OverDrive - OverDrive - December 30th, 2024 - Hour 1

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

Join Jim Tatti and Dave Feschuk for Hour 1 on OverDrive! The guys dive into Canada's performances against Latvia and Germany in the IIHF World Juniors, the Maple Leafs' games against the Red Wings and Capitals and the Raptors' consecutive losing run reaching 10 games. TSN Hockey Analyst Martin Biron joins to discuss the biggest headlines around the NHL. 

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The smarter way to book travel. This hour of gameplay is powered by FanDuel. FanDuel. Make every moment more. 6-0-8-1. CHUM AM Toronto is TSN 1050, an iHeartRadio station, and the voice of Toronto sports. This is Overdrive with Hayes, Noodles, and the O-Dog on TSN 1050. All right, here we go, starting the last week of the year.

Welcome to Overdrive, Jim Taddy, subbing for Hayes, Noodles, and O'Dog, and Dave Pestrick is with us, and later on, Al's brother will stop in, and so will Luke Wilson as they battle for supremacy. Dave's not smiling. A bit of a hookup problem, but we'll work through that. Dave, are you there? I'm here, Mr. Taddy. How are you doing, sir you doing sir good good and a recent picture too i like that that's impressive yeah i don't know with the slight slight video uh video issues here on my end probably

something i screwed up by hitting the wrong button which is usually the case but i'll uh we will endeavor we will endeavor to fix it in the near term here. It'll get done rather quickly. Just going over the World Juniors, so Germany leads Latvia 1-0 in the first period, and it was Slovakia 5-4 over Kazakhstan in overtime, and still when I was doing Leafs guy today, I still have last night's 3-0 win over

Germany in my head. I can't get that game out of my head. It's just a bizarre World Junior Championship this year because the playing field is actually very level, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, we kind of go into these tournaments assuming, especially with Russia not part of the picture,

that there's going to be walkovers, right? That Latvia is going to be an absolute breeze, and Germany won't be much more of one, and that it's really going to be all about the USA and Canada duking it out for supremacy here, as it often is. But, yeah, good on the Germans and the Latvians for making it a lot more interesting than we all expected it to be. I'm sure it's not particularly the way that Dave Cameron,

the head coach of Team Canada, sees it because, you know, you don't want to be on the wrong end of losses to Latvia very often or certainly the first one ever in the history of the tournament to Latvia. But on the other hand, as Cameron pointed out, you could sort of take it as apologizing for his team, but the way Cameron put it was it was a lot more about what Latvia did than what Canada didn't do. And to a certain degree, that's true. I mean, Latvia played them tough.

And you've got to give them credit for that, even if it's not usual for us to see Latvia sitting here, you know, as a real contender in this tournament. Yeah, there's some wild stuff going on. We'll dive into that. I just want to line up the rest of the show. Marty Brown will be by at the bottom of the hour. Luke Wilson at 515.

Ellis Brothers is going to jump in and join us for that NFL segment. Yes Guy, No Guy from Yes Guy headquarters at 530 at 605. Chris Johnston, CJ, will be by at 630. Leo Routon. So we've got plenty to talk about with those guests. I just want to go back again to the World Juniors. So I've got three games in my head because we did them on tsn 10 50 uh and the tsn radio network and i'm thinking back to that four nothing win over finland and how it was a group effort um and so three games later

here's what we left with dave which is absolutely bizarre after the finland game canada's only won five on five goal and canada has allowed zero five on five goals so the defensive structure is there uh just not the offense to back it up but but if you had a problem would you rather have the defensive structure there or plenty of offense with no defensive structure i'd rather take the five on five no goals against i think we lost dave well that's that's the way i'm back oh there you are okay so you heard me right did you hear what i said i heard you talking about no five and five goals against is an awfully good thing right yeah absolutely and that's is that what you said yeah yeah i mean that's what you have to look at here there's there's a there's obviously some bad news that's

been going on here with historic losses to teams we do not generally consider worthy rivals in this tournament but there is some good news here uh that you've yet to allow a goal at five on five the fact that you know you've allowed three goals against in three games played you've had two shutouts from carter george who looks like you know the early makings of a very good goaltender in a country that has been really wanting a very good goaltender to emerge for sure and uh look you're leading the tournament in shots on goal tat man i mean they're getting their chances they're they're pelting the opposing net with shots just hasn't necessarily gone in at the right times in the right games.

So I joke around with Stu. So Anthony Stewart does the Leaf games with me and does the World Juniors with me. And just to sort of spread out the accolades, A.J. Jakovic and Brendan Bell do the play-by-play and analysis on the TSN radio network. And when I'm talking to Stu and we're talking about Team Canada trying to get inside, I think like I'm talking about the Leafs because they have all kinds. They got the shots on goal, right, and the puck possession, but nobody's really getting inside.

