Real Kyper & Bourne - Bob’s Impact + The Power Play Puzzle

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne and Sam McKee kick things off with a look at Sergei Bobrovsky's shape coming into camp and what he brings to the Leafs both on and off the ice before digging into how he and the team's other veteran additions could help Auston Matthews. The guys then get into where Dakota Joshua fits, whether Gavin McKenna should be playing on the Leafs' top power play unit, Matthew Knies' outlook, and Daniel Alfredsson's role behind the bench. Later, Nick, Justin and Sam weigh in on teams no longer being allowed to fitness test players, Leo Carlsson's offer sheet this summer, and possible NHL expansionThe 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're live and in color on SportsNet 590, The Fans, Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet Plus, and YouTube, available on any of your major platforms. You pick up your pods. Nick Kiprios, Justin Bourne, Sammy McKee, Jake the Snake Shultz, Derek Brandeo, and assistant producer. Dare I say it, we have another Sammy? Yeah. Sammy. Sam 2.0? Gasserah.

Gassera. Gisira. Yeah, you got it. it. Sammy gas. Sammy gas. Bringing the gas. Sammy squared. Yeah. He's locked in up there. Is he? Oh, he's locked in. He's locked in.

Welcome aboard, Sammy squared. All right. Leaves back on the ice today ahead of tomorrow's final preseason game against the Ottawa Senators or preseason games, Sammy, games. Oh, yeah, right. It's another split squad Marty Feldman game. Marty Feldman, remind me. I know it's a familiar name I should know. I don't get that one either. Okay.

Just Google Marty Feldman. Tell me what you get. There's got to be some people being, I can't believe we don't know that because I, what is it? What? It's the guy with the eyes. He's got one eye going left and the other one going right. Poor Marty took astray here.

It's a Marty. Sorry, Marty. Oh, my God. It's tough to keep your eyes on both games. I'll give you that. Are you set up for a split squad game? I'm doing the game. I'm on the dance.

Oh, are you? So I will... Home or away, which one? Be appropriate. Or you share? I don't know. I don't know. I would imagine that we will be doing the good one at home.

I believe so. Yeah, that sounds about. Yeah. But the A squad going on that one, so it's nice. All right. Any sound today, Sammy? What did we find out today? Well, there was some sound.

I was producing right until the last minute here. As people do forget that I am the producer of the show time to time. I did bring in a new Sammy to help me out with that, so we're good. But a lot of talk about Broborski today. I was just going through it quickly. Lots of questions. I would say the main theme of the conversation was about Broboski. just talking about his legendary off the ice, you know, workouts and all this stuff.

And then, you know, Hiller going on about him. So a lot of Brobrovsky talk. Bob talk. Bob talk. In the scrum. So, you know, I think a lot's been talked about about, you know, we've seen Fridge talking about him on 32 thoughts about how big his voice is and all this different stuff. So early in the preseason here, a huge talking point is Bob. Well, there's no question that he is not your.

Typical, am I right when I say 37-year-old? I have 36 going on 37. 38? No, he just turned 38. Oh, he just turned 38? Yeah, well, he's an 88, just like me. Turn 38. It's here, no?

So he's not your typical 38-year-old. Yeah. And he carries himself, like, probably very few we've seen in the game. Yeah. Like, he does, he, his knock was over-training or overstretching. or overstretching early in his career. And a lot of people thought it was just over the top too much. Of course, success didn't come till the latter part of his career so far in Florida.

But now there just seems to be this sweet spot where he is the man right now. Yeah. You know, the list of 38-year-old goalies, and I'll give the athletic credit for the stat, list of 38-year-old goal is to play 40 games in a season is really short. I think it's 10 names long. You know, like it's not common to have an old guy play 40-plus games for your team. Mark Andre Fleury would be the last one. Yep, absolutely.

And, you know, their careers, sometimes you get a good year. Sometimes you don't really know if these guys are in decline yet or not. Yeah. I think it's a good bet, you know, but it's going to be interesting to see what they ask of them because 40 and 55 or two very different numbers. Now the Leafs kind of revamped their training programs or, you know, who's in charge now. And earlier this summer, the guru right now and probably has one of the best

reputations out there is this Andy O'Brien, right? And of course, he's trained some of our best, including Sid and Nate. And I don't know if you caught his interview. I think he went on TSN radio in the summer and spoke about Bob. And again, talking about not your typical 38-year-old, but I think he said biologically he might be 12. I could use older than 12 would be good. No, he didn't say 12.

I'm 38. I'm biologically 49. But I tell you what it isn't. 38. Yeah. He's in better shape than his age, is the point, which is encouraging, right? This is the guy obviously takes it seriously. It's funny that he puts so much time in the gym and he still looks like a software developer to me.

I don't know. He doesn't have the physique of someone who's... Do you want to hear the head coach talk about it? We haven't played Jim Hiller yet on this show. Jim Hiller's the coach, by the way. Yeah. We went... Okay, hold on for a second.

