmonton's own zone all the way into the offensive zone, they are letting them gallop all the way through. Too many times. A couple of things from the game. How did you see Lucic on Smith? And a clear down the middle of the ice. How did you see Lucic on Smith? And a clear down the middle of the ice. Lucic toward the Edmonton net.

And he just clattered into Mike Smith. And this is going to explode. Lucic powered into Mike Smith. And the Oilers go right after Lucic. And there's a huge dog pile. And Brett Kulak and Brett Ritchie are now engaged. Lucic just smoked Mike Smith against the boards. There's no other way to describe it. He's going to get a match penalty for that.

He's going to get a match penalty. Barry's got his man down. Trevor Lewis. Lewis is trying to get up here. Kassian and Zdorov. This is ready to go. Kassian trying to work himself free, and if he does the door off

is gonna be on a world of trouble Cassian stringing out the door off it's a match penalty for Milan Lucic and he just blasted Mike Smith who apparently is okay I mean that's his plainest day I, there's no doubter. Smith out to handle it. And as he reversed, Lucic clatters into him. And Archibald came thundering into Milan Lucic. And give credit to Josh Archibald. He did not hesitate. Came in with a hard horse collar.

And then Kulak was right behind, even as he got cheap-shotted in the back of the head by Brett Ritchie. And you've got an avalanche of players filing into the penalty box. Milan went straight off. I bet you they, and I got to tell you, Jack, when you look at it, he didn't go in full bore. Like when I first saw it, I was like, oh my God, I can't believe that happened.

When I saw the replays, he clearly pulls up. This is not Milan Lucic on Ryan Miller. I was going to say, did you think this was Ryan Miller version 2? Hang on, when it first happened? Oh my goodness. Like, I don't blame the referees in that case. I think on some level they're saying, look, it's 4-0. There's 11 minutes left.

We're going to do some preventive refereeing here. And calling that at speed, I don't really have a huge problem with it. Could they have dropped it down from 5-2? Yeah, I think they could have. But again, I think for one thing that we've seen a lot of is that the goalies are not fair game in these playoffs. The onus is on you not to hit goalies or knock into goalies. And I think based on that philosophy, I understood what they were doing. I don't think this is supplemental discipline.

I think it's very clear that Lucic pulls up. I think there is some contact. But I think in this particular case, I thought they handled it fine. I loved Smith's walk back in. It was right out of the WWE. It was stone cold Mike Smith. It was stone cold Mike Smith is what it was. And the thing is, I remember a story,

because I've done it a couple times since then. Smith got pulled out of a game in 2017 when he played for Arizona for the concussion spotter, and he freaked. And the next day he said, what's to stop a fourth liner from doing that to a goalie and then in the playoffs? And I was just laughing because it was kind of like this premonition from five years ago came true. But the funniest thing is Jay Woodcroft could have said, you're not going back in. And it wouldn't have mattered.

He was going back in. When he was coming back down that tunnel, he was going back in the net. It was great theater. Roberto Luongo once said that when he there was a game in Chicago in the playoffs in 2011 where, you remember, Corey Schneider started and Luongo

had to come into the game because Schneider was hurt or he had cramps or whatever it was. Luongo said that he was in the dressing room. When he came out, he felt like he was a pro wrestler. And that's what this reminded me of. To that point, and a lot of people might not like this, and I get it and I kind of understand it for those

that just want to follow the rule book. And I know some people find the term game management distasteful, but I do think that in a game where it's starting to get out of reach, it's starting to get a little bit goofy, Elliot, I have no problem with referees putting candy in the penalty box. I'm fine with it. Go fill the box, put candy in there,

have everybody chase it in and close the door. Yeah, that's not game management of you've got nine penalties and the other team's got two. That's game management of we don't want this getting out of control. We make sure that the firecrackers aren't going off. So 2-1 series lead now for the Edmonton Oilers. They win this one by a final score of 4-1.

Nice to see Alphonso Davies, by the way, throwing a hat on the ice for Evander Kane, who scored his eighth, ninth, and tenth goal. That was a nice moment. It's a really nice touch. A couple of other games I want to get to. From this afternoon, New York Rangers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 3-1.

Carolina, for whatever reason, has not been able to win on the road so far. This year in the playoffs, Kreider with his sixth, Sabanajad with his fourth, and Igor Shosturkin with 43 saves, and Gerard Gallant, not a fan of Tony D'Angelo, as we found out after the game. Well, I think he was also mad at Max Domi, right?

