Puck Soup - Oh, Balls

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

The boys discuss the NHL Draft Lottery 2.0 and the inevitable conspiracies surrounding the New York Rangers' win. Plus, Sean goes into emotional detail on the Maple Leafs' demise, our picks for the Stanley Cup Playoff quarterfinals, remembering "The Fan," and the best and worst non-George Lucas franchise Harrison Ford films. 

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wachinsky of ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports, and I can confirm that's the Florida Panthers logo. I'm Ryan Lambert from the NHL's Department of Lottery Fixing. I'm Sean McAndo and I still cannot identify the Minnesota Wild logo. And you're in Puck Soup.

We are doing this obviously a little bit earlier, partly because Sean is getting some much-needed R&R or, I don't know, you're taking a trip or some shit. I met my parents' house, so just your expectations of course. Yeah, I take the R and R back. But mostly because all of the shit that's happened in the last 24 hours requires Sean to be here. And he was going to be off the grid for the rest of the week. And we have to give the people what they want, which is down goes Brown commenting on both the draft lottery and the Maple Leaf's demise in a five-game series during a pandemic. Let's start with the lottery. It just happened about an hour ago as we taped this.

real quick, a couple things before we get to what happened. Very much enjoyed the conversation between Gary Bettman and Jamie Hirsch from the NHL network in which Jamie Hirsch made the, yeah, made the mortal error of calling somebody a playoff team that was in the qualification round. So as we're at this momentous occasion where it is like the tippy top of drama, It is eight lottery balls. The world is watching. It's so exciting.

Gary Vettman has to begin the broadcast with a 25-minute fucking soliloquy about what's a playoff team and what's not a playoff team. So congratulations again to the NHL for this nonsense. He got around a technicality. Yeah, it's just insane. Objection, Your Honor. All that.

We get then the Ernst & Young folks. Please remember them. Bringing out a briefcase. The briefcase is filled with with eight lottery balls. And I got to tell you, I was very excited when word came down yesterday that it was just going to be a bunch of balls, Gary Betman, and a lottery machine. And that's how we were going to do this thing. And that's like the most exciting thing that can happen.

Yeah, it's the right way to do it. They actually, God bless them, did something right for a change instead of overthinking it or just saying that we always do this behind closed doors. and so we're going to do it again. Like, they absolutely did it the right way. Yeah, like, Ruby was over in the corner working on her job, but, like, she was turned around and she was riveted. Like, she could give fuck all about the NHL draft lottery. Because there's no reason to do it behind closed doors.

Because, like, what's going to happen? Like, is the guy just going to drop one of the balls that happened? Like, that's... The odds of that are minimal, so you're fine. So the lottery began with the... what I would call the presentation of the balls to Gary Betman. Please call it something else. No, that's the name.

That's the official name. And the Ernst & Young guy, who is all face-masked up, very good, social distance, all that, inside of the Saccoccus New Jersey studios of NHL Network, he shows Gary Betman his balls. And then Bettman identifies each logo and lets us all know that that is, in fact, the logo. of all the teams. Right, which was... But she gave him the answer.

Like, she should have, each one just held it up in like, what team is this? And there should have been, like, a few that were, like, the Kansas City Scouts and just see what he can do with it. Like, you can't give him the answer. The answer's going to be yes every time. She should have at least one time been like, is this the Florida Panthers? And he'd be like, yeah, and she's like, no, that's the predators, man. That's sorry.

Yeah. And then you get him, he's like, that one's a man. That one's a woman. That one's a can. camera on the TV. Mr. Commissioner, what is this? It looks like it could be a bear or maybe it's, I don't know, a wolf. Yeah, this star looks like an eye, but it's also the, I don't know.

I'm sure I could talk. Can I see the, can you show me the rest of the animal? So they present, they show them all the logos. He confirms that they are all different teams. And then the, the, every time he, I, identifies one of the teams correctly, the ball handler, for lack of a better term, no, I think you got it. No need, no punchups. Thank you.

Would then drop the ball into the lottery tube. Now, anyone who's watched Mega Millions or Powerball understands what we're talking about. It's the machine. It pops the balls around. And then there's a tube where all the balls are stacked up before they are released into the machine where they're all popped around. So he drops the ball into the tube. When we got to the New York Rangers, the ball slipped out of his fingers and fell into the tube.

He had to reach into the tube to retrieve the ball before the logo could be presented to Gary Bettman. Now, Ryan first, what was your reaction when you saw this happen? Keeping in mind, this was the only ball that slipped out of his hands into the tube. I literally said to my girlfriend who was watching it, vaguely interested. This is going to be, if the Rangers win, this is going to 100% be fodder for a conspiracy theory forever. And then...

Sean, how often do you think you'll be writing about this? Every year, every five years. Are you implying that I'm the sort of person who would take a topic and then beat it into the ground? because I've never seen that. And speaking to not seeing things, Kerry Fraser, 1993, Doug Gilmore gets high, speaking to not seeing things,

I'm here, I got family around, I literally missed this detail. I was watching the lottery, but I was looking away or something, and I missed it. And it was only later, I was looking at my phone

and everyone's talking about this guy dropping the ball. And I literally at first thought that he had like, dropped it, dropped it, like it bounced on the floor, and he had to like go chase it along the studio, which would have been even better.

So I was a little let down when I saw it. But yeah, that's, it's completely nonsensical, but I love that we get a conspiracy theory out of this and that we can just roll with. And yeah, everybody's on the same page on this one, and rightfully so. Right. And again, like, it's embarrassing that this guy accidentally dropped the ball, but in his defense, his fingers were probably frostbitten at that point

from the range of, ball. So he drops the Rangers ball into the tube and the rest of the balls go in the tube. And now we're getting he presses the button on

the control, by the way, the control pad for the lottery machine looks like he's operating a fucking load lifter at the docks. Like it is the

he got that shit from Wiley Coyote. Like that was it was the size of like a 13 inch old-timey TV. Like it was gigantic.

It had three big buttons. Oh, man. It's literally the device that a 1960s Bond villain uses to drop James Bond into a tank of sharks. Like, it's just fucking enormous. Ernst and Young, you're mad. So he presses the button and now the balls are popping. Now, here's the question, Sean. Have you seen the footage captured by some industrious Leafs fan that shows

the Leafs ball bouncing around in the suck-up part of the machine a split second before the Rangers ball gets sucked up into the two

to win the lottery. Of course. And this is the way that it goes. I mean, very famously, the Leafs were the like three balls

into the Connor McDavid drawing. They were the team with the best odds. And yeah, I wouldn't expect it to go any other way. But I think to my

that means the least finished second. So if we have to disqualify the Rangers ball at any point after an investigation, that means the Leafs green. So the Rangers ball emerges from the tube either because it weighed less or because it had magnets on it, or because it was filled with helium, or because it was frozen. And the New York Rangers claim Alexis Lafranier, well, they claimed the pick that will enable them to draft Alexis Lafanoir. we assume that's what they will do. And they win the lottery. Real brief around the horn here.

Who were we most happy did not win the lottery, Ryan? Chicago. Oh, well, I guess they advanced. Oh, no. That's right. Of the teams that are in the lottery. Yeah. I don't know.

You know, I feel like everybody, you looked at everybody that, apart from the penguins. So maybe the penguins, but I think you just looked at everybody and go. Yeah, I guess they all kind of stink. That's fine, you know? Yeah. But like, yeah, did the penguins really need him? No, but also, like, I read Sean Stink today, and he said it would be good of the penguin. And I didn't disagree. Like, it would be fun.

But, yeah, I was just kind of not really. Like, once Chicago was out, I was like, it doesn't really matter. They got it right. Sean, who did you not want to win the lottery? I mean, the team that I didn't want to win was Edmond. and not so much because, oh, you know, they're good or whatever, or even the fact that they've already got McDavid. Well, they're not good.

They're not, yeah, well, yeah, there's that too. I would love to see this guy playing with McDavid. I love the fact, the idea of a prospect coming in and getting to play on a, at least playoff contending team with a star player on his line instead of going to some garbage team and having to just, you know, see in four years and maybe we'll be worth watching then. But no, Edmonton would have been a disaster just because they've won four times in the last 10 years. Well, they've had the first pick four times, three times because they have lotteries. It would probably have been the thing that got us the gold plan, which maybe was a reason to root for it.

But other than that, it would have been bad. I'm on Team Chaos. I would have loved to have seen the Penguins win. Obviously, I'm a leaf fan. I would have allowed to see Leaves win. But of that big three group, Edmonton would have been the one that I think would have been the biggest mess. So I'm glad that didn't happen. I agree with you in Edmonton.

I would have been nonplussed about Pittsburgh. I didn't want him to see him go to Winnipeg. And I know Winnipeg is worthy. Like, at the end of the day, I don't want him to go to any team that would have been a playoff team under like traditional round of 16 rules. I'm happy that a non-playoff team. Yeah. So can we all, can we shut up for once and for all with the lectures about the draft

lottery is not meant to blah, blah, blah, and all of this garbage we've had to hear? like a team that would have been in the bottom 15 won the lottery. Can we just all be happy? It's great. It was a long shot. They would have had, but they could have won any other year. We can finally, I hope, put this stupid talking point to rest. I'm happy that it happened that way. I would have hated if a playoff team and won.

Winnipeg, you know, deserving through points percentage and all that. But like, look, I'm just going to speak to you as. an American. You can close your ears, Sean. Connor McDavid, Leon Drys, Austin, Matthews, Patrick Line, Matthew Cichuk, Elias, Petterson, Quinn Hughes are all north of the border. We don't need to have another person playing, especially on a small market Canadian team. That otherwise could be, like, a foundational player for, like, Pittsburgh or New York. So, I've said my piece.

Ryan, what, you mentioned, you mentioned, Chicago, how do we feel about Montreal having advanced and not getting a crack at La Frenier, knowing that they're going to be searching to, they're going to be trying to acquire him for the next 15 years? It's extremely funny and great. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think, I think the only thing you could really say about Montreal, like, beating the penguins is that they really fuck themselves with that one. They're going to get annihilated. I think it's fair to say at some point in these playoffs. And even if they somehow win around because Carrie Price continues to stand on his head,

like at some point they are just going to get balled up into a ball and thrown in the nearest garbage can. They're going to get destroyed. And so you're going to go, oh, was it worth it? No, probably it wasn't when, yeah, like you say, you get the, The Quebec-born kid who, you know, he's going to be a superstar. He's the first really big Quebec-born superstar. Ooh, when's the last time, right? Vinnie?

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. So it's so. Yeah. It's been quite a while and they're going to, and that's a, well, I mean, they try to convert them to center. So I was going to say they could use the help. You know.

So, yeah, I mean, they, that. It sucks for them that they actually won this, this fake playoff round. But it would have been so much. This was a big part of if people didn't see it today, I wrote a case of why I was rooting for the penguins. It would have been so funny if the penguins had won and the Canadians were. With that pick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was our spot.

