Real Kyper & Bourne - McKenna Turns Heads + Opening Night Decisions Loom

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne and Sam McKee kick off Real Kyper and Bourne breaking down the Leafs' preseason finale, Gavin McKenna's standout showing and whether the hype is already justified. They discuss Auston Matthews' vintage looking goal, Matthew Knies being challenged by Jim Hiller, roster projections for opening night, and the latest on Steven Lorentz, Nick Paul and Chris Tanev. Plus, thoughts on the Leafs' team trip to Arizona and react to Adam Fantilli's extension. They cap off the hour reacting to Mark Messier's comments on Mike Babcock's return, and a look at Kyper's trade board.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Come on in. Fastest hour in hockey. Don't blink. Real Kippur and Bourne show season six, Sammy. You believe it. Me, you. Justin Bourne. Jake the Snake Shultz, Derek Brandeale.

Samuel Gassera. Did they say it right? Gacera? Gacera? Head to the right direction. Yeah. Assistant producer. He is Sammy squared.

Yep. Now for the rest of the season. That's fine. Okay. Live on SportsF590. The fans. Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet Plus and YouTube, wherever you get your pods, Apple, Spotify, we're here.

Toronto Maple Leafs last night, putting a cherry on top of their preseason on what was another Marty Feldman night. Yeah. Split squad. And 2 and 0. They swept the Sends. Battle of Ontario back. One was a lot more convinced.

the other and if you were going to have your choice, you'd certainly take the one at home with the majority of your star players. Yeah, but I think you take the other one too, or you send a bunch of grunts on the road and get a gritty fight, bang, sort of win. Perfect. Good night for the leafers. I don't want to come in here and do the thing

that everybody's expecting me to do. Everyone thinks I'm going to do. But boy, 92 is looking pretty good at their boys. Holy smokes Geez Well the head coach Wanted a little bit more Wanted him to kind of

Push it a little bit more Off of his first game against Montreal Safe to say he did it Yeah I mean he didn't go two shifts Without doing something They made you go Oh

That's not something they had in the lineup last year So you know Not gonna get ahead of ourselves And say it's gonna be this or whatever all year But it's just cool that that's in there That he can do some things that they haven't had Yeah.

And I just... Really impressive things. Yeah, he was the best player on the ice for me. He was. Totally agree. I don't know how you watch it. I mean, it's preseason. They're playing a lot of bumps from their team that no one really knows.

Like, you know, it's a lot of guys that are not going to be on the team. I don't want to overplay it, but you just don't see that type of skill, performance, what a mindset, IQ. It just doesn't come by very often at 18. Yeah. I mean, the confidence to even... try some of the things he tried. And like you can say, yeah, it's an AHL and a half squad or whatever.

But everyone else on the Leafs also played that squad. And he was the most impressive of them. So, you know, they're going to have decisions to make as things go on. But like how long you keep Jack Roslick on the power play. I know he scored. Well, he said that thing sitting on the bench, you know, that weapon. I don't know. Boy, that was some showing.

I mean, you already put them up with Matthews last night at some point. You know what we're doing it. And Nyes is going off that one. We can talk nice too, but man. It's what stood out again for me, and there's a couple times when I'm like, I think they got him. And it's his escapability.

Good word. In short places on the ice that he can turn what looks, what deems a turnover or getting closed out into drawing a penalty. There was a moment on yesterday's show where I was going to talk. about like these quad A guys who just can't quite get to the spaces they need to do the things they do to score in the American League. I was like, it might look

like that the first year. And then last night totally changed my mind where I was like, oh, he sees when he's getting painted in a corner and he's able to devise a way out of it. He's, uh, boy. That's ridiculous. So I... Highlights if you're watching on TV.

I really do love, though, that how bent out of shape everybody's already getting that we're excited about this. Like, it's just... No, it's... It's legit. No, no, the other fan base, like I was a fan. It's okay. In the eye of this.

I'm just saying that they're already... You and a lot of people have been the butt of jokes for a very long time. Unrelated to anything. Oh, yeah, there's nothing to happen. So why break precedent now? Well, I personally love it because there's a ton of fan bases around the league that are incredibly sour that this guy ended up on the Leafs. And you know what?

Quite frankly, other places in Canada, that were, you know, Canucks, flames. Yeah. Specifically, that really thought they had a chance to get him. I get being pissed. But it's pretty amazing. It's such a game changer. And you can sit there and still question where this season could go.

But it's hard to question, like, the future that this guy has pertain to the next 10, 15 years. with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah. Yeah. I know like there's going to be times for the hedging in times where it doesn't, whatever. So I think you should, as a least fan, allow yourself to come in the night after

where he's the best player on the rink in the national hockey league game and go, wow. But you know that's not how this works. No. Yeah, it's like people like, oh, but when they back check harder in the real games, my mama, it's like, shut up. But it's also true.

