Real Kyper & Bourne - Vally's View: Who Starts in Game 1s?

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne welcome back Steve Valiquette (4:38) – analyst for the New York Rangers on MSG, CEO of Clear Sight Analytics – to chat about Dustin Wolf's performance against the Maple Leafs, his list of goaltenders who could be starting in their respective Game 1's of the playoffs, why he's leaning on Joseph Woll to start in net for Toronto, how late in the season will a head coach make his decision on who's starting, and how Linus Ullmark can find some consistency between the posts. Then, Nick, Justin and Sam McKee discuss the NHL's return to Sweden with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators set to face off for the 2025 NHL Global Series and the playoff implications surrounding the Winnipeg Jets and Vancouver Canucks game.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

Welcome back to our national edition of the Real Kipper and Bourne show. We are live on Sportsnet 650 in Vancouver and Sportsnet 960 in Calgary. This hour of Real Kipper and Born brought to you by Bet 365, Nick Kipper, Justin Born, Sammy McKee. In a couple of minutes, we'll welcome in Steve Valakett, analyst for the New York Rangers on MSG and CEO of ClearSight Analytics. I'm sure he's got some numbers for us,

as he always does. The ones that we think may be useful or useless either one entertains me yeah he does he's he's fantastic in the meantime talking in our leaf hour edition the Calgary Flames tough loss last night tough loss on who's been firing away their best player this season. Yeah, Dustin wolf getting pulled after a very good first period Yeah, no kidding. Well, I text you guys at one point just like this is like I forget exactly what I said But it was a wolf game like it should have been three nothing and it was 1-1 at the yeah They had a horrible breakdown that led to William Nylander, who's second in the league

in gold, one on one with him. And he stopped him once on the rebound. And then it goes down the other way and they score and you think, oh my God, is he going to try to steal this? But yeah, it didn't happen. Is that for Calgary flame fans out there, obviously, listening on Sportsnet 960, is that a sign of a team just potentially running out of gas in front of them? Do you think it's just been too many games like for a rookie in the league? Too many games and a lineup that had what I thought was ample opportunity to

to put the puck in the net and just no finish. Right. Just a team that. They've got some they've got some like as in Kadri, good player, but then it kind of drops. It does. Yeah, no, they don't have backland there also to reinforce the middle of the ice. Now, Morgan Frost last night, key guy. Had a goal disallowed Yeah, yeah the the wolf thing is interesting because their whole thing is it's built around they have a good decor They can't score and they get great good great goal tending

So if one of those things is not quite right for the flames It's just not really gonna work out and that's you know scary you look at their upcoming schedule here for the Flames, it's just not really going to work out. And that's, you know, scary. You look at their upcoming schedule here for the Flames. They need wins. They have plenty of games at hand, but they got to play the Oilers tonight, I believe. No, Rangers. Rangers tonight. Yeah, they're in New York tonight, which is a really, really difficult game. And then the Devils.

And say what you will about the Islanders. They're somehow winning hockey games right now. So they got a tough road trip here with the Flames. If you only watched the Leafs and Flames matchups this year, you'd think Dustin Wolf wasn't very good. 10 goals in the two games that he allowed against the Leafs. The one out there and they shot five. I doubt he's given up 10 goals over two other games

if you cherry picked them. So tough one against the Leafs this year for Dustin. The blue line too as well like Mackenzie Weigert really good player Rasmus Anderson, I like a lot but even last night even on the Leaf side with Morgan Riley being their best defenseman just Good defensemen, but not great. Yeah tempo setting guys that can skate and when they're out there,

listen, there's only Quinn Hughes and... Yeah. McCarr. McCarr. Yeah. Heiskenen. Hudson we're seeing maybe potentially growing into that guy but it's really really hard finding those pure grade A and they're out there controlling the

pace of play. But still finding above average D is hard and so the idea that they were gonna trade Rasmus Anderson you know I never loved that so I'm hoping they're able to hang on to him. I thought that ball is a decent player too. You know he's just massive and he moves pretty well for a guy that's, was he six seven? Yeah. Huge out there. By the way, how about that Pahal penalty after the whistle at Holmberg? Skips up, one punch penalty. It's like good play man. Didn't like him on the penalty kill that's for sure. He didn't? No. Anyways, alright let's go to our number one guest on Tuesdays. Also, Steve Aleket. What's going on my friend? What's

up fellas? How are we? So we're just touching on Dustin Wolf who on many Tuesdays you've stated how much you love the guy, but what did we witness last night in Toronto? Bending, breaking, what did you make out of last night's performance out of him? Fatigue makes cowards out of us all. All right. What is happening with him is he's just getting beat down. He was late.

He was slow. He was down early and lately I've seen in the data he's getting beat over his glove side and those are all timing issues. The hardest part about the NHL schedule is keeping your timing. If you're down before the shot, you're dead. The way that you can look at Wolf right now versus Wolf when he's hot is just press pause where you see the puck leaving the shooter stick it should be halfway

between wolf and where it came off the stick and right now he's down early and he's not big enough to be down early his timing has to be impeccable and it's off and I'm sure they'll find a way to ease his schedule a little bit we have the Rangers facing off against the Flames tonight, and it's going to be Daniel Vlidar. That's fascinating. He had one kind of stinker in the game, but didn't see a ton of action against the Leafs.

