Real Kyper & Bourne - Looking Ahead to 2023 and the Playoffs with Adam Foote

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne kick off the final show of the year with a break down of the Maple Leafs' loss to the Coyotes, the Mullett Arena experience and the Leafs' historical struggles against Arizona. Two-time Stanley Cup Winner with the Colorado Avalanche Adam Foote joins the show (41:58) and shares his thoughts on the defending champs' play this season, the Leafs and how they may look in the playoffs, and Cale Makar's all-time great potential. Later, Sportsnet hockey analyst Michael Futa battles a rib injury to join the show (1:05:27) and talk about his confidence in how the Leafs can look come playoff time and why seeding might not matter as much as some think. Finally, they answer questions from the mailbag before closing out the final show of 2022.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.

This is Real Kipper and Born on Sportsnet 590 The Van. All aboard! Our last Real Kipper and Born show of 2022. Just like we started the show, I think, ago can you hear me now hello hello i don't know i think i can hear it works now are you good i'm good that's a hell of a start to our final show of the year a little pick and roll off the start between your start and the Leafs' start last night. Yeah, what was worse? What is going on going into the new year? At least I didn't follow all over you on the way to getting to my microphone like the Leafs did.

It looked like something out of, I don't know, the Three Stooges. Yeah, that was embarrassing. You know, the whole thing just felt not NHL to me. And I know that's like the obvious thing to say after playing in that arena but like the lighting the arizona jerseys they're falling all over each other i was like what am i watching there's a part of me who thought why am i watching because we're supposed to right right my job because we're paid to that's why i stuck around and uh uh that's the first thing i thought of after the game.

And we're going to get into some details, and we're going to get Sheldon Keefe's thoughts on last night. But the whole thing, it was, I think it was Kerfoot after, in between periods that had an interview and spoke of it. I wish he just would have said the looked in the camera and said it sucks come on this is the nhl it feels it feel it it must feel to them like they it's it's a christmas tournament minor hockey playing there i know it's you know not that they're remotely comparable everyone's you Everyone talks about sport washing around the world,

all these serious reasons. Why are we sport washing the fact that that sucks? You know, like, why isn't Kerfoot like, ah, what do you want me to say? This sucks. It's a joke. The lighting's bad. I can't see anything.

I wish he would. Yeah, me too. And so it's not like it has anything to do with why the Leafs lost. We'll get into the actual hockey. But as a viewer, why are we pretending that it's not as good it's not as good it it's worse the understatement of 2022 not as good is my understatement i mean there's hockey tournaments minor hockey tournaments around the world going on right now and uh usually when you see a game like that you blame it on too much mini sticks

in the hallway you left nothing for the game yeah mini sticks in the hallway. You left nothing for the game. Mini sticks in the hallway. Yeah. The rink usually has some sort of different issues, but yeah, it, it didn't feel quite the same. It, you know,

what it reminded me of oddly was the pandemic hockey with no fans. And I know there were fans and it was full, but it was well lit. The pandemic was, yes, it was well lit. Yeah. I could see.

Well, and what's hard is like the cameras gave a different light on the ice some were bluey some were yellowy and that's not listen no knock on sports net every everyone covering these games is having that challenge yeah no no no no no this is not a television issue this is a rink issue right and i would imagine that the league probably would have liked to have done a few different things. Perhaps the school did not allow that. The ASU. Yes. Yeah.

It is funny seeing the fork at center ice. Like, you know, it's their barn. I took my contact lenses out, you know, around dinner time. And I had to lift my glasses up and down and say are these things dirty yeah what is it somebody lick my glasses while I'm watching this game recounting your glasses of wine it's just my second right not my 14th okay are we done beating it up yes well yeah okay yes we're done talking about it but I'm gonna beat it up more later we got a terrific uh show for you today we do uh stanley cup champion adam foot is going to join us in about 40 minutes he'll help us uh make sense of it all more scoring less defense you know he

was one of the best stay at home shutdown guy can on occasion on the cup without and on occasion could score a goal yeah uh but we'll get his thoughts on on what's what's going on blown leads leafs had one last night going into the third period yeah we'll also get his thoughts on colorado his former team of course the the leafs on tap for that for a new year's eve game that's exciting the leafs if they win on saturday night that would be their 60th year of or win of 2022 60th win number that's a lot of wins they it's their 96th game 95th or 96th game it's a lot of wins mike feudal will join us in the second hour as well should we tell people about his status and oh of course absolutely he's on the ir uh but uh we're forcing him yeah we're treating our last game of the year like it's game

seven you gotta play whatever you gotta take play through it needles you know freeze it yeah but this is a huge show for us it is and we went we went with feuds yeah he's gone to another level you know that as a broadcaster yes yeah he's he's in the upper tier now for sure and as a guy you just like his 80 is better than the next guy's 100 so we need him i did tell him the secret to great broadcasting which was stop giving a crap yeah you know i haven't done that yet you're not there yet no i'm getting better at it how many years you in this is my like fourth year of radio i got it i got i got the give a crap meter uh around six and a half seven years yeah yes and then you're like shot out of a cannon you just stop caring about a lot of things care about social media and that's the first step is getting over

the masses i think i put you on the fast path sorry there's no doubt if my if I was still paired with Merrick, it might take till year nine or something. With you, year five, I should be good. All right. So we're looking forward to Mike Futa and getting to the bottom of what the heck's going on with him and why he's on the IR.

So stick around for that. As far as our show yesterday teeing up an arizona team where the leafs have not had much success should we really put on our surprise faces uh today on what transpired last night yeah we should you know you should still beat arizona it is fascinating though what did you say their record was against Arizona recently? I don't know. It sucked. The last time they beat Arizona was February of 2020 when Kasperi Kapanen scored an OT winner.

They're 0-3-1 in the two years since against Arizona. So we've got 60 wins if they win Saturday night. None against Arizona. You you don't bother me the the really bothers me about this arizona thing is can't you see us in april late mid late march early april going like an extra point or two would have made all the difference if you just had taken something off arizona in those two games. Maybe it makes the difference. Like, these points matter. They do matter.

And it's just, when you look back and you go, where did they go wrong? These games against Arizona are certainly going to stand out. We are going to get into much more detail, but let's go to Sheldon Keefe first and get his thoughts on Arizona and what went wrong last night. First of all, you've got to give Arizona credit. They played extremely hard today, extremely structured,

made things real hard on us. It's a pretty even hockey game all the way through. You can break it down a lot of different ways, and there's a lot of things that happen over 60 minutes, but ultimately it probably comes down to us, our inability to kill a penalty, some ill-timed penalties that we took, especially that one in the third. But, I mean, we had a breakaway and two two-on-ones

and didn't get anything to show for it. They had a breakaway and a two-on-one and scored on both. If you were to go just a quick big picture on what you saw last night where would you go first would it be the penalty kill would it be what yeah penalty kill is part of it and you know there's still goaltending you know can can you get a save here and there is a you know matt murray's an 800 save percentage that seems to be what's separating them from earlier in the year is getting the saves and yeah penalty kill was no good how about you no no big boys last night yeah that's that's the biggest thing that stood out for me

and they've all been really good for a good stretch here and can you can you deliver 82 games at a certain level will there be just some nights when nothing goes right right and between matthews and nylander between tavaris and marner they sucked last night that's good i like that assessment yeah no didn't uh didn't piss a drop as my coach used to say that I mean, that's pretty weak. I don't know if it is Arizona for Matthews going home, getting distracted, you know, what it is exactly. But, you know, it's interesting. I was going through the leading scorers in the NHL today

and just kind of seeing where everyone's at. McDavid, 67 points so far this season in like 35 games, 30 goals. Unbelievable numbers. But, you know, the big four for the leafs where they had been in the top five last year they're not they're at eight dang barners leading the team and he's 18th in the nhl they're the only ones with 40 plus points on uh four four guys on a team they yeah they got i think three guys with 40 plus points and they're the only team them and or maybe it's just them i think it's just them yeah but you know they're 18th 20th 21st in the league in scoring they're not second third and fourth or

something like that you know so it's different this year they have to drive they have to drive the bus we know that and for the most part if you haven't gotten four out of four going most nights you got three. Yeah. Because Nylander's gone to another level. Right. So you're usually covered with three out of the four somewhat, if not dominant, the better players on the ice over 60 minutes.

And I know you can have a really good team when you're not feeling it and it's not at 90% or 100%, but if those guys can play at an 80% and find ways to still win, you know you're damn good. Oh, yeah. Last night, probably had them at about 55%, 60%. Yeah. All of them collectively.

And that hasn't been a look that we've seen for a long time right and this season they got this depth scoring to pick them up too they get one from holmberg they get one from yarn crock they get one from kerfoot they just needed one you know from the top guys so yeah sometimes they can't be perfect every night no they can't now uh any concerns here like we were talking about a guy like tavaris and up until maybe uh two weeks ago three weeks ago we were talking about a 40 plus goal season we were talking about hey if he plays with marner all year this guy he's gonna end up with 45 goals right that's not the case anymore i I think three in the last 15. Goals.

