Real Kyper & Bourne - Leafs Hour: Unclear Direction

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne and Sam McKee look back on the Toronto Maple Leafs' win over the Calgary Flames. They discuss William Nylander's dominant performance, his inconsistency this season, and his future in a leadership role with the Leafs. Then, they discuss the teams' uncertain direction after back-to-back wins, which players they need to sell at the deadline, and whether a full teardown would ever be in the cards. Later, Hockey Hall of Famer Kevin Lowe joins the show (32:30) to help set the stage for the Leafs' matchup against the Edmonton Oilers and discuss Connor McDavid's impassioned Player's Tribune article, the toll of back-to-back Stanley Cup runs, where the Oilers might add at the deadline, and his thoughts on Team Canada's chances with the Olympics nearly underway.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

Back-to-back game days on the Real Kippur and Bourne show. It's the Leaf Hour edition. Jake the Snake Shilts, Derek Brandeo, Ethan, Ja-Jajah Gabor, pushing all the right buttons for us. I'm Nick Kiprio's, Justin Bourne, Sammy McKee. We're live on Sportsnet 360, 590, the fan in Toronto. Streaming always on Sportsnet Plus. Also available at your convenience, Spotify, Apple Podcast. And we welcome in YouTube where the chats are always.

He's hot. Feisty. Feisty on the Toronto Maple Leafs and that much more. We also have Kevin Lowe in about 35 minutes. He'll help us tee up, Toronto and the Edmonton Oilers tonight, a game that can be seen on SportsNet with our very own Justin Bourne on the panel tonight. And at the top of the hour, Steve Aliquette for his regularly scheduled Tuesday. Yes.

In the meantime, we got... Leaves win. There's some life. There's some life in the Leafs with back-to-back wins against Vancouver and Calgary. Dare I say that they go for three in a row before closing out for the Olympics. This one last night, welcome back Willie Neelander on a pretty fine performance of displaying pure talent. Of course. He's awesome.

He's awesome. You watch a game last. last night and he's just not in the same league as that game. Like when he's on, he looked like that at the start of the Vegas game. He has these days where he is just the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. Has these days when he's on. Yeah. Right?

And he was on last night. Here we go. Here we go. Just saying. He teed it up. Oh, just saying. He teed it up. Why can't he just?

Yeah. We know. Right. We're all tired. Just get into it. It's just. It's got to. It was.

It was very predictable, though. Wasn't it? You didn't predict yesterday, did you? That Willie was going to come in and light it up? He has that ability. The question is, do people see it often enough? It doesn't hurt. Yeah.

You know, I was thinking they were watching the game last night, Kip, and I was thinking, if Willie hadn't missed 18 games this year, how many points do they have in the standings? How many more do you think? Three? Do you think three, maybe they win one more game with them? Yeah, it's hard not to think that a guy with that much talent. talent can't, can't find a way to put another three or four for the team.

Like a couple of those games that are close. Maybe he gets you into overtime and one. Maybe you win one more. And then, you know, you're knocking on the door with three or four more points. But you don't have them. And now they are seven points out of a playoff spot. And people are talking themselves into it again? If Willie didn't go through that stretch, are they right in the thick of things for you, Sammy?

Maybe. I mean, they struggled with him in the last. lineup too this year. So it's not like you, I think they probably would have, you know, is he a one win player during that stretch? Maybe there are two points better,

three points better, but I don't think it makes that big of a difference. It's not exactly a defensive stall word. And the defensive zone has been the biggest issue for the least. And it has that part of not being able to kind of do it on a real consistent basis is the fact that there's been a level of acceptance of that's just Willie being Willie, right?

That, that, that's a big. that's baked into the recipe a little bit. You know, though, I really think... Three straight, 40 goal years. It gets undersold how people, great players in the NHL, you're not going to score three in night. McDavid doesn't get three a night. It's, they come and fits and starts,

and I just think that's kind of the way it goes, and he's in this market. And so that comes up. I don't know if he's much more streaky than the next guy. I will say I'm doing a little thing on him tonight just because he was so good last night and looked at his stats, his like, point per game stuff. So this year, the thing that really,

stands out with Willie. So he's on his highest points per game rate by a good distance. Highest ever in his career is 3.4 points per game. He's on pace for 4.2 points per game this year. The reason for that is assists. His assists are through the roof, like through the roof. He never been higher than usually 1.1 assist, primary assists per 60. He's at 2, almost double, you know, what he's usually at this season in primary assist.

And when he where he set up Stetcher. Yeah, and his shots per game are almost half as high as they've been in the past. So not nearly as many shots, way more assists, which is interesting. I don't know if that's Marner related. Probably. You mentioned, does he feel the need to be more of a distributor? Is it a different, a conscious thing or just, will he's dishing it more for some reason? I don't know.