At the other end of things for the Leafs, we had talked with Luke Fox in the first hour trying to put a finger on who would be their goaltender in playoffs. I know we've had that conversation with you in the past. It felt like Stolarz, you know, he's come back from this injury and he's, you know, he's goaltending again. Like it looks like he's going to be the guy he was ahead of the injury. Do you have it as Stolarz's crease if playoffs were to start tomorrow?

I have like 10 pages here on my analysis on this question. Okay. This is, this is, we're going to go deep here. We analysis on this question. Okay, good. This is we're gonna go deep here. Okay. Deep in the valley. Deep in the valley. Now, you know what?

Before we get to Toronto, I prepared a list for the league and who I think is going to start if game one is tomorrow. I love that. Can I just ask you a warm-up question to that? Sure. Okay. Can a coach lose a series if he doesn't pick the right starter? Oh Yeah, you know what else you can do too is you can leave your guy in too long Remember Boston a couple years ago and I should have went to Swainman and they hung in with Almark and he blew it It happens and you know what it does Kipper more than anything.

That's all the guys in the room talk about. Hey, who's starting? Who's starting? You think you're playing? It's a big distraction. And that's why you go with one. But I've got a few tricks up my sleeve for this conversation. There might be there might be a little more to it here. All right. So starters in game one of the entire league, there were really only two surprises. I don't think I need to go through everybody because you know who everybody's starter should be. As in, you know, if the Rangers make it Shosturkin, Carolina,

maybe a question mark a little bit, but I definitely think it's going to be a Kachetkov because he has sneaky been very good behind a very leaky Carolina defense this year. It hasn't been like the old Carolina. We talked about that last week. Linus Almark for sure if he's healthy. I would give Ottawa very high marks in dots down D zone, east to west D zone. They're an A if I was gonna letter grade them. Odd man rushes they're an A-. Net front that's the only place place they struggle, but Almarc Strung there. They have a good fit with him as long as he's healthy. Logan Thompson for sure he's going to start in Washington. Bobrovsky in Florida, Vasilevsky, yes. New Jersey, this is one that I think will surprise people.

I don't think it would be Markstrom if the playoffs started today. I think it would be Jake Allen. Yep. Since the four nation face off, 72 goalies have played at least one game in the NHL. Markstrom is ranked 71. Jake Allen is seven. He Jake Allen's he's in a contract year. He's very good when his back is against the wall. Over his career, which is like 14 years long. The only time he's really struggled is when he's had to carry the mail. And if you remember, there was like a leave of absence when he was in St.

Louis, there was, he always had a tough time carrying the mail, but when he has a smaller role, he always overplays. And right now he's really overplaying it. He's so hot that you wouldn't not be able to play him. So I think Jake Allen would definitely be the starter in game one. I'm going to go to the west before I come back to Toronto. Winnipeg, of course, Connor Hellebuck. He's fourth in expected goals since the four nations. So he's keeping his steam up. Darcy Kemper has carried the male all year in LA and David Rich is nowhere near him. So it's definitely Kemper Skinner because they're not you know,

no options there. Lankanen because of Demko prop most likely not being healthy. Aiden Hill has been fifth in our rankings since the four nations. So he's definitely in the Vegas net Gustafson. He would be really close to Vezna voting based on his overall season. One guy that I think is on a really short leash is Jake Ottinger. Jake Ottinger is 70th in expected goals since the Four Nations. And Casey De Smith is 16th. He's playing really well. And this is actually, you know, I don't talk publicly

about this, but you guys know that I work with NHL goalies even now. And when we talk about, I get asked a lot, who's the best goalie off the rush? When I show video examples of Casey DeSmith, that really surprises a lot of current NHL goalies, he's the best at handling the rush game. So if Dallas happens to go rush for rush with Colorado, which is a likelihood, a good fit in Dallas is net to win some games before possibly Ottinger returns. We've seen it before. I like DeSmith as a good fit in Dallas's net to win some games before possibly Ottinger returns. We've seen it before. I like the Smith as a

fit. He's that good off the rush over the last five years. He's got the best save percentage in the NHL off the rush, so he could be somebody that's comes in. We've seen this with Pittsburgh in 17 and 18. We've seen Washington not start hold beat when they won the Stanley Cup in game one. Vegas has used multiple goalies, so it's Colorado. So this is not out of the norm and Dallas could still go through. Toronto, right now I'm thinking Joseph Wall and I'm changing on this because of a number of reasons but they've allowed nine more

goals than expected, both Wall and Stolar since the Four Nations. I'm sure you guys have noticed a dip in the goal tending. Well, they've allowed nine more goals than they should have since four nations, which is a league worst. So that's kind of where it's going in Toronto. But my analysis on Toronto just starts right there. Like I want to look at this pretty deep here. And so here's the reason why. Joseph Wall right now has the highest positive game percentage in the NHL.