We went the whole day yesterday in Oak class. I think we're in for a pretty good year. Way better than first. With Jim. Yeah. Not that we didn't... I'm not saying we had a... bad year with Chief.

You're not? You don't have to say that. No, because Chief, Chief was good because it wasn't hard to read between the lines. There was no lines. That's not for today.

But we read between the lines. That was our job. That's right. Okay. So I still got a kick out of Craig. But Jim's got things to say. And I think we can anticipate a good Kippers' Clipper year.

Oh, man, that would be great. Well, let's start off hot with him talking about the new starting goalie for the Toronto May, please. Clip three, please, Derek, on Brovowski. You know, it's really hard to describe, I would tell you that. I think you've watched different athletes and you see them at the pinnacle their sport and they're winning championships. And he just fits that bill. Like, he's just beyond playing as well as he has and having the career he's had,

he's a champion. And he's such a humble guy and so dedicated to being. a professional athlete, a goal tender, and being a champion. So I think we've all, and I would include myself in that, we've all just really enjoyed being around him, and he's just got a great presence to him. But mark my words, he's a fierce competitor, and he's a gentleman, and he'll treat you with respect,

but inside this guy's doing everything he can to win, and it's just great to have him around. That's great. They need as much of that around as possible, right? Boy, he takes me for dinner, he buys me flowers. He loves him early. He's got to say the right things about Charter and goalie. Come on, there's just nothing else in the room with that kind of pedigree right now.

So I would imagine he's feeling it right now and it's early. But when you've walked into that Florida Panther dressing room for the last, what, seven or eight years, and you walk into the Leaf one now, he knows there's a lot of work ahead here. And we had this conversation a little bit yesterday in terms of goalies are a little different. You know, they got to take care of their own first, right? Their priority is that you've got to be a guy

that can get the job done first and foremost, and then you can branch out as much as you want. But it'll be tricky for him a little bit too. to when do you push, when do you challenge maybe a few people, including Austin and Willie. Well, here's what I'm just going to read. And I am, over the summer, I have proclaimed myself in the station the worst reader at Sportsnet.

So I'm going to read that. Yeah, yeah, I've come to grips with that. But I'm going to read what Matthews had to say about Brobowski because you said what maybe they're going to have to have some interaction. Austin Matthews on having Sergey Bobrovsky as a teammate, it's an absolute treat. I'm not going to lie. I was so excited when we signed him and just to be around him. The stories, the hype around him,

and just the professional that he is, and how he looks after himself, it's just focus, it's extremely impressive. I couldn't be happier to have him on our side. So, like, they all clearly have a lot of reverence for this. My one thing that makes me, yeah, revere. That works.

Yeah, okay. You're on point. Okay. You know what I mean. What I like about this is it feels like there is sort of a opportunity for some new culture to take root, right? new coach. You got a bunch of new bodies.

You get a champion goalie in. Matt's. Yeah, you got Matt's. Exactly. Someone who understands the market. Matt's has said the right things all summer long about, not that it's a scary market, that it's a great place to be a player.

So there is a chance here for something new to take hold. I don't know if it will or not, but they're in a good position here to grow something positive. Yeah, Nick Paul, part of that as well. You know, he's won a couple cups with the lightning, even though one of them didn't count. But, you know, he's won cups and played well. You don't count the bubble cum?

No. I think there's a good opportunity for Bob now to go to a guy like Austin and share Barkoff stories. And I think there's still a chance, at least, you know, Lee fans hope that there's still a chance that there's tremendous amount of growth in Austin to continue as the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs. but Austin to me still has what you hope is a chance to have a Barkoff type of presence on and off the ice like Barkov's not a not a big talker he's not this dynamic personality

but you sense that it's Barkov's team because he's awesome right he's a respectable dude who just yeah but can can Austin be a little bit like Barkov I think so, yeah. I mean, I've thought so, you know, for years that he's been effective like Barkov. The last couple of years, not as much. But, like, you know, there's, there's, he's way, like, when he was good, he was way better than Barkoff. He won the Hart trophy. And he was amazing defensively.

And listen, if you reversed Matthews and Barkov, do they, like, with the same rosters, the last two years when the Panthers went back to back, do they not win the cup? Like, they had an incredible team. Like, it's the guy. that are around them have that really do the talking and all that stuff like he's just able to do what he does i don't know like i just think that barkoff has a lot of reverence it gets underrated and all this stuff because he plays in florida but matthews at his peak is a better player than bark office he is he just hasn't won as much uh uh more dynamic but as far as a complete 200 foot game I think Barkov's a safer bet.

I think what's hard is that, you know, if you're Bobrovsky, are you going to pull Matthews aside and say, here's what Barkov would have done in this instance or whatever? I don't know that he'll ever do that, right? That's not a comfortable thing. Yeah, I know, but I really hope he would. I really hope he would. I would really hope that Matthews would embrace it.

