Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 346: Featuring Frank Seravalli + Drew Shore

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

On Episode 346 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Frank Seravalli and Drew Shore. Frank joined (01:03:30) to talk about his domination of the expansion draft, NHL free agency, some rumors he is hearing and more. The guys open the show talking about one of the craziest days in NHL free agency history. Deals were signed and trades were made, and we broke them all down. The guys were then joined by Drew Shore (02:27:54) to talk about his recent retirement, becoming an agent and playing with Whit. The guys wrap up the show talking about the recent Jack Eichel situation and what is next for Buffalo and their captain.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode 346 of Spit and Chick. That's presented by Pink Whitney. From our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka here in the Postal Sports Podcast family. What is up, gang? Just an outrageous few days of activity in the NHL. Almost 240 signings, major trades, the biggest goalie carousel I've ever seen.

But first, let's say hi to the boys. Mikey Grinelli, we got a big week in Detroit this week. You fired up or what? Yes. All right. I'm super fired up, but tragedy struck this weekend. Oh, boy. I stubbed my toe.

I stubbed my toe pretty bad. Dude, there's nothing worse than stubbing your toe. It's the fucking worst thing in the world. I stubbed my toe pretty bad. I'm going into Detroit injured. That's all I got to say. Michael Terrian, soft. Seriously.

I gashed my foot in a hamster. It's a long way from the heart. Didn't say anything. Biz, what's up, buddy? You have some foreign curtains behind you. You still on the road, brother? I'm in Champa Bay. No way.

Yeah, I was in Orlando judging the 2021 Miss Hooters pageant. Oh, so you're a Disney adult, don't lie. Made a T-shirt for the trip. You did take a sweatshirt on. That might be the biggest tourist trap in all the United States is in Orlando, given with all the Disney stuff they got going on around there. But we ended up coming over, me and my lady, to Tampa Bay for a couple nights in order to get a little R&R. Did a nice spa day yesterday with and had a date night and then brought her home and gave her an absolute lickin'.

You did? Workbench? Workbench status. Gave her the angry inch and we shut her down. And I tell you what, right now, 2021, I think I might be in contention for boyfriend of the year. So that was the kind of weekend it was. And it was nice and relaxing. And then I'm back off to Scottsdale. And then next weekend, the ball hockey with a couple sandbaggers. Everybody's been asking, when's the next sandbagger?

We got two lined up in Detroit. And then we're going to get posh out of cooking in the lab. And we're going to have those two. Probably hopefully one by the end of August, and then the other one in September. So that was a long intro for me. I'll throw it right back at you, R.A. I always had a billion-dollar idea, Biz. Build a vasectomy clinic right as you leave Walt Disney World. So every five after five days, and I was like, fuck, never again. See you later. End it right now. Well, we were staying at the Hard Rock,

so we didn't see a ton of kids crying and going through the whole ordeal. But, Whit, you said last time when you went to, was it Disney World, or what did you go to? I went to Disney World. Yeah, that's what it's called. Okay, because there's a couple of them. The other one's like Universal. There's Disneyland.

That's in California. Anaheim. Disney World is in Orlando. And yeah, Orlando has every chain in the world. I think there's more international flights to Orlando than any other city in the United States. Now, maybe that's just made up by me, but it is a destination for people across the world to go to Orlando.

I'll tell you that right now. And a lot of kids are screaming, crying. But in the end, it's worth it. In the end, you're making memories. What's a vasectomy when they take the laser and they kind of like snip whatever it is off? Because it's gotten a lot better now. Yeah, they snip, cut the vas deferens. That is the tube that leads the sperm into your scrotum, which is your semen. Now, not all semen has sperm in it. Once you get a vasectomy, you still produce semen. It just doesn't have sperm, aka the swim is in it. And I asked my

doctor, I said, well, what happens to the sperm? He's like, think of it as a factory that shuts down. When they cut the tube, they just tie it off. So, because if they do a reversal, they untie it and tie it back together. I'm not getting one of those fucking things, but when they tie it off, the sperm just stops making, he's like, the factory just shuts down, but the rest of your body still produces semen. So, you know, chucking knucks like peter north you just don't have swimmers in them okay i thought i thought they did it with biology lesson i thought they did it with a laser now that's how intense it got where they know that that's that's lasik eye surgery you think oh okay other side of the body ryan whitney theog, what's your next road trip other than Detroit?

I don't know. So I have a bunch of things to say. First, Biz might be the only guy in the history of this entire globe that said he wins boyfriend of the year after judging a Hooters bikini contest. Unbelievable comment, but I'm sure you did well.

Second off, you posted a picture with Caleb Presley. Funny, funny bastard. Everyone knows Caleb. 51 strokes. Legend at what he does. He hosted funniest host ever. And Joey Chestnut, that sicko who eats 400 hot dogs in eight minutes every July 4th. His left toe. You have to see this picture, is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. It makes R.A.'s feet look like a foot model, a foot fetish model. This toe was bent sideways. It was about four inches long, and I threw up in bed. I actually threw up in bed.

We just put new sheets on. I'm on my phone in the morning looking at Joey's toe. So I got to go to my other co-host now, R.A. I'm playing golf, actually. So I played in the We Met Memorial Tournament, an awesome amateur tournament. Showed out Chris Francoeur wins it for the second year in a row. He's going to play at Louisville next year.

I played horrific. 77, then followed up with an 80, including a nine on the second hole in my second round, which was a par five. Maybe one of the easier par fives in the state. I including a nine on the second hole my second round which was a par five maybe one of the easier par fives in the state i made a nine i shipped one out of balance either way so that was that was it was a tough week but i'm back playing competitive golf very happy about that but the reason i bring this up i decided to play a practice round the day before okay and i'm playing with a buddy of mine. Who's a member at Charles river.

The course we played at another buddy who was playing. And then we met and my friend, Joe Harney, the member, he had another member join us. Okay. So we're, we're going around Charles river.

We get to the 12th hole, whatever it is. And he's like, Hey, I got a ridiculous rear Admiral story for you. I said, no, I go,

you know, you know you know r.a he goes no i don't but i met him one night i said no shit what what happened he goes well he went to fat baby which my buddy mike shaw owns it's a great restaurant in south boston sushi spot and r.a one night was sitting in there I guess he's a frequent um what do you what do you call that somebody who goes to restaurant a lot frequent customer of this place leaves great tips to shout out RA everyone loves him there and RA put a tweet out saying uh hey I'm at fat baby having dinner whatever so this kid I'm with buddy decides to send him a DM. R.A., I'm a big fan. I live a few, I don't know, doors down from Fat Baby.

You want to come up and hang out, maybe have some beers? R.A. responds back, no doubt, no doubt. I'll come up there. I'll hang out. You know, meet a fan, hang out. Now, granted, he's going to meet a complete stranger, but that's what R.A. is. He's a man of the people.

So I'm listening intently as we're walking down the 13th fairway. He says R.A. walks in with a CVS bag with five different random beers, sits down, really nice guy, has a couple beers, says, where's the bathroom? Goes into the bathroom, proceeds to take a shit, clog the kid's toilet, walk out, say, nice meeting you guys, have a good one. Maybe the most unbelievable yet believable R.A. story.

I said, wait a minute. I said, so you were sitting at your buddy's place, and R.A. came in with a CVS bag of five beers, said hello, had a beer, clogged a toilet and left. He didn't clog my toilet, thank God, but my roommate's toilet was clogged. He was plunging away for the next two hours. Oh, you're his buddy, not his roommate, because that means he would have been living there. Sorry, excuse me, his buddy. And then it was just a, see you later.

Just a quick hit for R.A. at the smash, and then he hit the roof. The assassin. So, R.A., can you explain? Puts the scope on. I don't know if the salt and pepper comes from you or the original storyteller. But, you know, I was invited to hang up. I don't know if I was waiting for a line or something. I forget.

Yeah. Kids DM like, hey, we're so and so address. Stop by. And yeah, I had a kind of line. Twitter line. But anyways, I got to the place. I didn't say, hey, by the way, I got to use it. It was a cause and effect fact, though.

I'll leave it at that. I was hanging out a little while. I had something to eat or whatever, and I had to go to the bathroom all of a sudden. Something caused me to have to go to the bathroom, so I had to go. There was no other options. I couldn't make it home. And hey, it's called shit for a reason. No one wants to do it, but was I going to leave and walk a half a mile home?

No, man. It was no women around. It was all dudes. I had a smash. So I smashed. I think I was clogging the toilet. I don't think that happened. I mean, I probably used the ample amount of toilet paper, but I don't believe I don't

believe I clogged the toilet. And I made it clear that I ruined the fucking place. So I was hardly trying to speak about it because it was was again, it tied into the pizza we had that made everybody's stomach. I think you almost I think you almost got to activate the glutes and do the chopstick dance for the you know, half a mile home with instead of dropping the no.

It's just so funny to just picture him rumble and stumbling into this kid. But the fact he came out in the whole place, the fact that he came out and just goes, all right, guys you guys supposed to smell like roses thanks a lot for listening peace good luck unclogging that monster back there but i love you ra out and that was it so i got a real he gives him the cvs bag just in case they don't have a plunger so they can use their hand to get it out and you ever had to do that i was fucking crying laughing i'm like this guy is just one of a kind

and the grand scheme scheme of stories you can hear about me what i'll take that over that's what i was holding my breath for a few minutes yeah imagine a couple of other stories that people have about ra like through all his years of living about how the randomness of some of the shit that he's done. Okay. Now back to me. My new mea culpa segment. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Pavel Butchnevich is not Artemi Anisimov.

Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, last episode, I mentioned when Bucinavich was traded from the Rangers to the St. Louis Blues. I said his most memorable moment as a Ranger was when he shot the gun at the Tampa Bay goaltender after scoring. And then immediately as I was telling the story, I was saying to my own brain, I was like, fuck, Avery was on the Rangers and Vinny LeCavier was on the Lightning. Bucinavich's been there quite a while. That's exactly. I think I said it. I said, Oh man,

he's been there a while. Meanwhile, my two dummy co-hosts couldn't, couldn't, couldn't fix my mistake. So they, they let me look like a fool the next morning. I mean,

it was like 8am. Grinnelly must've dropped it at 6am. I already had 50 tweets. You moron. That was Artemi Anisimov. Butch Nevitz still an RFA. How the fuck would he have been in the league when Tampa Bay still had LeCavier?

Mea culpa. I saw a big, lefty, tall, rangy Russian and I thought it was a different guy. So that's on me. I think there was probably some other mistakes. I'll let any of these guys maybe take some mea culpa as they have. But I'm looking forward to this episode

and I cannot wait to see you guys in Detroit and have R.A. clog somebody. We got a lot of goalies to talk about. Yeah, no mea culpa is for me. Really? I mean, you know, a lot of people are saying that you do not, you did not hold the fork for just content reasons that way. Well, I mean, I think

when the show, I'm like, Biz calls me the bus driver. Sometimes I got to concentrate in the road. I can hear his his bicker in the back a little and you know and don't and say how many times you guys five seconds later i'll say something you guys will say it after so like i don't want to get too much shit but not catching you fuck up me and her got it on that's you didn't that's one thing that we don't realize is you not only have to you know join in on the banter but you have to drive this thing all right so yeah credit to you and like a parent yelling at the kids in the back and i gotta keep on hand yeah speaking of that we used to always fight for now he's my fucking chewbacca too by the way you know you always fight if your dad's reaching into the back and smacking if you got

the seat behind the passenger shotgun seat you're screwed because the dad can reach back and get you but if you get the seat behind the driver's seat, he can never, he can never get you on that. You can put him on an arm bar if you want. Exactly. So R.A.'s a bus driver and a toilet clogger and a fork holding savage. But in the end, the grossest thing I heard or seen was Joey Chestnut's left toe. He was a great dude.

He got absolutely waffled. So here's a funny little tidbit for you. So he was invited to the Miss Hooters pageant like five years ago ago and he got so buckled that they gave him a three-year ban he got sussied but is this first year back this is first time back i don't think he i think because last year there wasn't one because everything got uh you know coronet out so he got the invite back but i tell you what a crowd pleaser people were it. He even got up there and did a little bit of a walk off against Caleb. So I'll tell you what, man, if we ever have like a big event, well, I mean, we do have the ball hockey,

but one where we're doing maybe like a big dinner, he needs to host it. He is such an incredible host, like how he can just go off the top. He's got such a calming voice too, where like, it doesn't matter how long he goes, it never gets top. He's got such a calming voice too, where like, it doesn't matter how long he goes. It never gets annoying. He's a, he's the fucking man. And then,

and then what else happened afterward? Oh, let's keep that between us. Okay, cool. I'm old enough where you could just tap the brakes for your kids to get them to smarten up. Cause there was no seatbelts on the cod.

So they would face smash off the fucking seats that used to smarten you out back in the day, but then seatbelts came along. So it's no longer ants on the cards, so they would face smash off the fucking seats. That used to smarten you up back in the day, but then seatbelts came along, so it's no longer an option. All right, boys, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it's already August. That means time at the cottage or the beach pad is dwindling, so make sure you head over to that local bar and order some Pink Whitney.

It's the perfect summer shot for you and your friends. Pink Whitney is the best drink for the pregame and the after party, and other than Labor Day, what other occasions we got left, Biz left biz i mean do they have labor day in canada they just spell it what are you well i guess you can call this an occasion the reason i went to the hooters pageant was because now in every single hooters restaurant they will be carrying pink whitney so that could be a holiday in itself oh wow all right there we go i didn't know that so we had a little news drop there as well but either way make sure you're hitting up Pink Whitney, whether you're getting a shot at the bar or the old Mickey size that we got, 375 milliliter. Check them out. Pink Whitney, get some.

All right. We talked about the signings. There are 163 of them on the first day, almost 240 total, almost a billion dollars in deals. At least 24 goalies who started an nhl game last year signed with the new team just on wednesday alone the biggest one philip grubauer of colorado i thought that was the shocker of the day we thought it was the shocker of the day did not go back to colorado he got his six years he got almost six mil 5.9 a year six year total 35.4 million the vesna finalist is going to the expansion team colorado we'll get to them in a sec let's go to grubauer reaction for his biz i know you had some intel well uh going to all the signings and all the money being thrown around let's keep this in mind a few years down the road

when gary bettman and the owners are trying to lock these players out again when these fucking gms just throw these ridiculous salaries at these guys i love seeing the boys get paid some of these contracts are a bit ridiculous and where you even mention that they plan on buying them out anyway so let's go to grubauer i ain't no insider but the number i kept hearing was he wanted six years at around six million dollars and people were dogging you people were dogging me i said is sackett gonna give this to grubauer because this is what we're hearing that he's asking for now a couple a couple of things. I don't think that they wanted to give him six years. I think that with the word that ended up coming out afterward, and mind you, I am not an insider.

This is stuff I'm reading and siphoning through online through all the big boys, the Frank Cera Valleys, the Elliott Freedmans, the Pierre Lebruns. But as I said, Colorado was stuck on five years. Now, I also heard rumblings after the non-signing and then him end up going to Seattle that I don't necessarily know if they thought that maybe he was the guy. And I think that they were going to be okay with him moving on where they thought given the situation with all these goaltenders available

that they could find a cheaper replacement. Well, we'll get to that later when they ended up finding it. Sure as shit, he goes to the Seattle Kraken six times point or 5.9 a hundred thousand off what was expected mind you no state tax so he's going to be making probably more than he would have in Colorado six times six and I I was I was shocked I thought they were going to lock back up that core group I thought they were going to get Lannisog locked in, which they did, and I thought he was the next piece.

And we had McKenna on, and he talked about how good of a skater Grubauer is. People get so worried about giving these long-term deals now to the goaltenders, and just because there's so many of them, and in fact, in most cases, some teams are doing the two-goalie thing, and they just didn't feel comfortable giving them that number and they thought they could replace them and they did. So I don't think Seattle's crazy for giving that number. This guy, I think he was what, second runner up for the Vesna this past season. People would also say that he had some of the most goal support and he wasn't exactly getting tested most nights given the lineup that's in front of him.

isn't exactly getting tested most nights given the lineup that's in front of him am i shocked that he ended up moving on and not taking five years maybe at that six million dollar value at the chance to win one two maybe three stanley cups with an absolute wagon yeah i was a little bit shocked but then looking back i'm pretty sure he was the backup when they won it in washington so he's already got his ring i know he wasn't the starter there, but sometimes if you've already got that, you want to secure the bag. And hey, maybe he thinks that they'll be a contender in a few years too, given all the assets that they have

in these high draft picks and some moves that they could still potentially make. So yeah, I was surprised to not see them get Grubauer. I was not surprised to see a guy who was second runner up for the Vesna end up getting six times six. So I'll throw it over to you, Whit. Yeah, nice little breakdown there. We don't know what was offered by Colorado, correct?

That has never been made public? I think the rumbling is right now, R.A., is they were potentially going to give him five years close to that number. I know N.R.D. rumors. what's it, NHL room is daily. He gets some good intel. He DMed me. He said that he heard he was getting offered five times five, five and a half. He wanted that six years.