So when he's playing a great game or a good game, he's doing that 41% of the time, that's more than anybody else. 18% of the time he has a bad start. Now what he's really good at is he's more average games than anybody else as well. So you're going gonna get an overall percentage that is consistent. He's somebody that can go in there and have a very consistent performance.

In fact, the guys around our office call him Average Joe because he had 15 average games this year. But that's all you need, right? We need a chance to win. And so I'm looking at Anthony Stolarz conversely, you're gonna get even more great games out of him, but you have a higher risk of having a bad start. He had 25, 27% of his starts were bad this year.

And that's a pretty high percentage if you're gonna be a starter in the playoffs and all you need to do to get through is consistent, solid, I wanna lean on somebody for a chance to win type of goaltending. Now, another factor is Toronto creates more offensively in front of wall. They have more offensive chances, but in front of stole ours, they actually score more.

They actually execute on their scoring chances more so that I thought that was funny. A picture of what they look like road versus home because this is going to be interesting, especially if Toronto starts on the road. Wall has been better than Stolar's by a fraction on the road, but at home, Stolar's has been the number seven ranked goalie in expected goals all season. Wall 46th. So now, alright, when you're talking about the past,

the last time the Leafs won in 67, all the way back boys. Well, they used two goalies in the Stanley Cup final against Montreal. They used Satchuk and Johnny Bauer, right? Of course. Yeah. And I'll let you know how the series went in case you don't remember. All right. Game one saw Chuck loses six to right. Johnny Bauer gets a shutout in game two stands on his head. Game three. He has a 60 save double overtime win three to, but he pulls his grind. Okay.

Does that sound familiar? Could happen. Right? Yeah. All right. So saw Chuck goes back in loses six too, but then has 37 saves to win game five and 40 saves to win game six. Right? So it takes two. You're going to need both. So I don't know if you should fight over or deliberate too long over who plays. You've got two really good options. Somebody might get hurt. Both have to be available. I thought this was funny too. The article I read today, other Leafs were shoving fully clothed head coach punch in black towards the showers. But Terry saw Chuck and Johnny Bauer. The goal is who had done the most to make the celebration possible themselves dragging deeply on cigarettes. There was a case of beer somewhere real close to I can see Joseph wall and stole ours sharing a dart Sammy cut in the room.

But he's 60 saves. Yeah. You get a dart. It seems more possible now than ever before on a 1a 1b kind of thing. But just to get to to game one, on average, we probably have 15 games left for for the respective clubs here. Yeah, if if it is a bit of a toss up right now between Stolar's and and wall what needs to happen in the last 15 games does a guy need to run with it a little bit can you go can you split the 15 every other night and still feel good like how much how much is like when's where's the cut off on a on a when a coach saying that's my guy in game one is that the last five games seven games or can it go to the last five games, seven games, or can it go to the last weekend?

All right. So here's what I'm thinking, Kepper, you need to know that your guys back to being at his best. Okay. Now these evaluators know what that means and what that looks like by this stage in the game. Now I was worried about stole ours after the Colorado game. I told you guys that last week. and since then he played Florida and Ottawa All right, and I watched both of those as well Now here's what I know about Stolarz He he uses a movement wise big guy He uses a double shuffle when the puck goes from dot to dot or if the puck is going from the high slot down to dot

On that scene he'll do one short and then a long and he'll get big and he'll be square. And it's important to understand that his feet stay under him there. He doesn't get too wide and spread out. Now, Jake Sanderson's goal, right? If you look at that goal, and you say to yourself, does Stoller's have the stores have his posture? He does not. His pads are touching the crest of the maple leaf logo Did he beat the pass? He did not Did he have his stance where he has big body illusion? No, his shoulders were excuse me. I'm getting choked up

Take your time His shoulders were his shoulders were down low. So he's given up up top. And now if you look at that goal again, and you just pause it when it's on Jake Sanderson stick, you'll see how wide and spread out and low he is. And that's just not his stance. I had video from him previous in the season to use with other goalies. And I had clips of him in Montreal making the same seam pass with his feet all the way way all the way underneath him. So he's getting he's just getting too wide and when he gets wide he gets small

and he can't move he gets stuck. So it's almost like saying if you look at the Jake Sanderson goal against Ottawa and you put 10 pucks on the faceoff dot and you put Stollars in a practice environment, nobody's going to score on him. NHL goalies should not score, NHL shooters rather, should not score on NHL goalies stationary off the dot. But on this play, it's like, okay, what happened? Why did he show up so small and wide and lose his posture? He's got to get his feet back under him and then he'll have his timing again and then he'll be ready to go. But right now to me he's not ready to go.