Like you're talking about a captain of a two-time Stanley Cup championship team. and clearly they've done a lot of right things. Share some of those secrets with me, right? Yeah, it's interesting because, like, I think about when we first started this show, you had come off years of having great success with Mac, right? And the way that Doug McLean, whatever, I could never be Mac.

That's not who I am. And you gave me a great opportunity to be me and to find my own stride and to find my way of doing things because I could never be Mac. I don't know that if you came to me instead, said, here's what Doug did. Be more like Mac. Yeah, like I don't know that you go to Austin and say B. Barkoff.

Rimmer's just taking it every show. I'm just teeing off on Rimmer now. I don't think it works coming for me. I think I remember the conversation of, don't be like Mac. Please, please. Don't be like that guy. You know, but you get the point. Yes.

What can Matthews do differently to be more like Barkov, in your opinion? Like, just be a more. consistent performer? Yeah, all of it. And I don't know that most often it's the stuff that you just don't see, right? And that's some of the little things in terms of even working around the room.

And, you know, one of the best things about Mark Messier and, you know, I mean, I can only speak of guys that I've played with and watched is that there's a level of consistency with those guys and it didn't matter if you were Brian Leach or Tommy who did laundry in the room. Just you were important, right? And you were important and I was consistent the way

I showed how important you were to me, to us. There was just a level of consistency. There's not this roller coaster of emotion and it's not, it's just being. Tears of importance on the team, which we've talked about many many times. I don't know what it is that he could share, but it's the little things that end up making a big difference too.

And of course, we're going to watch the games and we're going to see what we can see. But in those instances, there's so much more around away from the rink with your teammates, with your employees, with the fans, how you treat a waiter who's not having the best night at dinner. Like, you're constantly being watched. And if there's a consistency there and there's some of the things that

that Bob can share with Austin and others, you just have to be open to change. And that's where you hope that some of the leaders are. And Tavares, too. Tavares, like, hey, great career, Hall of Fame type of numbers, but zero success in the playoffs. So listen to the guy that's been there before and done it.

Here's Nick Paul. Talk to him. Good to turn that page. Dakota Joshua, we're not sure what's going on. That's my conclusion. I don't know what phone calls you made, what you dug up. It's strange. So is he hurt or is he just out of shape and they're trying to send a message? What is it?

Well, I mean, this guy last year was, they traded for him. I think they tried a third round pick to get him here. He makes three and a half million bucks. Like he was supposed to be part of the solution to the production that they're going to lose for Mitch Martin, which in retrospect seems insane. But he's now skating as an extra with Group 2. Like Group 1 is obviously the starting opening night roster, and he is skating with Group 2 as an extra,

which is like the Marley's. Is he hurt? So yesterday at practice, this is a clip from yesterday. We didn't get to it because we had so much stuff just to kind of go off. But this is the clip. Derek, if you go to it here, Heller Clip 2 on Dakota Joshua. If we could play that.

When you say Joshua has returned, to play in terms of play from what? What happens? Well, I won't get in any specifics, but I know he's just been dealing with something and it just, you know, was up and running, but just felt like maybe he just didn't have enough time to really get

full speed, skating, catching his wind, all that kind of stuff. Like from the summer type of thing? Or something happened? No, nothing that happened recently. Yeah. Yeah. I think you'll be ready to start the season. I don't know that. I don't know that. So catching his wind.

I love the decoder ring. catching his wind. So, but you got a factor in, too. He had hit a bad injury last year, right? Something happened to him for sure. Was it spleen? Oh, yeah, spleen. Is that?

He got hit funny. He got hit funny. Return? Yeah, he did, but he also spent a lot of time in the hospital, if I'm not mistaken, too. Yeah. So does that have something to do with not being able to train properly or get yourself to a position where you don't need to catch your breath? I guess, yeah.

But like this is, you guys know I get, I beat this drum all the time, but just like we could handle that information if that were the case. We could manage it. Oh, here we go again. I don't know. I don't want to make a big deal out of it. They too. Oh, like he was had some, wasn't able to train a bit because of his recovery from X.

So we're just getting him back into shape. Tomorrow, Fridge is going to set a tweet. Ah, Dakota Joshua just got back from seeing healing Hans in Germany. to see his back. I don't know. It's strange. That's all we're saying. Let's not start this early, Leif.

When you go... Let's just have a little bit, be a little more forthright. When you look at the major change in three and a half to four line, right? Yeah. Like, they're clearly setting it up as a major competition. So, like, Dakota,

Steve Lawrence. Bluger, Duham. And Duham. And Bluger. And Bluger. So there's, there's always going to be somebody that's kind of held as the whipping boy example. Like right now, buddy, you're out. And I'm not suggesting that it's Joshua right now.

