Real Kyper & Bourne - Passenger Pettersson & Bruins on the Brink

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Justin Bourne and Sam McKee look back on the Oilers tying up their series 2-2 with a 3-2 win over the Canucks last night. JD Bunkis shares his thoughts on Elias Pettersson's unimpactful play, the Leafs' coaching search, Tavares' awkward contract situation and what return he would want in a potential Marner trade (7:42). Dan Riccio of Canucks Central discusses whether Vancouver should rush Demko back with reports he's nearing a return, the narratives around Pettersson and how last night's game changes the series (27:14). Finally, Bruins analyst Pete Blackburn weighs in on Boston pushing the Panthers to Game 6, Montgomery's animated coaching in Game 5, Maurice's masterful approach to the media and the latest on Marchand (53:02).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.

Welcome in to Real Kipper and Born. My name is Justin Bourne and I am joined today not by Real Kipper, the fake Kipper today. It's my friend, Sam McKee. Sammy, how are you, pal? Hey, buddy. Sliding on over to the big desk. Yes, nice to have you.

Kippy could no longer fight. Kippy lost the battle. He was so proud of himself. He gave him props for fighting through illness, and it took him down, team. It took him down. Sad day. Hope he's okay. We're thinking of him him down, team. It took him down. Sad day. Hope he's okay.

We're thinking of him. Yeah. Do a tribute to him later in the show. We're on Sportsnet, Sportsnet 590, Sportsnet 360, and Sportsnet Plus from today, 430 to 6 p.m. You can get our podcast wherever you get your pods, and remember to text us at 590-590, and Sammy will scan through those and maybe read a couple.

We shall see. How are you doing, man man i'm doing well i had something that uh wanted to bring up with you tonight uh is i know this is very relevant to everybody watching nationally and but it may be more than gta tonight is game four of the ohl finals with the london knights and the in the oshals. I had tickets. I bought a ticket. I paid $50 to my good friend David for the ticket where he was going to pick me up here and we were going to go out there. And I texted him this morning.

I said, I can't bear to do it. I can't go out there and watch the London Knights go out there and win the championship. And I just, I fully mega bailed on seeing a championship of like the Leafs top prospect. I just couldn't get past my hate for the London Knights. People would kill to go watch it. And I absolutely could not do it. I was like, no, I'm sorry.

No other reason. Going to go home, lie on the couch. If I'm your friend, I'm like, what? So what? I got to go by myself. No, he's going. There's other guys going. So it was the four of us were going. The other two guys are going still. But I was like, no, I'm not friend, I'm like, what? So what? I got to go by myself. No, he's going through. There's other guys going. So it was the four of us were going.

The other two guys are going still. But I was like, no, I'm not going out there. I can't believe. It's like going to watch. It's like the Habs being up three zip and me going to watch the game of them winning. It's like, no, there's just no chance I'm going to see that happen. It's funny, too. Given the London Knights ties to your Toronto Maple Leafs, obviously Marner and Domi.

And here comes Cowan. A lot of great players cadre played there and imagine the overlap between leafs fans and knights fans is significant there's a ton yeah so london is a city and all that but yeah you know what the teenage it's just it's brutal and i just know what it's going to be out there like a lot of oshawa fans will be bailing they'll be pulling the chute the guys will be ripping down the 401 coming from London. It's going to be a coronation of green and gold and black. I'm like, nope. I'm out.

Sitting on the couch, baby. No chance I'm experiencing that. So there you go. That's where I'm at today. All right. So you're not going to be checking that out. No. But we do have a half hour today.

We're going to be joined by JD Bunkus today. A little Leafs talk. A little Leafs talk throwback. We'll get everyone in the same room here. Well, actually, JD's going to zoom in at some point. He's going to zoom in at some point. So before we get to that, I have been covering the playoffs, as you have.

And I've been watching Vancouver, Edmonton, Sportsnet ties that we do have. The Canucks series has stood out to me. I wrote today about one defining feature of that, that being Eliias patterson and he's struggling he's got a goal and three assists struggling in 10 games i mean there's struggling and then there's looking the most terrified i've seen a star look in a long time and i'm in a city here where i've watched mitch marner like it's he deer in the headlights does

not begin to explain it borny well and that that Marner comparison is pretty reasonable, I think, because it's guys who are elite players, who control offense for their teams, who their team counts on, who just, you can't see why they just don't seem to have that same pop. And Canucks fans, not reasonable. Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the contract clearly where everyone was really excited to get him signed he signs the contract and then kind of immediately is not the

same guy and we had very similar conversations here with willie yeah where i remember sending some snarky tweets like two games after when he had no points like oh boy it was an overpaying long run it was a long run where he wasn't great but in the playoffs when he played he performed he was one of the only guys that actually scored for the leafs so like that put your heart at ease a little bit but it hasn't flipped at all for petterson i see him talking today uh to the vancouver media he's sitting up there he just doesn't seem like he has he's happy he doesn't seem like he's got any part of his life that's redeeming right now. The weight of the world is on his shoulders. And as you know, that is no way to play in an NHL hockey game or

NHL playoff series that's pressure-packed. That's all you're thinking about. Everybody's texting you. It's going to come. You're fine. Don't worry. And like Rick Talk, it's airing him out in the media. I can't imagine what he's feeling right now. He needs a couple to bounce off Evan Bouchard's butt or something. He does, but he needs off Evan Bouchard's butt or something.

But he needs to be around the net for that to happen. And so I wrote about it today. You can check that out on sportsnet.ca. I did a video breakdown of basically what's been going on with this guy. And, you know, Tauket had some comments where he said, we can't be playing pause hockey, which, like he said, just looks like we're pausing before making that play, you know, thinking rather than just, sorry, reacting rather than thinking and it is remarkable i tried so hard

not to write the marner comparison in there because i didn't want to make uh canucks fans annoyed by bringing up toronto but there is this thing that were i a coach or a video coach in the nhl today how do you get in on these defenses that pack it in the canucks right now through 10 games of a postseason have the fewest shots in nhl history according to sportsnet stats buddy like the boy stevie fell and he would never he would never be wrong so there you go insane to me and so they're getting shut down and you look at the uh the avalanche are getting shut down by dallas you look what happened to the leafs offense teams pack it in and you just can't score the same way and yeah i guess but some teams do some teams do and that's where you have to figure out what the recipe is for those teams and you

look at the type of players i mean i guess we're going to talk about florida and boston the second hour a little bit and florida gets stymied last night but look what they did in the first round look what they've done in the first few games against Boston. They have the type of players that like to fight to get to the middle of the ice and are willing to do that. It's not that hard. There's cliches for a reason. Getting to the dirty areas

is a cliche for a reason. Getting into the corners, fighting in the corner. It's a very simple game, Borny. It is, but you have to not just find the guys that do that because you can get a lot of unskilled people who will do that. You need to find the guys, like a Sam Bennett, who is willing to go there, not just willing to, but wants to go there. Like he can't wait to get there.

Or can also shoot it in the net. You know, it's a unique combination of skills here in Toronto. The one guy that has received some love from playoffs is Matthew Nyes, who can put it away but wants to go there too. So, yeah, to me it's almost like, and this is to make the analytics people go crazy, it's almost like the pendulum swinging towards analytics is swinging back towards, okay, but it's not just that.

And Caroline is another example of this where people are going, great, they have all these guys that drive analytics. Do they have enough guys that do these things? And so there's some personality analysis, like who are the guys who drive analytics who also are jerks. Yeah. You know, and like trying,

trying to find those guys is, uh, you know, scouts should be happy. I think they're more relevant than ever. Uh, good news. I believe we are now joined by our third host

the host hey our man jd bunkus what's up bunk nothing i look like i'm in a shadow cave no you look very bright to me i was like really okay good because i yeah like i'm trying to sit up on the zoom here with the fellas and i I was dying trying to figure this sucker out. I'm old, man. I'm a full boomer when it comes to technology. I was about to go on television, and he's like, you got to send me the link to the Zoom. I don't have it on my computer.