Yeah. Yeah. Has he dropped below a point per game? I think he probably has. Yeah, he has. And last night, I thought between him and Marner, and even Jarnkrok, I know Jarnkrok scored, and I know he's getting points,

but as a line, I thought they were really bad last night last night you know you don't come in here to say that very often so it must have been you know yeah you generally have given them the benefit of that but looking through tavara's stats he has uh two points in his last six games yeah a goal one goal one assist in his last six games what do you see i think i don't know what happened last 16 and a half time on ice with with uh the face-offs too but if if i i don't know what happened last night. 16 and a half time on ice. With the face-offs too. But if I, I don't know the numbers last night. Yeah. But if he's not winning 55, 60% of his draws,

it says to me that the energy's down on him. And again, it's hard. Maybe he's got a cold. Well, or just 82 games is a lot to bring it every night for sure for sure and it is sort of in this like lull of the season but this is what you were worried about going into the season that you know he wasn't going to quite be at that level as he has been in the past he did win 55 of his draws last night so all right a little better than it had been but matthews won 29 of his um yeah something to keep an eye on for the leaves i don't know what they all ended up they when i looked the last look they were all at like minus

three minus four i know a couple of empty netters but well they're just not a good night do you think it has anything to do with like a match-up thing like i you know starting the game the commentators were saying okay like you know the coach had said that nick bustad's line was going to match up against matthews and you know do the old shadow routine does he just struggle with that when the when the other team designates someone because they think about yeah you know was it well what's his name in uh again that's the one thing that when when you get into a first round match and that sort of stuff happens how long do you watch struggling guys before you make adjustments or make some changes or have some

different looks i think that's still a challenging part in sheldon keefe's coaching yeah that sometimes he's a little too loyal to stick with something well you know a quote that sticks out to me is when they're in the postseason against montreal and what give me the center's name starts last name starts the d la signed him uh he shut down matthews for montreal oh uh don't know don't know philip don't know so you know matthews had uh you know they'd been okay early in the series and uh at some point they were struggling and keith was asked about getting matthews away from dino and he almost chuckled about it and i don't blame him for chuckling about it like

we're not gonna hide from philip to know he's austin matthews if we have to hide him from philip to know we have bigger problems bad news you had bigger problems but yeah like should maybe have been quicker to say pierre-luc dubois yeah in the bubble columbus yeah for columbus right he he went against matthews yeah so like when when they've had a guy and they've said to that guy in the other team don't worry about scoring just worry about that guy 34 you know he hasn't thrived yet in a straight 1v1 matchup against an opposing center and usually if teams like arizona last night have success at against the leafs the one thing that kind of stands out to me sometimes when they're not outskilling them is they have they have trouble against bigger players.

The Leafs do? Yeah. Bustad's big. Bustad's big. He looked pretty big along the wall. Lawson Kraus looked pretty big when Morgan Riley pinched on him. And

Jack McBain at 6'4 looked really big against dryden hunt yeah hunt was happy to get it out of that one alive hey like he he got a couple of licks in then saw mcbain get to his feet was like i'll tap this one here i can appreciate the uh trying and how about a willingness they don't have a lot of guys with a willingness he she demonstrated a willingness he did but hey still trying yeah is not is not good enough i think sometimes they don't have enough guys who try in that department though but yes i know and i get it i get it you're gonna try to come in you're gonna

try to create energy yeah finish your hits but i'm just watching last night jb a guy like dryden hunt and what he needs to do and how he's going to be successful on this fourth line and i just don't see it i just don't see hunt and austin reese leading a fourth line charge against a boston or tampa bay in the first or second round you know i don't see i want their fourth line to have a clear purpose in regards to i want it to be energy hit for check solid defensively but like go give them good energy shifts pick them up when they're out there right i think hunt can do that but i think last night's a really good example that if he's gonna go out there and do what he did and i they didn't he what would you think the hit on mcbain i thought boarding all day long yeah it's penalty it's a

penalty all day long i actually thought if hunt were a bigger guy and hunt were a smaller guy it might have looked really bad but their their sizes kind of bailed Hunt out. You know, because he wasn't able to just pile drive his neck through the boards. So if you're going to be Hunt, and you're going to play this way for the next 30 games and get yourself ready for the first round, between now

and April, you're going to piss people off. And he pissed Jack Mccbain off and jack mcbain's a college kid and i don't know how many fights he's been in but when he doesn't blink an eye to go after a dryden hunt yeah what are going to do to Dryden Hunt? And once he got a hold of him, he threw him down like a bag of feathers. Yeah, it looks like his second fight. I don't want that look. You want it more than you want a Dennis Mulligan skating around doing nothing.

I want a legit fourth line guy that if he's going to go around and he's going to piss people off and every once in a while he's going to get around and he's going to piss people off and every once in a while he's going to get challenged he can even look after himself and i yeah i'm not i'm not here to debate that uh so there there there are a ton of them out there there's none of them out there it's too hard no find them find one for me they're better with him than with malgan but they haven't found the guy yet for playoffs you know and i know hunts played one game he's played eight minutes so definitely gonna give him some more runway to prove me wrong there but i'll give you another example of what i'm talking about about uh jack mcbain who by the way you like jack mcbain huh well listen i watched him last night 201 drafted

in the third round i'm watching him last night and he playing the part of nick paul in game seven last night jack mcbain against the leafs sure big a guy that you don't necessarily expect comes up with two you know a game-winning goal yeah just big and strong right so i'll give you another example of what i'm talking about with with a a non-reputation type of guy like dryden hunt is that if we took dryden hunt out and we put in wayne simmons and i'm not here to debate whether he went wayne can skate or not or keep up or can still i'm just talking about if you took hunt out put simmons how would jack mcmain responded well differently significantly or not at all yeah no you're right or not at all differently or not at all

you know this though is a team this leaves team who are saying they need depth scoring they need depth this that the other thing you know hunts a guy scored a little bit in junior you know can he have the can he provide something else other than that energy i do remember a story that anthony stewart told about playing with patrick coletta and how Coletta used to run around and hit people in ways that pissed them off but didn't want to fight them and other people had to, and how that was hard as a teammate? Interesting to see if Hunt is consistently an agitator like that. At least he did answer, but you're right.

It's different than when it's simple. Listen, I got to assume that between now and March, there will be still a different look on that fourth line. I think so, too. I think even last night would probably make a lot of people think that, you know, it's nice. Dryden Hunt's a guy that can come in. Could he be up and down with the Marlies?

Do you look at him as a 13th forward, a 14th forward? Probably given, you know, if you have Matthew Nise or whoever's going to be like Matthew Nise on left wing that bumps down Yarncroft who bumps down Engvall or someone of the fourth line you know like it's it it does depend on what they do but yeah Hunt feels like depth support after uh after one look anyway all right let's go pick up sheldon keeps comments on the little things that maybe the leafs didn't show last night well that's two games in a row now we've driven up a lead a lead in the third period so uh and you can't hang on to the past you know they come out of the break here now there's two games on the road we've been in

control of and and got away on us for different reasons. Again, we take a careless penalty in the third period. We have it all but killed. We failed to get it out, and then it's in our net. It's little details like that. We're just a little off, a little off on that execution there, a little off on our execution on the high-end chances that we did have, and that's the difference in the game game obviously didn't give up really anything aside

from that first shift but that's a breakaway we give up on the first shift so that's that's not not a good look for us off the start and like i said those are those little details are really the difference in the game they had a breakaway two on one and we're pulling both out of our net we had same types of looks um and nothing to show for connor timmons with a lot of good and a little bad yeah i think that's the expectation for a guy like that is he showing you any more than what you thought well listen i i don't claim to have known him well yeah coming out of junior and uh but the word was he's a headsy player and we saw that with a couple of nice passes he finds sticks uh from the blue line really well in zone he seems to be able to shoot it to guys on his team so so that's that's a plus your boy pontus holmberg you know

tips another one in he's turned into a player yeah we had a clip yesterday which we didn't end up playing but mitch marner just saying what do you say he's legit or he's the guy he's a stud is what he said settle down a bit but you know it's it he has solidified himself not as a marley but as a toronto maple leaf he's um he's been really really good for them the uh other clip shall we you know what uh let's just i want to stick on, if we're talking about penalties, got to touch on a little bit on the misunderstanding, I guess, on the trip,

on whether or not it was Mitch Marner going in or not. I know Sheldon was quite upset about it. Everybody started talking about it in social media and whether or not he was going to get fined again or i think elliot thought that uh you know almost got to the point where somebody would be worried he got thrown out of a game i think that was a little bit of a stretch but what were your thoughts about just the energy that sheldon put towards whether it was mitch marner or not uh that ended up tripping a coyote. Well, you know, you want Mitch Marner on the penalty kill, right?

I know you do. Is he not like one of the five best PK forwards in hockey? Yes, but if he did trip him, he needs to go to the box. Right. And that's it. So it was the complaint, you think, from Sheldon that he just didn't know it was mitch no i don't know but why are you exerting so much energy this guy's towards it it's like it's

just keep your focus you know sheldon had a bit of a reputation when he was a player i think of being hot-headed right like he reacts and he's emotional and you know i've seen that off the ice in my experience with him but it does feel like he's brought it up almost like this is the time of year guys could sleep through and he feels some responsibility to pull it out of the guys he just got fined at 25 grand and he probably didn't get fined anyway whatever the case is you got somebody got their yeah pp whacked right just pick your battles that's all i'm saying you still got 30 plus games to go here and you're gonna need a call in the playoffs just start collecting some some poker chips here yeah it's true.

You know, you think back to early in the season where he's leaning so hard on the team, right? We're talking about using bullets up early with the guys and, you know, he's firing those off. He's firing off bullets, you know, and the referees here kind of in the mid-season. You can't blame, you can't say he's not passionate, but you think of the a lot of the

coaches who've won stanley cups a little bit more composed and save some of that stuff you don't see a lot of john cooper meltdowns they exist but you know more selectively timed i think all right you want to touch on morgan riley yeah i don't have an overly passionate take on him last night except for the pinch leading into the one where Lilligren took away the pass but didn't was just bad. I didn't care for that. I guess he had good jump. I don't know. What do you think?

