32 Thoughts: The Podcast - The Last Canadian Team Standing

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman open this edition of 32 Thoughts by conducting a post-mortem on the Vancouver Canucks season who lost Game 7 at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers. They delve into how Jim Rutherford and co. plan to reload for next season (9:02). Then, Jeff and Elliotte comment on the "crazy year" that Elias Pettersson went through (17:14). The guys then dive into the Ryan McDonough trade between the Predators and Lightning (21:42). Jeff and Elliotte also talk about Craig Berube's introduction as the Toronto Maple Leafs next Head Coach (29:02). They wrap the opening segment by discussing the possibility of Montreal missing out on hosting the Four Nations Faceoff (32:48).  The guys answer your questions in the Montana’s Thought Line (35:55).Jeff and Elliotte wrap the podcast by previewing both Stanley Cup semifinal series. They begin with the Oilers vs Stars (45:05) and finish with the Rangers vs Panthers (50:33). Email the podcast at [e-mail] or call the Montana's Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemailThis podcast was produced and mixed by Dominic Sramaty and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.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.

Rick Tockett referenced being a hero and there were plenty of third period heroes for Vancouver to make it interesting tonight. But Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers move on. The last Canadian team standing and into the final four. A game seven, a big trade, a new coach announced. And we're going to get into all of it here on 32 Thoughts, the podcast presented by the GMC Sierra Elevation. Elliot, I want to start off today's podcast with a question for you. Here it is.

Would you prefer purple or black gloves as we do the autopsy on the Vancouver Canucks season that just was? And what's next for Vancouver would you prefer the purple or the black sir I went to western purple and proud the purple satan the western mustangs good lord I we have a lot of sayings about Jeff you work at McDonald's when I was when I was at Guelph we had a lot of sayings that revolved around purple none of those things I can repeat on this podcast. And you know what they are. The purple Satan. That's what the students of Waterloo called us, the purple Satan. All right. Well, the purple gloves for you then.

The Vancouver Canucks. And we're going to get to everything. We're going to get to previews. We're going to get to the Montana's Thought Line. We're going to get to the Craig Berube press conference. We're going to get to the Ryan McDonough trade and what that means for Nashville and Tampa. But up first, big questions about what's next for the Vancouver Canucks. But even before I ask that one, how would you describe the season for Vancouver? I was one of those people that didn't think this was a playoff team. I was one of those people that thought, okay, this is lottery time.

Yeah, like most. And even Jim Rutherford came out and said, like, look, everything has to work perfectly for us to make it into the playoffs. I'm paraphrasing Rutherford here, but you know what I'm going at. And everything did outside of the Thatcher-Demko injury. They had health. They had great performances. Players having career years.

The fans were energized. It was awesome to see a vibrant NHL community in British Columbia again. How would you describe that season we just saw? I love the way that Rick Talkett said it at the end of game seven, when he discussed it as put pride back in the Jersey. Yeah. I think that's the perfect way to put it. And I would say this too, about the Vancouver Canucks,

you know know whose personality they embraced talk it no i'm going deeper than that whose personality they embrace the vancouver canucks stan smeele no No. JT Miller. Trevor Linden? JT Miller. Oh, okay, so on the roster. JT Miller, okay. See, the interesting thing about that is I would say that JT Miller embraced Rick Talkin's personality.

Yeah, okay. I mean, we can split hairs on this whichever way you want to go, but I think as a team, Vancouver became very – this became a lot of Miller's team, Vancouver became very, this became a lot of Miller's team. And that's not a shot at Quinn Hughes or Patterson. Yes it is, but okay, go ahead. I see what you're doing here. And it's an excellent plan. An excellent plan. Did you see what PX has said in the post game on Monday night?

It was glorious because your face melted. You totally melted. It was awesome. It was so smart. He's like, he says, you said Dallas was going to kill either one of these teams or kill Edmonton, whichever one I said. And all the fans were jumping on me like, oh, you have no respect for the Oilers.

And the Oilers fans were saying, oh, Elliot, I'm sorry your team, the Canucks lost. So good. This was a wild series. Everything was great about it. All the Oilers fans thought we, oh, Elliot, I'm sorry, your team, the Canucks lost. So good. This was a wild series. Everything was great about it. All the Oilers fans thought we were favoring the Canucks. All the Canucks fans thought we were favoring the Oilers. This series was honestly one of the highlights of my career to work on.

Fantastic. Anyway, I just think that if you're going to win in the playoffs, you have to be able to check. You have to be able to grind and you have to be able to compete to a higher level than you've competed before. And every round gets harder. You win your first round. You're like, that's awesome. We won the first round. Then you get into the second round like,, oh my God, this is even harder.

And it goes on and on and on for four rounds. And Miller is the Canuck who probably best exemplifies that attitude. Like if you go back over the last couple of years, all the comments were about Miller were too grumpy, grinds people too much. People don't get along with them. I think now it's more like if you're going to be successful, you have to embrace that.