Because Lindgren's hurt, and he gave Lindgren that shot in the ribs. Two-handed at the end. Yes. So I actually wondered, was he angrier at D'Angelo, or was he angrier at Domi? Because in the post-game media conference, he said something like, No, I wasn't happy with the bulls**t at the end of the game that they initiated, you know?

I mean, we didn't do that when the games were close. They put their guys on, that's fine. If they want to play like that, we got the guys that can match up. I mean, you could pick either one of them. I don't think he's a big fan of either. You know, Shusterkin, I thought, won that game for the Rangers. They were outshot. First of all, that series now has some edge to it.

I thought it was a kind of really flat series for the first two games. I think it's got some real edge now. I'm curious about Shusterkin because when he got tired in that Pittsburgh series, he struggled. An excellent performance, but it will be a tiring performance. So I'm curious about he and the Rangers, like what they learned about handling him in the 48 hours before game number four. You know, the thing I really liked about Gallant is that he tried new things

and then he realized what kind of worked and what didn't. He tried some new lines. You know, they were getting caved in, so he went back to some other ones. I like that about Gallant. He coaches a lot by feel, and part of that feel is this isn't working or this isn't going well. I'll go back to what I like, but there was one thing he did. He put Hedl in a spot where Hedl hadn't played all year,

and you rarely see coaches do that. Off the top of my head, I can't think of too many situations where coaches do that. I've always liked that about Galant. There's the real X's and O's's coaches, and there's the real feel and kind of, this is what I kind of think is going to happen, coaches. And those coaches kind of fall out of favor more and more

now, but that's always going to be Gallant. And this is a year he pushed a lot of right buttons, and I thought in this game he pushed a lot of right buttons. And the game's got a little bit of spice to your point. We've got to talk about Tampa. They have the Florida Panthers down three cobs, series lead.

Stick it to them again. Five to one. Kucherov with four points. Stamkos with a pair. Andre Vasilevsky is Andre Vasilevsky. And we had a really interesting quote from Andrew Brunette. They're willing themselves. They have more will and more desire than we do.

And it shows probably if you watch the game shift after shift right now. We have to find a way that... Ouch. Yeah, that hurts. That is a tough one for players to hear. That's calling out your group. The whole team, Elliot. We need more from this guy, this blue... No, that's when you say they have more will and desire, that's the blanket over the whole team. Yeah, you're being called out.

You're being challenged. You're being called out. There's no question about that. See, I thought it took Florida a long time to get into the Washington series. They weren't allowed to skate. Yeah, they weren't allowed to skate, but you have to find another way, right? And they can't get into this series. I don't think you can blame it on Bobrovsky.

No. I think he's been solid. I don't look at him and say that's the reason they're losing. I think he's been solid. I just think that what the Panthers are learning, especially with a team like Tampa, is that Tampa goes to another level. The Panthers have a lot of guys who are really good thinkers and they think the game really well.

But I think what you're learning is there has to be an emotional level to you too. And I just think I look at some of their best players and I'm like, you know, you look at the way Stamkos plays and there's a real emotion to him. And I think that's what Burnett's saying. Like, where's the added level of emotion from some of our best players? I've always looked at it like this.

Like, I want to get something straight here. The Tampa Bay Lightning are not just an emotionally led team. There are legitimate underlying numbers that you can point to and say, that's why they're great. But what they do is they have, like, we've seen plenty of players who have tremendous underlying numbers. And the analytics community keeps trying to remind people how good these players are because it's not obvious. I look at Tampa and I say,

these guys all have tremendous underlying numbers and you can also see how great they are. Like the underlying numbers are great and the above the surface performance is great. It's the matchup of all of it. Right now, the way this team is playing, and they keep on getting better too. What did Stan Kost tell us at the Players Tour?