Bugs the guy who kills me every time. It takes one second to get a link going. I'm sitting here. He's like, send me the Zoom link to my old Gmail on my old computer. How do you get the sound to come on oh my god nothing nothing we were just uh doing the comparison which i think you might get a bit of a kick out of in vancouver right now they're killing elias petterson for being outside the traffic not producing one of the reasons the offense isn't there for the canucks and making the comparison to marner here and the some of the heat he took

from lease fans so i literally did this today on my show oh did you how could you not you've practiced how could you not make the comparison i'm just like here's the difference though mar didn't just sign a 92 million dollar extension like did you guys see the post game with talk it where he says some of our guys just gotta start playing some of our guys don't know it's the playoffs yeah i think the problem is actually that pedersen does know it's the playoffs yeah too much he's like yeah he's thinking yeah it's the playoffs. I'm not interested. How much money am I going to have in my account soon?

I think that there's, like, worst contracts in hockey potential here. Oh, no. Like, he is dreadful. Man, here's the thing. Okay, so this is the Marner thing, too. We talk about this a ton. You got regular season players, and then you've got postseason players. And so Ped so pedersen year over year is going to help the canucks make the postseason that's pretty clear and obvious but like we're in round two now he has he had a good game has he had like

strung together a couple of good shifts not from what i've seen and so like wouldn't you be nervous as a canucks fan that you're basically signing up for something very similar to the Mitch Marner narrative, which is you just paid a guy first type of number one player money to be not a number one type of playoff player. Like, isn't that what this is all about is to win in the playoffs. Like,

I don't know. I'd be nervous as hell. Like I just, I he's been awful. I think, yeah. I mean, he's been,

he had the, he had the, the face off win that led to the tying goal last night on besser and people are point of whatever he's been bad he hasn't been that's the bar then yeah yeah basically well i mean like yeah i mean well the bar for marner shifted big time well it's been great defensively like it's like well he makes 11 million dollars to not be suppression numbers yeah exactly but here like the scary thing is is, is that perception is such a huge thing, and especially with a Vancouver fan base, which is one of the most, you know, they're dialed in.

Let's just say that. They're a very dialed in fan base. And if you get this rep already, like they don't really have many playoff experiences with Pedersen. You know, they had the bubble or whatever. That wasn't real. This will start to carry you, and everybody will start to expect this from you which adds to the pressure where he's already kind of panicking like this has a chance to snowball

even worse further down the line in his eight-year contract that he just signed it's a horrible start to the contract and people's perception of him have you guys though been soliciting opinions of vancouver fans oh yeah i mean i look at the text line every day from vancouver and people are killing him yeah but i would say that this is a classic vancouver situation where the three of us talking about it they're gonna text in about the face-off win and then amongst their own circle they're gonna kill him yes but if any but if outsiders have an opinion on pd as they call him they're going to kill him. But if outsiders have an opinion on Petey, as they call him, they're going to go,

oh, we haven't given up on the guy. Like, they're going to be doing it. I like the tribal nature of Canucks fans. I don't know about you guys, but I have different takes to different groups. Sometimes I play a certain card to different groups, and then other ones,

they're definitely doing that with Toronto people. You code switch in sport circles? Oh yeah, sometimes. Here and there. Sometimes I like to switch it up. But yeah, they're definitely doing that in their circles. They're panicking, no doubt. That's like me with...

Oh, sorry, go ahead. I just wanted to kind of keep it on the Canucks and make the ties to Toronto. And the type of players who have success Dakota Joshua has four goals and four assists in 10 games, eight points playing on that line. McKay, by the way,

has zeros across the board in 10 games, but there's no doubt. And I was saying to Sam before you came on, not sure if you heard, but like the pendulum that swung towards analytics and data, which matter has also swung back to like, okay, but,

and playoffs seem to be such a different animal that real context is needed. Yeah, I totally agree. By the way, somebody told me that Dakota Joshua just flat out didn't want to play here. Had you heard the same thing, Borny? No, I hadn't. We got traded for future considerations from the Leafs to the Blues. That sounds likely then.

Yeah, and then. Well, just if you're a Leaf fan and you're pissed about that one and you're looking at it through the lens of being angry at Dubas for losing all the trades. We don't need a reason to drum that one up. Anytime. No, but I just think this guy's having a spectacular playoffs. He's been incredible for them.

And it's a guy that I was asking around and people told me that he was a non-starter for being here so for whatever that's worth um i'm with you uh this is always the way things go though right like this is this is the way of the world you react one way it goes way too far and then people start to look at it and say whoa we kind of have to pump the brakes here that the whole premise of our sport or premise of the thing that was going on like not everything should go out with the bath water right not like you don't throw the baby out with the bath water and so do i think that there was a time when

we were probably coveting things like heart and effort level uh too much? Were there times where we looked at things and said, hey, the game is changing. Maybe we should be able to evaluate a player that's $1.90 who can actually finish and skate a little differently than a guy who's 2.15 but can't do those things? Yeah, of course. But yeah, I think that some of the game went too far. And I think I've mentioned this to you guys as well.

This is also a part of us cooling off with social media. I swear to God, because you can the beauty of analytics is you can package anything up into a nice, tidy presentation just like you can with a tweet. Right. Hey, here's my argument. It's succinct. It's easy to digest and it's something that you can't really refute whereas if you're going to use your eyes for something or you're going to use traditional lines of thinking with stuff like physical play or playoff hockey it makes you sound like a caveman and you're spitting out gobbledygook even right there i was you know having trouble doing so no i i think we're i think we're swinging back and you're starting to hear it from players, right?

When they're talking about the game, you're hearing it from executives who are doing the like, we told you so, basically. The old hockey men are like, we were always right. Yeah, especially some of the hockey men that are on the outside right now that feel as though they should still be back on the inside. And yeah, I think that we're coming back. My only question is how far is it going to go yeah so uh just talking about the least coaching situation i haven't really

talked to you a whole lot about this where are we at on it are you like is it brew bear bust here what's the care you don't care yeah i know i actually i hate to admit that i'm in the same boat i don't really care i am in full no care mode um if you want to ask of information sort of thing like just don't really know what the difference would be okay so i i love berube the idea of berube coming in here and being a guy who has like pelts on the wall and who's like look me up on hockeyfights.com and then see if you're gonna to show up and not work hard today oh like that yeah believe that that is a guy who understands accountability and who could

really help with the culture of this team and i think i've mentioned this to you guys before but i really do think the leafs next head coach has to be someone with those like real bona fides that the players can look at and say, Oh, okay. This is a guy who's been there and done that. And Brube is like played in the market. He's got a billion penalty minutes, right?

He's coached a Stanley cup winning team. Go on down the line. He has the accolades, but like, you know, he, he was fired from his team pretty quickly after winning a Stanley cup. I think that his hiring

of assistants is going to be massively crucial. I don't know what Craig Berube is going to be doing in terms of running a power play. Pray for that power play coach next year. Has there ever been more eyes on a power play coach coming into it? At least the bar is low for postseason. That's true. Hey, guess who it's going

to be if it's Berube? Our boy. Come on down. That's his buddy and he runs a power play. He runs a mean one. Hey, guess who it's going to be if it's Berube? Yeah, it'd be Savvy. Our boy, Mark Savard. Yeah, for sure. Come on down. That's his buddy, and he runs a power play. He runs a mean one. So maybe it's going to end up being Savvy. But my thing is, do I think Craig Berube can be a good head coach?

Yes. Do I see some of the positives in having him? Absolutely. Am I going to overreact, though, if they make it Todd McClellan and be like, I can't believe that they would go? Like, no., seems foolish to me. The issues with the Toronto Maple Leafs extend far beyond the coaching staff. That's why people started to get sentimental when Sheldon Keefe was fired and he did his little Lake Ontario video.

