Real Kyper & Bourne - Winnipeg Can't Stop Winning

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne and Sam McKee start with a look at the Jets as they continue to stay hot. Joining the conversation, Sportsnet Jets reporter Sean Reynolds (3:13) compares the team in Winnipeg this season vs. last, Kevin Cheveldayoff's cap management and Bowness' system. Then, breaking news that Corey Perry can return to the NHL and where he may land. Finally, news and notes - Jon Cooper wins his 500th game, McDavid goes off on the refs' offside review and Bedard is officially ruled out for 6-8 weeks.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 into the real kipper and born show we of course are live on sports net sports net 360 in vancouver calgary's 960 can you tell i lost my... Sportsnet 650 in Vancouver. Shut up, guys. Sportsnet 438 in Nunavut. See what happens when you get kind of... I saw the panic in your head. When you start sneaking up on my intro and I don't have the intro or your itinerary in front of me. But I do know for sure that this hour, Real Kipper and Bourne is brought to you by Bet365.

I wanted to mention something as well that uh the 2024 rogers all-star game is coming to toronto and that we have an exciting upcoming giveaway to our listeners starting in episodes tomorrow through january 26 we'll be giving away pairs of tickets to the different nhl all-star weekend events including the all-star thursday all-star skills competition and the all All-Star game in tomorrow's episode. We are starting this giveaway with tickets to the NHL All-Star Thursday. So be sure to tune in. So there you go, boys. We're

giving away a little bit of ticketing to our show. I'm hearing the Biebs is all in on this All-Star weekend. Not really reporting, but we've heard. Him and Austin. Let's reporting, but we've heard. Him and Austin Matthews.

Let's reach out to Bieber's camp. Let's get him on. That's more Kipper's circle than me. No, I don't, but Kipper runs in those circles. Bill Burr probably has his number. Ask Bill Burr for Bieber's number. We're going to grab somebody. Well, we're going to grab somebody, but we want Bieber. I want the Biebs to come to my Eric Lindros skate on Thursdays.

Okay. Well, this is, we're starting the movement here. Is that at North Toronto? Don't do that. Don't do that, Sammy. Now we got, like, there's going to be Sammys all over the place now. Give me a break. No, that's not the case at all top security at north toronto yes

they won't let anybody in no not at all except trust me they wouldn't want to see us on thursday morning or me anymore on thursday morning they got way better things to do. Okay, Sean Reynolds is going to join us soon. Sportsnet reporter in Winnipeg. I've seen so much talk about the Vancouver Canucks, and it's warranted, but so is what is happening in Winnipeg with the Jets here. Well, Borny mentioned it in our Leafs hour, but I'll mention it here,

that the best records in the NHL since November 24th, the Oilers are somehow better than the Jets. I know. At 16-3-0 for an 8-42 winning percentage. The Jets are 16-4-2 for a 7-7-3. And then the Canucks are a 14-5-2 for 7-14. Like, you know, you saw the Oilers coming. I think you knew the Jets would be good, but not this good.

And the Canucks are a complete surprise. So it's a pleasant surprise for everybody in Canada and people at Rogers. Yes, sir. Okay, let's welcome him in. Sean Reynolds does a terrific job following the Winnebago Jets for us here at Sportsnet. Let's bring him in. It's probably been, what, three weeks, four weeks

since we last had John. And we were talking about a pretty good start and a pretty good run. And it ain't going away anytime soon here, Sean. We had some talk about Vancouver, and there's a guarded optimism in terms of what lies ahead in the back half of the season in Vancouver. Is it the same way in Winnipeg? Based on what happened

last year, considering that the Jets, a lot of people forget the Jets were first in the West right around this time last season before they started that precipitous fall they had, and almost the biggest collapse in NHL history had they fallen out of the playoffs

at that point. So there's a lot of people who are thinking that. Now, I know we were having a lot of conversations after Christmas and leading up to around this time of year, last year, last season, that what the Jets were doing wasn't sustainable. The floor was about to fall out from underneath them. They were winning games, but it was those things where you see teams go on a little bit of a heater, and sometimes by the third last game of the win streak or fourth,

sometimes fifth, you're looking and you're saying, this team is going to have a fall and it's going to be ugly. That's what you saw from the Winnipeg Jets. So because of that last season, because that fall, there's a guarded optimism about this. If you watch this team play, there's no reason to be worried about what is happening with this team there you know i think it's 29 it's like 30 games now straight that they haven't allowed more than three goals

and for the majority of the last 10 or 12 or 15 games most of those games are two goals and under you can't score against this team if they come out and happen to get two goals on you in the first five minutes of the game pack it up and save your energy and get to the next game you can't score on this team so what they're doing right now is repeatable it is constant night after night even when they don't seem to have their fastball they fall into their structure which is just iron clad and hard to beat this team it went from playing rick bonuses system and playing a system that gave them a chance to win every night and it's advanced to the point that they play that system and they are

extremely hard to beat now every night it's crazy the jets are three points up in colorado with a game in hand um they are the sixth team in nhl history to allow three or fewer goals in 30 3-0 straight games how much of that is Connor Hellebuck how much of that is good team defense okay this is uh this is the the idea that I've been kind of battling and beating the drum on a lot of people around the league are going to know who Connor Hellebuck is and know that he was the kind of goaltender who, who kept the jets in it for a lot of years, the jets were a team that made a lot of mistakes. Their structure was really loose. They like to play globes,

trotter style hockey and Connor Hellebuck would bail them out of them out of that time and time again, which gave him a reputation as being one of the best goaltenders in the world deserved reputation. He won a Vesna doing that one year by basically taking a team that shouldn't have made the playoffs and dragging them over the playoff line. That's not it this year.