At the end of the day, you look at the roster and you say, okay, we have Vasilevsky and Nett, so we have a chance. You have Hedman, McDonough, Sergachev, Cernak. You have Cooch, Point. The list goes on. Sorelli, we have our top six forwards, you know,

our top four D and our goaltender coming back. So why can't we do it again? It's going to be, I think, tougher. But then we go out and we add a Belmar. We add a Perry. We add some very, you know, experienced, you know, guys that are proven winners in this league. And, you know, that just goes to show the confidence

that the management has in our group to go out and do it again. We know what to do, and they're showing what to do because they've been there. And it doesn't matter. You know, this player's injured, this player's dinged up, this player's out of the, it doesn't matter to them. They have like this very matter-of-fact way that they know how to play. They have all the rules, and they're comfortable in knowing

that this is going to be successful. All I'm saying is the underlying numbers match up with what you see, like your eye test. That's how I see Tampa. Yeah, I agree with you, and I think the other thing with them is that you always know that with every game, you get a better effort. Like their effort always goes up. And maybe they'll have a stinker here or there,

but they don't have two stinkers in a row. And that's the thing. Like when I look at them in Florida, the difference is that they have a level they can get to right now that the Panthers cannot get to. They just can't get there. And that's what Brunette is saying. Like we have to match their emotional level

and their willingness to sacrifice level as much as everything else. Colorado 5, St. Louis 2. There were moments in this game earlier where we thought... Well, let's just start first of all on this one. Obviously, there was a very sad and unfortunate story that broke on Sunday night

about Nazem Khadri facing some racist comments and threats. That's a joke. It shouldn't happen. And I really don't know what else to say about that except it's a joke. It shouldn't happen. And I really don't know what else to say about that, except it's a joke and it shouldn't happen. And I think it's a real shame. And I hope he and his family are okay. And I hope that everybody takes those things seriously

and doesn't shrug them off and say, well, this is people being emotional. You know what? Emotions are not an excuse to act like that. They just are not an excuse to act like that. Not at all. 5-2 is the final. A couple of flashpoint moments here. One, Jordan Bennington with Nazem Khadri

and Samuel Gerrard, which at the time just looked like, that looked awful. That was a real tough hit. Broken sternum out for the rest of the season. How did you see that game? And now how do you see the rest of this series? Well, I thought it was a really entertaining game.

I'm disappointed to see two very important players injured. You know, Gerrard won't play the rest of the playoffs, and Bennington is out at least the rest of this series. I think that, you know, at least in Bennington's case, they have a guy who was their number one goalie for a good chunk of the season. And Huso gives them a fighting chance. Obviously, Binnington was better right now when it mattered. And Huso had to come into a game in less than ideal circumstances.

But I look at that and say, at least you've got someone who's won games for you. Gerard, I know some people didn't like my take on the Barberchev hit. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it. I thought it was a terrible outcome, but I didn't think it was a dirty hit. You know, the problem is now, I see it a lot on social. There's a lot of selective editing and posting of pictures. And if you look at a picture, people can show you a photo of Barberchev looking like he hit Gerard in the back.

If you watch it, he clearly does not do that. And I hope Girard will be okay. You know, the one thing was Colorado avoided the collapse. Everybody was expecting it. Everybody thought that they were going to find a way to lose, and they didn't do it. Early in that game, were you not getting that feeling, Ellie? Like, ooh, St. Louis is going to do this, aren't they?

Like, St. Louis is taking it right to Colorado. I thought Makar was exceptional. To me, McDavid's the number one player in the playoffs right now, but Makar is number two. I mean, what he is doing is excellent. Like, St. Louis' whole defensive setup right now is all about Makar. How can we prevent him from skating with the puck? How can we get in his way to force him

to kind of say, okay, I can't take this here or there? And St. Louis is a really smart team. They can do things like that. They're great players and they're great coaches. I just look at this, I think this series is far from over. I think there's a lot more to be

told here, and I think that St. Louis is still a team that can make this series very difficult on the avalanche. If they get saves. Do they need to play them physically? Well, I think you have to just because Colorado will play you physically. So you have to. Like I see Ryan O'Reilly as a guy who knows where to put his body, right? He makes life really difficult on McKinnon to do things.

And I don't know if you call that physical or you call that smart, but I guess it's a combination. I don't think, by the way, that anything's going to happen to Bennington for the water bottle thing with Caudrey. And I have to say, if that was me and I was on the receiving end of that, that wouldn't bother me at all. To some news, as we'll continue these podcasts as the series continue. To some news, and we'll start with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Brian Rust.

So, the contract extension is six years at $30.7 million, AAV just over 5.1. I think we all knew that Brian Rust was going to get paid. I thought it would be with another team and a little bit more money than this. Hometown discount for Brian Rust given what the market would bear? I have to say I thought Rust did really well considering that if you take a look at what the market has been for forwards lately it's been a lot of brandon saw deals like four times five and a half deals like like i heard for example like that's kind of where raquel and anaheim were before raquel was traded from there and i heard a lot of the contracts were like that so i think you could argue he took a hometown discount but i think a few people would tell you that he did a lot better than a lot of other players in the market have been.