I know. It's not true. They're right. I know. He walks through. Michael Monio last night, who's a legit NHL guy. He got... He got Selky votes. And people are

excited about that. They're like, oh, you idiots. God. Again, it's the skating, and they're all NHL caliber skaters last night, or else they would never be in a position to even play an

exhibition game. Granted, there's other areas of the ice that have probably kept a dozen of them from ever having an NHL career and that's how you think the game or being in the right place at the right time but it's skating to me again

and I use the term escapability which pops out as the number one thing that I'm drawn to but let's listen from the head coach Jim Hiller on McKenna's skating clip one then I think probably if you asked me nobody did I guess but I'll tell you my opinion anyways if you asked me what's the one part of

game that has caught you off guard. And I would say it's a skating. It's a speed. You know, I don't know if he was talked about that way, but his skating and his straightaway speed has been really good. Of course, we know he's got great agility, but that's the thing that's jumped out at me so far. He was on the ice a lot this summer.

You know, and he'll just continue to grow and get bigger and stronger. By the way, Adam Fantilly signed a new contract with Columbus six years, $82.5 million. So we can get to that. What's the AV? Oh, boy. Math on that is going to be about 15 probably. No, less than that. 13?

13, 14, something like that. I don't know. The ask, the ask was Connor Bedard's contract. 13.75. Yeah, okay. The ask was Connor Bedard's contract for the last,

I don't know, month. And what a Bedard get? 15? Yeah, 15. Yeah. Well, I think Gocee, Cutter Goce helped this along. But how do you ask for Connor Bedard's contract?

But I guess what has Bedard done that's, you know, exceptional enough to think it's untouchable? By the way, Sam was really annoyed the other day when SportsNest's top 50 players came out and William Nealander is behind Bedard in the rankings. I mean, that's, I'm a Noah Mahomer and everybody. Come on. Willie's like a near 100.40 goal guy.

A couple of things been trickling around on our website. That's been rubbing me the wrong way recently. I don't need to maybe get into that, Jason Bucola, but we can continue. We can continue. Willie's two-on-one with J.T. All-world class. Nasty.

Just held the goalie with that last second pause. That would bring up a few notches on that list, that play. You would think so. He's better than Connor Fadard. Come on. Well, but he's also got years on. People are forecasting. Right?

Was not the top 50 players in 40 years? It's the top 50 players. Anyways. Oh, no, we don't even get bogged down. All right. Okay. Um, where else, uh, you go to Canada? Have we been too positive? Do you want to, last night was excessively positive. Like, it all went well. Radish got cooked.

He got, he was, but that's not a real surprise to us. Well, no. And he was also going back as the week's idea. We, we just said, that's not his forte. That's not his strength, right? And Stutz was fast. This is fast. Very fast. You know, if we want to continue on that train, I would say that it was nice to see Austin Matthews, rip one bar down. I thought that's the signature shot. We didn't see it last year a single time, I don't think. I can't remember seeing anything like that. By the way, the best offense, you know what reminded me or made me think about Matthews last night

was he got a couple shifts with McKenna and finally had ozone time. They're touching it, passing it around, getting to stay in the ozone. Just like last year, that never happened. It just never happened. And it felt like it wasn't happening a ton until... You played with McKenna?

Yeah. Like, I mean, we can talk about those guys on the top line. I guess Rosswick has three points last night, right? It scored, a couple assists. I'm not sure what he's going to be on that line. But it feels, you know, pretty inevitable that 92 ends up there. But anyways. Okay, so if we're going to go to kind of down that path,

I think one of those things that Jim Hiller was looking for with Austin and his line was that ozone time. Yeah. Those second and third waves where less rush and more cycle, right? And did you get the sense of that? Not until McKenna was out there. You know, if we're going to turn the page, we have some interesting clips on Matthew Nyes.

So I was watching Nyes pretty close last night because I'm very interested in this. This guy has fascinated me as someone who's so full of potential and gets in trade rumors and he didn't have a good night last night for me. He looks, I don't know if it's tired or slow or he's standing upright at times. I don't know if I'm looking for it, but there was no, he's just, he has not looked good to me through a couple of games

and I can't speak for camp, but the practices. Yeah. You got a sense right out of the gate from Jim Hiller that, and he's making no bones about it, he's using the media to also send messages. Right? Do we have some of those clips, Sam? So we have two clips. We have his clip from last night

directly after the game when he was asked about Nyes. So we can start about that, and we have one from this morning on Nyes. So let's start with Jim Hiller, clip 5 on Nyes. I thought he was better tonight. You know, wasn't that dangerous. I think he only ended up with one shot on goal,

took one to the net. So I think this has been okay. You know, I wouldn't say strongly one way. or the other. I think there's more there for sure. Boy, that's one way or the other. Your coach says that. I think you only had one shot. Wasn't that dangerous? I think that's one way. And then

clip eight, please, Derek, on nigh from this morning after your practice. Clip eight. Well, we just, we watched video before the practice started, and he was in most of the positive clips. And it was some of the stuff we talked about skating back, lifting sticks, winning puck battles. So these, those types

of plays, sometimes you get rewarded on the score. with those, but sometimes you just don't. And he led our team in those plays in those areas last night. So just let him know that that was a positive game for him, and he can build on that. Yeah, I think he

caught himself at some point whether it was the drive home after the game. Oh, crap. I don't have to deal with that. Or waking up this morning and probably revisiting those thoughts and said, I need to I need to put some positive vibes back into this guy.