Let's go to Sheldon Keith, and then we'll come up. I thought he was good. I thought he had good legs. He was putting a real tough spot on that fourth goal. It's a real tough pass that's handed to him under pressure, and he's got to contend with. But, yeah, I thought he had good legs, and it was noticeable what he was able to bring on the rush, especially.

And, you know, he gets out there with that power play, and they do a real good job for us there too. Yeah, the one thing it made me kind of revisit over the last four weeks, five weeks that he's been out is that we have not seen

too many bad pinches. And their willingness to wait out games instead of forcing things. And if it's the one knock I have against Morgan Riley's game, is that he tries to sometimes force things that aren't necessarily there. And again, I don't know if it's the pressure of uh trying to keep up with the marners and the matthews and the kneelanders and and drive offense back there right that usually

does come with guys that are making seven eight nine million dollars a year it's just an automatic that you're supposed to be really good at everything it is but like you know sheldon i understand it's first game back bail the guy out he's one of your leaders he says ah he was pretty bad pass handled handed to him well he takes a pass in the skates then he controls it he's got it right and he jams it up the wall to no one bad pass and then he's outside the dots you know after he makes that pass there's no reason why you should have his you know so it's one of those things that you're 100 right it's like but that's you know i love the point about patience that's that's what you avoided for for a long time and i'm and i don't think you're saying they're better off without him the point

is just that can he incorporate some of what he's watched from this team where you don't have to go get the next one right away you know trust that it's going to come yeah that you guys can finish and you'll create chances before the other team now jacob chickering's out there and i i in all honesty i thought that chickering was going to try to come out like he was shot out of a cannon that he was going to come out and this is my chance to kind of show on a big stage with the toronto media that uh i'm their answer or i'm another contending team's answer and i'm gonna just try to do everything out there i didn't see that i saw a guy that was fairly patient yeah uh didn't try to force things and then ended up scoring a goal on a on a very natural

play to come in yeah you know i didn't like him though as much no i just and i know it wasn't it wasn't anything spectacular right right but i just i thought he was gonna overplay it that the game you mean yeah and he let it come to him a bit i i thought he was he's fine you know but obviously had an eye on him like is this someone the leafs watch and you know the the kerfoot goal the puck goes up to the point and he's got kerfoot and he starts drifting up to the point and watching the shot come kerfoot gets behind him and tucks it in the net and it reminded me of what we're talking about with riley like is this another guy who takes some chances where you know they're having some more success with patience so he can score though and they don't score from the back end.

So not going to say the Leafs aren't better with him because they are. But is that where you want to spend your bullets? Is that where you want to use your assets? I don't know. We think that Rasmus Sandin will be playing real soon here. So who's coming out? What's the next move here? You know, I assume Connor Timmonsnor timmons but you know another two assists and looks pretty good you know do you think now

that timmons could play himself into a position where the leafs say all right our seven eight guys are timmons and ben you know if we feel like we needed a more physical guy we can put in ben if we feel like we need a puck mover we can put in timmons depending who you know if we feel like we needed a more physical guy we can put in ben if we feel like we need a puck mover we can put in timmons depending who's hurt and they're comfortable with what they have on defense to me timmons isn't playing to be one of the six he's playing to eliminate the leafs need to make a trade for a d-man wow wow yeah you know because they have one extra guy who could do both things big ask big ask but do you think ben is trustworthy enough to be the guy let's say justin hall gets hurt

you're more likely to put in jordy ben right because he's going to be your pk physical guy i still look at those guys as six sevens right i don't sure but them every day in playoff games to try to no save my oh i'm talking seven eight if they're seven eight are you comfortable with them yeah i'm fine with that but yeah uh so you go rat sandy and lilligran geo and hall and riley and brody and then they be your seven eight do you have to go get another D-man to improve your 7-8? All of a sudden, though, if you want to legitimately look at a second power play. Looked pretty good last night. First time this year. Is he not your first choice on a second power play unit right now?

Yeah, if you're Sandin watching that game in Wallerina last night, you're like god damn it right stop it timmons yeah it's a good question he does right-handed shot it's a different look yeah for the leafs as a second unit guy yeah yeah like like you know the one thing that i keep keep saying is he plays with his head up you know he's still find it like really like i don't know the the word i can only come up with is awkward when you're kind of grooming five forwards on the power play and yet timmons showed you know yeah pretty good stuff on the second unit where does that leave morgan riley yeah no i mean it's assumed i think that he's

the guy right that he's the number one power play guy they tried the five forwards thing but yeah i don't know what do you what do you one thing in riley's defense the numbers looked heavily skewed you know they were sixth in the nhl when he was in and you know when he was out they were like 26 there's something so that the power play struggled without riley you know they were sixth in the nhl when he was in and you know when he was out they were like 26 there's something so that the power play struggled without riley you know it could be a whole host of factors but yeah there's nothing that riley does in the power play that i don't think can be replicated but all right we got adam uh foot coming up after the break a couple more minutes on last night uh a topic of conversation that I don't think is a huge concern,

but it looks a little bit, it looks a little different than it did maybe 10 days ago or 12 or two weeks. And that's the goaltending. Yes. We should talk about that. There is a drop. Yes.

And I'm worried. No. I am. Come on.. And I'm worried. No. I am. Come on. No, I'm worried. Going into this season, I said... I said a drop. I didn't say a panic.

Well, have a little bit of a moment here. Going into the season, if you had people rank the goalie tandems by team, and they looked at Murray Samsonov going into this season for the Leafs. They would have been bottom third of the NHL for sure. In terms of what people expected out of their goaltending tandem this year. When people ranked goalie tandems early in December, the Leafs had the best one in the league, you know,

sorry, Boston. And then the Leafs had the best one in hockey. So they were playing a little bit above expectations and they're coming back down to earth and so my question is was how good they were playing like they're going to come down a bit and be middle of the pack or are they going to regress back to what people thought they were and i'll include myself in that i didn't think they were good in the goaltending position i thought murray was going to be a placeholder until someone else came

available later in the season. They'd find a way to move Murray. And, you know, now it sounds like that sounds like nonsense because he's been so good. But I'm worried that it's going to suddenly they're going to get 898 save percentage till March. Yeah. April. It has presented in the last week plus

a different look for sure. They just a little bit more floppy. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Samson has fallen a couple of times. A little floppy amongst them. And I just think that the level of consistency

over the last month to five weeks, six weeks, over the defensive look. And again, the whole key of that whole stretch was 20 guys. Not necessarily six on the blue line. But their ability to back pressure and take the middle of the ice away. Just let the goalie take the shooter. And block the lanes like how many how many teams have they played in the last month where they're like can we get a puck through yeah they have helped what was shots and goal last night and i don't i

didn't it didn't present to me as uh a a great shutdown for them but they they gave up only six the first period arizona had nothing in half the game yeah they didn't get they weren't getting to the net no i believe uh arizona might have had 22 shots on the night or something around there you know so it's not like they were piling it on toronto they had a couple of power plays where they scored goals they had one where the you know the d fell all over themselves riley turns one over in the neutral zone to six minutes left the game's over and again that that's the stuff that they avoided yeah so that to me is more of a key on on the goaltending than actually having those guys stand on their heads yeah just

make that simple first save you know we're not gonna ask a ton of you and i know keith had made some comments about how it's hard for goalies to play in those games where you only see 20 pucks or whatever it is but there's a pretty good team to play goal for i don't think they give up a ton of high day high danger chances and so yeah you when was the last least game where you thought they got really good goaltending against Dallas probably? And that was, I don't know, two, three weeks ago now. So I just want to see one of the guys, one of the two guys say, I'm the guy.

I'm going to make a lot of saves. I'm going to take it over. I wrote a little bit about this today too, which we can get into our articles at some point. But I'm a little worried. Or it's just a Toronto thing. Well well i think it's a natural fan thing like your goalies have a couple of bad games like this is it they're never making a save again all right do we want to kind of go back we we got one clip left let's just go to sheldon keith on that whole uh mullet arena experience to wrap this thing up yes you know what once the game gets going you don't really notice it too much.

It's really loud. I don't know if the speakers are turned up a little extra or if it's just because they're lower, but it was real loud in terms of the music and stuff like that. Probably drowned out a lot of the atmosphere in terms of the crowd and that, so I couldn't really get much of a feel from that sense of it, but terms of the game itself it just seemed like hockey that's a whole bunch of backhanded compliments sheldon could have taken his whole media game to another level if he just uttered two words it sucked yeah right just listen i couldn't hear the fans because they had the music turned up just

like they used to during the pandemic when there was no fans in the building you know i watched the the pre-game thing and sean mckenzie's walking through the the rink there's the four guys with drums they're calling a band there i'm just not i can't get on board wow at least it didn't present itself like world juniors last night another 11 nothing shellacking don't bedard have another six points or something five or six points you know i i saw it like i don't know what it was 30 years ago or some ridiculous number like that that that Peter Forsberg had 10 points. In a game? Yeah, in a game versus Japan, I think.

And they won 20 to 1. Like at that point, do we really want to count that? Do you really want to count that? It's officially part of the record books. But it's just really bad. I did that. The team, Austriaria yeah last night yeah yeah should not be on the ice no no i did uh they're not going to beat a good junior b team no and it's tough too because these canadian kids and everyone they're playing is trying to carve out a future for themselves and demonstrate their skills.

And, you know, they can't really take their foot off the gas, right? You can't really ask them to dump it in and trap. I know. You just, Hey,

it's not my problem. Connor Bedard looking at them going, it's not my problem. You guys suck. I'm going to go and light you up. Yeah. They, I will embarrass you.

And to those guys, if you're Austria, that's a life moment, right? That's you laugh about that. You say, I got to play and light you up. Yeah, they... I will embarrass you. And to those guys, if you're Austria, that's a life moment, right? You laugh about that. You say, I got to play against Conor Bedard. That's your career highlight. So you don't feel bad about it, I don't think. Just hard to watch.

