Real Kyper & Bourne - Ref Reputation & The Blazing-Hot Bolts

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne and Sam McKee open with the top story from over the weekend; Kyper's chat with Bill Burr at the Leafs-Senators game. They move on to the weekend games themselves, how much they matter, load management and another unlucky injury for Matt Murray. Afterward, they get into Luke Schenn's battle with Brady Tkachuk and Michael Bunting's worsening reputation among refs. They are joined by NHL Network's Brian Lawton (43:18), who discusses finding focus down the stretch, the feasibility of the Morgan Rielly-Schenn pairing, his thoughts on the new leadership for the NHLPA and the massive impact of Mattias Ekholm on the Oilers. Later, NHL on TNT analyst Darren Pang weighs in on the unstoppable Bruins, the pressure that comes with winning the President's trophy and different playoff teams' upsides (1:06:58).The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

This is Real Kipper and Born on Sportsnet 590 The Van. All right, the band's back together after a weekend break. Quiet weekend for everybody, I'm sure. It was for me. Was that true? Doesn't feel like that's true. All right, just get it out of the way. So what's going on? What are you going to ask me? We walk in here today.

We can't get an answer. I see a clip of you on Hockey Night in Canada, which I didn't think they'd ever mention your name on there again. So you must have loved what's happened. They lost my number a long time ago. You're on there and you're in a clip with Bill Burr, who I think might be the funniest man on earth right now or one of the five funniest men on earth so are you right up there

he'd be right up there are you there you just ran into him there do you know bill burr what was that listen i gotta tell you i've got so many messages more messages than i think i've ever gotten from dms on Instagram, Twitter, text. You got to ask him about Bill Burr. What do you think I am? Are you an idiot? Yeah, we're going to ask you about Bill Burr.

I think I'm going to bring it up. Yeah, I don't know what to say. Listen, you think your phone lit up? Yeah. I'm like, I'm getting text messages and emails from people I haven't heard from in years. And I'm like, okay, so that's all it took was Bill Burr, one of the best, funniest comedians out there right now and me in a clip for like five seconds. And it's like, like hey what are you doing

with bill burr well yeah what's going on here is he an investor in little buddha is he coming on our show what's happening yeah hey how are you it's been a while what have you been up to i'm sorry i haven't called you know no nothing what are you doing with bill burr i want to know anyways that's uh that tells you a lot about some people, I think. I'm sure. First of all, let's start with the beginning. Why were you in Ottawa? Did you win the rivalry train contest and you didn't tell us?

I got invited to go out to the game. Okay. And I took the invitation up. By Ryan Reynolds? No, not Ryan Reynolds. And Bill Burr was in the owner's box and he is a huge hockey fan oh right yeah like like no no no no like real deal real deal stuff yeah like he could actually say the name of a player on his favorite team not like i like joe

biden's like my wife's a philly fan it came to my attention through uh one of his security guys that uh huge uh admirer of the new york rangers 94 team oh cool so i i started talking to him he asked me to sit down and uh we talked probably for a good hour about uh everything about the game in the last 30 years. The hardest thing I imagine about being a comedian is people like do a funny, you know, it's like, he's just a dude watching. He is never not funny.

Okay. That's like a setting for him. My conversation with him was as if I was listening to him on Netflix. Yeah. Like it doesn't waver. He doesn't come in and out. He's constantly authentic, funny guy who's got certain opinions of certain guys in today's game 30 years ago.

And might I add, a true admirer of Clark Gillies. Oh, no way. Brought up the name two or three times. The Islanders, the Dynasty. admire of clark gillies oh no way brought up the name two or three times the islanders that's dynasty i told them about uh real kipper and born i work every day with his uh son-in-law uh i mentioned sammy he said i don't know who those guys are never heard of them no clue that's hilarious well hey i mean very cool what a cool experience that's the that's the gist of it that's the second coolest kipper randomly hang with the celebrity story the other last summer when he was like yeah i played a round of golf with uh rafael nadal i'm sorry what

i don't know how i end up in these predicaments but half my tweets were like uh tim cooks from apple's not good enough anymore so listen i think that's incredible kipper and the thing that i'm very jealous of you not even just to get to hang out with bill burr because that's cool but just to be able to like belong in that conversation right like if i was if bill burr was there and i was with him i'd be like you know i might be trying a stupid joke And Kipper's just like Yeah, I belong in an hour long conversation With Bill Burr

So good on ya His knowledge of everything From mid 80's on We talked 20 minutes He The Colorado Detroit The Claude Lemieux draper and and the fights and the all of it man he's got like like it happened yesterday for him that's cool and he's uh he's a

huge hockey fan he's a boston guy but uh lives in la and we're to end up in ottawa no he's got a show oh he has a show. Okay. Yeah, he's performing there. And one of his big things is that he wants to go to every, I don't know if he told you this, but I heard him talking about it on a podcast, that one of his big goals is to go to every arena for every major sport in North America. That's cool. I'm sure him crossing Ottawa off the list was probably one of the the harder ones

to do that's the tough where's waldo but you know if you're an ottawa fan you're probably like yeah i swear it's not usually like this with the other team when they come in here i swear bilber it's not usually like this yeah i left right away or else i would have stayed uh taking in his show i think on oh man i could track down a ticket to one of those, I'd pay a lot of money. It was fun. It was a good experience. And really, sometimes there are actors or performers who just kind of don't measure up if you spend 30 seconds with them or 30 minutes. And this guy is normal and level-headed as any big time did you get his number can we

get him on for leafs bruins wouldn't that be we'll see if i can track him down bruins leafs we'll have to track him down second round of the playoffs when the leafs get by the lightning and it's the least in the bruins the second round you got to track down early message out to will arnett too and we'll do a con you can do the leaf side we'll do an all comedy hockey day that would be a very good all right all right so part of that saturday night included a win good which i don't know i mean did made you all feel good that uh it's it's uh heading in the right direction on the last half a dozen games or so here. I'm just, you know,

this is maybe not great for a radio show, but I don't care, Nick, the, you know, like these games to me are weird right now. I don't think we're learning anything about, I shouldn't say that.

I shouldn't say I don't care either. Cause I just don't think. Cause I'm going to, I'm going to challenge you on that. Well, it's not. Okay. I,

I don't think that the outcomes of the games matter you know like i'm not like pressing for the win i want to see that the lines work good and the goaltending's good and the pairs are solid and stuff you know the power play is clicking i want to see process stuff yeah i don't care that they won just like i don't care that they lost yesterday so but you you got that sense out of saturday, but you didn't get it Sunday night. About the not caring part? Just about the process. I got the sense that the process wasn't maybe as good.

But yeah, like, I don't know what you like. I'm just saying there, we're there in the standings. They got home ice. They're resting guys. These teams are out of the playoffs. Yeah. Well, again, the comparison from Saturday to Sunday, being there, 20,000 fans, we know it's like three-quarter Leaf fans in that building.

It felt worse than usual for a sense. Like it felt like it was a lot of blue. Did it seem blue being there? Yeah, it did. But there are enough Senator fans where the first feeling and the vibe that I had being in that building Saturday night was this is how this felt playoff vibe. Oh, really? Okay.

Yeah, it did. I don't know how it came off on TV on Saturday night. Just look blue to me on TV. It was predominantly blue and it always is. But the vibe and I think what I saw in the first 20 minutes was that there was a sense that Ottawa is playing for their playoff lives and the Leafs weren't going to just hand it to them. Okay. and and i think what i saw in the first 20 minutes was that there was a sense that ottawa was playing for their playoff lives and the leafs weren't gonna just hand it to them okay i didn't get that vibe out of saturday sunday night that's all it's a really good point though

because ottawa even if they are out of it they would not be saying like we are mathematically still in it so you're gonna get a push from them so you're going to get a good good effort and i thought ottawa was in it uh except uh so guard uh let them down yeah okay wasn't great i think ottawa was there and if they could have kept the game close and maybe wait for a bounce or two i know it never materialized but a couple of those goals were one of the there were goals where you know that 18 guys on the bench 18 skaters can go i just don't come on we can do anything we want but when pucks go through you like that we have no chance no and that's what happened to ottawa saturday night yeah particularly like i thought the bunting one was a good shot but particularly the knee lander one that trickled

through him and there's a horn of one that was like kind of a muffin from the top of the circle goes under his blocker i he wasn't great but sam samsonov was great though so you know i thought he played excellent against shuttered on the road you know this is what i mean about process stuff and the result not mattering but it's nice to see him go on the road and post a shutout you know against a team that's really going for it and can score too so good showing from him obviously the goaltending situation is going to require some more conversation. Do you want to do that now? Or we do the Saturday clips first. Whichever you guys think are more pertinent.

We got Riley and Shen. We got Zahorna. Are we going to waste any time on Zahorna do we think? A quick comment. Saying that the first thing I notice. Big. Good for the Leafs. Big.

Long. Long. Big. Big big stick another goal that probably shouldn't have gone in yeah but it's a nice ad going in i don't know where he's going to be come playoff time but noticeable and can i think uh has some offensive ability you know he's not like he's not translated that big to being like i'm a mucker or whatever like he tries to make some plays you know he's kind of engvall-esque in a way sammy is that good enough for you we don't want to hear the ask you want to hear the coach talk about it yeah let's hear it all right let's hear it very very limited ice it was hard for me to really actually with 11 forwards to really find where to use them when to use them and all that but certainly with his effort tonight you know

he earned some trust and scored a goal you know i think he ends up getting like 20 of our shots here tonight and very limited ice time so it shows that he's doing good things when he's out there 20 of their shots. How many shots did the guy have? Two and a half. As much as we've waved off tryouts for the Toronto Maple Leafs with a little over half a dozen games to go, there was a tryout on the weekend for him.

