32 Thoughts: The Podcast - What Now Toronto?

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

We're back three days a week for the playoffs! Jeff and Elliotte recap game 1 of each of the series — Tampa Bay/Toronto (3:10), Winnipeg/Vegas (10:20), Seattle/Colorado (17:30), New York/New Jersey (20:00), L.A./Edmonton (24:30), Minnesota/Dallas (28:00), Florida/Boston (33:00) and New York Islanders/Carolina (37:00).They then discuss some news from around the league including Doug Wilson returning to hockey (41:00), what’s next for Calgary as they look for a new GM (42:25) and Philadelphia’s search continues for a new president with new names in the fold (45:45).Email the podcast at [e-mail] or call The Thought Line at 1-833-311-3232 and leave us a voicemailOutro Music: Banditos - On My WayListen to the full track hereThis podcast was produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman.Audio Credits: 680 CJOB, Bally Sports Southwest, KFAN, KJR AM, KKGK, LA Kings Audio Network, Sportsnet, TBS, WCMC-FM and WEPN-FM.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.

Yes, I don't have to run faster than the bear. It would be like Tim and Sid. Remember that race? Oh my God, that was hilarious. That outfit that Sid wore was the best. Three times a week, CarCast style. Welcome to 32 Thoughts to Podcast, presented by the GMC Canyon AT4X.

Marek Delic and in his car, as he's left the studio, Elliot Friedman, after working a very excruciating evening of hockey on a Tuesday night. Elliot, first of all, before we get into the games, before we get into the news, what was it like working with Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde? First of all, the guy is really smart.

Oh, yeah. Like, I think he was a little bit nervous and you could tell but i think as he goes on he'll get a lot better the one thing that's very obvious jeff is the base of knowledge you know i said to him when i was sitting there because he came in the first night like the first night the edmonton night was a party night he came in and berkey came in and we were completely distracted we did a terrible show and it was all Berkey and Lalone's fault. But like the second night he was in. And the thing is like, you can, you can really see the knowledge.

Like I said to him, sometimes you're like, could I ever run a hockey team? And I always say that if you're going to be the chief decision maker of a hockey team, you have to see the game at an elite level when i watch with guys like lalonde and adam oats is another one yeah i just tell you like there's things happening out there they just see it at a different level than i do like him talking about the way the boston center plays on defense or like him talking about the way Tampa defends on the penalty kill when he explains it to you you're like oh wow like why didn't I see it so clearly before like sometimes I do but there's some things he points out and I'm like I just discovered cold

fusion like how come I didn't notice this before and the is like, I can do it if I spend a lot of time really doing it. People like him and oats and others like him, they just see it instantaneously. Yeah. The stuff that I really liked was when he was talking about, uh, Tampa's defenseman and how they gap up so quickly and how he showed all those different examples from the first period.

It was incredible. And he's just picking off, picking off, picking off, picking off, picking off. It was that to me was fantastic to watch. Okay. We're going to get to that game.

We're going to get to some of the news and here's the schedule for the playoffs for this podcast. We will record Sunday for a Monday release Tuesday for a Wednesday release and Thursday for a Friday release. So three podcasts after the games are all done on the Sunday, the Tuesday, and the Thursday, and you'll have them first thing Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Does that make sense?

Is that clear? That's what we're doing. Makes sense to me, and I've been awake for 18 hours. How many coffees tonight? Anything? Are you clean? I had three coffees and two teas. I was really feeling. It's bad. It's night two of Are you clean? I had three coffees and two teas. I was really feeling it's bad.

It's night two of the playoffs. I had five. That's a really bad omen. I have to tell you. Okay. He's fully caffeinated. So let's get to some of the games. First of all,

the one that stunned Toronto, the Maple Leafs boot off the ice after the first, the second, and the third period. Seven, three is the final score. Braden Point with a pair of goals. Kucherov with 1-2.

Corey Perry with 1-2. And a hearing for Michael Bunting. There's more, but let's start there. Look, I know some Leaf fans, and I know because they were all over my DMs. Like, we got screwed by the refereeing. And I guess Chris Chelios said on ESPN, it was some of the worst refereeing he's ever seen. As far as I'm concerned, when you're down 3-0 after one

and you lose 7-3 and the major reason you get back in the game is because you get two power plays, you can't be complaining about the referee. You lost. Now, the biggest thing about this game is the health of Hedman and Cernak. Like, the one thing I always remind people,

and this happened last year when Toronto won the first game 5-0, this isn't a total goal series. Like, whatever happened in this game, you start the next game at zeros. You get a chance to start all over again. We don't get that very often in life, Jeff. Nope. We screw up something, and it stays with us for a long time.

