Real Kyper & Bourne - Maple Leafs Introduce Chayka and Sundin

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

The Toronto Maple Leafs have officially announced Mats Sundin as Executive Advisor of Hockey Operations and John Chayka as General Manager. Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne and Sam McKee share their thoughts on Keith Pelley's decision, their expectations for the newly hired duo, and listen back on a contentious introductory press conference. Then, they discuss Craig Berube's future behind the bench in Toronto and Chayka's ties to Auston Matthews. Later, they listen to the Oilers' Locker Room Clean-Out availability and discuss some harsh remarks from Leon Draisaitl about the team's direction. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

All right, let's get her going. Jam packed. Two hours. The real Kipper and Bourne show, season five. We're live on Sportsnet 360, 590, the fan in Toronto. Streaming always on Sportsnet Plus. And if you miss our show, there's Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube. Wow.

How about our two guests in the second hour? The 19th general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, John. Now, do you say Chica or Chicaa? Chica sounds right to me. You should probably figure that out. He's going to be here now. Yeah. He will be in studio along with a senior executive advisor for the Your Toronto Maple Leafs, Matt's son, Dean. Yes, there are two new sheriffs in town. That's right. A couple of new bosses.

And their name ain't Billy Ray Valentine. I have no idea. What is that? Is it an old Western? No, trading places. Sorry. I don't even know if I got the name. What is going on?

It's just a little movie reference. Okay. All right. And a very famous one. I just don't know if I got the name right. No one's going to know if you didn't. There was a press conference today. What's that, Derek Brandale?

Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd. I've got validation from Derek Brandeale. He's old too. And Jake the Snake Shultz. All right. We're good to go. Press conference today, 1 p.m. Eastern, formally introduced by CEO Keith Pelly.

Sammy, you were down there. I went, yeah. Big J. Journalist. You are. Yeah. Overall vibe. I guess it got a little tense. A lot of talk now in social media,

especially with Steve Simmons, right, from the Toronto Sun. But what did you gather out of there today? First of all, like everything aside, just to see Matt's up there with the Leafs logo behind him and having him back involved is for my little, you know, 12, 13 year old heart, very, very cool to see him up there. I'm talking about the least with pride and the fact that he wants to be back here. I would say there are some pretty tense moments. And at times the line of questioning seem a little more, you know, about the past as opposed to like what they're actually going to do with the hockey team.

I think the actual hockey related questions, you could. I think Luke asked one. My boy Dan Riccio asked one about Matthews, the Barube one from Koshan. But a lot of it seemed like they were really trying to stamp home what they thought about Chica, which I thought was interesting. But yeah, I mean, it was a little pent, I would say.

J.B., okay, we know that Keith Pelly could have gone in a lot of different directions. He could have gone a lot safer. But he chose not to go safe here. And, yeah, there'll be. the occasional question on still the hiring, but ultimately it will be about what these guys do moving forward here that will dictate, you know,

where that conversation ends up. And hopefully it's in the rearview mirror. You know, I'm reminded of the old John Tortorilla thing they had in Tampa Bay, which was safe as death. Like Tree Living was the safe hire, right? He was a name that people knew and he made safe moves and wanted to get tougher and said the safe things. And it was over very quickly for him.

And so I don't think that there is a real safe way to go. So if they felt like Chica was the guy that, you know, this is they believed in his plan and direction and all that, safe or not, you have to make a choice at some point. And credit to them for sticking to their guns. Yeah. And Steve Simmons, I've known for a long time. And so anybody that sticks around for 30 or 40 years doing what they're doing,

they tend to be pretty good at it. I get the question, you know, in terms of ultimately asking about the process in hiring him. I'm not sure if it was completely fair to go into those using specific name calling. Like that, for me, that is not me. That is not me. But it's Steve and he's entitled. As a journalist, he can go anywhere he wants to go. But I think the question's kind of fair in terms of the process

and how did you come to this conclusion. I just didn't like the certain name calling. Well, and I, to be, like, I don't even really know what the question was. Like, it was like, hey. How did you come to this conclusion when others have formed their own opinion? Well, but it was, I got a different answer than you was kind of the question. It was like, okay, you know, like you weren't doing the hiring. There's a million people out there that have their opinions.

That wasn't the way we felt about it. So I didn't feel like it was a productive question that was going to lead to an answer about process in a meaningful, satisfying way. And yeah, I didn't care for it. I think maybe a lot of the fan bases had some of the similar questions that Simmons asked. And maybe he thought that that was part of his line of questioning,

that there's been a lot of, you know, fair and unfair questions about Chica's pass and what happened with Phoenix and the draft picks and all this different stuff. So maybe that's why he was putting it out there like that. Yeah, I mean, it really, room got a little hence

and they went to Rosie next I was like oh boy here we go they got her back on the rail yeah as a reminder John Chaka general manager the Toronto Maple Leaf

Matt Sundeen in studio in roughly a little over an hour plenty to get into that I'm not sure was asked after they left the air

I'm sure they did a media scrum I don't know what questions were asked but we certainly got a ton for them yeah we do You know, I certainly have a lot more questions about the 2026, 2027 Toronto Maple Leafs. You know, like, you can talk all you want about processing who and whatever and okay.