Don't you think? I guess to be what? I don't know. You're trying to figure out who their 14th guy is kind of like i mean he was more noticeable nisen riley he was more noticeable in six minutes and like you know steve's has been or you know abrazizi i know he had a helper last night but like i know this is a horna i guess probably because of his size but like like you said he's got some touch he's not afraid to go to the front of the net like as a potential black guy's no good yeah he's a he's a guy that could you know play six minutes in a playoff game for if you're desperate sure yeah okay there we go calm it down we got three

minutes at his horn um okay so one place i want to go next is just that whole sense of now sitting guys out and Mitch Marner was one that I'm sure they had penciled in for quite a while I would assume from here on and every time we see a guy sit out it's it's calculated yeah that they had this master plan I'm just not sure if mitch should have been the first guy that we really see on a back-to-back at home probably would have liked to see john tavarez sit out before him yeah that's fair i but i do wonder if that isn't more john tavarez is the old guy and they may want to have him get his rest closer to the playoffs. Maybe have him a little fresher.

Cause I don't know if it makes a huge difference. When over these next few days, you think that they'll do it. Cause I assume Matthews will get one. I assume Tavares will get one, but yeah, I definitely, when I saw the name sitting out,

I was like, okay, no, no Tavares still surprises me. The only thing on that is that I didn't like the loss last night. Yeah. And I just felt like the message with Marner and then Giordano and Jake McCabe was that this could be one that we could easily,

like, just give away or, you know, roll away on. And I just, I wouldn't have probably, I would have tried to protect a hard push or win the game a little bit better than what I saw last night. And listen, I know we just spoke moments ago off air on the scheduling, but I don't have it a given yet that they are going to get home ice advantage. And I know they'd have to lose, I don't know, three out of seven.

What do we have left? Yeah, so if Tampa won all their five games left, they can get to 106. Toronto would need six points over their next six games. So three wins would give them home ice advantage regardless of what Tampa does. They have the regulation wins tiebreaker. But if they go two and four,

they could flirt with losing home ice advantage. They could, but again, then Tampa has to go 5-0 the rest of the way. You know, it's just super unlikely. And it's hard. They got Rangers, Islanders, Toronto, and Detroit. Well, Detroit and Ottawa are in there. I don't know where the Islanders are at this point. Dead middle of the pack in the NHL.

Are the Rangers resting too? I mean, it's not, if that lineup, if they went four and one, Tampa Bay, would we be that surprised? No. And they're getting hot. Is there? No, we wouldn't be surprised.

Yeah. Just wouldn't have rolled over that easily on a Sunday night at home against Detroit. I can totally live with that. I think in my experience with Sheldon, he believes that a lot of times when you make decisions like that, you get motivated people in

and you actually get a better effort than you might get from your guys on the tail end of a back-to-back in a somewhat meaningless game. Don't you think about it the other way, kind of, in a way? It's like I would say, maybe this says more about me than it does about other people but like you ice that lineup where you take out one of your best defensemen

you take out your you know best player arguably this season i mean not even arguably your best player this season and you know you take out a veteran that plays almost every game doesn't that kind of give you a little bit of an excuse to not win the game like you're kind of it does for the other players yeah you're punting on the game before the pucks even dropped in a way it does hunting you should be good enough to beat the red wings but like in the back of your mind every guy playing like they care a little less about this game you know when you're talking up front it's matthews tavaris Tavares, Nylander versus Larkin and who else? Perron. Well, I think that's the idea.

You still should be good enough to close out that game. For sure. And, you know, let's not forget, there is, go compare Matthew's record to Marner's record when they're out of the lineup. Yeah. Now I think they're two games under.500. Like, think about that for a second. I mean, a team that much depth.

Matthews has missed way more time than Marner has over his career, which you can talk about as well. Yeah, no, listen, being without Mitch Marner, I mean, this team can't win if him or Matthews are not in playoffs. They can't. They are too integral. But a good opportunity for Matthews or Nylander or Tavares to still say, hey, listen, not on my watch.

We're not losing to Detroit at home on my watch. And I didn't get that sense. Yeah. You know, and that's, I kind of started the show off in this vein and still how I feel about it. Like, you can't talk me into thinking the result of that game mattered unfortunately but i do think that i thought matthews was really good i thought tavarez is now becoming an issue at five on five that you can't get anything from him he

has i think it's like just over a shot per game in his last 10 games you know at five on five he's just not getting much done so yeah there's there's definite concerns but the outcome for me personally not a big one okay let's slide that right into a sheldon keith kippers clipper here on tavaris note that this was taken from sunday pre-game before the game yeah um i think we've we've looked at different things in there. I think in a lot of ways, John, he's a guy who generates a lot of his shots and his scoring chances come in the middle of the ice, come in the slot, come in around the net. Anytime you're a player like that, you're relying on your wingers and you're relying on the other players to make a lot of that happen.

I correlated a lot to the fact that for me, Will, his game hasn't been to the same level. When you've got that, those two things happening, I think it's natural that there's not going to be as many pucks available in those spaces. That's something for us to continue to look at. That, to me, is a Mitch Marner conversation

that to me is the conversation we had last week where he says John gets his shots from in the slot but he needs someone who can get him the hockey puck there and currently the guys he's playing with cannot get him the hockey puck there and furthermore do you know who can get him the hockey puck

there our MVP this year yeah no question Furthermore, do you know who can get him the hockey puck there? Our MVP this year. Yeah. No question. That's a damning quote. I don't want to go back to an earlier conversation, but your centerman shouldn't be a guy that needs the puck. Okay, but your centerman is a guy who needs the puck.

Yeah, I know. You're going to make the best of a situation here. And, yeah, they need, Tavares needs a guy like Mitch. He doesn't create his own chances. You know, like he is so much better with Marner. So much better with Marner. Matthews is better with Marner. Tavares is so much better with Marner.

So, you know, you want to get a lot more out of one guy or a little more out of another guy to me it's a no-brainer with Marner and Tavares yeah well I go back to Marner Tavares O'Reilly what's interesting to think is like were they testing out if Matthews can drive a line with Bunting and Yarncroft both those guys on the wings have made a case for being on that line they played together last night did they want to find out if they can do that then they it frees them up to do you could do tavarez and and marner and then riley and willie for your next two lines you just wish at this point it would be all settled by now and you know for us to have a conversation in April

about their first two lines as if to rob Peter to pay Paul is not a great thing right now. Nope. They got to get Willie going. I really think the last three games this year, like they need to have the exact same lineup they're going to use in game one. Like get the reps, no unrest, figure it out out because this has been a lot of experimenting is it not

yes like too much tinkering yeah a lot of tinkering yeah do you want to uh matt murray well sure okay like repeat play repeat play repeat play i do feel some comfort that you and i and sam had this conversation ad nauseum heading into the trade deadline about how you didn't trust his ability to stay healthy and they should do something. Not that this was anything Matt Murray did or anything but bad luck. But the man, call him Monkey Paw Jinxed. We did talk about this every day leading up to it. Was it Raymond? Yeah.

That slid into him? It was Raymond, yeah. Blew his shoe. Like right through the blue paint. Yeah. You know, and like I'm with the whole telecast. Like there was nothing. No intent with the whole telecast. There's nothing. No intent. No intent. Nothing.

Here's a guy that is vulnerable constantly and he gets his feet taken out from him and we all saw the back of his head hit the ice. Not good. With no

opportunity to defend himself head hit the ice sure it did right not good and concussion issues with no opportunity to defend himself or give him a chance to brace himself bad luck that was just horrible on that account you just feel so bad for the guy but there's there's something around that i don't know or that his aura that he's cursed i'm not using that word but it was just and it's not like they weren't forewarned yeah we had conversations on matt murray when he was in ottawa last year i remember shows going, he can't stay healthy, can't stay healthy. One of my pals roots for the Sens. Second they got him, text me like, he's great until he sneezes in warmup.

And again, I'm not trying to make light of Matt Murray's unfortunate luck here, but it has been incredible how regularly it's happened. So if they are in this predicament can we not say that brendan kyle have no one to blame but themselves here's my thought on that though kip maybe they love wool maybe they just truly think he's better than anything they could have got they do they do love him yeah but eight nhl games where are you where are you in a in the ability of if you have to go to him on on the confidence that this guy can be thrust from barely having a full great season to the nh uh ahL to now trying to carry a team that hasn't won in almost

60 years to a Stanley Cup final. If you need him. Is it a fair position? Samsonov looked like he hurt himself in that same game. Well, we're about to find out how you feel about it because listen, you never go through

a playoff run without both of your goalies playing. So, unless it's a playoff run though both of you always play so don't that's the seven game right don't you have to put wall in tomorrow night against columbus absolutely at home what do you just to make sure he's got a game close to playoffs uh we're still what two and a half weeks away from the uh the end of the regular season oh we're 10 days away are we 10 days 10 days and then playoffs start two weeks today okay monday night two weeks from now oh it's two weeks to the to the day okay so we will have a better feeling i think or at least not us maybe the leafs will have a better feeling for the next they'll need they'll probably need two or three days to find out whether or not this is going to be short-term or long-term for Matt Murray. Don't you think?

There's a chance he's fine. Like, I looked at it, and he definitely hits his head, but it's not like a conk. Even if he's fine, with his concussion history, forget about knees, hips, shoulders, ankles. Groin this year. Groin. Forget about knees, hips, shoulders, ankles. Groin this year. Groin. Forget about all that. With his history alone, you're not putting him in the next 10 days. You need 14 days.

You think he won't play now until playoffs? I can't imagine with his history and watching him bounce his head off the ice that you're going to put him in here. You're going to put him in a game as early as next weekend. Tell me if I'm wrong. No, you're going to put him in here. You're going to put him in a game as early as next weekend. His 2021 season. Tell me if I'm wrong. No, you're not. His 2021 season ended, or 2021-22 season ended with the Senators because of a concussion,

and he had multiple concussions during his time with the Penguins. They generally, they don't get better. You know what I mean? No, it gets harder to come back. As they say, it's like just peeling an onion. Everyone, you know just gets you get closer to the core that's not a good thing no there's less there yeah to protect you it is uh it is concerning for sure um walter more night i mean you've talked me into it i

hadn't thought about it but now i'm in yeah absolutely yeah let's uh let's listen to sheldon keith talk about matt mur Murray Just given the fact that Matt's battle back Two injuries already this season What goes through your mind when you see him Leave the game I mean It'll go in the hands of the trainers They'll deal with it and he'll bounce back

And Sammy will go Nothing to see here He's feisty. Very short and to the point. Doesn't want to have that conversation. Seems like a man who is frustrated. Yeah, I would say so. Listen, horrible luck,

but that's two times now where you're, quote-unquote, starting goalie who's been on a roll, had to go into a game ice cold. You think about warm-up against whoever the hell that was against and then you think about this game that's part of the goalie life though i'm sorry but you come to the rink whether you're starting doesn't mean you ain't you ain't finishing i agree that it's hard sammy but i'm with you that like that's your job be prepared you know yeah You're behind Matt Murray. You should have some expectation. You might have to go in. God.

