Real Kyper & Bourne - Vally's View: Goaltender's Mental Hurdles

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne and Sam McKee begin their second hour discussing Linus Ullmark's recent interview about his absence from the Ottawa Senators, mental health and online rumours, before bringing on New York Rangers analyst and CEO of Clear Sight Analytics Steve Valiquette (5:44). Vally shares his view on the mental hurdles NHL goaltenders face, Alex Nedeljkovic and Sergei Bobrovsky dropping the gloves, and Brandon Bussi's record-breaking start for the Carolina Hurricanes. Then, on Grill Marks, Vally asks the panel which NHL player has the most goals on a deke, back-hand shots, and slapshots this season. Then, Nick, Justin and Sam look at Jake Sanderson's comments on his goaltender, Leevi Meriläinen, and Adam Foote calling out his Canucks' veterans on the culture within the team. 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.

The real Kippenborn show going national. We are live on SportsSat 650 in Vancouver, 960 in Calgary and streaming, always on Sportsnet Plus. If you miss our show, there's Spotify, there's Apple, and there's YouTube, plenty of chatter on YouTube, where we get a thumbs up if you like me. I don't know about Sammy or J.B, but I can get a thumbs up. Take what we can get. Take what we can get.

Steve Alicette will join us in a few minutes. This hour Real Kippenborn brought to by Bet365. Also, Sammy, a little text 595-90. Did I leave that in the lineup from Friday? Yeah, we can text. I won't read them, but you can text them. Actually, I read them, but I don't read them on air. So I'll read it.

I may respond to you. You never know. So you don't really want text 595-90, but you forgot to take it out of the lineup. I forget a lot of things every single time. It's also highlights out Kipp is just Ron Burgundy. Whatever's on there, it's coming out. We're all working on a nine show a week,

basis right now with the Leafs, boys. We've got a ton to get into... A ton to get into on... Especially the Ottawa senators. There's some storylines here, boys. Let's just talk about the goalie fight instead. We will. I'll talk about it.

No, we'll talk about it. We heard from Allmark, who sat down with TSN. Claire Hannah did it. Claire Hannah did it. Something that we didn't hear originally when he left. was mental wellness and he opened up on that and I listened to the whole thing. I didn't get a sense on when he's returning, but it sounds like he wants to come back sooner than later. Okay.

As far as the Ottawa senators are concerned here, it's a story that won't go away for them. And I think they're the main culprits here. If it won't go away, like, you've got to stop talking about it for it to kind of go in the rearview mirror. But they won't. They keep bringing it up. They do it themselves. Well, there's two things on that, Kip. And one of it is that where there's an information vacuum, people fill it with whatever they want,

which is how they got here in the first place, apparently. And so I kind of respect the idea that Allmark was like, I just, I'll talk about it. I'm not even going there right now. I'm saying that since the statement came out, we've seen their forwardness to keep the story going. And so you got the statement. Then you got Brady Kachuk ripping the people the next day. Then you got the general manager Stales doing a one-on-one with Pierre LeBrun on it.

Then you got their own PR guy. Ian Mendes do a podcast on it and a written article I think on NHL.com. Okay. And then then you put Allmark out there

for 25 minutes on national television and like I'm no PR expert but I would think that if you hired a company for damage control and this was kind of damage control the first thing that they would tell you

is stop talking talking about it. Yeah. It won't go away if you won't stop talking about it. You know, this is it. I keep picking. You just won't go away. It stays red.

Leave it alone. Put a little oitment on it and leave it alone. Leave it alone. And it's just, it's turning into their season now. Yeah. You know, I didn't really think about it from that, but you're right. Like, they just won't stop talking about it. It's not us.

Well, no, it's. not us. Well, to Kip's point, they keep bringing it up. Keeping it relevant for us to continue to weigh in on it. There's no chance we talk about this today without that. Right. There's no chance. Nothing new for us to add.

It's moved out of the cycle, I would say. And now, you listened to the whole Allmark thing. I did, yeah. I listened to a couple of clips. The idea that I gathered from it was him saying that this response is why people don't don't talk about mental health more, that because we didn't say anything, people made all these stories up, made it worse.

My teammates don't like me, all these rumors. That to me, was that the gist of it that he was basically saying, this was a mental health thing. People are making it worse. He talked about anxiety. He talked about a leaf game where he didn't handle it well.

He talked about ongoing issues. He talked about feeling broken and needing to be fixed. Like he went deep. Yeah. Right? He came into the year hard, right? Like he said, I had a bad terrible summer.

He was bad in training camp. He came out of the gates rough this year. So I believe him, obviously. I said, I'm no doctor. I don't play one on TV. But when you're dealing with something like this, I hope they don't rush him back because their season is on the line. That might be why they rush him back.

If you watch the goaltending, I know he's not been awesome, but could a rejuvenated Allmark save the season? I know our next guest probably has a deeper understanding of mental health, for sure, the goaltending position, the pressure of it. So I'll just shut up, basically. Also how to slay fresh powder. Look at those rosy cheeks. He's been up on the mountain top again.

