Barn Burner: Boomer & Pinder with Rhett Warrener - Owen Newkirk (FULL INTERVIEW)

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

All Things Dallas Stars With Owen Newkirk ⭐ | The Insider HotlineThe Insider Hotline | Presented by Crystal Waters Plumbing Company https://www.crystalwatersplumbingcompany.com/Join Pinder & Rhett as they welcome Owen Newkirk for all things Dallas Stars!!Check out Owen's podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@DLLS_SportsLet us know what you think in the comments below!!BARN BURNER BLONDE https://originbrewing.myshopify.comFLAMESNATION MERCHhttps://nationgear.ca/collections/shirts/FlamesnationBARN BURNER SHORTS https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj_bcGtvvo-cW2DHEDZ6dEO5ePDmlhZc9&si=jo8iNGxT4ImhS2Y8INSTANT REACTIONShttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj_bcGtvvo-dO2AraHTeftSpPt00evo8M&si=lY5D3nk8zVtrQgql🚨 Subscribe to @Flames_Nation on Youtube 🚨➡️ / @flames_nation 🔥 Barn Burner with Boomer, Pinder, & Rhett Warrener➡️ • Flames Nation Barn Burner 🔥 After Burner ➡️ • Flames Nation After Burner @dailyfaceoff2563 LIVE with Frank Seravalli:➡️ / @dailyfaceoff2563 💻 Website: https://flamesnation.ca🐦 Follow on Twitter: @FlamesNation @960boomer @PinderReport @Warrener44📺 Subscribe on Youtube: @Flames_Nation#NHL #Playoffs #StanleyCup #NHLShorts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This man's been talking about the Dallas Stars and their prospects for well over a decade. Owen Newkirk joins us from the Stars podcast. New Kirk, it's been a long time. How are you, buddy? Pender, my goodness, it's, oh, geez, what is it, 2012, I think? Abbotsford, right? The heat? Yeah, oh, the heat were heat.

Think about this. It's been so long since we've known each other that the Calgary H. AHL affiliate played 45 minutes away from Vancouver. which to this day still racks my brain. Not within two time zones of anyone else either. It wasn't like it was a popular place to be. You know, I thought our travel schedule in Texas was tough, especially when Houston and San Antonio went away and Oklahoma City.

But how about you guys? I mean, on an island. It was no good. It was no good. It's better here. I'm in a studio eight blocks from my home. There's Rhett Warner at his house with numerous statues behind him, uh, winning lots of things.

I want to make an anchorman joke about his rich mahogany smell and many, many leatherbound books. I don't read them, but I have them. You don't have to read them. It's just display. Jack can't read either. That's fine. Actually, Rhett rips through books. He's a hell of a reader.

Let's get into the Star series against the Jets. But to do that, I think to paint the full picture, we're going to go back to the arrival and acquisition of Miko Ranton because their fortunes this post. postseason have totally swung with him getting on one of the all-time heaters of the NHL postseason. You know, that was the, we were talking about this on our show the other day. By the way, a quick, shameless plug. It's DLS stars. You can check us out on our YouTube channel, which is DLS sports.

You can also check our website, all dLS.com. Okay. My boss will be happy. I said that. So thanks. We were talking about this on the show. It was me and Craig Ludwig last, it was last night. Sorry, guys.

I don't know what day it is. It's talking to Pinder on the phone. earlier. It's either game day or not game day in the playoffs. Apparently it's Monday. That's news to me too. So last night after the game, which was game three, we were talking about how when Rantan was first acquired at the deadline, the thing that jumped out of the page more than anything else was his playoff numbers, 100 points and 80 games. And you're going, man, that guy's a beast in the postseason. We know what he was like and how important he was with Colorado. And especially when you get into their, run to the Stanley Cup in 22, he was a big factor. But then, you know, things just sort of happened early on. And he had a couple of points early and then it was kind of quiet. Fortunately, I think from my analysis, we had a lot of experience with Joe Pavelski

being in Dallas. And Joe is a phenomenal player, Hall of Famer in my take, great human being, did not play well in his first 60 plus games. So when he came to Dallas, it was right. before the lockdown. It was 2019, 2020. He just didn't look like Joe Pavelsky and a lot of people and we were part of it saying

maybe this is why San Jose didn't extend a contract and why they let their captain walk. Well, after the lockdown shutdown in the spring of 2020 and then the Edmonton bubble emerged and it was like Pavelski unlocked. He was

his normal self again. And for the next three years, he looked just like Joe Povelsky and was an incredible influence in the room. He, I mean, talk about a mentor to Wyatt Johnston and everything that he brought to the Dallas stars. He vastly increased our leadership group in Dallas. I think he helped Jamie Ben, uh, immeasurably in that category as well.