You get to start all over again. The thing here is Edmund Chernak. Now, at the end of the game, Edmund, Jeannot, who didn't play, and Isamont, who left the game, were all in the hallway welcoming the Lightning players back into the room. You couldn't see anything noticeable on any of those guys and believe me we basically put the x-ray camera on headman we know all about headman's innards and we didn't see any wraps or anything like that so you know cooper said it was a bit

of a surprise we're hopeful game two but you don't know, you know, Chernak was the one that was the bigger concern because it could be a concussion and there's protocol here, but if Edmund and Chernak can't play and you know what it reminds me of, it reminds me of Louis Domingue Rangers penguins last year, like spicy pork, like circuit chef was great. Radish was really good. Cole picked it up, but you can't do it for six more games. And that

is the biggest question hanging over the rest of the series more than anything else to me. A couple of other points to this one. Not the finest night for Leah Samsonoff and Joseph Wall came in in the third period. I'll just lay it out there.

Is this the beginning of the Joseph Wall era of the Toronto Maple Leafs? Do you expect Wall in their game too? So Keefe was asked that postgame and he said too early to say. Like I thought for sure that Samsonov was going to play game two. And maybe Keefe's playing games with us. Like that happens at this time of year, as you know. But I was less sure after hearing that answer. Sheldon, Joseph Wohl coming in for the third period,

I know it was a big margin in the game, but is there any consideration to bringing him in to start game two or too early to know? It's too early to know. It's probably smart for Keith to answer it that way. You can punt it to tomorrow or on Thursday, whatever you want to do. You can talk about it with your goalie coach. But the fact that he didn't come right out and say it, one, it makes you wonder how much doubt there really is.

And number two, I don't know if I want to say it's a franchise-altering decision. Sometimes I think there's too much hyperbole. But you've got to win. That's it. On Thursday night., but you got to win. That's it on Thursday night. So you got to decide right now. Like I'm going with Samson off because he got me here. You know, he had a bad night. He took it. He ate it. He said he played like bleep. Like this playoff, uh, you don't feel a nerve a lot, nerves a lot, but yeah, I feel like it's hard to see how his fans after the second period left to the game, yeah.

Yeah, it's just hard to see. But I will be better. I'm playing like a s*** today. Like, to me, I'm going back with him. But the fact that he didn't commit to it, I thought that was pretty interesting. The other thing, too, is, you know, Jeff, like around him, they had two areas that were really bad in front of their net. So I don't think Shen's coming out,

but I wonder if Lilligren's coming in. Does Lilligren get a chance? Because you do need more puck moving. And the other one, too, is if Bunting gets suspended, and now that he's got a hearing, I suspect he will, is it Matthew New nyes on thursday night i think that might be the obvious play but i think for that top line as well with uh matthews and marner we saw kelly yarn croak there to finish the game after bunting got punted i would i wouldn't be surprised if that's the new first line come Thursday.

And then you go Simmons or somebody else down low? I would imagine so. Or do you do Nyes? The thing about Nyes, too, and I understand it. I know everyone's all excited. It's a shiny new toy. It doesn't have that many NHL games. I do wonder, like, if the Maple Leafs would have won the first game,

then you can say, okay, we'll put in Nyes, but they lost the first game kind of spectacularly. Does that give Sheldon Keefe hesitation to bring in Nyes and maybe rather defer to the veteran? I don't know. I think it's going to be really interesting to see how the lineup gets discussed the next couple of days. Like, you know, it won't be debated like for more than 10 minutes in Toronto. I think 10 minutes and then everybody will move on. The next couple of days in Toronto, we're going to be crazy. They're going to be bananas. Yeah, it certainly will.

I'm sure everyone will bring with themselves a very level headed approach to all Maple Leafs conversations in Toronto. You know, the other thing too, I wonder I wonder, does Junot come in for Tampa? You know, I think we could see him. And, you know, Jeff, the other thing also is, like one of the Tampa players told me that they were annoyed about this whole Toronto pushed them around last Monday. I don't know if disrespect is the right word,

but they were like, come on. Like we've been doing this for years. For four years, we've been the bullies on the block for one night. We didn't have a great night. Now, all of a sudden, like they're bullying us and Cooper's a guy. He preys on that. He'll be all over the saying, ah, Toronto pushed you around. Everyone thinks the Leafs pushed you around. They were wired.

Yeah. Wired for that game. They were ready to play and they came out hard. Game two should be a fascinating one. Winnipeg and Vegas. Man, there's a whole lot here. So Winnipeg wins this thing five to one, a pair of goals by Adam Lowry.

Pierre-Luc Dubois finds the back of the net. He was excellent. Kyle Connor kicked off the scoring. He was excellent as well. Blake Wheeler finds the back of the net. This really was a command performance by not just the forwards, but the

blue line and Connor Hellebuck as well. Connor Hellebuck wasn't that busy, and I think that's because everybody around him did their job to make sure shots didn't get on net. Only 17 shots allowed at all in this game. It was

blocking shots, it was suppressing shots, it was not letting Vegas get to the net at all. You heard the fans at T-mobile arena like how frustrated that fan base sound in that rink because vegas was unable to get anything going and unable to get anything towards the net we had the morgan baron situation uh with ron vossois skate getting jammed in his face which which is just, it's terrifying. And you just hate it.

