32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Take That for Data

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

In this episode of 32 Thoughts, Kyle Bukauskas and Elliotte Friedman open with the Pittsburgh Penguins returning to the playoffs and the strong coaching impact of Dan Muse, while the Utah Mammoth also clinch a postseason berth (12:00). They discuss Cole Caufield reaching the 50-goal mark (17:00), the Islanders picking up their first win under Peter DeBoer (29:00) and the tightening Eastern Conference race, including Buffalo finally ending their playoff drought (38:00). The guys also look ahead to a physical Dallas–Minnesota first-round matchup (45:30), break down the Western Conference race (48:00), and touch on the future of Alex Ovechkin (51:00). They also cover the Maple Leafs hiring a firm to assist in their GM search (57:00), the Devils parting ways with Tom Fitzgerald (1:00:30), evolving conversations around data-driven front offices (1:04:00), and Ron Francis stepping down in Seattle (1:19:00). The Final Thought focuses on the USHL adopting a standard player development agreement (1:28:30) Kyle and Elliotte answer listener questions in the Thoughtline (1:34:32) In the final segment Kyle Bukauskas talks to recently retired 13 year NHL veteran Ryan Johansen (2:10:21). This week we highlight Vancouver's pop-psych band Groove Saloon and their track Look At Me. Check their music out here. Listen to all the 32 Thoughts music here. Email the podcast at [e-mail] or call the Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemail. This podcast was produced and mixed by Dominic Sramaty and hosted by Elliotte Friedman & Kyle Bukauskas. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates

I don't know how we got off on this, but this is the clothes. I would pick the football Jets, but I think that's probably the only way the football Jets can win anything, Dom. I was going to say, a rare W. We're going to get some text from like Adam Lowry. How dare you think we couldn't beat the Jets by enough on the ice. Welcome to 32 Thoughts, the podcast presented by your Canadian Toyota dealers and the 100% Electric BZ, And available now during Red Tag days. Elliot, Dom, Kyle, with you once again.

Happy Friday and Elliot, less than a week left in the regular season. One week tomorrow, the Stanley Cup playoffs begin. The Avalanche, claim the President's Trophy on Thursday night. We have over half the playoff field that have punched their ticket. Two more additions on Thursday. Utah Mammoth will get to you in a bit. But first, we've got to start with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The one team that was supposed to be rebuilding this season.

Remember that? I'm sure you do. Now, not only are the penguins going to the playoffs, they're going to have whole mice in the first round. So I stand corrected, Elliot. You, in fact, are one heck of a motivator. So here's the great thing about this. I have real happiness.

for the Penguins employees, the players, everybody who works there and their fans, I'm really happy for them. They deserve a fun, unexpected season like this one. And my DMs have had a few Penguins fans in my Twitter or social media comments have had a few Penguins fans saying, are you going to talk about this?

or are you going to talk about how Sidney Crosby didn't need it to be traded anywhere? And for the Penguins fans, I'm really happy for them. You've had an unexpected great season, and sometimes those are the best seasons. But let's be honest about this, Kyle. While I'm happy for all of you, we all know one thing.

None of you expected this either. So the Penguins put out this great video that's, pinned to the top of their social media changes about everybody clobbering them at the beginning of the year. If you plied all of their employees in their hockey operations department with true serum, they would admit this too. So I have no problem with the celebration dance on top of all of us. That's what sports is all about. I think it's been a great year. And I'll say this too. Who am I happy for? Hardcore Penguins fans 100%.

Great year for you guys. Eric Carlson changed the narrative around him. Fantastic season. Sidney Crosby, one of the great ambassadors the sport has ever seen. Really happy for him. And a guy like Dan Mews. You know, you go back to the beginning of this year.

Remember when Dan Mews was hired? You know, I didn't know him very well at all. And I asked a few people about him. They said, hockey lifer loves the sport, knows hockey, good teacher. But a lot of people really wondered, was he going to be able to be the guy who was going to be able to walk into a dressing room led by two Hall of Famers at the stature of Crosby and Malkin and be able to say, this is how we're going to be able to do things. And this is how we're going to do things. And you know what the answer to that question, Kyle was? The answer to the question was yes.

He could. He sold them on how they were going to play, and it worked. And I'm really happy for people like that. I really am. People who dedicate their life to hockey, love hockey, get this opportunity and run with it, I think it's a great thing. And, you know, the Jack Adams Award, Mews might win it, and he deserves it if he does.

I just wish there were two Jack Adams. I wish there was the Jack Adams for the coach who was not expected to do anything and overachieved, and I wish there was a Jack Adams for the coach who had a really good team again and again and again and hit expectations. Because Colorado won the President's Trophy on Thursday night, Jared Bednarz never won it.

John Cooper has never won it. And I think that kind of sustained excellence we take for granted how hard it is, how difficult it is to do that year after year. And I wanted to shout those guys out too. But what a great year this was for Pittsburgh. I'll say this. I've heard that there are some people in and around the NHL and particularly some other teams that are really,

really happy the penguins look like they're going to host the first two games, because next week the NFL draft is going to Pittsburgh. And I had heard, Kyle, that some visiting teams wanted no part of that. Like, wanted, like, apparently hotels, really hard to come by. Logistics, really difficult. And I think it's probably a big win. Even if these teams have to start on the road, I think they would rather play games one and two in Pittsburgh. than games three and four in Pittsburgh because it was going to be a logistical nightmare. But what a great year for the penguins,

and I'm really happy for their fans. That's a great, great success story. And you know what, Kyle? The NHL is better with Sidney Crosby in the playoffs. It's been too long. Yes. And you know this whole thing about Crosby getting traded, whether or not it was ever going to happen,

the whole theory behind it and the whole philosophy behind it was the NHL needs Sidney Crosby in the playoffs. And I'm not saying the NHL was behind it, but the people who were trying to convince Crosby about it were saying that to him. You deserve playoff hockey. Well, you know what? He didn't get traded and he's going to play play play playoff hockey. And for the sport, that's a great thing. no question so michel crecciolo who does a great job covering the team one of the posts that she had after the game was a memory she had at the start of the year

she was doing a ride along with malkin when they did their season ticket deliveries and uh as he was talking about then about missing the playoffs how hard it had been and he was saying he just he wanted one more with crosbie and letang obviously at that time future's absolutely unknown and certainly the unknown still exists beyond this season but if nothing else they've got one more, the three of them

the three stalwarts we all love to see as we talked about earlier in the season does a day come where a statue of all three of them in some way is part of outside of PPG paints arena I also just wanted to mention Elliot

so early in the year I talked with Peter Laviolette because he had Dan Mure on his staff a couple of different times. And so initially when he was first looking for an assistant coach, he called up the late Jim Johansson, who was with USA hockey. He goes, I need someone who is younger than me, is smarter than me, that works harder than me, and thinks differently than me.

And Jim gave him, whether it was one name or the first name, and that was Dan Mews. And now his first opportunity as the head guy, it's, been really impressive because you mentioned like Carlson's turn back the clock but you go down the list like even further down the lineup the amount of guys that have had career years for Pittsburgh all of it factoring into where they are now and I think the the messaging how he's gone about empowering that whole group I think all plays into it as well that's a great point I didn't mention Anthony Mantha. I should mention him too. I told this story on the Hockey Central show with Marquesi and Futa and somebody, a podcast listener asked me about it. And the thing I'm really happy for

Mantha is I was told about one team this year. And I was told the story by a player. And he told me that The leadership group on his team was asked about bringing Manta in. And they were kind of meh on it. They didn't say yes. They didn't say no. But sometimes, Kyle, when you don't say yes, that's the answer. And so he didn't have a great reputation league-wide. And this year he goes into Pittsburgh on basically a show-me deal.

And he lights it up. And I think it's going to be very interesting to see what the penguins do here, but that's a story for another day. The bottom line is we talked about Carlson. There's a lot of people feeling very differently about Anthony Manton this year in a good way. And this whole Pittsburgh team is about that. I'm really happy for, I'm happy for guys like that. I think that I talk about this a lot.

You always have a chance to re-refer. write your narrative always. It's up to you in a lot of ways. And Carlson did that this year and Mantha did that this year. Been really impressive. So the Penguins are the first time since 2022 are back in the postseason, Elliot. Yeah. And I did want to mention that this Friday, which is April the 10th, so Reno Spezza, Jason's dad passed away a couple of weeks ago. And And Friday will be the funeral and the celebration of life for him. And I can't attend, unfortunately. I wanted to.

I'm elsewhere. But I just wanted to wish the Speza family the best. I think if you ever dealt with Jason over the years and you did in Ottawa and you did in Dallas and you did in Toronto, You knew Reno Spezza and how much he loved watching Jason play, how much he loved hockey, and how much he loved his family. And so this will be as great as the professional success was for Spets in his organization. Friday will be a challenging day for his family. And I just wanted to wish the Spets is all the best. I had the fortune of meeting Mr. Spetsa several times during Jason's career,

and you could tell just how much he loved being around and how much he was proud of Jason and the rest of his family. Nice. Nicely said, Elliot, echo all of that. Okay, so Pittsburgh's in, the Utah Mammoth, second season of existence. The first known as the Mammoth are often. to the playoffs as well. So they beat Nashville on Thursday. The sharks lost at the ducks, so they're in.

They won eight of their first 10 to start the year. They came out firing. There were some wobbly moments along the way. Logan Cooley missed a bunch of time. Sean Dursie was out for a while. You mentioned last paw that they were looking at Peter DeBore at some point along the way, but they've righted themselves. Five straight, playoff hockey is coming to Salt Lake City.

Fridge? They are unbeaten since the arrival of the Zamath. Oh, yeah. And constructed out of what was left out of the Zamboony from the Salt Lake City Olympics, right? Fantastic. See, I look at the Zameth as Yankee fans used to look at Mariano Rivera. You had the lead in the eighth inning, and then Mariano came on and the game was over. You felt very confident that you were going to win.

I think the Zameth is the Mariano Rivera of the Utah organization. You know, it's pretty amazing. You think about it. They now have had two playoff appearances, and I think 14 years. And I think the other one was the bubble one when Darcy Kemper basically single-handedly beat Nashville and put the coyotes into the playoffs. I have to say, I think this is a really good thing for the league. You know, I remember when Vegas made the Stanley Cup final in their first year,

there were people who thought, like, that's a joke. I disagree with that, one billion percent. I think when you have new teams coming in, in, it's better for your league, the quicker they're successful. And, you know, Vegas has been one of the stalwarts and one of the revenue cornerstones of the NHL since they came in. And I think it was a lot because they were so good so quickly. And I look at Utah, and this is their second season, and they're going to make the playoffs.

They're actually a really fun team to watch. I find them very, play a very entertaining style of hockey. but look they've got an outdoor game next year Kyle you're in a market where you have a chance to be a real force and a real factor and they're in I think this is a really good thing for the NHL that they're there but you know I think it's a really good thing for the NHL Kyle

that they're there and I'm curious to see this team in the playoffs because they play an up-temper, kind of game, and they're going to play the winner of the Pacific Division, which as we do this, the leader is Edmonton. First of all, that would be an unbelievable series to watch for a stylistic standpoint. But I think also, too, I want to see if that can work in the postseason. You know, the postseason in a lot of ways becomes grind time, and that's not the way that they generally like to play.

So I'm excited and curious to see how they do once the puck drops at that point in the year. But overall, I look at it and say it's good for the NHL and good for the market that they're in there. And we talked about, and we'll get to Buffalo again in a little bit, but we talked about them as the team that loves to play up tempo, loves to be aggressive. We see how active their defense are. And how is that?

And internally wondering, too, how is that going to translate to the playoffs? And it sounds like Utah has got a lot of the same questions. I mean, for a bunch of those guys, it's really their first taste of it all. But there's a reason why they went and targeted a guy like McKenzie Weeger. You know, that's a body that helps you win when the playing style shifts come the springtime. So it's going to be great. the Zameth is like the closer and Tuske was early on too

Remember he was red hot They rolled him out and they couldn't lose at home for a long stretch So they've had a few closers over this I wonder what they're going to come up with in the playoffs If they're down in a series We've got the mascot We've got the Zamboni Say like they're down 2-1 or 3-2

What do they pull out For game 4 Or game 6 what can they still come up with? I don't know. Maybe something flying through the air. Mammoth don't fly.

I hate to tell you this. Mammoth don't fly. Well, I know that, but like desperate times, I can just see something soaring through the Delta Center, getting the crowd going. I didn't say I had to be a mammoth. I don't know.

Well, I was thinking that they've got big duck in Anaheim that kind of flies through the arena there and it looks terrifying so that's why they stopped doing that am i not sure they stopped doing that no i think like it's not it's not wild wing it's a different apparatus okay but no i think it still exists some ducks fan will tell us yeah it's been a while since i've been to a game out there yeah Where were you Thursday night? I was in Montreal. I'm going to say this.

So I was flying home from our vacation in Miami and our flight was delayed a couple hours. So I was late to the game. I walked in the building just as Cole Coughfield scored his 50th goal. So I am taking full credit for this. My arrival led to Cole Coughfield's 50th. He doesn't score it if I'm not there.

You're insane. Let me just say this about that game. 2-1 game, 39 combined shots. That's one of the best games I've seen this year. Yes. First of all, the building went berserk when... he scored. They were so happy.

And it was a nice night because, you know, Kyle, there were a lot of parents there. I saw Josh Anderson's mom. I saw Lane Hudson's dad. Of course, Cole Cawfield's dad was there. As you know, I'm Blue Jays won Cubs too. Mr. Cawfield was wearing a brewer's cap. Disgusting.

Big Cubs rival. Tortured the Blue Jays for years. you know, it was interesting. I know of at least one reporter who went to go find Mr. Caulfield, and he said, no, this is my son's night, which I liked. But I think that's a great thing that he was there and there were a number of family members who were there. Like the one thing that Martin St. Louis talked about in the post game was that those guys all genuinely seemed to like each other.

