Real Kyper & Bourne - 10-Game Goalie Trends + McDavid's Injury

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne are joined by Steve Valiquette (4:15) for his weekly chat to discuss Stuart Skinner's performance through 10 games of the season, his bottom-10 goalie ranking, what modern-day goalies are getting beat by and who's more valuable between Igor Shesterkin and Artemi Panarin. Then, Dr. Jason Smith (32:42) weighs in on Connor McDavid's knee collision with the boards and his potential road to recovery for the Oilers.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

we go national on the real kipper and born show we are live on sports net 650 in vancouver and sports net 960 in calgary this hour real kipper and born is brought to you by bet 365 Nick Kiprios, Justin Bourne. Hello. Sammy McKee, Derek Brandeo, and Jake the Snake Schultz. In a few minutes, we'll welcome in Steve Valliquette, analyst for the New York Rangers on MSG and CEO of ClearSight Analytics. And then in about half an hour, we'll welcome in back to our program, Dr. Jason Smith. He's an elite orthopedic surgeon, presently working for the Toronto Blue Jays.

We'll get his thoughts on what he saw. We know what we saw with Connor McDavid. What'd you see? We can see a lot of concerns. Do you want to play doctor? Oh, we're going to play doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. We'll get into that. But no affiliation. okay do you want to play doctor we will doctor oh we're gonna play doctor doctor doctor doctor doctor we will get into that but no affiliation he doesn't he's done almost 20 years at the professional ranks and doctor doctor worked with uh a lot of teams in the nhl major league baseball i'm just curious to see what he saw what What was his first thoughts on what he saw? Tough night for Canada in general last night. I know the Leafs did win, but playing another Canadian team that lost, the Flames lost, the Oilers lost, Canucks lost.

Tough night. Where does goaltending rank for you in terms of the edmonton oilers right now i know conor mcdavid left after his first shift which i don't know did that shock the team did they find themselves stuck in mud after that i think it was a little bit of a what just happened he was buzzing like he came out there and got his speed going the neutral zone got a puck got going it felt to me like edmonton was going to just plow over columbus and then it all just kind of turned a minute in i would say that you know i'm not exactly a goalie expert uh we're gonna have one on here very shortly but two four and one with a three five one goals against an eight seven two

say percentage those numbers don't look too great when they jump off the page, do you? Skinner might not be great. 8-7-2 in seven games is a scary start. I'm curious if they would address that at some point this season and say we were too good, we were too close to not. They had those combos last year. Oh, we're not going through the Jack Campbell kind of conversations again, are we?

You think Skinner's going to figure it out? I think so. Yeah, okay. I like the guy. He came within a goal of winning the Stanley Cup. Sure. And was very good for them in lots of games in the playoffs. Like, very good.

So, if you're within a goal of things, that's pretty good. Well, maybe not a goal. So, at least you made the second round last year. A game. I just found that out. Two years ago. Freebie. Yeah, so that hurt them last night. I thought there's a couple of pucks that seemed

to go through them. They coach never blames them directly, but impressed with Columbus. I got to say, they've had a nice start to the year here. They're above 500. Dean Harrison's got them playing're they honestly are playing inspired hockey and you know that's a it's unthinkable what happened to them but it seems like it's really yeah we're not you gotta take your hat to these guys for playing hard yeah sean monahan oh it's got four or five goals on the season now i can't tell you how great a story

it would be if they were just like in the playoff mix and a fun team and playing hard like that like i said evison would scare me into playing good too scary his face in the league yeah a little tough for western canada last night uh vancouver losing uh in overtime to calgary or to carolina calgary losing to Vegas. I was pretty lopsided affair. I watched that one. Vladar came down to earth a little bit, I think, last night too. And then Connor Hellebuck.

But let's bring in our Tuesday regular here on the show, Steve Aliquette. There he is. MSG. Three Emmys today. CEO of ClearSight Analytics. How are you, pal? Doing well, boys. How are we?

Good, good. So is 10 games enough to kind of settle in on the goaltending front here? Or I'm looking at the wins and I'm seeing some familiar names up at the top like Bavrovsky and Vasilevsky. And then there's Stolarz, I think, tied for fourth for wins here. So is this going to kind of sort itself out or is there one guy,

maybe a Stolarz that can rise to the next level and hold it? You know, Kipper, it's funny because when you go from case to case, team to team, you come across different abnormalities, maybe in somebody's game. They might have been really good at something, but it's almost like having a bad run of cards and you can have a bad shoe when you go to the casino. I was digging into Aiden Hill yesterday because it's interesting on him getting ready for his Calgary start last night and going into the game, he'd allowed four goals on five breakaways. And I'm like, I know Aiden, I know he's really good on breakaways. I go back and I

look at his playoff run when he wins the Stanley Cup two years ago, he faced 16 breakaways during the postseason, zero goals against, you know? So it's like, what are we talking about sometimes, you know? You know that there might be something technically there where he wasn't coming out as far as he was two years ago, and those things can be quickly fixed. So as long as you have all hands on deck, guys, you can get past small things when the sample size is very strong behind