We got a stature clip on him. Yeah, I mean, he just, you know, he couldn't look like more of a hot shot out there. But this is also. Like just, like, his guess. up like 88 tucked in Jersey tint advisor white stick this is coming off

he could not look at a hot shot it's also him on his best behavior in terms of the attention to detail and coming back and this is coming off the worst experience of his NHL career what the finger yeah the finger yeah right don't tell me that didn't have a lot

to do with the attention and the focus last night that's an interesting thought I don't think it did Oh, my God. Well, he's played on Saturday. He played against the... But listen, he's dialed in here. He has to make a statement here in the last few games.

And he also has to show that it wasn't just saved for the Olympics. Like, this is a... These two games, particularly, you know, last night and then coming in tonight, he's got to come in with another very noticeable. I'm not saying he needs to come up with three points, but you have to see the same type of dominance, I think, tonight to really for him to feel good about leaving and going to do his thing during the Olympics i think it's real important for him you know it's funny like it was it last year that

he almost had 100 points and he went ice cold two years ago he was like at 95 with eight games left or something that was the ice cold that was the chasing 70 year chasing a hundred for him marner chasing a high like those like that they all had the individual stats yeah matthews got hurt during that. Willie got hurt during that. You know, I think the point I want to make with that is like sometimes we imply that he can do it whenever he wants. And, you know, he had that stretch where he just couldn't do it.

And these guys kind of go through that sometimes. So I don't know if last night he's turning it on for a reason. But I do think, Kemp, that there's something to what you're saying, that he was in the crosshairs a little bit more and incentivized to come out and be like, okay. I think so. I think so. You know, show these guys that, you know, I'm worth it. Let's get

Craig Bruby's thoughts on. Or he's an airhead. He's just like, Willie. Clip two. Well, early on, I could just tell, like, he's just engaged right away skating, winning all his puck battles, you know, defensive plays, offensive. I mean, he was dialed in. Diled in, engaged. Like, when you have coaches describing McDavid or Nathan McKinnon or,

they don't go, well, he was engaged tonight. They don't use that term. You mean the two best players in the league? Okay, keep going. They're the two best players in the lake. Keep going. I just, what do you want from him? I want him to be a leader.

I want him to lead the Toronto Maple Leafs. Is that too? Luis Malo? Last night he couldn't have done enough to satisfy that, though. Because last night, that's as good as he can do, right? Like, that's a... It's just every time he has a good game, we come in here and we have this conversation.

Yes, we do. Yeah, what's fine, though, but it's... It's okay to have that conversation, and it's okay to have the conversation. of, okay, so we've had different scopes this week from blow it up to retool. Yeah. And if you look at certain people on the internet today, it's like you can't get rid of that. There's no chance, right?

And to your point, which you've been very consistent on, you're not replacing that talent. No. Right? So you're not getting rid of it. Yeah, I just can't imagine. Do you think that anyone saw that he got in a little bit of heat? for, you know, he's wearing a wife, beat her in his feet up

and he throws it, flips a bird to the camera. Do you think any other teams out there were like, you gotta get that guy out of there. What's it going to take? We'll take him off your hands. Yeah, boy. Do you think he took calls? He's a real problem for you guys.

He's got to get him out of there. He's no good. No, he's, I think there's, I think constantly people would envision Willie being the difference maker on their team. Yeah. But for, I've always said this,

that there's certain guys that may have a reputation. and whatever that reputation is, they either go, he's not for us or we can live with it. Yeah. And I always come back to the same common denominator. How strong is your room?

Because it ain't me that's going to police him. It ain't the head coach. General manager can only go to the well a few times with meetings. But how strong is the room for a guy like Willie? But I don't get this talk with. Willie, because I got time for saying he's inconsistent or at times I'm focused. He's not outbeaten his wife or getting drunk or gambling, whatever. The first thing we could ever say in 10 years here is he shouldn't have flipped a bird

of the camera. No, weekends also say other things like, hey, don't blow the zone. Don't cheat. Don't go on breakaways. You don't need a strong room to deal with a guy. No, you do. You do. Because the Florida Panthers, they've had guys in the last, you know, a couple of years.

and they've pulled a Seth Jones aside and say, hey, we don't do that here. We don't do that here. And that's what I'm talking about a strong room. Right. Because usually you're thinking of like, can this room handle Evander Cain when he comes into it? No, no.

It's not. Yeah, but it's how do we win together and how do we get what you do? And there's some guys that can just be really great, talented guys that do wonderful things that make themselves look good. But can you do that on top of, it's great for our team as well?

And there's some guys that can go out there and look real good. Can you do the Kovalev-Willy thing for us? Like you saw Alexei Kovalev who has a similar reputation. And I've seen Mark right in front of my eyes and Keenan and all of them going, okay, it's great, but it's not helping us right now.