Well, what does it mean now? You may disagree or agree with the decision to make John Chica, the general manager and hire Matt Sindine. And you can disagree with that. And at times I have clearly on this show. But there is a monumental three to four weeks coming up here for this franchise. In terms of starting tomorrow night, The draft lottery is tomorrow.

I know, I could call it catching a moving train. It's like, okay, there's a... Scouting meetings, draft lottery. There you go. As far as how this is all kind of folded out, surprise, not surprised. We had talked about Matt's potentially being a president, head of hockey ops,

which clearly he's not. The official title for John is general manager of hockey operations. which falls into, yeah, you're the man. You're the dude. You're the dude. Yeah, I guess I don't know about how surprised. To me, it's a smart decision on Matt's behalf, on the team's behalf. You know, he's not coming in here and claiming to, you know, be the guy.

I think it would have been a big ask for a guy who we've said before hadn't had a ton of experience to make all the final decisions. Chica has been as the decision maker before. I couldn't agree with you more in terms of also being a little nervous for my friend, obviously. You don't want him biting off more than he could chew. You don't want him to come in and pretend that he's something that he's not right now can certainly develop into something much bigger and, frankly, more important, right, in terms of how many people, you know, you're accounted for,

how many people fall under your watch, whatever the case is. It doesn't sound like anyone needs to answer to him, which, again, gives him ample opportunity to get in as much as he wants or maybe as little as he wants if there's any scenario where he's feeling a little uncomfortable or a little underwhelmed because of his lack of experience. You know, they were pretty consistent.

about one thing in this process, and it was that they weren't so worried about titles. They, you know, they were like, okay, that's a guy who we want around. And I wrote today, it's up on sportsnet.com.caia, just kind of my thoughts on the Sundeen Chica hires. You know, one of the ideas for me was that when I have been saying, I wanted them to hire a president, what I really had in mind was Brendan Shanahan's role where someone with a big picture view of the organization was there every day and was there for someone to lean on and he didn't have that last year.

I think having Sundin there to be that, be at morning skate, see everything as it's going on, and just have a sense for the greater direction of the team. You don't have to say we need you on the, evaluating the bottom line of our, whatever, fiscal year. Like, I want him just around to help the team and guide it. And I think they kind of knew that from the jump.

Yeah, yeah, I think, like to your point, naming him, like, he can probably do some of what Shanee was doing as president without having to be called the president, right? Like, you know, you can do some of the quote-unquote culture stuff, and that was one of the big lines of questioning with him. I think it was Matt Larkin asked him sort of about the locker room and the conversations on the locker room and the culture or whatever.

He had an answer for that. I don't know if we want to get into some of the clips, but, like, I just having him there, one of the things is I wanted a guy who gets it, like who understands being a leaf and who, and the one big red flag with him was the lack of experience, but there's been lots of guys like it. So having him understanding.

it and having maybe not the big responsibility of being the president, maybe it could work, the combination of that. I don't know. What do you got for a clip for us? I got lots of clips. Where do you want to start? I think, you know, it's interesting people. One of the questions, I think Chica has been out of hockey for five years.

And so one of the earlier questions was just about, okay, have you been out of touch with this? I think it was Gina Reda. Yeah, you was Gina Redda. Yeah. And Chika, why don't we just start with clip one on learning stuff from other sports? Yeah, I would just echo that, you know, well, I had a full-time job, that part of that job was involved in sports as well. It was a different side of sports on the capital side. And so to go around and meet different organizations across the globe, you know, see what a world-class organization looks like, how they're structured, how they're resourced, how they're creating competitive advantages, right from ownership down through the players.

It was an incredibly valuable lens. And so, you know, I think if I had not been a general manager previously, that would be more concerned for me. but the fact that I've sat in the chair and now have a different lens as well I think it's actually been a real positive to learn and grow and become more diverse in my thoughts and opinions and I think that'll be a real asset for me actually

you know there's been people for years who've been in the NHL and you ask them why they do stuff and the answer is like because that's how we do stuff so I don't hate the idea of someone with refreshed ideas having a look at things this reminds me a lot of Dubis. Remember with Dubis and like was it Man City?

Or what was the one like Amazon? There was like one soccer team or a thing that he watched. That's why they did the Amazon thing. Remember because it was the, like him taking stuff from other or other sports and kind of integrating. It's interesting. But I remember him. Man City did one.