somebody that might be off to a bad week or two. Yeah. And despite losing last night, Hellebuck leads all goalies with six wins. Yeah. And I thought that last night he kind of looks a little Roman check manic again, you know,

and I don't know if you guys remember Roman check. Oh yeah. It would get wacky sometimes and you know i think that it's funny i remember bobby clark after they had let him go he was quoted as saying it just gets wacky sometimes he's a really good goal he's got a big frame but it just gets weird out there and you just can't you can't anticipate everything that he's doing if you're a defenseman the pucks aren't going clean where they should be so skinner's another really big guy and we were just talking about him before we got on air uh what are your thoughts on his performance this

year is it uh kind of waiting for more games for it to sort itself out or is you know it's it's you know what borny it's dicey because if you go back to when jay woodcroft was fired last year it was november 12th and edmonton was giving up a ton off the rush they were 32nd in the nhl at that time so they were struggling because the environment was difficult on skinner skinner over the last two years has the second worst save percentage in the NHL off of odd man rushes as well as full rush he's not a great goalie at backing up managing speed gap you see when the hard part about the rush is that you can lose your net a lot of goalies lose their net plus you know it's you're doing math as you're trying to calculate, is anybody going to pass? Who's open?

There's different variables there. The funny thing to me with Skinner is he's got a great save percentage. He's a top five save percentage in the zone. When he's in set D zone and he can see his reads and Edmonton's got good sticks, he stops the puck. He's an NHL goalie, but off the rush, he's not. And if they can't, and then the point I wanted to make about after Woodcroft to Knobloch, they went into the playoffs as the number two defensive team protecting their goalie off the rush.

So if you can protect him and give him a safe environment, he'll be successful. But if you want to play up and down the ice, he's not your goalie. So where would Skinner be in terms of his mindset when you're a game away from winning the Stanley Cup and you looked at a fairly decent blue

line, you know, and say what you will about Philip Broberg taking time to get there, but he arrived. He arrived in the Stanley Cup final, and now he's arriving for the St. Louis Blues. He's gone. Cody Ceci's gone.

De Arne is gone. And you look up and you see Stetcher, and you see Dermott, and who am I missing? Emberson. Emberson. And, like, that can't be helping his confidence. Really? You know, Kipper, it's, you can't go there though. And look, I've made the mistake and I was maybe a little younger than Skinner is at

this time right now, but I have PTSD when I drive through Springfield, Massachusetts, because I had such a bad year there. And I have to drive from Connecticut to get to my place in Vermont. It's, it's brutal. Every time I drive through there, I feel terrible. Get me through this border. And because I had a defenseman named Robert Schnabel. I hope he's not listening.

But man, he was awful out there. And I felt like we were always down five on four. And he was such a distraction. I never felt like he could protect anybody. I legit thought we were killing every time we were out there at five on five. But guess who paid the price? I'm the one pulling the puck out of the net. And it dawns on me after a number of weeks of these self-fulfilling prophecies

that I got to knock it off because, again, it's always on us, right, fellas? Like all eyes are on the goalie as soon as the puck goes in the net. So if you are having that, you got to get past it. I hired a sports psychologist when I was 27. I wish I had the courage to do it earlier in my career. I would have been in the NHL sooner. So we talked about a couple of guys who are struggling this season. Last week, you gave us your 10 best performing goalies in the NHL.

Have you got some thoughts on the other side of things? I know you keep these lists. It's funny. I'm putting this list together. I'm like, oh, how bad do I want to just trash these 10 guys? But I don't want to do that, right? I'm just a goalie. So, you know, it's a little harder than it looks. But I started off with number 10.

It's Darcy Kemper. And we're going to work our way down the list to the leader of the Masters, the minus goaltender. And Darcy last season was 97 out of 98 goalies. And LA's environment is the easiest place to play goal, Los Angeles. Oh, yeah. The last two, three years, if you want to be – if you're in a contract year and you don't make a lot – Stolarz could have picked L.A.

It would have been a good choice. So we talk about that. Varlamov, he's ninth, and I love Varley. Played with him. Love him. But you know what he's had? He's had five broken play goals, and sometimes those can't be always predictive

because it hits a shin pad, goes to a guy in the back door, and those can hurt you. Number eight is your guy, Elmark. You know what I'm seeing right now, guys, around the league is a lot of the goals are starting from the dead angle and from below the goal line, passes to the slot. And we saw it again last night in the Winnipeg game, Toronto game. If you remember the Kreider goal when Zibanejad passed it across to him

against Stolarz as well, those plays, because they're predictive, and Almark, I was watching his Vegas game, his last start, he gave up five. He's going into that slide, going into that reverse on the way to the post. So it's almost like the bumper guy that used to be in a slot is really the goal line bumper guy right now. And he's there waiting for the goalie to slide down so he can move the puck quickly because goalies can't move from their knees nearly as well as they move from their feet. And the goals actually are alarming.