Not so much always in the regular season, but in the playoffs, you have to. You have to embrace the grind. You have to embrace the grind. You have to love the grind. To be successful at anything, you have to love the grind and embrace it. And I really felt that this was going to be a seven-game series.

I thought that what Vancouver went through against Nashville was going to help them against Edmonton, and it did. And what Edmonton just went through against Vancouver is going to help them against Edmonton, and it did. And what Edmonton just went through against Vancouver is going to help them against Dallas because Vancouver pushed them to a place where Edmonton needed to go. But, you know, all these players are going to be better off for it. Miller's going to be better.

Besser, when he gets healthy, is going to be better. Hughes is going to be better. Pedersen's going to be better. All their players are going to be better hughes is going to be better peterson's going to be better all their players are going to be better but i think what happened this year was that if you're going to embrace a personality on your team it has to be the personality of a player who can take you to a higher level and i think right now the vancouver embraced that in miller like the thing about hughes is everyone's looking at hughes the offensive numbers weren't there and we'll find out if there were any health issues

but you know what and and sure like i'm sure hughes is gonna say yeah i wish i had more points or goals or whatever but i thought he played incredibly hard You remember his last playoffs in the bubble, Vegas said we are taking him out of the series and they punished him. They punished Quinn Hughes. In this series, especially against Nashville, this playoffs, he got punished. Did he back down? No. Did he quit? No. And maybe he didn't produce, but in the long run, he's going to be better because he went through this. The Canucks embraced the grind of their coach and Miller, and I think in the long term, they will be much better off for this. But there is work to do. They've got some challenges here, and the number one thing I will say about this front office,

expect the unexpected. Jeff, I'm sitting here and I'm going, I'm looking at the list. I'm looking at Lindholm, Zdorov, Bluger, Cole, Joshua, Lafferty, Myers, Besser in a year. And I'm ranking them in order. Who would they want to keep? Can they keep this guy? Yes, no, yes, no. But there's one thing we're all forgetting. And what we're forgetting is that this is the Jim Rutherford organization. How many times did Vancouver pull off things this year

where people said there's no way they're going to do it or there's no other team that could do it? And that doesn't mean that they're going to do do any surprises but I can tell you one thing I would bet your next month mortgage on and that is they are going to try Rutherford is going to identify who do I want to keep and he's gonna say let me see what I can do and he will do what it takes if they can't do what they want to do it's not going to be for lack of trying it's going to be simply because they can't make it work yeah and they try and they tried that's what it's going to be i'm with you 100 and the thing that i keep thinking about you know i woke up this morning thinking about okay how are elliot and i going to talk about the vancouver canucks and i got to

rutherford in my head and i said to myself a a guy like Jim Rutherford doesn't get this close without taking another shot. Yeah. There's no way he gets this close and says, okay, now it's time to be conservative and, you know, drill down. No, no, no. A guy like Jim Rutherford gets this close and takes another shot. We're going right back at this thing. That is the history of Jim Rutherford gets this close and takes another shot. We're going right back at this thing. That is the history of Jim Rutherford.

We saw it through Carolina. We saw it certainly with the Pittsburgh Penguins. And I think we see it again with the Vancouver Canucks, Elliot. Yeah, I'm with you on that. Now, the one thing that everybody should be made aware of is the Ekman-Larsen buyout jumps by 2.4 million. It doubles. So he was at 2.35 this year,

and he's gonna be at just under 4.8 next year. So that is one thing that they are gonna have to negotiate. And I think the Mikheyev thing is another one they're gonna have to battle through. And they'll do what they need to do there. But I really feel like I'm looking through this like I'm looking through their list Besser you can they can extend them on July 1st we'll see what that's gonna look like

they know what's the door of wants They're not crazy about the term. With Bluger, I think they're just worried he's going to be priced out of their reach. Joshua, I think they really like him a lot. I also think they're worried he's going to be priced out of their reach. Myers, I think they'd love to keep him, but I think they have a limit. And Myers is going to be out of their reach. The one guy I wonder here is Lindholm and he's probably going to be out of their reach. But it wouldn't surprise me if they look at all of these guys and Lindholm is the first one I think of where they say, all right, give us a number, tell us what it's going to be, and we'll see if we can do it.

Like, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they do something surprising to open up some room or they do something we're not seeing to get a player they want, or maybe they keep one guy that they thought that we thought was going to leave or they thought they were going to lose because they just determined you know what this is a guy we know we think he's really important here and we're going to take a bit of a bite a bigger bite than we thought just to keep this player all I'm trying to say is that we always think logically about what teams are going to do with the Canucks you have to think differently because you know they are this is a team to me I will be shocked if we get to October next year and they haven't done something that makes us all say, holy smokes, I didn't think that was going to happen.

Well, and a lot of it's going to revolve around the players that you've already mentioned. And I want to throw a couple of more onto the barbecue here for you. You mentioned Zdorov and as you point out, they know what the number is. I think a lot of us wonder about Tyler Myers. I think a lot of us wonder about Filip Hronik, who may be a restricted free agent, but he has arbitration rights. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention him even, too. I forgot him. Yes.