And Baron got zipped up and 75 stitches later, he's on the bench with the bird cage. Win a pick, Jets, and Baron's going to come to the bench here. He got a nasty cut on the face. He might have caught a skate in all that pile. And he is bleeding. The Jets with a couple of really good opportunities, but this last one was a wide open gaping net on the rush.

That was a command performance by the Winnipeg Jets. I really got to hand to them. I thought this was going to be Vegas all the way and Winnipeg went in there, hostile territory, and handed it to the Vegas Golden Knights and Jack Eichel playing in his very first playoff game.

I thought I was watching the rig bonus era Dallas stars, like two teams played like that. I thought tonight I thought Winnipeg played like that. And it's obvious because that's his blueprint. And I thought Seattle played like that too. Winnipeg. I thought it was chip it out, you know, create a race.

Don't do anything stupid play low risk low event hockey vegas is actually a team that's normally very good at protecting the house so they got a bit vegas in this one they did if the whole series is going to be like that which is basically like a greco-roman wrestling match you're going to need one player to step up and make a difference offensively. And Lowry got two goals at the end, and that was Connor and Dubois, 62 seconds apart early. ...inward the corner, trying to get it out in front, a quick shot, they score! Kyle Connor, a one-timer in the slot off that pass from Dubois.

Beats Brassois. Off the bench and a line change. Picked up again by Dubois. Moved right in. Shoots. Score! Pierre-Luc Dubois beat Laurent Brassois short side. Two quickies for the Jets.

I think in that game, you have a lot of great offensive players. You mentioned Eichel. I saw that Vegas put the Misfits line back together. Yep. That's a game where you've got a lot of players who can score and not a lot of opportunities. So who was going to score? And it was Connor and it was Dubois to open it up

and then Wheeler to put it away and you know Kevin had a hilarious night on the panel first of all he said Dubois was taunting Brassois in French yeah and then Mark Spector texted Kevin and said you know Brassois is from Alberta so he doesn't speak French and we were all laughing our heads off at that and then someone sent me a DM about it too and secondly then he was like there's no way Baron got 75 stitches and he was

questioning Reynolds reporting on the air it was pretty hilarious actually but you know the thing about this series is no matter how your year goes you get a chance to rewrite your season here. And the Jets started it. They got what they wanted to do. Now you've got to get greedy. If you're Vegas, you got to find a way to get through those guys. Just like other teams have

to find a way to get through you. You have to find a way to get through those guys. You know, one really big bright spot for the Vegas Golden Knights, and we talked about the sneaky good moves around trade deadline, the payoff at playoffs. That Barbashev set up on the Carlson goal was a thing of beauty, was an absolute thing of beauty. That was, we've talked about it before, that was a really nice move by Kelly McCrimmon getting Barbashev

out of the St. Louis Blues and into a Vegas golden Knights uniform. The golden Knights are on the board. William Carlson has the first Vegas playoffs goal of the year. After 14 in the regular season, he has the first of the playoffs for the Knights. And now trail two to one with four 11 to go in the second period, the quick strike offense, Carlson set up by Barbashev he drifted left circle and went long side by the glove of Hellebuck inside the right

post and it heights a little bit of goal there's one more thing I want to mention out of this game shoot remember the last time Winnipeg played Vegas in the 2018 Western Conference Final, there was the gamesmanship about the practice lights being kept off, the arena lights being kept off, until the exact moment that the Jets could get on the ice. They wanted to go out early, and they were told, nope, lights off, nets not put on. Vegas is the old- school team that way. They do things like that.

That's Harold Ballard era stuff. He would do that with the WHA Toronto Toros when they rented the ice. It was like to the second he wouldn't turn the lights on. Well, so the story making the rounds today is that on the exercise bike outside the Jets dressing room, the pedals were missing. I have to tell you, there was one GM who hit the roof when he heard that. That is brutal. So one general manager called me about that.

And he's like, he called someone else and that someone else said, well, you know, it's home ice advantage. And he said, I got so angry at that guy that I called you because he said, that's not home ice advantage. Like we shouldn't be doing that so he was steaming when he heard about that thing with the bikes we'll see if the bikes have pedals for game two first thing the cameras get to when they get to the rink the bikes to see if they have not just pedals but working pedals elliot that's it that's an important caveat here as well. So one GM said to me, we can't be doing this stuff anymore. Beat your opponent fair and square is what he said.

All right, to the shocker of the evening, the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche are down one game to nothing at the hands of the Seattle Kraken. And congratulations, Ile Tolvanen, who scores the first postseason goal the Seattle Kraken. And congratulations, Ile Tolvanen, who scores the first postseason goal in Seattle Kraken history. Turning it over in front, Tolvanen point blank, gets his own rebound and scores!

