Real Kyper & Bourne - A Sunrise Trip for the Leafs

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Justin Bourne and Brent Gunning (filling in for Nick Kypreos) open the show by previewing the Toronto Maple Leafs' first trip to Sunrise, as they get set to take on the Florida Panthers. First, former NHL D-Man and Panthers TV Analyst for Bally Sports, Ed Jovanovski (20:24), joins the guys to talk about the importance of this game for both teams, how the cats have been battling through close games recently, and gives his thoughts on if Florida can sneak up on some teams in the postseason hunt. Shortly after, author for Maple Leafs hotstove.com and writer at Yahoo Sports Canada, Anthony Petrielli (41:11) hops on to discuss how the lineup can shake out down the final stretch of the season, and what guys like Ryan O'Reilly need to do to help the team succeed in a playoff series. Finally, former Sportsnet NHL analyst and former NHLer Anthony Stewart (1:05:41) joins the boys in the studio to share what he's going to be keeping an eye on from the Leafs if they want to beat Tampa in a playoff series and gives a prediction on who he thinks will upset the Boston Bruins in the 1st round! 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.

This is Real Kipper and Born on Sportsnet 590 The Van. All right, welcome to Real Kipper and Born featuring, not with, but featuring Brent Gunning today. How you doing, Gunner? Doing well, doing well. This is like when a band is touring, but there's just like, you're the lead guitarist. I was about to say bassist. You're definitely more of a lead guitar guitarist it's like there's no mick jagger there's no whoever the drummer is mckee's gone no kipper here but you're holding down the fort i like to think you're like uh larry you're bobby mcmahon you're not injured but you know you're you're a valuable important piece of this thing we need you now i thought it was connor timmons for a bit but it's good to be

back your actual role is touring without slash yeah matt you know duff there we go we'll take it we'll take it so uh yeah thanks to everyone for joining us uh that's derrick brandeo you heard there we got david sis and tristan mark and johnny helping us out today um before we came on we were having a little laugh uh gunner just said to me that nick yeah you know she said robertson was skating, I did. I said, Nick Robertson? Yes. Have not heard that name in 84 years. That very guy.

Yeah, he was on the ice yesterday, two days ago, I think. Would he be eligible to do hockey for them? I've seen this movie before. The other time it was Andreas Janssen. This guy hasn't played a game that mattered in six months. Get him in there. And I know you think that was the right call.

I'm the only person. You're the only person still. I bet you you go ask him. He'll say, yeah, probably should have just let me sit it out. Still not ready. But yeah, Robertson, that is a name I haven't heard in some time. Fascinating stuff. The Toronto Maple Leafs are in Sunrise, Florida tonight on Sportsnet, of course.

You can check that out there. Let's run through some of these stats that Tristan put in here for us. The Panthers are 8-1-1 at home versus the Leafs since 2016-17. Best versus any opponent. Bad for the Leafs, yeah. 8-1-1. They're that bad in Florida, huh? Well, there was an infamous fishing trip a few years ago where they posted some pictures

and then got absolutely shellacked by, I think it was the Panthers. Entirely possible it was the Lightning as well. It's just been a house of horrors down there. All right. So it hasn't gone well for him down there. Basically, it's a lot of Jays fans on the team, and they're just too close to the trop, and then it all falls apart, I think, is what happens.

That makes sense. Matt Murray is going to be the goaltender tonight. He's allowed four goals in a career worth six straight games. No goalie in the NHL has a longer set streak this season. Not even Mrazzek, eh? Couldn't do that for us. Well, it's not good. No, it's not.

Certainly good. You'll see Matthew Kachuk play his 500th career game, and he is four points shy of 100 in back-to-back seasons. Tuck Kachuk. Tuck Kachuk has had an unbelievable run. Also on tap, last stat I'll throw at you out of the gate, William Nylander on his first four- game point drought over the last two seasons hasn't gone five straight in over two years when he's gone he's gone right i love that drop that might be of all of my forget

just this show of all the drops we hear on the station that might be my favorite no it's not it's better i don't know what the kids call it when it's better than mid, but it's not. The mid drop is very good, too. The mid drop is very good because I got to tell you something. I don't think Kipper knows mid is like a slang term, and I don't think he has any idea what's happening. It's great.

I'm evolving. It's like he's here. This is great. Do you know what, though? You got to stop playing too many of those back-to-back or Kipper is going to say, what do we even need Gunner here for? Just like AI me into the show. basically could we do have a lot of

drops um we're going to be joined at 320 by ed jovenoski former nhl defenseman over 1100 games in panthers tv analyst for bally sports we got anthony patrilli our guy this guy oh yeah he knows the leafs as well as anyone um author at maple Leafs Hot Stove and at Yahoo Sports Canada. And Anthony Stewart's going to come in studio. Look at that. I know. Should be a great day today. I don't want to brag.

I think that's just because of me. Yeah. Stewie doesn't know me from a hole in the wall, but I'm going to say that's just because of me. Well, have you met Stewie? A couple times. Yeah, yeah. But a classic case of like he is, this is, it's not quite, I think it was JD who threw this out.

There's like the Colby Armstrong corollary. It's not quite quite colby level but he's just a nice very affable guy so everyone kind of walks away being like oh yeah that's my best friend it's like he made 50 best friends that is the clark gillies effect yeah i run into people and they're like i know your father-in-law we had the best time that i'd ask clark he'd be like oh there's people probably nice guy yeah yeah people connected with them in a good way so yeah they get filled in in florida um where do you sit on this leaf scene let's let's just get a fresh take from you because you haven't been on the show in a while how are you feeling about the toronto maple leafs and where they're at so in my heart of hearts i want to be sitting here panicking smashing a panic button going look at this team is not playing well after

the deadline i can see all the things but even me in my panicky leaf self and mckee's not here today so i'll play parts of that role as well and i'm not playing it believe me this is my tortured existence is that i think as much as you want to sit here and say this doesn't look good seven two loss to the aisles what is that you want to get worried about these things but i also think that they've made it abundantly clear outside of saying we're not trying to win. We don't care if we're winning right now. We're not going to dress our 18 best skaters on any given night.

They are putting the guy, I think, in net that they think gives them the chance more times than not. But outside of that, it's still clearly tinkering time. You don't have redundant. It is getting redundant. And you don't have your you don't have your off season or your trade deadline acquisition in o'reilly so i think there's a lot of ways that you can sit here and if you want to slice and dice it apart to be concerned but i think the the honest to goodness opinion i have is how many more games of this do we have to have before it's time

to get things set and kind of ramp things up and get ready because i don't think you need to panic about this now but i think there needs to be a foot going on the gas pedal sometime pretty soon. Yeah, I kind of feel like they may use the remainder of this road trip to kind of continue to randomize things and just put things in a blender and see if anything sticks. You know, it does feel like they're waiting, right? They're waiting for Ryan O'Reilly to get healthy. They're waiting for Matthew Nyes to exist.

Matthew, the great one, Nyes, as you'll soon be knowing, apparently, with all the hype on him. So they're waiting for those guys to come back before things get a little more finalized. The D pairs are still in flux, and it's like they're waiting for someone to be so good or so bad that they can't leave them in or can't take them out. You know, they're waiting here, and it kind of, it feels like, not that these are wasted games,

but it does feel like that it's not urgent time right now. And maybe the urgency is starting to ramp up a little bit. It feels like a preseason in the middle of the regular season, honestly, is what it has kind of felt like since, not since the deadline, but once O'Reilly went down kind of shortly after, and then you bring in all the other new bodies and then achari went out it's just kind of felt like a pre-season stretch of who cares about the points it's just more about the process and like you said finding

things that stick it's just it's so odd for a team that it's it's gonna have the most important stretch and i mean we say this literally every year at this time but it's like the most important stretch in this course history is right around the corner and sitting there lollygagging. And I'm not... We're excited. Yeah, really excited. Fired up. But you're sitting here, and this isn't to put it on the players.

They're not lollygagging, but you look at the way the coach is handling things, and he kind of is. And again, I don't use that as a knock or a criticism. It's just the way it is. And that's my biggest concern is how quickly can he flip the switch? quickly can they flip the switch yeah and so what they've gone with now so the lines at practice uh yarn croc stayed with matthews and marner which i gotta believe at this point met austin matthews and maybe mitch marner as well said we've had enough flex seal like we we are kerfooted out it's just that kerfoot doesn't score in 25 games so i'm sure

they're like i don't care if yarn croc is not good enough to play yeah well sure those guys so you know he's sticking with them bunting tavara's kneelander but then after that when you're waiting for o'reilly and nize yeah it does get a little thin. Kerfoot, Achari, Lafferty, Aston Reese, Kemp, Simmons are going to be their likely lines tonight. What are your thoughts on the D pairs? I wrote about them yesterday. Kemper and I have talked about them. Anyone got to be in for you that is on the fringe?

No. No Milligran, no Gustafson, no Shen. Here's what I wrote in my notes, and I'm going to have a better thought to follow this up, but in my notes I wrote, don to have a, I'm going to have a better thought to follow this up. But in my notes, I wrote, don't ask me. Cause I have no clue.

It seems like this has been a recurring theme with this Leafs team is a lot of guys that you like. And even guys who since have panned out, like I was a guy who kind of like Travis Dermott. Okay. Didn't really work out here. Rasmus Sandy. And we don't need to have all of that conversation,

but it's just, when you look at the bodies, it continues to, and I know not the most original opinion here, but it continues to go you look at the bodies it continues to and i i know not the most original opinion here but it continues to go back to who does morgan riley play with and does it have to be tj brody because if it has to be tj brody then i think you just set that and forget it and then move your pairs around accordingly but if this riley shen thing is going to work and for me i don't think it will unless you're going 11 and7, then I don't mind Riley playing with Shen.

But if you're going to be able to put Riley with somebody else, then I do like McCabe and Brody as a shutdown pair. I love that. I really love that. But what's more important, having that or having a partner you trust alongside Riley? And it's like it's the ultimate conundrum. It might be that, though.

It might be. It might be, you know, when you're going up against Kucherov and point and stanco's i don't you know whatever their lines end up looking like you may feel like you just need one pair who can you know neutralize their firepower and then handle it from there so right now the pairs we've got a quick question does what ryan o'reilly turns into change that at all for you if If Ryan O'Reilly is with a Chari and somebody else you really like in a true shutdown center line, does that make it more important to have a shutdown pair? And you just throw one shutdown pair at a guy and a shutdown line at the

other. And you can mix and match that way. Or if Ryan O'Reilly is used as more of a, you know, a third sec or a second, second line center, does that kind of change the way you want to shut down? I think it does.

I think that's a good point. Like if you're going to go with, you know, an actual shutdown line of forwards, that probably changes things. But, you know, I think it's kind of maybe one of the mistakes we make in media when we discuss line matching and stuff is that generally it's a deep pair who interacts with your forward line the most.

You know, you're into the traffic yeah you know you're you're into the traffic with them and you're messing with them and so i love the idea of mccabe and brody being like someone trustworthy a little bit of physicality a little bit of blue line defense you know behind that it looks pretty good if you do giordano hall as they have and riley shen i feel pretty good about that as as your other two pairs i understand the riley shen thing maybe it just you can get burned off the rush it's not even the get burned off the rush it's for all the warts Morgan Riley

has and we've all talked about the this is still a guy you want playing 20 some odd minutes a night and then it goes that's why I say and I want to be so clear about this burn 11 and 7 into the ground have it removed from the game's existence following this year never

want to talk about it again but if you are going to go 11 7 i love riley shen together because then you have another body that you can kind of mix in there with him yeah like i guess if you go 15 minutes time on ice of even strength is that too much for shen and then you have riley kill you know a minute and he's on the power play three minutes and you get them up to they're gonna get six power plays you know what they actually got an insane number of power plays last year in the playoffs they did but they also led the postseason in penalty minutes per game they took over 12 minutes of penalties per game last year just quickly i wonder i'm trying to remember and i'm sure there would have been misconducts the other way as well but right away you have the two misconducts for

clifford and simmons so i wonder what that does to the i don't know great point and and do they count that to pins per game i assume they do i would think they would it's yeah it's a pimp it is well it's 10 of them actually yeah it's a whole bunch um so yeah that is that is a fascinating line for them to walk so tonight the florida panthers are going to have to sort out how to deal with the toronto may polices. Paul Maurice spoke a little bit today. We've got a couple of Maurice clips. Why don't we start with the second one here. Maurice says it's tough for Toronto.