And what that says is how much Pittsburgh values him. And why not? He's been a great player for them. You know, one of the things I heard was that that negotiation really turned around a lot in the last week, that it was something that really gained a lot of momentum after they were eliminated. And at the end of the week, there were people who told me

it kind of wasn't on their radar, and then all of a sudden it got on their radar, like this was going to get done. So I'm sure that talks will pick up again with Malkin and Letang, and we'll see where we go, but I heard those picked up really quickly, and I think Russ' performance in the playoffs probably had a lot to do with that.

And I'm happy for him. He clearly wanted to be there, and they found a way to get it done. You know, that is the inevitable follow-up question. What does this mean for the other players? You know, and most notably in this case, since it's a forward, you think of Evgeny Malkin. I think Chris Letang is in a different category altogether. I don't know that we should try to draw anything out of this Rust contract vis-a-vis what Malkin could be looking for, what the Pittsburgh Penguins could be looking to do with the Evgeny Malkin.

To me, I look at them as three very separate negotiations. I would mostly agree with you, but one of the things I kind of heard was that like the 5.125 number is very close to both what Rust wanted and what the team wanted. Like nobody got a hundred percent of what they wanted here, but they were, they got to a point kind of where it was close enough that everybody was happy enough and shook hands and said, that's good. I think that's going to be harder to get to in Malkin's case. It sounds to me like they're closer to that in Letang's case, but what it says to me is that the Penguins are saying, we'll give a little bit, but you have to give a little bit too. Should we read anything into this one? Because this is a new ownership group.

Should we read anything into this contract and try to figure out philosophically what Fenway Sports is all about when it comes to hockey? I don't know. I don't think we're wondering that. Like, okay, we've seen how they handle other sports. How are they going to handle hockey?

To me, it's too soon. Maybe somebody else can, but I can't. Maple Leafs to Mark Giordano. Two-year contract, it's too soon. Maybe somebody else can, but I can't. Maple Leafs to Mark Giordano, two-year contract, $800,000 is the AAV. The story I heard on this one was that apparently there was a deal on Saturday and nobody would confirm this to me, but I did hear it. The story that, and I do believe there's truth to it, was that the initial deal was around, maybe not exactly there, but was around a million a year. And apparently it was Giordano.

He said, we'll do a bit lower to free up some other room. That's the story that I heard. That he shaved probably around, I don't know if it's exactly $200,000 a year, but somewhere around there. The deal was announced at 800 and I had initially heard it was around a million. And the story I heard was that Giordano had indicated that, you know what, if you need to shave a little bit of money off this deal and you can go out and do something else that can help us win, I'm good with that. So I think that's why the number ended up being, you know, where it was. I'd heard pretty clearly that he was willing to come back for quite some time.

I think they'd done some work about it during the season. And then of course they let it rest. Obviously they got it done, but that was the story I heard that Giordano shaved some of the AAV so the team would have a better chance to win. And just so our listeners know, Elliot did the same thing for me in his last contract. He's very, very generous. Okay, as a matter of fact, what I said was,

I was going to say take X amount of money and give it to Jeff, but just give it to me. Just give it to me. Give it to the People's Republic of Elliot. Barry Trotz, this week, interviews we know with Philadelphia, as we talked about on Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada as well.

Who else is Barry Trotz speaking with? Elliot, we know he's spoken with Winnipeg, obviously. Yeah, I still think there's supposed to be conversations with at least Vegas and Philadelphia, and although Steve Eiserman's not confirming anything, there's been rumors of Detroit. There was actually a wild

rumor going around Winnipeg on Sunday that a couple of people called me about it. They said, have you heard that Barry Trotz is going to Winnipeg? And he's chosen, he's

going to the Jets. And, you know, I don't want to say that it's not possible Barry Trotz could go to the Jets, but my best information right now is that's premature. Like there's still a whole process to go throughout here. But that was definitely going around the province on Sunday.

I got a couple of calls about it. You know, we'll see. He's got a lot of interest. And, you know, we'll see where this goes over the next week or so. You know, one of the things, and I mentioned this on Saturday, is I don't get the impression that Philadelphia specifically, as much as they're going to obviously talk to Barry Trotz, and it makes a lot of sense.