I know. Unfortunate. So was Curtis Joseph the backup goalie? No. No. Was he the e-bug? No. Okay.

So God love Mike Zeisberger. Long time scribe for the Sun and now NHL.com. Sent out a tweet saying that he texted with Curtis Joseph saying that he was in fact the emergency backup goalie. And there's a picture with Cujo with a goalie bag at one point, but they don't, but we don't know entirely when that was taped, clipped.

No, you know, and I'm, I'm part of the alumni. Yeah. They, they played this weekend and Curtis doesn't live in Toronto, so he stores his equipment at Scotiabank Arena.

And we don't know when that was maybe. We assume it was yesterday, but at what point was it taken? Was it 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock when they saw him roll in? And we do have Sheldon's answer about if he was the e-bug or not. Okay, let's have a listen. Do you know who the e-bug was? I don't know specifically who it was, but I know who it wasn't. I couldn't believe no one asked a follow-up to that.

I'd have been like, was it Curtis? Was it Mr. Joseph? Did he have a Zamboni license? How about that one? I'm one creative kujo did uh but i think you know just to look at samsonov when he came in i thought he played pretty well from the time he came in till the end of the game when he comes in ice cold doesn't know he's gonna play yeah first one goes in and then after that he was hoody rob post oh yeah pulled it off might have been his best save of the year when that hits the post and i hitits back and is going in and he pulls it out. That's one where it looked like he was favoring something

when he got up from the ice and every single person in the Leafs nation. Was just like, oh, we're doing this with Wolven? Yeah. Another thing that stood out for me and many others was Luke Shen's battle with Brady Kachuk and the ability to box out and clear out and how realistic how realistic is it now that we're going to see morgan riley and luke shen in game

one i think it got a lot closer did it not well they've been paired together now three straight games you know their results aren't exactly dynamite but the other pairs look really good when that's a pair so i don't know yeah i think it's becoming likely why don't uh how bad have their results been well expected goals over the last five games they've been 44 percent the other pairs have been like 67 and 71 percent like done really really well so you know i had one bad night over five games can really skew that and they didn't have a great night last night but um anyway let's listen to keith uh talk about riley and shen they're good i think they're still finding their way like these you know that's been uh you know the we've gone with mccabe and brody for a good chunk of time here now uh and same with geo and

hall who obviously played together a lot over the last couple of seasons. And then Riley and Chen is the newest one. And then Chen is kind of sharing shifts with Lilligren. So that's the one that hasn't had as much time. But I see it coming together. I thought Mo had some really good moments in the game here today, activating and being involved in the offense and broke up plays defensively.

And then Shan is doing his thing as well and getting in the way and being physical and advancing the puck. So to that end, I thought it was good. We had some tough shifts today against their top line, which I said was a real handful for us here tonight. But you can see it coming together. And I like that. I like how all the defense really has been moving.

13 and a half minutes for Shen Saturday night. Sunday night, I think he almost clocked 17 minutes. Oh, did he? So where's the happy place for him? Hmm. Good question. I did like Riley a lot last night. I liked him in both games yeah uh 14 yeah minutes that's how we put a period on the end of 14 is that about for you listen if

i like his physicality yeah i don't know who he took out tim stutzel saturday night yeah i mean oh god i just it's nice to see nice to see just nice to see a guy that's willing to piss somebody really off yeah yeah not afraid to look someone in the eye his hits hurt yeah they're not just hey i'm gonna separate you from the uh the puck yeah i'm trying to hurt you. I agree. That's a really welcome factor for them. What's scary is, like, every minute a defenseman is below 20, you think every pair has to play 20 minutes, 20, 20. Every minute he's below, someone else has to be above.

So, you know, it's asking a lot if you have one guy who only plays 12 minutes or something. Okay. Oh, sorry. go ahead you got anything to add well just on shen the i thought like guys are don't want to screw with him like when he's leaning into them like he really does feel like he has that not only physical side of him but tough guy side of him where people don't want to fight him like and he's you know talk about authenticity with like bill burr or whatever he's not a ph to fight him. And he's talking about authenticity with, like, Bill Burr or whatever.

He's not a phony. No, no, no, no. He's not a bluffer. He's not a bluffer. Like, if they want to do it, he will. Like, Kachuk, to me, had his least effective game against the Leafs that he's had in multiple seasons on Saturday night. And it felt like a lot of the time they were head-to-head with each other.

And he was leaning on them. He smoked them at center ice on that one shift, leaning on his back. Like, it just felt like he lot of the time they were head-to-head with each other. And he was leaning on him. He smoked him at center ice on that one shift. Leaning on his back. Like it just felt like he discouraged him a little bit. And you can kind of dream on that against Tampa in terms of like maybe he can lean on somebody and make him feel a little less welcome. I don't know. I think it's pretty clear to me that he's one of the six on game one in two weeks.

Okay. We got about seven minutes to go until we break. Okay, let's do it. So we're going to go from a Luke Shen conversation to a Michael Bunting conversation. What is going on? Because if you want to talk about a guy that gets some room and respect on the ice, it appears that Luke Shen

doesn't have the same issues as Michael Bunting. Yeah. You know, on our way into the studio, we just had a very short chat about it, and I just said, I can't recall anyone getting this treatment that Bunting is getting from the officials. And I'm not trying to be dramatic about that. I just can't remember a case where they so clearly

have looked like they've come together and said, all right, no more from this guy. Yes. And I agree. I 100% agree. guy yes and i i agree i 100 agree but you know and i think it was craig simpson last night that said you know they're gonna have to straighten this out or he's gonna have to kind of figure this out before they get into the playoffs and now they've got six games to go and there's not enough time. There's not enough time for him to, I don't think, change that narrative.

No, but I do like the idea that it's bubbling over now. And so one of the clips we have, Sheldon says that's up to Kyle and the league or something to sort out. I like the idea that hopefully they have a conversation before playoffs about this, because he really did take a good amount of abuse for a guy who got matching penalties. I got plenty more to say on this subject, but let's go to Sheldon Keefe on our first clip, Sammy,

of Michael Bunting. Yep. I mean, based on the way that he's been officiated of late, no, I'm not surprised at all. So that's part of it. But, you know, Bunce has got to do his best to stay on the line in terms of how he's been officiated. Kyle will deal with that with the league.

Hmm. So I don't know who he would talk to or how you would go about doing that, but if you're Kyle, I presume you reach out to whoever and you send along the video clips and you go okay well listen their office is right upstairs there's no sending anything you march right upstairs and you talk to the hockey department uh of officiating they're right upstairs in the office yeah is that right yeah i guess yeah and say what are we doing here well

it's okay you to sheldon's point you've got to let the guys above you fight for that with the league. But there's going to be a pushback on the league's part saying that this guy, he tries to officiate for us. That's what it is, isn't it? 100%. It's like I'm wearing the uniform. You don't get to call the penalties,

and that's the biggest beef. Well, there's a couple, but that to me is the biggest beef. And I think last night, guys, was a prime example of that little sequence of events when he hit j uh jake wallman right a great hit by the way maybe yeah it's a great hit it would be a hit that would piss me off. Because you'd moved the puck already. I'm facing up ice. Yeah. I follow through on my pass.

Thought Bunting got above him enough. I'm not calling the late hit or the hit late, but the puck's gone, and now you blindside me. Yeah. And again, I'm not saying it's a blindsided hit. There's no penalties for blindsiding hits. No, but it's coming from an angle. If you have a legal check, you can blindside a body check and be legal.

Just because it's technically legal doesn't mean I have to like it. Exactly. Yeah. So now the puck's gone and you get a cheap one on me because I've passed the puck through. So if I'm Wallman now, I'm going back at you. And that's the first cross-check, right? And that's where you should get the retaliation or the penalty. You know, guy throws a clean hit, you throw a cross-check, see you later.

This is my interpretation now. Yeah, yeah. Okay. First cross-check comes in, and the official goes, that one's for a little bit of that blind side there on him. So we'll just wash it and we'll move on. This is where now his purpose now is to follow up on the fact that I've got Wallman pissed off.

So I'm going to now bait him into the second cross check. Right? So I'm going to now bait him into the second cross-check. Yep. Right? And he doesn't turn around on the first cross-check and deal with it man-to-man, eye-to-eye, and saying, listen, right, I'm not going to have this. He waits for the second one and then falls even harder to draw a second cross-check that was never there for the first one and then falls even harder to draw a second cross check that was never there for the first cross check and i think there's a part of part of the officiating team that goes

listen you gave him a bit of a suspect cheap shot that i didn't feel that was worthy for a penalty but go deal with him go deal with him. You made your bed. You lie in it. Is that the ref's job? Is it his job to decide if enough frontier justice has been handed out? Yeah, they do it. Oh, I know they do it. They do it.

But I think if you're listening to this and you're someone who hadn't played, you'd say, call the damn penalties. If it's a penalty, call the penalty. I'm with you. I actually, and I can, in both cases, I think the refs were right. I just don't think they can do that. Because if every time you're interpreting intentions the way you think. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Not every time. But they are with Bunting now. Bunting's interpretation. Everyone else has a different book. For sure. Everybody goes by different rules. Or should he? Yeah, I like it.

I like it because there's some... The 10 was funny because no one else in the league gets that penalty. We know there's some guys that are more stand-up than others that will fight their own battles, that will fight for their own space, that will answer the bell, and they don't feel he's one of them. The biggest reason,

the biggest reason why he doesn't get the call is because the officials don't respect him and the way he plays and the way he he he looks at the official for calls he snaps his head back he tries to get secondary calls they don't like any of it so they just leave him alone it's actually crazy that he is on the right side of penalty differential this year. The number one in penalties drawn this year is McDavid. Number two is Bunting. Okay. Look at the top five,

by the way, Dubois, Marchand, Codry. Can you tell me if that was spread over month to month? Where were the majority of the calls? Were they in November, December?