And then they go and get swept and we just, like, we would have been able to laugh at that forever. So that was the one part that was a little disappointing because I feel like Carolina, they've had. a bunch of high picks lately. They're probably in the mode where they're like, no, we'd rather make a playoff run with this roster we have right now. So that was a bit, like the comedy potential here was off the charts and we kind of didn't get

a great alternative reality thing to point and laugh at like we would have with Pittsburgh and a couple other teams. I will say, I'll go ahead. I was going to say, the one thing that is funny is everybody's like, oh, you know,

this kid's, you know, two years he's going to be a first line talent, blah, blah, blah. Rangers kind of already have a first line left wing. Yeah. Not that, not that, like, obviously you can never have enough talent on the roster and all that kind of stuff, but it's very funny that the one team that absolutely didn't need a left wing got one. Oh, and on top of that, though, dude, like, you're completely right, because not only do

they have Panarin, but how much do you think they regret giving Chris Kreider a fucking run of, like, four or five years of his contract with a full. no move now. Yeah, well, that and, you know, the fact that they locked them in and the cap's going to be flat and like that maybe doesn't feel like the best decision either at this point. But yeah, it's, uh, you got, I already half jokingly said it on Twitter, but they should trade down and get and take byfield instead. Yeah. Oh, spicy take. There's a really good fit with the Kings. I know this is the NHL and nobody ever trades anything because then you might actually get second-guessed. But the Rangers need a center.

The Kings have some centers in the system. They're good on center, yeah. They could use the wing. The Kings have got a ton of other prospects. So, I mean, you can sweeten. You're not talking just going from two to one. I mean, you're going to have to sweeten the pot. They can do it.

There's absolutely a fit to be had there if the GMs have the guts to actually sit down and work it out. Yeah, but again, that comes back to the essential cowardice of every NHL executive, which is they don't want to be the one that would have traded away. Well, Jeff Gordon's done some stuff, you know, like he's one of the few guys that I'm like, you know, maybe. I don't know if Kings, Blake, I don't know as much, but. I was going to say, like, if I think anybody might do it, it might be Jeff Gordon. Like, like, if you're talking about it, who other than him would you really go, oh, I bet he has

the balls to kind of take that big swing. Yeah, there'd be a few guys, but there's not a lot. But I kind of like him. And like there's, yeah, and I don't want to get roped in because literally every year I talk myself into, and there hasn't been a top five pick traded before the draft in like decades. So it doesn't happen. But if it did happen, there's a fit. There's a fit to be head this year.

And maybe the senators too, right? You can get a center at number three. They've got three and five. So, uh, throw in, uh, I know, yeah, Gregoriev, you know, now you can expand that trade a little bit. Oh, no, I'm, I was a thought that I had is that it would make sense to trade down. One and one, one in Georgiev for the three and the five. Absolutely. Yeah.

They should do it. All right. I don't think they will, but they should if they did. I think, I mean, Ottawa would be. I feel like they'd be willing to talk about that. Remember, like French is a second language up in Ottawa too. So there's, it's not, he wouldn't be as marketable as he would be in Montreal, but for a team that needs some marketing right now,

like really needs to put some behinds in seats when that's an option again. I'd be very open to that if I was pure Dorian, but who knows? Interesting. All right. Let's move off the draft lottery. There's another topic you obviously all want to hear Sean Opinon. And that's the Calgary Winnipeg series. The sad demise of the 2019, 2020, Toronto Maple Leafs, you always wonder, again, it's never a question if you're a Leafs fan whether or not they're going to lose.

They all know they're going to lose. Right. it's how they're going to do it. What is the how behind it? And the how behind it was fascinating because they blew a 3-0 lead in game 3. And so everybody was like, okay, the how is going to be, it was 3-0 jokes and all that shit. But that wasn't a unique enough pain for the Leafs to give their fans. So then in game four against the Blue Jackets, they rally from a 3-0 deficit, not just like any 3-0 deficit.

A 3-0 deficit late in the third period when they tie the game with three consecutive goals with a goalie pole that then win it on a fucking Austin Matthews goal in overtime on a penalty called on Folito, tripping Morgan Riley, getting the benefit of a call, everything's coming up Leafs. and then they fucking face plant in game five. So that is the pain. That's the unique pain. It's unique pain. And as you're saying this, I'm thinking I'm like, I'm thinking back, we recorded the last podcast like on Thursday. And all three of those games happened since then. It feels like already, it feels like it was weeks of drama.

But that was three, three games and four nights. I can only speak for myself. As a Leafs fan, the Thursday night game sucked. it just confirmed every narrative. This is the first three, the three-nothing comeback that Columbus had, where the Leafs, they had been great in game two, they come out, they look great for half of game three. You're thinking like they might not just win this series.

They might blow them right out. This may be, they're flexing now. They cough it up. They lose the game. Then you go into game four, and mostly fans are like, it's over, screw this team, I hate these guys. They get off to the terrible start.

They're down three. The fact that they had that. comeback Friday night. I know I've seen some people say like that was just set it up to be even more painful. That to me took away a lot of the pain, a lot of the pain or anger or annoyance or whatever it would have been. It's not heartbreak. You're five rounds away from the cup. You can't be heartbroken. But I would have been a lot more miserable if they had just lost that Friday night game and then you, you know, they would have coughed up the lead and then they come out with this terrible effort for 55 minutes and you're just, I mean, everybody had their pieces written about

these guys. They're quitters. As soon as the going got tough, they got outworked, et cetera, et cetera. And then they pull off this miracle comeback. And look, the fact that they didn't win the series means that the comeback, it's a trivia question now. It's not like some monumental thing. But it was fun as hell. And if you're not going to win in the playoffs, give me something fun. They did give something fun. Sunday night then was a game where they played fine. not great, but also not so terrible that you could sit there and, you know, break out all those those same narratives and everything. Obviously, I wanted them to win the series, and it's disappointing that they didn't.

We can get into, like, what that means and everything. But the fact that they had that crazy five minutes on Friday, actually, to me, that doesn't make it more painful. That makes it less painful because we got one hell of a fun game, at least, out of it that we're going to remember for years when it looked like, you know, they were just going to go with a whimper right before that. Yeah. They showed a bit more backbone than you anticipated.

It's not even what they showed because, I mean, they showed it garbage for 55 minutes. You know, like they really, and they didn't. It's not like then for the last five minutes they just dominated. They scored three goals on three shots. You know, and the blue jackets were hitting the side of the net with open nets and all that stuff. It was luck. But like I've said before, I refuse to accept this idea. that when it comes to the playoffs, one team wins the cup and everyone else has to be miserable and everyone else has to be failure and everyone else has to, you know, be, some, some of going to the playoffs, yeah, you want your team to win, but it's also about like, what are the moments, what are the memories, what kind of fun stuff's going to happen?

The Leafs surfed up a crazy fun memory out of that series. And I would rather have that in a loss than, you know, have some boring loss where nothing happens and you're, and you've just got nothing to. show for it. So, you know, and I'll tell you right now, I've seen people kind of say like, yeah, but that comeback, that got Leaf's fans hopes up. No, it didn't. No, no Leaf fan over the age of 10 was like, we're going to win for sure now. Like, that's, that's not a thing. Like, we were all sitting down Sunday night when the first goal gets like deflected in off Tyson Barry, we're all like, yep, here we go again. Okay. Friday night was cool, though. So, I don't know, we, we roll on. Yeah.

What was your take, Lambert? Didn't see the big comeback on Friday. They scored that third goal. Thank you for that. Thank you, G.H., the first star of the comeback. Yeah, I think we're going to be holding out this summer and hoping to get a nice big, fat contract out of Kyle Dubas. Well, everyone else does, so.

It's worked so far. But, yeah, no, they, who was it, Felino scored the third Columbus goal on Friday night? And I was It was Boone Jenner, that's right And I was like Fuck this I'm gonna take the dog out now then

I get back And the game The game's still on the TV And I'm like The fuck it's in overtime And our girlfriend goes Oh I wasn't watching I don't know what happened

Okay well great That's fine So yeah It was a big surprise to me We'll definitely I'll definitely say that. And then I watched overtime and it was cool. And then they completely shit their pants in game five.

And I would say about five minutes into the second period, I was like, this isn't fucking happening. It's over. They're done. The only goal they're scoring tonight is the one that went in off Barry. So, yeah, that held up. That was a pretty predictable turn of events there. You know, it's one of those things.

Sheldon Keefe said it after the game. He's like, you know, I don't know. We just didn't get the bounces. We shot 2% in the series, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, if you, you know, if you shoot 2%, you probably should have done better than that. The Leaf should have probably won game 5 by like six goals with how much they were pressing the attack.

But they weren't getting particularly close to the net. and, you know, they should have never lost game three. Well, there's that, just obviously. Inexcusable to lose game three. Yes, absolutely. You can't let a team that has less talent on its first line and you do on your second line, like Royal.

Can I, hold on, can I just tell you? So I was on the Zoom call with John Cooper today, and I wanted to ask him about the idea that if the lightning are going to be without someone, their best players. Could that change the mindset of the team and have them, you know, maybe play a different style, kind of commiserate with the blue collar style of the Columbus Blue Jackets? You know, it's like, it's a grind. It's not, it's not relying on the flourish of the offense as the Lightning tend to do. It's kind of like, let's grind it out and score shitty, dirty goals

and play like the Blue Jackets. My mistake was calling the Blue Jackets a blue collar team, because John Cooper spent the next five minutes explaining how they are not. not a blue collar team, that they're an elite talent team that plays a certain style of hockey. That was his summation of the, uh, the blue jackets. Okay, sure. What they're leaving the score have this year, points wise? You know, but that's, but that's the style that they play in his words.

I mean, they, you know, Dubois and Atkinson and the whole thing, he is nobody on the planet is a bigger Cam Atkinson fan than I am. I, I, I think he's fucking unbelievable. Pierre-Luc Dubois, great, great young player. he had 49 points to lead the team this year. Okay. So, you know, like, I understand that you can play a certain way and that's going to maybe, you know, play into your strengths or weaknesses or whatever. But, like, at a certain point, you're going to say, even if you say their top line has plenty of talent, okay, then you get down to Boone Jenner, who, oh, everybody thinks he's really great.

He had 24 fucking points this year. And points aren't everything. Points aren't everything. But like, you and I agree, though, they shouldn't come back from a three-o deficit. No, absolutely not.

You just can't let, exactly. Okay, so we agree on that. I think the Leafs lost the series in game three. Sean, let me throw some theories. Can I, can I posit a theory?

Do we think it's because the Leafs have too many Iberian or Slavic players? Do we think that could have anything to do with it? This is, of course, a reference to our friend Justin Bourne, trying on Don Cherry's jackets.

That's some real Toronto media shit. Oh, I love it. Oh, it was so good. Saying it was the Nordic players that didn't show up for the series. Yeah, and Mitch Marner famously is from Sweden, I think, is where he's from. That's right.