What's he have to say about the Maple Leafs? Well, tough with O'Reilly out and then how it looks. And they're in a completely different world right now. They're playing with stuff, right? They're playing with their food. They've got enough. They're good. So, two teams, I don't know, they approach the game any less hungry,

but we certainly have a lot more at stake. You guys hungry for cigarettes? Hungry. Sounds like he ate a pack mid-interview. But a lot of food references there. They're playing with their food. You got to be hungry. Something about steak at the end. There were like three mixed metaphors in there because typically it

really does typically playing with the food would mean it's a team that's on a roll and we just covered that that is not this team i think he means it in the way of sheldon's playing with his food and trying to mix up all the lines and do a bunch there i think the point he was driving at is these games don't really matter a ton for them and they matter a ton that's it is that he thinks they're loaded they got a ton of talent and basically right now they're just having a good old time and they'll eat when they're ready you know that sort of thing uh where have i heard this before yeah i mean the problem but it is coaches do this for other coaches they fight for that underdog status um you know one of the things can you just i know you guys love to hear Cooper on the show.

He's going to talk about this team like they're the Yotes. His own team. You think so? Well, it won't be so much downplaying his own team, but he's going to talk about the Leafs like they are the Gretzky Whalers. Have you ever seen so much talent in one team? The way Cooper talks about them. And they've got two number one goalies there.

Yeah, they're just loaded. You know, if they don't sweep us they've just failed there's such a 8d that should be playing every night even compete with them would be such an honor you know yeah cooper's just he kills me i love the guy but um what's your pal marie's talking about how they're going to play against the maple Leafs taking away time and space? There's a few teams on our side, I think, that have just an elite skill level up front. So we'll fire out every coaching cliche that we can come up with about time and space because it's just true. And that would also be true of our team, right? Fairly close to goal scored numbers.

If you give those guys enough time and space, they beat your goaltenderender so how do you take it away from them well everybody has that plan i think it's about time and space for both teams so we will do everything that we can to take that away from them and as they will to us you know i was once a video coach and one of the uh only ways i'm aware of to take away time and space uh run interference. Okay. So what you do behind the play is you. There's a whole lockout about this, I heard. Yes, but you give them stings, which are little cross checks, and little, you know, you take away their ice, you stand in their lane, and you just interfere all over the ice.

And you say to the refs, all right, you can't call everything. Try. Yeah, and also refs make even up calls, so we're going to out-cheat the and also refs make even up calls so we're going to out cheat the other team you'll even up the penalties and we'll end up ahead well this is the least disadvantage over the years by the way other teams out cheat them yes big time it's there has very much been the case and then when you look at it just goes back to again yes of course they've cheated them so much they stole the least jerseys they said just let's take everything and

we'll go win a couple cups in them and just to give everybody a preview of how good it could look one day. That's, I think, the worrying thing about it. Forget the 8-1-1 against Florida in the last however many games. I guess that's 10. They've played down there. If you have a team that has decided it's not a decision. They are playing for their life right now. That that's what they're going to have to do.

And you have a Leafs team that's been going at 75 percent 80 percent the last little bit how early on in the game does somebody say no not tonight I don't need to eat 13 cross checks in the back every shift like you do worry that's a great really do worry about that from a Leafs perspective tonight the Florida Panthers are one point behind the Pittsburgh Penguins who unbelievable win last night in Colorado Sid sydney crosby oh my god see that goal that was so good i mean everyone's talking about the backhand but the fact that he he still has that in him at what how old is he 36 now something along those lines 18th season okay that's a lot of beef what a beast thanks colby uh but it's the move to get by gerard that

was more impressive i mean i'm not going to take anything away on the backhand that was as a buddy of mine put it oppo taco but that's sam gerard baseball yeah that's sam gerard he walked there like that's not a nobody guy yeah so crosby does that they end up beating colorado in colorado which big loss for colorado too who's also fighting to win their division but so the panthers are one point back. They both have 11 games left. Like this is beyond must win for Florida here. Like this is absolute crunch time. You know, you look at their schedule the rest of the way for Florida and they've, they've got a chance here.

They, they've got softer opponents. They've got Buffalo and Columbus and Washington and Montreal actually got Ottawa a couple of times. Like Florida has a legit shot. So stealing points from toronto tonight would be a big deal one of the guys who will help them do that matthew kachuk we mentioned him at the top of the show uh almost at 100 points for the second consecutive season uh

matthew or brady who do you want still matthew but it's so much closer than i i would have laughed at you i would have treated you like matth Matthew Kachuk would treat somebody he doesn't like if you would have asked me that question a year ago. And it's as simple as Brady wolfing at the Red Wings bench a couple weeks ago. He's going to be a guy who's going to be that 30-ish goal scorer. Maybe he'll have the year where he pops off and gets 40. He's going to be able to produce for you. He is exactly what you want in a captain.

I think a lot of that is colored by what I see on the leafs on a night-to-night basis and look i'll take i'll take any of the core four okay john tavarez age curves different conversation you understand what i'm saying i'll take any of the core four over brady kachuk but none of them would ever do that in 10 million years maybe john tavarez would like short circuit once and that would happen but with the other three not a chance so i think that's what you love the most about him. Well, that's very complimentary because if you go through the core four and say this guy for Brady Kachuk, that guy for Brady, I don't think you'd like

all my answers. I really like Brady Kachuk. But let's listen. Matthew had the attention of his coach and here's what he had to say about him becoming elite. He's got about one aberration now in a long stretch of hockey a full appreciation of how important he is to us on the ice i believe truly you're seeing the maturation of a guy he's a feisty guy and he's an energy guy and i think he

leads with that and now he's developed into a player that is good on both sides of the puck and clearly an elite point producer. And he's an understanding that we need him on the ice now. So his discipline has gone kind of through the roof here. Usually this is superstition. I wouldn't bring it up because that means he's taken three fights tonight. But you take a look at his last stretch of games, it also coincides with our hockey team going we're about 2010 and two since the time matthew has elevated his game i truly believe it's a

maturation process of a young feisty player realizing how important he is to our team on the ice three fights tonight would be quite the accomplishment against this team to fight a three times chari once simmer once and mccabe once i think is how that would go um it's funny he i heard him say that uh earlier before the show and i looked up penalties taken he's got the fifth most in the league who else was up there our guy michael bunting yeah first in the league is rasmus doleen but second in the nhl is michael bunting to the credit of these guys bunting and kachuk are both plus two penalty differential guys so they have the most penalties taken they're both top five but they also draw a absolute ton of penalties imagine if they called all the penalties

that the bunting had taken against him as well i know well now that they've stopped calling him entirely it should be fully entertaining um you know to see how he gets through that um are we we're gonna do jovo in a minute here get him him on the line. Let us know. We can have a chat with him. Before we get to Jovo, a couple more things from last night. Yes. Connor McDavid scored. Oh, I've heard. 60th goal of the season. Yeah.

Yeah. Did he happen to see the dry saddle pass? Which one? They're both disgusting. I mean, the, the spin around the spin around the backhand. That's the one that's going to get all the play, but both of them were ridiculous. Both of them are awesome. We're joined by Ed Jovanoski thanks for uh joining us jovo appreciate it

hey guys anytime yeah it's great we're uh we're just setting the table here for tonight for the maple leafs and florida panthers and trying to get a sense for you know where the panthers are at and what this game means to them it seems like uh stakes are pretty high for the Panthers these days. Yeah, it's an understatement. I think they've been kind of doing this for, it seems like for a month now. You know, the next game is bigger than the last one, you know, moving forward. So, yeah, I think you just have to look at the standings, right?

See where they're at. Didn't have the greatest performance in Philly. Missed a couple key guys, Duclair and Bennett, which Bennett, I think, kind of is the driver of this team. And, you know, you go with Lyon just because of, you know, you just can't play the number one guy every single game. So, yeah, you find yourself a point back. You like to look at this game.

You're at home. Huge game. I know it's a big game for the Leafs as well, coming off their last game. So it should be a good one. Doing this for a while, I think there's certain games you get pumped up for. I'm excited for this one tonight. Yeah, I mean, the Leafs are that team for a lot of I think there's certain games you get pumped up for. I'm excited for this one tonight. The Leafs are that team for a lot of people across the league, but just given all the top teams in the division, there's not

a lot of games you can afford to not get up for in the Atlantic. We've talked all year long about how loaded the division is. Once again, it did seem to be split a little bit, but the Panthers kind of hanging around here, proving that they should be up there. How difficult is this division? We look at it across the league and you know the oilers they've had the year they had and they still got a shot at the the division title in

the pacific whereas you know you look at the panthers if they were out there they could be making a run like that right now whereas they're scratching and clawing just to get a wild card spot what do you think it does for a team to have them playing in such a loaded division? Well, I think it's, you know, on the other side of that, you just, you know, like you said, I mean, there's this, there's no, no nights off. And, you know, I think the parody is there on the division, you know, and you can see kind of the, you know, the fight that a lot of these teams are in and I think for Florida obviously you know Tampa and Toronto they're being more at the top and Boston I think it's you know we find ourselves in this position here just for lackluster inconsistent play throughout the year and they decided to kind of turn it up the last month and a half and play in the right way and and I think it's I don't want to say it's finally kind of you know the buy-in been there but I think you know coach Maurice's finally kind of, you know, the buy-in's been there, but I think, you know, Coach Maurice has really kind of been preaching,

you know, the way you need to play come playoff time. And I don't know if that was an inability of this group because they were such a high-flying pace team. They're a little bit more of a muck and grind team now when you find them along the boards, you know, trying to win those battles. But, yeah, I mean, going back to boards you know trying to win those battles but yeah i mean going back to you know the parity is there you got to be ready each and every night and the land provision is tough uh but you know where we find uh you know the florida panthers right now or an

era i would say a fortunate spot um having our schedule that's ahead of us and uh where we sit in accordance to that wild card spot yeah you know you mentioned the team kind of being a little bit more muck and grind than they used to be um you know what has matthew kachuk done there to to i guess i don't want to say the team has followed in his image somewhat but he seems like he's just been a massive part of their success you know they are have turned things around and a lot of that seems like it's on the back of a great player like him yeah he likes to drag people into the fight that's for sure that's that's why i'm kind of excited for this team to actually you know get an opportunity to get into the playoffs because you want to see his act firsthand you know in the playoffs and I think you know not knocking kind of what we've

done in the past but we all know playoff hockey you know the ice you know there's not much space out there and the checking is that much more attention to detail and and certain things get magnified and I felt like just you know for Jonathan Huberto who was here who had an excellent career here in Florida I found is the checking was that much more, and he just couldn't get through that kind of next spot. So the identity of that team, I wouldn't say is totally muck and grind because I think they can just, you know, to wherever the game is playing that night,

you can see the other night they were kind of in a shootout, you know, with Montreal. There wasn't much is playing that night, you can see the other night they were kind of in a shootout with Montreal. There wasn't much defense in that game, but when they have the opportunity to score, it seems like they're scoring. But they're finding themselves in these close games of weight, holding on and winning these one-goal games. So you guys talking about Kachuk there, and I mean, obviously he's a force of nature on the ice i like what you have to say about him being a guy who's got to pull guys into the fight and that's been such a topic with this leafs team in years past they've tried a lot of different options it's been joe thornton the you know happy-go-lucky guy here john tavarez is about as serious as a a person

there there seems to be around the league what do you think a team like the least needs to do to kind of have that breakthrough i mean some of it has been coming up against tough teams like Tampa but they've had their chances against Montreal and Columbus in the past and haven't been able to come through I mean none of the Leafs big core four is just going to turn into Matthew Kachuk overnight because nobody can do that that's what makes him such a special player but do you think those guys need to have maybe a mentality shift or something to click for them for the Leafs to have success in the playoffs well I think when you look at the playoffs obviously you want your horses to perform and there's many of them you know in Toronto with Matthews leading the way and Barnard Tavares Nylander I think the additions of Lafferty

you know Achari you know McCabe on the back end, just a little bit of that grit, that sandpaper. We had Noel Achari here. He gives you that. So playoff time, these guys, there's always that third line that always has that playoff where you can look back to say, these guys really were a huge part in us winning a series or a championship. But yeah, I mean, I think players recognize that the ice,

like I talked about earlier, I mean, this is checking is, is that much more tougher. You know, I think guys are blocking shots with their face in the playoffs. It doesn't matter. So you're going to all costs. And I think at some point, you know, yeah, you might have to change your game a little bit, do the little things where you're not trying to beat, you know, one on two. You're not trying to beat the two guys.

