Real Kyper & Bourne - Leafs Hour: More Matthews Questions

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne, and Sam McKee open the first show of the new year with Auston Matthews’ latest comments on his injury. They discuss the confusion around the severity of the injury in question, and what the Leafs can and should do going forward with the 4 Nations Face-Off coming up next month. Then, they chat about Matthew Knies’ recent play, and Joseph Woll’s upcoming workload. Later, The Athletic’s Arthur Staple (32:14)joins the guys to tee up the second half of the Leafs’ home and home with the Islanders, and to speak on the direction of the Isles’ as currently constructed, before commenting on the Rangers’ freefall out of contention in the Eastern Conference. (49:47) 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 affiliate.

here we go the first real kipper and born show of 2025 yes sir nick kiprios justin born sammy mckee austin mackie in for derrick brandale jake schultz with you for the next two hours, including our Leaf Edition hour here, live on Sportsnet 590, The Fan, Sportsnet 360, and Sportsnet Plus. Sir. Quiet New Year's Eve. I know, Sammy, you blew your brains out in Detroit going to a Red Wings game in a Detroit line,

so you would have had nothing left for New Year's. Correct. Nailed it. Yeah, I barely made it to midnight. Fought to make it to midnight on the couch, but made it. I made it. It's my wife's birthday on New Year's Day, so we stay up, and she opened her gifts on New Year's Day at midnight.

So it was really great. That's awesome. Had a steak. Happy birthday to Allie. Happy New Year to you. Didn't you do a fake ball drop? Oh, yeah., we put on YouTube and convinced my kids it was the real one.

You know, dad was in bed by, I don't know, 11, 15. Any resolutions boys? Oh gosh. You stopped that? No. At this point? I'm just not, yeah. I was never a guy that said, this specific date I'm going to do something differently. You know, like everyone else in January

1st, I'd like to start, stop eating like an a-hole. You know, I'd like to start kind of tightening it up a little. I think mine was corny as hell. It was like appreciating my kids more. That's nice. You're still too young. You can still eat what you want. It bothers me. December was a mess, man. But you go to Costco and you get the biggest

bag of chocolate I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, I know. It's bad. I'm not going to sit here and eat broccoli during the show, but tighten it up a little bit. I think this is the year, if I had a resolution, this is the year that I get a golf professional to look at my golf swing. You'd get a diagnosis so you can work on the cure?

Just a driver. Just a driver. Just have a look. See if we can figure something out and go forward because it's holding back but that would be my only resolution get better at golf what a great that's amazing though it doesn't have to be self-improvement i don't think i don't want to be better well we'll try to straighten that swing out just on our show alone for the next six months get us to unrestricted free agency and i want to say uh you'll notice the disparity in dress today kip is dressed extremely nice we uh we are going to be on television we are uh toronto maple leafs and the new york

islanders 7 30 sports at ontario uh we went from like doing no games at all for the first few months to like me now pal it's just us now yeah elliot friedman will be returning from the outdoor game and david amber of course will hold his usual spot. So looking forward to that. More Islanders talk. But I did, and I did want to note, and the reason I'm not in my suit yet, rocking the U of Albany hoodie from my nephew, CJ Schwarz,

is a face-off specialist for them, the Great Danes. Got this over the holidays, repping The D1 lacrosse program there. Shout out to CJ and his boys. I don't think I need to tell you why I'm wearing this one. We get it. I actually feel awful. They were in Oshawa yesterday and I didn't have anybody to go with.

I texted everybody that would want to go. No one would go. I didn't go. I was going to go by myself. Why didn't you go by yourself? Are you not? I can't go by myself because I look like the biggest loser. No, no, no.

I can go by myself. I've gone to games by myself before, but it just, there was some good college football on. And then I got, I get the notifications for the scores to my game, my phone. I'm one of the worst team in the league. Like they're actually, the attack are awful. Without Carter George right now. I went, I went home for the, for Christmas and they lost 8-2 in the game I went to and I was like

oh god, am I going to drive out there? And I was getting the notifications. They're a hard fought game in the third period with Oshawa, who's an elite team and I felt like an a-hole for not going. How about movies here? You go to movies by yourself ever? I will for sure. I mean, I don't have time anymore, but I used to go by myself. I think in my career, I led the league

in most movies by myself. Great. What do you need someone else for anyway? You can't talk to her in the movie anyway. Oh, exactly. And if you did, just... I'm a chatter. If I'm in the movies, he's in the bedroom. I'll ask my wife a lot of clarifying questions.

I'm like, who is that guy? Oh, you're that guy. Oh, I'm him. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's like, shut up. All right. Let's get her going here. All right, all up. All right. Let's get her going here. All right, all right.

Because did something change between Christmas and today in terms of how we feel about Austin Matthews, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the current situation they sit in? Did something change? Not that something changed in a profound moment but as it bleeds on i think you feel differently about things do you not i do after listening to austin matthews yesterday who said with conviction this will get it sorted out i'll be back soon it'll be ready to rock and roll. See, I wish he would have just said that. Yeah. But he didn't.

