Real Kyper & Bourne - Expansion Opposition with Brian Burke

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne welcome former NHL executive and PWHL executive director Brian Burke in-studio to start the second hour. They discuss NHL load management, divisional vs. 1-8 playoff seeding and Canadian teams' cap disadvantage. Then, with the Coyotes' move to Salt Lake, he gives an argument against expansion. Later, he shares who he thinks will end up with the final Wild Card spot in the East, his pick in the Hart race and teams he likes in round 1. Finally, they regroup with Sam McKee for news & notes where they go through tonight's action, packed with playoff implications.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.

all right let's kick it into high gear on the real kipper and born show this is the national edition of our show we are live on sports net sports net 650 in vancouver sports net 960 in calgary this hour real kipper and born brought to you by bet 365 in studio with brian burke former nhl executive canucks ducks leafs, Flames, Penguins. And now current executive director of the Professional Women's Hockey League Players Association. Whalers? Oh my gosh. How would you of all people?

Although you didn't, this wasn't off the top of the head. I just read the thing. This is Sammy not putting the Whalers on. I played for, you played for me there for god's sake i feel shame well i know that's going to be put on sammy at some point so for sure how are you i think you're fresh off of a trip to utica to cover the women's world hockey champions in which canada won six five in overtime yeah two exciting games the first one was one5 in overtime? Yeah, two exciting games. The first one was 1-0 in overtime, U.S. won,

and then Canada won 6-5 in overtime. Really thrilling games. I mean, overtime in a gold medal game, as grueling as that is, that's what you want. That's what you pray for. So it was great. And I know people say Utica,

not the best, not a vacation location, but what a great setup for a tournament three rinks beautiful renovated rink two practice rinks the sport court weight room it was great it's come a long way since my mid-80s trips there with the Hershey Bears yeah I can tell you going with the Marlies in 2016 it wasn't a paradise yet so good to hear they've made some upgrades that's great so we've been talking a little bit. We're just coming off the Leafs hour.

So just going to dip our toe back in there in the national hour here and get your thoughts on Austin Matthews' chase for 70 goals. Two games left. Playoffs ahead. Where do you stand on the board? What would Brian Burke do in the next two games with Austin Matthews? Let him chase it or rest him? No, I'd let him.

It's too special a award, a level to hit. In my mind, it's – and I don't like – you know, Nicky, my view is the players should play. I don't think players should take time off unless they're banged up or fatigued. If it's just a regular grind, that's what days offer for in practice. Give them a day off in practice. But you work.

I like my players to play every game they could. So to me, he plays. Then he gets the record in the next game, then he can take off. So load management doesn't exist for you in the National Hockey League like it would, say, basketball? Load management is called practice. You take practice days off. You don't cheat people who paid money.

Yeah, that's a big thing in the NBA, right? Is there not like a restriction now that they have to play X amount of games? They can't all at once, I think. It's restrictive, but what garbage? I mean, why would you do that? Why wouldn't you tell players, okay, we understand load management. Players want days off. I get it.

So the league has a mandatory day off every week, which when I played, when you played, a day off a week, it was more like a day off a month. So we've progressed to that point. They get a day off now. You want another day off, take a practice day off. You can play in the game. There you go.

Matthew's in. I like it. I would imagine this time of year, Berkey, whether you're working and running a team or where you are, it's an exciting time. The last regular season games and then where everybody slots in and lo and behold, we can have two powerhouses, what we think is a powerhouse anyways, like the Dallas Stars versus Vegas.

Potential first round matchup here. Like, what are your thoughts on that in terms of going big early in the first round? Well, it makes the regular season extremely important. That's the best part about it is all the games are critical. So players are playing for the right reason. The league does a masterful job of scheduling at the end of the season they put in all divisional opponents they put in teams that should matter

and they always end up mattering so to me the league deserves a lot of credit players deserve a lot of credit but it is nerve-wracking i can tell you having lived through it as an executive it is tough to watch so do you not like i've always felt like it would reward the regular season more if we did one to eight and you've seen it done different ways do you like what they're doing now with the attempts that did divisional round ones no no you'd prefer one to eight i prefer one to eight i want to reseed each round they should even with brackets they should still reseed each round so the, I know basketball people like them. Fans like them for betting, you know,

like for the certainty of who's going to play whom. I get it. I get brackets. I'd rather have one through eight. I'm not jumping off a bridge over one through four, but they should recede them each time. You should get the weakest opponent each time you play. We're talking to Brian Burke in studio,

former NHL executive for the Hartford Whalers and a bunch of teams I couldn't care less about. That was his first trade, by the way. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. For you. For me. Yeah, that's nice.

Do you remember who you traded? We're going to be on the other side. Yeah, I do. French name. No, no. No? Mark Hunter. Oh, Mark Hunter, yeah. Really? Yeah, with Washington Capitals. Yeah. do uh french name no no no mark hunter oh mark hunter really yeah with washington capitals yeah

but uh never really good for me that was a great year 17 goals and 300 pims yep oh that's just my favorite story is nicky at the payphone in hartford and we're in toronto in the airport i hear nicky's on the big bank of pay phones. Remember that? Hey, I remember those. I actually do. I hear Nikki going, no, it's okay, Ma. They wouldn't let me play if I was hurt.