No. But what I am saying is I've been in that role many times. Getting the whip. Well, just like one day you just come into the room. Like, I'm the fourth wheel right now. Yeah. And I don't know if Joshua was that guy or not, but it is feeling like,

buddy, we signed you to 3.25 or whatever he is, they traded for it. They traded for it. And we didn't get it. Like, if they were super happy with him, would you have gone out and got to him? Great question. And so is there a possibility?

No way. They kind of signed. They're kind of the same, aren't they? Well, they're not supposed to be. What are they then? Didn't Joshua get 21 year? Yeah, he's not too he. He got paid coming off of a great year.

Like, he got that contract from the Canucks. I think he scored 20 or 25 goals for them. Like, he was really 18, 63. So, pays for 25. Yeah. I know. I mean, on a bad team, I scored 17 in Hartford on a bad team, right? I don't think I'm ever considered a 20 goals.

score in the National Hockey League. Duhame, a career high in nine. So, I mean, right now he's three and a half, four. Yeah. Listen, I'll take Duhame,

who's going to get 200 hits in that spot over Joshua who might get 13 goals. I'll take Duhame there. That's so, is there a chance that they're seeing if there's a spot for Joshua elsewhere? And I think that's for sure. But Joshua also was a guy that was better when he came into the lineup

after being healthy scratch, seemingly needing a little bit of a fire lit under them, a little bit of motivation. So maybe that's part of it. There would be no appetite right now for two years left at three plus million. Money's fake. Didn't you follow this summer in the initial? Money doesn't exist. Infinite money for everyone.

Yeah. Well. I know what you mean. Three, two more years. It chips away at what you're able to spend on your top dogs. Yeah. Last year, Joshua, 55 games, 10 goals. Yeah.

But I do believe that there's a chance that you create this uncertainty for who's going to be in the lineup and who's not with your third and fourth lines that you're in competition. Like every day you should feel like it's a chance to put a nail in the coffin for your spot because you don't have a spot right now or at least it's not anywhere near a permanent one. I was surprised that in like the exhibition games that none of those bottom guys, you know, really ran around or like I kind of thought like Zach McEwen who they signed would say, hey, I'm the guy if you need a guy to do this sort of stuff. So you saw Rify fight. You saw Rify fight. Can I see. Can I see someone making two or three million dollars have that type of passion in a fight? It's amazing.

He hung in there. Can I? Took some blows and didn't go down. He's a gamer. I don't care. He's just older, unfortunately. He's 28. You know,

yeah. Score whatever you want on your fight score card. I'll take that passion and emotion. He hung in there. And not the one that just kind of mails it in so I can just pretend that, you know, I did what I was supposed to do. I don't know. Is that too Hane?

Can he do that? There's some bottom spots here that are, you know, people, they're available. Which is great. I don't think the bottom. bottom half the least decor is impenetrable here. You know, like it's... Well, right now, right now, Stetcher's on the third pair with OEL.

Yeah. So your third pair is Stetcher OEL and Andre and Blankenberg are out as of today. Yeah, like Rify, you know, I mean, somebody gets hurt. How far down the lineup is he that he's going to get called up? So anyways. I liked him. Where did Mirmus go?

Is he still around? They got him? Can I ask you guys about the power play units? I put them on the back of your sheet there if you want to look at them. Yeah. One of the huge talking points right now amongst leave fans who are super horned up about McKenna and rightfully so is that he is not on the top power play unit. Jack Roselvic is there with Matthews, Neelander, DeVaris, and Radish. What do you guys make of that?

I don't like it. Okay. I don't like it. I think that you need to protect McKenna and expectations. That's one of the things we heard a coach say was that we don't want to heap too much expectations on the kid. but to me, go ahead. No, no. To me, you do that by keeping him away from other top competition

by not playing him 20 minutes a night. But these minutes, these power play minutes, are the minutes where he can get some space, get some touches, use those skills, make a play. Those are the minutes I want him to get with the top dogs. He's going to be there eventually. You might as well get him. They're just the complete opposite.

I don't want to give him too much too soon. Bill he earns it. Yeah. And you have, you're a green banana out there, man. can't just walk you into the first unit day one. Yeah. I can't. I'm sorry.

And I have to have a feeling that there's just not this entitlement that you're the first pick overall. And we're going to squeeze every ounce out of you on and off the ice. And we're going to sell you as a top power play guy right now. It's just too much. Well, I mean, for me, it's like, who is the best guy for your team to have the best power play? If you give Rosslovick and McKenna the same touches all year,

there's no way you get more points out of Rossiwick. No chance. It's just first week. I know. I know it. It's just the first week. And all things can change. When you go 0 for 8 or 0 for 9, there's going to be changes

and there's going to be opportunities for him to move up. But, no, Rossovick. Rossivik, they gave, what, 4 million? Right? I think maybe 4.5. Four and a half? Maybe. They gave him 8 million or 9 million for two years.