Let's welcome in, Steve. You got it for it. Steve Valaket, analyst with the New York Rangers, MSG, CEO of ClearSite Analytics. Valley, how are you, my friend? Doing very well, boys. Pretty well rested after MLK weekend. Yeah, listen, just talking about Allmark and, you know, he sat down.

We heard from him for the first time. He had to sit down with TSN, and we heard about him in a way that we haven't up until this point. obviously he left, I think, December 28th. We lost Valley. We lost Valley? I mean, I don't know when the last time we had a drop call is. This is unprecedented.

If you remember the OG fans of this show, when we used to do phone calls, you used to hammer me about this whenever we'd have a drop call. We had one guy, Kevin Kurz, I believe, dropped three separate times. We had Bet365 over unders on your drop calls. But it was funny that we blamed Sanford. He had anything to do with it. The look you would give me when a phone would drop, was like the earliest I was...

Like you had hit end on the call. No, no, like he lost a jersey on the TTC. Right. That kind of look. Back in the day, we weren't on camera and you were on the other side of the glass from us. All right. Steve Alicette, take two.

Oh, my apologies. You know what? That's on me. I was trying to up the volume on this thing and I hit the end button. Oh, no, no, no. Just say it's Sammy's fault. Yeah.

I usually would. I usually would. You know what, guys? This Linus Allmark story, It's fascinating to me because there's a lot of learning that can be done here. And I can speak from experience. You remember when a week ago the Rangers allowed 10 goals, and it was in Philadelphia or in Boston?

And the next game back, John Gianone in our pre-production meeting, he said, Valley, the last time there has been 10 goals scored against the Rangers, you were in net. And he's like, I want you to talk about it on the open. and I wasn't comfortable with that. You know, Borny, Kipper, Sammy, think of the worst day of your life. Right. And now, do you want to talk about that and bring it up again?

You want to forget about it. Right. And it really was the worst day of my life. And for the next two years, it was a lot for me to play. Like, I had to play through the fear of failure and the fear of embarrassment. And going into the game in which I allowed 10 goals, I had a 929 safe percentage. I was playing the best goaltending of my life.

And at the end of that game, I was 909. And I'll never forget the way it made me feel. And then especially going forward trying to get through it. Now, the only reason why I got through it and when I look back on it, it's because I love this game too much. And I love this game deeply. I work in it all day on television, coaching, and with my analytics company. And I love doing this.

job. And that's the only reason why I get up every morning and go to work is because I absolutely love it and it never feels like work. Now, if when I work with young athletes, if I'm working with them and I see the parents are driving the bus, there's always a touch point where I know at the first sign of adversity guys, that goalie's going to quit because it was never their choice in the first place. And when I'm listening to Allmark's comments today, I watched the 26 minutes of the interview. You know, there's one point where he says, I didn't know who I was.

I don't know why I'm even playing hockey. Have I really done anything? Have I wasted 10 years of my life? When he's saying those things, here's where my heart bleeds for the guy. He's really good at what he does. I don't know if he's maybe ever loved it deeply. And that was two years ago when I came on your show,

And we talked about Elmark signing with Ottawa. That was the root of why I had my position the way I did at the time was because I heard stories during his development years that he wasn't really that interested in attending the meeting or wasn't really that interested in goalie development or those types of things. And I think that you need to have a deep love for this thing to be successful at it. And until he's able to get to that point, And maybe he, and you know what, guys, I've had to realize that.

I didn't, I didn't know that other guys thought this way. I've coached players like this. I've played with players like this. You know, there was the time that I was coaching in the minors, and we told a goalie that had mental leave that he was going to start on Saturday after having a really strong performance on Friday. And you look at the coach and I in the eyes, and he was just like, you said I only had to play Friday.

You know, and I remember bringing that up to you. you guys. And it's, yeah, but you know what, Borna, I never would have thought that would have happened, right? We were begging to play. And the reason why we love the sport and why we embrace the hard days is because we love the competition of the games. And I think that when you're staring at a four-year contract for 33 million and you don't love it a lot, you know, that's where you can get some anxiety going. And I think, and that's where I think he's at. I think That's what he's going through. You know, I think that's the harsh truth here is this is a young man that has to realize

I've got three more years on a commitment here for $33 million. And I've got to figure out if I love this thing. Do you think you have something, Kip, USA? You go ahead. I was just going to ask if you think a greater percentage of today's NHLers are playing hockey as a profession now as opposed to because they love it. I just know watching kids develop around my son and all. that like the professionalization of it's so young.