Yeah. No, it was, if we're going to go there, let's start there. It was. I don't think there's anywhere else. No. We can start. Captain. So he talked.

He talked for, I don't know how long, two or three minutes to the media. And he answered a lot of questions on his back. And he didn't really give any quiet, or I mean, on his injury. I'm just so, I was saying that it's his back. Right. But I would say that this was the most damning of the clips. So that's why I did it.

Classic Toronto media. But if we could play the Austin Matthews clip. Our first Kippers Clipper of 2025 is a doozy. Yeah. Do you feel like this is something, Austin, that with the appropriate amount of rest, you will be able to put behind you at some point this season? Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I hope so. That's obviously the goal. You know, it's tricky with these things sometimes. You know, it's a physical sport. It's a contact sport. So, you know, things happen out there sometimes that are out of your control. So just try to manage it as best as I can and that we can

and just go from there. First of all, I think when you kind of read it, which I did first on the internet, there's something to be said about his tone or just the vibe that you get from listening to him. It brings it down a little bit. It softens it for you. It softens it. It softens it.

Okay. But when you answer the question, yeah, I don't know, when you talk about what you're going to potentially deal with the rest of the season, it shines a whole new light on the situation. It does. And I think two things are true here.

We're often like, I just want honesty from these guys. And that to me is honesty. I don't think they know. I think that's a challenge is that he doesn't, he genuinely doesn't know how it's going to go. But that doesn't mean that it makes me feel better about it. It certainly raises my level of like, oh, to the point where today I spend time researching exactly ltir rules and how much they

could spend if they you know like it makes you think big picture about this if it doesn't get better i don't know i don't know if you which is a change i don't know if you two guys have open dms on social media probably kepper i would imagine not borny i'm not sure about you i do okay but over the last week i bet you i've got seven to eight to nine dms of twitter doctors of people being like oh you know i think it's his foot because he's got different skates on now and he used to wear tacks and now he's wearing powers like it's got to be his wrist because that's you're just leaving it for idiots to speculate on what it is here and this has been my point from the start the lack of clarity on this and every day them having to ask Berube and him having to answer the questions, it's just, it's hanging over the whole organization.

It's all, every question is about. The whole scrum yesterday, which we'll play a clip from, was four questions about Austin Matthews. Do you think there'd be less if he said, it's my back and I don't know? I'm out. I'm out for a period of time. And then, yeah, I do think it would be better. I think there would be less questions. I mean, when was the last time someone asked about Kelly Yarncroft?

When's the last time somebody asked about Anthony Stolarz? Like, it's just, if you put out a longer timeline, there's less questions being asked, and it's just hanging over everybody. It is. Do you want to go to another clip? Yeah, let's play the Berube clip on it, because I thought it was hilarious.

I'm checking in on Matthews. Clip one, please. Austin. I do check in with him when I see him. I don't bother him obviously too much. When you're injured as a player and they're always asking you, how are you feeling? What's going on?

It gets annoying. When he's available, he'll let us know. It gets annoying, a.k.a. you guys are annoying. Oh, yeah. Because you're asking me every day about a guy who's not telling me anything. I love the lightness of Ruby, you know. Yeah, he wasn't as light today. He was in a sour mood today.

But that was yesterday. It seemed like a happy new year kind of thing. What's on your mind? Yeah, a couple things. Number one is that it's abundantly clear that... Good article today, Duke. Yeah, I wrote today in the Toronto Star about the whole situation and how, for me,

the focus really is the next two weeks, right? Because we are getting towards a tournament where he is one of two faces of this tournament. With all due respect to all the other superstars in the league this thing has really been built around canada and conor mcdavid and the u.s with austin matthews so that is sneaking up if we are in a similar situation two weeks from now there's just absolutely no way i think you could see Austin Matthews participating in this thing. Right. But he's going to play soon.

He can play soon. And this is where I think, like I wrote the article before the quote, and I probably would have taken a bit of a different direction on my article if I had that quote earlier. And, you know, I'm for one and I think Elliot Friedman mentioned this on our last telecast on Friday about the four nations and I was kind of buying into that it's still early and we will see him back and you know there's still time. Back. Playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Okay.

And to the point where if he can kind of look decent, that, you know, there wouldn't be any really hard reason to keep him away from the Four Nations tournament. But then I listened to his quote, and it changes everything. Absolutely. listen to his quote and it changes everything absolutely because he's almost admitting to us and himself that there may be a situation where it does not get to a hundred percent for sure i mean that's all where he'll still play he'll still try to give it the old college try, but now we're left and the Toronto Maple Leafs are left to going,

all right, not 100%, but is it 90, is it 80, is it 70? And if it looks like it's 70 or 80, buddy, you're not going to the Four Nations tournament. I'm sorry. Kip, if it's 90, he, but you're not going to the Four Nations tournament. I'm sorry. Kip, if it's 90, he shouldn't play in the tournament. This isn't the Olympics. This is the inaugural Four Nations faceoff. Whatever your cutoff is on that percentage,

anything less than 100 to the point where you're thinking on any given night he could disappear, he ain't going. If you need to play two months of playoffs to win a Stanley Cup, and at any point you get hit wrong and it could get worse, you need to get it all the way better as soon as can be. If you win a Stanley Cup as the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, you are immortal. If you win the Four Nations face-off, nobody cares. Presented by Rogers TM? Well, listen,

it's going to be a fun tournament to watch. I'll watch it, and I'm excited about that. It doesn't matter compared to a cup for the Leafs. I wish it was that easy, and the one thing that I try to stress in my article today is that he does carry some weight. Oh, yeah.

