32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Kevin Bieksa On The Road And Tony DeAngelo On Waivers

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

This podcast took two hours to record as the news continued to trickle in. Jeff and Elliotte on what they were hearing throughout Sunday (00:30) as the New York Rangers placed Tony DeAngelo on waivers. They also discuss trade requests from Sam Bennett (10:30) and Victor Mete (13:45), the search for a GM in Pittsburgh […]

I lit a candle in my office. I'm one of those guys. I like the scented candles. Yeah. And I got to the bottom and my office now looks like a 1920s poker room. I just have to open up a window. Give me a sec.

Elliot Patchouli. You would think I just smoked like a pack of unfiltered camels in here. Elliot, it's Sunday evening. It's just before nine o'clock Eastern and chasing this Tony D'Angelo story, since you tweeted that he had been placed on waivers by the New York Rangers, has a certain cats and laser pointer element about it. But what do we know right now?

So let's just traffic in in what i know and i can say that i'm confident is true without anybody willing to go on the record saturday night rangers penguins into the slot wrist shot deflected no goal by zucker stopped by georgia zucker gets it back shoots one up over the net. Ten seconds before the winning goal is scored, Georgiev and D'Angelo have a mix-up, a miscommunication behind the net. He lost it, but he battled at the end of the shift to get it back. He goes for a change.

Crosby and Rust out there now for the Penguins. Joining them is Joseph. He has it. To the near side for Rust. Misfired on the pass. Comes behind the net for Georgiev. Turns it over to Russ. Sidney Crosby gets in between them.

And the Rangers players, who are already on the ice for a while and noticeably exhausted, can't get off. Crosby scores. And the Penguins win in overtime. You can lock the doors and turn out the lights because the Penguins have won this win in overtime. You can lock the doors and turn out the lights because the Penguins have won this game in overtime. Sidney Crosby on Broadway, 5-4 Pengs. Oh, my captain, my captain comes to save the day.

They go off the ice. Georgiev is sitting disappointed. Like any competitive person, especially a goaltender, would be after a game like that. And D'Angelo walks by him and makes a sarcastic crack to him. And Georgiev clocks him. And they go at it and their teammates break it up. Later that night, the Rangers call D'Angelo. I don't know if they call him or they call his agent or what they do,

and they say, that's the last straw. You're going on waivers tomorrow. And then at noon Eastern, that's what happens. And it's 24 hours before another team can pick him up at noon, Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Monday after this podcast is released. But that's kind of where we are. That's what happened.

You know, I know there are so many rumors. I know that D'Angelo's history probably makes a lot of those rumors seem believable, but I was really cautioned to be careful about what I said, because there are a number of things that are out there that are not true or are half truths. And people just said, be careful because it's one of those things that's going to unfold in real time, and you have to be careful. So that's the incident.

I believe the incident I just described is what happened from the end of the game to the confrontation, to the breaking up by the teammates, to the informing that he was going on waivers. So what are the options now for the New York Rangers? And let's assume, and this might be wrong, perhaps in a situation like this, Merrick, you shouldn't assume anything because who knows what other teams are going to do. If we assume that Tony D'Angelo doesn't get claimed on waivers by any team, what happens with him

and the Rangers? What can happen with him and the Rangers? Again, I don't want to say anything is absolute because things can always change, but I don't think anybody expects that Tony DeAngelo will play for the Rangers again. I mean, things can always change, but I don't believe anybody expects it.

Now, a player has to go on regular waivers before they can be put on unconditional waivers to have a contract terminated. However, you have to have a basis to terminate a contract. Patrick Berglund leaving Buffalo and saying, no, I need my time out, that was a basis to terminate. You see a lot of players from the minor leagues who aren't happy with where they are and they simply say, you know what, I'd like to go to Europe and get a job there. I think I have a better opportunity. And there's a mutual agreement where they say, okay, we'll break the deal. If Tony D'Angelo doesn't want his contract terminated, the question is, will the Rangers be able to do it?