You're putting it into an area where you think you can retrieve the puck or at least establish a four check. So, I mean, these guys aren't dumb players, and they're high hockey IQ IQs and I think they can make that adjustment I'm sure the coaching staff there will whatever's in front of them will give them that game plan but yeah there's minor adjustments that go all along but I don't think any coach in their right mind will take away the creativity of the of these players I mean that's what kind of pushes the team.

But there comes a point where, you know, you've got to take a hit to make a play. And just a little intangibles like that, that can help you win a series or a playoff Stanley Cup. Joe, I don't know if you saw the NHL player poll the other day, but they had for, I think, the 309th year in a row, Alexander Barkov is the most underrated player in the league. I don't know if it's still possible, but is he? It's unbelievable.

I mean, I don't know. You look at a lot of the teams, obviously you're only seeing them a couple times, right? So I think you're probably getting different votes in areas. But, I mean, I don't know. I mean, the guy is just, you know, offensively, obviously, he's over a point a game, has some misfortune with some illness and injuries this year.

But the way he wins face-offs, the way he tracks the puck, the way he can pickpocket you, the way a centerman – you can't be – you know, a centerman, you've got to have some hockey sense, right? You've got to be that guy down low kind of directing traffic. But this guy's never out of position. It's unbelievable just covering him on a daily basis. I mean, he is unbelievable at coming up in the D zone and reading the play and then starting to kind of rush out of the zone.

So, yeah, maybe it's maybe it's something just guys haven't seen him but um it just seems like an easy pick right and this guy such a quiet humbled star that it kind of suits them yeah first line center for a uh for for a president's trophy winning team last year very underrated who would ever think this guy's any good it's amazing that my pet peeve with that he likes it like that yeah you know just know it like barky how he is and i played with him a couple years he's a quiet guy kind of leader on the ice um but he he's just like that everything's about the team and i think for him we all know his contract status he's not worried about that it's about it's about winning hockey games getting your team to the playoffs and and that's what kind of you know speaks to his character that way yeah

let's be honest though the most underrated guy in the nhl is almost always like a second pair d on a team that's okay but not that good that feels to me like where the sweet spot of that guy uh somebody who is definitely not a second pair d he's the number one pick uh just brandon uh yeah brandon montour, tell us about Montour, because what does he play? 25 minutes a night for you guys? He picked up exactly where I was going with this. Right. I mean, he's a horse,

and guys, I said it on the show. I put him right now in that top 10. I know his numbers are in that area, but just seeing him day in, day out, he can skate, he can

get back quick on the puck, he's an excellent first pass, and he's got those offensive instincts where he's not just going in just to go in the offensive zone. He's actually making great reads where guys are coming behind the net. He scored last game in Philly, just kind of good pass by Barkov there low on the on the back door the way he checks he's playing 25

26 minutes a night he's put in all situations and i think that's just again a guy getting an opportunity um you know getting out of a losing organization and just kind of really being relied on you know as the guy and um and we're very fortunate to have him because we all know the way the game is today if you can't skate you're really exposed well he can he can skate and that's one of his biggest assets yeah and uh just just one parting thought from you joe your thoughts on if this team were to get in the playoffs like do they have it in them does it there seems to be a lot of talent there. Could they be an upset type of team? I lost you on the first part of that.

Yeah, yeah. Do you think the Florida Panthers... Florida? Yeah, do you think they're built to catch someone by surprise? Well, yeah. I think you're just... You have to get over that last wild card spot, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Avoid Boston, eh? Yeah, if get over that last wild card spot. I think. Yeah. Yeah. Avoid Boston. Eh? Yeah. If someone's Carolina, then. Right. Pick your poison, right? You're you're, but I think, you know, obviously we all know what Boston's done this year,

just a train rolling along. And, um, but yeah, I mean, the way this team has played last month and a half, it's been playoff hockey, you know, exception of a game here and there. But for the most part, I think this team realizes how they have to play and how they have to play in front of Bob. He's been excellent. So, yeah, I do. And not just saying that being a homer. I think this team, when you look up and down their lineup,

they have the depth when everyone's in the lineup. They have the back end. A guy like Mahura has really come into his own. I really didn't know much about him. up and down their lineup. They have the depth when everyone's in the lineup. They have the back end. A guy like Mahuro has really come into his own. I really didn't know much about him, but he's been steady. He's played all the games. You know, Forsling, Ekblad, Gudis is a big guy in the back end.

So yeah, I mean, there's no reason why not. I think you just got to play the right way and smart, and I think you have as good a chance as a lot of other teams. All right. Well, the Leafs will get a look at them tonight. We appreciate your time today. Thanks so much, man.

All right, guys. Anytime. All right. That is Joe Vanosky, Jovo Cop, weighing in on the Florida Panthers, who are sneaky kind of okay. Yeah. After a start where everyone wrote them off. It's almost like completely nuking the DNA of your team could rocket to its core for

six months and take you some time to find your footing. It's almost like that. It's actually, it's an interesting point that like the team isn't fundamentally like there's still a lot of the pieces that made them the president's cup team. You find your stride with a new coach. He mentioned they've been good for golf on the brand new one. President's cup. Oh, did I?

Yeah. I love that. That's a much better event people care about that one um but you know you get a new coach and they've been finding it for kind of six weeks or whatever here like if you're boston or you're carolina give me pittsburgh yes don't give me florida no no definitely not i you're they have. They have way more horses. I think the difference is that it's the whole know-how-to-win thing. That is still the terrifying thing about the Penguins. But, you know, we've seen this movie before.

We've seen it in playoffs a couple of years now where it's just not working for that group. But if it is the Pens who get in, obviously with everything he's accomplished, this is going to go way down. But this is like a little late career bullet point for Sidney Crosby if he gets this team in if he wills them has some more games like he had last night against mckinnon head up just being that guy that's going to go on again he's it's not going to be the three cups that he's won or the heart trophy or any of that stuff not it's not going to matter to that effect but having that as a little late career feather

in your cap when we were all sitting here writing them off saying what were they doing bringing the band back together oh it's gonna be such a sad end and it probably still will be it's gonna be some rough years but if he could do it this year awesome it would be truly and you know he's made the playoffs 16 straight seasons you know you mentioned that it wouldn't be on the level of those other things yeah but like it is kind of on that level if you get into another one you know what tiger how many cuts the tiger miss i forget what the number is but yeah you know like you know it's one of those things where it's almost like the volume stat becomes more impressive than the individual moments for me you know going through this panthers roster tonight some strange things did you look at the the blue line other than the

two guys we mentioned that you like yep i did one of them is radko gudas who is maybe the most fascinating player for me in the league because he's mean and gruff and tries to hurt you but then he didn't want to fight uh was it aston risa tried to fight him that was weird and he's also a minus 12 penalty differential guy one of the worst guys in the league that takes penalties but doesn't draw him yeah i mean i can't see a world in which he would draw one unless it's like an instigator or something right in those lines like what if you're in the stuff usually again well i don't know but yeah no it is interesting they also have two stall brothers mark and eric play on this mark's there as well i remembered eric being there and i admit this is breaking news to me at least yeah no i

mean some interesting guys. Carter Verhage. Oh, that's... You too, Luster Ryden. I will play the role of Sam McKee once again. Get to your favorite sports book right now and go check what Carter Verhage is to talk one tonight. Former Leaf, albeit for four minutes.

Oh, yeah, he was a Leaf for a second, wasn't he? He's one of these guys that got away, where it's like... He's a Tampa Bay Lightning guy, though. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Lightning. He's a Florida guy. Who knew? Florida man yeah doing stuff um so before we get to break i wonder we started having a conversation about mcdavid last night good 60 goals um you know my god i just it's unbelievable that he hasn't had an offensive like a goal output like this previously so i went back and looked at it.

I knew I had the ticket all year long with him at plus 750 to win the Rocket Richard. Did you bet it? I bet it. I went back because I was like, did I jump on this? And June 11th, I bet that. That was how certain I was. And I think Petrelli was one of the guys. We'll talk to him in a second here.

It just felt like, and I'm sure you had all these conversations of the guys do this, where they go, oh, I've done, he hasn't done everything. Team success. We all know. But an individual, he's done everything. Why can't I go score 60? And that's exactly what he did. Now, I didn't quite, I didn't necessarily think he was going to get 60.

Threw a tenner on it or what? I did. Threw 10 bucks on it. I mean, I'll throw you another 70 back. That sounds good. Whatever it is. That's, I mean, a very good call. June 11th. i've ever ever

been so right about something in my future i just wish it could have been something like slightly more impactful or i would have had more guts to put more money on i had the oilers to win the division uh they're flailing on that front um but yeah no that that is a very good call so why don't we just have a quick listen uh mcdavid what are your thoughts on getting to 60 goals are you thrilled um you know what i mean at the end of the day it's they're all just a number but um you know 60 uh you know a lot of great players in the past have done it and um you know it feels good to uh to join that list um obviously we got a lot uh a lot of work left on this year and um you know looking forward to

put ourselves in a good spot heading into uh into the postseason i have a theory i'm working on a theory yeah give it to me that if he wins a stanley cup he'll become a great media figure because he'll be he will shed the weight of the darkness of the zero stanley cups and he will just allow himself to live because sometimes he says things where you're like ah he seems like a good dude. You know, but like he, until he wins a cup, I don't think he'll ever say anything about his individual game or anything. He'll just start rocking Nickelback shirts everywhere he goes. Sleeveless Nickelback shirts all day. Quite the look.

He would fit in where he is. That's just the beginning of that. That was like me when my wife thanks me for like, oh, thanks for taking it. You know, just doing something you're supposed to. Don't worry. Don't worry about about it it also had a tint of yeah i'm not done come ask me this question when i get 70 or 68 or whatever the number he doesn't 10 games yeah at least it's not ruling out well at least 65 but yeah i know 70 would be insane even for him yeah 65 is totally plausible and before you get the ov number that would be

nice let's uh let's have leon dryl, last clipper on old Connor here, weigh in on Connor McDavid. You know, obviously he's going to downplay it, as we all know, but it's pretty hard to score in this league. And to score 60 in a season and still have 10 games to go is pretty remarkable. And, yeah, I mean he's just just a special player leon has 44 goals this season and everyone's just a collective shrug you know whatever yeah 27 on

the power play power play merchant 55 last year so tell us quickly um or should we save it yeah we'll save the we'll save the power play numbers for later i do have a quick thing on dry saddle here and you'll appreciate this i do not have a ton of love for dry saddle because it's the guy playing with McDavid, and he has since shed that, but it's always been a little, eh. Like, yeah, you're the number two center behind McDavid, or you're playing with... Why are you so pissy? Yeah, well, there's a little bit of that. Early on in my career, talking about dry saddle, I've come around on him.