No, Ma, it's okay. I love you. I love you. And Nikki hung up. I said, she better be good looking. And Nikki said, Berkey, that's my mom. I got to ask you, in terms of Canada, we've seen a tremendous story in Vancouver.

The Edmonton Oilers turned around their season early. The Leafs are the Leafs. Winnipeg with Hellebuck arguably the best goalie in the league this season. Who's got the best chance to end this horrific drought since 1993? Well, I sure anyone's gonna end that drought that's a much deeper topic that's we're having great success with five teams i guess this year good for good for the canadian teams or four and and calgary was really in it until pretty late so i'd count them as a contender they got a good young group i think the issue is the tax structure and the tax differential is still so significant that I'm not sure any one of those teams can come out of it. I hope I'm wrong.

The best team I've seen this year was Vancouver about a month ago when they were rolling. The best Canadian team. Winnipeg's been the best maybe the last four or five games. So it's all, you got to get hot at the right time nick you know how this works yeah so right now the winnipeg's rolling and they look like they're peaking just at the right time i like their goaltender the best of all of them so right now i'd probably pick them i'm not going to say any canadian team is going to win it right now no no no favorites i do want to you know we've talked about the tax thing on this show quite a bit it is a fascinating topic and kip has sort of mentioned that like it probably is going to create No favorites. I do want to, you know, we've talked about the tax thing on this show quite a bit.

It is a fascinating topic. And Kip has sort of mentioned that, like, it probably is going to create even a bigger disparity as the years go on here and agents and everyone recognizes the difference. Do you think the league would ever do anything to create, I guess, a more balanced playing field to protect the Canadian teams a little bit?

Well, if you went with a cap where the money spent was after tax dollars, you'd have a great equalization factor right there. So you could only spend what your players take home. Because right now that's where the Canadian teams are getting killed and the tax-free, the state tax-free jurisdictions are making a killing. Texas, Nevada, those states, they have no local tax structure to speak of, and that's where the differential kicks in,

in addition to much higher marginal rates. So that would be what I'd say, but to get a change of that magnitude, you would probably have to take a work stoppage. I don't think anyone would be willing to do it for that. That's got to be a little upsetting for teams like Toronto and Vancouver and New York who carry the freight on a lot of the revenue created over a season.

Yeah, well, that's why it cracks me up, Nicky. When I heard last week someone sent me a text and said they're talking seriously about a second team in Toronto. And I told the people there, I said, I got to be there. When these teams that cashed that check that I saw the Toronto Maple Leafs write for $30 million in revenue sharing to Carolina and Arizona and Anaheim when they were struggling, I got to be there when they all vote to put a second team in Toronto.

I got to be in the room. So, no, it's a real problem problem and it's not going to get better but i'm not sure there's a short-term solution to it so you don't see a second team in toronto ever happening i i well first off let's step back yeah i don't think we should be expanding at all you know that you've heard my rant about that well just the quality of play uh the quality of play and there's 32 teams you win a cup every 32 years if you're any good at it some teams have never won but it's every 32 teams you get to have a parade yeah oh let's make that 40 let's make it 44 where does it stop and it's all about money this is just about money you

can grab the money grab it doesn't matter you water down the product doesn't matter the travel gets worse doesn't matter you had more games because the next thing is they've said they're moving to salt lake that happens that's expansion all right it's over the argument's over that means they've added a team because they're giving arizona the right to come back in the next five years and they will come back in that's too good a market they've mismanaged it had it in the wrong place a team in phoenix makes sense so it's expansion. Now, what's automatic? If they had teams, they're going to have playoff teams.

They're going to do plans, which I think is ridiculous. So I made a vow I'd stop doing this rant on TV. No, let it go. I did this little meme or gif where the guy says, get off my yard, you crabby old guy. That's what I feel like. But I feel these are two major, major mistakes, unforgivable mistakes by a league that does everything so well.

I cannot believe we're about to add teams and add playoff teams. And they're both coming. Write it down. Ten years we've been talking, maybe longer, about Arizona and not having either the right ownership or couldn't get the proper rink here. So, I mean, you're watching this thing unfold in the last 7 to 10 days, and what's your first thought? It's about time?

No, I think you should come with an air sickness bag, this whole saga. It's just ridiculous that a city of six million people is going to fold and move to a city with 1.5 or whatever salt lake city has 1.3 i read yesterday so getting ready for the show 1.5 i also remembered hartford was a team that you worked at nicky 1.5 million say it's 1.5 so we're gonna we're gonna give up a marketplace of 6 million people for a marketplace of 1.5 million people where they've never had pro hockey other than the ihl and some ahl teams that were there in the day yeah the ihl before that okay that that makes sense to anyone else because it doesn't to me doesn't to me make this guy sell the team get a new team in

the right location and keep playing so that this then more than any other expansion franchise feels not about the market but the owner they seem to really want ryan smith involved because it sounds like atlanta much bigger market houston much bigger market. Phoenix as well. They just seem to really like this guy. Do they not? That's sure the way it looks. And how does that make sense for them? They just trust that he'll be able to pony up the money when time comes, so go for it?

