32 Thoughts: The Podcast - Trade Season Starts Early

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Lots of action away from the ice! Jeff and Elliotte get into the three-way trade between the Kings-Blue Jackets-Flyers (00:00), wonder what Philly will do with Carter Hart (12:30), the latest on Alex DeBrincat (18:30), Toronto’s core four (22:15), Calgary’s coaching search (27:50), Anaheim hires Greg Cronin as their head coach (32:10), Lou Lamoriello speaks (39:20), Montreal signs Cole Caufield (44:20), and they get into the Stanley Cup with the Golden Knights up 2-0 (48:30).Plus, they catch up with Bruce Cassidy (1:05:45) and Paul Maurice (1:15:00) in Las Vegas.Watch the entire Zach Whitecloud piece HEREEmail the podcast at [e-mail] or call The Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemailMusic Outro: Winston Surfshirt - For The RecordListen to the full track hereAlso heard, Shayhan - PavementThis podcast was produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: KKGK, MSG and Sportsnet.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

Yeah, how do I? Oh, okay. Hold on. Did you bring your Garfield mic? Is that why it is? You didn't bring the real one? You brought your novelty. You know what?

I changed all those things on one. It's still red. Oh, there it is. All right. Whoa, there he is. All good. Well, today should be a very newsy edition of 32 Thoughts to Podcast presented by the GMC Canyon AT4X.

As always, Merrick Delic and the man who puts the source in sorcery. You like that one, Elliot? Very good. Elliot Friedman. I thought about that one on my way back from Vegas the other day. It was about three o'clock in the morning

and I'm like, I'm going to try to come up with a creative way to introduce Elliot on the next podcast. What do I associate Elliot with? I associate Elliot with sources. Hmm. What would the root of that be? Maybe sorcery.

Let's throw it out there. It was one of those flights, Elliot, where I just couldn't sleep. And so that's where I came up with that. You'd been up a lot. As a matter of fact, there is a photo, which I will not tweet out, circulating of Jeff on the way down. I was in livestock row. I was at the very back, the last row in the airplane, in the corner. Yes.

As someone slept on me. No reclining seat. No reclining seat. Tough one, Merrick. No reclining seat. That's okay. I tried to watch as many John Wick movies as I could to pass the time. Let's start off with a three-way trade.

The Columbus Blue Jackets, the Los Angeles Kings, and the Philadelphia Flyers. And there was a tricky sort of Rubik's Cube to get there, but by the end, here's what it looked like. Columbus receives defenseman Ivan Provorov. The Los Angeles Kings get Hayden Hodgson, Kevin Connaughton. They retain, by the way, 30% of the Ivan Provorov deal. The Philadelphia Flyers get netminder Cal Peterson,

Sean Walker, Helga Granz. First round draft pick from Columbus this season. That is 22nd overall. Columbus's second round pick in either 24 or 25. And LA's second round pick. Your thoughts on this one? Where do you want to start here? Which team do you want to start with?

I think we start with the team that got the big player in the deal. I want to get to the rebuild with Philadelphia and what's next for LA. But let's talk about Proveroff and CBJ. Okay, let's do that. Columbus here, they're looking for D. They are out looking hard for D. For example, one of the things I'd heard, we mentioned on Saturday Night Show,

that teams were calling the Devils seeking permission to either talk to Severson or trade for his rights. And I think Columbus was one of the teams that was looking at that too. So they're definitely looking for defensemen, and they want someone with term. That's one of the things that Columbus really likes about this, is they get a player who's locked in for a couple of years and that really appeals to them so they get Provorov he's the type of player they're looking for right now just a defenseman they have a bit of control

of and I'm not surprised in the least that they targeted him as the kind of player they're looking for because in addition to Severson, there were also some rumors with them and the possibility of someone like Orlov too. And Kekulainen is being aggressive in his pursuit of defensemen. There's no question about that. So I'm not surprised at all. Are you prepared?

Because this is where my brain went right away. And perhaps for the obvious reasons, are you prepared to make the connection between the Columbus Blue Jackets hiring Mike Babcock and them acquiring Ivan Provorov? And the reason I mentioned that is back in the 2015 NHL draft, that's the Connor McDavid or maybe if slash when he wins the Stanley Cup, we'll call it the Jack Eichel draft, dare I say. The Toronto Maple Leafs had an issue at the draft table,

had an issue leading up to the draft. They were selecting fourth overall and Mark Hunter, who was heading the draft, was making the decision and he wanted Mitch Barner. At that point, no one knew more about Mitch Barner in junior hockey than Mark Hunter and he was going to go with Mitch Barner. more about Mitch Marner and junior hockey than Mark Hunter and he was going to go with Mitch Marner uh Mike Babcock however uh valued a young defenseman and there were more than a few in that draft there was also Wierenski and Hannafin but it is very much believed that Ivan Provorov was the defenseman that Mike Babcock stumped for at that draft at the Leafs table I have heard that story by the way about all three defensemen. At one time I've heard it about Provarov.

Another time I heard it about Wierenski and the third time I heard about Hannafin. Mm-hmm it's actually, to be honest, Jeff, the first guy I actually heard about was Hannafin. And then I heard it about the other two. And the story I was always told is that Mark Hunter, who was running the draft for the Maple Leafs said, do you know what's in my contract? And Babcock said, what? And he goes, the right to make the draft pick.

And he picked Mitch Marner, which turned out to be a great pick for Toronto. You know what else, as a sidebar, let's go down a side street here quickly. The Arizona Coyotes selected third overall. They went with Dylan Strom. Dave Tippett, who was the head coach at that point, much like Mike Babcock, although whether it was Proveroff or Hannafin or Wierenski, Dave Tippett very much was trying to convince scouts, I guess Tim Bernhardt would have been the head scout at that point, to take Ivan Proveroff.

So the Maple Leafs weren't the only one. The other thing Arizona did at that draft was they could have traded for Dougie Hamilton, and they didn't because they could have made that deal. And I remember interviewing Don Maloney on the floor after that draft was done. And he did say, yes, we could have had a deal for Dougie Hamilton that would have given Boston the third overall pick. But he said, you look at our conference and you look at our division and you look at we have to play against alonzo kopitar and we have to play against joe thornton and we have to play against ryan getzlaff we have to get a big center so he chose to keep the pick and take dylan strome i understood his

rationale completely at the time so there were a lot of rumors going around about that draft and babcock is a believer in that i'm not i'm not surprised that that he would be interested in a player like provorov and look he's watching the games right now you've talked about it jeff you need big mobile d that make it very hard for opponents to get through your zone You don't necessarily have to be a killer, but you have to make people weave a maze to score against you. You know, there's one scout that I spoke to who was in that area of drafting Ivan Provorov back in 2015. And you know how him and his team referred to Ivan Provorov? Smaller Pronger.

That's what they called him. Now, he didn't have that edge that pronger had, but he said all the things that pronger does, the long bomb passes, the defend really well, the big stick, the whole deal. He said, this guy is smaller pronger. We got to get him in our organization. Provorov in Philadelphia, it was divorce time.

Everything that happened last year in Philly, everything from the pride jersey to you know rumors that either he'd asked out or would welcome a change of scenery it was time for Ivan Provorov to go somewhere else and to start again and I think it was time for the Flyers to to move on from Provorov So I don't think anybody here is going to regret it when it comes to Philadelphia or Provorov. I think they recognized it was time for new partners and a new marriage. Okay, before we get to the Philadelphia Flyers,

the team that traded Provorov, and we'll get to the rebuild in action here, your thoughts on what LA did. And was it, I don't want to say nothing more than, but was the main reason all these deals happened the way that they did because they need to clear cap space? 100%. And nevermind 100%, Jeff.

I'll go 1,000. I'll go 1,000%. Look. Someone's been to Vegas. Okay, very good. Even from before the day they traded for Gavrikov they've been trying to sign him you'll remember when Gavrikov was available from Columbus teams had permission to talk to him and the Kings tried to sign him to a deal I think they were

trying to sign him to like a four or five year deal but they just couldn't get to a number that Gavrikov was happy with now it's been reported in multiple places number that Gavrikov was happy with now it's been reported in multiple places today that Gavrikov was it wants a two-year deal you know I'm not surprised by that like Gavrikov is a really unique guy Columbus wanted to sign him he didn't sign you know he was really angry by what happened around the trade deadline with the Boston deal. He was upset. He was made to sit out as long as he did. He was upset that the trade didn't happen.