He's arbitration eligible. He's a restricted free agent. And Dakota Joshua, who really popped this year and had a really good season, he's an unrestricted free agent as well. What's the wisdom and thinking around these names well joshua as i mentioned earlier i think they'd like to keep him but i just think they're worried it's going to go into a place where they as of the end of the regular season were not willing to go but we'll see like maybe things change he was he was very good for them in the playoffs with ronick like Like it's a negotiation, right?

And Roenick's aiming high and it was not where they wanted to go. And, you know, he didn't have a great playoff. I'll tell you this. One thing that was really interesting to me in Vancouver is that I think there's a big difference between information getting out like as you know Jeff you know we've we've talked about Besser and we've talked about Nylander these playoffs when they were out and those are not uh those don't always bring great reactions when when you do those stories I understand it's just it's life in the big city but the one thing I think is interesting is when

players are struggling and news starts to get out of their injuries right and that happened in a couple of cases in Vancouver and it happened in Roenick's case that there were rumors of of an injury that he's gone through and so you know what that says to me is that, you know, people were sensitive to some of the things that were being said about players. I think this. I think the Canucks want to keep Roenick, but I don't think they're willing to do it at, say, an eight. Right. And, you know, I think the thing is, like, we talked about Carolina with the Kotkan Yemi potential buyout Carolina is not an organization that is going to say okay well we did this and we have to keep committed to it they're

gonna say no we did this we tried it it didn't work we're gonna try something else can't do that and I don't think Jim Rutherford's gonna double double down either I don't think he's going to look at it and say oh we gave up a first rounder we give up a lot to get this guy so we have to keep him and pay him whatever I don't think he's going to be like that I think he's going to say look like um we we have a limit of what we can do and and that's going to be it so you know maybe that's the one thing that surprises us this summer. I have no doubt the Canucks would like to keep him. But again, I think it's going to be a place where they are comfortable with. Let me throw one more name at you.

And he was the emerging star coming out of these playoffs for the Vancouver Canucks. He is a restricted free agent. He's someone that everyone fell in love with not just his play but his wardrobe as well and that is Arter's she loves yeah they got a good one here Elliot a real yeah he was excellent what happens here well he probably shares the job with Demko um you know De Smith is an unrestricted free agent um I've got to think he's going to look somewhere else for an opportunity to play. You know, he's, Shelovs and Demko are the guys. I mean, we didn't even mention Demko. You're going to have to figure out, or we're going to have to hear some clarity on what exactly he's

dealing with and what the long-term picture is. I mean, you're just worried. Is this something we're going to have to deal with for some time that, you know, Demko is, you know, is Demko a guy that you're just going to have to deal with that, you know, some goalies, they get hurt and you just have to live with that. So you better have another option. And Shilov certainly looks like looks like you know he was going to be the guy he he gave them a chance almost single-handedly to to win that game game seven oh yeah Elliot there's no way that it's only three nothing going into the third if it's not for she loves he was fantastic I really thought they were going to tie it and I was actually kind of surprised they didn't but you know she loves now you gotta sign him to a deal. He's an RFA.

He doesn't have Arbright. So, you know, they can wield the CBA at him if they want to. But, you know, you've got to think that next year is a Demko-Shilov's tandem. And if you're Vancouver, you're going to be comfortable with that. I think the interesting thing next year for Vancouver is gonna be now they go from hunter to hunted you know this year as you said you admitted and I don't think you were the only one nobody took them seriously at least early and next year from puck drop everyone's gonna take them seriously they're gonna go in with expectations it's gonna be be very different but again like I just think that Rutherford is a creative guy and he's a competitive guy

and I have no doubt while they've been playing him and his staff have been sitting there working up what are our various options and what are we going to do here and I just don't think what are our various options and what are we going to do here? And I just don't think they're going to do something unconventional. That's just the way they are. Thought on Elias Pettersson, who played better in Game 6, was certainly physical in Game 7. Your thoughts on, I mean, going back to your now infamous boat ride with Elias Pedersen to Game 7 against the Edmonton Oilers. How are you going to look back on this season?

I think this was a crazy year for him. He's a calm guy. But I think this year was a lot. But I think this year was a lot. I look forward to seeing him come back next year without all of the noise. Like there's no noise anymore. There is. He signed.

He's locked in. He's committed. They're committed to him. They. Game seven. He came out like Pedersen doesn't get enough credit for how physical is as he can be as a player. And he threw some big reverse hits in game seven. I thought, I was surprised they didn't set a bit more of a tone for Vancouver early.