Your shifts are too long. You're coming back to the bench. half-assed here. Your change is stink, right? All of it. Can you tighten that up? I totally think they need that. Right? I thought Barubi was going to be that. Like, that's why they got the guy who was

chief. That's what I'm saying here when it comes to Willie. Like, Willie still does things that are really good for Willie. I'm just not sure that is it good overall for the team? And can we win with it when we need it the most?

and I'm with you 100% on oh my gosh how great he is, how talented he is, how much funny is to watch. Last night was a lot of fun watching him. And it sells. It can sell tickets. I get all of that. But is it enough now to say that whatever we're going to go through, a retool or rebuild, if we're going to keep him,

it's because we're we're going to have Willie and a few others lead us to the next time we're contending. You know, I don't think it's out of the question. Like, you hear a lot of stories about superstars and growing up and changing the way they played from when they came in the league,

whether I don't know, Joe Thornton might be an example. You know, I've been talking to Daryl Sutter. He said, Jerome McGillah, you know, his priorities changed over his career. Will that happen with Willie? I don't know. I look at Artemmy Panarin, who, you know, no cups and $100 million and his next goal is more money, you know, is that... Not everyone changes their focus.

Go look at Panarin in the playoffs. Okay? We want to talk about Marner, no show, or Willie no show in the playoffs, or Matthews, no show. Go look at Panarin. Yeah. No show. When the character needed to shine the most, that guy's not exactly a shining. bright? No. And I think it could happen with Willie, you know, I don't know, but I think you're better

off having a guy who has the ceiling and the ability to get there and hope he can get through to him in that way than just having a bunch of guys who can never get there, you know? So you hope he can do it. And I hope that that whole finger incident was a wake-up call for him too, right? Yeah. A real learning lesson. Yeah, it's unprofessional, right? This is, you're the Toronto Maple Leafs. You're one of the team's leaders. All right. You got, you got Stetcher?

You like Stetcher's comments on Willie? I did, but it's just, let's play it. Yeah, let's play it. He's unbelievable, man. I wish I could play that way. Honestly, it's pretty cool to watch him. What do you notice, though? Like, he's so talented, obviously, and he just plays with so much confidence.

And when he makes a mistake, like it doesn't beat him up, and he's still out there making plays. And, I mean, he's one of the top players in the world for a reason. It's impressive to watch him every day, do what he does. So I'm a big fan. Choice boys. I think when they have, like, do the Sports talk, Toronto, like, Hall of Fame inductions. Yeah.

William Neelander first ballot hall of favor. He's the one. He, him and Vince Carter, who we still talk about, in this market, however many years later. I mean, Marner would be maybe in that conversation too. But William Nealander, which just has always been the perfect guy to please some people and piss other people off. It's almost like political parties.

It's just, he's right down the middle for people to, tons of stuff to love, tons of stuff to hate. It's just like the perfect guy that people have yelled at each other about for 10 years and we'll do until the end of his career. It's just, I can't, he's a first ballot. He get like the conservative and liberal voting polls and be like, they like willy he doesn't. He's going to have to find a way to go deep in the playoffs to be a first ballot Hall of Famer. I meant Sports Talk.

Oh, no, it's not NHL Hall of Fame. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I thought you meant Hall of Fame Hall of Fame. Like Sports Talk Hall of Fame. Okay. I didn't know there was one. No, that's, I'm creating.

He's made it. He's on the first ballot. Gotcha. Without a doubt. Because he's created so much conversation. I just like, you always have the overarching point. or are they going to win with him? Probably.

They're probably never going to win. Why do you say that? Because there's going to be 34 teams in the league and no teams. No, no, no. It's just not about the percentages. They're probably never going to win. But he's really good. He is really good.

The question is, for me, can his contract should continue to get better? We know he's talented. We know he's great. We know people pay to go see him. Is there room left for him to become a true leader here. Probably not.

Like, I don't think, I think at this point, how old is he now? 29. Almost 30, I think. At what point, are you what you are? But you still want to keep them around, right? Yeah. So who's that, so who's, who's the on now to lead this team? Unless they trade him for a top defenseman like we talked about.

If they're trading him for a real 28 minute at night kind of first pair of defensemen, we just went through this. He says, no, don't do it. We said that. We talked about this. early this week that we would do that. You're okay with still trading them for... Willie?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you turned them into, yeah, like a legitimate number one D for sure. Anything, you got to consider everything. You don't, you don't necessarily turn wingers into number one D. You don't. No. Listen, if you sort the league this year by whatever points per game, that stuff I'm looking at, Willie's as good as anyone.

You know, it's offensively he's as good as anyone anyway. So if you're a desperate team for offense and you have an excess, you never know. but no, I have no interest in moving off Willie. No. All right. All right. What else did you like about last night's game? I want an overview from Grooby?

Sure. Sure. Let's play it. Let's check in. Yeah, there's a lot of momentum swings in the game. I thought early on the first 7, 8 minutes of the first, we kind of didn't really grab control of it, and they had control, but we got control.

Second period, like I thought we came out. We got the 3-0 lead, and then they got a quick two goals. and third. I liked our start of the third and kind of like we're hanging, not hanging on, but we let them come at us too much late. But the goalie, you know, there's some crazy bounces to it again. Off the boards, they're off people. But our goalie was really good, and guys competed.