Yeah. That's all. Oh, definitely hard to watch. Okay, let's take a quick break. Adam Foote after the break. Mike Fuda in the second hour. Plenty more to chew on on our last show of the year. You're listening to Real Kipper and Bourne.

CJCL Toronto. This is Real Kipper and Bourne on Sportsnet 590 The Van. Getting a few messages off our conversation about bigger wingers for the Leafs. Bigger than Dryden Hunt. And it's like, hey, half your nigh is six foot three. It's a large animal. See some of the highlights going through the internet of his shot. Yeah.

He's got a good shot. A good shot. He hits some people. The only thing that you got to, I guess, and it's a Toronto thing, I'll tell you. It's the hype. I know. There's different hype for different players here.

I know. The Nick Robertson wave was real here oh my god are you sure if this guy is going to be an everyday player like is it a guarantee or is there still a question mark on nick robertson are you we we didn't think of that like five weeks ago six weeks ago we thought the door was shut on going back to the american augury those days were over i tweeted that exact thing that his days of being a marley over he will wear a marley's jersey again i'm sure when he comes back from injury i'd imagine they'll do a conditioning thing and see if he can find it again you know he seems a real case for like just staying patient and this

market pushing people into tough spots getting too excited too soon um yeah all right all right as promised stanley cup champion father of cal, man. You're just going to take this hockey thing right to the very end of the cliff, eh, Adam? Hey, Kev, how are you guys doing? I'm good, pal. How are you? I'm good. I was just up there for Christmas, and we got back a couple days ago, but we had a nice visit to Toronto.

Nice, nice. Well, listen, just before we maybe get into a couple of specifics, I know that we know the Leafs are heading over to your old stomping ground in Colorado and what's going on there and what could be through their minds of defending a champion, something that you know all about. But just the overall feel of where the game is going and how open it's been and the lead changes and the amount of goals. I mean, I don't see too many Adam Foots

around the league anymore, man. And if there are there, they should be making seven, eight, nine million dollars. You know, yeah, you said it. I mean, it's changed. But, you know, I still see guys hold each other accountable, though, for the bad hits and things like that. It's definitely not what when you played and I played,

but that's okay if things evolve and they try to make the game better and sell the game, and, you know, they want goals and things like that. You know, it's fun. I mean, I was at the game last night and watched the Avs in L.A., and it was nice to watch it as, like, a fan and not a coach or a development guy or a father, and it was a pretty entertaining game, to be honest with you. L.A. plays a good defensive-minded game,

and they had Colorado right where they wanted, and then McCarr just absolutely took over with something I've never seen before, and I was shocked that L.A. could sustain it and come back because I really felt they were stunned when they saw what he did and took him a little bit, but they fought back, and I mean, they're well-coed, but getting all over the map here. But I think the game, it's fun to watch. I mean, I like it.

I never like to shoot out. I mean, imagine we gave up three breakaways in a game where a coach would bench us. But, you know, it sells. And, you know, as far as what you said about us, I think people just evolve to their surroundings. If you have drive and want to make it, you just change your game and try to hang in there, right? So, yeah, it's definitely not what it was, but it's pretty entertaining to watch, too. It's real fast.

Adam, we're getting a little bit of static. Do you want to call back in? You want us to call you? We're just going to try to clean up your line a little bit all right we'll be right back with you okay thanks pal it is uh it's fascinating hearing a guy who used to play such a physical game you know you forget like adam foot big man six foot two 220 pounds really embrace you know the the new style of the nhl and and say you know look at kale macar and a guy who's just so different in terms of you know stylistic play compared to the way he played and like it you know like it's it's impressive to watch an evolution like that um and i do look

forward to following up with him when we do get him on that yeah and just just the challenges just in the challenges in colorado and the weight of uh mccarr who's looking around the room and not seeing the same faces he won a stanley cup with either through a cadre getting traded or the injury uh bug that's uh that's hit them yeah no doubt looks like we got tristan uh dialing him in here right now give him one second we uh we will have adam foot back you know that's one thing i want to ask him about sandin and lilligran and you know the potential for having to be a larger more physical defenseman like do they can they make do as a third pair

without being larger guys all right we do have uh adam fat the foot adam foot back with us adam i don't know if you heard what i was just talking about, but the Leafs have a couple of smaller D that they plan to have as their third pair, and I'm fascinated by the evolution of hockey. Can they survive in the playoffs with a couple of guys at 5'11 and 6 feet playing third pair minutes in Sandin and Lilligren? I mean, it's a great question. Can they? I mean, their's a great question. Can they, I mean, their team's so deep.

I mean, they almost had Tampa last year, but it wasn't for Vassie, you know, playing the way he did. But it's a great question because I don't know them well enough to comment and say can they get it done. I can tell you that, you know, I don't know about last year, I'm trying to think of the abs, like Gerard got hurt with a big hit and didn't, you know, play in the rest of the playoffs, but they were pretty big and fast. And Colorado was a different team, unique team. They didn't spend a lot of time defending. They were in their end quick. Like, Tampa plays, like,

so well on the offensive zone, like, say, at St. Louis in the end quick. Like, Tampa plays, like, so well on the offensive zone. Like, say, at St. Louis in the playoffs. You know, Winnipeg plays that way. They try to grind you dots to boards and wear you down. I'm not sure, if you look at the last Stanley Cups before Colorado, I think almost the last five or six, I don't want to say for sure, but they maybe had one guy under six foot, the defenseman. And though our game has changed and it's evolving, like for sure it's faster,

but you still have to get through four, seven-game series of the grind. And, you know, yeah, there might not be as big of hits, but there's still that if you're a smaller guy, can you make it through those playoffs playing against bigger guys? The teams that make it are pretty big. And the D are big. And they've got to take those hits now.

There's no holdup. So you look at Tampa, they have to go back, absorb that hit. They wait for help. They outman, they get out with, you know, their two versus your one or three versus two. And that will never go away dots the boards playing in front of the net the grind so you know are these guys you guys know better than me are they elite skaters can they can they defend with their brain can they defend with their body and you know get in front of guys i don't know you guys

might know that answer and maybe they can. I do know the last few Stanley Cups, you look at the defense run, they're big guys. They're thick and they can take the pounding of a 4-7 game series. Guys are going to get hurt, right? Adam, as far as

Cale McCarr goes, and he's starting to warm up a little bit again, five points over his last two games. But, you know, in our era, particularly you, you saw some greats in Ray Bork and Rob Blake. But where does he stand for you in terms of starting to talk about all-time greats? It's such an early time in his career. Yeah. Like, you nailed it early.

It's so hard to say, is he at that level? And, you know, I've been doing a little bit more with the Avs on, say, broadcasting and things like that, so I've been watching him a lot lately. And I've never seen – I've with Ray, I played with Blakey. You see Lindstrom do it his way all those years, right? Pronger did it his way, Chelios, you know. But then you see how Brian Leach did it on the blue line in the offensive zone, the things he did not a lot of guys could do.

But this guy can do all those guys I mentioned. He's got a little bit of all of them in him. It's just scary to watch. I don't think it's anything that can be taught or you'd see more guys like it. You will see guys evolve and skate like that and make those moves at the blue line and work on that skill set, I think, through time. But I think it's just a natural gift that he was born with, the fast twitch and the athleticism.

What he's doing out there, Colorado's pretty banged up, and L.A. was under way. He just decided with five minutes left in the second period, he just went off and took it to another level. And I said it on the air last night, and I didn't want to disrespect LA guys. They're pro hockey players. I'm going, I cannot believe he's doing this to pro players right now. Right.

You know, and like, you know, like his speed and his anticipation, and then when he gets the puck, he just attacks straight at the defender, and then he makes the defender bite, and it's just fun to watch. Not too many guys I've seen can do that. And I think he's going to be up there the all-time great at the end of this. I just don't see him going away and he's getting better in defending. He's forced now to play heavier minutes in his end because of the injuries of the abs are not as, you know, getting executing, getting to their end.

They've got a lot of young guys, a lot of guys playing up in the lineup. So the whole Avs D core is, you know, two guys are banged up. Their second pair in Manson and Byron. But they're managing to get by. But, you know, he's playing a lot of heavier minutes, and I hope that they get some D back so he can back off it. Yeah, I imagine there's some pressure to sort of pick up the slack when you look around the dressing room,

and it's a pretty different group than how they would look at full health, let alone the team they took to the Stanley Cup final and to the Cup last year. How different is the Avalanche team that the Leafs are going to see on Saturday night from the best of themselves in the previous six months? Yeah, you said it. They're missing Machuskin, Lanskog, and I'm trying to think of one more guy. Their whole second line or, say, top. They're missing three of their top six players.

Rodriguez in? Rodriguez is back in, and they're missing their second D pair. But it's a blessing in disguise. Like, Ben Nair, the coach, is doing a great job juggling guys, finding guys. Like, Comfer's playing really well. He's playing up in the lineup on the top line. But I would say he could arguably be one of the top third-line centers on a cup contender and possibly play in the second spot.