And most people I spoke to on Sunday, they don't think that the Rangers will be able to unilaterally do it. But as someone said to me, you don't know unless you research it. Do you try whatever, but they say the odds aren't with them. Although I could always be wrong. If he doesn't get claimed, they'll try to trade them. If they can't trade them, you know, here come the questions. Do you want them with your prospects in the American hockey league?

Do you want them around your team on the taxi squad? I think it's most likely he's sent home and he waits it out. And the other thing that someone reminded me of today is that D'Angelo doesn't turn 26 until October. So that means he can be bought out for one third of his contract, not the regular two thirds. Now, I had some people who said to me today that they wondered if anybody would claim him on waivers, knowing that if it doesn't work,

you can buy them out for one third instead of two third. But I don't know, like the thing about this is that you really have to do a deep dive to make sure that you want to do this. And it's 24 hours, give you enough time to do it. I think the other thing too, Jeff, is any team that does it, there's going to be heat. And our team's going to take that heat. You mentioned that there was and has been all Sunday, a lot of stories out there about Tony D'Angelo. It feels to me like there has been a lot of pushback on these stories. I'm curious because a lot of this podcast revolves around how does this work? That question.

In a situation like this, after you put that tweet out and some of the stories start coming out, how much of these do you as a journalist feel obliged to check out? I checked a lot. Here's the thing. Time moves so fast. It just seems to move so much faster in the social media era. to move so much faster in the social media era. You know, you hear all the rumors and you're like, okay, I want to get the story or, but especially with these stories, you have to be so careful, right? There were a lot of things I looked into, you know, like I said, I have a feeling that this isn't going to be the end of what we've heard of it. I think this is going to trickle out over days, but I had some things I looked at and people were like, you're on the right track. Like

what I described at the beginning happened. I had a number of people who said to me, that's what happened. But there were some other things that I heard rumors. And I'm sure people out there on social media have heard these same rumors. I have people saying, don't go there or be very careful. You know, make sure you're 100% right because if you're half right, you can't be half right on this. So it's really challenging. There's no question it's really challenging because you want to do the story proper justice and you want to handle it right.

And you just have to be very careful it's it's what i can prove and what i can't prove to the best of your knowledge from all of your phone calls and investigations today is there anyone standing up and defending tony d'angelo that you know of the only defending about him i've gotten in this situation is that's not true or that isn't true didn't happen the way you're describing it to me that's the defense of him i've gotten is just make sure what you say is accurate because there's going to be a lot of fallout from this and if i've had something like that explanation of what happened post game like several different people said to me what you're saying is true and they weren't

defending him for that i think people were angry that he said that to goriev post game you don't do that but some of the other stuff people were saying to me don't go there that's not right it was almost as if they were saying there's enough that he's wrong about or that he should be punished about that you don't need to go into areas where it wasn't true as elliot mentions this story is still far from over. And with that, we'll start the podcast. It's 31 Thoughts presented by podcast, as we kick off another week. Elliot will greet this week by revisiting something he mentioned on headlines on HockeyNet in Canada on Saturday, and that is trade requests.

You know, we've already talked about the formula for getting out of town, and we talked about Patrick Lyon, and we talked about Pierre-Luc Dubois. What can you tell us about Sam Bennett of Calgary, Victor Mete of Montreal? In Bennett's case, I heard on Saturday morning that Sam Bennett would like to be moved from Calgary. You know, the first person I called was his agent, Darren Ferris, and I asked him if it was true. I also asked him to go on the record about it.

And he thought about it and he agreed. And, you know, once you have someone on the record that is saying it's true, you know, you have the story, right? The Flames were very quiet about it of course they can't like it right like nobody wants that kind of dirty laundry being aired i think there's a couple other things here too sam bennett was brad tree living's first draft pick i think there's an attachment there obviously tree living was invested in bennett's success and i think he has always been invested in Bennett's success. And I think he likes Bennett's game.