Marner with an umlaid over the A. As many a Lee Fan has said, if William Nealander was born in Canada, he would have been a very different player and nobody bothered to look up where William Nealander was born, please. Was born, exactly, right. All right, Sean, a few theories. First off, the one put forth by Brian Hayes, one of the hosts of the Overdrive show on TSN-1050.

Are the Leafs worse off now than they were 10 years ago? That was Brian's take today. Oh, my gosh. So 10 years ago, like, as in like a few years into the Brian Burke era? The 2010 Toronto Maple Leafs. 2010 Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah. I'm going to pull that team up.

Hold on. That was the team that finished second last and didn't have their own pick because of the Phil Kessel trade. So they had sent it to the Bruins who picked Tyler Sagan. So I'm going to go no on that one. So you're saying, hold on, let me get this straight. You're saying that a team whose third leading scorer was Alexei Ponokrovsky is not as good as this team? I mean, you also have to factor in, you know, the coaching and the GM and the complete and utter lack of a farm system. But yeah, it's close.

But I'm going to say, I'm going to say 2010 was better, except, you know what the one good thing about the 2010 team was? It wasn't 2020. So they were much happier people back then. So maybe that's where he's coming from. Other than that, no, I didn't hear that segment. so I'm going to just kindly assume that there was more context to it. Or at least enough context that makes sense because, good Lord, I was around in 2010. I was writing without an editor in 2010, so you can go back and find my stuff then and see what I thought of those teams.

Okay. Go ahead, sir. Is Freddie Anderson better than Jonas Gustafson? These are the questions we have to be asking. Oh, the fabled Gustavson-Toskola pairing. That we all, that we all met so dearly. It's absolutely, an absolutely great segue. My next theory I wanted to bounce off you, Sean.

As Steve Simmons wrote in the Toronto Sun, Frederick Anderson is a fine goaltender with propensity to give up gut-wrenching goals, the anti-Grant Fjure, so to speak. Can you come back with Anderson for a fifth year after four years of first-round eliminations? Or will you mislook to someone such as, Matt Murray. Who he knows to be in the soccer

in the zoo. No fucking way, he said that. And who has fallen into disfavor in Pittsburgh? Sean? Should the Toronto Maple Leafs ditch Freddie Anderson for Matt Murray?

That's a wonderful 200 hockey men take that like just because they knew each other in junior therefore he's got to be the guy. Look, the Freddie Anderson thing is he's got one year left on his deal.

you can't extend this guy. No, you can't. And I don't mean now just because he gave it because the second goal was bad. I'm saying like he's 32 or 33. You can't go give this guy like five years or whatever he's probably going to want. You can't. He makes, I think, $5 million on the cap, which is reasonable, but there's cheaper goalies out there. So where it is going to be interesting is what do you do?

Because I mean, your three choices are you can trade them. I don't see there being a market. it really out there for goalies with one year left on their deal, you come back and you have like a, for lack of a better term, a lame duck season or you extend him and I can't see them extending them. I hope they don't. I say that as someone I like Freddie Anderson well enough, but you can't extend him. So I think you bring him back and you just go, this is it, this is your last year. And if he wants to sulk about that, then, you know, you just kind of roll with it. But that is going to be one of the main.

any interesting things they got to figure out in the off season. But I think the answer is he just comes back for one more year and then leaves his free agent after next year. What if they got Can Talbot? What do you think? I'm listening. Well, I mean, the interesting name out there is Robin Lanner, right? Like, that's the one that you're looking at and saying, okay. I mean, you're not going to be.

Robin Lanner, first of all, he was, he was, you know, he had his ups and downs, including up through the Buffalo years, many of which were self-inflicted. he cleans up his life, he goes to the Islanders, he plays great, he hits free agency and is like, all right, where's my big deal? Nobody offers it. So he takes a one year. Like he's not taking another one year deal, or at least he's not going to want to. Some guys who don't want to take one year, they're going to have to because of the cap being flat.

But the Leafs can't, like, unless they can dump Anderson for nothing somewhere and then give his $5 million to Robin Leonard, which if you can do that, then yeah, absolutely look into it. and bring them in on like a two or three-year deal where you're not locked in. But other than that, it's just not to, yeah, I mean, the, the Leafs, you're going to hear this a million times. The Leafs have no cap room at all. Like, they can't add a single dollar. This is the first I'm hearing about this. Yeah, it's subtle. It's subtle.

You've got to really crunch the numbers, but the team that was going to be capped out at 88 million turns out 81 million worse. Do you think that Freddie Anderson is in the, you know, getting to Bachoff, one bad thing will always subvert his team category, or do you think he's a victim of the defense in front of him? I think Freddie Anderson is a good, like above-league average goaltender who did not have a good year this year. A lot of what's going on right now in Toronto is like people trying to furrow their brows and figure out why a team that was like a hundred,

105 point team for a few years, took a step back this year, was on the way to being a 95 point team and should have been better. And if they were better, then they don't have to play the blue jackets. Maybe they don't even have to play anyone because they get one of the four buys and they're playing in the round robin. And everyone, what happened was the coaching? Was it this? The goaltender was bad. This is what happens in the NHL. Your goaltender, if you've got a 920 goalie and he can see a 9-10 or a 905 season, things go off the rails. And that's a big part of what happened with the Leafs. With the bad goals, yeah, Freddie Anderson does give up bad goals.

And it's happened to him, unfortunately, in the game sevens and now in this, which was a de facto game seven, he doesn't have a great record in clinching games. I'm willing to accept that that can just be small sample size randomness showing up. But also, sometimes in sports, something doesn't have to be true for people to believe it's true. And if they start believing it's true, then it kind of does be. come true. And if the Leafs are sitting there in a clutch game going, Freddy's going to give up his one bad goal, just like he does. Like that can change your mindset and everything. So it almost becomes a little self-fulfilling.

But I like Freddie Anderson a lot. He's a good goalie. He could be good for a few more years in this league. I wouldn't shock me. I just don't think you can commit long term to him. And also, he had a bad year this year. And every goal he does, it happens. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. But when your goalie has a bad year, yeah, you drop. several points in the standings. That's how this works. Well, and that's why you've got to trade for John. Obviously, right, or Martin Jones, because he's never had a bad year. Oh, he's never had a good year. Wait, sorry, got the confused.

Two more theories for you. One, it is all Sheldon Keefe's fault. Why load up the top line with your top three top players when obviously the rest of your lineup is struggling to score goals? Where do you fall on Sheldon Keith's performance this series? knowing that John Totorella will yell at you if you do not support him. Yeah, well, sure. But John Tororelli yelling at you was good, apparently, because he yelled at Perloup Dubois, and then he had a good game,

and we're all like, yeah, that Tortorella, and Dubois sitting there like, I had something to do with it, too. Like, I think I kind of played the game in my life. And they're like, no, man, you got yelled at. This is... Keith was fine. Yeah, you load up the first line. You're having trouble scoring.

You've got three dynamic offensive players, put them on a line together. it worked to generate chances. When they didn't score, he broke them back up and put it, like, this is what we want from coaches. How often, like, it was the anti-Babcock, right? Babcock was the same four lines, rolling them. You know, nobody plays more than 20 minutes, and he never seemed to change based on what was happening in the series. Keefe did that. That's what you want your coach to do.

Didn't work. It's not always going to work. This isn't easy. Like, you don't just go, I'm going to pick these three, and the hockey gods go, yep, you pick the right combo. here's a goal. It doesn't work that way. The one thing I didn't like about Keith was, like, especially in the game three, the big comeback for Columbus.

And afterwards, he was like basically saying, I didn't like the game at all. We went out there. We had no, like, we had no plan. And it's like, dude, you're the plan guy. Like, you know that, right? Like, that's, you're the guy who's supposed to have the plan. So if you say your team didn't look like they had a plan, that's not a criticism of them. That's, that's criticism of you.

So he, there were. times he did look like a rookie coach, but he is a rookie coach. And I think he's a reasonably good coach. I do think he got outcoached by John Tortorella in the sense that, you know, Tortorella got more out of his guys than Keith got out of his, but I don't blame him for the results of the series. Two things on that. One, of course, John Tortorella is going to go, hey, he did a great fucking job because then you get to go, and I beat him. If you go, oh yeah, he coached like shit, it was fucking terrible. Like, that doesn't help you.

That doesn't burnish your image at all, right? Yeah, it's the old pro wrestling thing, right? After you win, you've got to sell it like the other guy's good. You don't make it to sound like the other guy's garbage. You got to act hurt so that it looks like you actually did something. That's exactly right. Clearly a pro wrestling guy. No, no question.

Come on. He loved IRS. He's like, I just like when they enforce the rules. You should be running around with a fucking megaphone behind the bench with little blue jackets on. it. I don't know. Could he get a Pierre-Luc Dubois blazer turned around at the mall that quick? Who knows? Probably not. But the other thing to say is, yeah, like, again, like I wanted to say earlier, Sheldon keeps up there going, oh, you know, you only shoot 2%. How often is that going to happen? And it's like, true, but also like, that's loser talk.

And this is the way losers talk when they have losses. They go, well, I show one and blah, blah, blah, blah. Two things. Sheldon Keith, when he talks about luck and, you know, all of this stuff, A, he's 100% right, and B, good luck selling that in Toronto right now. That's not what anyone in Toronto wants to hear right now. Whether you're right or wrong, that's nobody wants to hear it right now. By the way, I like listening to Sheldon Keith press conferences.

There's a sort of a strong John Belushi energy, like to his voice and to his voice. and to his approach, kind of like, there's like a kind of like, I don't fucking care, kind of, kind of, kind of notion to his voice that I really like. And when he's smash the guitar against the wall, remember? Yeah.

Final theory, Sean, some very smart people that we respect, one of them being Chris Johnston, simply wrote in the aftermath of this five-game series played after a four-month layoff in a pandemic, that the results indicate that the Leafs cannot continue to do this, that dramatic changes need to be made to

this team that cannot defend. It may involve breaking up the core. What say you to the idea that the Leafs cannot come back with this lineup next season and that maybe one of their bright young players should be jettisoned for the sake of cap space and making the team better overall? Yeah. So there's two angles to this. There's there is the idea of you can't bring back the same team because of optics because by doing that you bring back the same core the same group you are reinforcing the message that this is acceptable you are reinforcing the message that this year was good enough etc etc which is i don't know i'm i'm not a PR guy i'm not a marketing guy i don't i don't know how you sell to the market or if you should even care about that i do think there's

a good case to be made that this whole play in playoffs whatever was was so incredible weird that we shouldn't draw any conclusions from it. In fact, I would say that if you were seeing something completely different than you would ever seen from a team before, I would just shrug that off. What we saw from the Leafs this time was pretty much exactly what we've seen from them time and time again. And that's where the concern kicks in. And that's where I think the other angle is you can't bring this team back, not because

of optics or whatever, but just because that's not the right strategy going forward. and that doesn't mean they're not good. It doesn't mean you've got to break them up because you've screwed it all up and you've got to start all over. But these guys, and again, to hit the point, they were capped out at $88 million. And now you've got $81 million. And I get, I was on board fully with the strategy of get as much elite talent as you can, pay that elite talent, whatever you need, and go cheap elsewhere in the lineup. But I don't see how it's sustainable going forward with a flat cap. like they're losing Tyson Barry, they're losing Cody Cici,

and Leaf fans are going to be like lining up to drive those two guys to the airport after how this season went. But that's two of your top six defensemen are going to be gone. You've got to fill that. You don't really like Rasmusandine is going to take one of those spots, but you don't have incoming, you know, elite level talent for the blue line. You've still got a question mark and goal. You've still got the depth questions.