But what's happening is if they can get through these injuries, be one of the top third-line centers on a cup contender and possibly play in the second spot. But what's happening is if they can get through these injuries, like they've been whacked with injuries. Oh, you look at McKinnon, the best player, right? Yeah, Nate. Nate, right? If they can get through this, they're finding

some youth. Everyone's playing up in the lineup, but when they get those three guys back on forward, they're going to play down a line and have that much more confidence and that much more experience and i think that's the way i think bednar's looking at it and um it's it's a blessing in disguise because they're finding guys guys are getting more of an opportunity say the young guys than they did would get in a training camp you know they're forced to play these guys and see what they've got um so but i i just worry that with gerard and in the car and tase the minutes they're playing they're playing different minutes they're playing heavier minutes defending and um i just worry with the short summer and moving forward if they don't get guys

back uh they might wear them out a little bit but we'll see i mean it looks like my car is not going to stop but he's still pretty young you know so uh hopefully they get a couple of those d-backs the leafs colorado maybe a half a dozen other teams really look like they're going to have to wait at the trade deadline to buy as much cap space as they can to make an acquisition no question that many of us believe that they still haven't filled the void of Nazem Kadri in a perfect world what would you like to see come in there the name Jonathan Taves has been bantered about well that would be I mean that would be awesome if they could get a guy like that.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what they do at the trade deadline. It's very clear what's happening now. Okay, if Comfort plays in the second spot, who's going to play in the third? I think they're going to fill that second centerman. I think they know they have to. Obviously, I don't know enough about the cap space and where they're going to be at.

I mean, you look at Bo Hovard, if I'm saying his name right. Sorry. Hovard, yeah. I mean, if they get a guy like that, obviously Taze would be awesome with his experience. And, you know, I don't know if they'll get him, but they don't need a number one center, I don't think, but they do need to fill, I think, the void. Like what you said about Kadri, I really believe they've got to fill that.

I mean, I would like to see them pick up, even though the other guys are hanging in there as defensemen, I would like to see them pick up just an older veteran defenseman that can come and take some minutes defending off the other guys that played a lot. They're going to get more injuries as the season

goes, so it'll be interesting to see what they do, but they're seeing it here. They're hanging in there with the injuries they have. Last one for me, but I just want to get your thoughts on the goaltending position. They win a Stanley Cup with Darcy Kemper and let him walk out the door. How are they hanging in there in the crease this year?

That's a great question. Kemper got it done right. You know, you have to win with goaltending, and I think 95% of the teams that win have that unreal goaltender, right? A guy that can take it. It's like, you know, in baseball you can't win without the pitching or a quarterback in football. Goaltending's key. The abs, I mean, Kemper, I don't know him well enough,

but this guy that's in net now, he competes. I think he's better, what I've seen. He's quick. He's good. He's not super big. I mean, he struggles a little bit with the shot on the power play from the point when he's got net front. When there's net front presence, it seems like you can get him high at times. I'm sure they're aware of it, and he'll

work on it, but this guy's kept them in games. He's legit, so I think they, no disrespect to Kemper, he's a really good goaltender in West Stanley Cup, but I think they improved there, and it's what a move by them, right, to have a goalie that won it and then all of a sudden adjust and try to better that position. I think they got the better goalie, but I'm not a goalie expert by any means. So even though I roomed with Woff for eight years, but I'm not a goalie expert. So we'll see. Footer, I've got to ask you as we round out 2022,

your thoughts on the Atlantic Division. We know Cal's in Tampa Bay, but your thoughts between Tampa Bay, Toronto, and the Boston Bruins, man. How is this thing going to play out, and do the Leafs have a chance? It's tough. I mean, you look at that division, we were looking at it last night, and I think it's the toughest division still. I mean, because, you know, Ottawa and Detroit's coming.

You know, Eisenman's going to do what he did in Tampa as far as developing that group and making a winner. You know, Buffalo, they're so – they were in here this day. They are so young and talented and skilled. It's unbelievable, all those first-round picks. I think Tate Thompson's for real. I can't believe how well Cousins is playing for them as such a young guy. But in Ottawa, you don't know what happened with Florida, right?

That was such a big trade. I don't know if they're playing like 500 hockey right now, but they're still a good hockey team. And Ottawa, they're coming. I believe they're coming. But you said it, I can't believe where Boston's at. And, you know, you've got a great captain there, and I think the captain's made it easy on their coaching change for Montgomery.

What they're doing, they're pretty impressive. They're a heavy team. They're big. They can defend. They're pretty impressive. They're a heavy team. They're big. They can defend. They're going to be tough to beat. The Leafs, I thought they almost had Tampa last year if it wasn't for Vassie, like I said. And Tampa seems to be always right in the mix

and the hunt of it. So it'll be interesting. That's a tough division for sure. I think it's the best one. It's going to be a lot of fun in 2023. Hey, thanks for doing this, Footer. And say hi to my buddy Bobby T for me, okay? All right, I will.

Yes, you take care. Thanks for having me. Adam Foot, two-time Stanley Cup champion. Thoughtful guy. So, yeah, he grew up with Bob Torrens. Bob Torrens was a longtime producer here at Sportsnet. Okay. So every once in a while, like come up with some great ideas.

And I don't know if you ever saw this feature that we did where we actually got to follow around our Good Friday buddy, Doug McClain. Yeah. Trying to sign Adam Foote. Oh, really? A free agency. So we had all these behind the scenes looks

at the process of signing him. Yeah. Private chats. And it was really cool. Really? Yeah foot was i don't he was a star i mean you know in a very different style of star but he was a big just perfect in colorado for that complimentary to sack. How much money did you give him? If I'm not mistaken, probably in the vicinity of $12 million to $13 million for three years, maybe four. I think he was knocking on the door of about three plus a year, maybe four.

And that would have been 20 years ago or something. Oh, yeah. That's decent. Take that. Very decent. Interesting to hear him say multiple times, you know, his son was on Tampa interesting to hear him say multiple times you know his son was on tampa bay and to say multiple times that the leafs had tampa or that they had their backs against the wall or he thought they were going to get tampa like you know well where did he go

exactly so matt murray i'm panicking over here in december are we going back to that that little drop in goaltending the last week and a half that kind of scares you against vasilevsky and just knowing that the other side has what the guy who's universally recognized as the best goalie on earth is he not like shisterkin's not that guy he won the vesna but he's not hellebucks almost everyone in the league if you say pick one guy it's the guy that the Leafs are going to have to face. He's calm. He's big. What is he, 6'4"?

Can you let the Leaf Nation just go to New Year's Eve feeling okay? Fine. It's not a crisis, but it is a concern. You know, you can hear people talk about Makar and then if you hear from a guy that did it lived it like Adam Foote it takes

it takes Makar to another level when I hear Adam Foote talk about him what's crazy too is like he's talking about him that like he can't believe that the game has evolved in a way that it's made it possible for a kale mccarr to exist but he didn't play in 1960 like adam foot played not that long ago what is it 20 i don't know when his last year was i have to look that up but like you know he's oh here it is 2011 he played 10 years ago or 12 years ago whatever that is and

he's like i cannot believe that guys like kael mccarr could do what they do so yeah it's uh that level of respect coming from a guy like adam foot no big deal he talked about the injuries pims right uh and the big one for sure long term we know nate was always going to be about three weeks. So early January, I think, for McKinnon. But Landis Cog, to me, is the interesting one. And how significant is it? How much of a rush do you put him into coming back? Or is it so significant that you could pull off a Kucherov?

Oh, he thinks, oh, geez, that would be scary. Why wouldn't that be in their thought process? The only concern, I guess, is, you know, how badly do they need him? Like, looking at the standings right now, Colorado's in the second wildcard spot, sorry, the first wildcard spot sorry the first wild card spot in the west like i they they have some games in hand that's with being hit with the worst injury bug of the nhl the worst that i remember seeing yeah they've been crippled but like i guess the

question is just where do you expect them to be? Like if they're in playoffs, then yeah. You say, all right, let's just get there. But you sure like to not have to play the one seed. So I think it depends where they're at. Like if they're clearly in the two, three seed game, maybe then they say, hey, hang on. We'll take our chances with adding a giant salary here. Don't look now, but the LA the la kings oh kings are in a tear

seven one and two in their last 10 two straight wins uh fourth best record in the western conference by winning percentage humming along humming along all right and we're gonna get uh we'll talk maybe a little la kings with mike feud of course, two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Los Angeles Kings and doing a terrific job on Sportsnet as a hockey analyst. And on the IR, we're going to get the details of what the heck happened to him over the Christmas holidays. Have you been on morphine in your life ever? Oh, yeah.

I think we're going to get some. We might get some morphine today. We'll get the morphine version of the National Hockey League after the break. And I want to get into what really took the hockey Twitter world, you know, in a bit of a rampage. JT Miller. JT Miller. What a donkey. Calling out their third string goaltender for not coming out of the net early enough for him last night.

This guy. Okay, save it. Save it. Just like we prepped for this show. Save it. I don't want to hear it. Don't want to hear it. Save it for the air.

Save it for the air. That and more. Bill Kipper and and born after these words this is real kipper and born on sportsnet 590 the van we are down the stretch 2022 you didn't get fired the whole year. Don't jinx us. I guess there's still time. We've got one last guest of the year.

Really rolling the dice with this last guest. And it ain't Doug McClain. It's not The Rock. We didn't even want The Rock. Who do we want for the final guest of 2022? Mike Fuda. Love it. It's not The Rock. We didn't even want The Rock. Who'd we want for the final guest of 2022? Mike Fuda. Love it.

The Rock. All right, we couldn't get The Rock. Yeah. You think Shane Donut will show up after a spanking hot loss? Hey, hey, hey. Don't laugh because it hurts. I have had broken ribs before. I know.

Can we get this out of the way, Kipper? I looked at this because you guys are clearly my favorite podcast. We're close friends, and I love listening to you, and you've brought a lot of energy out of me. So this is my first one on morphine, which will interesting but bob bobby bond uh played in a broken foot in 1964 and to have nick caprios call me at night and say can you be the last guest of the new year i had to find a way to play hurt but i have to i have to explain you just so it clears the air would actually happen yes Yes, my first question. Yesterday, I told you, sorry, we're going to have to put the least, the least yotes on the back burner for a couple seconds.