In fact, the one goal last night, the big goal, the 2-0 goal, the price goal was the result of some greasy work around the crease, which isn't happening on a regular basis. Yeah, exactly. Well, there you go. It does kind of remind you the leafs a little bit you're right there is there is some sort of uh similar theme there in terms of a team that is working to get to the inside and when you do get to the inside suddenly good things happen

but it's not easy right it's not easy to break through especially when you play these teams that that are playing incredibly good structure like that's been doing that going back to their win at the Olympics a handful of years back when it wasn't best on best, granted, but Germany was really good, beat Canada in a big game and played incredibly well-structured hockey. They know how to play a system, as does Latvia. It helps that you've got great goaltending. And when you get goaltending and you play a good system, you know,

you can make up for huge gaps in overall skill level and high-end talent. And certainly, you know, both those games are a case in that point. Yeah, and the Americans have great totals based on the 10-4 win over Germany in their first game. And, of course, we're surprised, I guess, by Finland yesterday. So, I mean, it all cancels out, which means that when we do the game on Tuesday night, New Year's Eve, we'll be talking about the Team Canada, Team USA, and just another classic. And then what happens after that?

I mean, you really can't even predict the medal round in the playoffs just because there's just some things there that weren't there in the past past which makes for a much more even tournament oh incredibly even i mean this is this is great i mean the fact that you've got this group with canada the u.s which is really a unusual group considering you know they have the historic rivals they're generally one two uh in terms of you know the preournament rankings in this tournament. They're always near the top. But the fact that Canada finished sixth last year in a down year puts them in the group with the U.S., sets up this New Year's Eve matchup that we're all looking forward to. But you've got this five-team group, and everybody's got a loss.

Who expected that three games into the thing? And only two games into it for Latvia. So that adds to the drama it makes it really interesting and and uh look i think it puts a lot of pressure on these young canadians right and we'll see how there's always pressure on canada jim but it seems like this year because of the you know the early wobbles the pressures come a lot quicker than usual and we'll see how they respond yeah and as i said earlier i mean it's a different kind of pressure the goalie is flawless uh the five on five play is defensively flawless and so you're wanting more goals but they have the puck possession uh just not scoring the way you would

expect but uh you know of all the problems to have that might have been the least predictable and uh in the most intriguing that's a good point you know i don't i don't think a lot of people saw that coming certainly when you think about canada you don't think a lot of people saw that coming. Certainly when you think about Canada, you don't think of, you haven't been thinking of goaltenders that are going to steal games and for Carter George to have two shutouts. Not that he had to steal those games, but he was certainly, you know, really solid, really calm looking, really, you know,

assuring to his teammates in the way he handled himself in the crease. And Canada hasn't been able to brag about that, certainly at the senior level for a long time, going back probably to Carey Price and we're hoping, Canada's hoping to get that at the Four Nations face off and into the Olympics the year

after, but there's no guarantee of that and certainly Carter George doing what he's doing is, it does set you in a good mindset as a team right even if you're as dave cameron has called this team snake bitten and just not not connecting our chances and certainly they're banging pucks off posts in in high quantity and and certainly you know showing all kinds of signs that they that they're close to breaking through uh but it certainly helps to have that goaltender back

there making you feel like everything's going to be okay even if you allow the occasional two-on-one coming the other way it's been a while for sure that we've had that story and it's a welcome change uh so let's move over to the leafs who get the islanders tomorrow at scotia bank arena we'll have that game on tsn 1050 on the radio side. Pre-game starts at 12.30 right after an abbreviated Leafs guy show that airs from 12 to 12.30. So the Islanders, obviously there's recent pain from the Islanders. It's a home and home Thursday night. They're on the road to face the Islanders.

And again, the Austin Matthews stories we talked about earlier today, Dave, you and I and Leafs guy, just sort of hovers over the team, skating back to skating again, definitely not playing tomorrow, but after that, nobody knows. So it's the great, I guess, the great mystery for Leaf fans. Yeah, to hear Craig Berube say he's getting better, well, we've heard that before, right? We've heard the good prognosis of Austin Matthews health before, you know, we were told he was getting better after he came back from the, the nine game absence, uh, where he went to Munich and, and he wasn't better. And now he's been away four games. It'll be going on five when he misses tomorrow's game.