I'll just go off track for a second. Last the goal these types of goals were up 116 and this year uh 134 goals in the first three weeks from these low bumper plays so when you guys are watching the nhl tonight yeah watch watch these low bumper plays everything that's getting down especially on the power play when that guy's open down there as soon as as he receives it, he's not shooting it. He's always moving it. And when they move it quickly, you're seeing the goalies actually just get stuck in that reverse VH and not be able to move. And if I was coaching Stolarz, number one thing I'd be sharing with him right now is, man, when that puck gets drawn down, beat the puck on your feet and get to the post and stay on your feet there because nobody's shooting it everybody is just waiting for the goalies to go down

so yeah i think that's a big one but brofsky is a funny one because over the last three regular seasons he is always ranking really low in our expected goals model and you know you know he's killed it on the on the playoff runs but he's over the last three years he ranks 30th out of 35 goalies that have faced a minimum 2 000 chances so that's always surprising to me he's number seven right now he's not he's getting wins kipper but he's not he's not making the saves that he needs to make for them to be successful long term markstrom is number six and he's funny because if you go back to when he went from Vancouver to Calgary, he's going through the same thing right now.

He has a hard time adjusting in his first year moving from there. And then if you remember the year after his second year in Calgary, he was a Vesna finalist. So that's Markstrom. The next one is five, Ingram, top goalie last year. I think he'll regain form. Vanacek, number four. Tough fit for him in San Jose. Fedotov, number three. I don't know if we're going to see him again. Not NHL

ready. He doesn't move well at all. I don't know if you guys have seen him play. But doesn't move well enough to play in the NHL. Skinner, two. And Georgiev, number one. Georgiev. Yeah, but you know what?

It was what we talked about last week. He has seven bad goals against. That's most in the league. But they're all from the dead angle, and he's getting caught in transition. Again, that sticky spot. That's great stuff, Ali. Steve, I got to ask you about Dan Vladar in Calgary.

And I give Vladar and Dustin Wolf full credit because they've gotten out of a, they got their team out of the gate really strong. But I don't know if you caught his comments, his post-game comments the other night about being a little tired and, you know, needing to talk to the goalie coach and figuring out, you you know what's going on

he was cramping up the other night and i'm just my first thought is being a player in that room going oh my god like we're six games in you're tired but then there's another part of me who's retired at 58 going maybe that's just a guy who knows who he is and knows where his comfort zone is and doesn't want to leave it. And maybe in some weird way that's a good thing or it's not. I don't know anymore. The more shows I do, the less I know. Well, I'll tell you what, Kipper. I was listening to your show Saturday as I was walking

to Madison Square Garden from Grand Central. And I almost got hit by a car when you guys were telling that story. I was dying laughing. I almost lost my composure. You know what? I know Dan. I coached him when I was with the Chicago Steel, USHL. And very likable, happy kid.

And very honest. No, it's like so honest. It's like, dang, shut up. You know, give it to yourself. No, I mean, like I remember being on the ice with him, and he was so talented at that age. You knew he was going to play in the NHL someday. He really didn't need to take anybody's advice.

So he wasn't that coachable. But I also knew that would hurt his ceiling. You know, being coachable to me is being able to decipher the right information from the wrong information, especially for a goalie, where there's going to be a lot of opinions on you. And Dan wasn't always the easiest to receive, and that always surprised me, and I thought that would hurt him as far as his ceiling. Now, if I'm his goalie coach, Kipper, and I hear that, and by the way,

Jason LaBarbera is one of my best friends. I couldn't even call him on this i was about to call i was like i'm leaving it alone because i don't even i don't even want to know you know because it looks bad on barbs and by the way we've all had dehydration issues in games uh that game that i was telling you guys about where uh i got sidetracked looking at leclaire's stick yeah in that same game because i was under so much pressure and stress my hand locked on my stick and i had to get a heat pad on my forearm during periods from jim ramsey you know rammer kipper he's like wrapping my forearm so that i can uh hold my stick for the next shot i go out the third period i'll never forget it uh doug wait comes down the uh

doug wait no might not did we play for philadelphia no no no no not to my recollection i'm thinking of somebody else i'm thinking it might have been mark recce mark recce he comes down the wing and he blasted like five hole and my stick turns in it goes through my five hole because i couldn't hold on to my stick but guess what it didn't go in i got lucky but i wasn't coming out of that game and i certainly wasn't saying anything about after the game you know like i think that there's a difference there and i think that guys should just be very happy when you get your starts and you know keep your mouth shut and keep it moving it's funny there's actually an nfl quarterback that recently came out after the third period it was his name anthony richardson anyway he said not gonna lie i was tired and it's like what what when you're a pro athlete be like

ah just need a bit of a break you get hit by a bus at this level and you don't cry yeah keep moving yeah that is bizarre so you know you've been so great at identifying trends and all that for us where is it then so you're getting all these low angle goals. Where, where do you beat the modern goaltender today with all the ways they're supposed to play? Is there, where's the chinks in the armor these days?

Yeah, this is neat you guys, because you know, I first always look at this and I have this list and it's all the goalies that have retired over the last seven to 10 years. And you think about how we're talking in the NHL right now, the safe percentage in the NHL this morning is eight 97. Okay.