This Jets team is extremely hard to play against. Their games look the same with Connor Hellebuck in net as they do when Lauren Bressois is in net. A lot of the shots, you take a look at some of the shots from last night,

I'd say Connor Hellebuck faced in the neighborhood of 30 shots. 15 to 20 of them would have been floated in from distance. Like these are shots that a goalie is standing up straight and redirecting with a blocker just to get it into the corner or sometimes kind of passing it to the rest of his team. I'm not taking away anything from these goaltenders. Connor Hellebuck at the beginning of the year struggled a little

bit under this system because he was so used to being busy. Now he's got to be that guy who doesn't face a lot but needs to be ready when he does face something. Last night was a perfect example. It's a shutout towards the end of the game. There were four or five really high danger chances. He was ready to go for them. He's

adapted perfectly to this system. So yes, Conor Hellebuck is a huge this system so yes conrad halibut is a huge part of their success lauren brossois is a huge part of their success but if you didn't point out that the winnipeg jet system is the most ironclad i'll say it the most ironclad system defensive system in the nhl right now you would not be doing your job we're talking to sean reynolds sportsnet reporter in winnipeg for us doing a terrific job so we often talk about conversations already about coaches coach of the year and uh certainly rick bonus would be in there somehow some way uh but executive of the year kevin shovel day off

can we talk about two things and i'll leave the trade for Pierre-Luc Dubois on the sidelines for a second. Just the ability now to have found a way to sign Mark Shifley and, of course, Connor Hellebuck. But focusing on Hellebuck, where would Hellebuck be or Winnipeg be right now if Kevin Sheveldayoff did not sign him? And what would he have been looking at on a next deal if, in fact, he was potentially going into UFA this July? Oh, well, I mean, it's a really good question, Kipper,

because I think what happened this year is he went out looking and they were exploring trade options for Connor Hellebuck. And I don't know that the market was necessarily there for this expanded deal that you're thinking of. Like the one thing I'm taking a look at and it's a copycat league, right? So the Vegas Golden Knights go and they win the cup with, you know, a bunch of goaltenders that don't make a lot of money. They kind of used three, four goaltenders last year to get to where they were going. Lauren Bressois is the goaltender. The Jets' backup goaltender is the goalie that booted them out of the playoffs last year. And I think that there's a little bit of a belief within the league

that the $10 million goaltender, that experiment hasn't worked, right? It's come close a couple of times. Carey Price almost dragged the Canadians over the line that one year. And Bobrovsky woke up last year and did a lot. But I don't think a team has won with a $10 million goaltender yet. So if Conor Hellebuck wants to be paid where he should be compared to the rest of his goaltender brethren in the league, I'm the first one to say he should be paid the most in the league, right?

I think he got to a place where he was seeing what was out there, and he decided, A, he knows Winnipeg. He knows what it's about. He loves his relationship with Wade Flaherty, the goaltending coach there. And there was a belief, give credit to Kevin Sheveldayoff, who you're talking about here, but also the core of this team. This is a team that obviously, by what they're doing right now, this core has been together for a long time. They've clearly underachieved for a lot of years.

This team remained in belief of its capability of doing great things. And Connor Halibut was one of the guys who said, I'm here because I believe we can win a cup here. His belief is what's carried them through here uh and that belief extends through all the major players like the adam lowry's the josh morrissey's and eventually i think it took some time but mark shifley as well so you're talking about shovel day off and the success of the offseason obviously the trade with dubois was a huge reason they're having the success i'm sure you've talked that to death and maybe you're tired of talking about it i want to talk about the dubois side of it just for a second he just

got demoted to the fourth line in la i haven't checked his stats today anybody notice in winnipeg yeah maybe he's got 15 points or something this year which is like nick robertson numbers or something was there any world in which you saw him struggling this much on a good team yeah yes and and the reason i say that is because when he came to winnipeg a lot of people forget that same year i'm talking about the montreal canadians going to the cup final uh he was demoted to the fourth line in the jets playoff series against the montreal canadians he struggled mightily now there was always you know and this is the job of a team to kind of try and hide those bumps and those bruises that a player goes through when they switch from one team to the other and again I always defer to Kipper with stuff like this because

he's been inside those rooms and knows about these kind of things but everyone was saying it was COVID he came and he had to sit out for that little bit of time if you remember the Jets picked him up and the rules him crossing the border and coming into Canada meant he needed to stay at home for a while. And the Jets storyline that year was basically that he sat out a little bit of time and he just never quite got his feet underneath him. I call bogus on that.

