Real Kyper & Bourne - Leafs Hour: Robertson's Run & Camp Vibes

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne and Sam McKee look back on the Leafs' 2-0 preseason win over the Red Wings, in which Nick Robertson added two more goals to his superb camp so far. They break down Stolarz's effort in net, Jo Woll's preseason inactivity and Liljegren's role moving forward. Then, a conversation about Amazon's Faceoff series. Finally, Sportsnet's Luke Fox (32:08) discusses Berube's influence on the Leafs' camp, a possible end to the Willy-at-centre experiment, how Tanev can add to Rielly's game and much more.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.

All right, let's get her going here. We close out the opening week of the Real Kipper and Bourne Show. Nick Kiprios, Justin Bourne, Sammy McKee, pushing all the right buttons, Derek Brandeo, Jake the Snake Schultz with you for the next two hours as we open up with the Toronto Maple Leafs and our Leaf edition of our hour. Luke Fox will join us in about 30 minutes. And then at the top of the hour, our national show.

Didn't think it would happen this early, but we were getting Doug McClain to officially kick off Off the Rails Friday. Crazy. I thought he would be in Portugal. I know. I think he's ready to go somewhere. I'm just not sure where, but we'll see what kind of mood he's in.

We've given him all summer. We haven't really bothered him at all. So he should be in a good mood. Should he? Yeah. Have you met him before? Yeah, that's a good point. Something's bothering him today for sure. Something. I think our listeners are hoping he's in a bad mood.

He is at his finest when he is perturbed by something. Jason or Justin, whatever your name is. What's funny is that was like year three of the show. That wasn't the first year we did this show. Yeah. Who was it that called you Jason too? Who was it?

Who wasn't it? Most people. Simmer did it for the first year. There's been some people who have done it for a while. In wardrobe at Sportsnet, there's Jason Bourne is above my suit. I just let it go now. I've accepted my alter ego. Well, wherever you are, Sportsnet 590, the fan, Sportsnet 360,

Sportsnet Plus, downloading us maybe a little later on in your day on any podcast or catching us on YouTube. We are glad you are aboard. Last night Justin and I provided excellent analysis of a Toronto Maple Leaf 2-0 win. Also

David Amber and Elliot Friedman were there too. Baseball boys. Detroit played the worst hockey game I've ever seen a team play? Oh, my God. Yeah, they, listen, I mean, we can certainly discuss a little bit of that, but I got to just say first and foremost with a Leaf lineup that looked anything

but what we've been used to seeing over the last few years, I thought those kids played awfully hard. They worked. Give the Leafs credit. They did what they could do. They worked their bags off, which I forget if I'm allowed to say or not. No, you're not. No, I'm not.

Okay. They worked hard. Scrotum. They worked their hearts out. Scrotum is the right word. Oh. Now we have to drop the drop. All right.

Well, they worked hard is the point. And they got the win. And, you know, when we sat there drop the drop. All right. Well, they worked hard is the point. And they got the win. And, you know, when we sat there in the room between periods or going into periods, you'd say, who can we highlight? Who's looked good? It's preseason. You're not looking to call people bad.

Who's looked good? Wasn't a ton to choose from. Nick Robertson has the last five Leaf goals in the preseason, which pretty good for a guy on the fringes of making the team going into the camp. He has the last five Leaf goals in the preseason, which is pretty good for a guy on the fringes of making the team going into the camp. He has the last five? The last five. They won 2-1 against Montreal.

He scored them both. They won 2-0 against Detroit. He scored them both, and he scored the last goal of the game before. Wow. Yeah. That's impressive. Yeah, it's not a bad run.

That's impressive. I'm going to say he's going to break camp as a Toronto Maple Leaf. Pretty safe bet. Yes. Yeah. Not a practice game. Pretty safe bet. Yes. Yeah. Not a practice day. Give him full credit.

I saw your tweet that you're shocked. Yeah, give him full credit. And also, you know, give the Leafs full credit here because what looked like a diminishing asset to the point where I don't even know a while ago if you could give this guy away it's a much different look here so we do we do know he's going to start the season with the Toronto Maple Leafs we just don't know if he's going to finish the season with the Toronto Maple

Leafs or he would even be in a position to be in the starting lineup during the stanley cup playoffs right but at least that guy is a commodity right now he's done his his part sam's two tweets about nick robertson after he scores like the fifth goal the first one is uh you know is this not the perfect time to trade him due to trade max trade value and the one, after he is hurt, is shocker about Nick Robertson being hurt. Was social media all over you on that? No, I...

It's a shared skepticism with Leaf Nation. There's something I've learned over the summer. I am perceived as a brat. I'm perceived as a medium. Oh, you're so naughty. Like, people really think of me as Main Street Media, not a fan anymore, which does hurt. That's actually... I hated that transition.