Do you know when it was that low? Once, once upon a time Kipper in 93, 94, it was eight 95. We haven't seen the NHL safe percentage as low as it is today. As it has been since 93-94. All right?

There was eight games last night. Six teams hit the over. You know, so if you're into the gambling stuff, bet the over. Goalies. Goalies right now in the NHL are only stopping 78% of the shots that are shot high glove. So if you think you're seeing a lot of high glove, you're seeing a lot of high glove. And that's way down from the last four years.

So I think, you know, I've got a few theories on this. It might be early sports specialization because when we were younger, a lot more kids are playing baseball in the summer. A lot of goalies are playing full-time goalie now. Too many goalies in the league young, as I mentioned. The best glove hand over the last couple of years is actually Logan Thompson, and he catches the

other way. I thought that was... You know what else I thought was interesting? Lefties and righties, they have the same shooting percentage high glove. I thought maybe there was going to be a difference. I thought more for righties, but it was exactly the same. So it looks to me like, you know, I wonder about

the amount of shots goalies are facing each game as well. When you go back to last night's game between Winnipeg and Toronto, and isn't it fascinating that teams are taking fewer bad shots this year? That's the one that really catches me. Teams are really taking fewer bad shots this year. That's the one that really catches me. Teams are really taking fewer bad shots. Last night was a really hard night for Stollers. He only faced eight bad shots, like eight feelers in the game. That's a tough night, fellas. Toronto only had 14 on Hellebuck. The secret sauce to being able to make it hard on a goalie is having seven or more great

A's while shooting 12 or fewer bad shots. If you can hit that sweet spot, that's your highest chance to win in winning percentage. And I think this is really fascinating. This is something that we dug up today. So low danger shots are the bad shots, right? And the more bad shots that you take than your opponent and you're less likely to win the hockey game so zero to nine bad shots in a hockey game you have a 60 chance to win so if you take a lot of low danger it can drop all the way down to if you fade if you shoot 23 to 25 low danger shots, you only win 33% of the time because you're warming up the other guy.

You're warming him up so that he's warm when he faces. I'd love to see that. Do you have a ranking of the teams from best to worst? Yes, I do. But again, that'll be next week's homework. Yes. And I have more homework. I have more homework.

The right-handed shots having the same shooting percentage, high glove as left-handed shots is shocking for me. Do you know if that checks out historically at all or just a this season thing? I'll do it again. Once again, I'll look again for a blast year and years before. So it's always interesting because I always think of lefties having the option of really being able to tie up a goalie,

low block or high glove five. And they got to shoot cross body. You think they just catch more shoulder in there or something. Right, right. You know, Valley, last night, speaking of what I would have thought 25 years ago would have been a bad or poor selection shot was Kyle Connor on the power play. He's on his strong side.

He takes a pass from Shifley on his strong side across the ice and it's a catch and release that is second to none and it goes off of Stolar's head and in the net. And I'm telling you 25

years ago I'm not sure we had one or two guys that could pull that off. And I'm not sure how many guys this in 2024 can pull it off. But he had an idea of the area that he wanted to put it in. And it included if it hits his net or if it hits his head, I still got a chance to go in. I think that's how good he is. But was that a a good

selection or a bad selection well i'll start by saying i was shocked watching that game and seeing shifley and connor look a lot like kucherov and stamkos last season didn't they yes i mean same handednesses same sides they're just one time in pucks back and connor gets okay that goal what happened there was stolars made a mistake where he went into the reverse to the post where he should have come through a path that would have brought him to the top of the crease and on his feet and on his feet on his feet would have been great but i think he was challenged with a little bit of a screen so he might have been late on the pass if you get down on that one understand it could happen however he should have been late on the pass. If you get down on that one, understand it could happen. However, he should have been above his post there,

and he would have been at the top of the crease. He should have made a save there on his shoulder. That, for me, wasn't a good one for him. But again, it's overuse of using the reverse again. There's too much reverse in the game right now. It's gotten really bad. It's gotten worse every year. Last one for me, and I realize it's a complete change of direction here,

but tonight Marc-Andre Fleury goes back to Pittsburgh for the last time with the Minnesota Wild. They'll be celebrating his legacy tonight. A curious case throughout history, right? Number one overall pick, wins cups, people love him, but there was a run of years in the playoffs where he gave up the net to Brent Johnson and Matt Murray. And what are your thoughts on the legacy and career of Marc-Andre Fleury?

You know, when you love something enough, you never give up. And that's what he's been like. He has a deep love for the game. He's going to work in the game for sure. He's one of those guys. But I remember when we were in hartford and i had mentioned jason labarber earlier he was my partner there and we were going up against the wilkes-barre scranton in the playoffs and he was a healthy scratch you know he came from the nhl the year

before and so he didn't even have it easy in the minors like he never really got on a run until about his third lap through the ahl and then he he came up and, you know, his first Stanley Cup, you remember he slides across and he makes that save with his shoulder. He didn't have a great playoff that year, but he was the winning goalie in the Stanley Cup playoffs. And then it's a number of years where he's out. And then he needs help from Matt Murray to win the next two. And Murray's really the guy.