And he's made it very clear he wants to be in a winning situation, and he wants to sign a short-term deal where he'll be a free agent again in a couple of years where the cap goes up. And I have no doubt his representative has told him that that's not the smartest thing to do, but he doesn't care. From what I understand about Gavrikov, he's a pretty unique guy. He marches to his own drummer and he'll make his own decisions. So I do think that's going to get done.

I assume it's going to be a little bit of a bigger number. I heard the Kings were just under five million and he said no when they were talking about the four or five year deal so I assume it's going to be a two-year in the fives high fives mid fives maybe six I'm not exactly sure here but that's going to get it done and you know the Kings last year when they were talking to Arizona about Chikrin they wanted Peterson in that deal they were talking to arizona about chikrin they wanted peterson in that deal they wanted arizona to take that money and i don't know what happened i just know that there were some hard feelings uh there like i i think the kings thought they had a deal arizona apparently said we never had an agreement on this i don't know exactly what happened there but obviously

philly is ready to weaponize their space they did it and you know as we talked earlier there were rumors that like arvidsson was out there for the kings to clear money but now they have some finances to do what they need to do and it'll be interesting to see where they go in the goaltender route are they going to go corpus cell or are they going to go somewhere else now Now we're talking about goaltenders here. Let's get to Philadelphia because the Carter Hart question is very much out there. But before we get there, the Philadelphia

Flyers, look, if you had any doubts about what Daniel Breer's plan was with the Philadelphia Flyers after hearing him speak various times, this is his first trade and this is a trade for the future very much. So they move out Proveroff to your point. It was time. Yeah.

Cal Peterson comes in. Sean Walker, the defenseman comes in who just, by the way, as a side note is a pretty quick buddies with Morgan Frost. They train together, skate together, work out with Jared Pignatero in the off season. They're fast buddies here in the area where I live. Anyhow, Helga Granz comes in, prospect, second round draft pick of the Los Angeles Kings. Defenseman, good skater, heavy shot, like real good hard shot.

The one thing when I checked out there after the trade, you know, what does he need more of? Someone told me intensity. So John Tortorella can bring out intensity in players, and you saw that with Owen Tippett. You wonder if he can do the same thing with Helga Granz. Our first round draft pick from Columbus, that is this year's 22nd overall.

A second round pick, another 24 or 25, and LA's second round draft pick. This is eyes to the future. Elliot's. It absolutely is. And it's, it's exactly what, well, what someone called him today. Big brass ones. Breer said he was going to do.

Holy alliteration, Batman. I love the alliteration. So I'm, I'm happy to use it. It's exactly what he said he was going to do, and he did it. And maybe we have an early contender for the Macklin-Celebrini pick in next year's draft. Philly is staking its case for number one. We haven't even gotten to this year's draft.

We're already talking about next year's draft. But he said he was going to do it, and now he's doing it. And it'll be interesting to see what happens with Hart. Now you mentioned Hart here. I'm getting some very, very different feedback on what's going on here. I've got some people saying it's nowhere near close and I've got some people saying they thought it was getting pretty hot so what this says to me is that he's out there everyone knows he's available and people are kind of picking at the flyers and saying okay you know what are we gonna do here i think there's gonna be some teams here that we haven't thought about you know someone suggested to me montreal maybe they have jake allen for another year sam montembeau

had a really good season and a really good worlds but hearts got a high ceiling but I will say this I had a few people really point at Toronto now the interesting thing about this is I always wonder because you know Tree Living is the GM in Toronto now and he makes a lot of calls like he's in on everything and one of the things I kind of remembered was now that he's here we're gonna hear Toronto being involved in more things simply because I think he is a guy who really looks out there for what's available so sometimes I look at this and I say all right like this is him just putting his feelers out as opposed to anything serious now like I said Jeff I've had some real mixed messages on this one. I had one denial. It wasn't going to be Toronto, but I had some other people say,

just keep looking at it. And you know, the one challenge here is let's say it was Toronto. They have to do something with Matt Murray. Well, Philly's off the board now. Like it would be easy if they wanted to trade for Carter Hart, say, okay, you take Matt Murray. Well, Philly just did that with Cal Peterson. So if Toronto is going to be in this, that means you're letting go of Samsonov and Wool is your other goalie next year, but you have to find something to do with Murray.

And that's the one thing I do think that if Toronto is going to do this, they have to have a plan for their other goalie. A lot of people are talking Buffalo, and I think Buffalo is just going to be rumored in every goaltender deal until they come out and either say we're making a trade or we're going with what we have i just think that's the nature of the game i heard some people talk about ottawa all that was denied to me i think everybody knows that danny briere is open for business what i get a disagreement

on is how close any of this is and And that, that's going to be the most fascinating thing over the next few days. You know, which team I really wonder about here? Who's that? With Carter Hart, the San Jose Sharks. That's a team that doesn't want us to take a step back, but they know they have to

start to really turn this team over. There's not going to be a classic teardown. And with someone like Carter Hart, who's 24 years old, like you're not going to be a classic teardown and with someone like Carter Hart who's 24 years old, like you're not going with a kid here. I know he's a restricted free agent with Arbright's next season, but Reimer's a UFA. They have

Kockanen for one more season then he's a UFA. Out of San Jose we kept here and they want more defense and they need goaltenders as well. I don't know. I just lob it out there for consideration on a Hockey Talk podcast. I have to think there is going to be a lot of teams at least looking at this. And, you know, you mentioned goalies.

Look at all the goalies who are in play right now. There's Hellebuck. There's Gibson. There's Hart. Jari. Everything's now completely different in pittsburgh because they've got a new boss there but you know i heard jari when they were talking during the season you know he wanted some term like five to six years so i mean i don't know where that's gonna go you want to throw dan vladar out there i don't know where that's going to go. You want to throw Dan Vladar out there? I don't know.

Dustin Wolf's playing next year. I just wonder at the very least if Calgary and Markstrom have a conversation. And Markstrom has complete control. And I know this is going to burn up the city of Calgary, but I just don't think Craig Conroy is doing his job if he doesn't at least have that conversation. The other name I'd like to add here is Saros.

Nashville did have some conversations about him at the deadline. I think with the Kings, the way that it's kind of going there, I think it would take a big offer, but I think if something did come, they would at least consider it. I was told that that one was very unlikely to occur. Not saying those conversations didn't happen

because they absolutely did. I was just told that that one was a highly unlikely. I would agree with you. I think you would have to come at them with a great offer. Listen, what did you and I do on trade deadline day? We chased Saros Rumors. Yeah. Right, because that name was very much out there.

There's a lot of goalies out there. Everybody thinks Gustafson's going to resign in Minnesota. That's going to get done. But I think there's a lot of movement, a lot of movement with the goalies. And so, I mean, we'll see where this goes. Like there's different ages, there's different contract statuses. I mean, depending on a team out there needing a goalie who they, they really think is their guy, you're going to have options here.

It's a couple in Carolina, Elliot. Yeah. Anderson, Ronta. Yeah. There's options out there. And there might even be an Aiden Hill, by the way. We're going to get to the Vegas Florida Panthers series here in a couple of moments, but more news from around the NHL first.

A couple of days ago, you wrote about Alex DeBrinckit of the Ottawa Senators and that organization doing their due diligence, seeing what's out there, what the marketplace is. He's someone who's poised to become an unrestricted free agent, not next year, but the year after. We all know there's new ownership coming in. That'll bring with it various management complications, et cetera.

What is the latest with Alex DeBrinckit? You know what writing that story was like, Jeff? I knew what it's like for Batman to go go up against the riddler i was talking about the like the new uh batman version the robert pattinson and the most recent one the bad guy was the riddler because as i was researching that story everyone was speaking to me in codes hang on hang on one second who's the riddler and robert pattinson paul dano right i forgot the name of the actor that's right paul Dano. You're right. But everyone was speaking in codes.