And I did at the time. I didn't buy that for a second. I mean, if Nikita Kucherov can sit out an entire year and do what he did in the playoffs that same year, I'm fairly certain it was that same year. I can't see how missing two weeks of time for Pierre-Luc Dubois made it so he was never able to get his foot underneath him, how he was never able to get his wind underneath him. He struggled in that situation before. So now, did I see it being this bad i'm not going to say stand here and tell everyone that he got traded to la and this was all going to fall apart i never said

that but i'm not surprised by this because we've seen this before the one thing i will say about la is they're trying they went after pierre le dubois guy who we saw when he did get his feet under him in winnipeg when he gets going he can take over a game this player can clearly do that he did get his feet under him in Winnipeg, when he gets going, he can take over a game. This player can clearly do that. He did that for stretches of a time. At one point, I think about 60 games, 50 games into the season last year, he was a point-per-game player with the Winnipeg Jets. And then when they fell apart, he fell apart too.

But this is a player that teams looked at and thought, if we can get this guy to drop those kind of lulls that he has throughout a season, he could be a point-per-game player, a guy who clearly often leads the league in drawing penalties, takes a lot of penalties, gets in the other team's grill,

and just takes over games. I know LA may be moving him down to the fourth line. I don't know how they feel about him now. Maybe this is just a way to get him going. For L.A., I don't think any of this matters right now. If they can get that version of Pierre-Luc Dubois to show up in the playoffs, then I think they're starting to say, this is what we traded him for. So right now, this isn't the litmus test for the L.A. Kings.

They just need to get into the playoffs, and they need to get him going. If they can get him going, he's a force of nature. And a team like that, with the depth they have at center, with Pierre-Luc Dubois operating at full capacity, that would be scary. I don't care who you are. Seven straight without Kyle Connor. I mean, has that been

noted enough? Maybe not enough, but I guess this is what I'd say about this team is the rick bonuses system and it's i think it's very different than what the jet system used to be the jet system under paul maurice used to really rely on their upper echelon players and their fourth line players really didn't get to play that much there were clearly tears on the winnipeg jets at that time ice time would reflect that opportunity on the penalty kill. The power play would reflect that.

This Jets team now is set up in a way where great line that Rick Bonas told me about Mark Shifley. He said Mark Shifley is more skilled than everyone else on the team. Right. So when he's in the offensive zone, he's going to have a level that he can reach that other guys on the team uh can't reach so i don't expect mark adam lowry to look like mark shifley in the offensive zone but on this team in this system mark shifley better look like adam lowry in the defensive zone and what i'm hearing from that what he said time and again where he said all four of his lines should look the same that's what you get from the winnipeg jets right now all four lines go they play the game the exact same way you're not getting a break

when the third or second line comes out uh and thinking okay now's our chance to get our stars out there and score rick bonus is just as confident putting the fourth line out as he is against the first line so when when kyle connor went down yeah you're taking a guy out of the lineup who at the time was right in the thick of the rocket richard trophy race and i i had said it at the time we do a local podcast if you want to go look at it i'd said this will not affect the winnipeg jets barely at all because basically this system is designed it's not a next guy up mentality where a guy needs to elevate his game they're all playing the same at all times you can't score on them very often which means dominic toninato can

come in the lineup a guy who's been struggling to stay in the nhl his entire life and and be a point per game player for the little bit that he was brought in here and score the kind of goals that are game winners like every night you can be the hero for the winnipeg jets because if you score one of two goals there's a good chance the team's going to win 2-1 and they carry that mentality in there they don't need to outscore their problems so losing a guy like kyle connor uh if you're watching here in this local market it's not what it would be in another market where teams need to outscore their issues and maybe get into a track meet with teams on other nights it's never a track meet in winnipeg it's like a wrestling match where

they lock up the jeffs throw their opposition into a headlock and then they just hold them in a headlock for three periods until the other team says listen we're just going to move on to the next city and try our luck there it's funny you know a lot of times when teams go on hot streaks i like to look into all right do the numbers back it up? Like you mentioned, it is sustainable. And I just statistically, it very much is. They are among the best teams in a group with basically Edmonton, you know, among the best teams in the NHL right now.

Who has been maybe the brightest surprise? I'm looking at the decor and trying to look for names. It's a very good third pair. You mentioned Toninato on the fourth line. Who's been sort of a bright spot this season that the Winnipeg fans would not have expected? So because everyone carries kind of the same weight, like I'm saying, it's hard for anyone really to stand out.

Now, Gabe Velarde, the way that he popped in on that first line, I think opened a lot of people's eyes, including Gabe Velarde. I think Gabe Velarde is looking at his time here in Winnipeg and thinking, wow, this is what I always thought I could be. So that's one. Adam Lowry this year has just gone beast mode and I think taken that next level. I know that Derek Lalonde, when he was in town, we didn't even ask him about it. He just volunteered that he thought Adam Lowry is the best shutdown center in the NHL now.