We blocked a lot of shots. We had to tonight. And, you know, JT's line, you know, was really good for us tonight. JT's line. I think, that's something where you can, maybe you got two players back when you got Willie back.

Because I think Tvaris having... You had much better energy too last night, J.T. Having him on that line really feels like kind of a bit of a defibrillator to him because there was a long stretch there where you're getting a lot of nothing from him. So maybe having him back, seems like Machelli and Nealander

have a bit of chemistry on that line. So maybe you actually have a second line there now. There's a really weird thing. Like, Machelli when he's on that line, their numbers are very good. Like they're over 60% expected goals as the line. Of course, you know, they're playing the Calgary Flames last night. But, you know, they looked really good.

Joe Wohl, really encouraging going into the second half of the season. He's kind of found himself a little bit here, 933 save percentage in his last two starts. It's too bad there wasn't a day in between last night and tonight. I want to see Stolley tonight. Because you would have played, you would have played Wall again. Against Connor. You know, I have a new theory on this thing since they've just won two games and already killed my tanking.

You just, you know, we talked to what the day of it was like, it was too, you know, you couldn't go in a two game winning streak for them to tank. They had to commit to the 10 games at that time. I told you guys, they're going to lose to Seattle. They're going to beat Vancouver and Calgary and that it'll be two and two. I said they needed to commit to it. They didn't want to buy in. they didn't want to do their tank. They rolled their guys out.

Now it's at the point where the only thing you can hope for for the Leafs is that they make the right decisions by guys. As in, don't waste any assets that you're going to lose, that being Bobby McMahon. Don't play Matthew Nyes when he's hurt. Don't play Joseph Wall in the back-to-back. Get Anthony Stollars back in there.

You just have to make all the right decisions for guys now and just finish 10th last. Give that to the Bruins. Get something back at the deadline and eat your lunch. I just don't see any other direction. Yeah, it's definitely going to be You're hoping that you're giving them the 15th overall pick Yeah, you just win as much as possible now

And you're gonna, I mean, but you're not Okay, you're gonna win as much as possible as in You're still gonna trade the guys Yes, at the deadline Totally, yeah, but then win All the right things, you're competitive in the games That's kind of the way it has to happen They're too far from either direction

They are, if we have the drop Mid, they are as mid as it gets But having said that, with a win tonight, the lease will be one point back of the in their cup contention window, Edmonton Oilers in the standings. Mid. So.

There you go. The standings posted, tied with two other teams for, with 61 points. Can we flash up the Western Conference? Can we flash at the Western Conference there? Jake, we get a chance?

The Bruins, by the way, in terms of trying to catch someone. Look at that Pacific. I know. Another layup line year for the Oilers. where it's just like, yeah, oh, you're going to have to beat the cracking this year instead of the Kings. Oh, you're going to have to play Vegas again. Like, it's just every year they just get to beat the same three teams.

Play up line. Drysadle and McDavid with Bakersfield could probably beat Seattle in the first round of the way off. I totally agree. But, you know, Boston is the one team in the second wild card spot. Their underlying numbers, just atrocious. Like, they should. You think they could? The bottom should fall out of the Bruins.

Like it's bad bad So I definitely think that they're catchable Well if they are then you're not You shouldn't trade OEL and you shouldn't Well the problem is you're there with Ottawa who's They're better They're better No waffling here

Like I'm not waffling Florida's right there like yet So at least find a way to win tonight The only waffling is I'm throwing You're back no Oh I mean people are going to talk You're in Oh no no there's going to be

No Stop it. Oh, no. This is the nightmare of the back time. Stop. It's not bad. People keep asking if I'm back. I'm not necessarily believing it either.

But there will be people that go, okay, can they go on a heater? 17 and 8, 9. You know what I heard Troy Stetcher say today? He said, I think we got 18 games against the Eastern Conference after the break. They've looked at it. They know it's a lot.

a head to head to head combat. Our boy, Frege said today on the hockey show that they would sell regardless of results tonight. So I have to just hope that he's plugged in. But you know what? They're not going to sell before the Olympic break. And so they're going to come out and they're going to see what happens. They're going to see.

Okay. They win the next couple. I do have this. I don't want to do this every day. They can sell. Let's talk about selling. I do have McMahon on my board. If they trade him, okay.

Who is your, next obvious choice that has to go after McMahon for let's just say a second and a fourth or a second and a third. You know, I think there's conversations there about Lawton and Nick Waugh, like which guy. You can get way more for Nick Waugh, who I really like. You know, would you rather have Lawton, resign Lawton? I'm not sure we can get a lot more for Nick Waugh. Nick Waugh is on a good contending team.

He's a fourth line centerman. one a cup is the third line centerman in Vegas our second third slash fourth yeah we played 15 minutes a night I like well a lot I think he's got value but so I want to keep him so okay so keep him and move uh lot well listen I think you'd be better off saying

could you do some addition by subtraction like free up max domi's money like is mitchellie really helping you at three million dollars you know I think you can make yourself some cap space that you can hopefully find some guys who fit better. Domi, unfortunately, does not fit. He has to be with Matthews for him to be effective. And even there, he's not very effective.