Turnover out in front, Ile Tolvanen had the first shot, turned aside, got his own rebound, and whacked it in. The first playoff goal in Kraken history belongs to ellie golvin in one nothing 16 34 alex venberg with a goal morgan geeky with a goal as well miko ranton in the lone marker for the avalanche philip grubauer outstanding in this one stopping 34 of 35 shots

vince dunn gets a puck in the face about halfway through the third period. So a tough night, but he's not complaining. His team won. Eric Johnson, a healthy scratch for the Colorado Avalanche. Your thoughts on Seattle getting home ice advantage away from the Avs. First of all, that game, game three in Seattle is going to be bazonkers. Now you know you're coming home with at the very least a split. You're going to have bazonkers. Now you know you're coming home with, at the very least, a split. You're going to have a rabid crowd wired up for that game.

Like, Winnipeg's going to be the same way. You know, we were talking with Morrissey the other day, and the feature on him is going to air, and we were sitting in the seats just imagining what it's going to look like for Game 3. Now you know it's going to be even more of a zoo, because the worst you're going home is one

one in seattle it's the same way it's your first ever playoff game you're facing the fedding stanley cup champions and you steal game one on the road and i want to credit our advanced scout on this series as you know where we're primarily paying attention to toronto and Winnipeg on this night. But our advanced scout, Cole Biexa, who was telling us what Seattle was doing so well, he said they did a really great job of not letting McKinnon explode against them too much. And like I said, every time I looked up, Seattle was creating chips out, foot races. Just don't put the puck in dangerous places. They play it perfectly. The road teams did really well in game one. I would just say, I think to a lot of people, that's the most surprising result, but that was a hugely

impressive victory for the Kraken. Speaking of road teams winning, the Rangers, and quite handily as well. 5-1 is the final score. A pair of power play goals by Chris Kreider in this one. Vlad Tarasenko kicked off the scoring. A gorgeous goal by Ryan Lindgren. That was a 3-0 goal. That was a thing of beauty. Back out to Lindgren.

Lindgren far boards back to Fox. Creeps up between the circles. Fox still with it. A pinching Lindgren. Lindgren far boards back to Fox. Creeps up between the circles. Fox still with it. A pinching Lindgren sharp angle shot. And he scores! Ryan Lindgren sharp angle. And the Niners take the 3-0 lead. Jack Hughes, a lone goal scorer for the New Jersey Devils.

Adam Fox, outstanding. Four assists. Shesturkin with 27 saves. Vitek Vanacek. Not his finest night. I guess both ex-Washington Capitals netminders on this night, the one in Toronto and the one in New Jersey, both had a tough time. What a great statement for the Rangers.

They lost the season series to the New Jersey Devils, not winning one game in regulation, but it didn't matter here for game one. Well, you probably watched this one closer than I did. So what did you think? I thought the Rangers were all over them. I really did. I was impressed right from the get-go. I never wanted to disqualify power play goals.

I know a lot of people say like, yeah, he scored 40 goals, but 25 of them were on the power play. Those still count. Yeah. I just think that Kreider in front of the net on the power play again is going to be a lot of trouble for the New Jersey Devils because he is against every other team.

And listen, the Devils didn't have an answer for it. A few teams have an answer for Chris Kreider in front of the net. I did think that Adam Fox was the best player on the ice. And no surprise that he's going to get plenty of Norris love. But it's been a long time since we've seen the rangers and the devil so i wanted to make sure that i parked a lot of time yeah with this one i've been looking forward to it for a long time and i i'm really interested about in the in the the veteran new york rangers squad against this young brash team that's finally broken through and we expect to see the devils consistently in the

playoffs now and i want to see how the devils did in their in their first go around here but this was one where the rangers said you know what you may have been higher than us in the standings but we're still the big dog in the battle of the hudson that's how it looked to me on the redirect it is two 2-0, Rangers. There's the puck from the power play goal as Chris Kreider is now the all-time leading playoff goal scorer in franchise history. What a stat.

Like, Chris Kreider, most Rangers playoff goals. Like, I never would have guessed that one. 35. First of all, good for him. Like, congratulations. That's a hell of a record you think about and i realize we play a lot more games now but you know the rangers went through a few years where they didn't play much and you think of all the great players they had in their

history like you you never would have imagined that that he would be number one with 35 i said this about keith in the toronto game i thought it was really good that Keefe didn't panic. He's a guy who can really blow his top. He can be very emotional, but I thought he was really calm because I think the team takes on the persona of the coach. And if you lose your cool, the team will lose the cool. Every time I saw Gallant this game, he was intense. Like, Gallant looked like he was about to throw on the shoulder pads and go out there. And I think that the Rangers fed off that. Like, everyone's been talking about devil speed, devil speed, devil speed. That's legit.