He coached the Islanders. He coached the Washington Capitals. He knows the division well. I don't get the sense that they're in a hurry. I don't get the sense that they're in a hurry to name their coach. And again, this is just my theory. Because I don't know that Philadelphia knows what their team is going to look like next

year. Is it going to be a really young team? Is it going to be a mix of older players and younger players? I don't know that Philadelphia is there yet with what the team is going to look like. So naming a coach, I don't think they're in a hurry to name the coach. Like even if it costs them a couple of candidates, whatever, I think that they're fine to let this process play itself. Well, that would say to me, assuming that's true, and I have no reason to believe you're lying to my face right here as we look at each other. Assuming that's true, for example, that's the one thing. What happens if we get to the end of the week and Barry Trotz just says, look, I'm going to make my choice? Now, do you think that changes Philadelphia's minds? Because I've

heard that he's very high on their list, if not the number one candidate. And, you know, I mean, you know, Barry Trotz, like, based on the job he's done in a few different places now, if I wanted to improve quickly and I was looking for structure, he'd be very high on my list right now. Like, the only thing that makes me question that, Jeff, is what happens if Barry Trotz at the end of the week says, look, guys, I'd like to make my choice, and are you in or are you out? I'm not Chuck Fletcher.

I don't know. You don't really look like Chuck Fletcher either. No, I don't. Lucky for him. I don't have the great hockey resume that Chuck Fletcher does either. But I do want to say I think you're going to see a lot of coaching conversations here heat up. Like, obviously, there's still some coaches who are still coaching,

but I think you're going to see a lot of these things heat up. Like, obviously, there's still some coaches who are still coaching, but I think you're going to see a lot of these things heat up. Like, I've heard there's a few teams that are going to talk to Rick Talkett. I think there's a couple that are going to speak to Travis Green. I think these conversations are really going to start heating up. Do you think Barry Trotz is in a rush to get this done? Did he want to put it to bed? I honestly don't know. I'm just saying what if.

Like, you know, what if. So Dallas Stars, we know there are contracts due for Jake Ottinger, Jason Robertson as well. I believe they want to do Rupe Hins. Yeah, you mentioned. One more year left on term. May have to move a player depending on where numbers go. I don't think any of us think that John Klingberg is coming back.

No. To Dallas. I don't think any of us think that Alexander Radulov is coming back to Dallas. So that frees up some space there. But depending on where the numbers go for Ottinger and Robertson and what the Hintz extension looks like, I wonder if they may have to make some moves to accommodate these new contracts. Well, it's possible. I mean, depending on how long you go, those are big, big numbers, right? You know, Hintz is a number one center. Robertson's a 40 goal scorer. And Ottinger looks like a franchise goalie.

So I think that all comes down to what kind of term you're talking about here. Plus, you've got to sort out your coaching situation too. Now, you mentioned a really interesting name, Mark Savard. Yes. And what's the tie-in there? The tie-in there is he coaches the Windsor Spitfires, and so he is the head coach of Wyatt Johnston. So Wyatt Johnston is a first-round draft pick of the Dallas Stars

and someone that many would say he's their number one ranked prospect. And I believe he'll be given every single chance to make this Dallas Stars team next season. Like they're giving them the room to make the push to get on this team next season. You know, there were, I got a few calls about this during the year where it's like Dallas is in

Windsor again, you know, Hey, Rich Peverly's here again. Joe McDonnell is in Guelph, right? He's a Guelph guy. Yes.

Absolutely. Maybe he just likes the 401. Former teammate of Mark Savard as well. Yes, that's right. Put it this way. I don't know that Wyatt Johnson needed as much babysitting as we saw Dallas Stars people showing up to Windsor Spitfire games. When you go, you don't just notice the player,

but you look at the coach and how he handles various situations. He's handling your number one product. I'm not saying that Mark Savard's going to get this job specifically, but all I'm saying is he's on the radar. And I think people are starting to notice. Windsor's a really good team. Like what he's done with the Windsor Spitfires here, I mean, he's got some really good players, certainly.

But he's done an excellent job. And people are starting to notice. And, you know, I thought about something driving in on Saturday that you had talked about on the podcast a few weeks ago. And that is, I don't know, do we call it the Martin St. Louis effect? Like, sure, there may not be the NHL experience there, but this guy knows a lot about hockey. Mark knows a lot about hockey. Mark Savard knows a ton about hockey.