It's fine. So about 10.30 a.m. on Friday, last Friday, I stupidly decided in a blizzard to, and I'm living in like Casa Loma, like it's way above my pay grade. So I decided to walk outside and imagine a World Cup soccer player getting nudged and trying to

it was a comment. I went so far in the frigging air and landed on the rock and ribs. First got my hands up, tried to protect myself, uh, being a proud guy. I'm at a very secluded area. So there's nobody around. I got up. I did the Michael bunting. I got up on one knee, waiting for the rest to come in drew blood death i was leaking there's no question i was leaking so crawled back up the stairs got inside thinking nice cool area called 9-1-1 and i thought you know area like this i'm whatever i'm gonna get like quincy or moonlight graham from field of

dreams come walking up with a sack i literally literally get the full something about Mary treatment. There's a fire truck coming down the street. There's ambulances. And I'm like, I'm like a guest in this house that I'm renting. And I literally, I get put in the back seat, like the old Hannibal Lecter version. And they're talking and I'm not one of those kind of, I'm a hockey guy, but I'm not like a celebrity guy.

And sure enough, the first thing is I'm getting in the ambulance goes,, I'm a hockey guy, but I'm not like a celebrity guy. And sure enough, the first thing as I'm getting in the ambulance goes, Hey, you're the guy from sports net. God damn it. Not now. Well, you are now a celebrity. Great now. Great time. So anyways, I spent the, you know, I cracked a couple of ribs in great. So they treat you very well. Unfortunately, I, when it's all over,

I reminded him that I came in an ambulance. They basically shove you out the back door and say, here, this is where you pick up an Uber. So it was a very interesting Friday night. Long story short, missed Christmas with my kids. My parents missed a few shifts with the boys in the group at Sportsnet there.

So it's been a crappy week, but my parents drove down to see me today. I'm feeling a lot better, and I couldn't be more proud for you guys to consider me on the episode. Thanks for having me, guys. We feel bad for you that you missed all of that. But on the other hand, I just want to send this out to all the listeners. If by chance anybody has it on video, we will pay big bucks. Ungodly song.

We will pay a bucks. We will pay a large amount of money. If anybody, security cameras, you have it in the background, whatever you have, please, please call us here at SportsNet. And on behalf of myself,

I will double the offer. Thank you. All right. And saying that, man, we really, really appreciate the effort. Did the morphine kick in before the Leafs blew the third period? Less of a pain. I watched it all. And it's funny. The people that know that I'm on morphine keep sending me wine for Christmas.

So I've got some very... I think I've got some friends who don't want to see me come through this. But no, I mean, I thought it was one of those games. I was a little concerned because the Leafs have been playing so well. And obviously that first shift with, you know, with Kohler and Geo looking like a confession on Youngblood. Yes, the Keystone Cops. Yeah, that was ugly.

And I didn't think Murray was great. I think, again, when your teammate, whatever, the Ferret Phoenix is playing with house money, it wasn't like the first loss. I mean, I think shots were like 15-2 in the first period. I'm sure the boys had all gathered the night before at Hotel LeMatthews, and they didn't have their stuff. But I don't think it was a big concerning loss for me.

I think if they come back the way I think they will against Colorado, that'll be fine. Still, I don't know. I think I heard you guys talking about it, but it's absolutely, I think Dubas should just stick around Arizona and see what else falls out the chute. If Michael Bunting can't play on that team and Timmons, I mean, I know it's early, but a right shot D is 24 years old.

They can play a second power play. And other than he looks like me on the ice steps about twice a game where there's nobody around him and he just seemingly blows a tire and blows up on his own. I like what's happening. I like what's happening there. And Sheldon has a presence about him on the bench. He looks like he's much, probably to a point that he would piss refs off

because he hasn't been in the league that long, but he certainly has this veteran presence about himself. I thought a couple of calls were mysterious. And I'm not worried about the game. I think they'll bounce back. And I think it wasn't one of. I think they'll bounce back. And I think it wasn't one of those I think they played down to their opponents so much as it was the elite players weren't as elite as they have been, but they still played hard and should have won the game.

So the Orizonans beat some pretty good teams in that little shack. So it's good on them, but I mean, I still think they're a bit of a mirage. And I don't like the look of the building with even the shadows all over the ice and stuff like that. It's a weird look. But C'est la vie. I don't know whether Dryden's day. I mean, it's early.

I just still think the team needs some more dirt and some snot. And I felt even more that because I kept switching over. I wanted to watch the Leafs, but the Tampa Bay Ranger game just grabbed me. And I was like, wow, these teams right now are playing for keeps. And not that the Leafs can't play that way, but, you know, the Sileski and Shusterkin just looked like ridiculous. And they were going all throwback. And I saw Dryden go in.

I thought he sure as hell would arguably could have been hit from pine um and then he got in the dust up which i was expecting like bane to be carted off not knowing how dryden would he whether he can handle himself and i just didn't think that was what i was expecting the outcome of the fight to be now he could have slipped whatever but i didn't see somebody that's going to scare anybody off at a physical presence uh he's just going to bring a little bit of energy so watching that this leafs team feuds you know i can't help but think of your la kings teams that got into playoffs as you know lower seeds and then just you play who you got to play and you beat them do you think it's a priority for toronto to catch boston and get a softer first round matchup? Or is it like,

be like the Kings or be like the lightning and just try to get in? Just, just, I think it got to come to that place. It gets real dangerous when you're trying to, well, at least when you say it for an image, cause you're trying to catch somebody,

right? I mean, it's at least you're trying to catch the team. It's double dangerous when you pull the old, you know, I went through it in junior ones where our owners told us to play our backup and sit out our top guys so we'd play Windsor instead of Kitchener. And that just doesn't work. It doesn't work. It's not fair to the game of hockey. And I think if you're trying to catch the team in

front of you, that's fine. But I just think it's going to be absolutely, and I know Kip, I read all your stuff, Borny, I was just getting into your stuff on the keys or uh or what you think is going to happen in the new year and the 10 things that have to happen and this clearly looks like a playoff team they're playing a different way i think they have to like anybody else avoid a critical injury um i'm still not sold 100 i like the goaltending i think it's been, but I don't like it. I don't get that Vasilevsky-Shisterkin feeling out of it, although there's time to be kind. It was nice for Morsi, Morgan, Raleigh back in the lineup, but I think the acquisitions, whichever,

and, you know, Brisbane is going to do something. I mentioned before, you know, Kyle is going to do something with that space that he's got. There's just so many teams that are going to be trying to do something that I think that move is going to be critical in first-round success because I was looking at the standings there, boys, and when you look at it, you've got some teams that are still floating around, right, like Seattle, and it's a nice story and stuff, but if they don't make it, you know, the city's not going to burn down.

But you look at teams like the Oilers and St. Louis, and to a certain extent, Vancouver. There's serious expectations there, right? And then you go to the East. When you look back up the East, same thing, like the Rangers and the Florida Panthers are the two teams that I say this is absolutely critical that they get in. I mean, I think Buffalo and Detroit are still playing a little bit

with the close money, and Ottawa fell too far off the pace. But I think they get in. I mean, I think Buffalo and Detroit are still playing a little bit with the close money and Ottawa fell too far off the pace, you know, but I think they did anyway. But it's just there's certain teams the expectation is you better win now and I think the trade deadline this year is going to be absolutely phenomenal to watch to see who gets that chip that might change the

course in that first round, whoever you play. Game time decision. Mike Futa joining us on our version of game seven. Took warm up and decided he could go. And we're thankful for it. 96 shots on goal between Vasilevsky and Shusterkin last night on a 2-1 score, which tells you everything you need to know about their capabilities and their reputations.

Good ones, Kipper. Good ones, too. Yeah. No, no. Like par 5, they were good shots. I know. And our conversation earlier on in the show with JB was the drop-off that we've seen in the last two weeks between Matt Murray and Samsonov.

And where do you, where's that on your belt of concerned notches? And where is Allmark in all of this at 21-1? When does he come back down to earth? Well, there's no signs in his game of doing that, right? You know, I mean, the history of his numbers, actually, and I think we talked about that in another show, even with Buffalo, when they were absolutely junk, he had pretty decent numbers.

But he's playing like, it's unbelievable. Again, the saves he was making last night, the confidence he has. And again, that's an exceptional blue line that they have in front of them. And they're starting to get healthy. He worries the hell out of them. And I think Tampa Bay, when they go to bed at night, that's the least of their worries. It was like, that's the one thing we always knew when we were on our prime,

and as long as Jonathan Quick got his rest, that position was not worried about. Now, I think they can make anything that they want to make about it, and I think he's done nothing to make people be concerned. But in the back of your mind, you're still a little bit worried. He's like Basilewski is still at the altar, right? Matt Murray is, and they can both say, well, they both have two cups, but one was a long time ago and a lot of injuries ago.

And Basilewski seems to be knock on wood. I don't want to jinx him, but he's one of those guys. He's quite quick and in his prime, he's just going to stay healthy. You're very seldom going to get anything but an A game. And I think still with that Toronto, I mean, I'm sure internally, they've got confidence, but there has to be, if that first goal goes in like last night, and again, it wasn't his fault. It was a Cote-Baudville routine, but a D,

but it still wasn't a great goal that you're going to have that doubt in your mind. And Justin Williams used to say in the dressing room, he'd say, quick is in other teams' heads. And you're in that room, and you might be thinking, we could be at our best tonight. And if this guy's got at his best, he still might beat us. And I think Vasilevsky has that ability. I don't think other teams are at that stage where they sit in their rooms

and go, oh, my God, Matt Murray and whatever. What's his name? Yeah, I don't think there's just that incredible, oh, my God, that's who they've got in that tonight. So I think that's why coming down the stretch here, the consistency, I think Toronto and Tampa Bay, if it's meant to be, I think that home ice is absolutely critical in this one. I know everybody last year wasn't whatever they wanted in game seven.