And then the end of last season, we started to see father's time catching up. And Joe always said he was never, uh, built on speed in his game. But even then, it looked like the game was getting past him a little bit. So it was a shame they couldn't win the cup. for him last year because, you know, there's always guys that deserve it that never do in their NHL careers. He's one of those. Well, I tell you all that to say that that was exactly the feeling with Miko Ranton.

It was, hey, take your time. The difference is, is Miko came to Dallas. He's in the prime of his career. Joe was sort of at the back end of it. But be patient. He'll be fine. But I'm going to be very honest, of course. There's no way any of us would have, even with that being said,

predicted 17 playoff points in his last six playoff games. I mean, it's, it's unbelievable what he's doing. End of the Colorado series. Like that was a weird one. It didn't seem like momentum existed. Colorado looked great at home. They come to Dallas. Dallas looks great.

Back and forth we go. You really didn't get a sense of one team taking over. Every game was like a fresh roll of the dice. There's got to be a lot of reflecting and looking in the mirror if you're the Colorado front office watching that guy rip your heart out in game six and seven. Yeah. I mean, I understand initially. I think I understand.

So let's let's back up. I'm not in the minds of Joe Sackick and Chris McFarland. I think I sort of from the outside perspective get where they're coming from. They were having a very stiff negotiation with Miko Ranton's representation, or his agent, whatever. and they felt they were at an impasse. That's the, you know, everything you hear and talk to people, it feels like they were,

I don't know if terrified is the right word, but they were concerned that they were going to lose them for nothing in free agency. Hindsight, Miko didn't want to go anywhere. He wanted to play the rest of his career in Colorado. So they clearly misread the situation. Now, to be fair, did his agent also misread things

because he was playing such hardball because he knew he wasn't going to go anywhere. And they were clearly blindsided by him being traded to Carolina. So in that sense, maybe both sides are at fault for not sort of taking a step back and realizing what's best for the player. Rett, I mean, you played for a long time. I think one of the things that sticks in my brain is Mark Jenko, the star's assistant general manager, has told us that he thinks it's, and he means this genuinely. This isn't just management speak. it's vitally important for to not try to win negotiations.

It's to try to make sure that both sides are relatively okay with it. Because if one side wins it too much, there can be resentment on the other side. And I think that's something that they were concerned about in Colorado. Well, that's always one of the things they say about the RFAs when they go to arbitration is it gets ugly in there, right? Exactly. In the lawyer, in the, in the, in the, whatever, in front of the judge or, whoever is making the determination, well, you're trying to paint that other, your player is the worst player in the world.

Like, what do you want me for if I'm that shitty? So yes, I do agree with that because it's, it's a negotiation, but there shouldn't be animosity between it, like, especially the guy like Grant. And do you guys remember the, of course you do, the Jeremy Swayman situation. As Rhett just pointed out, a year ago, he went through RFA arbitration. and heard from the Bruins representative at that arbitration hearing all the reasons why he shouldn't be given the money that he wants. But we want to sign you again.

It's an ugly part of that. And I think trying to avoid arbitration is probably a smart move by most people. Well, what, what happened? Swayman went from happy go lucky, great to be here, NHL or two. Oh, my eyes have been open to the business side of it. And he was, and I completely respect how he did. this ruthless with his negotiation for his big contract. Now look at the flip side. What did the Dallas Stars do? They saw Swayman's deal.

Their management approached Jake Ottinger and said, this seems like a pretty fair deal. What do you guys think? And they basically signed it for the same money without the months of drama and media talk. I mean, obviously, Swayman learned from his arbitration situation the year before. And while he's still in Boston and he signed a big long deal, I'm sure. sure that's stuck with them. I mean, players don't let that stuff go, right? If you hear a bunch of negativity, even from the team that wants to give you all the money, we all know it. The memory banks, no, I mean, players latch on to the littlest things for motivation anyway, let alone something that's big. Yeah, the management's telling you, wow, that's just negotiations, just business.