Jordan Stahl, when he was in town, I was talking with him about Lowry and I'd heard comparisons between the two. And he said to me, it is quite the honor that you are comparing me to Adam Lowry, which I took that to Lowry. And Lowry said, God, I've been trying to be that guy my entire career. I can't believe he's saying that. So that would be a big one. But in the subtleties of this jets game i would say the guy who really shows off who the jets are is vladislav namesnikov a guy who basically has been bouncing around the league couldn't find a spot the jets picked them

up for a fourth round pick at the trade deadline last year they didn't have that second line center because pierre-luc de bois left and they were going to try with cole perfetti at the beginning of the year it didn't work he was getting targeted he was getting beat up so they had this gaping hole at the second line center and Namesnikov has moved in there and not just settled that line they thrive he does it defensively he does it offensively and he's that kind of guy and I don't know how many of these guys existed in the NHL but truly if if the coach came to him tomorrow and said hey, you scored eight points in five games.

You're going to be a healthy scratch next game. Vlad, he would be like, OK, if that's what you think we need, that's what we'll do. And there's just no hint of ego there. He is just so focused on doing what is important for the team. And I do think that that kind of attitude has really bled through. Mark Shifley doesn't need to carry as much of the weight or have as much of the spotlight anymore. Everyone, I think, has really sacrificed on this roster to kind of, you know, taken a little bit away from themselves to give more to the team.

And it's why we're seeing what we're seeing. Might have, what, 20, 25 games to go to get to a trade deadline. You assume that everything should stay pretty even keel for the Winnipeg Jets, you know, describing what you've witnessed already. So what does that mean at the trade deadline? Does Kevin Chevalier off go all in on trying to win the Stanley Cup? I would think that you have to. I mean, if this is last season,

a lot of people were wanting Kevin Che shovel they have to get really busy at the trade deadline and and take some really big swings uh to try and save a floundering team my take on that is like a team needs to show its gm that it's worth investing in right so they didn't bargain their future last year and kevin shovel day off you know we touched on that i don't think we went that deep on it but you're talking about him as an executive kevin shovel they also move at the trade deadline last year where Vladin Nemesnikov for a fourth and Nito Niederreiter for a second. And those guys have been beasts.

So quietly, without moving a lot of capital, he went and got two guys who are absolutely huge. Nino and both of those players re-signed with the Winnipeg Jets, which is always tricky trying to get those guys to re-sign. But if you're Kevin Sheffield-Deoff right now, I think what this team has shown you at this stage is they look like a team that is capable of making a serious push for a Stanley Cup, which I think puts GMs in a position where they look at their team and say, OK, are there any question marks

on this roster? And if there are, that has to be addressed you cannot go into the playoffs and think yeah i had kind of wondered about that you just can't do that if you're the winnipeg jet so i've been lauding uh vladislav nemestnikov here and his role on the second line but is if you run into the la kings and pierre-luc dubois does wake up and that you've got that center group that you're playing and you bump into them in the let's say in the Western Conference final or something like that are you going to regret not going out and finding a bigger heavier or more skilled or whatever second line center in that spot and then move Vladislav Nemeskov down to the fourth line

and turn that line into a ridiculous scoring fourth line that is still defensively responsible so i think if you're the jets you're probably targeting a second line center you're probably targeting maybe you know beefing up your your back end they've been phenomenal they fall into the system if you're gonna beef it up you need to get a guy who's got the legs to play the system that the jets are playing because one of the things that makes them successful is those defense are extremely active. But I've been hearing that he's very active and looking around. I would fully expect Kevin Sheveldale to be very active and try and plug whatever tiny holes this roster may have.

Here in Toronto, the Leafs grocery list is a little longer and they don't have much in their wallet to purchase things with. How are the Jets on assets to spend when you get closer to that time oh they've got that i mean this is again so if we're going to talk about kevin shovel day off and the job he's done listen i i don't want to sound like i'm that guy who's just like all sunshine and you're first in the nhl if you can't now when can you enjoy it enjoy it. Enjoy it. It's a good point. Like, Kevin Sheveldayoff has been here for a long time, and if you're taking a look at what's happening with the Winnipeg Jets right now,

it's clear this is a roster that's underachieved for a long time, and that happened under Kevin Sheveldayoff's watch. He should own a piece of that and maybe some wasted years with this roster and a potential championship window but that what he's done that the contracts that he's got these guys under i mean josh morrissey you know is is like for what he is right now a top 10 defenseman in the league he's on a sweetheart of a deal connor hellebuck uh gets you know probably two million less than he's probably worth on the market to stay in winnipeg a place where you're supposed to overpay.

I mean, people would think you should be paying that goalie $12 million to stay here, and they get him for $8.5 million. Mark Scheifele, we knew he had it in him. It was a matter of getting it out. They've got him out of there. We got it out of him this year. He's a bargain. So the Jets have space to make moves.

They've got pretty good guys like Rucker McGroarty, who just was the captain of the U.S. junior team. They've got him. They've got Colby Barlow, who we talked to some of our guys. Sammy Cosentino talked to him about Colby Barlow. They absolutely rave about this guy. They've got a lot of good guys. Brad Lambert is on the moose.