But Gallant, I have no doubt in my mind that he thinks he can bully them. Even with, you know, Hamilton, who's a big guy, and Meyer, who's been added to it, and Severs Even with, you know, Hamilton who's a big guy, and Meyer who's been added to it, and Severson, who's a really good player and a big guy, I really believe that Gallant thinks that the Rangers can push the Devils around. And every time I saw Gallant on the bench, I

saw a guy who was driving his team to take control of that game physically. Listen to the 32 Thoughts podcast ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. And Elliot, we focused a lot on the action from Tuesday night, but let's rewind to Monday as well. Los Angeles and Edmonton.

It took overtime. It was the LA Kings. Kopitar had a great game. One goal, three assists, four points. Corposalo, 37 saves. Adrian Kempe, wonderful. Alex Ayafalo scores in overtime, 9-19. To Dowdy in the middle.

To Kopitar, left circle of the goal line. Arvidsson centers. Score! Alex Ayafalo wins it in overtime! It's a power play goal! Great, quick puck movement by the Kings. They worked it down low. A touch pass by Arvidsson to Ayafalo in front.

Who buries it? The Kings take game one here in Edmonton. And I loved his quote, shades of Brett Hull. I was just trying to get lost. Sometimes the best way of being in the play, Elliot, is being out of the play. Conor Bedard, by the way, as someone reminded me, you heard us talking about that on the radio show today, said that is exactly what Conor Bedard, by the way, as someone reminded me, you heard us talking about that on the radio show today, said that is exactly

what Conor Bedard does. Wait till he gets to the NHL. He will get lost on the ice and then suddenly appear in the perfect spot. Anyhow, LA beats Edmonton. They draw first blood. 4-3 is the final. Well, Jeff tells me to get lost all the time, so I know that feeling.

You know, like I know some Oilers fans were pretty upset and you know like the one thing i'd like to say i don't think that game was a disaster i can't tell you how many people you know woke up and said to me i gave about five or six tests i went to bed and edmonton was in control they're like what the hell happened like how did they lose the game they didn't understand what happened you know, that was a big steal for L.A. considering the situation. Edmonton was in control.

You know, they don't have Velarde. They don't have Fiala. Although I have a feeling both of those guys are getting close. I don't know if they'll be ready for game two, but I think they're getting close. I just don't panic too much after a game like that you know the one thing is number one mcdavid didn't get a point so you know he's going to be riled up but number two there is something about the kings like like i think the kings have

great structure like nobody can compete with you know mcdavid dry sidle one two but kopitar to know like if i have a choice and i can pick some people who if i have to go to battle against these guys i'll take two guys yeah like kopitar to know is a pretty good pick yep you're not too upset to have those two guys i think gavrikov it's gonna be really interesting like i've heard the kings have tried to sign him gonna be really interesting like i've heard the kings have tried to sign him in around the five million dollar range like if he has another night like he had two nights ago there's no chance that's getting done like the kings know how to play right they're a really high iq team but good coach i can't panic i just think you think if you're gonna be in that kind of position a lot in this series you're gonna shut the door here's the thing a lot in this series, you're going to shut the door.

Here's the thing. You have someone who, to your point has Kopitar and Deno in the lineup. And if you're looking at trying to shut down, you know, the biggest nuclear missile in the NHL, Connor McDavid, maybe who better than someone who used to coach him. Things kind of do line up nicely here for the Los Angeles Kings.

I don't care if anyone used to coach him. You're not slowing him down. Maybe just for the one game. We'll see about game two. I like the way you think, though. By Harley, who couldn't get it out. Here's a turnover open in front. They score! They score!

Ryan Hartman helps the Wild steal game one of a bouncing puck in front and he wins his double overtime marathon in Dallas as the Wild prevail 3-2. The headline was the Matt Dumba hit on Joe Pavelski. And as you and I discussed on the radio show, I really think that Joe Pavelski was surprised to get hit in that spot. surprised to get hit in that spot.

Forwards don't get hit when they're below the red line like that, the way that Dumba hit Pavelski. I don't think the hit was dirty. I just don't think Pavelski was expecting to get hit there. I agree with you. I don't think it was a dirty hit. I don't think it was worth a suspension. I just think that as a society, we don't like to see that stuff anymore. We've got less of an interest in seeing that kind of injury, right?

So whenever we see something like that, we react very emotionally to it because nobody wants to see a player leave the ice like that. I don't know what the situation is going to be here with Pavelski. At this time of year, DeBoer said... Joe's okay. Pavelski at this time of year. DeBoer said... Joe's okay. Obviously,

he's banged up, hit his head on the ice when he fell. Probably not for game two. I've got to think he's in the protocol, right? I'm with you, Jeff. I don't think it was a suspension-worthy hit or anything like that, and I thought the officials handled it right in the

moment. what really stood out to me was peter deborah in the post game deborah he was calm he was measured he didn't say anything about it and it was the way he said it was like okay you know i'm not complaining here i just lost a very important player yeah you guys kind of owe me one. You know, we, we have the best officials in the world and, um, you know, they, they called a five, they reviewed it, which is the right thing to do. And, you know, if they reviewed it and decide it wasn't a bad hit, then, you know, uh, I guess it's not for me to argue with that. I mean, they got to look at it at multiple different angles, and that was the decision they made.