It hurts. It hurts because I am a true fan at heart, but, like, a lot of the people... I won't allow you to go mainstream. No, but, like, people on the X machine, they view me as that. I just think that with Nick Robertson, have we not seen, like, this exact same thing,

like, two years, three years with him in preseason not this good but like pretty good like he's had moments over preseasons where it's like been undeniable and the one where when did they bring up malgan instead of him what year was that i'm trying to think of all these years blend together but he was undeniably great in that preseason and they didn't bring him up then he's really good he's an excellent pre-season player he really is but i just i sent the tweet about the trade thing because if you're going to think about it would his value ever be higher than it is right at this very moment uh yeah yeah when when he was 18 years old yeah exactly yes when he's coming off at 55 you go a year don't feel too bad because when i suggested they trade him for Sam Bennett,

was it Twitter back then? Oh, yeah. It's still Twitter. Buried me. Yeah. Buried me. I remember that. I remember that.

I wasn't part of that. I was like, that's a good idea. They should do that. 80% of them, not a chance you're giving up Nick Robertson for Sam Bennett. Do you think Leaf fans would have liked Sam Bennett? Oh, my. I don't know if they would have liked him as a Leaf or not. What's he, a winger? Would I go to use a good winger like him?

Listen, first of all, you're still coming out of training camp where everybody's in love with their own players. So we're going to see some movement, I think, with the waiver wire. But outside of that, there's nothing really of significance i would think that would lend that there'd be any type of significant trade in those first no everyone's to 10 days everyone thinks their own guys are gonna have this internal growth and become yeah but to sam's point and i think i made this the other what is gonna change now moving forward? Can Nick still score 15, 20 goals at 10 or 11 minutes if, in fact, it starts looking like the ice time is going to be allocated

much like it has in the last few years? He scored 14 in 10 or 11 minutes last year. So, yes, he can do that. And I'd say he's a year older and probably a bit better. The only question for Robertson for me isn't any of this stuff. It's can he just not get hurt? Yesterday... But that's not now. That's always been the case.

He's had some injuries. You know, you can't really make decisions on a guy based on we think he's going to get hurt until it's really bad. But the Leafs made that decision on Mason Marchment, who I brought up the other day. They traded him because they didn't think he could stay healthy that was 100% the reason they thought that just this guy wasn't

going to be able to stay in the lineup and now he makes four or five million a year for Dallas so you know Robertson has ugly track record for injury so far hopefully this is nothing serious the coach alluded to the fact that because I think Yarncroft McCabe and him all missed practice today and

he doesn't seem too concerned about injuries ever, so maybe this is something we're learning about Berube. Yarncroft okay. They do not be asked him. And he's like, that's nothing serious. But on Robertson, it wasn't anything that looked overly different. No, he got his elbow against the glass and it got pushed in. Yeah, he got jammed up against the glass. But do you worry about putting him in a position of heavy hockey

down the stretch and whether or not he could sustain that on a fairly regular basis? I don't necessarily agree. I think it's Elliott who always says there's guys who get you there and there's guys who get you through or something about playoffs. I don't know who it is that says that. I don't necessarily agree with that. But Robertson pretty clearly seems like a guy who get you through or something about playoffs. I don't know who it is that says that. I don't necessarily agree with that. But Robertson pretty clearly seems like a guy who gets you there.

Yeah, I think you're going to have a lot of games throughout the regular season to get to the playoffs where you're going to need Nick Robertson's goal scoring. Is he going to be contributing to the playoffs? Their core sleeps so much on bad teams. Robertson, every time you play Columbus, Montreal, Chicago, put them on the second line in first power play unit and let him get a goal and assist and off we go we've got a craig bruby clip on nick robertson like don't blink it's you know is this a don't blink so clip i will say

okay a little update on then on the availabilities of brube spoke for five minutes today at practice is that a new record that's got to be up there he uh he was a little bit more talkative today although there was one thing about the about the william newander at center where he kind of was going back and forth with mark master he's like i don't even know why we're still talking about this i don't know what it's like oh don't it's like well get ready to talk about settling so uh well yeah we'll go to we'll go to Berube on Robertson for today at practice. Not even the goal so much. Obviously that's huge.

He's a goal scorer and he's finishing, which is great, but it's the work ethic and the details, the defense, you know, he's done like this goal last night is a typical example where he's a low guy coming back in our zone, knocks a guy off a puck, makes a play, and then advances up the ice and gets a goal. So those are the types of things that impress me. Can I interpret that? Please do.

Yeah, that's the type of goal that you would never see under Sheldon Keefe. But since I've been here and I implemented defense and straight lines, now that's the goal that Nick Robertson can score. A little self-back pat there. Sure, why not? I would. Yeah. He came all the way back. He was on Debrinkit, and then he did.

He out-muscled Alex Debrinkit, someone his own size, which was great. Great stamina, too. He had hit Sherrod all the way down the ice, came back and made that play, went all the way back. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot there. We've spent way too much preseason talking Robertson. We should stop right now. I mean, the thing is.

I know it's my fault. I'm not saying it's not. It's not your fault. I mean, you wrote an article. I'm aware. We got 10 shows without a Leaf game. What do you want to talk about? You think Austin Matthews is going to be on the team?

Has anyone mentioned Matthews? Has anyone even mentioned him this year? You think he's going to be on the team? He's going to make it? Good shot. He's going to break camp? Yeah, he might. Well, if we're excited about Robertson, wait until we get to Lilligren.