Well, can't unhear that. Yeah. Remember that to go shooting with my wife? She's not going to on to hear it. Very fair. But anyway, to bring it back to the rancin and question mark is just that he's he's been such a professional from our standpoint, you know, covering him in Dallas. He went through a gauntlet. He had to go to Carolina. When he first got to Dallas, it was at the deadline and he met the team in Edmonton. The team was actually traveling. They left before the deadline passed. I think Jim Nill gave the team to go ahead of everybody that's on the plane can go because you don't want to be

stuck on a team charter flight to Edmonton when you're about to go to Carolina. And Logan Stancoven didn't go on that trip for that reason. Jim Nill stayed behind. He did his thing and then I think he met the team later. So Rantening meets the team in Edmonton. We don't really have the full Dallas media because it's in Canada. It's not in Texas. And so after that road trip, which I believe extended to Vancouver, the next

day. Gosh, I can't even remember yesterday, let alone a month or two ago. Came back and we had a practice day and a full media and he came in and immediately said, I want to set the record straight. I did not tell Carolina that I'm not going to sign here when I first got there. He said that happened about a week before the deadline. I gave them a real chance and it just didn't feel right for the next eight years, whether it was on the ice or off the ice, it didn't feel right from a hockey perspective. And so I thought I I was doing the right thing by telling them, go ahead and trade me if you'd like because I'm not going to sign a free agency.

And that was a big sticking point because there were people out of Carolina. And of course, Brindamore probably stepped in it a little bit by saying he never wanted to sign here. And that wasn't true. But he's been, I didn't really know Miko Ranton and the human being before this year. I mean, we watched him for years. But just hearing, I mean, he has backed up everything he said. He's done every media request. he's extremely polite.

He's not shy to make sure his point is heard. But he, I can't imagine the emotions that he's gone through being ripped away from Denver without wanting to. Then, of course, the whole Carolina thing, the four nations sprinkled into that. He's handled things extremely well. Of course, it's going to take a little bit of time. But this playoff series is just, it's kind of stupid how good he is because he's, I looked at it last night.

he has double the points from game five against Colorado. So his last six games, he has double the points of the next highest score in the entire. He's lapped the field in the NHL playoffs. That's wild. I think they had a goal last night, which was the first out of 14 goals where he wasn't involved. Back to the game five.

Yes. And then he had two more points after that. Including that big goal that made it four, two. I mean, he was not done. Yeah. Okay, you mentioned the Four Nations. We got familiar with Thomas Harley there.

I think he's always sort of been a favorite of the stats folks. And I always thought of him as a really good up-and-coming defenseman. I know when Chris Tanna went there from Calgary a couple of years ago, they'd run into injuries. He was playing a bit more. But I don't know that I thought he'd be this good. Tell us about his postseason. And they've locked up most of this young core,

but it is he and Jason Robertson that are going to need deals. Everyone else has got a long-term deal that's young. Tell us about Thomas Harley. Well, I believe that the world at Four Nations got to see what we see on a regular basis in Dallas, which is that Harley is a very composed, well-rounded defenseman. He, of course, came in as an offensive guy, great skater, not afraid to get in the attack, can shoot the puck. And one of the things about his game that's a little different from Muros is he does shoot quicker.

He's looking to shoot more. Miro likes to dish and distribute and, you know, far from me from to criticize his game because he's otherworldly too. But when he first got to Dallas, he was in the taxi squad. Remember those back in the bubble? You keep talking about the Edmonton bubble these days, but he, it was traumatic for everybody, I'm sure. He, you don't remember the flames exit there or do you? Oh, yeah, you would have remembered that. Yeah, I kind of do.

Yeah, Joe Paveltsky had a big game against the point, too, if I remember that. Yeah, so the first. The first game he ever played in the NHL was in that round robin for the teams that were seated. And it was against the Colorado Avalanche. And he said it was, the stars looked terrible. We thought they were going to go home, maybe against Calgary in that first round. Because in those playing or, you know, warm up games, they just look dreadful. And they turned to switch on somehow during the Flame series and then got rolling.

Harley said it was eye opening. He said the speed is, again, he was playing against McKinnon. Imagine having to face Nathan McKinnon at your first idea of NHL speed. And he went, I'll be a lot better in the next game. And then he didn't play much because, of course, you know, the depth of the team and everything like that. Rick Bonas was the stars head coach at the time. And he was adamant that Thomas Harley needed to work on the defensive side of his game. He said, I don't care how great his offense is.