I don't get it. All that does is, okay, so you can pass the test at a meeting by being a good guy, and you can say he's a good guy. When he starts writing big checks, if the team loses money, is he still a good guy, you can say he's a good guy. When he starts writing big checks, if the team loses money, is he still a good guy? Yeah. Because I've seen this movie before where people buy a team because they want to be popular, they want to be the big guy in town.

I've seen that movie. You and I lived that movie. And now that movie's not ending anytime soon here because now there's talk out of Houston now. They're pushing really hard. And, you know, whether it's Salt Lake City or Houston. I know. It's a billion dollars a team times four.

How can they say no to this? These guys will dislocate their shoulders voting for this. And then we go from 32 to 36. Ellen Walsh said it could be two billion a franchise. Two billion. Okay, even more. Now they'll dislocate both shoulders. Our show is live coast to coast across this country now.

Every Canadian from both sides are watching right now. How should they feel about all of this in terms of watching Gary bend over backwards for every billionaire who wants to put a team somewhere in America? And we're sitting up here. And I got to tell you, today, after watching everything in Arizona, I'm really nervous for Winnipeg here in the next couple of years. I'm scared for Winnipeg right now. See, and this is, first off, I wouldn't blame Gary.

This is an ownership level thing. This isn't Gary. I'm not going to throw a rocket Gary Bettman over this. This is inexorable pressure from ownership. I can pick up. I can go to the bank. I don't have to bring a mask. I don't have to bring a gun.

I can get one 32nd of a billion plus dollars. I can do it twice, maybe three, maybe four times. And the union doesn't share in that money. I'm voting for this. This is done. There's no question in my mind. The news out of Arizona just confirms this for me. I've been saying this for two months now.

It's not appropriate, and it's just a money grab. If the league announced that they wouldn't expand for 20 years, you couldn't buy an expansion team for 20 years, what would franchise values do? They'd triple. They'd triple. So that's where you can make the money in my mind keep your number manageable they're going to start having parades for teams that win divisions when they get up to 40 teams you're going to play teams every two years

obviously it's like a winning a cup yeah getting in getting in a couple of a couple of gates and that's going to change the plan's coming that's coming. That's the, this I feel like, again, Cassandra, you read your Greek mythology, she could foretell the future, but nothing ever happened. Never came true. And so she had to predict these awful things that would happen, and then they watched them happen. That's what I feel like. I feel like Cassandra.

This is a mistake, and it's going to be followed by a bigger mistake by increasing the number of playoff teams. Everyone's going to say it's great, and it's not's not well so i love the idea of a play-in like i think you know there's all these teams you would i know well hold on where everybody gets a medal my generation for that it was our parents who gave us the medals it was your generation we're such idiots yeah but the if you had play-in games you're looking at Washington Philly and like St. Louis Arizona St. Louis Minnesota like they're bad teams but guaranteed sellouts yeah you're right you think St. Louis is a bad team I thought you're using that as an

example I was there's some decent matchups but Philly's no good Washington's not a very good team well I thought you're going to make the other point. That they're good teams. That they're good teams. I don't think they are. And there's some compelling matchups. Good. Because I think you could get some compelling matchups.

You get playing games where you've got one game, it's a one-game knockout. You're going to see some good games. Yeah, okay. Like the product is going to compel a good result. That doesn't make it right. Doesn't mean we should vote for it. So you get one more meaningless game to totally dismantle the value of the regular season? No.

Now you can finish 20th and get in a play-in game by the math. Yes, participation models. Speaking of suspect competition, maybe, we're watching a bit of a snail's race here in the eastern conference for a wild card spot uh including your old club the pittsburgh penguins that uh sydney put on his back and is absolutely uh carrying him who ends up with the final spot here bergy well it looks like a turtle race till the end and then sid really truly has been dragging that team along and they hit a bit of a bump the other day but no one's noticed the Islanders seem to be doing the same bloody thing yeah and they've won the one six in a row and that's the key right now it's Winnipeg going

into Colorado and spanking them that's the key is to be hot when your team is going well not not the rest of the time and the timing of this is critical. So to me, now they've still got a week to go, still got two games to go. I know everyone thinks, oh, you want Pittsburgh to lose because they fired you. Well, I don't really want ever rooting against Sid or Chris Letang or the other guys, Brian Russ, the other guys they had there. I really respect and admire those guys. So I'm indifferent on the race except that people I care about are in it.

So to me, I've been watching them with great fascination and interest, but the team to watch for me the last week, 10 days has been the Islanders. Yeah. I mean, they look noticeably different since Patrick Waugh's come. A lot of their defensive numbers are a lot better.

Like, I don't know if it's as simple as goaltending but varlamov has helped them out quite a bit like they feel like a team that in a playoff series could at least make it difficult on someone well in the style they play they're designed for playoff success they're they limit good chances it's not scintillating no it's not exciting it's not it's lou lamorello. It's Lou Lamorello hockey. Plus Matt Barzal. He's just like cacked up. As Lou mentioned to me one time when we were all whining about the trap, Lou said, Brian, before you guys yap about the trap, you should notice that the team, my teams that won three cups,

led the league in goals scored the three years they won the cup. That is a missed story. Yeah, is under a missed story yeah there's a missed story so it's not as bad as you think but it's not scintillating and it is it does lend itself to playoff success you limit the quality chances it means you got to dumb it down a little bit and play a little conservatively but i think they've they started scoring goals some bunches and arzell is a an x factor for me a lot of talk especially with the mvp race and you know austin's pushed hard here close to 70 right now so he's in the mix but we've got four great seasons in front of our eyes with mckinnon mcDavid, Austin, and Kuch, of course, in Tampa Bay. What's the differential for you?