Yeah, I know when he worked with Mike Babcock, Babs had a sign in his room that said, Catch them doing it right. That was like his one thing. You wanted to show the guys the clips of them. You got it right. This is what we want you to do. You got it. That's, you know, and view it from that angle.

So I'm sure today they showed him clips of him doing it right and said, hey, you're on to something here. And the reason they asked him that question about Nyes, because apparently they had a long chat at practice today. after practice, they're on the ice together, having a conversation. And then that was what the response was after that. So I saw a little tradeboard today on the sports ad-ca website. Yeah, but I told you guys that the other day that.

Matthew Nye's featured on there. One of the main things that I'm drawn to it is the fact that if the Leafs are still going for a big fish here, he is their number one, no restriction guy that everybody's going to ask for. and say what you will about last year, whether it was from the tree living to the Cheka transition, his name's kind of been out there, right? We know that. So it's okay.

There's no deal to be made. If there's not a home run hit, he's going to stay and he's going to be there with Austin and he's going to get countless of opportunities to show he's the number one left winger. but I did find Hiller and his early comments and challenging him a little bit more

the start of potentially seeing this thing kind of play out like I don't want to say he could end up being a whipping boy but he's he's on a now to get this guy to go another level. And I don't think it's necessarily wrong

because we've wanted more out of him in so many different ways in the last couple of years. We've seen it at its peak and its height and damn, does it look good? Yeah. Right? Yeah. As good as it gets.

But can he close the gaps on games when he's not noticeable? And that's a pretty big challenge. You know, so you've got all the trade rooms, and whatever, which little frustrating. He's not on PowerPlay 1. You know what else kind of I'm reminded of? Do you remember last year, if you ever watching those Leafs, like, Blueprint stuff? He was a big dinner guy, right?

That's like his thing on the team. He had a group of guys that went out to dinner on the road. Amazon should do a documentary on that. Well, whether it was Amazon or someone did it. It was Blueprint or whoever. And their dinner was Joseph Wool, Bobby McMahon and Simone Benoit. That was the four of them were like an in-step. Now he's eating alone?

He's just in the- Stephen Glainsburg. Eaton, what is it, the chicken, multi-grain apple sandwich there that we eat every day. Table for one, please. Yeah. I think if you're the coach and you're new here, and like he talked about with Riley,

how it's a clean slate and a fresh, he wants to give him that, if you're coming in here and looking at Matthew Nyes, the guy that hasn't been here, hasn't coached him, and you're looking at like the body, the hands, the power. And you're just like, so I know what could be there. and I'm not seeing it early.

I think he's probably right to try to light a fire, no? Like, I get it. Yeah. It's allowed. It's a good one. It's allowed. Have we played his camp so far? Yeah, we did.

We got that one. We got both of them. So, you know, I know I'm kind of going past, I don't know if there's anything more headline. The Orato Bob looked fine. But Zach McEwen last night had a statement game. And today they put Stephen Lawrence on waivers. Yeah, that had nothing to do.

with it. Unrelated. Unrelated. This guy, like I told you yesterday, there's too many of the same guys. Yeah. Okay. And he was destined to not be there with the pickups. So I don't know what.

I would imagine they've known for weeks that this was going to happen. Like I would claim Lawrence if I were another team in the bottom half of the league, right? He makes 1.3 a year. He's a good NHL. He won a cup with Florida. I want to come up with Florida. Like he can do all the things.

He's a good player. He's just, he doesn't have the utility the way that some of these guys are supposed to have with the Leafs. Yeah. Right now, Nick Paul got hurt, so we're not sure. Undisclosed injury day to day. Do we have an update? We do. Let's play it.

Clip nine. Clip nine. Jim Hiller on Nick Paul. I'll just say it like this. He's obviously he didn't skate today. There's nothing I think that we're overly concerned about. But we have to take a day by day. That's what I would leave it with.

So you expect it. Okay, so he's probably night one available. I watched, like, I watched his first period. He did not skate well. I don't know. I found him laboring. And I don't know if it's something from the summer. He does labor a little bit as a skater.

Okay. All right. I don't know. Everybody's texting me. He's one of the 80th percentile and 90 percentile. And they're really fast. And, oh, my God. Just like, please, people.

They got some guys who can skate, but Nick Paul, I don't count among them. So I think it was something that's been ongoing, whether it's a groin, a hip flexor, but what was his issue? Wrist last year, wasn't it? No, wrist was earlier in his career. I think it was just maybe a knee or. Let me check here. It was a lower body that kept him out.