People went like, you're so classy, Sheldon, because all of us sort of know that, hey, maybe he wasn't the best coach and maybe he wasn't the best hire at given the time of where the organization was at but if you really believe that like the Leafs are up on the Panthers 3-1 right now uh if they have Craig Berube instead of Sheldon Keefe like I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you so like the the problems run so much deeper and I think that while we're all waiting to know whether or not Mitch Marner will waive his no movement clause or if John Tavares, when he comes back from almost losing to Austria and the farmers. Hey, they learned. He learned. The farmers.

They learned. There's the quote. We learned the lessons. Stop learning lessons. He's a Rhodes Scholar in hockey. He knows everything. There is the knowledge. Sorry for going so long, but don't you guys feel like it's just like,

yeah, okay, it's like the least important thing of the offseason so tavarez is a good conversation uh camper the other day saying that you know this guy may wave there's no he's no move because you know you don't want to burn another bridge with another city and maybe the city would be hard on him but you know in talking to other people i don't get the sense that's how people in toronto would feel i think and and this is a few conversations i've had people in toronto see him differently because he chose to come here into the hard situation into the you know he chose toronto and all the heat so would there be some grace for you if you said look i picked here i want to be here and i still want to be here well here's the other part of. Look at what's going on right now in baseball with George Springer, right?

Like you guys just watched the Jays game probably from the studio. I did. I watched the entire thing. Anytime you give a free agent a contract like that, the expectation is that the end of the deal, they're not the same player. The idea was that they would win earlier on the front end of Tavares. And still, to me, like, are there times where I'm frustrated with John Tavares?

Of course. Do I wish that you were getting more ROI on 11 million bucks? Yes. But still, to me, the crazy thing is that a free agent who was a captain in the league and who had actually accomplished things and earned his right to free agency,

when he signed that contract, that the RFAs, the young guys, looked at it and said, that's what we want. And that that was given. Like, to me, that'll always be the point of frustration with Tavares. Like, a UFA getting big money.

Well, you shouldn't blame him there. You should blame the GM for saying, okay, that's what you want. Oh, I do. Yeah. Oh, I do. I especially blame that GM when it's on record that those contracts could have come

at completely different prices had he done them at, like, the appropriate times and not just twiddled his thumbs and gone, maybe the price will come down. Like, that's not how contracts work. The second after gone. Maybe the price will come down. Like, uh, that's not how a contract sign and ranting and sign for like nine, five or something. It was like point to went right after Braden point with like the next year.

And it was like nine and a half or eight. Like, Oh boy. Yeah. Maybe he should have read Theo Epstein's second book called hockey. Isn't baseball. And he would have done a little bit better in contract negotiations. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That one is a stinger to this day. So bunk, we got two minutes here before we, we leave. We need a last parting thought on the Toronto Maple Leafs off season here. What do you want to see it look like? What's different when we're having this conversation,

having Leafs talk in the fall? I'll tell you what I don't want okay i'll take us us us if here's what we'll say if the three of us are sitting around and going you know there there is a good case to coming back and that these guys could all yeah like no i can't say it too i can already hear me making the case here's i know oh i know you can can already hear me making the case. Oh, I know you can. You're the captain of the case. You're the captain of the case. I think Sammy and I are at the point where it's like, who cares if you lose the Marner trade?

Just don't do the same thing, which is insane. The thing to me is that I don't know what I want from a Marner trade. I don't know if I want the cap space. Don't you want the cap space? I know you want the like the cap i know i know i want not uc sorrows that's my one thing i want not uc sorrows okay well it's like to me it's you're doing two different types of trades it's the picks it's the restock the cupboards young guy cap space or you're trading him for another impact guy that's going to help you like right away like a sorrows which is kind of my ideal situation so we completely disagree on that but like i think there's two different ways to go i'm

not sure which way which way would you go about um i i just think like anytime you try to get into free agents and trying to bring them to toronto with the tax situation here the lifestyle situation here it's a it's a slippery slope like it just hasn't been proven to be the like vegas or florida or one of those places where guys just like want to sacrifice the dollars to come so it's like if you're trying to get in on the tanev or the zadorov or any like chandler stevenson like all those guys that just feels like a really tough road for me so i i don't think i think you're just going best trade package available but the end result is what you get back in that deal if it is prospects or young guys or whatever that those are

getting rerouted somewhere for other talent that fits yeah another team's eye you're you got austin matthews you got four years left you're in win now mode like the player we saw in that second game that took over that dominated before the injury. That's the one thing carrying me through this off season and going, I really think that guy is one of the guys in the league and he was robbed of the opportunity to showcase it. And if you can just put a competent team around him, like, don't you guys get that feeling too?

When you're watching McDavid and dry Sally, like, God, if you guys could have had a team around these two, like, yeah, like Derek Ryan's out there taking his 10 million dollar face offs and you're like geez bottom six is killing them like they're

getting nothing from any of those guys that's that's what i mean and so to me that's the main thing is can you build a balanced roster around a guy who i think is one of the bona fides is one of the top five guys is a driver. Like I have not abandoned the idea that Austin Matthews, we're going to see him in the post season, having deep runs. Like whenever people would do like the Leafs Ovechkin thing about the core four,

it's like, it's not the Leafs core four is not Ovechkin. Like Matthews is the Ovechkin. Like just keep betting on him. I agree. And you know what? Barkov is a good example. He struggled in the playoffs in the past,

and he's the guy who's coming through and finding it. You can find J.D. Bunkus, the host of the J.D. Bunkus podcast. Follow him at J.D. Bunkus on Twitter. Bunk, we appreciate your time, pal. Thanks for coming on, buddy. I love you, boys. I'll see you soon. Bye, everybody.

Talk to you soon. When we come back, we're going to be joined by Dan Riccio, host of Canuck Central, and we're even going to talk to Pete Blackburn, co-host of What Chaos Podcast. Should be a fun second hour. We will see you after this break. diving deep into leaps rafters jays and nfl the jd bunk is podcast subscribe and download the show on apple spotify or wherever you get your podcasts welcome back to real kipper and born i am justin born joined by sam mckee in place the real kipper today hello again sam hi justin hi welcome to the second hour of the show we are live

on sports net and sports is 650 in vancouver and sportsnet 960 in Calgary. This hour of Real Kipper and Born brought to you by Bet365. A couple of news and notes on Oilers and the Canucks. The Demco thing is getting interesting. Rumors that he has improved immensely. Improved immensely. Great. Has him back as a potential option. A couple of stats courtesy sam here leon dry settles the

third player in the last 35 years to record 20 plus points in fewer than 10 games in a postseason that being dry connor mcdavid and mario lemieux wow this guy is a horse he is so yeah i uh the demko thing to me is very interesting and well didn't wasn't it like around game four in the second round well it was like kind of projected in the first series i remember them saying that it was like maybe around game four and then it's game five now it's like potentially six maybe seven to me it's a dangerous game and i think we're getting into the situation here where he's clearly you know very very injured he's probably got it back to a point where it starts to feel passable like he could play in something we've all seen the reports about acl mcls like

there's all this stuff out there yeah it's a dangerous game putting him back in there because like you know you're going deep in the playoffs this year and he wants to play he's a competitor and i get it and if i'm a vancouver fan i'm probably like yeah you know you want your number one goalie and they're a guy that has a real chance to make a difference but the canucks also play hockey next year yeah there's there also is a hockey next year and their goalie in this series which you thought i might i thought might be a huge issue for them sfilov's like he hasn't killed them by any stretch. He was really good in a couple of the games. It's a dangerous game to put an ice-cold hurt goalie in a game seven.

It's a very interesting conversation. What we can have with Riccio. I think he's there. Yes, we're going to bring in Dan Riccio, host of Canucks Central, 4 to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday. Riccio, how are you, pal? I'm doing great, fellas. How are we doing?

We're good. I'm so happy to be talking to reach on the television we me and him go so far back like my first shift ever at the fan i was producing a raptors post game show and i had no idea how to like patch the call in and i remember like people screaming at me from the other side of the glass and the cool hand dan riccio on the board cool hand dan that's cool hand dan absolutely crushed it got it in there for Riccio on the board. Cool hand, Dan. Cool hand, Dan. For sure. Absolutely crushed it.