This is my other hobby horse. Or should we sneak in Stolarz's effort? Let's do that. Let's bright spot it. Okay, so watching him, I mean, I've watched him the last, you know, little while, especially in Florida. But he looked like a giant to me in the net last night. He is a freak.

Big man. He's a lot of goalie. I dare you to find a hockey club on the planet with four bigger depth goalies than the Toronto Maple Leafs. What's Hildeby's 6'7", isn't he? Stolar's 6'6", at least. And they're monsters. What's Wohl? Wohl's almost 6'3".

Yeah. Murray's huge, too. You're right. They're monsters what's wool wool's almost six three yeah murray's huge too you're right they're monsters yeah i mean what did you think last night like the he only had to make a few challenging saves he made those two road hockey glove windmill saves in tarasenko's eye which were fully enjoyable both of them big smiles thought that was awesome he was having a good time both like tarasenko was smiling and so was was stollers on both of them i thought that was awesome. He was having a good time. Like Tarasenko was smiling and so was Stoller's on both of them. I thought that's awesome. Love that.

Pretty loose. Wow, listen. We're comparing anything to Samsonov who's like a fish out of water and sliding all over the place. Guys, now he's gone. Can we talk about how tough that was to watch? Oh, God. Like anything could look more efficient than Samsonov.

God. That Friday night game against Columbus that you guys did, was that in December? 5-0 to 6-5. That'll be burnt in my brain for as long as I can think about hockey games. Did they win 6-5? No, they lost in OT. I think they were up 5-0.

They came all the way back. We did the game, and I remember being there in the third period. They're down 5-0 Cobb to Columbus. What are we going to talk about? I remember you coming back and being like, you can't play again. That's right. That's right.

We said Samson cannot go in the net. Cannot. And then, yeah, he ended up having a really good second half. Yeah. Maybe I need to buy some Gloss. I really like Samson off or whatever. Yesterday, I loved our conversation with Steve Allicat. And I can't watch now the Leaf goalies without thinking about Valley and saying, okay, like where are goalies' comfort zones?

And is Stolarz a guy that can legitimately think that number one spot's up for grabs and I want it? Or am I now at the point in my career where I'd love to see Wall play 50 and me 30 and I can just, you know, be in that comfort zone? We do have a clip from him talking about the opportunity from last night after the game, if you guys want to hear it. Yeah, absolutely. We'll play Stolarz's clip here, boys.

It's obviously exciting. You know, it's kind of what you want as a hockey player. You know, you want to be on the the big stage you want to be playing games so um you know i have that opportunity here and the rest is up to me i mean obviously uh well there's a great goalie and so is murr as well and you know we're all going to push each other throughout the year and uh you know i think that's what uh what's best about these tandems is two guys three guys that are willing to push each other and just kind of make the team better. Alright.

Does that sound like a guy that's wanting to be the thinks he's the backup? Hey, let me ask you this. You talk about him being big. He's 6'6". What do you think he weighs? I don't know. 2'6"? He's 6'6". Yeah, I'd say 215, 220. Yeah. Sure. 243.

243. That's a big guy. That's a lot of person. That is a huge guy. Oh, my God. So I just, you know, the style that he plays, along with the style that Joe Wall plays, after a year of watching a lot of, or two years of watching a lot of Ilya Samsonov,

I think elite fans are going to really enjoy it. Where it's just a lot less high-stress moments, where it may not be as spectacular at times, where there's big saves or big flashy stops, but it'll just be a little quieter in there. You know, Kip, I think this contract, he's two years at $2.5 million, is that right, per season? Yeah, that's right.

He's never really made a ton of money. I think after this contract, his career earnings will be $10 million, which I know that's a lot of money to the rest of us. In the NHL, $10 million is not whatever. I'm sure he would love a contract. You know, one of those contracts, a five-year, whatever, times five. That is going anything north of five, you are now flirting with number one status right and so i'm saying like i think if you're him you're on a very good team you're behind a fabergé egg of a goalie so

far maybe he won't be maybe he'll well won't get hurt but this if i'm stolarz i i'm like after a year we can start thinking about next contracts this is a big year for him to see if he can over the course of his career have one time where he gets that big contract classic total media hasn't even started there's a new contract does he have the mindset i'm saying what i would have as a mindset there's 10 other teams that are thinking the same thing right everybody? Everybody's got a guy that's never done it before and saying they're talented, this is what we love about them, they're square to the shooter, efficient,

they look until they get into the fire. If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, every day would be Christmas. So it will remain a question mark. Yes, of course. Even if they get shot out of a cannon. He would be a fool it will remain a question mark yes of course even if they get shot out of he would be a fool if he's going into this season being like i hope i get 28 games you know like that's a i'm hoping that's not his mindset doesn't sound like that's his mindset so he looked pretty good last night all right very impressive yeah you know The whole outfit was, I think, really impressive, including Lawrence.

Oh, sorry. I just want to... Steve Lawrence. I just want you to compare his preseason, Stolarz, to Wolves' games played so far. How do you think Wolves looked? It's been a while. One game.