The thing I like most about him is that beaver tail of a blade he uses because when I was a kid, I used the weirdest curve, a Nick Lidstrom curve, which was very, very similar to that oh yeah so i'm just happy to know that if there's a if there's a 12 year old me roaming around out there i don't know what they call it but get your hands on a dry saddle curve slapper from the point of the lidstrom was a field goal every time for me by the way uh dry saddles points over the years 105 110 110 this year 110 very good he's okay um all right we're gonna go to, and when we come back, we're going to be joined by Anthony Petrilli of Maple Leafs Hot Stove.

This is Real Kipper and Born on Sportsnet 590, The Van. Welcome back to Real Kipper and Born with Brent Gunning. You guys let me know when we got Anthony. We got Anthony. All right. We got Petrilli right now. What's going on, fella? How are you?

Ready to start on time. I'm here. I'm here. How's it going, guys? We're doing good. We're doing good. We just chit-chatting about the Oilers and Leon and Connor and all that sort of stuff. But now we're happy to have you on so we can talk about the Maple Leafs.

I did this with Gunnar when he first jumped on. Where are you on the Leafs right now, man? How are you feeling about the state of the affairs in Leafs Nation? I think it's a lot of noise, to be honest. They're generally kind of looking at their lineup and thinking a lot of it's self-inflicted. They probably just need to calm down a little bit and get back to who they are as a team i mean they kept all of their good players it's not like they moved anybody they added you know they changed the bottom half of their lineup they added some

defensemen but if we all thought that they were a really good team going into the deadline they didn't suddenly just become a bad team i think think they just need to relax. And to some degree, it's just hard when you're playing desperate teams and you're not one of them, you know, that's just the truth. Yeah, it is.

And there's nothing they can do between now and the end of the season to get desperate at some point in time, you do have to flick the switch. And, you know, I suppose, well, I was about to say a more experienced team.

This team's plenty experienced in going into the playoffs. It's a, it's a matter of when they exit them that's been the problem. But when do you think they'll be able to just flip that switch? Like how much do you think there is playing with Flyer? There's still a lot of hockey left in the season. It feels like it's right around the corner. There's still 12 games left for this team, including the one they're going to play tonight.

How much longer can a stretch like this go on before you do have a little bit of concern? Is it something along the lines of once Ryan O''reilly is back you give him a game or two to find their feet and then you'd like to see him find it or are you really not concerned as long as this thing straightens itself out at some point between now and the end of the regular season give it the road trip right so they're on a little one right here i'd see if it kind of corrects itself. And if it doesn't from that point, I think you kind of got to sit there and say, all right, guys, we got to pick it up a little bit here. But, you know, they have time.

I think, too, it's tough when you're looking at games and David Camp's playing more than William Nylander and Kerfoot's on a 24-game goalless drought and he's still on the first line. And it seems like some of it's, you know, he kind of pointed out some, you know, he wasn't happy with Nylander's play, and he's kind of making an example of him right now,

putting him on the third line. He's kind of done it to bunting lately. So it kind of feels like that lull in the season where Keefe is using that as a chance to kind of bench guys or address things that have been bothering him which honestly is fine with me i don't really see a problem with that yeah no i i do hear a lot of people talking out of both sides of their mouth about how keith needs to hold people accountable and then he punishes someone for 10 seconds and it's like oh what about their feelings it's like yeah it can't really be both ways so when it's all said and done here, game one,

they're playing Tampa Bay tomorrow. What's the best way to build this lineup? Because realistically, the debate about Ryan O'Reilly and loading up, not loading up, how to go about that is still very much undecided. Yeah, I think Tampa, it's so interesting because Tampa provides, obviously, their their big challenge and Vasilevsky is the huge question mark of

can they solve it enough to obviously win the series. But you look at their defense and to me their defense is just, it's not that good. It's good at the top. Hedman is good. Sergachev is good. Cernak is good. And they've kind of divided and conquered

because the rest of the group is not. You know, Zach Bogosian, I like him. He was a Leaf. You know, fans would be familiar with him, but he's limited. Sure. You know, Ian Cole, same thing. And then they have Nick Purbix, who's, you know, a 24-year-old rookie.

He's having a decent enough season. It's not good. And so to me, if you are able to put it together to the point where Hedman and Cernak are paired together, the rest of the defense is really poor. Like if Hedman and Cernak, which was what they did last year, are playing against Austin Matthews, who's playing against potentially Mitch Marner on the second line?

Sergeyev and Bogosian? I hope so. I mean, yeah, right? Like, I think that's where, you know, I think they just need to calm down a little bit on their lines and eventually get it back. Like, Bunting, Matthews, and Nylander were very good. You know, I looked it up.

Sorry, go ahead, Anthony. I was just going to say, I looked it up. Like, you know, they outscored opponents 28-10 at 5-on-5, and Matthews was barely even playing well for most of that time. And they won their minutes. What more do you want from them? That's a really good line. I think Tampa would have to load up against them.

Well, I think for me, the thing that jumps out, and I've been in the tank from bunting since before he played a minute for this team, so take it with a grain of salt, I guess. But honestly, you can make the argument to me that the guy who has consistently clicked the best with matthews has been bunting you know marner and him have had stretches where they go cold there is no doubt the highest ceiling version is matthews and marner together that is without a doubt the highest ceiling but bunting if you can have him on that top line it just allows you to move other pieces around i don't think you have to have marner and matthews together like to your point

with him and nylander working so well and then it allows you to let marner kind of feast with tavarez on that secondary line and then i think if you if we're going to just expand with the forwards there then that allows you to have ryan o'reilly's line be kind of whatever you want it to be you can have it be a true shutdown line. You can just have it be kind of almost a hyper speed energy. Well, not hyper fast, but a hyper talented energy line. If you throw him out there, it just opens so many other things to do. So I really think they need to get Bunting back up there alongside Matthews.

And I know him and Yarncroke have looked good together, but where are you at on the idea of how Yarncroft has looked there versus Bunting? I assume you're high on him just based on what you're saying about the Nylander trio with him. I like Yarncroft, but, I mean, he is trying to score his first 20-goal season of his career, and he's like 10 years into his career.

And Bunting has already done it back-to-back in his first two seasons. I mean, you know, Yarncock brings a lot to the table. It's not to put them down, but bunting is definitely a little bit better at producing offensively. He's legitimately shown that through two seasons. So I just, it, this is the kind of stuff where it seems like they're a little, you know, to one degree, it's nice. They tried something, they know that can go to it if they need to etc etc but in terms of the result it just you know of the team itself it just feels like okay you've tried a bunch of stuff you're probably

overthinking it if you really just got the lineup back to you know the same top line they could run the same top six that they've been successful with all season, basically, right to second if they wanted to. And they're not. The challenge with the O'Reilly injury is we could have seen more of that O'Reilly-Tavaris-Marner line to see if they were going to be a very, very good line. So good that you couldn't break them up. But now we don't know. And so now it's like, what do you do with O'Reilly? Yeah, I mean, it is a great question for them to figure out.

You know, part of that may be related to what we're discussing. Do you care that their analytics have been trash over the last 10 games or so? No, I think a lot of that is related to those lineup decisions. I mean, if I just told you, you know, hey, camp is going to play more than Nylander, what do you think it's going to do to their stats? Not help them? Yeah, it's is going to play more than Nylander, what do you think it's going to do to their stats? Not help them?

Yeah, it's not going to be great, right? I mean, it's just, and hey, like I said, I think it's good that he's, you know, trying to hold guys accountable. This is the perfect time to do it. They're in pretty good shape right now in terms of getting home ice advantage. Tampa has, you know, really not made a run at getting that spot.

So if you're going to do it at any point in the season, this is quite literally the best time to do it, right, before the playoffs, kind of get guys' attention. And then at some point here in the final 10 games, you're going to have to be like, all right, this is it. Like, enough of it. Let's put the lineup properly together. So I know we want to talk about the deep pairs,

because obviously there's arguably more confusion back there in terms of how all the pieces fit together. But the last one for me anyways on the forwards is Matt Nights. How does he play into all this? I mean, they're almost certainly going to sign him. Who knows how many games he ends up getting with the team. But do you think they look at him as a complete luxury item? If the team is in a mode where they're trying to ramp up over the last handful of games, is that the time to be working him in? Are you able to work him in while they're,

while you're ramping up? What would you do with Matt and eyes? If you're Sheldon Keefe, I think he gets a look and, and born. I know you guys had Brad May on and he was talking about, you know, when you have a kid come right out of college or join a team late,

they're super confident. They've been scoring all season. The cool off fields, you know, when you have a kid come right out of college or join a team late, they're super confident. They've been scoring all season at the Colt Offield, you know, example. And so I think to that degree, it's worth trying because he's going to come in hot. He's going to come in feeling good about his game. I would just treat him as a luxury, though. It's like, does it work? Great. If not, then it's not a big deal.

I mean, I know people are enamored with the size and the potential scoring touch, but I was also watching some of their, some of their games here. And it was like, you know, turnovers trying to make like deep ground guys to break out of his zone and, you know, toe dragging guys in the neutral zone. And, you know, you can't do that. And the Stanley zone. You can't do that in the Stanley Cup playoffs against Kent Bay Lightning. That'd be bad.

It's not going to go well. We've seen that movie with young guys before on the Leafs over the past six years or whatever. Nick Robertson straight from the OHL or Rasmus Sandin when he was very young. They're trying to do things that they could probably get away with that. Not the NHL or Rasmus Sandin when he was very young and it's like they're trying to do things that

they could probably get away with that not the NHL but it's now it's in the NHL and he's probably not going to play in the top six like I if he would have to be amazing to walk in and play on the top six on this team because the Leafs top six is very good it is funny though because like if he's playing top six like let's say he's in yarn croc spot and i realize that's the holy grail of places to slide in but like if he's there i don't care as much if he does try to make a move or dangle someone whatever if he's playing with the charry in camp and he's trying to slip a few thumb and skis someone skates in the neutral zone i don't need it you know so it's almost like you know they have a tough decision about where to put

the guy um in terms of giving him an opportunity to play like he's been playing you know so it's almost like you know they have a tough decision about where to put the guy um in terms of giving him an opportunity to play like he's been playing you know what i mean it's worth trying because to your point if if he were to go on a hypothetical second line with let's say john tavaris and mitch marner and now your third line has ryan o'reilly kerfoot and kelly yarn crock and again if nize is actually good right away, you have a really good team. They have a really good team regardless, but that would be very, very good if you walked

in and did that. So, all of this, you know like the hockey dream that people have where you have the nightmare you can't tie your skates or whatever? The one I have for the Leafs is that everything works. Nize is awesome he's on the second line and the d pairs are humming and just pucks are going through goalies

yeah that couldn't that's hockey so where do you stand on this uh anthony like is it samsonov is it murray do you comfortable with either guy i mean i'm comfortable with neither guy i mean that's why you're asking the question. Nobody truly is, right? But, you know, I think Samsonoff has done enough to this point, and Murray has not done enough to this point for Samsonoff to be the game one starter. I think Samsonoff has, like, he's earned it to where we're standing right this second.