There's pieces of the fourth line are, Clifford's going to go, Jason Spetson might go, there's no money to fill any of those spots. Like there just is, you've got Nick Robertson, you're going to drop in on a rookie deal. You're going to have to drop other people in on minimum rookie deals. There just isn't a way to add or address any problems that you've identified unless you move some higher salaries. And you look at the salaries on this team because they're so top heavy, you know, There's, there's Freddie Anderson we talked about. Maybe you can do something with him.

Caspari Kappanin and Andreas Yonsen are both in the $3 million range. That, that helps a little, but there's no, like that $3 million isn't going to get you a fixed blue line. You need more than that. After Freddie Anderson, the next guy's like Morgan Riley, you're not moving him, obviously, because he's on his deal as a discount. And then you're to the big four. So, right. It's, you know, one of those guys.

And again, it's not, it's not, it's not. you're punishing them. It's not that William Nealander sucks or Mitch Marner sucks and we got to get rid of them. It's that you're just sitting there going, okay, we made a calculation when we committed big dollars to these guys. And, you know, William Nealander, he didn't hold out, but he didn't report. We had the long, protracted thing with him. He got a pretty good contract. Mitch Marner held this team's feet to the fire and got not just a big contract, but the biggest contract for anyone at his position in the entire league.

And Mitch Marner's a real good player, and he had his moments in this series. Is Mitch Marner going to be on a single heart ballot this year at all? Like anywhere? Not one. And he's the highest paid player in the league in terms of cash. He's the highest paid player at his position in terms of cap hit. It's not good enough. It was good enough when he was on his entry level deal.

It was more than good enough. The guy was fantastic. It changes the equation. I think you absolutely. are in a situation where four years in a row without winning a playoff round, nobody's untouchable. Nothing's off the table. Like, if somebody calls and says, I want to talk about Mitch Marner, yeah, you absolutely take that call. Well, I wouldn't hold my breath for that one.

It may not happen. Yeah, because, no, Ryan, Ryan's points taken. Or for whatever, but, you know, there's. I've seen Trade Marner stuff. Like, let's just look at the fucking reality of the situation. It's a flat cap. also teams have lost a fuck ton of money this year

and we'll lose a fuck ton of money next year and he makes $15 million $14.3 of it in signing bonuses next season Which means if you wait till whatever No one is trading for Mitch Byrner

No it means it though But if you wait until the equivalent of July 1 whatever that ends up being it means the Leafs pay all the cash on his on this year's salary So if you have a team that has that is worried about

the bottom line but isn't too worried about the cap, there absolutely could be a fit there. But put it this way. No, that's a fair point. But nobody's calling up and saying, I want Mitch Marner, here's a package that is worthy of a 94 point player or whatever he was last year, because he was hurt this year. I'm not, you know, trying to knock his production this year because he missed some games. Nobody's calling up and going, he's a 94 point player, so here is a package befitting a 94 point player.

They're calling up going, hey, 10.8 million against the cap, maybe we got room for the that we know you don't here's some spare change we found in the couch cushions in order for you to buy some cap room there there's no easy answers like it's uh do you think there's a possibility he gets moved i think there should be a possibility i think it's unlikely for the reasons you know a they're going to want to keep them if they can be there's not going to be a line up out the door of offers that are really that that you really want but if it's not him and it's not neelander like i don't know where it comes from they they they last Last year, they managed to make what they thought was a deal that was addressing a need when they traded Cadry for Tyson Barry and they got the abs to eat half his salary.

So he came in dirt cheap. And they got Kerfoot, who they thought would plug in for Cadry. I saw the logic in that at the time. I thought that was – I liked that deal when it was made. Total disaster. Absolute bomb of a trade. Barry never fit. Kerfurt was fine, but he wasn't anything more than fine.

Cadry, you watch him in Colorado. and you're like, yeah, that's exactly what the Leafs need in terms of that style of play. So just a disaster of a deal. And now Barry's going to leave for nothing. And you're going to have nothing other than Kerfoot to show for it. And Perfoot's not that much cheaper than Cadre is. But that was the point being, they found a way last year,

they had an asset with Cadry where people went, you know, they've already got the two centers. He makes 4.5 or whatever it is. there might be a way to move money out, bring money in, and patch up the blue line. Like, there's no way to do that now unless it's one of those two guys. Because I don't think there's, I really don't see any scenario where Matthews goes. And I don't think if anyone's calling up with $10 million in cap room, they're not going to be asking about a John Tavares who's 30 years old.

They're going to want the one of the young guys. So I really feel like those are the only places where it makes sense. So you're going to have to either seriously consider moving one of those guys, move maybe both Yonsen and Kaepinan, in which case we're sitting around talking about how they've got no depth. And they start looking like the Oilers again, where it's like two lines and then you just cross your fingers. Or you pretty much bring back the same group next year and say, you know what, we're going to roll again. And we're going to think we're going to get a different result. And maybe you do. It's like, this is hockey.

Like, you can, you can roll the same set of dice and get real different results when there's so much randomness. But, man, that's going to be a tough sell. It's going to be a tough sell to the Leaf fans. It's going to be a tough sell to, uh, just to the team in there. Like when they get to camp and it's the same faces and they're going, oh, okay, I guess we're doing this again. Yeah. Well, there you go. That's the leaves.

Listen, in the few moments we have left with you, give us one series. that you have your eye on in the quarterfinals that you're kind of fascinated by. Oh, man. You know what? There's some good ones. St. Louis, Vancouver. I like that series a lot. The Blues, I think, can certainly be better than they looked in the round-robin defending champs,

but Vancouver's fun. Like, Vancouver's a really fun team. Obviously, the Philadelphia of Montreal series, we all kind of want to see how that plays out. Tampa Columbus, man. Like Columbus, they're a boring team, and I say that with respect as a guy who wishes my team was a bit more boring than they are. But that's a fascinating series. Like, talk about, I mean, imagine being Tampa. Like, this is it.

Like, you're not only, you want your redemption narrative. You get the exact same team that ruined you last time. But also you're beat up. Guys were already hurt. I mean, can you imagine if Tampa gets out to like two nothing lead in game one and blows it? they're going to be sitting there going, are you kidding me? This is going to happen again.

I love the idea of the Columbus Blue Jack is just being like the psychological damage tour. Like we're just going to go from team to team and reinforce every narrative about your team and just ruin psychologically and emotionally all of these teams. That feels like a very torturella thing to do. So, yeah, you know, all of those and,

you know, everyone but Calgary, Dallas. That's the one. I'm like, eh, whatever. So that'll be the seven game classic. Low event hockey. All right. Enjoy your parents' house. Are you in the basement right now, by the way?

I am. Can you tell? Am I giving off the my mom's basement vibe right now? No, no more than usual. All right. All right, Sean. Take care. All right.

Thanks, guys. Later, bye, everyone. Have a good one. And we're back. Ryan, thanks for. Did you take GH out for a walk while Sean was going on about the weeks? Yeah, I did. Okay.

I was sitting here drinking a spin drift, Greg. You ever have one of these are good? I definitely have. What is your favorite flavor of spin drift? Well, right now I'm really enjoying the lemon, but I bought, recently I bought the half-tee half-lemon. That's real good, too. That's real good. Now, raspberry lime, you a fan of that or not?

No, it's too raspberry forward. I think it needs to be a better mix of each personally. Well, we like the raspberry lime and we like the purple drink as well. Which one's the purple? That's like the blackberryer? Yeah, blackberry. Yeah, I haven't had that one. It's not a flavor that appeals to me.

But it's one I should try out one of these days, I think. You mentioned that while Sean was going into the cap implications of Alex Kerfowitz's contract, that you may have something to say about the leaves. Yeah, the only thing I wanted to say really about them is, oh, no, you got to replace Cody Cici in your top four. Cody Cici shouldn't have been in the fucking top four in the first place. He's fucking awful. Did you watch that series?

He was horrible. And like the rest of the team was good enough that it didn't, like, he wasn't like turning the puck over in his own zone or whatever. You think of Cody Cici doing. But like, you know, if the best you can hope for. out of a $4.5 million defenseman is do no harm. Like, it's a real fucking problem for them. And yeah, okay, maybe Rasmus Sandin is the guy to step in.

Like, I don't know. I just think that, you know, he shouldn't have been in the top four in the first place. And frankly, you shouldn't have been on the team. Like, everybody was kind of shocked when they pulled that trade off and then Dubis was like, and we're keeping him. Everybody was like, no, no, no, Kyle, what? What were you talking about? Well, they're going to get a little bit of help.

They're going to get Miko Leighton, who was the KHL defender of the year or whatever. He signed a penny's on a dollar deal. So they're going to have a little bit of help. But, like, look, you'll never find a bigger fan than me of Brendan Chanahan. I'm also a big fan of Kyle Dubas. And I'm a big fan of their approach to most things. But fuck, man. We got done talking about Jason Botterill a few months ago.

and like you can't recover from whiffing on an Orion O'Reilly trade and, you know, making some of the other moves that he made. The Tyson-Berry trade is going to go down as one of the worst fucking trades in Leaf history. And Cody C.C. was just a non-entity for them. And that's tough. To be fair, it got one of the worst contracts in the league off their books. It did. Right? It did.

So there is that to say about it. But again, like, when they made that trade, everybody was like, and they'll flip C-C to some fucking idiot team, right? And they just, they were like, no, we're going to keep them in our top four all fucking year. He played like 21 minutes a night in this last, in this whatever, playing round. So that sucks. You don't want to do that. Right. And, you know, on some level that, you know, how many, how many defensemen did they have on the roster, blah, blah, blah, that they could use.

all that, but, like, I think, you know, that's a big fuck up by Sheldon Keefe, man. You can't, you can't play a guy who, I mean, look, has anybody ever been so perfectly encapsulated as to what they bring to the table, then that shot where he had a pretty clean look at the net and he missed it by about 85 feet? It was terrible. Yeah, like, that's the Cody Cici experience in a nutshell. Like, the only thing, I guess you would say is that it didn't end up on the stick of a defending player and go 200 feet the other way for a...

goal. Like, that's the only thing that wasn't part of the Cody Cici experience on that play. But I'm not looking to make this Leafs Talk. Gritty did like a fucking. Oh, no shit. Fuck. We're basically like a Sportsnet affiliate at this point. But listen, I don't want this conversation about their cap hell to be, without at least

mentioning that the Nikita Zaitsev contract that you referenced was Lou LaMarillo contract. And that the Patrick, Patrick Marlowe contract that they had at the deal. a first round pick to get rid of, also a Lou Lamarillo contract. I feel like that Zach Heimann contract was a Lou Lamarillo deal, right? Am I right about this? So, just an FYI. Frank Anderson, walked into him for another. All right, listen.