When he's down in the lineup, it doesn't work. He's kind of got the team hostage. You're talking about where Wai is on a good cup contending team. Any Stanley Cup contenders to you got Max Domi on line one? No, no, no, no. He's a dept guy. It's always been about Max can play anywhere. But he can fit for short periods of time if I need it.

you'll always have them as a depth guy that can play various roles in your lineup. And you love that at a million bucks, but I mean, it's, he's three plus. I don't know exactly, more than three, but it's a lot. So when is it move one, move two, or move three pieces for you? You tell me what you have in mind. What are you thinking? Because you got something. I think they could move one piece, maybe one and a Nick Robertson,

and then call it a day. But I don't think... You don't think they're going to do a big sale. I think there's a very good chance. OEL could still be a Maple Leaf when this is... I like OEL sticking around. I think he's got... Next year, you can sell him with two playoffs here.

Years, if you're no good still. No, this is the second last year. He's a UFA after next year. No, he's not. He's two more seasons. I don't know. No, I'm sure. OEL got it right here.

He's till 2028. Still, perfect. At what, three, two? Three five. Three five. Yeah. So there's, if, if you believe that you want to come back and make the playoffs next year, you cannot sell four pieces, five pieces.

No, I agree with that. I just, I also don't think the solution is just to sell McMahon and go, well, we'll come back at it with Machetelli, Robertson, Cowan, and Domi, four small offense first wingers and win. You know, it's not going to work. So, I mean, it's just the half measure. Totally. Which is just the safest thing is probably what they're going to do.

And that's been an issue the whole time. And it's a great way to become 20 years of the Minnesota Wild. It's just finished 14th to 18th every year. I love all of Rickman Larson, but he's probably having his best year he'll ever have as a trauma, I believe. He's older, injury-prone. Like, he could be injury-prone in the next couple years. He's having his best offensive season he's had since he played in Phoenix.

Like, there's never been a better opportunity to sell high in a guy. No, you're totally right. It's just, if you are trying to, win next year, then who eats 20 minutes a night? Well, somebody that you use the assets that you get for for these guys that you trade for. And I do trust Brad Tree Living to do that. Maybe he won't be making the decisions. I just don't think they'll be that aggressive or creative. I shouldn't even say aggressive. I don't think they're that creative. I've seen no evidence. I've never, I never. Which scares me we've had these conversations all week. I believe I know what I think is the right thing

do, but they're not in a position to think like a smaller market team that could buy themselves three years or four years. You just have to do what's best to get your team to a chance to win, regardless of the market. And I think you've got to give your fans some credit that they understand, hey, here's what we got to do. We're never going to do the blow-up rebuild. We're never going to do that. Didn't that happen a decade ago? Close to?

No, not really. It was a gradual thing. I was with the Marley's when we were set it up, Tobias Lindberg and a whole, you know, everyone else that really wasn't going to play there. They tank Babs first year bad. They really did. No, I know. But that was, it wasn't like this where you were you completely gut.

And then, like, it was a gradual thing. To get to, to get to, a competitive nature where we honestly believe that they could challenge you for Stanley Cup was a four or five year build with Matthews, Martiner, Neilander, and eventually Taviris joining up. And Riley on the back end,

who was signed as a number one defenseman in the National Hockey League and a real go-to guy at his, I don't know, $60 million contract. But that was a buildup of four or five years. We're talking about how much time do they need to get rid of guys? and then how much time do they got to redevelop these type of assets, which they don't have?

I guess it's just a bad argument. So then you want to see them not tried to get good because we got to sell tickets? No, it's to your point. Yeah, I think that's the dilemma. That is the dilemma. We got to sell tickets. We need this team. You know what this is?

Nashville just did this. Our market can't sustain being out of the playoffs. You want to be Minnesota or you want to kind of find yourself kind of in that area of, hey, we're good, but we're just never going to be good enough. Yeah. Nashville went out and said, give us Stamcoast and Marshall. We got to sell tickets. We need butts in the seats.

We're bad. The Leafs don't have, haven't used any of their retention things, right? They have three? Every team has three. Is that right? Yeah. Have they not retained? It doesn't look like it.

50%. Well, they have... I can park. For me, they should be making trades. Interesting. Where you're using three of those? So retain money for better assets. For three players.

And I would hope that for me, it would be, McMahon is an obvious one. Yeah, cut them right in half. Lawton. I hate to say it because I love Lawton. Lotton's only getting paid 1.5 right now because he's worth three in there. Retain on that and retain on all of Recman-Larsin

and you could really bring in some assets to refilled the cost. The OEL one is tough retention just because it's so many years, right? It's multiple years. Yeah, but, I mean, if you retain a million bucks of it with the cap, shooting up, it depends what extra you can get for that million bucks. I just, if they have a chance here to kind of make the coverage not look so pathetic, not look like my college cupboards.