Like Bennett hasn't always had the most impactful regular seasons, but he's been a good playoff performer for them, including this past year when they were disappointed after beating Winnipeg, they lost to Dallas. You know, Bennett played pretty hard. He plays the kind of game that you need in the playoffs and I think Tree Living sees that your point about the regular season with Bennett

is well made and you know the evidence is in front of us on you know manhl.com or hockey db but he's that guy that in the regular season and we've talked about this, tough to quantify in this world of, well, show me this with the math. But when someone runs around on the Calgary Flames, generally that's the guy that's standing up to them. Generally that's the guy that says, not on my watch, hippie. You're not going to do that. I agree with that. Him and Kachaka, not on my watch, hippie. You're not going to do that. I agree with that. Him and Kachaka, I think, are the two guys.

And you're right. Playoff time shows around. Like how many times, we talked about this with Pat Maroon a couple of years ago, right? What was your line? There's guys that get you there. It's Mark Bergevin's line. They get you there and they get you through. Yeah, there are guys that get you there and there are guys that get you through.

Any idea why? I just think he wants to be used more. there are guys that get you there and there are guys that get you through any idea why i just think he wants to be used more and with lindholm playing center they're really deep down the middle you know they've got lindholm they've got monaghan they've got backland you know that's three really good centers and that means you know bennett at best is your fourth line center or he's a third line winger. And I think he just wants more of a role. Now, I don't think it's the first time he's ever done it. I had someone say to me that he's done it before and they've kind of always talked him down. But he was upset this year after the season started.

And then I think he reiterated it Thursday night after they lost to Montreal. And I think he reiterated it Thursday night after they lost to Montreal. And I think we're in a situation here where, you know, I don't think the Flames are really that interested in doing it. They didn't want to talk to me, like I said, on Saturday. But the more I researched it, the more I heard they're really not in a hurry to do it. I'm curious to see now if anything changes now that it got out. Victor Mete Montreal, is this just a victim of the numbers game on the back end?

Yeah. Oh yeah. You know, I don't think the Canadians have any issue with Victor Mete as a player. You know, they're very smart. They haven't put them on waivers because they know they're going to lose them for nothing.

You know, last week on the headlines, I reported that he was available. I didn't know this about you know how far it had gotten i heard bergevin was really upset when that got out and i think part of it is because you know they're going so well you know i understand metis frustration believe me i understand metis frustration if i wasn't playing i'd be frustrated too but if you're montreal you're looking really good you just had your first loss in regulation all year it's the classic who are people responsible for bergevin is responsible for his team he cares about his team he's like we don't need this this is not right and you know ferris is saying he's responsible

for his client who hasn't played a game yet and he's saying i gotta stand up for my client but it was a it was a crazy couple of hours that's for sure now i think pittsburgh has looked at mette pittsburgh's looked at every single defenseman have you looked have you looked at what's happened to that blue line now they lost the tang it's horrendous what's that smash unit that blue line is a mash unit so it wouldn't it wouldn't surprise me the pittsburghs looked at mette and i think the other thing too is montreal they would like to have a body back and also you know don't forget mette is also making seven something right so it's not like you can take a big salary in return so i think montreal is being really careful about this i think they the end of the day,

I think the Canadians really liked the player and he's caught in a numbers game as opposed to he's not good. Plus also like you look at what's happening with Dubois right now, anybody you bring to Canada has got to sit through a 14 day quarantine, right? So these teams are coming and sitting here saying that adds to the problem. It ain't easy. You mentioned the Pittsburgh Penguins,

and we will talk about this probably every podcast until the position is filled. The hunt for the new general manager. Where are we? I think it'll start to pick up in earnest this week. Scott Mellenby, Renaud Lavoie reported he took his name out. New Jersey has taken Tom Fitzgerald out of it. Those are a couple people who I think

would have been in the mix. I'm not sure where Jason Botterill stands in all of this. And initially it was reported that the Rangers would not give Chris Drury permission. I'm not sure about that. I still think he could very well be on the radar here. You know, I heard a couple of really interesting names.

I heard Joe Neuendijk potentially. And another name I heard is someone we discussed on Friday's podcast. And that is, could Jason Carmanos be back in the picture? Jim Rutherford's former right-hand man yes we backtrack to joe newendike there for a second i like joe newendike a lot i think joe newendike's a really smart person and i'm glad to hear that his name is back in the mix yeah for management positions i don't want to get too much into it. I'm just glad that his name is out there again.