I think, you know, his mind is a little elsewhere right now. Totally get it. But beyond that, he's been solid this year. I don't think – honestly, I look at this, and I'm answering your question saying I would go with Samson off and see how it rolls, and then if you have to go to Murray at some point, that's going to be the toughest thing, especially in this market where we're kind of scrutinizing every move.

Right. But it's like, they lose game one. Do you go to Murray? Do you keep Samson off in it? And suddenly you have a decision and suddenly it's pressure packed. And if you don't do that, and then you have to go to Murray in game three, let's say it's like at that point, if you go to Murray, it has to be Murray the rest of the way. But Murray has done that before and flurry with a split, but i'll look at it and say at least against tampa i actually think the leafs have like i think the leafs are a better team than them this year like on paper i think the

leafs are deeper yeah i i don't like to say this out loud but i agree with that i don't like to put it out in the atmosphere because then it can come out it's like pressure it's like yeah it's gonna hurt more when they lose i think that i think the frustrating part about this season from the goaltending perspective, obviously, is the lulls you've seen out of either guys. But that was the one thing I was kind of interested to see how Sheldon handled it throughout the season was the idea of how would you handle having an actual decision? There hasn't really been that in the time he's been the Leafs coach here. You know, there have been little moments of it,

but then somebody always seems to get hurt and take the decision out of his hands and it felt like that's been what's happened for so much of this season up until pretty much now is he just hasn't for lack of a better term had the reps of finding who the right guy is when they're both kind of going or they're both going and it'll be that's the thing I just don't think we've got to read on him for is is how he'll he'll handle that in in terms of the deep pairs you know I think a lot of where it stacks up is who plays with Morgan Riley if you're going to put Morgan Riley and TJ Brody together then I think that those two guys then that lets you set the rest of your deep pairs kind of the way we've seen it but if you're going to go with Brody and McCabe as your shutdown pair it really does lead to a conundrum of what to

do with Morgan Riley how do you set him up best heading into the playoffs and is that the most important thing for the team or is it more important for them to have a shutdown pair in a McCabe Brody yeah it's like I kind of look at the composition of the defense the same way as the forward group it's like what have they been when have they been successful and what's been happening? And for the defense, it's been Riley's with Brody. Oh, I thought you were going to say he should get hurt again. That's what I was worried you were going to say. No, no.

Riley brings enough offense, and he's pretty much been the only guy on this team that's been consistently good in the playoffs. So I'll give him credit for that. I mean, he had three goals last year in the playoffs. Big ones. Including credit for that. He had three goals last year in the playoffs. Big ones. They were big goals. He's one of their only guys that actually shows up.

Are we going to go through another playoff where we look back at it like last year and it's like he was playing with Eli Lelouchkin? I know. I'm a Russian bear, baby. I like Lelouchkin and I like Luke know is that is that how we're we're playing this i would just i'd be like riley brody they've been very good

giordano hole have been very good i know people don't like to hear it but they have been and then that leaves you mccabe and it feels like mccabe is a solid defenseman i don't you know he's you know maybe a second pairing defenseman like a four or five type i don't think he's anything more than that and it feels like they're forcing him up the lineup a little bit and i think the results have kind of shown that so to me i would just look at it like we have a good top four, and then your third pair is some combo of McCabe, Lilligren, which would probably get the first shot at it, or Shen, which I know Bourne has made this point about bringing Shen in to be physical early on, which I think makes sense as well,

and you can kind of control that matchup at home, and also Lilligren is going to keep making mistakes that he's been making lately. Yeah, he's the one that I can't quite put my finger on. What was the last three on three they played? He just threw, I know it's three on three. You guys are trying stuff. He just threw an absolute grenade across the ice and it was a miracle it didn't end up in the back.

Well, he's a strange player because he drives play for the Leafs. Yep. Full stop every time. But like there's nothing, there's no game state anthony where i'm like that's lilligran time baby you know yeah i mean at best it's like if they're down he's like slightly better offensively than like some of their other guys i guess that's about it though yeah it is he can move the puck and he can skate basically so one thing that i've heard you know talking about people saying two different things here

one thing i hear people say about sheldon keith is that oh he's too too slow to make adjustments in the playoffs and then someone else will say ah he goes away from things too quickly you know where do you sit on keith heading into this postseason and and hopefully you know getting the best version of of him as a coach. Obviously, this is his job, right? In terms of if they don't do it this year, if nothing else, he for sure won't be able to survive that again. And I think a lot of that is just going to come down to he has enough pieces, as we've seen,

as he's kind of moved things around. And I take this part from him as we've seen as he's kind of moved things around and i take this part from him as i've moved a lot of things around because i feel like i finally have guys in which i can move around in the lineup whereas before he'd probably just look at you and say yeah we had a clear top six bottom six divide there was no one on our third or fourth line i could even remotely consider moving up or down the lineup and it just kind of was what it was. But this year, that's not the case. So I think he is going to have to be a little bit more flexible in the lineup beyond just I'm going to load up my top guys and pray that they get it done.

So to be honest, I'd like to see him get a little bit, just based on what's happened the past 10 games, I'd like to see him get firm on the lineup and say, this is our lineup. Like, I'm confident in our group and kind of get that going throughout the roster. But I think it'll be more not game-to-game adjustments. It'll be in-game adjustments, moving a guy up or down, you know, getting the pulse of a player.

It's like, if you have Ryan O'Reilly on the third line to start a game, which is fair. If you want to roll lines against Tampa, Tampa has three very good lines, makes sense. But if Ryan O'Reilly's rolling, like you can't keep him buried. It's like, those are the kinds of things that he's going to have to kind of maneuver and have a pulse on.

And I think that's where 11 and seven gets difficult. And I know you, you talked about it before and it's like, you're just trying to figure out who's going on next, and you're not really getting a sense of the game. Yeah. And I think that's where you lose it. Like, he needs to have a pulse on the game and say, this guy's going, or conversely, this guy's not going. And that guy not going, it could be, you know, any of the big four.

And at that point, he's going to have to say, like, you're not, you don't have it today, so I'm going with somebody else. Yeah, I'm curious to see how quick he makes that call and what just before i let you go here uh any concern on matthews at all are you concerned do you like what's going on now are you worried in the slightest bit i mean if you asked me this a week and a half ago i would have said i'm worried yeah honestly i thought he looked i thought he looked healthy a few games ago and started to look amazing again, as he should. The Islanders, probably not as much, but I think that's more of an aberration.

I think he's healthy and ready to go. Honestly, he's the least covered on the team. Every single player, other than Riley playing well in the playoffs, I think Matthew's number two. I'd look at anyone else before him basically all right well thank you very much for joining us that's anthony patrilli author of maple leaf's hot stove and writer yahoo sports canada appreciate your time pal thanks for having me on guys for sure anthony patrilli knows his stuff god loves the show yeah he's doing verbal drops without even realizing it i think yeah well you know it's it's a mutual circle of stealing each other's content then because i read Anthony Petrilli knows his stuff. Guy loves the show. Yeah. He's doing verbal drops without even realizing it, I think.

Yeah, well, you know, it's a mutual circle of stealing each other's content then because I read all of his work and I'm like, oh, very good points there. I should mention that. Yeah. Hey, one of my favorites. Absolutely love getting to chat with him there. So something you brought up about Keefe and you would know this question, which is, well, you might know, which is why I'm going to ask you, is the idea of he's too slow to react, he's too quick to react.

I think the too quick to react thing, and tell me if I'm wrong, you're the idea of he's too slow to react he's too quick to react i think the too quick to react thing and tell me if i'm wrong you're the person who's hearing it is from that i get from my buddies all the time of oh second you don't like a chef lines go in the blender he's throwing it all over the place whereas the too slow seems to be on actual match-ups player to player or kind of and this is above my pay grade this is more you you're not going to completely change your systems in a playoffs or anything like that but do you change the way you cover people or the way guys are covered or how you kind of deal with breakouts and those types of things i wonder if that's something that could be tweaked well for sure um you know i think one thing people remember really well was he made

comments that i totally approved of at the time that kind of look arrogant in retrospect about matthews and dino and he's like i'm not gonna get austin matthews you know we're not keeping him off the ice because philip dino's on the how'd that work out but in fairness i know i know you know you shouldn't take austin matthews off the ice because philip dino's out there you should outplay philip dino he should so i get the point on that one but i will say i've told this story a number of times so hopefully it's not too redundant for people but i when, when I was with them with the Marley's, we played against Albany. We were down to one in the second round of the playoffs and Albany,

Albany devils at the time, maybe it was game two, maybe it was one, whatever it was, but we did completely change our four check. We were getting beat. They were ripping up through the neutral zone, coming at us with too much speed. And we pulled everyone back. We sent no four checkers, like almost like a trap essentially there was times they had damon uh severson at the point and i remember him standing there with a puck and just like waiting to draw someone in and no one

would come in and just like a standstill it's like that uh was a philly philly in tampa yeah and so we switched that our four check it worked that game and then we stuck with it for the whole and i hated it i hate it wasn't what we had done all year and it worked for a game and whatever we ended up sticking with it and i remember thinking that he was very quick to make these sort of changes um and then you know now i cover him you know for years in the nhl and i hear people say he's too slow to adjust i've seen him that's not the only example make adjustments quickly and and whatever so i don't think he's afraid to do it i just think to anthony's point the previous rosters haven't really permitted them to be that flexible well the other part of it is that again we get so bogged down in

it and we all do of the the playoff failures the play hit the reason they're playing these systems we're just going to stick from a systems perspective is because they work it's been a top five team in the nhl for the last four or five seasons so the i and i completely understand you're bumping up against the same team in a row now you will want to look at some changes especially with the being the same team year over year and you're going to get a look at them late in the year but it's just i do understand the hesitancy to change when it's worked so well for you with your run here yeah no it's true and and you know i i like the uh the conversation we just had with patrilli about like you know not overreacting to right

now it's you know you're trying to find a way to be your best on april 17th yep and right now there's no immediate panic because the numbers haven't looked great or you're feeling like you know whatever it's just figuring things out yeah and so it's a little bit as you mentioned pre-season mid-season but i don't it just makes us uncomfortable because you want things to be humming but so the weird thing is is the numbers look really bad and we'll bring in stewie on this in a in a second but and the poster boy for bad looking numbers is matt murray but i feel way better about him coming off not not the aisle game but the the one before that the saturday game you feel so much better about him coming off not not the aisle game but the the one before that the saturday game you feel so much better about him so it's i think to me that's the thing

there will come a time and again stewie's a great guy to ask we'll ask him about it of when you need to flip the switch when you need to set your lineup but between now and then it's really just how do the goalies look and can they look confident not even can they look good but just can they be feeling good heading into the playoffs it feels to me like that's maybe the most important thing for this team. 100%. All right. Well, we're going to go to break. When we get back, Anthony Stewart's going to join us.