How many calls has he gotten? It's gotten worse. In February, March, and April. Yeah. And penalties taken, by the way, he's second in the league. I was going to has he gotten in February, March, and April? Yeah. And penalties taken, by the way. He's second in the league.

I was going to say he's got to be leading the league. Second in the league behind Rasmus Dahlien. Dahlien is minus 21 penalty differential. Bunting's plus two. Do you have a secondary clip? Yeah, we got another one. Okay. He eats three crosschecks and he ends up taking a, you know,

he gets taken to the box with it i don't know if he had four or five punches in the in the face in the scrum and he ends up with a 10-minute misconduct so yeah it's it's tough it's tough for him he's he's got to find his way through that like i said you know kyle deal with the other stuff and see what we can get done there but a bunch has got to be able to stay focused and just keep playing. Bingo! Just play, which we've said all year on this show. You understand why Keefe plays him less.

He's probably terrified he's going to take a bad penalty at the wrong time. He's second in the league in penalties. I think it was Elliot on the show yesterday that said they're trying to get him not to talk. But here's the thing, and I feel like we have underrepresented this this is what makes him Michael Bunting if he plays like he plays offensively and acts like Willie Nylander he's not as useful yeah he's an element to the other team that's like god get this guy off of me I think they're sick of it you love that I think if he just picked his spots and fought a couple of times it would go a long way i don't disagree it would go a long ways to pick a couple of guys at least every once in a while to say i i i'm answering yeah i'm answering but to to lie on the ice and wait for a second and third call. He's just never gone once. It's just, it doesn't take.

He's built like me, but smaller. Go pick out the weakest guy in the world and just go with him into a fight. I've tried that too. You still get punched in the face. What does that say about me? Just one or two fights for the guy a year would go a long way. But when you want to play that way, every once in a while, people do want to see you.

Just say, I'm holding myself accountable. You know who may want to see that? The refs. The refs want to know that what you're doing is out of anger and frustration and it's real and not just trying to trick them. Exactly. Okay, we're going to take a quick break we're a little few minutes over but uh we're coming right back brian lawton former nhler agent general manager friend of the show nhl network uh analyst uh he's going to come by and give us his thoughts on bunting uh the leafs and closing out the national hockey

league regular season. Brian Lawton, after the break, you're watching and listening to Real Kipper and Born. Big opinions and in-depth conversations covering the Leafs, Jays, Raptors, and the NFL. The J.D. Bunkins Podcast. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts this is real kipper and born on sportsnet 590 the van all right our next guest will help us close out the half a dozen nhl regular season games to go for many hockey clubs including the the Toronto Maple Leafs. Let's welcome in Brian Lottin.

Lott, what's going on? Not much, Pippa. Just enjoying. There's not a lot of anxiety for Toronto fans. I think they feel pretty comfortable where they're going to finish. But there's a lot of other teams having anxiety as we come down the final four or five games of the season. Very exciting.

You know what? We were just talking about that predominantly at the start of the show in terms of how you go about it and how hard you want to push. We saw Mitch Marner take the night off last night. But, you know, is there a fine line for you on what you want to see in the next few games? I wasn't exactly thrilled to see the Leafs give up two points at home on a Sunday to Detroit, regardless of the season being so close to the end. Yeah, I mean, it's always tough. You have that fine balance of making sure everybody's ready to rock and roll

and to get in the playoffs, and yet you always want to try to get some rest for the guys like Marner that had played you know every game up until that point obviously a couple other players also whether it be age or what have you bumps and bruises getting some time off but I never liked when the guys got too much time off down the stretch especially this close to the end personally so with the Leafs here as they kind time off down the stretch especially this close to the end personally so with the Leafs here as they kind of head down their stretch lots what do you want to see from them what'll make you feel most comfortable about their chances heading into game one of the playoffs well I think they've had another fantastic regular season yeah and unfortunately there's not a lot that they can do, in my opinion,

that I'll feel great about until I see them win a playoff series. So true. Yeah, they can go with all that. We feel great. We finished. I don't care if they lose. They're remaining. You know, they need to get a few more points just to really close out Tampa.

But do they end on a losing streak, a winning streak? Just show me what you're going to do to get it done in the first round. Hey, Lotz, when we saw Matt Murray finish out in Ottawa, I'm not sure how many teams would have given him another look. And it's not like it was questionable on his past history of being hurt, right? It wasn't even a fine line. There's some teams that said, I'm not taking a guy that gets hurt so often.

And yet Kyle Dubas did it. And here we are watching him get hurt again last night. And I'm just wondering, in your opinion, is that going back to the Leafs making the decision to go get Matt Murray, was that based strictly on an analytical department and trusting them more than maybe a gut instinct? I obviously don't know 100%, but my suspicion is that, you know, when you get forced into this all the time when you're a general manager,

you want to get all the information you can. Toronto is very good about how deep they go on players. But at the end of the day, you still get pushed into a bit of a gut feel there there were options available last year but there weren't a ton of great ones ultimately they made their bet on matt it hasn't gone as they would have hoped partly due to injuries which really isn't a massive surprise, at least there's been enough history in the past where you had to know that coming in. It's just one of those swings you take,

and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. I mean, I could look at Edmonton and say, it hasn't worked out with Jack Campbell there either. But luckily for both clubs, maybe the secondary options, certainly in both cases, have stepped up and done a really nice job, and it's been able to kind of smooth that over. So would you love to have Murray playing as well as he possibly could so that Samsonov doesn't have to be so counted on?

Yes, you would. I don't think that's the case right now. We don't know what's going to happen with that backup spot. But, you know, that's just part of being a GM. You've got to make really tough calls. And nobody, I don't care who you are, nobody calls them right all the time. Lots like every team who has a chance at winning the Cup. Among the real Cup favorites, you look at Boston or Tampa or Colorado.

You know, you can name Vegas. You can name a number one defenseman who's going to play 26 minutes a night and be very important. Morgan Riley, pretty universally accepted as the Leafs' best D. Can it work with him playing with Luke Shen, trying to manage those minutes the way he's played with Labushkin and other sort of, I would say, not top pair guys in the past? I think that Luke has had a tremendous season,

and he's done an incredible job to put value back into his career. He's such a good guy. I mean, I have so many great stories about him and how he's just one of those guys that's always working behind the scenes for the organization, and you don't even know it. And believe me, I could give you very specific examples. That's the good part. The bad part for me is there comes a certain point where the minutes have to stay below a certain number. And can the Leafs do that and keep them

paired with Morgan Riley? Sure they can. They're going to have to move him around in terms of even strength ice time and obviously penalty killing ice time. But, yes, it can work, but I don't think it'll ever look like a prototypical number top pair where both guys are within 15% of each other ice time on a nightly basis. I just am not sure that Lou can give you that much ice time and you're going to end up with great results, but he clearly can play with him. He clearly is a positive influence and he really has had a great year. He's thrilled to be back there. I know him

and he's just a terrific human being. We're talking to Brian Lawton, former NHL player, agent and general manager. We had a pretty healthy dialogue on Michael Bunting and his inability to draw penalties anymore. Lott, can you recall playing with a guy or managing a guy when you were in Tampa Bay that just would not get the benefit of the doubt like Michael Bunting's getting right now? Yeah. His name was Dino Cicerelli.

Dino is unbelievable. He would plop like you've never seen, and when he didn't get the calls, he would ramp it up five more times until he did, and he was relentless. Did he always get calls as times went on like he did in his early seasons? No. I think the refs become desensitized to it a little bit.

You could only fall so many times and slap your stick like a beaver tail on the ice. Do you know, do you know how to down pat? I love playing with him. He obviously was all in for drawing penalties because he was always on the number one unit and it usually meant it was going to be a good result for him so uh that was his way to help the team play but i felt like it started to dry up the deeper he went in his career now dino also wasn't a guy to drop his gloves but he had no problem conking you over the head with his stick. I think his most, one of the lengthier one was on Luke Richardson,

if I remember correctly. But, you know, he did fight for himself, but he did it with his stick. Yeah, no, that's right. He was a fierce competitor. You know, he would always joke with me, don't worry about fighting anybody. If they can get through you through this coho,

then they can have you. Yeah, that's a unique position. I don't think you could do that as much today. You can. It'll be very expensive, though. Yeah. No, you absolutely cannot do that today. But, you know, I mean, look at another guy who played with Pat Verbeek. He was amazing.

But every time I would see him when I played with him in Hartford, I would joke and I would put my stick up like in front of my face up about four feet. And I would always say, Beaker, how do you play the game with your stick up here in this full size cross check position all the time? And he just said, that's just the way I play lots. It's worked for me for a long time.

And it's going to keep working for me for a long time. So it was incredible stuff. Everybody had their own style. But the game allowed you to be that way a little bit more shoot first and ask questions later. Nowadays, if you're going around cross-checking guys in the face, if you're doing those types of things, it just doesn't fly. The league is totally different than it used to be in that respect. Lots here. Perfect guy for us to have on the show. just doesn't fly the league is totally different than it used to be in that respect lots here perfect guy for us to have in the show we ended off last week talking about um marty walsh getting

hired by the nhlpa uh you having been a you know a player and an agent and a gm you'd have a great understanding of the pa and how it works what are your thoughts on the walsh hire and what they can expect you know him to try to work on to try to get accomplished? Tough to say, to be honest with you. I mean, I was a registered agent for a long time, so I certainly understand how the NHLPA works. It's a new chance. It's a new opportunity for the players.

But the whole thing's a little bit bizarre to me, and not that Marty Walsh won't be great. It's a very outside the box hire. It's a guy that as far as I know, in speaking with agents and players, hasn't put a lot of time in so far yet to really get connected with the players. And I think that's going to be his biggest challenge. I could be totally wrong on that. That's just my opinion. But I haven't had a lot of people because I asked a lot of people in the business, how is your, you know, your initial conversations gone there with your new director? And I haven't had a lot of people tell me they've had them.