Got it in there for me. Pat on the back. He's like, you'll be fine, buddy. We go a long way back. So having this now is incredible. Well, welcome in. Toronto guy talking Vancouver. You know, you know, it's a Toronto guy in Vancouver.

That burns all his credit. No, I think they know. Well, now you guys just outed me. I've put on this whole facade for years that I was from Vancouver. Born and raised. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we do want to get your thoughts on the demco thing and that's secondary we're going to talk about the game and talk about the series but while we were talking about demco the one thought that comes to mind is the rick patino like larry bird is not walking through that door press conference like to me it's good for a team to think like hey don't wait for someone else to do it he's not going to be. What are your thoughts on the word that they may get Demko back at some point? I mean, we've thought about it for a while.

We've heard it for a while that he could be back at some point during the second round, and now it's kind of getting into the latter stages here. To me, it is risky, right? He's coming in cold. He's done it before. He looked really good in the two games that he came back and eventually got injured in before the playoffs or at the start of the playoffs but it's just a lot to ask for a guy and i think the other part of this too is like do you bring him

back just for him to get hurt again because you've rushed him back which is sort of the thought process and how he ended up re injuring his knee there at the start of the playoffs. So I think it's, it's a lot to ask. You're getting a ton from Archer. She loves right now. Are you going to get more from Thatcher Demko? Of course you could because he is a Vesna level goalie, but I'm not sure you can bank on that throwing him into a game six or seven scenario yeah that to me as a fan is terrifying where you know the idea of it and the idea of what he can be probably way outweighs what he actually will be and it's a scenario where you know rick talk it would do it potentially in

a game seven i think if the medical staffs like thatcher demko is available probably gonna play him but that's something that vancouver fans like there's all these events that are like tentpole events when being a fan and like they put him in there in a game seven and he lets in four in the first period and everyone's like how could talk it like it's such a risk but the flip side's there but as a toronto sports fan i always go to the complete disaster scenario i just i don't know man you also got to play hockey next year like i said it's just it it's a very, very risky one. And I would, if I was a coach,

Shvila's be playing the rest of the series and then maybe reevaluate if you get through it to me, that's how I would handle it. The kid has been pretty good. The last night I thought it was, it was actually maybe his, his best game because I thought the Oilers really put the throttle down on the Canucks more so last night than they did in almost any other game it's it's always you look at the shot clock you're like man this guy had to make this many saves but most of the time the Canucks don't give up a ton of rush chances they make the goalie play only half the net they don't give up the cross size they don't give up the seam pass and so if

you're just asking a guy to do that job she loves has been up to it so far in this series you know there are a couple of ones like the the one thing that would worry me he struggles fighting through screens and seeing through screens and we've seen it in we saw it early in the nashville series when he first came in we've seen it we've seen it on a couple of the goals in this series like the the dry sidle power play goal in game three. He's fighting through the Hyman screen, doesn't see the pass go down to dry sidle, and then he's slow to get there to cover his post,

and it just bounces off and in him. And I know dry sidle is a freak, but if he's on that, if he's making his read properly, if he's seeing the puck through the screen, maybe he does get there. These are little things that are causing big ones, and you even see it a little bit on the winning goal there where he's just unable to close it up through the the sea of bodies that are in front of the bouchard shot for sure and so you know maybe there's goalies in the league who make that save but he's given you enough at this point

to work and i think the team is probably happy with their team defense you know you're kind of you're not suppressing mcdavid entirely five on five, kind of keeping them at bay. So then the question pivots to offense and the team having fewer shots than any team through 10 games in the history of the National Hockey League, I believe. So what's going on? What's with the slowdown in the offense from the Canucks?

Name the five to six guys Tuckett was talking about. Name them. Some of it is score effects. The Nashville series was just slog. And I don't know if I take so much away from that. You end up looking at some of the high danger chances in that series, and they're very close. The Canucks, I think, had the edge in almost every single game

despite the low amount of shots that they had and that's kind of continued here especially in these last few against the Oilers with the exception of last night you know they they get wildly outshot in in game three but they create four incredible chances and score on all of them you know for as much as people were on Skinner for game three, giving up four goals on 15 shots, like show me the goal in game three that was a bad one. I don't think there was one for Skinner. You could talk about game one and you could talk about maybe even game two, but in that game three, all four of those goals by the Canucks

were primo chances and you're getting a 40-goal score bearing down on you right in front of the net. I kind of know what outcome is going to happen here and that's a goal for brock besser or even elias lindholm who scored 40 in in the past in his career so i think they have always been a quality over quantity team but there is a level where you do want to have a little bit more quantity and i think that comes down to lengthening out their lineup if jt miller and eliza lindholm are going to get backed up by having to to check leon dry sidle and conor mcdavid for most of the night you're going to need some offense and some you know tilting of the ice to happen elsewhere in the lineup and that just hasn't happened so far so on the scale of one to marner what's the pedersen temperature at in vancouver

bud uh it's uh above a 16 so i think that's above boy it's he's taking it right now look uh you know he he uh he has the one goal it came in game two came in a loss so people weren't on him too much there but every time the canucks have lost a game here in this in these playoff the finger is firmly pointed at number 40 and for a lot of reasons like what he has won five on five points so far in the playoffs I mean that's clearly not good enough and I know there's a a want to say that he looks disinterested and all of those kinds of things but and I feel like this is a player that's gotten it in his head a little bit too much you know he signs the big contract he hasn't been good really since he signed the contract is there uh oh my god i have to live up to this massive deal i just

signed that's going on in his head and he's just not playing the game born i know you wrote about it a little bit at Sportsnet today. He just feels like a guy that's thinking way too much. And even look at his media presser today. I mean, he looked like he wanted to be in a million other places on the planet other than having to face the media to talk about how he is performing or not performing in these playoffs. And that's an issue.

You know, his body language is an issue. I think that reverberates a little bit through the team at times. Like for as much as, yeah, you're struggling, there's still a job you have to do. You're still by virtue of your contract, by virtue of who you are as a player, you are a guy that has to be a leader on this team. Even if you're not a big talker and a rah-rah guy. You can't be that guy that's hanging your head and looking up at the skies and just really not doing even the little things on the ice that we're so accustomed to seeing him do. Like he does a flyby on Ekholm before the second Oilers win the gold. That's just like, that's not the alias petterson i know yeah you know it feels a

little bit like being the parent of a surly teen and trying to figure out how do i approach this like i want i want to be a parent still but i don't want to push it too far and push them away you know so what is the the right thing to do with a guy like petterson because it feels to me like rick talk it's the guy to be like well then we're just not going to play him you know he's hit the press box and watch one or he's going to play 10 minutes and it's like don't lose them you don't want to lose them like you feel like you kind of handle them with kid gloves so how do you approach i have an idea yes maybe put him with a guy one guy who doesn't beat it to a square every shift that would be a start i mean playing with mckev and playing with lafferty and

playing with like is it lenis carlson it's like, could you give him one guy maybe here? Does he deserve better? Sorry. There's, there's definitely a part of the, the line mates conversation here that it needs to be addressed. And I think Rick talk had alluded to that more so today than he has at any other point during this stretch. He also did mention he's not changing his top two lines. So Elias Pettersson is, yeah, is, is still getting, he's still getting somebody that's

not Eliza Lindholm. That's not Brock Besser. That's not JT melt. Like he's, he's playing with two guys that would be considered bottom six type forwards. And that's just the way Rick talk. It views his best lineup right now. I mean, he's been at times hard on Pettersson. At other times, he's backed it up and been a little bit more friendly parent, as you mentioned there. He's played good cop and bad cop at times with Pettersson. But last night, coming off of the game,

there's clearly frustration there. And everybody knows the story. You need more from Elias Pettersson. I think they've run out of options on how they are going to get Pettersson going. They've run out of ideas on how they are going to get Pettersson going. Even in-game situationally, when Talkett has put Pettersson with JT Miller and Brock Besser and reunited the lotto line, they've been awful together. They haven't generated anything.