I feel like you're creating these pros that by 15 are like, this is what I do, this is work. I think that's the biggest risk we have right now in the specialization, early specialization, all of the work these young guys are doing with all of their private coaching. I think that you can overdo it. But the root of it is, guys, I sent you a document there that I put together for my athletes and it's the same.

six attributes of success. And when I'm working with a 14-year-old, I'm trying to narrow down which one of those six pieces does he not have. And I started doing this this year because I was listening to an interview with Keith Pelly on 100% hockey guys that you worked with, you know, John Shannon and Darren Mollard. You know, and these guys have a great job. They have great interviews, but they had Keith Pelley on. Keith Pelley was talking about how his son was a golfer.

And he said to him in his teenage years, what do I need to do, dad, to make it? And he said, you need the ability. And he said, son, you've got the ability. You've got the talent. So that's number one. And by the way, some of the athletes I work with don't even have that. And that's where it's a whole other conversation. But you need to have work ethic, mental toughness, passion.

You need to be able to stay healthy, which is your training. and happiness. And again, the happiness, passion piece, those two pieces are huge guys, but I think transactional players exist in the game right now that don't have those two pieces because it's almost one of the scariest things in the world. Imagine being so great at something

and everybody wants you to do it, but you don't even really enjoy doing it? That's a scary way to live. And so your mental toughness now gets hindered by the fact that you're not that happy with what you're doing. So, you know, if he can work through this, you know, there's light on the other side of that tunnel. You're watching and listening to Steve Aliquette. Does a terrific job covering the New York Rangers, also CEO of ClearSight Analytics. You mentioned working through this.

So today when we spoke publicly, we heard him talk about darkness, depression, sadness, anxiety. issues, you know, I think he mentioned panic attacks here. He leaves December 28th, and here we are less than three months. And I'm going to be honest with you, Valley, three weeks? No, I'm sorry, three weeks, three weeks. And I'm shocked that he's doing a 26-minute interview on national television. And again, I don't pretend to know what the answers are and what's good for him and, you know, what treatment is. is out there to best get him healthy.

But I wonder if that's enough time between the time he's leaving and talking about trying to be fixed to January 20th feeling like, you know, are we rushing him? Are we putting him in a position to succeed? Sometimes we hear of stories of guys leaving for months. Sometimes we don't hear of stories and they're just gone. but could he be better in two or three weeks?

I think that we're starting to see that guys are coming back from it at least, right? Like guys have worked through it, whatever there it is. Connor Ingram, Spencer Knight, Joseph Wall, you're seeing guys come through it on the other side and be successful. And you have to know that with the right advice. Now, I got really good advice when I was around 27 years old from Steve Montador, who said to me at the time that I had to work with his sports psychologist because we played junior together in the OHL and he knew that I had a decent ceiling, at least, as a friend. And he said, you know what, Val, he's got to work on your mental game. I've got a lady here that his father was the vice president of Johnson and Johnson. Her name is Jaze Bourgeois.

She happened to live really close to Hartford where I was playing in the HL because this was during the 0405 lockout season. I met with her twice in the summer. I went there once a week during that year. I led the league and safe percentage goals against. I had a breakthrough. And it was all because of the work I did with her. Now, it was because I was stuck in the minors for six years. And now we've got a lockout that we're looking at.

And, you know, I'm getting older, Kippa. I was 27 years old. And I'm like, you know what? I got to do something here. If you put the hard work in on yourself, it's certainly possible. It's certainly possible. But I also think that you've got to love this so deeply that some of these days are really going to be hard.

And if you're willing to get through that next day and, you know, Borny, I've read your book, I loved your story. You know what I'm talking about here. It's one foot in front of the other. Next day, next day, next day. Stack good days. And yes, the answer is yes. I think that the one thing that makes me a little bit nervous with mental health stuff,

just a little bit nervous, is that as coaches, we still need to push these young athletes. And you can't get growth unless you get that push, guys. I'll just share this story with you, too. When I was with the Rangers, I had a really bad ankle. My knees were, you know, a little wonky. I'm a six-foot-six goalie. And I didn't want to do the running test in training camp. So before the off-season began, I was able to be a little bit of the last.

able to negotiate with the trainers, Rammer, Jim Ramsey, of course, Keper, and Reg Grant, who was our head athletic trainer, that I would ride the bike, and that would be rather than running the 12, it was 12 laps around the track, three miles, and this would have been on the same day we did a skating test with Torterola. It was 14 laps times three times, and six laps times six. It was an excruciating training camp. Anyhow, I get in there, and I'm, probably mid-June and I ride the bike in front of Tortoralla and it was a V-O-2 that's 17 minutes you guys have probably both done the V-O-2 and thrown up. Yeah, and Kipp, you're not going to even believe this story.

17 minutes? Yeah, the V-O-2 at that time, our V-O-2 was 17 minutes to finish it. Oh, my God. Should be like 12. And I finished it, okay, I finished it. And with, with Rammer as my witness and Reg Grant, and Torrella says, you know what, Valley, if you can do one in June, you can do back to back in September. So I bought the bike, the sidebacks that I was going to train on.

