Puck Soup - Sean Lost At Bowling

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Sean and Ryan talk about the differences between American and Canadian bowling, the trade deadline, chaos in the West, and Scott Hall. 

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It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. Sean McIntyre from The Athletic. And Sean, we have to, the first thing is first here, we have to talk about how you got owned by your kids in sports. Yeah, I think this is the big news in the sports world right now. What else could we possibly talk about? Yeah.

Man gets destroyed, humiliated by teenagers. I mean, that seems a little extreme. And also one of them isn't even a teenager yet. Well, that's even actually worse. It is, yeah. Yeah, I took my kids bowling on Monday, and they both beat me. The young one beat me in the first game, at which point I insisted that we play a second game. Of course.

And I did beat him in that game, but then the older one stepped up and beat me. And this, I was, I was trying. I'm not good at bowling. Like it's not like they didn't exactly come into my best sport. I've never been a good bowler. And to answer the question that many of you had, yes, we were playing with the bumpers on the side, which is a game changer. for, for, for them. Oh, then they didn't beat.

I mean, they beat you, but like, it doesn't count. Yeah, but I mean, here's the thing. It's like that that's the game I agreed to play, right? Like, it's sort of like, you know, I'm, there's a part of me that wants to cling to that, that it's not, you know, it's not real. But on the other hand, it's like, that kind of makes me like, like a team that complains in the playoffs that like the rules are different. And it's like, yeah, you, you knew that going in. I got to tell you, you should be saying to these kids fake season. Yeah.

You did not beat me in a real competition. I have already offered them the chance to go back and play a real game because, you know, the, but like, these are, these kids are both raised on video games. So once they figured out the bumpers, they're like intentionally doing bank shots. And meanwhile, I'm just throwing strikes right down the middle. Well, not strikes, but I'm throwing them right down the middle and knocking out the middle pin and nothing else. Because you can do that in five pin bowling, which I. I got to admit, I only learned this week is a Canadian thing. Yeah, we're going to circle back to that because I do want to say this.

Your kids are the Dallas Stars and Montreal Canadiens of your household. Yeah, fair. I don't think they have what it takes to beat you in a real competition. No. I would accept that. And, in fact, I'm going to make them listen to this segment to hear you say that. You know what the worst part was? What's that?

There wasn't even that much trash talk. Like, they didn't even act like they had just pulled off a huge upset and had to make hay out of it. Sure. But they both just kind of like, we're like, yeah. Like, I think the respect level is so low that they, they were just like, yeah, sure. That sounds about right. So that's, it was rough. Of course we beat you.

Ouch. Yeah. Ouch. All right. So, we have to talk about five pin bowling because I've never heard of this. And I come from a place. Did you know New England has two unique and weird forms of bowling? I have learned only in this week about, what is it, candlepin?

There's candle pin. And that's like, I'm trying to think of, like, if you stacked two and a half, maybe three, beer cans or whatever on top of one of each other. But then they kind of bulged out in the middle like a little bit. That's what a candle pin looks like, and there's ten of them. And then there's one that even I've never played called duck pin bowling, which, as you might imagine, the pins are kind of short and squat or more so than your normal standard bowling pin. Okay, both of those are way weirder than five-pin bowling.

Well, so this is my question. How are these five pins arranged? Because that's what I can't wrap my head around. It's, okay, it's basically, I mean, in real bowling, it's the, well, I was going to say which pins to take out, but that's, it's basically just a, a V shape. I guess it would be the easiest way. So you still have the 710 pins. You still have the head pin and then, but basically no pin has another pin behind it. Right.

Which is, okay. And the pins are, they're regular bowling pins. I think they might be a bit smaller, but they're the same shape. And the ball is a smaller ball that doesn't have holes. Yes, that's the case for both candle pin and duck pin. Okay. Probably the same ball. But here's the thing.

Candlepin and Duck Pin have also two different size balls. Like Candlepin, I would say, is maybe twice the size of a ski ball. And Duck Pin is like a little bigger than that. Wow. And yeah, no holes on either of them. Yeah, that's. I should go. And then do you score it like the same way as regular bowling?

Yeah. Okay. Because Five Pin has its own scoring system too. Candlepin, you get three throws. Again, I've never gone duck pin bowling, so I don't know if you get three in that as well, but you get three in candlepin. Yes.

That is, five pin is three throws as well. Wow. What a world. I had, as I said, until I tweeted this out, I never had any inkling that five pin bowling wasn't a widely accepted alternative to real bowling. I had a couple of guys, like, tweet back in me, like, what the hell is five pinballing? But I was just like, I thought they were just being like agro dudes.

Like, you know, like, oh, man, I only play the real thing. It wasn't until you emailed me, like, you're going to have to explain what five pin bowling is that I had to go and Google it and then found out it's, it's only Canadian. So here's my question. Like, you explained your, like, weird, like, New England alternatives. But generally, in the United States, like, if you want to have. a birthday party for five-year-olds at a bowling alley. Like, are they, they're holding these giant bowling balls and trying to get them down the lane? Well, so first of all, I just Googled it, and duck pin and five-pin have the same size ball, like kind of a middle ground between 10 and candlepin.

But, yeah, so what we have when it's little kids is that I don't, and maybe they have this in other places as well, but when it's just the big, you know, you know, regular 10-pin bowling, there's like a little ramp they pull out. And you kind of like aim the ramp how you want. And then you push the ball down the ramp. It's like a little, you know, metal thing. That sounds way less fun. This is.

Yeah, it's, especially because like you still got to like hoist it up there. This thing probably, if you're a little kid, this thing probably weighs like a third of your body. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you're, yeah, you got to hoist it up there. It's probably like two feet off the ground. It's not, it's not like small. Why does five pin bowling not get, like, talked about, like,

putine and ketchup chips and... I've never heard of it. And I honestly, you know, it's funny because we did a, you know, the Supolet, the bonus episode that the listeners pick. Somebody was like, oh, Sean puts together a quiz on Canadian things for Ryan and Greg. And I was like, I would, uh, do really well on that, I think. In general, but I have never in my life heard of five-pin bowling.

This is, yeah, this is, I'm shook. Yeah, they should, I don't know, because I feel like a lot of the, or the New England bowling stuff, like in my head that comes from French-Canadian tradition. Yeah. And so I feel like we need to, like on the border, some little. border town in Vermont or something. It did say that.

We need to get everybody together. It said there's like one place in the States that has five pin bowling. And it was, it was something like that. But we need to get it. We need to get everybody together and do. Yes. Because here's the thing.

Five pin, duck pin, candle pin. You know what's fun about one day. You know what's fun about five pin bowling is nobody's good at it. It's impossible to actually like, you know, because the other thing, I've never been like a go bowl. bowling for fun guy other than with kids or the other place that bowling is fun is like the

mandatory office fun day and it's like hey yeah we don't have to worry you're giving us the day off no you have to go well but then there's always one guy who knows how to bowl and you're like all right we get it this is easy for you the rest of us so nobody's good at five pin bowling and the other fun thing is those little balls man you can fire those you feel like nolin ryan just Oh, yeah. Absolutely just whipping them down there. And that was the other thing during our game. At one point, I went over and stole a ball from another lane

because the balls at our lane were bad, according to me. And my kids were, they felt like that was poor. They're so fucked up about these balls. I don't know what's going on. I wouldn't got a- You're weighing them in your hand. Like, I don't know. It was actually the colors weren't cool.