So it's a funny one, right? But he's had some really – he, to me, always looks like he's just having a lot of fun. He enjoys the game. I don't know Marc-Andre Fleury personally, but I've always appreciated his love for hockey. He just deeply loves the game, and I think that's why he's lasted this long.

Is he not the oldest player in the league this year? I think he's 39. I think he is. If he isn't, he's damn close. I think he's why he's lasted this long. Is he not the oldest player in the league this year? I think he's 39. I think he is. If he isn't, he's damn close. I think he is. Yeah. And earlier I was going to mention some of these names, the guys that have retired recently. Like you think of Ryan Miller and Tuka Rask and Braden Holtby

and Bishop and Price and Lundquist and Crawford and Luongo Rene. Like we've lost a lot of legendary goalies in the last seven years. Another emotional night. Stamkos in Tampa, and now Marc-Andre Fleury in Pitt. A great job, and, like, man, we're working you like a dog. Boys, I got to tell you, I got something from last week. We wanted to talk about the Panarin Shusterkin comp. Oh, yes, that's right.

All right, all right. Who's more valuable? Who's more valuable? Okay, I got this, and I got some support on this. So I went to the analytics community on this one. I got some support. Three goals scored or prevented equals one point in the standings. Okay? Three goals scored or prevented equals one point in the standings. So Shostakhin's Vezna year, he was a plus 37.43 in goals saved above expected. So imagine that he saved the Rangers almost 38 goals. Last season, Panarin has 120 points. So that was his career year versus Shosturkin's career year.

And what it comes out to, guys, is that it looks like we've got an exact tie between Shosturkin and Panarin. That's amazing. That's how you know you formulated a great question. I know. So everyone I spoke to said there is a massive argument to support that both players should be paid the same salary. Oh, if I'm Shusterkin, this is good news. Because Canary signed that deal how many years ago? I know. And looking at this, too, I thought this was funny.

So you start looking at the 120 points, right, guys? There's only been 39 players in NHL history that have scored 120 points, right? So Gretzky's done it 14 times lemieux's done it eight times and i kept looking into different things that were interesting and i wanted to see where kipper was all time in the ohl well time's up we gotta go 62 goals kipper you're tied for 23rd in OHL history for goals scored in a single season. And you wouldn't believe the players you're sandwiched between. How's this? Patrick Kane and Andrew Burnett.

Yeah, Kipper! Basically the same careers. Not bad at all. Andrew Burnett owns Sound Plater's fame right there. They kept stats back then. Valley, they actually kept stats. Kemper, you can find anything, you know? I love it.

You know what? Hey, last thing before I get off. You know what I was laughing about listening to your shows last week, Bordy, when you said Dennis Hildeby. Wait, is that his name, Dennis? Kemper once told me that I didn't have to be respectful until they make me earn their name. So I don't feel too bad about that.

So when you said that, I almost, again, I was walking and I fell off the curb. So I remember this is funny too. So I'm working with Henrik on getting his retirement night. We're doing an interview where I'm doing it professionally for MSG. And as I'm preparing my notes, I didn't realize that there was a goalie that was drafted in Henrik's draft in the fifth round.

And Henrik was a seventh round pick. So there was a choice ahead of Henrik before Henrik, right? So this guy's name is Brandon Snee. I've never heard of him. He played at Union. So I asked Henrik in this interview, I was like, Henrik, what is the

name brendan sneeming me too he had no idea no it was his draft it was his draft i want to remember that name going i'm better than him yeah yeah that's what that's what i said i was like hank i wrote everybody down in the draft that was selected before me and all i had to do was play ahead of them, and I was crossing their names off. I took that seriously. He didn't even think twice about it. You had the Billy Madison lipstick list of people you played ahead of.

That's exactly what I did. That's exactly what I did. That's Valley. These guys are funny. Great stuff as always, man. Love our Tuesdays with you. Thanks for joining us. All right, fellas.

Have a good one. Talk to you soon. You too. Thanks, Valley. Steve Allicat, CEO of ClearSight Analytics, and of course does a great job on MSG covering the New York Rangers. Oh my God, that was so good. That was fun. Just looking at Fleury's

playoff stats, and we got to go here. Just up and down. It's crazy to look at this. Some great years, some terrible years. When the dust settles, he's got cups, he's got all-time lists, and first ballot Hall of Famer. First ballot.

Yep. In 2015, 2016, 875 in six games. And very good around Halloween. Should you get Hall of Fame votes because you were really good at dressing up? I just hate this stuff. You know me. Dressing up. I'm not even a pranks guy.

I always hated the guy on the team that was like, oh, I put a cup of water in your shin pads. I didn't want to prank somebody because I didn't want to get in that game. Yeah. No, not a fun world to live in. Looking over your shoulder yeah you got your pant legs sewn together okay poor robert schnabel or what was the name of the guy oh geez there's a couple guys that caught strays today

your homework we left valley with homer your homework's to find him and get him on the show i could do that no you can't are you thinking you're that can. Sam, you can have him by the end of the show. I think I can track him down. All right, homework for you as well. Okay, we'll take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get into a ton still, including Connor McDavid. And we still have to do game time, right?