You've made it clear that you don't want to make picks. I'm not going to ask you to. Well, it was just last time, like, we just said we were going to preview it, and then you were like, oh, and here are all our picks. And I see, I'm like, I'm like. Do you feel comfortable making picks this time then? a little more because well so here's what happened. Nobody said

oh you're going to make a pick and right now I don't have an editor who's like you got to make a pick the thing you hate doing so I fucking didn't do it and it felt Greg honestly incredible. I'm sure it did. It felt really good but I

I don't understand not making picks. You know who else doesn't make picks to in your defense is Elliot Friedman doesn't make picks? Yeah, smart guy. Yeah. Knows what's up. But I mean he does it because he doesn't want to piss off his sources. What's your excuse? My excuse is, I like, all it does is it gives, for example, remember when you were like, oh, nobody's going to get mad about what picks you make? Some fucking guy,

the second the, the, the, the Rangers get eliminated. Oh, Sebastian Aho is not as good as Artemmy Panarin. And it's like, man, fuck this. Like, it sucks. But the ultimate irony is that people get pissed off that you didn't make picks. So even withholding your picks got pissed people pissed off. Well, I think it might have been, you called, you made a point to. Call me a coward on the show. Didn't help matters. And I don't care. Whatever.

But I did make picks so that this time people wouldn't get mad at me for making picks. Listen, I was trying to, like master motivators like John Tortorella, scare you into making picks by calling you a fucking worked. There. All right, good. You make picks on the series that you care to make picks on. I did. I filled out a bracket on anything.

H.L.com this morning. There you go. Flyers and habs. The Canadians obviously shocked the penguins. What did you think about the penguins' demise, by the way? It looked like dog shit, didn't they, Greg? They looked slow and old and old and slow, didn't they? Yeah, and guess what's not changing next year?

The only thing you would say, obviously, is much like the Leafs shitting their pants in game three, like the penguins fucking didn't even try. try to correct the mistakes they may, or Mike Sullivan, I guess, specifically, apart from, oh, now we're in an elimination game. We'll put in this guy who's never played a fucking playoff game in the NHL before. But otherwise, we're going to stick with Matt Murray and fucking Jack Johnson forever. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I mean, you know, I know Jack Johnson's a favorite of some local radio hosts in Pittsburgh, but he got cratered in that series. I didn't know he had a show. No, no, just got cratered in that series. Just embarrassing. Yeah, they look fucking awful. And, yeah, I mean, look, whatever. Jack Johnson, I can't remember what the stat was, but Jack Johnson was on the ice for the majority of their goals,

and I think he averaged, you know, like 18 minutes a night or something like that. And honestly, like, I thought having Jack Johnson in the bubble... 16. I thought having Jack Johnson in the bubble would be pretty cool. Like, you could kick your shoes off. He's got his guitar. You sit around the fire pit. He's playing those surf songs.

That's right. It's pretty great. Yeah. But then on the ice, not so good. He's fucking. cooked and there's only, I think, 19 years left on that deal. I had a great cat pit though. Oh, yeah.

A bargain basement for a guy who can't skate anymore. He's 33. Did you fucking know that? He's been around for a while. Remember, he was traded. What trade did he go in? The fucking Jeff Carter's trade, right? Yes, that sounds right.

Yeah. He's been around forever. Yeah, no, he definitely has been. I'm taking the flyers in five. I understand that, yeah, Carrie Price was incredible in that Penguin series, especially early on. But I do think that life changes a little bit. The Flyers, I think, have more of a net front presence. You don't say.

Yeah, I think they're going to make quick work of the HABs here. And I do love the passing of the torch aspect of Carter Hart playing with or out playing Carrie Price in the series. Flyers in five, few teams in the league right now playing. better than Philadelphia. See, I know everybody's saying that, and obviously they look fucking great, but like I feel like that was them going, this is our fucking chance, boys, here we go, and then everybody else in the round robin who's like, yeah, we've been through it.

We're, like, you know, like, they were the eager puppy and the other teams were like, we'll get there when we get there. I really, like, especially, like, did you watch that fucking Boston Washington game on Sunday? Yeah. That was two teams that did not. That was some senior idea. Nobody wanted to be there. I don't give a shit.

Yeah. I, the flyers, I agree with you. It's like in Mario Kart when somebody times their acceleration at the start of the race perfectly and gets that extra boost. But then they don't know how to do the slighty curve thing to keep their energy up. Yeah. Everybody catches up.

That could be the flyers. But I think they'll wax the Canadians here. Yeah, of course. They're a good team. But like, I think what I'm saying is, I guess, is drawn conclusions from the round Robin. I wouldn't do it if I were you. So here's the thing with this other series we're going to talk about.

Lightning Blue Jackets. I'm picking the Lightning in seven. Six here, but yeah. Oh, okay. Now, now why do you like them? Because honestly, to go back to your... They're the most talented team in the league, Greg. That's why.

But to go back to your Soliqui about not wanting to make picks, I pick them to win the cup. Same. I have to pick them at every series in order to maintain that path and that trajectory. There is a part of me that doesn't believe they're going to win this series because they are so short-handed. And the Blue Jackets, it's the same fucking scenario as last time where the Lightning are like, oh, we should play real games. And they go in the round rob and they're not real games. And then the Blue Jackets are the only fucking team that go to a game five in the qualification round. So now, like, 48 hours later, they're playing this team that just is just straight out of the shoot.

common. Absolutely. So it's the same shit as last year, but I, I think that this team in a lot of ways is so built to win a series like this with the addition of guys like Pat Maroon and Blake Coleman and Bartley Godro and like the little mucker grinder guys down the lineup that you need to win a series that they didn't have last time. Sure. But I am very concerned about, you know, they're going to be able to throw Jones and Wrenski

at whatever line Kuturoffs on. And there's not going to be a fucking Victor Hedman to make. sure that the only offensive guy you've got to worry about on the blue jackets in Dubois isn't, you know, checked into oblivion. I'm a little bit worried about that. Yeah, I mean, you don't want to lose your Norris caliber defenseman, I think, is what you would say. Yeah, and you would probably also want the guy who's like a pretty reliable 30 goals scored, one time he scored 60. Yeah, you'd want him to. You probably want him on the lineup as well, but, you know, like, I think that I just, at the end of the day, I think, I just, at the end of the day,

think they have too much talent to lose whatever, a maximum of eight playoff games in a row to this team. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, if you play, if you, okay. Last year, last year is different because obviously they've made some changes to the roster. People are hurt.

People are not hurt. Whatever. But if you put a team as talented as these two Tampa teams. teams up against a team as, let's just say, like, reliant on systems, maybe you want to say, as Columbus is, it's really tough for me to see a scenario where they lose eight out of 11. You know, like that's, that's just how I kind of view it. And like I said, I think in frigging October, me and you both said, Vegas and Tampa in the Cup final. And I didn't really see much from either team to go, I don't know, maybe, maybe not.

Like, I think other teams have made their case that they are as good as those teams, perhaps. But, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I got to pick Tampa. Yeah, by October, you may mean July, but at the same time. Well, no, I'm saying, like, in October, I said, I think. think it's Tampa and Vegas and then I had to maybe rethink that in July and I stuck with Tampa and Vegas and now here we are in mid-Aug saying the same thing. Craig Custin's, our friend from The Athletic, did his, I'm going to talk to an anonymous executive and scout and coach that probably contributed to his book and got picks for every series. So I should, as we go along mention, all of them liked Philly. the executive said six, the other two said five, and all of them like Tampa, six for the coach, six for the executive, and seven for the scout.

So you and I are sympathetico with these individuals. Yeah, no, like I said, Tampa and six. The Washington Capitals against the New York Islanders, again, one of the reoccurring themes of this quarterfinal round, I can't believe how lucky the NHL is sometimes in the way this shit works out. Now, it may just be the incestuous nature of hockey that every store. Every series has some sort of storyline connecting the two teams. But we go from the Blue Jackets having swept the lightning last season to Barry Trots taking on his old team in this series for the first time.

The coach says the Allender is the seven. The executive says that Washington in five. The scout says Washington in six. Greg Wischinski says the capitals in six. What do Ryan Lambert say? Caps in seven. All right. Um, listen, this is my own theory.

I know there's a lot of people like with the Barry Trots, revenge. Revenge for wonder kind of thing here in the series against the capitals. Do you know how many people on the capitals want to fucking destroy Barry Trots in his team? Oh my God. Yeah, of course. Of course. They hated playing for him. It's probably like 70% of the roster hated playing for him.

Then there's like 30% of the guys that got their shot. because of Barry Trots are like fucking bully. He's a great dude. Well, there's also the thing of... Most of the Capitals hated this guy. Well, there's also just, you know, if you have a coach and he moves on and he makes another team instantly look pretty fucking good, you want to go, we're fucking better than those assholes, though. You know what I mean? Like, you don't want to make it look like, oh, we won the cup because of Barry Trots.

You want to go, oh, Barry Trots want a cup because of us. And we'll fucking prove it by beating the Islanders. basically. I have caps in seven. And I also think that the Outer's Powerplay actually in that series against the Panthers I don't think was all that good and then like No, no, it looked bad. And I mean, you know, I don't expect there to be a lot of penalties called. I think they stopped

calling penalties right around the end of Game 5 of the Maple Leaf series. Oh, I was going to say Game 4 because they were like, oh, we shouldn't have called that one in overtime. So we're not going to call any in Game 5. again, not to make this TSN 1050, but the lease were flopping around like the goldfish at the end of the Faith No More video in that game 5. And they couldn't get a damn call.

They couldn't get a damn call. They couldn't get a single call in that game. Marner recreated the Bobby Orr photo at one point in that third period. And they couldn't get a goddamn call. No, they were they were like, you got your one important call. We can't give you a power playing game. Or more than one power play in game five.

That would be crazy. Anyways. If the capitals get their chances on the power play, they're going to, I think they're going to win this series pretty handily. I say in six. And also, like, I know that you are the least big of a fan of Brayden Holtby, but he's a real good playoff goalie.