And so if you're Rick Taka, you're like, well, to me, that's not really an answer because every time I've tried it, it doesn't really work. So I'm not going back to that and breaking up things that are actually working for me right now. Pedersen's got to figure it out. Like, yeah, Ilya Mikheyev is your number one linemate. It worked for the first half of the season. Mikheyev had 10 goals by Christmas, and now he's had one goal since. So something is partially on Ilya Mikheyev

and him shooting the puck into the crest a bunch of times when Pedersen's setting him up for big chances. But there's also a part where Pedersen just isn't driving play enough. And I don't care if you are playing with two guys that are fresh out of the AHL, you're Elias Pedersen. You're about to make $11.6 million next year. You better win the matchup.

If you're playing against Ryan McLeod, most of the night, that's just the way the story should be for Elias Pedersen right now. And it's true because like, you know, I, you know, I had the same talking to two sides of my mouth.

There's like, martyrs got to drive a line. We can put them with anybody. He's making all this money. And then'm like well you should put him anyways talking so i want to flip it to the positive side of this that two guys that were begged to get out of vancouver here they not well they didn't beg but they were available people like you talk about besser and you talk about connor garland where people with connor garland were like you gotta attach a pick to get rid of him. Besser seemed to be very available.

And these two guys, I mean, there's all obviously tons of other great contributors to this offense, but Connor Garland to me has been amazing. This playoffs, like he's popped to me every time I watched him play and Besser is scoring every big goal for them. Like it's crazy to turn around for these two guys and the contributions

they've made to the Canucks run so far. Besser has been miles better than he was 12, 14 months ago. Looks like a completely different player. And you know, Besser's never been a guy that's like quick. He's got to win the game in other areas and he's been great on the walls. He's been great defensively. That helps him get into better areas offensively. He's rounded his game out to a point that we saw much earlier in his career, and it's really popping in the playoffs. There was a question, I think, from a lot of people of whether Besser would be a playoff-type player or if he would hide a little bit.

Obviously, those are gone out the window with the seven goals that he has to this point. As for Garland, the whole idea uh smurfs can't win in the playoffs um he's been one of the canucks best players so small uh short kings like me and connor garland can say you know you you don't need to be the biggest guy to get out there and win and you know sometimes like if you watch enough connor garland it can be frustrating he just has to be so crafty to win with his lack of size the way he's got to win board battles the he can you know spin himself into oblivion at times when he's not playing direct but that's something rick tocket has got him to do is play a lot more direct and he's given

him a couple of line mates that he's built chemistry with and it's worked brilliantly like last night you know this is one of the things about last night's game. Like good for Conor Garland that he's one of your best players, but also bad for the team that Conor Garland is one of your best players. Like they need him to keep doing what he's doing, but they need other guys to get going too.

I can guarantee if I was playing against the beer league equivalent of Conor Garland, I would punch him in the face. There is no question that I would. And he's got the worst neck guard possible. It's like up to his mouth. He's got this look on his face the whole time. A guy you'd want to kill, and that's why he's so effective, 100%.

So going into this series, what has changed, in your opinion, about the Edmonton Oilers from what you thought you were going to get from the Oilers in this series to what you've seen through four games? The two things that changed, I thought Knobloch went to his fastball too early. Like having to load up Drysaddle and McDavid as early as he did in game two and then follow it up again in game three. It seemed a little bit too desperate early in the series. Last night was the Oilers' best game.

It happened to be the one that McDavid and Drysaddle didn't have to play 30 minutes. They didn't have to play together. And for me, that's the big red flag. If anything that's happened in this series, last night is the one that should concern Canucks fans the most because the Oilers played better defensively than we've seen them at any

point in this series and probably even in these playoffs you know like even against the LA Kings and one of the things I pointed out at the start of the series the Kings and Oilers they were tied 12-12 five on five even though the the Oilers won that series in five games they won it on the back of their power play and I thought they I think they felt like they were going to be able to do that again in this series, but Vancouver's a completely different animal than the LA Kings who don't even try to four check under, under Jim Hiller. So when, when, you know, they, they early on in the series, it seemed like the Oilers struggled with that. They obviously struggled with the Canucks ability to find quality chances in the offensive zone. They missed defensive assignments as we saw

in game three so when they start to play better defensively that changes a lot and that's the thing that i think uh if if i'm a canucks fan today i'm worried about like has edmonton figured out something have they found a gear that van Vancouver can't reach? And that would be probably the storyline going into Game 5. Who has a higher approval rating in Vancouver? Is it Dan Riccio or Zdorov? Who has a higher approval

rating? Well, I I'll tell you this. Canucks fans are about to give Nikita Zdorov a blank paycheck. So am I as a Leaf fan. Get him a year. Like, I love this guy. You need meatheads on your team.

And he is just the perfect guy. I think he's a philosopher. No, but no, like on the ice. When he's off the ice, he's great. But like having a just straight up meathead biggest guy on the ice, that helps. Love that. Yeah.

I'd love to think that I have a higher approval rating than Nikita Zdorov right now, but I don't think that's the case. Ask me again next year if he does get $6 million a year from Vancouver. Yeah, now we're talking. People start to turn on him. This is the thing with Nikita Zdorov. He's been unbelievable. He's had an incredible stretch here in the playoffs.

He's playing to his size. He's being the bully on the ice. He's providing some offense. He's doing everything that you want but i think um guys like nikita zadorov they're guys that help you when you get to the playoffs but they can be tough when you're living with them for 82 games great point of the season and you see some of the moments where he makes a bad pinch where he makes some bad decisions and he gets punished for it like there's a lot about Nikita Zdorov's game that I absolutely love he's an

incredibly toolsy player he skates well for as big as he is and the size just plays for days yeah but you know there were times in the season where you see his questionable decision making where he kind of got one of those maintenance day healthy scratches from Rick Tockett as well. So he's not a perfect player. He's got to be a guy that stays under 20 minutes a night for the most part, but you get him into the playoffs, the whistles go away a little bit, he can play a little bit more physical, all of a sudden you've got a player that you absolutely want to have

come this time of year. Last one, Reach, before we let you go, just want to get your thoughts. I assume everyone is over the Susie suspension, but it cannot have felt great to see Juleson run at a guy and be the guy that kind of gives up a rush against where maybe Susie just backs off and plays it more conservatively. How is

everyone handling the wake of the suspension that never happened to Zdorov or against Zdorov? They were not happy. And it's mostly, I don't think people were upset that Soucy got a suspension. It was more that Hyman didn't get anything in the whole situation.

And I think Zdorov yesterday kind of spelled it out how we all think of it, right? The NHL is going to protect Connor McDavid. Hockey fans around the globe, they see Connor McDavid take a stick in the face after, after the game. And it's like, how do you not protect the best player in the league? That guy's got to be protected. And Nikita Zdorov, it's like, yeah, whatever he's big, he's strong. He could, he could take lumber to the face.

It's all good. And he had a huge, he had a huge, on his, on his chin. So he got him cut over his eye as well. I mean, he looked like he just finished fighting Rocky Balboa or something. That was probably the toughest part. And, of course, Vancouver's got an interesting relationship with officials as well. You know, for me, the way this series has been officiated is completely fine. You know, they've called it pretty fair both ways. They've let a lot go.

I prefer they let a lot go. I just really dislike when they start doing the whole, well, we gave them two, so we got to give these guys two, you know, just try to call it how you see it as best you can and not do the whole makeup call thing. And I think that's essentially the way the Canucks view it as well. Awesome, man. Well,

look, we really appreciate your time. I know Sam was very excited. I am too. Buddy, I love your reach. So great to see you. When you come home sometime in the summer, we'll play some golf. How's that sound? Yeah. Nice little breakfast round sounds good to me. Yes, baby.