So we should probably get to Doc and then do that at the back end. We're out of here. Going to break. Don't go away. Plenty more. The best Blue Jays show out there, period. at the back end. We're out of here. Going to break. Don't go away. Plenty more. The best Blue Jays show out there, period.

Blair and Barker. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Kiprios, Justin Boren, Sammy McKee. All right, there's... Oh, and the sour real Kipper and Boren brought to you by Bet365. We can't forget that. I just want to get to maybe one of the biggest stories so far this season

is there's injuries, and then there's injuries to the greatest players of the game i said uh you want to talk about this and you said it's connor mcdavid not connor brown good point yeah okay rude hey well i mean connor brown would tell you there's a difference yeah we can we can sit here and speculate like three uh stooges and we have And we have in the past. And then people go, just shut up, you guys. You're not a doctor. And I'm like, okay, then let's go get one. So we'll call this

a segment, Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. And Doctor. And Dr. Jason Smith, orthopedic surgeon, close to 20 years covering NHL, currently the Toronto Blue Jays doctor,

and a guy that knows all too well what maybe a guy like Connor McDavid's going through right now. Dr. J, what's up, buddy? I just want to know on the doctor, doctor, am I Chevy Chase, am I Dan Aykroyd? Who am I on that? Who's his wife in it? I don't want to date anyone here,

but I don't know what the hell we're talking about. God, you guys are old. Dan Aykroyd met his wife on that. Classic, classic. Okay, so let's get right to it. You've, like many of us all over the hockey world, saw Connor McDavid go into the boards. There was a little trip involved there.

Now, this is a guy with history off of a left, a serious knee injury in the past. If I'm not mistaken, he suffered a PCL tear, which is posterior ligament. Just let the doctor know, all right? So his previous injury was a posterior cruciate ligament injury, which is a rare injury for the hockey players. It's where the shin got jammed into the goalpost and tore his PCL.

You usually see those in car accidents, like dashboard injuries, or in football where guys get slammed hard onto the surface. It's pretty rare in hockey. That's what he had. He had a PCL injury. And then back to our discussion about Popliteus, he tore his PCL, tore his Popliteus, had meniscal tears on the inside and outside,

and had a tibial plateau fracture. This is what we learned on that Whatever It Takes documentary that was on. That was a serious knee injury. Before we speculate, where would the seriousness be when you saw him go into the boards? Would that have been the Oilers' first

thought is, I hope that part of his knee's okay? Or once it's restructured or rebuilt or it's as good to go as any knee? Yeah, so a couple things there. First, when he goes into the boards, the first thing I'm thinking, like, oh, my God, did he fracture his tibia? Like, he went in hard and awkward.

But when you see him stand up, you're like, okay, it's not a fracture. It's not, he didn't break his tibia. But he's kind of skating around on it he's he's testing it out he's putting a little bit of weight on it so my first thought okay maybe it's not super serious he didn't break anything but then he kind of wouldn't push off on it and then he moves to the bench and he puts it down again he does that little back leg kind of slide stop on it so my first thoughts initially were oh oh, my God, this could be really bad. But then when you see him kind of put weight on it and stop on it, like, okay, this is maybe on the minor side.

But the two things I'm thinking when I see that are, one, his old PCL injury, his knee injury, because the knee twisted in that same direction. And then ankle stuff, you know, high ankle sprains in hockey players. They don't get the normal ankle sprains that we get from rolling your tennis shoes. The boot is so rigid that they get these high ankle sprains. So those were the two things that were in my head when I saw Connor McDavid's injury. So, you know, those sort of, I feel like when he got up and he put pressure on it and didn't, he didn't, wasn't alarmed by it. It, you know,

I guess what does it call to mind when you see non-contact injuries versus contact injuries? I just, I felt like it wasn't like sometimes you see a guy hit something, they know immediately. It's almost like he had to like go run through his own little bit of testing to figure out what had gone on there. Yeah. That's a, that's a really good sign that it's on the minor side versus like lying on the ground now given how bad his last injury was like this guy is tough yeah you know what he went through and how he got back from an injury as serious as it was like this guy is tough so on the bench you know he's standing there like

he doesn't go straight to the tunnel he's he's standing there he's testing it out but you see that look on his face during that that like you know is this is this my old friend my knee here there was something stoic about his look that like wasn't something new it was like he knew what was going on and that's when I started thinking, is this something with his knee again? Is this not his ankle? So, Doc, when you hear that he's not going to make the trip, the next road trip, and he's going to fly home, is that just being very careful with the best hockey player in the world?

Or does that automatically say that this is not going to be day to day? Well, early in the season again, right? They're not pushing wins on the road. Like they're being cautious and they're going to send them home. They're going to get their MRI. They're going to get their testing. They're going to get their doctors to look at it. So the fact that he went home, it could still be minor. But just with a guy like this,

like you're doing your own MRIs, like NHL, the guys are so secretive right now. You know, they don't get it. They don't get MRIs on the road. They all fly home, super secret MRI, super secret doctor meetings. Nobody knows anything. So I think they were just getting them back into the bubble to see what exactly is going on. I don't think it speaks necessarily to the seriousness of it. Okay. But is there a last one and we'll let you go. Okay.