And out of the two guys to answer your question, Kipper, I'm looking at that very closely, 10 days going into the playoffs. Who has their game together right now? And right now it's not Stolarz for me, it's more Wol. Alright, so one thing that fascinates me not being of the goalie brethren and in fact often fighting against them, is guys who are capable of these super high highs and these super low lows like the extreme guys and I'm watching all

mark and he looks like the best goalie to ever play in the NHL like you know some of the highlights are absurd he's you know carrying the sends at moments and I've seen him not be that too what What is this guy? You know, I mean obviously as you're saying Boston before they believe that I'm over Swain man for six games you know, I'm looking trying to pull it up right now because I'm gonna look at what his his season has been like as far as consistency wise so all mark has played eight great games He's had nine good games. He's had nine good games.

He's had nine average games. He's had two bad ones, but he's blown six. Now blown losses are the ones that really piss off the coach because we should have won, but our goalie stunk, right? And he has been bailed out by his team once and he has stolen two games. Has he been great? No. Has he been helped?

Is he in a good environment? Yes. He has wild highs. There's a lot of volatility in his game and some goalies either they're the main character of the game for a good reason or the main character of the game for a bad reason. And I've never been able to figure that, but I notice it. It's like, if you can't be a part of the storyline in a good way, I mean, I don't know, it's just not my game tonight. I'm not shining. I'm not a big storyline.

I'm just going through the motions now. And some guys do that, you know, and you can see it. But overall, there's no way a goalie with his skill level should have six blown games. With the amount of games he's played, I believe it's 34. Valley, we recently had the head coach of the Washington Capitals, Spencer Carberry on. And I tipped my hat to him because I thought going

into the season, you had two choices as a head coach. You manage OV to a record or you just try to get the best out of your hockey club and that guy's done both equally well. I heard the interview. I thought it was terrific, man. And you know, he really got me thinking because I've been around Washington a long time, followed them closely, good friends with their goalie coach. I just like what they do, how they think, how they've developed their people. And I'm looking at Washington this year. And it's fascinating because a month ago, if you asked me, just look at the data, what do you

think's gonna happen? Well, they're on a shooting percentage bender, and their goalies are stopping everything, and it's going to come down to earth. And that's always the easy narrative. However, when you see their goal differential change from minus 37 to plus whatever they are, they might be a plus 60 now because I looked a little while ago and I think they were 57 but you have to say that like we're too far into the season where it's not it's not that. do differently. I think this is going to be a team that when the season's over, everybody is studying because they've changed the way that we've coached offense and everybody that I've talked to in the last 10 years about offense. It's don't put too much information in these guys here. Don't let them think too much. They're going to lose, you know, and

I think that's all a bunch of BS, especially when quarterbacks have 300 plays in their head. And, um, this is interesting to me, Washington, they take the fewest low danger shots, which means they don't take any bad ones. They don't have any wasteful shots. So they're not shooting to get it back the way Carolina has always run their offense,

like put it off the goalies blocker, be the first one to retrieve it, we'll get them on recovered puck number three. They're actually much different than that. They so they take the fewest clear sighting shots. They have scored eight more breakaways than expected. And I always think about that because there's nothing worse than a goaltender facing no feelers and then facing high danger. So they're high danger going in at a higher rate because they don't waste any feelers for the goalies. The goalies are never warm against Washington, they never really get into a rhythm. Look at all

of Shusterkins best outputs over the last four years when he's been one of the top goalies. It's always against Carolina. It's always against the team that feed a lot of volume. They've scored six more one timers than they should have. They've scored seven more screen goals than they should have. They scored six more one timers than they should have. They've scored seven more screen goals than they should have. They've scored five more from the slot than they should have. They have the best shooting percentage on everything by a mile.

Now, when you break down their video, what do you see? It's, they always have deception on their pass, always. You don't know when these guys, with the way that they're always angling, and I know they work on it, they've worked on being able to hold whether they can pass or shoot. And one of the reasons why is because they always have

three passing options in the house. They always have, if you watch their goals from the slot, which I did today, you'll see everyone fan out and hit lanes like it's every, you heard him in the interview. He's like, everybody is working hard to be a part of it. We know five of us have to get it across the line. So everybody's

playing a role and nobody's sleeping in that role. Everybody knows how important it is for the shooter to be a better scoring option. We have to be in passing lanes or at least let the goalie feel like we're a part of this math equation. And they do that better than anybody. They always have three guys in the house. They also are allowed to pass off the pads from the slot area. And not a lot of teams allowed that. They want to see their team shoot the score when they get in the slot. And these guys, you'll see it.

If somebody's clamping down on them, they'll feed it off the pad from like 15 feet. Whereas back in our day, you'd be stapled to the bench if you weren't shooting a score. They also pass off the rebounds more than anybody. And you guys know what that's like. I mean, passing off of a rebound isn't maybe theoretically always the right thing because you really have a goalie out of position But they get the goalie more out of position, which is why They have a lot of position less goals now a position less goal the way we track it with our company guys It's any goal where I pass it to Borny. He passes it back to Kipper, Kipper's banging it in an empty net.

There's no goalie, you can't say it went over the goalie's glove, there was no goalie there. So that would be a positionless goal. Well, they have 31 of those, that's second most in the NHLs. They have a lot of those, you know, just dunks basically. And up and down the lineup, they have a lot of shooters that can shoot.