The one thing I didn't agree. Being there. Can I ask you two separate questions on that? And I think you alluded to this maybe in our show on Monday. The first question I would have for you is how much pressure from the league would there be to have Matthews? And you alluded to that in your article. He would feel it, okay?

I'm not saying that he won't listen to the Leafs and shut it down. But what I'm telling you is this tournament, this invitational. Okay. It is not in September. It's not off season. They are shutting down a billion dollar industry because they understand that it is that important for them to start building up a program of international hockey. The future of revenue out there is outside of North America, and they've realized it

to the point where they'd rather put four teams in a tournament than wait for the Olympics. So there is a ton of weight on the superstars to still be there and to still sell this when they shut down the league for two weeks. If you believe he's someone who has put his own interests ahead of the team at any point in terms of pursuing goal totals or whatever, then you would still think he's someone who is concerned with his own situation. And for his own situation,

the success of the Leafs and his role as captain is so much more important. And I think he would recognize that. I'm not just disputing what you're saying. I agree with you. But it doesn't take away the fact that it's on his mind yeah he feels the pressure of it and it could also alter how hard he comes back how hard he pushes he could he could be in a position where you know even if he's not comfortable he'll push the envelope that much

more just to get to that point or would he be more cautious now so he's able to play him? I think it's the opposite. I think he's willing to let it all hang out in the next week to try to show everybody that he's good, it's okay, I can do this, and I can also do that, and I can come back and lead this team to a Stanley Cup. I think that pressure's there on him in the next five or ten days so so he can go back to everybody and say i'm good yeah you would think if he cared that much about the four nations he might be like i'm gonna rest as long as i can to make sure i'm ready the one thing that scares me you can't you can't you can't leave it out there that long j JB, to convince people that...

Who would need convincing? If he didn't play... The Leafs would need convincing. The Leafs would need convincing. If he still looks like he did in the last month, like, come on. What do you need? Two good games from Austin, three good games from Austin? Yeah.

I'm scared. If I'm the Leaf management, I'm scared if i'm the leaf management i'm scared to send them over there scared of everything right no no no no if i'm them i mean that no not like this because there's a mystery to this this isn't a bad wrist four to six weeks this isn't a tweaked knee two to three weeks this is a bad back. This is fly to Germany. Question mark. Two things. The mystery is we've rested them. It did no good.

Now we're resting them again. We don't know if it's going to be any good or not. No. And it's all very concerning. They're not risking the same thing they are with Marner to Team Canada. It's not the same. No, it's not even close. It's not equal.

No, no, no, definitely not. And this is their franchise player. Which is why it's kind of a no-brainer. I understand that there's pressure on them, but it's like you can't do this. The one thing that really makes me uncomfortable is his comment about how trying to stay in the best shape I can, but it's hard when you have to be inactive.

He said something about not liking being someone. He doesn't like sitting around. But you know he's coming back out of shape again. And not because he's lazy, but because to rest something, you have to rest. And that's not great for NHL-level cardio. I think it played a part in his conditioning, played a part in coming back after nine games.

And I also think your conditioning plays a part in getting hurt i know when i you know at the end of a shift people get hurt way more because you can't get out of the way of the head or you can't you just have that little bit less juice you're just not thinking as right that's what like your brain it's all tied the entire brain for sure so we don't we didn't see anything in terms of uh power, the agility, the calculated risks that he used to take to try to score goals.

Like it's... No, he was not the same guy. So, if they play him in the next couple weeks, and he plays, and he looks like he does, and he goes to the Four Nations face-off, and he plays in the Four Nations face-off and looks like he's looked all year yeah if if if yeah okay these are all handy and nuts i mean that's all we got i think that's the most likely outcome i think he plays in it and i think

he looks off so after that if he's still not looking right yeah then is when you start having the, drum roll, please. To me, that's when LTIR. And you send him and he gets hurt even worse. How do you look? How do you look? If you're the Leafs, how do you look? Well, I think it looks equally as bad on Matthews that does on the Leafs. That if he goes and that he knows this is such a big risk.

No, no, no, no. Oh, yeah. This is on the Leafs. No, this has a chance. It is at the end of the day. I heard Bunkers talk about this. He has a chance to flip his perception here, man. If he pushes to go and he's not right. The decision makers of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

But that's been the problem with this organization since day one, Kipper, is that all the players have run. It's the inmates running the asylum. There's been no accountability. There's like who is going to stand up to Austin Matthews and the organization and ever say, you're not going? No one's ever stood up to them about anything. They've gotten the biggest contracts they want.