I don't know, a dozen games last year. but hopefully it's unrelated and there's just something like like Jim just said that's day to day. So with Nick Paul out of the lineup and Dakota or sorry and Steve Lawrence on waivers they're the lines that they have today have a third line of Gru is with Sizzins and Cowan

and Duane Blugher and McEwen and then Joshua is the 13th forward do you think that's possible night one lineup? Yeah, where we're your You're totally in the ballpark here. I think what's good for Zach last night was that if we've got this rotation or if we think that we can call up anybody at any time out of a roster of 25 or 26, yeah, you've got NHL experience.

You're not shy. You can fight. You can stick up for guys. You're in our wheelhouse. I think that's the most important thing out of last night for Zach is you are amongst, star 25, 26 guys. And to me, he's a guy who, as your 12th forward, has utility. Like, he's on a line with Duhayman Bluger who both kill penalties so they can go out

and kill McEwen can be called upon when he has other things to do. Cowan and Sizzins went out as the first PK duo up front last night. Sizzins, I thought, looked great, you know, heavy stick and all the role that you want him to play. So to me, like, the Leafs have not had a Zach McEwan type. Who can play us by 270 NHL games, 30 years old, six. 4, 2.35. 12 forward for me, totally fine with that.

What percentile is skating is he? I don't know. Because there's a lot of percentile talk. I want to find it. Somebody find it. I do want to know. I can't have them on my team if he's thought in the 80th percentile. No, no, no, no.

Oh, my God. 79's no good. 80, you're in. You're in. No good. But there's no testing at training camp. No testing will never know. There's no testing a training camp.

So we can't count pushups or sit-ups, but we get to count a percent. We will measure. A percentile. Yeah. Okay. Anyways, I actually just, I'll just say it like, I like having a, I like having a tough guy. And I think that, that fourth line with Duhame on it,

and Duhayn was flying around in the B game. Like, I mean, he looked like Malkin out there in that game. Like, he was flying around. There wasn't a lot of skill or whatever, but, you know, I think that's a decent fourth line. That actually has some, a little bit of bite to it, willing to fight. listen, there's some teams in the Atlantic that have some pretty rude guys on it.

And you might want to have a couple rude guys on your team. First off, I'll tell you this. He's in the 99th percentile of hardest shot. Who is? He hit McEwen. No way. Ripped on a hundred miles per hour last year. Oh, my God.

Max skating speed. By the way, if you're below the 50th percentile, they don't get into it. You're just sub 50. He is sub 50. Oh, he's off the team. Cut. The pairings last night.

He said for, Morgan Riley and Radish to open this season? They seem to have a optimization plan. They want to roll these guys out in the ozone with offensive players. So yeah, I'm fine with it. Give it a try. Got a shutdown pair when you want to shut down. Again, I like utility.

I don't like the idea of we're not sure what these guys do, but go out there. You know what they're for. So Morgan Riley, I thought looked good last night. Skated well. Much like the Matthews thing, seeing him snap one bar down. It is great to see. Panav out there. Yeah.

Like just kind of skating around and looking like Chris Tanev. Diving towards the front of the net, like to keep one out in preseason. I'm like, just dial it back. He can't play any other way. But just maybe talk to him a bit. Like it's preseason. Don't need to do that. But he's huge, boys.

Like, if he's healthy, this skateboard is pretty good. If he's not, they're in trouble. If he can find what he had two years ago. Yeah. Like, change things for that. It's huge. What's the over? What's the over under?

on Tanav had 84 games 67 and a half Yeah Under for sure Yeah I was gonna set the number I was gonna set it like 50s

Give me it's an older team I want 70 games Give me 70 games It's an older team Ed But for his impact to really be felt He needs to be there At least three quarters of the time

You're just hoping that the Chris Tanna injury this year is a broken hand From blocking a shot as opposed to tissue and lower back and all this different stuff. I was reading up on his last year. It was concussion, then it was spine, then it was groin. Yeah. You know.

You set that, like, yeah, it's getting there. That's a tough season. Okay, if you were listening to our show on Tuesday, which everybody was, right, we had mentioned that the Leafs were potentially going away to Arizona for a little getaway. You guys looked at me like I had a third eye on my fourth. head. But today it's more of a story in terms of people saying, yeah, great or not so great. Where are you on taking the team now to Phoenix, Arizona for a bonding getaway?

Yeah, here's terrible radio. Not everything's a big deal. You know, like I do think it sounds as if I was a problem, player sounds pretty awesome. Like we're going to go skate down there. We'll go play some golf courses. We'll all bond somewhere nice. That's cool.

They're going to practice down there. Great. I do think, you know, do you need to, you know, travel for 10 total hours before an 84 game season? No. Do you need to go to the U.S.? Maybe not. But I just, not everything's a big deal to me.