And this four game stretch, Jim has been a little tougher than the original nine-game stretch, right? You know, you go 7-2 with Austin Matthews away for those initial nine games, and everything felt like, wow, we can weather the storm of our best player being out, and we can make it work. Not so much this time around with these four games. You're 1-3, and you've been outscored, what, 18-12. It hasn't been as tidy, and you start to see some cracks, some holes in the roster that hadn't yet really emerged in the same way as they're emerging now,

and it's up to the Leafs to figure out how to fill them, and they've got the guys in that room that should be able to do it. They certainly have the historic track record that suggests they should be able to do it, but they certainly have this historic you know track record that suggests they they should be able to do it but they haven't been doing it and it'll be up to Craig Berube and ultimately Brad Treleving to to figure out whether they can rely on the guys internally or whether they got to look externally between now and the trade deadline you know you go back to when they had they had as many as seven forwards out of that lineup and they were winning um I'm not going to

say handily but they but they won a cluster of games and and now that everybody's almost back except for austin matthews it doesn't seem to look the same what's your read on that well nothing looks the same like you talk about carter george making things look really calm for the canadian junior team up in ottawa well you know anthonyolarz was doing that, right? Like it's – he was an amazing, an amazing solidifying force, a quieting force, a reassuring force. And he was leading the league with a 927 save percentage. And in the eight games since he's been out, they're 4-4 with an 869 team save percentage,

which is 25th in the league and not great obviously so they've got you know the goaltenders have some work to do but i do think you can make the case that the team in front of the goaltenders is putting a lot more pressure on the goaltenders lately um you know joseph wall's been you know what he's two and three and five starts since stolars went down. But if you look at his goal save kind of above expected metrics and all that stuff, like he's actually playing pretty well. His 885 save percentage doesn't look great, but, you know,

in terms of the chances that are being generated in front of him, he's actually performing pretty well compared to the baseline of the league. Now, you can't say the same for Matt Murray, who in a couple of starts has given up two point. What is a two point three plus more goals than expected. So, you know, he's had some and he's admitted that he's been slow to adjust to some pucks and he's trying to get his timing back. That's understandable, given the guy missed most of two years with double hip surgery. given the guy missed most of two years with double hip surgery. But, yeah, look, when the goaltending isn't sort of locked down and clutch like it was with Stolarz, you start to see the flaws in the team,

and certainly I think that's what we've been seeing of late. So as you're saying that, I'm thinking to myself, in past years we would have been saying they would outscore their problems and this year really you know if you uh sort of slice what you said there they're actually um being out saved from their problems by the goaltender would you agree with that well certainly it was the case with stolars right that there was no doubt about that i mean he was uh look when they you think about uh Stolarz, I mean, before he went out there on 105 point pace, you know, he was saving something like a half a goal a game above expected, which was right near the top of the league, outside of the hellebucks of the world.

He was right there in terms of the advanced metrics for goaltending for whatever they're worth and just to the eye test he just looked incredibly incredibly impressive just a big man that took up a lot of net and looked really you know really compact and economical in his movements in a way that we hadn't seen in a Toronto crease in quite some time but but look I mean hey you can't it's not like you can really kill the Leafs' top guys for not scoring. Like Mitch Marner's on 110-point pace. You know, Willie Nylander's on 50-goal pace, right up there near the league lead.

John, you know, John Tavares, we've talked a lot about how he's turned back the clock in the seventh year of his seven-year deal on 41-goal pace. So they're scoring at the top end of the roster-year deal on 41 goal pace so they're scoring at the top end of the roster they're just not scoring at the bottom end they're not getting anything from the d on offense um and that's i guess when you don't get the stolar's type goaltending you're starting to see what happens yeah it's it's just i i the reason i'm going down the shore is it seems that we end up in the same spot for different reasons.

And it's not a criticism of any individual player, but when you look at the number three goaltender, you've got a guy who's been around, who's working his way back after severe injury, or a young goalie in Hildeby who got recalled today, by the way, and Matt Murray was sent back down. So it's like the goaltending yo-yo but you sort of have deficiencies for different reasons on each one of the guy who would be number three at the time and you know as good as that is and as understandable as that is i don't know that it helps the hockey team yeah well you know obviously they wanted matt murray to be the guy to be the third goaltender and you know to me it's i'm not sure exactly what's going on here.

Maybe it's just an idea that, hey, he needs to sharpen up. He needs to work on some fundamentals about tracking pucks through crowds, through screens. Maybe he just needs some more reps at the American League level, and we don't want to sort of disappoint him or

put him in a bad spot where he's in over his head too early here coming back from this you know long absence from the nhl maybe it's that but you know he would like to think that you would give a guy a little more rope than matt murray's got so far if you really believed he could be one of your solutions at the nhl level so we'll see how that goes but you know dennis hildeby is a guy that clearly has been a minor league goalie and has shown minor league goalie skills so far at the NHL level generally. But, you know, he's also a big man with, you know, a lot of potential

and clearly has a lot of what scouts look for in high-end goaltenders, whether or not he can put all the mental and physical stuff together that you need to put together to thrive at the NHL level, that remains to be seen. He hasn't done it yet, but I guess he's going to get another chance here. So at practice today, Matthews skated, again, declared not in the lineup for tomorrow afternoon's game against the Islanders. OEL did not skate due to illness um and uh the hill to be

situation was he was recalled and matt murray was sent down so the reason i keep bringing the goalie thing up is because that's what's going to happen uh so they can save matt murray from being put in a position of having to ask waivers on him to send him down eventually when when stollers comes back there's a criteria of number of days on the roster a number of games played so they're trying to dodge that and and you can't be critical of that. That's what you do when you're in that situation. But I just don't know how comforting it is for Murray or Hill to be, but nonetheless, they'll have to sort through that.