If it's, if it's, if he tweaked it as a high ankle sprain, it's minimum a month, isn't it? Really? Yeah. You know, on average four to six weeks for those but those can be minor those can be little little sprains you know a week or two but the thing about high ankle sprains is guys get burned on those they they feel better before they're healed so guys come back and then they do the exact same thing again so if you hear high sprain, you're going to be on the cautious side. So I'd say minimum a couple weeks, could be four to six.

Hey, great stuff, man. Really appreciate your time. And you're out of Scarborough, right? A little plug for your... Yeah, Scarborough Health Network and Ovi Surgical downtown Toronto. All right. Dr. Jason Smith, really appreciate your time, man. Thanks for doing this.

Anytime, guys. Thanks, Doc. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Connor's going to be out a month. I think so, eh? Yeah. That's what I got out of that.

Like, he's not – and he made an excellent point. Well, he's a doctor. You don't – even if he just tweaked it a little bit enough for him to not play that last night and go home you're you're not you're not bringing him back so he can go back on the ir again in in a month or two well it's funny because it does that's one of the things with a bad start to a season is that you eliminate your margin of error margin for error i should say you know where it's like all right you got up to a slow start last year with a two nine and one connor and leon ended up going supernova and they end up within a

point to win in the division and stanley cup final bad start this year and all of a sudden it's uh you know they get another bad break on top of it you know evander kane's not in this year zach hyman's gone cold and you know the d is a little different all of a sudden it's like you know i i still think they're a good team we're going to be okay but it it gets a little harder you know the d is a little different all of a sudden it's like you know i i still think they're a good team we're going to be okay but it it gets a little harder you know your first round matchup starts to get pretty hard if you dig a big enough hole in october november three or four weeks with no connor mcdavid and i listen we went through it last year but i'll let him for four weeks you want to push your luck on a really, really poor start here. I think there needs to be a little bit of sense of urgency

from this hockey club. Yeah, they're going into Nashville, and Nashville's founded a little bit into Calgary, and then I believe they have New Jersey and Vegas at home who are good teams too. So they got a bit of a tough schedule coming up. Game time? Game time, baby.

It's game time presented by bet 365 visit the app fleet of sods and find out why it's never ordinary at bet 365 with 19 plus ontario only please play responsibly so last night my sharkies uh found a way to dig they had to win eventually boys and uh i finally sniffed it out after picking them for three straight days they beat the utah hockey club tonight i am going against the well. I am drying the well. They play on the second half of a back-to-back against the Los Angeles Kings. They might lose by 11. And I think the Los Angeles Kings are going

to wax them tonight. So give me the LA Kings minus a goal and a half at minus 105. And another one that I love to do, Alex Ovechkin tonight against the Rangers, a team he has historically owned. 42 goals in 73 games against the rangers you can picture it all the time give me a alex ovechkin anytime goal because if he's gonna break the

record he's gonna start scoring he's gonna start scoring so give me a ov goal at plus 175 how was your aaron judge home run call last night aaron judge is the most broken man i've ever seen in a baseball uniform. He is awful. It's really too bad. Oh, yeah. Just those. Oh, I'm just, you know. Poor Yankees fans. Those poor underdog Yankees.

They're just having such a good. They only spend $275 million on their roster. They're just having a really tough go. And, you know, they had such a hard road to get to the World Series. They're just so happy. Beating the Cleveland Guardians and Kansas City Royals, whose combined payroll was $78. They're just so happy. Beating the Cleveland Guardians and Kansas City Royals, whose combined payroll was $78.

They suck. They don't deserve to be there. Their good teams actually win, and they're getting pasted, and they deserve it. There you go. Do you feel better about the Blue Jays when you trash the Yankees? Is that what this is all about? Yankees suck! Yankees suck! Yankees suck!

I would love to be the Yankees suck. I don't even care about the Blue Jays. This is not a Blue Jays conversation. They don't even have the same conversation. But listen, like, the Yankees do kind of suck. They don't have anybody hitting. Their pitching status is not very good. What, have they scored five runs or four runs?

I don't know if Freeman, our Canadian by proxy sort of. Five straight homers in five straight World Series games. So, anyways, go Dodgers. I hate to say it go dodgers sweep them when i said that when we were doing our oh hey otani show last year the one that needs to be stricken from the internet you know not the saddest time capsule of all time okay and that was game time presented by bet365 visit the app for this odds and find out why it's ever ordinary at bet 365 plus Ontario only please play responsibly before we get into the stamp coast visit to Tampa Bay last

night to assist I wanted to get your thoughts just on the follow-up of Washington like off to a pretty darn good start considering this is a team that we thought could slip in last year and this year but

give this team full credit here and it's not like it's the ovi show anymore it's it's over the ovi show is over and it's the over show just how many how many goals can be involved in how many empty netters he can get towards wayne gretzky but this is this is so much more right now that we've seen washington out of the gate you know i give them credit for actively seeking out good hockey players you know i i really and i know it's easy to say now in my position but i don't have a ton of respect for full rebuilds oh i i really i i think it's you don't need to do what san jose's doing right now yeah you can pick up a couple of hockey players to like give your fans something

give your young players something you know don't let shiri get waved trade for lilligran get some players you don't need to be this bad i give washington credit for not going quietly you know they go in the wrong way but they went out and they got chikrin and they went out and they got jensen they you know got they got manji ap and they went out and they got Jensen and they got Dubois and they got Mangiapane and they're saying, let's try to be competitive. I will say what I've seen of them this year, that Dubois