We're going to have a little conversation on, well, we got a few things lined up. We'll save them. It's all fun surprises. We'll talk to Stewie when we get back after this break. This is Real Kipper and Born on sportsnet 590 the van welcome back to real kipper and born i am justin boing born born i don't know i don't host a lot usually that's nick's job uh got brent gunning as you know and joined by anthony stewart stewie

how are you i'm doing well it's great to be back in the studio I think I see my name uh etched in one of the uh seats down here from my times here two three years did you used to do that in high school it's great to be here no I was the gum under the seat just make it it's kind of gross but yeah definitely it was a little bit of that myself uh you're working the Leafs game tonight appreciate you coming in to join us we've been kicking around all the different things about the the toronto maple leafs first thing i've been doing with everyone is uh getting a state of the leafs from them and you know how do you feel about where they're at you know a month before playoffs well you know me i'm the king of analogies right now

and i'm sure you guys know the dc universe right? Okay. What's the number one question when people ask, can Batman beat Superman? I have no idea. I actually don't know. How much time does he have to prepare? Okay. Is that right? Yes. So the fact that that's a conversation,

so I think that relates to the Leaf is because right now they're sort of going through their trial and error process. They're seeing what works. Does 11-7 work? Are we going to be moving guys up and down the lineup? Are we going to be trying goalies back-to-back? Because they know it we're going to be moving guys up and down the lineup we're going to be trying goalies back to back because they know uh it's not going to be smooth sailing against tampa bay in that first round so when you have that uh luxury of knowing who you're going to play and know the matchups you have that time to tinker and anytime you add six new guys to a lineup

there's going to be a trial and error process too and you saw the injuries uh to o'reilly as well and you know so i think they have some time to figure out but we're we're boiling down to the point now where you got to figure out your lineups who's going to be your bottom six who's going to be uh your your go-to guys on the power play penalty kill and who's going to be your defenseman right so i think right now it's you know we're all in panic mode in the city and i saw them putting some stuff away for the parade just based on the recent play of them okay yeah uh but again i think this team is this is all according to plan because they know they're playing superman in that first round yeah i look at it o'reilly is eligible to

come off the ir and i think a week maybe just a little under that not to say that he'll be back then but once he comes back then it feels to me like it's time to stop your experimenting it's enough time for the shenanigans and it's time to figure out your lineup you can do all the tinkering you want between now and then but it does seem like once you get him back you got to kind of dial in how hard is it for a team not the coach the coaching staff obviously understands what they're doing with the lineup but for the players for austin matthews he doesn't worry about his place in the lineup i'm sure he has a preference but he knows he's going to get plenty of ice with plenty of good players around him how easy is it or hard for a guy like that do you think to just

kind of flip the switch whenever that time comes well you look at a player like mitch marner i call him the slump buster whoever's played with him has sort of come out of their slump but he's been playing consistent they always tell you when it's contract time well they're not consistent so unless you're putting up 82 points and chances are you put up those 82 points in 68 of those games you're not consistent so for him to be that consistent i think it's really really great but you know if you're that those bottom six guys and you're playing with you know different guys playing off their off wing and then one day you're a skilled line then the next day you're a dump and chase line it's really really

confusing i remember for me as a player having that continuity and knowing who i was playing with every single day made it a lot easier you know know, I played with Nick Antropov in Atlanta, and he'd be like, Stewie, you take the puck, okay? And by the time you skate around the net, I'll be in the zone, and you find me in the slot. And so I knew, on the breakout, I'd take it, and he'd be a little bit not as fleet as foot as I was. And I knew when I came around the net, he was going to be in the same spot.

Or the same thing with Evander Kane. When I knew I was breaking wide, I knew I could throw a blind pass backdoor and would find a way to get his stick so being in the nhl it's tough you got to learn to be able to play with everybody you got to be flexible but you're talking about this team now who's trying to take the next step in their development and getting these new guys accustomed you need a little bit of that continuity to build that chemistry because that's a big part of playoffs you're looking at tampa bay you've been talking about maroon and cory perry now for how many years you know you got to gear up towards those guys and we're getting beat up by you know matt martin and guys like that it's it's it's

going to be it's going to be a battle it's going to be a battle yeah did you so given your junior career and all that did you play up and down the lineup like did you get random games where they said hey you're yarn croc you're playing with the big boys tonight? Yeah, yeah. And I used to always, I used to pray for the team's downfall when I was on the fourth line. For sure. Because I knew I'd get an opportunity to play on some top line. That sucks, but that's a reality, right?

Yeah. Right, and the only one I never had chemistry with, I think, was my brother when we played together in junior. And I think we wanted to kill each other. The two shifts that we played together where, you know, even in bio steel camp, like, we almost fought on the bench. shout out to matt nickel but um you know i i remember in junior i i took it on me the onus on me to make my teammates better i think that's what made me an elite player so uh whether i was playing on the fourth line or the first line i wanted to be the best version

of myself best version of myself excuse me to help the team win did you alter how you would play like i'm thinking of matthew nye's coming in and right now uh we had anthony patrilli he's been watching him play and he says like you know he's a skill guy on that team so he's pulling it through feet and trying to dangle in the neutral zone you know depending on where he is in the leafs lineup you're gonna want a different version of him did you like adjust your game depending on where you were you just stick to the same well if you're playing against the beer league guys yeah what are you doing oh i'm the dangliest angler right so you know it's part of my other job one of my many jobs to pay attention to what nize is doing you know he's so far elite and past you

know a lot of those players that you have the ability to try new things yeah and you know you're talking about some of the numbers that he put up you know he put up chris crider numbers you know this year as a sophomore so you know everyone's talking as if he's a senior coming out he's still a young guy coming in so i think for him he knows he's smart he's one of those guys that has many disciplines but he's one of his main disciplines is being able to be down low and control the play and absorb contact and roll off checks and get to the net and you know his main you know attribute is putting the puck in the net so you know you see the success michael bunting's had over the last couple years just going to the net or going to the right area you know i can see him fitting in

whether it's in the top six or bottom six so you know i've watched a lot of his games um and i and there's a lot of expectations everyone talks about you know being a good player but being a good player in this market's a different thing well and it's not just kidding it's not just being a good player in this market it's being a good player in this market at this time of year against that team in tampa bay and you know there's just the the expectations are ratcheted up but you know you and i are actually talking about this before the show if this were two or three years ago and a guy like that was coming in there'd be a lot of pressure placed on him but they went out and they got o'reilly and the core has been through this so many times that you know if this team stubs its

toe it's not going to be because Matt and I's does or doesn't do something it does feel like given the talent he has and that there is a place for him but not necessarily a need for him it feels like he can come in and and I won't say play free because you're still going to want to do the right things but you don't need to worry about you know earning your job on every single shift or something like that yeah and at the same time you got to remember yeah you're all in but you still got to have some players stepping in and you know performing on entry-level contracts and you think about it over the years when's the last time a second rounder has been a key contributor on this lineup so you got to build to the future and i think the experience he gets now is going to help him next year because there's gonna be a lot of uncertainty

going into the year after with the guys can they sign or they may not sign you need young guys stepping in and having a key role on the team for sure yeah their salary cap pitcher could use a cheap guy who's a good player that'd be very helpful um you know one team that they're going to play tampa bay has done their salary cap situation a little bit differently you know brandon hagel is cheap for them and cost them quite a bit they know, they've built a team that has shown that they can win year in, year out, but they're kind of reeling a little bit, Stewie. Like, they don't look like the Tampa Bay of old.

Is there any kind of door, or do you buy it, I guess, that they're maybe struggling? I call up the rope of dope. Yeah, right. I remember sitting in this exact chair, I think it was like 2018, oh, Boston's going to suck this year. Oh, yeah.

Five years of kicking them to miss the playoffs for years. Right. And I think they learned a lot from that series. I think one of the few predictions I've ever gotten right as a member of Sportsnet was saying that they were going to lose to Columbus because they didn't go through any adversity. And I think they've learned now for going on an extended playoff run, you need to be able to turn it on and turn it off. I think it was Marty St. Louis talking about it. You can't bring your A game every single night. going on an extended playoff run you need to be able to turn it on and turn it off i heard i think it was marty st louis talking about it you can't bring your a game every single night you got to learn to take it off uh you know certain nights so i think for tampa bay they they're almost playing

that rope-a-dope where they're going to peak at the right time they're knowing hey we want to go two three rounds maybe all the way you can't be on every all 82 games vasilevsky too he's almost too rope-a-dopey where you know he's looking to go on an extended run here and maybe have three shutouts in four games so thanks to if that uh if that happens don't at me please no i'd love to sit here and believe that they're as bad as they looked like they've been but there's just no way it's a team that's way too experienced and we talk about sheldon keith and can he find the right mix with this lease group john cooper has done this several times before now and won two of them and got all the way there.

So yeah, I'm with you. I'm not ready to write him off and maybe that's just me not wanting to jinx things. I'm sure there's a part of that in there as well. You know, you talk about the bottom six of what they have and Perry and Maroon and Nolichari. I mean, again, not the first one to say this, but he feels like the first guy the Leafs have had in

forever. That feels like one of those guys. That's just a bottom, bang around, muck around. He can get you some greasy goals, always gives you a good shift. I think it was in the Isles game. One of the goals the Leafs had anyways was set up completely by a third line, just muck around, have the puck, cycle, cycle, cycle.

How important is it for Achari? And who do you kind of like him best with in the Leafs bottom six there? I'm a big fan of Kerfoot, right? And I know that's Justin's favorite you kind of like him best with in the least bottom six there um i'm a big fan of kerfoot right and i know that's justin's favorite leaf i like him actually i i don't get to say this so while we're talking kerfoot i am not as big on him quite as you are but i am not on the other side of things i'm more with you on every team needs a kerfoot but what i like about a chari i think he commands the respect from his opponents right you know when you're in the mix and you're

in front of the net, guys are watching him, right? He's not an easy five minutes, as they would say, but I just like the tenacity on the forecheck, and I like when you use all your senses as a hockey fan, and when he's on the ice, you can hear him out there. You can hear the glass rattling. You can hear his skates moving, and he's always getting in the mix. So I think you need a player like that that keeps the opponent on the toes, right?

And everyone talks about being tough to play against, and i didn't really know what that meant i used to always have jacques martin you need to be tough to play against and i'm like do you want me to fight yeah no but be tough i'm like okay but now that i'm on this side of it i understand and he's a true definition of that and you look at a team like the islanders they have three or four of those guys and when you're going on an extended playoff run you can't be on the flanks you got to get you know know, to the blue paint and you got to be able to absorb cross checks and make a living hell for the other team's defense.

So he's one of those guys that fits the bill. And I don't think it matters where he plays. It's not going to change his game. He goes up and down, keeps it simple. And he knows where to get to. And he gets, you know, two or three scoring chances a game, which is good. So those are the guys you need in the playoffs

when you're trying to make an extended run because he's a difference maker whether he's playing 12 14 or even nine minutes a game one of the things that's gone down since they've made those trades is they don't get as many high danger scoring chances as they did you know pre-trades when they had engvall and sandin they didn't have the bangers does the offense concern you at all that maybe they're not as dynamic as they've been in the past or i know no one's missing no i hate using the word fluff right no yeah it's fine high danger scoring you know and i'm just thinking it's game seven you know it's the third period and things aren't going your way what's the type of goal you're going to score

right and you look at the islanders game the islanders scored three or four of those last game where it's a shot and someone's in the high slot redirecting uh going to the net on a rebound stuffing at home so you need those guys and and again this team is going to be carried by the top four and i think that's what separates them from years past where um one or two of those guys would be struggling just seems this year there's always three guys going and i think that's going to be the difference makers and we heard uh i think it was Anthony from Tampa Bay talking about the Ds, they don't have as much depth with Tampa Bay this year. So I think they're going to lose a lot of those matchups,

especially if you slide O'Reilly down into the three slots. So I think they're built to make a run. But again, games aren't won on paper. But the bottom six and Aston Reese too, he's going out. He's banging as well. I like Kemp. Kemp in that fourth slot, he's going to win a lot of his matchups,

wins a lot of his face-offs. He's really good, especially on the penalty kill as well too. So I really like the way that it's built because you have certain players built for certain spots. And we always talk about the international ice hockey game.