All right. That's Dan Riccio of Canucks Central. You can listen to that 4 to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday. You know, the Zdorov stuff is fascinating after seeing he actually had stitches from that. He had the proof. So it is pretty crazy. That just went away. I know that's what my Canucks fan friends are most mad about. That most people

do what Kip did yesterday. Just, ah, move on. Why are we moving on from that? I'm sure the people driving around near Stanley Park and near the seawall, they're driving around looking at their beautiful sight. And they have a guy on the radio being like doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Who cares? I'm sure they loved that. I'm sure they

loved that. They were not happy. So we should get to game time. Yeah, we can do some game time. Let's do that. It's game time presented by Bet365. Visit the app for the latest odds and find out why it's never ordinary at Bet365. It must be 19 plus. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Now, I'm'm gonna do a little

bit of non-hockey here because there's one game tonight uh it's dallas and i'll mention the line for you but i'm looking at the pga championship because i am a golf guy through and through subscribe to the golf show uh with myself and brent gunning put up podcasts sporadically um yeah the pga championship at valhalla 10 years ago last major that rory won uh was at valhalla pga championship it's coming in hot just won uh the wells fargo he's coming in warm well a little emotionally oh boy very public divorce and yeah yeah i mean the spat with can't lay like there's a lot of stuff going on here. So maybe you'll get a little bit of revenge Rory, like, just focusing on golf.

Yeah, maybe. So he's a 7-1 shot. To me, that's a crazy bet to make at the start of the tournament. Maybe see what he does in the first couple days and then maybe hop on a live bet. But to me, Scotty Scheffler at plus 425, it seems insane.

It's insane to bet a golf tournament and bet one guy at plus 425. But I'm going to. Basically, you're saying you think he's peak tiger. I do. I really think we're at the point here where I know even if he doesn't win, I am aware that when I'm sitting down on Sunday afternoon to rot on my couch, I'm going to be in the fight. And I'm going to be able to enjoy watching it, have a little cash on him.

So I'm going with Scottie Scheffler. And just looking a little bit further down here, Wyndham Clark undervalued to me at 40-1 on bet 365, as well as Max Homa at 25-1. And I might put a couple bucks on the big golfer, Bryson DeChambeau, at plus 2,500. Loved his performance at the master's been hot on live so give me a little bit of bryson dechambeau action at 25 to 1 what a tournament so first off

bet 365 isn't as good numbers on this tournament compared to some i've seen the um this tournament has rory coming in off of a win scheffler coming in off a win and kepka coming in off a win which is i mean unbelievable combination of golfers kepka's 14 to 1 i didn't love the way he looked the masters didn't think he looked like the normal dog in him uh kepka he looked like the guy at the florida panthers game heckling yes aaron ekblad he absolutely did his peas right he goes into the peas all right that was game time presented by bet 365 visit the app fleet of stars and find out why it's never ordinary. Bet365 must be 19+.

Ontario only. Please play it responsibly. Yeah, so the... What? I got a great text. I gotta read it. If I wanted to hear some a-hole talk about golf, I'd talk to my father-in-law. Get to the hockey! That's great.

That's great. Okay, we will. We're going to get back to hockey. When we come back after the break, we're going to listen to Pete Blackburn, the co-host of the What Chaos podcast. We'll be back in a moment. The best Blue Jays show out there, period. Blair and Barker. Be sure to subscribe and download the show out there, period. Blair and Barker.

Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Real Kipper and Born. I am Justin Bourne. We just listened to Dan Riccio, your boy Sammy, who's out west in Vancouver giving us the lowdown on all things Canucks. Do you feel any different about the Canucks status after our conversation with him?

I picked the Canucks to win the series. I still feel like the Canucks are going to win the series. I have not changed. I got to tell you, there's some series, three of them, to me that just feel like it should so clearly be one team that wins. Like the Bruins are without Marchand. The Panthers are kind of rolling a little bit. It just feels like it's going to be Florida.

It just feels like Colorado after losing to Chushkin. Yeah, there you go. It just feels like they're cooked. The Canucks, it's 2-2. They're alive in the series. It doesn't need to feel that way, but it feels bad. For the Canucks? It feels bad.

You think it feels bad for the Canucks? Yeah. Why? Well, I just think that things started to kind of go the Oilers' way a little bit. Shelov's kind of less fun at the end. That's not perfect. Yeah, but they just scrambled to tie the game again. Like, they got, I don't know, man.

But they're still not going to look. The Oilers feel like at some point they're gonna break out i i will say they got calvin pickard in that you can beat him there's no doubt about it but it does maybe that's just my preconceived notion going into the series that the oilers would eventually take it over but feels nervous times for canucks okay i'm really not feeling that i've watched every game closely and i just feel like they're two very evenly matched teams in terms of playing in the same division. They know each other extremely well. The Canucks have handled them all season long.

They play well against them. I like the top guys on the Canucks. Obviously, the top guys on the Oilers are very good. Stay out of the box. Like, they're a power play team. Yeah. They're a power play goal. When they get on there, it's like a 50% shot.

You're getting one in the back of the net. So I can get what you're feeling but i just i do have a feeling about the canucks i can't help myself saying it when pickard's in net it's a dumb thing to say when you have a guy who's never played he's 32 and he's playing his first playoff game yeah did you i saw a lot like did you think it was that gutsy of a move no i didn't think it was overly ballsy skinner's been not very good okay uh we are joined by Pete Blackburn, the co-host of the What Chaos podcast. What's up, Pete? How are you, man? What's going on?

Thanks for having me. Hey, buddy. Yeah, we're excited to have you. We're all wrapped up talking about Vancouver and Edmonton, ready to turn the page to the Boston-Florida series. I was saying it just feels like things have tipped towards Florida, where Mark Shand is out, and they're supposed to win this series. But Boston gets one in game five.

Is there life in the Bruins here? Yeah, I mean, just when I thought I was out, like if you asked me yesterday afternoon, I would have said just lose. Just lose yesterday's game. Please lose game five. End it for me. Put me out of my misery. I have life now. Call me a sucker.

I liked the 60 minute effort that the bruins showed yesterday uh they were strong on the forecheck they won battles they're a little bit crisper in their execution obviously jeremy swayman remains good so like charlie mcavoy got on the board he needed that one so badly i think the bruins do have life you're talking about them going to game six back at home in Boston with the juice of that crowd on a Friday night. The important thing for them, though, is to get off to a strong start

because you've seen the starts that the Bruins have or have had in this series. The thing that made me feel good the most yesterday was 13 shots on goal in the first period. That's sad to say, but that felt like a miracle for the Bruins based off of the way that they were starting games in this series.

So they would do themselves a huge, huge favor in game six at home, getting the crowd behind them early. You are going through the exact same thing that I went through last round where the Boston Bruins ended up beating the Toronto Maple Leafs as they always do. But after going into game five, the amount of conversations I had with my Leaf fan buddies about like, just end it now. I don't want this anymore.

I don't want to watch this anymore. And then ultimately they found a way to find the most heartbreak possible. So yeah, it was great of them to do that. But yeah, I just, your general sense about this Bruins team, the officiating stuff has been out of control. I watched that game last night and that goaltender interference on,

or the lack thereof on Charlie McAvoy to me was 100% goaltender interference. And they did not have the guts to do it because of the, the way the conversation was going. I couldn't believe that they didn't. It was almost as bad as the other one to me. And they didn't call it. I didn't think they had the guts. I really didn't.

So I, I initially thought that it was 100% goaltender interference when I thought that Dan and Heinen knocked the stick out of Sergey Bobrovsky's hand. Bobrovsky drops the stick every time. He does. He drops the stick every time anyone goes near him. You sneeze on that guy. He throws a stick in the corner uh the 10-9 and when i saw after a few replays that was actually oliver ekman larson that knocked the stick out i i peeled back a little bit i was like oh maybe it's not

goaltender interference ultimately i think that heinens stick getting under brovsky's skate opens it up to being goaltender interference, obviously. But I also do think that he had time to reset. And that ultimately is probably why they ruled it not goaltender interference. It's obviously up to interpretation. But based on that and based on what happened in game four, there was zero chance that they were going to call that goaltender interference. If there was any gray area, there's no way in hell that they were going to call that goaltender interference. If there was any gray area, there's no, no way in hell that they were going to take that goal off the board.