They've gotten everything they've ever wanted. No one's going to stand up to Matthews and be like, you can't go. I love Berube, but the one thing he said the other day that kind of caught my eye was, he'll tell us when he's ready. And it's like, that's great. You need that input from a player. How does it feel when someone's hurt? You say, what's your pain on a scale of zero to 10?

But it does feel like. I got to think that they, Berube, Brennan Shanahan, Bradtree Living, they're smart enough to say that if we're worried about you and your situation, you're not going. That's it. It's over. It's over.

Can you imagine they let him go and he got hurt there? Yes. I can't imagine. I can't imagine it. It's the Toronto Maple Leafs, buddy. I can imagine it. His head just falls off. That's what can't happen.

No. So I think, again, Austin, unfortunately, yesterday, he sped the process up to that conversation. This conversation that we're having, it will happen in two weeks, and I don't think there's enough time for Matthews to convince anybody that whatever's troubled him for three months will be in the rearview mirror, long in the rearview mirror. It's over a month.

They don't play for five, six weeks. You think he needs that much good hockey before they can trust to let him go i don't think there's ever going to be a trust the rest of the season that's my point i don't know it could be so right i just don't think it's after spending half the season plagued by this i don't think there there there could be a a stretch of his back half of the season that will ease the doubt of Austin here gone tomorrow. But after you LTIR him and trade for Elias Pettersson, he'll just be gravy when he comes back,

and you'll be laughing in the playoffs. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about, that's a partial joke. I've been thinking a lot about them spending the money because it's just, if it's a big conversation amongst Leaf fans. And I think I've settled on the fact that I would rather them add three solid depth guys as opposed to one huge impact guy. So how it would work for this to happen is you'd have to get as close to the salary cap as possible before putting him on LTIR so you could spend all of his money. And if you could spend all of that salary, whoo, buddy.

I just don't think that regardless if you want to go and spend it, that there's a perception out there that if you are pulling this move that there's a happy ending to the story kucherov comes back and is a star they win the stanley cup mark stone shows up they play they win the stanley cup this one doesn't feel like that okay it doesn't feel like that that's totally your perception i don't see any reason why it's different why can't it because nobody knows what his problem is he doesn't they do we don't know they know no they don't know they don't know the timeline they know

what it is no yeah okay it's a sore back okay it's a sore back well i'm sure they have more specifics those other guys kucherov had surgery to correct something, and there was a much more definitive feel that he will train, he'll come back, and he'll be ready April 1st. You put him on the sidelines with whatever he's dealing with, and there's no surgery, there's no correctiveness. It's the same issues that you went in in September. It's the same issues today.

There's no guarantees that this guy's going to come back in April and be a star again. No, but if they know what it is and they decide to do this, they can do something more corrective and more long-term. Whatever that may be, I don't know what the exact thing is. A spine transplant? I don't know. They sent him to Germany, for goodness sakes, and they didn't solve it.

Send him farther. Send him to Russia. The good stuff's in Russia. Yeah. I don't know. I think that you're bringing him back at the start of the playoffs. You're doing it that way. And you're under the understanding that he's not going to be at full health.

Yeah. But when you have Brandon Tanev and Brock Nelson and Luke Shett on your team, plus a 70% Austin Matthews, you feel better. This is pie in the sky stuff. Pie in the sky. We're having fun here, folks. No, but like if you're spending. If you have 13, you can spend some money.

You can use some assets. You can get really good. Yeah. And it's the bottom half of this lineup is clearly clearly the weak link and you can make it a lot better how quick it's january 2nd today you know we're a few weeks away from can he play in the four nations two weeks off then you're at trade deadline and we're golfing we're two months to trade deadline two months and change that was like 24 minutes on austin matthews oh my god the rest of the team right right Is there anything else that interests you?

Oh, my God. Sammy, what else have we got on Kippers Clippers? I was just looking at Twitter here, as I'm one to do, and Connor McDavid just sent out this weird tweet. I sent it to you before the show in our group chat. Oh, I didn't see it. Tell me about it. Both you goos.

I didn't see it. He just said, at AM 34, go bar down. No, cross bar it in. Let's see it. Let's see it. And, like, I assume it's for an ad, right? It's got to be. Yeah, they have some sort of ad. Or.

Or. Well, yeah. Or he's coming to Toronto. McDavid. Either he's coming to Toronto or it's an ad. That's probably an ad. I think it's an ad. Matthew Nyes. We didn't really talk about Matthew Nyes on that. Yes. Much better.

Much better. After he probably got, you know, a good stern talking. Yeah. Much better. Yeah, much better. Last couple games, he has had the puck. He has used his body a bit more. He scored a goal that got waved off because Willie Nylander is a gritty net front presence.

I've liked Nye's lately. I'm going to talk about him in the pregame show a little bit tonight. He's showing some signs when they need him to. The line where David Camp is subbed in there, it's Nye's, Willie, and Camp. Camp's been all right. Yeah, listen. Fine.