And I rode this bike, Borny. Like, you wouldn't have thought I was training for tour to France. But why? Because I needed a checkmark on the first day of camp that I actually did the work. Reg Grant watches me during training camp. I wrote up on the board in my home gym. I just wrote the words without limits. and I was like, you know what, I'm just going to dive into this thing.

I'm going to try and ride back-to-back V-O-2s. I completed back-to-back V-O-2, and I mean no rest. Like I finished a V-O-2 and then rode right into the next V-O-2 for training camp that year in 2009. And with trainer over my shoulder the whole time, well, the guys ran the track chirping me because I wasn't running. But the point is, is that Torts was such a hard ass. He showed me that I could do the unthinkable.

And I think that's still the most important thing, guys. I have my kids in my office the other day, and I draw on the drier race board, I like to do this with them from time to time. Why do we play sports? And I circle that. And then I draw a line there in another circle, and I said, you know what, guys, you're going to learn empathy from this. And we'll talk about a story that was maybe happening current day empathy or respect.

You're going to learn punctuality. You're going to learn how to test yourself. The reason why we do this is because we're trying to become stronger people, have a better life, be successful, all of these things, be a better person in the community, be a mentor to somebody. So I don't want to lose that piece, guys. You understand? Like, we've got to be careful here. When it gets tough, you can't, I'd hate for us to live in a world where at the first sign of adversity, you pull the plug and you say, you know what, I'm suffering from mental health because you should have seen my mental health when Torts told me, I had never. run right back to back field twos.

You know what I mean? You know, Valley, you know, I think that's fascinating because I, you did, you mentioned my book. I talked about my junior hockey experience where I had just had players' dads as coaches and then I had a junior hockey coach in Vernon who was really tough. You know, for me it was an eye opener. And I realized now that I didn't know how to work hard until then. I didn't learn that, you know, you don't die.

Your heart doesn't stop if you push through and you work. I truly like at the time it felt like it felt awful but I learned so much about myself and became such a better athlete and a more understanding person of like the way my body works and you know what I'm capable of and all that because of it and so I'm grateful to that guy was Mike van de Campi he I don't know what he's up to these days but you know I'm grateful for that experience and so I look at a lot of these stories you hear of guys Mike Babcock Mike Keenan um you know Tortorella some of these guys and they all have players that say he was mentally abusive or he was mentally whatever.

And I just don't think that you can push 20-some guys a year for 20 or 30 years of coaching and not have a couple guys that it doesn't work for. But you might have... End up taking a run at you. Yeah, and you might have 80 or 90% of the guys who said, I'm so grateful for how much better I got, how much I was pushed. But then, you know, we're able to hold up these few guys

who really didn't work for. So I agree that we have to be able to push people, but of course we have to be sensitive where the limits are, and that's the balance today that's tough to strike. It's so hard. And hey, Borny, your comment about heart stopping, you know why I wasn't with you guys last Tuesday?

I had heart surgery. No, you did what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had a hard. Now that we're having one of those podcasts, we're just speaking openly here. Yeah. So I had an a-fib issue.

back-to-back summers on the same weekend. I hiked. I rode a 10-mile bike ride with my kids. I was at night. We were taking a swim, and we were trying to see who would hold their breath the longest. And I had eighth of the previous year, so I knew the feeling.

I held my breath for over a minute just to beat my 16-year-old son and show him who's best. But as soon as I came, because he was tapping me to get up, and I just kind of let him show that I could hold it a little bit longer. When I came up out of the water,

or I felt my heart going, the flutter you get with AFib. So I called my doctor Ray Way, had an ablation. But yeah, I had a procedure done where they went up through my groins on Tuesday and basically like on the electrical side of the heart, sodered it back together. Yeah, my mom had that procedure. There was another ablation on the side as well. Anyway, you know what he said?

The reason why I bring it up and just for people to know, like if I didn't take care of this issue or I wasn't listening to my body, you're at risk for a stroke or a heart attack. And part of the reason why I'm telling you this story, too, is because what the doctor said to me was that athletes, specifically athletes, cyclists, they have like a 30% greater chance of having heart issues later on in life because we rode the crap out of our hearts.

Oh, my God, the V-O-2 Max almost killed you in the end and we're making light about how great it is. I know, I know. And by the way, you know, I called out of work with you guys on Tuesday, but I went right back to MSG on Wednesday. They didn't tell anybody because I'm still a frigging hockey player.

Did you lean on Hank Henrik Lundquist at all? I did. I did. So I spoke to Hank a couple months ago about it. We went out to dinner and I just, I hadn't told anybody, but I wanted to talk to him about it.

And he said, here's what you got to do. You know, the way that you prepared mentally for a game, just do that before surgery. Like, just get really focused, calm your body. You're going to receive the surgery better if you're calm. Like we talked all about just doing our game day routine. And Henrik was really helpful, really helpful. Yeah.

And for those of you that don't know, Lundquist, major heart surgery that ended his career. Well, don't do that anymore. We're glad to see you, pal. Is this a good time now to talk about goalie fights? What does that do to your heart? We saw one for the first time in, what, five years, Bobrovsky, Nadelkovich?