What is the difference between one winning or one coming in fourth place? Well, I think all four of these guys have been major factors in their team's success. In my mind, Tampa's turnaround has been fueled by Kucherov. You look at McDavid he turned their team around and Edmonton Matthews has been quietly great all year depending doesn't matter what his line mates are so I think there are four great names in there no question and McDavid or McKinnon has been great all year and he's the most exciting player probably the bunch

most explosive. But to me, I don't know how you debate this with Kucherov being, except that no one likes him. Kucherov has quietly, I think he's 40 points ahead of the next guy. The next guy is not some bum. It's not Brian Burke. It's Braden Point, who has not got 40 points. He's got 75 or 80 points.

So, like, he's 40 points ahead of the next best guy who's in the top 10 in scoring. I don't know how you discount that. Heard Marty Braun talking about this last night, and I agree with him. Yeah, Kucherov is now 52 points up on Braden Point. And what's Braden Point? Where is he? 89 points. So he's not Brian Byrd.

Yeah, he's having 45 goals, Point has. So he's 50 points ahead of a great player having a great year, and that's some stiff. Like, I know other teams have said that, well, he's 40 points ahead of the next guy. Next guy's got 50 points. Well, big deal. Right.

This kid's having a great year, and he's a great player. So to me, it's Cooch. Now, 70 goals is 70 goals. I don't know how you ignore that if you're a voter. I'm glad I don't vote. But to me, it's Cooch. So, you know, one thing I think with the way you build teams, I think of the Phil Kessel trade and saying, like, you have to have elite talent on your team to win.

You know, you look at all the guys we just named. All these teams are in playoffs, and these guys are making a big difference. Crosby dragging a team to playoffs himself. You know, how do you look back at the decisions you made as a GM to go out and pursue, you know, the hunt to get both the Sedins, the elite, elite guys, and the difference those kind of players make? Well, Phil was a little different because we didn't lottery protect Phil, which was a horrible mistake in retrospect.

And I've said that publicly many times. Phil was great for us. He did everything we asked him to do, but we didn't lottery protect the pick because, frankly, we were at Christmas time. We were in a playoff spot. We had that horrible 18-wheeler going off the cliff. So actually, you look back on it, you say, well, he should have lottery protected it.

Back then, not a lot of teams didn't bother, didn't do it, and we thought we were in good shape. But to me, you can't win without star players and in toronto in particular i felt we had price fatigue i felt that we were charging so much for tickets not having success not having any star power so we brought dion in brought in phil now all of a sudden we got some recognizable names and people and people appreciated that yeah so to me i don't think you can win without star players it has been done i've had people send me texts and say you know this guy that guy this team won with this but

the fact of the matter is most great teams have great players and you can't win without them i would always believe that so the twins before the twins we had a triple crown line or whatever they call them west coast express nasa vertia, Morrison, had the twins there. I got Pronger and Hartford before that. I've always been fishing with big lures. So do you like the way Vegas has gone about winning their cup and building that team? Yeah, subject to the question about the LTIR.

This is something that, to me, I've been asked about this on the radio and I've said the same thing every time. If it's permitted by the rules, I'm okay with it. As long as the league signed off on this, I'm okay with it. That being said, maybe we have to look at it in the offseason and say, don't whine about what Vegas did. If it's permitted by the rules, it's permitted by the rules. You can't say, oh, but they shouldn't have got that guy.

If the league said it's okay, I'm okay with it. And good luck on them. I don't like changing that many players that late. I think it usually doesn't work, but we'll see. We'll find out the hard way. The Stars have to line up a little bit for you here, too. You also need someone on board, right? You know, Mark Stone could have said,

no, I don't want to go on that long term. Or, you know, maybe it was to the point where he thought he was legitimately out for six months and he's not. I don't know how it works, but it takes many people to kind of dance. It's a system issue, though, Nicky. To me, that's something the league and the union have to work out after the season.

It shouldn't be a topic of conversation. How come Thomas Hurdle is playing? How come Mark stone came back early well he had a lacerated spleen i'm pretty sure you can't lie about that on a medical report pretty sure they've got a picture of it somewhere of the imaging but he's got a lacerated spleen in order to make that up they didn't say it's a sprained ankle they said it's a lacerated spleen for god's sake so to me deal with those system issues if you have to i'm not saying you don't have to maybe there are 20 million over right now. Maybe that's not right. We got to fix it,

but let's not worry about it tonight and not talk about it with should Mark Stone be skating or not. Yeah. I mean, I guess you're just far less cynical than I am, which I'm surprised to find myself saying. But, you know, the idea that Stone, I think you can say, you know, push the return date, right? You can change the return date. Maybe he would have been ready two weeks ago when you just kind of hold the guy off. But I guess you can't say as a league, force a guy to get a test. No, but if he says he's ready and the doctors say he's ready,

that to me, so he's beating the system. That's what we want players to do. We want players to beat the return to play date if they can without violating the doctor's orders but if a guy how many times you've seen a guy says six to eight weeks and he's back in four weeks yeah because he works hard because he pays attention to detail he's faster but that never happens with a team like vegas where they acquire players to make room like headstone got healthy two weeks ago what would they have done?