And I think when the players like each other, it gravitation. to the parents too. And, you know, Kyle, you're a father now and I'm a father. You know, all you ever, when you're a parent, mother or father, and any mother or father listening to this knows this. All you care about is that your kids do well, right? Like, you don't matter. Nothing you do matters. It's all about are your kids successful? And I think when with the parents all there, a bunch of them who I saw, they all understand on a good team or a team that's close,

they all are proud of each other because they all live, they see Cole Cawfield score 50 and they're like, yeah, that's great for my guy's happy for him. And Martin St. Louis, Eric Engels actually asked this question in the post game,

but, you know, San Luis, said of O'Kofield, he celebrates everything. And not even the stuff he does, the stuff other guys do. You know, one of the things that's really interesting for me, and I'm here to do some interviews for the playoffs, but one of the things that's interesting for me is this Montreal team, all the Canadians fans are going to love this,

this Montreal team reminds me of the Toronto team in 2017, 2018. You know, when they first were together, Marner, Matthews, Neelander, young team, and they lost that series to Washington, six games. They were the eight seed. Washington was won. Five of those games went to overtime. Like, Washington was the better team, but Toronto gave them everything they could handle. That was like last year, Washington, Montreal.

But the Toronto team was always good. They made the playoffs nine years in a row until this year. But they never got over the hump. But, you know, Mapleese fans, and one of the reasons the Mapleese fans are really struggling right now, is that they were so excited by that young group and they saw such promise in them. And that's where Montreal is now. Like, you can tell all those guys really like each other. They really like playing with each other. They like practicing.

Like, you see the practice videos of them. They all really like practicing with each other. And tonight, like, you could see in this game against the lightning, And the Lightning are fighting everybody these days. They all stood up for each other. Yeah. Like they all stood. Like the one thing that's really clear is Josh Anderson is getting into playoff mode.

Like Josh Anderson understands one thing. The way he plays and the way he is, he can't play 82 games like that. There's going to be games where you're like, wait a second, I didn't know Josh Anderson. I didn't notice Josh Anderson tonight. How can that happen? Well, once the puck drops on April 18th, he can have no games off. Like, he has to be ready to play, and he has to be consistently ready to play because he's one of the key emotional heartbeats of the Canadians.

Well, in this game, he was ready to go. Like, it was like, okay, this is the kind of game I have to be ready. I have to tune myself up for the playoffs. He was seeking out everybody. Like the one with Carlisle, Carlisle wanted to fight him, And he bought his time. He waited his time. And then he went in there and he pummeled the guy.

And you could see he was dialed for this one. He knows it's his time a year. But they all stand up for each other. They all were so proud of Caulfield. They legitimately said like when Anderson fought Carlisle, I looked in the side and I saw Mike Matheson who was on the ice. He was pounding his stick. Like as that fight was going on

and Anderson was throwing one after another Mathes was pounding a stick on the ice Like yes, yes, this is great Like and you can see it You can see this group Really likes playing with each other The other thing I really liked about this game for Montreal Is 2-1 game

They didn't give up a lot Like when you played Tampa and I know Hegel wasn't playing and had been still out But You know you're going to give up up stuff against them. They're just too good, but they did not give up a lot. And the other thing you see, and you always read about it, you kind of see about it on TV, you know what really has great defensive instincts is Demadoff. Like there were a couple times, another defense and was up ice, and he came back and he was sort of the last man back. Like on one shift, it happened twice. And he made really good plays. But I just look at them. And I see a team that really stands up for each other and really backs each other. And they're like that Toronto team was when they were starting to rise.

And now the goal is going to be like that Toronto team, they won the first round twice. They never got into the semifinal. That's what the goal is going to be. Can they get past that? But boy, they are fun to watch. And that arena tonight, it was bonkers. Everybody's wearing red. It looks like a big strand of licorice in there.

It's just, it's a phenomenal place to watch hockey. And you can see there's a lot of people in that building who've covered hockey for a long time. And they get excited watching it too. Josh Anderson is getting in the playoff mode. That building is getting into playoff mode. It was spectacular there. on Thursday. I remember Bruce Cassidy

when he was coaching the Bruins that year they went to the final and lost to St. Louis in Game 7. He said similar about that group, about how genuinely happy everybody was for each other there and how they got along. As you know, as much as you may hear,

we're a tight group, we all look out for each other. There's contracts that come into play, who's getting opportunity here versus there, all the external factors that can throw a wrench into a team's dynamic at certain points. But they had it there in Boston for a long time

and now in Montreal, that's spectacular. It was neat seeing the emotion of Coffield's dad in the crowd because if I'm not mistaken, one of his favorite players when he was young, Paul Coffield I'm talking about, was Peter Stassney. And you think about all the points that Peter Stassany put up in his career, he never had a 50-goal season. and he's stand in that building watching his son do it.

You just gave my question for Friday. Thank you, Kyle. You got like 12 more? Yes, how much time you have while it is late. So he's at 50, Slavkovsky at 30. Yes. He was holding the puck with the tape on it. A couple more things I wanted to mention about Montreal.

Michigan lost on Thursday night. The Michael Hage clock is on. And so I think there were a lot of people expecting that to happen. So we'll see where that goes over the next few days. Michigan's lost two, T.J. Hughes, who is one of the top unrestricted free agents. He'll have a decision to make two. And I also did, another team that lost was North, Dakota and Calgary has a player there.

They traded for in the Rasmus Anderson deal with Vegas. That's Abram Weeb. And everybody seems to think that one's going to get done, that he's going to join the flames. But we'll see where this goes over the next couple of days. I also wanted to shout out a long time Montreal broadcaster, Alain Crete, announced that he was retiring at the end of the season. I did not see him at the game on Thursday night,

but a great career, super nice guy, and I'm jealous of anybody who retires on their own terms. Yeah, it's been a few years here recently. Because we both know, Kyle, I will be thrown out of this business. Yeah, sure for both of us. We're just every day. Email still work? Yes, okay.

You know, one more day. Also, speaking of the flames and college signing, shout out Tyson Gross's first NHL goal here on Thursday. Almost had two. Had the time goal in Colorado. Absolute boo for the situation room. Yes, the play was offside, but I still think you should have just given them the goal. Yes.

That says, can we make an exception, please? It's not Christmas, but you guys are a bunch of Grinches for taking that goal away from him. Outstanding. I'm just looking at the standings here, Elliot. like Montreal, there's still much to be determined at the top of the Atlantic. Whether they play Tampa in the first round, Buffalo, Boston, heck, maybe even Ottawa. We'll see how it all goes. Sign me up for seven games of any of those.

Whatever. Are you doing the Canadians in the playoffs? Do you know yet? I don't know yet. No. Yeah, I think you're going to be doing the Canadians in the playoffs. It'll be a place to be, a place to be. So the Islanders get their first win under Peter DeBoer.

Matthew Schaefer ties Brian Leach for most goals in history by a rookie defenseman, his 23rd. They beat up on Toronto. So first impressions, the Islanders under DeBoer, three days of preparation seemed to have paid off. Well, obviously all the adjustments worked because they outshot the Maple Leafs 44 to 16. What was it, 23 to 3 at the end of the first period? Yeah, I think Toronto may have a few more than three, but it felt that way. Let's say that.

I think it was 23 to 3, but the guy I love was just quickly, we'll get to the honors in the second, but I really loved the young Maple Leaf Gold Tender who was making his first start. Yeah, because they asked him about it, and he says, I loved everything about it, everything. What, it says,

I'll remember everything. I loved it, which is the right attitude you should have. He made 39 saves. And it was an avalanche, to be honest. The Islanders, as we said, just completely own the game and pounded them from beginning to end. And he was the only reason it was even close. By the way, we talked on the last pod about DeBore and how ownership stepped up.

They're paying Wa and now they're paying DeBore. I think their ownership really stepped up. I heard this week that DeBoer is now based on average salary, the third highest paid coach in the NHL. I think Cooper and Sullivan are won two. I'm not sure Sullivan's one or Cooper's one, but they are the top two. And I heard DeBoer is now third.

So the Islanders, you know, we talked, it wasn't only about getting their man. I think it was also about saving this season, and that was a huge point, two points in their game. The other, that was a huge two points in their game on Thursday night. But boy, they really stepped up to get Dabor there. I have to say, I did get a couple calls from people, a couple texts from people.

When I said, they said they loved how you pointed out that when I said, the key for Dabor is just being a little more relaxed in big games and you pointed out how he was unbeaten in game sevens. I had people who reached out to me like they're like Kyle put you in your place. They loved it. They loved it.

So just I just want to let you know you had some real fans there for doing that. I think the other thing there of all the things that kind of was new that was interesting was the fact that

they you know, move Shen to the wing, that they tried that a little bit. And I, you know, I, I'm always curious to see this stuff, what they're going to do, where do people get moved to, what is a new coach, like, how does he deploy guys, and moving Shen to the wing, I thought it was an interesting move.

And he scored the first goal in the game. and like I said, they outshot them 44 to 16, so you can't complain about too much. But obviously, DeBoer has some ideas, and on opening night, everything came up, Millhouse. Sure did. They look good. And now it just keeps getting tighter with three games left. Their opponent on Saturday is the Ottawa Senators who won again, Elliot. Yes, over the Florida Panthers, who had kind of been their kryptonite for the last couple of years. We all remember what happened

just over a week ago down in Florida. Shout out Thomas Shabbat, 17 days. It's supposed to what, four weeks to eight weeks, potentially timeline of how long he would be out with a broken arm. Stunningly, he returns on Thursday to play over 21 minutes,

and they skate off to a victory over the Panthers. I love the way he waved that in everybody's face. I fooled you all. I fooled you all. Okay, Thomas, you only played 21 minutes, man. I've seen you play 28, okay? You can do a lot more than that. No, in all seriousness, very impressive.

And it just shows, A, what a team guy he is, how badly he wants to win. And also, you know, as you know, my theory on this is that teams always go high. So a player comes back early as opposed to a player takes too long. But this is a very impressive return. You know, it would be interesting. Like Carolina is the number one team in the east right now. Buffalo's two points back of them. I would be very curious to see how Carolina would feel about playing a team like Ottawa

because Carolina is a very, how do we say it now, Kyle, data-driven team. And they would look at Ottawa's data and say that's a team that is better than 94 points would indicate. they would probably look at that and say, that's not much of a reward for finishing in first place in the Eastern Conference. But you're right, Shabbat, big comeback. You know, the big challenge here is, you know, Detroit did, Detroit's in a really tough spot. They're at 91. The only way they can go through is the Ottawa side where their three points back of Ottawa and their five points back of Boston. going to be borderline impossible for them.

But Detroit did everybody on that metro side a favor. They beat Philadelphia, Philly's at 92, the Allenders win, Columbus loses, Washington's still there, like Phillies, one point up on the Islanders, two on Columbus, and three on Washington. And, you know, Detroit helps themselves, but they really help those other three teams on the metro side. It's going to be a big challenge for Detroit. Big challenge. They have no room for error.

Three points back of Ottawa, three games to go for either team. They basically have to win out. I don't really see a lot of other options for the Red Wings here than going 3 and 0 because Ottawa's 6 regulation wins ahead of them. It doesn't help them. Yes. I believe the scenario is on Saturday. if Ottawa beats the islanders in any way

and Detroit loses in any way to New Jersey, Ottawa's in. They will clinch Saturday. Yeah. It's a tough. Red Wings gave a great one on Thursday, but it's just a tall, tall order for them.

Like it's one of those crazy games where you win and you help three other teams almost as much as you help yourself. it's this crazy playoff system. Yeah, and another march that they gave it all back. I will say too just on Shabbat, like I remember hearing certainly in those years where the team wasn't very good,

but he was playing a bazillion minutes every game. Some people say, like, you just, you would not believe some of the stuff that that guy would play through. I know he's been a lightning rod. Yeah. Times, but that guy plays through a lot of stuff And so for him to come back this quickly, yes, cap tip to him.

He's a gamer. And you could feel how lifted the group was, seeing him back in the fold again so soon. That was neat. Just everybody fit. Like, the deal is banged up, but just everybody fits better when he's playing. Everybody fits better when he's playing. All right. A few other things we wanted to get to.

So the Buffalo Sabres, we mentioned last pod, that they are in the playoffs. The drought was over. But you had some people coming at you that we did not give them enough love. So we will do it here. Okay. So first of all, there's an ex-follower, Alex Jones. He's always tweeting and he loves the Sabres. He was like, that's it.

And then I got another note I wanted to read from Ian Renwick. Long time listener, first time caller, followed you for years, love you guys, but I'm also a little upset. 15 years with no playoffs and the most recent pod didn't talk about the Sabres once. Kyle brought it up in reference to a kid who's 15, potentially getting exceptional status, which felt shrugged off and not worth the time with no story directly on them. You're a hockey podcast is supposed to touch on stories from all 32 teams. This story is 15 years in the making and not one mention from you as a lifelong Sabres fan is really disappointing. I feel like it should be a bigger deal more so than the stuff you shared on Nashville or Philly specifically.

So the Nashville fans of the Philly fans saying, hey, don't drag us into this. Don't look at me. This is Ian from Buffalo getting mad at you, okay? Not saying those aren't worthy. I think you are, Ian. but I think some Sabers fans who listen to your pod will be disappointed this morning. It's not personal. Just want my team praise for their accomplishments.

Go Sabers. I wrote back to Ian. That's fair. I blame it on the vacation. We'll make up for it on Friday. There is nobody. I talked about people I'm happier for in this pod. There is nobody I am happier for than the Savers fans.

they are the sabers are a true backbone franchise of the nchl is you know we talked earlier also too about utah getting in and it's it's good for the market it is just freaking time the sabers are in the playoffs it's just time it's never good in a league for a team to miss the playoffs for 15 years it's bad it's it doesn't help anyone no one benefits and the thing too kyle about the sabers fans is they love hockey. They're a great backbone of the league. They're one of the few cities that watches the playoffs when, like, the NHL is very tribal. You care about your market, and then when your market's gone, a lot of people just don't

care as much. Buffalo is not like that. They love their hockey. They love their team. They badly want to watch hockey in the playoffs, and they will watch other teams if there's not there. But it's time for them. to get rewarded.