So I wasn't that worried once I saw a few replays. I have to say, I was watching the game. I was like, oh my God, they're not going to do this. The multi-game makeup call is a hell of a move. The NHL set a new personal best. So tell me about Jim Montgomery, who's like a fascinating character. I don't think I've ever seen him as animated and all in in the game he was rocking on the bench to start the game like he was yeah we saw the actions this guy's invested man yeah i wonder how much of that was

a result of some of the blowback that he caught after game four in his press conference because he was obviously he was very pissed on the bench in game four after the goaltender interference he was screaming and then you get to the press conference after that game and he he pulls back a little bit he doesn't he doesn't bring his checkbook to to the presser and i think a lot of people were really upset about that and they they interpreted it as a lack of spine so i wonder how much that carried over to game five for jim montgomery to say all right well if that's the case i'm gonna leave it all out on the bench and boy did he some of the clips from game five on the bench were hilarious

so i give him credit but i i do that that thought did cross my mind i love i love lack of spending 25k as a lack of spine. You know, like it was. I love the one where he's leaned back and someone got the air guitar in his hands. It's incredible. I love a coach coaching hard like that. And it kind of brings me to the other side of it,

where Maurice loses his mind on the bench last night. And of course they go out and score in the next shift. They end up losing the game. He says all this stuff post game. In these playoff series, I really find myself finding a way to hate the opposing coaches almost more than any of the players like i really find the way that they talk to the media and a lot of it has to do because it's been maurice it's been

cooper it's been jim montgomery over these past few years but maurice is a different animal to me in terms of the way he addresses me like you had him last year clearly with the bruins playing them in the first round, but like he is a very frustrating, annoying opposing coach to go against as a fan. Yeah. So we had this conversation this morning on the show in my co-host DJ said that he found Paul Maurice to be kind of annoying and like smug.

And I get that. I agree with it, but I also, there are two reasons why I do like it. Number one, it's better than being boring. The entertainment factor is great. I think he's a pretty funny guy. Do I like him as the opposition?

No, of course not. But then on the second point, I wonder how much Paul Maurice does this to kind of take heat off of his players, because when he goes to the podium and he gives you some golden quotes, the media is not going away from that hungry for something else and pressing players. And it seemingly has worked where like, how much have you heard from Florida Panthers players in the aftermath of the last few games? Not a ton because it's Paul Maurice dominating the headlines and dominating the clips on Twitter.

So if that's the strategy, it's working and I respect it. Yeah. No, it is. It is absolutely hilarious. You said to me earlier that he's like almost like a character actor. Well, yeah, it's like he's doing a bit, right? He's like working on a new set. To me, it's like if Daniel Day day lewis was cast as like a

hockey coach and he was that's what he would be like that's how he would be acting like that stuff with the presser last night was insane yesterday i called him a white collar torts and i feel like that's a pretty good description of palmer it's actually perfect that's perfect yeah that makes a ton of sense so you talked about how montgomery handed the press conference after game four i wonder how you felt about handling of the goaltenders actually getting all mark in at one point and if you ever it's just now it feels like it's going to be swayman's net almost like whatever happens i imagine that'll be the case yeah i i can't imagine that it would go in the other direction unless the bottom falls out.

And if the bottom falls out, the season's probably over. And Marchand, will he come back at some point? What's the updates on his sort of health? I mean, I haven't heard anything. You can ask Paul Maurice because he was the one who making the jokes about 20,000 cameras on Brad Marchand and sipping the water bottle. I don't know. You know, obviously it, I think the logical conclusion is that it's a head issue.

You know, I think that it's probably concussion-related. So, you know, you never know how those things go. But as far as the Allmark thing goes, I thought that was the perfect opportunity to put Allmark in the series because that game was over. And number one, you give Jeremy Swayman a bit of a mental reprieve from that game, which was getting out of hand. And number two, you get Linus Allmark some work because it had been two plus weeks

since he had seen any game action. And God forbid anything happens to Jeremy Swayman or you need to go to Linus Allmark for whatever reason, having him be out of action for two plus weeks is a bad position to be in if you're the Bruins. So I was kind of looking for opportunities to sneak Linus Olmark into action during these playoffs so that he's not so cold, but Swayman was just playing so well that there really was no excuse to go away from him.

So what's the believometer at here, Pete, going into game six? Because, you know, what is the reason that gives you the biggest belief that they can come back and do this? Kind of reverse last year's 3-1. Um, I think that you finally saw the desperation factor arrive to the Bruins. And the start that they got in game five gave me some hope. And obviously Jeremy Swayman,

I thought that Jeremy Swayman didn't look quite as sharp yesterday as he has throughout most of the playoffs. He was still really good. I mean, they only gave up one goal, but I thought that it was a much improved defensive effort from the Bruins and they didn't shoot themselves in the foot. And I think those,

those reasons give me more confidence, the, the desperation and the actual playing adult hockey and playing defensive hockey, uh, against a Florida Panthers team that is better than you on paper. So that's the only reason that I have confidence heading into game six. I still, at the outset of the series, I picked Panthers in six. I still think the Panthers are a better team. And my big problem with the Bruins overall this year and during this playoff run is that they don't string together consistent games.

It's like a hard reset after every single game for better or for worse. And so I don't know how much carryover there's going to be in game six, and that gives me pause. Last one here, and I'll let you go. I just want to get your thoughts on Sam Bennettennett is everyone over chasing sam bennett around in boston has that become secondary to the plot of trying to win the series or do they still want his head no in 30 years if you ask a bruins fan what they think of sam bennett they will throw profanity that guy there's no coming back for that guy in terms of the Bostonian purview.

He is a nail gun. Yeah. He is. He is. That's the kind of guy that you want. I know that it's dirty. It's cheap. He's nasty, and he's a good player, and those are the kind of guys you want in your roster

when it comes to playoff hockey. And I think that if you asked Bruins fans if they would take sam bennett on his on the roster right now 100 of them would say absolutely yes because they want that nasty they lack the nasty on this roster like you have to throw pat maroon out there to be your your nasty representative and honestly not to be mean like throwing pat maroon out there is probably a negative for you for your product on the ice. And he's, it's not like Bennett's going to give a Maroon that he's never going to fight him in a playoff series.

There's just no chance. Yeah. I mean, he should have been suspended. Like, I hate to give the credit to the Bruins fans here and everything, but like, he should have been gone a game or two.

There's no question. He punched him in the face. Tough one, tough one. So how do you see the answers as to why the replay the reverse angle replay disappeared until five minutes before game four need to know what happened there and there was like there's like the flimsy report yes there's a flimsy report they're like yes they had that angle for sure and they still decide like if they had that angle and decided not to do it

then we have to have real questions and i guess we do have real questions about the department of player safety espionage i like it well pete we really appreciate your time today man thanks for joining us of course thanks for having me thanks buddy all right that's pete blackburn co-host of the what chaos podcast great podcast pete's a great guy i hate to admit it but yeah it's been it should have been gone for a game or two you know i was talking about this with hockey last night with the guys and getting there i love getting the thoughts of of just the room on this kind of stuff one of my buddies made a great point maddie said that the you never know what's going to happen when you go to hit marchand right where like if you're going to if you're going in on marchand and you're thinking hitting him, like he could just as well throw up the elbow,

go a little lower on you. I could stick you. I could do whatever. Didn't need to completely punch him in the face, but it is a bit of an unpredictable event going to hit Brad Marshawn, which I thought was a great point. So that's one side of it. It's like body checking an oncoming car.

It's like, I get braced for this, but it's probably not going to go how I see it going in my head. So I thought it was, I thought that was a good point. And I, you know, he deserved a suspension. Bruins fans have the right to be upset.