I had to go get the ones that looked like. I wouldn't got a pink and black one. There's a chip taken out of this one. Yeah. I wouldn't got a pink and black. one. I figured I'd get like some of that heart foundation energy going for me, but it didn't. It didn't work. And my kids

feel like I said a bad example of sports and ship. You know what really bothers me? We just spent five minutes talking about balls, and this is the one show that we don't have a manscape dad on. That's right, yeah. It was sitting right there. We're locked in. Everybody's

been waiting for it for like five minutes. They're like the only reason that this hockey podcast is wasting my time with bowling talk is because they're getting and it's not there. Here's the other thing. Candlepin bowling was on TV around Massachusetts and New Hampshire

when I was a kid. Like Saturday mornings there was Candlepin Bowlings live from Lita Lane's in Nashville New Hampshire. Wow. On TV and you would just watch it. And that's the thing because much like 5 pin, 10 pin bowling or a candlepin I mean you feel like oh I just

rifled this in there. Yeah. three pins fall. And you're like, what? I fire it straight down the middle as hard as I can. I hit the pin so hard. I'm like that. I'm like, that pin is never coming back. That's right. I just knocked it into the next province and then I did. And it lands standing up again. Yes.

I don't. Yeah. Pretty much. But yeah, that, I'm fascinating. I think we got to do it. I think we got to get the Puck Soup Grand Prix of weird bowling. Yeah, we talk hockey in between frames of bowling, and I just get madder and matter the entire broadcast. That's right. Seathing anger. All right.

All right. Good show. Thanks, everybody. Yeah, that's right. See you next week. Nothing else going on. Real hockey talk incoming here. Trades finally taking place.

Can you believe it? Couple. Yeah. Both of them involving the Colorado Avalanche. We'll start with the bigger name one, or the one. one that is, I think people saw it coming at least. Josh Manson of the Colorado Avalanche for Drew Hellison, who's a, you know, he was a guy who played at Boston College this year.

He's mine, perfectly good prospect. Nothing exciting there, I wouldn't think. And a second round pick next year, I believe. I don't have this written down in front of him. Not bad. Going off memory. Yeah. You know, it's interesting.

I would have thought that this is the thing, I guess, Josh Manson with half his salary retained is what I should have said. And I guess that's what gets you either Drew Hellison or the second round pick, depending on how you want to look at it. But, you know. Well, here's the thing. The trade's fine. Colorado gets a flawed but useful guy, which is mostly what you're getting this time of year.

Anaheim gets some futures back for a guy that they weren't going to retain. but I will say and maybe this is maybe I know this more because the Leafs were said to be in on this guy the rumored asking price was much higher at least that I saw like there was a piece one of those

that the athletic we do a whole bunch of these like who says no columns and somebody wrote in and it was like a first round the Leaf's first round pick and a like a B prospect and the response was no way it's going to take a first and an A prospect

to get this guy and maybe more. And that's like coming from not just beatwriters, but like anonymous executives in the league and that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. And they get a second and, you know, it sounds like maybe a B plus type prospect. Now this anonymous executive that was like, oh, the lease will have to pay so much.

That was a bat for beat. Yes, exactly. Yeah. That's, it's, but, you know, I get, and it's not. unusual, of course, to set a higher asking price and then not be able to meet it, but usually then you don't see the deal go down a week before. But this is, you know, once you know what the market is.

And certainly, Rubik's got a lot of work cut out for him. So he probably felt like if he can get this one, this one done and out of the way. This is certainly, you know, of the three guys, the ducks are rumored to be thinking about moving. This is certainly the least good one, right? Like the least attractive. the name that's like, oh yeah, you know, that guy was good for a little while, like three, four years ago, right? So certainly the least likely to be re-signed. I mean, there's virtually no talk of that.

Yeah. But, you know, if you were looking at this and you're saying, what's the angle here? Yeah, like, does Colorado really need a Josh Manson? Not really, really. But, like, nice to have depth. And, you know, if he's your shutdown, like, third-pair guy, which you probably. is in Colorado slash injury insurance. You can certainly do worse and they didn't give up a ton to get him.

Yeah, they certainly didn't give up so much that you're like, okay, they're done now. Correct. And especially because they got the salary retained, right? So now you're talking about, well, what are they looking to do? And the answer is shed even more salary because, what, 18 hours later, not even. they flip Tyson Jost, who's making $2 million against the cap this year and next year, and will be an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent. For Nico Sturm, who is fine, I guess, is like a big body, bottom half of your lineup center,

who is a pending unrestricted free agent. But, and this is the crucial part, not signed for next year, like I said, and only make 750K against the cap. Not quite a pure salary dump in that Sturm could play for you in the playoffs in a far down the lineup depth role. Yeah, pretty close. And it should also be said that Tyson Joseph's had an awful year for Colorado. He was terrible this season.

And like I said, Sturm is, you know, whatever. He's like a fourth line replacement center guy. If you're relying on Nico's turn, you have bigger problems, obviously, you know? But he's fine, but he, and yeah, I mean, he's just, he's not having a great season, but he's not having an actively bad one like Jost was. So, like, this is an upgrade for Colorado. And, again, they get even more cap flexibility because they're going to try to get clothes. Drew out of all this.

And, yeah, and Joe's a former 10th overall pick. Yeah. And that's the thing. So for Minnesota, they get a guy who's definitely signed for next year. They don't have to worry about like, oh, what's Nico Sturm's number going to be? Who's two years younger. He plays all three forward positions instead of just center, which is what Sturm does. And they can at least talk themselves into, well, look, he needed a change of scenery, upside, blah, blah, blah.

And maybe that's all true, but, you know, I don't think anybody was like, oh, Nico Sturm, you know, he's going to be 27 soon. Like, there's not a lot of upside left for a guy who's been in the league. You know, he was like a 23, 24 year old in college. So those guys don't tend to have a ton of more to grow into their game. The interesting thing about this deal for me is not that Colorado made it, but that, it was Minnesota helping them out and they're in the same division

in their same I mean that's your path through the playoffs goes through Colorado you would assume and yet here they are essentially helping them to get Claude your root which is what we all assume is going to happen with that cap money now if you're Bill Guerin I think you could say look

look at what we gave up clearly the asking price was next to nothing. They're going to make this deal with somebody. So they're going to get the cap space anyways. It's not like if we didn't step up, they weren't get it. So at least we're the team that gets the decent player they're giving away rather than somebody else. Like I could see that. But it is kind of a weird look that, you know, when the Claudeyrood trade or whatever it is happens,

we're going to look and be like, yeah, thanks to Minnesota, who you may end up. playing in the first or second round. Yeah, I wonder how much of this is not even for this year, but it's for next year, because, you know, they obviously, the wild obviously have the big cap constraints coming from the buyouts for Parise and Souter. And to have a guy signed at a relatively small cap hit, it may be more valuable to them. Yeah. You know, like within their own framework.

I don't know. That's the only thing I can think of. Because I, you know, again, like, I wouldn't be super psyched to be getting Tyson Joe's to otherwise. Yeah. Yeah, that's. So now we wait and we see, I mean, clearly Joe Sackick has gone to work. And now we kind of wait and see all these other GMs who keep saying that it might be

quiet. we'll see. We'll see which ones are telling the truth and which ones are potentially not. Well, who do we, I guess that's a good way to think about it, right? Like, who do we hope gets moved? Because, you know, like, I, people get mad at me for some reason for saying Ben Chirot isn't very good. But, like, I don't think if anybody, even the world's biggest Ben Chirot fan is, like,

that was the number one guy. at the deadline. The fireworks. Nobody's throwing a remote through their TV if we hit 3 o'clock on Monday and he hasn't been, well, except for probably everyone who works for Montreal. Right. So let's start with Gloujaro. Obviously, it would be nice to see any guy who has been in the league that long. And, hey, he was once the best player in the world, you know, according to some.

Yeah. But it would be nice to see him go on another deep. Obviously, he was on the Flyers in 2011, 2010, 2010. When they were cannon fodder for Chicago. But it would be nice for him to, you know, even in a depth role, get another real crack at this. Old guy without a cup, baby. Yeah. Everybody loves those guys.

But I've been thinking about it. Would I rather see him end up on a good team? Or Tomash Hurdle, who's been one of my more, like a guy, you know, like a real guy of mine for as long as I can remember. I've always been a big Tomash Hurdle fan. So I think that's the guy, the number one guy. I would be so sick if he moved. Yeah, because that would be a big one. And it's starting to sound like he might not go.