Those Buffalo playoff games that are upcoming, whoever they play, it's going to be insane in that building. And I'm really happy for them. Colton Ellis got his first NHL shutout on Thursday night. They beat Columbus. And the thing about that, too, is I don't know who picks the goalies for the savers, but whoever made that call in their organization, what a great call. because they picked him off waivers.

They were like four or five guys at the beginning of the year. They could have taken off waivers. And they picked Ellis. And I'll be honest, Ellis was one of the ones I knew the least. But this is why I'm not in charge of a team because it was a great call. You know, whoever in the Buffalo organization said,

this is our guy, you know, with Luken and Lyon and Lyon and even Ellis this year, you kind of go through a rotating door. Like Lukinen gets hurt. lion we've talked about. He'll play 10 to 12 games a stretch where he saves your season, but he gets banged up. And then he comes back and he plays another 10 or 12 games where he saves your season.

And then he gets banged up. He's banged up right now. He got hurt right before the playoffs, which is the worst time. But this kid Ellis, they found, and they plucked them off from St. Louis. They said, no, this is a guy who can help us. And he's given them important minutes this year, gets his first shout out. and they're going to need them at the start of the playoffs. So, you know, I'll say this.

It's interesting. I've had a lot of conversations about the Sabres and what went right and what went wrong. And they all talk about the Edmonton game where on the road, where they blew a lead and they won an overtime. But I'll say this. I don't, it's a tough thing to, it's a tough thing to, it's a, tough thing to talk about because in a lot of ways it's really none of my business. But Rasmus Deline went back to Sweden earlier in the year to visit his fiance and he came back.

And a number of people have told me that when he came back, he just, you could see that he went to another level. Like he was always a great player. And when he went back and when he went back and then returned, he was a different different guy. The Masterton vote this year is going to be, it's always hard. It's going to be really hard again this year. But I did have some people who reached out over, you know, we talked about them about

a week ago on the pod. It's interesting how many people said to me that they thought when he came back and he just was settled a bit after getting a chance to visit her back in Sweden, he was just in a better place. I also wanted to shout out something else. When we were there, Kyle, we talked about the gift that was given to their equipment manager, George Babcock, the trailer for snowmobiles. Someone sent me a note saying, you have to credit Jason Zucker for that. And they said, Zucker is outstanding at picking gifts for people.

Some people have that skill. I do not have that skill. Zucker apparently has that skill. He's an excellent gift giver. Yes, and great advice when it comes to flex-stiffness. Yes. He was big on Josh Stone for that. Yes, yes, I think the other part, too, that I had heard, like when Kekeleining came in,

I think there was something about that meeting. Now, the team, as we've talked about, was already starting to swing back up before the change was made. But I think there was something about that meeting and the messaging around, okay, don't care what your contract is, don't care where you were drafted, are you a development guy here, that we sign you from elsewhere. I think the message was,

if things don't get better, any and everything is on the table. And I don't think, like, probably just instilled the right bit of, I don't know what I want to say fear because I don't want to say it was like a negative connotation, but just that right amount of discomfort

for a team that had the same results season after season after season. Finally, just a little shift in that regard and coupled with the fact that, as you say, that Edmonton game and how they felt about things even before that, it all came together at the right time. What a year for them.

About time. What a year. About time. And still a chance to do more. For sure. Okay, a few more things we wanted to highlight here from Thursday. Miro Heiskenen gets hurt.

There's no update post game, but. Glenn Gulleson said he probably won't play Saturday. And then we'll kind of see that in a lot of ways. So Colorado clinches the President's trophy, as we mentioned. Dallas with that win, gave up three power play goals, still found a way to win, likely host Minnesota in round one. Kyle, that felt like game one of a playoff series for me. They won't play again for another week and a half,

but that felt like game one of a playoff series. And it was a mean game at the end of the game. You know, when Ranton goes after Hughes, first of all, it's two great players going at each other, but it kind of had a feeling of our number 1D got hurt, so now we're going to try to hurt, your number 1D kind of had that look it was you know mad boldie's throwing punches and he gets two minutes for roughing i thought i was watching the 80s or the 70s again but that was a that was a

mean game a really mean game but hasten looms large uh over the playoffs and you know i i think of what it said to me is that whatever adjusts that Dallas is going to have to make against that Minnesota power play, that's going to be a big one for that series because they got beaten three times by, and Minnesota got a late power play. Dallas held on, but you could see that they're going to have their hands full with that. But I don't like the hasten injury after what happened last year.

I just don't like seeing players get hurt right before the playoffs. And again, we don't know. yet and we should know more Friday. Just the way the Dallas players reacted to it at the end of the game, it was almost kind of like I said, it was like, you heard our guy, we're going to take out your guy. Mean, mean, mean hockey game. Yeah, leave a mark type game and we'll see in just over a week. So as we talked about, Nashville lost to Utah, Kings beat Vancouver.

So they're back in that second wild card spot for now. Laferrier, 20 goals. What a great season for him. Winnipeg wins again. They're hanging around, but running out of time. Another tough loss. Have to win out. Great tiebreaker, but have to win out.

And now San Jose is in real trouble again after back-to-back losses to Edmontia and Anaheim. It's, they're going to have to win out and they really need help. Like it's, it looks like it's over for the sharks. It unfortunately, as fun as they are to watch, it looks like they're done. Kings 85, but still with 20 regulation wins. They keep battling. Nashville, three home games to finish. Minnesota, San Jose, Anaheim.

Okay. Kings. So remember that. Kings, they finish up, Edmonton, Saturday afternoon, then three on the road. Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary. And they've been a good road team this year. And they've been a good road team this year. I mean, you look at that and you say, you've got to close that one.

And then Winnipeg, Philadelphia, Vegas. Utah, San Jose. If you're the Kings with a game in hand on Nashville and a three-point lead on Winnipeg, same number of games to go,

you've got to be looking at that schedule, Kyle, even though three of them are on the road and saying, we've got no excuses. No excuses. Don't care. how many rounds in the shootout it takes. They've done it all year.

Playing beyond regulation, just get two points. You're in control. Even with 20 regulation wins, you're in control. Oh, no excuse is not to close it. Yeah, it's just been one of those years at the bottom half of the Western Conference

playoff race. Still so fun. All right. move along here through the news portion of the pod. Yeah. The future of Alex Ovechkin. So he said to John Walton recently, he's going to talk to his family,

make a decision in the summer, whether he's going to continue playing beyond this season. But certainly the last week or so as he's going in in different buildings, Toronto on Wednesday night, everyone was kind of wondering, is this the last time we will see Ovechkin here? Do you have any inkling one way or another of kind of what lies ahead with OV and the caps?

You know, I really don't, aside from what he said, because I think he's telling the truth. I think he really doesn't know. And so, Kyle, when I was traveling through to Montreal, I had a stop over in Toronto before I flew to La Belle Provence. And I actually walked into a Canadian who plays overseas. And he's 30 years old. And he said he's thinking about, you know, does it make sense to still continue playing? And, you know, I don't really like to give a lot of advice.

I think people should make their own decisions. But the one thing I did say to him was that, you know, there's a number of players I've met over the years. and they, when it's over, it's really over. And there've been some guys who've retired, and a year or two later, they start to wonder, I probably retired too early. And the one thing I'll say to people all the time

is if you really love it, play as long as you can until they throw you out. You know, I remember Michael Shea, who's now the great CFL head coach, He once told me they would have to drag him off the field until he couldn't play anymore. And if I was a player, I would be like that too. You know, I saw a photo this year of a kid in high school somewhere in the States who played his last football game. He wasn't good enough to go to college.

And someone put a photo of his on social media. They lost their last playoff game in high school and his football career was over. And I think this was a relative of the player. And he said, since this young man was like six or seven years old, every day was football. And now it's over. And it's a real slap in the face. And it's a real change. And, you know, I think Ovechkin is like that right now.

I think he's looking at it like, you know, he's 41 years old, but he's been playing since he was five. You know, his kids come to the rink now. The Capitals made the playoffs last year. This year was a hard year because they're probably not going to make it. And, you know, they traded John Carlson in a hat trick, his first career hat trick, by the way, on Thursday night. And I think that's been hard on Ovechkin. But at the end of the day, it's all he's ever known is hockey for 95% of his life. And, you know, I think, look, we all see it.

He's not as quick as he used to be. It's harder. You know, it's a faster game right now, and he's slower. Just father time is undefeated. And I think part of him is like, I don't know, this is pretty hard for me, but still walking away from the only thing you know is a really hard thing to do. And I think he's struggling with that. I think it's a real battle for him.

I think that it's interesting that he doesn't seem to want a farewell tour, and he could have done a really quick goodbye like Gretzky did, but right now he's not in that place either. And I respect it. I understand it. I would feel the same way. Like I always remember Wade Redden. Wade Redden was sent to the miners by the New York Rangers, and one of his close friends, Curtis Lecision, said, you have to go.

And he goes like, why do I have to go? is because your whole life you loved hockey and now you hate it, you can't quit hating hockey. And you'll go there and you'll find a way to love it again. And he played for a year and a half there. And then after his contract ended up with the Rangers, you know, he went to the blues. He went to the Bruins.

He went to camp, I think, with Nashville. He realized he still loved hockey. And I think that's where Ovechkin is now. think he sees that he's not the same player, but he loves being around the rink and he loves bringing his kids and he loves being around the players. And I just don't, I think he's honestly not ready to make a final decision one way or the other. I think Kyle, it's obvious. He's leading about potentially retiring. And I think that is not impossible here, but he's not ready to make the final call.

And totally fair to want to take a little extra time and making that decision. And we should also, in all this... I mean, he's done everything for that franchise. For sure. You let him make that call. Absolutely. And with all this retirement talk,

we should probably mention that we have newly retired, Ryan Johanson, I've interviewed with him on the back end of this edition of 32 thoughts. So look forward to that as well. Okay. Toronto Maple Leafs, Elliot. A lot of reaction this week to them hiring Neil Glassberg and the coaches agency to assist in their search

for the next head of hockey ops. Understandably, the reaction being the fact that Glassburg, he represents some coaches in the league, people in management roles, Sunny Mehta being won, and of course his name has been linked to the Leafs as somebody that they would have interest in. shed some light on this for us here, Mr. Friedman,

and kind of where things are at in Toronto and their search and bringing on Neil Glassburg. The best way to look at this is that people would say, well, Nashville was forced to drop their search firm, CAA, and what's the difference? And the difference there is that the players associated, says if you rep players, you can't rep management. And a lot of that, I was reminded, we talked about this before, but a lot of it goes back to Alan Eagelson. And that turned out to be a very

negative history for the Players Association, so they block it. And, but this is not the same. Neil does not represent players. So technically it's not against the rules. Now, I went back through his history, as far as I know, he has run five searches, okay, for teams. Two were in Vancouver. One of them he did, or the Canucks, I should say this, because ultimately the team he's working for makes the call. In one case in Vancouver, the Canucks did hire one of his clients. That was Jim Rutherford. In the other, they did not. That was Patrick Alvine. He ran two searches in Philadelphia. In one, they did not, Keith Jones.

And in the other, well, I guess you could call it 50-50. John Tortorella was once his client, but at the time that Tortorella got hired by the flyers, he was no longer his client. So you can call it zero or you can call it a half. everybody can decide how they want to score that one. But at the time, he was not Glassburg client. He also did one for Anaheim, where they did not hire one of his clients. Pat Verbeek was not represented by him.

So it's either one out of five or one and a half out of five, however you want to call it. Now, you know, ultimately the teams decide if they're bothered by this. Philadelphia was not. Toronto doesn't seem to be. Anaheim obviously was not. You know, I'll say this, though. Like, friends of mine who are lawyers or would work for government agencies

say they wouldn't be allowed to do this. Ultimately, though, the client calls the shots and they don't seem to be bothered by it in a couple of these cases. So that's where we are. And ultimately, we'll all judge it by the hire that's made. Yes, Sunny Mata is his client,

and Sonny Mata is a pretty hot candidate right now, and we'll see if, you know, anybody looks back at this and says, I've got a problem with the way this whole search was done, but those are the facts. In his history, the teams that he's run searches for have hired one or one and a half of his client's history. Historically, ultimately the team that hires him makes the call.

But I would say this, the people I spoke to who are lawyers, they have a stronger opinion on this than some of the other people do. But that's where we are. And I think Toronto was really just beginning at search. And we'll see where it goes. You know, Kyle also wanted to say, you know, he's not going to be like the GM of the Mapleys or anything. But you know whose name I'm starting to hear a little bit as a future management type? Who's that? Zach Hyman's brother, Spencer, who runs the Brantford Bulldogs.

Now, here I was. I thought Bob Soffer was kidding everybody when he asked Zach of Spencer being considered for the Leaf gig. Maybe not, but it sounds like it. I don't, I don't think that that's going to be happening. But when we talk about well-rounded people, he's running an organization there, and he's doing everything in it. So someone actually mentioned his name to me as someone to watch down the road. Now, New Jersey, it's interesting.

I think for some time now, Tom Fitzgerald had been searching for clarity on his future. And he wasn't getting it until it looked like Sunny Meta was a really hardcore candidate in Toronto. And then all of a sudden on Monday, New Jersey came out with clarity and said they're moving on. You know, the devils have a few different places they can go here and we'll see what they do. But they know meta. There are some feelings out there. There are some feelings out there that they made that decision to make themselves eligible to chase him. They know him. He's worked for them.

He's from New Jersey. There's some history there. You know, there's a few candidates here that the devils know. The people have wondered if they would be interested in another data-driven candidate, Tyler Delo, who now works for Carolina. Delo also used to work for the Devils. and they know him well. And the other guy that the devils know well is John Chaka.