I think it was Man City, right? And I think then they did the Amazon one and after for the lease. That didn't turn out awesome. Yeah. And the ending of that one kind of sucked. Yeah. Didn't like the final episode. That's sort of reminded me of a little bit of him talking about that.

And we'll get into this when he joins us in roughly an hour. But just in terms of. of a time frame, right? Just in terms of, okay, today was the press conference. Where do you start tomorrow next week, next month? And how quickly do you have to move on things? Because he doesn't have the time that Kyle Dubus, quite frankly, had. Or even Lou, when he was here, it was like we got a young kids, we can develop them.

We can overcook them with the marlies if we need to, but this is shaping up for years down the road. Is that the same case here, really? Well, we have a clip on the next steps. Should we play? Yeah, this is just, yeah, clip six, please. Yeah, I've already started reaching out to most of the players and we'll reach out to them in the coming days.

Again, like I said, I think our players are our partners. And so, you know, really getting together with them and learning and hearing their insights. I think they always have the best insights, quite honestly. You know, Matt and I, Keith, we can come up with lots of ideas. But hearing it from them, I think, is the most important part. Like I said, we got together, or we're going to get together with Coach Barubei. We're going to have a very detailed plan.

You know, we're trying to catch a moving train here. We've got scouting meetings coming up in the next week, two weeks, amateur and pro. We've got the combine, followed by the draft and free agency, as you know, the schedule. So really, though, the first order of business is connecting with the players and getting feedback. Yes. So 20 of them feedback. You got to play me more. Yeah.

What is going? Like, come on. Yeah. I'm your answer. Totally. Can I ask you guys, and maybe you can ask him this question, but like, it was getting towards the end of the press conference. I wanted to kind of ask, but I knew what the answer would have been. But like, who works for them in terms of the scouting department and all, like, they said this amateur and professional.

scouting or whatever? Is it just they're using the last guys? Or like it's just they're just going to say the people. Nothing changes till you said it changes. But I mean, I don't think anyone's been officially kind of let go or fired. Sounds like Shane Don't maybe not involved from some tweets I saw. Well, Shane Don's interviewing for Vancouver and I don't, I don't think there's a great relationship going back to their Arizona days. They could be wrong.

but I don't think they're connected. You're right? Sure. So I don't believe Shane Don't. I think Shane Don't will move on. But yeah, that's another one we can ask John and Matt's in terms of what's the bigger picture here from a build. I think one of the questions I have is like,

let's say Matt Sundeen, and I'm going to ask him this directly, and him are sitting there and one guy wants to trade for Nolachari, I don't know, I just pick the name and the other guy doesn't like him. I understand that the final say seems to be Chikas, but Keith Peli made it sound like these guys are going to be in collaboration. They're going to work together. You know, they have a good relationship.

I'm curious how involved Mats will be in those. Somebody's got to ultimately be the guy, be the man. Why don't we have that Pelly clip? Keith Pelley clip won on the roles of these. gentleman. Sure. So as my, the role of CEO is to put the structure and process and experts in place and then empower them to make the decisions. At the time of the interviews, it was really fascinating. Neither John or Matt's at any time talked about titles. They only talked about goals, and that's the winning the Stanley Cup. In fact, I don't even think

Matt's knew what his contract title was until he got the contract himself. Would that be fair? Fair. Yeah. So I can tell you unequivocally that these two gentlemen are are totally focused on one thing, and that's bringing the Stanley Cup to Toronto. The way that it'll work is John is the general manager of hockey operations, and I think these two will work collaboratively together on everything. Big decisions will obviously be collective, but at the end of the day on a day-to-day business, John is the general manager of hockey operations,

and Matt's has a role within hockey operations, but it will be something that will come. completely be collaborative throughout the entire process. I think that nails it for me. Was that on their roles? Yeah. Okay, then let's follow that up with

not hiring a president, Keith Pelley. You know, we went through the search. We had no preconceived notions on what structure that we were going to actually move towards. But once we got into the process, we realized, and as we got deeper into it, that this mix with John and Matt's

was one that was going to be formidable. And there's no specific reason for it. It was just this is the structure. It's a different structure, but I think it'll be a winning structure. Thank you, gentlemen, and thank you everyone for joining us here. Today we're now going to break for... Are we breaking too?

No, we're certainly not. I was rushing back. Cut a few clips, we got the lop off the end of that one. All good. So any thoughts? Well, just on no president. So if you were, and maybe this is why they didn't pursue or didn't go after a Doug Armstrong. And I don't know.

I still don't have any real feel for Mike Gillis, whether or not he was really in it. Some suggested that he probably pumped it up a little more than what it really was. There's that theory. There's theories that he needed to control everything and have final decision. But it doesn't bould well for collaborative thinking if one guy wants it all to himself as a president. Yeah. And that's the way it started with Brendan Shanahan.