Chaz Lucius is on the moose. They They got a lot of good guys. Brad Lambert is on the moose. Chaz Lucius is on the moose. They've got a lot of pieces to move. So they've got the pieces to make a deal, the room, the money to make a deal. They are positioned as good as anyone heading into the trade deadline. I'm sorry. We do a show out of Toronto. For the listeners in Toronto, can you explain what the word bargain means? Listen, we laugh about it, but the fact of the matter is in Winnipeg, at one time, it was thought people would only stay here if they got overpaid.

That has never really happened. I mean, even Kyle Connor at the time where he got locked down to his deal, the only guys I would say who maybe got overpaid for what they did were Blake Wheeler in his last contract with the Winnipeg Jets and Brian Little and both those guys were getting paid I think that little bit of extra money for being good soldiers and not just that they were underpaid for a long time

with the Winnipeg Jets. So I think they were okay with sending a little bit more money out the door than they should have because they'd saved so much on the front end of it. But for the most part, I mean, even the Nino Niederreiter deal, he basically talked about, am I going to chisel and try and go get more money elsewhere? Or am I going to take the money that I get right now and stay in a good situation? Kevin Sheveldayoff has taken what is supposed to be the most undesirable market in the NHL and made it a place that players are not only willing to stay in, but take less money to stay there. That's a little bit of magic. Sean, great stuff as always, man. Thanks for doing this.

Love being on with you guys. Thanks for having me. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Sean Reynolds. I mean, hey, things sound pretty good there. That's Kiffer's dream guest right there. Nice audio setup. Good backdrop, good on Zoom.

That's your dream. Yes. We should just have Sean on every day. With a better T-shirt, though. Oh, yeah. Gives us 25 minutes of free time. You're like, yes. You know my bar is always really high but sean hit all the marks there so great description of

what has been going on in winnipeg out of sean reynolds he mentioned how things are sunshine and road but we had him on all last year where he was super honest and forthcoming about the the issues with that team like it's not like he's not a homer not even close they're just in a good spot in winnipeg you know i am a firm believer and you know this is not a original thought but things are never as good as they look when they're going good and never as bad as they seem when they're going bad this jets team is good okay they're not the best team in the nhl excluding the san jose sharks worse than it looks. That is as bad as it possibly is. An exception to the thing I just said. Fair enough.

But no, the Jets, they're not the best team in the NHL to me. What they are is a Stanley Cup contender and a very legitimate one. Love the way they're constructed. I love the depth on the team. Love the goaltending. You know, it's... Even a move like Niedermeyer. Niederreiter. Niederreiter. Niederreiter.

Love that contract for that. Oh, my gosh. What a player. And just a solid NHL-er. Yeah. Some breaking news while we were talking to Sean. Elliott Friedman put out a tweet and a story that simply read, Corey Perry can return to the NHL.

Yeah, we knew that. No, we didn't. Yeah, we did. You did. Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's no different than Evander Kane going to Edmonton, right? People are going to probably sit there and argue on things

that they don't really know factually what happened. Right. Right? Yes. Definitive answers on what happened, what did he do, where was any line crossed. All we know is the Chicago Blackhawks got rid of him. That's all we know.

So how do you deny a guy? Well, because presumably they know more than us. But they're not sharing. Right, but I'm saying when you cut a guy, we're sitting at home going, wow, he's a pretty good player. He's playing well. He must have done something. All right.

Can you keep a guy out of the league because you think he might have done something wrong based on no chicago so like no he's coming back he's coming back i have seven canadian markets going with that work with my team no and the answer is in toronto no oh okay yeah definitive no what about a team like ottawa looking for a veteran guy yeah maybe so toronto's a definitive no yeah toronto's a definitive no and i'm not just i don't know why i would be wondering just interested in that why i think i think it's just the market, too. The block is hot around Corey Perry here. There's just too many people probably asking questions

and won't let it go. Gotcha. Gotcha. But other markets with one or two beat writers. So what you're saying is Leafs playing Tampa in the second round of the playoffs with Corey Perry back on the fourth line. No.

Oh, no. Not going to come back there either with Corey Perry back on the fourth line. No. Oh, no. Not going to come back there. Florida. Maybe Corey Perry in Florida. No. God. Can I not escape this guy? I really know how to strike a nerve on with you, eh?

Oh, Sammy. Can I not escape this guy? Sammy, you just went into a cold sweat. Oh, my God. Yeah, just what they need. Colorado. There's a lot of teams that'll be. I'm sure who's... Can I escape this guy? You just went into a cold sweat. Oh, my God. Yeah, just what they need. Colorado? There's a lot of teams that'll be. I'm sure who's...

Edmonton? Who's Corey's agent? Who just did it with Evander Kane? Who's Corey's agent? Looking for depth? Corey's with Donnie Meehan and Pat Morris. I'm sure their phones are active at the moment. How is it not Edmonton?

They just did this with Kane. Could be Edmonton. He's a fourth-line contributor to a place where they would love a little depth like that that could score with grit. I don't know what he did, but he's a good hockey player. He's coming back. Do you guys want to do game time here, or do you want to do it on the other side of the break?