And they were going to hire him. They wanted to hire him to run their teams. Remember, when he was in Arizona, they asked for permission to talk to him. They wanted to hire him. Arizona did not grant permission. At the time, then Chaka was suspended for, because the coyotes tested prospects,

draft prospects outside of the allowed windows. He's served that suspension. He's been reinstated. And they know him. So there's three guys there that they know. Now, the other situations that the devils could do here, they know Brennan Shanahan. He played for them.

I have wondered if he would be a factor in this search. The moment Fitzgerl was fired, there was a lot of speculation about Shanahan. makes a lot of sense. And the other person I've wondered there is Jamie Langenbruner, another former devil. And, you know, I've had a few people reach out to me about Langenbruner. When we talk about guys who grind and guys who do the work, he has that reputation. He's a guy who grinds and a guy who's done the work. He works for Boston right now. I believe he interviewed in Nashville. He got an interview there. You know, Marten

Broder, who I believe is the acting GM there in New Jersey, he has a big history with Langenbruner, and I think if he had any say, he would push for Langenbruner, but there are different options that the devils could come up with here. All right, so sounds like, I mean, competition is heating up for who could be available. When you look at the move that was made in New Jersey and Tom Fitzgerald being cut loose, do you see him as a potential target in Nashville? I mean, we talked about him before, like now that he's available,

given his ties to the predators. I do expect him to interview there if he hasn't already, Kyle. I do. I don't know how it would handicap his chances, but I would expect that he would interview. You know, I did want to talk about this whole hiring circle, Kyle, as you can imagine, is becoming pretty interesting. The whole data-driven thing that the Maple Leafs kind of discussed,

that whole media conference and that type of candidate, as you can imagine, is becoming a talking point. And I've said this before, and I'll say this again, I said on a previous pod and I'll say it again until I'm blue in the face. this isn't about Ted McGinley and Ogre screaming nerds nerds nerds like Revenge of the Nerds, the great 80s movie that I saw like 46 times that is so good it is it is about and again I've said this before I'll say it again is I think there's some people who probably fit under the quote hockey guy cloud

who are like, who are saying, what is this? And to me, and I'm going to, I've got a few things to say about this. To me, it's about recognizing that these are billion dollar companies, two billion dollar companies, and you better be able to speak to your owner in a language he or she understands. Right? it's can you explain things and quantify things in a way that they understand. And I would tell, like, I would tell any quote-unquote hockey guy that if you don't know how to do this,

you better learn. Because if you can't do it, the chances that you're going to get one of these jobs is going to start decreasing more and more. and I look at everything as a skill, right? Like if I was a quote-unquote hockey guy, I wouldn't let anybody tell me that I couldn't learn how to do that. And I also would want to learn how to do that because I would be curious about it. How could I be better at my job?

Learn to discuss things in a way that I can explain it to the people who sign my paychecks? Yes, sign me up. I would like to know how to do that better. So I would say to a lot of people who want to be GMs, if you can't do that, it's incumbent on you to learn how to do that because if you don't, you're cutting your opportunities. The second thing I'll say is that I had an owner reach out to me last week.

And he said something very interesting to me. and he said he hates, he went to something else Pelley said about how they have about six AGMs, and he said, Kyle, he hates how that is gone. Because what he believes is that that has made it harder to find good GM candidates. I said, what do you mean? He says there's too much specialization. He said that it used to.

be that your AGMs, maybe you had two or three AGMs, max, and they all did everything. They negotiated contracts, or they scouted, or they ran the American Hockey League team, or they did some statistical analysis. They were multifaceted. Now, he said, the problem is a lot of these people, they do only one of those things. like maybe you're a scout or maybe you're the statistical analyst or maybe you do contracts. He says the amount of candidates who are well-rounded who do everything is dropping. And he feels that's going to hurt people.

And he said, he said, if you say this, people might actually listen. And I said, very doubtful. Nobody listens to anything I say. I really put that to the test here. And he laughed. He said, but he said, honestly, he said that a lot of these organizations,

whether they're doing it on purpose or not, they are hurting candidates because they aren't as well-rounded as they used to be. And I imagine part of that, too, is people skills, no, the ability to command a room, the ability to run a meeting, like there's so much that goes into that job. And as we've discussed and has other people that have worked in management have said to you that so much of that job nowadays, almost none of it actually has to do with running a national

hockey league roster because there's so much else going on. That's something to deal with. That's really, really interesting. because certainly being known for something specialized can be great, but can you also build out your portfolio that you're comfortable in all the other avenues and folders that come across your desk over the course of an NHL season at that level. That's really interesting.

Yeah, so, and I actually, I've had this conversation with a couple of people since, and so when I worked at CBCC, see Shirelli and Ajax, our friend, he said to me, you're going to spend a few shows in the truck that you're not working. And because there were a couple of games that were, I didn't work that he had me go into a truck. And even like CFL, before I worked CFL, he had me go to it to see what a truck was like, right?

So just you understand what everybody does in there. And I really liked that. And I remember also at CBC, they had negotiation courses that their managers took to negotiate contracts and things like that. And I asked to take one. And they said, no. And I said, why not? And they go, because we don't want to show you our strategies. But, you know, I was talking about this with someone the other day.

And they said to me, well, what if Sportsnet came to you and said, you have to cover other sports? and I said, you know what's funny about that? And they said what? And I go, I asked. Like, I've asked in the past, you know, could I ever call a Blue Jays game or something like that if, you know, Dan was not there. And, you know, and they actually said no. And the reason they said no is like, we have to give other people opportunities to do things. So I understood.

I get it. But I would like, like, I do. I am naturally curious. I would like to know how other things are done. And I have talked, as you know, on this pod before, about when they kick me off television, would I want to go into management at SportsNet and help run it? And I don't know what the answer is.

I've thought about it. But if I, like, the thing is, like, if I was in charge of a team, if I was the general manager, not only would they be the worst team in the league, But I would also tell you that I would say to someone that you have to know what everybody does. Like, for example, I would want, like, say you were an analyst, like you were in charge of our analytic department. I would say for two weeks this month, you're going on the road with one of our scouts.

And you're doing that schedule and you're going to see what that's like. I would want that. I would want everyone to understand what everybody else's job is. I totally agree. I think that's the only way you can be a great leader. Like you, I still remember,

I did a story on Mike Babcock and Mike Babcock Sr. And one of the things they talked about was Mike Babcock said that of his dad, the best advice he ever got was you can't ask someone to do something that you wouldn't do yourself, right?

And I think there's a bit of a spectrum on that, but at the very least, I think what you, you should know what everybody else in your team does and what their job is like. So I thought that was really interesting. Like this, and this owner's not searching for a manager right now, but he did tell me that that's, that's one thing that he kind of hears. at the senior, senior level,

that specialization might be good for certain organizations, but it's bad for finding candidates to run yours. Like the one thing that they're talking about in Nashville is, if they hire an AGM type, they're going to need to bring in people around them, right? More experienced people. And that's okay. but I think part of that is because they kind of see, you know,

everybody has maybe gaps. In Toronto, or if they hire, say, Sonny Meta, like Mike Gillis, if you hire him, it's different. Like,

he understands all this stuff. He's done it before. If they hire, like, Sonny Meta, he hasn't done all of that stuff yet. Brilliant guy. And I think he has a chance to be a great executive, but he hasn't done everything yet.

And I think that's the thing that some of these owners are saying. We need more well-rounded candidates. Fascinating stuff. Okay, a couple more things. He had a Shane Doan story you wanted to pass along? So a couple stories that people told me this week I wanted to pass along. You know, I mentioned last week in Toronto, they had a Zoom call, Keith Pelley did, with the hockey op staff. And after Bradtree Living was let go to kind of talk about that they're going to change the way they do things.

I just heard someone reached out to me and said, you have to shut out Shane Donne for this. And I said, okay, what's the story? And they told me that initially that that Zoom call was called for 11 a.m. Eastern time last Tuesday. And that was the morning after Tree Living was fired. And it was the night they were playing Anaheim in that incredibly emotional game. So the note was sent out 8 a.m. Pacific time Tuesday. And so the least play, so the expectation was, play the game everybody has to get up early the next day and this is probably somewhere between

25 and 30 people and a lot of them are very worried about their future obviously and 11 a.m. Eastern 8 a.m. Pacific emotional game late night for a lot of people and don't spoke up apparently and he said you know what this is a an affair to the people on the West Coast who really need to be in peak form for this meeting, which could have information about their future, can we move it back a day? Or can we move it move it? I don't know if you specifically said move it back a day or move it. And it got moved. And someone just said to me, you have to share that story because nobody else even though a lot of people agreed it was the wrong time,

nobody else had the guts to say it. Because in that moment, nobody wants to rock the boat. Everybody's vulnerable, right? So they shouted out, Don, that he did that. I just wanted to share that story. I thought it was a good story. It's a good story. If somebody else out there listens to that and says,

I can speak up to help people sometimes, good. The second story I heard was about Derry's a good. in New York from Carolina who interviewed in Nashville. So someone told me a story about how he got his job in Carolina. And he's been there now for 17 years. And he had been calling the hurricanes to get hired by them. And, you know, they were, they could tell that this guy was persistent and he was interested, but there was nothing that knocked the door down. And then one year, Kyle, he went to the draft.

and Caroline and he was he bought I guess he bought a ticket he was sitting in the stands and Carolina had a table right near one of the sides and he parked in his seat like basically right next to that table and sat there the whole draft like they were looking at him the whole draft and when it was over apparently Jim Rutherford said we have to hire this guy like he just sat there. He's been calling us for, I don't know how long, and he just sat there and watched this, okay, at some point in time, we have to reward this aggressiveness. And that's how we got in the door. Wow. That's a great story. Just like made sure every time you guys lift your heads up from your table, you're going to see me. I'm going to become unforgettable to that group.

That's a great, great example and, uh, of persistence and not a bad lesson for whatever you're trying to pursue in life. Sometimes you've got to think outside the box in terms of how can I make an impression that they will not forget. Everybody wants these jobs. How, what are you going to do that's going to set you apart? Yeah. Okay. Two things left. Let's do the crack in first.

Okay. So Ron Francis stepped down as their head of the hockey operations on Wednesday night. It's interesting. I don't know how much influence he still had. I've gotten in hot water about this before. So why not step back into the boiling tub? I think things really changed there between Francis and the rest of the Cracken front office or most of the rest of the Cracken front office with the Dan Bilesmaier.

There was a split there. You know, Francis went public and said that it wasn't true, but I still believe it. I think he, you know, when you're the leader, you publicly come out and say this was my call, but I don't think he's supported at the time. and I think his influence kind of wane from there after Balsma was hired and it shifted towards Jason Botterill. So like this year, I'm just not sure how much of a call Francis was making on a lot of their decisions. But you're still at the top of the pyramid and that's the way it goes. You get the blame when it doesn't go well and you get the credit when it does go well.

But I still do think ever since Balsman was hired, it changed Francis's sphere of influence over the hockey ops. So I'm not sure how much this affects them on a daily basis now. I do think they've tried to become more aggressive. You know, we talked about Panarin, how they offered them three times 14 a quarter. that is a big, big play, a bold bet. Didn't happen, but they were there. I think they considered an offer sheet on Mason McTavish, who's had a really tough year.

I think he'll be fine long term. I think that was something they thought about, long and hard, didn't do it. It's going to be harder to do that now and a rising cap for everybody. You know, teams are going to have more flexibility. really going to be a challenge to do that. So I don't know if they go back to there.

But you know what? The one thing I think is, you know, this is a team that wants to be a power. You know, they're about to enter a bid for NBA expansion. Dave, the ownership group there has taken more of a stake in the arena. Like, I don't think that this is a group that's looking to back off at all. I think this is a group that is a little bit. disappointed and embarrassed about what's happened and they want to show that they can still flex their muscle and be a powerful team. They do great at revenue generating. I think they really want

to be, I think they look at this and they're frustrated, why aren't we successful? We really want to be successful. I mean, this is a data-driven organization and it hasn't worked out well for them yet. So I think what's interesting is that Todd LeWiki had that media conference where he mentioned an audit. And he talked about how Jason Botterill, the GM, would run that audit. I was a little bit confused about how that would work unless they were hiring the smarter Botterill, Jennifer, to run it, then that would make total sense. But like when you heard that, you're kind of saying, well, how would that work?

Well, Todd LeWiki was on their pregame show on Thursday night before they beat Vegas in the shootout. And they probably should have won in overtime. They had like four glorious chances and just couldn't score. But it didn't make sense. And then I heard Leibiki in the pregame and it's clear that he kind of misspoke a bit earlier in the day. Now, I don't know if they're going to hire a firm or how this is all going to work, but they are going to do something to audit the way they do things, and that's going to report directly to ownership. Now, I'm curious to see what changes this all makes or what this leads to, but it's pretty clear to me that this is an organization that hasn't liked the way things have gone. and wants to change that.

And like I said, I heard from some people in the league on Thursday, they want to flex their muscle. They've got a lot of resources. They've got a lot of money. They've done very well on the revenue side of the operation. They haven't done it on the ice. And it's a source of enormous frustration there.

And I don't know if there's any short-term fixes, although I think they'd like to try and see if they could find some. But it's very clear to me that this is an organization that doesn't like the way they feel they're spinning their wheels and want to change that as fast as possible. So on Thursday it was just their fourth win in their last 18 games. Like they were in a playoff spot at the trade deadline, and it's been a scary free fall in the weeks since then.

I mean, we talk about Vegas, how successful they've been right from the beginning, and they've only missed the playoffs the one year since coming into the NHL. In Seattle, though they joined a few years later. They've only made it the one time. It's just felt like we've heard a lot recently, certainly, with some other teams making some changes at the top, the desire for organizational alignment from top to bottom. seems like Seattle's been kind of fighting to truly find that ever since they came into the fold here.