He had everything when he first started. Control us. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. As president of everything, he was completely the man. And it still feels like John and Matt's certainly, as Keith alluded to, or the guys that he's empowering. But he's also going to be involved, right?

And I don't know in terms of just pass it by me. No, nothing can really move forward unless you pass by me first. That could be in play too. But I think when you hire a guy and you put your neck on your line for John, like Keith is doing right now, you're going to do everything you can to support him. Yeah. You know, I said that in my article today that like these guys, they want to win. You know, Keith Pelly wants this team to win.

They didn't hire John Chaka because, you know, whatever the rumors or the Tide Dome he told them to or, you know, they hired him because they think this guy. Didn't seem to like that very much. No. At the end of the press conference saying that it was not true. It's like, hey, that's not how this worked. And so the end of the day, picking the guy they think gives them the best chance to win. And they genuinely believe in this analytical, you know, sort of mode of thinking.

And so they end up with a guy they wanted. And I think that's to your point about taking a swing earlier in the show or taking not the safe choice. Well, there's no safe choice. So have at it. So the next big question, I guess, would be the Brubay part of it. and I don't know, saw some reporting today, I think maybe he was Drager that mentioned that. I mean, you've mentioned it for three weeks to me

about him potentially being back. I saw that kind of floating out there again. Yeah. And again, it's not, there's going to be people going, he should be fired. Yeah. Like, he should be gone. You're looking at one of them across.

And then there's others that suggests that he just, he didn't have the horses for the type of team he wanted to coach. Yeah. I would disagree with those people. strongly. I also just, you know, one of the things I think deserves a lot of credit is watching, you know, coaches in the playoffs right now recognize, like Anaheim, what kind of team you have and just saying we don't have the horses to play a hard four-check sort of game, so we're going to go.

Did you want to adjust sometimes? Did you want to listen to Cheka on Brubay's future? Yes. Let's do clip four, please, from John Chica. I talked to Craig last night. And look, he's a guy that's a respected leader for over decades in national hockey. league. I think he's a tremendous coach, a Stanley Cup coach on a good person. We had a good conversation. It was brief. We're going to get together later this week with Matt's and go through

it all. I mean, Matt and I are coming in, you know, as outsiders. He spent full year and the past few years with the team. So we want to listen and learn and, you know, understand his, his perspective and then, you know, go forward from there. What would they, but what would they be asking them boys. Like what would, if Chica and Sandine are getting in the room again? What's going on here? Like what are they? I had not saying that sarcastically. What's the line of question? No, no, no. You do here. No, it's

what's been going on? You know, and I don't mean that a negative way. No, no, it's negative. It's good that it's negative because it's true. They were, they were last in everything. They were last in Puck possession. They were last on rush chances. They were last on

outchanced, whatever the case is. They're last in everything. What is going on? They were the year before two even when they won games. So it is a totally fair question. And I do believe that, right, that Chika had mentioned some analytic, you know, to look at that stuff before they talk to them. And it's going to be like, why are these things happening?

Is there an adjustment we can make? I also think that when you finally talk to a coach, you're going to hear this stuff that's like, hey, here's what's going on with Willie. I'm trying to get him going with this. Here's what's going on with Joshua. We had this issue. I showed him video. You just, until you talk to the people in the inside, you don't really have a clue.

Which has, and this is what I've told you weeks ago, is that with so much uncertainty on who's coming in and the timing of everything, to me, it just doesn't make sense to fire Craig Bruby. To me, it doesn't make sense to fire a lot of people who can help them, here's what we've been doing. Well, early on. In this, as far as the head coach is concerned, like if John's now coming in and he needs to talk to the players, he needs to hear from them, he needs to hear from the coaching staff, he needs to hear from a lot of people.

And the timing's not right to fire Craig Bruby. We know what would make the timing right is I don't think he's spoken directly to Austin Matthews. That just named GM not allowed to, I don't think. But if Austin Matthews, and William Leelander were to say, hey, not playing for that guy. And I'm not saying they're going to. Maybe they love him.

But I'm saying that would be the only thing that, to me, that would make him go, okay, well, we got to do this, our best guys. Yeah, that would have been done a lot earlier than tomorrow. So those conversations have been. Already done. So then you have your answer. Okay, you don't get this far and then now discover that Austin's not coming back. Oh, like, no.

I also think... That's been looked after already. You're also free to go into next year trying again. And then if you don't like it by Christmas, you can... Then you're going to do it at Christmas? Good. Anyway? I'm not here to tell you that Austin's a huge fan of his either.

But these guys, and I'll include Connor in Edmonton, I'll include Quinn Hughes. They don't have to tip their cards now. They don't have to lead you one way or the other. You may think that you can go back to them and say, hey, I need a decision here. Are you with us or against us? They can still play the, hey, see how we're doing.