You know, like they have shooters. Chickren coming in from the point, he's like a forward right now. So I'm fascinated with this team. And I think it's going to be one that a lot of teams will be studying at the end of the year with what they've done offensively because we've always coached defense and I've never seen offense coach like this. Wow. That's a lot of really fascinating stuff.

Hey, Ovi on that that goal race How many more goals would he need if you weren't in the league? This did you give up a few to him or what? Yeah, I got me for two. Yeah you for two Yeah, I got me for two. That's not bad. I feel like that's like a rite of passage Buddy the second one it was a pure reputation goal. Like I knew it was him I was distracted by the fact it was him I wasn't seeing the puck because I knew it was him and he just slung it because his previous shot was three feet over the net. And it was over over edge. And that's another thing too. When you look at a lot of these goals. You know, Connor McDavid did it the other night to the Rangers. When somebody beats a good goalie from distance, I always pause it and look at the type of the shot. It's always on edge too. And how many of Connors was on edge from the slot the other night how many of OVs are just on edge and they're just Knuckling and dive high glove Valley high glove. Everybody's going high glove these days

Yeah, like I really got into this in the last little while because the Rangers they've scored 36 goals since the four nations and 17 have been over the glove. So I was looking at all goalies and it's 20% of sorry, 20% chance to score over the glove. That's more than anywhere else. It's more than low blocker by a mile. It's more than over the blocker. Five hole. It's the than over the blocker five hole. It's the five hole No by a mile 20% is much more than it's an 88% chance to stop

Save percentage on a five hole. It's only 800. It's you've got an To make a save over the glove. So the glove is like just been exploding. So it was interesting because This is where it got really neat for me I remember my experience when I'm working with the European guys that I do work with guys and sometimes they stay at my house for a couple of weeks and we'll throw a football around on the beach and they're not great at throwing it or catching it because they didn't play a lot of football like darts tennis shoe sometimes darts too right. I mean lots of darts.

You know, no seriously playing catch on the beach like this with a baseball and a glove like that just gets it gets weird sometimes. I would just stop doing it. I think I'm going to hurt them or something like great clubs. So anyway, I looked at who has the best glove in the NHL right now. The best gloves. All right. From top to bottom top five best glove this year is John Gibson, Logan Thompson, Alex Lyon, Joe Wall, Connor Halabuck. Top five guys with glove saves this year, okay? Best save percentage, all that. Now what do you notice?

They're all North Americans, right? Interesting. Now the bottom five save percentage goalies over the glove, Sam Erison, Georgiev, Yuse UC sorrows, Dan Vlidar, who we're going to see tonight and check off play baseball. You fools. You know what I mean? Like I, I mean, I think I'm onto something. A soccer ball. You know, like, so yeah, no, there's something there for sure. And I think it's interesting because like I've shared with you guys before how important this game is for the Rangers guys. Like they have four wins this year against

Eastern conference, playoff bound teams. And they've got five more games against those teams. They can't blow this tonight. They're scouting report on this goalie. Lodar needs to be on point. They've got a goalie that's in the net that is among the bottom five glove hands in the league. So they should be shooting high glove. They've had a lot of success shooting high glove, as I said. And they're also up against a goalie that's one of the worst off the rush. And he's bottom five off the rush.

And over the last four years, he's the fourth most scored upon goalie off the rush. So if the Rangers who have been scoring a lot off the rush and finish up high, I'm getting to a point when I watch games right now that if I see like a one lot off the rush and finish up high. I'm getting to a point when I watch games right now that if I see like a one timer from the slot and it's on the ice, but it's not, you know, five hole, yeah, you're gonna get some that go through, but if it's on the ice left or right, I'm almost feeling like it's not really

a legit scoring chance unless you're getting it up off the ice for how we're not seeing a lot, you know, a lot going in on the ice. Five hole, yes, but not left or right of five hole nine games on tap tonight, including yours Calgary at New York Valley. Awesome stuff once again, man. You were smoking. Oh boys. Hey, before, before we say goodbye, I got a neat one on Austin Matthews for you guys. Oh, gotta have it. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I know you guys have been talking about this Austin Matthews,

right? The five on five stuff. Okay, I'm not going to bore you with the details. But he's not that off on his five on five chances. He's off but he's not he's not ridiculously off. So I'm not going to bore you with it. But I'm going to boil it down to the way that we talked about Elias Pedersen last week where it was during the year that we talked about Elias Pedersen last week where it was during the year that he had 39 goals. He had 23 breakaways. He scored eight versus the only two breakaways he's had this year. Well, how about this one? Austin last year, he had 62 passes received

east to west across the slot 62. He scored 20 goals. You won't even believe how many he's only had this year. I already third 20 19 Hmm. He went from 62 last year to 19. That is that's really strange.

And so what does he have for goals off those 19 West and not getting his east to west, right? He's not he's not getting so is that his line mates is off those 19 West? Yeah, not getting his East to West, right? He's not, he's not getting. So is that his line mates? Is that nice Marner? What is it? You know what? It's, it's what we just talked about with Washington.