They've never had that electrifying offensive talent. Yeah. That's why they made such a big run at Panera. Made a lot of sense for them to try that, for sure. You know, and you look at them too, aside from Baneers, Shane Wright, fourth overall pick. They've never really draft, like Jake O'Brien 8, Berkeley Caton 8, they've never really drafted

for an expansion team. You know, they went 2, 4, and then they've never been lower than 8. And they won't be there again this year, barring a big lottery win. Yeah, it's tricky to build when you're not a Vegas-type destination. But I do think Seattle is beautiful. Don't get me wrong. I love the Pacific Northwest as much as anybody.

It does make it tricky coming in and you don't have at least one number one pick somewhere in there to help get you kick started. A lot of work to be done in Seattle yet here. A lot of work to be done yet. All right, time now for the final five. which is brought to you by the Toyota BZ. So the USHL, Elliot, they announced... Your voice is cracking, by the way.

I know. I got the house bug this week at home. I'm trying to fight through that. So thank you for bearing with me. The USHL, they announced the adoption of its standard player development agreement. So in the release, they talked about a bunch of resources that are going to be there for the players,

and the families going forward. They're committed to. I thought this one line was interesting, though, in it, Elliot. The agreement strengthens shared accountability among players, families, clubs, and the league in delivering one of the most comprehensive development environments in junior hockey.

We've all looked at the USHL as being in a difficult spot with the changing landscape in the hockey development model in North America. What were your thoughts seeing this announcement? So someone sent me a copy of it, and they said that read Article 9.3. And Article 9 is termination of agreement by player. And 9.3 is club's recourse.

And basically it says, if the player terminates this agreement prior to its expiration, for any other reason than the club's material breach, the club may seek appropriate relief, may include without limitation, coaching fees, training expenses, housing and travel costs, competition fees, and any other direct or indirect investments made by the club to advance the players' athletic, personal or professional

development. Now that's interesting. So a financial penalty. So basically it sounds like, and I know agents and parents and teams are kind of discussing this, but depending on which lawyer you ask, it sounds like if you sign this and you leave the USHL to go anywhere else, you could owe them. They could ask you, they could ask you for everything they've given you. Wow. Financially. Now, are these agreements, do you know, like, is it kind of a year-by-year thing that a player would sign? Or is this a multi-year commitment? Is it case-by-case? I have an answer for you, Kyle. Article 3, turn. The term of the agreement

shall begin when fully executed and approved by the USHL and shall end at the conclusion of the earlier of two full seasons or the player's 19 year old season unless the parties agreed to a three-season term or the agreement is terminated in accordance with the provisions set out so it's minimum a two-year term or 19 yeah if you come in a bit later yeah interesting do you think think that would scare some players. That also does say the player may terminate the agreement prior to the expiration of the term if enrolls or attends an NCAA institution to play hockey or signs a professional contract in the NHL, the HL, or the ECHL.

All right. So this sounds a lot like trying to guard against players making the jump to the Canadian Hockey League. Yes, it certainly does, doesn't it? No problem going anywhere else. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I get it. As we've talked about, they're in a bit of a tough spot and they're trying to protect themselves. They've been losing players.

Yes, I'm going to be interested to see where that goes. Going to be interested to see where that goes. who refuses to sign it, who says no problem. It's just someone made a point of sending that to me saying, look at this, things are changing. Yeah, because I guess the problem is, I mean, chances are the best players that would go there are most likely the ones that maybe they go there for a year

and the CHL comes calling and they like the opportunity to do. that. That's going to be a tricky one. Like how many potential players' families might be a little scared off by that whole premise. Yep. All right. It'll be interesting to see if it gains them players or costs them players. Yes, exactly.

If it costs them players, where do they go? It's going to be something to keep track of. It ties into what we talked about with the exceptional status, Cato Roark. Does the CHL just push to bend this? Say, look, our league's getting younger. We have to let these guys in. Big time. Big time.

So the fight is not over at the development level. Goalposts are moving. Absolutely. All right. That was the final thought presented by the Toyota BZ. I'm going to go make myself a tea. When we come back, brand new edition of the Thought Line on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Okay, welcome back. Fresh edition of the thought line coming your way. So, Elliot, I know you've been down spending time with your family in the sun this week. I don't know, I'm assuming you didn't see this, but on one of the real Kipper and Bourne episodes, they were discussing the fact that Kiprios appeared on one of the odds boards for next general manager of the Maple Leafs. I think he was at like plus 8,500.

Somebody actually sent it to me because they said that he was on and biz was on. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And Sam McKee, like in perfect comedic time, he goes, well, if Kipper's the next GM, I'm the next Fridge. It was perfectly done. So I thought you'd get a kick out of that. Did Kipper throw him out of a window? Did he do that in response? Yeah.

He's like, I'm not telling you anything. You would not get anything out of me. Any shoutouts for you before we move forward? Yeah, there's a couple. And I appreciate you sending me one. So in the last podcast, we talked about Western and Trent. Yes. And you sent me a note that it really blew me away because I remembered this person 100%.

So Ben from Peter wrote, in case you missed this. So I went to university at Western Ontario, which is two hours west of Toronto in London, Ontario. And it is at that time, Western was sort of like the. right-leaning, not everybody there was like it, but it was like the capitalist university. Like there used to be a joke that everybody at Western had to wear $500 worth of clothing on themselves at all times when you didn't fit in.

And Trent, which is in Peterborough where the Peds play, which is east of Toronto, it was sort of like the Pingo Communist University, right? And whatever, whatever particular critical, crazy stereotypes you want to throw it like that side of the left wing side of the spectrum. That was where all of they went. And so we got a couple of interesting notes. Number one, Ben from Peterborough.

Hi again. Don't need to put on the pod. Too bad, Ben. It was such a good note. You're getting it on the pod. But wanted to share with Elliot as something he said was bizarre timing. During the joking around on the pod, you mentioned for some reason Trent was good at squash. Yes, they were.

Trent was not in a lot of sports and that was actually, I remember Trent and Western had some battles about Ontario University athletics over sports. Western like Toronto and some of the other schools did every sport and Trent only did a few of them and Trent was good at squash. Well, Ben says, as a diehard squash player

who frequents white oaks for tournaments but has yet to see Elliot walking around with his pet raccoon in a bathrobe there, I felt compelled to share the reason for this as all of Peterborough was probably mumbling it under their breath. The reason Trent punched well above its weight in squash is because of a man named Paul Wilson, who unfortunately passed away in January, just shy of his 87th birthday. He was still playing squash weekly until late November. Originally from England, he was monumental for sports in Peterborough.

starting squash, rugby, and many others, and being the founder of Trent Athletics. He was even a city council member. When you enter the Trent Gym, there is a huge mural of him and his wife. He was quite literally larger than life. I know this is not hockey related, but I wanted to share as it is uncanny since his celebration of life is at the Trent Athletics Center on April 25th. By the way, Western Squash holds a North American sports record for consecutive years of winning the national squash championships.

It spans decades of consecutive championships. I am sure one of your Western friends can tell you the exact number of years. Well, Ben, first of all, thank you for sending this in. And I do remember at one point it was over 30 years. I don't know if it stopped or where it still is, but it was over 30 years at one point. UFT, under my old Olympic teammate,

Byron McDonald, used to have the same kind of domination in swimming, but Western was a squash king, although Trent was good at it. I'm sore to hear about Paul's death. As a student reporter, I interviewed Paul a couple of times. Oh, wow. Yes, yes. That was 40 years ago, 30 years ago, I guess. And the thing about that that's interesting is that Western and Trent were often on different

sides, as I mentioned, of Ontario University sports set up fights. and one time Paul Wilson actually made a comment to me along the lines of you're probably the only person from Western who cares what I think as you interview me for these stories. So I do remember dealing with Paul and I'm very sorry to hear about his passing and I wish the best to all his family and friends. I did want to read one more note about this trend thing. James Tubb, known as Reporter Tubb on Instagram. he wrote,

The Trent University's slander on today's episode was unexpected, but love the representation as an alumnus. Excalibur Green beats Western Purple anytime on the rainbow. Oh, nice. I wanted to give the Trent fans a little bit of a punch back after I slandered them on the last episode. I thought you were going to bring up a hearing from your old friend

that went to Trent. You would always rip her. I know that's what I was going. I did get a note from someone who knows her. But I'm not going to read it. That is. We tried, everybody. We tried.

That is going to stay away. Okay, a couple of other notes. There were a bunch of you who sent me DMs on both X and Instagram when Kevin said, I will respond to you or I read them all. I didn't want to do it this week because I was on vacation with my family and I don't give them enough time, but I will get to it. I will acknowledge repeating them. A couple of other interesting notes I got. Sherry Ross, the great broadcaster of the Devils, sent me that same thing that you did about Puma,

the Kentucky Derby Horse. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Sherry's big horse racing fan, and she mentioned, here's your Derby Horse. And of course, it is Puma. And I got a couple other ones I wanted to read that were pretty good. First of all, Dave Salter, who's written to. us before. He wrote again, he said, you had a question on the show about whether an NHL team has ever put an award or a trophy designation on a jersey like the MLB has started.

Technically, the NHL has. Back in 1975, after the Flyers won their first cup, Ed Snyder, added Stanley Cup patches on player uniforms. After wearing them in preseason in 7576, the players apparently begged the team to remove them. Joe Watson told me via Twitter once the players did not want them on there. So they weren't actually worn in regular NHL games, but they did make it onto the ice in the preseason. They also make it on to some hockey cards like the Bob Kelly card in the 1976-77 set.

That is David Salter from Kentville, Nova Scotia. Dave's written in a couple of times. Also, I got a note. I thought we mentioned when we talked about, I had a former scout who listens to the pod. I don't want to say his name just in case. I don't know if we actually mentioned it. I thought we did,

but about Owen Michaels and the Oilers. Did we mention Calla Larson? I can't remember off the top of my head. Okay. I thought we did, but Calla Larson and Owen Michaels to Edmonton. Owen Michaels played at Dubuque in the USHL and Callie Larson was there.

The GM at the time, he's now head of player development in Edmonton. Obviously a big relationship there. I thought we'd shouted it out. I guess I just forgot. But yes, I thank this individual for reminding me of that. But also, there was a question about

do scouts get to keep their lists? And he heard it, and this is what he said. All scouts use a program called Rinknet, which goes into a team system, but you're able to export all of your reports slash lists as Excel sheets, and that's how we all keep our old lists, even when we move on to different jobs. He said there is an every scout contract clause that we aren't allowed to share any of that with others, so it's more for personal use than applying to new jobs. Of course, I'm sure

when people are moving into new rules, some of that carries over. So I appreciate him sending me these clarifications, and I'm sure that none of these people take their lists with them from team to team, how dare any of them violate a contract? Wink. The verbal wink. Yes. Nicely done.

Okay. So you mentioned David and his submission about the jersey patch. So he actually wrote in the same thing to the thought line. So I'm glad you sent the picture. Do you send in the picture? Yes, the hockey card. Yeah. I hadn't seen that before.

I mean, it looks now like what we see. see when teams play in the final and they have jersey patches added playing then. But this was, of course, after the Flyers had won the following season. I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to include this as well from Jeff Jones. Hello, mostly Kyle and everyone else too. This may not be useful for on the air. Jeff, it's all useful, especially here. But I cover the St. Louis Cardinals and I wanted to provide a little insight into the gold patches

and so on for MLB jerseys. Every player, I'm glad he brings this up, and I forgot to mention this last time, every player now wears a special small patch on the sleeve of their non-dominant arm denoting their MLB debut when the occasion arises. And those end up on cards.

Yes, it's very cool. Those cards have become extremely hot collectibles. As far as the number of jerseys used during a season, it's a lot. It is very common for pitchers in the hot months to change often during a start. Sunny gray for one will sometimes swap into a fresh jersey every inning of a start in July or August. Most position players will have three ready to go pregame in their lockers with more available if necessary. Jersey swaps, too, are increasingly common.

Multiply that over 162 games, and it is a lot of laundry. Thanks for keeping me dialed in on the NHL, while work has my attention, elsewhere. Jeff, thank you for that. That's, thank you very much for that, Jeff. And let me just say, Jeff, that, I mean, obviously my number one loyalty is to the Blue Jays. My second favorite team is the Cubs. And as a Cubs fan, uh, I hate the Cardinals. I hate them.

But the Major League Baseball is better when the Cardinals are good. So Jeff, get them going out there. I know they're off to, as we record this, they're off to a 500-ish start, but baseball is better when the Cardinals are good enough that we have to hate them. So get them going out there, Jeff. Thanks for listening. Yeah, great. And keep up the tickets available that include free concessions.

Don't stop that. Okay, Travis from Prince George, B.C. They lost money when the Maple Leafs were in St. Louis because Kyle ate them out. of house and home. The funny part was it was those two sections were by far the fullest in the ballpark that afternoon. You know what the funny thing about that? You know what I meant to tell you?

Like someone said to me, you know what the bad news is for Kyle about that? And I said, what's that? He goes, does that guy generally work hard? I go, oh yeah, Kyle, Kyle works pretty hard. He goes, once you let it slip once, it becomes easy. Like Kyle has basically ended his job. Like he's never going to be as good again. Like, okay, good to know.

Well, I don't know if I went out on top, but went down swinging at least. Okay. Travis from Prince George. Hello, Dom, Elliot, and Kyle. No slight to Kyle. We just went alphabetical order. Our game here isn't admitting to picking favorites. My girlfriend and I are watching the Oilers, hopefully,

Stomp the Mammoth as I write this. narrator. They did not. I wonder what the score was. Was it 3-1 Edmonton when he wrote it, submitted it, and then they lose an overtime. It's right. McDavid had just got end to end. He's like, we've got it. During the game, the Oilers

had a delayed penalty, and I mentioned that a goal score during a delayed penalty negates the power play. I brought it up to say how silly I felt the rule was and that the team should still get a power play. It seems the team gets no real advantage aside from the fact that they pull their goalie to play six on five and the guilty team ends up paying no real penalty for the infraction. My girlfriend then asked what happens if they don't

pull the goalie and score while it stays five on five. I assume it's the same result, but honestly, have never seen the scenario take place. So my questions are, what happens if they score without pulling the goalie in regards to the delayed penalty? And do you guys share my sentiments and feel this is a silly rule or have you even thought about it before thanks gang love the show keep up the great work stanley cup playoffs haven't started yet so for now let's go cougars yes through to the second round in the w hl playoffs so it still gets wiped out the penalty still gets wiped out yes but the i i really thought about it as you were reading travis's question if they changed it, I wouldn't have a problem with that.