If he can't defend, he can't play for us. So the next year, and now Pete DeBore becomes a head coach. And Bones was right, by the way. knew what he was talking about. It's a great coach. Harley doesn't have a great training camp and get sent to the HL. And he played the full year there. It was 65 games or something like that.

Didn't get called up once. The Stars GM, Jim Nill said he thought that year, trying to dig the memory banks a little bit, that he was going to get recalled injury by December or something like that. It never happened. They stayed very healthy. And Harley said, and I'll never forget this, when he got called up, it was late in the regular season.

it was in March, and he kind of got an audition because we did have an injury, and he looked like a transformed player, and he said, I grew up. And what did he do? He spent, he didn't, when they sent him down to the HL, they didn't give him power play time, they didn't care about his offense. They said, we want you to learn and work on your defense. And he did that. And he said, he got into the minutia a little bit about stick position and angles based on the shoulder of the attacking player and what part of the ice you want to be at. I don't want to bore all the listeners with that, although maybe they want to hear it.

And he just, he, he, he said that he, that was really important to him to realize how to be a professional at, especially at the NHL level, right? In the minors, and again, I'm trying not to do this. We have a real hockey player in our midst, so I should let Rhett do it. But, you know, you can get away with being a bit one-sided if you do something really well in the HL, which is a phenomenal league. but if you have holes in your game, the NHL will find it very quickly

and they will exploit it very quickly. And Harley developed that, and he just continued to shine. He's such a good player. Rhett, your thoughts on the series of the Jets? Just anything for Owen on the stars or where this is headed? No, I'm just,

I still think they're not as emotionally, after those first two round, or the individual rounds, those stars in Colorado and the Jets coming back on that emotional. I don't see the emotion as high as it was in the first round. Like that St. Louis, then Jet Series was crushing and not to take anything away from it, but doesn't feel as emotional as the first round series for these two teams. Do you think that's recency bias, though, in the sense that, meaning because of the way

both of those first round series ended, right? I think yes. Because it's only game three, right? Game four is tomorrow night. That's my thought. Yeah. I mean, those games, Those are two of the best we've ever seen, let alone, let alone the emotion of it. I can't imagine what it's like coming off of that and going, we're only a quarter of the way from our ultimate goal here. We've got to do this again, possibly three more times.

But, you know, no, it's just going to say that the way the stars and jets played, Dallas isn't a overtly aggressive team as far as the physicality and the animosity. They've picked it up a bit in the playoffs, probably out of necessity. But during the regular season, they were frequently out hit. And it's not because the guys aren't tough enough. They just don't play that game, right? Their game is pock possession, scoring chances, transition, trying to get stuff off the rush. It's not trying to tattoo teams up against the boards and trying to beat them off the ice. St. Louis definitely played that.

And I think very well against the Jets. And I'm sure the stars are trying to do that a little bit. But frankly, you know what? It's not necessarily Dallas getting in Helibuck's way. It's his own guys. Some of the goals that have gone in in the series for the stars have been because he's been screened by his own players. And I don't know if Dallas gets any credit for that or not,

but they're definitely trying to create some traffic. It's just been a lot of friendly fire. What did you make of the kick versus not kick, goal versus no goal review? That was a confusing one. And the deeper we look in this rule book, the more confused I am about what's a goal and what isn't. I'll tell you that.

My take is not trying to sound stars based, but for Jets fans, they're going to say, oh, he's a Dallas covery guy. So of course he's going to do it. It's a soccer thing. And it's easy. It's an own goal, right? Whether, to me, there's not much of a distinct kicking motion. He clearly sticks his skate out to get the puck.

It's not this huge. I'm going to kick one into the upper 90 kind of thing. But regardless of that, if you look at the trajectory, it's headed back across the crease. It's not going in. Yeah. Right. In soccer, it's an own goal.

If a defense. player or a goalie changes the angle of a shot that's not going in to go in. Well, if you, if you watch Helbeck, this isn't a deflection. He moves his stick and he literally swats it into his own goal. It's unfortunate. I get it. I wonder if there was it, I think it was, was it Morgan Barron. It was a skate that looked like maybe took a little, it doesn't matter.

We could do a Zabruder film on this and do the Seinfeld thing of the spit went back into the left. But ultimately, to me, I think we all knew. This is not, there's no intent on Petrovich's part to try to kick this puck in the net. He's trying to corral one that on a rebound got into his feet. Every hockey player will see that in his feet, kick it out and whatever. The, if you guys remember the first round series with the Colorado Avalanche,

Arturi Leckin and scored in the one of the goofiest goals I've ever seen, where he kicked it up over Jake Ottinger and in. I've never seen that before, but you know, there's no way he's intending to kick that in and the goal stood. And I thought that was more of a kick in than Petrovich. So my take is regardless of the kicking motion, whether there was much of it or not, I don't think there is. It's not going in.