Let's see how we are. Let me see what your team looks like in September. Let me see what it looks like at Christmas. Let me see what it looks like at the trade deadline. But the further we go, part of the deal was signing my contract is I've got two more years to fulfill it. I don't need to tell you too much either here.

I just, to one of the things that we've talked about here a lot is having multiple new people in charge come in and be like, we've got to have a look at this and not have the prior history of watching them over the past couple years and be like, let's just see what we have here. And there's a couple, like having Bruce Cassidy out there to me who was a premier coach in the league for a short burn type of team, which the Toronto Maple Leaf are trying to win.

right now, I just, I think it would be a mistake. I do. And this seems like, I mean, you're, you can tell me the game. I'm sorry to cut you off. No, that's fine, but the mistake also is putting a guy in that you think can help win now, but the team isn't ready to win now. Yeah. There you go.

Right? Like, Mike Sullivan went from like, genius, best hockey coach on the planet to the next step for the Rangers. What is going on in New York? And you don't want to do that. And Mike Sullivan's not going anywhere for a very long time. Yeah. Right?

But Bruce Cassidy isn't Mike Sullivan. He's not. But I will. You don't think he's, you think Sullivan's a better coach? I don't think Sullivan or I don't think Cassidy has the same reputation as Sullivan or the longevity that that Sullivan's getting right now, I don't think Cassidy has it.

Okay. I do think that you know, you only have Matthews under contract for two more years and you have to make the important decision, do you think that Craig Barubi that you would improve if you moved on from him?

And you have to make that decision. You can make it at Christmas? Well, that's kind of... Right. If you think you can do better, then I think you have to do better. But if you think Barubi just, you know,

I believe Chika, he used the words, God, it's Chica. It's Chica. He used the words latent upside for the team that he thinks there's more there with this team than they kind of got out of it last year. Which I do think that's there. He thinks that, you know, making moves, he's got to have a high hit rate and be creative and all those words. Those things, I was like, yeah, that's what I've been saying. You need someone in here to get creative. If anything, he's a guy willing to get creative.

24 trades in his four years as GM with Arizona. which is, you know, compared to what we've had here the last couple years, a pretty staggering number. He's willing to throw it on the wall and see if it sticks. Well, and at the draft table, he traded his picks, trade it up, traded back. He traded up four spots to get chikrin in Arizona. They had 20, traded up to 16 to make sure they got their guy, which hit. You know, like, he's, he does stuff.

And that was a big issue with Brad Tree Living is that he... Doing stuff. Yes, he makes lots of calls. Yes, he's in on. everything in terms of the conversation but getting him to pull the trigger was like pulling teeth.

Like you got it, you cannot wait till deadline day. The Matthews part of this. Riccio asked him about the, like the, what you have to present to Matthews to show that you're going to be a winning team to keep him here past

the next two years. If we could play clip five on Matthew's future, please. Yeah. That's a fair question. Yeah, I just start by saying, you know, my experience with Austin in Arizona, I was the general manager there as he was coming up before he was drafted even. And just to watch him, you know, live, his passion for the game, the quality of player he is, the quality of person he is. I was very fortunate to get to know his dad, Brian, his mom, mama, his sister, his family, his agent.

So you'd get a really good perspective on who Austin is and the type of people he surrounds him. himself with. So he's one of the top goal scores last decade, if not the top goal score. He's a 200-foot centerman, plays a game the right way. I just came from an organization where we spent our entire existence looking for that exact player. So we're incredibly fortunate to have Austin. And, you know, I think it is, yeah, I agree with the way you termed it, actually. It is our job to sell him on, you know, what we're capable of and reaching the ultimate goal, because I know that that's what's most important to him. And, you know, how do we do we do? do that is not a sales job i'd say it's more of you know what's the vision what's the plan

and concrete steps that we're going to take to try to get the team to where he wants it to be and we share that same common goal didn't mention the dog did he doesn't know the dog at all i want you guys to ask him like does he feels it sounds like they're buds they're boys like i mean he just named off his whole family sounds like i mean is that part of the reason fans should feel good about that they have a real relationship is this like a jeff jackson situation here like are they buds like math well that's what they did in Edmonton, right? Where they brought in his agent and with McDavid doesn't hurt, right?