So, you know, we've got to live with that. Like, I thought of all the games, and the hockey was phenomenal the first two nights of the playoffs. That's the one that they lost control of. And, like, there was a play where Hintz was tripped on a face-off right at the end of a period. You got to make that call. And I did think that was the one game that got out of control.

You know, there were a lot of exceptional things that happened in that game. Philip Gustafson, no nerves at all. 51 saves, first playoff game. Jake Ottinger was really good 45 saves uh matt dumba sets a minnesota wild record 38 minutes and 31 seconds of ice time yeah uh miro hayskinen miro hayskinen says oh yeah how about this 41 42 for the dallas defenseman but as much as we say that you know ryan hartman was was the hero the double OT, was there a bigger hero than Brock Faber stopping Mason Marchman,

that diving stick save to keep the Minnesota Wild? Because that game's over. I'm sure that Marchman has that puck, and this thing is over. And Brock Faber, out of nowhere, dives at him with the stick to keep the puck out. Completely saved the game for the Minnesota Wild. So Ryan Hartman shows up as the the game winner but maybe if there's a stat game saver that thing has to go to brock faber elliott i'm so impressed by that guy how can you how can you not be yeah he's like how can you not be impressed by by that guy and how good he is like

that kid's a fine sure is look one game basically made his nhl debut the week before like there's a lot of runway here and that's a big boy series yeah but that guy does not look out of place and gustafson i mean he's been excellent yeah just excellent like you know minnesota you know how they're gonna play and i think the thing for dallas is now you know dallas looked disjointed like they still should have won the game i thought you know how they're going to play. And I think the thing for Dallas is now, you know, Dallas looked disjointed. Like, they still should have won the game, I thought. You know, they had unbelievable chances, and Gustafson and Faber were great.

But I still think they looked a little bit disjointed without Pavelski. And now, what are you going to do? Like, how are you going to make up for that? Like, he's so much the linchpin of a lot of things they do. The other thing about that game is like that was frontier justice ryan suitor like he might have cross-checked caprice of all those times anyway yeah but now because pavelsky was out of the game he was taking his pound to flesh like i

think that's the other one i'm curious about going into game two is you know Minnesota is going to go to the series supervisor on that one. Is it going to be different? When Minnesota plays, it's built into their DNA. Their games are rough. I think the other team is sitting there and saying we have to be given the same

leeway. Boston and Florida. Boston wins this one by a final score of three to one david pasternak finds the back of the net we'll get to the brad marsh angle in a second matthew kachuk finds the back of the net jake debrask makes it three to one uh look like he pushed in the pad but no the puck is lying there knocks it off the whole thing goes in and it's and it's fine the brad marsh angle you know i was mentioning the um the brad marsh and goal the one that just sort of goes under the glove or beside alex lion and you know that's a

proverbial one where you know john garrett was laughing about like oh even i think his exact words were something along the lines of even kelly rudy would agree with me that that's a bad goal and kevin woodley our buddy from in goal magazine and nhl.com says you know that's a bad goal. And Kevin Woodley, our buddy from InGoal Magazine and NHL.com says, you know, that's a moment where, you know, the glove failed him. That at the edge of the glove, instead of, I guess it wasn't strong enough or something, I don't know, instead of pushing back on the puck, it folded over and it went in because of, I don't know, because of a wear and tear or the manufacturer, I don't know. But that's the one that you look at and you say, that's the one that in some ways really broke Florida's back.

The Pasternak goal is a gorgeous pass by Tyler Bertuzzi. More on him in a sec. The Marchand goal is the one where, and I know Matthew Kachuk came back to cut the lead to one, but that's the goal you look at and go, ugh, that's the killer for the Florida Panthers. First of all, I felt terrible for Lyon, who's the reason they got into the playoffs right yeah he you know he has an incredible run and that one happens you know what it reminds me of like he used to play road hockey as kids and he used to use an old baseball mitt as your glove hand yeah

and the webbing would like tear off and the and the button and that orange rubber ball that always stung you would go right through. That's great. That's what that reminded me of. No Bergeron. I don't like to say they didn't miss a beat because if you miss Bergeron, you're missing a beat. But they're so well constructed. They can handle it. Zaka played really well.