I'm not too. Yeah. This, this to me has, like, it's, it is set up that if they get off to horrible start, people will just completely. be all over this. I think so? 100%. I mean, maybe we're just looking at the guy.

The people are you. Chike had made the point today. He was like, you know, whether you're sitting in cottage traffic and it's three and a half hours in a car or you're on a plane for five hours, like, I don't know. We're going to blame that for a lack of success early? That seems like a stretch to me. I can really, if you really want me to twist myself and be like, oh, the way the U.S. Canadian relations right now and all.

Like, I could really try to come up with a take, but I don't care. I don't care. they're going. And guess what? Arizona and September, a bunch of golf? It's probably going to rock. Like, it's probably going to rock.

But, I don't care. Is there a way to, what is going to rock? Tell me what is going to. Golfing, hanging with the boys, nice theaters. You know what's going to rock.

Do I want rocking like four days before the season, the home opener, Sammy? Probably not. This is not your normal team. They're going to have 10 new guys on the, on the team. They don't even know each other. Listen, I, I love those.

trips. I've been on them. I know where the value is for sure. But to your point, like, across North America, if they were, if they were to open up the season in L.A., it would make a ton of sense to me. But to go all the way over there and create an environment of, boys, 100, 102 degrees. Okay. It's 38 degrees Celsius there. Okay, it's 102 degrees. Is it today?

Well, it will be. I'm looking right now. It will be over 100 degrees. It's Arizona. It's the desert. Okay. Phoenix, Arizona. Current weather, partly cloudy with a chance of rain. No, I'm joking.

Give me some numbers, Sammy. Bring your umbrella. Give me some numbers. It's hot. It's 82. It's hot. 28 feels like... Not now.

Give me the next three days. Friday, September 25th, tomorrow. It is 37 degrees Celsius on that day. I'm no... Get you 95, something like that? I'm no weather, man. Zero percent chance of rain. Perfect.

I think that's hot. I just... I just... Okay, and listen. This to me is really trying to care about something that barely matters. We know, like, they will go down there and they will really enjoy.

They're going to come back looking like Phil Kessel from the boat trip. I just think it's a long shot at best to. You think if they went to Muscoca, they wouldn't drink or golf? I think it's easier to keep it kind of tighter. Like even if they went to Banff. I don't know. Maybe I just. Banff is nice.

Gorgeous. I play Banff Springs this summer. Pretty more cameras on them, I can assure you. But listen, I just think it's really far. Really far. And it's clear also guys that this is Austin, right? And they've made it abundantly clear. I think John the general manager made it a point to say that this is what Austin wants.

Oh, I don't know. I don't agree with that take on Chikas quotes. I think they said that they had a number of options of places to go. This one kind of came up and they said, and as well, it's cool. He's going to host. You got to understand that this is, this is, this is, this is Austin, though. It is Austin. You think Austin asked for this?

Well, I don't know if he asked for it, but he's certainly, his fingerprints are all over it. Well, yeah, I think I can see that the organization is, maybe they say, hey, if this is a cool thing and we want to keep him happy, maybe they did that. I don't know. I actually, like, I mean, from my perspective of, you know, just a guy that knows not. Nothing. It's kind of interesting that he wants to host all the people in his home. I think it's hometown. He's going to probably take him to his parents' place.

It could be great. That part of it is nice to me. He actually cares enough to do that. They go three and one, four, and one. He looks like a genius. Yeah, I guess. If they go old and four, everyone's going to be like the Arizona trip got him, it's going to be the Giants on the boat with Odell Beckham.

It's going to be like, it's over. I don't know. They're pretty fresh pretty early in the year. If one plane ride derails their start, that'd be pretty fragile. team, you know. I think you would say more about the team than... I can't care. I want to care, but I don't keep you're doing a great job of caring, but I just don't care. Is that bad? Yeah. Care a bit. Not much.

Yeah, sure. That's maybe more accurate. Hey, before we... Paintball. In a hundred degree weather. Are they paintball? I don't know. No, pickleball, tennis. That's what Austin has set up at the house. Probably hike a camelback. Um, it's good cardio. Just don't get dehydrated. Make sure you got lots of electrolytes. Exactly. No electrolytes and beers now, fellas. us. Last thing, one of our mutual boys just wanted to bring up Land and Sim last night, B game. Other game was 6'1, flipped over to the other one because it was a tie game, flipped

over just in time. Feeding Nick Cousin' Knuckles, Sandy. Landon Sim, take a puck to the net, gets a good shot off, and then, yeah, Nick Cousins, just an exemplary guy, God, he's every time I watch a Sends game, something bad happens. He buries him into the boards, cross checks from the face, and Landon Sin gets up and hits him with two hard rights before he knows what happened. He's holding on for dear life. He couldn't even get into the lineup last year with the Marley's.

Sim. But then he played for the play in the playoffs. I know, I know. But it was a challenge. Someone didn't like him down there. He couldn't. And I'd love to see him get in a couple of games with the Leafs this year. He feels like a dark horse, like fan favorite on the rise sort of guy.