I don't know. There has to be a factor of that for sure when it came to Jeff Jackson and Edmonton. Yeah. Like how can you not simply connect the dots? But there's no guarantees. I liked at least John came a little bit somewhat clean to saying, you know, he's been here 10 years. But yeah, we got to sell them. We got to sell them on idea and a plan.

and these players that hold so many cards want some sort of reassurance. Yeah. I mean, my era was different, man. It was even the superstars didn't have... Teams selling them on the future. The pull that they have now, right? And if he's not feeling it,

and we're going to discuss this a little later on our show about Edmonton, but they got some real issues with dry-sidal and McDavid right now and their thoughts and ideas of what this team needs or how it needs to get better and how vocal they are on it and all this would do

would probably give Austin a little bit more confidence to go back to the Leafs now or John or Matt's or Keith and go, okay, sell me a little bit more on this. Tell me, who am I going to play with? How many right wingers

am I going to have next season? You know, I think if someone were to pull me aside to the end of this year and say, what's the most famous answer ever give it on your show to one of your interview questions? I think it might be when you asked Brad Tree Living, what's the plan?

And he was like, we will have a plan. And it was like, it's after the trade deadline. We can't be coming up with a plan now. Yeah. There should be one. And so I think for Matthews, when he talks with Chica, I think your point about having a plan is crucial.

Like, you know, you can't know exactly the names of the players you're going to get or pursue or whatever. but like you have to be able to outline some idea of what you want to do. We want to, we're looking for a puck moving defenseman, top pair guy. We're looking to get younger. We're looking to acquire picks. You know, you have to be able to give some vision to the guy. And I think that probably annoys you that you're trying to sell a player on staying there

rather than the player doing their job and earning it. But in today's world, you have to. And it wasn't by accident that John mentioned his. parents because you don't just have to sell him. You got to sell mom and dad too. You got to sell the entourage, baby. And that never happened before in our era. Like, I just remember my dad just giddy, you know.

Oh my God. That's Mike Keenan. I'm like, yeah, dad. Sometimes he doesn't say very nice things to us. Dad. Papa, he's mean to me. Stop drooling, dad. Okay, he benched me like he made me a help.

he scratched like six out of nine games when I wore a red sock mimicking him in the dressing room. Do you think that Matthews would have had some input on this? Like, I mean, with, with. I don't. No? I personally don't. Okay. Do you?

I think those star players get kept in the loop. I don't know what that means other than that there's no surprises. This is what we're doing. This is what we're leaning towards. I don't think they're going, okay, what's your vote? Who do you like? Right? Who do you?

you want. Yeah. And no player wants that. No. You don't want to be on the hook for that. But you don't mind, yeah, I kind of like this guy. I've met him. I know he's a good dude.

It's just the reality that these star players, it's important for them to feel like they're, they're part of the build and part of the process. And as John said in his press conference, they're part of a partnership. So, but bigger partnership with the likes of Matthews and Nylander now. Yeah. Talking about huge value contracts and everyone's career. tied together, so that makes sense. Game time?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, we got to do that in this hour. Sorry, got to make things mixed up. Because we've got a rather big... A couple of large guests coming here. Physically, large. It's game time. Presented by Bet365,

an official partner of the NHL, almost 19 plus. Ontario only, please play responsibly. Two series get underway, or no, one series gets underway tonight. Game two of another series that started while the first series was going, first round was going, which I hate.

It's just, I don't know, watching the first game, well, there's a game seven still be played. It felt a little bit weird to me. Anyways, Philadelphia in Carolina tonight, first game, the Philadelphia Flyers didn't get to play with the puck. Nope. The Carolina Hurricanes had the puck the entire time. So it feels like that may be similar tonight.

And the line would reflect it. The Carolina Hurricanes are minus 270 tonight. The Philadelphia Flyers are plus two times. The Hurricanes were, had the laser pointer, and the flyers were the cats. They were just chasing something around they were never going to catch. Yeah, it's not looking good, I would say,

for the flyers. And the Toronto Blue Jays get a series underway tonight. They're back at the Trop. The House of Horrors, which they didn't visit last year because it got hurt by the hurricane. It is now back, it's brighter.

It looks worse than ever. And the Blue Jays never win there. They are underdogs tonight, as you would imagine, with Eric Lauer on the hill. We'll see how that goes. Got an opener for them? I don't think so. All right.

Plus, 104. on the money line for the Toronto Blue Jays opening a series up tonight, but you can flick back and forth with the hockey on Sportsnet. Anyways, that was game time presented by Bet365, an official partner of the NHL, busman 19, plus Ontario only. Please play it responsibly. And a reminder, this hour of real Kippenborne brought you by Bet369, RK, let's take...

What did I say? 369. That's my old phone number. Get it together, but... Oh, my God. All right. Three, six, five. I want to talk some oilers?

Yeah. We are going to talk. Plenty. Plenty talk on the Edmonton Oilers. Where do they go from here? And Leon Dreisdell had some interesting comments as well. That. John Chica and Matt Sundin in studio.