Jacob Chikrin's sort of in the same boat. Yeah, that's an interesting one. And I guess the latest is, obviously, he got hurt a few days ago. There was talk he might be out for weeks, but now there's talk that he could be back sooner. Closer to two. Yeah. Closer to two, which may or may not change what the market looks like for him. But I still think that he's a decoy.

I don't think the coyotes have any intention to trading him for anything other than a windfall. I think this is like a way to get people. Yeah. I just, I don't see why they would. I guess it depends how you define windfall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I just, I just think they're, they're in a position where they're going, how many guys who are signed for next year can we get, uh, in, in trades. Yeah. You know, just because, again, obviously Chikrin is signed for next year and a few after that. But, I think the Nick Ritchie trade is kind of like the skeleton key that unlocks what they're hoping to do next year is. Like, we need guys who will be contractually obligated to show up to our college rent. Yep, yeah. And we need as many of them as humanly possible because if you look at their cap-friendly page, there's a lot of red bars for next season right now. But one of the few bars it isn't is Jacob Chikrin.

Right. I mean, I guess you're not looking at it as we got to sell tickets. because you only have like 3,000 seats in the arena, although who knows if you're complete junk, we'll see. But I don't know. To me, he's under contract. It's such a good contract. It runs for so long.

I just don't see why you would feel the need to make. This feels more like you get people on the phone and then you go, well, you know, we're not making great progress on this. But hey, can I interest you in Phil Kessel or, you know, some other guy that isn't as good? Yeah, sure. You're like, anybody want Louis Erickson? And the entire league's like, no, not really. Yeah, we're all set.

Yeah, it's just, like, yeah, it would be fun to see Chikrin, like, you know, be one of the pillars of some up-and-coming team. Like, obviously they're not going to make the playoffs, but if Anaheim traded for him, I'd be like, hell yeah. You know what I mean? Like, that would be really fun. but yeah I'm hoping he gets traded I'm kind of with you in so far as I don't I think it's more of an

at the draft kind of a kind of a trade or any time else in the next three years the other guy that I would say and this kind of falls into the same category as Giroux that I'd like to see him dealt and dealt to like a good home is Mark Geronno of course

another old guy without the cup You know, it's obviously, you know, Seattle brought him in, made him captain. It would be a bit of a weird look to move him, but, you know, unless you're going to extend him and at his age, why? Like, it's pretty clear this Seattle team isn't going to be good for a little while. That's fine. They're an expansion team, but I don't know why you keep a guy like this around. Although, I've got to say, I'm somewhat surprised there haven't seen as many rumors about him as, you would think for a guy who won a Norris a couple years ago.

Yeah, it's funny. Like, he's being kind of used as a stalking horse for Chirot a little bit where it's like, well, they're kicking the tires on either Chirot or G or Dano. And it's like, oh, yeah, they should get the guy who's like way better than the first guy. That's the thing. I don't, like, I honestly look at this and I feel like I've dumped on the guy all year. So I guess this is part for the course. but like I look at the lack of buzzer on Giordano and I'm like, is Ron Francis just bad at like getting names out there?

Like does he not, you know, because I mean, Chirot. Yeah, they should be looking to trade everybody. Montreal has played the Chirot thing beautifully. They, they put him out early and said, yeah, first round pick. October 7th. And we all just, yeah, we're all just like, yeah, a first round pick for that guy. Meanwhile, like, it just, I mean, I guess part of it is maybe the Seattle had to keep pretending that, they weren't awful for as long as they could.

But that's long-backed. But they're in the kind of vagus situation where they have a ton of UFAs who could be, or not a ton, I guess, but they have several UFAs who like, if you wanted to say, hey, trade for this guy, I think there would be teams that were like, yeah, that sounds great. Marcus Johansson, Calli Yarncrow, you're not going to get a ton for them, but they're good players who, who, can, you know, be a depth piece on a good team.

I was really kind of surprised to see they signed Jared McCann long term. That also happened recently, I guess. Yeah. But, like, I mean, McCann's been their best forward, if not their best player overall this year. And he's a player I really like and that kind of thing. But I was surprised that they were just, like, immediately, like, yeah, five years, five million or whatever. Yeah, that would... But anyway, enough frack and dog.

He's been good, but yeah. And then the last guy that we have to mention, just because it sounds dicey, but Mark Andre Fleur getting moved would be a great story, a great, presumably a pretty good trade. Yeah. And one that would be a significant game changer

for whichever team goes out and gets him. Well, now, see, that's interesting because he has been bad for, I don't know, since like, let's say since the new year. He has similar numbers to the two, the two Leafs guys. Well, that's, I mean, what he's like, we got to, we got to take these guys. Oh, it's true. He has similar numbers. But he was good last night, so that's all that. Sure.

And also, like, absolutely you have to say, uh, Chicago has been grinding. him into dust. Yeah. Which is not fair to him at his age behind a dog shit Chicago team. Like, that's going to make anybody look bad. Absolutely. But, you know, I just, because, okay, remember when, what's his name? Was it Camp Talbot was on the Oilers?

And they were like, you have to play 76 games this year. Yeah. Was that Talbot or was that, that was Talbot? Yeah, it was tell. I think so. But yeah, and then the next year he was awful, and everybody was like, damn, what happened to him? And it's like, oh, he played 140 games last year is what happened to him.

So, I mean, okay, I guess we do have to talk about the Leaf's goal-tending situation. It's fixed, baby. Right. They got a child to come in. And the child was good in a single game against a team that is famous for being just the most high-powered high-octane offense in the entire NHL. That's right. And so, yeah, I mean, I do feel like they have to do something just because it's like,

I look, I get the Campbell is good, and I get, and here's the thing, is they are, despite how bad both of their goalies have been, again, since the new year, let's say, they've won the vast majority of the games they've played in that time. It's sure it's demoralizing. You don't want to have to be like, okay, we got to dig deep for another goal because this dumbass behind us is going to give up a classic, oh, you want to have that one back. At least once a night every single game. Yeah. We don't, we don't want to be in that situation if you have the kind of aspirations the Maple Leafs have.

With that having been said, I'm not, I'm not super worried about Jack King. Campbell. Peter Marazic, yeah, okay, sure. I think Peter Marazic is pretty close to a write-off at this point. Yeah. Just for this season, at least. And that's fine, right? Like, I said this in my column that's going to run later today, but it's like, okay, let's look at the two guys Carolina had last year that everybody was like, they're insane to

give these guys up. Alex Vendelkevich, having an awful year. Peter Marazek, having an awful year. Yeah. But at least the guy they brought in is probably not doing very well. Well, right. And that's the thing, is Antirontas, not good last year. Freddie Anderson, he's a bum.

You've got to get him out of Toronto. Well, now he looks like he's a Vesnit candidate. And they're like, okay, I think Carolina is just doing something that makes goalies look good. Yeah. But that's kind of beside the point. I think if you're the least, I'm kind of okay on Campbell, although, you know, the thing with him is he's out for two weeks at least. Right. And that was, you know, they did say two weeks at least with the wrist.

injury. Don't really know, you know, it's nice to think that maybe that's what was contributing to the slump, although that it was a relatively recent injury. It's not like he's headed since January when all this started. I don't know. I mean, the thing with Jack Campbell is at this point, even if he gets his game back, what's going to happen the first time he gives up three goals in a period? Like, where does his head go?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, knives are out. And yeah, and it's Toronto, right? So, I mean, it's, yeah, I feel like the question would be, do you get depth? Do you get, you get somebody who can come in and be a starter, like a flurry? Do you? Yeah, it's interesting, especially because, again, like, the reason the Leafs haven't won in the playoffs the last few years, just because they can't put the puck in the net.

Yeah, it's not goal-tending. it hasn't been goal-tending. It might be goal-tending now. Yes. But also, like, you know, the chances that Jack Campbell comes in and plays like Jack Campbell has played the last few years, right?