Half a game. Half a game. Are we maybe not talking about that enough that we're going to the final preseason game and the starters played for 30 minutes? They asked Berube today and he didn't commit. Game one? No, he didn't commit if he was going to play on Saturday.

He wasn't going full day. He's like, we'll see. Oh, then he's hurt. I'm not saying that. Well, Sam, I mean, if they're not going to play him at all in preseason at all, he's hurt. Okay, well. Don mean, if they're not going to play him at all in preseason, at all, Kurt. Okay, well. Don't read into anything like that.

All right. He's playing Saturday. And if he's not and he's hurt, do you really want to start the season this way if you're the Leaf management team misleading? Hopefully not. No, I don't think so. He's playing Saturday and one and a half games. It is what it is.

I don't think training camp is what it used to be. And there's a lot of guys that want it or need it. And there's some that don't. I don't know where Joseph wall sits in that but he as far as i'm concerned you gave joseph wall saturday start at home with austin matthews with we assume mitch marner and that's just a team to tee up all right wednesday night i'm just saying if he's not no other don't read into anything else right i'm just saying it's not playing but okay let me let me start the goalie chat here then. So it's back-to-back to start the season.

Wednesday, Thursday, 9-10. Open in Montreal. And then they play on the second half of back-to-back. So I'm assuming it would be Wall in Montreal and then Stolarz in New Jersey the next night against Sheldon Keefe. Stolarz from New Jersey. Yeah. against Sheldon Keefe. Stolarz from New Jersey. Yeah. So he plays that game.

He's unbelievable. Wall shaky in the first game. Immediate goalie controversy. Immediate. No, no, no. Like I'm telling you right now. Immediate. The way that Stolarz looked in the preseason and then Wall barely played.

Immediate goalie controversy. Leafs have a. They love that. They have the most, I think, back-to-backs to start, I think, the season. Yeah, there's a good article Andrew Brewer wrote about the start of the season and the Atlantic Division, the teams. The Leafs have five back-to-backs in the first, like, 20 games. You know, they say, you know, if you're out of it by this cutoff,

that's where Brewer did it to, and they have five back-to-backs. So they have some challenging schedule early going both those are home openers for montreal and new jersey if i'm not mistaken sam well yes i think new jersey's coming back from playing today so a home opener and they'll have had four games under their belter and then they come home like they play a lot of hockey right off the hop. Right? Least. Yeah, the Leafs play the most games at that Thanksgiving cutoff of any team, I think. 25? A lot of hockey early for the Leafs. Kyle Dubas' Penguins on Saturday night, over 12. Keefe, then Dubas, back-to-back games.

Let's go. Narratives, baby. All right, you mentioned Lilligren last night on a couple of occasions. Where do you see him i know he's commented that he's not had the training camp that he probably would have liked yeah but where do you where do you see him well i i see him on the leafs only because i don't think you get better by just getting rid of him for no reason there's not currently something you're trying to do financially that you'd want to free up his money but he hasn't shown anything for craig barubi coming in being like what does this guy do what

is why are we paying him six mil over the next two years you know is what's the as i said before when do we put him out there and i thought last night comes out after shaky preseason a couple of turnovers just hasn't looked that interested even though i know that's not the case he just hasn't popped and so you reach a point where you go okay well it's not so much that this guy's bad it's can we find someone who does something specifically for the team he just doesn't hasn't worked so far would you like to hear barube talk about lily good i would okay ruby clip one please you know lily's got to do things you know quicker he's got to do things, you know, quicker. He's got to be a little bit heavier in his battles and move in the pucks quicker and simplify the game.

I think, you know, he's obviously battling. He wants to be a guy in the lineup every night, and that's great. But sometimes, you know, you kind of put too much on your plate, right? Simplify the game a little bit more. If I had to say anything, simplify his game a little bit more and just do your job as a defenseman, killing plays and being heavy. Is that where you

lean on maybe giving him another chance here tomorrow? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't know if he's playing tomorrow yet or not, but that'll come tomorrow. Would you, if the juggling works for the Leafs and they don't have too many issues to line up their roster would you sneak in one of the younger kids that uh marshall uh

has had a very good camp and he's gotten his nose dirty and he's blocked shots hammered right hammered to me to me he's he's he's right up. God, he's hammered. Hammered by Larkin last night. To me, he's right up there with, you know, knocking on the doors, the seventh D. Yeah. My other question is where's Connor Timmons in all this? Like, he at least does some offensive things that I like, but I haven't seen him much. This Phillip Myers, Philippe Myers,

I'm not sure which it is, but I think it's Philippe. He's six foot seven. None of them have taken Lilligan's job yet, so I don't know who you'd replace him with, and that helps him out that there's no one really behind him. But I don't think it's a good sign that Berube says he needs to simplify his game because have you seen him being too fancy or anything? Like, I don't see him doing anything.

We've seen over the years him try to do too much. Just do your job yeah i guess yeah it's just so i would say that's a guy that's on the lookout i'm not i'm skeptical he's going to be a trauma maple leaf april 17th or whatever when the playoff starts he was asked about that about his future uh lilligren clip two all right given given the roster roster changes that could come in the next few days, Timothy, salary, Monday afternoon, do you wonder about your future at all here? You know, like everything can happen, right?