So let's move from that story to the Raptors' story, which is now 10 straight losses, a tough loss against Atlanta last night. And when you look at their schedule it's not friendly but when you only have seven wins what is friendly it just seems to me that this is the part of the season and everybody's coming back where there's a lot of situations at play people have to get ramped up individually and collectively and that takes a little bit of time and the kids have played well but but maybe you know the you're at the point of the season where you're running into teams that are there are sort of well-tuned and can give you some grief and when you lose 10 in a row it beats you up and i i really think that

that's what's starting to wear in the raptors is the loss column it has to right you wouldn't be human if you weren't discouraged by 10 straight losses. And they're not just losses, Jim. You're losing in really embarrassing fashion here. To lose to Atlanta like they lost to Atlanta with 31 turnovers, I mean, that's just disgraceful. And you understand that that just can't happen at the professional level. And it speaks to a certain lack of engagement, lack of attention to detail that is very troublesome.

You gave up 136 to Atlanta, which doesn't seem like much considering you gave up a franchise record 155 points against to the Memphis Grizzlies before that, and then 139 to the Knicks before that. Your defense is just Swississ cheese not existent which again speaks to a lack of engagement a lack of attention to detail a lack of fight to use a word that darko rayakovich used uh along the way here in the midst of this win streak or losing streak um and that's i guess part and part and parcel of the risk, Jim,

with essentially entering a tank year, essentially acknowledging on day one of this season, as team president Masai Ujiri did, that this is a rebuilding year. Like Masai Ujiri tried to say it on that day. I remember him very vividly saying something like, you know, the players aren't rebuilding. It's up to the players to't rebuilding. It's up to the players to work hard. It's up to the players to do their jobs out there. Because, you know, you're

not, in other words, you can't ask players to tank. Well, it's a fine line, right? Like, it looks like the players are tanking right now. And they're certainly not playing as hard as you'd like for a development team. They're certainly not playing with the kind of locked-in engagement that you'd like for a team that's supposed to be learning the NBA trade as a very young team brought up by a coach who specializes in developing talent. If those things, you know, if you've got a coach developing talent that's young, that's on the up and up and on the come up,

I guess you would call it. You can live with mistakes. You can live with losses. But you can't live with lack of effort. You can't live with 31 turnovers that just seem like boneheaded play after boneheaded play out there. And that's the troublesome thing for me, Jim. Yeah, you're in a great spot for the lottery balls right now. You're in the bottom three of the league,

and that's maximizing your lottery chances in the flattened lottery odds era but what does it do to your team if you're playing this kind of basketball in the midst of it all is the question and uh that's that's a question darko ryakovich is going to have to answer and it's a question that messiah jury is going to have to grapple with here as they move forward 136107 they lost last night. 31 turnovers for 30 points. That's massive. Coming up next, we'll talk about the Buffalo Sabres,

some hockey with Marty Baran. The Sabres on the rebound after just, wow, they were just dreadful. They had that awful skid and have now figured something out, we think. This is Overdrive on TSN 4 and TSN 1050. The weekend brings Hurry up tomorrow to rose bowl stadium in los angeles on january 25th for one night only get there with iheart radio two tickets to the show flights and hotel from tripcentral.ca plus 500 cash for your chance to enter every day at iheartartRadio.ca.

An iHeartRadio experience. The weekend in L.A. Powered by TripCentral.ca. The smarter way to book travel. Overdrive on a Monday. Jim Taddy and Dave Feshek subbing for the regulars who have a well-deserved break. Of course, O-Dog working the World Juniors. And, of course, Noodles is all over the place as well. The only guy's resting i think is haze and i kind of doubt that let's deal with the buffalo

sabers this is a wacky story saturday november 23rd in san jose buffalo wins 4-2 then 13 l's later and there's three that go extras and there's some close scores 13 hours later they return to the win column a week ago today at the islanders they win 7-1 friday they're in chicago in 6-2 are at home to chicago sunday they're in st louis and win 4-2 so they're on a three-game winning streak marty baran is with us now and marty this is an absolutely bizarre story but the sabers find themselves battling detroit and the rangers of all teams to stay out of the east basement how does this even happen well i mean um they lost rest of the valley for a lot of that 13 games now he's back and he's made a big difference i think he was named the second star of the week

for the nhl uh but you're right look if the sabers had gone four six and three instead of oh ten and three they tied with the ot Senators for the second wildcard spot. Like, going 13 games without a win is that in the NHL. And look, because the teams that are in the playoff spot or around the playoff spot are still just middling, the Sabres can look up and say, oh, we're only eight points out. Like, that's really what it is. Can you make a couple of points here and there?

