Barn Burner: Boomer & Pinder with Rhett Warrener - The Vegas Golden Knights Might Be BETTER Than We Thought 😳 w/TSN's Noodles | BB Clips

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Boomer, Pinder and Rhett are joined by TSN’s Jamie “Noodles” McLennan as they react to the Vegas Golden Knights taking Game 1 of the Western Conference Final over the Colorado Avalanche. The guys dive into Carter Hart continuing to play unreal, Mitch Marner looking like a completely different player compared to his Toronto days, and the insanity surrounding Vegas firing Bruce Cassidy late in the season only for John Tortorella to somehow keep this thing rolling. No matter what happens, the Golden Knights always seem to find a way to stay in the middle of the chaos—and now they’re suddenly four wins away from another Stanley Cup Final.Youtube Link: https://youtu.be/yJ7R7LkTUAo#nhl #nhlshorts #nhlplayoffs #nhlpredictions #nhlhockey #nhlpicks #stanleycup #stanleycupfinal #vegasgoldenknights CHECK OUT OUR STUFF ⬇️BARN BURNER MERCHhttps://nationgear.ca/collections/shirts/FlamesnationBARN BURNER SHORTS https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj_bcGtvvo-cW2DHEDZ6dEO5ePDmlhZc9&si=jo8iNGxT4ImhS2Y8📲 Follow us:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fnbarnburner/X (Twitter): https://x.com/barnburnerfn?lang=en🎧 Listen on:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/barn-burner-boomer-pinder-with-rhett-warrener/id1648562889Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Mc6Qd5U22R2zbMlQ7RxIiProducer: Jack Haverstock Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did the Vegas Golden Knights give you some faith last night that we've maybe got a series here in the West? Yes. Carter Hart has been outstanding since he got going under Tortorella. If you remember, he came back off the injury. One of the biggest things in Pinder, you could speak to it, analytically, that they were, they couldn't get a save all year long. Yeah, they were good and expected Goldiff and five and five chances, but the gueltening didn't tell. They were Ottawa West. That's what they were.

And couldn't get a save. You know, had some up and down seasons from some guys, injuries, all that. Tortarillo comes in, and I think it was game two. He started Hart and didn't look back. And Hart really settled back in. I thought Hart was excellent when he needed to be last night. Some really big saves were Colorado was pushing, and he kind of slammed the door on it.

But the one thing that I've said all along, and I'll be consistent with it is anybody I think is going to win pick the exact opposite because I've been completely wrong since day one this year. It's just been one of those weird years where it's like, okay, I can see that team really come.

Pittsburgh, they're going to be last in the league. They're selling. I'm like, playoff team. Didn't see, you know, a lot of things happen. But at the end of the day, the one thing I did say is if you get an injury to a top player, it's devastating.

You know, ask Edmonton, ask some of these teams. Ask Colorado last night. You don't think you could have used Carr in every different situation. That's what's concerning because your depth can cover you. Colorado's still a very good team. But McCar might be one of the most irreplaceable players in on the planet, period. If you were building a team. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. He's in that conversation. Five top 10. Yeah. If you're building a team, there's five. five guys you're probably in there and McCar is one of them. So that's what we're talking about, a cornerstone piece.

And I didn't think McKinnon had his goods, but he looked dangerous at times. They are a dangerous team because they made it three, two, and I was like, okay, we might have a game here. Yeah. But Vegas didn't waver. Storyline, I know it's big in the world, but it's big out here in Toronto.

Mitch Marner looks great. I mean, that passed, that's elite. That's elite stuff. So, you know, I wouldn't sleep on Vegas. I still had Colorado getting through, but again, I had Tampa getting through. You name it. I had many people getting through that didn't get through. So Colorado, or sorry, Vegas put people on notice last night.

Okay, so we talked about off top of the show. Has something changed in Mitch Marner or his surroundings just way better for Mitch Marner in the spring. Probably a little bit of both, but I would say the surroundings, definitely. He doesn't have to be the guy. He's one of the guys. And he's probably the most unique talent on that team because we know Eichl's got the big shot, great skater. Stone is really hard on the boards. Their superstars are unique. And I would say Mitch Marner is probably the most talented out of all of them when it comes to puck play and vision and distributing the puck. So he might be, and we saw it last night,

he might be the missing piece for that group. You know, Dorofaev is a shooter. Brett Howden, you know, tough to play against. They've got depth. They're hard. Their deacon moved the puck. And as I said before, the goaltending needed stability and hearts provided that.