So that's the tie. All I'm saying is he is on the Dallas Stars radar. It's a really interesting name because you're always looking for kind of different people that are off the beaten path. I do wonder about Talkett. Like, I heard this year when they were considering the coaching change that Talkett was the guy on their list and was the guy they were considering. And I heard what happened was they couldn't agree on term. And that's why it didn't happen. And they stayed with bonus and he got them into the playoffs.

The other one I wonder what would talk it was Detroit. And again, I don't know if there's any truth to this, but when Steve Iserman does his radio hit talking about demanding Rick talk, it's a demanding guy. That's another kind of situation. I was, I was thinking with him. A couple things here. Before we get to San Jose, I want to ask you about the New Jersey Devils.

Yes. And the second overall draft pick. Because once upon a time, Tom Fitzgerald talked publicly about putting their first rounder in play. And then the lottery happened. And Tom Fitzgerald was a very happy general manager. He will select second overall. Should he choose to keep the pick, Elliot?

Will he choose to keep the pick, Elliot? Well, first of all, I wanted to give credit because we mentioned that a reporter asked Fitzgerald about it initially before the lottery at one of his media conferences, and the reporter was Neil McHale of Inside Hockey. And so I wanted to credit Neil, who does a really good job covering the Devils and clearly

enjoys covering the Devils. Excellent. But the thing is, like, I had it actually in my notes, like, follow up after lottery with Devils. And because I'm just not very fast and not really on top of things, like, I finally started asking around and, you know, I don't think it's changed.

I think it makes it a little bit harder. Like, you know i i don't think it's changed i think it makes it a little bit harder like you know for example auto was picking seventh and pierre dorian's on record is saying yes they will look at moving that pick for an impact player and they don't want anybody who's only who's like a ufa or only has one or two years left under contract they want someone with term but i think there is a wider latitude at what you could do at seven as opposed to what you can do at two. Because two is a huge pick. And one of the

things actually I've really enjoyed doing over the years is trying to learn about the true value of picks. And there's a lot of analytics on this that says obviously one's the most valuable pick and two is a very valuable pick. But after two, in a lot of cases, this that says obviously one's the most valuable pick and two is a very valuable pick but after two in a lot of cases the draft really drops like there's a lot of evidence that

the draft really drops after two so for that reason that's a huge pick and from what i've heard the devils have told people that they're not saying no they're not saying no now i think what they are going to do is make a list of the kinds of players that they would accept in return for the number two pick. And they're not in any hurry. They've still got six weeks to kind of figure this out. But I think that's where we are, Jeff. I think the Devils are not saying no. And the standard GM answers will do anything to help our team. And I think that's still the standard GM answer, but I don't think it's no.

I do think they will consider it. And if you come up to them with a good package and you know it better be a good package, they're not going to say no. San Jose Sharks. Yeah, so the San Jose Sharks, one of the first names got out. We speculated last week about Ray Whitney,

and then it turned out he did get an interview for it last Thursday. I think there's a couple other names. Kevin Weeks, the— Don't believe it. Until he breaks it on stage with the cast of Phantom of the Opera, I will not believe it. You know, it's funny. I was on NHL Network on Friday, I think, with Jackie Redmond and E.J. Raddick,

and they asked me, am I going to break anything with those videos? And I said, it's kind of like a comedian stealing another comedian's act. You don't do that. In wrestling, that's referred to as gimmick infringement. Oh, really? Gimmick infringement. Because I remember, who did I see once? It was, I think it was like Richard Lewis once accused Paul Reiser of stealing his act,

and I didn't realize how ugly that is. So I look at it this way. That's Kevin Weeks' act. You don't steal his act. Hang on, but if he becomes the general manager of the San Jose Sharks, are you taking the bit? I think it's retired. I think you've got to find it. You can't let it go.

Someone's got to hold the torch. And so I think Kevin's in the mix there. But one other name I wanted to mention because I think he did very well in the Anaheim interviews, and I think he's a guy not a lot of people know, but I've heard really good things about him. And I think at some point in time, I don't know when, I think he will be a general manager, is Ryan Martin, who used to be in Detroit, is now in the New York Rangers with Chris Drury. I think he's in the mix here. And I think there's a lot of people in the mix, but I've had a few people tell me, keep an eye on him because he will get his opportunity.