It was a good last game-ish. He's better than your just average 8.50 a year fourth line centerman. He's making significant amount of money to play a bottom six role and kill penalties and take key face-offs. And then you're in a lurch right now with Auston Matthews out, and he stepped up and scored a big goal against the Islanders. It's okay. It's plug and play right now but clearly you don't you're not asking david camp to to step up there and help you win a

stanley cup in a top six role not top six no but he i know i think that's the thing that he can do is that he can go up a little bit for you in a pinch and he has and like you know people are hard on david camp they're hard on the money he makes but i think this is kind of when you see that he's a little more capable than uh frazier minton at this point in his career okay let's go to craig bruby on his thoughts we'll go to clip two uh austin on matthew nyes yeah way more engaged uh you know way more engaged in the game you know some you know shooting the puck and hounding the puck and getting on it skating you know more reckless like we talked about i i thought he was a much improved player there you go more reckless

yeah there's there's a ton of pressure on him to kind of be like that a lot more. His last 10, 12 games have not been very good. No. He had just a few points in the month of December. Tough to know. Tough to know in playoffs where is he in this lineup. Can you put him on the top line? Or is he a guy who's going to make a third line,

a really effective third line? And your options are if he's important, can you put him on the top line? Or is he a guy who's going to make a third line or really affect the third line? And your options are, if he's not, well, there's a trade deadline and things like might have to happen. I mean, Domi can play left wing.

He's pretty serviceable there. Who knows what you got by then? Callie Yarncroft. I don't know. You love man. I do. You want Callie back. I do.

I do. McMahon has shown that he can be a really important part on this Leaf team when he's healthy and also shows a little bit of recklessness. I think him and Nyes, to me, are kind of similar, where they're just inexperienced enough where you've got to remind them what they're supposed to be doing or what they're good at and demand that it shows up yeah on a more consistent basis agreed there uh before we get to break because arthur staples

we have him after the break uh joseph wall is going to play again tonight yeah and i want to hit on that um we had some hesitation about stolarz playing as much as he did when he got hurt your thoughts on him last game he gave it up lame. Oh, my God. And he hung in there, boys. Good God. He hung in there. Liked it. Well, in our pregame versus the Islanders, as I said, I fully expect him to play both games.

And he played well enough that it reminded us on many nights that the Leafs played in October and November that goaltending can make a difference. And he was better than Sorokin. And Sorokin, to me, can't give up that Lorenz goal, no matter how beautiful of a shot it was. Great goal. Oh, my God.

You've got to stop that. That's the difference between him and Wall. And Wall was good enough. And I'm a little perplexed. Like you were versus the Islanders where you're watching them kind of body language. The body language was that he was in some sort of discomfort. Is that Ilya Samsonov? This is exactly why it's horrible having an injury-prone goalie. Because every little thing, you're just like, oh, geez, this is it.

Oh, this is it. This is my nightmare. Just every single time. I truly believe whatever we thought we saw is a non-issue. Oh. Okay. Well, it's good because he's playing again tonight. Well, he practiced yesterday. There's not a snowball's chance that this guy is dealing with something

and they put him on the ice yesterday for practice. And I said this during our broadcast that I like the idea that, like, how many players on the Leafs feel 100% free from nagging injury at this point of the season? Like, 0%? Like, everyone's got a little something. And if you're a goalie or a hockey player, it's okay to play through. 100% free from nagging injury at this point of the season. Like 0%. Like everyone's got a little something. And if you're a goalie or a hockey player, it's okay to play through. Even more likely that you don't feel 100%.

Of course. And so for Wall, it's like, yeah, you're not going to feel great every night. It's just I'm glad he battled through. He hung in there. That's a good step for him. To your point, I think you made on the show that he's just going to have to find a way to play through it. Let's listen to Berube clip six on Wohl,

and then we can get out of here. It's a nice stretch for us now. But Hildeby's played well for us too, and he's played well in the minors, so we have a lot of trust in him. But we have an opportunity to run with Wohl a little bit more here now with a stretch of hockey. We got back-to-back this weekend.

That's different. But other than that, that's the only back-to-back this month. Matt Murray played, lost, I think, last night or the night before. Two-nothing. Yeah. But he needs more reps. Yeah. And I'm sure they'll contemplate getting him back, getting some games as well. So, we'll see. So, can I ask you something before we reps. Yeah. And I'm sure they'll contemplate getting him back,

getting some games as well. So we'll see. So let me, can I ask you something before we go? Yeah. Just looking at the schedule for after this week. So they play the Islanders tonight, Bruins on Saturday. That's Wall Start, by the way, too. Oh, yeah. Right.

And then Flyers on the second half of the back-to-back on Sunday night. So he'll be there. But do you, so it's Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Tuesday against the Flyers, Thursday against Hurricanes, Saturday against the Canucks. Yeah. All three, wall? Listen, you got to go game by game here.

And if it looks like he needs a break. But if they're right, they're playing on the wall. Yeah, I would run them. I would run them. Okay. I wouldn't, but. Where would you fit. Yeah, I would run him. I would run him. Okay. I wouldn't, but. Where would you fit him in then? You tell me.