Is he getting himself open? Is he doing the work before the shot? Are they not passing it to him because there's restrictions within the team? Is it the guys he's playing with? I mean, if I'm looking at how to get Austin back for the playoffs, figure out his east to west. This guy needs the goalie to move to beat to beat them. Look, NHL goalies even they lock on Austin, they're going to be successful more often than you

want to admit. But if they have to move first, and in movement, what gets compromised? You lose your angle, you lose your depth, you lose your squareness You got to get laid eyes on it. You got to make the goalie move Was I looking at it? Oh stole ours You gave up six goals on the weekend, right? Right Ottawa and Florida as we said, yep Five of the six goals were all movement-based guys. He moved off of a pass on five of the six you know and that's where I like I said he's kind of getting behind right

now. Right right. Pretty remarkable because Marner's got 61 or 62 assists so well I guess my next assignment is gonna be looking into how much they're not connecting like they were before you know and that might be a piece of this but where did all these passes go? I don't know how you go from 62 East to West and 19 You've got your homework assignment next week my friend Valley great stuff, man. We appreciate all that I mean, honestly your hourly rate is atrocious. You are wildly underpaid You were smoking today not like Bauer and Satchuk but pretty darn close. Oh my goodness.

All right, fellas. Thanks for doing this. Thanks so much, Valley. Steve Valiquette, covering the New York Rangers and CEO of ClearSight Analytics. It's good that he's a good guest, but he probably shouldn't consistently do our job better than we do it. That's not great. I wonder what Satch star checks goals above expected was

darts above average Game time. Yes game time. I mean tonight It's game time presented by bet three six five visit the app latest odds and find out why is ever ordinary at bet three six five Let's put 19 plus Ontario only please play responsibly like you alluded to there nine games tonight a Couple really good ones for me Habs and Sens I don't know when the last time these two teams played with this many stakes meaningful guys I mean in Montreal that building will be electric The Ottawa Senators as you would imagine minus 135 favorites there The Habs on the other side of the money line plus 115.

Don't necessarily have a lean on that one. Think that'd be a really good game. Looking forward to that one. Later on, our beloved Utah Hockey Club in Edmonton to take on the Oilers. Another really big game for the Utah Hockey Club who are floating around the last playoff spot. They chose a name, eh? And we just don't, it hasn't been released yet, but apparently they've settled on a name.

Here's my idea for our best friend Ryan Smith. Just call them the hockey club and use a Yeti as the logo. I think the blue sky, the sky. Some sort of sky reference. He's got that blue in there. He's taking it. Fantastic. So the Oilers are big faves on home ice, as you would imagine.

Minus 155, Utah fighting for their playoff lives that should be an excellent game and later on Vancouver also fighting for their playoff lives hosting our Jets Jets talk Jets still still really good huge favorites tonight as you would imagine just minus 170 against the Vancouver Canucks Canucks plus 145 for the Canucks on the money line and And is there any other games that are I mean OV again tonight looking for To go to 888 tonight, which is insane to say as I quickly pull that up. He is a plus 100 at any time goal scored tonight against the Against the Red Wings feels like he may get one tonight.

Plus 100 is not a great number, but they're thinking that if it's a close game, he might be out there when the net is empty. Anyways, that was Game Time presented by Bet365. Visit the app for the stars and find out why it's never ordinary. Bet365 must win a team plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Okay, we'll take a quick break. When we return, we'll get into some NHL news and notes including

the NHL going back to Sweden. They send a couple better teams over there. We've got they got Swedes on the rosters. More jet-stock because we'll get into how important this game is for Vancouver especially with Calgary losing last night and the Oilers get some big names back in their lineup to go up against Ryan Smith's Utah Hockey Club that more when we return to real kipper and born Hey, it's Blake Murphy and I'm Matt Bonner join us weekday mornings at 11 as we break down all things Toronto Raptors It's the Raptor show on Sportsnet 590 the fan and wherever you get your podcasts Welcome back to the program. Nick Kiprios, Justin Bourne, Sammy McKee. All right. NHL set to return the international games in Sweden. Oh, okay. Pittsburgh and Nashville. So top of mind we got Eric

Carlson, Ricard Raquel, Philip Forsberg. Yep. There's gotta be money to be made. They go back every year. Like I don't know what Stockholm's got a million people. It's kind of equivalent to Ottawa or Calgary but I don't know what Stockholm's got a million people. It's kind of equivalent to Ottawa or Calgary, but I Don't know there's only like hot is it more because of The Swedes that we have here that they make them happy. Is there real money to be made there? I don't know like the growth in the game Are we keeping Sweden engaged year-round and they feel connected to it because of this arm? don't know. I don't know if that's true or not, but I just think We've got Sweden we go

Here's the problem Somewhere else. No, this is how the NHL is looked at Canada forever. They're like those guys pay attention who cares? Germany's the place like that. Yeah, it's the engine. It's the financial engine. Yeah Um, I have something about Russia to say what no not actually a political statement or anything Ovechkin Ovechkin is what down to seven goals against their goals to eight to get to catch Gretzky Why do we not care about playoff goals? Why did Gretzky's playoff goals Gretzky has? 1016 playoff goals Alex Ovechkin's total or starting up of those total goals of play. I wish they would count my one Oh, Vechkin has

959 goals, so he's got 959 that he scored in the NHL Gretzky scored 1016 Those we don't care about the playoffs ones? The ones that we tell everyone we care about the most all year round? In basketball I've seen them combine them, right? Like career points or whatever? Yeah. Do they? I saw something on LeBron James and they said career 50,000. I think it included playoffs. It's just crazy that we're like, Something like that.