Like, if you say, okay, we're going to make three points per month. Like, in the month of January, we'll make three. In the month of February, we'll make three. In March, we'll make three. Then you're nine points back. You've made up nine points. Is it possible? Yes.

Is it unlikely? Probably. But that's how weird this season has been for not just the Sabres, but a lot of the teams in the East. Look at Montreal. Montreal is a game under NHL 500. They're five points out of a playoff spot. Who would have said that a month ago?

Yeah, Marty, it has been bizarre, and there's a lot of teams that are one winning streak away from being right back into it, including the Sabres. But what did you notice? When they went through the doldrums of that horrible losing streak, 13 straight, and then they get this thing rolling where they're winning big against, albeit, some not great teams, what has been the sort of discernible difference to your eye with

the way they're playing beyond not not it can't just be one guy right what what do you think it is no it's not just one guy look alex duck hadn't scored in a lot then he gets a hat trick against chicago thompson has got going again so that's good he got a power play goal the power play was awful in the 13 game winless streak the power play I believe had only one goal maybe even just two uh in the 13 games like if you don't score in the power play this is a one goal makes a difference type of league and if you go 11 of 13 games where you don't score in the power play well that's 11 games that you don't give yourself a chance to win so that was a big

difference and then they gave up a lot of goals they were giving up four or five four or five um so yeah you don't want to put it all on goaltending because i feel like the team was not playing well defensively but there was a combination of a lot of things that were going bad lindy ruff who has coached, the third most games in the National Hockey League, said this is the toughest solve in his coaching career. He's seen things and he's been around, but he said, this is the toughest solve I've had to deal with in my coaching career. So I joked to him one time, I was seeing him at the morning skate. Actually, it was the New York Islanders one where they won, finally won a game. And and i said lindy do you want me to strap him back on he goes come on in

kid get dressed and i said oh no you don't want that and he started laughing well maybe that's what got him going that thought that maybe i was next in line they didn't want that to happen i mean that had to be a real test of everybody's perseverance. You know, how bad did it get? Well, you know, I asked Lindy that same morning. I said, how are you doing? He said, Marty, how are you doing? I'm like, I'm good. Coach, how are you doing?

And he goes, you kind of looked at me like, how do you think I'm doing? Like, really, with that look. You lose 13 in a row. That's tough. And the way that they lost. Like, there was games where they were up 4-1 on Colorado. They're up 3-1 on toronto they're up 5-3 on detroit you lose these games and only one of them went to overtime like you you only got one point in three games where you're up by multiple goals and let it slip away uh scoring first they they were scoring first a ton. And then, whoops, you know, the first goal, well, it doesn't matter.

I think the Sabres now are above NHL 500, but they were the only team that had a losing record when scoring first in the NHL. Now they've found their way back out of that with their three wins now. But, I mean, that's tough. When you know that most teams win roughly 65% to 70% when scoring first, the Sabres had a losing record. Like, that's why it's been really tough on everybody's, you know, mental preparation

because even if you say we're going to come out hard and get the first goal well that didn't lead to wins either marty when you look at lindy ruff i mean obviously they make the coaching change they they move out donnie granato and they bring in uh lindy ruff who's very familiar to sabers fans uh you know going back a generation uh as a player and a coach i mean you know a guy a guy who's as you said seeing things in this league i mean how have you seen him operating under these circumstances like what what do you think makes him a good candidate to help this team through what it's going through right now well when i played for lindy ruff it was really tough love, right? And that was the era of the Pat Quinn, excuse me, Scotty Bowman,

and, you know, Pat Burns and those guys. So it's tough love. Like if you didn't perform, you sat or you were in the press box, and that was it. Now he did that to a couple of players, and, you know, Jack Quinn was an LT scratch for a lot. Now Jack Quinn is going again. Dylan Cousins was moved from center to

wing. Now Cousins is back in the middle with Paterka and Quinn and they're working. Power at a turnover against the New York Rangers, he sat a whole period. Paterka at a turnover against the Rangers, he sat a whole period. So I think that that's what Lindy Ruff kind of resorted to is saying, okay, I'm going to go back back to i need to show tough love here everybody's got to be accountable and it worked it worked in in small samples uh can coaches do that over 82 games now no that's not how this generation of players and and rightfully so that's not how it works anymore but in small samples you can do it um And the one thing with Lindy Ruff also, everywhere he's gone, when he's had success, he has really good goaltending

because he likes to play an up-tempo game. Let's create up the rush. Let's have the defense join in as a second layer. But if you lose the puck or turn it over, your goalie needs to bail you out. Dominic Kasich, Ryan Miller, just to name a few goalies that had success under Lindy Ruff.