I feel pretty good about that, but I don't know if I feel great about the Leaf's depth, especially because while all this is going on, it's just the Matthews line that's scoring. Pretty much. Yeah. And, you know, we'll talk about the Matthews suspension in a bit, but it's just one of those things where it's like, oh, the problem the Leafs had the last few years, there's still the problem.

Yep, that's, I mean, that's what it was against both Columbus and Montreal, was teams that you looked at and said, okay, we should be able to go out there and score. and their goalies look like unstoppable. And obviously with Kerry Price, it's, you know, we all, the legend to Kerry Price gets another chapter. But when it happened against Columbus, that, that was, that was just a mess. So, yeah, I mean, and here's the other thing is, and I hate to do this, but we have to. When we're talking about NHL teams, there's two things, two separate things that go through every GM's mind. There's what's best for my team and there's what's best for me. And Kyle Dubus is a guy who,

you know, I think he's, he seems more secure than a lot of GMs out there because Shanahan, you know, is always right there with him. And, but at the end of the day, you know, Shanahan has a boss too. And who knows, you never know when that, you know, corporate board of idiots who runs the Leafs is going to wake back up and start paying attention. If I'm Kyle Dubas, if I don't get a goalie and we lose in the first round by anything other than a seven, you know, one-nothing scores, it's going to be on me. Like that's the kind of thing that gets a, fair or not. That's what get, yeah, that gets a GM fire.

Uncle Phil. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If I'm, if I don't get a goalie and I go in with Campbell and Marazick and the kids. if that's part of it. And we lose game one, five nothing, I'm done. Whereas if I do get a goalie,

and that goalie sits on the bench behind Jack Campbell and doesn't do anything and we lose two to one every night because we can't score, I'm maybe still get fired because I'm, yeah, I might still, because it's, you know, it's going to be a disaster in Toronto if they lose under any circumstances, but at least people say, hey, he, he filled the, you know, he made the move.

that he needed to make. So I don't know. I think it would take an enormous amount of guts at this point to stay the course on the goaltending. And I just don't know that any GM in the league would have that. But then what do you do? You've got, now you've got three goalies. Yeah, maybe just send Marizek down to the minors.

You just say it's done, you know. I mean, that's like, I don't think there's maybe about that. You send him down. You save yourself a little bit of money on the cap. You probably even tell him, look, if you don't want to go, don't go. But you're done. And you buy him out in the summer or trade him or whatever. And that could be where it goes because he's just, he's a mess right now.

You can't trust him. And then you hope for the best when Campbell comes back. And until then you write it out with Chagrin and whoever, you bring in. But again, like, if it's not Flurry you're bringing in, I don't see anyone out there that you're like, okay, that's the new starter. And the other thing with Flurry, we should say is, you know, we've said all along that he's not, you know, the Hawks are going to only send him where he wants to go. We don't even know if he'd want to go to Toronto. It's quite possible. He's like, no, don't even, don't even think about it. But the other thing with Flurry is there's been talk that if he's going to be traded, he wants an extension to do it, which is. And the Leafs just, physically can't do that. So that would take the Leafs out of the running. He's going to say, look, I was happy in Vegas. I had to move my family to Chicago.

I hated that. If I'm going to move them again, I'm not going to move them again, and then maybe do it again in the summer if I decide I want to keep playing. I want an extension. I want to know that this is my new home for the rest of my career. The Leifes just can't possibly do that. I don't know that there's a lot of teams that would want to, but maybe there's some.

It's the Leafs aren't. So it gets down to like who's out there that's better than, you know, who's out there that could be better than Jack Campbell in a short playoff series? Yeah, probably every guy because goaltending is weird. But who is definitely where you're like, okay, they've upgraded, put a check in that box. I don't know who's there. No, absolutely, right. It's just at some point it becomes more about like appearing to have done the thing

that people wanted you to do. Which is, you know, every GM's always like, ah, I'm not going to make a deal just for the sake of making a deal. But then half of the deals they do actually are that. And this is one of those things. No, you don't understand. I traded for the guy who's sixth in ice time on the Ottawa senators. What's not to like it?

Like this almost is a, you have to make a deal for the sake of making deal. Because the thing is, you know, on the one hand, sometimes we put too much emphasis on, on goaltending. Sometimes, huh? Sometimes. But also, as a player, like when the goal tanning is bad, that really weighs a whole team down. Because like you said, you're sitting there like, like, we got to, we got to be perfect because this Nimrod back there is going to give up at least three bad goals tonight. And it feels like you're down three, nothing to start.

And if you don't make a move at all, the team in that room is sitting there like, geez, has this guy not been watching us? Like, does he not see what we need? All right. All right, why don't we take a break and we'll be right back and we'll talk about what's going on in the Western conference because, boy, oh boy. It's wild. All right. Yeah, we'll be right back. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp online therapy. Relationships take work. A lot of us drop anything to go help someone we care about, but we'll go out of our way to treat other people well. Maybe we don't give ourselves the same treatment.

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So here's the thing. They've lost five in a row, but let me give you some numbers here that, again, I looked up for a column I wrote today. Yeah, they've lost five in a row, but they've also lost six of eight, eight of a 11 of 15, 13 of 20, 16 of 25, 18 of 28. You can go on like that for a little while. But the point is, they've been bad for quite some time. And what looked like maybe not a sure thing, but they were like 95% to make the playoffs in early January.

Now, I mean, there's still probably the most likely team in the West to make the playoffs just because of how good they are on paper. But in actual practice, Oofy doofy they stink Yes they are down Dom's got them right at 50% And they were well over 80% Like

10 days ago And then it's a ski hill Straight down Yeah Now behind Edmonton and L.A. And obviously Calgary's pretty much a lock Calgary's got to be a lock at this point Yeah and it's catching them in that division

It's always I feel like you know, again, I'm not a super big X's and O's guy. I've never played the game. But it feels to me like when you do a five-game road trip and you lose the first game and then you give up more goals in each subsequent game than you did in the last game. Yes. That feels bad.

They gave up two, three, five, six, seven goals to Winnipeg. And now, oh, now the good news is they're home now. for Thursday night. And it's just some team called the Florida Panthers coming in. So that's... No problem. That's no problem. Like, and what do you do?

Any other team would be like, hey, trade deadline, you got to do something. I mean... They can't do anything. I know we say that all the time and they always find a way, but they can't possibly do anything, right? I mean, they're... No, they can't. I don't think they can get anybody who's, like, going to move the needle for them in any significant way. And again, like, you're right that, you know, we would have said that, well, they can't possibly trade for Jack Eichel.

They can't possibly sign Alex Petrangelo. They can't possibly trade for Robin Lainer. They did all that shit. But I don't know. It's just a bit of a tough sell at this point, right? Yeah. And we should say it's injuries is. It isn't, it isn't, right?

Like, I mean, it was injuries. a little while. And, and like, it's not not, I guess I'll say that. It's not not injuries. But that's not their only problem, I would say. And, and it's like, it's like any, you know, every team that loses this time of year, their fans always tell me, well, we got injuries. And it's like, everybody does.

Not everyone has a Mark Stone injured, but everyone's got some injuries. And it's, you still got to keep going. Yeah, that's, that's right. But Robin Lainer being out is. Oh, sure. Terrifying. And Alex Martinez has only played, hasn't played in forever, right? Yep.

Max Pachoretty's out. The two goalies they have are not good and got thrown under the bus by their coach last night, which is always fun. Yeah, that boy, that really feels like what it is, right? Apache Reddy's back, by the way. He's been back for a little while, not really helping very much. And I feel like, you know, watching their games, that might be a thing of like, he's back at like 80%. He's not max patch already. But yeah, the thing is, feels like Pete DeBore's got to go, right?