Yeah. But I don't care. Yeah. No, you certainly don't. The Paul Murray stuff is fascinating to me. I think we should take some time and listen to his presser. Sure. Or a couple clips, just a clip or two. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What do we got here? We got his thoughts just on Game 6. Heading into Game 6, the one that he alluded to about watching Marchand. Let's play that. That's clip one from Paul Maurice. How your club played tonight, I'm sure you would have liked. That's Rick Talkett. Paul Maurice, clip one.

Thank you. It's going to be an absolute barn burner in there. There'll be 18,000 cameras on the morning skate just to see if what he sips of the water bottle Brad Marchand takes is going to be some high-end investigative journalism. You guys go home and get a nap? You should get some s*** to do in a couple days. Okay.

Is that night, Len? What? Creepy stuff. He's to what Pete said. He's like, he's trying to put it all on Boston. You're all going to be watching him. You're going to go have a nap because you got some investigative journalism to do. What is that clip?

Like, he is out of his mind with these things. You know what it kind of does make me feel, though, is like, if they lose this series, like, they just dropped the game to potentially put away the Bruins, and now they're going back to Boston. They lose this series. Like, could you not criticize that maybe he's having a little bit too much fun and like at a pretty pivotal moment?

Yeah, all 10 Panthers fans will kill him for that. Oh, not this again. Oh, there's just so like, like,

you know, there's stakes with money involved and all this, but like, it's just no fan. No one's going to hold his feet to the fire for this. They're not going to be like,

if that happened in Toronto, that would be called the press conference where he would like that would be like there would be like a date and everyone would remember it like there would be called something bad here yeah there it's just you can do that and you can get away with it more there i do love that maurice exactly comfortable he's been in enough playoff series and in enough moments like this where he doesn't seem overwhelmed you know know, like Sheldon Keith sometimes a little stressed out by things. You know, Chris Knobloch's a new coach in a big moment.

You're not getting a lot of crack smiles. Like, Paul Maurice is out there. They just lost a playoff game by a goal, and he's out there cursing and finger guns. Would you like to hear the second clip from Paul Maurice? Let's play Paul Maurice number two. Just thought they needed some profanity in their life. I brought some.

I don't excel a lot of things in life, but f*** me, I might get it that. See how I did that? Okay. How would you explain your jokes? You know, I just felt that we just were grinding gears a little bit because I think we have a handful of things that we're really, really good at. We come to the rink and that's all. We spend our time talking. We're doing

we're a good hockey team. Everything flows from it. It's the giving tree. We didn't have our four or five things as our focus. I don't know what that last part was. The giving tree. It's tragic our focus. I don't know what that last part was. The giving tree. It's a good book. It's tragic, actually.

I don't know what's going on with this guy. But I do want a T-shirt that says I'm not good at many things, but F me, I'm good at cursing or whatever. I'm good at profanity. I'm good at profanity. That's what I would like on a T-shirt. Yeah, but it is funny, though. So I had a package prepared.

I was all on tilt last night on the broadcast. I kind of forgot what we were doing. But anyway, I had started doing a pack on how Florida basically couldn't get in. Boston was defending really well. Then much like here in Toronto when Maurice had his profanity-filled tirade that turned their season around. Right away. Right away they came out.

They scored. They took it to Boston. All of a sudden they started getting a lot of chances. You don't get many opportunities to push the button that Maurice pushed there. And I don't know that he does it often over the course of the season, but he obviously does it infrequently enough that he gets a response to it.

And you press that button, you lose the game. It's a different thing. The button starts to die. You stop getting feedback on it. Yeah, you know, that was easy button. Like that's, you know, you got to keep hammering away at it sometimes. And I would be concerned, I mean, if I was one of the 15 people that love the florida panthers like i'm watching the game last night it's again you know people kill toronto fans for being quiet or whatever

there's dress like a seat night and like at least 100 seats in the lower bowl and game five where you have a chance to eliminate the boston bruins amount of bruins fans down there. It's like, I just, if we frustrated, well, we're, we're, we're barreling towards here. Another no state tax bowl where it's going to be Florida and Dallas in the final potentially. It's like, you can't tell me this isn't an advantage.

No, these teams that play in these markets with no pressure, no state tax, sick weather, all the guys want to go there. None of the guys want to make it a of the guys you're not making the case for getting anyone to stay here i can tell you that no i know listen but it is what it is like yeah i mean sure you can win the cup and you will always be a cup winner but you're gonna be a cup

winner with the panthers and that'll always you know it'll go back for your like alumni celebration event and you know like who are you again like did you play like it's just to me and it just sucks it sucks yeah i it's a hobby horse of mine where? Like, it's just, to me, it just sucks. It sucks. It's a hobby horse of mine where, you know, maybe it's the Rogers media part of me too. It's like we're barreling towards, you know, Dallas and Florida. Great. I will say there is some piece of me that has grown on the front of, would you cheer for any Canadian team to win a cup?

It used to be a ridiculous question. The suggestion was ridiculous, right? No, that's not my team. No more than Vegas is my team. But it would be nice to see, you know, the fan bases here are unbelievable. This Canucks fan base, out of their mind. Yeah, I love it. In a positive way.

Like, there is, like, this insane passion that is bordering on insanity that right now is has been great to see obviously the oilers fans never go away we'll say that's one thing with oilers fans they've been bad for years they can be bad for years they don't go away they stick with this team through and through so good to see them can we get a parade with over a million people at it that would be lovely that's where i'm at that's like hey give me the rangers rangers get through that's a real franchise real fans they everyone's like florida really god there's gonna be kill me there's going to be more and more of this as more teams get a franchise in other places and so the yeah the passion places are gonna have fewer opportunities

to celebrate gary it's like you got your parody, buddy, and all the Florida themes win. Great. Gary Batman. I can't imagine the Sports Network loves the idea of a Florida-Dallas final. Yeah, I would agree with that. How about no? We do have one more clip. Dropsy McGee up there. Let's listen to Talk It. Talk about his performance as we say, you know, one more note on that series.

How your club played tonight, I'm sure you would have liked a game where you maybe had the puck a little more, maybe defended a little bit less, even if you're happy with your play from the blue line in. But what does it say about your group that you're able to be off for much of the evening and then still find a way late? Yeah, we've been a resilient group all year, but we need five or six guys to get going here. I mean, it's the Stanley Cup playoffs.

There's some guys I don't know if they thought it was the playoffs. So we can't play 12 guys. So we've got to figure it out quick. It's 2-2. Obviously it's a tough one. Heaven came to play. They wanted it more early. The second goal at the end of the period was a killer another couple of given mistakes and then the last goal so i mean it's just

can't do that it was a killer and god nuge jolson did hit at home part but it ain't we learned this watching mccabe run around the year before it before. The juice ain't worth the squeeze on that hit. No, and Nugent Hopkins, so good at that low blocker snapper. But he looked off Connor McDavid. Right off the post and in. He's underrated, Nugent. And I love to hammer on the underrated guy conversation. To me, he's actually in a Canadian market.

I think he's not underrated there, but outside of Edmonton, to me, he's actually in a Canadian market. I think he's not underrated there, but outside of Edmonton, to me, he's a super underrated guy. That's a massive goal at the end of a period that's such a killer. How do you feel about a head coach calling out his team in playoffs the way Taka did there? We usually talk about guys do that, and then they get to playoffs and they back off. I love it.

Yeah. I love it. I mean, it's Rick Taka. It's Rick Taka, man. He can say what he wants. I mean, he's got the all- Talkin. It's Rick Talkin, man. He can say what he wants. I mean, he's got the all-time lead in Gordie Howe hat tricks. He can say what he wants. All right. Well, thank you for joining me today. I loved it.

Sammy, a wonderful day. Thank you to Pete Blackburn, co-host of What Chaos Podcast, Dan Riccio of Canuck Central, and J.D. Bunkus of the J.D. Bunkus Podcast. We'll be back tomorrow, presumably, with Nick Kiprios. Everyone, enjoy the game tonight.