Yeah. Well, I, but they won't do it. And that sucks. They really just started the process here, you know, within the last week of, of understanding that we got to make calls now to say, you know, who you interested in and what are we talking about. God, it's going to be frustrating. I can feel it.

Maybe a little bit more time. A couple more wins. Maybe they don't have to do it. And you find out what you're dealing with after tonight as well. Are you two points closer to confused? Confusing everybody. Come back from the break. You beat Tampa.

You beat Florida. You're right back in it. Let's go. We're going to go to break here soon. We're going to welcome in Kevin Lowe. Just one. because we may not get it in. Just stole ours.

What kind of challenge is this? Is he ready? Is he ready to take on McDavid and company? Probably not. What do you expect? You know, what is this? His third start since he's come back? I think it's time to start finding for him.

He said he needed, what, a week or two or a few games or something? A good showing here could go a long way into. Value town? Value. Him switching locker rooms? Well, just value. Just bringing his. his stock back up.

McMahon and Stollars. Mike Howard and a pick. Yeah, you like that? Sure, I'm in. All right. Call Jeff Jackson and Stan Bowman. Then Wall will disappear and you got Actyamov and Hilda B as you're starting to do. We're far from solving anything so far, but we'll keep taking a crack at it.

Kevin Lowe, former teammates, Stanley Cup champion. He's in Edmonton. We'll get his thoughts on tonight's matchup. between the Oilers and the Leafs when we return to Real Kipper and Born. Hey, it's Matt Marquesie. 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 podcast. Toronto Maple Leafs and the Edmins and Oilers tonight on Sportsnet 8.30 p.m. Eastern, where we'll feature our very own Justin Bourne on the panel. But for now, let's welcome in six-time Stanley Cup. champion, Hall of Famer, five with the Oilers, one with my New York Rangers

where we were recently celebrated for the 100th year in our 94 team. Unfortunately, the weather kind of kept me shut down. But I think Losey,

you ended up there, and let me ask you something. Is Brian Leach still refuting every version of any story in 1994 from Mike Keenan? We missed you there, Kip. I know. Yeah, it was, well, Mike was there and Neil Smith was there.

Nice to see those guys. It was a good get-together. But, yeah, different times. I think someday there'll be a book out by somebody that sort of puts it all together for the record. Listen, we're just, for those of you that can't watch Kevin Lowe on our Zoom, he's got a green screen of an ocean behind him. Can you change it to cold and windy and make us feel better? No, I had 45 years of cold and windy,

so the next, however many I have on the back nine left, are going to be sunny and blue, just like you see them right now. Appreciate it and appreciate your time here. And I know you're still doing a lot of things with the Oilers in terms of community stuff and being a great ambassador, but just in terms of what you've seen out of them overall, Losey, and where they're headed and just another push towards a Stanley Cup and just your overall thoughts right now as we close in on a break in the Olympics

and then obviously a trade deadline and ultimately the playoffs. Yeah, a couple thoughts. You know, one being I think they're the exact same team they've been for the last couple years. And by that, I mean that's not good or bad. It's, they're going to be in the hunt, no question. And the reason why I say that is they've had enough of this season to sort of prove where they are. They've beaten good teams.

But most importantly, if I'm sure you might have talked about it today, or certainly was in the news nationally about what Connor McDavid said about his, I think it was in the Players Tribune. He had a nice statement about wanting to win a championship in Edmonton and loves playing at Edmonton. And it really, you know, it surprises a lot of, of people, I suppose, that don't know how good of a city Edmonton is. And when I think back to

all the players that left in the 80s, and none of them left Edmonton because they didn't like Edmonton. They left because the money wasn't good enough. And now money's not a problem. So when you got Connor McDavid wanting to win a championship, you got Leon Dreissel want to win a championship. And a bunch of their, I mean, the other guys aren't older guys, but they're a little more senior than those two guys like hymen and nujan hopkins and and darnall nurse and and at home i mean there's a lot of guys with a lot of experience that still got a lot of desire to win their first Stanley

cup so uh you know knock on wood nothing happens at the olympics and that Connor comes back with a gold medal for canada and is uh is healthy and and can lead the orders to uh to get into the play you know obviously they're going to get in the playoffs but i really believe they'll be in the just the way they've been the last couple years. One of the themes of that piece was, you know, that he's not burnt out, that he doesn't need a break, he doesn't need a refresh, he's ready to continue going back at it. And you would have had a lot of experience on deep playoff runs and coming back to it.

The thing that stuck out to me is that, like, there is a physical toll or whatever, but it's probably harder mentally to get up for games in January when you've been in the fight in June so often. Yes. And, you know, that's sort of, you hit it on the head the start of the season

you know they you could tell they didn't have their their hearts into it and it's understandable it's not what the fans want to hear but it's a long season but you know what I what I read about that with Connor is that I mean

first of all the guy's an amazing shape and he he treats his body with so much respect and you know how he eats and how he trains and to think that he can play at that high level for so long. Well, I mean, he

puts that high performance the car in the garage in bed at night and tucks it in and takes care of it so it's ready to, you know, hum at 140 miles an hour the very next game. I, you know, I think there's a lot of people thinking, okay,

well, you know, the orders are going to be you know, with Connor coming back to the Olympics, he's going to be tired of this and that. But the desire to win trumps all that stuff. It trumps the tiredness. And again, you know, knock on wood, there's not, you know, a lingering injury of some type. But short of that, you know, he'll be fine for the playoff run for the Oilers.