Saturday against Vancouver? I would probably. On the road? Where are the games? In Philly on Tuesday. In Carolina on Thursday. Home for the Canucks on Saturday. In Philly Tuesday, Carolina Thursday.

So maybe Carolina Thursday goes to goes to yeah he'll be probably thursday the one thing about that is carolina leads the league in shots per game and leads the league and shots against per game they're very good there's they just get a million shots so you're saying don't give up any low danger or medium danger shots and carolina is going to be testing hill to be They're shooting it. All right. We'll go to break here. A reminder tonight on Sportsnet,

Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Islanders, 730 Sportsnet Ontario, yours truly, and Justin Bourne alongside David Amber, Elliott Friedman. Get you started at 7 p.m. Eastern, which leads us to Arthur Staple, New York hockey columnist, covering the Rangers and the Islers for the Athletic.

He's up next when we return to Real Kipper and Bourne. Hey, it's Matt Marchese. And I'm Mike Futa. We're discussing the top stories of the day across the NHL and the hockey world weekdays at noon. It's the Fan Hockey Show on Sportsnet 590, The Fan, and wherever you get your podcasts. Nick Kiprios, Justin Bourne, Sammy McKee. Let's bring in Arthur Staple, New York hockey columnist covering the Rangers and the Islanders for the Athletic.

Arthur, thanks for joining us, man. How are you? Happy New Year. Happy New Year, guys. How you doing? Happy New Year. Happy New Year, guys. How you doing? We're good. We're good. So just prior to this Toronto Maple Leaf back-to-back on different nights,

I kind of thought that the Islanders really needed to sweep the Leafs to kind of keep that interest up. I can't imagine them losing tonight and people still thinking that they're going to be in a playoff race or like, where, where do you, where do you see tonight's game for the Islanders as a, as a statement one way or another? I mean, if it's not a win and it's not the first of about five or six in a row,

you saw Boston and Vegas coming to, right? Yeah. I mean, this is, this is headed in one direction for this team. You know, they obviously were missing some guys for a long period of time. They had Barzal was out for six weeks. Duclair was out even a little bit longer. Adam Pellick was out. Alex Romano was out. Important guys.

But the games don't count when those guys are out. They just didn't put enough together to really inspire any confidence. You know, you think back to around this time last year when Lane Lambert's job was in trouble, they were way better than this team record wise and results wise. You know, they just, they just don't seem to have it. And it's, you know, we've seen it happen the last couple of years and Lou Lamarillo has tried to shake things up in January, two years ago with the Bo Horvat trade it got into the playoffs last year Green and Patrick Law and get Ray Lambert they got into the

playoffs I don't know how many times you can go to that well but they're they're way further back than they were either of those two years so it doesn't seem like it's going to happen this time in your uh article uh on the athletic you mentioned that there's something like, there's a reckoning coming here. And I don't know specifically, and I know that you don't have a specific answer either, but like, how does this team turn this around? They look a little old and slow,

but I mean, there are some good pieces there. Is this about replacing the GM, replacing the coach, or a big trade for you i think it's just about taking a team in a different direction you know whether that's you know scott malkin the principal owner whether he decides that that it's time to move on from from lou and you know people like to talk about lou he's obviously 82 years old um he's still sharp as as he's been but you know gms lose their jobs when they don't perform and it's nothing to do with, with his age or anything. It's just,

I think he stuck too long with this group. And you know, you've got some guys coming up on USA, Brock Nelson, who's been here a long time. Kyle Palmieri has been here a long time. You've got JG Paggio who still got some appeal. I think with another year left, even maybe Anders Lee, the captain who's got a year left. You've got to start being proactive with these guys and changing it around. I agree.

I don't think this is a we're going to see a Chicago or San Jose situation with this team. They've got a goalie who's pretty good. They've got Noah Dobson and Romano who are a pretty good top pair, both still young guys. You've got Matt Barzell. You've got Noah Dobson and Romano were a pretty good top pair, both still young guys. You've got Matt Barzell, you've got Horvat locked up. So like you said, there are good pieces. I don't think they have to tear it all down, but you got to start going in a different direction. And it doesn't seem like they're quite committed to that yet. They still got some time, but I kind

of feel like the way things have been going the last three years, you have to start setting out in a new direction and making sure that people know been going the last three years, you have to start setting out in a new direction and making sure that people know about it around the league because their calling card was being hard to play against when Barry Trotz was the coach. Same guys, a lot older. They're not even that hard to play against anymore. So what kind of identity do you have?

You have to change it up at some point. We're talking to Arthur Staple, covers hockey for the athletic New York Rangers, New York Islanders. So when we look at some presidents or general managers around the league with the Hall of Fame status, they're looked differently

compared to maybe others, peers around the league here. Does Lou Lamorello have that same kind of buffer zone with the ownership group where like you said maybe there might have been a change if it was anyone else but but there's still that magic that they're looking for him from Lou you know I think when he came in it was it was this ownership group Scott Malkin and it and his minority owners. It was their first big move. They got rid of Garth Snow.