So he might've taken five and a half from Colorado if he got this six years. That was the impression I got. But either way, neither wanted to budge, man. Neither side wanted to budge, apparently. And it could have been a tactic used in order to basically move on from him while not looking like the bad guy, right? Yeah, I mean, I think that earlier in the year, when we brought up how good Colorado was and how great their team looked

and the chances of them winning the Stanley Cup, I believe both of us questioned Grubauer. We took a lot of heat from Avalanche fans who said, this guy's amazing. He's been so good all year. Vezna trophy candidate, no doubt. And yes, that was quite obvious to us. But in the end, you're looking at it,

and I never had the feeling that that was their guy that they were going to win a Stanley Cup with. Now, dude, I don't know exactly what I'm talking about. That's been proven many times. Artemi Anisimov shooting the goalie is an example, or Bushnevitz. But in the end, I think Sakic looked at it like, all right, five years is the max. And if he did go five and a half, right, what does that turn out to be? 27 and a half million. So he ends up getting just close to 36. Now, for me, if I could stay

with Colorado, a team that certainly looks like you're going to compete for the Stanley Cup the next five, six years, I would have done it. But I'm also not a guy that's willing to say it's that easy to turn down an extra eight, nine million dollars, which is probably what he would have ended up giving up. Right. So I think Sackick made it very clear where he stood. And then Grubauer looks at it like I'm going to have a chance to be a starter no matter where I go. I'm willing to go to a team who's probably not going to be very good. We've talked about that. At least so far, they don't look like they're going to have that much. And I just don't necessarily agree with it.

Now, this is my opinion. You're passing up money. Who's to judge on that? But in the end, it was such a better team and such a great spot where it felt like Grubauer really fit in. He had such a good good year i thought he would want to be there but he went for the dough you can't blame somebody for that colorado on the other hand knows or had to know they had a chance of getting darcy kemper because if they don't if they don't know that that's a possibility right maybe they up the price they could not go into this season with any sort of question marks in

net now they have they have a better goalie for next year now granted he's ufa after next year yeah so but he's also he's also at a very low a4 and a half right now which which which for an elite goaltender he just came off world championships as well i ended up winning a goal for canada and look at his numbers over the last two or three years. Now, I guess the question mark you have is like, well, is he, is he playoff tested? He ended up playing against Colorado in the first round, a few years ago in the bubble had a great playoff performance in five games. He ended up stealing one of them, but like, you know, there's, it's a lot different when maybe you're not facing the type of rubber you are when you're playing on a bad team. And also when there's this amounts this amounts amounts amount of pressure where you have

to fucking win right it's like you're and you're also not seeing maybe the same amount of rubber you are when you're playing with phoenix as you are with colorado puck possession is a little bit different i'd say to put it lightly yeah and so colorado looks at it this way all right we got camper we can try to get a deal done with him but it is nice this year to have the four and a half, right? They're able to wiggle around some cap room. They have a better goalie in my mind. I know the stats don't say that, but you look at where Kemper has come from

and what he'll do on a better team. I think they're in a better spot, no doubt. But in the end, like, it's surprising to see Grubauer, in my mind, is willing to leave that team. And, and, and I, you know, you could say I'm an absolute moron, eight, $9 million, whatever it was, that's kind of life-changing in a sense, but if it's,

it's 27 or it's it's 36, I mean, to be on the Colorado avalanche, I certainly would be willing to take a little less, but Seattle is lucky to have a goalie that was a finalist for the vesna trophy that at least at least backbones their their gives them stability on the back end and goaltending to have nights where they will be outshot and will be outplayed and probably be able to stay in games because grubauer shown he's a top goalie in the league yeah it's just a it's going to be a different ball game dude and he's going to have a lot more action and there's going to be a lot more question marks. And for Seattle to get two pretty solid goaltenders under 10 million is, you know, it's a good little tandem and net.

And people talked about the carry price situation. It's like, well, you got both of those guys for less than what he's making. Right. So obviously the Seattle had a plan going in and they executed it and going back to Colorado as well. So you get Darcy Kemper, whereas you now have this window where you need to win, right? Let's say that, let's assume that Sackick not wanting to make that commitment, wasn't sure that Grubauer was in fact the guy. I think going in past Grubauer, they knew that they were going to be willing to give up some pretty big assets to acquire Darcy Kemper. were going to be willing to give up some pretty big assets to acquire Darcy Kemper.

Apparently it was between them and Edmonton and probably had the mindset of they were going to outbid anybody who was maybe going after Darcy Kemper. Cause it's, it's, it's rare, especially with a goalie only locked up one more year to give up a first rounder. I believe they gave up a third round conditional and, and also a pretty big prospect on D and now, but if let's say, let's say they do the Darcy Kemper experiment. Well, it's one year. You didn't overcommit financially to anybody. If this elite goaltender is able to get you over the edge,

then you can then go offer him that same type of deal, given Darcy Kemper's age, and he's probably going to accept it next offseason. So now you've committed to the guy who's already got it done. And if not, and the experiment doesn't work out, well, you go right back to where you were, and I'm sure there's going to be tons of goalies available moving forward. I mean, it seems to be the new trend moving forward

that these goalies are available every offseason. Also, Biz, if they don't – so they have the ability to re-up Kemper starting now, correct? Because it's in his last year. I don't think that that'll happen in the next few weeks. But if he lights it up the first three months, then you're talking, all right, let's get something done right now. Let's get something done before the deadline. And by no means do I think Kemper's getting traded next year, you know, with his UFA season coming up.

But like you said, they're not committing until they see what they have right and if he does light it up maybe the extension comes midway through the season but i i do like what you're saying in terms let's see what we got with him let's see how he gels in with this team and then we can try to really uh lock him up before he has the chance to go to ufa next summer and if he goes there and is like oh my god i've been dealing with rubber after rubber just shot after shot playing for the shitbag Coyotes. And all of a sudden I'm on the abs. Oh, give me give me a deal right now. I'll sign it for six years, maybe six million bucks.

And maybe they end up getting a deal for Kemper in which the one Grubauer wanted that Sackett didn't necessarily think he deserved. So I kind of think it works out for both teams. And that is that is to say, if Kemper lights it up and plays the way necessarily think he deserved. There you go. I kind of think it works out for both teams. And that is to say, if Kemper lights it up and plays the way I think he can. Another big pickup for the Coyotes. Now, listen, I know you just ripped on him, calling him the shitbag Coyotes first of all. I mean, they're as bad as ever now. It's just, I've said it before.

I tell you what, though. I think Bill Armstrong has done some awesome moves in order to acquire a ton of assets, one of which in the Darcy Kemper move, they ended up getting Connor Timmons. Actually, he's from near my hometown, Whit. He's from the Niagara region. So I actually was texting with him. Will you count him as one of those Welland guys that played in the show,

like one of your six that you always list off? No, no. He's from like Thorold, St. Catharines area. I think his father actually owned the, I think it was the Thorold Junior B's at one point. Maybe it was St. Catharines, but either way, a solid two way defenseman. He split time between the avalanche and the Colorado Eagles. And hopefully he's a,

another asset that can end up taking that next step and contributing to the back end for the oats moving forward. So as, as, as bad as the coyotes will probably get the next couple of seasons, this is, these are the types of moves that needed to happen for them to get, I don't want to say worse because we haven't played the season yet, but they need to get worse before they get better. And I know I've reiterated that time over time on this podcast.

Well, Darcy Kempo wasn't the only number one goalie to exchange addresses via trade. Mark Andre flurry after much talk and much scuttle, but Vegas did in fact trade him. This guy was a starter for them in the playoffs. They fucking railroad him. They trade him to Chicago. He kind of gets waylaid by it. Apparently

he found out about the trade via Twitter. I think he might have known he was getting traded, but he heard about the actual trade on Twitter, according to I think it was Jesse Granger who reported it. Either way, they send Vegas a minor league player, Michael Hakanainen, I I believe a Finnish kid who doesn't really project to be on the roster anytime soon he spent the year between the east

coast and the AHL last year so basically they kind of gave Fleury a way to get rid of his salary uh Whit let's go to you first on this one this was uh pretty much a shocker I'd say as well no it was it was a shocker and I don't I know you just said Fleury might have known he was getting traded I read he was completely shocked I think he probably heard there was a shocker. And I know you just said Fleury might have known he was getting traded. I read he was completely shocked. I think he probably heard there was a chance. But in the end, he wanted to retire there. His family's become so comfortable there. He's been the backbone of that organization since they came in the league.

The last four years, I think it was the expansion draft in 2017, June. He walks out on stage. And I saw today Vegas took out a big ad in the paper and thanking him and talking about what he meant to that city and and that team and to do him dirty the way they did you know what i'm not gonna judge them trading and i'm not gonna judge their their moves um to shore up what they want and goal and get rid of salary that they need to open up but fuck me dude you couldn't tell the guy you couldn't let know. You couldn't give him a phone call. And I'm shocked we haven't heard or seen a post from Alan Walsh.

I thought he would come out guns ablaze. And we had a knife. He took the high road. I know. That's unlike him. We had a knife through Fleury's chest when he didn't start a playoff game, let alone gets dealt and finds out via Twitter. So a tough ending for a guy who wanted to finish there.

Now, there's rumblings he doesn't want wanted to finish there. Now there's rumblings. He doesn't want to play in Chicago. This is all rumblings. None of this is true. I don't know exactly the case. There's a chance he could retire. There's a chance he could play. What I'm hearing is he would love if somehow Chicago could move him over to Pittsburgh and he could go back and finish off where he played his career, where his kids did grow up. Now, you know what? He doesn't want to uproot his entire family again. I also don't think coming off the Vesna,

he wants to retire either, but it seems like he doesn't want to be in Chicago. Maybe he ends up playing there and they have Lankanen, but it would be nice looking at what the Blackhawks have done and trying to fix this thing quickly and maybe give it one more goal with, with Kane and Taves and have Fleury and Lankanen as a really good one-two in terms of 82-game season. We've got to have two

goalies. That's how the league goes now. I don't know what's going to go on, but more than anything, to find out the way he did and not have the respect to at least give him a phone call prior and let him know he was traded, it's just disappointing. That is the current state of affairs. We've talked about this for a long time. Insiders know so much. They find out things before anyone else. All of a sudden traded it's just disappointing and that is the current state of affairs we've talked about this for a long time insiders know so much they find out things before anyone else all of a sudden

it's on twitter and a player reads he's traded that way but to have the Vesna winner and the face of your franchise since you became a team in the NHL learn that way I was disappointed to see that we're going back to when you know when you had the exit meetings yes at the end of the season when they got beat out apparently they did let him know that there was potential that they were going to move him right and then the way that it ended up rolling out online and that's how they ended up finding out between alan walsh and him not a good look but i don't think mccrimmon's exactly like up with the whole like twitter thing and doesn't understand how quick news travels now so he said by the time it was done and you know he was gonna call and let them know it had already leaked out that's how fast this stuff is happening now so obviously it seems like another slap in the

face people assuming that they didn't give him the heads up that it was going to happen which vegas side saying that well yeah we said that there was potential that it was going to happen which Vegas side saying that well yeah we said that there was potential that it was going to happen that I think that was before the Vesna trophy was announced though so it probably comes as more of a shock where yo this guy's fucking carried your team since they got in the league and you're just going to give him away for absolutely nothing like he like I understand that he's got a heavy cap at a seven million but he's still playing to an elite level that probably surpasses that seven7 million number at this point. And, you know, I understand they got the two goalie situation going on there,

but I'm also hearing that him and DeBoer didn't exactly see eye to eye. I don't think DeBoer thought he was their guy. Yeah. And so there's a bit of a riff going on behind the scenes there. And obviously, if, you know, you plan on keeping the head coach for a while, if he doesn't, I mean, we just talked about the Grubauer situation, them not maybe thinking he was the guy. Now you're kind of dealing with the exact same stuff, and then you've got also another legitimate number one that could kind of just take the reins, and then you save that cast space

in order to address some things moving forward. Now, one of the things they said that they felt that they didn't have enough weapons up front, and the guys that were there to carry the load offensively ended up tiring out. So essentially what they're saying is they need to move, need to use that cap space in order to go acquire some more guys for up front. Well, I mean, I don't necessarily think they've addressed all of them just yet, but I mean,

just a real overall shitty situation for him to move over. Now I'm actually surprised that he wouldn't go to Chicago with the fact that they picked up Seth Jones, Jonathan Taves is going to be coming back, and they kind of might have one last potential kick at the can, especially if they can address goaltending, which I thought last year they ended up having that rookie step in and play pretty good for them.

I don't remember if you guys could pull up his name. Lankanen. Lankanen. He ended up having a pretty good season, but I don't remember if you guys could pull up his name. Lankanen. Lankanen. He ended up having a pretty good season, but I don't know. To get traded for nothing is also a shock, but we understand what's going on with all the cap situation, but just an absolute shocker and the fact that they were willing to move on. And, gee, I ended up hearing a story that at some points in the season

last year, like, Flory would find out 15 minutes before the game started that he was in fact playing a net where he wasn't scheduled to play. So he's dealt with a lot of surprises in his four years there as well. I'm sure they were even surprised when they went and picked up Leonard and ended up signing him to extension being like, hey, I, you know, I'm, I'm a number one. And I've kind of proved that since I've been here and all of a sudden now you're creating it. But in, in, in solid fashion, Leonard ended up sending out a bunch of tweets saying that there's no

animosity. They were good friends. This has nothing to do with their relationship. And this is just strictly hockey business. And I, I always wonder like flurry is such a team guy such a good person would he necessarily be treated that way and i'm talking about finding out start in 15 minutes before and other little things that have gone on would that have happened to him had he not been such a team first guy right if he had a little bit of an ego if he's a little bit more selfish he's a little bit more open about how pissed off he was maybe those things wouldn't happen where is as he's looked at as this great

guy and great teammate it's like you can almost take it big yeah you can be the punching bag sometimes yeah it's like and in the end you know you'd only do that so long before you're just so fed up right it's like i'm trying to do the good thing and and and and not being like public about being disappointed about the leonard signing and all these other things and in the end you just keep fucking kind of kicking me when i'm down now if deborah didn't think he was the guy to win a stanley cup you kind of understand where he's coming from he has opinion he's the leader of this team he's the coach he's going to make the decisions but you just kind of feel bad for flurry in this first ballot hall of fame career he kind of has bad moments of being treated like trash. And it's just odd to me

and maybe a little disappointing. Now, of course, I'm biased. I know the guy. But I look at Vegas and them talking about their inability to score in the playoffs and have the offense go dry and how they're trying to become a better team and win the Stanley Cup. Well, you go from Robin Leonard and Marc-Andre Fleury tag teaming the league and winning games to Robin Leonard and Lorraine Brosois, right? They're not as good in goal now. They're not as deep in goal. So if they don't go up and shore up and get a little bit more offensively as a Golden Knights fan, you're thinking, well, we're weaker in goal. Are we going to be better up front? So there's a bunch of questions that remain to be seen for Vegas. And I'm not judging the fact that they did move on from flurry i'm more judging about how it went

on now biz if you're saying that mccrimmon mentions the deal's done and boom all of a sudden it's on twitter that could be the case but if the deal was done phone hangs up it's over you're telling me that it's out right then and if you don't call Fleury immediately when you hang up, he wouldn't know first? Maybe it did get out there. I think he might have had a tee time. He was thinking about doing it on 19. Is he a golfer? No, I had no clue.

That was a lie. Bill Foley, the owner, though, he came out and said that he was not happy about the decision, but eventually he ended up conceding over to management. He was putting his foot down saying, no, do not do this, do foot down saying no do not do this do not do this do not do this and and i respect that as an owner because sometimes it's hard man there's owners in this league who they call the shots there's there's a few owners in this league

where you guys want to trash on gms while these aren't necessarily the gms making they're not making the picks guys they're not making the trades. I've heard situations during the Luongo and the Schneider fiasco that a bunch of shit was getting nixed. So I don't – yeah, this was a tough one for the ownership group, and they knew there was going to be some shrapnel coming back, and they definitely saw it, especially online. And I went on to Twitter, and I put the fucking Rambo getting ready. Is it called – That was funny shit. Saying, like like alan walsh is getting ready to come on and light some asses on fire but he took the

high road and uh all right what did you what did you make of it you're our goalie breakdown analysis guy you know i think alan already fired his shot and it clearly was something to the sword from deborah in the back i mean this is clearly what this was the whole thing. I think behind it was the board because he was the face of the franchise fucking three years ago. Get some, you know, the Stanley cup run.

What Galant was there all of a sudden the ball comes in. He's kind of yanking them around. And then what we saw in the playoffs, I know we haven't dropped that Kevin weeks interview yet, but I mean, Kevin was as flabbergasted as what went on as we were, how this guy is your clear number one and you're not going back to him. And I can see him pulling them after the one fucking bad movie made

when he misplayed the puck. But it was clear there was something there, man. I mean, like, Fleury was a better goalie than Leno last year. So for them not to go back with him, it has to go back to DeBoer, man. There was clearly something there. And while she said his thing a while ago, now as far as Marc-Andre going to Chicago, that's an intriguing team all of a sudden. You're getting taves back.