I think this year's Toronto team plays a much different game at home. Still consistent on the road, but I think home ice matters exceptionally. And Tampa Bay, I think that those are the worst third uniforms ever. Atrocious. It's like someone, they made it with

Nashville or something. It just doesn't make any sense. But I think that decision alone should cost them. It's like they made it on morphine and wine. I don't get that. Yeah, I don't get that. Morphine and wine. Thanks, Marty.

You know, you talk about Justin Williams and he's being in your guys' room and the value of that. The Leafs have tried to import leadership in the past, right? Joe Thornton was here and Patrick Marleau was here and Jason Spezza was here. And, you know, they've kind of been waiting for, I don't know, to have that guy. Do you think that you can bring that in from the outside or does that level of leadership have to come from the core guys who are a part,

who really have been here and play a lot? No, I think you can bring it in. We brought it in in trolls because with no disrespect, it's a different era. I mean, we could name like, how many guys do you think are legitimate captains in the Toronto? And there's no knock. I mean, how many legitimate captains are there in the NHL? Like you look at obviously guys like Taze and stuff that make a living off it.

But I mean, I think Mark Giordano brings that to them. I think Jake Muzzin was bringing that to them. But in our case, I think Dustin Brown, and I love Brown, but I think he was our 11th best leader. And he wore the C. So, I mean, when you start bringing in James D. McInerney, Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Willie Mitchell, you look around the room and you're surrounding the young guys,

guys at that time like Drew Dowdy and Kyle Clifford, he was younger at the time. And, you know, even Muzz at the time was young. It was unbelievable. Like, it was a Hall of Fame-worthy captain's list. And, you know, and that's not including Kopitar. So I don't see that in this dressing room. The only dressing room that I – actually two off the top of my head,

I see that in Tampa because their group has been there and done it enough. And I see it in Boston. It doesn't mean they can't be beaten, but there is something about, in fact, even a guy like Foligno. But right now for me, Foligno would be the perfect shit for the Leafs. Ah! Not this again. The way he's playing right now.

The way he's playing right now. And that's exactly what they expected from him when they traded for him. And he didn't fail. He got injured, right? But that's what they need. Yeah, they need that as a bottom six guy. And that's where he's comfortable. But you traded him they need that as a bottom six guy. And that's where he's comfortable.

But you traded him as if he was a top six guy. And that's where you missed the boat. Well, I didn't trade him. Don't blame me. Don't blame me. No, no, I'm not. I'm just sitting at home, slip wiping out on ice. I don't have the ability to make those moves.

No, I agree with you. But that's, I still, if they had re-signed him, I think, and again, it was such a tough decision because I applauded Kyle getting him, the price aside, but he got hurt, right? But I just don't know. I think

somewhere along the line, they made an organizational pause that that's not, we weren't successful playing that way, and they weren't successful playing that way and they weren't successful playing that way because those guys weren't on the ice not because they couldn't win if they were healthy and now you see here is your prototypical bottom six look out you know i don't fight as much as i have to anymore but god forbid if i gotta go there's a chance i'm gonna knock you out and he's chipping in and he is a throwback leader, right?

That is true blue, you know, Canadian captaincy, you know, in the blood. So, yeah, that's exactly the type of player they need, whether it's out there because there's going to be so many teams desperate to have the same kind of pieces. And again, it gets down to what you're willing to give up. I do agree with you, although I continually forget his name, that the 10-minute college player. Oh, Nize, Matthew Nize.

Nize is going to, if he gets a chance, I think he has a chance to make an impact on this year's team. But that being said, if I was looking when you start talking about uh you know we always people are throwing out whatever ryan o'reilly or big time names that come or uh captain vancouver will her about whatever they do i'm not getting off nize if i'm the other team like that yes I'm I am getting that player and you guys I know how important I know much pressure is on you to get out of your first round I am not moving on this off this player and that's up for them to do but that's the kind of stance it takes

and I mean and in fairness that's what Philadelphia did to us and we ended up I talked about the deal at length because I remember Dean Lombardi telling me, we're going to trade your son, and it was Wayne Simmons. He's clearly not my son. But we ended up training. We got Mike Richards, who it eased the pain because I had coached him and I knew he was a genuine leader, Captain Canada, all that stuff at the time.

And we traded Braden Shen and Wayne Simmons and a second-round pick for Mike Richards. And we got two Stanley Cups and probably could have had others. I said a full team would get arrested, but we got two Cups, and we would never have got those Cups without Mike Richards. So we gave up the two pieces that we clearly didn't want to move, but we got back what helped push us over the top. So it was worth it, but it is a gamble. It doesn push us over the top. So it was worth it.

But it is a gamble. It doesn't happen all the time. Hey, listen, I'm not advocating for anything here, but you're really, really good on morphine. Just ration some for show days. I'm hoping before the weekend that I can truly answer that question, Chipper. You know how I know the morphine's wearing off? Because you're starting to talk a lot more.

I haven't spoken all week. This is like you've uncaged me again. Okay, listen. We're sending you back. Go relax. I appreciate it. Okay, I appreciate it, guys. Thanks for having me on, and both of you have a happy New Year.

Hey, can I say congratulations, too, to Carolyn Cameron on her engagement? I haven't seen her, and that's awesome for her over the break there. I know she got engaged to call, so great news all around. Congrats to CeCe, and happy New Year to you, Feuds. We appreciate you coming on, man. Candlesticks make a good gift. Thanks, Kippers. Thanks, gentlemen.

All right, pal. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye., Feuts. We appreciate you coming on, man. Candlesticks make a good gift. Thanks, Kippers. Thanks, gentlemen. All right, pal. Talk to you soon. Michael Feuta. What a trooper. I mean, I saw some pictures. It's like a purple basketball-sized on his ribs. Oh, suck it up. Oh, dude. You said you broke your ribs? Oh, yeah.

Everybody's probably, you know, you played 12 years. Come on. I avoided contact for my time. I mean, it sounds like you can't cough, sneeze, laugh. Breathe, roll over, take a dump. Oh, yeah. That's the morphine.

Yeah. Nothing. I do recall being on morphine after I shattered my jaw and talking to my wife through, my jaw's already shut. I'm talking through my teeth and I was like, this is great. I shattered my jaw and talking to my wife through my jaws where it showed I'm talking through my teeth. And I was like, this is great. I can finally have time to read books. You know, there's all these books I want to read. This is going to be awesome for me.

And like the morphine really tricked me into it being a great thing. So good for a few. All right. We're going to, we're closing it down here in 2022. We mentioned that we're going to answer some tweets, some messages. They're out there. Tristan's going to get them on board for us. But before we do that, a quick comment on your article and some thoughts.

I came out with mine earlier this week for the Toronto Star. If you haven't read it, some bold predictions for 2023. Just go to my social handle at Real kipper and you can find it there but let's talk about yours right now jb yeah so i wrote mine on five questions that the leafs must answer before the final playoff exam um you know we're going into 2023 and there's still some real decisions that have to be made and so my five questions were and you can just stop me if any of them intrigue you the one i asked feuts do you make the push for the bruins or do you use the year to experiment with different lineups and d pairs which you know some people think you just

get in and okay i i really think the leaf should push for to catch the bruins will the team commit to caldubus with a new contract or not will the leafs commit to matt murray or ilia samsonoff at some point this season um are they pursuing the trade den you deadline menu for an entree or side dishes that's from our talk yesterday nice and do they want to use the jake muzzin lti mr uh ltir money on a d-man or a left winger those are my five questions for them i like it they're big questions i mean, they dictate what they want to do. The Nize thing, if Nize is awesome, it's less likely they trade him.

And then all of a sudden they add a left winger for 750 grand or whatever, 850 grand. Minnesota's supposed to be a championship type caliber, right? Yeah. a national championship caliber team he went back to try to win a championship and their top three scores are jimmy snuggerood st louis logan cooley and himself they're good are we not talking about if they go to the nation if they go to a national championship are we not talking uh first or second week in april yes so so we're gonna take matthew nyes and we're gonna pluck him out of a final division one ncaa yeah and we are gonna throw him in the deep end against the Tampa Bay Lightning. An NCAA final is not the shallow end. He's not coming from D2 in Slovakia.

It ain't the NHL. No, it isn't. I get it. Yeah. Right? Right. And how many have done that in the past? Successfully?

Yes. I don't know i mean cole caulfield's one of the few that we can watch score his first nhl goal in the playoffs kail mccarr a uh college kid yes he was kail mccarr came in and helped colorado a bit uh playoffs first yeah he scored his first nhl goal against calgary in the first round i'm pretty sure but anyway he's anyways and i'm not saying that i i have him coming in and and by the end of the playoffs being a guy like michael fuda just said is coming in and contributing i don't know how impactful he can be i don't know if we're talking about seven minutes,

10 minutes, 12 minutes, but the moment he comes in, I'll tell you what's guaranteed. He looks 6'3". That's a guarantee. It is. That in itself to me is somewhat

of an improvement on what I optically see now. He has any PIMs? He plays rough at all? I don't know enough about his temperament. Are you turning him into Tom Wilson? No, I'd like him to, you know, yeah, he's got a couple of PIMs, 31 PIMs in 33 games.