And, you know, as I just mentioned, hopefully it includes a gold medal for Canada here in the next couple weeks. There's so many parallels to draw in terms of, you know, Conner's, obviously Conner's article about if you want to call me a robot, then so be it. I'm a robot. but you guys had a lot of robots, right? You guys, I mean, yourself, cough, mass grats, you name it. You guys felt that way. But, you know, where the parallels also draws, like, you guys went to Constant Stanley Cup finals, and so was Connor right now.

Were you guys ever worried about, like, getting ahead of yourselves too much because you still got to win the first round, the second round, the third round to even get back to that scenario? but is it something that just naturally falls in place, Losey, or do you have to be real conscious of it? Well, once you get in that wheelhouse of, like I said, wanting to win, you know, doing all the proper preparation, being rested, knowing what to expect.

I mean, these guys have quite a bit of clarity of experience. I'm not just talking about, you know, going to the finals two years in a row. I'm talking about, you know, they had the setbacks that they know that those can happen at any time. So, you know, again, you know, Connor, the whole robot message was like, hey, we're just, we know how to do it and don't worry about us. I mean, when you talk about what we had to do, yeah, we went to the Stanley Cup finals in 83, Stanley Cup finals in 84, Canada Cup in the fall of 84, Stanley Cup finals in 85. I mean, that's a lot of hockey in less than two and a half years. But when you're winning, it's fun.

And it's a whole lot easier on you mentally. It's even a whole lot easier on you physically when you know how to win. You know, you know how to get through games and not over task yourself, particularly in the playoffs. And I think those guys are there. You know, they're just missing one piece now. And that's to bring the silver chalice back to Edmonton. So coming out of the Olympic break, it's kind of like a week until the trade deadline.

If you look at teams that have won the cup, they've done stuff, right? Brad Marchand gets brought in by Florida. You look at Tampa Bay over the years, Coleman and Gord and all the things they've done. Is Edmonton in line to do something else? Make another ad as they head past that deadline. Yeah, well, Stan Bowman's done,

he's done some nice, a lot of nice additions, sneaky ones, like a player like but Colson is a heck of a player. I mean, to think that that guy comes in and he's playing on the second line and doing a pretty good job. You know, I think that, you know, because on the back end, I mean, I think the back end and goaltending is obviously the question mark. And when I say back end, they can't afford many injuries. You know, losing Kulak was a big piece. He played well for them. But other guys have stepped in and played really well.

So I would think that they're going to try to add a defenseman and they're going to try to add a forward at some time. type and and you know that's that's that's that's in stan bowman's wheelhouse to be able to pull that off just in terms of what you guys had was was grant furor and mogue and uh brandford and anytime you ever win the stanley cup you're you're very solid in the back end still some question marks i don't know if you caught tristian jari's comments the other day about what he'd like to see in front of them tighten up a lot of things defensively typically Lozzi, we don't see goalies over our careers,

really just look at other things besides, you know, I'd like to make one more safe for the guys. You had obviously Grant Fuhr there where he could let in seven and feel still great somehow, some way with a bounce back game. But just in terms of maybe

outside of Tristan Jarrow, we're seeing goalies a little bit more outspoken. And I don't know, sometimes I think it might be a good thing. depending on their tone or how they say it, but we're seeing a lot more outspoken goalies these days. Yeah, well, that's a little bit of the woke world, I guess. They jumped in with that part of the world.

But you, I mean, listen, the Oilers, they've proven the last couple of years they can play pretty good defense when it comes to playoffs. and you know, I want to sort of sidestep this a little bit and talk about Evan Bouchard. You know, there's certainly Edmonton and people that follow the Oilers are really disappointed that Bouch did make the Olympic team. And I suspect I am too because he's a heck of a hockey player. But the fact is that at the start of the season when Bouch needed to be sharp, he wasn't.

And that's when Team Canada management was watching. and, you know, those, you know, giveaways and get beat one-on-one kind of stuff, he hasn't done any of that in the playoffs. You know, I have confidence that he can play at a high level. And likewise, all of the defense, I mean, they've had injuries on the back end, which has kind of pressed, you know,

the top guys into a lot of minutes. But, you know, hopefully Walman could be healthy and the group as a whole will be stellar enough that there'll be no, plates about the goal from the goaltenders of the D's doing a little better job in front of them. So Canada is heading out here pretty quick to launch things. You have quite the hockey Canada career. What are your thoughts heading into an Olympic Games in Italy this year?