Like, as much as I think he's obviously a very good coach for a little while, this just seems like when you start saying, He's, again, he's not wrong that the goal he's going to make a save. Like, he can't just be like, well, you guys try making saves. You thought about that. But at the same time, you're just like, you can't lose 18 out of 28 games or whatever that number I just said was. And with a team with these kind of aspirations. And let's remember, right? Like, Gerard Gallant might be the best coach in the-

Yeah. He got, like, they had, like, two bad practices in a row, and they're like, no, we cannot possibly accept anything. I'm almost shocked that it hasn't happened yet, although, you know, maybe you don't want to airlift a new coach in in the middle of a tough road trip. Yeah, and the other thing is, they're home now. I did see some people saying this, and they're not wrong, like, who do you get? There aren't a lot of, like, great A coaches out there. I guess the answer you would say is Claude Julian. Mm-hmm.

Right? but like, you know, there's a guy who, they fired him, replaced him with a guy who's not an NHL coach, and that coach went to the Stanley Cup final. So maybe you're like... I have heard that was a little bit fake, though. It certainly was, absolutely. But if you're Vegas, you're like,

oh, we're going to hire the coach that the second he got fired, that team went on an insane run and made it to the cup final against the Tampa Bay Lightning, beat Toronto? I think you got to get. whoever you can get at this point. I'm looking at the schedule because I was wondering, is there like a three-day gap or something in the schedule where maybe...

Probably not the way the schedule is worked out this year. They've got the Panthers at home. Then after that, they've got the Kings on the weekend, which is, I mean, that's now the team you're chasing, one of them. So that becomes a huge game. So, I mean, can you go into that game? I mean, I can see where maybe you see.

say you don't want to bring a new guy in against, I mean, the Panthers are a buzzsaw these days. So, but I, I wouldn't be shocked if we saw an announcement today or even like between now and when people hear this podcast and they're like, why are they talking about this? Why are they even, yeah. And I'm not even saying that as I think coaching is the problem, this would fix them. I'm just looking at the history of, you know, Kelly McCrimman. And there's no patience. Like most teams that are in Vegas's situation of like, yeah, we're actually over the cap and we are pretty ruthless. Like let's say this, right?

Like if the Maple Leafs had lost 18 of 28, is Sheldon Keith still the coach? I can't imagine. Yeah. Yeah. And the other piece of it is you look at the two teams or two of. the teams that have now, you know, gotten into the mix with them. Edmonton is, has moved ahead of Vegas. Vancouver is right behind them.

One of those two teams have in common. They've already changed coaches and it helped. Yeah, and Winnipeg's right there as well. And Winnipeg changed coaches and it may be helped. I don't know. I don't think. I would say it didn't help, but neither coaches all that good. But, yeah, I mean, you're surrounded by teams that took the plunge

and you're going to sit there and, yeah, I don't know. But I'm, like, amazed. This would be, other than Colorado, this was like the one team going into this season, where I would have said a lock, first of all. And by a mile, you would have said. Yeah, I mean, we all had them penciled in as the Pacific winner by 20 points. Like, I mean, how could they, the idea, this is one of those ones, where it's like, if you went back to opening night and you're like, hey, I'm a time traveler,

nothing interesting happening in the world in March, but the Vegas Golden Knights are potentially going to miss the playoffs. You would not be able to fathom, like, you wouldn't be able to get your head around it. You'd be like, well, they got injuries, they had this and that, but you'd be like, did they just not make any. Oh, not only that, though, they're not, they're in rough shape, and they have also already traded for Jack Eichel. Yeah. And you're like, oh, he hasn't, he hasn't played yet.

No, no, he's been there for, and that's the thing. Like, everyone's kind of having a laugh now that, that basically the Golden Knights plan was to do the Tampa Couture of thing and wait until the playoffs, but that you can only do that when you actually make the playoffs. But when that trade happened, there wasn't one single person going, I'm a little nervous that, though, that, may, what if they don't make the postseason? Like, that wasn't even a thought. Up until two weeks ago, it never even occurred to me that the Golden Knights could miss the playoffs.

Even as they were dropping down the standings, to me, it's the biggest story other than my five-pin bowling problems. This is the biggest story in the hockey world right now. It has to be, yeah. Really fascinated to see how it plays out. Because they need it. Like if Robin Leonard isn't imminently coming back, they need a goalie now. And how the hell do they, how the hell do they, how the hell do they, get one other than do you shut down Robin Lanner for the rest of the city?

Like now you're playing real dangerous game because you can't, you're not shutting guys down for the rest of the year and saying, yeah, but they'll be fine for the playoffs. There is no playoffs if you don't get this figured out. So, man. So let's say this. We mentioned them earlier. Vancouver and Winnipeg are two teams where for quite a while now, everybody's been kind of like, well, they're selling at the deadline.

and now they're in a position where it's like, will they though? Like, I wonder, especially with Vancouver, where it's like, oh, they might still trade Connor Garland and try to make the playoffs. And it's like, huh. Yeah, I don't get where the Connor Garland thing is. He's a lesser player than J.T. Miller, I would say. Yeah, like, if you're going to keep one of those guys, and I think he makes a similar amount of money. Yeah, his cap hits around five. million. Did they extend him or was he or did he?

Who Miller? Yeah. No, Garland. I think they traded for him and gave him a big extension. Right. Okay. Which is always, that's, that's always a disaster. Yeah, they was extended it. Like, he's a, he's such a good player.

I don't know. And he's 26. So. And I don't know that he's having like a great, like I'm not saying he's having a great season or anything like that. But I think, I think that's a player that if you put him in the right circumstance, he can be just a classic, like, at age 26 or whatever. Damn, where did this guy come from? Kind of a player.

So why do you move a guy like, like I understand that you've got cap problems, but you, you know, it's sort of like when the Leafs were always talking about trade Morgan Riley when he was making $5 million. Right. You don't solve your cap problems by trading guys on. Yeah. decent value contracts. Like what 26-year-old center are you going to get who's better than this guy for less money with the cap space? Yeah.

And, you know, obviously they've been looking at or at least talked about like, oh, they might move Besser. Like, I always thought if they move J.T. Miller, that would be just an absolutely insane move. And I think that's kind of true to a lesser extent with Besser. Like Besser, he's not the 30 goal guy that people want to make him out to be necessarily, I would say. But like, is he like a 20 plus goal guy every year? Absolutely. And I guess the question for them becomes since he's an RF pending RFA, like does he think he's the, because he can say I'm the 30 goal guy. Yeah.

And want to get paid like that. And then you're in another tough situation where it's like, like, like how do we make that work? I can see why you would want to move him. But with Garland, he's signed until he's like 30 at less than $5 million a year. And signed until he's 30, but not 35 or something crazy where you're like, we got to get out. No, signed until he's 30. Yeah.

It's a good contract. So, but I mean, I feel like they've maybe now given cover to just stay the course here. Yeah, but with that having been said, that also means, like, we will have to make a tough decision at the draft or whatever. Yes. We might not be able to bring back all these lower-end. NHLGMs love kicking the can down the road. They certainly do. But, like, with a new one, that's the interesting question to me.

With a brand new one, what would be the point of kicking the can down the road if you're the Canucks? I don't know. But anyway, the other team there is Winnipeg. And Winnipeg's another one where it's like they need to blow it up. Like nobody, even if they vaguely compete for the playoffs for the rest of the year. And Christ, even if they make it, even if they somehow get in jumping, what, four teams in the process, three teams, something like that. Yeah. I guess the point is when you have one of the best goalies in the world,

he can get insanely hot. That's the point. And the point is also, you know, it makes everyone's jobs more secure and all of that stuff that isn't necessarily in the best long-term interests of the team. But this is a team that their coach had to quit because they wouldn't fire him. Yeah. So, like, you know, if Mark Chipman is like, I would never in a million years fired the, most average coach in the

NHL, whose teams always seem to underperform. Why would you do that with your GM? I don't know. I don't know. So, like, it'll be interesting to see, well, that's the other thing. It's everybody's like, oh, they'll probably still trade Andrew Cop. And it's like, well, Andrew Cop might have another concussion now.