I'm also curious to know if Jason Botterill is going to be in the mix here. And I'm not just mentioning his name because I work with his sister. I have- She clearly tipped you off. Yeah, she- No, and believe me, Jennifer's a vault. It's actually not good. I've had some people talk to me about,

they think that Jason Botterill's done a lot of work on what went wrong in Buffalo, and not only organizationally, because there were a lot of organizational problems at the time that I think Kevin Adams is doing a very good job of addressing, but I think even he looked at it as how could he have handled things better? I've heard he's done a lot of work into that.

So I'm curious to see if he's going to be in that too. There's one last thing I want to talk about on the podcast, but I want to ask you, because this is your expertise. There was a very interesting move in the Canadian Hockey League on Sunday. The Memorial Cup is coming up when? When's the Memorial Cup? Middle of June. Okay, it's the middle of June.

And the host team is the St. John Seadogs. And a couple years ago, Trevor Georgie, who's the president of the Seadogs, had us come out and do a live podcast out there. And I've always kept an eye on them because of that experience. And they fired their head coach, and they made a change. So Gordie Dwyer was dismissed. Gardner McDougal comes in. Now, I've met Gardner once, but I don't know him that well.

He coaches University of New Brunswick. Is he tainted by Doug McClain in any way, shape, or form? He is in that lineage, though, but he's not tainted by it. That's a disaster waiting to happen. No, I met him once. He seemed like a really nice guy. It's a great program. Really hugely successful. So what he's going to do is he's going to handle the team for the rest of the

Memorial Cup and then he'll go back to UNB next season. But interesting on this one is they've hired Rocky Thompson as an advisor here. See, I heard they took some big swings at some other coaches. Yeah, there were some names out there.

There were. There were some names out there. Yeah, yeah. So Rocky Thompson went through something that St. John is going through right now, which is bowing out early in the playoffs while you're hosting the Memorial Cup. So in 2017, this happened to the Windsor Spitfires. I mean, it happened to Schoenig and previous, and they were able to overcome that.

But the Windsor Spitfires, Rocky Thompson was the head coach of the Windsor Spitfires. They ended up, I think they knocked St. John out of the Memorial Cup that year as well because the final was Windsor and Erie. But nonetheless, Rocky Thompson has some experience with how do you handle a team when you have this much time off and then you have to ramp it up a month later for the Memorial Cup for

this intense tournament. So they've hired Rocky Thompson as an advisor here. And he's a former St. John flame. Yes. Like there's a love in that market for Rocky Thompson, who was a really, let's just say, robust hockey player with the Flames back in the day. So this has been a couple of really interesting moves by Trevor Georgie here.

So McDougal comes in as the head coach. He'll go back to UMB next year. And Rocky Thompson comes in to try to use the Spitfire model, which really was the Schoenigin model previous for the St. John Seadogs, who bowed out, lost to Rimouski in the first round. And Thompson this year, he coached a, I think it was an under 19 girls team to a U.S. national championship.

Correct. Like this is big news in the junior world because I got a couple texts about it. And you know what I do when I get junior stories. I'm like, I'm going to hand this over to Merrick because you know this world much better than I do. It's a big one and it's a shocker too. This has happened before to teams, as I just like, I'm going to hand this over to Merrick because you know this world much better than I do. It's a big one, and it's a shocker too. This has happened before to teams, as I just mentioned, but they haven't gone the route of dismissing the coach and bringing in a brand new coach just for this tournament. The gravity of this is pretty deep.

Think about this. You've gone the entire season with Gordie Dwyer. That series against Rimouski, some of your guys had the flu. You fought. You battled, I think they won like 15 straight to get into that spot, into the playoffs. They had a good, really good end of the season. They snuck up into the CHL's top 10. For the majority of

the season, they were not anywhere close to the CHL's top 10. And then they got in there, flamed out in the first round, didn't point any fingers or make any excuses, and Gordie Dwyer lost his job. It's a shocker. Wow. This one's a big one. Tough crowd. Tough crowd,

but high expectations in St. John for the Seadogs. Oh, one thing we should mention as well, Elliot, limited edition merch is now live. Go get it. Link is in our show notes. We've got t-shirts, crew decks, and hoodies. Taking us out, an artist who's at his best when he's collaborating with others.

Jitwam was born in northeast India, but now calls Brooklyn home. The psychedelic soul artist has released a ton of music over the years, but it was his 2019 sophomore album that put him on the map. From Honeycomb, here's Jitwam with Open Doors on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Enjoy. I will open doors I believe in y'all I will open doors I believe in y'all