So I'm just trying to take it day by day. And, you know, obviously, I know, you know, we got to make some changes. So we'll see where it goes. But I'm, as I said, just trying to, you know, take it day by day, and it works hard as I can. Even if you wanted to trade him, you got to get him to a team that can take the $3 million. I think that's hard. Early on, that's hard.

It's hard unless a Columbus or an An anaheim somebody just says i've got the room for it i'll take it and if i were columbus or anaheim i'd add him for sure he can he can be a serviceable player but then you also learn you also lose a right-handed shot that's got some experience under his belt right now and that's time has been very serviceable and i don't think that the leafs are ready to move Lilligren in and slide Myers in. The best thing is probably just to let him play where they need him. Timmons still weirds me out because he hasn't even existed.

Like, is he, maybe he's going to play on Saturday or something. But Hockenpah, if Hockenpah were healthy, that would be interesting. But it doesn't sound like that's happening anytime soon. So there's just no one coming for his job right now. Go ahead. Oh, go ahead. No, you. No, it was an off-the-ice thing, so. Okay, I was just going to say, you know, outside of Saturday night,

you get ready for a waiver wire that I, to this moment, I'm not sure if the Leafs need to really expose anyone that they might be worrying about losing. You know, Connor Dewar, does he need protecting? You're going to sign Lawrence, right? Yeah, I mean, he was maybe the best Leaf that wasn't always a Leaf. So if you sign him and he's exposed, you think teams would be interested in picking him up?

Doer? No. Lawrence. Lawrence. Oh, yeah. Right? Absolutely. So you gotta think about maybe protecting him. Yeah. So, you know, here's one for you. You leave Yarncroft unprotected. I think he's snapped up in two seconds.

You do, eh? Yeah. I think he, I think it's not. 2.4 million for Yarncroft? Yeah, it's expensive. It's expensive. I think it's expensive. If he gets claimed, are you not comfortable right now with Holmberg or Lawrence or Robertson filling in? Yeah.

Yeah, it's not a bad point. It's not like there's... Man, like there's... Right. They've got guys now. Often the conversation is not, what do you think of this player? Can this guy play in the league?

It's can the people who would replace them be better or be as good for cheaper dollar amounts? So it definitely is an interesting spot. The bigger thing is that, Kip, I think they can squeak all these guys through. Like I think they're going to get the hang on to everyone. Well, Dewar doesn't have to start, right? Dewar's fine, right?

You can just milk him for another week, two weeks of getting ready. Yeah. I think that's probably the case and then you figure it out from there. Well, I look forward to the season starting and talking more about the good players. Me too.

Speaking of good players, Kippy, I've been getting a million messages and DMs and tweets. Did you watch the Amazon thing yet? Yeah, I skimmed through it. Skimmed it? Well, listen, I started watching it and... You're just waiting for your voice? No.

Yeah, I listened to us. You were very critical. I was just like... Is Sammy in there? Yeah, Sammy's in there. That's what I mean. I've been getting a lot of messages about it. Ripping Nylander.

Ripping? What did I say? I don't know. I'm just joking. Just like, you know, he signed now. Like, what are you going to do? I think that's what you kind of referenced too, right? You better not go in the toilet.

That kind of thing. Okay. I guess we'll have to watch comment um i just found it a little fluffy like just too much like you know the big music and the drama i liked a couple of years ago the one that we talked about a lot in our show but it was leaf specific it was the whole team. It was the whole team. I know, it was the whole team. But the behind-the-scenes stuff was way, like, I want real. I want, like, they-

Drama, real drama. The drama that they experienced at that time. Mm-hmm. And, like, I want to watch the look on Dubas and Sheldon keep being too scared to look whether or not Anderson's on the ice or not. Or watching them in a meeting with Joe Thornton going, we're fine. We're in first place. We're in first.

That's devastating when you look at it. You didn't get that out of this segment. It's fine. For your average hockey fan, I'm sure they're going to love it. But for me, it's just like, meh, just raw, raw stuff. All these documentaries are all in pursuit of trying to be the F1, the F1 doc. Because since the F1 doc came out, there's been all these, there's been a tennis one, there's been the golf one,

there's been now the hockey one, the quarterback's one. What they're in pursuit of is the parasocial relationship you form with these people when you get to know them. You know what they're like and their behaviors, and you follow them and you think you understand them. Yeah. and so now you have the buy-in from all the people but that's what they're but they're searching for the popular like what f1 did for what that documentary did for the popularity here and they think that maybe it has a chance maybe the nhl ones but like the thing with the f1 you know it's sexy cars and fast cars and sweet locations and drama and like

like hockey players are too boring for that. So boring. So, I don't know. I'll watch it. I'm just going to watch it. Yeah, you'll watch it. Everything you read about Willie is like, ah, the league's most interesting man. It's like, what's interesting?