Like, I think Pedersen had a really good year defensively. I think he had a good year physically. And if you, you know, look at his stats, he had a really good season offensively, at least in the regular season. He had 89 points. I thought in the playoffs, you know what I want to see more of him in the postseason and even in game seven, Jeff? I want to see him own the puck more mm-hmm I want to see him hold it more I want to see him drive to the net more like I thought even in game seven he passed it a lot he didn't carry the pocket time and what I would love to see for Patterson is like

this is a guy with 89 points this year and 102 points last year I think he's a mean guy and I like that about him I want to see him become mean with the puck I think he's mean defensively I think he's mean physically I think there's another level for him to become meaner with the puck and I bet you this playoffs is going to bring it out of him what do you mean I just think that just put his head down and drive through people with it I think he can do it. I think he can. I think that's the next level for him. I think what happened this year is going to make him

and Hughes even better. A lot of those players on that team, like everybody on that team. That was a great season for the Vancouver Canucks. Good on them, man. That was awesome. There was one more thing I wanted to say about this. Okay.

The Pedersen hit. The penalty? Yeah, the jump. So we put out the rule book after, and Ron told me never to tag him again. I was trying to give him credit because he was the one who suggested it to me, but he said there was too much crap in his timeline after i did that good idea bob i heard the reaction to that was in theory correct call because the rule book says it in practice we don't want to see that call again just don don't call that one. That's what someone told me.

So it was the right call. And I had actually a few people actually told me right call in theory. God, I hope we never see that again in practice. Okay. So is that they want to change it to something else, i.e. interference, which I always thought that it was, or they just want to erase it, turn the pencil upside down? I got the impression it was B, turn the pencil upside down. OK. All right. Congratulations to the Vancouver Canucks. I know it doesn't feel great for Canucks fans right now, and probably won't for a while, but that was an awesome season. OK, Elliot, scale of 1-10. Tuesday afternoon, right around 1 o'clock Eastern,

it was announced that the Tampa Bay Lightning had reacquired Ryan McDonough. Along with the fourth-round draft pick, Nashville receives a second and a seventh. Did you have any idea, or did this one catch you like it caught most of us? Scale of 1 to 10, surprise, I was a 47. I did not see that one coming. It's kind of interesting, Jeff, when you think about it, that's the second time McDonough's been traded involving Nashville and Tampa that was kind of a surprise.

Now, the last one got out. We did report the last time when he was traded from the Lightning to the Predators, I think a day or two before we reported that he was available and teams were talking about him and Nashville got it done really quick. This one I did not see coming at all. And you know, Barry Trotz had a really good scrum after where in the meeting end of season meeting McDonough said they had a long

talk about his future and he said to him according to Trotz if there's ever an opportunity for me to get back to Tampa could you please explore that and Trotz said he did it out of respect and the type of person that McDonough is. And basically, it just sounds like Trotz, a week ago, he called Julian Breezewald and said, look, Julian, I'm not going to ask you for a ton here. Just make something fair and I'll get it done for you. And for McDonough. And that's basically what happened here.

And then Trotz waxed poetic about what a great leader and a good person McDonough and that's basically what happened here and then Trotz waxed poetic about what a great leader and a good person McDonough is and he wanted to do with that and he also said look I think we've got enough here in terms of leadership that we could afford to do this so that's the Nashville side of things and you know this is a this is a business and often people get traded and it's not good for them and this is a business, and often people get traded, and it's not good for them, and this is a reminder that sometimes it can work out for people. You know, as for the Lightning, this says to me that we shouldn't be surprised that they're not taking the knee,

if you watch Game of Thrones. They're not taking a step back they're not conceding after a five game first round loss to florida they are in it to win it and even though some of us may think that their window has closed the lightning don't care what those people think and they're gonna go for it they obviously know m McDonough extremely well. And the other thing too is basically you trade for a guy who is two times 6.75. And that says to me that Tampa viewed that as a price worth paying instead of a long-term deal. Now, what that says to me is that without knowing what is going on with stamkos and breeze boss said we're working on it and i i don't think

there's anything imminent at this point in time although i'm always afraid to say that because of the podcast drops and then they sign and i look like a complete idiot But as we record this on Tuesday, I don't think anything's imminent It says to me unlikely they keep to Claire and Dumba. They've now got six defensemen on NHL contracts for next year they can go out and Get some depth if they want to but it just from a purely theoretical point of view it makes it seem more likely that they would keep Stamkos because he can still help them he's still a good player for them and they're trying to win so we'll see but again uh there's nothing imminent as far as i know and as Breezebois said and but they're not they're not giving up.

Now I know there's a lot of talk about they don't have a lot of cap room and people are saying does that mean they're going to trade Cernak or they're going to trade Sorelli. I just can't see them doing anything like that unless there's an appreciable way to make them better. Like the message they just sent is they're not moving backwards i just don't see how trading those guys makes them better and they're two of their younger core players you know cernak is 26 and sorelli is also 26. it's just i don't know that i see that you know there is a certain authority of the salary cap here though at the same time ellie like i think a lot of us are saying like sure they'd love to keep samco's

love to keep sorelli love to keep sir knock welcome back ryan mcdonough but everybody plays by the same numbers here how do you do it the lightning work in secrecy they always keep us guessing. Yeah. I just, everything they do is about winning. So it's always possible you can make one step back to move two steps forward, but I just never assume they're going to do something unless there's, unless it absolutely helps them win. Does this set something up significant for nashville oh i think so i mean look i think they were going to do some things pretty significantly in the first place like they're out for a score i know the marner rumors are all over the place and

i'll get to my theories on that in a minute um but one of the things that I kind of wonder about here is everyone's talking about Nashville and scoring and I agree they're going to look for it but this opens up a hole on their blue line and I can't help but wonder about a guy like Zdorov we talked about him in the last segment or earlier in this segment. And, you know, Barry Trotz, who played in the Western Hockey League when 10 guys on each team had 500 penalty minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Old Regina Pat defenseman. Here we go.