Next hour, you're not going to want to miss it. Don't touch that dial. Hey, it's Matt Marquesie. And I'm Mike Feuda. We're discussing the top stories of the day across the NHL and the hockey world. Weekdays at noon. It's the fan hockey show on SportsNet 590, The Fan, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to the program. Nick Caprio's Justin Boren, Sammy McKee. Time now for the Accura Performance Matchup, the 2026 Accura MDX, precisely premium. So the Anaheim Ducks are visiting the Vegas Golden Knights tonight for game one of their Western Conference

semifinal, right? No. Yes. That sounds right. It's a semifinal of the Western Conference. Correct. Not the semifinal. Anyways. That was good talk.

A few stats to throw out you for this game. Jackson Lecombe has nine points in six games. He can tie Joe Micoletti, seven games played. For the fewest games by defense, been to 10 career postseason points. Wait. Yes, that Joe McAletty? Yes, that Joe McAletty.

Wait, he played hockey? He played hockey. Yeah, of course he did. Go figure. You don't remember McAletty's career? No, I play two. Come on. So, yeah.

There's a lot today. I wouldn't have guessed that Joe McElady was the fastest to 10 career playoff points for a defenseman, so Jackson Lecombe can tie him tonight. Chris Kreider enters play one goal shy, becoming the sixth U.S.-born player to record 50 playoff goals. Wow. The only others to achieve the feat are. U.S. players to score 50 playoff goals?

Yes. Ah, boy. Medano. Yes. The number one was. Kane. Yes. Ronick.

Roanick. J.R. Joe Mullen has 60 And the all-time leaders, Joe Pavalsky, was 74. Really? Yeah, the all-time American goal-scoring leader. He lit up my college hockey team. He lit up a lot of teams.

Now he's just like winning Lake Tahoe celebrity tournaments. Is he playing that? Oh my gosh. He wins it. Really? Yeah, he's the real deal. Anyways, there you go. There's a little golf talk.

And the Vegas enters the series with a 12-7 record in game one. and that is the highest winning percentage in series opening Stanley Cup playoff history with five games played. I mean that they get a bit of an advantage because they've only been around for less than 10 years. But there you go. They're good in game ones.

That was the Accura performance matchup, the 2026 Accura MDX, precisely premium. Beautiful. Thanks, Akira. Okay, has mentioned before the break, a lot of noise coming out of Edmonton with their early exit out of the Stanley Cup playoff,

something that they're not used to after a couple of good runs to the Stanley Cup final. Drysettles the dude, man. Like that, he's thoughtful, he's smart, he's not afraid. He did not hold back on the end of the year presser. Essentially, and we do have some sound. We have three different clips from him. Which one do you like the most?

Let's do, I like the first two. Actually, I love all three. I love all three. Okay, let's go with his concern. Number one, please. Yes, I am. concerned about that. And a little bit of that leads into, you know, obviously as players, like I said before,

like we didn't do a good enough job of, you know, properly winning games. And I don't like using the terminology of taking the regular season serious because we do. We go into every game and we try to do it right. We say the right things. But I think you really have to. you know, in regular season, form these moments. You have to get comfortable in these moments.

And we didn't do that this year. And it ended up, you know, showing in the first round here. So, but yes, I am concerned because we're not trending in the right direction. We've taken big steps backwards. And we got to get a grip of this and head back in the right direction.

Wow. Yeah, I mean, if you were a player and you wanted to call out either the coach or the management decisions, some of these conversations are kind of how they would sound to me. Like the way that he's phrased that we have taken big steps backwards. I don't think he thinks his play was worse. The one that stood out for me was. He was 10 points? Right.

The one that stood out for me is we're not winning, we're not properly winning games. And that to me is just. right in the face of your head coach. Yeah. Well, I mean, you've got the Connor McDavid quote of old. Yeah. Which is, you don't properly win hockey games

when you rely on like three people to carry you every night. That's what he's saying. Yeah. We have, okay, let's, perfect. That's a good lead in. Let's go in the clip two. The start of it has spec asked the question.

It's a great question from spec. And then he has his answer. So let's go clip two. The question for you, One of the things around this organization for a long time, and it just came up with Chris, was we need to give the whole roster more ownership of what we're doing here. It can't just be on the top guys like it so often is around here. From the top of the roster where you're sitting,

how do you see that concept of having everybody a little more involved in the product here? There is no choice but that, you know, like the best team that we've had in 2024, everybody played such a major role in it. Like, that was the best team we've had. And everybody was so big, you know, the McLeod's, the Fogles, all those guys. They played such a massive role in all of the Dihar and A, C, C, all those guys. And you need those guys to win. You need those guys to go deep.

Yes, I think at the end of the day, you know, Connor, Bushy, maybe myself, like, maybe the three of us when the game's on the line we have to make a difference and the day to day we have to set the tone and we have to lead in the right way and come up with these big goals and these big moments yes

but at the end of the day it's not a three-man team it's not a four-man team you know you need everybody to feel important you need everybody to want to be important and yeah I think something to to look forward to next season.