So I don't know how they make that work. The West is fun, man. This is... Yeah, no, I mean, everybody thought things were kind of set. We said it on this podcast. Things are kind of settled. Like a month and a half ago, probably, we said that. It felt like it was getting there, yeah.

And then, yeah, like I said, Vegas lost, like, 14 of 17 or whatever it's been. Like, they've been just awful for six, eight weeks. And, yeah, there you go. But, yeah, now I guess we'll talk about the Austin Matthews suspension. I would say, you know, I got in a lot of trouble for saying this on Twitter the other day, but I would say if they call the initial check or whatever you want to call it by Dalleen, there's probably not this incident. With that having been said, I'm shocked at how light Matthews got off for cross-checking a guy in the head.

You're done? I thought two was about right. I mean, that's the precedent. Well, two's about right insofar as they never give anybody a suspension of more than two games without also him being a multiple time offender. Right. But I think that, again, like, I'm a big, they should throw the book at everybody, guys. So, like, I think it was pretty nice of them to let him only get two games, given that he cross-checked a guy in the head. Yeah.

With, you know, he said, oh, it wrote up the shoulder pads. It didn't even touch the shoulder pads, let alone rode up. Like, it was right in the head neck area. Like, that, that to me, is an easy five games every time if you want to take these kinds of things seriously. Right, which, so, yeah, I don't disagree, but given the precedent, it was going to be one or two games. And, you know, especially when you're dealing with a guy with not only no history, but two-time Lady Bing. finalist, not exactly, you know, somebody who has any kind of history here. Right.

But, yeah, he cross-checked the guy in the neck. And, you know, I know a lot of lead fans were mad about everything leading up to it. You know, the fact that Austin... The whole game itself. Well, not even the game, right? Like, it's Austin Matthews never draws penalties, even though he's got, he plays 200 feet, he's got to puck the whole game, and he's drawn like six penalties all year. the game before he gets blatantly fouled in overtime and it leads directly to the other team winning.

And then in this case, he gets cross-checked four or five times. There's no call. And then he cross-checks a guy in the head and gets suspended. And it's just, you know what, you can be mad about those first three things and also accept that this had to be a suspension. You cannot possibly consider the precedent of if our refs screw up enough time. you get a free cross check in somebody's throat. Right. So he was going to get suspended.

They could have got away with one. Two was fine. It too fit the precedent that they usually, you know, on things that don't cause injuries where there's no history. Two was about right. And yeah, you can be ticked off about the lack of calls. I mean, welcome to the party. Most other fan bases have their own list of complaints.

Um, you know, maybe, maybe this adds up to him starting to draw a few calls, uh, at some point, kind of like he did with Connor McDavid last year. Like, he's back up towards the top of the league where he should be. Um, maybe that happens with Matthews too. But in the meantime, yeah, you can't cross-check guys in the head. It's bad. Yeah, I think, I think it's a good precedent to set of cross-checking a guy on the head is bad. Yeah. That's just me, but, um, yeah, I don't know. It But what if it was a guy on your favorite team that did the cross-checking in the head? Well, as long as it's related to the Leafs, I'm always going to be 100% pissed and steamed about anything. Yeah, you have to have a take.

And you have to... Yeah, I mean, look, like we said it. It comes after a week where everybody's like, damn, the refs suck. Colorado. Bad week. Yeah. No, and... What was it?

Was it the Edmonton game? there was that awful missed call? I'm thinking of Carolina, Toronto and Colorado. There might have been one in Edmonton. Colorado had one, and then there was Edmonton. It was like the, it led to the tying goal where I think it was like Hyman or somebody just got tackled. That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah, again, you just look at it and you go, well, you know, this is the thing that people have been saying for a while is you can do whatever you want to the best players in the world. and that's part of the game. And also that the refs don't want to decide the game. So they will not make calls. And we saw two clear cases where it decided not in Edmonton,

you know, it cost a point. And in the Toronto overtime game, it cost them the game, basically because the referees didn't call obvious penalties. And that's how it works, right? I mean, you can say I don't want to decide the game. but sometimes you have to. That's your job. You're the referee.

And this is going to get us in trouble because it sounds like we're saying like it should be a game for soft losers. It's not a game for soft losers. It's a game where if somebody is chasing a puff. You should expect to get cross-checked at the bat. Oh, that sounds wrong actually. Like I feel like cross-checking is not in the rule book. It's allowed within this many. Yep.

I'm with you. So yeah, that's kind of my take on it. I've said it a million times, but like I ran these numbers, whatever, like four or five years ago when I was like, it seems like Carmen McDavid doesn't draw a lot of penalties, and I looked, and he was like 39th in the league and penalties drawn. And it's like, yeah, that doesn't, that doesn't ring true to me that a guy that fast and that skilled should be drawing fewer penalties than like fourth liners or whatever. Yeah, you're not allowed to say that because it means It means you want the game to be played without checking, which to be fair, I do want the game to be playing.

You should check out tennis. That's right. Have you noticed that tennis seems to have replaced figure skating as the go-to sport that you're supposed to watch if you don't like seeing guys get their brain scrambled? I haven't, but that's... I feel like that's progress. Like, right? we've kind of...

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, at least in tennis, now you're actually competing against somebody. Yeah. As opposed to... Yeah, it's a sport. The limits of your body.

Sure. But yeah. How about this? Tyler Sagan yesterday. Did you see this quote? I did see the quote, and I got to be honest, I didn't think it through to the level that you did. So, Tyler Sagan, quote on Jason Robertson. Jason Robertson playing his brother last night.

So, like, the Robertson family was a big deal. And they asked Tyler Sagan about Jason. And he says, people ask me what type of player he is. I tell my buddies, he's almost like a rattlesnake out there. He kind of just moves around. You don't really see him. And then all of a sudden, he gets it. And boom, you're bit.

It's in the back of the net. Tyler, I don't know if you know this about rattlesnakes. Their whole thing is that they make a noise before they attack you. they do it's it's it's it's it's it's even in the name right yeah like if you want oh if you had said cobra i'm right there with you brother yep but um uh rattlesnakes they rattle it's in the name yep that made me laugh yesterday uh especially because look everybody got so mad when paul or mad isn't the right word but people were like what is paul fenton saying he can't compare mat sukarello to a damn lizard that's insane

Tyler Sagan says, this young man is a snake. And everybody's like, what a quote. What kind of snake? Justice for Paul Fenton. Yeah. Well, I'm going to go the other way and say we should be able to make fun of both of them because, you know. You know what? You're right.

Comparing the guy to a lizard is still pretty funny. Having already done so, I agree that you should be able to make fun of both of these guys. But yeah, that just really made me laugh of Tyler Sagan being. like, yeah, you never see this guy coming. The notoriously silent noise beast is the... Tyler. You know, they never said Tyler was a smart guy, I guess. I don't think anyone has ever said that.

I will. Like, one of the classic guys, they never said he was smart this whole time. So you can continue saying it, I guess. Yeah, we'll be right back. Folks, Spring is here. And one of the things that's tough about spring, I think, is you never know exactly how to dress. It might be 50 degrees right now. Two hours from now, it could be 30.

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Two non-hockey things that are happening here lately is, first of all, this is sort of like a secret wrestling podcast, and so we do have to say rest in peace to the bad guy, Scott Hall. Yes. Best Intercontinental Champion ever? There's a strong case. It's up there. Certainly among guys who never got the world title.

Big Belt. Yeah. He would be up there. Yep. One of the first, like, wrestlers I remember thinking, damn, he's cool. Yeah, which was amazing because his whole gimmick was like that this guy is really cool, which usually is a recipe for total disaster. Yeah, absolutely.

And yet. But I think, I think that my theory is that it's he's cool and he's a bad guy. Anytime it's he's cool and he's a good guy, people go, no thanks. I don't like that. Yeah. But anytime he's cool and he's a bad guy and he, Christ, he's the bad guy. He is the bad guy. I mean, in a world of bad guys.