No, I think he's done now, like, broadly speaking. But I've always, I think I was one of the very early people who was like, I think this Holby kid's got something when he was, you know, like 23 or whatever. But anyway, the coach says Boston in six. The executive says Boston and seven. The scout says Carolina in seven. Greg Wischinski says the Carolina Hurricanes in six over the Boston Bruins in the six versus four series. What does Ryan Lambert say?

I gotta go with the Carolina Hurricanes and seven. Oh! You and I both like the cane, they look fucking good. I think the thing that people aren't recognizing, one, the extraordinarily big amount of, a large amount of education this team got last season and how to play playoff hockey and the kind of defense you need to play to win in the playoffs. And the other thing is, you just need one line in the playoffs. that's all you need. And they have last year. Right, exactly.

Exactly. So with the ascension of Andrei Svetikov to becoming a star, like, that's all you need. And they're going to be fine. Carolina and six outgoed the Bruins. Of the two finalists from last season, I think that they are the one more likely to be able to flip the switch, as it were, after the round robin.

Totally agree. But I think Carolina is going to win this series. I think they're ready. Totally agree. I thought, you know, obviously what did the Bruins score, like three, four goals, that whole round Robin. Like, that's a fucking problem. Like, no, I don't want to get into, like, the, you know, you start gripping your stick a little tight or whatever. But it's like, it's already hard to score in the playoffs, man, you know?

And so for the Bruins to have to flip a switch to, oh, we need to actually start scoring that many goals, like, in one game a lot of the time. that's a real problem and obviously they have the best line in hockey on paper it didn't really work out that way in these last three games and I think the thing that's very interesting well apart from the fact that Zadano Chara looked like he had aged

about 16 years over the last five months was you know everybody said coming in the older teams are going to take a little longer to get it going. They got to get the older legs turning. This is a big disruption for their routines, blah, blah, blah.

I kind of felt like that actually held true, you know, like all throughout all of this. It just felt like the older teams just didn't have that extra quarter of a step, and that ended up mattering in a sport where there's a fucking shitload of one-goal games. Yeah. Yeah, and especially like, and again, remember what the, Blues and Bruins did. They played all the way to the final game of that season.

And then they played a regular season. And then they stopped. And they were off for four months. And they came back. Yeah. That's not easy to do, man. That's a lot of hockey stopping. Yeah, a lot of gear shifts there.

But like I said, Carolina, how fucking good did they look against the Rangers? Holy shit. Yeah. They were just like, you guys should not be here. Pack your shit. Get the fuck out of the bubble. This is embarrassing for you guys. And then they were like, and I guess, enjoy your draft lottery win.

Indeed. All right, moving over to the Western Conference, according to Craig's people, Vegas Golden Knights against Chicago Blackhawks. I guess first off, as we've kind of skipped over some of the teams that were eliminated, mainly because they're not really all that interesting, your thoughts on Edmonton getting stalled by the skeletal remains of the Chicago Blackhawks? dynasty. Yeah, it was, uh, look, when you're, when you're a one and a half line, look, okay,

I guess the thing to say is that, uh, Tippett, like brain genius himself out of, oh, we had like the best line to hockey for a pretty good chunk of the season there. Let's break it up. What the fuck's he thinking? Absolutely insane. And you're talking dry saddle, Yamamoto, and, uh, Nuge, the nuge man himself. Right. And he played Nude up with McDavid in that series, broke up that line. Actually broke them up before the end of the season before the pause for some fucking reason.

Crazy that he did that. And so he also started Mike Smith in game one, but, you know. I think you're allowed one mulligan on that, especially as the Edmonton media was so fond of saying, Mike Smith has the highest save percentage in NHL playoff history. Yeah. So, but yeah, I mean, it's, I feel really bad for Connor McDavid. I really fucking do. And, and, you know, like, I made the point on Twitter, and Oilers fans got very mad at me that, like, when he's off the ice, they don't fucking score.

And when he's off the ice, they get scored on a lot more. And, you know, they were like, well, that's only that's only. true because whatever. You know, he doesn't kill penalties. He only plays on the power play. And so that's going to skew your numbers. But like, I want to say last year, he or, yeah, last year, not this year, they weren't that great at five on five when either he or Drysidal was on the ice, because they don't

play defense. But like the last year, he was like plus 25 minus 80 something, I want to say was about the number on off at five on five. And it's like, oh, I think it's because the team is really shallow and bad when he comes off the ice. And if dry-s-idl is not producing. So, you know, dry-sidal produced all year. And they love saying, oh, well, they also had the second best penalty kill in the league this year. You think that's going to hold up?

Like, is that a reliable thing for next season? I'm not so sure. Now, the last thing on the Oilers and Blackhawks, you are somebody, and I am somebody maybe to a slightly lessler extent, but by no means am I innocent in this. That is called out the Canadian exceptionalism and over-praising Jonathan Taves. Your thoughts on the series that he had against Edmondson? He was fucking great. He was great. Yeah, I mean, you know, you can have a great series at whatever.

or 30, what is he 31? Not even. Like he's, might be. We think of him as being extremely fucking old. And because, you know, I mean, he's been a, this is, this was his, I think, 12th or 13th year in the league. What was he, oh, seven he came, he was a rookie, right? So, yeah, he's been around forever.

But he's, yeah, he's 30. I just like it. It's funny you should say that because Taves and Kane did a press conference today ahead of the quarterfinals. And it was the first time I looked at them and I'm just like, this is so weird because I remember when they were really young. And in a lot of ways, Taves kind of looks the same a little bit. He does. Yep. Kane doesn't.

But it was the first time I looked at it then. I'm just like, they kind of are looking a little bit like when, you know, Kiss is still squeezing into the leather. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. By the way, speaking of which, I saw a lot of people, we can, you know what, we'll save, we'll table this for, for, after the playoff predictions, because we got to talk about Dale Tallin, too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

So, let's, let's continue. So the coach says Vegas in five, the executive says Vegas and six. The scout says Vegas and the six. Greg Wyshinsky says Vegas in four What do you say, Ryan? Yeah, Vegas in five.

You'll never ever get me to pick a sweep. It's just It's this fucking sport, man. Like Jonathan Taves can have the game of his fucking life and have like five points or whatever And you go, okay, sure, it happens, you know? I'll put, I don't care.

I always feel pressure to pick a sweep. shoot your shot. If there's going to be one series where I'm going to do it, it's going to be... This would absolutely be the one to do it, yeah. The Vegas Golden Knights Buzzsaw, potentially with the former goaltender of the Chicago Blackhawks, who they said, sorry, we're choosing Corey Crawford against them. Fuck, man. I think this could be a quickie, is all I'm saying.

I agree. I just hope Pete DeBore doesn't talk himself into, well, Mark Andre Flore has the experience and blah, blah, blah. I, if I'm a Vegas fan, I don't want to see that dude come out of the crease or come out of the bench for any reason other than to say, good game, Robin, as he congratulates him, coming off the... There's a part of me that's worried about that, but there's also a part of me that knows, A, Pete DeBore has absolutely no loyalty to Mark Andre Fleur. Yeah, he has no reason to. Right, absolutely. B, Kelly McCriman, the GM, kind of doesn't have any loyalty to Mark Andre Fleury or else why do you... add a goalie at the deadline, the caliber of a Robin Lanner.

This wasn't a, this wasn't, let's bring in Jack Campbell to support our starter. This was, we're really worried about our starter, so we're going to bring in this guy in case he fucks it up. So I don't think that, I'm not that concerned about there being kind of like this default Hendrick-Lunquistian royalty, a loyalty, rather, to a royalty, because he's the king, loyalty to Flurry in this situation. So I'll take in Vegas and four. Yeah, that's fair. Colorado avalanche against the Arizona Coyotes, this is the only series where the goaltender for the underdog gave me pause,

even more so than Carrie Price. Because Darcy Kemper was so goddamn good in that series against Nashville. That this was like, I'm picking Colorado in six. Same. But I was a little bit concerned about A. the kind of defense that Arizona can play and be how incredible Kemper is in that system. But I do think Colorado's just got enough to get by it somehow. I don't think you have to say somehow.

They have, I think, probably the four best skaters in this series. Right? Like, legitimately, do they not? Well, I mean, Michael Grabner. The Grabman himself. He had a great fucking series. He's really good. Oh, you mean guys that can skate like side to side and stuff, not just like up and down.

That's right. Yeah, I don't mean like speed skaters. I mean like guys who play the outfield, as they say in football. If that's the case, the two best skaters in the Western Conference playoffs are Tobias Reeder and Michael Rabner. But you're saying like do more than that. Yeah, I want him to like have, be good with the puck on their stick. and play defense and all that kind of stuff, which is the grab man.

Yeah, less so. Reasonable request. Dallas Stars and the Calgary Flames. I went back and forth in this one a lot. This is going to be a series of low-event two-one games. Yeah, I went back and forth between and zero interest in this series. Yeah, me neither. Dallas and 7, why not?

Who gives a shit? Yeah, I took him to 7 as well. The coach tells Craig Dallas and 5, the executive, says Calgary in 6, and the scout says Dallas and 7. I pick Dallas and 7. Your Ben Bishop pitches a shutout, and Joe Pavelski gets the game winning goal special in game 7. The only thing that gave me pause about the series is that if it's going to be one that's really played low scoring and it's like played to the, to the. to the, you know, a 2-1 low-event kind of game, or even a 1-0-0-0-event kind of game. That really suits Dallas's top line, the way they freaking played, right, folks?

It suits Dallas in a lot of ways, but it also is a situation where, like, I don't expect Monaghan and Goddrow to do anything in a series like that, but the Kachuk line could. And that's what gave me pause. Like, if Camp Talbot can be as good as he was in the first round with them, I mean, okay, granted. Like, they knocked out the fucking, you know, a shell of the Winnipeg Jets because they were missing Shafley and Linae. But, like, if he's good again and he at least matches the level of a Ben Bishop, like, the Kachuk line could easily just, like, score two goals a game, and that's all you need. So that gave me a little bit pause. I was torn on this one in a very big way, but I

ended up taking Dallas just because I think they're going to, they're going to be able to play to their tempo and eke out enough offense to beat Calgary. Yeah, that was what they did under bonus all season. So why change now? Right. Okay. Finally, this one's interesting. Maybe the most fascinating series of the quarterfinals.

The St. Louis Blues against the Vancouver Canucks, a blues team that looked, I mean, not just disinterested, but horrendous in the rounder. Robin. Horrible possession numbers, horrible offense, and maybe most alarmingly, outscored six nothing in the third period of games. I'm not going to put a lot of stock into that. I am, because even if you're trying to just get your systems in order and play like scrimmaging games and shit, like it's not like they're swapping out the goal in the third period. Like, you should be closing out games. And they were really bad in the third period. Vancouver, meanwhile, has what we like to call in the business proof of concept. A terrible first game against Minnesota, and then lo and behold, this young core of players figured out what the fuck to do in the playoffs and beat what is without question a superior defensive team to St. Louis in a series in four games.