They're like, well, you've got to find out, but they're exploring what to do and things like that. Basically, it was a euphemism of they're probably going to trade him, but you have to be careful because, you know, there's always a chance that they don't, but there certainly appears to be a feeling around the league that it's much more likely to brink it's going to get traded than not and you know to be fair there were some people who said to me there's no chance he's resigning there but i had some other people say don't go there because they think that you know some of those guys really want to try to convince him to stay because they think he could be a real important part of their team for a long time but the bottom line is and I completely understand this from Debrinket's point of view is he's not signing until he understands for at

least for long term until he understands who the new owner is going to be and what the plan is and we're not going to know that anytime soon. Like even if one group suddenly gets, okay, you have the right to negotiate to make the sale, it's still going to take two or three months to sort that out. So Ottawa's made it very clear they at least have to have an idea of who's interested by the draft at the end of the month.

So, you know, they're doing their work there. And I think there is interest. Like for Brinkett, there'll be tons of interest with that release i i look at the honesty elliot i look at the blanket and i say on a team that played the way that the chicago blackhawks used to play and that is that strong heavy possession game hold on to the to the puck and get it to the brink. Just shoot it whenever it's on your blade. As opposed to a dump and chase team, a go fetch and catch, I think the brink it just sings. On any team that wants to hold the puck as much as possible,

I mean, choose your team around the NHL that's like that. I think the brink it would be an outstanding addition. There'll be huge interest. Absolutely. And like, huge interest. Absolutely. And like, I'll say this. I don't know that this is where he's going to end up going, but there's a lot of focus on those like central area teams. Like, well, I shouldn't say that because Detroit's not in the central,

but they're central-ish. We'll call them that, central-ish. Like Detroit, St. Louis. Like I had one guy say to me that that's a Doug Armstrong player. That's a guy that Doug Armstrong would want. So those are some of the teams that people are kind of focusing on. But obviously, I think there's a ton of interest. I kind of look at the Carolina Hurricanes.

I really do. That just screams Hurricanes to me. Yeah, that's absolutely true. But the Hur the the hurricanes to me seem like the kind of team that would rent him for a year i don't know that they would sign him to what he's going to get in the free agent market okay the other ontario team the tronomy believes and we continue to read headlines about the future of the core four what if they stay elliot well you know the one thing i wanted to mention about this was i had a very interesting phone call with someone about all this stuff about you know who's signing for what and everything and and they said to me that they believe that one of the things

that came out of this season was that the the toronto wanted to de-emphasize the core four. What does that mean? Well, that's a great question, Jeff, and I'm going to answer it for you. I'm sorry, I interrupted. Not that the organization feels anything negative towards those players, but I think there was a feeling amongst just the entire group, like other players on the team some of the coaching staff the front office in the organization that there's too much about them too much about the

core four and then I don't know what you call them the other 19 they felt it interfered in the growth of the team and one of the things I heard that was talked about was, if you take a look at like the third and fourth line over the last few years, there's been a lot of turnover. And what someone indicated to me was, the feeling was that they haven't done a good enough job as a group, like everybody everybody creating an identity for other players on the roster and i want to stress i don't think this is about jealousy i don't believe it's about jealousy jeff but what i think it is about is if you're going to win you've got to win with 23 not with 4 plus 19. i want people to be careful with this not to use it to rip the four guys

because i don't think it's that i think it's just that they have to get away from that and i believe some of the depth players may have talked about this is that they feel it gets in the way of forming a team identity and some of that you're not going to get away from because in the media we're going to talk about the core four right so you can't escape it but can you do a better job of creating an identity around some of the other players in the roster and i heard that's a big thing that they're going to try to work on you see i've always just assumed maybe wrongly but I don't think so because I'm arrogant that way. No, I've always just assumed, Elliot, that it's been that way. This constant shuffling in and shuffling out of players wasn't necessarily done because they wanted to focus on the big four and these are the identity makers and this is who the Maple Leafs are. I kind of looked at all the shuffling in and out as economic necessity.

And the new school idea that if you have a bottom six player and that player surpasses expectations, you don't financially reward that player. You go out and get another one on a value contract because the NHL universe supplies a lot of these players. I kind of looked at that lack of identity deeper in the lineup, more out of just economic necessity more than anything else. You think I'm off base on that? I don't think you're off base on it,

but I think it's something that they, like I heard it's something that came up. Like I understand it. Like, trust me, I understand it. You look at, I don't know,

take the Islanders, for example, a little bit later, we're going to mention lula marilla who who finally spoke and you know you look at that fourth line who have been together outside there was a blip on the radar when matt martin went to toronto but essentially they've been together for years so you look at you know the old remember the old merlot line and how long they were together how much of identity that had like there's some great bottom six lines. I understand completely what you're saying. I just assume that the Maple Leafs were never able to do that, just bluntly, because they couldn't afford to pay the guys.

I don't even think it's so much about pay. I think it's about emboldening other people in your lineup. And why I think they've really decided to attack that is because, and I was looking at it today, look at all the different people that they have, in the last few years, have been on their third and fourth line. Oh, yeah, revolving door. And I think one of the things they're trying to find out is, was it just good intentions gone bad?

Like everybody came in with good intentions or could they do a better job of creating roles for these people? Like I think Leaf fans and you know who watch them closely, like there were some of them that were driven uh crazy by the fact that Keefe would use the camp line in offensive zone draws in the playoffs and i actually thought that was about him trying to do that toriana create a fourth line that had or a third line whatever you want to call it that had some identity to it but just overall i've heard that they are committed to less oxygen on the core four and more about building the team around them. And like I said, the person said to me, it wasn't anything about these were bad guys necessarily,

but it's like, there's so much talk in that market about it that they think it has internally, it's affected how even they talk about them and you can't have four plus 19 you've got to be a full 23 okay to the calgary flames is there anything new on the coaching you mentioned craig conroy a couple of seconds ago and doing due diligence and talking to people and talking to players what about talking to prospective coaches i don't know this for sure but here's who i think some of the group is i think ryan huska is still there i think mitch love is still there i think travis green is still there and one other person i've heard there is Todd Reardon. If you'll remember, Jeff, in one of their previous coaching searches, Todd Reardon was a finalist. And when I heard that while I was traveling on the other day, it made sense to me because I think Travis Green got a serious look from them a few years ago, too.

serious look from them a few years ago too so what that kind of says to me is that Craig Conroy is going through some of their previous history of coaching interviews and saying well we liked that guy back then let's re-look at it here so the four of the guys who I think are in the mix I admit I could be wrong but but this is my educated guess, is Hoska, Love, Green, and Reardon. And if there's anyone else, I don't know. But I heard they spoke to Reardon recently, so I just think that that's kind of the potential group they could be picking from, although I freely admit there could be people there I'm not seeing.

You know whose career he really helped get back on track? Cody Ceci in Pittsburgh. I thought you were going to say Chris Letang. No, Chris Letang is fine. Thank you very much. Cody Ceci. The Penguins have had, you know, Sergey Gonchar, who did, you know, wonders with that blue line as well

and I was always told like hey pick up Todd Reardon when you get a chance because he's done and he did a lot with a lot of those blue liners and most notably Cody Ceci so that doesn't surprise me that's uh that the Calgary Flames are having a look at at Todd Reardon okay let's hit pause here on the uh on the podcast uh should mention as well a little bit later on you will hear interviews that elliot and i did with uh both head coaches in the stanley cup final so that is bruce cassidy and paul maurice should mention as well on wednesday morning probably by the time you're getting this podcast um the matthew kachuk and alex petrangelo interviews which you've already heard here on the podcast, will be available on our YouTube channel. So that's on Sportsnet's YouTube channel.

Check that out. Good morning, fellas. It's Daniella from Calgary. I just wanted to say I love your podcast. And just really, I listen because of the awesome playlist at the end of the show. Anyways, I just wanted to let you know that a middle-aged woman from Calgary actually listens to your podcast. And I'm learning tons. Love it. Have a great day, guys.

Listen to the 32 Thoughts Podcast ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. Okay, a couple of more things before we get to, oh yeah the stanley cup final yeah greg cronin was hired by the anaheim ducks uh as head coach yes i had a chance to talk to him on my radio show and before we get to a clip can you tell he's from the boston area holy smokes can you ever you really can and you know he's been he's been behind a bench since the late 80s. He's seen a lot of players come and go. Like, I think of a player like Zidane O'Chara, for example, who, you know, he was there as an assistant with the Islanders.