Well, Kucherov got healthy, right? He played his first game in the playoffs. So, if you're a cynic, you can be cynical. Go back three years and be a cynic. Yeah. Got to ask you, going in next Saturday, who do you like? Next Saturday? What's next Saturday?

Oh, playoffs. Starting with Stanley Cup playoffs. What team do you like? I don't do predictions. Teams do I like. Do you like Vegas over Dallas? The blue line? Tom Ghilardi is such a good friend. He would never forgive me if I picked Vegas over him. Vegas was the best team of the year earlier in the year for about a month, I thought. And they got better, the deadline.

The acquisitions they made at the deadline didn't put them over the top for me. They weren't like, oh, boy, it's a 50-goal score. But it's Tomas Hertel, who's a pretty good player. And, oh, Noah Hannafin. He's not a number one defenseman on my team. He's a three for me, but he's a quality three. Big guy, can skate, good guy. So, yeah, I think there's lots of teams that can win it.

It's about being hot at the right time. I don't like Vegas' goaltending. I don't. I think they fluked out the one goal they got hot last year. It wasn't a fluke. I'll get people calling me. He was great. But I don't think he can do that again consistently.

I got to ask you before we let you go, and this has been fantastic. Thanks for coming in. Just goaltending in general, there seems to be over the last few years less of an importance, less of putting your cap money in it. Is it finally waking up to a position that was never as important as we thought it was? Or just the economics of the salary cap has pushed it to, I can't trust my instincts on it anyway, so why commit so much money to it?

I think it's a combination of all of those things. I think right now it is. A couple teams have done it by just drafting big goalies and seeing who can play, who turns into a player. Some of these guys weren't starters and have turned into starters or got starters jobs. And so you say to yourself at the draft, you're like, well, we're not drafting Carey Price where we drafted him fifth overall.

We're going to take him in the third round. And if someone else takes another, we'll take another six-foot-four guy. And we'll just keep throwing numbers out there like they did in Vegas. They got three reject goalies, or two, and one of them won a cup for them. So to me, I think it's a combination of all those things. If you can save money, it looks like you should be able to save money on goalies. If you're right, I don't think Toronto feels that way right now. It's going to be interesting to watch this thing play out in a very short period of time.

Hey, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. It was Hartford, by the way. Hartford. The Hoy way. Hartford. The Hoylers. Sean Burke. We had Sean Burke. You guys were ahead of your time. Right? Just put the giant guy in net, the giant equipment. Good idea. All right. Thanks,

Berkey. Thank you. We look forward to you in the coming weeks, coming back and sharing your thoughts on the Stanley Cup playoffs. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get our boy Sammy in for game time. You're watching and listening to The Real Kipper Inborn Show. Big opinions and in-depth conversations covering the Leafs, Jays, Raptors, and the NFL. The J.D. Bunkins Podcast.

Subscribe and download the show on Apple, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts welcome back into the real kipper and born show the kiprios justin bourne and, back in, is regular spots, Sammy McKee, who just listened to a lot of Brian Burke opinion. Love it. Fired up about expansion and how that shouldn't happen. And it's not old man, yells a clown. No, it is not. He could not be more right.

He's preaching. It's mostly 32 old men who own sports teams being greedy and actively sabotaging the quality of hockey yeah he made a really good point about leaving a market like arizona for a market like salt lake jumped out to me and i i didn't yeah think of it like that i didn't think about it like that either and it's like okay you've committed 20 plus years in arizona and what was the biggest issue well just bad rank location really yeah also the team was never any good couldn't find an owner a good owner who could build you a solid facility in the right spot it just never had success man that's not one for a

minute it might be that's not arizona coyote hockey fans issue no no that's not. That's not. That's not. If they won for a minute, it might be different. That's not Arizona Coyote hockey fans issue. No. No. That's not their fault. Credit to those people who are still Coyotes fans. They have been through the ringer and to still be a fan is a testament to their commitment. Yeah. I will say, I can't imagine losing a professional sports team.

Well, and you would have punted on being a fan of that team long ago. Let me tell you something. No. I grew up. Buddy, I was a Leaf fan for all my 20s. They were awful. Me too. I mean, the threats to leaving.

Oh, yeah. My first love affair was with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Nine, seven years old. Right? Sittler, McDonald. Yeah. Palmatier. Like, for me to think about my childhood without them or them moving would have

devastated me and there's a lot of young hockey players it would have been like it would have altered my life for sure and in all honesty thank you from the bottom of my heart arizona coyotes for austin matthews yeah see that. The truth. Thank you. I will always love you. Matthew Nyes too while you're at it. And Derek buzzed my ear and said Nyes, but Nyes so. Matthews, I thank you very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Alright, it's game time, Sammy. It's game time. Presented by Bet365. Visit the app for the latest odds to find out why it's never ordinary at Bet365. Must be 19 plus. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Now now i know everyone loves when we talk golf so i thought even after the masters i would bring up some golf in game time yes so scotty scheffler gets it done yesterday congrats to sammy yep thank you once money kind of took the edge off of it well there was a moment there's too good there was a moment there were It was too good. There was a moment there where it was... There's four people tied at minus six, and then there wasn't.