Kane still has it to bring. That's been nice to bring. It's been nice to bring yet. And what's his face Jones. I mean, that's a different team this year. Now I know they've obviously had a, probably the roughest off season off the ice than any other team this

year, but I think players can, whatever, probably move, move past that on their own thing. When you get paid by a team bus for $7 million, but I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up in Chicago because he's a competitive guy.

Like Witt said, he just won the Vesna Trophy. He's still competitive. He's not going to leave that money on the table. I think for a year, absolutely, he'll go to Chicago. And who knows what can happen? I mean, we've seen what happened in Vegas. That's a great point. Like going back to the sword in the back,

it's kind of like I feel like the way that he was treated on the way out, it validates what Alan alan walsh did is as ugly and maybe uh uh as poorly timed as it was it's you know he didn't like you said he didn't need to take a shot now because he'd already done it yeah so uh before we move along to the other major signage just a couple of other quick deals that chicago made while we're here they also picked up Tyler Johnson in a second and now next year for Brent Seabrook's contract which is hilarious because now Tampa Bay gets another 6.875 mil that they can use for long-term injured reserves so when one of the guys gets hurt again they can stash until the playoffs so obviously I'm joking but that's a pretty pretty nice addition as well like I'm talking about Chicago and they also sent Nikita Zdorov packing.

He was a restricted free agent. They sent them to Calgary for a third and 22. So they had a Temi Panarin a few years ago, and now they have a third and 22 for a Temi Panarin. If you want to trace those straight steps. Oh, we got the tree going. Tough look, tough look for the Blackhawks. Also too, we've got, we've got a pair of guests.

We haven't even mentioned yet. Fucking three Jabba Jaws over here. We're going to have Frank Cerevei on in a little bit. This guy, he's been a great guy. Let me see. Great NHL reporter for a long time. He was with TSN, I believe. He left for a little while. Reemerged with Daily Faceoff. Absolutely crushed it at the expansion draft. We also

have recently retired Drew Shaw. We got a little over an hour with him. We're going to get to those guys later, but still, we only got through three moves so far, guys. Those are the big ones, though. I mean, Fleury deserves to be talked about as long as he did. I mean, given his career. And, Whit, I agree with you, man.

The fact that he's been the punching bag in certain cases but still kept the smile on, he might just be done with it all. And what better way to go out than on top with the Vezna? Yeah. It's a lot of money. it's not like he needs it um but it's just a lot to uproot your family and maybe he's a guy who doesn't want you know you see players move along and maybe a year left in their deal and they'll go to the city and the family will stay back where the kids are in school I know Keith Yandel will be in Philadelphia this year and his family will stay in Florida and try

to visit him as much as he can, but maybe Florida doesn't want that. Maybe he wants to be with this entire family. It's really hard to imagine his kids having to move again. So it's just, it's an interesting scenario to where it goes out. I think it'd be great for Chicago. I just don't know if he'll end up being there. That's just the question remains to be seen.

Selfishly. I'd love a redemption tour. Oh, especially in Chicago under the bright lights. He would look sick in those in that. Oh, you think. Love that uni best Jersey. jersey in i mean not quite the guardians but close well we'll see what i'm we get right to the grinds by beer segment or what

no we already got 200 more sign-ins i i'll save grant i'll save the gear grinding stuff for the last episode okay because we got way too much shit to talk about. All right. Which is a good thing. That shit that clogs the toilet, that grind to that kid's gears. Hey, if I can put some better shit in. Let's see. The other big free agent prize in the day, Dougie Hamilton.

He got seven years, 63 mil, comes out to nine mil a year, a few math majors. New Jersey Devils. I didn't see this happening. I know there was a lot of word coming up with the final day that he might go thereils uh I didn't see this happening I know there was a lot of word coming up so with the final day that he might go there but I didn't see it happening and it did man seven years 63 mil wit man were you shocked he ended up there or what yeah I was um I kind of heard rumblings from all the insiders that was a legit possibility but it's a good

signing I mean Dougie Hamilton the past few years has become not necessarily just become an awesome high-end defenseman in this league but the past few years has been like at a different level you understand completely and there's a lot of people saying the fact that he got less money than Seth Jones being what they consider a better defenseman overall was a little surprising and a good deal for the Devils. But, man, what are they paying? Subban, 10, 10.5. Now Dougie's making nine. So I like the signing. I don't know how much improved the Devils will be.

I think it's definitely exciting for Devils fans to see a number one D-man come in, be able to take control of that blue line, play big minutes, and improve not only their team defense, but their ability to get the puck out of their own zone and create offensively from his position. So I didn't see it coming. A lot of guys did. And in the end, I guess it wasn't that surprising

if you're following the insiders who kept saying Jersey was a good possibility and a good fit, but it is a big signing and a good player that's going to make an immediate impact. It's just, can that team get over the hump and really compete to get into the playoffs? Because if you're paying them nine million and you're still struggling and missing the playoffs the next two years that's when you start questioning all right well we got to do a lot more here and we just gave this guy a lot of cake and at some point they're going to

have to get rid of suban's deal well i think he's only got what one more year left after this is this his last year yeah last year okay so that 9 mil. So that works out, I guess. Yeah, and I think that, yeah, I was surprised that he ended up there. I mean, I'm not really surprised at the number because everybody else on the back end was getting these massive deals. And you also need a veteran defenseman in there who can play big minutes and show these younger guys the way. I mean, they got that Ty Smith kid who seems like a stud on the back end who's going to be a big piece you got Luke Hughes where I don't know if he's going to be able to step in

I think he's still got to grow into his body a little bit but by the time he gets there you just need that wily defenseman presence who's going to be able to teach them how to be you know everyday NHLers and the fact that PK's only got one year left well you needed that guy and and they have plenty of money to spend because they have so many young guys i mean mind you i believe jack hughes is going to be up for his contract after this season so yeah they're gonna have some money to spend uh moving forward but a nice good young group with at least as devils fans though they're like all right we went out and got a guy it's like not standing pat we're not looking at another year with what are we gonna have at least it's aggressiveness from Tom Fitzgerald

and seeing the Devils do whatever they can to become a better team. And also some goal scoring from the back end. I would say Dougie Hamilton is one of the best guys at putting the puck in the net from the blue line. I mean, his wrister or whatever, his little snapshot that he's got, he's kind of got like the Austin Matthews of defensemen where he's able to kind of like pull it in a little bit too. So, yeah, he's an impressive player, man.

It's surprising that he's jumped around as much as he has over the years and he hasn't really been able to find a home. Where did he start out? He started out in Boston. Boston. Yeah, Boston, Calgary, Carolina. I think that's where the surprise is, boys. I mean, he's 28 years old.

He's got nine seasons in the league, and he's going to a team that is probably a couple of years away from even becoming a playoff contender. So, I mean, Hey, whatever, if you're going to get paid, get paid. But you know, I just think that's a surprise that he didn't maybe go to a team that's closer to a Stanley cup. And you know what? I think it would be a little irresponsible not to mention throughout

Dougie Hamilton's career.'ve never heard he's the best locker room guy um I think that when you play that well on the ice in the end it doesn't really matter but you mentioned how many times he's been moved around for how good he is biz I think you can question a little bit you know maybe his personality and what he's like away from the rink but when you play that well teams are going want you. But it is interesting to see how many teams he's been on with how good he plays. Yeah, I don't know anything about him personally. But yeah, I mean, I think that always comes into question

when you're that good of a player and you're moving around that much. Or you could just be that guy like Sillinger, where it's just like you're just that guy who ends up getting moved around. You know, because we talked about how good of a guy he is. The Mike Sondra of top flight defenseman. Yeah. Hey, I know they seem like they're far away, but, hey, they got some good guys down the middle.

They've had some high draft picks. Let's see, maybe a quick turnaround for the New Jersey Devils. Well, Devils fans, you know, I always say, is Heashier that good? Devils fans love Nico Heashier. Former first overall pick, signed a pretty big ticket. So I know, you know, he plays both sides of the park, but if he can explode offensively and Hughes continues to grow. Yeah. Who knows what they bring this year?

I, you know, I'm very interested to see Jersey is now with that Hamilton signing. It's, it's a team to watch out for this season. And if they start off hard, it's like maybe things have changed a lot quicker than we thought boom they also gave uh jonathan bernier two years uh eight and a half million dollars i'm sorry eight and a quarter million dollars so i mean he's i don't wouldn't say he's the number one he's still got mackenzie blackwood on a pretty good deal so just another additional deal to mention uh washington alexander ovechkin is back not only is he back he's back for five more years,

47 and a half mil, nine and a half mil a year. Biz, were you surprised at any aspect of this, the term, the length, whatever, the money? No, not the term, because I know that he's going after Gretzky's goal record. I was just surprised he didn't take a bit of a hometown discount. Now, some people might say, well, at the rate-

He kind of did, dude. Okay, so at the rate that he scores, I guess so, but in this market, I mean, yeah, he's already won them the cup. I'm not surprised they gave him the money. I was just surprised to see the number. I mean, he could have been like, give me five years at 12 a year. I mean, what are they going to do? He controlled that entire situation.

So nine and a half, yeah, it's not cheap, but it's not exactly what he could have asked for. The thing that was weird was earlier before his deal was signed, you heard he was looking for a three-year extension. And then people were saying, well, that doesn't get him to the four and a half, five years that he'll need to break the Gretzky number. What is that number? 892, RA?

Gretzky, 892, I believe. Yeah, I'll double check that. You caught me. So that is the time length that it'll take him, I believe. We started talking about this eight years ago and now it's becoming more realistic and he's willing to stay there to get this done and break the record in Washington that which is what everyone wanted to see to begin with. So you're more saying that you were surprised it wasn't a five year deal at like eight, maybe 7.8, 8.2 a year just to open up a little more room

yeah i just when i when i saw 9.5 i was just like oh shit i thought maybe he was going to give him a little bit of a hometown discount now there might be washington capitals fans listening to this being like that is a fucking hometown discount he's going to be the greatest goal scorer ever and if he's still able to put 35 40 goals in the back of that every year that's yeah that's worth nine and a half million a year and he has and now so i think uh backstrom ends in 25 24 25 is his last year his deal and and ov will be 25 26 so they're pretty much going out going out together the way they came in and and hopefully they're together when he gets it done hopefully that fourth year he can break the record but i don't know what's going to go on. If he gets 40 to 50 these next two years, we are laughing and we are following around and going to be at the game.

He breaks the record. We'll finally get to see one of those old school celebrations where everyone gets off the bench for the goal score. I remember they did it for Mike Green. What did he score, like 10 games in a row that one run? They got off the bench for him for that? When Green broke that record in terms of goals scored, games in a row with a defenseman scoring,

I'm pretty sure the entire team got off the bench to celebrate with him. This could be a huge mea culpa. Hey, remember when Ovi let the stick on fire and was like, well, it looked like he was trying to warm his hands over it. Did you know who told him to do that? No. Jose Theodore. No way.

Yeah. It didn't come up in the interview, but when I was talking to him during the live stream, someone texted me and said, ask him if he told him to do that. And I did. He's like, yeah, I told him to do that before he lit it on fire. But it was supposed to be a bunch of them around, like warming their hands, but nobody else wanted to do it.

So it was just all these people. Guys, the interview today that you'll hear with drew shore was one of the favorites we've done i got a chance to play with him in san antonio he was awesome but you're just bringing up jose theodore we haven't dropped it yet that is going to be a hit of an interview we're gonna drop that in august i'm really looking forward to everyone hearing that he was classic i had no idea i wish you'd asked oh you didn't know till after the interview i didn't know someone had texted me afterwards but yeah i had a ball hanging out with him that night but all right boys moving right along uh we did already mention gabriel landerscog is going to stay in colorado

eight years 56 million was the terms there so good for him happy to see him get paid and hopefully they'll finish what they started there they also signed restricted free agent forward tyson yost two years for mill and they brought in uh free agent forward darren helm for one year one million dollars of course he spent his first 14 seasons in detroit uh one of the hardest hits i ever took in the nhl darren helm lit me up in the corner and i saw him coming and tried to like cold shoulder him it turned from a cold shoulder to darren helm to my face hitting the plexiglass at i don't know nine miles an hour say he was skating 24 miles an hour. I was standing still. It was a disgusting hit. But Darren Helm, I like that.

You know, bring in a depth guy, bring in a guy who could skate, throw him on the third, probably fourth line in Colorado, and you get some energy coming from him. Stanley Cup champion. Hey, so you could have told me Darren Helm retired six years ago and I would have believed you. It's like when I thought Josh Bailey had played 200 games, but he played like 815.

Yeah. Time flies, boys. time flies uh another monster deal actually two more monster deals to get to tampa bay paid braden point no surprise here eight years 76 million dollar extension comes out to nine and a half million a year kicks in next season uh right now he's in the third year of a three year 20.25 million dollar deal he would have been a restricted free agent next year. Let's go to – actually, you on this, and then we'll add the other signings in a second. This was just one of those, you know, just chalk it up, no surprise. He probably maybe could have got a little bit more

had he waited to go to UFA, but he's a key cornerstone on that team. Him and Kucherov, what they do together and what points done these last two runs. Back-to-back cup champ. It's just like sign this guy up game breaker um and no surprise whatsoever no looks of shock from anyone i know people thought it was a high number but in the end that guy was getting exactly that and there was no questions give him the key to the city to champa bay seriously uh tampa bay also brought back zach bogosian, a three-year, $2.55 million deal. Forward P.E. Bellarmine, two years, $2 million.

Goalie Brian Elliott, he's going to have the best job in hockey next year, backing up the big cat Vasilevsky, one year, $900,000. And the worm, I know, I don't even want to say it because it's been beat to death nine million times, and I get that already, but if you can't beat him, join him. The Hossa. The Marion Hossa of today, Witt. He lost two years in a row in the Stanley Cup Finals, million times and get that already but if you can't beat him join him the hosa cory marion hosa of of today wit he lost two years in a row in the stanley cup final so now he joins

the champions two years ago they didn't you know hosa didn't necessarily do that but he did lose two in a row but uh tampa bay you know they lose gourd they lose uh goudau, and they lose Coleman, who signed with Calgary. We'll get to that. But it's definitely a different time there. It's going to be a much different team, which all those guys talked about throughout the run. You heard them mention John Cooper, and Killorn and Patty Maroon told us that. So you've now seen the changes that will be made.

I like Belmar. I like bringing him in. He can skate. He can play a game that's similar to the three guys that lost that they lost in free agency. But it's definitely a different look in Tampa Bay. It'll be, it'll be interesting to see how their, their lines get configured and how they end up rolling when, when the season begins. All right. You were going to hop in there and say something. I was just going to say, you know, Corey Perry, of course,

won a Stanley cup well before this. So I don't want to, when we say Hosa, we said three years in a row. Yeah, yeah. I just want to give him his propers. That's all. It's a pretty big deal. He's trying to get the energy up. And as far as Bellarmine, the other thing with that signing,

he was kind of late getting to the NHL, so he doesn't have a lot of tread on his tires for a guy who's 36 years old. He's still got some bounce in his steps. So I think that's a pretty good sign. And so there's anything on Tampa Bay bay before we move along no they're trying to find cheap replacements and i like the guys they brought in you i mean you only got so much salary cap to work with and i think that they did a good job and i mean the who is talking about uh how the stretch routine stretch routines that cory perry does now so he's just kind of

he's like gumby i think he's gonna be one of those guys who can play for everybody. Everybody thought he was so fucking over and done. Well, he went on a tryout. Didn't he go on a tryout to Montreal? I think, yeah, I think he signed a PTO and went to camp there. And then the great thing is, too, for Bogosian, he won the cup with Tampa, and then he goes to Toronto for the year. Now he gets a three-year deal.

He was probably thinking there was a chance when he went to Tampa that first year it could be his last season. So a three-year deal for him is good. Perry gets a two-year deal. You know, he's a guy who didn't know how much longer he had in the NHL. And no surprise Perry being added there. I mean, the most, maybe the most superstitious guy I've ever played with joins the most superstitious team.

So he'll be singing acapella in the shower, and he'll be joining that club of guys who like doing the same exact thing before every single game. Do you think That's part of the scouting report. You think that's part of the scouting report? They look at guys who are, who could add to the superstitions and bring in that like a karma. Get the stage in the locker room. Yes.

I have a great voice base. Thank you. I know. I am titanium. A little pitch perfect shout out for you, Biz. You must have seen that. We're going to get Big Cat singing the national anthem at the Arizona bowl game, the Barstool bowl game.

He's going to be shooting in, singing the American. I'm going to be coming in and singing the Canadian. And for anyone who doesn't know what Biz is talking about, Barstool Sports has acquired a bowl game, a college football bowl game, the Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl. I do not know. Do they know if there's certain league winners that will be playing in that bowl, Mikey, do you know? Or is it totally remains to be seen like the teams that I'll be playing?

I believe it's the Mac and the Mountain West. Okay. So always an exciting game when the Mac's involved, you know, some offense. What's cool is Barstool has the rights to actually, like, what's it called, Grinnelli? Broadcast the game. They're broadcasting the game.