He saw the young, raw, you know, gangly Zidane O'Chara and then watched him through his career blossom into a into a future hall of famer this guy's seen a lot this guy has has coached some really interesting teams some really interesting players and now he's tasked with shepherding a really young Anaheim Ducks team as they transition to the next phase of whatever this squad is going to turn into. And whatever it is, is going to feature Zegres and is going to feature Mason McTavish, netminder Lucas Dostal, defenseman Jamie Drysdale, and about a million other young defensemen that they have as well. Every single CHL league, the defensive end of the year was an Anaheim Ducks prospect.

Well done, Anaheim Scouting Departments and whomever the Anaheim Ducks draft second overall in this year's NHL draft. This is a tall order and we wondered who was going to get it. Turns out it's Greg Cronin. So I'll tell you a funny story before we play one of your clips.

So way back at the beginning, you know, we kind of mentioned that he might be a guy who was on their radar. I wasn't sure he would get it, but I knew they'd look at him. And the other thing too is, you know, don't forget that in the Anaheim organization, they kind of listen to Paul Correa and Paul Correa is really tight with Joe Sackick. Joe Sackick, of course, runs the Avalanche and who was their American Hockey League coach, Cronin. I wish I would have thought of that earlier because I would have leaned into it even more.

But a friend of mine heard us talking about Cronin and he was curious. So he saw the picture of Verbeek and Cronin at the press conference, and he decided to listen to their conference. And he goes, Elliot, I'll be honest with you. I saw the picture of the two of them. I was like, who are these two cavemen,

and how can they really be about hockey in the 21st century? And so he said he was blown away by some of the stuff cronin talking about because even though cronin looks like an absolute killer and quite frankly sounds like one too and he is very hard-nosed like don't mistake that for a second but the way he talked about things like cross-eyed seam passes and stuff like that he's smart man he was expecting this guy to be like a barbarian of hockey like we're gonna kill people there's gonna be blood all over the ice he said he was just pleasantly surprised by some of the new way that cronin talked about it now you know i'll say this about um cronin like i i had more than one person say to me they're really curious to see how

Cronin and Zegers are going to get along because they he will push Zegers he will test him and he will push him and he will probably handle Zegers in a way that he's never been handled but if Zegers is receptive to it he said that this could be a guy who pushes him into the next level. It's going to be a long time since Zegers has been pushed like this guy will push him. And he will speak to him very bluntly. He said it's going to be interesting. He said it has a real chance to work, but it's going to be different for both of these guys. Because Zegers pushes back too.

Like he's a blunt, blunt kid. For sure. So, you know, I think that's what a lot of people are going to watch is just how do they form their relationship and how do they make it mutually beneficial for them and the team? Let me play something here from the radio show from earlier on on Tuesday. This is, you talk about the Paul Correa-Joe Sackett connection. I asked him, I said, how do we get from Cronin to Verbeek? There is one very specific person. Let's hear it.

That's a great question, Jeff. And if you would have asked me this a year ago, I was just getting ready to do an interview with the Boston Bruins. And I've asked that same question you asked me probably 100 times because I've been doing this so long and I see people that get jobs and I try and connect the dots and I don't really know where the dots started or where they connect. So, you know, I didn't know Pat.

I didn't know him at all. Um, so, you know, I, I didn't know Pat, I didn't know him at all. Um, I think ultimately what happens is, um, a guy that I work with was my direct boss in Colorado was Craig Billington. And, uh, Craig actually retired a year ago, played a long time in the league, had a lot of stops. He, one of his first stops is in New Jersey with Pat. Yeah. New Jersey.

So he, okay. That's what, okay. That's what it is. New Jersey with Pat. New Jersey. Okay, that's what it is. All right. So Pat and Craig knew each other. But, you know, with respect for the process, there was no, you know, Dallas has a job and there was no announcement. So it was actually, Craig had told me, I think if there's a change in Anaheim, you and Pat would mesh really well, even though he's a Western Ontario farmer and I'm a Boston guy.

And it's a strange dynamic, but he predicted it, and it really meshed well. You know what? Like Craig Billington, that makes sense too. You know what? Absolutely. Jeff, you're making sense today. I'm not used to that.

By the way, one other thing about anaheim one of the things i heard at the stanley cup final somebody mentioned to me they heard it at the combine is apparently remember a couple years ago when dodonov was supposed to be traded from vegas oh what a glorious few hours that was that turned into a few days so he was supposed to go from vegas to anaheim and then he showed that you know the Ducks run is no trade and the trade got overturned well apparently the Ducks have asked the league for a compensatory draft pick for that and I think it's under consideration like I don't know where that pick's going to be apparently I can't remember if they were supposed to receive a first or second round pick.

I've been traveling all day. But apparently, the docs said that because the mistake wasn't on their end, they should get some sort of compensatory pick. And again, I don't know what they've argued for. I don't know where it would go, what the league is thinking about here, but I've heard the league is at least considering the idea. So we'll see where that goes. Okay.

That's something we'll, we'll stand by for. Meanwhile, it was a couple of podcasts ago that we wondered if Lou Lamarillo of the New York Islanders was going to hold any type of press conference or make himself available to media slash fans. And Lou relented. On Tuesday, June the 6th,

he had the New York Islanders season ender. To start off, can you sort of explain why this is happening today instead of on breakup day? Well, I didn't think it was necessary. And I had a lot of questions that I wanted to get answered and wanted to get right at it. for one issue, and I'll get there in a second. Lamarillo mentioned he'd like to keep Mayfield and Engvall and Varlamov and Parise,

who I believe is talking to his family about that decision. And it sounds like the ball is kind of in his court in that one. He said he's coming back. He said Lane Lambert is coming back, and that's where he started to pull up short. So fill in the blank there for yourself. And he was also asked about Josh Bailey. And the quote was... Never. In

Josh's case, it looks like maybe it's near the end for here in our situation. Josh and I have, I think, a man-to-man relationship as far as honesty, and we will work with him, whatever, to help him. But my priority is doing what's best for the team. We've talked about Josh Bailey. You've talked about Josh Bailey a couple places and a couple of different times. One year, $5 million contract. That's what's remaining on his deal. Your thoughts on the Islanders

and a decision with Josh Bailey? I think this is what we all expected. He wasn't playing at the end of the year. And, you know, I really liked one thing in particular that Lamorello said. He said, I have a lot of time for Bailey, basically, but I have to do what's best for the team. And that's always the way he's done it.

What it says to me is he's going to try to get Josh Bailey into a position that he wants to go. He's going to say, where do you want to go? And he'll try to get him there. He may not be able to do it, but he will try. Ultimately, I think we all know that this is the best thing for both the player to get a fresh start and the Islanders. Now, while I was in my Uber to the hotel tonight,

I got a very interesting text message about Lamorello's media conference today. At one point, he talks about their five centers. And in alphabetical order, those centers are Barzell, Sezikis, Horvat, Nelson, and Pajot. And then you go up front. I think that we're fortunate to have the five center icemen we have. When I say pure center icemen, certainly Matt Barzell was moved over to the right wing, which I do agree and did agree with that movement.

But we have the option to, if something should come about to make us better in a different situation, we could change the construction of our offensive lines. I got an interesting call from someone who said there is no way that lamorello drops that fact without a reason like everything lou lamorello does is calculated yes so what he's thinking is one of two things is happening here he's either just saying okay you know we'll be able to be flexible with our forwards or he's saying i have an extra center and he's kind of wondering if it's b i choose to believe that he's saying i have an extra center and i would like some cap relief right now because i have all these players i

would like to sign can someone help me without me begging to someone to help me here i'm just pointing out i have five centers. Have I mentioned that you win Stanley Cups down the middle and I've got five of them? I kind of wonder. He does nothing without a reason. So that one was definitely out there. The same person said to me he thinks they're looking for a right D

and another scoring forward or a forward who can score. That's just something I wanted to throw in because, you know, we talk about the whole Debrinket thing being the Riddler. I don't know what's the Riddler times a million. That's the Islanders. So like you just have to figure out the smoke signals, I guess. The difference is like in any Riddler, in any version of batman the riddler talks a lot a lot a lot that's the opposite of the islanders that's true that's the opposite of this team the silent riddler the silent riddler yeah we'll go with that you know it seemed as if

also elliot after we released any podcasts or made any tweet every now and then we'd get a just tell us caulfield's deal is done or tell us the cole caulfield contract details well now we can um cole caulfield signs of the montreal canadians it is an eight-year deal max term 62.8 million dollars that means the AAV is 7.85 million your thoughts on the deal between two agents one current and one previous Pat Brisson and Kent Hughes well I never thought this one was going to be a problem I I really believed it was always going to get done and I really believe the Canadians were going to get term as they wanted. Obviously, they wanted to keep Suzuki as their top salaried person. And they did it with Caulfield here. But I just don't know how much longer that's going to be possible. I'm not, you know, people are saying, oh, Suzuki's the

ceiling, Suzuki's the ceiling. Well, he is now. But as the cap goes up, and, you know, one of their other prospects maybe hits it big, or they want to sign a big-time free agent, I don't think you're going to be able to do that. But they did it here. And the one thing I think everybody has to remember is it's kind of like Jason Robertson a little bit. A lot of players, when they sign these extensions, they're four years away from unrestricted free agency.