I got all the time in the world for Joe Neuendijk. And I'll tell you this, like Joe Neuendijk is a guy who's gone dark for a bit. I think he was frustrated at the way some things went before. I think he's a really good person. And if he wants to get back in, I think the game's better with him around. So I hope it means that he wants to kind of get back in a little bit more. And the Jason Carmanos name, should that

surprise people? It surprised me when I heard it, but you know, we spoke pretty nicely about him on Friday morning and you know, when he got let go, a lot of people were shocked because him and Rutherford had been together for a long time, right? Like, I think they're going to talk to 10 to 15 people and whittle it down. Chris mentioned John Ferguson Jr.

I think Michael Feud is around there. I think Mike Gillis is around there. I think Lawrence Gilman's around there. I think Drury, there was a concern that he wouldn't be there. I think he is going's around there. I think Drury, there was a concern that he wouldn't be there. I think he is going to be there, but I, the two new ones I heard this weekend were Neuendijk and Carmanos. Before we get to Kevin Bieksa, who's our

guest today on the podcast, he's in transit going from Ontario to California. I wanted to ask you, we didn't have time last podcast, but I wanted to ask you about Lee Stempniak. Yes. And this new title that he has with the Arizona Coyotes, hockey data strategist. Before I make my nickel and dime point about it, can you describe what his position is

with Arizona right now? Because I find it completely unique. I love the position. right now that I find it completely unique. I love the position. He is the person who is to take the data and put it in a way that is easy to understand or acceptable to understand for the people who can use it, whether it's coaches, executives, or players. There's a book I read called Big Data Baseball.

It's all about the Pittsburgh Pirates and how they brought analytics into their organization and how it helped the players. And the chapter or the part that stood out, they tell the analytics people that they have to be in the clubhouse. So if the players have a question about information they're being given, they're there and they can answer the question. And the Pirates felt very strongly that that helped. It really helped the players understand why it mattered. And it helped their communication.

And, you know, unfortunately, Stepniak really can't go in the dressing room, but that's kind of the role I see it. Okay, this is why this data matters. This is why it can help, and I'm going to explain it to you. And that's his role. See, and to me, the key there is he was an ex-player. Yeah. You know, 14 seasons, 900 games. Like, he's not going to walk into a room and no one's going to say,

who's that guy? Well, that guy was 90 games short of playing 1,000 games in the NHL. I'm a big fan of the Effectively Wild podcast from Fangraph, speaking of baseball. I think Ben Lindbergh is excellent. I think Meg Rowley is fantastic. I love that podcast. And they brought up an interesting point a while ago that when I saw your Lee Snepniak story in 31 Thoughts, I thought of them right away. And they made an interesting point. Baseball for the longest time, like all sports, was full of managers that played the game. And then that started to change as the analytics movement, sabermetrics movement moved into baseball and really took hold. Then it became, you know, clubhouses and management staffs full of people that didn't play the game, but could think the game.

has been a couple of generations now of baseball bathed in this way of understanding, or as I would say, measuring the game, you're starting to see more players understand and use these numbers to their advantage. And the byproduct of that is you're starting to see the return of ex-ball players in more traditional management positions because it's no longer, you know, the people that do the sabermetrics over here and the ball players over here. The ball players understand now what that all means and how it can help them. and they now all of a sudden are in a unique position of one, having played the game, understanding all the things that go into it, but two, understanding things like underlying numbers, like metrics that matter that might not be obvious. And I saw your Snepniak story and I thought to myself, if I'm a player in the NHL right now, and I'm thinking about a management position or staying in the game past my career. I'm following that model. I'm trying to understand everything that Eric Tolsky in Carolina knows.

Yeah. Like I'm trying to like for the longest time, I always thought, you know, if I'm a player, I don't worry about that. I don't worry about my game. I don't think like, oh, I got to get five shots to heat up my core C. And I always used to say, don't think like that, just play. But I think I'm starting to change on that. That you should understand that if you want to have a career after your playing career is over. I really thought that was profound from Megan Ben on the Effectively Wild podcast who pointed that out.