With McDonough off that blue line and Trotz has talked about, you know, that first round against Vancouver, how they're going to need to be more physical after that. He's going to look for trees, and Zdorov is a tree, and there's going to be obviously a lot of interest in him, but I kind of wonder if Nashville is going to be one of those teams now. They still have to try to get Carrier signed if they can, but that opens up a hole on their blue line for another mean defender.

Hmm. Okay. What are your monitor theories? It's what everyone's thinking right now. What are they? I don't think anything's going to happen until the Leafs and him sit down and talk and they understand what the contract asks and proposals are going to be and then we'll see where we really are if if if the marner camp thinks the leaves come with something outrageous or the leaves think the marner camp comes with something outrageous right and all bets are off

but let's see let's see what the contract talks start with um speaking of the maple leafs uh tuesday was a big one for that organization as they officially introduced Craig Berube as the next head coach. Brad Treleving was present, general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Brendan Shanahan was also there and told the humorous story about fighting Craig Berube when they played together in the NHL. Not much by way of insight from anyone. I think it's one of those press conferences where you just want to do the introduction and not create any

unwanted headlines. But you were there. What did you take out of it? No unwanted headlines. You're right. Nothing there that really surprised people. You know, I do want to clarify one thing I said, because I was a bit careless and I should have said it a bit better. You know, I'd said that the Leafs contacted the Players Association and asked about Berube. I could have phrased that better. I think what they did and they kind of talked about in the media conference was they reached out to a lot of players and they asked these players, had anything happened that had led to any kind of complaints or anything like that towards the, the players association. And,

and obviously they were told no and there's, there's, there, there's no history of anything like that, but I could have said it better, I guess. And so let me have said it better, I guess. And so let me just clarify that. But it was a smart thing to do. You have to make sure there's nothing here you're unaware of. It basically went as I expected. With Craig Berube, he's going to tell you the truth, and you're going to have to deal with that.

But if you deal with it properly, you're going to be rewarded. And it's it's that simple. And that's the way he thinks. And that's what the Maple Leafs want. And like you said, Jeff, there was there was nothing in this media conference that surprised anyone or really would have made headlines and he was careful like you know Steve Simmons tried to get him to talk about your goaltending sucks and you know he wasn't he wasn't going there and I said to him you know are you worried about being

blind publicly and he said it rarely happens it's only happened a couple times I generally prefer to do it privately which is the right answer and you know there was questions about Marner and Tavares and he was like I'm looking forward to talking to them and you know it was just nice and easy. One of the things that Craig Berube did mention at this press conference we should we should clarify he talked about how there was one person still on staff that he worked with, with the St. Louis Blues. So I think one of the questions is who are the assistants going to be? The person in question is Mike Van Ryn, who was with him in St. Louis as well. Elliot, I don't know if we're down the road on assistants with the Maple Leafs yet, but

that was out there on Tuesday afternoon. Yes. As you mentioned, Mike Van Ryn is the guy, and we'll see what they do there. There's no shortage of interest in that job. It's the Maple Leafs. And we should also mention Rob DeMaio, who left Anaheim, is now in Ottawa. So it's the spring, which means we start to see changes. And we should mention that Rick Bon Bonus is going to be on the panel with Kevin and Luke. And I think Kelly and Jen, I'm not sure how it's all going to work, for games one and two of the Western Conference Final

and game two of the Eastern Conference Final. Excellent. Excellent news. We're going to get to those series previews here coming up in a couple of moments. Four Nations face off, or as sometimes people refer to it, the Four Nations freeze. I don't know who does that. I do, and someone told me to knock it off yeah so something i heard a couple of days ago i forgot to mention it on monday's pod but i wanted to mention it here is that it's supposed to be held next year in boston and montreal that's been uh reported uh that's not new news that that those two cities were supposed to be the hosts and I am looking forward

to my trip to both those cities I love Boston and I particularly love Montreal but I was told on the weekend that Montreal is up in the air because I guess which it's not the Canadians that's the issue I guess it's the city or whoever you negotiate with to bring an event to your region. They're having trouble getting the deal done. So it's not like it is 100% not going to be in Montreal. I don't even know how to qualify it as how, what the chances are. But I have heard that Toronto is now a possibility it might end up being just in Toronto instead of Boston Montreal and let me just say this hang on hang on to say you

want you want to get Montreal's attention yeah they might lose an event to Toronto you know what Merrick that's pretty good I was looking at it from my point of view very selfish but you've got the right point of view here yeah hey how but you've got the right point of view here. Yeah. Hey, how do you feel about losing a potential event to Toronto? That's not going to go over very well. People in Montreal love that. A huge international hockey event.