So it's not CBS where Barstool's just the name of the ball. They're actually going to be doing the actual broadcast. They're going to have to hire a big-time play-by-play announcer. And the funniest thing I thought was Portnoy mentioned instead of a coin toss in figuring out who gets the ball to start the first half, they're going to have Frank, the tank, our boy and the worst Mets fan in the world who hates everything they do,

no matter what happens, go out to the 50 yard line. Both teams cook a hot dog up. They show up with the hot dog, ready to eat frank eats both and decides which one was better and that team starts the ball so barstool sports could be changing the ball game forever is that legal can they actually i actually don't know because i listened to dave's uh recent podcast and i don't know if they they can't change like the rules of

the game rules right but but having frank eat a couple hot dogs at the 50 would be funny. I hear that. Picture the team in there planning on how to dress it to bring it out to Frank. Strategy. Bringing Bill Belichick. He's in there with his toe. I know there's been talk about a possible-

Put the sauerkraut on there. He loves sauerkraut. Dip it in a thing of water. I did some pre-scouting this guy he's a fucking maniac i've been stalking him at the mets games biz i know there's been some scuttlebutt about possibly having a rough and rowdy that same weekend maybe we'll get that mop head from the west to come over and you can dribble him up and down the desert i need six months to train that's my only thing sponsored by oxy clean by the way i'm gonna be i'm gonna be the poly what's the poly to your rocky

oxy pads were these things i remember using when i had brutal acne in high school do you remember OxyClean. By the way, I'm going to be the Polly. What's the OxyPads? OxyPads were these things I remember using when I had brutal acne in high school. Do you remember those pads, G? They were these little circular white pads you take out, you'd rub your face, and your face would just burn into a crisp. It was like a good burn, though. You just felt pimples just burning off your nose. Clarison, right?

That's what Jake Paul could use. I used to do those Biore strips sometimes you get the black heads off and then you strip it off and you'd see all the black heads on it it was a good feeling when you got them off did you do that at the spa day yesterday? did you get a facial?

I take pretty good care I can count how many zits I have you fucking idiot. No. What were you going to ask, R.A.? I was going to say, I could count how many zits I had on one hand when I was a teenager. Oh, you didn't get it. I got it.

Oh, here we fucking go. I never had a zit. Jesus Christ. No, I just said I could count on one hand, so that's more than zero. No, I was lucky. I was also a very late bloomer, so it wasn't all fucking good. I'm not saying it was like a was lucky i was also a very late bloomer biz wit so it wasn't all fucking good i'm not saying it was like a blessing but i i was a very late bloomer but seriously i very seldom had a fucking zit in my face it's not i didn't do anything fucking

special funny enough i used to get bad i didn't have hair on my eggs i was 17 either so take what you can you know you still don't have hair on your legs do you i said eggs but yeah oh oh eggs excuse me um i didn't have like horrific acne but i would just get the occasional bomb in the center of my forehead or the tip of my nose where it was almost like worse if you're going in and you got acne and you know you're working on it and then you got me who just pops in Tuesday with a fucking half-dollar-sized whitehead on my forehead. That was always a tough look for your boy. Yeah, he gets some bombs, too. You know it's bad when you got to check, like,

every hour in the bathroom if, like, another whitehead's formed. You know, you get the whitehead, two hours later, the whitehead's back. Two hours later, the whitehead's sort of back. It's like, Jesus Christ, this poor mirror. The worst ones were the ones when you got them, like, right inside your nose. I didn't mind those because nobody could see them, but they hurt like a bastard. Like a bastard. Well, speaking of bombs, we got one more left to get to.

Columbus signed Zach Wierenski to a huge deal. They extended him six years, 57.5 mil. The average annual value slash cap hit 9.583 million it kicks in next season he's going to make five mil this year on his bridge deal he would have been rfa next year man this is not a shocking state with columbus but that number went uh i think that surprised a few people yeah i mean he was getting that number with what they've lost it's it's probably pretty exciting actually for keckleinen and the entire fan base in Columbus to have this guy.

They got five years, five of his UFA years, they locked up. It was just one RFA. So you understand why the number's so big. It's only going to go up when you're talking of the UFA years you're going to cover in a deal. But man, if they lost Jones, and then all of a sudden this guy's asking a walk,

that's just such a kick in the dick. They kept one of their number one defensemen, a guy who I think if you talk to a lot of people around the league they think he is a better overall player than seth jones to begin with so more than anything as blue jackets fan and gm you look and say thank god we didn't lose this guy we got a guy to commit to this team we got a guy who was comfortable and wants to be here and at that number with his age i i don't question it at all i really don't i think It was a leverage play. It's all leverage.

I know people are like, oh, he's getting more than McCarr. It's like, well, they're buying more years of his UFA off him. That's first off. So, of course, that's why it's higher. And like you said, they just lost Seth Jones. So, I think it was important for them to lock up Orenski where at least they got a big piece on the back end. And it kind of shows, maybe it shows other guys moving forward

that if they play up to that type of standard, that they can get paid in that small market. He's got the third biggest in the league cap hit for defensemen. That's what I meant by surprise, too, just to clarify. That wasn't a knock on his play or anything. He came in above Jones and above Dougie. That's where I think I should have clarified where the surprise came in. I look at it too, how fair he was when he took that bridge deal.

Cause he could have been a bit of an arsehole given the situation in Columbus and knowing the leverage he had then. He signed the bridge deal. He kept the standard of play up and especially the fact that the team hasn't really been that successful yet his numbers have. And he probably looked at it like, hey, if you guys are going to try to fucking rattle the cage here, then you won't have a stud defenseman.

You're going to have lost both of them. And he got his payday and well-deserved. He also signed that bridge deal once Torts said, get the fuck to camp, Zach. So you got to shout out Torts for just bullying the shit out of him. But in the end, torts is gone and he got his payday

and he's still, I think, going to be. How old will he be when this ends? Just he just turned 24 in July. OK,

and so 30 years old, he'll sign another big ticket. Yeah, yeah, he's going to be a rich guy and I'm going to take some of it on the Gulf Coast during the next sandbagger which

he's supposed to play in correct we'll see fucking slept through 14 interview requests on chicklets before we got him so we'll see if this actually goes down i'll believe it when i see him tee it up on one all right boys those are all the huge sign-ins we got a lot more to get to but we're going to bring in frank sarah valley right now for his expertise again he was fantastic last week during free agency during the expansion draft so we're going to pick his brain on all that stuff. But first, cross-country mortgage is much like us at Barstool, a people-first group of people. They are dedicated to the fundamentals of mortgage lending, which results in a fast, convenient, and less stressful home financing or refinancing experience. And right now,

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LLC, NMLS 3029. All loans subject to underwriting approval, www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Check them out if you're going to refi or you're looking for a mortgage. And now we're going to send it over to Frank Saravalli of dailyfaceoff.com. Well, we're very happy to welcome our next guest to the show if you've been following the nhl in any capacity for the last decade then you know this guy made his bones in philly covering the flyers back on the day before going north to work for tsn for a stretch and today he's breaking stories and draft picks for daily face off dot com thanks so much for joining us on the spitting chicklets podcast frank ceravelli how are we doing frank i'm doing really well boys how's it going going good i i know cottage season is late this year

are you are you off yet are you still working we i mean you've been busting everything lately i'm just grinding here you know it's uh pretty exciting we got a lot of stuff going at daily face off so actually while everyone takes a break in august and heads up to cottage country i'm going to be trying to hire some people in the hockey media world, give a little shot in the arm to the media industry and, and bring some really talented people along with me to build something at daily face-off. Cottage time. He's from Philly already. He's going to like a pond in downtown where you throw pennies and stuff.

That ain't right. Jersey shore. Jersey shore. That's exactly where I would be. Ocean city, New Jersey. You'd be fist pumping after all those DJs. That was actually going to be one of my questions. Like when you were breaking all this stuff recently with the expansion Exactly where I would be, Ocean City, New Jersey. You'd be fist pumping after all those. DJs. DJs. That was actually going to be one of my questions. Like when you were breaking all this stuff recently with the expansion draft, like are you doing this completely solo or do you have like a staff behind you

who's helping you drop all these Twitter bombs? Totally solo. That's actually one of the scary things. You know, I had such an awesome support network at TSN, some really awesome people that I worked with as teammates, Bob McKenzie, Darren Dreger, Pierre Lebrun on the news side. And, yeah, going to Daily Faceoff, totally going it alone, it's definitely a little bit of a different feel.

Yeah, Frank, you left TSN in May. Then, like you say, you resurfaced at Daily Faceoff, which a lot of hockey camp was like Mia Whitnall checking who's starting goalies. But you really put it on the map, I'd say, with the expansion draft scoops, all the Twitter memes. How did that all come about? Take us maybe through the process of how you got all the scoops and did you piss a lot of people off?

I don't kiss and tell, guys. Come on, you know that. I probably worded that shitty, but I mean, we were wondering if you had a master list. I mean, you didn't get the Detroit scoop. Are you in the witness protection program is what he's asking. I may be, I may not be, you know, it's one of those things like, you know, got some good Intel on a few names and then started to piece together the rest of the list kind of one by one word started to get out pretty quickly.

Like Seattle had made a few picks and they started to call teams one by one and say, Hey, we're took this guy from your team. And so you guys know what it's like, you know, team finds out, then they call the player that's been selected. In some cases, some teams called other players that may have been selected and weren't saying, Hey, you're going to be sticking with us. And then that player is telling his agent that players then telling and texting other people, the team group chat starts to light up. And then all of a sudden, you know, 10 a.m. picks are due Eastern time. The show's not till eight. That's a long time to try and keep 30 plus secrets.

That's what I think we said on the episode. I mean, you were doing your job in the end. Don't have the don't have the live ESPN broadcast like 17 days after the picks were made. At some point, it's coming out. And look, I mean, I doubt we're going to have any sort of expansion draft coming anytime soon, but that's probably a pretty good lesson that the league ended up learning here is like, if you want to have some guys on the stage, you call,

maybe you make four or five picks the night before fly those guys into town and the rest, you try and make life really hard for a guy like me. And you do it at six or seven o'clock before the show and make the rest of the picks and have it have some sort of live feel. But, um, you know, that's just one of those things like, you know, I know, and I'm still getting a lot of awesome tweets and I know you guys referred to my last show as Dr. Evil. People are asking me if their wife is pregnant or if their wife is cheating on them or

all these different things that I'm getting in my inbox. But it's been pretty fun. In some ways, it was a little uncomfortable, all the attention it got. People saying that I was ruining the expansion draft. I got a heartfelt message from a guy who was saying that his son has special needs and I ruined the expansion draft for them. They had been counting down for weeks and weeks to watch the show. And because of me, it's all my fault. And I'm like, look, I'm just trying to do my job. And look, there's as much as there was excitement in Seattle, there was 30 other markets for fans that were saying,

hey, which guy are we losing here? We're trying to understand what our team looks like moving forward. I mean, you do, like I said, you're doing your job. I don't understand how people could be that angry about it. But I'm curious, and you don't need to name names. At some point throughout the morning, and as this all started leaking via your Twitter, did you get any texts from people like,

cut the shit right now? I may or may not have. Look, that's not worth diving into that. I think it's one of those things. I get where the league is at. And I respect everyone at the league in terms of what they're trying to do and, and what kind of show they're trying to put on the suspense. That's been building up in that Seattle market for a long time.

I know you guys referred to me as Dr. Evil. And in some ways, judging by my inbox, I kind of felt like that a little bit throughout the day as the picks were coming out, but you you know no malice intended on my part i mean it's a feather in your cap congrats you beat everybody else so kudos to you now getting to the moves we had grubaugh at the top of the show we thought that was the biggest shock of free agency him going to seattle was it the biggest one for you frank i think so i mean look there was a trickle down effect that occurred really on the goalie market as a whole because

everyone around the league was waiting to see what happened with Grubauer not only were they interested in signing him they wanted to know what would happen where would a guy like Linus Olmark end up what about Darcy Kemper in Arizona so you saw teams like Toronto trying to preempt what happened on the goaltending market saying we think that a guy like Grubauer might end up re-signing in Colorado and then things might stay static from there. They wanted to make sure that they ended up towards the end of the day,

having someone that they liked and wanted to have in their lineup, a guy like Peter Morazic. And so there were a lot of moving parts to the goalie carousel this year where teams were trying to understand and play the market accordingly. So we're not insiders.

Do you know exactly what they were off as far as Colorado and Grubauer? Like, do you get that kind of information? I had a pretty good sense of that one a few days ahead of time, because just because those two sides seem pretty stuck. The Grubauer camp, they felt like he had deserved something in the neighborhood of six times six. Jordan Binnington was there Jacob Markstrom was there those two guys kind of set the market and Grubauer is coming off

that Vezina Trophy finalist season but Colorado as much as they liked Grubauer they wanted to stay in the five times five range and I think you see he ends up going out and getting almost exactly what he was looking for the 5.9 in Seattle. So he's on the move. And Colorado just needed to keep all of their dollars and cents in check, given what they're looking at. They were just trying to re-sign Landis Cog. Brandon Saad ended up walking.

Their back end was in flux. Ryan Graves ends up being on the move because they know they just can't afford to pay all these guys. And so they needed to keep a pretty strict $5 million budget. They end up doing a little better, getting Biz, someone you know well, can't afford to pay all these guys. And so they needed to keep a pretty strict $5 million budget. They ended up doing a little better getting a biz, someone, you know, well, Darcy Kemper, I think a fantastic goalie. And I think the key to that deal was having Arizona retain some salary, getting him down to three, five,

which brings the abs even more flexibility on their cap. Do you think they overpaid given, you know, given the assets? I mean, a first rounder for a guy, you only got locked in for one year as well as a prospect and then even i believe it's a conditional third if they end up going to the cup finals and he plays more than 50 of the games in playoffs look if you're giving up that pick you're thrilled that you're getting to the final so i don't think anyone's sweating that one too much um that was market rate look there was another team involved i think it was the edmonton oilers that were in on darcy kemper trying to pay pretty similar price arizona had set the market on darcy kemper for a long time they kept a standing thing out there look we're

looking for a first round pick plus something for darcy kemper first team to step up and pay it gets him i know toronto had viewed him as a primary target a few other teams were looking at Darcy Kemper as well and so you know Colorado in this case having lost out on Grubauer felt like that was the right play and hard to argue with a Colorado team that's probably going to be pretty good again that pick is going to be somewhere in the 26 to 32 range I would imagine it's almost like a second rounder coming from Colorado. Frank, I want to stay on Seattle. After you gave everybody the list, people are kind of curious about the moves. I think people were expecting other moves.

Then they go out and they sang group grew Bauer, Wenberg Schwartz. They spend some dough. What do you think Seattle's aim is for this year? Is it to get a run out of this team to go as far as they can? What do you think their outlook is? Well, it's, it's to be competitive right off the hop. And I think they've gotten that. You've got a real good sense of even just tweeting out some of those picks early in the morning, on the morning of the expansion draft, guys that are going to be difficult to play against.

Adam Larson, Jamie Oleksiak, size in the back end. They're going to have some character guys up front, Jordan Eberle. You add in a Jaden Schwartz as well. Those are guys that are going to help set the tone for that franchise and that organization. Another guy, Mark Giordano in the mix, all really well-respected guys. And so that's part of it for sure. But really, I think the long-term play for Seattle is next year. You saw the spending on free agent day.

You guys would have never had any idea that it was a flat cap world that we're dealing with in the nhl 900 million dollars spent in the first three days and the play for seattle then this is a one-off everyone's looking at this sort of in a vacuum and i get that that's how gms tend to look at things in a very uh you know short-term and long-term view and the long-term being hey i might not even be in this job three, four years from now. But when you have a team in Seattle that comes in and injects a fresh 81 and a half million dollars into the system, that's a lot of flexibility. You had some teams like Tampa Bay, for instance, that lost some big contracts and gained some more

flexibility. Everyone lost at least one player and that gained some flexibility on their own, right. In terms of their own cap, but having all that new money in the system to be spent, it's really a one-off because, you know, next summer, the same flat cap crunch that everyone was facing coming out of the season in the bubble, it's the same thing. It's going to be that on steroids now with all the spending that happened so the real time for seattle to pounce to really improve their team and bring in players from teams that have had tough cap situations is going to be you know next year around the draft and then next year again in free agency is to harvest some of those players and and and pry players loose from teams that are in dire cap straits. What other moves caught you out of left field, if any?

Well, I was a bit surprised and probably not as surprised as Marc-Andre Fleury, the deal to Chicago. It wasn't just the transaction itself, trading the Vezina Trophy winner for nothing. It was more so in the way that it went down. And I've heard the Vegas Golden Knights explanation since then about the different conversations that occurred in the weeks leading up to the transaction. But the reporting that I've done would suggest that the whole message to the Fleury camp the entire time was,

we don't know what we're doing with our goaltending. We may trade you. We may trade Robin Leonard. It may be to Chicago. it may not be. And then for him to find out on Twitter, I think is really disappointing. I know you guys know Flower pretty well, obviously a really well-respected and well-liked teammate. And to be the face of that franchise, an icon in that city, coming off the success that he's enjoyed and the team has enjoyed just seemed like a really disappointing way for that to end their cutthroat hey I guess they they're kind of like came in and known as like the most cutthroat organization I feel like anybody's

on the table I mean ask the other guys that have been through there Paul Stasny all the rest of them that have experienced the the highs of playing in Vegas and then the lows of packing your gear and heading to somewhere else. I think we're now four years, five years. Sounds like most of my trips there. Yeah, I was going to say, sounds like Vegas. Yeah, we've all been there. Maybe not you, Whit.