And my favorite story of like the career, because Scott Hall, I guess, had a pretty extensive wrestling career in the 80s. But like, he did. Yeah. For most of us, it's the early 90s. He shows up as, um, the Razor Ramon in the WWE. And apparently the story is like he, he approaches Vince McMahon. And he was like, have you ever seen Scarface?

And Vince is like, no. And he goes, well. What is Scarface? And he starts like doing. the character, right? Like, hang, man, you know, like, you know, like, you know, all that sort of thing. And, uh, uh, and Vince is like, perfect. I love it. Do that. And he was like, yeah, I mean, I, I, I can't do that, that because I would just be stealing the character. But that's the, the concept. And Vince was like, no, you do that. That's your character. Exactly what you just

did. And so he's doing a total, uh, you know, Al Pacino Scarface character. But he made it work. Yeah, no. I mean, and, and, and that's the thing is, again, like, he comes out and he, and he, is doing scar i think um shay serrano tweeted yesterday like that was so funny that's so good at it that even when the uh all the latinos found out he was a white guy they were like yeah he still rocks we love him yeah we're fine with that he was yeah and i mean as cool as ray's romone is um the the the thing about scott hall is he changed wrestling forever he did um um um um um the the the the thing about scott hall is he changed wrestling forever. He did.

He goes to WCW, and he's sitting at ringside for a few weeks at first, and they're like, oh, that's Scott Hall. What's he doing here? He's not supposed to be here, that kind of thing. And then finally, he goes in the ring, beats up some guys, like some WCW jobbers or whatever, and the first thing out of his mouth is he goes, you know who I am. Yeah. And I, you know, blah, blah, blah, I don't like how this company does.

does things or whatever. Right. Because the WWF had spent the last year in this battle with WCW, making fun of WCW and saying how much it sucked. Yes. And everybody expects Scott Hall to come over and go, now I'm where the big boys play. And I'm in the big leagues now. And instead he comes over and goes, you guys suck and does the same thing that WWF had been

saying. And everybody freaks out because they think he has been sent. This is 1996, man We didn't have the internet People thought he had actually invaded From the opposing company Yeah And it was the coolest thing ever

Like it was You're just, he gets up And does the whole Nacho man Stick And people lost their minds Yeah and within Two or three weeks

Oh here's Kevin Nash To do the same thing Right And we're, and we're, we're, we're here to destroy WCW. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and what was, what was, what was, it wasn't, uh, how did he end the promo? Wasn't it like, he said something like, you want a war, now you've got one.

Yep. And people were like, this is, this is, but like, that was the sort of thing. Like, like, every schoolyard in North America was like little kids being like, did you see the, like, the WWF sent Razor Ramon on live television? And diesel later. And it sounds stupid now. And it would never work today because it would all be, you know, on the internet within 3-7. But back then you actually just had to watch the show. And like the thing is there was such a hatred between those two companies at the time that instantly they come in and they go like nuclear heat.

Like we hate these fucking guys. and then they get Hulk Hogan to turn? Yep. Like, holy shit. Especially because they're wrestling, like, basically the faces of WCW, Sting Lex Lugar and Randy Savage. And they're like, this is,

we're going to take these guys on three, two on three, basically. And these are, again, like the biggest stars WCW has to offer, with the exception of Hulk Hogan. And then Hulk Hogan comes down when it's becoming clear that the outsiders are starting to gain an advantage in the match. And everybody's like, here he comes.

He's going to stop these two dastardly guys. And of course, he joins them. Do you know my pet peeve with this whole thing? Is it Bobby Heenan going? But whose side is he on? The only downside in the otherwise immaculate career of Bobby Heenan, the greatest color guy in history. blew it on that one. But yeah.

But anyway, yeah. And the thing from a, you know, from a business perspective is Scott Hall and Kevin Ash got paid a ton of money to jump. Yes. And got guaranteed contracts, which back then wasn't really a thing. And basically reset the pay scale for. Everybody wrestling. And the best story, if you heard this one where months later, the WSWRWRWRSA, the WWF, which still owns the rights to the characters, Razor Ramon and Diesel, decides that they're going to basically do what they do in soap operas and recast the roles and have new guys come and play those characters.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess, to them. So they announced, like, next week or, you know, coming soon, Razor Ramon and Diesel return to Raw. We'll be back, yeah. And I mean, the point of it was that dumb fans were supposed to go like, oh, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are coming back. They never said Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. They said Diesel and Razor Ramon. But the fans were supposed to think these guys were coming back. But apparently the decision makers at WCW saw this and were like, oh, no, these guys are going to jump back.

And so they called them in and gave them like big contract extensions and everything. And they just sat. They were smart enough to just go like, sure. Well, yeah, we'll sign. And over something they had no intention of ever doing. And they got even more money, which, you know what? Great. Now, the fake Razor Ramon that they did bring out and everybody immediately was like,

fuck you, we hate this. They hated it so much. So the fake Razor Ramon was a guy who didn't really turn into anything. Fake Diesel. Do you know who fake Diesel was? Yeah, well, he was the guy who went on to become the evil dentist, I think. but then he was Cain, right? Then he was Cain, yeah, that's exactly right.

Which is, you know, good start. But you know what? That whole episode proved that if you're like, well, you know, the character was cool. No, it wasn't the kid. Scott Hall was cool. Because they had somebody come out and try to play the character and he sucked. Like, as soon as he walked on the screen, you were like, no. Yeah, because the thing with Cain is you were never like, Cain is so cool.

No, no. was just a big guy who was really good at choke slamming people. Yeah. No. Scott Hall was, like, the fact that he could, the key indicator that a wrestler is super cool is if they can take a standard object and make it cool. Like, Mr. Perfect taking a white towel and turning it into like the coolest thing ever when he would like flip it behind his back. See, I would have said a chewed piece of gum for Mr. Perfect. There you go.

The two of them. Which, by the way, we're. you one of these kids who when you were done with a piece of gum, you would spit it out and try to squat it into the 50th row? Yeah. Did I ever successfully do it as well as him? No. But I wasn't, not as well as him. He did it every time. I wasn't perfect. No. He was. But, uh, that's the thing about, uh, Mr. Perfect is he did everything. It was, I mean, honestly, it was a good, it was good name for him because he was perfect. And, uh, Scott Hall had the toothpick, which was just that he would take a toothpick out of his mouth and throw it in your face

was like, like, made you want to see him get... And he would just be like, this guy needs to get his ass kicked because he just threw a toothpick in whoever's face. And the great, this is the other great thing about Scott Hall. Unlike, even Kevin Nash, totally willing to put younger, talented guys over. Yes. famously lost to the kid who became the one, two, three kid, who became six, who became ex-pac.

But he also, like, he lost to, so there was an article, I think, on Defector that was like, here he is losing to Chris Jericho on a random nitro. Yep. Back when before Jericho was really at that level. Chris Jericho was still Lionheart Chris Jericho. I don't even know, he might not have even been cruiserweight champion. No, I think he must have been cruiserweight champion. champion at that point.

But then a couple weeks later, he loses to Hector Garza. Wow. Like, come on, man. Yeah. Scott Hall putting over Hector fucking Garza is like the ultimate sign of this guy. Just, he knew it didn't matter whether he wasn't lost. Scott Hall was, Scott Hall was kind of like, like he was this weird mix that you don't see very much in wrestling where he was like really, really good at wrestling and

really understood wrestling, but didn't really seem to care about wrestling all that much. Like, he was never, you know, he was just like, whatever. Like, he cared about the business side. He cared about getting paid, and he did. But, you know, from there, it was like him and Nash were just, you always kind of felt like they were just half goofing around. Like, can you believe we're getting millions of dollars to go on live TV and just do whatever we want?

Yeah. Here's the last thing I want to say about Scott Hall. How tall do you think of Scott Hall as having been? Yeah, he was super tall, but he stood next to Kevin Nash's entire career. Right, and Kevin Nash's seven feet is. Yeah, wasn't he like six, seven or something? Yeah, six seven. Okay.