I'm pro offense. If you want to call it goal and power play, I'm good with that. I would be more than happy with that. Me too. And we've talked about this in the past. And even before I came aboard here, the idea of if you score short-handed, you kill the penalty.

You get your player back out of the penalty box. They do it in the PW-W-HL, yeah, jailbreak. It's a great scene. I think it's fantastic. Yes. So keep pounding that drum, Travis. Maybe one day. We see the shit their ways a bit in that regard. Chris and Calgary. Hello, Kyle, Dom, and the other guy.

Given the recent coaching changes on Long Island and in Vegas, it got me wondering how much say is given to the incoming head coach on the rest of the staff. Can torts bring in a whole crew of assistance with him or is he told he'll take what he is given and like it. And how soon before that suit is thrown in the dumpster for the raccoons and the quarter zip makes an appearance behind the bench in Vegas? Thanks, guys. Love the pod.

So generally in season, it's harder. In this particular case, the way it usually works, usually, is that, and it sometimes depends on who's really got the hammer. Oftentimes the head coach may say, I want this person to come with me. And the team will say, we want to pick another assistant coach. Like, it depends. How many primary assistants you have in a group, but the organization will usually get a chance to pick at least one. And the head coach will usually get a chance to pick at least one.

and then depending on how many overall you want to hire, you go from there. Like the first guy I really think of, Gerard Gallant, he had Mike Kelly. And I always remember Mike Kelly, and it's not the sport logic Mike Kelly. It's a different Mike Kelly. He was born in Prince Edward Island. Mike Kelly was an assistant coach at Western when I was a first year student there. And I covered the hockey team. Barry Martinelli was the head coach and Mike Kelly was an assistant coach.

And I believe Mike was taking either a PhD or a master's there. I can't remember at the time. But he became Gerard Galant's guy, his X's and O's guy. And he was very good at it. And so that is one situation where I know a head coach liked to take a certain assistant wherever he went. But generally, the head coach will get at least one and the team will get at least one. In this particular case, though, you know, Tortorella, you know, Mike Sullivan was with John Tortorella for a long time. And then finally, Mike Sullivan got to a point where he said, it was after Vancouver.

I think he said, you know what, I kind of go out, I have to go out on my own. And so in this particular case, since it was so tight and so late to the season, it didn't really end up being that way. Yes. I think of Steve Splott in a long time with Pete DeBorg. That's a great one. Another one. That is, that's, that's, and also very timely. Excellent.

And Steve Spot, this year went to Boston. Yeah. As Peter DeBore did not have a job at the beginning of the season. That's another great one. Great pull, Kyle. The Kitchener Connection. Yes. And Chris, like I went back and watched, uh, on Tuesday when they cut to Tortorella on the

bench in Vancouver, still had the suit going. However, when he was doing post-game media, he was in his comfort. by then. He had made the swap out after the final hard. So I don't know how long it's last. I don't know. He's going to be wearing Vegas jammies by the first game of the playoffs behind the bench. Oh, we could only hope.

By the way, Western, as I said, had a hockey team I covered. Trent did not have a hockey team. They did not have one, but Western would have killed them if they did. Just destroyed them. Maybe he'd get one more in there. I'll say this, though, Mustang's is a good name. Do you know what Trent's teams were called? At least they were called back then.

I don't know what they're called if it's still the same now. You know what they were called? What? The Excalibur. Ah, okay, because they said the Excalibur green. So that's what that is great. That is a great. I have to concede that is, that is a great name.

Ha, from San Jose. Watching the Sharks and Predators game the other day, I believe I heard Randy Hans say the sharks are on a 15 game losing streak against the Predators dating back to 2019. I'm curious what the one. longest current losing streak one team has against another, and also, what is the longest in NHL history? Thanks for all you guys do. Yes, Hoff, you heard correct. 15 straight they have lost to Nashville dating back to 2019. That's unbelievable. That is also, as you can imagine, the longest

active losing streak. And unfortunately for the sharks, the second longest active losing streak versus any one opponent also belongs to San Jose. Could you guess who the opponent is? I will guess Carolina. No. Okay, who is? I know the longest one ever. You know what?

I guessed an Eastern team because I figured you see a team more often, you're going to beat them sooner or later, right? Yes. Is it Colorado? It's not. It's Vegas. 11 straight. Oh, hmm.

Boy, San Jose's got to start winning some of these games. Yes, exactly. Come on, sharks, start winning some of these games. The longest ever, I don't know how many games it is, but I know it's the longest one ever. It's Canadians' Capitals. Yes. When the Capitals first came in, they were awful,

and that was a time when the Canadians were winning. The Capitals first year was 73, 74. The Canadians were Stanley Cup champions, 73. So they won in 73 and then they won in 76, 77, 78, and 79. They went four in a row. And the only two years they didn't win in that span was the two years the Flyers won. So the capitals were bad. The Canadians were great. I don't know how many games it was in a row, but I know the Canadians just own them. They own them. Yes, they did to the tune of 23 in a row. Oof.

Yeah. Now that was only over, because obviously the scheduling was different. They played, clearly played each other a lot. That was only, was it less than a four-year span? Halloween, 1974 till March of 78. Well, you have to remember at that point in time, the divisions were not geographic, right? Like there was a time there, and this is the 70s when I was a kid.

There was a time Montreal and the Kings were in the same division. So it was very different back then. And also, I want to say, you know, the NHL went from 17 to 21 when the WHA teams came in in 7980. Now there were, you know, there were a couple of teams that moved around here and there. But there were probably about 18 teams in the NHL at about that time. There were the old Cleveland Barons who merged with Minnesota. Like, it was a crazy time. So yes, you probably played each other, I don't know, between six and eight times a year.

Yes. I don't remember. I don't remember. But I do remember that it was very, very different than what we're used to now. Totally. Yeah. So 23 in a row, Washington fell to Montreal, second longest all time, 19 games. The old Phoenix slash Arizona coyotes fell 19 times in a row to the Boston Bruins,

stretching out over 12 years. Oh, you know what? I remember. I never would have guessed it, but now that you mentioned it, I remember that. And that is a situation where they only would have played twice a year.

Wow. Now that you say that I do remember that, but I never would have guessed it. Never. And I think, yeah, when they finally snapped the streak, it was, that was the year, was that their first season at Mullet,

but that was, remember they came through Toronto early on in the season on a Monday night and they won, and that was like a big deal for them because everyone was thinking was that the one when Chris,

when Christian Fisher was like, good to get a win in front of these $300 seats or whatever it was? Yeah, fans got their monies worth tonight. Yes. That was one of the all-time great interviews. You did that interview, right? I did. Yeah, it had nothing to do with me, but yeah, it was great. That was, I remember when he said that, man, that was a hilarious comment.

Yeah. Okay, a couple more here. Jonathan, hey, guys, I've been wondering this for a while, okay, and surveying my colleagues, but I'd love to get your opinion. Who would win in a weekend-long sport-off between the Winnipeg Jets and Dom's New York Jets? They would play a football game on Saturday and a hockey game Sunday. Total combined score wins. I'm thinking the football jets could really run up the score on Saturday by getting six to eight points at a time,

but a lot of them won't even be able to stand up on skates the next day. This is like one of those What are there more of in the world? Wheels or Doors? Have you ever seen The Mike Francesca clip about the Giants? What are you talking about? Is there ever any interaction

When the San Francisco Giants come to New York Or vice versa? The San Francisco Giants come to New York and do what? Have a game. They play against the Mets and what do you want to happen now? Did the New York Giants ever reach out to them? the players or the franchises. The football giants?

Yeah, the football giants. Well, what is the connection between the San Francisco Giants and the football giants? Well, they used to be in New York and they got the same name. But they have nothing to do with each other, though. There's no connection. They have different ownership. There's no connection between the two teams. I mean, there's no connection in any way between the two teams.

They have no relationship. Do you think because their giants are like brothers or something? That might be the weirdest question. I got in a long time. I mean, that might, and I think that's an honest question. That might be the strangest question I got in a really long time. Yeah, as a matter of fact, they have the giant picnic. They hold it over in totoa, I think it is.

And then they have the giant relay race and the giant raffle. And then they all get together for the giant breakfast the next morning, and then they go to separate ways. That is true. It's a July weekend every year. When it happens. Yeah, and then the ranges in Texas and the New York ranges have the same thing. They meet usually in Abilene and have that in August every year.

Lundquist is particularly close to Udavish. As a matter of fact, there's a kinship there between the two of them. So that's why that's part of the reason why I included this, because my mind went right there reading this submission. I hope that was all of the reason you picked this one. I don't care it was part. It should be the entire reason. I remember the first time this was ever sent to me.

I couldn't believe it. You know, there's a whole thing about there, about crazy Francesa takes. Like, there's one. Have you ever heard the one when Stan Lee dies? Maybe. He's like, there was one you died. Who cares?

Who's that? Oh, yeah. Eddie and Hoboken, what's up, Eddie? Hey, what's up, Mike? What's happened? Hey, Mike, Stan Lee died today. Did you ever meet the guy? What do you think of him?

Stan Lee. Yeah, Stan Lee. I don't know who he is. I don't know who he is now. Jesus. Who is he? Who is he? Who is Stan Lee?

He was one of the creators of Marvel Comics. Oh, who cares? I just, I remember there was one day, you and I were on the road somewhere. I was driving. You were in the passenger seat, and you just started playing some of the best of. And, like, man, there's a few times that it was a struggle to stay on the road. He's laughing so hard. That one.

Stan Lee died. Stan Lee, who's that? Who cares? Comics. Anyway. Oh, my God. I've completely lost my mind doing this. Okay, what was the question again?

All right. Who would win? Who would win? You got football Saturday, hockey Sunday. Total combined score. Oh, you'd have to say the football Jets would win because goals only count for one, right? Yes. They're not scoring 24 goals. They could be, could they beat them by 24 goals? Maybe. I just wonder like at some point, do the Jets realize? I can't believe I'm answering this question seriously is what I can't believe. No, this is good. The football Jets realize like, clearly they can't skate with them. So all five just pack the house between them and the goalie and they're like, try to shoot it through us.

And doesn't that at least delay how frequent the goals go in for the hockey jets? So when I played like novice hockey, there was always one guy who had like a hundred goals and three assists in the year, right? So my novice hockey team, we won the league championship behind one of those guys. His name was Derek DeVoe. I always remember that. His name was Derek DeVoe. I think that year he had 80 goals and three assists. And I think his three assists were like three miracles.

saves and somebody else knocked them in, right? And so he, like, he was an unbelievable player at that age. And I don't even know what happened to him. Anyway, he, the one game, we lost one game all year, Kyle. And I remember it was because the other team, they had the center take the face off and the other four guys all lined up in front of their net. And they were like, you're going to have to skate through everybody and the goalie. And- Seriously?

And novice? And novice. And novice. I'll tell you one of the story. The only other thing I've ever seen that compared to this. And anyway, they tried it again. In the playoffs back at that time were I think like two game total goals, if I remember correctly.

And the first game, they tried it again. And he started firing from in front of the box. And he was wiring them past the goalie. Like, it didn't. And once he stopped and shot, like he was the one guy at that age who could really shoot. Anyway, we won the championship that year, and I kind of remember that. The only other thing I can kind of remember compared to that was I was once watching, I think it was my nephew or my cousin who was a really good basketball player.

He played at McGill, college basketball. But there was one time when he was a kid, he was playing in a league, and they had a rule no zone defense. and and then so nobody taught anyone how to play against the zone and then like their team was the best team and in the championship game the other team played zone they had a handshake agreement no zone

and the coach the other team was like I don't care we're we're playing zone and they lost because they couldn't figure out they just couldn't beat the zone right oh I just so I remember that's the one thing I remember A relative of mine went berserk as this happened. But I don't know how we got off on this, but this is the clothes. I would pick the football Jets, but I think that's probably the only way the football Jets can win anything, Dom. I was going to say a rare W.

We're going to get some text from like Adam Lowry. How dare you think we couldn't beat the Jets by enough on the ice. Yes. Well, I wanted to, if I could come up with a reason or a way they could do it, I think it's just the scoring system difference would be their undoing for the hockey jets. That was fun. Okay. One final one here, Elliot, and it was one that you brought forth or did somebody bring to you about Jordan Stahl. Yes.

So somebody mentioned it to me that Jordan Stahl, as we record this, is at 19 goals. and if he scores one more, he will have his first 20 goal season in 11 years. And I wonder is 10 seasons. Yeah, 11 years, 10 seasons. I wondered if that was the longest between two 20 goal seasons.

Did you find an answer? I did. It's not the longest. If he gets there, it would be tied for fourth. Fourth? All time, yeah, but not that far off the top. Tommy Williams

Tommy Williams Wow okay Yeah Oh did you want to guess another name There's one of the name that's tied with him Okay and what year are we talking about here I always like to get I think if I can guess a year If you guess a player if you give me a year

Yeah so it ranges from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s Defenseman I was going to say is it a defenseman who scored like You know what I was starting to think I was starting to think guys like Steve Dushin who had, you know, one really, would Paul Coffey be one? No. Okay.

I was actually wondering if Paul Coffey would have a year where he got hot late. I'm trying, it wouldn't be Larry Murphy, would it? It would not, no. Hmm. Won a Stanley Cup. Would it be Lidstrom? Nope. All right.