You've always had a good time there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've tried to stay away. Hey, I got to ask ask you so we recorded um most of the show yesterday sunday so now we're interviewing you and i had mentioned at the beginning of the show maybe mark andre flurry doesn't want to play in chicago boom we're in the middle of recording it hits that he actually does want to play i was wrong had you ever heard that he may retire was that complete bullshit on my end no no bs that was really something that he

was considered considering and something that he had expressed to the vegas golden knights as they were trying to make that transaction which kind of you know further some of the reporting that i was just talking about um he let it be known to the team and that he was his heart was in vegas he didn't want to go anywhere and so when the transaction was made uh lots of surprise and also um you know not he's not really sure lots of uncertainty about you know what he wanted to do did he want to keep playing I know everyone said with seven million dollars on the table no chance he's going to walk away I mean guys made a pretty nice living for himself I think last time I checked career earnings 88 schmill um

he doesn't need to play he's with stab a man to make that imagine what i do he's probably not alone yeah yeah exactly exactly hey so let's stick with the vegas talk so there was rumblings that they were in on to know and obviously with flurry moving and them getting rid of that money you assume that they were going to take a stab at him he ends up ends up going to la does that mean they're probably the front runner right now to get Eichel I don't know that there is a front runner right now because I think it's been so quiet and you know the fact that you had Jack Eichel's two agents issuing a statement late on a Friday night in the dead of July would, would lead you to believe that it's

as quiet as we've heard. It is now the Sabres have done a really good job of keeping things under lock and key. A lot of these conversations that have been ongoing, but by all accounts, the asking price on Jack Eichel remains so high that it's difficult to make that kind of transaction. And for certain teams that would actually like to be in the mix, a team like the Minnesota wild, for instance, what the Sabres are looking for is all picks and prospects. It's all futures. It's no current roster players, or at least not ones of,

of significant impact and why that's problematic for a team like the wild, just for instance, is they need all those picks and prospects to be significant contributors to their team, given the dead cap space that they've allotted to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter moving forward. So they can't really deviate from their plan. And the problem for the Buffalo Sabres is they don't really want a lot of roster players back because at a certain point, provided that they're not under long-term contract, gotta sign those guys and that's really the tough part is you know just ask sam reinhardt or rasmus ristelainen who was going to be up

in a year it's it's difficult to get guys to commit long term to buffalo no matter how much money they want to throw at you and so this is the the race for shane wright is on it's on and oh yeah it's all my boys bedard i'm a bedard i'm a race for bedard you gotta be really really bad next year not even this upcoming fucking coyote's gotta put me in that next year they want to compete with buffalo right now they just signed 750 grand yeah what's it every guy in buffalo makes 750 how are they gonna get to the bottom of the cap they're they're gonna have to spend some money to close out free agency or make some kind of significant transaction to get to the cap floor,

whether it's – I think Arizona's got it well covered because of all the contracts that they acquired, mostly for draft picks. But to get a few of those guys, the Andrew Ladds, the Shane Gossespiers, they're going to try and get them to contribute in some way. But Arizona's fine. Buffalo's got some spending to do. So going back to Deneau, of course he ends up moving off to LA. Was Montreal prepared to match? Did they think that number was too high for what he can contribute? And, and, you know, what, what do you make of that move by, by Rob Blake? Do you think it's a, I don't want to see a pressure

situation where they need to finally get back into playoffs or maybe his jobs on the line? I don't sense any of that pressure at all. I think people have asked that question. And I think Rob Blake is pretty confident in his job security and probably for good reason with some of the things that he's been building there. The way I see the Deneau transaction is what it does is it takes a lot of the stress off of Andrzej Kopitar. He can get back to being the Kopitar of old, the guy who's producing a 92-point season, because everything changes now. The matchup's changed. The defensive responsibility is not to say that Kopitar is ever going to be shirking those responsibilities, but Deneau can pick up a

lot of that heavy workload. This is a guy that's been in the Selkie conversation the last number of years. And I think from the Montreal perspective, as much as the run to the cup final helped in terms of increasing Deneau's profile and presence, I think the writing was on the wall there with how that situation played out before training camp started. There was a long-term offer on the table with Deneau and Montreal. And for whatever reason, it didn't come to fruition. And I think, you know,

with some of the other centers that had been coming on there that you know maybe he saw some of of that future being muddy the waters being muddied there in terms of where he stood in all that okay frank so just to quickly go back so montreal was not prepared to match that offer i don't think so i think they were looking at a number lower than what he ended up getting. Okay. And then they see the future talent coming up and that they're going to have to spend it there. Okay, that's fair.

Thanks, Frank. Frank, arguably the biggest prize was Dougie Hamilton. He gets another bag this time from New Jersey. Do you think or do you know that he got similar offers elsewhere that he could have taken? You know, it's interesting. I hadn't checked in on that since he ended up going to new jersey for whatever reason word was filtering out you know somewhat early throughout the

illegal tampering period and i put that in air quotes because like it was insane the amount of tampering that went on this time and like i say that full well knowing what the previous actual legal interview periods looked like this was no contact permitted but it was like agents in conversation with gm was like well i have a guy who's a right shot defenseman six foot five and uh he may or may not be in the neighborhood of x amount of dollars like everyone knows what you're talking about and so you know the conversations were even more blunt than that, but for whatever reason, you know, the NHL and the NHLPA in this case turned a blind eye to it. And I don't know if that means that they'd eventually consider an interview period again. I doubt it, but

really interesting the way this played out and going back to Dougie Hamilton in New Jersey. I mean, words seemed to filter out that that's where he was heading. And at a certain point, you know, didn't really hear a lot else on the Dougie Hamilton front. And in some ways, I was actually surprised. And it ended up coming down to structure and some of the massive signing bonus money that New Jersey committed to him to hammer out that deal somewhat later in the day after free agency opened. to hammer out that deal somewhat later in the day after free agency opened. One guy I was curious as the story went on was Gabriel Landeskog and his whole saga with Colorado.

And everyone thought he's been there that long. It can't end now. Like they're just about to get to the top. Hopefully he has to see that through. Was there ever a moment where he could have signed somewhere else? I mean, I'm sure that last 12 hours, and you guys would know this better than me, you sort of get that pinch between your shoulder blades. Am I really going to walk and find out what's out there on the market? And in some ways, I think that's a really healthy place to get to. I do think that the Colorado Avalanche really moved significantly in that last 24 hours. He called their bluff a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, look, he was holding firm on what his number was and what he believed his worth was. And in some ways, I think he actually ended up probably leaving a little bit of money on the table. Now, it's hard to say for sure because he got the eighth year in the last 16 or 17 minutes before that 1159 deadline came the night before free agency. And, you know, that eighth year certainly makes up for a lot when you're making $7 million. But, you know, to get to that point, you know, my understanding is the Avs were in the high fives, low sixes for a long time before eventually getting to that $7 million figure. And so they moved significantly and it was really a matter of time for Landis Cog to sort of smoke them out until that point. Given the fact that there was a lot of tampering going on, I mean, I caught wind that St. Louis was prepared to make a very significant offer. Do you know any of these numbers that were out there that teams were prepared to potentially give him if he did hit free agency?

My guess is the number started with an eight on a seven-year deal, perhaps as high as eight and a quarter, eight and a half million. And someone a lot smarter than me that can do math on the fly, they could tell you whether that would be worth it or not. Not me, buddy. That'd be, what's that, Ari? 56.8 or something like that? Math? Oh, Jesus Christ. We're going to be here for 30 minutes.

Let's see, seven years, 8.25. I don't know. I claim to be a math guy. So it's a couple bucks either way, right? And so he ends up staying with a team that ends up, you know, has as good a chance as any to win over the next few years. What do you make of Toronto? I mean, they don't have much cap space to work with the next few years. What do you make of Toronto? I mean,

they don't have much cap space to work with. They're trying to fill holes and get guys for cheap. What'd you think of the work that they did in free agency? I still think they have a lot of work to do because I think that team really isn't, you know, they're not as good as they were. And I think they're hoping and praying that the pieces that they have in place that haven't found any meaningful playoff success to this point, find a way to get it together.

They're basically running the same crew back from last season. And that's a big bet. I like some of the depth signings that they've made. A guy like David Kampf, I don't think got enough attention in Chicago for how defensively conscious he is. That's at a million five, you know, Nick Ritchie signed to, you know, a short ticket for, you know, what he produced last year in Boston. You know, some other guys that are sort of interesting around the fringes, but nothing really, there's no seismic change.

You know, the big changes in net going with Peter Morazic, which we already talked about, but you know, that team to me, you know, they've got some work to do to get to where they want to get know the big changes in net going with peter marazic which we already talked about but um you know that team to me um you know they've got some work to do to get to where they want to get to and it's tough in that division like they're it's gonna be wild and crazy trying to get in the playoffs i think florida is significantly better than they were uh you know tampa bay you can talk about you know the losses that they've had but they've still got an unbelievable foundation and the pillars that they have in place with Vasilevsky, Hedman and Kucherov,

the Montreal Canadians with the Stanley cup final, the Bruins are right there. Like which, which one of those teams is missing the playoffs? I mean, you go from the North and winning that, but of course a lot weaker. Now we went from job security talking about Rob Blake.

Do you think at the least miss playoffs this year that Kyleyle dubas's job pretty much all but done look um i really think that there's significant pressure that the entire team is facing it's not just kyle dubas it's not just uh sheldon keith it's not just the the big four players that they're paying up front. It's everyone. And you need meaningful, tangible success. No more moral victories. It's all about what you do in the playoffs. It doesn't matter winning the North division or winning a regular season title. They had a massive lead in that first round series and ended up blowing it and that team needs to find a way to produce like i said meaningful results and until they do that those questions are going to linger and you know not to turn the temperature up too much but i'm sure everyone in that front office

torches out yeah i'm sure everyone in that front office is thinking the same thing if we have a stretch in november where we go oh seven and five like you know we're going to be in a tough spot frank i want to ask about carolina uh they got a whole new goalie tandem bringing in freddie and auntie ranta uh but i want to ask why did they trade nadalkovich i mean he ended up saying he trade two years three million a year you know what was the whole story behind that cash money that's all it is okay that was it wow they they were the nadalkovich camp was their initial ask was three five which is pretty reasonable for a homegrown goalie and if you look back at the last finalist yeah all the cup all the cup champions they're all

homegrown goalies and he asked for three five coming off an excellent season on a really good team. And the team, I believe their counter was somewhere around one, seven, five. That was pardon that that's the neighborhood that the Carolina hurricanes wanted to be in. And they eventually just said, look, we're not even close. He ends up in Detroit, of course, for a third round pick. And his number that he signed for was three times two. So, I mean, it seemed like a really reasonable number to then go out and spend that on some veteran guys like Freddie Anderson and auntie Ronta. So,

so, you know, we hear rumblings like Carolina, the owner doesn't want to spend a lot of money. The team's been great. They matched the Ajo offer sheet from Montreal. So is it that they're just low-balling everyone or or is it like they're gonna stick to their belief and never really give in like

what's the case down there i i don't think it has anything to do with being cheap and i've actually had this conversation directly with tom dundon it's about finding the right value proposition for certain players. Like they've got each player and each position pinpointed in terms of a blueprint and what they want to spend and what they believe they should spend. And they've got a ceiling. And once it's hit, you know, there's really no coming back from that. Like if your ask is so far out of whack from what they believe that position or

your value is, they're just going to find a way to move on we've seen it with a number of uh defensemen that have gotten to this point dougie hamilton it's sort of that's the longest anyone's hung around and they wanted to get through a playoff run with him to see what their team looked like and and they want they gave him a chance to go out and get offers and he had a chance to talk to teams you know really early in the process and find out what his market was. And the hurricanes were really never even that close is my understanding. So, you know, that's the way they view things. And, you know,

who am I to sit here and say that it's, it's wrong or not the right way to a good club. Yeah, they're good. And you know what, Tom Tundon has been a really successful guy. So I'm not going to sit here and knock anyone in terms of how they want to go about their business. He owns the team, and that's his right to do as he sees fit. Frank, it looks like they're getting their per diem packs on the road. We're all right here. Looks like with some of these deals, GMs are looking for the cap to go up in a few years down the line.

Any sort of projected timeline on the increases and what they may be once all the new TV new tv revenue comes in and whatnot all right you said there would be no math um i'm actually i actually spent part of my day today like what a nerd going through some spreadsheets and some projections and i still need to talk to a few people around the league but i i think there's some optimism that next season's cap meaning the year following could be 82 and a half million dollars so a one million dollar increase but that's a best case scenario wow we need to say million with the pinky in the mouth now we call you dr evil well here's the thing like the players owe so much money i need to get an exact calculation but it's like it's one billion dollars like it's it's a lot of money that they owe the owners and like you're in the process of paying i know just to think that biz that makes me sick

makes me sick it's the deal they signed yeah they need that nba cba those deals those guys again and those nba salaries and those instagram girls. Oh, no. Oh, here we go. Which team, Frank, in your mind, improved the most, at least on paper? Hmm. We can edit it so it doesn't act like my team's Winnipeg, Frank, if you want to hop on board a winner. You know, I've actually I really like the Jets to begin with. They're a team that I had circled throughout the process,

not to ride on the wit train, but the thing is it's so tough to sign guys as free agents in Winnipeg that a lot of what they have to do to improve their team comes on the trade market. And so to get Nate Schmidt and to only give up a third round pick, I think was some swift, a swift move by Kevin Shevelday off. And then also, you know, a guy that's so well-loved and you guys would hear this more than I like Brendan Dillon. Like I've never heard anyone say a bad word about Brendan Dillon. In fact,

I've heard that some, some of his D partners, like they actually like clamor to play with him because he makes life a lot easier for them out there. So those two guys, you really improve their backend. And then they've got Connor Hellebuck in net and arguably one of the best top sixes, if not the best top six forward groups in the league, hard not to like what Winnipeg's got going on. By the way, I know we were just talking about the coyotes. I actually really like, you know, they're not there. It's impossible to think about you know right now but moving forward with seven picks in the first two rounds in a in what's supposed to be a stacked 2022 draft i actually really like salad there we go

fucking right sprague you're welcome back anytime pal suck it wit they had they had a good off season on that front because you know what the worst part you know to be in the nhl is to be a team that doesn't have an identity and doesn't know what they're doing there's no confusion about what the coyotes are doing they're they're they're burning it down and they're they're taking the ottawa senators approach two three years from now they're going to be a team that's going to be in a great spot and look at the sends they're a team that's way on the rise you hear that folks we'll give you about, two months before the season starts to jump on the Coyotes bandwagon, and after that, it's cut off.

You cannot hop on. What are you, selling tickets two years in advance? Three years and two months. No, I'm saying is you have the window here to jump on the bandwagon because if you're not willing to go through the pain, you're not willing to inhale the success. So, Frank, you started in Philly. And then what was the move for you to get with TSN?

Like, how long did that take you to, you know, establish yourself as a reporter where you're looking to get a raise and looking to go up to a bigger company? So I covered the Flyers for six years. And then I ended up at TSN sort of as the third line grinder, uh, and then got a chance to really work with some talented people and, and Darren Dreger and, and Bob McKenzie, people that became like family, Craig Button and Sarah Orleski, really, really talented people, uh, that work at TSN. And, and that was awesome to learn from them for six years. And then just the chance to, to spread my wings a little bit, um, you know, to, to step away from TSN on my own, not really sure what was going to happen, what was going to come of it. Um, you know,

contrary to popular belief, I didn't have anything in my back pocket. I had, you know, nothing lined up and my phone started buzzing like literally three hours after I sent the tweet out. I had a relationship with Daily Faceoff having done the podcast with them since January and just awesome people in Edmonton that they were like, hey, you're a free agent. Let's go. And signed on with them. And now a chance to to build a really awesome content team. You guys said you go to the site to check out starting lineups and goalies and all that stuff. And now we're going to add some breaking news and some storytelling, some podcasts and daily streaming shows. And for me, like that was like shooting gasoline, some rocket fuel into my veins,

like to get a chance to, you know, reinvigorate myself a little bit, you know, challenge myself, um, and just get out there and, and sort of be on my own. It's, it's been amazing. When did the sandbagger start? I love it. Was there a bit of a totem pole factor too? I mean, cause it was very real when you went from the Philadelphia daily news to TSN, that's a real move in itself for a U S print print based reporter to go to Canada. Then you came back was a little bit more of like, OK, you know, you're working with great guys, but you're also kind of maybe underneath them on the depth chat a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think there's something to that. I think as far as I know, I was TSN's only full time employee that was an American.