Why? Because they were making saves and they bailed the guys out. So the last few games, we're seeing Lukanen getting a star of the game. Even James Reimer in the game in Boston, losing 2-1. He played really well, but you need goaltendingaltending if not you're not going to win games you know the interesting thing about this particular scenario is is that the coach had just had been hired in the summer

so so he couldn't be blamed for this which is you know in a lot of other situations it would be remove the coach because you can't change the players they didn't change the players and they didn't change the coach, and they found their way out. That's pretty odd, isn't it? It is pretty odd because this is going to be the fourth, well, this is now the fourth time this year that the Sabres have had a three-game winning streak. They're going to look to make it four in a row for the first time this season.

Look, successful teams would say, hey, after 38 games, 37 games, we'd want to have four three-game win streaks, right? That would mean that, you know, you're putting up wins in the bank and you're above 500 and you're probably in the playoff spot. That 13-game losing streak really hurt. But you talk about the roster. I think this is a really good roster. This is a roster that's better than last in the Eastern Conference. Paige Thompson, Alex Tuck, Jason Zucker was brought in, has played really well. You look at, you know, Zach Benson is only 19 years old, but he looks very, very mature. It reminds me a lot of a Clodham, new Brad Marchand type of player with how he gets to the front of the net.

And the defense has power, Darlene and Byram, just to name three of them. So this is a really good roster. It just so happened that they couldn't figure it out. They literally could not put one foot in front of the other

for 13 straight games. But the rest of the season, they've looked pretty good for 24 of the 37 games. Marty, the big conversation in Toronto right now is about Austin Matthews. He missed nine games. He came back. He's now four games into his second injury-related absence of the year.

He's going to miss tomorrow's New Year's Eve afternoon game as well. That'll make it 14 games this season, Marty. What do you make of it looking from where you're looking from? The idea that Matthews hasn't been able to get right. He's on 32-goal pace after scoring 69 goals a year ago. How do you assess that situation? Well, isn't Coach Ber like kind of slipped a little bit mentioned something about his back i think i read that somewhere something that you know it may be

back related and and if it is then it's you know it affects your whole body it affects how you skate affects how you shoot it affects how you go into traffic um so that would make sense right if you look at austin matthews kind of production this season and say, okay, this is something that's affecting him. But I look at the Leafs and I think, okay, they have the roster to be able to overcome Matthews missing sometime in the regular season. So Marner has stepped up and he's played a huge role, right?

Tavares has looked good. Willie Nylander has looked really good. The goaltending has been, you know, at way above my expectations at the start of the season. Yes, I know Stolarz is still hurt, but Joseph Wall, after a little bit of a down couple of games, he'd lost three out of four at a big game on Friday against Detroit, played well. You know, Now they have to resort to Matt Murray. Is that the best scenario? No. But Solars will come back and it will be fine. I think the Leafs are set up to be able to handle losing Austin Matthews for a few games.

Let him rest. Let him get healthy. You don't need to push him in December right now going into January. And I know the conversation is already, what about the Four Nations face-off? What do you do with Austin Matthews? Well, I think Austin Matthews has to really look in the mirror and say, okay, well, I'll probably be in the Olympics next year. Do I need to worry about this Four Nations face-off when the Leafs really need me? I think that is probably the most important thing right now for Matthews and the Leafs really need me. I think that is probably the most important thing right now

for Matthews and the Leafs is to realize, make a game plan so he can be healthy for February, March, April, and more. Marty, the New York Rangers are absolutely stunningly bad to me. I don't know how they get there, but they're there. What's your read on what's going on there? Well, the Rangers had a bad defensive structure going on and and and it has worked for peter leviallette for many many years where they just play strict man-to-man in the defensive zone and you know you rely on your goaltending to bail you out and shisterkin has done that and

johnson quick quick has done that for you know the early part of the season but they're missing a big piece and i feel like they're missing that shutdown defenseman that Peter Levy always had when he was with Nashville and Roman Yossi, you know, in Washington, he had, you know, a John Carlson, but he had a really good group of defense that could handle that. I don't know that he has that in New York, especially when Keandre Miller is not playing. You don't have Jacob Trubo anymore. Adam Fox is not that guy. Ryan Lindgren was hurt for a little bit. You're struggling. You're struggling on the back end. So now they've adjusted the way they play in the defensive zone, but they don't know what to do to be able to generate offense. And it's it's you know now you're dealing with another