So I look at Mitch Marner coming to Vegas. It might have taken a bit for him to settle into the Western Conference compared to the Eastern Conference. They played him at Center Ice a lot, which was, man, you're thinking, why did they move them to Santa Rice? But everything that has happened for Mitch Marner for a reason, it's not like he was terrible in the playoffs for the Toronto Maple Leafies. What happened is that core did not get it done when the chips were down.

That's a difference. Mitch Marner had great plays and he had things that you're like, okay, that's special players do that. But when it was a game seven, when you got pushed, you know, into a, a physical confrontation. Boston was heavy on them. Florida was heavy on them. Tampa would be heavy on them.

And they wouldn't have an answer. Last year or two years ago, we'd call it now. Games five and seven, they got pushed out in the games by the Florida Panthers. And the thing that I would defend against for Mitch Marner, it wasn't just him. It was Neelander. It was Matthews. It was Tavares. It was all of them.

and that core as a group just didn't work. And they were stubborn and they tried to make it work. It didn't. So Mitch chose to move on. But he's just in a different setting now. I think the pressure is different. And not just the pressure from the media and the fans, just the pressure of being in that organization.

I laughed. I don't know if you guys saw Tortorella and McCriman's presser the other day. Yeah, like, hey, we're apologized for this. And we're not going to talk about it again. Move on. That's it. My favorite was McCriff and said, yeah, John and I both spoke on this. John hadn't said a word.

And then we won't be talking about it anymore. It's like, okay. It's like, that's it. Like they just, they, their whole focus is we're trying to win. Don't care what you think. Literally. Don't care what you think. Don't care what you tweet.

Don't care what the media is. The league here, taking a second rounder in 100 grand, so be it. We're just going to win games. That's all we're going to do and we're going to make no apologies for it. It is, you have to applaud them for being consistent. Whether you like it or not, that's different, but they are consistent. They do not care. They are all about winning today.

Butch Cassidy, you're not getting it done next guy up. Mark Andre Fleury, face of the organization, you got to go. Marcia So you got to go. James Neal, you got to go. Like it was just like it's that sociopath. That's as a manager going, don't care about the feelings. this needs to happen. And that's how they manage.

That's how they run their show. And it is, I know the, we've never really seen a team block permission, or at least you can't think of an example. And there used to be a pathway where you would say, okay, RET's under contract. I'll give you a third. You allow me to sign RET.

They took that ability to compensate, which is what you see in the NFL. Oh, you want to talk to our coach we fired, give us a third rounder, we'll let it happen. They took that out of the playbook. And now Vegas is like, well, look, if you have to ask us permission, clearly we have the right to say no

and in your characterization of sociopathic GM like what I win at all costs who's your biggest rival in the Pacific? Ebbington. So why are they trying to help them? What's four and a half billion bucks? Yeah.

You're a billion dollar franchise and you're going to theoretically hurt your biggest rival in the division. I mean from their perspective, it's just like the LTAR stuff. It's just like being absolutely cutthroat with faces of the franchise. Like win at all costs.

Yeah. And that's, it is, I know people are mad about it. I said the coaching association put that out. The only thing I would say is people should be afforded the ability to work. That's the only thing. And that's, you know,

labor lawyers will talk about that. He is getting compensated. That's the one thing. You know, it's not like he was fired and he's not getting paid. He's still being paid for one more year. That's their argument is, hey,

you got the golden parachute. You've got a package. You know, package. There's a timeline where you can't work for a competitor type of thing. non-compete. So that's what they're holding true. It's just, you know what it is?

If this was the first time they were doing something, people would be like, oh, that's unique or whatever. This is Vegas. We just talked about five different things of what they do. And it's like, no apologies for it. So be it. I mean. Or the car service for Gerard Gallant when you let him go.

Here's a, Jerry, here's an Uber. You know, like it just, I don't know if other organizations, should feel that they need to be more cutthroat or is just Vegas the outlier? I think it's good to have a... They'll lead the way, right? A bit of a... Whatever.