If you sign right after your ELC, Caulfield wasn't. He was five. And it's pretty clear to me that in exchange for the term, he just got more of the money up front. And these are the years when the escrow and the CBA is maxed out at 6%. And so I think, first of all, nobody's complaining here. Caulfield's going to be making a lot of money but secondly like what he gets in the trade-off for taking an eight-year deal at a number slightly less than suzuki is he gets a lot of the money up front and he gets it

at a time where he knows the escrow is going to be very low like to me this is a win-win win-win-win the kid's going to be happy the player's going to be happy the team's going to be happy low like to me this is a win-win win-win-win the kid's going to be happy the player's going to be happy the team's going to be happy i always say like if the player's happy with their contract that's the only thing that matters and this kid's got nothing to be upset about that's for sure montreux canadians fans are now hoping they have their version of bergeron and pasternak with uh suzuki and caulfield and, these two look, these two are dynamite young players. So good deal for the Habs. Good deal for the kid.

We'll be back to talk about game two and preview game three after this. Last week in Vegas at Stanley Cup Media Day, David Amber sat down with Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Zach Whitecloud for an extremely wide-ranging interview. Here's a snippet from that interview. You mentioned your community, Zach, and this could be a historic moment, right? You could be the first Stanley Cup winner ever from the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation.

What does that mean to you? There's a lot of words to describe that. I think that could be a long conversation, too. They they've always been supportive of me. They've been encouraging. They've given me resources that I was able to use growing up, playing the game to to take the burden off my parents. I take a lot of pride in being a role model for our people and showing that,

you know, with hard work, dedication and having the people that love you and support you be by your side through this whole journey. I think I just want to be a representation of of hard work and just when you love something, go after it. And and that, you know, even for a small town kid from from Manitoba that was never particularly good at hockey, you know, find a way and, and, and, uh, and do something you love. If you want to listen to and see the entire piece, visit our Sportsnet YouTube channel.

Celebrate the final horn for seemingly minutes based off one by one, We'll be right back. The Flamingos come onto the ice. And the Panthers skate off, trailing the series 2-0. So we're real deep into the podcast here, Elliot. We haven't yet talked about the Vegas Golden Knights and the Florida Panthers. This should always be the lead story. The game is always the most important, but there's just a lot of news to cover. But man, does Vegas look good right now. At every single position, in every area of the ice, you know, in the Bruce Cassidy interview, and when we ask, you know, where will the games be won here? Where will the series be won? He talks about their front of the net. of the net, but in the corners, along the boards, in the neutral zone,

I don't know, on the bench, in the hallway, in the parking lot, walking to the dressing room, ordering a coffee. This is impressive by Vegas here, Elliot. Your thoughts on this one so far? Well, when you lose in the coffee line, you're in real big trouble. That's what it seems like, Elliot. It's totally true. They've absolutely swarmed them. They've absolutely dominated them.

There's been teams that have had long layoffs before, but I talked about before the series about the 07 Senators, and that's the one I really remember. They had nine, ten days off. And look, Anaheim was winning that Stanley Cup anyway. They were not going to, Ottawa was not going to beat them. But the Senators just felt that their legs were like molasses

for two or three games. And they just couldn't get into the series. And they always felt that, you know, even if they lost, they never were able to put their best effort in there because they just didn't get going enough. And, you know, I think to some degree

that's what's happened to Florida. But when you look like that and you have another team that's firing and just beating you in every way, like you said, you're really in trouble. And I think the thing that's happened here is, you talked about in front of the net, where Florida, I think, is really getting hammered is in front of their own net. They cannot control Vegas there. Bobrovsky is getting screened on every goal.

You know, sometimes it's Vegas guys. Look at that great screen from Stone on the first goal of game two. Sometimes it's from their own guys who are getting in Bobrovsky's way just because they're trying to battle. And now, you know, with Gudis out and we'll see where this is, that's going to make it even harder on them to cover the front of their net. So I just think if Florida doesn't start letting Bobrovsky see better, they've got no chance of getting back into this series. None at all.

You know, game two was a combination of skill and toughness by Vegas. Like Vegas opened up that game by trying to hit anything that moved in a Panthers Jersey was like, this is our ice. This is our building. And we are going to now dominate you physically. And whether it was, well, first of all, it's a good thing that you weren't around for the radio show on Tuesday, because you would, I would have made you sick with

the Ivan Barbashev appreciation tour because whether it was the hit on Gudis. You and Rudy. Kelly's the best man. Kelly knows. Kelly knows who the good players are. It's like you guys are having an election for the presidency of his fan club

and you're trying to out-slobber over him over the other guy. Actually, one thing about Barbashev, here's something that I think is really interesting about him. What's that? I had a person who said to me last night, because Bedard was at the Stanley Cup final with the other top picks in Fantilli and Carlson and Will Smith,

someone said to me if they were Chicago, they would go after Barbashev to play with Bedard. Because they said that Bedard is going to need a player like that. And he said, look, in a lot of normal years, Chicago wouldn't do that. But he said, it's different now. You're going to have a franchise player and you owe it to him to protect him. And if they were the Blackhawks, Barbashev is the guy they would go after.

I don't disagree. I think that he needs, considering what he means to the franchise, I think there needs to be a security blanket there. I don't disagree. And listen, Barbashev was outstanding in game two, but a lot of players were. I mean, Marchese So, again, outstanding.

The blue line continues to be an enormous story for the Vegas Golden Knights. And one thing I want to mention about Aiden Hill, because I suspect you're going to want to have a thought or two on Aiden Hill. I love the story of the unsung scout who finds a player and brings them to the organization. I was having a conversation with someone recently who said,

you know who you guys should really talk about on your podcast? And I said, who's that? And he said, Craig Cunningham. Now, we all know the Craig Cunningham story itself is him and how his career ended. And he did overlap in the Arizona organization with Aiden Hill very briefly, I believe in Tucson, but he's a pro scout for the Vegas Golden Knights and this is his territory.

You know, he scouts a lot of Arizona games, San Jose Sharks games. So he knows Aiden Hill really well. And as we're throwing out compliments for, and this is to take nothing away from Kelly McCrimmon, who's done some excellent work, and previous to him, George McPhee. There are also people working under the general manager here who do a lot of heavy lifting. And this person said to me, you guys should mention Craig Cunningham because he's the guy that brought Aiden Hill to this Vegas Golden Knights organization. And man, Elliot, is Aiden Hill doing a job right now for Vegas? Yes, I completely agree with you.

I mean, who's going to argue? I mean, he might win the Conn Smythe. I was going to lead you. Like, how many different candidates do we have now? I think there's five. Eichel. Yep. One.

Marcheseau. Two. Stone. Three. Hill. Four. Petrangelo. Yeah, those. Three. Hill. Four. Petrangelo. Yeah, those are my five too.

That's what I look at. And I'll tell you what, still tops for me, Jack Eichel. I'm not going to argue with you. I think you could go in any direction here, but I think there's five players. Before we get to Eichel, I was looking at Vegas' cap setup. They've got Eichel 10. He's their highest paid guy a contract they

traded for they've got stone 95 then they have petrangelo 88 and then they have five guys in the five million range carlson's 59 martinez is 525 the'2". And they've got Marcia So and Smith at 5 million. Now the cap's going to go up, not this year, but next year. But I'm wondering if that's kind of the way you got to build your team. And that's also a no-tax state. And that's a big advantage. But at a certain point, I mean, you really have a bargain with your net minders. Yes.