Wow. And yeah, I actually never ended up leaving Philly. I've lived here my entire life. Always wanted to be, you know, be here in the States and working here. And the chance to actually do that at a major Canadian network and be on national TV breaking news was like, you know, something, you know, my head still explodes thinking about it. You know, all I ever wanted to be as a kid was a hockey reporter. And, you know, the chance to do that at a place like, like a major network like that was awesome. And now something totally different.

Like you guys know this, like the digital space is crazy. Yeah. It's the wild West. It's totally different. It kind of took the words out of my mouth to the next question. So you've, you've always grew up wanting to be a hockey reporter what what made you want to do that just always a fan of the game certain reporter you maybe followed i actually um i grew up playing not well um but i i played my whole life i was you know i was a a junior b scrapper uh in in the philly area i played in the you know just a little bit growing up and i decided like in

high school i was like um you know that's all i ever wanted to be there was a little uh magazine at our rink that was in all the rinks here in philly and i started writing there in high school and and you know just latched on got every opportunity i could get didn't know anyone in the industry um you know that little magazine had a press pass to the, to the flyers. And I went there my freshman year in college and just, you know, met people and, and got other internships and sort of worked my way up. Do you remember the first game you got an NHL press pass for? I don't, it was sometime in 2007 covering the flyers that year year they went to the conference final and lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

R.A. got the game ticket from his stamped on a pair of underwear he wears to the Bruins games. Just the big games, though. Just the big ones? Do you ever watch them? Just the playoff game sevens. No, he doesn't wash any of his underwear. Brian McGonigal, Bastille Sports.

See the bacon strips on them. Quite fascinating. Massacre. Frank, I mean, this has been awesome, man. And congratulations, you know, not only with your work at TSN, but of course going out on your own. And I mean, wish you all the best. And as I said, maybe down the road, sandbagger time.

Yeah, I appreciate it, guys. Thanks a lot for having me. This was awesome. Yeah, we'll have to do it again for sure. Do it again for sure. And enjoy your time off now. I know you said you're going to be hiring people, but still, you need a couple,

maybe a couple days to just chill before the season gets going again. All right, I'll take you up on that. All right, buddy. Thanks, Frank. And if you're not following, you should be. It's at Frank underscore Cerebelli, S-E-R-A-V-A-L-L-I on Twitter.

Check him out. He's got all the scoops, as we know. Frank, thanks so much. Have a great weekend. One billion dollars. Huge thanks to Frank for joining us, man. Great to have him on his first time on the show. You guys are a great reporter.

If you're following hockey, you should already be following him on Twitter. So if you're not, go do that now. Excellent reporter. Thanks again, Frank. Well, America has a problem. Everyone is exhausted and out of it because they're not sleeping in a bed that's right for them and the sleep they are getting sucks. And this problem has a name, junk sleep. Unfortunately, I know about this all too well. I stay up too late watching TV in bed with my phone, working on my laptop, probably eating in bed too, but we can cut that. Also,

I didn't talk to a mattress firm sleep expert because the sleep experts at mattress firm will match you to the best mattresses and sleep products out there based on your specific sleep preferences so that you can get your best sleep possible. We are super excited to be partnering with them this week for the Hockey Fest in Motown. I know people in Detroit don't probably call it that, but we will. We're going to help spread the word on how to unjunk your sleep all weekend. And to unjunk your sleep, go to mattressfirm.com or a mattress firm store near you struggling with that one today

and speak with a sleep expert. Hopefully we get a little hookup with these. Gee, I know we both use a mattress these days. They're always nice to get a nice comfy mattress. But I can't wait for Detroit. I think people there don't probably call it Motown, right? Just like we don't call it Beantown in Boston. I doubt it, but I got a little news, boys. It's an early mea culpa.

I don't have to wait until next week. Your boy was already wrong in the past 30 minutes. Marc-Andre Fleury has informed the Chicago Blackhawks he will play this year. He is a Chicago Blackhawk, full-time. R.A. said it. I had heard some things, but let's go, Flower. Let's go, Chicago. In that uniform,

Biz mentioned he's going to look great, and wow, is it exciting time for Blackhawks fans? Maybe one more kick at the can here this year. Let's see what goes down, but I love seeing that. Chicago, let everyone know with just a tweet of just a little Flower emoji to know that he's in. So, let everyone know with just a tweet of just a little flower emoji to know that he's in.

So look forward to watching him play in Shite Town. Folks, we're recording this right now on Sunday morning. So that's why for the late news break during this pod. But holy shit, my hockey boner is absolutely raging right now. Let's go, Flyers. I'm on the Chicago bandwagon. Let's go. You got your East and West team because you you know, your favorite Coyotes are just,

well, it's got to get worse for it. It's got to get better, right? It's got to get worse for it. That's not the Sears towel you're looking at in Chicago. That's fucking Chiefs morning wood right now if they hear about this tweet. He called it, too. He said he would be playing there. Chief was right.

That's the jolt we needed mid-pod here. Let's go. Let's fucking keep hammering through this. We got a lot of signings. Here's one for me, man. The Boston Bruins. Huge signings for them this week. Picked up that depth they needed.

That get bitched around the island this series. Also got a goalie. Linus Olmark. Four years, $20 million. Played for Buffalo for six years. Had a winning record in some nice numbers. I'm pretty psyched they brought him in. Tuukka Rast. there's no guarantees coming back.

He got surgery. He's going to be healthy probably in January. The team said, we're going to wait and see. So if he retires, man, they had to cover their ass. They needed a number one goalie. They went out, they got Linus Olmark, obviously swimming, waiting in the wings, but I like that pair.

They also brought back a defenseman, Mike Riley, three years, nine mil. Forward, Nick Foligno. This was probably the biggest surprise out among the forwards. Two years, years, nine mil. Forward Nick Foligno. This was probably the biggest surprise out among the forwards. Two years, 7.6 mil. Thomas Noshek, two years, 3.5 mil. Eric Holler, two years, 4.75 mil.

Defenseman Derek Forbort, three years, nine mil. And of course, the other huge news, David Krejci left. I can't really say I broke it. I mentioned this on a previous interview, but I wasn't confident enough to go tweet about it or blog about it. But Krejci is not coming back to the Bruins.

He's going to go back to the Czech Republic to raise his family and play there. Huge shakeup here with your other local guy as well. Let's go for your take. Hats off to this guy. What a career. What a player. Quietly goes about his business and gets it done. And let's talk about one thing.

This guy led the NHL playoffs in scoring on two different occasions. He mentioned three special teams. He was on, obviously, 2011 and winning the Stanley Cup. The runs to the final against Chicago and against St. Louis, those special teams. But he mentioned how much he enjoyed every year. And this was a dude who, to no fault of his own, right? I mean, Patrice Bergeron's obviously that number one

center all these years he's been there but Krejci had some scraps to play with for a long time and that's why last year when they got Hall and they got him re-signed I think a lot of Bruins fans hoped he would be willing to come back but in the end he made a family decision and that's why I think it's so impressive to hear his or to read his statement in terms of he wants his kids to grow up around his family, to grow up where he grew up, to get to experience Czech Republic, to get his family for the chance to watch him to play at home. You totally understand. I mean, what was he? Fifteen years on the Bruins, over 750 points. I think it was like we mentioned this three trips to the finals, the two postseason scoring titles. three trips to the finals the two uh postseason scoring titles and just a guy who's like you never really had to ask or question what he was going to bring it was biz you know the coaches they pencil in what's going to happen you just pretty much always knew what this guy was going to do

throughout the regular season he was your number two center he would elevate certain wingers play by the chance uh they weren't getting the chance to he wasn't getting the chance to play with elite wingers, but he was bringing guys games to another level. And then once the playoff started, you knew his game would bump up even more. So I would not be surprised to see 46 retired someday. I don't know if you Bruins fans agree with that. I think it's well-deserved.

And I think for the career he had and what he did in Boston, he'll be forever remembered as an awesome Bruin. And teammates have always said, this guy is such a great great guy you've seen some funny clips going around the internet one of them uh was when he heard about Sagan getting traded kind of teeing it up with the media I think it was one year around the deadline but just a guy who just showed up did his work the consummate professional and somebody who I think uh will forever be remembered as a legendary Bruin. And retires, well, as of right now, 38 games before 1,000.

So doesn't even cost his teammate a watch. It's a tough loss. Like, I know that you mentioned all those other signings, R.A. Throughout all these crazy contracts that were given out, as I was seeing the ones that Boston was handing out, I'm wow they're getting a lot of fair market value here and and filling some much-needed holes you know to to address the issues that they maybe ran into last year in playoffs but what do you do now for that second line center position like what like what like I don't even know who's still left out there do they how much cap room do they have left in order to sign another guy or potentially even bring anyone in?

Like, that's a – we know how important – Yeah, it's such a big hole to fill despite everything else they did. So it's almost like, you know, two-step forward, one-step back in a sense. I think it's one-step forward, two-steps back. Yeah, that's exactly what I meant to say. G, what do you got, buddy? Biz, you know, one name that is rumored to to come in and fill that that second line center is Christian Dvorak from the Arizona Coyotes do

you think he could step in and fill that role I think Christian Dvorak is a a really good third line center on a cup contending team I don't I don't know what mind you he essentially would be playing with Hall. So then you have elevating his play in that regard. And I want to say that they did play a little bit together when he was in Arizona where they were paired up. So there is, there is a connection there. And he's at a fair number. I think he's locked in for the next maybe four years here at four million,

right around the $4 million mark. So yeah, dollar mark so yeah he's a he's a great two-way player is he going to replace Krejci no but uh who else there could right now that's I mean that's pretty much the only name that would be available for them to get at a good price so yeah I would like to see that happen for Dvorak and at the fact that we'd probably get a nice return back and we're not in win now mode so yeah that's a that's a that's a that's a good name gee thank you for bringing that up mr insider there was a report that pretty much a day before that he would that deal was close between the bruins and him yeah i saw that from kirk ludiki and kirk knows his shit i don't think he was fed a pile of shit but i was also told by somebody else other than who told me something before a different person said that

when the felino deal come out that was the last straw with Crecce. I was also told that because Foligno got two years, I guess the Bruins only wanted to go to year to year with Crecce, which I mean, fuck, I would have had no problem giving him two years based on his play last year. But again, after the season Crecce had said, he said, I can't even give my family a true, he was so torn, right? I think he was truly like 50, 50. Do I give it another go or is it time to go home?

So I have a tough time believing like the jealousy of Foligno getting two years would kind of make that decision for him. Not to say that that isn't legit, but it is true that if they were telling him, we only want to give you one year, maybe he took a little bit of fence. But in the end, it was more up to him just thinking it's time to go home. But that is surprising. I didn't know that. I also have a hard time believing that Boston Bruins wouldn't have gave him a two-year contract.

Yeah. Well, two. Yeah. I don't know what he was asking. Either way, it sucks. His 46 is definitely going to the rafters. I mean, this guy, I've been watching the team for a long time. Esposito was a center when I was a kid.

I really didn't see him play much. I won't include him. But, I mean, put him up there at Bergeron, Adam Oates, Peter McNabb, Jean Rattel. I mean, he's, you know, one of the best centers in franchise history, a playoff savant, and we're going to miss him like hell here, man. So best of luck, Crates, wherever you end up next. We're going to miss the shit out of you.

And thanks for the memories in Boston. You were great here. Now, if he lights it up in check next year. Sorry, Biz. No, this is good. This is like the long-term hour play that Tampa has. Can they sign him in March? Like, how do you know?

I mean, who knows? I believe so. He has to clear waivers. Really? Even though he's unrestricted? I mean, nobody has his rights right now. Oh, I hope this isn't my culprit for Grinnelli next episode. I don't know.

I just read that on Twitter that he'd have to clear waivers. Yeah. Oh, it must be true. Oh, okay. Yeah. Shitty.com fucking time 69 said it so it must be real but either way kretsch we'll miss you we gotta we gotta we gotta go to that clip of him and jagger back to back doing the intro hi i'm david krejci i'm from starnberg czech republic and my favorite player growing up is jeremy jagger hi i Hi, I'm Jaromir Jagr from Kladno, Czech Republic.

My favorite player growing up was Jaromir Jagr. There you have it, folks. I figured that'd be a nice one to sign off on, on a little humor there. Jaromir Jagr, favorite player growing up, Jaromir Jagr. The GOAT. I mentioned the GOAT. I mentioned the goalie carousel at the beginning.

Well, I don't think any team redid their goaltending quite like Carolina did. They brought in Freddie Anderson on a two year, $9 million deal. And auntie Ranta, like this said, two years, 4 million,

uh, also brought in Jordan, brought Jordan Martin look back three years, Ian Cole one year, they brought Tony D'Angelo in one year, 1 million and Derek step on signed yesterday, one year, 1.35 million. Uh, go to D'Angelo quick one year, 1 million. And Derek Stepan signed yesterday, one year, 1.35 million.

Go to D'Angelo quick. This is no surprise. You knew a team was going to sign him. I know, I guess, Carolina, some fans, ticket holders weren't happy with it. But, I mean, I don't think the guy did anything where other teams shouldn't have hired him. He might have been a shitty employee for the Rangers and what he did. But you can say his track record, this and that. But based on what you actually know as facts and not what he thinks maybe in his twitter feed you

know a team is going to sign him i mean he didn't do anything that was like that unforgivable where a team wasn't going to sign him and i wasn't surprised at all he ended up anyway a one year one mil if anything i thought he might have got a little more money biz no yeah i think there's definitely some risk associated to it um you go back to his junior career there's a few incidences there and it seems that he's you know he's on pace to have a pretty good nhl career and then it just went off the rails a little bit as far as his involvement on social media and his beliefs and guys like i don't i already like you kind of said it too like i don't really know what happened that really sparked everyone to be as

upset as, as they are online. I just didn't really give it my time and energy. Now, if there's things that were said that were over the line, I mean, that's between him and the people he said it to. And apparently they've been addressed.

I hope that he's able to turn it all around. And, and you know, you guys know me, I'm, I'm a second chance kind of guy. And some people say, well, this ain't exactly a second chance. This is more of a fourth chance.

It's not my decision. I wish him the best. And that's pretty much all I got to say about it. I hope he's able to figure it all out and find peace and just play hockey and maybe stay offline. And yeah, that's pretty much all I got. And to, you know, Carolina fans who might be listening, it might be a tough reminder or just a reminder that this is a business, and sometimes people's feelings, they get put aside or whatever. I know that some fans are upset.

I don't think you really should be. It's a guy. You don't have to like him. You can still root for your team, but you shouldn't be surprised. I mean, this is the NHL. I think we've seen guys who've done way worse stuff than whatever even D'Angelo did other than fighting his teammate. Guys that have done criminal stuff way worse than what he's done have beenelo did other than fighting his teammate. That guys that dumb criminal stuff way worse than,

than what he's done have been signed by other teams for much longer term, much more money. So I think he's a Trump guy. That's what he's. I mean, I think it's more than, I think it's simplifying that. All right.

Half the league is probably a Trump guy. All right. No, no one is as vocal about him. Hockey Twitter is fucking nuts and that is the that is why everyone despises him okay it's the fucking in my mind it's the truth there have been issues no doubt but in the end that stemmed the hatred to begin with and from moving forward it's it's gotten worse with other little things have happened but that is the basis of it

so so i read something that like was there a racial slur thrown at one of his teammates in nyc in junior i know i know in junior andre miller it was not it was it was it was said that did not happen hey it's not our choice like you said business to give him a second chance really not on my mark the market decides and carolina gave money and you know you could take your ball and go home or you can still roof your team hey getting the guy if he's playing the way he did the year prior and there's no issues in the locker room, $1 million fucking dollars for that guy is legit.

You're adding a game breaker on defense offensively at $1 million. Yeah, exactly. That's a cheap deal if it pans out. It's a pretty good low-risk move. It's a no-risk move in my mind. I'd say low-risk. I mean, $1 mean a million sorry you're right low risk uh but the goaltender that's the real story i think we kind of buried the lead there freddie and freddie anderson and auntie rotha coming in they let

morassico to toronto uh rhyman went to san jose it's i don't know man it's a risky move especially after they traded nadalkovich to detroit for, a third round. And he only signed two years, six million there. It's not a ton of money, but it's just some very, I guess, questionable moves about the golds having in Carolina. Yes. But at the same time, we mentioned last episode, I think I said there was some rumors of Ronta going there and his health being a major concern. Biz said, yeah, he's hurt every week. So they go out and get him. And knowing how often he's injured, boom, you get Freddie. I actually like where they're at now. It's a tag team, two goalies. Now, Freddie lost his job last year in Toronto. He got injured. Campbell played phenomenal, but he still has a lot of good hockey

left in my mind. And then if Ranta is able to stay healthy, you have these two guys battling, you have these two guys probably playing split games, depending on if one guy gets really hot. And in the end, if you're going to lose Nadelkovic as questionable as that was to lose a homegrown talent that looked good you brought in two guys who have had success and are going to be able to kind of tag team this this team moving forward in terms of their goalie tandem yeah I would say their goaltending overall didn't get worse if Ronta can stay healthy he's a very good goaltender and along with Freddie Anderson people might question Freddie Anderson come play time um he was really good in the first go around with the leafs when he when he had the net maybe the the second time around is maybe where people had the question

marks but overall solid tandem stay healthy i think they've they've addressed their goaltending with two new guys remember we talked about it we didn't know if they were going to bring marazic back we didn't know if bernier was going to end up getting signed. I would say, though, now that they've brought in two new guys in, it does look a little bizarre. They wouldn't have given their prospect, who's still a little bit younger and has maybe more to show and more to prove. Yeah, I thought that was bizarre.