Two-year contract, $8 million total. Okay, it's $4.20. You can't sign him at $4 million and then just push him off for a guy coming out of college. Oh, yeah, you can't. No, you can. Not to start. $4 million.

No, not to start. Not to start. And I'm fine with that. I actually don't have. I'm not hyper-passionate against that because I wrote, in fact, that I don't think that McKenna should get too much early and that he should work his way up. But the power plate to me is like, he's going to be there.

We can all do this whole thing. You got to earn it. He's going to be there. He's the most talented 18-year-old in the world. But if we all know that, wouldn't it be better, especially if you're another 15, 16 guys in the room watching this going, okay, at least, you know, there was a bit of a process. They didn't roll a red carpet right to him for it.

But I think I'm totally, like this is, I'm right down the middle of you too. I can't really get bent at a shape either way about it. But to Kipper side of it, one of our main complaints about this whole era of Leaveshockey has been too much too soon and people getting elevated into roles before they proved anything and just the contract stuff early with the other guys and how it went and all this perception. That part of me is like maybe don't put him on the top line and top power play unit day one.

But at the same time, to your point, he's probably the best guy for it. Give him the rest. Like he really is for the top power play unit, maybe not top line, but top unit, he probably is the best like he's better at that probably than jack rossovic i hate to say it he probably he probably is right now and you want to talk about meritocracy he is by merit the most talented guy so anyway that the thing it's it's september 22nd and by october 28th this is ridiculous but october 28th guess what boys yeah he's probably going to be up there right good chance good chance hey i oh you know who's making these decisions oh go ahead you just want to

see on the power play a bit okay if if anybody should have their kind of nose out of joint a little bit. Yes, I know who. Who? Nice, nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Like. He's like, Roslovik? He's like, I can't handle the bumper spot. Exactly. Like, I don't, I don't get it. I don't get it. Now, this guy is seven and a half million that you committed to, long-term deal.

He continues to. kind of now he should be in a bit of a wheelhouse for the next two or three years or four years to be this this power forward one of the best in the league and he's going to catch the last 20 seconds on the power play but is that the plan look at the second unit like they have you know knives mechanic owen paul nyes you think you're pulling off matthews and nielander after a minute maybe no maybe not keep your gift's going on because you know right now right now Rosslynick's a right-handed shot. And I was like, oh, maybe that's for handedness.

But if you're playing the bumper, they run a one-three-one. Nealander's a better passer than Matthews. You'd want a left shot anyway, which should be nice. So this nice thing, yesterday you kind of waved off my pitch. I called for the fastball down the middle. And you went, no, we're not doing it. Nyes might be a little frustrated by that. I would believe so.

Yeah. But. And all these rules. for the past year with his name in the mix. Yeah. I mean, is it over? I don't think it's over, but he doesn't appear like he's going to be traded anytime soon. No.

So there's plenty of time to kind of just settle in and be good. I had, I said to someone else. No, go ahead, no, go ahead. You know, like, you know, okay, you know, now Nyes is, how old is Nyes? 23 now? 23 until October, just 24. you know, I was like, okay, now is the time to beat Tom Wilson, right? Go get 30 and 50 for 80 points and 180 hits.

And the response I got was he's not that guy. He's not that guy. He doesn't have that, like, dog in that sense. He's like he can. He's physically a monster. He can do it. Since I've been in pro hockey, I'll give you a list of guys that can and never did. Can and won't.

Can't won't? Never did. The actual reply I got was, ah, he's not Canadian. Yikes. Now we're talking. Now we're talking. But anyway, I hope, I think he can do it and there's flashes. Just bring it with the new consistent level. I mean, I think it was ridiculous to trade Matthew Nyes at any point.

Like, you know, we had the conversations at the deadline last year, what almost happened, blah, blah, blah. But I think it's double as ridiculous now considering the contracts that are being handed out, boys. Matthew Nyes's contract is immediately unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Like, the guys that are getting, he's getting Justin Sordeef money or whatever even know his name. Like, these guys that are getting paid are getting absurd contracts. This guy's 23 years old, turning 24, however big he is.

No, Nola Aoslin. Exactly. Like, if you, if you traded him now, it would be ridiculous. It was ridiculous before. It's even more ridiculous now. The value of that contract in the Bill Simmons world is high. Hi. You still want to trade.

Daniel Breyer. Daniel Breyer, buddy. Changed the whole league. Turned, changed it. Turned it upside down. He just, he like electro-shocked a bunch of GM's brains. We're just like, oh, new numbers. New numbers, money, take it.

Okay. We should probably have that conversation. We haven't talked about that. Also break. But before we break, I got to ask you guys, was it totally necessary to hire Daniel Alpherson as a coach for the least? What the heck is that I mean? I love this now because now we're right into his Toronto Maple Leaf

President of the booster club. Listen, this is a question that is fielded to me many times. Sen's fans hate it. Leaf fans are like, we have to watch Daniel Alpherson, who is like the number one heel maybe in my era of Leaf fans' life. It feels like we're the Vikings and Brett Farve came to be the quarterback. It's like, was this out of spite? And then he's going to throw picks up a lot.