Yeah, it was like, this is about to be the 86 Masters, and then it was like, wow, it's not good anymore. So it was really good. But, so, Scottie wins the Masters, and now you can bet on Bet365, you can go to the specials under golf, and you can bet

on players to win two plus majors. So, for the whole season. And Scottie Scheffler's already done that, obviously. He's won one major. So he needs to win one more for this bet to hit. His odds to win two majors. So him to get one more. He's plus 100.

Even money. British Open's next, right? No. It's last. It goes PGA Championship at Valhalla. Oh, okay. US Open at Pinehurst. And then it's, I think, Carn pga championship at valhalla okay u.s open pinehurst and then it's i think carnoustie is the open does it change that it used to be a pga championship

no one cares about it two years okay two three years yeah so plus 100 even money to get one more and if you i mean if you hit the golf ball this far from the hole from everywhere in the golf course like him you're gonna win some championships if you want him to get if you hit the golf ball this far from the hole from everywhere in the golf course like him, you're going to win some championships. If you want him to get, if you want three majors this year, it's only plus 650. That's a bad bet. And to win four majors, it's only plus 3,300, 33 to 1 to go for the career Grand Slam this season. So there's some numbers on Scotty Shepard that I thought I would bring up with you. Okay.

Was he serious that he was willing to leave if his wife had a baby? This was a running argument with my wife and I watching. Okay. I don't believe him. I know. I'm not an expert in pregnancies. Okay. I'm not going to go out there and say that.

But isn't it three weeks? Like everyone's like, she's due. It's like she's due in three weeks. Of course it could happen. But like it wasn't imminent. Oh, I didn't realize it was three weeks. First of all, the first kid. He's such a good guy, good will.

The first kid, she could be in labor for 27 hours. You know how many rounds I could get on my first kid? I could have got three rounds in. Can I just back this up and say, if the baby was going to be born and he was leading the Masters going into sunday sorry i'll see you the next day well i mean it's augusta national you can't even get cell service so 3.6 million masters champion like you can put your family in a better position

the baby's not gonna remember it doesn't know you're not there listen i was there for the record. If I've ever found out that my dad chose me in the hospital over winning a green jacket, I would shoot him. Yes, you would have affected your whole life. We do not agree. If you're going to miss it, you better win. He finished fourth. But, you know, I said to my wife, both our dads played for the Islanders.

I don't know that they were there. I think... I don't know what year. When was the cross line when you missed games for... It didn't happen. You would have been... You talk to some of the alumni like I do.

They laugh. They missed a game for the birth of I do. Yeah. They laugh. They miss the game for the birth of a child. They'd be like, was he delivering it? What happened? Why'd he miss it? Exactly. Yeah. For the record, our dads were there.

And that was Gabe. So, I mean, he's on 13. He's three strokes up. It's like, well, I got to walk back to the clubhouse. Yeah, anyway. I'm just going to hit this thing in the hole on the way in. How did game time go to, like, delivery rooms? Do you bring in odds on the gender of his baby?

But he's listed amongst the players this week because it's at Harbortown. It's another elevated event right away. So, I was like, are we going to do this all again? I don't know. Anyways, that was game time presented by Bet365. Visit the app, play this thought. Find out why it's never ordinary. Bet365 must be 19+.

Derry only. Okay, for the record, we've never gone into a Game Time with more influential games to the Stanley Cup final. It's just a massive night. And you don't mention one of them in Game Time. Well, that's where we got our beautiful news and notes segment, bud. What game would you like to talk about? Buddy, there is absolute massive playoff implications for tonight.

Massive. I don't want this turtle race to be over with and let the big boys start. I don't care. But it affects your Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah. If Washington beats Boston. Yeah, yeah. The Leafs have to play another team. They're be underdogs too nothing matters nothing i'm like i'm gonna go with the sharks did you

see the quotes from devin cooley we're all gonna die from san jose yeah he was like i just tell myself nothing matters no one cares we're gonna die anyway like after every shot that's why pedro watch every Leaf Game actually. I'm with them with that no one cares. I'm at the point of my life where I don't think anybody cares. It's actually the only reason I feel remotely comfortable doing this job is I don't think anyone actually cares.

I don't believe it. So I just say things and send them out there. At least he didn't say that we're all a bunch of molecules bumping into each other in outer space. Yeah. I mean, that was close.

That was probably the next thing on his mind. Which is a valid point, too. You know, and he plays for the Sharks. He's like, what am I going to be nervous? Like, does this game matter? They want us to lose. I like this kid. I do, too.

It's very, like, punk rock attitude. Speaking of those Sharks, they're plus 425 against the uh edmonton oilers tonight minus 575 if you want to battle david's not playing right he is matt mcdavid's back here all right so that was two or three games you missed three yeah that's maybe one for like the tiniest little problem and two for like, don't worry, we're just resting. Yeah. I mean, peak McDavid coming into round one. So looking at the potential playoff matchups as of today, are you guys okay with having this chat now?