And that surprised me. So maybe it's just a slow start. Maybe there are other commitments he had to wrap up. But there's a lot of work to be done there for a new director with the NHLPA to get up to speed. You've got to get the players to believe in what you're doing. Bob Goodenough was very good at that. You could say what you want. You were there, Kipper.

Doesn't matter if you're good, bad, or indifferent to Bob. He worked really, really hard to connect with the players and try to understand what they were trying to accomplish. I think once Marty does that and he gets a good feel, they'll have a good outcome. I will tell you this, Gary Bettman has always said the same thing. Having good people, strong people, competent people on the other side has always been a benefit for getting things done. And I hope that that's the end result for both parties, that the NHL has somebody that they really respect and believe in and that the players can build that type of bond

so we can continue to grow this game. It's not an easy task, that's for sure. Where would you sense that his top priority would be to, outside of getting to know the players and finding out what they're all about? But lots, is it a potential escrow situation to bump up the salary cap as early as next year? Is it waiting when there's a new negotiation for the CBA in what, three years, if I'm not mistaken? International hockey. Where does Marty go first?

Yeah, I think he's got to get to a real strong position with the players. There's a lot of areas to start in. And on the immediate front, yes, I think, you know, it's not great for teams when the salary cap slows down. If you really, you know, could and find the teams that have bigger markets generally like the cap to keep going up it allows them to keep their product together longer um it just gives them more opportunity to win you might get the other side of that for teams not that that position. But ultimately, for Marty, he's got to figure out how does – the players are in a pretty strong position in terms of escrow next year.

I believe that bigger market teams at least would like to see the cap go up. I think most people would like to see it go up, but it's never everyone because you have too many masters. And that will be a challenge how to balance that out. I can't imagine the players want to increase their escrow because, as you know, Kipper, that's be a challenge how to balance that out. I can't imagine the players want to want to increase their escrow because as you know, Kipper, that's always a hot button. So there's just a lot to unpack, taking the temperature of the membership, trying to get them to articulate and identify what's important to them should be as marching orders moving forward.

How about amongst the players themselves? We talked a little bit about the guys who need to be involved. Do you see the same level of engagement from players today with the PA as there may have been 20 years ago, 10 years ago? No, I don't. You don't, eh? Quite frankly. Is that a problem?

And the reason is I think it would make the union stronger if you have more representation from the people that really move the needle. The whole deal with the PA through this process of coming up with a new director was somewhat bizarre to me in that it certainly wasn't the way that it was going back in the early 90s where there were clear issues that players were trying to solve. Every single player was aware of it. Everybody was engaged in it,

and it allowed, I think, the players to really profit long-term by banding together. You kind of have to put your foot down, demanding that we move together more in a partnership that's happened it's been good for the league they don't have that right now it's missing it's part of the reason why you don't see as many key players that'll be a big challenge for the new executive director try to figure that out how do you get the players emboldened but But for the most part, there just doesn't appear to be that rallying cry that there was very existent in the late 80s, early 90s,

when things started to change. Lots, as we look at the Eastern Conference closeout, are you surprised to see Florida back in it? I wrote them off a long time ago. It is surprising. They just couldn't get it going. Matthew Kachuk was having a season from the drop of the puck, and somehow he's continued that amazing season.

He's got these guys galvanized, and they're right there. Their schedule is tough down the stretch here, but they've got one more game left in the Islanders. They're technically only two points behind. Could they do it? Yes. Do I think they'll finish ahead of Pittsburgh? I think with the schedules, when you really analyze it, that's going to be a challenge, but I'm sure they don't care right now.

It would just be a huge win for the Florida Panthers. If they can find a way to maybe somehow jump in front of the Islanders, it's going to be a great finish when you look at the games. That's probably one of the more exciting finishes and potentially one of these huge comebacks that you can't believe happen if Florida can get it done. Yeah, I mean, there's some great finishes in both conferences right now. Is there any potential playoff matchups that would really, you know,

get your attention? Obviously, Tampa Bay and Toronto takes up the bulk of our time, but looking at the other potential series, anything else out there really pique your interest? Well, I mean, just to be fair, the Buffalo Sabres, who I'm not really mentioning there because they are behind Florida, but they do have a couple games at hand. And I certainly haven't written them off in my mind.

I think they're still alive. They're going to have to have a tremendous finish here if they want to sneak in potentially above an Islanders or Pittsburgh and a Florida. But I'm dying to see them in the playoffs. I love watching their team play. I think they're young, they're big, they're fast, they're exciting. They got superstar players that maybe aren't as well known right now, but certainly will be in the coming years. So I'm excited about that. I'm definitely excited to see how the Pacific ends up.

Edmonton has been on such a tear. I'm in shock at the run they've gone on, and things really haven't changed that much at the top of the division. They've been able to move ahead of Seattle, but L.A. and Vegas have stayed just barely in front of them. So I think that's going to be a fantastic finish. I'd love to see an Edmonton-Vegas first-round matchup personally, which can only happen if L.A. finishes first.

Is it just Ekholm making the difference in Edmonton? Can one guy come in and do that, Lotz? One guy? The answer is a combination, in my opinion. You can trace it all back to Ekholm. I think that was a brilliant move by Ken Holland. They got the perfect player. There wasn't a ton of D out there, but, you know, Carlson's name was out there.

Chikrin was a guy that a lot of people said they should get. I knew Edmond really never in on that. That wasn't a direction they wanted to go. Ultimately, they really struck pay dirt. They had to give up a good prospect in Reed Schaefer to get him. But the impact that he has had has been incredible. There's been a little bit of a side impact that maybe people weren't accounting for. And that is when Tyson Berry also went in that deal. It opened up a path for Evan Bouchard to really step his game up. So it's almost like they got two top 4D out of that deal.

Now, they did lose Tyson Berry, but Evan has been able to replace what Tice was giving them with maybe even a higher upside, so to speak, certainly a big age difference, and Tice has played really well for Nashville, to be fair. But Ekholm has been just dominant. He's been the perfect elixir. He's serious, but he's passionate about the game.

I think he'll play a bigger role next year when Broberg starts to get more minutes. I don't see that happen necessarily this year. But next year, I think Ekholm's going to have a huge, huge impact on him. So great trade by Edmonton. Nick Bukestad's been helpful. I feel like Edmonton needed one or two more players to win it, to possibly win it all this year. But you just can't discount how great their top five forwards have been.

That's for sure. Stanley Cup playoffs right around the corner. Lots of them are going to be counting on you to come on the show and break it all down for us. Thanks for doing this, pal. Anytime. Happy to do it, guys. Thanks for having me on.

Thanks, Lotz. Brian Lotton. I like his name because it sounds like I'm saying thanks lots, like a whole bunch. Thanks, Lotz. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Lotz, Lotz. Just to touch on Ek home a little bit.

They look like a different team. They do since the trade deadline. Yeah, it's the most I can remember one guy altering. When the Leafs got Muzzin, we saw it though, right? It was like, oh, one of those is so nice to have. It just kills you. They're like, oh, we lost Tyson Berry, our best buddy. And then they saw at home walk through there. We we're good yeah it's like we miss you tice

hope you like your country music it's just not him on the ice but everyone else improving yeah right and your goaltending your goaltending point gets better when you have a guy like that yeah it's like marty broder being the greatest goalie of all time or one of them, and it's like, well, you play behind really good D. That helps. Yeah, Danico, Niedermeyer, Stevens. Yeah, the whole team's playing a left-wing lock or a full lock. What's your power play right now? Edmonton?

Yeah, it's still off the charts. The best in the history of the NHL, yeah. And it hasn't really wavered. It hasn't cooled off. No, they're still smoking hot with Bouchard. It is, though, a big ask for Bouchard to come in there and continue it. And he's answered it.

You can talk me into the Oilers winning the cup and getting eliminated in round one. Like, Bouchard's running the power play. The goalies have never done it or had success there. The D has some question marks. But, oh, my God, there's a million reasons why they're so good. You can talk me either way in the Oilers.

Boys, I was not familiar with the Dino Cicerelli on Luke Richardson. a million reasons why they're so good uh you can talk me either way in the oilers boys i hadn't was not familiar with the dino cicerelli on luke richardson yes you found it i looked it up i remember it hey is he getting kicked out of the league no no no that's he's going to go to jail yes do not pass go do not collect 200 you go straight to jail. Dino Cicerelli had an unbelievable offensive career. It's interesting hearing that he didn't fight because I always thought of him as a scrappy, pesty type of guy. He was.

And very seldom would his gloves come off. Okay. If you take that bunting scenario last night with Walkman. Wallman. Wallman, sorry. Wallman. Dino gets up after the first cross-check and spears him or cracks him over the head or punches him with his two hands.

You know, the punch. Oh, yeah, I love that move. It's like holding a roll of quarters. It's close to a cross-check, but it's going to be a punch without my stick being dropped right and that you know in itself is a different beast than bunting waiting for the second cross check for sure yep you know this rally scored 608 goals it's not a famer bud i think i just it's that has got to be one of the most underrated offensive careers yeah and sticky in the you know where's

and there is a different element dino right off the bat his days in minnesota as a rookie comes in he's a frontline guy right away whereas bunting worked his way up here well yeah worked his way up but also that you know he's not seen as a dino is a star right out of the gate yeah bunting's not seen as a star and then there's an element that we could maybe it's a lot easier to not give him the calls than even a dino cicirelli it's also an uncomfortable truth this is unrelated to the point you're making that bunting has not looked good away from matthews he has not been his best like this i don't know about you but like it he has to play with a top guy kind of and that's

obviously not dino wasn't like that yeah he 55 goals in his first full uh season there you go okay anyways let's go to break all right go to break darren pang after former nhl goalie hockey analyst with tnt will join us you are watching and listening on Sportsnet 590 the fan real kipper and born the best Blue Jays show out there period Blair and Barker be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This is real Kipper and born on Sportsnet 590 the van

Kiprio's Justin born Derek Brandale David Siss boom boss Sammy McKee and now added to that all-star list Darren Oh dropped call. Hey boy. Oh that oh not at all big guy right here oh my gosh why did you scream i thought he was like me screaming no sammy just gave out this

like i thought it was a drop call for sure it was just a loud noise on my end over here i thought it was drop call no we're all good We've got Darren Pang He's a lot sharper than that Not at all We had lots on earlier And it kind of got a little cracky Did you notice that JB? You know what I did yeah

All I saw was Sammy's eyes go like manhole covers Like he was He knows one more drop call and JB and I fire him. Right? Wow. That is tough. Yeah. It's going to be a job opening panger if he needs some work.