But, hey, it's hard to question an organization who's able to have as much success as them making the odd moves that they usually make. And that's why we had a second guess in biz. All right, moving right along to the Edmonton Oilers, another team that was pretty active during free agency. Cody Ceci had a nice bounce back here at Pittsburgh last year, was making one and a quarter mil. Well, he almost tripled his salary and got a four-year deal.

Four years, $13 million for the defenseman. Edmonton also gave Zach Hyman seven years, $38.5 mil. They brought back Tyson Barry, three years, $13.5 mil. And Derek Ryan, two years, $2.5 mil. I mean, Ceci, hey, good for him. He got paid. We were a little surprised. I keep saying that.

I feel like I'm dissing these guys. But, I mean, he got what he got, four years, $13 mil. we were a little surprised i keep saying i feel like i'm dissing these guys but i mean he got what he got four years 13 mil did that a little a little more than you expected i think that the the lunch pail blue liners were getting bank come free agency and hey i i know that he wasn't loved in toronto and sometimes that market can chew you up while he's going back to canada after having a tough year so we'll see how that works out. They had to address the blue line after getting rid of Ethan Bear. They end up signing Tyson Berry as well. And I don't know, man, overall, as far as Edmonton's concerned, they definitely got better up front.

They're going to lock in Fogle for a few extra years here. That's going to help out for at least the third line. I don't know if he can hop up and play in the top six if need be. And Hyman, we know what he can do. I mentioned that I think given Edmonton and where they're at, they have to overpay. But I think that they're going to be a better team going into next season. And they got some goaltending at a discount price. So I think that Edmonton has improved this offseason. And I know I was critical of Holland, but I'm excited to see what this team can do. Well said, Buzz. Well said.

I mean, nobody has improved this summer in Canada like the Winnipeg Jets. We'll get to that in a minute, but I do like what's going on at Edmonton. You need Mike Smith to play the way he has. We'll see if he can. He got that two-year deal. He's old, but he's in ridiculous shape. He showed the past few years how good he's been. But I do think that Edmonton's going into this season

with more forward depth, which is the big thing. We need players in the bottom six to be able to play, and they've made some adjustments there. And in terms of the lunch pail DBiz, we didn't even mention with Boston, Derek Forbort, right? Yeah, another lunch pail defenseman. I think he – did he lead the Winnipeg Jets in penalty kill ice time?

Led them, I believe, in block shots as well. And I think that he's a good four man. And if you need him for a five and six, I think he matches up even better. I think that it's a fair number too. That's what I mentioned as far as filling up some of those holes that Boston did. That was what I mentioned as far as filling up some of those holes that Boston did. That was a good job by them. But going back to Cody Ceci, I think that's a similar number

for a similar type player and what their expectations are going to be in Edmonton. People are really upset that they moved on from Ethan Baer. I think he's a solid young defenseman who has a higher window and a higher ceiling in order to get to. Did I say that right? Higher window? Highest ceiling. Yeah. young defenseman who has a higher window and higher ceiling in order to get to is that did i say that right higher window highest ceiling yeah higher windows i understood what you were saying yeah now you get what i'm saying so well sometimes there's difficult decisions to make around here folks a couple of teams we had already mentioned but we didn't get to their free agency

yet uh except for grubauer seattle also signed forward Alex Wenberg to a three-year, $13.5 million deal. And Jaden Schwartz, five years, 27.5 mil. I mean, they basically cut their salary cap money in half of what they could spend in one day by adding those three guys. And Columbus, too, we didn't finish them. They made a few other significant moves. They had traded for Jake Bean.

He was a restricted free agent defenseman. They gave him three years, seven mil. Forward Sean Corral, he was late of the Bruins, four years, 10 mil. He's the latest in a long line of Bruins. Fourth line is to cash in elsewhere. Congrats to him. Forward Boone, Jenna signed a four-year, $15 million extension that starts next season. And Patrick Laine, another huge name. He signed his one-year, $7.5 million deal. I believe it was a qualifying deal. He'll have made almost $24 million by the time he's 24 years old.

And they also signed forward Eric Robinson at two years, 3.2 mil. So just want to keep you up to speed on those teams. But yeah, good for Corrali getting paid. Let's see, moving right along. Dallas Stars, they were pretty busy as well. Ryan Suter, they landed him four years, 14.6 mil. Comes out to 3.65 a year.

Goalie Braden Holtby, one year at $2 million. Forward Luke Glendon, two years, 3 million. Defenseman Yanni Hockenpah, three years, 4.5 mil. Forward Michael Raffel, one year, 1.2. I'm sorry, 1.1 mil. And restricted free agent forward Joel Kiviranta, two years, 2.1 mil. Ryan Suter, obviously the big name there, and that's ironic. I think it was Greg Wyshynski who said that Billy Guerin basically

did him a pretty good favor by buying him out because now he's going to make way more money in the next few years than he would have if he stayed in Minnesota. So sometimes things you don't think are going to be good turn out to be. Anything here, boys? You want to keep humming along? No, it was kind of rumored for a little while that the Bruins were a possibility for Suter, and then it seemed like Dallas had the runaway lead.

So I think some people had hoped, or maybe Dallas Stars fans had hoped they got a little bit younger. But to bring in a veteran defenseman who still has a lot of good hockey left, we've talked about that. That's a good move. I mean, that team, after their run to the finals,

it was supremely disappointing, I think, with what happened this year. But they battled the COVID outbreak within their team. They had other injuries. And I think this year going forward with what Dallas had showed two years ago, it's a team that's looking to get back to one of those top teams and really kind of get back into the playoff challenge of the Stanley Cup. Sagan's going in healthy.

I think they're going to be in the mix again. They got put behind the eight ball. We talked about how condensed their schedule was in the second half because of all the COVID games they missed. But Dallas is looking good. Yeah, Colby signing is interesting, too, because they have Bishop and Hadoub in both under contract. Bishop is coming off surgery.

There's a thought that if he's not ready to go, they can LTIR him. And, of course, they got Ettinger waiting in the wings down in the AHL. So a bit of a logjam there in the goaltending crease in Texas. But I don't know, man. I wouldn't be surprised if Hopey gets in a few games there because given what's his name, Bishop's surgery condition. All right, boys, the Montreal Canadiens, a team that got to the Stanley Cup final.

They did get waxed once they got there, but they got some reinforcements coming. Defenseman David Savard signed four years, 14 mil. Ostensibly there to replace Shea Weber. Forward Mike Hoffman got three years, 13.5 mil. Forward Joel Amir, four years, 13.6 mil. Terry Lekanen, one year, 2.3 mil. Cedric Paquette, one year, 950K.

Matthew Perreault, one year, 950K. And Chris Weidman back in the league, good to see thatette one year 950k matthew perot one year 950k and chris weidman back in the league good to see that one year 750k uh i don't i'm not sure if this team's gonna get back to the stanley cup final uh next year with but they're certainly putting holes and filling holes right now yeah and i was very happy for weidman there was an interesting article that came around the athletic if you guys remember the ottawaators uh uber scandal in which they were shit talking uh an assistant coach maybe some teammates uh Wyman mentioned that that he was told then that somebody was going to pay the price and it ended up being him he went over to the KHL I think he got defenseman of the year over there had a phenomenal year and gets another chance to come back into the NHL so I'm happy happy for him. And I think that Montreal, a little bit of this season was a fluke, I thought.

I said it all along. Biz became a fan. He hopped on the bandwagon. I don't know what they're going to have this year. No Weber kills. They still have Petrie. He's a great player, but I don't think that they'll be able to make a run like they did this past season.

Yeah, I think the Hoffman signing is much like a Toffoli signing, just a natural goal score they got another one in the mix um offense is something that they're going to need and obviously trying to fill in some forward roles with losing to tar and then now don't know which was that was a fucking wrench into the business hey great great segue biz i was just going to mention that that's a huge hole for the Canadians now. Senefil Deneau went to LA six years, $33 million, going to get $5.5 a year. The Kings

also added defenseman Alex Edler, who has been a lifetime Canuck till now. He took one year, $3.5 million. They also signed a restricted free agent forward, Andreas Athanasiu, one year $2.7 million. That will take him to restricted free agency as well. Montreal, Biz, that's the perfect segue for the Kings right now. Philip Deneau, he him to restricted free agency as well. Montreal biz.

That's the perfect segue for the Kings right now. Philip, you know, he was the big free agent in Montreal. Well, he went all the way across the continents of the Kings six years, 33 million. He got his 5.5 mil that he was rumored to.

I mean, were you surprised that he ended up all the way in LA biz? I was here in Vegas. And, and, and especially after you saw them free up the cap space with Marc-Andre Fleury, it made even more sense because that was one of the issues that they needed to address.

But listen, L.A., they've been struggling the last couple years. You know, Rob Blake needed to make a move, and they got to get back to playoff hockey, or I would assume that there would be rumblings of, I don't want to say lose his job, but I mean, at some point, you got to change something and or trade off your heavy assets in order to start the rebuild so now you got a pretty good strong through the middle with Kopitar, Deneau and then Quinton Byfield I mean that's a that's a pretty pretty strong

middle of the ice now one of the one of the concerns is maybe overpayment for Deneau and the fact that he doesn't bring as much offense as you'd like to see. But five on five, he produces pretty well offensively. During the playoffs, it wasn't that great because his role kind of switched to shutting down other teams' top centers. So in doing that, yes, he was not able to produce offensively in playoffs. But may we remind you, he was shutting down elite centermans while doing so. And he's going to go over to L.A. And who knows, maybe there he'll be

able to get some power play time and continue to contribute not only five on five but you know get pack the stats a little bit uh pack the stats a little bit excuse me uh given with some some five on four so i like the signing for la they needed to make a move and and maybe this will be the move that gets them back into the playoffs after missing out the last couple of years. And not a crazy number for a number two center. And if Byfield's able to make a quick hop into the league and really kind of dominate earlier than people thought, maybe he ends up playing third line or Byfield plays the wing.

We'll see what goes on. But $5.5 million for what he does on both sides of the ice, I understand. It was more about the one goal in the playoffs it took him to the finals to get it and and more people seeing that and questioning the number but like you said la had to do something and they needed to get another center in there to help out kopitar well said wit well said a couple other sign-ins by la defenseman alex edler one year 3. mil. He moves on after a career with the Canucks. And restricted free agent forward, Andreas Athanasiou, signs for one year, 2.7 mil. That'll take him to unrestricted free agency after this season.

All right, moving right along. Calgary Flames sign forward, Blake Coleman, to a six-year, $29.4 million deal. That comes out to 4.9 mil a year. He got the Cups. That's extra shine, gets you some extra pay. Did he come a little higher than either you two thought or right about where or what? I think a little higher than I thought,

but with what he's done and the two Stanley cups, it's like he scores these memorable goals. And he was such a big part of these two Stanley cup winning teams that you knew the price was going to rise based on like his reputation and kind of what he's done since he went over to Tampa. And even some of the goals he scored in Jersey. And, you know, he, he demanded a first round pick when he was traded. So it's a super talented player. I don't know what line he'll play on in Calgary. You got to assume it's a top two line with him making that money. Now,

I think on a great team, he is kind of that third line guy with, with what you saw in Tampa, but it wasn't a surprise. He was UFA. It was perfect timing for him to hit the market. And then that Calgary goes out and makes a little bit of noise. So a questionable off season in Calgary, you lose your captain, but at least you bring in a guy who was sought after by a bunch of different teams. Hell of a race to going from a 1.8 to 4.9 mil.

Nice little life changing money. 30 million. Thank you. Yeah. I think the first five or ten is life-changing, then everything after that is just gravy. Of course, I don't have any of that, so only you can tell us, Whit. Me neither. Yeah, let us know, Whit.

I've never done that. Maybe I'll start bringing it up. Vancouver was another team pretty busy last week. Let's see. They signed defenseman Tucker Pullman, four years, 10 mil. Travis Hamnick stayed there, two years, 5.875 mil. Luke Shen, two years, 1.7 mil. They brought in free agent goalie Jaroslav Halak, one year.

He depended on bonuses. He'll make anywhere between a million and a half and three million. Brandon Sutter back for another year at 1.125. And the biggest one of the bunch, I'd say, restricted free agent forward Connor Garland, who they just got from Arizona, local boy. Five years, 24.75 mil, 4.95 million average annual value for the local South Shore kid.

We'd love to see it. So happy for this kid. Undersized player, went up to the Quebec League. Not that common for, you know, guys from around Massachusetts. A lot of people play college hockey. Took a beating up there, league not that common for you know guys from around massachusetts a lot of people play college hockey took a beating up there learning how to play you know professional style hockey at a young age and then his skill level every place he went the more ice time he gets the better he plays this year the best player on the coyotes by far i thought and to get him at

that number man that's nice you see a lot of guys making more money than him that I don't think can play offensively the way he can. Not to mention, he is not a perimeter player. Biz has watched this guy play. He goes to dirty areas. He scores ridiculous goals around the net. He creates plays. I love his game. I love that move for Vancouver. And then the money he gets, it's like, that's one of the top signings this off season. I swear to God, I thought if you saw him sign a deal at $6 million per year, I really wouldn't have been surprised.

To see it come in under $5 million, very happy for him. Like we said, that's life-changing money, but at the same time, for what he does and how good he is on the ice, you're not exactly overpaying in one bit. No, he's a fun player to watch. I'm happy to see what he can do up in Vancouver and surrounded by some pretty elite talent there too. So a very good deal. And as far as Pullman goes, I don't know much about him. I think a lot of people were surprised by that

number. I think one of those guys where they got him locked in for four years for $10 million, $2.5 million a year, where they're hoping that he surpasses that number over the next couple years they're hoping he can get to that that next level of play but um as far as a head scratcher that was probably the only one as far as far as vancouver's concerned but i'm happy that connor garland got a story guy he was in the american hockey league not even able to put up points there found a way to create offense then he got his chance with the coyotes i don't think he had a point in his first like eight or nine games in the nhl but based on the injuries they had he got to stay up and then i think the floodgates opened around game nine and once he potted his first one the confidence just came and i tell you what a very a very elite player to watch

and especially at that number you mentioned with and it's pretty cool because it's like a story of um just like staying with it like he has some drive within him where he was never given he was never given the top minutes like he got to the ahl he wasn't playing on a top line he had to prove he had to prove that he could like play on the third and fourth line and then all of a sudden you kind of start seeing the offense in practice. You start seeing little plays in games where he gets the chance, takes advantage of it, gets to the NHL. Same thing. You're not top two lines. He's got a show in practice. He's got a show within little to few ice time and minutes played on the third and fourth line that he's making a difference.

All of a sudden he gets his chance, takes advantage of it. So for somebody who has never and has not been handed one thing in his career, you're just really happy to see him prove his worth offensively and prove how high level his skill level is and he's a guy too who's just obsessed with hockey he runs a skate here in the summer he keeps the stats in the league we've talked about it before that he just lives and dies for the game and just to see him fight through all the challenges to become a top end player is a really cool story gotta love the dedication on keeping stats there's always oh yeah that's when you know you're a real sick prick yeah fifth a

fifth round pick undersized the kid got balls and hot galore love watching him play so congrats to him and his fam good fam he comes from uh we mentioned peter marazic owned the toronto crease three years 11.4 mil they also signed defenseman michael bunting two years 1.9 mil and they brought in a couple of bruins cast offs uh Nick Ritchie and Andre Kasha, who the Bruins elected not to qualify. They signed Ritchie, two years, 5 mil. Kasha, one year, 1.25. He had some serious concussion issues.

The Bees didn't even try to bring him back, which is a surprise. They gave up a first round for him. But Toronto, they're still going to be plugging away, but we'll see what happens with them. Biz, I know that you're a team. Did you want to add something? Well, I like the tandem. They just got to stay healthy.

Mrazek dealt with some issues last year. So did Campbell. But, you know, I thought overall their goaltending is solid for what they can do with the money that they have to spend. And Richie, solid bottom six guy. He brings a good net front presence. I know people questioned the move when he came over from Anaheim to Boston but but you guys liked them watching him there I thought he brought a lot to a lot to the lineup no yeah I think maybe consistency might have been an issue he'd go

on a tear for a little while and then he kind of disappeared in the playoffs a bit although all the Bruins did versus the Islanders but uh I don't know what kind of money he was asking for I'm not shocked they let him go uh at this point just probably because they wanted to go in the other direction as far as the depth that they did go with, you know, Holla, Noshik and Foligno. So I can't say I'm surprised either one of them left. I'm surprised Toronto grabbed them both. That's pretty funny,

especially considering their cap situation. Yeah, and going to Bunting, he was a guy who was with Arizona, got called up towards the end of the season, played, I think, 20 to 22 games, ended up having 10 goals. Another undersized guy with some salt and pepper to his game. He's willing to go to the blue.