Six foot seven, bigger than Hulk Hogan. Yeah. By like a few inches. It was always weird when like he would, yeah, like you'd see him. Because you think of him as a kind of like a bulky guy, but not like a, He was like a regular sized pro wrestler, but he wasn't. He was... He's as tall as like, I don't know, how tall is Braun Strowman?

Like, six, eight? Yeah, if he, he was tall enough... He was tall enough that, like, they could have called him seven feet tall, because that's what they do in wrestling. They're like, you're over 6'6, congratulations, you're seven feet tall, but they never really... Two inches shorter than the Undertaker or whatever, and everybody's like, well, he's not that big.

This guy's fucking enormous. and used that size to his advantage, like, in the ring, just in terms of, like, you know, he, like, he would wrestle small guys all the time and make, like, and tower over them. Yeah. But also then, again, unlike other big tall guys, be like, oh, that guy's really beating the shit out of me. Yeah. It ruled. Anyway, we love Scott Hall.

He was great. Had a very, very troubled, like, outside of the business life. Absolutely. point where like, you know, even though he passed this week in his early 60s, like, you haven't seen a lot of people going like, oh, too young. I can't believe, you know, like with Scott Hall, it's, it's a borderline miracle. That was a horror. It wasn't 20 years ago. Like, I mean, he was, he was literally in, you know, with drugs and substances and all sorts of things. Like he, he, it could have been 20 years ago and people would not have been shocked.

So the fact that he mostly got his life back on track and got, you know, another. a good decade out of things and, you know, good for him. Yep. And I guess we have to say thank you to Diamond Dallas Page for saving his life. It's one of the weirdest. What a second act for DDP? The fact that like a pro wrestler, his second act is teaching yoga to people who are on the verge of death from addiction. Mm-hmm.

And it's worked multiple times. saved two of like, Razor Ramon and Jake the Snake Robbers were two guys that you were like, they're going to die any day now. And then they went and did yoga with... They hung out with, like, a couple of years and it's like actually tack an extra 10 years on their life.

They're fine. They're both. All right. They're back on. All right. One last thing here. I don't... This is going to be a classic,

do they have this in Canada thing? But the U.S. is now making, or working toward making daylight savings permanent. And I legit, again, a thing I legitimately don't know, is that a thing in Canada at all? Because like, the way people talk about it here is like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to the United States of America is daylight savings time. It's awful.

And we do have it here and it's at the same time. And it's the same except up here like where I am, we have like four hours of daylight in the winter. And they're like, let's have it from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. That's great. You know, now that I say all this, I should have known because it's not like the Leafs are ever playing at 6 o'clock. Yeah, it doesn't screw up the playoff schedule or whatever. Right.

Yeah, that's, I will say this. I do not know, I know that we do the clocks, the spring forward, fall back. Yeah. I do not know which of those is daylight savings and which is whatever the other one is. I think it's spring forward, but now I don't know why. Because whenever I see people like, like yesterday and it's like, we're going to make daylight savings permanent, I'm like, I don't know whether to be furious or overjoyed at this. So I think it's the good one.

I saw some people talking yesterday that they tried this in the 70s and everybody hated it during the winter. Why? Because, like, in the morning, it's darker for longer. Screw the morning people. Look, I don't disagree with you. But apparently, all I know is in the 70s, and no, let me amend that. All I know is I saw people saying they did it in the 70s. I don't know.

I wasn't around. That's, I mean, I get it. It probably would be depressing to wake up in the dark and, you know, but it's also depressing to have it. Like here, it gets dark at 4.30 in the afternoon. I got to, like, walk over my kids were younger, like, go pick them up from daycare. It's pitch black. It's not even 5 o'clock yet. Yeah.

So, this is so funny. Sunrise, January 7th, 1974, 827 a.m. That's really funny. That is a little rough. Okay. Yeah, so December 14th, 1973, Congress was like, we're going to do it for two years, and we'll see how it goes. And every, like, within a month, everybody was like, fuck this.

Okay. Which like, yeah, so it's a thing of, I guess I'll see how I feel about it eight months from now, nine months from now, whatever it is. But yeah, I don't know if I care, I guess is my point. As a guy who doesn't commute. I just, I, for me, and maybe it's because it coincides with the days getting longer. but like when we set the clocks forward in the spring, it's like the happiest weekend for me. I get excited like a month.

Usually in February I Google it because every year I forget when it happens. And I go and I'm like, all right. Yeah, with a gun to my head, I couldn't tell you when. Yeah, no idea. What weekend. I have a better chance of telling you when Easter is than figuring this out. And I get bummed out when it's time to change them in the winter because I'm like, that's it.

It's, you know, this, this sucks now. And like, you know, I'm Sunday evening. Like,

probably a lot of people. I sit there with my face pressed against the glass at 645. Like, it's still light out. This is so, this is so great. So I'm,

I'm all in favor of this change. I have no idea if they'll do it in Canada. I would assume they would. They probably, I think I saw that at least in British Columbia, they're already like, well, if they're going to do it,

we've got to do it. Yeah. I suspect it would be weird if the two countries were off by an hour for... Yeah, again, Canada is the 51st state. They just do whatever we tell them to do. It would throw off our five-pin bowling schedule significantly. That's right. So, yeah, I guess that's it.

We're done. Nothing else. Yeah, we can be done. Sean, why don't you go first with plugs? because it's always the same. The athletic has got, I mean, they've got my stuff, but they've got everybody's stuff right now on trade deadline.

We're going crazy, clearly, until Monday, and then beyond with the fallout. And also, it is a dollar a month right now. So if you're not an athletic subscriber, like getting now, it's a dollar a month for six months. If you don't like it after six months, you can get out again. But you will get your $6 worth of just,

on Monday alone. I can pretty much guarantee it. I'm doing the live trade blog on Monday. I don't know who I'm doing it with. I'm guessing Gentilly, but maybe not. But yeah, let's just say him. Whether he wants to do it or not, he's just been a sign. He's in, and that'll be fine.

And I've got a bunch of trade stuff this week, and so does everyone. So if you have not jumped in yet, it's a dollar. I promise you, you, you'll get. get your money's worth. If you don't come up to me when you see me and I will give you a dollar back. Don't actually do that. Don't do that. Absolutely do not. Approach me. I guess I said I don't, I have the same plug every week. And I guess that's kind of true in terms of sign up for EPRink side. When you get an annual subscription and use the code I Love EP, they'll tack an extra three months onto your subscription, absolutely free of charge. But much like you, Sean.

I am also doing what's kind of a live blogging. They asked if I wanted to do trade grades for every trade. Oh, wow. Yeah, so I had to go back and start with the Tofoli trade, which was like almost a month ago at this point, I think. And as I was getting started doing the trades that had already happened, I also did Lubushkin and Manson trades. the

Sturm Jost trade went through and I was like, I guess I got to do that now too. And so, yeah, I will be grading every trade between now and the deadline. You're going to be busy. Yeah, I don't know why I agreed to this. It was very stupid.

Bad move. I fucked up big time, especially because you know what else is happening, is college hockey playoffs are ongoing and the tournament will start, not this coming Friday. but the Friday following, actually. They changed it to Thursday this year.

And I'm going to have a huge NCAA tournament preview. Basically, your favorite team has at least one prospect in the NCAA tournament this year in all likelihood. And so you're going to want to check out everything I have to say about it. It's going to be, let's say, in-depth. And so I have to do that by Wednesday. Uh-oh. My week's going to stink. Why are you doing this podcast?

Like, let's wrap it up. Let's go. Yeah. All right. Yeah, and then sign up for the Puck's Who Patreon also. Good stuff over there. We're doing the bonus episode for the end that we usually do at the end of the month this week because Greg is going on vacation. So that's why.

Yeah. But yeah, that's it. Check it all out. And thanks for the support. Thanks for listening, as always. And yeah, that's it. Have a good one. Bye bye.

Bye bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots 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 Hagi and Nancent. Borg Sue.