Yeah, Toronto's going to swoop in and scoop it from you. That's going to go over great. I'm really looking forward to go to Montreal. I will be extremely upset and disappointed if my trip to Montreal next February is taken away from me. I'm not going to be happy about this. It has been too long since I've been able to

walk your great streets, eat at your great restaurants, and sample the outstanding Montreal nightlife. So I am going to be cranky if a deal can't get done here. And Montreal, I can go to Toronto anytime. I love Toronto. I live here and montreal i can go to toronto anytime i love toronto i live here but i want to go to montreal so the the people in montreal are negotiating have to solve

this problem clearly because everyone loves to hear media gripes everyone loves to hear podcasts this is all about my media people complain let me talk about that flight. Holy smokes. I need a paid trip to see PJ. Oh my goodness, of course. All right, on that we'll hit a break. Still to come, straight ahead on the program here, the Montana's Thought Line, and a little bit later on, Series Preview, Eastern Conference, Western Conference.

Don't go anywhere. Podcast continues. Listen to the 32 Thoughts Podcast ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. Welcome back to the podcast. Time now for the Montana's Thought Line. Montana's barbecue and bar, Canada's home for barbecue. Thank you, Rick Turner. The way to get in, 32thoughts at sportsnet.ca, 1-833-311-3232. 32thoughts at sportsnet.ca,333113232 As always, these

emails and voicemails, lovingly curated by the great Griffin Porter. Brendan in Los Angeles, who submits, Go Wings! Hello, Jeff, Elliot, Dom. Been watching hockey since before I can remember, and in those decades, oh, this is interesting.

I have heard a lot of whistles. I hadn't given it much thought, but with the ever-increasing scrutiny on the refs as we get deeper into the postseason, I thought I'd ask, do NHL referees use the same whistle? Or is there a list of improved whistle models and everyone has their favorites?

Are there heirlooms out there or whistle equivalents to shanahan's shoulder pads all the old sherwoods thanks and keep up the great work whistles elliot i have the answer for you when we think of whistles normally we think of elliot Normally we think of Elliot. What's the brand? Fox 40. Ron Foxcroft. The Foxcrofts.

Ron and Steve. Yes. So the Fox 40 brand is the whistle that NHL officials use, but it is one very specific Fox 40 whistle. It is P-less. It is the Fox 40 whistle. It is P-less. It is the Fox 40 whistle called The Call. Not The Call as in the C-A-L-L, but as in the C-A-U-L, Elliot. Do you know why? The late John McCauley, who was adored. And you hear, listen, if you hear people talking about John McCauley now, it is with reverence.

I remember talking to Paul Stewart once, just a casual conversation. And he, I don't think he'd mind me telling this, like he teared up, like just talking about everything that John McCauley meant to him and what he did for him. And I'm just glad that the officials in the NHL right now use a Fox 40 whistle called The Call. Think about John McCauley when you hear whistles. All right. A voicemail. Gordon in Vancouver Island. Hello, Daily Dom.

This is Gordon from Vancouver Island. Enjoying the Arbiter Connects challenges. Twice now, you've referenced Erin Ambrose, first time after the triple overtime and the sheer volume of time she spent on the ice. And there was a quick, quick you used about getting IV after the fact. And then you mentioned you were most recently. So that brought me back to the original and wondering what is allowed to be consumed or taken between periods while playing. Can they take IVs? Can they take vitamin shots? Or is it just,

you know, oranges, whatever they choose, is there or are there parameters to what is legal? Can they take, I don't know, a little extra blood for oxygen intake? Yeah, so what are the rules with regards to what you can take between the periods and who monitors it? Love the work and don't want the season to end. Thanks. We're a little bit late getting to this voicemail and Gordon's favourite team the Canucks season has come to an end. Any regulations Elliot on what you are or are not allowed to take during intermission

to get your stamina back? I just always assumed as long as it's not on a banned substance list, you're good to go. That's pretty much it, Jeff. Yes. You can't take anything. There have been cases. Carter Ashton was one case yep you know Sean Horkoff was

one case and Horkoff accepted responsibility and where you know you're responsible for what you put into your body and you know it basically if you put anything in that's a banned substance, then you can be suspended. And that's pretty much what you can put anything in that isn't going to get you suspended and you're responsible for it. And one of the things that you always get warned about, and I, like I started dealing with this about 20 years ago when I first started doing Olympics, is that players are always warned that labeling is not always something that you can trust. That there are supplements that say this is what is inside this package, but it doesn't necessarily mean that everything is properly included. And they'll look at it and they'll

say, Hey, that's not our problem. That is your problem. So as long as you don't take anything that's banned, you're okay. Excellent question. Thanks for the voicemail there. Let's finish up with this one, Elliot. Justin from Beamsville. Dear Jeff, Dom and Elliot.