The coach says St. Louis in a sweep. The executive says St. Louis and five. The scout says St. Louis and four. Greg Wischinski, because he is blinded by his admiration of the Vancouver Canucks. says the Nucks in the upset in six. What does Ryan Lambert say? You got it, Greg. You nailed it.

All right. It's kind of scary that we're in line on these. Yeah, I was going to say, I think me and the scout picked the same team for every single one except that series. I might be wrong. But, yeah, I mean, look. But are you, are you the scout? No. No, I'm not.

Blink twice if you're the scout. No. is that the freaking, no, that's the fan. What's the scout? The scout is the Albert Brooks movie, right? Right, the fan is DeRoe. Yeah, I almost said, I'm like freaking Robert De Niro. Okay.

No, that's a different movie altogether. You've got the scout with Albert Brooks and Brennan Frazier, I believe, right? Is he the, yeah, he plays for the Nye Yankees. That was a movie that they showed it on the plane when my family went to Disney World when I was like nine or ten years old. And so I saw that movie. be going down and coming back. It is like somehow deeply ingrained in my memory, but I don't. And then you've got the fan, which was Robert De Niro.

And Snipes, the Snipes made himself. Wesley Snipes was a ball player for I believe the San Francisco Giants. Giants, right. And then De Niro was the obsessed fan. And I'm just checking this now. Yeah, a Tony Scott film, right, because it's oversaturated colors and everything else. and he is De Niro and Snipes Okay

And then the big fan Which was a really good flick was with Pat and Oswald As a basically He was kind of a combination of a WFANN caller But mostly a Jim Rome caller Where he had like his speeches written out Before he hopped on Yeah

And that was a really good flick if you haven't seen it It's fine I'm a big fan of big fan But I'm a bigger fan but I'm a bigger fan of young adult the movie that Pat and Oswald made with Charlie Sterron, written by

Diablo Cody, right? Yeah. Yeah. Me. It's a good movie. Not a big Diablo Cody enjoyer. Well, Juno was good. The body...

No, Jennifer's body, I'm sorry. It was not good. Not good. Do you know Diablo Cody wrote the book for the jagged Little Pill musical.

To go back to previous episode and Broadway shows he didn't know existed, there's a Jackie Little Pill musical. I knew that, but I did not know she wrote the book for that. She did. It's a big no thanks for me. Okay. Yeah, one jukebox musical I forgot to mention last week was as a kid, I went on a class trip to see moving out the Billy Joel musical.

Wow. I know. Right. It's pretty fantastic. Moving out. Billy Joel's songs almost like musicals in their own right. They tell little stories, Billy Joel's songs. That's true.

Yeah, rich guy Springsteen, we call them. Yeah, so I picked the Canucks and Six, and you pick the Connoxon Six. Why do we both like them? Is it because we think St. Louis is a little bit off their game at this point, and Vancouver's coming in with some confidence? Or does speed beat truculence? Well, I think for the most part, and this is what I said last week, I think, is that I just kind of believe that the more talented team is going to win early series. You know, you're maybe still figuring it out a little bit, blah, blah, blah, whatever you want to say.

But when you get a guy who, when he goes, oh, I have the puck on my stick, I'm just going to do an amazing thing with it. I think that can carry the day. I would say the more talented team, like talented, quote unquote, team won every series, but the Columbus series, obviously. And maybe you would say Arizona, right? But otherwise it was like, oh, no, the team that had the most talent just kind of kicked everybody's ass. that's why I'm going with it. I think Vancouver is just a little bit more high-end talent.

Yeah. I just want them to win. I'm excited. I want them to advance and keep playing hockey. But not like advance to the point where Canadian team wins the cup, per se. Just like do well enough to maybe get to the next round. That's all. Yeah, sure.

Well, because they would play Vegas in the next. round and we both know how we feel about where Vegas is going. Yeah, and also that'd be it a really, really fun series. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. That's super fun series. That's the one I really have circled on my calendar for the second round. For sure.

You know, I've seen some people, and mostly like the Steve Simonsons of the world, lament the fact that like all these stars ducked out of the first round. But like, fucking, the NHL doesn't give a shit about stars. How many times have I said nobody cares about fucking hockey except as far as their team is concerned. Or or or or like their city's team. Like if the flyers go to the cup final, it is going to be all of course. Philly watching that series because they wanted to see the flyers win a cup for Philadelphia for the first time since 75. They don't give a shit how famous Claude Jureau is. Nobody gives a shit. It's about the team. Same deal with the fucking, you know,

the NHL is very happy right now because they they cooked up a playoff system. that kept the Flyers, the Bruins, the Capitals, the Vegas Golden Knights, a team in Denver and St. Louis alive. And plus, they also got Chicago. And plus, if the Islanders ever did make a run, they got the Islanders. So they're fine. They're okay with goddamn fucking Connor McDavid not being in the next round. Would it be great to have them there? Sure.

But ultimately, especially in the U.S., they don't need Edmonton in this thing. That's right. That's right. That's a harsh reality. And that's more of an indictment. It's a double indictment. It's an indictment of the NHL's ability to grow stars, which they can't. And it's an indictment of the U.S. sports fans' consumption of hockey, which is that they

are slavish to the logo on the front and not the name on the back. And that has been the case since forever, since Gretzky retired. That's been the case. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Just so we're clear. You wanted to talk about Dale Talon. Well, I think it's worth talking about.

Yeah. So obviously had to happen, right? Like he did a terrible job for about a decade. And more than that, though, their cap situation is fucked. They're going to need to cut payroll. Who's taking these contracts off their hands, you know? And yeah, they're just like, they're going to do the thing where, Oh, we talk to everybody.

We could conceivably talk to about becoming the new GM, and it's going to be either a guy who's an assistant GM in the NHL, who everybody said is going to be the next great GM, or a guy who has already been a GM. Those are your options. So if you look at their cap situation, like, they got to resign Dadanov. They got to resign Mike Hoffman or, you know, let them walk, I guess.

Right. But that's about it. Mark Pissick's coming off the books. Brian Boyle's coming off the books, but he's making less than a million dollars this year. And Eric Hollis coming off the books. And he was like, fine for them, I think, this season. And you go, oh, well, they have such an exciting, like, young core. Well, he was fine.

He was barely there this season in Florida. But he was fine. Yeah, right. He's a fine player. Yeah, he's just, okay, fine. Yeah. And everybody's like, well, they got that. young core and it's like, Greg, how old do you think fucking Jonathan Huberto is?

He's got to be like 26 now? He's 27. Oh, Jesus. And like he just turned 27, but he's 27. Yeah, like Mike Hoffman was one of the better acquisitions by Dale Tallon. He's like 30. Yeah, he's 30. Yeah.

Dad and odds good. He's 31. Brett Connolly's locked in for another four years. He's 28. Eric Hall, a guy I don't think of as being particularly old. He's closing in on 30s. He just turned 29 in March, but like, he's 29 and a half now, yeah. Looked like he was 24 when he was drafted, and now it is actually 24.

Right, and he's also not as good as people think he is, because, and it hasn't been for years. Keith Yandall's 33, Anton Straumann's 34. Mike Matheson, another guy you think of as being relatively young. No, he's 26, and he's, signed forever. Sergei Bavrovsky's 31. Like, this is not a particularly young team. And this is the real point of concern for them, I think, you would say, is that, oh,

they have a nice little talent pipeline because the computer boys are good at drafting and all that kind of stuff. But I read multiple things this year about, like, hey, how come, like, they never develop any HAL talent? And then I looked at it and I was like, oh, they really fucking don't. Like, they either get guys who come to the NHL from Europe or junior. But if you have to go through the AHL, you're not going to, you're not going to, like, be an impact player for them. And that's really bad, it seems like if you're trying to be a budget team, you know, like you need to find guys who can contribute for you on cheap contracts.

Right. such as guys coming out of the AHL, and they haven't really developed too many guys out of their AHL system for a while. It's really weird. Yeah, they're a weird team. I do wonder

if Joel Quineville will have any input on who to bring in, considering they're turfing his guy. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, he's like one of the most highest paid employees of the team. Probably at this point, probably the most, right? Apart from maybe one of the players or two.

And if it's not going to be Eric Joyce, and it sounds like it won't be if he didn't get the gig. He's the assistant GM there. Yeah, they're conducting a thorough search, so. Perfect. So what does that mean? Because if it's a thorough search and you're Vinnie Viola, and you've already bought in Joel, Joel Quenville to be your coach, which means that you believe in the prestige idea. You want to bring in a proven winner to take over your team.

I mean, is this not a spot where you're going to end up finding a slightly used Ray Shiro or, or dare I say, Dean Lombardi? Or even maybe a Ron Hextall potentially in this spot? Well, like I said, you know, their mandate now is to cut payroll. Do they want to pay a GM to like fix this in the next three years? Because I don't think you can. If you're going, well, our revenues aren't going to exist basically. And, you know, you have to cut, I don't know what the number is, but let's say it's $15 million off the payroll, get you down into like the high 60s or something like that.

Where are you going to do that? Half the team has fucking no moves. Right. Right. So, like, they're in a pickle. And I will put the name out there into the world because I always do when there's an opening. Bill Zito, assistant GM of the Columbus Blue Jackets, give that man a job. He's really good.

How about this? me out. Kyle Dubus. What do you think? I mean, listen, if they really wanted to do this, go fucking poach Tolski from the, from the, the, the, the hurricanes. Yeah. What are we doing here? Fucking computer boy central down there. Yeah, go full computer boy. All right, we're going to end this episode with a little pop culture because, I mean, what's the point in not having Sean here and not doing some pop culture? culture.

We talked about the fan for 45 minutes, Greg. What more do these people want? Sorry. There was a holdover, there was a holdover question from last week to do it overrated, underrated, and I kind of liked it. I'm going to give you two choices. Okay.

They're both movie-based because Sean, as we know, has only seen six movies. One, Tim Hanton says Harrison Ford movies. And then Dan Straight, Dan Straight Edge brings Matt Damon movies. So which one do you want to do? I have no preference. What do you want to do?

Let's go Harrison Ford movies. Okay. You ooted that. Yeah. Let's say, though. No franchises. No, well, wait, okay. No Star, okay.

No Star Wars. I know what you're going to say. Right. No Star Wars no indie. Right. Because you want to keep. What's that? Blade Runner on the table.

We want to keep the Jack Ryan movies in the table. I don't... You can keep the Jack Ryan movies. I'm good with that. Okay, I'm just saying. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Good. Overrated. Easy one for me. I've said this for years and people get mad at me. Blade Runner. You know, I... Style over substance. Well, I was just going to say,

I saw somebody say the other day on Twitter, 80% of whether a movie is good as how well it shot. and like if it has weird colors a lot. And that's certainly true of Blade Runner. I think here's what I would say of Blade Runner. It is a situation where the theatrical cut is not nearly as good as all the cuts of it that came later. Right, right? And so if we're leaving all the cuts of Blade Runner on the table, I think you cannot

overrate the like final cut or whatever the one that came out in like 2007 or eight was. I don't know what they're actually calling it. It's an extraordinarily beautiful movie. It is extraordinarily influential. It has an all-timer performance by Rucker Hauer. There's a lot I like about it, but it gets praised as a classic. It's a classic. But I think it's only a classic in the sense that it was influential, not in the sense that it's actually like a well-made film.