What team? Give me a team. So the first 20-goal season, He was playing for the Canadians. And then the next one, he was with Detroit. Did Chellios score 20 in Detroit? He's not the answer. I just assumed that when you said that, it was Chellios.

No. But another American defenseman. I just can't remember it off the top of my head. Who am I missing here? Matthew Schneider. Oh, my God, that's a disgrace. I can't believe I didn't think of that. Him and Tommy Williams tied to the top.

12 years, 12 seasons in between 20 goal campaigns. Patrick Eves is third. He went 11 seasons between. Yeah. And if Stahl gets 20 this year, he would tie Alexander Radulov for a 10 season gap. But of course, part of the deal for Ragulon is left. He was over in Russia, right? Right. Yeah, but still, that's 10 years, maybe not 10 seasons, but 10 years.

I can't believe I forgot about Schneider there for a second. That's terrible. Awful. No, you've had worse misses. It's just like, well, I mean, like, how do you, that's such a unique stat. Like, it's not really one that's, that's top of mind typically of who went a long time between scoring 20, especially as a defenseman. Remember, Jordan Stahl, what was his, he kept coming up in a trivia answer. season on the pot. It was,

was it longest gaps between shootout attempts or successful shootouts? I remember he had gone forever since, I think maybe he had the longest, the amount of games played

without getting tapped for a shootout attempt. So hopefully he can bust one of these slumps here. Yes. All right. Well, thank you to whoever sent that in

to you. Yes. Another fun thought line. I'm still laughing at the, still laughing. Oh, my God. 1833, 311, 312. If you'd like to call and leave a voicemail,

the email is 32thoughts at sportsnet.ca. We'll take one final break and come back with our conversation with recently retired Ryan Johansson on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. All right, as promised, a conversation with Ryan Johansson, who announced his retirement officially a month ago. So on Thursday, when we recorded this, Elliot was busy traveling from Florida. He's off to do some interviews in Montreal ahead of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

So I handled this one solo on this occasion with Ryan. Johansson, over 900 career games in the NHL. We get into the early days being drafted by Columbus, the trade, of course, one for one to Nashville, where he spends his time now. The Stanley Cup final in 2017, how it all ended with Philadelphia, and how he's spending his time now. Ryan Johansson, newly retire on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. So, Ryan, I first wanted to ask because I was listening to a couple of different interviews

you've done kind of in preparation of this conversation. And I have to admit, like if I close my eyes and someone tells me that that's like jelly roll in conversation there listening to you, like I could have been convinced that you have totally the Tennessee twang is brilliant. I wonder, how does a guy, obviously you played a. Nashville, you live there now, from Vancouver, go full head on into being a full-time Nashvilleian. Well, just trying to fit in, I guess. Had some practice.

Gosh, I've lived here for 10 years now. So I guess you pick up on stuff. I feel like I can mix in good. When I go back home, nobody's like, are you from Tennessee or anything like that? And when I live here, I fit in. I feel like I get the odd person who's like, you're not from around here. Where are you from? And I'm like, it's a good eye.

I'm from Canada. But no, yeah, I try and, I guess, blend in as best as I can. Yes. And your wife's from the area, right? So I'm sure being around her family played a big role in that. She's from Ohio, actually. Okay. So, yeah.

So not really. They're total Midwesterners. But, you know, you have so many friends. You make some friends over 10 years. And my neighbor, if he, I wish he was here right now and you could hear him. He's Tennessee. Oh, really? Okay.

That's awesome. That's great. So we're recording this. We can see each other on camera. When it gets put out, it'll just be the audio. But I noticed you're wearing a Roman Yosi T-shirt with his face on the front. Yeah. We had Spencer Stassan, we interviewed him in the summer.

Yeah. He told a great story. But after his first game in the NHL, a shirt showed up in the mail for him, and it was Roman Yosey's face on it. But he had no idea where it came from, who sent it. So how did you end up with that shirt? Shoot, I'm like, it might have been me that. that sends a tone.

I don't know. My wife just gave me hard time. She's like, you're going to wear that in an interview? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, Roman, Roman's like one of my favorite teammates of all times. So I'm like, yeah, I wear a Roman jersey, represent the boys a little bit. Yes. Very good.

Okay. I heard you say, you know, 33 years old, but in calling it a career, it was not a difficult decision at all for you. Why? Well, like you listen to, you know, you know, you get a lot of thoughts, and I don't think it just happens for people where it in for me anyway, where one morning I wake up and I'm like, you know what, I'm done, kind of gradually creeps in a little bit, and I had a few bad injuries, and, you know, you're doing all your rehab, and then I'm getting bounced around,

I'm getting traded, and I'm like, you know, do I want to keep doing this? Do I love it so much to keep doing this and risk getting injured more? I'm like, I just got married and my wife had just gotten pregnant. And I was like, you know what, I'm at total peace. I'm so blessed and thankful for everything. And I'm proud of my career and all the memories I've had. And I was like, you know what, I'm ready and I'm excited. I'm at total peace with moving on to my next chapter.

And I had some great friends, you know, that I would call and talk to about going through that process. and just, you know, just having nice conversations with people that are close to me, and which led to just a really easy decision of, you know, of what my next chapter would look like. And I was ready, and, you know, I'm just, I'm loving just being a dad right now and a husband and all the things that are in my new chapter of life, I guess. So I'm curious, Ryan, whether it was an ex-teammate or maybe just, somebody in your circle that's close to you, who did you really lean on and rely on as you

made your way through this process? Yeah, man, I'm actually really close with a couple retired special forces guys, and obviously what they did is so different than chasing around a hockey puck. But one of them in particular just said, like what I was just mentioned, and that's where I got it from the peace thing, because he talked about guys would leave battle. And they weren't ready to leave. And they come home and they're sitting there at their house and they're like, I want to still be in the fight.

I want to still be in the fight. So he was like, if you're a total peace and you're happy with ending and stopping what you're doing, that's a great sign of you're ready for your next chapter and you're ready to move on. But if you're not ready to move on, you know, you should try and keep going and keep doing what you love. And I thought that was great advice for me and trying to compare what those guys go through. But, you know, that's just how I felt. I just felt a total peace with those thoughts and thinking about that decision. And I haven't had one regret, nothing like that, no second guess is.

So to me, that's, you know, a very positive thing. And as I will miss, I always will miss, I think, for my... rest of my days is playoff hockey. That still gives me goosebumps thinking about playoff hockey. It's some, I think it's our sports the best and there's nothing better than our playoffs. But I just enjoy watching it now and, you know, get to remember all those, all those times we had and battling it out. Yeah, so like, are you still watching a lot currently? Like, will you be watching where the playoffs are about a week away?

Would you be dialed into that? Yeah, I wouldn't say I watch a lot. I obviously keep in touch with my Preds guys and follow them a bit. And then all the guys I played with that I became close with that are on different teams around the league, follow them. And my old teams that I played for a little bit, but playoff hockey will definitely be nonstop on. It's like the Masters right now.

I just got in a little battle with my wife because she had the show on. I'm like, honey, it is Master's Week. Master has to be on. I got a dirty look, but. That's good because you only got so many bullets to you is when it comes to the TV, right? Masters is one. You're going, that's the hill you'll be willing to die on. I'm going to get some dirty looks for the next month or so probably.

Yes. Well, it's great to hear, Ryan, that, you know, you feel the way that you do about your career coming to an end and entering the next chapter. I was going to ask it a little bit later on in the interview, but I might as well get it now. just how it did end. With the trade to Philadelphia, you've been dealing with the hip injury. You know, they had positioned themselves to terminate the contract.

Of course, you know, you filed the grievance with the Players Association, and next thing you know, you're in arbitration for it. Is there any details you can provide of just how that all came to be in the process there? Yeah. No, I'm happy to answer that.

You know, there's definitely things that, like the whole thing, point the whole thing for me is like that's life you know i'm moving forward and i'm not going to let that upset me or you know throw me off or make me sad or disappointed how it all ended and you know i was i was an nchal hockey player i got injured in 2016 playing for the preds i tore my hip and i had the option of surgery then or to keep playing and and i was like well i don't think it's too bad and but doc was the hip specials was like, well, you need surgery at some point. I'm like, okay, but I'll try it out.

And I played through it for, heck, seven years. And something around there. And then, yeah, I get traded to Philly. And they send me to the miners, like you pointed out, with their intentions of buying me out. And I was like, well, I don't really want to go to the miners and get injured again or something else happened. So I thought it would be a good time to, you know, go.

get my hip fix and then see where that ends up and be healthy and maybe that's slowed me down a little bit and go from there with my options and and that just turned into a whole mess obviously and was pretty disappointed that you could get injured in the NHL and and then you know not be compensated for it but that is what it is and you know I hope it doesn't happen to any other guys or and guys I've talked to you know because when you're just going through the years you in your medical notes and everything, you know, you don't, I didn't, I'm sure a lot of the 99% of them don't complain and write down every single thing over all the years.

And so that was my advice, to just keep, always keep tabs of what's going on with your body. And because it was, it was crappy to go through. I'm a hockey player. And just to go through all that stunk, but, you know, like I said, with just retiring and everything, I'm, I'm so blessed. and I'm so thankful for all I have. And I don't know how I played a 13-year NHL career being just a regular kid.

But, man, it was the time of my life. And, yeah, I just moving forward and it's all I can do. For sure. And the only other question I had on it was just the arbitration process. What was that like who speaks the whole deal? Yeah, I guess it would be like a normal court hearing. but it was all through Zoom and stuff. So, yeah, it was, it was like what you'd see on Netflix.

I don't know. It was, it was all the normal things you would think of, breaking down all the crap. And, you know, it was too bad because they, Philly, God, now you got me going. Because Philly got, they, agreed to letting me have surgery and like it was June or July a couple years back or something. They said, all right, Ryan, fair enough.

Because they sent me to a specialist in New York and wanted to see how bad my hip was. And the specialist was like his hip's really bad. He really needs to get a fixed. So they were like, okay, fair enough. Go ahead because they were obviously upset because they wanted to buy me out. And I said, well, you know, I don't agree with that. I'd like to get my hip fix and, you know, get my salary for that year. And so they said, okay, go get surgery.

And so I set that up. And about a month later, I was on my honeymoon the two days after I was married. Maybe that was planned. Maybe not. But that's when they announced publicly that they were going to file for whatever the heck they filed for. And to terminate my contract. and so that was a shock and upsetting, you know, that they agreed to let me have surgery and move forward, and then they just went back and did that.

So like I said, it was too bad for me. I got injured playing hockey and then that all went down, but, you know, it hasn't impacted me anymore. And I'm, in a way, I'm glad it's done with and I can just move on with my love. and being a dad and a husband and enjoying the things I like to do. All right. Well, I appreciate you sharing that, Ryan. And it sounds like kind of the one piece of advice I guess you'd have for players moving forward is just keep track of that stuff.

As much as you guys are wired to play through everything, maybe some sort of diary or journal when it comes to different things like that, I guess because you just never know. You don't. And trust me, if I wrote down every little thing over my career, it'd be you guys would everyone would laugh looking through it. and that's every guy. It's insane, you know, because little things to us are huge things to, you know,

people that don't play sports, for example, like whatever it is. So, like, I have a tore my shoulder. I could get that, I could have surgery today, but it doesn't really bother me anymore. So, but I might need to get that repaired at some point. It's like, I don't know. I'm fine, so I'll just carry on. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Well, you were very good in dipping into that. So I appreciate you going there for a few minutes. I did want to go back to near the beginning of your story. So it's a great one, 16 years old. You're playing in Penticton, not seeing a ton of ice. At one point, you call your dad after one game and said, I'm done. I don't want to play no more.

Please come grab me. But he refused to let you give up on your dream. So I just wonder for anybody that could be listening to this that may not be sure of their path and their own journey, doesn't even have to be hockey related. What were some of the biggest lessons you took from that stage of your life? Well, first of all, listen to your parents. They always have your best interests. And, you know, I know how lucky I am to have the parents I do.

But yeah, like you said, playing in Penticton, my 16-year-old year, my first time moving away from home. And I'm playing one to two shifts a game for about six, seven months. I would, the coaches would have me video art games in my suit as a scratch player to have, so they could break down the video and show the team the next day. So for seven months, I'd play two shifts and I'd video our games. And I would, I'd be on the ice like six hours before practice started because I'm like, well, I might as well do everything I can to try and get better and just did stuff like that.

But, yeah, I got to a point playing in Vernon, B.C., never forget and called my old man. I said, I'm done. This is insane. I'm not having any fun. I'm not even playing. What is the point of me doing this? There's no point.

And I'm like, can you come pick me up, dad? Because it was only like a four-hour drive from where I grew up. And he was just like, son, I need you to trust me. Nobody loves this game more than you. You need to keep going. I believe in you. You can do this. You just got to stick it out.

and that went on for about 20 minutes of me tiered up outside of our team bus and I'm like no dad I need you to pick me up I'm done I'll come work for you I'll figure something out and he's just like son you gotta trust me you gotta trust me and finally I was like all right fine and a year and a half later around that date maybe even less I was drafted fourth overall in the NHL if he came and picked me up

Yeah, and how easy would that have been? His son is super upset, like breaking point. And just knowing that I'm a 16-year-old kid, you know, like, I have no idea what life is like and what's going on and what could happen. And he just threw the phone, put his arm around me and said, you got this son. I believe in you, I trust you, and I love you. You've got to trust me to stick this out. and well, thank God I did. Because crazy to think if I didn't.

It's a phenomenal story. And so, yes, you fast forward to about a year and a half later. Did you have any idea that you were on Columbus's radar at Fourth Overall? A little bit. I did a fly down after the combine. So I knew they were somewhat interested. And then I found out the GM came to one of our playoff games. Scott Housen, and I played really well in our playoffs.