problem you're not scoring enough you're getting blank you're losing back-to-back games to the devils um that big rivalry so it's been bad but i feel like laviolette at least has been trying to change what was the problem in the first half of the season, but now they're dealing with the offense getting to be at a stall. Marty, Alex Ovechkin misses five-plus weeks with a broken leg and then comes back, and he's got a couple of goals. He's resumed the race to beat the great Wayne Gretzky's all-time goal-scoring record. I know he scored a few goals against you along the

way to add to his total how do you like his chances to get the 25 required uh in the remainder of this season and break Gretzky's record before the season's over well I didn't think he was going to get it done before the season started uh with the way that he started last year I know he had a strong second half but i was looking at the washington capitals as though this is going to be a tough year and then he had 15 and 18 games before getting hurt and the white and he was playing the right wing he's usually a left winger and now he's playing the right wing with stroman alexei protas and you're like what like what is happening here i get it the was Washington Capitals are winning. So now that's allowing Ovechkin to score empty net goals.

But empty net goals are goals. And Wayne Gregg, he had a ton of empty netters as well. So they all count. And his first game back, he gets an empty net goal. You guys saw it. So that all works. But the best part about Ovechkin is that his injury was a bone, a smaller bone in the leg. It's not the

tibia. It wasn't the femur. It wasn't an ankle. It wasn't a knee. It was a bone. It heals. You're good. You're good to go. And he's good to go right now. And he's skated a ton. So I didn't expect him to go back and score a couple of goals in two games, but I also didn't think he was going to get the rust, right? That you may have when you have a more significant injury. So I think that now, well, I would love it to, like the last two weeks of the season, have that chase. I have the, you know, Wayne Gretzky and the league follow Ovechkin around. And I believe that four of the last five games for the Washington Capitals

this year are actually on national TV in the U.S., ESPN and TNT. So I'm like, hey, that's what they're lining up for. I want to see them get it done this year. This thing is on pace to get it done in February. No, it's not going to happen in February, but maybe last couple weeks of the season it'd be awesome. Marty, when you look at the wild card race, I mean, Boston is sitting there third in the division at 44, Tampa at 42, Ottawa at 40, and then there then all those teams that sit underneath the cut line. But clearly, as Montreal can show you, what you need is a good two-week run

and you can improve your stock. How do you see that race developing? Well, I'm not impressed with Boston. Look, they don't shoot. They don't have a ton of offense. With Joe Sacco now there, it's all about let's defend, let's defend, let's defend. So I don't know that that can continue to work for the Boston Bruins. They're a minus 14 in goal differential.

I'm looking at the standings right now. The only team in the Eastern Conference that is in a playoff spot that has a plus minus, a minus in goal differential. So I don't think Boston is going to stay there. Pittsburgh impressed me in their push of late, but, you know, can they keep it going? Do they have the goaltending? Columbus is fun to watch, but the same thing with Columbus.

Can they keep it going with the young guys and the goaltending? So if you had to ask me, I think Boston is probably the more likely to come out. Ottawa, Allmark, when is he returned? Can they stay afloat without him being in net? I think Tampa is in. I think Florida, Toronto, New Jersey, Washington, Carolina are going to be in. So now it's just a matter of can the Rangers get hot?

Can the Pittsburgh Penguins maybe catch Boston? Those are the teams that are in the mix, in my opinion. Marty, you look out west. Last night they were billing it a bit of a Calder Trophy showdown between the Sharks and Macklin Celebrini, who is the favorite to win NHL Rookie of the Year, and Dustin Wolfe of the Calgary Flames, the great young goaltender who led the Flames to a 3-1 win, made some big saves, including a big

one late on Celebrini. What do you make of this, Dustin Wolf, and his chances of making a run at the Calder? I think what is going to be hard for Dustin Wolf is the fact that he has to get wins. Like goaltenders, if you are going to be in that conversation, you have to have a really great record. Your stats line has to be good, and your team probably should make the playoffs. A player that scores 40 goals or a rookie that has 30 goals and 75 points, even if the team doesn't make the playoff they may look at it and say oh that player was fantastic and it's not his fault i think the

goaltender has to have a team that is going to help him get to the playoff so maybe wolf is the one that you know if i look at the top three right now i'm looking at celebrini i'm looking at mitch koff i probably put lane hudson and and Dustin Wolf in that same tide for third, right? And Mitzkoff is going to play Celebrini on New Year's Eve. The Flyers are in San Jose tomorrow, so that will be fun as well. So we've had those internal battles, but it's going to be hard to beat Celebrini. I had Mitzkoff as my preseason favorite to win the Calder, but you watch Celebrini play, man.