At least he's involved in the contact. I think to your number one question, absolutely, that you drive towards Boston. They're nine points back at the Bruins. I don't care. There's still 45 games left. We can see

on any given week teams go on a heater. Yeah. As our buddy Jack Hughes says in Jersey. Or they can get into a rut here. You know, all of a sudden, Pasternak's hurt and they go on the road for against good teams and they lose, you know, three in a row.

It's the door open. So, yes, I agree that that should be the focus right now you know i i that question was inspired by tampa bay using sergachev as the d-man on power play one which is not their power play look they're just seeing what they have which is not really you know the the leafs have been doing that too but you know do you want to maximize the lineup do you think that marner and matthews are going to play together in the postseason in which case you put them together now and try to win every single night tough decisions the leafs as it stands nine points behind the boston bruins boston carrying one game in hand the one thing that you got to keep in mind here is how difficult it is to gain ground under

the current system right where you get a straggler point and i think uh you watch now ottawa pretty good yes i mean they came back on washington last night uh i don't know if you saw it on the highlights but uh claude jeruse dive to save a puck coming out of uh washington zone yeah um and made a incredible pass uh that helped the ottawa senators come back and win in overtime but they're they're on a nice little run here but the problem is is who's who's dropping right now significantly? That's what it is, right? It's not points.

It's teams between you. The gap. Ottawa is only nine points out of the playoffs. The same we're talking about from Toronto to Boston. But they're also behind Florida, Buffalo, Detroit, and the Rangers to get there before you get to the Islanders and Pittsburgh, who have 44 points. And Washington is, you know, you neededhington not to get a point last night right

already you're doing that so yeah already okay you're number two kyle dubas yeah let's end this right now okay he ain't getting a contract no i agree i also think that even if they win it's just my my opinion i have nothing on this i think even if they have success he wins two three rounds i think he leaves now oh i think he i think he would be really oh that that's out of left field here i think he'd be really offended by the idea that he doesn't think that he's shown enough that he can put together a team that can compete i think that would piss him off and i think he's a guy who would take that personally so you've got you've got this you've got the barry trots going on the side yeah 2018 yeah whatever happens here i'm out he's gonna he won the stanley cup and it was predetermined

a month before that he's done yeah And Reardon was getting his job. So again, Dubas has stopped responding to my text messages about hockey things. So I got nothing on this. This is not a personal note. This is my own opinion. But you know the man better than most of us. I know he is competitive and emotional. And I think this would bug him

don't you would bug you yeah but as you get older i think you uh it gets less about ego and more about still what is your best chance to win well not only that but you know he's got a young he's got a wife he's got a young family that's got a young family. That's a really good point. Okay, and you know, you want to come in and what's best for them and what's their scenario and how close are you to family?

Doobies in the suit. Grandma Doobus and all of it. So that makes it a little tricky. This is why radio's good because now I'm backing off a little bit. So I think he a little trickier. This is why radio is good because now I'm backing off a little bit. So I think he could be pissed off but still say pretty good situation. And I like staring at a four-year deal for $20 million. It could be leverage maybe that he's more willing to leave, right?

If he gets to a second or third round, might he's in a position to ask for four or five million bucks sounds good i don't know what he's making as the gm of the toronto marlies but it wasn't that no no but can also turn into a big bag of feathers if you don't win in april they go get swept by the bolts in round one this year, is there any team lining up for services? Okay, my article as well in the Toronto Star this week talked about the goalie scenario. I had 2023 at some point that we will not see Samsonov and Matt Murray together again.

In 2023, so going into even next season going into next season we could see that play out possibly till the following march yeah but this will be their last full season together yeah yeah i and your argument for that was really sound in that if samsonov's good, then they're going to pay him. Then they've got a guy making $4 million in the crease already. You don't want a $4 million or $5 million backup. Yeah, I think that would be high end here.

And unless flat out Samsonov ends up with the starting job by April and carries them around two rounds three rounds you're gonna have to go five plus on samsonov yeah like if he does that well yes plus oh yeah yeah yeah absolutely i don't know three rocky performances in a row for old let me tell you something yeah that guy knocks out vasilevsky in the first round he and jack campbell didn't and he's at five yeah you got to start doing them you know right rfa you got to look at the market yeah you got it but that's if you want to buy into his ufa years that's all yep so that's uh that's those are the type of scenarios i I think they have to be playing out,

whether you're Kyle Duvis, Brendan Shanahan. These conversations have to be going on. There's no question. And Matt Murray, again, if Matt Murray is the guy and he knocks out Vasilevsky and takes him for a ride here for a month, six weeks, his number ain't coming down from his 6.25. I need Sam back in here so i can argue with him about murray murray still makes me very uncomfortable just so you know like the was

it mcbain who shot the one on the power play over his you know he's six three and he's on his knees and he shoots just shoots it into the top corner it's great shot not saying it's not a great shot not saying murray hasn't been good just saying the things that worried me preseason still worry me. Okay, where were you in your article on trade deadline, entree, or side dishes? I was on Matthew Nye's in that if they keep Nye's, then they don't have enough trade assets to go buy an entree. So they'll be shopping smaller. Unless they were to trade first round picks which

i don't think the leafs want to do it feels like they want to keep those oh god i'll be so pissed off at them if they hoard their first rounder that's probably going to be 25th overall or something now that i think about it and and keep themselves from going uh and and significantly first rounders significantly can alter your lineup so i i wonder then if nize is good enough you know they think he's good enough to contribute you get his salary at 800k or whatever it ends up being for then you can spend a little bit more on the next salary if then they go get a defenseman a bigger fish then for muzzin's money for muzzin's money there you go yeah all right tristan what do we got here pal we're on the clock guys how's it going good thanks for joining us

uh so so far uh we have had a couple of texts um this one is from uh there is no name here from sorry from ian from midland apologies ian uh this is a little bit on the world juniors if you guys wanted to touch into that at all sure uh they were saying specialty but we'll give it a shot yeah sorry repeat that kit yeah we're good we're gonna give it our best shot here yeah okay for sure uh he said uh do you think conor bedard will be bigger in the nhl than when sydney crosby was when he gets drafted uh i i to me that you're asking about the hype right with the attention yeah the hype yeah i don't know how much has social media changed since then see that's a really good point is that the environment around these guys has changed. So we have a question tonight.

I'm on the television on tonight. I will say this before you just step on that, that, that alone, we know more about Connor Bedard today than we knew about. Yeah. Sidney Crosby. Yeah.

Just because of the way it's presented to us. Now, one of our questions for tonight for like a hot seat thing is will he be more impactful than mcdavid in his rookie season and i don't know enough about bedard to say definitively no but it feels pretty definitively no to me like mcdavid to me is we don't know if he's going to be he still could be the best player one of the two or three best skates like connor mcdavid well no one does right so i know and in mcdavid's rookie year he was third in the nhl in points per game

yeah i don't see so coming in and being connor mcdavid like like he can revolutionize a franchise or you know change them anyway one question yeah it is one thing superstars do that i think is underrated is they make people want to go play for that team you see there's a superstar there and you're more likely to sign as ufa to allow a trade there like after matthews was signed here they had no problem getting patrick marlowe to come or you know guys that they were after whether you agree with the signings or not people were willing to come here because the team was getting better and looked exciting who doesn't want to play with a great player yeah so uh it can can change a franchise for sure uh got another question from eddie and hyde park here uh he said uh he's a little bit concerned about uh the return of

riley and sandin he fears they will be complacent and miss the vigor of guys like Ben and Timmons who are fighting for jobs and playing very well. Goaltending strong in the defensive system, break Riley and Sandin in gradually and not go 20 minutes plus for a while. Well, you can't break those guys. You don't break Morgan Riley in gently. He's a pro. He's been around a long time.

The only thing I think that they can stress is not trying to jam a square peg in a round hole here and force things and the one thing and it goes back to what we talked about earlier in the show is that if you can just convince them to just go back and watch our style of play in the last four weeks that you know it's okay to sit and wait and be patient and not force things and limit those mistakes because they've they've cleaned that up yeah on their run jb they did not they did not take a lot of gambles they did not take a lot of chances patient as a as a defensive group they weren't trying to force something that wasn't there and riley and both sandin at at times this season

have looked like no just no don't don't do that sandin was a lot better once riley was out but definitely is that element there you know i think my time with the toronto marlies we had a lot of injuries a lot of call-ups and we would call players out from the echl and inevitably those guys can give you like a couple of games right or they work really hard dog on a bone in the system diligent and you know so i understand the point about ben and timmons but those guys can't sustain that or they'd be everyday nhlers so you just got to plug these guys back in let your good players be their good players all right we got time for one more. Tristan, what's the call? Yeah, we definitely do.

I think you guys will like this one. This is from... Sorry, I just had it here. Our technology, honestly, it... Get the hamster back on the wheel, buddy.

Essentially, this one is from... Sorry, guys. Here we go. It is from... No name. What the bleep, boy? Sammy didn't offer for you two to go down south. What a guy. I'm going to Cabo next year,

and you're welcome to come with me and my beautiful wife. Did you see him? He put out a video of his golfing. He did? Yes, and he sunk like a 90 footer no yeah i think it was all doctor doctor or something yeah little does he know that while he's been gone we acquired a new hole in the office we got a new putting mat that sammy isn't a part of so that's so large of you to go and get that you know listen for the good of the program here you know awesome stuff awesome stuff

all right that's it we are wrapping up 2022 for all of you who have supported us in this calendar year we can't thank you enough it's been a pleasure uh it's it's an honor every day to bring you what we can for two hours some of it good some of it bad some of you love some you hate it's all good here on the real kipper and born show jb thanks for a terrific 2022 pal you buddy had a blast looking forward to the next year and a great run in the back half of the season for justin born sammy mckee and the whole team here at real kipper and Bourne, safe and happy 2023. Crazy. Happy New Year.