It hits Hellebuck stick. And it's not like it deflected off the heel of his stick and goes in. He literally swats it with the toe. So to me, I think they got the call right. But boy, it took seven minutes. That was a long review. Yeah, apparently they got the full Freebird song played, at least to the guitar solo.

Yeah. Last one for you. Owen, just an update on Miro Haskin. When do you expect to see him? And what kind of Miro Haskin and are we going to see? You know, is it a guy laboring? Is it someone that you just think steps in and looks like himself? It's hard to tell with Mero because every time you'd count him out,

he'd come back and look superhuman. I don't know if we're going to see him in this series. Really? He said a couple of days ago, he will play. But then every day it keeps getting pushed back one more. We've watched him skate. He's skating hard. but everybody made this big deal of,

oh, Jason Robertson came back before Mero Hayskin. Jason Robertson had a minor tweak of, it looked like they never said it officially. It looked like a knee. It looked like Michael McCarran of Nashville in the last game of the regular season, kind of backed into him. And, you know, that's like a sprain or something.

Tweet something, he's out a couple of weeks, he's back. That's not a long-in-term injury to come back from. Mero Haskin had, we still don't know exactly what kind of knee surgery and how to what degree it was. But whenever you have major knee surgery, you don't just pop back and feel yourself after four months or five months or something like that. So I'm honestly surprised that he's been that close,

maybe a testament to his athleticism and the work he puts in in rehab. But frankly, guys, I don't know if we'll see him this round. And he's got to be close because they keep putting him through some pretty hard stuff now. but Pete has said repeatedly, the doctors have to sign off on certain things. It's not just, it does Miro feel good.

I believe they've had a timeline the whole, the whole time and may not be popular, but I don't think he was ever slated to play against Colorado. I think that that was maybe a little gamesmanship from the stars saying, well, there's a chance he could play. And then they just kicked the can because they truly knew he wasn't actually going to play. So frankly,

I just, I don't think he's going to play this round. And, right, we talked about it. Like, if you're ahead in the series, no need. Yeah, I don't think you're going to risk it if bringing them back early at all. If you're ahead in the series, if you're down three, two, or maybe you start thinking about it. Well, let me ask you this, Rhett, Merrill Hayskin, in's long-term future, that's more important even than a playoff run, isn't it? Wow, it is.

And you get, as a player, you have a hard time with that. like team needs me. I think I can help the team. I want to be in there. I play hockey because I want to win. We've got a really good team. We've got a chance to win. I don't want to be out all of next year.

Like so it's a tough mental battle. Yeah, I agree with that entirely. Oh, and tell us about the podcast you're doing, what kind of schedule are on and where people can catch your work. And then we'll let you get out of hearing back to your day. A second shameless plug. Ryan, you're the best.

I worked for the Dallas Stars as the radio host for the last 10 years. And then this past summer I was approached by all city networks, didn't really think I was going to do it. And then they made me an offer I couldn't refuse. And so we started, I started hosting the DLS Stars podcast in August of 2024. And we've been doing it five shows a week ever since. Me, Craig Ludwig, our writer Sam Nessler,

and our columnist Sean Shapiro, who is not always in Dallas, mostly in his remote in Detroit or suburban Detroit. And so we do five shows a week. If there's a game day, that means one of our regular weekday pods doesn't happen. But we do a pregame and a post game. And for road games, a watch-along, it's all on YouTube. It's also on all the audio streaming platforms, whether it's Apple, podcast, Spotify, you name it.

You can find that anywhere. But we have a show today, guys, 2 o'clock central time with former Dallas Stars Play-by-Play announcer Ralph Strangis in our studio and downtown. Dallas. It'll be me, Ralph, Ludd's, Sam, our producer, John, all from two to three central time. So if you want to hear from the old Ralphie boy who is in Dallas for games three and four, check us out on YouTube. Or, by the way, it's also on Victory Plus now. Sorry, I forgot about that. And Victory Plus. Good Calgary story, by the way. Yeah. Thanks, WAL now. Thanks, guys. Always pleasure. Right on. There's Owen New Kirk again of DLLS, all things stars.