He is so exciting to watch. The speed through neutral zone, the skill level, I think that kid is special. Can you imagine he could be with Team Canada at the World Juniors? That's just nuts. That would be a sight. They could use his goal scoring marty thanks very much and uh happy new year happy new year yeah absolutely same to you guys

thank you marty braun tsn hockey analyst msg sabers analyst as well uh some interesting stories in both conferences and a lot of it has to do with i guess dave how much you can battle through and persevere a lot of situations because a lot of these teams have interesting stories we'll explore that next this is overdrive on tsn 1050 and tsn4 the weekend brings hurry up tomorrow to rose bowl stadium in los angeles on january 25th for one night only get there with iheart radio two tickets to the show flights and hotel from tripcentral.ca plus five hundred dollars cash for your chance to win enter every day at iheartradio.ca and iheart radio experience the weekend in la powered by tripcent.ca, the smarter way to book travel. Overdrive, Jim Taddy and Dave Vestak subbing for Hayes Noodles in the O-Dog.

Dave's got a rather stoic look today for technical reasons. Overdrive is brought to you by FanDuel, bringing you everything from the opening line to the final score. So, Dave, when you look at a lot of these, well, let's look at the East. You know, Boston, as Marty pointed out, minus 14 in goal differential. You look at some of these teams, this is wide open. Everybody's had sort of a battle with perseverance, even Washington without Ovi. And I'm going to suggest to you, Washington has a plus 37 goal differential, and so does Tampa Bay. So, you know, the usual suspects, again, in the Leafs division,

but Washington, to me, you know, I did that game Saturday. I liked how they played. They didn't have their legs opening the first period against Detroit on Sunday and couldn't get out of it, but this is a really good hockey team. Yeah, and they've got to be the biggest surprise in the league, right? I mean, I don't think anybody saw what they're doing coming. I mean, they're third in the league in points percentage. They're leading the East right now, Jim.

And as you say, a plus 37. And to do it without Ovi for as long as they've done it without Ovi, this year was supposed to be all about Ovi. It was supposed to be about the glorification of the greatest goal scorer in the history of the sport. It was supposed to be about chasing a record, and now it looks like it's about chasing championship contention. Whether or not you believe in that, I mean, I don't know.

They've got a long way to go to prove they can be in the same league as the proven playoff teams of this era. But look, I mean, they you know put it together in a way that i don't think many people saw coming through 36 games and and we'll see how they how it goes from here but it's an awfully promising start it is and just looking off to the side and of course they're in a replay so i'll update that score for you in in a few seconds uh the latvia germany game uh the the startling thing when you look at those standings, how do the Rangers have a one-point lead over Buffalo? How is Detroit tied with Buffalo after that 13-game skid the Sabres have?

It doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, it's hard to make sense of it. You know, as we were just talking to Marty, when you think about how low it was for the Sabres to have the owner coming out to Montreal to conference with the team and to have Lindy Ruff, who's coached more games than nearly everybody else in NHL history, say this is the toughest solve of his

career at age 64, given all he's seen. It's hard to imagine, you know, exactly what he was facing there and the depths of the despair in Buffalo where really, you know, the Sabres aren't even a conversation point right now, given how good the Bills are and how excited everybody in that town is about football. Hockey's been relegated to the absolute back burner in Western New York. So it's, hey, three wins is three wins. It's not enough to completely climb out of the hole you've dug

with what you've done in terms of that losing streak. But it's a good sign. It shows there's still life in that group when maybe you thought there might not be. Just an update. Okay, so it's Germany 2-1 over Latvia, 10 minutes left in the second period. And, you know, I wouldn't turn my back on that game. That could go either way. It's only half over.

So who knows what happens in the final 30 minutes. Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is an unpredictable. Junior hockey is probably the most unpredictable sport that we pay attention to, right, when it comes to all the big events that we really glue our eyes to throughout a year. I don't know if there's anything more unpredictable than what happens when you get a bunch of teenagers in a high-pressure situation with such high stakes. And certainly, I don't like predicting this tournament.

I don't know many people that are good at predicting this tournament. And whatever you think is going to happen, generally something different does. And certainly that's been exactly how it's played out for Canada so far. Nobody saw a loss to Latvia coming, and I'm not sure anybody saw a tight win to Germany coming either. Coming up next, Luke Wilson and Al's brother. This is Overdrive on TSN 1050, TSN 4.

Time now for TSN 1050 Time Saver Traffic. We are seeing a new problem westbound on the QEW at Ford Drive, where a crash is in the left lane and the eastbound 401 collector is approaching Kingston Road has a stalled vehicle now blocking the right lane. Things are slow moving if you're on the Gardner westbound from Yonge Street to Dufferin and eastbound from approaching Parkside Drive to Dufferin. In town, there is a new crash at Military Trail and Old Kingston Road. Princess Auto has terrific deals on tools, equipment and surplus items to inspire anyone dreaming of this year's projects. Visit Princess Auto or shop online at princessauto.com. From the News Talk 1010 Traffic Center, I'm Christina Galli. First up with Korolnik and Koliakovo,

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