And then after the flight on, I kind of built a good relationship with a guy named Tyler Wright, who played in the league and has worked in the NHL, and he's working with the Blue Jackets at the time. And we talked quite a bit, and so I had a good feeling there was a chance. And I'll never forget when the Blue Jackets were up for their trade, or not their trade, their pick. Tyler, he looked at myself and our family in the stands and gave a big wink. And I was like, wow. I'm like, Dad, I'm getting drafted to Columbus. He's like, what are you talking about?

I'm like, I'm getting drafted to Columbus. Tyler just winked at me. And then it obviously happened. And it was just like, how did that happen? It was crazy. Oh, so good. So I also wanted to ask the final year of your entry-level deal, you're 22 years old, they're about to turn 22, and you go off, right? 33 goals, team makes in the playoffs, six points and six games there. And then came the contract negotiations, what became like very public. I mean, I went back and watched some of the interviews that's certainly from the Blue Jacket side of things. And you think about now where it's commonplace to say, you know, we don't negotiate through the media. It was a bit of a different tone back then. What do you remember about all that? I mean, you're just beginning your NHL career and suddenly you get a, you're, you get a, you.

I'm sure baptism by fire on the business side of it all. Shoot, I don't remember much. And you're so young, like, and I was, and I was young, young, like, whatever, I was 22, but I was really like 18, 19. Like, I was, I was, wasn't a very mature young kid. That took me a minute, but, um, yeah, I just remember, you know, obviously I'm, you're in constant talks with your agent because, and you throw all the trust and their expertise and that.

So with a lot of it going through him and figuring out, because they're comparing everything, the young other best players in the league and comparing, like, the year I had there and like what I should be paid or what I, you know, term and all these things. And so, yeah, I guess long story short, I said a couple silly things and maybe they said a couple of silly things and it turned into like this stupid thing.

where it's like, I'm like, man, I love being a bluejack. I loved it there. I love playing there. I brag about Columbus all the time. It is such a hidden gem. And, you know, I guess you're just trying to figure out how to, you know, get what you think you deserve. And they're trying to do what they think's good right for the organization. So, yeah, I don't remember all quite those said, but there was definitely a couple funny things.

Now, were you caught off guard by the trade? Because it's one of the great one-for-one trades of the cap era. You for Seth Jones. Yeah, no, I was not caught off guard. I had a sense that it was coming just from the time leading up to it and what was going on with our team and just, you know, the fun me and torts had together. So I was not shocked.

and it was just interesting because me and Seth became like buddies. We did a couple of charity things together, and we hung out, and we were like tight all of a sudden, you know. And then he lands, and it's like, what is going on? I was like, what just happened? And so I'm like, well, you know, I guess I'll see around. He's like, well, they're refueling the plane, so you don't hang out for a half hour or so or whatever, a little bit?

And I was like, yeah, of course. I'm a no rush. I don't know. So we just sat there in our little terminal. And we just hung out for like 45 minutes. He was telling me everything about Nashville and guys and what to do, where to go. And I did the same thing. And then tell him who are my closest buddies were.

And he was doing the same, whatever. And then it was just like a hug. And it's like, all right, man, good luck. And good luck. And then that was it. But, yeah, I do think it works. out good for both teams. Nashville needed a centerman.

Columbus needed a defenseman. And then that was the real positive of it because you never want to get traded and you succeed and the other guy stinks or vice versa. And it's like I feel like we both impacted the clubs greatly and did good things. So that was right after the trade.

I guess you guys used the same plane for getting between the city. Holy smokes. Nashville dropped off Seth and I and I hopped on the Nashville plane to head right there. That's incredible. Yeah. So how often when you guys, if you appeared at, whatever, charity events or just as you got to know, I'm like when people come up to you and try to have the debate of who won the trade?

No one's ever said that in front of us anyway. Okay, good. But we did a, like, you know, the media day they do at the start of every year. Yep. we did that maybe a year or two after, and they sat us both down, and we both talked about the story, and it was kind of funny sitting beside each other to talk about it and just how weird it was. And it was obviously the first time we both had been traded and just where we were at. And so it was kind of fun, but yeah, it's a crazy business sometimes.

For sure, and I'm sure you look at it as a blessing now given where you live, and of course, all the great years you had is a predator. And of course, we all go back to that Stanley Cup run in 2017. And then unfortunately, you know, you get hurt in the third round there against Anaheim. But what were some of the endearing images for you when you think about those two months in the spring of 2017? Yeah. Well, yeah, like you pointed on, it was definitely really the best thing that ever happened in my life

for playing careers coming to Nashville. All the things, 2017, meeting my wife here, starting a family here. This is home. And I love it here so much. and, but yeah, 2017 was like the coolest thing in the world. The way this city just jumped on our backs. And it was insane. Every, and I'm a huge music guy, but every musician and every Nashville celebrity was just coming out.

And they didn't care how big they were. They were walking the streets and wearing the Preds jerseys. And I had all the games singing the anthems. And we felt like complete rock stars. It was so cool. Because we were last seed playing Chicago, and that was the big hump. That was like one of the reasons I got traded to get us over Chicago and the hump. And those guys were getting a little bit older, so it was kind of our chance to, you know, take over the division kind of thing.

And when we swept them, it was like, wow, we could beat anybody. And we just, we've kind of got the swagger to us. and man, was that fun. Yeah, too bad I got injured, but it was a, yeah, highlight of my career, definitely, that run, though. Did you still hear the crowd pop of when you stood up Jonathan Taves in that series? No, I don't remember hearing anything, but, yeah, that was cool, you know, because that was kind of the big thing was Johanson Taze,

He's got to be able to take Tays down. And like I said, he was getting a little older, but, you know, it was still a good feeling to outplay him in a playoff series and help our club win. So we interviewed Jake Neighbors of the Blues last season, and he told a story about having an off day in Nashville. And, you know, next thing you know, he's sitting in Garthbrook's studio hanging out with him. I wonder, like, for you, what were some of the craziest, I can't believe I am here, moments living in Nashville.

That's a pretty cool one. Garth, I've only got to meet him a few times, but him and Trisha are just amazing people. Dude, it's crazy. That's what's so cool about Nashville. It happens like all the time. You won't even, you're just going about your daily routine and something like that will just come in front of you. Like, you know, I've been to, I've hung up with Kid Rock a bunch of times.

Like, he's been to my house, I've been to his house. I've watched him in the same. studio do stuff, golf with Luke Bryan, golf with Chase Rice and Cole Swindell a good amount. Like, it's just crazy. But, you know, how it is, we're just guys, we're just people and just like to have cold beer and hang out and have fun. Yeah. So there's the culture in Nashville and how it is, have you spent time here at all?

Just coming in and out for games every now and then. Yeah, when next time you come for a few days, and if you cruise around town a bit, you'll just see the culture. It's such a, the city is such a great character to it. And I'm talking outside of Broadway, too, where people are just drooling all over the place. You know, it's a really cool place to live. And it's so laid back and there's so much respect because there are those celebrities all over the place. and, you know, people are just so so respectful to them, and it's so cool to see.

And so they can enjoy and they can go out and do things all the time and not be too bothered. And of course, I'll take pictures here and there. But for the most part, it's people just love seeing them out and letting them enjoy their lives. And they just go, wow, cool, that's so-and-so. That's cool. Just another day in Nashville.

Yes, no question. And many more days there for you. of course, to come. One thing I did want to ask about your playing style, the shootout technique. Now, it's not full-on Kuznetsov, like Snails Pace from the Red Line In, but you would come in and top of the circles,

you hit the brakes, but still moving just enough that you were not whistled early. How did you develop that? Well, first of all, not a lot of people know this. I went 0 for 9 to start my career. So I don't know why,

but in Columbus, they just kept putting me out there, putting me out there. And I was like, I was borderline going to go to coach. Like, I don't know. You've got to put someone else out. I can't score.

And now I'm like overthinking everything. So in practice, and you guys all know, everyone knows how good Bobrovsky is. I just tried this slowdown thing. I'm like, I got to try something. And it worked on practice. So I'm like, screw it. I'm not going to think about it. The next game, I get the chance.

I'm just going to hit the brakes and cruise in and make some moves. I don't even know what I'm going to do. I'm just going to play hockey, like a little kid going down in a shootout. And I scored, and I was like, well, all right, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, so I'm doing this forever. Outstanding. Heck, yeah, it worked great, but that's how it came. So I just stuck with it. Now, did Brobrovsky say anything when you first pulled it on him in practice?

Well, he was probably, I don't remember or anything, but he was probably like, what the heck's he doing? which probably a bunch of goalies thought in games for a little while and then a bunch of guys around the league were doing it. But I'm sure it was frustrating for goalies. I remember Dubnick wanted to, I'm pretty sure he wanted to skate out and Ron Hextall me, but yeah, it worked. So I was like, whatever, to help win some games, I'll do whatever.

All right. So now your post-playing days, but still competitive. The pro tour on the links. Yeah. Tell me and the listeners about that. Yeah, so it's a new thing, and it is the coolest thing in the world, man. It's a bunch of retired athletes, all the sports. You have to have a certain handicap, and you have to have a certain amount of yours

pro to qualify to play on it. And it is laid back, but it's serious. And it is amazing. So my dad's my caddy. I've played in three events now. We go all over the U.S. There's a $500,000 purse, and these sports fans down in Texas are putting it on,

and they're hoping to make it super successful. The word on the street, they're working on some TV stuff. And I leave actually in about 10 days. We have the next one's down in Florida. And it is the cool. thing in the world. All you do is golf. My last round was with John Elway. We're golfing, hanging out. And after golf, you're having beers, listening to the old boy's stories,

Brett Hulls there, a bunch of legendary hockey guys and athlete. And it is the time of our lives. It is so cool. And to do that with my dad, too, and have all these memories is just sweet. So it's been a blast and the timing of it starting. This is the first year. It's really started for a tour. And it's been super cool. And I'm looking forward to where they're going to take it and where it's going to go. Yeah, I was looking through the list of the athletes that are in there. You mentioned Elway, like there are some great names there.

Vince Carter, Tony Romo, Greg Maddox play. And that's just to name a few. So like, do you hold your own out there? Oh, man. I missed the cut by one last tournament. Oh. I shot four over. And then I shot like six and eight over.

And we had like a three hour or four hour weather delay our second day. And we're not like professional golfers where we go in and stretch and like do whatever. Like there's a hunt. All of us are in the bar hanging out. And I'm like, oh, this isn't going to be good. My dad's like, that's enough beer. You got to stop. I'm like, oh, what the heck?

We're just having fun. So the weather delay might have got me a little bit. But man, it is so cool. and hopefully I can get my game in shape and, you know, climb the leaderboards a little bit. Yeah, well, I wish you all the best there. The last one I had for you, Ryan, I mean, obviously, as you say,

you just had your first child of son in December. Congratulations on that. Thank you. So I imagine that, of course, is priority number one, 1A, all of it. Do you see yourself in any capacity still being involved in the game moving forward? I mean, you still talk about the Predators with such reverence.

Any thoughts on that? Totally open to it. Totally. I was planning on speaking with some ownership here in Nashville in this off-season and seeing if there's something they would be interested in and vice versa or some sort of role. I don't really, as of right now, I wouldn't want too big of a role of anything. But, you know, I want to give back and, you know, show face around the rink and whatever that looks like

and it'll be a positive influence with the charitable and the community stuff if I can lead in those ways and whatnot. So, you know, kind of the things that, you know, I think are really important to me that maybe I excel in a bit more and work with some young guys and do some charitable community stuff.

I think I could do really well with that. So maybe if there's some sort of role like that, hopefully we can come up with something. but I haven't put any pressure on it or timeline or anything like that. Just kind of, you know, let it come organically and see where that all goes. That's awesome. Oh, lastly, I heard a great story about one year, and maybe it was more than one year, you dressing up as the Grinch and visiting all the players' houses that have children to visit them over the home.

So I imagine there's an element of fatherhood that's come kind of naturally to you. Yeah. Well, that's the one I was single. So it was Christmas time. was in town and my folks were flying in that night. So I thought it was a good idea. I'm like, I think I got my brother to dress up as an elf too. And went to all the guys' houses, the kids.

And I was dressed up as the Grinch. And I made these gift bags and stuff. And it was a couple of the older ones I was messing with. A couple of the young ones were terrified. But it was regardless, it was hilarious. It was a lot of fun. I'm going to have to bring that back and do that sometime. Awesome. Well, Ryan, it's great to hear you're at peace and that you're right where you need to be right now. So thanks very much and congratulations on a phenomenal career.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Kyle. Thanks for having me on. Great chat and appreciate you, man. All right. Thanks once again to Ryan Johansson. We wish him all the best of the next chapter of his life tomorrow. Final hockey night in Canada of the regular season. And it is a loaded seven eastern window once again. Four games at all. Hockey Central, of course. horse gets you set at 630 Eastern. Then a little after 7 E.T. The Florida Panthers and the Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus and Montreal, a big one for both clubs there.

The Philadelphia Flyers, are they going to get in? The Winnipeg Jets. Are they going to get in? They're in Winnipeg to face the Jets who are trying to push in their own right out in the West. Also, Calgary in Seattle. That's part of our early telecast as well. One late game this week.

Vancouver and San Jose from San Jose. Jose. It's also the final after hours of Scott Oaks' distinguished career. Fittingly, Ryan Reeves will be the guests. There's family ties there, of course, between Reeves and the Oaks, and maybe special guests along the way

as well. Can't wait for one final after hours with Oak in the host chair. Okay, taking us out today a track from Groove Saloon, who's a pop psych band from Vancouver, B.C. So fitting, we featured them here in the episode that also

includes a conversation with Vancouver's own Ryan Johansson. Born in the aberrant but cunning minds of Daniel McBurney and Graham Gomez, described as a marriage between Tame and Pala and the Backstreet Boys that no one asked for. That's fantastic. Groove Saloon's music can tickle and delight as easy as it can offend and disgruntle. Their latest single, Look at Me, and its outrageous music video are out now on all platforms. Here is Groove Saloon, and look at me on 32Bots, The Podcast.