How are you doing? That's the last thing I need is work. How are you, pal? I'm doing fantastic. I was just at therapy here in St. Louis, and I've had some neck and shoulder issues stemming from my fall of the winter classic, but I'm all fixed up.

I'm ready to go. I played some golf in Nashville. It's 78 degrees Fahrenheit here in St. Louis today. Come on. Yeah, it is incredibly hot, warm, humid. And so what I keep thinking about is not playoff hockey. I keep thinking about the masters. That's what I'm thinking about. And who do I get in my pool?

That's what I'm thinking about. Wow. Yeah. Where'd you take me golfing where the Canadian won the first gold medal in the Olympics? Glen Echo Country Club. Glen Echo. Oh, nice. Yeah, really good spot. Oldest private club west of the Mississippi. Yeah.

A lot of history there. In fact, absolutely. In fact, I had a bunch of, I think I had six or eight Vancouver Canucks. They had an off day here in St. Louis, and they wanted to go enjoy a day. But I'm not sure if people in Canada know, but on Mondays, private country clubs are closed. And I think I've told you that, Kipper.

So Mondays, they're closed. It's maintenance day. Or a lot of clubs, they get a little bit of revenue by hosting a charity tournament on the Monday. So as a member, you can't go on Monday and just go play. She's shut down. So can't even go chip and putter, do whatever. So it just so happens every single Monday here has been unbelievable. And so anyway, it's a bit of a teaser,

but that Glen Echo is a great old golf course. I think it was built in 1901 and hosted the first Olympics and a Canadian that's a member at your club beat the American on the 15th hole and won the first gold medal ever.

It's on display at your club too. Yes, it is. Rosedale. That's all great. I'm glad you guys are having a nice time in your fancy courses. One more golf. Jealousy. Now that we're on the topic of golf,

I know you have an opinion on Brooks Koepka going after Eckblad. Yeah. I mean, seriously. i didn't like it i thought he i thought he exposed himself enough in that uh uh in the full swing pga documentary with the with with the uh with his hair tipped uh he's too old to have his hair his hair was all tipped blonde like that. Highlighted. Yeah.

Yeah. Where the heck did he get a pile on from? What, did he bring that with him to the game? Yeah. Good question. Carries one around, parking spots. Are we good? Can I ask a hockey question now?

Yes, you can. Fanger. Maybe I'm ready for you, buddy. I'm ready. You know, I know you got a look at the Boston Bruins up close and personal. The plan is for the Toronto Maple Leafs to play them in a playoff series in less than four weeks time. What'd you think?

They just keep winning. They, they, you know, even if it's a goal or two, they sneak by teams out of the playoffs. Doesn't matter. It's another three in a row for them.

Very impressive. You know what, JB? Fundamentally sound. Even without, in our game, there was obviously no Taylor Hall, no Foligno. Forbert was still injured. They did fit Charlie McAvoy,

Mr. Perfect, Patrice Bergeron, and also David Krejci. So their lines were Marchand, Coyle, and DeBrusque, Bertuzzi, Zaka, and Pasternak, Lauko, Frederick, and Steen, Greer, Nosek, and Nathway, and they still look like a well-oiled machine. So I guess what I'm saying is it's instilled in them. Their coach coach Jimmy Montgomery told me before the game, he said

that Bergeron is the best captain that he has ever had. It's just a self-oiled machine. And when things aren't going well, he says, there's not much stress on the coach. He just takes care of everything. If they don't have a third man back when the defenseman's pinching, that

third man's getting it, not the defenseman. So, like, you know, in order to beat a team like Boston, you have to be on your game. You have to have patience. You have to be, again, counter them with fundamentally sound hockey. They're getting great goaltending. Even the game against St. Louis, Linus Allmark made several unbelievable saves in that game, even though he didn't face a lot of shots. And so timely saves, great goaltending.

Their special teams are pretty outstanding, especially their penalty kill. And they're five on five. So they get five on five chances. They're plus 80 going into that game. And then their penalty kill is first on the road and overall. So I don't think they worry too much about their power play. It takes care of itself, but it's not the best power play in the world.

But you could see under pressure that they would be able to score a timely goal with that. So no Krejci, no Bergeron, and McAvoy, you said, and they find a way to win. Leafs last night go no Marner, no Giordano, no McCabe, and find a way to lose. Is this just another element to the Boston Bruins where you say, if they don't win the Stanley Cup,

this would be considered one of the bigger upsets in history? Yeah, I mean, you would because, I mean, the pressure is always on the team that's garnered 60 wins and they're going to have more than that. And then, you know, the 100, whatever, they're at 125 points. Their goals for goals against average is out of this world. It's at plus 120. I don't know the last time I saw a number like that.

But I remember, I think the Red Wings, I guess Tampa Bay was the last team that had a good, like a really unbelievable season. But, you know, we're talking about shootouts, Tampa Bay was the last team that had a really unbelievable season. But we're talking about shootouts, and we're talking about three-on-three overtime that generate wins, which actually kind of exaggerates the win column as well. So don't get me wrong, I'm not taking anything away from them, but that 95-96 team of the Red Wings, man, I mean, that team had a lot of pressure on them,

and they lost against Colorado, and they didn't win the Stanley Cup that year. I think it's hard to win the Stanley Cup when you have such a great year only because expectations around you are so high and you're the team that everybody wants to knock off. Listen, even the St. Louis Blues that are not in the playoffs, you know, they were embarrassed the day before in Nashville. I mean, it was just not a very good game to watch or for them to play in, and they were quite embarrassed by the way they played. They turned around not 24 hours later and they had to play the Boston Bruins, and they played a heck of a game because they're playing the best team in the league,

one of the best teams that have ever played in the NHL, and they didn't want to be embarrassed. So that's what happens when you play the Boston Bruins. They're also facing teams that are ready for them. So two parts. Number one, yes, there's a ton of pressure on the Boston Bruins. And number two, Kipper and JB, I seem to think that they can handle it. Whether they win it or not, they're not going to shoot themselves in the foot if you beat the boston bruins in the conference final then you're a heck of a team and you probably deserve to win the stanley cup yeah i think that's a fair assessment you know the only other team i can

think of that has pressure like boston is colorado i know they won the cup last year but they are going in as the defending cup champions um and they haven't quite been healthy but they're starting to roll again they're one point off the division lead now and they actually played the minnesota wild this week i believe so what are your thoughts on this abs team can they can they repeat do you like their team as much as last year maybe not as much as last year because i think their center ice position was pretty darn good with Kadri and obviously they still had Burakowski last year. I think they had a bigger

heavier team last year and I think that Kadri's play especially in that series against the St. Louis Blues, regardless of the injury to the goaltender Binnington, he came back the next game and scored three goals. He was an impactful player through the playoffs. So

I think last year's team, JB he was an impactful player through the playoffs. So, so no, I think last year's team, JB was just better all the way around. But you know, when you, when you have new players on your team and you've already won it, I mean, that's the carrot that you're chewing on is you want,

you know, you want those guys to win. They want Georgiev to be the winner that Kemper was last year. You know, there's a, you know, there's newer players on that team. Evan Rodriguez is a guy that's had a good regular season.

They'd likely, you know, they'd throw players like that ahead and say, that's who we want to win for. But I don't think they're as feared as they were last year. But that doesn't mean they're not a really, really good team. And I think that they're going to win the Central Division and that they'll end up in the first spot. They they got one game in hand on both Dallas and Minnesota but if you would have asked me three weeks ago I mean I was convinced that the Dallas Stars were going to win that you know win the central and they still could win the central and I thought that the Dallas Stars

were the team that are going to get out of the Western Conference but you know there's been some ebbs and flows in play and consistency throughout the season for all these teams. But by and large, Dallas, Minnesota, you know, I guess Edmonton, LA, Vegas. I mean, they've been pretty consistent teams. In Colorado, everybody fears them because of Kale McCarran because they're top-end players.

So we know who the top three teams are going to be in the Central and the Pacific. What we don't know who the top three teams are going to be in the central and the pacific what we don't know is the wild card situation a lot of focus on calgary and winnipeg but panger should seattle fans be nervous yep they should i they should be i mean they do have two games in hand though on winnipeg and calgary if i'm not mistaken so i mean that's big they put enough points in the bank um to allow them to falter a little bit but you know there's there's almost some some naivety with with seattle they just go out and they they just play um and even though they're i mean they're sitting at 90 points that's a that's a heck of a year uh for them right

now but uh the team obviously that that's hanging on by a thread is the Winnipeg Jets. They are. And, you know, there's something about Calgary that I tend to think, I don't know what it is about them. It's probably because of the makeup of their coaching staff. It's probably because their players have had to handle adversity all year, and it hasn't been fun for them. But I tend to think that they're going to get

into the playoffs and if they do i don't think i'd want to play them in the first round i think they'll take a chunk out of you yeah and i know they haven't played well enough for a lot of people to be convinced of that but they're just something there with the calgary flames and with their coach you know we've been kicking around uh the other alberta team too you know they added ekholm and bouchard's playing well ekholm looks like a real rock for them you know we've been kicking around uh the other alberta team too you know they added ekholm and bouchard's playing well ekholm looks like a real rock for them you know trying to get a sense of where people think their cup odds are because obviously they got the the best player in the world and a couple of them there there are a couple points out of first in their own division

do you like their chances this season do you feel like that decor and goaltending is good enough to do more than win around oh i i do i'd be i wouldn't want to play them would you not at all i mean especially with that comb like you know i think there's a lot of a lot of hockey fans still haven't seen him enough to genuinely appreciate every aspect of his game. I've been very fortunate. So I've seen him play a lot of games, being in the Central Division and doing a lot of the Nashville, their team, their success, going to the final. He's a horse. I mean, in the offensive zone, don't sleep on him. I just had a good conversation the last game I did.