Because you are seeing it in baseball. and Ben on the Effectively Wild podcast who pointed that out because you are seeing it in baseball and we all know that hockey is behind baseball when it comes to approval and understanding and you know blending traditional with new ways of thinking and I saw your Stepniak story and I said good on that guy

because he's that guy who played 900 games and understands the new way to measure it I don't know that I have a question other than I say, good for Lee Stepniak, Elliot. And he won't be the last one. Everybody's going to start

to look at this kind of position. Even for where we work in television, how many times have we said, if only there was someone that could break this down really simply and effectively and make it digestible quickly for television. We did a lot of analytics our first two years.

And do you remember what the focus group said? They hated them. Just math, math, math. But because I always maintain that it wasn't math used to tell stories or it wasn't numbers used to tell stories. Actually, there's someone who listens to this podcast I know who will laugh because we always have this argument that he believes there's a way that numbers that can be used to tell good stories on TV. And I tend to agree with that. I don't think we've completely found it yet. And I'll tell you something else. I also do believe that there's a lot of people

who are like, you know what, I deal with this at work, or this forces us to make very hard, painful decisions at work. And I don't want this while I watch my sports. But I love doing the analytics the first two years. But when the overwhelming audience comes back and says, we hate this, then it still shows we're searching for the right way to do this. But Elliot, between you and me, you miss the puck wall, don't you? I do miss the puck wall.

I miss it a lot. And whenever we walk up to the commentators room, there's PJ's puck wall is still out there. I miss that. I miss the world's greatest pre pregame show. And we're going to miss Kevin BX on Wednesdays. He is on his way back to California. I do understand

he's still working hockey night in Canada, which is wonderful. You'll hear from Kevin Bieksa en route back to California. 31 Thoughts returns. so Elliot Kevin Bieksa is with us and on Wednesday at during Scotiabank Wednesday Night Hockey at

one point I said to Kevin Kevin we can't miss you if you won't leave. Well, I guess Kevin, you took that to heart because you've left and you're on the road and you're driving back home after doing hockey night in Canada on Saturday. First of all, welcome back to the podcast. Second of all,

where are you? Well, I am in Toledo, Ohio right now, visiting two good friends from university that live here now with their four beautiful children. But the real story, Jeff, is I made fun of you on Wednesday night and you complained. I was going to bring this up. Like, is it true that you were ordered to stand down and stop making fun of Merrick on Wednesday's show?

What? People were worried about Jeff. They think he's very sensitive and they're like, you're, you're making too many Jeff jokes about we don't need a host. And then Jeff was kind of crying behind the scenes. And so basically I got fired.

I got fired. He got scolded. He got scolded. So, you know what I was going to do is I was going to go on Twitter and say like, yeah, we're going to have a fight and whoever wins,

like one of us was going to return to Wednesday and whoever won the fight was going to be there. I got verbally abused, Jeff. So the fight won't happen. I got Randy Carlisle by the producer Marzi. Yeah. Sportsnet muscle, Matt Marstrom. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

He gave it. People are worried about you. They think you're very, very delicate. They don't think you can handle it. When it was over, BX,X was like whimpering in the corner. I thought I was going to have to call HR. What did I say to you on the first night? I challenge you to offend me.

I don't listen to you when you talk. Evidently, it took three shows. I'll tell you what. You know what I was pissed off about on Wednesday? I mentioned this to Elliot on the way out of the building on Wednesday night. I was pissed off at myself. Why? Because I didn't have any control over that show whatsoever.

Like, it was fun and it was good and all that. But I remember leaving the set and going, man, did I suck tonight or what? You're supposed to be in control? Well, I mean, that's kind of the position of the host. I mean, I think it made for great segments. I just remember leaving and going, man, I was awful tonight. You know what, Jeff? I feel bad

for you but i can't say i've ever had that feeling leaving the studio so yeah you know what uh you know what was funny is that like on saturday night i tried to go uh toe-to-toe with pj and like so one of my when you were ripping, or not PJ, sorry, with Kevin, same thing. Kevin, PJ, same thing, basically. Tough, both tough. Yeah, both tough. So Kevin makes fun of my jacket. And I said, well, look at that tie. Like, it looks like it's from my grandmother's couch.