Everything only matters in these games, but they don't count towards your career total. I think we should get him on with Blake and Bonner for his NBA takes. I could be way off on that by the way. That's the ultimate dart of a two hour show, not the ones that we spoke of with Valley, this one. I'm throwing a dart up there that somehow I did read

that they- Jake just texted me who is- They combined. Jake, the voice of God, who is a big NBA guy, said they do not combine them. They don't? No. ESPN did it on the ticker.

But maybe they said combine, that's what he has, but they count the all time scoring record as regular season. As regular season. Just like DenL does. For sure. All right. Now, to be clear though, one guy, he'll still get to this total probably, but he's still

59 total NHL goals away from Gretzky. Playoff goals are way harder, way tougher to score. They're worth two now. Bad news, Ovi, they're worth two. Right? Ovi has 72 and Gretzky has 122 playoff goals. 72 is a lot of goals. So many! Who did you score on the playoffs? Remember?

Conference final against the Boston Bruins. Okay, who was the goalie? Andy Moog. Oh, protecting BC. Back hands, five hole, never stood a chance. Hitch in the chest. How you doing? Love it. All right, so back to Sweden Sweden do you think they ever put a team or like try to do like a European division of the NHL I think so no okay you want to say what you said about international leaders getting together oh possibly oh yeah well this is all we came on the show and Sam's like, so Kremlin update. What was it? He was like, hold on.

Hey, forget Jets talk Kremlin update. Yeah. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Let me get the, well, you're lucky. Let me try to repeat it. Like I did with the NBA regular and playoff score. Now quickly typing into X Trump, which is a Sounds like he and Putin have agreed that the Hockey players from their two countries should have a couple of matches or something at the end of the Kremlin readout Which we all follow so closely as we all know the Kremlin readout

read out, which we all follow so closely as we all know, the Kremlin read out. Donald Trump supported Vladimir Putin's idea of organizing hockey matches in the United States and Russia between Russian and American players playing in the NHL in the KHL. Can't believe that's amazing. How did you do that? Why not? Of all the things happening.

Okay, like this guy, it's like he's trying to take us over hockey games between Russia. Not. Of all the things happening, okay. Like this guy, it's like he's trying to take us over hockey games between Russia. It's like, what's going on? Like, can you just worry about the economy? He just won his league. He just won his men's club championship. Oh, I see, he's never shanked it.

It's like, cause he playing against, who is that? He playing against a guy in a wheelchair? There's no way he wins his men's club championship. So woman, man. Could we now see Gary Bettman and Marty Walsh from the NHLPA sitting in meetings now with those two guys? Sitting in international negotiations.

Hopefully it goes better than the one with the Salinskis. Gary Bettman accomplished a ceasefire in Ukraine today. So what? So they made a comment on this, the NHL. The NHL released this statement That was quick we have just become Hey guys, this is crossed our desk conversation between presidents Trump and President Putin Obviously, we were not a party to those discussions

And it would be inappropriate for us to comment at this time. All right. Well, that's your international. Oh my Lord. Could you have seen like, Batman's office going, oh, what do we do with this? That's exactly, they're like, say that we can't say anything. Not to get into politics here, but he says a lot every day. So you just kind of hope that like, this one kind of just passes and you go on to the next

thing. I was thinking, I'm not sure if it needed a response. I was thinking of anybody would have picked up on that and ask them about it. It's a great point. But I was thinking about Gretzky the other day because Trump the other day was like, you know, got a lot of friends in Canada, you know, Wayne Gretzky, great friend and Trump Eric Gretzky has to be just like, stop it. You're killing me. Did it again? Yes. Stop saying my name, man. My knees. Anyway, nobody needs Jets talk right now more than us.

Jets talk? Kremlin talk? The worst segment of the show. Okay, how desperate is Vancouver here to... This is a potential first round matchup, is it not? If the Canucks get in and what better way to maybe in a month, four weeks, less than four weeks, plant a seed? Yeah, you know, I can't speak to how Vancouver Canucks fans feel about their team. But knowing how last year when they're currently in the second wild card spot, they got games. Clinging. Yeah, they're clinging.