It'd be nice. Like, you know, we've talked about a million years trying to like paper toughness to it and sign guys that like want to play like that. Just to develop a young guy to come up here who's a rat and willing to fight people on that stuff would be nice. I love the kid. So shout out Landon's him. Beat the crap of Nick Cousins last night. So good for him.

Fahem fought in preseason. Blugher Foughton preseason. Yeah. Guys are fighting a little bit. McKewam might be on the team. A couple of fights this year would be nice. No? They fight last year.

Boys, like. They pretended to after Matt's. The only thing really for me is, okay, what's it look like when you play the Florida Panthers? There's your, there's your measuring stick. And you want what kind of? You want me? You're in the press box. 100%.

Was that Brady Kachuk is on fire down there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, great. Well, like, listen, I always thought, I never thought that he was good enough to be the best player on a team. But he's in the perfect spot now where what is he, the fourth most important guy in that team in terms of forwards? He's, like, slotting in perfectly, right?

Florida is easily the NHL's most interesting team this year. No question. You know, coming off. Hated? Well, yeah, that too. But what they have? Interesting and hated? They have 83 points last year.

You know, and people, you did your sports net predictions. Do you pick them to win the cup? Yeah, I'm not there yet, but I got next week to go. They're in the conversation for people to pick to win the cup. And that's a big leap, man. That's a big leap. Well, goalie. Bob isn't there.

I don't know what kind of effect it could have. You know, to be it's like how healthy is, Marshand, how healthy is Ryanhart, how healthy is Bennett. Having a 31st worst goals against average last year. Yeah. But there's still that emotional feeling of not seeing them there for that team. When they trade two popsicle sticks and their, you know, fourth liner in the HAL for HALBah, they'll be better. Oh, wouldn't Hellebuck love that? I think that well's dry.

Yeah, they don't have a lot of, they don't have a lot of popsicle sticks left. They had no first until 2030. There you go. All right. Okay, let's take a quick break. When we return, I've got a real Kipper trade board out there already. and thanks to guys like Helibuck and Larkin, Quinn Hughes. It's something worth looking at,

including an interesting name from Western Canada that might be in the mix too. Is it central Canada? We will devalge. The West Coast guy, I don't know. After the break. Also, speaking of West, this is more West. Messier on Babs.

Horrified by the high. Horrified. Oh, my God. Okay. anymore to get into. You are not going to want to miss this. Back after these words. Diving deep into Leaps, Raptors, Jays, and NFL. The Jady Bunk is podcast. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Right back at you in studio. At Kimbril's, Justin Boran, Sammy McKee. Before we maybe get into the trade board that's available

on sportsnet.com. We left the break talking about Mark Messier and his choice words on the hiring of Mike Babcock in Edmonton. So, Sammy, do you have... It's a long read here. Okay. I don't know if you... I don't know if you want to do the whole thing. Tell me the key.

Just for those that possibly have not heard any of it, just give us a couple of... So the pull quote from it, basically, is I am just horrified about the whole thing, to be honest with you. I can read the first paragraph you want. My mom always told me if I didn't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all. I'm absolutely shocked. I'm absolutely shocked from the stories that I heard

from good, reputable character people about the way they were treated. It's been no secret. I agree with Ray, the way that he was onboarded through the players interviewing him is absolutely something that I've never heard of before. Maybe the game changed and that's the way it's going. Great.

I don't know. It certainly wasn't like that. So I can keep going if you want, but it's just he's horrified to use his quotes. Clearly, the ripple effect, especially out in Vancouver, has been one that has been well noted now in terms of just revisiting when he arrived and what it looked like before and what it looked like during. His influence on what it looked like after that have people a little bit, you know, questionable on his look. You know what shocked me about it is, you know, you guys want a cup under Mike Keenan. Yeah.

And, like, you know, Babs' reputation is that sometimes he's mean to players. You know, you guys had success with a guy like that who has similar reputation. So I guess, I don't know, it seemed a lot to me, but. I don't know, like, if I'm, I just think that, you know, Mark Messier is pretty allowed to speak on Oilers things, you know, and it's like if he feels that way and he's a hockey analyst now, he's got to be, he's asked for his opinion. on these things and like, I gotta tell you, boys, he's not the only one with that opinion.

That's not a, that's not a, a opinion that's in the minority. Let's just say that. So, I don't know. I mean, it's been well documented, like how I feel about Mark. Yeah. And I'm not,

I'm not here to, I'm not defending him in any way, shape, or form when it comes to Vancouver, how they feel. They feel the way they feel, and they're totally entitled to that. You know my stance on star players,

and their influence and historically where it's been. And I think, you know, could Mark have influenced Mike Keenan ending up in Vancouver? Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, we know that. Yeah. But historically, we have, we do know that these guys have power and influence. Sure. And it was there before Mark arrived.