Heal? Yeah, that's the word. There's a villain in the NHL. And they kind of maybe had lost a bit of that villainous reputation, but now you get torts in who's combative with the media. I think it's great. I think it's entertaining.

I love how they do it. I think it actually... I don't know that other teams are copying. Maybe they should. But they're at least having... to be going hmm well here's here's an example

we had brad tree living on our show yesterday and i asked tree i said if you noticed the pressure or some of the things that have happened around the league has there been more of a pressure point that you've noticed and i'll give an example is obviously Toronto moves away from tree and chief and all of that edmonton coach fire

Vancouver coaches you know GM coaches everybody's gone like are people is the pressure from above, and it's rightfully so, different expectations and all of that. But our ownership looking at this and saying, never more has it been important to win, or maybe they're focusing back on the actual prize. Like, we should be focusing on winning and not winning press conferences and checking boxes and doing all these things. That's what Vegas does.

They don't care about anything other than how are you helping us win today? So I don't know, has that changed, or is it just because? because it's maybe more Canadian teams that we're dealing with right now that it's more under the microscope. What a truce. He said that the thin line between winning has never been greater. And he said, he gave an example, and I thought it was a good example saying, look at where we were in the Atlantic last year. There wasn't a team that was rebuilding.

Everybody had done, he said there was four teams at the top, you know, Toronto, Boston, Tampa and Florida, and he goes, the teams underneath had gone through their rebuilds. And now they're there. He said, if they're not there, they were coming. He goes, look at the Detroit's and look at, you know, Ottawa, look at Buffalo. So he said, every team in the league was trying to get to the next level, including San Jose, including Chicago, who had gone through their rebuilds and are still

trying to add to it. So he said, good players and players are hard to come by because the cap going up, everyone wants to keep their own players. So he basically said like the, there's never been more pressure, but it's never been a finer line between winning or losing because of the parity in the league, which I think is a fair assessment.

And we can move on from Vegas, but I just as I was sitting there last night watching, and just they'd be calling, okay, maybe they don't win another game. Maybe they lose in five and it's been a great run. But when they made the torts move, and we had talked about them probably a good week to 10 days, they got nothing. They were flat as flat could be.

And they got a good coach. And Cassidy's a hard ass. This whole thing. He's won a Stanley Cup recently. And they're going to, oh boy, they fired him and Tortorella's going to go off. What's Torter's going to do?

I don't know what happened there. And maybe it's just guys getting a, okay, shit, we got to, maybe you need that. But the changing of the guard there has been a big success. How much torts is responsible for X's and O's. I don't know that there could be much of anything.

Do you change your fundamentals? I don't have said it to everyone a million times. I don't think there's only so many systems you can play. What's your emotional a buy-in? And that's where Torz has got the guy's going. Well, and the other thing too, and McCriman pointed to this of how Torch treats everybody the same way. And I think behind the scenes, he's a lot better guy than people give him a great. Supposed to be a gym.

Yeah, like guys love him. but he's also very honest. So I, you know, you and I can speak to, Darrell Sunner honest. Sometimes you don't want to hear on a Tuesday in November, you know, how poor your play is.

On a flight home from Dallas? Yeah, like, you know, you see them coming down the plane aisle and you're painting yourself invisible opening that it's not for you, right? Like, it just, but that is,

I think, sometimes we see it like it's refreshing to just know where you stand all the time. And I think Torz is a guy who will probably individually grab each guy and go, this is what I see out of you. This is how I want you to play. This is how when I see from the outside, when you're at your best, you're doing X, Y, and Z. And I'm going to hold you to that task.

And if you don't do it, I'm going to take away some ice time and I'm going to be hard on you. I think that's fair. And maybe it's a different approach than Cassidy. Hard coaches we've talked about it. They have an expiration date. Cassidy did you hit his? The team looked lethargic. You know, Kelly McCriman came out in his media,

said we needed, we were not where we were at mentally and physically on the ice. We needed a change. So they identified it. The change has been the right button to press. Now, it goes hand in hand with the health of Carter Hart coming back. You know, name me a good goaltender and that's a great coach behind it. 950 makes everyone look good. Exactly.

950 makes everybody look good. 886 doesn't. So that's the difference. But the team's playing well and they've responded. So Vegas, you're right. Maybe Colorado rinses them the next four games. I don't see it. I think that's going to be a hell of a series.