Everybody there knows what to do. Like, I just think their room is so good and their leadership is so good. And their ideas of how to play are so good that like, Hey, Zaka, Pavel, you're in for Bergeron. Okay. This is how it's going to go. He doesn't try to be Bergeron. He just knows what his responsibilities are. And he says, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to handle that. Just do what you do. Like, like even though Bergeron wasn't playing, I never felt Boston was overly threatened in that game. And, you know, someone said to me that all Mark was, was really sick. I don't know if he was sick. That's still that day of the game because, you know, Swayman was hurt and, you know, he dressed obviously, but someone suggested to me that if Swayman hadn't been injured recently,

that Allmark might not have played because he was feeling terrible, but Swayman may not have been 100%, so Allmark went. And someone just said to me All Allmark gave them a real performance under less-than-ideal situations. Let's put it that way. I think a lot of people wanted to see Florida give Boston a series, but that was the game that Florida got the Bruins under less-than-ideal circumstances,

and I just thought the Bruins looked so smooth. Mention that Tyler Bertuzzi pass to David Pasternaknak that was a thing of beauty that's an elite level high skill pass right there and because it's tyler bertuzzi and does he not look perfect apologies to tread red wings fans does he not look perfect in a boston bruins uniform grabbing nick cousin's stick taking it to the bench oh my god i couldn I couldn't stop laughing. And smashing the blade. Oh man. Like there are things you see in these games and you're like, did I just see that?

Like what just happened there? That was a big one. And I rewound it and I looked at it. I just couldn't stop laughing at how funny it was. Okay, one more series for comment here. Sorokin versus Ronta, the Islanders and the Carolina Hurricanes. We expected this one to be low scoring, and Elliot, it was. To the corner, eight seconds left.

Carolina, Pesci takes a hard hit. Puck behind the net. Canes trying to clear, slaving along the boards. One second. A sharp angle shot. Ronta with the save, and the Canes take game number one. You know, there's one player every year where I look at my ballot and I'm like, the playoffs start and I realize I really disrespected this player.

And you know who it is this year? Ilya Sorokin? Brent Burns. Oh, for the Norris? That was one of the guys that I wrestled with. He had a great season. There were a lot of great contenders for the Norris? That was one of the guys that I wrestled with. He had a great season. There were a lot of great contenders for the Norris. The person who really pushed me to vote for Burns,

I talked about it with Brendan Moore when we met and for that interview, but the person who really pushed me to Burns said, when those two guys went down, Pacioretty and Shveshnikov, he basically took over the Carolina offense. There were so many good people to vote for. Every year, you know, when the ballots become public, it's basically your house is about to get burned down. That's what happens.

I felt really bad. There's a guy in the NBA, the rookie of the year. It looks like it's going to be a player named Paulo Bonchero, and he was going to be unanimous. And then I guess guess there's one voter in utah who voted for walker kessler and it went public and people were just destroying that guy all over the internet and i think i think that's such a joke like i really do like people are allowed to disagree anyway i'm looking at burns now and i'm like uh i know it's one game but I might have really blown that one like I was watching

him that game as much as I could and like every time he's out there he just controls the game he's a former Norris Trophy winner already and probably deserved and I'm guilty of it as well more love than he's probably going to get in the balloting by the way you know what's going to happen when he hears this Jeff

you and I are going to be the game on his ranch. We're going to be the ones running for our lives? I think it's actually called The Game, but I remember it as one of the great short stories of the youth about the man who's on the island, and you have to hide for like 24 hours. Oh, wow. Like the person who inhabits the island.

Do you remember this story? I don't. I don't. I think it's called The Game. So there's a shipwreck and people end up on this island and it turns out the guy on the island, he takes anybody who ends up there and he makes them, and I apologize if I'm butchering the story,

if you run into the forest and can hide from me for 24 hours you get to live and if not you're done and basically what happens is like a lot of people run straight and so they they get killed but this one guy is more experienced and he runs around in circles and i don't want to ruin it for everybody but that's going to be you and i at the burns ranch we're going to be the game and he's going to say you have 24 hours or else because you didn't vote for me for the norris trophy you know the price if you don't make it you know there's an old saying, Elliot, I don't have to run faster than the bear. I just have to run faster than you.

That's right. That's my strategy. Just be faster than you. I will concede, Jeff, that if we were to have a race, I would think you would win. Spare me, Brett Burns. Spare me. We'll finish off this podcast with some news. And something you and I talked about this afternoon.

It looks like, and this is great news for the person because it means that his health is much improved. Looks like Doug Wilson is looking to re-enter the NHL in some capacity. What do you hear? What do you know? He stepped down last year as general manager and president of the Sharks.