It's still there long after Mark's gone, and it will continue to be that way. Austin and Toronto, come on. He wants them in Arizona. They're getting on a plane right now. So it's always been there. I think what has changed now, and maybe this is because of the way we either cover them or that they want to in the way they want to be covered. and the HBO and behind the scenes look,

there are very few secrets anymore. And even if Mark pulled strings in Vancouver or Gretz in L.A. or Edmonton or Stevie Y, it was all behind the scenes, guys. We never heard about any of it. It was always kept internally. We never had the chance to peel the curtains. And now the hiring of Babcock, we might as well been in the room. I know.

We went, we got every last detail who's in, like, who's interviewing him and the players and Hyman and Leon and Connor. And then Connor goes on with Elliot and says, you know, he gets out of hand. I'm going to step in. And it's like, we never heard of that stuff before. And I feel your point that it's not different. It's just we're hearing about it. Exactly.

And I think that's really probably the point my feeling was that that Mark was kind of making is that like it's just it's in everyone's face right now. And it's like that that part never happened before. Yeah. The actual, you know, influence has always been there. But it's just never been played out like this before. Yeah. I saw Ryan Rishog tweeted that team Messier is on the ice with Babcock this morning. Team Gretzky is on tomorrow.

they had named the team prior to training camps. How do you think the Oilers organization feels about those comments? It's, look, we're going through it with Vladdy in Toronto. Come on. Like, it's a comment, and it'll come. Promise messa would do this. Comments can come and go, and it's fine. I don't think.

He's so beloved in Edmonton. Come on. This is not changing a ton. No, fair. All right. Should we go back to the year trade board now? Yeah, okay. Oh, yeah, we should.

So lots of talk, obviously, around Connor and Dylan Larkin, just in terms of now being in this position. And we've seen certain guys go, including Brady Kachuk, and Quinn, where it's kind of the ratings on the, wall you got a year, year and a half. I'm going to walk, but not when you got like five years left. It's a different dynamic. And clearly there's a lot of upset fan bases.

And that's the gist of my opening. But certainly they're at the forefront. And we'll see where it goes. Jason Robertson is still out there. I did mention Mark Schifley as a guy that we're going to have to watch closely here. That's the name that when I was reading through it today jumped off the page to me. Jumped off the page. Now, is this contingent on them having a tough start and it looking like not their year?

Or is this like this might be something they want to do if they're moving Hellebuck? That's the big question here. Can you move Hellebuck and keep contending? Boy, that's a nice, that's Shifley deal, man. Eight and a half. He was fifth in the NHL and points last year, 103 points. And Montreal is looking into him. Oh, right.

Lees fans, like, oh, don't do that. That'd be a great acquisition by Montreal. I mean, but that one, to me, costs. That's a big one to get. Well, it's the guy that... Premier player. The name that we heard with when... Nice.

Page, right? That's right. Yeah. Right. And if you're Winnipeg, you know, given your cycles or whatever, it's not, Terrible. There's a cap'nine there who's kind of projected as a second-line centerman. He's out there in Montemontobo.

You take that goalie in, and now you don't have to have a return goalie on Hellebuck on a trade. I got to tell you, if I'm a Jets fan, and I'm hearing you say that, I am incredibly underwhelmed. You're like Hage, Cappinan. If I'm a Jets fan, I would say, hey, have you seen the contracts that are signed? What was the guy the name today? Oliver Moore. Yeah, what did he get? He got 4.25 for five years.

So Mark Shively makes just double that, which is like, you know, whatever. And he just got a hundred points last year. He just had the best season of his career. And I'm going to get a prospect cap in a goalie that had one of the worst years in the league. Like, I'm good. Yeah, but that's. Thanks, but no thanks. So any current player, any top six forward and top 4D,

if that's what Winnipeg wants, how many of them out there have some trade protection? I don't know. Is it 90%? 95? 98? Right?

It's just nize that doesn't? So who are you finding? Now whether you have a complete no move, 20 teams, 15 teams, five teams, Winnipeg, three teams, two teams, one team. Where would Winnipeg be on their list?

I get it. I get it. So who, what choice do you have other than top prospects? So if you're Winnipeg, though, and that's something you're considering, then you're just considering the next cycle. Ten years. Ten years? Yeah.

Like the next ten years is what you're thinking about. Yes. The next decade. You know, I hate saying this, but then where do you stop, right? Yeah, Carl Connor. Yeah. Anyway, that's not, this is all... But he's 33.

He's 33 and Conner's 29. Yeah, he's got... It's a different window. Shifley does, obviously, is the full no move right now. And then starting July 1st, the 2027, players, submits a 10-te-to-n-tree list. Jason Robertson. That one's fascinating.

He just signed the one-year deal. Signed the one-year deal. But there's got to be some grapes that are not particularly sweet, between the two of them and the way this off season went, do you think that they would not even go into the year together? No, they're going to go in the year together. Yeah, and he's untradable, really, unless they go in the tank.