Pretty wild. You know what? It's funny because as soon as I saw Kipper, I went back to watch the Tommy Sallow, Dan Clucay one. Oh, yeah. And, you know, they all pop up on my feed. Now I'm watching Patrick or fight Osgood.

Come on. Fascinating. One or two in your career? Come on at 6.6. You know what? That's what I always told people. I was like, there was no takers. No, H.O.H.

I was the big. It was always a losing proposition for me to even have that conversation at 6-6. It's crazy You know They can't It feels like you know When they do like fat guy fights Like do you wear the fat suits

And you try to fight someone It feels like no one can get to anyone There's too much gear I give Bob credit It looked like he was trying to track down to Ndalkovich who is backing up But whoever falls on top People seem to pretend one

I don't know Do we have time Do we have time to talk about Carolina's goal tending And are they going Is this team competing for a Stanley Cup With an unknown in that Yeah this is a fascinating story

sorry guys. So this Brennan Bussie, you know what? It really does find its way into the conversation we just finished having about raising young adults. And listen to this guy's career. So he starts in the Null, the North American Junior Hockey League, which is the second best U.S.-based junior hockey league behind the U.S.HL. He doesn't have a great start there as a teenager. So you know what he does? He goes to the NCDC. I'd imagine you guys aren't even familiar with that league. It's a a very, it's the third, fourth tier of tier two in the United States. But he goes there and he dominates. And then he goes up to the U.S.HL and he plays from Meskeg in the next year.

And I spoke to one of the coaches that played against him when he was with the Chicago Steel. They actually played one another in the playoffs. And he said, Valley, like, he was explosive. He competed. What a deep will to his game. He was just giving me the background of what he was like when he was a teenager. It's a big part of his story because he's an underdog. This guy goes to Western Michigan, and he has three good years there, three really good years, including a COVID year.

But he's really good with adversity because he's never drafted. Plays for the Providence Bruins for three years. He's an all-star. And then signs this offseason when they just can't slot him into Boston's net. And I can see why. I mean, they got swaying. And at the time, they had Allmark. And then he finds himself on a contract with the Florida Panthers picked up on waivers, ends up going to Carolina.

And, you know, you look at his pitcher on Hockey DB, and he kind of looks more like an accountant than an NHL goalie. But the guy last night against Buffalo was everything you need in a goalie. Watch this save here. Are you kidding me? That is going to go down as the best save in the NHL this year. The folks that are listening, it's Thompson to Zucker, back to Thompson, a two-on-oh on a breakdown, and there's no chance to get a save there,

and he finds a way. This guy was incredible in this game. He had 11 high danger chances faced, only one goal against. And the hardest part about his game was they only had five low danger. There was no fluff in this game. Buffalo's playing really well. Both goalies, UPL played really well for Buffalo as well. But just going through his game and then looking at his stats,

there's a pretty neat story here because Carolina for me is the Florida Pan. when the Florida Panthers won the President's trophy. They have one of the top rush games in the NHL offensively, but they have defensively the worst rush defense in the NHL, which happens to be the lowest save percentage for NHL goalies. That's the hardest save to face during a game because of multiple reads. And then, of course, the depth piece. Now, again, back to talking about his young career when he was in the USHL,

the coach that I was speaking to today said, you can see everything that he had, but off the rush he was just over-challenging. And now he plays deep. And this is going to be really important for Carolina because I took a look at their list of safe percentage goaltending for their last three years, and they've always had goalies in the bottom third.

And he right now is ranked seventh and expected goals and 12th and expected safe percentage off the rush. So he fits what Carolina needs. As inexperienced as he is, this guy seems to just fly into adversity and not even waiver. So I'm really excited to keep watching his story. He, in his win last night, that was his 18th win in his 22nd game. And he's the fastest to 18 in NHL history. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, he's a 907, 913, 924, everywhere he goes. He's been good. Right? Really impressive. No goalie trade for Carolina then. No, they're going to stick with this guy. And we do know that Kachetov is not coming back,

hip surgery out for the season. So it's going to be he and Anderson, and I think he's the guy right now. And hopefully Anderson, you know, gives him the support he needs. But Carolina might get over the hump. They actually look, but we've never seen a team 30 second in the NHL in high danger off the rush get even close. So I don't know.

He's going to have to be all-world goal-tending. All right, we got time for grill time? Yes, sir. Real-time is not the name of it, but what is it? What is it? Grill marks. Grill-the-panel.

Grill-the-panel. There we go. Trivia. Here we go, guys. That's true. We're working on it. Okay, guys, so this one's interesting. I thought most goals scored on a deek

this NHL season. What player has the most goals scored on a deke. I'm going to give you three options. Jack Eichael, Connor McDavid, William Neelander. Connor McDavid. It just feels like the right answer. I don't think he would do that.