Like look behind them there. There's three other teams that are right there. Every time I watch this team, it's just I can't remember a team with worse vibes. You know, they just they got no juice right now like Quinn Hughes is the whole show Great show though great show like Kiefer Sutherland's having a great year That's not his name. What's your key for sure? He's having a ton of success But yeah, it just

You're looking for them and and going where is it supposed to come from most nights and I know Petey's name comes up all the time, but it's they got bad vibes man. You said about like planting a seed. I've watched the Jets a ton this year. I've watched the Canucks a ton this year. That's a waste eight days. Oh my god.

That would be a that's a sorry to my Canuck fans that are listening, but that would not be an enjoyable experience for you Don't think oh hey for Jets talking plug your ears Winnipeg fans I was it was interesting they said hella buck was the top five glove guy and I have that image of Just blown in a foot clean over his Looking at 40 wins. Yeah, oh he wins and nine losses and It's going in with a nine almost a nine thirty save percentage. It's insane He's the year he's having is an all-time goaltending season, you know with McKinnon and dry side

I'll likely nominees for the heart trophy. I think he'd be a very worthy pick to be on that a finalist at least Can't see any other forwards in that list. All right, the maybe McCarr the Edmonton Oilers are getting some help tonight I call man Hyman set to return. I think they need that, you know watching the Oilers a little bit too Like they they've felt like they could use a little help. I can't even Baden to believe where this team would be without that trade last season or how long has it been since they've had a home?

This would be their third playoff run with them. Yes, okay, so two years ago, like getting him out of Nashville was like huge. The difference in the look of their decor with him in is staggering and Not to go and revisit but we'll revisit even the trade deadline and Carlo is an example. I Like Carlo, I think yeah, he does add depth for sure for the Leafs and they gave up a first and prospect in Minton like that's

very expensive. And Minton just had a natural hat trick in Providence. But Carlos like no Ekholm like that's a game-changing defenseman. A real one for me and the ones that we've seen in the past like Not just below that guy the main difference with at homes. He does have an offensive touch, right? He can help you out at both ends of the rink But like at home Bouchard nurse wallman Kulak Emerson that Emerson's been good for them this year. You know, it's that's solid That's all it if you're good up front I do I am curious about the Vander Cain like if he can come back and help them because that would really Be another guy and you can start to see the way that they can work through with their way into that Western conversation

Because right now it feels like Winnipeg Dallas and Colorado and Vegas Have a leg up as a reminder this hour real Kipper and born brought to you by bet 365 as you mentioned Dallas Word is Mero Heskinen. We've mentioned this before very unlikely To be ready for the first round for Dallas Tyler Sagan is on course, but this guy is That type of defenseman like at home game-changer

pace of play 30 minutes a night yeah one of those few guys that we talked about earlier that can actually make a difference in terms of the pace of play and the direction things are going you're asking a lot of old Thomas Harley who is very good my guy is your guy. I like I was watching a game against USA pretty recently and they said, Kale McCar's not playing and Thomas Harley's playing. I was pretty nervous about it and then I was like, oh, put him out there more. Yeah. Yeah. When McCar comes back, leave him in there. He's really good.

Yeah. How old is he? 23? Young. Yeah. I think in like another year, year and a half, he will be like, one of those guys. Yeah, well does he 23 young? Yeah I think in like another year year and a half. He will be like one of the cold Yeah, well just a he's got some physical and he's bigger like he's six three 11 pound. Yeah, you'll be on you'll be in Italy for Team Canada He will be for sure after how he partied. Yeah. Yeah. So anyways old Petra Any other games I was just gonna say anything to the fact I got something for you that the Canes are 4-0 since they traded

They traded random. Oh, are they? Yeah, they are. Yeah, no nothing random and the Stars are 1 2 & 1 So it's all written. Trade settle. The story's over. Frank Ceravalli has a column out right now. I'm pretty sure it's by Frank. It's on Daily Face Off.

About penalties. Penalties are at the lowest level in NHL history. Per game power play opportunities. 5.5 total per game. Some teams at this point of the season Minnesota has had 60 fewer power plays. St. Louis 56 fewer, Vegas 55 fewer. So massive, massive swing. You know, we watched that Four Nations and there's... Put the whistle away. Yeah, they have. And in this, Stephen Walkum, the the ref head of the ref guys That's his official title head of the Reppers is a he said that they're missed call rate, which they actually track

Which is cool is steady. So there's less infractions Do we like that? Love it? Okay, so I want the guys the infractions there, but they miss it? No, no, no. No, no, no, there's just fewer, they're not missing calls. They're not calling less, there's less there. What is the rate of missing calls? I think it's held steady, he's saying, but it would be funny to know.

We should get data on that. Last panel is better. I wanna see him play five on five. Everyone done. It's better. And let's lose three on three next season. What? Yeah. I'm done with it.

Do it for longer and kill the shoot-out. I'm done with three on three. I'm fine with it. Do it for longer and kill a shoot out. I'm done with three on three. I'm fine with that. You just, five on five and a tie. Fight again. Nine games on tap. Important ones. They're all important now.

And after you've watched them and gone to bed, you join us again here tomorrow on the Real Kipper and Bourne Show. Have a great one everybody.