They kind of changed things over from when they bought the team from Charles Wong a couple of years earlier. Went in a new direction. And when you hire Lou Lamarillo, you know, it didn't happen in Toronto. But obviously, what he set down in Jersey is it's Lou's show. And, you know, he controls hockey operations. He doesn't take a lot of input from anybody. It's a very tight knit group. So they, you know, they turned the keys over to Lou and it was pretty successful right from the

start with, with hiring trots and with getting that that identity of being a grinded out team and, and, you know, consecutive semifinals during the COVID years and two GM of the year awards for him. He made all the right moves. But I think that some of the contracts that he's given out, yeah, you'd probably look to go in a different direction.

I think the difficulty for Scott Malkin is once you turn the keys over to Lou, you better have a plan B in mind, and it's not really something you can just – you don't have a guy ready to take over who's already in the organization. There know, there'd be only a couple of AGMs and one of them is Lou's son, Chris Lamarillo, who's been here a little while. So I think, you know, if you're going to take it in a new direction, it's going to take some time. You got to build out a front office, change some things around, find some people who have some experience running teams to be able to kind of essentially start the front office from scratch. And that's a big undertaking. So I don't imagine they go into it lightly. And I don't know

how you proceed for now, if you're going to make that change, do you give Lou the leeway to make the changes that you deem necessary? Or do you kind of let him do what he does, which is run the team his way? A lot of questions to be answered, I think. And I don't know if we're going to really hear about them in the coming months. Obviously, the fan base is pretty unhappy with the direction of the team the last couple of years. And I think it's more a conversation for the offseason. But you've got to make your moves quick because there's still a lot of important things to be done with this franchise and trying to turn it around, you know, stuff in the season in terms of selling off some assets and then trying to rev it back up

by signing people or trading or whatever with the cap space that you get in the summer you mentioned chris lemerillo and is is there a thought that maybe luke could be you know shifting over and passing the torch to his son and if so so, would that be well-received? How do you think that could play out? You know, I think that's a succession plan you put in place when things are going well, Kipper. It may not fly if you miss the playoffs two out of four years and you win three playoff games in the interim two years

that you do make the playoffs. So, you know, their minor league operation, which is what Chris runs, is one of the two worst AHL teams in that league. Not a lot coming. So I think it would be a hard sell to the fan base if owners have said we're going to let Lou have a succession plan that he wants. I think you may have to really start fresh. And that's a couple, a week or so ago,

I wrote up stories saying like, who could you get? You're not doing a first-time general manager or somebody who's never been involved in the team side before in this kind of situation. So maybe you wait till the off season to see what shakes out elsewhere. But yeah, it's a pivotal moment for them. And I can't really see them going through a plan that maybe Lou had in place

because they just haven't performed well enough. They haven't succeeded on Lou's plan right now for over half of the time he's been here. So I don't know that ownership can allow that to happen. Arthur, you can let them know. I'll throw my hat in the ring if they need. All right. Just to see, you know. You have you can let them know. I'll throw my hat in the ring if they need, all right? Just so you know.

You have plenty of experience, Justin. You qualify. I think so. The, you know, could talk about the Isles for a long time. I actually think they're not as bad as their record. I think that, you know, they're healthy. They have a good decor. The coaching hasn't been great.

There's lots going on there. But we only have you for like another five ten minutes and we can't not talk about the new york rangers who i can't remember a team starting 12 and 4 being this much of a tire fire halfway through the season you know it seems like they've identified the dressing room as a major problem there that maybe they're too mentally weak what is your take on what has happened with this bizarre ranger season yeah i mean i you know i people might be able to try to equate it to the rangers in 92 93 coming off the president's trophy but that was you know

there was some conflict with with mess that mark messier and roger nielsen and that was you know, there was some transition there because mess had just come in. This is, I've never seen anything like this, like you said, and it's all self-inflicted. You know, it, it, you can, you can call out the room and they certainly haven't reacted well to, to what's gone on, even dating back to the, to the summer with Jacob Truba, when some of the first rumors came that they were looking to get rid of him

and when they did dump Barkley Goodrow to San Jose. You know, yeah, I've never seen them to react the way that ownership and Chris Drury did to what's a pretty normal short losing streak after they got smoked in Edmonton back in the end of November to send that text out to the other GMs, naming your captain, naming basically your guy who's Mr. Ranger, Chris Kreider, who's been here the longest and is one of the all-time leaders in goals. I think it just took the room apart.

It really did. And, you know, they haven't reacted well. And there's some of the flaws that they've been able to paper over the last couple years with some successful runs, which with maybe not being toughest to play against in front of their own net, getting their goaltending, bailing them

out, and scoring a lot of timely goals and having really good special teams, those things start to fall apart a little bit. But some of the dysfunction that's happened and some of the chaos that's happened because of during Drury's tenure has really started to seep into the room

and once it's in there, that rot is hard to get out. It's hard to suddenly turn it around when essentially your own bosses say you're not good enough in the middle of the season. It's one of those things where I can't say I've ever seen it before. And I can't say how anyone would react to hearing that from their own GM,

that, that the team that they've got, that was two wins away from an, from a Stanley cup final six months ago needed to be broken up 20 games into a season. I don't see how you'd ever recover from that and put a good season together. So it's hard to watch, and it's kind of hard to see the fan base kind of turn against some guys that they've liked watching for a long time. But, yeah, it's a total mess, and it's entirely self-inflicted, which makes it even crazier.