The dramatic, you know, the music, eh? And like, the slow motion. And it's like, eh. The most interesting leaf is actually Joseph Wall. He's the only one that I'm aware of that he's into backpacking and Lego and he's into classical music and everyone else is like,

I don't know, we don't want to play on. The first episode's a lot of Pasternak and Neil Anderson's kids. Oh, great, yeah. Their experiences together. We get to talk about how the Bruins and the Leafs guys are best friends for the whole hour. And they're having dinner together.

Sick, love that. Could they just hate each whole hour. And they're having dinner together. Sick. Love that. Could they just hate each other maybe? Like they're rivals? Yeah. Never happens. There's one scene where Pasternak opens up his fridge and it reminded me of my fridge when I ate my first week when I played.

Block of cheese and a stick of yogurt. I'm like, buddy, that was my fridge when I was making like $22,000 a year. You're making $12 million. Your fridge shouldn't look like mine when I was in Hershey. You can hire people for that. It's cheaper just to go to Uber Eats probably. Well, you should probably just go to dinner. Yeah, go to Uber Eats or go to dinner.

Yeah. Anyways. They talked about Willie's migraines a little bit and you know but but not real insight like i wanted to see the look on sheldon's face when you know they said he's out with migraines that's what i wanted to see you're deep in the weeds or you're in the no matthews at all you just you just want want confirmation bias. That's what you want. You want to be like, these guys are soft. That's what I want.

Show me that, Amazon. Right? I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. We should go. We got to get to Luke. Okay, let's take a quick break. We got Luke Fox coming up.

Leaf writer for Sportsnet.ca. We'll get Luke's thoughts going into Wednesday night, Toronto, Montreal, opening up their NHL seasons. Hey, it's Ben Ennis. And I'm Brent Gunning. We got you covered on all things Leafs, Raptors, and Blue Jays every weekday morning, 6 to 9. It's the Fan Morning Show.

Sportsnet 590 The Fan and wherever you get your podcasts. All right, making his appearance for the first time on The Real Kipper and Bourne Show. You've seen him many times when we run out of our A-listers. Let's bring in... Offensive start. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I love this guy. Does a trip. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I love this guy.

Does a trip. That's the gods. That's karma gods. Did you ever? Get it together. Stop giving me chocolate and commercial breaks. Sorry, everyone. Sorry.

Who canceled that idea to get me on? No. No one. Wayne Gretzky. And you are our second choice. there you go yeah are you buying it luke fox everybody sports that.ca how's your training camp going better than ours i bet better than mine right now i'm ready for it to be over i mean the look at the regular season started a few hours ago and we still got got another preseason game to go to tomorrow.

Yeah. I asked Max Domi the ideal number of preseason games yesterday, and his answer was zero. And I'm kind of siding with him. I'm kind of siding with him. So, so far, we've been kicking around storylines for this team we've talked a lot of nick robertson some timothy lilligren um what stands out for you i know that's sort of a macro level question but is there anything in particular where you've got your eye focused on in terms of

what training camp is going to tell us about this team well i think the big picture it's just the coach right they i mean they made very few changes you know i i really like chris tan of coming in but once you know once we see that morgan riley has a right shot pairing guy that he's long needed it's how much more do you say about that what i'm most curious about is the impact of the coach. Already there's a different tone to the camp. A couple guys have mentioned that it's a tougher camp. They got a new system to learn. He's really stressing finishing their checks.

There seems to be an edge to this one. And maybe that would have come with any coaching change just because they had gotten comfortable under Sheldon. But I think Berube is a personality he walks in the room he walks in front of the cameras faces the the reporters there's just a different aura that he carries and I'm sure that's the same in the dressing room so that's the biggest change for me and then there's other storylines like Robertson it's hard to deny the guy gets five goals in four preseason games he's a story

uh and the other one is is the willie at center thing it's just like a little bit curious what are we doing here because the last few days he's been back practicing on the wing and it's like okay what's really going to happen in the regular season are they going to give us this a fair shake because if not it feels a bit ridiculous that we've gone through this song and dance again. I want to cover all of the things that you just mentioned, but just going back to Craig Berube and the feel of how he's making them feel

a lot more responsible, I think, at the 200-foot game. I thought that it may take a week or two weeks and we may not see the best of the Leafs. I think at times I was expecting boring games or disciplined games where we don't see them blowing zones and maybe there would be an adjustment. But is there signs at a training camp, including what we saw last night,

albeit young kids, that they may be ready to implement what he wants out of the gate a lot stronger than what I even thought? Do you think they'll get off to a good start? Do you see a good start out of this team? They're learning a new system. And a couple guys have mentioned that, that there's an adjustment. They're learning a different system. They were used to sheldon's system this one's way more north south uh i've never you know the the coach is constantly harping on them finishing their checks i'll give

you an example so the first day of training camp under sheldon they barely touched the pocket it was a lot of conditioning stuff a lot of skating skating. First day of training camp under Berube, it was almost all battle drills. Small area, just like intense battles along the boards. He's really stressing finishing your checks. He's prioritizing defense. Anytime you want to talk about someone's offense, even Nick Robertson, right? He's putting the puck in the net every time he touches it. But they don't want to talk about that. They want to talk about how they're turning him into a penalty killer.