There always has to be the one area where you're getting significant value in order to make a cap structure, the likes of which you just described work and the value that they're getting is from their goalies. Doesn't matter which position it is. When you are under value and you're up, you get paid. Like it's, it's simple here. You're Jerry Johansson. You're looking at Aiden Hill and you're, you're licking your chops.

You're like, okay, here we go. We're, we're doing a job and we might win the conspiring trophy and this team might win the Stanley cup. So I don't disagree with you. I like the way this team is structured. I like the players. There doesn't, the nice thing about Vegas as well too, is there doesn't seem to be a skill redundancy. Like that doesn't seem to be like two redundancy like that doesn't seem to be like two or three players who all do the same thing like they have a lot of players that do a whole

lot of different things like i know on the blue line there's some overlap but but up front like these are really different players like jack eichel is nothing like mark stone who's nothing like jonathan marshes so who's nothing like chandler Mark Stone, who's nothing like Jonathan Marcheseau, who's nothing like Chandler Stevenson, who's nothing like Keegan Colasar, who's nothing like Riley Smith, who's nothing like Brett Howden or Ivan Barbashev. I just like how every single player is so distinct and different than everybody else up front. Let me ask you about the hits. Well, Kachuk just came flying off the bench and Eichel in a vulnerable spot trying to make the play and just absolutely laid into him.

And no surprise at this reaction afterwards, Eichel went right back to the bench because he lost his helmet. Okay, so our set where where David and I stand, is right above the Florida bench in Vegas. And Kachuk saw that whole play unfolding. He knew exactly what was going on. He's got a high hockey IQ. He saw the play coming.

I think it was Jen who pointed out on TV that Eichel couldn't see him behind marcia so for a while he saw the way that was going and i think in a whatever that game was at the time five one whatever it was for nothing for nothing you said jeff yep for nothing like he knew he could make a big momentum play i think think he pulled up. I saw Eichel with the puck. I saw where Kachuk was. I was like, he's going to kill him. I absolutely saw it coming.

And I still think Kachuk pulled up. I don't think he hit him with as much force as he could have. Now, initially, I thought Eichel ducked. But as he said later, he toe-picked. And I thought Kevin made a great point on TV that if Eichel falls backward, it's not as bad, but he fell forward and he got crunched. Unlike everybody else, I thought Eichel's season was over. Not only that, and our directors caught John Cala caught george mcphee with that

great shot of him saying yeah me yeah but i thought not only were we talking about eichel being done for this year but i was thinking when's he going to be back christmas like i couldn't believe it when he was back for the third period he said he was winded after the game when i asked him about it but i still don't think kachuk hit him as hard as he could have because I was watching that whole play develop and I could see it. Now, I'll say this too, Jeff. The loudest hit I've ever heard was Dustin Bufflin on Mark Stone. Oh, man.

This was not that. Well, thankfully, in both those situations, the players that got hit got back up. And I still don't know how Stone got up from that Bufflin hit. Yep. And thankfully, Jack Eichel came out for the third period. And by the way, made a great play setting up Jonathan Marcheseau. Eichel to Marcheseau.

All alone. He scores. setting up Jonathan Marcheseau. I think the Florida defense kind of forgot where Marcheseau was. Yeah, it's like, how does that guy get wide open? Well, Jack find him not only did he come back but he came back with authority and made another absolutely brilliant play oh i should mention it to you too i told him that people online were comparing it to korea oh yeah in the 2003 final he was like no not even close. And Dave Keon, Dave Keon Jr., who works for the NHL, he was helping do the media work in the Golden Knights dressing room. And he was there when I mentioned it to Eichel.

He was like, no, not even close. But even Eichel was like, no comparison. It was not the same. He laughed. He was good about that. I don't know. When you saw the hit i'll be honest and this may sound bad but my first thought went to his neck and his spine yeah i thought about the adr

surgery and i thought you know dr press mack who we had here on the podcast and when he came back i i thought wow like that is a again like i'm not a doctor, so I don't know. But my first thought when I saw Jack Heichel come back, I said, what a victory lap for ADR. Because there are a lot of players, we talked about this before, a lot of players that had significant misgivings once they found out that teams were in control of medical authority over their bodies. And I think a lot of players wondered about this surgery specifically. And, you know, would it be able to withstand? Sure, it's been used in football before, MMA, et cetera. But I wonder how many players looked at that and said, you know what?

More so than ever, if that's an option to me, I'm going to think really long and hard about taking that option. I can't help but thinking that's a victory lap for ADR surgery. Yes, I agree. Elliot, one last thing I want to ask you about. The closing seconds and Paul Maurice, Brandon Montour takes the face off, Mark Stahl, Aaron Ekblad, Josh Mahura, Gustav Forsling out there with him. Now, Brent Sutter did this once upon a time

with the Calgary Flames back in 2010. But what did you think of five defensemen out there for the draw? I have a theory. I'm curious if you do. Well, Montour was really hacking at whoever the Vegas center was. So I remember, you remember who took the face off

the night of the brawl calgary vancouver on hockey day in canada bx kevin that's right yeah kellen lane by the way set the record for quickest fight into his career i think it was like two seconds when the fight started so here's my theory and again this is just speculating based on how we know paul maurice my theory is this is paul maurice not so subtly saying to the officials you've thrown out all my forwards this is all i have this is all i have i gotta throw out all my defensemen because you've kicked all my forwards out of the game yes Yes. I think you're probably right. Cause he's the kind of person who would do that.

I'll also say this about, uh, about Vegas, everything about the Florida's done, that's driven crazy their opponents. It's not working with these guys. No, you know, they're going to have to find another way to do this because it worked at times against Boston. It worked at times against Toronto. It, it didn't happen so much against Carolina, but they won the series.

Vegas knows this identity of the Panthers and they are not letting it happen. Like I didn't like the first Kachuk misconduct. I understood the second one. I did not like that at all. The first, I... But, you know, Vegas sent a message that the way you've pushed around other

teams and driven them to distraction it's not going to happen to us oh i know what else i wanted to mention to you as we wrap this part up before the interviews what's up so i was asking you know when it was two nothing like if there's a parade here is it going to be up and down the strip and i was told that when the aces won the wnba title they set up like a stage but it didn't move it was like a set stage on the strip but i was thinking you know you got to take the stanley cop up and down the strip yeah and what what someone told me was that vegas has absolutely refused on any level to discuss the possibility of a parade like the knights organization yes not even talking about it until it's over apparently they've said we're not

talking about it so this is all going to be thrown together at the last possible minute you know what i i don't i don't have a problem with this like Like I think it's just superstition. Like I, I completely understand. And you know, this is not something I want to bother the Knights with, but it makes me wonder, like if you remember in 2018,

they picked up the trophy after they won the conference and they lost the Stanley cup final. Yeah. So this time they didn't touch it. Like, I just wonder if there was a conversation back then and they lost the Stanley Cup final. Yeah. So this time they didn't touch it. Like, I just wonder if there was a conversation back then, and they're like, we're not doing this. No, I get it.

I get it. In this case, with the Stanley Cup, I would be the same way. I would be like, do not bother me with this. Okay, let's get to the interviews. Now, we should preface this by saying these interviews were recorded last Friday at T-Mobile Arena in Vegas. So, I don't think they sound dated. They shouldn't.

It was pretty generic, but nonetheless, you'll hear from Paul Maurice, head coach of the Florida Panthers. But first, here's Bruce Cassidy, head coach of the Vegas Golden Knights. Bruce, back in the Stanley Cup final, is this the best team you've ever coached? Boy, that's a good question. I think it is, top to bottom. I think there's been some years in Boston we might have had a more dominant line or maybe a deep pair,

but at the end of the day, top to bottom. And we'll find out this series, right? There's one thing I remember you saying. I can't remember if it was the morning of game seven in 2019, but I think it was. You said, I just want my name on that damn cup. I've always remembered that. Yes, and that's getting closer, right?