And one of my buddies was like, I thought that was a great line until I realized that was Kevin's daughter's Christmas gift. And then you just look like a jerk. I realized that was Kevin's daughter's Christmas gift. And then you just looked like a jerk. She got that for me two Christmases ago. And after I called her after the show and I said, I'm really sorry that man made fun of you on national television in front of 2.5 million people, Reese,

like I still love it. And she goes, don't bring my, don't bring my pictures that I drew for you in for him to make fun of those too. Just bullying my wife. No, she didn't. I didn't even call her. She was fine.

She thought it was funny when she heard about it. She's a BX. She just laughs it off. We got some thick skin. How's the experience this time now that you're super comfortable on television? It's good. It's good. I can't complain. The last four weeks have been fun working the Wednesdays until I got fired. And then the Saturdays, it's been nice to get two days in a week. You kind of feel like you're in the rhythm and becomes routine. So now the challenge is doing this from California

where I'm not sitting in the room in between periods watching the game with the guys. And we're not talking. We're not throwing those little jabs. Now it's going to be very, very difficult for me to sit there and make fun of Elliot when I haven't seen him in like a month. I'm sure you'll find a way. I'll still do it, but it'll just be a little bit more of a challenge. So you're driving home, right? You're driving from Toronto to California. So how is this route going to look? This route is going to be a little bit different because I've done this drive a few

times. The quickest way would be to go through the Midwest, Colorado, and then down through Utah. And I didn't want to chance it with the snow and just the weather. So I decided to go south, which is not that much further, but it's safer. So I'm going through Toledo, Cincinnati, Louisville, Kentucky, and then through Memphis to Little Rock, Arkansas, and then Oklahoma City, Texas and New Mexico. So it's going to be like the old Route 66, a couple of new states. I've been to, I think I've been to like 35 states and I'm knocking off four new ones. So I enjoy the drive and I enjoy seeing new places and I have my dog with me. So we'll go on some nice walks and hikes and explore a little bit. And I like that kind of thing.

Now, are you a lead foot guy? Like, do you drive fast? When you do drives like this from what i found the best thing to do is cruise control especially with the car i have the rental habits so it has the cruise control where if you come up to somebody it slows you down automatically so you really don't have to touch the pedal at all and then you can move around and you can like stretch your back and your legs and kind of keep loose that way and uh it just makes it easy you put on cruise control you set it like whatever

12 miles over the speed limit so you don't get pulled over and you just cruise so do you try to be a hero and deny yourself sleep or do you say to yourself you know what i'm starting to get drowsy i better pull over well i'm a bit of a soldier anyways jeff as you know so um like i was gonna plan i was planning on driving tonight after i left here and putting in another five hour shift and getting to louisville but it's all weather advisories here and there's snow storm coming and it's already starting to snow. So I thought I'd stay tonight, but I'll, I'll wake up early tomorrow. I'll put in a good, probably a good 14, 15 hour day. Just grind away soldier.

What was the story with the nine rental cars you had? I was at three enterprises today. I had to drop off one rental in Hamilton. Then I had to pick up one at the airport to drop off directed Detroit airport. And then I had to pick up another one at Detroit airport to drop off in California airport. Just jumping through hoops right now, but that's the only way to do it to one way drop off. You can't one way drop off from Canada toS. right now, especially that far away. So that's the logistics of everything.

From all your time, Kevin, in the NHL, who was the worst driver? Who do you not want to drive with? Kes was a really bad driver. He would drive really fast too. But you just know when somebody's driving the car and you just feel like they're not in control you know what i mean like they just over correcting and like just kind of like gripping the wheel too tight and there's like some people when they drive and they have like the the wheels in

like two fingers and they're just like steering and they're in control well kess was scary because he didn't seem like he had a lot of control, but he would drive so fast. And he always had nice cars. He always had like the fastest cars, like Bentleys and Porsches and everything. And he's just flying down the highway in California. And it's, he's a scary guy to be in the car with. Of all the guys in the NHL now,

who is the one that texts you the most saying, I'm really not happy about what was said on air about me tonight? Well, you probably have better contacts than I do. As far as I'm a positive guy though, we all know on this conversation here that I'm a positive guy. So very rarely do I say something negative about a guy. Corey Perry said a couple times, thanks for the nice things you said about me. But my wife says there's still too many negatives.