They want to talk about his back checking. This is a they want full team defense. And I find it kind of interesting because last offseason, they went out and got Domi and Bertuzzi and they really focused on let's get more secondary scoring. The theme now seems to be let's win some tighter games because that's the style that wins in the playoffs. Let's clamp down on defense. Maybe we won't score as many goals as we have in the past, but we'll prevent one extra a night if we can. And I think that message is getting through.

Now, what's it going to look like in the regular season? Are there guys that miss assignments still trying to think, are they in their head, like, I've got to figure out this system? Probably there's going to be some growing pains. So do you think you can teach an old dog new tricks? Yeah. Do you think these guys can play differently? Are you looking at me?

I need help on the show. Do you think, no. Do you think, I don't know, is Marner going to start finishing checks? Is that going to help them if those guys play more physical? Well, I mean, for guys like Marner, I don't think he's going to be banging defensemen into the glass every time he goes down the ice. But I do think there's going to be less tolerance for the extra pass,

the cute play. Let's get on the highlight reel because we made this tic-tac-toe so gorgeous you know it's going to make your jaw drop i think there's going to be less patience for holding on to it more shots on net um so i i do think there's are you going to completely change some of these guys probably not but But there is probably you can move them this far in the direction the coach wants. And I think he's not, I don't think he's going to call guys

out in the media, but behind closed doors I think he has a way that he wants them to play, and I think he's going to hold them to that. As far as the blue line, it seems to be it had been in the past the topic of conversation on not being good enough, not being good enough.

And have you seen or felt like there's enough depth now where maybe Morgan doesn't have to get back into a conversation to win a Norris trophy, but with Tanev there, that we're going to see a better Morgan Riley here and it's going to be a better Morgan Riley here and it's going to be followed up underneath them. Yeah, a hundred percent. And maybe not in year four of the deal or even year three of the deal,

but the first couple of years I'd like to think so. I think Tanev is that much of a difference maker. Morgan Riley has always, always thrived when he has a right shot, stay at home defenseman who can have his back and let him do his thing, jump up in the rush, use his amazing feet and hands and vision to try and create from the back end. The Leafs have not generated a ton of offense from defensemen. It's really been probably one of the undersold downfalls of them

in the regular season and in the postseason. They don't have a lot of contributions from the blue line. And so Morgan Rielly should be the charge that way because he has that security blanket. I mean, look how good he was with Luke Shen, right? A guy that was, you know, almost out of the league at one point as his partner. And now he's got Tanev, who you ask around the league, and he's one of the best partners a guy could have.

Ask Quinn Hughes. Quinn Hughes loved having this guy. So I think it's going to be a massive upgrade. I think they're going to need some time to figure out the other pairs. Like is Ekman, Larson, McCabe, are they going to mesh? We'll see. And the third pair, that to me is a little bit of a fascinating storyline of camp because timothy lilligren looks like he's he's in one here yeah no kidding um i do want to

get to that but i i've also want to make sure i get to this question so it used to be that we could interview assistant coaches in the nhl i don't do uh do other teams let their assistant coaches be interviewed i i have no idea right if some do some do some do but it not many and not the leafs is pretty much as long as i've been on the beat i remember we got to talk to manny mohotra the day he was hired and then never again but i would yeah i and and you know what that so the the rule is the team has to make a coach or an executive available every game day, every practice. So they could, within their rights, to say, hey, we're giving the head coach a break. Here's the assistant. The Flyers did it a few times last year.

Torts took some time off. You want to hear from Mark Savard? Very much. I think that Mark Savard, my understanding of Savard is that he's a very different you know we're talking about this uh Leafs coaching staff like north south grit hit you know like Mark Savard is a wheel and deal dish and power play guy I would like to know what the rest of the coaching staff thinks philosophically about how a team should play nuts let me know I nuts yeah you're not getting him to talk about that. Why? That's the last thing. Brendan Shanahan or Tree Living or They don't want us to know that they like good hockey?

They just don't want too many chefs in the kitchen telling stories. That's all. Well, I'd like to know what flavors are going into the dishes. They want one narrative. You're right, Nick. But I'm with Justin that I think it would be nice if they loosened up

a little bit and we got some other perspectives. And it would give the head coach a day off from doing media. So Savard's going to do the power play. Van Ryn's going to do the penalty kill. Is that it? And Lane Lambert. Lane Lambert. Lane Lambert's going to do the penalty kill.

And Van Ryn's in charge of the D. Yeah. Van Ryn in charge of the D. Okay. Well, that's a good perspective to know that things are going to be different all around so there's going to be a lot of different voices um you did mention uh lilligren there i've been a little bit hard on him so far this season do you think that things are going to change for him is he going to have some runway with the leafs to prove that he can be a barubi guy well i think

he should have some runway but just based on his salary alone. I mean, $3 million, give him a new contract, give the guy a chance. He has to do something with it, right? He's had a lot of opportunities, and he's shown flashes, but he just hasn't had that consistency. And you start to think,

this is a bit of an organizational weak point that's probably not been talked about enough like we kept waiting for travis dermot oh he's eventually going to be a top four guy didn't happen rasmus sandin like there was a point where it was like oh maybe this guy's going to run the power play instead of morgan riley and and maybe he's going to establish himself as a top four D man on this team. Didn't happen. He ended up on the outside. You're running out of guys here.