It was a TNT game in Edmonton, and it was like, you know, that strong side cycle. When they get going and Connor gets going and then Hyman's in front of the net and then you don't know where, you know, I mean, if they're doubling up, Dreisaitl with them, that's fine. That's three players. But, man, when you get an active D as well and a guy that just sneaks in in the back door, that's what at home does really, really well. Strong side cycles on the left side. He's down below.

He's down below the hash marks. Now he's down at the goal line. The player that dumped it off to him on the cycle, he comes up and covers his spot and then at home smart enough, he can make a play as well. So I think he, he loves everything about Edmonton. Some of the things he told me about how his wife just absolutely loves it there. They love the cold. They love theon. Some of the things he told me about how his wife just absolutely loves it there. They love the cold.

They love the area. They love the atmosphere. I'm like, wow, did Kenny Holland ever get a winner? Like he got the right guy for that team. So are they strong enough? Yeah. I think he's made their other defensemen better. And I think they listen to him. They observe what he does and how he handles himself.

And I think this is making that entire team better. And so are they good enough to go all the way? When I look at the West, I say, why not? That's what I say. I don't have a sure bet out of the Western Conference, and that's why it's wide open for me. You know, people were saying the exact same thing about Winnipeg about six weeks ago, eight weeks ago.

And I, for one, said at the beginning of the year i think there's a there's a chance that winnipeg could miss the playoffs because i just thought there was too many distractions and then they came out of the gate with the whole uh blake wheeler controversy over his captaincy and taking that away and now we're starting to see kind of maybe a few distractions coming up. Where would you pinpoint this breakdown down the stretch for Winnipeg? Off the ice? On the ice? Well, honestly, Kipper, I don't know what goes on off the ice with very many teams.

I mean, and even if I did or heard something, you'd have to really dig down deep and find out an awful lot about it. You know what I mean? Yeah. When I, when I say that, I just meant the fact that so many guys are going into contract years or needing new contracts or, you know,

what happens to Blake Wheeler after this year, Shifley, Halibut needs a new contract in a, in a, in a year. Where'd you go, Kipper? I'm here, pal. Did you get me? Did you hear me?

Yeah. Sorry, I thought you disappeared like you would on the 16th hole after a bad putt. When I said off-ice distractions, I meant the core and and who stays and who goes long term and and that's always you know that that i guess that is there that's that's real that's real um but i they're in the now right now like this's no reason for this group right now to not find their way, to not gather it all up. They've got some good players. They're solid at the center-right position.

They'd be a handful in a playoff series. All that stuff aside, if that is in fact stuff that's bothering them, then that's on them. That's on that leadership group to pick it up and not necessarily on the coaching staff always to be there to pick up the pieces. Paul Maurice did it for years or tried it for years. And, you know, so I think that, you know, whether it's the Mark Scheifele's or the Kyle Connors

and, you know, we talk about Blake Wheeler's, they've got to play the game like big boys right now in order to just get in and maybe if they just get in and uh you know maybe they can get themselves on a roll but i haven't seen the consistency for the last month and a half to see that that can that could happen this so late in the season for me hey we'll just take you to the uh the eastern conference and get one thought from you on that final playoff race uh the New York Islanders, the Penguins, the Panthers, even the Sabres still kind of hanging around as potential teams to get in anyone you really like or really dislike out of that mix. I tell you what team I wouldn't want to play is,

and I maybe cause I just saw them and they're fresh on fresh on my mind, but the New York Islanders, you know what, JB, I just think that the size of their D, the structure of their team, it's pretty impressive. And I know there's a lot of guys out there that kind of complain about their lack of excitement level. But I had a good talk with Lou Lamorella before the game in Washington that I did just last week, and we were just talking about team defense and patience, and

we agreed on this. I mean, not that I had to agree with Lou, but you have to outpatient the New York Islanders, and there's a lot of teams in the playoffs that don't have that ability. They want it in a hurry. They want to get there fast. They want to do it fast. They want to score on the rush. They want to cheat a little bit on

the breakout pass, and you cannot do that against the Islanders. They're a team that you have to prepare to take one step at a time for them. If they give you five inches, take five inches. If they give you five feet, take the five feet. But you're not going to get much more than that with, I mean, Pellick, Mayfield.

Okay, let me just go through this, because I just happen to have it handy. 6'3", 210, 6'5", 220. Romanov, 6'1", 215. And he's probably the heaviest hitter of that group. And Pulak, 6'2", 216. Balduke played this particular game. Ajo was injured.

6'4", 220. And Dawson, not the most physical guy, but 6'4", 194. Long sticks, stop the cycle, gap closure's excellent, and the forwards back check like crazy. So that's the team I would say, JB, number one for me, is I wouldn't want to face the Islanders in the first round. Great answer, Panger. Which means all that's left for Florida is to look at Pittsburgh.

And every time Panger, I write off Pittsburgh. Sid makes me look like an ass. So I'm not doing it again. Oh, boy. This is going to be great, though, isn't it? I mean, it really is going to be great stuff. Because even the New York Islanders are catchable catchable i mean you're talking about two points you're talking about islanders have played one more game than pittsburgh and florida does it come down to that oh my goodness the team that's goals four goals against that's minus in that

group and they're only minus one is pittsburgh history tells us that every team that's a plus goals, four goals against, they get in. Well, right now, Florida's plus 12. Islanders are plus 13. And it's the Pittsburgh Penguins' second wild card that are minus one. Does that come to fruition? Wow. Nice.

It's going to be fun. All right, Panger, we're going to let you go. What do you got in store in the next night and two? I've got a lot in store for you, big guy. I've got a game tomorrow night here in St. Louis, and then I travel Wednesday to Anaheim, Edmonton and Anaheim, for a TNT game on Wednesday. And then I come back to – so I got Flyers tomorrow night.

Thursday night I got the return of Vlade Tarasenko to St. Louis for the first time, and that's on Thursday night here locally. You like the Rangers with him and Kaner? Have not really truly impressed me that much, no. Chemistry's a real, eh? And it's just, you know, they take up a large portion on the right side. They should make them a better team. And I think pace, maybe this is just the games that I've watched,

I think that pace has to get picked up. I know Vladdy firsthand. When he's going and he's forechecking and he's going hard and playing like a 45-second shift, then I know that he's on his game. And if the shifts are cut down to 15, 20 seconds and not getting in there on the four check, then the, it upsets the apple cart because of the two line mates. So that's the biggest thing that I can see right there. But he has proven in the playoffs

and he did so with the blues that when you've got enough leadership and you've got enough buy-in he went hard for the blues when they won the Stanley cup. Now that's, that's going to be essential for, for he and Patrick Kane to have pace to their game. Panger, great stuff, man. Thanks for doing this. It's always my pleasure, you guys, this award-winning show that I've never gotten paid for.

No, I've been involved in any time. You know that. And JB can hit the ball. He'd give you a run, I think. I don't know about that. But I'd love the chance to try. I love that, JB. I'd bunt it.

Maybe I'll get there for the playoffs. And the big hitter over there can take us to his base and we can hit balls and warm up and then over to the club. What do you think, Kip? Sammy's holding up I'm the fourth with his fingers. And I'm like, with his fingers and I'm like one more dropped call you may be

lucky if you caddy yeah Sammy all your texts to me are very kind and gentle and you're always very nice to me so Kipper lay off him a little bit I will on that note I will

Darren Pang thanks for doing this TNT Kipper, lay off him a little bit. I will. I will. He'll be fine. On that note, I will. Darren Pang, thanks for doing this. TNT. Thanks, Pang. He can golf. Yeah, he's like a low capper, right? Yeah, we played that Glenn Echo course. I think he shot like 78, and he wasn't even that good. Drives me crazy when you got guys, and I'm assuming he doesn't pound at 300 or anything.

No, no, just steady and always in play and doesn't make too many mistakes. The game's played like 150 in. If you can get a few up and downs or not three putt, you're going to score. You know, I think he made some similar points about some hockey teams that don't beat themselves, the Bruins and the Islanders, where he said, you you know these are the teams that they make you be patient stick with it do it the right way let your opportunities come it's a really good golf metaphor thought i'd tie that in for us i like it i do too uh all the city of toronto golf course is opening tomorrow fellas if you could get your snorkel out and go and play some golf buddy i can't believe it's that

time we're here you know though playoffs april in toronto we're gonna get hit with like this stupid snowstorm snowstorm somewhere where you just shake your head yeah i and then it'll melt in like four days yeah i grew up in kelowna b BC, where like April is full on, like tulips a-blooming. Course has been open for a month. This is my worst month of the year in Ontario. April stinks. It's great for sports. Yes.

Amazing for television. Bad for weather. The weather is like. So some of these courses only like have 14, 15 holes available. Don Valley's got 15. That personally offends me. I can't. It bugs me. Come on now, boys. I don't want to disparage the good name of Don Valley Golf Course. No, no. We love Don Valley's got 15. That personally offends me. I can't. It bugs me. Come on now, boys. I don't

want to disparage the good name of Don Valley Golf Course. No, we love Don Valley. But listen, I will stick my nose up at playing temp greens or 15 holes. It's hard. Agree. Agree. They still got other ones. Tam O'Shanter. I know Kipper loves that course. I played it real early

with my cousin George. Love it. Love it. Good old Pam. You know, there's certain people for certain courses, and I feel like I know what George is about without knowing a thing about him. I'll go to the DVP with Sam for sure. All right, boys, I got a very urgent telegraph on my lineup here. It's on my lineup, so I guess it's not that urgent, but the Tampa Bay Lightning are getting hot.

I know. Is that right? Well, it's just one guy that everyone's scared of. It's funny. You know, you're not scared of Point. You're not scared. And I speak of Sam and Leaf Nation. Correct.

You're not scared of Stamkos. You're not scared of Hedman. Yeah. You're not scared of headman yeah you're not scared of uh anthony serralli you're petrified of vasilevsky so can i read this out yeah he was the first star of the week last week oh he stopped 99 of 100 shots he faced last week posting a 3-0-0 record and a 0.33 goals against average a 9-9-0 yes you heard that right 9-9-0 save percentage and two shutouts as the Lightning outscored their opponents 14-1 in their three wins and clinched a berth in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs. I can't believe they couldn't find somebody with a better week.