Let's do it on the other side of the break. All right. Other side of the break. We got game time, but we'll also talk about mcdavid not being happy with a disallowed goal overruled on an offside call that we could see a thousand times and not know one way or the other so we'll talk about that. You mentioned Pierre-Luc Dubois being demoted to the fourth line. Bedard out

six to eight weeks. Plenty more to chew on on the Real Kipper and Bourne show. Do not go away. Breaking down the top stories in the NHL every day. The Jeff Merrick Show. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, I want to follow up just on this Corey Perry stuff that Elliott Friedman is reporting that he's free and clear now to sign with any National Hockey League team. And we had mentioned, you know, Corey possibly going to a big market like the toronto maple leafs and i kind of shut you down the the general feeling that i had gotten in the last little while is that you got to be careful on on putting him in one of the biggest markets would obviously be here in toronto and then that what would that mean I'm not here to tell you, Sammy, that I know 100% that he couldn't end up being a Toronto Maple Leaf.

But that is a huge concern. No question about that. And, you know, if the Leafs wanted to float out, which is common in the news world. That they're interested. That they're interested. Then you see the reaction of your market. And if there's a chance that a lot of people aren't going to care, then there's some momentum to maybe move forward with it.

If it, again, is one of those, you can't bring that guy here, then you move on. Can I ask you if you think he would be interested in playing here after what happened with Dubas and him not getting signed? He's had numerous opportunities to let the Leafs know

how much he wanted to be a Toronto Maple Leaf. And it never materialized. Now at this point, if in fact the Leafs have had a change of heart and they believe that the market will accept him with open arms, there's always a possibility for Corey to end up a Leaf. Okay. I get what you're saying here.

I'm reading what you're saying uh can we do game time you bet all right game time presented by bet 365 visit the app for the latest odds and find out why it's never ordinary at bet 365 must be 19 plus ontario only please play responsibly only three games on the docket tonight but i'm looking at the flyers and the Habs. And Jamie Drysdale is making his Philadelphia Flyer debut tonight. And the Flyers are pretty heavy favorites, as I'm pulling this up here. They're minus 185, which is a huge number for the Flyers, as they're not a great team.

The Canadians are plus 155. But I do like the Flyers tonight. I think it's a big bump getting the new sort of top guy in there. They're all feeling really Flyery because they were super mean to a kid who had rights, and they're like, we're going to boo and be happy, and like, yeah, we're going to be really, we're going to be greasy, and they're going to win this game handily tonight in James Drysdale's debut. I think there's some pressure on Jamie here going into that market.

No question. Boy, he got traded for a huge prospect. He has to. Hit. I think there's some pressure on Jamie here going into that market. He got traded for a huge prospect. He has to hit. He has to hit. Big time. And I threw out a comparison of Evan Bouchard. I don't know if he'll ever. I think he can shoot the puck like Evan.

Few people can. But he's going to have to produce and produce fairly early here. I don't think that there's some – the bar's been raised for the Philadelphia Flyers. What's he, 21? Yeah. The bar's been raised, and their fans are going to expect a guy that can carry an offense, a blue line. Is he ultimately going to be a number one defenseman in this league?

And if he's not, then this trade blows up in the Philadelphia Flyers' face if he isn't a guy. And he doesn't have to do it this year. Like we said, he's only 21,'s he's got some games underneath his belt as as young as he is but he's gonna have to turn out to be a an a type defenseman here for this he's he's saved by the fact that he didn't do this right like this is not he didn't force the trade he you know this they're gonna be mad at goche if it doesn't work out i don't know that it's i understand that you want a top guy to play well but i don't think this is

like uh we expect from you what we expected to get from him necessarily fighters fans are obviously that reasonable they're definitely not they're definitely not creatures maybe they'll be from a management point of view there should have a feel of equal value and i don't know how fast we're going to see goche in the national hockey league i assume by the end of the year if i'm not opinion you should be there now if if i'm not mistaken he's he's back at school right uh yeah that's i believe so yeah but the whole idea here is that he wanted to start his career a lot sooner yeah he just didn't want to do it with the philadelphia flyers yeah no you're right i mean it's uh it's a spotlight on a kid that are that

definitely didn't have it playing out in anaheim so and torts things just got hotter for sure for him like their eyeballs and attention on his game. And really good one in the nightcap tonight. Vegas at Colorado. Excellent game between two really good teams. Vegas is plus 120. Pretty good. But Colorado just scores, man.

They can play. I really like both these teams. But if I had to lean, I'd go a slight lean to Colorado. But a little bit of value on Vegas if you're into that. So that was game time. Presented by Bet365. Visit the app for the latest odds and find out why it's never ordinary. Bet365 must be 19+.

Ontario only. Please play responsibly. The Tampa Bay Lightning were down 2-0 in the final 10 minutes against LA last night. Ended up winning the game 3-2. John Cooper, 500th career win. He is the sixth coach in NHL history to have 500 wins with one franchise.

Great. Congratulations, Coop. Listen. I couldn't help but read into the ice-cold hug between him and Stamkos when he gave him the puck. He gave a, I watched the clip, very heartfelt speech. Yeah.