Wilson combination large humans, big mean guys and it seems like Wilson's maybe a little bit of a fire underneath Dubois playing with him, getting back to being a you-know-what. So, I've liked what I've seen from them to start the year. I don't know if it'll last, but give them credit for being good. I like Dylan Strom as well.

You do, right? Yeah, I do. I mean, I don't know at the end of the day if they're ready to compete and he's your number one centerman. All jokes aside, I really like Vanilla Ice Cream. I'm not just saying that, but that's kind of him to me. Yeah. Let's play the

stamkos clip from last night because he goes back i mean you see him almost crying looking up at the jumbotron and the clip that i put in there is very telling so can we play that clip there stamkos on his return i don't know when when that moment comes if it comes if it doesn't come i mean it's just like i said you know when you're in this place for so long and have the memories, I mean, I don't think you can ever really completely turn the page. That's probably the reality at least. Some people may be able to do that. I don't know.

We'll see. I'll let you know if that day comes. But I don't think you completely turn the page from it. I think you appreciate it and you love it and you learn from it. And then you go and try to bring some of that knowledge to a team to to help them achieve some of the things we did here see we spoke earlier about vladar and just being brutally honest like i don't know if i've ever heard an athlete come in and and and be that honest and he's so right i don't know too many athletes that would admit it

no you're right i would i'll never get over it it reminds me of someone like never get over a member being like it may get easier but i'm never going to be over this that's can i can i ask you that's that's huge on him that's a that's a real statement part of him just being like damn maybe i should have just taken a little less. Let me tell you something. You never want to take less and you want to be the richest guy ever? Taking less is not what that guy is all about. Okay.

Okay? He would never cheapen himself. I just listened to that voice, man. I listened to him talking there. Never, ever devalue himself. Cheapen yourself. He'll feel ten times worse eating a crap sandwich contract than getting what his truer value is.

No, this to me, that is a reflection on you. No, it's not. No, it's not. It's a reflection of good business. For sure it's a good business, but there's a human side of it where you say, you keep your family in the place where you've been and keep the... Do you know what the money was? It's not about the family.

It's about a team that's making you an offer where they don't want you. Do you understand? They're making you an offer that you can refuse, and they are banking on you not taking it. You take it, and you cheapen yourself, and you cheapen the whole thing. Well, see, I don't see it as cheapening yourself. If the team doesn't want you, then you can't stay.

That's undeniable. All I'm saying here, I watched his whole press conference. That's the clip I pulled from it. That was the most meaningful clip. What I saw is a guy that maybe thinks he would have taken that cheap contract. Not a snowball's chance, Sammy. I'd take less money if the team wants you, but not if the team is like, I hope I'm missing out on this.

He's like, oh, we went for dinner, and it felt like nothing had changed, and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, riding jet skis around winning cups, probably some good memories. No way. Okay. We do not agree. Okay. Not the stamp coast I know.

All good. All good. Yeah, I mean, goes in there last night and had a pretty good night. Couple assists. Came back, took it to OT. Felt like he was shaping up for the fairytale finish there, but didn't quite happen.

That's just $3 million, still a lot of money. Yeah. But not for him. No, but it's a crap sandwich to him. Not for a 40-goal score. Was it $3 million? I don't know. I thought it was $5.

I can't remember anything. Whatever it was, it stunk. The offer stunk. Yeah. Yeah. To me, if you don't want the guy, don't make an offer. And if I may say this, out of the trauma hour. They won't do that because that'll make them look really bad to their fan base.

PR thing. This is like everyone's like, yeah, Tavares may come back on a cheaper deal for the Leafs. You don't want him. There's no dollar amount you want him at. But if you want him, maybe he'll play for less. He's a point-of-game player. Maybe they should sign him. 9-9. Five goals. Alright, jam-packed show

today. Our thanks to Jim Ralph in our Leaf Edition hour of the Real Kipper and Bourne show. And then Steve Alliquette and Dr. Jason Smith. You working tonight? Uh, no. Garbage and pumpkins tonight. Oh, you are? Nice. And you got your costume picked out for tomorrow night? Oh, Garvin Pumpkins tonight Oh, nice

And you got your costume picked out for tomorrow night? Oh, be a dad It's not tomorrow, it's Thursday Oh, Thursday? I don't even know what day it is All costume Alright, if you get a chance and you don't catch us live give us a download

on any of the podcast platforms and give us a rating and review. We'd love to hear from you. Have a great night, everybody. We're back tomorrow.