This isn't Detroit. Man, this is the Super Bowl. I just, it just seemed like there's not another assistant coach. I hate this guy. I don't know. That's weird. Smart hockey guy. I know.

Somebody else couldn't run the power play. Just weird. It's weird. It is. He may form a hard new legacy. I look at it from an Ottawa's senator's side. I can't think of a bigger slap in the face. Just a absolute.

Of course. Steel-toed boot. It's like that is the face of our history right there, above all. He didn't. Yashin, Spetsa, Chara early in his career. He's number one. He's number one. Yeah.

Like, how does that happen if you're the Ottawa senators and you just let him go down the street to your number one rival? Let him's done a lot of work there. He's a grown man. He said, well, I got a nice job opportunity. is my guy. What was the opportunity? To be the assistant coach?

Was he not the assistant coach? Yeah. Well, maybe they offered him a better opportunity. Yeah. Kaching, ka-ching, ka-ching. Well, that's, that, now you're into something now, right? So, you know, Travis Green is there. So despite, you know, what any assistant coach tells you,

they all got one eye on how secure the head guy is and how close can I be the guy to replace them if he falters. Oh, my God. Oh, Daniel, I'm telling you. I'm telling you right now. I'm out. I'm telling you right now. For those reasons?

No, no, no. Hold on. Hold on. No, no, don't give me that. I'm out. 50% of your car. This isn't the Dragon's Den. So whether or not Travis Green has success or not

or whether or not his job would ever be in jeopardy. If they didn't, I would think he'd have some ideas. Could I have stepped in and been the next coach of the Ottawa senators? Didn't see himself for the next guy. I'm guessing, for my humble opinion, that the feeling was a no. I think there's guys of Galiferton looking at Marty St. Louis and going, you just got to give me the ball. I can run with it.

I think probably Daniel's more comfortable to say, if I go to Toronto and Hiller falters in a year and a half or two, they take me more seriously to be the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Oh my God. Are you okay? No. No. It gets insane.

What are we doing here? What is the difference? He's already here. It's honestly, every time they flash at the bench and I have to see Alth. I'm like, oh, like I physically recoil. Losing the first round. He's my lease. What are we even talking about?

It's preseason the Hiller isn't coached a game here. But I'm just, we're just talking about, I'm not firing Hiller, but I'm just telling you the mindset of an associate coach. Okay, okay. And it's mad. It's there. It's there. You think about these things.

You take jobs thinking about where am I? Could I advance here if things go sideways for some people here? Get in there and sabotage things and cut in throats. And you know, or you have a gut feeling, or you may have even discussed. it. But where is my upside in Ottawa and where is my upside in Toronto? And clearly he feels more comfortable with upside in Toronto, Sammy, despite how you feel.

Okay. If you ever saw him as a head coach. Oh, yeah. I'm the only one that feels this way. Like, both fan bases are disgusted. Disgusted. The sense fans are, like, they are, I saw it like, look how they massacred my boy with him wearing the leaf stuff. Like, I'm, every time I, I just, I guess is it the Sundeen relationship?

of two, they're probably boys. I don't know. It's just weird. What does it hurt? The weird one. Like, imagine the Sends are like, Travis Green calls up Tucks. He's like, Tux.

Come on over here. Darcy Tucker, assistant coach at the odds. How do you think they'd react? How do you think we'd react? It's very weird. It's very weird. Anyway. Well said.

I agree with that. Top five power play and you'll be the happiest. Yeah. You'll go by an Alpherson, Jersey. It better be top five boys. Yeah. There's me with my knives. 28th again.

Sleeper Sal. They're actually 15th last. All right, let's take a quick break. Catch our breath. Plenty more around the league, too. Connor McDavid, we need a really good Connor McDavid Babcock conversation. Great.

Well, they had him on 32 thoughts and he gave a great answer on Babbs. We'll listen to that. We'll get that and more when we return to Real Kippenborn. Dive deep into Toronto Sports and the NFL, the J.D. Bunk is podcast. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify,

or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back in studio. Nick Caprio's Justin Boren, Sammy McKee. Leifes close out there preseason with a split squad game against the Ottawa Senators. And I heard that they may take the team

away for, I don't know, three or four or five days. To Hawaii? I don't know. Bonding, maybe. Oh, they do that everywhere. Well, think about it, right? Do that every year.

They do like a Muscoca trip. Yeah, that's right. But before you're pressed for a day and a half, two days, now you've got six days of between Wednesday and when do they open up Wednesdays? So these are the four games? Is it a week tomorrow? It is next. What's the day today?

What's the opening? Tuesday night. The 29th is the opening. Right? Tuesday night. Is that Tuesday night? Yeah, seven days. So that would give them if they leave Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

They give them like three or four days for sure. I mean, that's good. Probably good for them to. Yeah. get together and all that, but this preseason strange. The one thing that really catches me. I can't confirm, like, usually it's been, like, local, right? They take you to a resort up in Muscoq or something.