You have the skinny guy, the medium guy, and the chubby guy. It's a really, really good mix. I think that's built for a run. Yeah, when you look at Kampf and last year, we sat here talking so much about how you loved him in the 3c role and it felt like this year you just weren't quite getting that but all of a sudden you slot him down to a fourth line and it's him and achari and aston reese when they put the three

of them together it's really been a kind of suffocating group you know just talking about getting to the greasy areas with the charrier or the high danger scoring chances that the Leafs haven't been generating as much of lately it makes me think about the power play and part of the well I'm sure it is quantifiable I haven't been able to see a quantified one way or another but the idea of the Leafs try to be too perfect and that's why the power play struggles it seems to me like a lot of times and yeah look there's a lot of beautiful power play goals scored in this league go look at the Oilers they score score three every single night, it feels like. But so often in the playoffs when things get tighter,

sometimes it's a point shot ruffling through and it tips off four guys and all of a sudden it's sitting there and somebody can bang it home. Do you think that this team has a little bit too much? It has to be perfect in their DNA on the power play specifically because it seems to me like the reason why it dries up is because they only get the goals they're supposed to get. They don't get the lucky greasy ones. Well think that's more so system not personnel wise and you saw matthews last year when he scored his 70 goals a lot of those goals were him going to the net for

the so many tips yeah and you have john tavaris who makes a living in that high slot or he can redirect behind the net and even michael bunting so i i think the team is built that way so i think they have to simplify it but remember you're not going to be getting six, seven power plays in the playoffs. You have to earn every single inch, every single power play. And I think you're forced to simplify it. And, you know, playoffs, people need to understand it. It's a lot of luck and you need your specialty teams to be special.

So I think they're going to be forced to simplify it because there's not going to be, there's going to be less room out there, less calls, more pressure. And I think that's going to be one of the schemes. Pressure them. Force them to make those cross-scene passes and force them to make mistakes. So I think they can do a little bit better job on those puck retrievals and getting it back to the point.

And I want to see Riley shoot more. Yeah, I've got the same thing. Let's get a bomb from the point on a couple plays. Someone's still chirping me on Twitter from something I said like six months ago saying he has a pretty good shot. Oh, what are you talking about? He's not blah, blah, blah. He does.

He can shit the puck. Yeah. You know, he gets it off that one foot. Everyone wants to be Shea Weber, but people don't want to be Carlson. And I think what separates Carlson, he gets it six inches off the ice and hits a stick for a redirect. So I think if they get back to that simplicity of the power play, I think that can really help drive it up in the playoffs.

All right, last one. I know you got to go. You got TV tonight. Boston Bruins uh best team in the history of earth apparently any cracks so you know you can be bold and predict them to be tampa bay the president's trophy team that gets upset in the first round yes put a hex on them please can you see the islanders i think the islanders and we go back to the adversity like yeah i think they had a better season than that tampa bay did when they lost to columbus right so i'm thinking they end up playing the islanders islanders beat them in six all right yeah so if that happens i'm coming back in with my mr perfect cape on and

we're gonna play my entrance music like we did five years ago but you know i hate using the term juggernaut but yeah you know how do you i i've been discounting them out for five years and just find a way to get it done version are on pasternak marchand and they have that winning code in their dna and you can't really deny the heart of a champion and they've been getting it done now for years and i would not be surprised to see them get on a run but i think things have been going too perfectly where you know if they lose i don't think they're going to get swept but i would not be surprised to see them lose to a Pittsburgh, an Islanders, or maybe even a Florida for all we know. Well, if it doesn't happen, we'll never call you on it, but if it does, we'll have you in.

At David Amber is my Twitter handle. So if you have any grievances to air, at David Amber. All right, Stewie. Well, thank you for joining us today. It's Anthony Stewart, hockey analyst for Sportsnet. I don't even want to rattle off all the things you do because you got like 3,000 jobs. If you have money for hockey services, give him a call he'll take it yeah exactly um yeah what

about you you think boston any cracks in their facade for you no but when i saw all mark score the goal i said hmm it's going to perfect a little too good just a little bit too good and you guys talked about things you've been wrong about or expected to happen sooner. We all, every year, even though we're never going to get an international best-on-best again, we all like to put together our teams. And I've been saying that Patrice Bergeron's not going to be

on Team Canada for like five years now, because I'm like, ah, eventually it's going to slow down, right? Wow. Nope. Bold take, that one. Hey, you've got to have a take. Sometimes they're wrong. That one? Wow. Nope. Bold take that one. Hey, you got to have a take. Sometimes they're wrong.

That one certainly was. Absolutely. All right. So one of the things we wanted to do this afternoon was something that sports that we're going to run tomorrow, a little feature on TV. And I thought we would steal the idea for radio because no one watches TV and listens to radio. It's one of the other. Or streams on YouTube.

Players that, oh yeah. Players that you would pay to watch um thanks to um one player from the past two players from the present that you would and i know we would all pay to watch all these guys because we've all bought tickets before but player from the past and two from the present that you would pay the most to watch who are your guys okay so the past i did as a joke right newsy lelon because i needed to see like you would pay the most to watch who are your guys okay so the past i did as a joke right newsy lelon because i needed to see like i would pay money to see what they saw to put him on that top 100 list in the nhl but actually it's bobby or he won all the norris trophies he's so

special he has the i i'm not going to say the most iconic but a top five iconic picture in the sports history he's the guy i think just given everything that he is capable of doing, everything that he means to the game and all the stories you've heard forever, I think that's the guy for me from the past. That's such a good pick. I hit initially, so I grew up, and Lemieux was my guy, Mario Lemieux.

Quick story about him. He goes to the Clark Gillies golf tournament every year. I've told another Lemieux story, but he's the guy I wanted to meet my whole life. And on two to three separate occasions, I have seen him talk to someone else, been like, this is the time. And he disappears.

He just, he's like a myth to me. So I would love to watch, go back and watch him play. But I have watched him play. You know, I have seen him. Pretty good. I'm curious. I would love to go watch gordie how that's great you look at all the record books and gordie how is near the top now you'd want to see him when he's 50 playing with his sons probably not no not ideally yeah i'd like to see pete gordie how with the gigantic biceps in an era where no

one was in shape yeah um because i just have no sense for everyone's like you know gordie how you know he elbowed guys and scored goals i would like to see that i would just two other quick honorable mentions on that for me and they're both leafs related it's keon and sittler keon was named the greatest leaf of all time i would like to see what that looked like sittler scored 10 points in a game and he was rated just ahead of mats i'd like to see that i wasn't there i'm not going to say anybody was wrong to do it i would just like to see leafs who were supposedly greater than now that we're on that topic i wouldn't hate seeing some of my dad's islanders teams too that would have been to go back and watch i actually thought about putting bossy on the list because he was just such a prolific goal scorer and a guy that

i have no idea about the style of his game and obviously you would but yeah it's just one of those guys who it's like i it's not the jump off the page sexiest guy but it is one of those guys of i'd like to see how that worked how did that happen i know 50 all the time i know for like 10 years and i just called it good so i'm gonna because kipper's not here i'm gonna comfortably derail my own show here yes and just say so brandeo tells me he has the clip of anthony stewart predicting tampa bay to beat columbus which I didn't believe existed. Let's have a April 4th. Give your head a shake. 10 37 AM.

Tampa Bay is not big. Not coming out of the first round. He did it. He really did say it called a shot. That's pretty unbelievable. He's good. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a bold call.

So the guy who called that just called the Boston Bruins to struggle in round one. And then I tepidly backpacked onto that. I don't want any part of it if it went wrong, but I just want to say I didn't like it when Allmark scored for them. So it's funny that you say that too, though. I thought the exact same thing. I was like, it's all just going too perfect.

Way too good. You know, the president's trophy and they're the best team and everyone's perfect and the goalie scores. And Orlov is Bobby Orr when he comes, pastures, signs his tidy deal. Not that it's a hometown discount but it's like just no drama it's all done it felt like a peak of a season where you go wow they just peaked in

february so anyway that's wrong to have this much hope without sam around that's so true doesn't it although i feel like sam has been corrupted by kipper and and he's more prone to just get dragged down and it can't happen i i feel like the only one fighting for optimism right now. So anyway. I'm scared to show it. I have a lot inside of me for this Leafs team, but I am just so scared to, and it's a bad thing for it, but it'd be my job to step to the mic.

But it's like, I am so scared to say how confident I am in this Leafs team against the Lightning right now. So I, yeah, I really am confident too. I mean, is it more you're confident in the Leafs or is it more trepidation as to what Tampa is? Because that's where I am. This is not me

sitting here and going, oh, this Leafs out. No. If Ryan O'Reilly comes back and they look the way they're supposed to, that can happen between now and the end of the regular season, but it's really just about Tampa. And I always throw in the caveat that Vasilevsky is terrifying. He's like an axe murderer waiting at the very end of this to chop off my head and say how dare you have any hope you idiot yes probably what's going to happen but in the meantime it does it does feel like the

vasilevsky thing looms over at all that you can't even say that you have hope because he exists which is a fair point but for me the one thing that the leafs i do worry a bit about i asked dewey about is their offense like can they can can they create enough outside of whatever but yeah tampa bay's d is where they're weakest like i pull up their their stats and i look at sport logic and all that stuff in tampa bay their ability to protect the inner sloth they're like 15th in the nhl yeah and so for me if the leafs can get there so the worst so the second worst of the playoff teams kind of right i know it doesn't quite work but yeah no to your point like it's

if the leafs can get there they're gonna score i don't care who the goal is austin matthews mitch marner tavarez o'reilly kneelander like some pucks are going in the net and i do have more faith than i've ever had in their collective team defense. We saw it earlier in November, December. They can shut it down at their best. The goalies don't need to be Vasilevsky at his prime. You know, they need to be Jack Campbell last year would be good enough for me. What was he, 900? If they get 905, they got a good chance. So, yeah, I do feel some hope.

You know, not just some hope. I think I'm going gonna pick them to beat tampa whenever it comes to it so i'm gonna jump the gun on that that it'll be leafs in six there we go all right make the official prediction right now glad no you guys aren't here because they were though you scream at me mckee's gonna tell me it's all my fault when they lose that i predicted that is the risk all right so let's go back to we were doing one past and two present players uh the two guys in the nhL that you would spend your money. You're most likely to spend your money to go see.

Can we just like, can we take McDavid off the board? We almost should. Right. You know, I know a lot of the guys didn't pick him among the players. Jesus. Well,

now let's keep them on there. Okay. Well, so it's McDavid and McCarr. Those are my two first, first blush. I, Eric Carlson still does it for me. Really?

Yeah. That saucer pass that he threw to Mike Hoffman in the playoffs and that Senators run is maybe the most aesthetically pleasing hockey play I've ever seen in my life. And I hate the Senators. So for that to be the case, yeah, Carlson still does it. There are other guys who are more exciting, but it's just in terms of a guy who this is a little bit of like i feel like i didn't properly appreciate him

so i want to give him his due on the way out but yeah it's mccarr and mcdavid are one two carlson's fake shot goal against the oilers the other night was unbelievable like he's in alone he's a defenseman why is he in the slot it's a great question and just he really is special it's also the answer to to uh all the queries about his norris trophy wins over the years it's there's a there's a corollary there in terms of him standing alone in the offensive slot by yeah well then in overtime he just like watched nurse leave the zone was like yeah hopefully he doesn't score and he did so so let's speak to him all right my two uh mc, McDavid is kind of a no brainer. We probably should have asked him off the list. You know,

I was torn on my car versus McKinnon because I know they're on the same team, but every time McKinnon gets the pocket starts chugging, just, yeah. Like it's a different player. When, when you take all the name bars and all the numbers off the players and watch them play,

he stands out to me like Mccdavid yeah the speed the power the like he is someone who your eye is like instantly drawn to and i know macar is kind of like that too but yeah i think those are the the no-brainers is there a world where if you weren't so bogged down in leafland that a marner matthews would be like how much of it is yeah we see these guys all the time yeah you know that's a good point Matthew season last year is funny I had uh the our producer does the Leafs games with us we have a new guy this year he didn't work last year and he was asking me what was kind of the difference between watching Matthews last year versus Marner when he was going as good as he was this year and it's just you know not not to take anything away from the season

Marner has had this year he's been incredible but. But that 60-goal season with Matthews, when he just got the puck, and I'm sure it's exactly how it looked with McDavid, and I'm sure it's exactly how it looked with Ovi, but it's just when he gets his head up chugging and his ability to just release the way nobody else can. I do wonder. I don't think he's ahead of any of those guys for me, but I wonder if we do have a bit of anti-leaf bias in there.