I was watching the Switzerland Czechia game and saw that Nico Hescher had to swap his number 13 jersey due to blood on his jersey. What happens if this happens in the NHL? Do they just swap for a fresh jersey? Thanks, Justin. Proud Griffin slash Aggie, Boo Western. Let's go. All right, great question, Justin.

From Beamsville. Proud Aggie. So this is's go. All right. Great question, Justin, from Beamsville. Proud Aggie. So this is in the NHL rule book. It's section 8.3. Blood. Titled simply, blood. I like that. A player who is bleeding or who has visible blood on his equipment or body

shall be ruled off the ice at the next stoppage of play. Such players shall not be permitted to return to play until the bleeding has been stopped and the cut or abrasion covered if necessary. It is required that any affected equipment and or uniform be properly decontaminated or exchanged. So essentially they have to swap out a sweater. If necessary, yes. And you have to stop bleeding.

There was a play this year with Hughes, Quinn Hughes as a matter of fact, where in the playoffs he was still bleeding and they said, you have to go off. I can understand the still bleeding part and wanting to stop that. Can I ask you an opinion question? And I may sound barbaric in this one.

I like the visual of blood on the jersey. I know the NHL doesn't like it, but you do too? I like it. I think it looks really cool. I've always hated it. Always got blood on the jersey. Here comes the change. No, it looks great.

Leave the blood on there, please. You know where it all changed, Jeff. You go back to when Magic Johnson was first revealed to be HIV positive. Right. You go back and that was in the early 90s and you think of everything that we didn't know then that we now know now 30 years ago. At the time, we really had no idea about what that meant or you know how easily or not easily it was transmitted as a matter of fact if you go back now and you read some of the things that were written at that time you'd be like holy smokes but that was

when when that happened they started taking in all sports, the rules much more seriously about blood on jerseys or blood in the field of play. Right. Excellent question. Okay, that's the Montana's Thought Line. Montana's Barbecue and Bar, Canada's home for barbecue. Again, the ways to get in.

32thoughts at sportsnet.ca. 1-833-311-3232. Eastern, Western, conference, Previews, next. Jeff Allendom 32 Thoughts Try the Rims today Whoa

Yeah Welcome back, 32 Thoughts, the podcast presented as always by the GMC Sierra Elevation. Elliot, here we go. It is the Edmonton Oilers facing off against the Dallas Stars in the West. It is the New York Rangers facing off against the Florida Panthers in the East. We have Knobloch. We have DeBoer. We have LaViolette. We have Maurice.

So only one coach here has won the Stanley Cup before, and that is Peter LaViolette with the Carolina Hurricanes. Let's begin with the West, the Edmonton Oilers and the Dallas Stars. Dallas and Rupe Hintz is a wild card here. I get that. Looks fantastic, deep at every single position. They've knocked off the defending Stanley Cup champions. Heck, they knocked off the champions this season before as well. And now they look to knock out the best hockey player in the world, Connor McDavid. Your thoughts on this series?

There was a lot to like about the Oilers' last round against Vancouver. They didn't win the series in a typical Oiler way with McDavid and Dreisaitl scoring at will all over a team. You know, they did have moments when they were absolutely dominant, but they had other moments where they were held in check, even on the power play, and they found a way to grind to win. That will make Edmonton's an important player for them but you know I mean Edmonton's gonna have to grind just like they did at the end of lot of the last one you know they lost Skinner got taken out of the net for two games how many people would have said beforehand that if Skinner loses his net for

two games due to performance Edmonton would have won the series but they still found a way they fought hard they checked hard and they grinded their way the last two games they threw a really good defensive blanket around the Canucks so that makes me more likely to say that Edmonton could give Dallas trouble as opposed to less. You know the one thing that Dallas has that not a lot of teams do have is a guy who is built to at least give McDavid everything he can handle and that's Haskinen. Haskinen should get more Norris Trophy love. Last year I voted him first. This year I violated that that I don't think I had him on my ballot but he's he's one

of the best defensemen in the league and he should win at least one before his trophies done. Like this is one of those things where I could see if he has a really good series against McDavid where everyone sees it and he wins it next year. It's one of those kinds of things it's almost like everyone has to see it happen even though a lot of people know it's already happening but that's one thing that Dallas has like one of the few defensemen in the league who are built to at least battle McDavid to a standstill. I think this is going to be a hard grindy series but Dallas is the favorite although like I said about the Canucks, the way they had to

beat Nashville would help them against the Oilers. The way the Oilers had to beat the Canucks will help them against Dallas and again I really believe it's the case. The Oilers need more depth. You know, CeCe scored a huge goal in Game 7. Bouchard continues to score them a ton of points. But I just think the Oilers, especially against the Stars, they're going to need more depth to beat this team because the Stars have a lot of depth. Okay, so we've seen Pete DeBoer here.