Did you see the clip? I did. Okay, I should have got it for us, but it's a really like genuinely heartfelt and nice thing where he gave credit to all his former coaches and all the guys that he had and his current assistant coaches

and said he would never thought he would get there and all this different stuff where i actually like john cooper for a couple minutes so how can you not the uh the other coaches are al arbor new york islanders 740 lindy ruff barry trotz billy ray and toe blake let me ask you something is tampa bay making the playoffs this year they are. I think they're currently in the final playoff spot, aren't they? They are. At this point. Are they going to hold on? Oh, yeah. I don't know. It's going to be a dog fight. It's going to be a dog fight.

Well, I think they're just, they're an old team, right? They're older. They're aging. A lot of their guys are getting up there. Oh, Hagle was good last night. For sure. They have good younger players, but their depth isn't what it used to be. They're not a lock. No.

But going down the stretch. They need to be healthy. Yeah. But it's crazy. So they're in the last wildcard spot. New Jersey is a point behind them with games in hand. Washington is a point behind them. Pittsburgh is a point behind them.

Detroit is a point behind them. All those teams have 44 points to tampas 45 it's a absolute brawl yeah in the east and meanwhile it's like yeah seattle might get in the west arizona might get in st louis might get in calgary might a little different story there all right uh connor mcdavid did he blast the officials last night? I wrote blasts. I think I was maybe a little harsh for blasts. Yeah, I think it was a little harsh,

but there's a level of frustration hit for Connor. Zach Hyman. I thought he was in good spirits about it. Well, yeah, they've won eight in a row. He's not grumpy, Connor. Do you want to hear the clip? And a win's a win. Go ahead.

Yeah, we can play the clip. Okay. Maybe we won't play the clip and a win's a win yeah go ahead yeah we can play the clip okay maybe we won't play the clip i don't know if you have the clip i put it in there did i not okay oh if it takes you 15 minutes to to determine if it's offside or not um it probably doesn't really matter um you know um you know i talked to the linesman after ultimately it's not not their call i guess you know obviously they said it came down from the league but you know, I talked to the linesman after. Ultimately, it's not their call, I guess. You know, obviously they said it came down from the league. But, you know, you zoom in, you zoom in, you keep zooming in until you can't zoom in anymore. And I guess it's offside. So these are calls that, you know, change games. And ultimately it didn't go our way.

You know, that was a big call. It would have really hurt them. And I thought it should't go our way. That was a big call. It would have really hurt them. I thought it should have been onside. It's kind of possession too. The argument of possession. That whole debate can start again. It was such a close one. You'd like to see it.

I think the NHL uses the analogy dead wrong. If it's dead wrong or something like that i don't know what they say like they want to be clear and obvious right um that one's certainly not clear and obvious that's like the best mcdavid quote ever and and for the record four minutes that's absurd and 10 seconds what's that the time that they needed to make the call. He said 15. But I'm sure for all of us, it probably felt longer.

But that's absurd. That's an absurd amount of time. You're sitting there on the bench in the heat of a battle of an NHL game, and you sit there for four minutes? That's an eternity. You're not necessarily the next guy over the boards. Most guys are waiting 10 minutes until they get back on the ice. One thing I'll say about McDavid is he was absolutely matured into a fun

commentator on hockey. He has really intelligent, thoughtful things to say in the game. And the other is the ultimate point is if we have to go like this, it's fine. It's on side, you know, like it's kind of like the old dragon,

the foot by the base. Like if it were right there, the point is to nobody. You know, like, it's kind of like the old dragging the foot by the base. Like, we're right there. The point is to nobody, you know, be egregiously offside here. We're good. Listen, that's on an empty net goal. That's off a decision that didn't alter anything. It did cost me money. Cost you money.

I had a goal and a half. You know, Zach Hyman's having a monster year and wants goals. He wants to see how high he can get. That's nothing worse for a goal score than having a goal taken away. Yeah. But as Connor said, there's going to be a playoff situation to get in. There could be the difference between advancing. It could be a Stanley Cup. Can you imagine that same four minutes and ten seconds

in a Stanley Cup final on a deciding goal. It's like people are going to freak out beyond belief. They got to have that process. But you can't get any tighter that Connor just said. How far can you zoom? There's no. Is there anything tighter than what we saw last night i've watched it 100 times it is not it's just it's absurd they reviewed it for that long it's on side if you

call that on side it's on side yeah there's just it's just so hard and the whole system was built not on that it was built on egregious calls. An inch. An inch is fine. Half an inch, whatever. But, you know, at that point, you're there. You're close enough inside a certain margin of error if it's called onside on the X. I don't know where you go from here,

other than this is the way it is, and this is what we ultimately all decided as general managers and players. I get you have to get it right. Committees. And now with betting, you have to get it right. The genie is out of the bottle. You cannot put it back in.

No, but you can streamline the process. Four minutes and ten seconds can be expedited somehow. Have those banged out, you know, a couple of views. But you are still trying to get it right they're not wasting everybody's time on purpose but i think you can get it right faster without yeah like if you wanted you could make that take 40 minutes and you could you know recreate it and put it in it you know there needs to be we're getting it right within the margin of error that's a certain amount of thickness. Anywho.