For sure. Yeah, likethews is is worth watching for me but if it's just but if you're not gonna let me watch a guy's whole game and i'm just gonna watch his mixtape for lack of a better term give him mitch marner's like he might have the best one in the league that goal he scored against edmonton where mcleod i still don't know what he was doing there but yeah no fair enough all right so we got a number of things that you and i wanted to get to before the end of the show. I'm grateful. We get a few shows together. Yeah, that's great.

We can, we can work through our, our long list of, of go-to things. Kipper's back Tuesday. All right, everybody. Kipper is back Tuesday. Samuel will join us on Monday. Everyone's getting in a few rounds of golf prepared for playoffs planning on the long Leafs run. Of course, which is what, which is what's happening here.

Um, one thing you had talked to me before the show about was we talked about goal scoring and how special McDavid's season is. And you're curious about how power play dependent it was because he is. A merchant. He is an absolute power play merchant. The Leafs don't really have anyone quite like that. Why don't you share your statistical findings? So McDavid, he's got 60 goals.

I don't know if anybody heard. He hit that marker last night. A popular thing to talk about today in the nhl 21 of those on the power play so that's a pretty kind of standard marker when you look at the other guys matthew had 16 in his 60 goal season so again to your point not quite the the force there in ovi's 65 goal season he had 22 so if mcdavid 22 yeah yeah so if mcdavid's if mcdavid gets to 65 i'm pretty confident one of those will will come on you know what i mean at the end of the day it's they're all just a number yeah exactly really and guess what there's going to be a few more even a drop oh who was that that's a great question that was mcdavid talking about his six oh yeah the thing we played to start the

show he's so forgettable and then just for fun wayne gretzky had a 73 goal season uh in which he had eight power play goals oh and i missed the stamkos one 60 goals for stammer 12 power play goals so compared to 22 for ovi in 65 and 21 for mcdavid 16 for matthews 12 for stamkos in his 60 goal season wow 48 even strength goals strength goals. That's shocking. I mean, I suppose he could add a couple of shorties in there, but yeah. That is pretty baffling stuff. How many empty netters?

Sorry. Yeah, no. Empty netters is a fair question. It's a fair question. I don't think he was a Zach Hyman poacher like that. Did you hear our Hyman stat the other day?

He has seven disallowed goals this year. What? Yeah. I did not hear that. He has 30 real goals and seven disallowed goals. The other one that

blew me away was i i don't have it in front of me right now but i believe it's that he tied ryan smith as the oldest oiler with a 30 goal season and he's 30 what yeah there were like all the gretzky seasons in his 20s messier all those guys in their 20s oldest oiler with a 30 goal season zach hyman at 31 now i believe yeah that is pretty bad i was floored and they did go through that era of trading everybody like doug wait before they got to 30 yeah it's like you can't have 30 year olds on your team fair enough that one just floored me and it came from sn stats so i know it's legit that's not my research because we won't say what the thing was but i had some great research before the show. And then Boren said, no, you got to times by two.

That's right. Fair enough. You know, we talked about, you know, some more leafy stuff here with Stewie. One of the things we didn't get to is Joe wool. You're a guy who follows his team very closely. Do you have any hope that this guy could help this team? Oh, this year?

Well, he's going to play in the next two games. I don't think there is i don't think they're like i mean there's always a chance there's always the bennington chance where both guys go down and he gets on a heater and he's that it's hockey stranger things than that have happened but i do have some faith that this is a guy that can uncomplicate their goaltending picture going forward now the confusing part of that for me is that i like ilia samson i was my starter next year to pair with Joe Wall and not Matt Murray,

but Matt Murray's the guy that's under contract. But much to the point of what we said over and over and over about Nyes, if they can do a thing where they just have a guy on his ELC and he's making 850 or whatever it is, and you don't have to worry about it, you don't have to go shopping,

you don't have to give up a third for David Rittich at some point in time in the season, no save Dave, okay? You don't have to do those things third for david ridditch at some point in time right in the season no save dave okay you don't have to do those things i think that's really really important and if he's never anything more than that that is so crucial for this team and if there's a world where he can develop and be your 1b maybe he's a guy who can make you feel comfortable of rolling a dice on a samsonov type in a couple of years i i do have some faith in him it's goaltending you never know you a guy's gonna look one way this week and two weeks later he's not gonna be anything near it it's it is the it's the most impossible thing to have confidence in a guy for a consistent

period of time i've liked what i've seen yeah no i i have two and i am a little bit hopeful you know the injury stuff kind of scares me see how that can derail people but um the one thing that you and i had wanted to talk about while we still have some time is what is the best case scenario for matthew nyes in college this year he plays tonight tonight is the first game of the ncaa tournament uh they play they do that for sports other than basketball yeah i know there's a bracket they are playing canisius by the way the golden griffins are playing the Golden Gophers tonight. So, whatever.

Something's golden. Some golden tonight. They play tonight. If they would win, they play in two days. Okay. If they win both of those games and come out of that bracket, they then go to the, you know, Frozen Four or whatever they call it. Which is in April and he wouldn't be done until conceivably the 8th.

That's awful. So, isn't the best case scenario for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Matthew Nyes is a major contributor. His team wins the national championship. He's been a part of big moments and he comes in with three games to spare. Or is it best that he's done when three games, all we've talked about is this team having to pick a arbitrary number like five or possibly

as little as three at the end of the season i think you want to have this guy with as much time as humanly possible tonight yeah lose tonight if it's a difference between two days he can win tonight to feel like he accomplished something but no him going all the way to the end there is absolutely the argument to be made that yes a player confident feeling like he's the king of the world coming in that's going to be great but i guarantee you it's way way way more important for matthew nyes and for the leafs which is the far bigger concern here is not what's better for matthew nyes but what's better for the leafs is to have more time to work him in to get acclimatized to be in the nhl i know college hockey is not a joke i think sometimes and we're coming around on this obviously you realize that i'm not telling you anything youL. I know college hockey is not a joke. I think sometimes, and we're coming around on this,

obviously you realize that. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. But college hockey, it's big boy hockey. But it's nothing like going on the treadmill or going from walking like that to the 10,000 mile an hour treadmill that is playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the Leafs.

It's not going to go be a jacket. It's going to be a Leaf. He's not even going to get go be a jacket. It's going to be a Leaf. He's not even going to get to be a lightning. I know. It's going to be a Leaf, and he's going to get looks. And if he wants to be anything other than a crasher and banger this year, the only way I can see that is one, a really long run where he proves himself and, hey, we'll all sign up for that,

or having the most amount of time between now and the end of the season to build that trust. I could not be more torn on this question about whether i want to see a matthew nye's full of confidence trying things with a puck and go play 10 minutes a night on the fourth line well that's the thing is like you know if you want him to play higher than that do you want him to just come out of a cannon like having won the championship confidence dangles high intensity games like is that the best for him or is it the best to adjust his game play a fourth line game like eventually yeah you do not want matthew nyes to

become a guy who just dumps the puck in for sure and so can you ask him to do that for 10 games in a playoff run and then say, okay, new year, you're a new guy now. Now, you know, now go be a different player. Or do you kind of have to accept that you want him to play like the guy you want him to be when all you've said about this year is it's not development time anymore. This is not a year for guys getting better and honing their craft and whatever. So I'm really torn on what the best case scenario is.

That's why I think you need the time to acclimatize because I think you need to, of course he needs to build trust in him and the coaching staff, but I also think he needs to realize that he is kind of part of the plan here and that what he is this year is not what he is next year. And this is all,

this all goes down to how receptible to something someone is at, how old is he? 21 years of age. That's this is all, this all goes down to how receptible to something someone is at how old is he? 21 years of age. That's what it's all going to come down to. Some people are really mature and have a great head on their shoulders and they can adjust like that. I'm 33 and can barely figure it out when they move me around time slots

here. So, so you don't like, I can kind of see both ways of that going. And that just comes down to relationship with the player. How much do you know about them? But I think it also does change the fact of who they have in the bottom six now yeah if if it's you know if it's a third line and david camp's your center you're going okay i'm probably one type of player but

if it's a third line and ryan o'reilly's your center so true it's completely different animal so true and you know maybe this is part of the decision about how the Leafs want to deploy their lines like if Nyes comes in and he looks ready to contribute right you know he's handling the puck he's taking chances maybe they say now we want O'Reilly to be on the third line because we feel like you know we can give him someone to work with some defensive responsibility we can create matchup nightmares for the opposition but if he comes in and they go oh you know he tried to dangle three times in the first game he turned it over we need him to dump it out and whatever maybe then you want to load up the top two and i think i i have o'reilly and him as a

third line i think that's perfect because it's the you can get away with both scenarios there you can if he's going you can just keep them together and play them like a third line that gets a fair run of minutes but if he's not then you can bump o'reilly up for the occasional low zone draw and you can kind of play around with it there so it's not seen as a demotion for knives it's just hey it's ryan o'reilly going in the top six you certainly can't get your nose out of joint about that especially you know being so young in your nhl career so yeah you know it's you know with with nize's um long-term forecast and like what you expect him to be in the nhl i think we're sitting here in five years and nize is a second line winger yep he's a guy who gets 25 in the nhl you know like that's kind of what he is

and so we will look back at his rookie year and and be like what could we have expected out of a guy who's a 25 year old second winger in his rookie year and so that's the context is a useful player you know i don't think he's not going to come in and be a bum so it's for me it's managing expectations on the guy and maybe that's part of how they want to use them too typically when they have got a new player they've put them way too high in the lineup and then let them fall through the ranks i would rather see them you know ease them in i don't know i just so just something just occurred to me i wonder how much of that is them getting yarn croak up there now is we don't want there to be a spot in the top six on the left side you're not coming in here

to get that and if you force your way up there it's gravy but all we've heard all year is that there's been a hole there and all of a sudden yarn croak and matthews they're showing a little something i'm i'm less bullish on that than others yeah okay that's nice but i do wonder if that's part of the equation there is taking away the spot sitting sitting there in the top six yeah could be all right so tonight we have the florida panthers the toronto maple leafs do you are you a prediction guy are you a betting guy i do not like that number for the for the panthers that we started the show with eight one and one in their last 10 the panthers are against the leafs the leafs are underdogs tonight yeah by the money line plus 111 i see him at here i saw 120 oh yeah okay we'll discuss uh carter verhage

if i'm if i'm predicting anything former leaf had a cup of coffee for four minutes. The Panthers are likely going to win this game, and if he does, I bet he gets a goal. So there you go. That's good. You know, they got, I think Jovo was saying Alex Lyon is likely to go tonight. That makes me feel better. Yeah, I don't know.

Bobrovsky doesn't scare me much. No, but it's just, well, actually, now that I think about it, it makes me feel worse. Backup goalie who we don't expect much against the Leafs in a building that they never win in? This has typically been the Leafs' nightmare is that when they're supposed to win uh they have their struggles and yeah you know this is my nightmare yeah they've laid the groundwork though if it's all tinkering time so that's right great sales pitch I know yeah there

you go uh big thanks well thank you for joining me today be great to have you on tomorrow and on Monday thank you to Ed Jovanoski thank you to anthony patrilli and anthony stewart's all the anthony's in the house today um we'll be right back.