We've seen LaViolette here. We've seen Maurice here. We have not seen a lot of Chris Knobloch. Like, we're all getting to know Chris Knobloch at the NHL level. Anything that you've noticed so far? I really thought that this series was a huge coming-out party for him. You know, as we've joked, he's a very calm guy. But I thought he did things in this series that helped his team win.

You know, there are people who say, do coaches really help a team win? This to me is proof that, yeah, the answer is yes. Number one, he made the goalie change. And then he did it back and you know that's that was a gutsy decision he took Corey Perry out of the lineup for game six and seven I don't know a lot of coaches that would have done that and he did it and the other thing too was the timeout he called after Vancouver made it three to two he didn't lose his mind he was calm but it was a fantastic timeout and it it took the momentum away from Vancouver like that building was going

crazy the everyone sensed the tie and they shut them down right after that timeout he refocused his team at a big moment to me that was a basketball timeout. That was like a team's up by 10, the opponent gets two buckets in a row, timeout, we're calming this down. That wasn't a tired players timeout. That wasn't a keep my power play on the ice timeout. That was a we're regaining control of the situation timeout and I give him a lot of credit for it I you know to me knoblock really arrived this series and as we joked on Monday's pod he gave new coaches hope he is the one non-retread who made the Stanley Cup semifinals so all those guys looking for their big break all those men and women looking for their big break. Yeah. They say, ha, he's in there.

Cheer Chris Knobloch. Okay, Eastern Conference. This one is fascinating. It's the Florida Panthers facing off against the New York Rangers. It is the skilled, yet, how shall we describe, hostile Florida Panthers facing off against the skilled and, at times, because there is a Rempe, there is a Trouba, hostile New York Rangers. We talk about the power play.

We should also talk about dueling Russian netminders. You have an at times emotional Igor Shcherkin and you have a very stoic, someone who's been there before as well, Sergei Bobrovsky. What intrigues you about this series? A lot. The goaltending matchup does. Two elite goaltenders. I would give the slight edge to Shesterican, but it's not like Bobrovsky hasn't stolen series before.

So that doesn't necessarily mean anything. To me, the key thing is, of all the teams in the playoffs, the Panthers are second in penalty minutes. Only Boston had more of them. The Panthers are at 171. That's 32 more than the Oilers were for third place. And they also have a really good penalty kill. And you better, if you're going to take penalties like that,

they have the third best penalty kill and you better if you're going to take penalties like that. They have the third best penalty kill at 86% but the Rangers have a killer power play. They're at 31% among teams that are still alive only Edmonton's is better. So when I look at this series I see it as a battle between the Rangers power play and the Panthers penalty kill especially if the Panthers continue to play the way they like to play which is extremely aggressively and you have to believe they're going to play like that because that's just who they are that's their identity and there's no point in them even going out there if they're not going to play to their identity. So that's the key one for me is who wins this special teams battle? Rangers power play, which is elite. Panthers penalty kill, which is elite.

Is it just me or Elliot? Does this one seem like it has the potential to be the series of goalie bumps? Yeah, I can see that. There's no question about that they're both aggressive oh yeah and you know i mean look like that bennett goal that will embolden the panthers there there's no doubt about that um and you know these teams are physical there'll be lots on both ways like the forwards are physical the defensemen are physical there'll be lots of battling around that net it'll it'll be a lot to handle you know the other thing too is you know

Rempe didn't play a ton at the end of that Carolina series but there's a place for him in this series oh yeah um you know like you like you could see that there's a real good argument for Laviolette to insert him against this particular team and see what he can do. And I'm not talking about the fighting. I'm talking about, you know, the physical playing. You know, also, too, you know, he'll want to get back in. This is interesting for me about the Rangers. And Laviolette's good about this stuff.

You know, he'll go in. He gave them a real lift. But now, you know, who else is lurking? It's Blake Wheeler. And Wheeler hasn't played for a long time. The glass banger? Glass banger. Yes.

The glass banger, Blake Wheeler. One of my least favorite things ever. Anyway. Yes, I know you hate the glass banger you and paul bisonette anyway so place in hell for them so what he can do now is i need a lift rampy i need a lift heel i need a lift wheeler it's it's going to be interesting to see what he does here with that and this is why i always believe that timelines for injuries are inflated always better to come back early than be behind schedule so when someone says six months five good good

rule of thumb not always true but good good rule of thumb so i i'm i'm interested in i think it's going to be a great series and i think it's going to go seven. This one's going to be fun. I'm with you. Fingers crossed this thing goes seven. I don't know what both teams are going to look like if these two teams go through seven games, but bring it on. Florida Panthers, New York Rangers, game one tonight, 8 o'clock Eastern. Watch this one

on Sportsnet. And then game one Thursday between the Edmonton Oilers and the Dallas Stars. It's another hockey night in Canada fair. Watch it on Sportsnet, 8.30 Eastern for Game 1 between these two teams. Enjoy the action. Enjoy the hockey. Talk to you again Friday morning.