One more for me on the New York Rangers. And, Arthur, there seems to be two schools of thought, right? One is that the Rangers in the front office have not set up an environment that's conducive to winning from the dressing room to the administration office. The other side says, hey, you're a pro. You're paid a lot of money. Suck it up and just play.

So I get the sense from your last answer where you sit where are the rangers fans on this you know i think they understand who owns their favorite team you know james golan he had some patients during the year where they put out the letter and rebuilt the program that had been so good and gotten close enough with conference finals and won Stanley Cup final in about whatever it was, a six-year or so span in the 2010s. But patience is not really James Dolan's strong suit. And I think once he made the moves to get rid of John Davidson and Jeff Gorton and bring in Chris Drury, that was the change. That was OK. Now it's time to win. And they did. And I think Chris did a really good job in season in twenty one, twenty two and last season, you know, identifying some of the missing pieces,

bringing in some some guys at the deadline to help propel them as close as they got to a couple of Stanley cup finals. But I, I just generally think that the, the, the culture part of it at the garden, which can feel a little chaotic at times. Once, once you get it to the players are affected by it.

When you, when you get rid of a guy like Jim Ramsey, who's as a trainer is, you know has pretty much no equal around the NHL and is one of the most well-liked guys around when that happened a couple of summers ago and and you know some of the some of the feelings of comfort that the players enjoy people love playing for the Rangers you certainly know that well enough from years ago when you take that part away and make people feel a little bit uneasy,

it's harder to perform. And, yes, they are pros, and I think the fans see the players not performing and take that to heart and feel like, well, you can get rid of them. But I don't know if you turn the fans against the players and you bring in new guys and those guys don't perform, what well do you go to them? Cause you've already, you've already tried that once before to, to kind of cycle them out of there and make them feel like maybe this isn't the place they want to be. So I don't know where it ends, but,

but it doesn't feel like, yeah, they got Igor Shostakhin on a, on a extension, which is important. They've still got Adam Fox. Even some of these guys, Temi Panarin, Vince Trocek, Nikas Banajad has had a terrible year. Kreider's had a pretty bad year. These guys can still perform. And I don't know if it's ever going to go back to the way it was

or even close to it, how you can repair that rift, even if you can't make the moves that you want to make. So there's a lot of uncertainty, too. I don't know where it's going to head, but for right now, it's quite astonishing and unprecedented to me, and I don't know how you fix it, I guess, from management on down. So that's the thing that always stands out to me. It's like, all right, you've done what you've done you make the changes but whoever's left how do you fix it that's that's the question for me all right well this has been fascinating stuff i wish we had

a little bit more time we just have one minute so i'll leave you with a happy new year um in our last minute here whose situation is going to turn around quicker islanders or rangers know your audience staple you got about 30 seconds i think the rangers can turn it around quicker because they're determined to make changes and you know when you when you set down that course you have to you have to see it through i don't i don't know how it's going to go, but the Islanders to me, I think have stayed the course a little too long and certainly there's time to make changes, but that's going to be a harder shift to steer around. If you're going to bring in a new GM, new people in the front office,

all that stuff that takes them. And the Rangers, Jim Dolan, I think is pretty committed to Chris jury. Chris jury is committed to making some changes. So I think they're going to change it in short order. I just don't know what it's going to look like on the other side. How about the Islanders start with like a, a four minute video tribute to John Tavares tonight. That would really start the 2025 year.

What do you think? If they play the way they did last week against Buffalo, you're not going to tell who they're booing blanket boo that was the one game i went to arthur i was there for that misery oh oh god tough night have a great one arthur thanks for joining us we really appreciate your time tonight you got it boys thanks happy new year arthur staple the athletic what a job covering those two teams this year. Oh my god, they're last and

second last in the division. His point is great that at least the Rangers are trying to turn it around. The Islanders are like, we're fine. They got blinders on just driving downhill in the rain. It's okay. They're in trouble. Yeah, they're in trouble. But they could be one trade

from turning it around. Can I just... Their D pairs are good. It's Romanov and Dobson. It's Pellick and Pollock. It's Mayfield and whoever the other guys. They're pretty good, though. It's a good D core.

All right, we're just getting warmed up here. We go national next. Jason Bukala will join us, and we'll tee us up a little bit for Team Canada. Sammy, I'll just getting warmed up here. We go national next. Jason Bukala will join us, and we'll tee us up a little bit for Team Canada. Sammy, I'll just let you... No comment. No, no, no, no. We got to talk about what's going on there,

including Easton Cowan's performance. For Leaf fans, you may want to listen to that as well. And then Rick Dollywall will join us. We're going to get into the Vancouver Canucks next when we go national on Real Kipper and Bourne.