Yeah, they go by golf. Somebody put a buzz into me, and I don't know if this is, you know, confirmed. Just telling you, telling us what you know. They may go to Arizona. What? What? Okay. I'm just.

I'm pulling a Doug McLean now. I'm just telling you what I hear. Yeah. But that'd be interesting. This is beautiful place to be in September, but I don't really want to hop on a plane four days before the season and fly to Arizona. Just a little bonding, though.

They can't golf here. But you know what really gets me through all this? They can't do fitness testing anymore. There is a CBA they negotiate, and that's great, and I'm on the player's side that, like, you know, beat back some of the preseason misery. You can't test the fitness of your hockey players? It's absurd.

The heck is that. It's absurd. Yeah, it's absurd. I mean, good Lord. You pay them how much? Yeah. Guys are making millions. Can we check what kind of condition they came in a camp

compared to what their previously their benchmarks were? That's pretty reasonable. I don't get it. That's stupid. That's a good word to describe it. If I was the owners or whoever negotiated that, I'd be like, what do you mean we can't test you? Why would we not?

Anyway. Okay. Is it because it's immoral? Like, they're professional athlete. What would the reasoning be? It's stressful. Oh, my Lord. I don't think.

you need to do V-O-2 max tests, but like... Step on a scale, maybe. Can you lift more? Can you beat your old mile time in a jog? Like, I don't know. Good Lord. Is it true that Kauai Lander is going to make more money than the entire NHL salary cap?

Kaui Lander, two years with a third year as a player option, but the two years is $150 million. The NHL cap for a team is 104 this year. So yes, his two-year contract is worth more than a whole year salary cap of the NHL. I thought the NHL was catching up to the NBA this summer, at 20 million. Leo Carlson tried, kale tried to push it up as best they could. What, you know, we didn't even talk about it this summer. Yeah.

What were your thoughts seeing the numbers being handed out this year? Yeah. Just It's just a dumb move Thinking that you had a Had a chance To get him Okay

You think so? Anaheim has One of the richest owners Ever this guy's got more money than God Yeah He turned around and he gave All his employees Double their salary as a bonus

Did you know that? No. I didn't know that either. That's crazy. It's unbelievable. Like he's, you were never, ever going to have this guy not match Leo Carlson.

So at the end of the day, all you do is just put everybody in a jam and a pickle, including eventually probably your own team at some point. Do you think any part of that was, Here's for Cutter Goce. Stuff in your pipe. Yes, there's a possibility there that could be easily the motivation. But again, if you don't get the guy,

and we went through this with Carolina and Montreal, with Sebastian Ajo, at the time Montreal offered him eight and a half, you're never going to get them. You're never going to get them. But it's a competitive league. You know, make the other person put them in a worse spot. I don't know. Okay.

All right. But now we are in a position now where we're throwing. Leo Carlson now, according to his salary, is the face of the NHL in many ways. And so it's okay to be competitive like you're suggesting, but be competitive with the right people at the right time. Neil Carlson's done squat, lead, squat and now we're going to put five or six guys in categories that they really have no business in being. I don't care about any of this.

Like you're talking about like a, like from a league perspective, why should Danny Breyer care about who's making X because he's not representative of the league? Whatever. I want that guy. I'll pay way too much to get them. And if you want to keep them, now you incur that cost. Yeah, I look at overall, you're right. I mean, if you want to look in that tunnel,

but I look at the overall health, and I look at certain teams that will have trouble now. So Gary Bettman, I think, is doing Board of Governors today, and he's talking about expansion, and it's like, holy moly, what are we doing here? We're going to add another team or two. we clearly already as a league don't have enough elite talent

that when elite leaves like Hellebuck and Larkin there's not enough to go around to come back and it's just I don't think it's healthy overall for the league. Now you can tell me I don't care and it's all about me No, no no I care about expansion

But I don't think it's a good look when we've got a guy that is just starting his career now, having all the weight in the world of an $18.5 million contract to go, buddy, you better be good. Last year, 90 or 95% of the league was within a couple million dollars of the salary cap. They all spent to the cap. So whether you give it to a guy or you give more to random other guys is just a, you know, it's how you choose to disperse that money, really.

it is going to be fascinating in the years ahead. But we don't have 32 billionaires who will spend whatever it takes. And this is my toy. And we got a lot of ones that nickel and dime. But that's great. It's going to separate. I think that's great, though. Also, you mean the teams that everybody cares about will be better?