I'll go Willie. I've seen a lot of deeks on Willie. Yeah, I just, I'll do Connor. Connor McDavid had nine so far this year. He leads. Willie has five. Oh, my gosh. Connor. Yeah. Every goal, oh, you see if Connor, the goal is that one is Nashville is like cheating.

Yeah, it's easy. He looks automatic on the deke. Most goals scored on backhand shots this year. I wonder if anybody's name comes to mind. The top three in any particular order here, Zach Hyman, Jason Robertson, Brad Marchand. Backhand goals. Brad Marchand.

I'm going to take Hyman because I think he's back post-tipping everything in. Jason Robertson has five. He leads, and Zach Hyman and Marchand both have four they're tied. God, he's got such a good shot, Jason. Yeah, we've seen it. You know what, guys, with this rebuild with the Rangers, it might be a retool if they can get Jason Roberts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair, fair. Slapshots, most slap shot goals. This is interesting because I'm watching the game last night, Avalanche, and you see the way that Kail McCar slides the blue line and just delivers the puck. And I looked it up right away. Most slap shot goals this year. And the three guys are Logan Stanley,

Josh Morrissey, or Jacob Truba. I can't believe Logan Stanley's in the conversation. I'm not picking that. I'm not picking. I'll take Stanley. I'll take Truba. I don't know. I'm going to take Stanley too.

Josh Morrissey. No, that's only four. In retrospect, that seems. Yeah. Well, isn't it funny? There just aren't a lot of slap shots anymore. Yeah. Since hit a couple

slap shots this year, I feel like. Had somebody come up to me and said, like, where did the word clapper come from?

You use that, Sammy. Clapper? Yeah, clapper. You use it all the time. It's been around for a while. I mean,

I've been around for a while. I think the sound of hitting the ice. A little clappy. I don't know. I don't, I'll have to research that one for next week, boys.

Gali, awesome stuff today, man. Really appreciate your insight. All right, guys. Have a good week. Thanks,

buddy. Appreciate you. That is Steve Alicat. That's some good stuff out of him today. That was really good. I mean, that was quite, you know, I like those sort of conversations. We didn't ask about the NHL so much,

but, you know, learned a little bit more of the mental side of the game. Very cool. Game time? Game time. It's game time. Presided by Bet365. Visit the app to play it's ever ordinary

at Bet365. It's 19 plus. Ontario only please play responsibly. Eight games on the ice tonight. I would say probably highlighted by San Jose in Tampa Bay tonight. Sharks with an improbable victory over the Florida Panthers last night. Sharks maybe just legit good. I don't know.

Sellebrini. And we'll talk about the goal we fight more after the break. But sharks, huge underdogs tonight, as you would imagine. Second half of back to back, going to play a really good Tampa team. Plus 245 on the money line. Tampa is a minus 305 favorite tonight. Can I stop you and get the sharks plus a goal? You can.

It is plus 100, a goal and a half. You know, you get, if they can hang around, they can go to you win. Another good one tonight, the Boston Bruins in Dallas to take on the stars. Bruins are plus 115 on the money line. Dallas starts struggling a little bit recently. I think last night, Wilde jumped over them for second place in the central. I'm not mistaken.

Don't mind the value with the red hot Bruins team going in there at plus 115. And still tough. The Edmonton Oilers are hosting the New Jersey. New Jersey Devils, they're big favorites, as you would imagine. Minus 170 on the money line, the New Jersey Devils are plus 145. And that was game time. Presented by Bet365. Visit the athlete of Stodds and C.

Why, it's ever ordinary at Bet365-19 plus. Ontario only, please play responsibly. Okay, we'll catch our breath with a commercial break here when we return. Right back to the Ottawa Senators, Jake Sanderson. We heard his controversial comment on his backup goalie. we'll see where that story stands as of today. You're watching and listening to Real Kipper and Born. Dive deep into Toronto Sports and the NFL, the J.D. Bunkus podcast.

Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. As a reminder of this hour, Real Kippur and Born, brought to by Bet365. Nick Kippreel is Justin Bourne. Sammy McKee. Jake Sanderson. expressed a little regret, apologized to his goaltender, backup goaltender.

He made some critical comments after Saturday, 6'5 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadians. Mayor Linen, he questioned whether or not he made 10 saves in the game. Different tune. Let's have a listen.

I mean, first off, I'm pretty embarrassed. I think, you know, That's a situation where after a game, you know, take a few more minutes, take a few deep breaths. And, you know, I talked to Lavey after the plane and apologize. And, you know, I still feel really bad. You know, Levi's a great guy. And I think, you know, that's not what good teammates do.

You don't tear each other down. You build each other up, especially after a game like that. So, yeah, no, I'm pretty embarrassed. I mean, genuine, wonderfully said. Do you want to go to head coach Travis Green, follow that up? and then we'll get our thoughts. I think it's been overblown by a lot. Jake Sanderson is one of the best teammates

you're ever going to find in the league. It's an emotional game. You know, it's much like my comments. I think you asked me after the game as well. And I said it's hard to give them a free pass and feel bad for him. You know, I've said that many times that, you know, there might be a goaler to that you'd like back.