It's boring. I can see the argument that it's boring. The argument that it's not a well-made film is insane to me. I've never heard such an awful thing that anybody said. You have the visuals and you have the concept and then you have the narrative and the execution. And I think that like, you know, it's just like 2001. Like 2001 is an impeccably made movie, but it is a sit. It's a sit, as they say.

Yes. I find I find Blade Ritter to be a sit. And that's why I think it's overrated. Okay, I'll give it to you. I don't, I don't totally agree. That's fine. Okay. Hmm.

Overrated. Because I think a lot of his movies that are properly rated, most of them being quite bad. I got to really think here. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do people think regarding Henry is any good? Because it sucks. You can say that's overrated, sure.

Like, I honestly don't know what people think about that movie. No, you know what? I'll say this. I'll say American graffiti. Is overrated? Yeah. Like, it's good. It's definitely good.

And, but it's also very, very, like, in a way that Blade Runner is maybe, maybe, 15 years ahead of its time in terms of like how it looks and everything American graffiti is exactly whatever 1972 the movie you know and obviously it's set before that I'm pretty sure

but it's I watched that movie and I go hot rods and greasers and shit yeah I watch that movie and I go okay this is this was I can tell you exactly when this movie was filmed right and I think you know there's a movie that that came out

around that time or maybe a little bit later called Diner that Barry Levinson did. Yes. And in both cases, it's like, you know, American Graffiti launched George Lucas, made him then the guy that made the Star Wars movies. And then Barry Levinson became a very important filmmaker later on. And those are the two movies that we look back on and say, this is where it started.

And that's why they're important. They don't really hold up all that well, I don't think. But at the time, they were probably important. But I would agree with you that American Graffiti is fondly recalled for what it was, but maybe doesn't play all that well, you know, in 2020. Sure. I agree. Underrated for me would be, I'm going to give you kind of an off-the-wall one.

Morning Glory. I don't know that I've ever seen it. I know it exists, but that's, I think that's the end of my expertise. Morning Glory has a really, like, as everyone knows, as Harrison Ford's gotten older, his commitment to roles has been. Oh, is this the morning news one? Yes. Yeah, okay, I did see that.

Not good. It's good. I liked it. It's him and Diane Keaton as warring morning news hosts. Well, we love Diane Keaton. Yeah, and he is, and it's got Rachel McAdams as the harried producer. He's really good in it because he's essentially, like, his gruff curmudgeonliness is put to use as, like, if you pictured like Dan Rather, being told you have to go do

like cheesecake morning news segments on the today show. Yeah. It's that. It's basically like the super serious news guy has to go do stuff on like, okay, next up, who's got the cutest kitten at the kitten show kind of shit. And it's great for that. And he's really good in it. And I find it to be like a piffle of a movie.

I mean, it's a New York movie, so that earns points. But his performance in it is really good, and I found it to be charming. It's a charming movie, Morning Glory. What's your underrated? I think this is one of the best, like, thrillers of the 90s, and I don't often hear... Like, I think it is a well-regarded movie, but I think it's, like, unbelievable, and it doesn't maybe get that much credit, and it's the fugitive. 1993. Come on.

That is not an underrated movie. The Fugitive is a fucking classic. I protest. Because not to skip ahead, that's my favorite movie. It's a perfect movie. It was an Oscar-nominated movie. Was it really? Okay, fair enough.

Okay, that's fine. It's great. Okay, well, then let me change it. There are a few pretty good Harrison Ford movies. movies. You know what? You ever see K-19 the Widow Maker? You know, that's much better.

That is an underrated movie. It's a good movie. Harrison Ford, surrounded by semen. That's right. And that's, that was another classic. I'm going to look up when U-571 came out. But that was another classic, like they put out. Dante's Peak,

yeah, Colvokaneos. In the span of like 14 months, they put out. to big submarine movies. But, like, and U-571, I think, is better overall. But, like, K-19, The Widowmaker, pretty good. It's pretty good. Yeah, I like that. I like that movie.

Now, granted, I haven't seen it in a million years, but I liked it at the time. That's for sure. My favorite Hirose Ford movie outside of the franchise is The Fugitive. Yeah, it's a great film. It was nominated. Let me hit you to this. Nominated for Best Supporting Actor, which it won for Tommy Lee Jones.

Yeah. Best Picture. He was so good. He was so good in that movie. They gave him a spin-off. That's how good on Tommy Lee Jones was in that movie. Imagine an action film like this. Imagine like the born identity being nominated for Best Picture.

Like that's essentially, this is like a big summer action movie without like a crazy ton of CGI outside of the train crash. if that was in DGI and it got nominated for best picture, best cinematography, best sound, best film editing, best effects, sound editing and the music score from James Newton Howard. Just a fucking Stone Cold classic. It's one of my favorite movies.

It is a without question, drop everything and just start watching it whenever it's on that's my favorite. What's your favorite Harrison Ford movie? This is a bit of a cheat because he's not particularly high on the call sheet, you would say. He's not in a ton of it, but it's the conversation.

It's one of the greatest fucking movies ever made. Oh, yeah, without question. Yeah. A conversation for those that don't know. Was it Francis Ford Coppola? It's a Coppola film. Another, you know, not the first time they worked together. Remember he was in like one scene in Apocalypse now at the very beginning?

Yeah, he's barely in it, but like it's, like I said, I think it's one of the best movies ever. me. It's fucking... Yeah, it's... Gene Hackman is Harry Call, who is like a guy who's like a... He's a... He's a spy. He's a surveillance guy.

And the great sort of theory on this is that Gene Hackman is essentially playing the same character unnamed years later in Enemy of the State. Right. With Will Smith, which is a great movie theory, and I buy into it. My least favorite Harrison Ford movie of all time, there are some bad ones.

Like Hollywood Homicide is bad, firewall is bad. There are some movies that you're just like, why is this man in this movie? But no movie, I think, and speaking to cash and checks, no movie has disappointed me more than the highest of high concepts. And in a movie that definitely had a pretty decent pedigree to it, Cowboys and Aliens was terrible. You went to see a movie called Cowboys and Aliens, and you were like, this could be good. Come on. A movie on, like, streaming at the time, but, like, fucking cable, whatever. Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, you know, a bunch of, like, character actors.

Paul Danos in it, directed by John Favreau, and a screenplay cooked up by, the Alex Kirtzman Alex Kirtzman Robert Orchie, the guys who did a lot of the Damon Lindelof stuff and speaking of which You're not telling me on this movie with much of this information

I mean I'm sorry Orchie and Kurtzman of the ones who did the JJ Abrams I meant to say J.J. Abrams Star Trek and Star Wars yeah I love that guy And then Damon Lindelof was the guy who also did the screenplay

who I know is a huge favorite of yours from your admiration of watchman Cowboys and Aliens is a bad movie No shit. High concept is shit but not good and that's my pick. What is your least favorite Harrison Ford movies?

It's Star Wars Episode 9, the rise... No, um... Oh, how dare you? An unwatchably bad film. That counts because he was a ghost. I understand, but we said no Star Wars and so the obvious...

Or was he a ghost? No, he was his freaking memory, remember? Yeah. The, I think, obvious answer for the... this is a movie that I would never see, but looks truly, truly bad. The Call of the Wild. In 2020's own, the Call of the Wild, to the extent that it totally, like, I think is just

acknowledged by him, I did this for money. I needed to pay off something or other. And, like, he, again, like, this is a guy who's been in some really fucking bad films. I just pulled it up on. I looked over. I was on a plane recently, flying back east, and somebody was watching that

on the plane. And even on the small screen of the plane, the CGI and that dog looks so fucking terrible. It's so bad. It looks so bad. And like, you know what? I do love,

the thing I love about Harrison Ford is that you can tell on camera he doesn't give a shit. And when it's Indiana Jones and he's being like casual about it or when he's Han Solo and he's like, like the whole gimmick of that character is that he doesn't give a shit right up until the moment he does. And then you're like, oh, that is amazing. I love it. Like, even in the Jack Ryan movies, like he did. I don't think those movies work because he kind of gives off that attitude, right?

And he can he can shed it every once in a while. Like in the fugitive, but like they're especially later, like post-2010 Harrison Ford, you're just like, this is a bit rough, you know? And like this one just feels like you got to call it, right? Like you can't do it anymore, man. You get to as much as I love a Harrison Ford movie, you just can't do it anymore. That has to be it for his career. He can't keep doing this to audiences, I guess. Right.

All right. That's Puckoo for this week. I apologize to anybody who likes getting this show later in the week. And it's like, what am I going to do now? Well, it was important to get this out. But here's the good news. Ryan and I will be back on Thursday for a fresh mailbag that'll drop either Thursday or Friday. and that'll be exciting.

So you can get your questions in and get them answered on the Patreon. Also on the Patreon, obviously, Ryan's newsletter. The much anticipated Taco Bell article will be up at some point soon from me. Yeah, okay. At this point, it's like Dr. Dre's detox album. It'll come out eventually. And yeah, enjoy all over on ESPN.com. We've got tons of previews and picks and all kinds of shit for you.

And then also I got a really cool story dropping on Wednesday that I don't want to give away, but you can look out for that. Anything else you want to add? No. Enjoy the playoffs. Whatever. That's fine. Yeah. Now that it's actually the playoffs and not simply just the postseason.

Oh, you know what we didn't talk about? And it's, I don't know if it's still the problem, but when the NHL announced all the all the start times, did you see this? Yeah. No. Once you started getting into game fives and stuff like that They just clearly had placeholder times on there But everybody was like, hold on, the Canucks Blues game starts at 11 p.m. Pacific And they just had it on there for like all night basically.

Like the second the Leafs Loss, they flipped a switch or something and had it all scheduled. but they had a bunch of games starting at 2 and 3 a.m. Eastern. And I was just like... Fantastic. They're going to fuck it. I've been saying for weeks, man, that these games sound like the double IHF games that you turn on at 3 in the morning as far as like the sound of the crowd and the audio quality and shit. That's certainly true, yeah. Yeah, so it's just fitting with the overall theme of the playoffs.

But enjoy it. It's fun. Obviously, come back and yell at me and Ryan when our picks are wrong because they're very similar. Don't, though. Oh, oh, oh, don't want to hear. Our thanks to Sean for speaking on behalf of Leafs Nation. And our thanks to the NHL for freezing their lottery ball before drawing it. So we had something to talk about.

All right, everybody. Talk to you soon. Bye. See it. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also come. movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nancet.

Bork Su.