So he, he, they can sign him January 1st, but he won't sign it January 1st because he can't get a no move until next season. And so the last thing you want to do is commit a long-term deal and then have them and then trade them to Seattle. And then trade them to Seattle. So that's. Hold on. I need to wrap my head around this. So you think that he will do what here?

Because you have him on your trade board, but then you call them untradable. Well, he's untradable unless he picks a team and then commits to that team long term. And I did mention that Kyle Dubas got Nick Robertson for a number of reasons. But right on the top of the list was to help lure his brother. Oh, boy. The brother thing. Have you noticed the theme around the NHL?

The rucks. Those American brothers just love each other. They sure do. Like one thing you cannot question about American brothers is their love for each other. Brother. So we'll keep an eye on that one. Yeah.

All right. Brother. Brother. All right. Any other names on there that you want to talk about? Yeah. How about Marchenko again? Oh, yeah.

Because you mentioned the Leafs and the little blurb, and people got excited about that. That guy just watched out yesterday. I don't know how long they're going to go with that kind of distraction. Who has to add? He's restricted. So it's not like if you're a team trading for him, you're going to get two years before you probably got to pay him $12, $13 million.

Yeah. 14 maybe if he scores another 40 goals. Yeah. but who doesn't like him. I know you like him. I love him. I am curious, like, in a nice deal, who has to add to that package?

I guess the Marchenko contract would be interesting. Like, what's he going to do? Will he stay? Will he sign something long term with you? What's his percentile? Hi. Okay, good. Yeah, he can move.

It says heavy. Good. What is he? 6-3-201. Yeah. Scores. Hey, did you see, Kimber, do you care about the

NHL announcing consolidation of the Winnipeg Jets history? That's cool. That's good Jets talk. Yeah, yeah. Your history is being consolidated. Dale Hauerchuk is now the leading score all time for the Jets franchise once again. I'm okay with that.

Justice. Love it. I'm okay with that. Justice for Ducky. You quit his egg to be like, no, I don't like you. I know. That's the coyotes.

I should still hold the record in North Bay at 62 goals. Did something change? Yeah. North Bay Centennial's to the battalion with different ownership. Oh. I don't like it, Kip.

Let's get you reinstalled. So, but didn't, did Brazo score, what did Brazo score there? 61? 61. Oh, what a bum. I think 61 or 60. I don't know.

Waw, wah, wah, wow. Good try. Good try. You know, it's fine. It's the Winnipeg Jets, right? It is. It makes perfect sense. And then whoever, if they have a new coyotes there can be their all-time leading score

would probably be Shane Don't, I'm assuming. I don't know. Seems right. Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Yeah. I thought he looked good last night. I don't really know who else would even be qualified. Can you keep the name?

Go back to the coyotes? Well, I think they'll be the coyotes and they go back there. Don't you? I don't know. Why are you saying when? I don't know who owns. I don't know who owns it. Who owns the Chiefs?

Who owns Alexander Neketian. Available from the Carolina Hurricane. why isn't he moving? Like why hasn't that? Putting a lot of stock, I guess, in the return for him. I mean, he is a big, 6'53, 220 pound D who can put up points and 24 years old. He's another one that I think you could work around a Connor Hellebuck trade with Carolina, but I don't think he wants to go to Winnipeg and sign a long-term deal.

Okay, quick buzz through a couple of these. Do you think Larkin happened soon? There could be a three-way trade for him. Do you think Larkin happens soon? No. No. I don't. There's a couple clips of him and giving a training camp effort that was substandard yesterday.

Yeah, I saw that clip. I do have Quinn Hughes in here. I did mention that, you know, what's the delay? Some of it is leaning towards that he's waiting for a two. in front of the number? Yes. And they haven't put it there yet? Well, it could even be the point where they might have to go over.

Gail McCar. Here's 21. Right? And how desperate are they to keep him? You know, he really trying to have his cake and eat it too here, right? I want to make 21 million, but also be with my brothers in New Jersey. Is it the money? Is it the term?

Is it getting together with his family in New Jersey? I think he's just going to eat it all year long. I do too. You know, until they trade him at the deadline to someone who, you know, he's not going to stay with. If you're... New Jersey, I guess. If you're Minnesota, though, like, if he's willing to sign it's 21, wouldn't you just do it or no? Yeah.

Yeah? For sure. But I don't think that he wants to stay. Fair enough. It just seems like there's no reason for the delay to be this long already. You wanted to do it. Right? Just do it.

Just do it. All right. Once again, it's the real Kipper Trade Board 1.0. A first look at who's moving this season. You can find it on Sportsnet.com. All right, boys. We've got like four days in a row with no guess. Just us.

I am such a good producer. That's crazy. We don't know if we've ever done that. Great work, Sammy. We crushed it this week. We will have a Friday, guess. Could we find somebody on a Friday? We'll see.

We'll talk. We'll talk. Enjoy your night, everybody.