Yes, Dan. It's something to look forward to next season. It was pretty specific, eh? Dropping names, talking about how last year wasn't even the best team they'd have. They're like, hey? You liked me? I'll come back.

I don't know. The one that makes everyone the most nervous out west in Alberta, Edmonton, is Conner's future. Yes. And he also touched on that. Yeah, let's play it.

Clip three. from dry saddle. So your sign here for a long time. Connor obviously isn't. I have to ask you about the sort of Connor McDavid window here. You know, how much do you, how much does this organization, how much does McDavid's time here and potential time here shape everything we're doing around here? A lot.

I mean, in what world do you have the best player in the world on your team and you're not, looking to win or you're like and I know we're looking to win but we need to be better we have to be better there's no way around it we we have to improve and um you know he's signed for two more years and and god knows where that goes but we have two years here right now as of right now we have two years and we have to get significantly better god knows where that goes but jesus you know

i just think it's so awesome that he's not pretending it doesn't matter. Or he's not pretending that he's not aware of it. That's been our biggest complaint here forever. We just control. We can control. It's not that big a deal. We can do our best next year.

And that's out of my hands. Yeah, but when we do it and the media does it, it's just, it's overreaction. And we've heard people in Edmonton say that. No, he's just coming from Toronto because they want him to sign with the Leafs. And it's like, oh, no, now that Leon says it, it's like, it's real. It's real. It's coming from the horse's mouth. Hey, they've been aware.

They are always aware of these things. and it's great to look at it in the face and say this is something we're concerned about, something we have to deal with. The moment he signed for a two-year extension with no raise, which is like still, like, it's offensive.

It's crazy. It's horrible. It's horrible that, you know, he doesn't take a raise that he deserves. And then they lose in the first round. that that's the writing on the wall for Leon. That's Leon's green light. Yeah.

People wake up. He signed for two years, didn't take a raise to try to make the team better, and we've taken massive steps backwards. Like, where do you think this is trending? Not in a good direction. The thing is, you know, much like we've talked about here in Toronto,

those guys are still there. And so their job now is to figure out, how do they get better at the fringes? They're paying, I think, what is it, 8 million combined for Kristen Jari and Jack Campbell's buyout next year? Connor Ingram's not under contract next year. Like, they need to find a real goalie.

They need to find some, like, it's a big job, you know, and we'll talk to John and Matt's when they come in, but there's a similar kind of scenario going on is that they've overspent a little bit. They're up against the count. They've got issues with not enough assets. And, okay, Leon, we get it. You got to improve.

But how? We've tried a lot. How? Got to go get another goalie now? Yeah. You don't, this isn't like golfing with my dad, and he's asking for a mulligan when he shanks went in the trees.

You know? Didn't you your dad to catch a stray here. They could use a few mulligans right now, but they don't exist. And the lease are in tough too with last couple of trades. Yeah. But no first rounders come in. We'll see what happens tomorrow night with the lottery.

Big night. Right? But Sammy, like, if they get the fifth pick or they get a pick and it's... The first one. Right? They could get the first one still. It's a long shot. What are the odds?

8.2%. 8.8.8. or 8.2% they get first overall. 8.2.2 they get second as well. Which I think is important if you can hang your hat on a real person with a real future. You put a hat on a physical head. Physical head. But it hurts like hell that the next two years will mean that you don't participate in the draft.

Yeah. And meaningful first round picks. You'll have real clarity if you get or if you don't get the player either way. You'll have your clarity that, you know, next year you could draft top 10. Trent Frederick, I'm sorry, but like, that's, you don't get a mulligan off that one. No, he's not this bad. He's got to reassess him. No, no.

There's nothing he can ever do that will justify giving him eight years at almost $4 million. You need to give me. Nothing. There was no competition. There was no one else that was going to strike that deal. It was very weird. They needed to go there. Like, if you saw six years, you'd be like, mind-boggling.

Yeah. Okay? He's a fourth-line guy who had some good shifts in Boston, and you traded for him when his ankle was still healing. He never recovered for that year. I don't get that. Easily the part of that that Jake is hard to recover. Is that he's 28.

You know, he's not 24 on an eight-year deal or something. It's not likely to get a lot better, but he does have better than he brought this year. Leon talked about them getting bigger. He's a guy who needs to find his game a little bit. How about the Montreal Canadians winning in a game 7 with less than 10 shots or whatever I am? Yeah, we'll pick that up in our conversation as we go national.

Next on the Real Kipper and Bourne show. Also, John Chicaa and Matt Sundin in studio. No pressure, boys. We got a lot of questions. and they've got the answers, hopefully. That part of it. That'll be fun. Anyways, more when we return to Real Kippenbor and do not touch that dial.