So, you know, I think he's been given the benefit of the doubt largely because he's the right shot. But Berube was talking about it today and Lilligren was saying he has a lot more to prove and Berube was basically saying, yeah, he does. You know, and he wants him to play strong defense. He's not talking about him moving the puck up and getting a whole bunch of secondary assists. He wants him to defend.

So to me, when I hear that, I'm saying, as soon as Hockenpah is healthy, Lilligren better watch out because his job's in jeopardy. Totally. I don't think Hockenpah jeopardizes anyone's job because there's just no way that you can ever count on that guy playing a large stretch of hockey. I love signing, man.

Then why sign him? Because he's big and he can be serviceable. And maybe. And you just got to just get him to april it might just be for two or three games you just don't know but he's worth the gamble if you can get him healthy enough in april is he skating i don't know what that means 40 games 40 games 50 games he's he's skating with the team now just started this week before it was all on a separate pad and a non-contact so he's making strides but all signs point to him starting on LTI and you

know what I was thinking about this the Leafs actually had a chance to start uh you know with not using LTI because Klingberg came off the books. Muzzin came off the books. They actually could have had a season where they accrued cap space that they could use at the deadline. But now with Dewar and Hockenpah, it looks like they're going to use it again. That's too bad.

So Saturday night, are we going to get kind of their opening day lineup? Is that what we're expecting? The closest thing to it, yeah. Although he was very secretive about whether wall was going to start that game and i i don't know what's happening there yeah what's happening there yeah okay so he he tweaked something yesterday and we were all watching and his body language wasn't great no but he said he was fine but just But it's just we're watching him, and we're just like,

and maybe he is fine. Maybe it was just bad body language. He finished the practice, but it was just one of those, a little moment where you're just like, oh, man, it just reminds you what a razor's edge they're riding here. Wow. But he said he was fine. He said he was fine.

We all say we're fine. We all say we're all fine. How's your mental state? Oh, it's fine.. We all say we're fine. We all say we're fine. How's your mental state? Oh, it's fine. I'm great. We're good. We're good. We're good.

Oh, yeah. Day to day, we're fine. Let's just say this guy needs to play all 60 minutes, or else I think the alarm bells will go off tomorrow. Yeah. All right. Good times. For a guy filling in for Wayne Gretzky, man, great job.

Great job. Our own Luke Fox from Sportsnet.ca. Thanks, Luke. Good to see you. Looking forward to having you all season long, Luke. Thanks for doing this. Okay. Great first week, guys.

Thanks. Talk to you soon. So in our second hour, besides... Tweak? Doug McClain. Just a tweak. Not job. Hold on.

What? We're going to welcome in a leading orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Jason Smith, because I'm tired of us playing doctor. So we're going to get a real doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Very good. Drop in. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. . Doctor. . .

. years off. And our doctor was a Calgary Flames draft pick. Hockenpah, right? What's the likelihood of him on a knee that is a little wonky? So, it'll be fun. His knee's a little Hockenpah. What about Joe Wall? And Demko? He just weeks him. Oh my

God. I'm going to get his thoughts on Demko too because that, to me, it's a guy leaves in the first round and has all summer and can't be ready in October. That is weird to me. That's bad. So, yeah, we'll pursue some answers. Jason Smith in the next hour.

Doctor. Doctor. Okay, so when I introduce him, I'm going to go doctor and then he should come back to us and go doctor. Because we're not doctors. And doctor.

But we're going to play one. We're going to play one on TV. In this segment, we're going to play doctors. The doctor segment. Good. We'll contact some pharmaceutical sales rep to sponsor the bit. In this segment, we're going to play doctors. The doctor segment. Yeah, the doctor segment. Good, good. Okay. We'll contact some pharmaceutical sales rep to sponsor the bit. All right, we good?

Anything else on the leaves? No, we're not good. I'm a little concerned about what he had to say there. I mean, Luke doesn't want to start fires. How come this has kind of been quiet, that there's speculation that Joseph Watt did something? Because he's playing body language doctor. Yeah, when you're there and you watch practice and you see someone go, and then you're like, is that a thing?

But now, based on Craig Bruby's, you know. Coyness. Coyness. If that's a word. Excellent word. Is it? Works for me right now. Okay, good.

Now we start kind of connecting the dots here a little bit. Are we? Is that what we're doing? No, over the course of this hour, we have gone from not worried to worried. We have talked ourselves into a frenzy. I whipped us into one. No, no, you started.

You're like, he's hurt. Yeah, no. I said if he doesn't play Saturday. Oh, no, no, no. Before you said that. I said if he doesn't play Saturday, he's hurt. Check the tape? Yes, do.

Anyways. Okay. Good way to leave on a Friday or Leaf Edition hour. Started to get it off the rails. I got a shove. Well, we started it. Wait till the next guest finishes it off. Doug McClain on the top of the hour

when we continue on The Real Kipper and Bourne Show.