Well, Justin, I was really happy to hear San Bennett got added to the team. I mean, you know, I love that energy that he provides. it takes a little pressure off of Marchant to have to be that guy, you know, that he can play his game. He's still going to be that guy if needed. But I like that element in a championship team. And, you know, Sam Bennett played so good in the Four Nations. You know, it's it's you get there, you look at your team, you go, you know, how can we lose? But, you know, the Swedes are thinking they're going to win, the Finns are thinking they're

going to win. The Czechs feel like, you know, they got a chance. And, of course, the Americans are they're going to win. So it's, you know, you got to go in. You got to be, you have to go in and be as sound as possible. You got to treat every game you play like a game seven in the Stanley Cup finals. You have to be tight. You have to, you have to try to release the, you know, the pressure and try to create offense, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, a good chunk of those guys had the experience in the four nations. I mean, this is going to be another level for them. But, but, They've got a good team. They're going to be in the hunt, and I think they'll win gold.

Obviously, Bennett's in for Sorrelli, and everything points to the direction of Braden Point skating again, and he should be fine. But I had heard that Zach Hyman was the guy if Point couldn't go, and that's an awfully nice compliment, eh, for Zach Hyman being right there. He's just been an unbelievable player ever since the Oilers got him. And I know Leaf fans don't want to hear that,

but I mean he's found great chemistry with with Connor McDavid and and Ryan Nugent Hopkins as well right now and that's great when you got you know the best player in the world super happy with his wingers loves to play with them knows where they are you know Zach has has done everything in his power to to potentially get the nod I mean I mean Braden points a great player

and hopefully he's healthy but I hope that they really consider that because in 06 in Torino we had a bunch of guys show up injured and I don't think that was it was a little bit

I'm not not blaming anybody but a little bit I don't want to say selfish but unrealistic to think you could play at that high level if you're not 110% and and so I hope that that's the case with Braden Point if he does play and if not I really hope it's Hyman. Losey awesome stuff always a pleasure

catching up with you my friend and you know just keep using that sunscreen I guess you know so jealous so jealous good talking to you guys take care thanks so much hockey Hall of Famer Kevin Lowe you man that guy's done it all in his career brilliant brilliant oh yeah he's right there right there that hurts if you're him that is I mean you think about him being there And I sent the thing today about Sam Bennett going, you're like, that's just a big, strong hockey team.

And then you add Hyman, his strength to that team. It's like, God, good luck winning a puck battle against Canada. Like, they can be any way. But points for arguments about who should go and whatever. That's just a strong hockey team. You know what I mean? I'm a little concerned. About lack of skill and too much muscle?

Net and blue line. Oh, yeah. And spending too much time in their own zone. I'm a little concerned. If right now I gave you Schaefer and Bouchard, but you got to take out Sanheim and Paraco or Doughty, would you do it? Would you make the swap for the skill, young guy?

I'd like him a little older, but, yeah, I'd seriously consider just having, yeah, a guy that could really move the puck. Yeah, bust a game open, break the puck out. Just if he needed to skate it out on his own. Yeah. But, I mean, it. Sam Bennett.

I mean, my God, he had to be there. But it's going to be epic, you know? I just, the only thing. This is Swedes and Finns. Like, everybody's building up Canada, the U.S., don't rule out those two clubs. No. Okay.

What? I won't rule them out. I won't rule them out. Okay. You got to rule them out. I won't rule them out. Okay. All right.

I guess we don't have a ton of time to do this now, but at least never get a power play, eh? Yeah, three of the last four games, zero power plays. That's weird a trip somewhere. Just about it. Let's listen. Do we have time?

I think we have time. Let's play it. Clip three. Quick. For Ruby. On the lack of power plates. Clip three. Well, I don't know.

I mean, I saw penalties out there tonight. And I saw a trip penalty late in the third wasn't called. I mean, it is what it is. You know, you go through these stretches sometimes. But I think it's three and four games. Maybe we haven't got a power play. I don't know. I don't have an answer for that.

I do, but I'm not going to tell you guys. Move along. There's nothing to see here. Even I can't be like tinfoil hat on this. It's just, it's got to be the style of play. I don't know. They don't have the puck enough. So he either thinks that it's style of play or that people going to give the leaps.

Or he's, yeah, we're getting screwed. Yeah. It's probably that one. Do you feel like they're getting screwed? Because I'm king of the they're getting screwed brigade and I don't feel like they're getting screwed. Yeah. I don't see a ton of, where it's like, you know, definitely.

There's obviously one or two again. I could have called that one, but maybe they just don't play a style. The draws a lot of them. You made a number of minutes before they get their first power play tonight. Yeah, good point. Three? Yeah, four. Totally.

This, by the way, Kevin talks. Benoit, keep your knees tucked around McDavid. Myers, keep your elbows down around McDavid. No hitter on 97 tonight. We need them. Yeah, I'm on board with that. No hitter. Our thanks to Kevin Lowe.

Six Stanley Cups. of that man. All right. Do not go away. Steve Vallek-Kett. It's Tuesday. And it's grill time on the real Kipprin-Born show.

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