I don't know the answer. Well, you know my thoughts on the review. Like, you just... Two real-time looks and move on. Yeah, but it just takes so long. And it's like, the longer you look at it, the more you can convince yourself the other side of whatever argument you're trying to make.

Yeah. Like, they're sitting there convincing themselves it's offside. Like, when you say a word enough times, over and over, it loses meaning. It's like when you watch that for the 30th time, it's like, what am I watching? I've just been sitting here watching it, and it's just like I can't get it to offside.

Yeah, it's a magic eye. Maybe if I watched it for four minutes, I'd have the difference. The dress is blue and white. What was it? Silver and gold? I don't know. Anyways.

Oh, my God. I'm officially out six to eight weeks. Just kind of a crime, you know, for people that want to watch Chicago. Let's be real. That kid could have won a million bucks at the All-Star game. Yeah. Tools-wise, he's got all the tools to win that million dollars.

And I said to you before the show, probably not thrilled if you're one of those people that went out and bought a Chicago season ticket. Yeah, now you're catching all the hot McKenzie Entw twist action good luck selling one of those yeah they went from how much a tick to how much a tick after that what's the resale value of your ticket worth now kind of derails his run of breaking austin's total goal record that he beat ovechkin who ovechkin beat Gretzky. Is that right? I don't know. There was some train of new records. Where is he on how good of a goal scorer you think he can get to be?

Yeah, he's in that pocket of players. As soon as you put some talent around him and he puts some meat on his bones, this guy is going to be a very special goal scorer. I don't even think we were at what did you think about the hit yeah oh yeah clean as can be and yeah just just a bad mistake on his part yeah we did talk i've broken my jaw i have gone through the process of surgery i got a 10 screw plate and an x plate that kept the sides together um you know and got like a similar timeline for getting back to return to play or whatever.

It's not, you know, like I couldn't eat an apple when the time was up. With the confidence, it wasn't going to explode my jaw. It just felt weird. And they're like, yeah, yeah, put a cage on, get out there. I was like, another option would be to not do that. So I don't know. With Bedard, I know he'll be desperate to get back in play, but by that point, we're talking it's March 10th. I don't know with bedard i know he'll be desperate to get back in play but by that point we're talking it's march 10th i don't know what's the point i guess get in for

the last couple weeks of the year off you go um all mark he's hurt big one yeah but that's where you got very good situation with swayman at least can't trade for the other guy though if one of them's hurt can you imagine they were actually able to do that no then they're fine yeah but the other guy will whoever they call up will have to play at some point the goaltending thing i do want to talk about the vesna it's not like you can just shrug it off no but we did we lost a vesna goaltender every the sky would be falling. Oh, Swayman will be fine. It's like, well, it's a different situation

without the backup goal, without your co-pilot. And Boston's not awesome. I know they're still doing very good. They're better than most teams. But last year, they had 130-some points. They're 5-3-2 in their last 10. This could have some impact if they have to play someone who's not one of the best goalies on earth.

Interesting. As we talked to Sean Reynolds at the top of the hour about goaltending, and if in fact this is the year for a Dempko or a Connor Hellebuck or a Bobrovsky, how quickly does the copycat league go to, oh my god, we need a stud number one. This one

B and one C is over. Yeah. I just think there's not enough for that to be a thing. There is if you can get rid of your heavy contracts somewhere up front or on the blue line and put it back in. I mean, there's not enough goalies to do that, Kip.

Like how many, there's not enough goalies that are good enough to play as many as Hellebuck play or those guys play. But whatever it is, Sammy, the want to go out there and find it and get it. That's all. Yeah. That Askarov or whatever, the Nashville Askarov, he's tearing it up in the American Hockey League.

He's a 920 after being, you know. My point is, could Soros be available? And let Soros move on. Yeah. So maybe he's a guy that plays for a different team here in the next two months. The Leafs. That's how it's happening, yeah. I would like that very much.

They're pairing him with Will or Jones. I've been telling him for a year and a half that he should be on the Leafs. Anyways. High cost. For sure. All right, as you said, just three games on tap. Sportsnet, I think, will have Montreal and Philadelphia lead the way on Wednesday Night Hockey. Before you close this out, I just want to say give Quinn

Hughes the Hart Trophy. I watched him last night. He's just unbelievable. He's very good. I was on this early. You guys made fun of me for this take when I was pandering to our Vancouver audience. More awards? More awards you want to give out? We'll save that for tomorrow. Nope, I'm all done.

Alright, our thanks to Matt Martin in the first hour of the Real Kipper and Bourne show, and then Sean Reynolds, who does a terrific job following the Winnipeg Jets. As we said, three games on tap. Enjoy your Montreal, Philadelphia right here on Sportsnet. And we're back tomorrow. If you get a chance, give us a rating and review.

We'd love to hear from you. Give us our feedback, what you think of the show. Yeah, we need help, Ad. Please let us know. I get a lot of feedback. Have a great night, everybody.