I think it was fairly obvious. And I think it was overblown. and it definitely didn't have any effect in our room. I'm totally on Travis Greenside. I would have preferred Jake Sanderson not going to that length publicly. I don't think it was necessary. I don't think that's Travis Green's side. Travis Green's side was is overblown.

There's nothing there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I don't think it, I would have, I would have handled it a little differently, though. I would have just said I've talked to Maralayan and we're cool, we're good. and, you know, just go from there. Yeah.

I think to Jake's point, though, that you need to take a minute, take a deep breath. Again, you've heard me talk to you guys about how important PR people are here. I mean, outside of your head coach, the three most important person to an NHL player are these three people in no specific order because day-to-day it can alter. But it's your trainer, it's your equipment,

manager and it's your PR guy. And PR people got to be in that room. They got to have a feel of who's getting called up. And, you know, if there's, you got to, you got to get them to take a minute. You got to get them to take a deep breath. And you got to get them in a frame of mind of saying, okay, what kind of points you maybe want to make on the goaltending tonight? Boy, this is not a PR-friendly show. No.

You know, I think post. It's a hard job. It's not easy, but it's more important than ever now because there's so many, there's so many angles that you could derail things. You know, let's say you lose, all right, you play 82 games. Let's see you lose 41 of them, whatever, 38 of them. You know, those games, those are the times you need to go figure out who's talking to the media and talk to those guys and get a sense maybe if there's something, you know,

if they're really on tilt. Figure out who's really on tilt and when and I guess be careful with them. but yeah, I, you know. But then when you're careful. He said a thing that everyone knew and saw, and that's fine that he doesn't have to say it. And then he felt really bad about it was really embarrassed. And he talked to the guy and apologized.

The coach said the room's fine. And it's all kind of fine. You know, I get why you don't like it, but he seems fine. But then when they're careful, though, then Kibber comes on. I was like, why didn't he talk after the Oilers game? Like, when they're careful, it's like, we can't have it both ways. No, I don't need sound. bites for our show.

You like them, but I... You want them just to go out there and be more politician. Yeah. Well, just don't dig yourself in a hole. Like, I'm sorry, but like, where Stolar's been since opening up his mouth? Heard. I don't know. Yeah.

Guantanamo. I don't know. Exactly. And it just, it's always the same thing. When you go and use that public forum to not be. smart, right? And let your comments get away from you. I just hate that we're asking guys to not say the thing we all know, you know? And I get why as a teammate, you shouldn't.

But I would love for us all to be adults and be like, yeah, goli didn't do good. The goal is you do gooder. And then we all agree. All right. And you're really into finger pointing. And that's just nothing can destroy a team in a dressery more than finger pointing. Like when our show breaks up, you know, me and you, we walk to the the parking lot, we don't publicly talk about Sammy screwing up.

Oh, no, we keep that to ourselves. We have good PR. Oh, yeah. You've never mentioned it on the show. No, you've buried, you bury me to my face. We've solved the Jersey problem. I'm about to bury Sammy to his face right now. Do we have Quinn Hughes?

Oh, I think so. Yeah. I think Jaja got it. Okay. Hold on. So, even I'll give you a moment to see if we did. We do have it, yeah. Oh, amazing.

Thank you. No need to bury you. You're wonderful. I don't know if you heard Quinn Hughes, but they asked him about going to Minnesota. And why don't we just play the club? Post game last night after the Leaf game? No, maybe before the game.

Okay. It was sometime yesterday. All right. I'm not sure when this clip's from, quite frankly. Ja, Ja. Here's Hughes on Minnesota. Yeah, I mean, I think this is just a better team. I mean, you know,

obviously, Washington, Vancouver. I loved a lot of those guys, and it's competitive guys over there. want to do well and it's just you know it's tough sometimes and it's not where I'm sure they want to be and where I wanted to be when I was there but I mean obviously this is you know this is the third best team of league right nice of him to do that at the sports and Christmas party yeah the first line where he says this is a better team I think we all know that you know like it's it's very rare to hear a guy go oh it's a difference Minnesota of Vancouver well this is a better team we all know

that. He's like, let's not pretend it isn't, this is a better hockey team. I think that sort of honesty is okay. It's great. Yes. Yeah, for sure. Especially when you're, you know,

you're in a different room now. But you've also made it really clear, I think, to Vancouver management, ownership and the fans that let's just see where we are with this team. And I don't think anybody had any other

thoughts other than we've got to be really competitive this year so we can keep Quinn Hughes that that was the idea all along if they were first in the Pacific he's not a wild right now if uh if the if the team if the team is yes good yeah then he's got no reason to want to leave and he he made it clear if the team sucks I'm not sticking around the team sucks and he didn't stick around you know I thought that was a breath of fresh air I thought about what is Besser think yeah He signed. He's not a dumb guy.