Well, that's kind of where that's. Yeah, but that's, you spend 25 years to get out of that. You argued against it. because Gary Bedman, 25 years ago. We don't want the Rangers and the Leafs and the high-end teams to have this and all the bottom feeders. And what's happened 25 years, albeit in a hard salary cap, is now we're kind of back to that again. But do we want to be, this is what, there's private equity buying NBA teams, NFL teams. Do we want to be a major sport where the dollars are huge and, you know, the incentives are huge and all that kind of stuff?

or do you want to be sort of a niche league where there's owners that are, you know, need to make a profit to stay viable? I don't know. To me, I like that the NHL is big money. Yeah. And hopefully a bigger deal. It's, I get your point for sure. Only the strong survive, right? Do you think it's going to cost the NHL team?

Like, do you think that Winnipeg? Well, if Winnipeg didn't have one of the richest families in the world, only it's going to cost. they would have been gone by now. Yeah. Like you think that's, they're funding losses to keep the team there? Well, they're just funding.

Yeah. Right. They're just, right now, it's good because they've got a very committed owner. But there's other owners that are finding ways.

I don't know. Vancouver, I'm not sure where that Equalini family is on spending right now. It's crazy that like we're going to add teams. They hate relocation, obviously.

And you don't want to move a team. They should try another couple teams in Texas. Maybe that'll do it. Well, maybe try another one at length. Houston's a done deal. Great. Justin is. As long as they're comfortable with a building development.

But if it's not Houston, it'll be Austin. But right now the focus is Houston. Batman wants to leave in all the biggest U.S. markets. Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta are the last three giant markets in the U.S. that don't have NHL teams. He wants that, right? I don't think it's great for the product. God, I've seen some preseason highlights this year.

Oh, boy. We just can't find... We can't find enough good players. We can't find enough good players right now. And it's hard. Just tough for a fan to keep track of the league if you got 36 teams. 36? Or 32 now, right?

You've got to add four more teams? Well, I just mentioned three. It's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy. It is a little bit crazy. Did you catch Cooch's comments a week ago? Yeah.

What did? What did you think of his comments? His comments were if you missed them, that the game is much faster, yes, but it's dumb. Let me say, low IQ. It's a dumb league right now. I think it's pretty easy for arguably the smartest offensive hockey player of this generation to say that it's dumb

because everybody probably looks pretty dumb to him. He makes guys look so silly. Every game. Pumpfakes. What did I tell you guys? Like, sometimes you're the fastest. guy to get to the wrong place. Oh yeah, we've been watching Pierre Engval do that for years.

Skating back to his own zone with the puck for some reason. I think it was a heck of a statement from that guy. Yeah. I mean, let's start with some of your teammates. Which ones are you talking about, Krooge? But it is, you know, you can laugh about it, but John Tortorella said the same thing a year or two ago. Like these guys who see it well and have been around it and think it well,

But we've also overcoached them, over stimulated them, go stand here, get rid of the puck, dump it in. Like, we've left them with no creativity. We've left them with the inability to think on your own pollution. Well, one of the greatest clips I saw was white chocolate, Jason Williams, the NBA guard, who was just so unbelievable with the basketball. And he talked about how kids today are in the gym with a trainer and work on this and work on that and go through the steps. He's like, I was in the gym by myself, just trying things, handling it, coming up with ideas, thinking it through.

And so you end up with that like IQ for the game. And I think all NHLers today come through programs where it's skating treadmill on Tuesday night. It's, you know, your skills practice on Monday nights. It's your team practice on Wednesday. It's left wing lock in the neutral zone. Yeah. There's not a whole lot of road on the pond just like. coming up with things.

But wouldn't that make it smarter? No, that would make it more skilled. It wouldn't make it so you're actually thinking for yourself up there. And it also makes it a dollar. Okay. Yeah. Bubble hockey on track. Well, let's add four more teams.

And a couple more in Texas. That's what we need. The Texans are clamoring for it. Oh, yeah. The game is an adult. It's grown. It's been grown. It's grown.

It's grown. You did it. It's adult. One thing we should note before we go today, our thoughts are with our teammate, Mike Futa, I believe he lost his mom today. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I know they were a close family, and I know his mom was a regular viewer of a lot of our program.

So thoughts with Futes out there today, buddy. We've been thinking of you. Okay, well said. I know we mentioned a Connor McDavid Edmonton order conversation, but we're not going anywhere. No. We're just, we're back.

Despite the Jay's doubleheader, we will be here tomorrow. Yeah, we won't be on the radio tomorrow. If you're listening on Sports at 5-9 of the fan, but we'll be on SportsF Plus, YouTube, podcast, all that stuff. Jay's got rained out today? Yeah, so double-headed tomorrow. Double-headed.

We had already all booked their tea times, but unfortunately we're still here to pass up. Nah, that would be great. We'll be back. Can they be eliminated tonight? I hope. Well, don't have to turn on the TV anymore. How about that?

I'm going to miss them this fall. Oh, I'll miss that. I'll miss that. All right. Once again, we're back, season six, Real Kippenborn. We'll do it all over again tomorrow, 3 p.m. Eastern.

Thanks for joining us.