We love it. So Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning. Yeah. Who's the underdog there? In Vegas, it will be the Tampa Bay Lightning. I would say probably plus 125 in the series. And you think probably in reality 50-50 series? I would pick Lightning.

Yeah. You, Kip? I'm lending towards Sammy here with the Lightning. I just, I don't know. Boston's... I know Tampa Bay's defense isn't great, but I'm not

sure where I sit with... I guess McAvoy and Lindholm. That's pretty good. Tampa's forwards are just, to me, that much better than Boston's's um let's go west that's a flip them talk about our canadian teams a little bit uh vancouver canucks most likely to play the nashville predators in round one is nashville who's been smoking yeah the deadline i think i think this has upset Rittenhouse. Oh, my God. Not a chance.

That sound you just heard is everybody in Vancouver crashing into the seawall because Nick Kipriost and Toronto are going to lose to the Preds. Where's Thatcher? Thatcher's just going to come out of the bullpen and save this series? Yeah, I mean, it's not. It's hard. It's not an easy series. I have been a Preds hater for as long as they have been hot.

I am not. They've cooled off since then. You just look at their roster. They're not. It's not there. They're not the Canucks. I know. I know.

But they got these guys like Gussie Nyquist. You wouldn't look twice at them. The guy's having a career year. Yeah, they've had guys... Guys like 33, 34. He's got 70-plus points already. It's like... But that's what makes me skeptical of them.

It's like, this doesn't seem sustainable. The Oilers-Kings. Any chance the Kings can... No. the kings can no no no no no you cannot bet against mcdavid this year in this round the reason i feel like you know if you were to make a case for nashville's uc sorrows cam talbot to me is not going to steal one from conor mcdavid leon dry sidle agreed i don't even think that one is particularly close but i do think vegas would give them a push where they were that to end up being the series right now it's vegas dallas and then winnipeg colorado i am not a gorgia fan no and i think that's the one thing that is going to hold back.

They've lost seven out of ten or something. And given up a lot of goals. Yeah. I think with Hellebuck. Although they had a. The year they won the cup, I think they had a bad finish to the season too. Did they? Yeah.

And then they had a good one last year and they got knocked out, didn't they, by Seattle? Mm-hmm. Am I am i right yeah they did lose to seattle first right yeah so i i don't know and again it's nate dog a little sports and they're our canadian teams i can tell you that yeah so um i'm not sure if there'd be a bigger position to position mismatch in the first round than Gorgia versus Hellebuck. Yeah, that's a good point. Like that is a huge corner.

Yeah, that's a huge difference. So here's could tilt on that. Back to the East. Leafs, Panthers. Colorado has been bleeding goals. What do you got? It's just six, seven, five, seven, four. Yeah.'s just six seven five seven four yeah go back one five that's not good like it's four to columbus loss it's not been pretty for a while here for them

since the start of april it has been awful all right it's good we'll see it's good sign leafs panthers rangers capitals yeah capitalsitals. Carolina Islanders on the other side. Yeah, those are a lot less sexy. The East is a lot less sexy. The Capitals. Someone's got to take that spot. Well, Pittsburgh. Is this Detroit?

Is this a Daryl Sutter waste of eight days? Absolutely. Yeah. For any of those teams playing the Rangers, they're going to get filled in. Feels pretty inevitable. Does it not? Yeah. I look at Detroit and I'm like, you need James Reimer right now?

What does that mean? Well, you need him to be great now, and I'm not sure that's capable. You're capable of, even if you make the playoffs, I cannot see their goaltenders. But he made a couple pretty good stops on Saturday. He robbed Matthews a couple times. I thought he was okay, better than he is. No, no, no, no, no.

It's okay, Kipper. Him and Sammy were horrible Saturday. The one game I'm watching tonight is I am rooting really hard for the Ottawa Senators to beat the Rangers because you could get an Islandersers rangers round one matchup which i would absolutely love and i like more for the islanders than carolina who has columbus to finish their season tomorrow that would be fun be a good series too you think because i also don't love the i don't know shusterkin seems to be solid again.

Yeah. All right. So there you go. Let's go around the league here. And you think the Panthers are going to beat the Leafs? I do not. I meant to say the other way around. Did we do...

Leafs-Panthers? Dallas-Vegas? We didn't give any predictions or anything. Do you have a pick on that one? No, I'm just... First of all... I've lost over it. I do... I feel bad for one of those teams that made such a commitment to go for it, to be absolutely crushed.

The sound you just heard, now that you alienated Vancouver, the sound you just heard was Edmonton driving off the road in anger. I feel bad for Vegas. The guys who cheated the system with a broken spleen. They're like, yeah, great. Did you not hear Brian Burke? I did. I did.

They did nothing against the rules. It's all above and beyond. I would never doubt Berkey. Go back and. I listened to Berkey. Grab your podcast if you missed it and listen to Brian Burke. Talk about Vegas bringing back Mark Stone. I do think Dallas probably wins that series.

So do I. But I do like, I would probably prefer to see Vegas. And who's your goalie in Vegas? Hill? Yeah. Or Logan Thompson? Give it to the guy who won the cup. He hasn't been great either.

No. Down the stretch. No, he hasn't at all. No, sir. And did you give a Leafs prediction? Because I got Leafs. I did not. Can we?