And that's my goal. I want my name on the damn cup. It's true. There was a lot of questions about this and that, right? Game seven and pressure, not pressure, enjoying the moment. And I think that's the only thing I was focused on. And I think the players would probably say the same. Some of them had it in our room, which I think will help us.

Others want it that have been there like me, especially here in Vegas. So that's what's in front of us. Is it possible, because I know how hard you work and how many hours you put in and how you don't want the foot off the pedal. Has it been possible at all through this journey to take a step back and enjoy yourself through all of it?

Or is that an impossible thing? No, no, it's a good point. And I have, that's maybe one of the differences from last time which days to be businesslike and which days to allow yourself to dream a little bit so to speak we talked about that with our group actually the night before the dallas game a little bit about what's at stake and and it's okay to think about that and you know think about maybe your legacy in hockey sometimes you know these things can define you as a hockey

player never as a person but as a hockey player and the next day you drill down on the details so I think that's how we've tried to balance the big picture in the day of a game okay here's the details that'll help us you know get to where we want to go and whether that was right or wrong we've kind of looked at that approach this year and I think in my first go around I was it was all still new to me, like the playoff runs, the media demands, the different times for practice. You know, they're changing your practice. All these things change all of a sudden.

So your routine gets thrown off a little bit and how to adjust to some of those things. What's a Bruce Cassidy day off look like? I'm usually driving my kids somewhere. They both like to golf now. So here in Vegas, that's a good thing. Oh, very good. It's typically during the winter, they both play hockey, son and daughter.

So that's going to a rink here where the Henderson Silver Knights play. So I'm out there a lot, baseball practice. I like to go to my kids' activities because it takes me out of my activities in my head, like, you know, thinking about hockey. So it's kind of just really, you know, it takes you away and just be around kids. It's kind of loosens the mood quite a bit. Have either of your children or any of your children surpassed you as a golfer

yet? No, no. Cole is a good player. My daughter's just getting into it, but he's got a ways to go. That's, golf is my passion away from, like in the summer, right? How dare you suggest one of my kids could be better than me? Not happening, Elliot. Not ready to snatch the pebbles.

No, it seems like guys either fish or play golf because of our off-season being in the summer, and I chose golf. Jack Eichel has played so well for you. He's just flat-out spectacular. Game one, though, of the playoffs, by his admission, anyone who's followed Jack Eichel, not a Jack Eichel game, did you talk to him after that game?

Was there even any need to talk to Eichel after game one? If I did, it was very basic. There's no big message if that's kind of where you're going. We weren't very good as a team. He was just part of that product. We sort of, hey, we got say, okay, it's time now. Then the next game, we got to our game, and Jack was a big reason for that. Remember, Mark Stone just came back, and we did not know if he'd play game one at all,

game two, the next series. I think there was a little bit of that, almost like, oh, well, Stone, he's back in the lineup. Meanwhile, he hasn't played in three months. Like, so we sort of say, we've got to collectively get to our own individual levels. And I think that certainly happened with Jack right away. And in fairness to him, it's his first playoff game ever. There's going to be a little bit of probably anxiety, if nothing else, like, you know, what's this all about? One of the things I really wanted to ask you about is you give some of the most detailed breakdowns and answers and interviews. I remember in 2019,

you pulled your goalie in the Stanley cup final with five seconds left in the period. And you did a whole breakdown on, we tried this. I love it. I know Ron in particular has remarked a lot about how detailed you are. A lot of coaches wouldn't be like that. I love that you do it.

Why do you do it? I guess. Well, I like to talk hockey for one, and I don't believe there's a lot of secrets. I think there's guys that don't want to, it's like they know something you don't. I just don't feel like I'm that guy.

I think everything I say is probably they're watching film and know some of this stuff. And if not, well, shame on me, but I just feel like that's, I just feel there's so many good coaches in this league that a lot of this stuff is already out there. If you choose to talk about it or not, I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well, but, uh, so I don't think it's any big secret what I'm, what I'm revealing now. You know, sometimes I've been told, well, you know, you can, you know, you don't have to talk so much, you know'm like, well, I can't help it. I ask the question and I have a tough time. I'm not very good at stick handling around. I'm just not a politician yet in that regard.

So I'd rather just answer the damn question and talk hockey. And that's just what I've always done. Don't change. I was going to say, we like it better that way. I think a lot of people like it better that way. Where do you think the Stanley Cup, which zone do you think the Stanley Cup final will be won in?

Well, it's interesting because I would say in the slot battle. So you've got the slot battle in each zone, depending on where the puck is. If that, you know, I think the team that controls a neutral zone, it's, is always going to have an edge because you're, you know, you're four checking to get into your game.

I think both teams four check well, but you know, if we get away from that, I think the slot battle will determine the Stanley Cup. Can I ask you about Boston? Sure. We all have go through it. I've been fired before. Like there were some tough things said about

you or about the situation there. Did it bother you? Do you, does any of you feel like this is revenge? Well, I don't feel it's revenge and some of it did bother me you know i got hired by golden knights to do a job quickly and and they've been nothing but fantastic so for me it's more about you know getting your your head where your feet are and getting going back to work because as you said you know you're on the clock the day you're hired so you know that it's coming

eventually i just there was some of the narrative I didn't appreciate or feel was accurate. I just sometimes feel like, hey, you didn't win enough. We're going to do voice, whatever. It's usually sufficient and move on. But it's a sports market in media and talk radio. So there's going to be always be conversations there. So eventually it kind of goes away and you just do your job. Now, I happen to have a house in Cape Cod this summer with kids from New England. So going back is something we'd like to always do because there are roots there.

So that'll be interesting to see how that goes. But at the end of the day, everyone is good about it there. Great neighbours, great people there that I've met. Hopefully they treat you as a person more than a Bruin, right? Because, you know, like I've always said, Bru'll always have, Bruins will always be part of me. It was my favorite team growing up. But now with the Golden Knights success to get to the second part of it,

you know, it feels good to be able to kind of prove yourself in a different market now and sort of put that behind you and try to remember it as a great experience because it was. I really cut my teeth in coaching there and probably established myself as a legitimate coach and it happened in Boston. Let me try another word because I kind of feel that there is a symmetry between yourself and Jack Eichel.

Because when Eichel was moved from Buffalo to Vegas and even before when he was still in Buffalo, a lot of things that were said about Jack Eichel and he heard them and internalized them and has used it for fuel as you have as well. Maybe not revenge, but do you feel you're vindicated just by getting to the Stanley Cup final? Maybe there's a little bit of that. Although I had confidence in my ability to coach. I thought I did a good job in Boston. As I said, I looked at it more as they need a new voice. That's fine.

And Pete DeBoer was a very good coach and I'm taking over from a guy that did a good job too. So that's kind of the circle of life and coaching, I think. But with Jack, when I met with him, it's funny,

I met with him in July. I talked about that. I think we're tied together here, Jack, you know, we're coming in kind of in very similar situations. So what are we going to,

what can we do together to move this forward a little bit? What do you need from me? Here's what I'm expecting. These will be the asks, and we'll sort through it as I get to know you. What do you need from me? And let's make sure we come together on these things, because I think we're going to be tied together with success or failure

of the Vegas Golden Knights. So it's ironic that you'd mention that, but I do believe that. That's awesome. That's an awesome answer. Good luck, Bruce. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

And that's Bruce Cassidy, head coach of the Vegas Golden Knights. His team up 2-0 right now over the Florida Panthers. Panthers bench boss is next. Here's Paul Maurice on 32 Thoughts to Podcast. Paul, before we get to this series

and the Florida Panthers, I want you to think back to all the times you've watched the Stanley Cup final and watched someone hoist the Stanley Cup. Are there one or two that jumped to mind right away? Well, all of the Detroit Red Wings in 2002 because I think I was still on the ice when that happened.

Rod Brindamore. More for an understanding of what Roddy was willing to do to be a player of the hours. But in truth, it's because Jim Rutherford was up in the press box and I knew what it meant to him. So that one's impactful for me. I've watched all of the Stanley Cup champion playoff games every year. So if we miss the playoffs,

you get beat in the first round, I won't watch another game. It's too emotional, right? I didn't get invited to a party. So I'll wait till the summer and then I'll go back and I'll watch all those games. But I did watch Jimmy's Stanley Cup. I was just happy for him.