I listened to Alex Killorn do an interview the other day and they were like, you know, do you guys think you're able to turn it up at the right time of the season? He was like, that's absolutely, you know, what we believe in here. And, you know, we've shown we can consistently do it, and we're building towards something, and it doesn't matter what you have done, and we're still the same team. And I was just like, oh! You know what's a little bit still of an underrated kind of thing

about Vasilevsky is? Stopping pucks? No. How intense he No. Oh. How intense he is. Yeah. Great call. How he gives the team... Fight.

Crap. Yeah. No, no, crap. Yeah. Really? If they're not good in front of him. Like, he understands his pecking order, his value in that room. And I think on a couple of of occasions we've seen him snap coming

off the ice right but behind the scenes i hear that if he's not happy nobody's happy in that room interesting conversation about who the most important player in the tampa bay lightning is and i think pretty clearly it's him first right him then headman then point so i have that what about what about the guy what about uh the guy that's like a got 100 points it's a heart trophy yeah 120 points yeah what about him no he's behind the three i just named yeah you're probably right i'm telling you he's it's vasilevsky that sits at the top of the mountain on that team i'm not surprised to hear that in terms of just like leadership and talking to the guys and yeah.

Yeah. And just, you know, there must have been a stretch there where he was just miserable to be around. Just the team and the team was flailing a little bit. Take a look at their record from January up until this past week before he started stopping 99 out of 100 shots like i don't know maybe the one thing we'll see we'll see where they go here they've got the rangers islanders ottawa toronto and detroit to close out the year do they think that they can catch toronto yes for first uh for home ice

advantage where where they only believe they don't care they are the second best team right at home uh the lightning yeah next to the boston bruins i'm looking that up quickly but i think you're right yeah i don't think they i shouldn't say again just like the start of our show not that they don't care but i do think they have full confidence in themselves they did it last year with toronto having home ice like i think they're prioritizing process not they are indeed the second best team on home ice can't be far ahead with a 27 seven and five record the third place team at home is the toronto maple leafs with 25 eight and six so so you could say that uh it's pretty important yeah so now if you're the leafs you have to win tomorrow night against columbus if you don't beat columbus tomorrow night

does the door not open a little bit that was a hell of a door opening well done shout out to my uncle Jim who used to tell us ghost stories around the campfire because that's very comparable. That's a quality door. That's a good ghost story door. Hell of a door.

It's going to be a ghost story again when you've got to play this goddamn Vasilevsky in the first round. But no, you can't suck me into your narrative. No, no, no, no. I don't want in. Lose to Columbus. Yeah, they're not going to lose to Columbus.

And now you go to Boston and you lose to Boston. You don't open up the door. They have to win tomorrow. Well, these are two different things. Thank you. Tomorrow is an absolute. They do not have to win. Yes.

No, Borny, you're being too dismissive. They have to win tomorrow. You turn around this week and you drop to Detroit and Columbus at home. Buddy, the door is ajar. Between here and Wednesday, we have, sorry, the Toronto Maple Leafs have Columbus and Boston. The Tampa Bay Lightning have the New York Rangers and the New York Islanders back to back. In there somewhere. Two wins.

Two wins for them. Yeah, the perfect team. Oh, we're back to this. Okay, so we're not having a conversation. We're just doing fear. By the way, Sergachev left their last game with some sort of leg injury. I don't know if there's any update on that yet. Did it fall off?

Because otherwise he's going to be there in class. Did he leave the ice holding his leg? Did he leave the ice holding his leg? Yeah. He just gave it up on one leg, carrying the other. Then I'll be interested. Look back. Give a report that they're sewing it off on one leg carrying the other, then I'll be interested. Look back. Give a report that they're sewing it back on.

I would still, yeah, instill fear in me. But, I mean, their decor, the same way that the Leafs plan hinges entirely on Marner, Matthews, as far as a knee lander, they have to have Hedman, Sergachev, at least, and probably Chernak too, but Chernak is a little bit of a Matt Murray, but on defense. Just the emphasis I'm saying is you don't want to drop two points to Columbus.

I appreciate what you're saying. And then go to Boston. All of a sudden pressure's on. And lose. And now you've got to come home against a Montreal team that will play like it's their Stanley Cup to beat Toronto at home. They do it every time they play against. They play the hardest against. got to come home against a Montreal team that will play like it's their Stanley Cup to beat Toronto at home. And now they do it every time they play against.

They play the hardest against. Of course they do. You know, that's coming. Yeah. You don't want to turn this into a scenario where you're scrambling down the stretch. Four point lead. Just win five games left. Even less.

Win. Yes. Close out your two points tomorrow night. Hundred and six. Get you there. You have a hundred. You got six games left, even less. Close out your two points tomorrow night. 106 get you there. You have 100. You got six games to go. Every time Tampa loses, that number lowers. Boys, I'm not.

Wow. Math. Good math. Thank you. Those glasses aren't for nothing. They do math. I have glasses. Game 79 this week.

Winnipeg versus Calgary. Got to be the best game of the NHL regular season. Oh, baby. I mean, two teams I generally hate watching, at least, playing against each other. Both of them pretty tough watches, but the stakes are huge. She is so rare to get a play-in game, essentially. The stakes are so massive. So here is the stakes.

Winnipeg 89 points, Calgary 87. The tiebreaker is in Winnipeg's favor, which is big, but the last two games of Winnipeg's season sees them play Minnesota and Colorado to close their season, both road games, Minnesota, Colorado. Calgary is four of their last five, Chicago, Vancouver, Nashville, San Jose, soft schedule. Winnipeg's the only playoff team left on their docket so i think calgary beats winnipeg on wednesday then they'll get in but i'm not saying

they're gonna win that game i'm saying if they do then they'll find a way they had to get a equal out last night against the ducks at home so it's tough to say what's gonna happen with them yeah luchich scoring a big tying goal for them sutter's dream behind the benches i told you boys 2012 kings or bruins anyways i don't think you saw those teams chicago uh they play chicago the night before winnipeg so it's a back-to-back for calgary they're not giving games you know they're just are they who i'm just saying no no you get these teams do they not they scare the crap out of you yeah you're right and also those teams are nothing to lose and they're giving guys chances in new spots they're playing with less structure oh yeah it's just

you're playing total wild card teams totally randomness coming your way some other interesting games this week uh the oilers play the kings tomorrow night they are currently one point behind the kings so that home ice battle is real but they're two points behind the division lead in vegas so massive game and then tonight vegas and minnie the two teams who are in first in their divisions hanging on to those first spots massive you gotta give billy garren billy garren some love here first in the central hey let's go on the show nobody some love here. First in the Central. Let's get these games to go. Give him some love. Nobody saw that coming.

Absolutely not. I had 113 points last year. I don't know. No. Bodie? Bodie on that team? Boldy. Boldy.

Oh, unbelievable player. Love him. Love him. Yeah, what a player. He picked up the slack from Kaprizov like he is Kaprizov. He is all power, that guy, with a set of mitts. Yeah, he's a player, boy. He sure is a player.

So I just wanted to sneak this in here. I know Kipper loves junior hockey, but I just wanted to sneak in a quick Conor Bedard playoff update. Yeah, I saw the highlights. Saw the highlights. Scored two in the first game. They're six. They're six-y.

Six versus one? No, I think it's maybe six versus or five versus three. They're the underdog. They're six. Six versus one? No, I think it's two. Maybe six versus or five versus three. They're the underdog. They're all over him. They're on top of him. They throw a blanket on him. He still finds a way to get his puck. He had five points yesterday.

Last night he had what? He had five points. Hot trick. Tied the game with six minutes left. They win in overtime. This is a team. You know, the whole team's whole game plan is don't let him beat us. And he's just like...

He's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Pretty good. I think he's going to be... I think he may win the Hart Trophy this year. I think, you know, people are saying he's a little too small. There's a little bit of a...

He's going to be a super duper star. When I was with the Washington Capitals, we went into St. Louis, and this is when Brett Hall's scoring like 80 goals. And we spend a day and a half going over how we were going to shut down Brett Hall. And, you know, the left wing lock, and you're not, you know, left wingers cannot go in, and it's blah, blah, blah, blah.

First 20 minutes, I think he's got two and one. And Brian Murray comes in and just takes the chalkboard and just chucks it yeah what are we even doing here it's like what are we even talking about boys i gotta think that's connor bedard right now oh right oh my god that saskatoon blades coach came in and after overtime like j, Jesus, boy! 98, boy! I do want to push back on one thing you said. You know, you just said, like, yeah, people are saying he's too small or whatever. That's been a conversation. No one has, I've heard no people say that.

Really? And this is the thing of retroactive. No, he's strong. And also, like, was it, Kepke just watched his full swing thing and he was like, people said I couldn't win or whatever. It's like, no, they didn't. Like, one of the best college players.

Everyone does this retroactive nobody thought we could thing. I haven't heard one person have the balls to say that they don't think Conor Bedard is generational. Not one. Find me the person before the NHL season starts who thinks he can't play or thinks he's going to be an average player. I think he's going to get 100 points next year. In the NHL?

Yes. That's a lot get 100 points next year. In the NHL? Yes. That's a lot. Give me 70 points next year. 30 and 40. With all due respect, it's usually those generational superstars, even if they come in, it's 70, 80 points. The team's not good enough.

And you're put on Chicago. When he's playing with Clayton Caller, the team's generally not good enough. Him and Clayton Caller are going to light it up. At least you do get PP time. All of it. Yeah. I did write last week about Connor Bedard, too. You won't hear him say

that he doesn't want to go to Arizona. That's not happening. Really? Yeah. Cool. Yeah. He's going to be one of those guys that just... Knows it the right way. Canadian kid. Happy to be. Cool. Yeah. He's going to be one of those guys that just... Knows it the right way. Canadian kid. Happy to be in the NHL. Alright, our thanks to Brian Lawton, Darren Pang. Great guests as

always on the Real Kipper and Bourne show. Thanks for joining us. Have a great night. We're back tomorrow.