And I said, I'm sorry. Like, as soon as I see you, the negatives just pop into my head. Like, can't skate very fast. Like, goofy guy. So I said, take the good with the bad, Perez. I go, it's the good with the bad. That's all I can promise. He's like, okay, fine. He's like, I'm okay with it.

Let me follow that up with something that Elliot and I talk about this all the time. You don't necessarily cheer for teams, but you can cheer for players. You cheer for people to do well and people that you like or people that you think deserve something. Of all the players in the NHL right now, who does Kevin Bieksa cheer for?

Well, that's a good question. Like specifically, who do I cheer for the most? I cheer for... Who do you want to do well? I want all of my friends that I've either trained with over the years in the summer that I know are good people and good players and work hard and care those are the guys I want to do well like a guy like this year Nick Ritchie who's had a kind of a couple off years and then I turned the TV on he's on the first unit power play in front of the net with Boston like that makes me happy when I can see a guy like that you know who I know is a good person, see him doing a bench draw. It's another guy from Montreal.

Like I've, I've skated and trained with Ben since he was 15 years old. So, you know, originally it started with, we would just, you know, train cause all the pro guys and some young guys would skate. But then as we got older, we developed a pretty strong friendship and I tried to pass along like everything I've learned over my career to him to so to see him now where he's at top two defensemen on a Canadian in a Canadian market like that's awesome that's super fulfilling for me to see all the accolades he's getting where's Cam Fowler in this mix Fowler's very high too for me Cam was uh one of my partners for two i played with him for two years out of the three and still keep

in close contact with him still talk to him often and just an awesome guy like looks a little bit grumpy but that's an american right americans are grumpy but just a a super great teammate always positive never never yells never points the finger he'll always blame himself before anybody else even if it's not his fault he'll'll take the blame. I just, I have all the time in the world for guys like that. Josh Manson, another guy, he's having a tough year. He just got injured. He's out for six weeks. Like another guy who, when he came up, he was super respectful. He, he basically took my job, uh, after three years and I was totally okay with it because I just felt like he deserved it. He came up, I said, Mance, you got to play the exact same way I do. So if I fight

eight times a year, you're fighting eight times a year. If I'm throwing a big hit every game, you're throwing a big hit. And he ended up taking that to heart and basically took my position in Anaheim, which I'm totally okay with because I'm proud that I had a small part in that. I love that answer. You drive safe. You be well. And as you always know, the door is wide open for Kevin Bieksa in whatever we do, Kevin. Well, the pleasure is all yours, guys. So thank you. Make sure you call me when you get home i will i'll check in guys don't worry make sure you're right i want a postcard from everywhere kevin i'll be in kentucky tomorrow if anybody wants to talk for three hours and that's kevin bx you know my favorite end of the night closing song is closing time by

lyle love it elliot but we're not going to play that. Oh, great song. Great song. I know, I know. Mixing sound all evening. Oh, it's a beautiful song. We're going to take you out with this, though, and this one is for Kevin, a little song for the road as I know you're listening to this podcast, Kevin, because you are on it.

Taking us out, a three-piece band out of Hamilton, Ontario, New Hands released their 10-track debut album, Leave It With The Night in 2015, after a spree of singles. From that album, here's Decide and Conquer by New Hands. For you, Kevin Bieksa, listening to this podcast, it is 31 Thoughts.

Thanks for joining us today. It started at 19 Thanks for joining us today. I can't, I can't just stay You won't love it till you're tired Of living that night No more time to miss it You're not a good looking friend But kiss her eyes As far as you know You gave up so long ago

As far as you know It stopped at nothing at all