He was honored earlier this year, and it was all very mysterious. And I think I have a better handle on what it was, but Wilson hasn't talked about it, so I don't feel comfortable going there okay i've just heard he feels a lot better like i don't know if he's ready to go right back into the trenches and be a full-time general manager but you know we know some of these teams are looking for some senior executives or consultants i've heard he's interested i heard he's able to do it. Like after I mentioned it on your show today,

a couple of reporters from the Bay area, Curtis Pichelka, Sheng Pang. And I don't want to leave out Corey Massasack. I don't know if he reported or not, but they picked it up and it kind of started going somewhere. And people told me that some teams knew like he was on their radar first of all i think it's a great thing that he's healthy enough to feel that this is possible that's the most

important thing and now we'll see where all of this goes so that is really good news that uh the doug wilson is uh is healthy enough to get back uh into the nhl. Fantastic news there. Now, the Calgary situation. So Brad Treliving and the Calgary Flames have what I'm really enjoying referring to as a conscious uncoupling. Don Maloney takes over hockey operations and interim general manager. I'm curious what you think the latest is right now

and is the next step at least an interview if not the official hiring of Craig Conroy as the general manager of the Calgary Flames? Well, first of all, I have a new nickname for you, and it's Gwyneth. That's exactly where that came from. If you keep using the phrase conscious, I'm coupling. So Gwyneth, here's what I can tell you. just uncoupling. So, so Gwyneth, here's what I can tell you. I actually think the first thing here is that I believe that Don Maloney and Daryl Sutter are going to meet. Like we've talked about how these were really long exit meetings in, in Calgary. And I think there's going to be a

conversation between the two of them about, you know, what kind of information was collected and where we go from here. And I don't want to speculate on what that's going to be, Jeff, because I just don't know. But I do think there's going to be a conversation about what the players said. But like I said, I don't want to guess on what that all means, because honestly, I don't know. I'll say this, like, you you know Don Maloney has extension as you and I had talked about I think there is an extension for Craig Conroy on the table but I think Craig Conroy wants to know what his role is going to be uh before he commits to anything

you know one of the things I really think about that organization I had a couple people reach out to me is you know it's funny i didn't see a lot of these tweets but i saw but someone sent me a bunch of them later like a number of the reporters tweeted out like just about messages they got from tree living when you know times were tough or they had really difficult things in their personal life and you've seen how the flames of an as an organization have rallied around chris snow Yes. You know, Tree Living was, you know, he treated people very well. And, you know, sometimes we forget that because all we care about is wins and losses. You can be the greatest human being alive.

And if you go 0-20, people don't care. They just want you out of town, right? So what a couple of people from that organization have told me is that they just felt that Tree Living treated them really respectfully. And Conroy has that reputation, too. And I think there are people in that organization really rooting that Conroy gets the job. But I don't think it's a slam dunk. I do think they're going to interview externally i think conroy could get the job and like i said there's a lot of people there i think want them to get the job but i think they really feel it's important to go through a process like eric francis uh had an article today about some contenders who we put in there like i think some of them are really obvious like you know one of our co-workers michael fuda he's worked with sutter before yep you know shane doan is a guy that don maloney knows i i'm not sure if he'd want to be a gm outside of arizona um but he's got a calgary background and let me apologize in

advance for making people read eric's articles eric's excellent come on of course okay let's finish up with the Philadelphia Flyers and what do you hear about Emily Castonguay and the president position now Emily Castonguay is currently the assistant general manager with the Vancouver Canucks so Irv Gaffar a friend of ours reported today he was the first one I believe to get it on air about Philadelphia actually to be honest I didn't hear it but someone sent me a note about it. I don't know if Emily Castlingay is interviewed yet, but I believe she's on their radar. I do. I believe it's someone that they wanted to talk to.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Cammie Granato was on their radar, too. I don't know that for sure, but it just wouldn't surprise me. You know, we've talked about how you know we've heard ray shiro's name and i think there's other names but i do believe the cast on gay thing is true i just can't pinpoint if they did the interview already or they want to talk to her but i i don't think earth is wrong on this one. The thing that's really interesting about this is they have two different search firms doing this. They have the hockey search firm

that's Neil Glassberg and they have the non-hockey search firm who's Billy King and I used to love Billy King when he played basketball at Duke. He was all defense, man. He could shut people down. I loved watching Billy King play,

but he's one of the recruiters now here for the Flyers. Okay. So that's one of the other stories we're, we're paying attention to and that's your podcast. These will be quickies. These will be car casts. Your next one coming Friday morning. The schedule is going to be Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You receive pods from us. Taking us out today, a Nashville-based Birmingham-born quintet that made their way onto the scene in 2015. Banditos have a very recognizable sound that's hard to ignore,

especially if you're walking down Broadway. Shout out to Tim for the artist's submission to our inbox. Thank you, Tim. From their Right On record, here's Banditos with On My Way on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Hope you're a fool, no, they'll see, they'll do Life is sometimes cruel, sometimes unbelievable But I never thought twice about leaving I just couldn't do it

Tell me what's the difference Between winning and not giving I'd be so ashamed At the end of the day. Tell me what's the difference between winning and not giving up. I'm on my way. I'm on my way.