21 years ago was your first game behind the bench in a Stanley Cup final. What do you remember about it and what's going to be different Saturday? I remember walking out to the bench and Brian Englund did an interview and I couldn't stop smiling. And I think he actually said,

like, is there something you know that we don't? And I'm like, it's the Stanley Cup final man like being so oh my god so good Ronnie Francis scored in overtime and that building went dead quiet I mean because it couldn't happen right the team was so good 10 hall of famers I think on it and Scotty Bowman so I remember that because I didn't know that I would expect that. There was actually a complete absence of tension because it was such an awesome thing, right? Like you so caught up in, I've had a handful of

moments like that. Sorry for taking this for a walk, but like my fourth game in the NHL was in the Forum of Montreal and I'm standing behind the bench. You remember when the cameras were to be on the platform, like five rows up. So when they do the national anthem, my dad was born in Montreal.

We watched all the Hab games growing up. Well, they do. You had a picture of all the Canadian players standing on the blue line. It wasn't that far off me standing behind the bench. It was like a five-year-old kid.

I'm standing behind the bench in the forum in Montreal. So I've had a handful of those and I had that. National anthems are always awesome. I enjoy them. You know, standing behind the bench when they those and I had that. National anthems are always awesome. I enjoy them. You know, standing behind the bench when they go. And I remember taking that in thinking like,

this just cannot possibly get any better than it is. And then we lost in triple overtime in game three and reality set in. We've had a lot of fun on this podcast over the past few weeks, trying to compare your Florida Panthers to the 2012 Los Angeles Kings. Well, one of us has had a lot of fun with that. Brandon Montour is Drew Doughty and Carter Verhage is Justin Williams with the clutch goal scoring and Barkov playing the role of Kopitar, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's been fun.

But you've been around hockey a long time. Are there any players on your team or does this team in general remind you of any other teams? Like other elements of your Panthers that remind you of something else? No. And I'm sure there are if I had given it deep thought, but that's what's unique about this. So I got off the phone with each player in the summertime. I talked to him.

We just did one word about hockey, just an introduction talk. I got off the phone and Jamie Compon, by the way, is the one connection between the 2012 and our team. He was assistant coach for both of them. Nice. And did talk about that at some point in January when we had to close by eight points, you can win the Stanley cup as the eighth seed.

You bet your game has to be dialed in and right. Very similar, right? They made the playoffs I think in the last game or two of the year as well. They were an eight seed. Yeah. And what's special about these guys is how darn unique they are they are in a good mood all the time even when you're hard on them but not not in a bad way they are positive they are upbeat they are laughing all the time they are funny as hell and that's okay. And I learned that from them.

It's okay to laugh. It's okay to enjoy the moment because they work hard enough. They work so hard that even a bad result is not a problem. Work your butt off and have fun. Those are the two rules, but the work your butt off hard is really hard to get to. So I'm not just saying you got to compete at a hard level that in the third period of a game when you're working and there's all this tension and somebody says something funny, you can laugh because there's nothing else for you to do

basically on the ice. You're going as hard as you can. And that was funny. So I've had a heck of a time with that. Well, Kachuk kind of talked about that a little bit. Like this has been the spring of Kachuk on the ice and off it. And he talked about that a little bit. Like this has been the spring of Kachuk on the ice and off it.

Right. And he talked about how the two of you guys learned to trust where he could get to another level. Like he was a good player, but now he's an even better player. Right. So I'm wondering about maybe that phone call you had with him or how you developed that trust. How did you get Matthew Kachuk from here to there? I didn't, but I watched him. So we have a certain route that you're supposed to run on a breakout and on the bench.

He doesn't run the route three times. So go down and tell him I want you to run an inside route on that. Okay. Then I want to watch the video. He was right. I was wrong. Now you run the route because the coach says run the route, but in the situation that presented off,

it was the wrong route and he ran the right one. And that's when I learned, you know, you can learn more, ask him questions and learn from him more than I'm going to teach him. I do believe that Jamie Compon has had a major impact on him. Jamie does a lot of individual video, defensively,

small things. You're not trying to change his game, small things that make him a little bit better. And after that, it's no impact. I mean, I've sat in awe of this young man and it's not, you made sure that some of the lights not on the ice.

Yeah. It's on the ice. He's unbelievable hands scores, these huge goals. I mean, I didn't like him in Winnipeg, right? Like, he just kept doing that to us, right? He'd drive you nuts all game.

It'd be a tight game. And then two minutes left, he'd score. It had to be him, right? Why did it have to be that guy? And then you get around him. You should see him move around the room, truly. First week he was in town, he took all the trainers out for dinner. Okay, that's smart, right?

He does it once. Except that's how he treats it. He's polite to the bus driver. He treats all the trainers out for dinner. Okay. That's smart, right? He does it once, except that's how he treats it. He's polite to the bus driver. He treats the flight attendants with respect. He has this great way of moving around there. Now he's got some bark to him too. And he'll encourage the defenseman to move the puck quicker and closer to his tape at times, but he never separates himself. If you go look at statistically his season, in around January, he stopped taking

penalties. I think in a 16-game set, he had four games with penalties, two or two-minute penalties, so it was just a one-minute minor. And then two were like 17, and one was against Otto, and his brother started. So that's there, but he stopped taking penalties. He's not in the penalty box anymore, and he scored. Here's the other step. He actually has a higher scoring rate. In his first few years, he'd have a higher scoring rate when he did take a penalty. So we needed to figure out a way to get him to keep the higher scoring rate but get rid of the penalties because he doesn't need them.

He'll be a hard man and if it gets on the ice and it gets going, he's probably in the middle of it. But away from it, he's not starting fires anymore. He's just playing the game. We spoke with Bruce Cassidy, and one of the questions we asked was, where is this series going to be won? And we talked about neutral zone.

That's an obvious conversation. But the one area that he pointed out was the slot. That's where this thing is going to be won, according to Bruce Cassidy. According to Paul Maurice, where is this series going to be won? according to Bruce Cassidy. According to Paul Maurice, where is this series going to be won? Yeah, I don't want to tell you that because it's critical to us.

So they have two or three things that they're very, very good at, elite at. And eventually, he's right. The game always ends up to the net front, right? The percentage of goals are scored from the slaughter so much and the inner slaughter just, you're scoring like 4% outside of them. So for sure.

So how does it get there? Right? Each team is going to try to get the puck to the slot really in different ways. They're going to do everything they can to keep us from getting it the way we do. And we're going to do everything we can to get them, stop them. But theirs is different. So we've

seen versions of their game in Toronto and Boston. Not so much Carolina who got a ton of slot shots on us. Don't get me wrong. But yeah, we will both try to take the strengths away. And as the underdog, we will pay particular attention to it.

Is that where your team wants to be? The underdog? I think right now, yes. I think in order to not be, to be a powerful favorite, you have to have experience at it. So going from 16th to first, we're banging out 122 points in a year. You haven't earned the right to be a favorite

on a good year. You have to have some depth to it. You've got to have lost for a little bit of a while. You have to go through some battles, get You've got to have lost for a little bit of a while. You have to go through some battles, get to the conference final, get to the final, get, you know, in that. And then you step on the ice and say, yeah,

we're older. We're more skilled. We're the favorite. And then you can carry that mantle. We're good being the underdog right now. And it's just true. So somebody asked me about me playing the underdog card against Boston. There's just true. So somebody asked me about me playing the underdog card against Boston.

There's no card. There's 7,000 points ahead of us. I'm not trying to steer the messaging here. We're the underdog. But yeah, it's the place all teams have to start. Paul, thanks. Good luck. Good to see you again.

Great to see you. Be well. All right. Thanks, guys. Good luck, sir. And that's Paul Maurice see you again. Great to see you. Be well. All right. Thanks, guys. Good luck, sir. And that's Paul Maurice, head coach of the Florida Panthers. Don't forget Game 3 Thursday. We'll leave you with this.

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You could get it anyhow, I hope you're feeling better now. Do you want a coffee and tea? Or just chill and watch an episode? I fall over just to make you feel like you're home. I'll let you take off my shoes. Cause like, I just slowly won't stand up on my own. If only you could take a step in these knots. I can't rest till you realize.

I just want to say the photo record. I don't want to ever miss a second. I don't want to ever miss a second.