Now, he knew that the possibilities with Quinn Hughes leaving. And the team would. I'm sorry, him and Quinn Hughes are. But then nobody's joined to the hip. Best friends have to go to different teams. It's not. Kiefer Sherwood,

now he left with some of the most flattering remarks I've ever heard about an organization. He made the Kinnock sound like, I don't know, whoever you think the greatest organization. He got an opportunity to now put $20 million in his pocket. on his next contract. He said, he should be.

This is a special place to play. I'm grateful for the opportunity. Who is keeper before the Vancouver Canucks? Well, but the Canucks have been a tire fire. And he said, I'm privileged to be a part of such a special organization. He got the opportunity to shine. Yeah. Under those circumstances.

If they were a better team, would he had less ice time? If they were deeper. Yeah, that's a very, you know, self. That would be a very selfish reason. If he was like, if it's like a bomb blowing up behind him, he's doing the slow-mo walk away from the bomb. He's like, but I liked it because it worked for me. He said like good things about the organization as a whole

and the way it's run. Sure. You know, that was to me uncommonly, genial, friendly, I don't know what the word is. Speaking of the way the organization is run, we want to hear Adam Flett's thoughts after the game last night? Yes. I also, hey, yeah, I want to talk more about Flett, but yes.

Let's play the clip there, Derek, Adam Foote from last night. Clip one. Well, there's a lot of positives, and they've been doing a great job leading, but getting to the second period again, our veterans are the ones that feel defeated first. It's been going on here for a few years. You know, we get off our game, we get frustrated, and we overcomplicate it, and, you know, slamming the gate and things like that.

It's something we've got to get out of our culture. Our culture is not going to be that anymore. And it just gets us off our game slightly, off our game plan, and for just a little bit too long, and it allows other teams get a little bit of energy and come back in the game. And it's something we've got to stop. Like tonight, the good thing is it would last about seven minutes. We readjust it. It came out with a great third period.

Had to kill, you know, that call, I get it. You know, it was an intense call. It can happen. It might not happen. but it does happen in hockey. But we, I've been watching this for too long to say, like, we got to stop burn ourselves by getting frustrated. We've got to stay within the plan.

The plan's working. And, you know, it's our vets. And they got to hang in there. And that says direct a shot at Patterson, Besser, you know, whoever it is you consider. Yeah, the vet. Anyone that's been around the game for a little while for sure. And just. They need this.

Clean it up. They need a coach right now to call that out directly. Yeah, I'm a big body language guy, for sure. I hate seeing slumped shoulders and... Yeah. That junior coach I told you about... Slamming doors and... Golly smashing their sticks.

It's just like exposing everything that's wrong with your team. Yeah. Boy, Adam Foot was dealt and greasy hand. I actually was thinking about this. I don't know how responsible Adam Foote is for their failures in the early part of the year, but I do think their decision to blow this team up right now

buys him a lot of time. I think you can't fire a guy when you don't have the horses to win. So if he's providing a better culture... And this has nothing to do with Adam Foot. Yeah. But what are the odds when we've seen a coach in this scenario live through the blow up

and then be ready for when the team is competitive again. You don't get to be the other side of it. So you know who comes to mind? Is it Charlie Montoya? Was he the Jay's dude? The bongos. You know, he was like beloved

and everyone liked being around him, great energy, and the team wasn't very good. But then, you know, okay. When they're ready, they go get somebody else. Okay, we're coming out of it now. John Schneider, here you are. Yeah, it's time to give it to the slightly more gruff, slightly more, you know, whatever.

So I wonder for foot if that's his role. Set this culture, we're not, you know. How many veterans are they going to get rid of that he's talking about the defeated ones? Just, are you going to reshape them or is it just easier to get rid of them?

It's got to be. It's that one. It's got to be Pedersen time. Yeah. It's got to be. You know, it never felt, all right. It does need to be Pedersen.

Yes. It's Patterson. Yes. Get on the horn, Alvin. Carolina's begging for talent. It's like unbelievable that in a short while ago, we were looking at Horvett, Miller, and Patterson, and now it's really close to none of them surviving.

That's the whole quarter of their team. Quinn Hughes? Incredible. It's gone. Crazy. Incredible. All right, just like that, two hours gone, and we've solved nothing on our show.

Our thanks to Brad May. Our thanks to Steve Aliquette. Out of all the shows we've done so far this season, this is one of them. One of the shows of all time, boys. I like our chat with Alley. Eight games on tap tonight. Ottawa and Columbus, that'll be interesting. Yeah, that'll go to overtime.

You don't like overtime now? The Leafs. Two-two tie. Three points, three points. Buffalo, Nashville. Overtime. What don't we just go straight to? overtime. Yeah, just get everybody a point.

Three and three league for one point. Pick your game and we're back tomorrow to do it all over again on the real Kipper and Bourne show. Have a great night, everybody.