Yeah, let's just get through the two Florida games and see what's left of them. Oh, God. Heaven forbid Austin takes a spill into the boards. Oh, my God. Panther, Ekblad, and Verhege on track to play game one against the Leafs of the playoffs. There you have it.

That's significant. What's that? Getting those guys back? Verhege. Yes, it's massive. He is one of those guys. Florida scored a lot of rush goals last year, kind of in transition.

And he's that guy he scored 40 goals in a season before so that would be bad news i have to give a shout out to our uh montreal contingent because we ignore them completely that that second round pick that lane hudson signed with them and he's making his debut tonight so there's a few there's excitement for them you know there's a little bit of that going around the league, right? Guys are coming in off entry contracts, burning a year. Yeah, the kid in Chicago, what's his name? Frank. Anyway, he scored yesterday, breakaway,

and did like a down the bench Nazar, like down the bench celebration. He kind of checked himself halfway and realized it's not college anymore, I think. But I was like, man, if you're on the bench watching a kid in his first game do that, I would not have been happy about that. I don't know. I don't know if anybody cares anymore. I think you can do whatever the hell you want these days.

No one really gets that. I mean, you probably should be able to. The only thing you can't do is do anything with an empty net near the Ottawa Senators. That's the only thing that's not allowed in hockey. So who did Sid go after? Oh, Pasternak. Pasternak on the weekend.

Slapshot after their shot after the final buzzer. I thought that was appropriate. I did too. Right? Well, if Sid does it, all good. Totally appropriate. But it was a shot at the goalie, which to me makes sense, right? It's not a.

Regardless, it's just about did you disrespect us in any way, shape, or form? Didn't have to go and punch him. Didn't have to go put him, you know, cross-check him or hit his head over. Yeah. Get suspended for five games, yeah. He's never had a conversation with him. Don't like it. Yeah.

Don't like it. And it's noted. And drew the appropriate attention, I think. Yes. yeah he's never had a conversation with him don't like it yeah don't like it and it's noted and uh drew the the appropriate attention yes fade away before we go uh ottawa senators have two games left they play uh tonight and tomorrow night so going into the offseason for this franchise i was hanging out with a friend who's a sense fan earlier today so I feel like asking on his behalf, what's going to happen with Ottawa this offseason? Major changes. No hesitation.

No hesitation. To personnel, to staff. A little bit of everything. Yeah? Yeah. Coach, and there'll be some interesting movement by the Ottawa Suns. Big name or two? Guaranteed.

Yeah. So that'll be Steyos' kind of... Oh, yeah. Yeah, i have to get aggressive on that he's not happy you know what i think the fear is from sense fans is that and lauer bought the team and then this year by not paying for berube or whoever worried that they're going to have an owner who is not going to spend the way because you need to spend to compete in this league they're worrying about that already? Yep.

No, I think they'll be fine. They'll spend? They're going to start with, I think, a good coach. One thing is for sure about the Ottawa Senators offseason, their fans will scream at Leaf fans about how they've got a better future and how they've got a better core going forward. This summer really wore on you that they were like,

this is it. Here we are. Last. You know what's crazy is they actually are two points ahead of Montreal, if I'm not mistaken. Good for them. What an accomplishment. They could conceivably still sneak behind the Canadian.

Brutal. Why don't you wait to see what happens in the next three weeks before you throw that one out there i want them to get celebrated it doesn't matter in terms of sense like they can least have the ultimate trump card on the sense it's like you can make fun of the least for whatever you can talk about it's like the least have swept them every time they play them they swept them in the playoffs every time they ever played in the playoff series beat them epic fashion hasn't happened in 100 years have that as a slam dunk have swept them every time they played them. They swept them in the playoffs. Every time they ever played in the playoff series, beat them. Epic fashion.

Hasn't happened in 100 years. Have that as a slam dunk. Habs fans got tons of stuff in the Leafs. Lots of people have tons of stuff in the Leafs. Sens fans can say literally nothing. Every time they go there, it's all Leaf fans. Complete ownership of the Senators. He is generating Celebrini to the Senators. He's doing it all with those vibes.

And that's a perfect guy. They'll be like, we're finally better than the Leafs, and we'll have 76 points next year. He's already going back to Chicago. That's the market they got to build up. Yeah, Celebrini. You think if the league were to break it, it'd be Chicago? I mean, I like that idea.

That's Dave's cane all over again. Oh, now we're talking. Then Pittsburgh will be due for their next bout of Jager, Lemieux, Crosby, Malkin. They're going to have to start getting the next ones. Maybe it's that kid that got exceptional status, the 14-year-old. Look at his name.

Yeah, you won't. You'll know it someday. Oh, God. All right. You dropped something. I know, I'm a mess. Eight games on tap. We're going to get a much clearer picture this time tomorrow

on what's ahead of us during the Stanley Cup playoffs in the first round. So enjoy your games, and we're back tomorrow. Our thanks to Brian Burke, in-studio guest. Tomorrow, Sammy, you got some treats for us. Who else is coming in tomorrow? What do you got going, Sammy, tomorrow? Can't wait on the real Kipper and Bourne show. You're going to wait.

Have a good night, everybody.