He won't surprise you with his – he's not the fastest, but I think his anticipation is what makes him look faster. He's just always – he's always on, and he's a good competitor. So I think for the number that they got him at and the connection between Dubas and him and Sousa St. Marie seems to be a lot of guys that he's bringing in from the past and guys that he's comfortable with. I think that'll make him settle in nice there, and I think he can add a lot to that lineup.

It sucked as a Coyotes fan to see a homegrown guy like that. He finally gets his chance. He dominates, and then we lose him for nothing and that that was a little bit frustrating but i wish him the best he's a competitor brought it every single night and i would imagine he does in in toronto as well so toronto another team trying to fill holes uh with the amount of money they have just like some other teams that are kind of in a cap bind okay boys moving right along looking at the ve Vegas Golden Knights. This one was on the cusp of signing before last step, but it was official.

Alec Martinez re-upped three years, 15.75 mil. Comes out to five and a quarter a year. That's a no-brainer signing. We already mentioned Laurent Brassard, backup goalie signing. They also brought in Matthias Jahnmark, one year, two million. But the big trade, I mentioned it briefly earlier, Biz. Vegas sends Revo to the ranges for a third in 22. He had one year left this season at 1.75.

Then the ranges extended him for another year at the same price. The ranges have definitely beefed up. Huge move. I don't think Revo wanted to leave Vegas, but he seems pretty excited to go to Manhattan. I think that if one thing New York had to address, it was team toughness, and they do so by acquiring Ryan Reeves. I mean, I think everybody's looking back to the incident last year where Tom Wilson

ended up slamming Panarin down to the ice. And that's going to be a storyline going into next season. Whether you like it or not, whether you love or hate the fighting, there will be fireworks between Tom Wilson and Ryan Reeves. And I think everybody who enjoys the game of hockey for everything that it has to offer is going to be pumped for that first game at MSG opening night for both teams and we get to see Reeves who I think fits in so perfectly in New York City and the Rangers and Madison Square Garden that's a guy

who probably like you could picture playing with the Rangers at some point, the way he plays the game, the way he kind of lives his life off the ice. You know, he loves being in the scene. He loves being in the mix and all this. And I'm excited for that. And I think that the Rangers have done a pretty good job in terms of like changing the makeup of their team where it won't be as easy to go in and play

them. And he just was like the cherry on top and Nate Barstool, Nate, in terms of changing the makeup of their team where it won't be as easy to go in and play them. And he just was like the cherry on top. And Nate, Barstool, Nate, you're now in the same city as Reeves. He may just sneak into your apartment and strangle you to death one night. So I'd be a little worried if I were him. But I'm excited to see what he's going to bring. And for that first night, there'll be fireworks, no doubt.

It's at MSG, right? Wilson won't fight him. I don't think Wilson – have they fought prior or no? I don't believe they have. no i don't need to always try to fight him i think but we'll see what goes on opening night and uh vegas also sent nick holden and a third in 22 to ottawa for uh evgeny dadnoff another side deal uh winnipeg was another team that was pretty busy they only made one free well free agent sign of paul stastny their own free agent they brought him back for one year 3.75 mil uh but they also showed up their d which is a problem for them the playoffs they traded for both nate schmidt and brendan dylan uh they sent vancouver a third and 22 for schmitty and they send washington a second and both 22 and 23 for brendan dylan schmitty's got

four years left at just under six mil brendan dylan's got four years left at just under six mil. Brendan Dylan's got three years left at just under four mil. I mean, this team gets way better in the back end. No shit. But a couple of ballsy moves by Winnipeg. There was some scuttlebutt. Schmitty didn't want to waive his no trade clause to play in Winnipeg. But then when he saw the situation in Vancouver, it made him reevaluate things. So he decided to go there. Either way, a huge improvement for the Winnipeg Jets on the back end. What a summer for Kevin Shevelday off and the Winnipeg Jets on the back end. What a summer for Kevin Chevalier off and the Winnipeg Jets.

And if you go back to 2019, so that year they knew that they had to trade Trouba. And that was because he wouldn't commit long term. So they got rid of Trouba. They were okay that summer with losing Tyler Myers. They weren't comfortable paying him what he would demand on the open market. So they lose Tyler Myers. They weren't comfortable paying him what he would demand on the open market. So they lose Tyler Myers. The big issue was they also lost Ben Sherratt that year. I think they really liked him as a player.

I don't think, I know they wanted to keep him, but in the end they couldn't. He was able to get more money from Montreal. He moves on. Then what happens? They get hammered by the Dustin Bufflin news of him not wanting to play anymore. So had they known that prior, they never would have let Sherratt go.

And all of a sudden, it was a disaster summer. Since then, the Jets have struggled immensely on D. It was what we all said. Their forwards are great. They got a Vezina-winning goalie in net. And then defensively, they just really couldn't get anything done. It's been the exact opposite two summers later. This year, they were able to

go out and get Nate Schmidt. They were able to re-sign Paul Stastny. There was rumors if he'd wanted to move on, but he didn't. He wanted to stay there. Schmidt and Stastny are represented by the same agent, Matt Cater. So Stastny's really good friends with Schmitty from playing together in Vegas. They were able to talk on the phone. He was able to, I don't necessarily think convince him, but at least tell him like we got something special going on. They had had their eyes on Brendan Dillon a while when he went over to Washington, they kind of realized in reading the Pierre LeBron article on the athletic

that he, uh, Washington had a little, had some cap issues so he could be made available. So in the end shovel day offset in the article, it's basically worked out as good as he could have hoped. This is, this was their, this was basically their like dream situation for the summer was getting these two guys. They brought over two top four defensemen. They were able to bring back DeMello, who they weren't able to protect, but Seattle didn't take him, Dylan DeMello. So Winnipeg, the way Montreal had last summer

basically been one of the teams that made a bunch of noise and a bunch of improvements. I think that's the Jets this year. So to have those forwards they have up front, to get those two top four D-men, not lose to Melo, and bring back Stastny as a top six forward, it's like Winnipeg's right there. I think this year's going to be a huge year for the Jets, and you've got to be as excited as you've been in quite a while

if you're a Jets fan going into this season. Yeah, pretty much. You've got about three Canadian teams looking a lot better on paper. You got Vancouver. I like Edmonton. We mentioned that. And then now with, with Winnipeg, you always like seeing Winnipeg in the mix with the whiteout crowds.

Oh yeah. We just need crowds in Canada. Fuck. Any crowd. Still got a laundry list here. I'm going to run through them. Let's see. St. Louis blues. They'd sign a Brandon sod to a five-year $22.5 million deal. any crowd still got a laundry list here i'm gonna run through them uh let's see st louis blues they

signed uh brandon sod to a five-year 22.5 million dollar deal also signed a pair of restricted free agents and pavel buchnevich not uh temenisim off four years 23.2 mil for buchnevich and their own rfa ivan babashev two years 4.5 mil the Blackhawks also added defenseman Jake McCabe, four years, 16 mil. For Juja Akira, two years, 1.95 mil. And local boy Adam Gaudette for a year at 997 grand. Minnesota added a pair of defensemen. Dimitri Kulikov, two years, 4.5 mil. Alex Goligosky, a year for 5 mil.

Local boy coming back home. Freddie Gaudreau, two years, 2.4 mil. And then Philadelphia, of course, our boy Keith Yandel had got bought out earlier by Florida. Well, he's going to join our buddy Hazy in Philly. Keith took a one-year deal worth $900,000. They also brought in Nate Thompson, a friend of the program, one year, 800K.

And they brought in Goalie Martin Jones, one year, 2 mil to work with Carter Hart, presumably. so we'll keep an eye on that pittsburgh forward brock mcginn four years 11 mil uh forward danton heinen one year 1.1 mil a couple other moves by the rangers here pair of defensemen they signed patrick nemeth three years 7.5 mil jared teny two years, 1.8 mil and RFA forward, Philippe Hedo two years, 4.6 mil San Jose shocks. I mentioned already, they got James Reimer, I'm sorry,

two years, 4.5 mil. They also signed another pair of forwards, Nick Bonino, two years, 4.1 mil and forward Andrew Cogliano one year, one mil. That sounds like trade bait at the deadline already.

A pair of guys like that. You would think. Nice number for Bonino. And Cogliano continues to just – he would have the Yandel Ironman streak, had an off-end for the suspension he was given by George Peros. So, yeah, you'll see if San Jose does struggle, those could be some guys on the move possibly,

although Bonino's is a two-year deal. Detroit Red Wings will be there this weekend. They had their own restricted free agent forward tyler bertuzzi they gave him two years nine mil uh defenseman jordan osterly got two years 2.7 mil uh they grabbed pious suda from the blackhawks he was not qualified so he became unrestricted two years 6.5 mil for him and they brought back your pal sam gagne one year 850k went once again. All right, coming right along here.

Nashville, they re-upped forward Michael Granlin, four years, 20 mil, and they brought in goalie David Riddick, one-year, 1.25 mil to back up. Oh, my God, I'm brain fogged. UC Saros. UC Saros, thank you, my friend. Anaheim brought back forward Ryan Getzlaff, one-year, 4.5 million. I think the cap's only 3 million. I know he's in over 35, so there's probably some bonus stuff there. Biz, do you know anything about this forward, Dimitri Yaskin?

One year, $3.2 million. I know he played in Europe the last few years. He last played in the NHL 2018, 2019 with the caps. Sounds like him. Well, so he was in St. Louis beforehand, and we were actually at training camp with him. He was highly touted, and I just don't think he was ever able to find his NHL game, but he's the type of guy where he goes, when he goes back to Russia, he lights the lamp. So you often see

sometimes these guys who can have great successful careers over there, but they can't transform their game to the North American style. So coyotes are going to give him an opportunity. I say it's a no risk move he'll come over here for one year if he has success who knows maybe he's even a guy if you have his heart that's a hot start to the year he's trade bait at the deadline as well as kind of you've seen that that type of theme going on with the nhl lately um in order to gain gain uh picks or whatever it may be uh but yeah do you remember anything about? I just remember how big and strong he was. And like he was given a bunch of opportunities.

I don't think that at that time, Ken Hitchcock could really stand him. And there were other coaches after who, you know, he kind of fell out of favor with, ended up back in the KHL. Could have been a move also, go over there, make some dough and you'll get back to the NHL,

which he now is. I think there's a ton of skill level there. I don't know if he'll be able to perform in the NHl like top two line player he wasn't able to prior but maybe a difference in play and growing up a little bit will change that but it'll be interesting to see i think he won khl player of the year didn't he did he i don't know yeah he's 28 years old and he's averaged over a point per game the last two seasons with dynamo mosc Moscow Dynamo. Stick at it written Russian style here. So, yeah, this kid's obviously skilled. Seems like a nice little risk for the Coyotes.

All right, moving right along. Ottawa signed defenseman Michael Delzotto to a two-year, $4 million deal. Congrats on him getting two years. Florida signed Brandon Montour, three years, 10.5 mil. And Ford Carter, very haggy, three years, 12.5 mil. It's an extension. That starts next year. Buffalo.

They found themselves goalie list a few days into free agency. So they went out and got Craig Anderson one year, 750 K and Aaron Dell one year, 750 K. Every guy who signed with the Buffalo Sabres got 750 K. I thought that was a joke until I looked at the cap. It's like jacket 10 and then everyone underneath them just changed the name. Every single contract, the same, just until I looked at the cap. It's like Jack at 10 and then everyone underneath him. Just change the name.

Every single contract, the same. Just change the name. We'll get to Eichel in a little bit. Yeah, we will surely. The Islanders, nothing really going on there. Of course, this is Lou Lamorello. He runs a very tight, quiet ship. Nothing seems to get leaked somehow.

But you can do the math there. Parise, Palmieri, and Zajak are all still officially unrestricted free agents as to what we know you would think some teams probably would assign them so i think you can deduce that they're probably going to end up with the islanders just nothing official yet um we did mention ethan bear went to carolina for warren fogel then fogel got three years 8.25 mil from edmonton bear has one year left at two million. And Washington, they lost Vitek Vanacek in the expansion draft, but they were able to get him back from Seattle for a second rounder in 23. And someone said, why couldn't they do that with Price? And I think that was

because Price has so much time left, that's so much money. Whereas because Vanacek's got one year left on his entry-level deal, they didn't view it as cap circumvention. So they were allowed to make that trade. So Vanacek ends back in washington after a brief stay in seattle and one last deal before we bring on drew shaw buffalo uh let's see the buffalo picked up defenseman will butcher in a fifth and 22 from new jersey for future considerations which is basically a bag of air for 750k yeah so all right wow that's a fucking mouthful, gang. Fortunately, we're going to bring on Drew Shaw to wake the place up and have some laughs, some unreal stories.

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Roman ready. Because I know you're always Roman ready. All right, gang, without further ado, I know you've been waiting patiently. It's our pal Drew Shaw. And now it's a pleasure to be joined by a good buddy of mine, a guy. I go way back with this guy to the Always Hungry League. This dude was drafted in the second round in 2009 by the Panthers, the Cats.

And I got to meet up with him in San Antonio. He went on to play everywhere, complete suitcase. And because of that, he's now retired and a new agent in the NHL. We're talking to Drew Shore from Denver, Colorado. What's up, buddy? How you doing, man? Thanks for having me on. Oh, this is great. I said a long time ago, I want to get you on. And you said, dude, I'll come on right when I retire. And then this worked out good. I didn't know I was going to be continuing in hockey. So I was really pumped to let it fly,

but now I got to keep it a little bit professional. Yeah, super agent over here. So, Biz, the first time I met Shorzy, I signed in Florida, but it was after training camp, so I was up, sent me down after seven games, minus seven. Everyone knows, I think 11 minutes a game, horrible hockey. So I go down to the minors, and Shorzy's there, but I'd never met him because I wasn't at training camp and first thing he says he's he goes how much better is the show

i actually know he's in prison he's like do you remember your first game yeah i think i had one in one dude you did but it was at 10 30 a.m let me explain this to you oh i can imagine grumpy wit i can imagine 10 30 a.m game this guy flies you get sent down probably there was no direct flight from florida to oklahoma city oh no went to chicago yeah pulls up to oklahoma city and i didn't know him i see him in the lobby someone gives him an itinerary he's like bro someone's playing a prank on me i'm like what do you mean he's like this is fucked up he's like bro someone's playing a prank on me i'm like what do you mean he's like this is fucked up he's like i just got sent down i'm pissed off he's like it says we're playing at 10 30 in the morning like what time is the morning skate i'm like no that's

what that's when the game is he's like nah like quit fucking with me i'm not in a good mood he'd flown all day he could not believe the game was at 10 30 in the morning so then we play the game i'll never forget we play the game you actually had one and one and then we had one of those sleeper buses home you grabbed probably 15 beers from the gas station closed your blinds on the sleeper bus home and just shut it down it was game over and i just remember yeah that was funny that was the first time we ever met well dude the best part about can i get 30 fucking seconds to recover from that story that's part was biz i got into oklahoma city and he saw me and i go i go up into my room and i go to bed but i got a roommate yeah petro comes cruising in at like 3 30 in the morning dude i'm like the game starts and then wakes me up and i've never met him biz you know in the minors like at that time they

don't do it anymore but like you had to like pick an item to eat and like put money in a cup when it comes oh yeah Instead of warming up. Wait, wait, Timo, let's go in deeper. There's like a list after the games because like you're leaving right away. So like a restaurant locally will put a menu out. Everybody has to pay for their meal with a little bit of tip. And then it's hopefully. It comes at the end of the first.

It's the soggiest sub of your life. And it has to last for 12 hours. It's like eating wet cardboard. Anyway, back over to you, Drew hours it's like eating wet cardboard anyway back over to you drew well like wit couldn't warm up for the game because he was so mind blown about this whole process of like putting money in a cup he almost didn't warm up he sat at the table and when guys are putting money in at first he was like what the fuck are guys doing and i'm like this is how it works down here and he couldn't i knew how that worked i knew how that worked. I knew how it worked. I'd played in the minors. Yeah, but that was like 20 years before that.

Hey, I will give this guy my spot on the podcast. I was just taking guys' money. I'll give this guy my spot on the podcast if he could just keep telling me. Yeah, this guy remembers everything. I knew it would be an issue. This guy has a memory like an elephant. Oh, my goodness. Wait, you used to come.

Do you remember? Keep going. Keep going. Remember T-R keep going remember tiro oh i never forget this like it was like a nine o'clock flight from san antonio like we'd always fly out at nine because we'd have to take like three flights before we got to utica and he would come last guy sweating onto the plane every time and i'd be like bro you're late where are you he's like had to get in nine he would play nine holes of golf before the team plane would leave at nine in the morning play alone at that track and anyone who's ever been to san antonio where's that area i lived the quarry the quarry and they had this golf course it's so fun that place was sick nobody was out there i just go play every day after pregame skate shores you never played he's like

i don't play i don't play during the season but you were so like gung-ho to get to the nhl you were me like 10 years prior and i just i saw the future i saw your future coming your suitcase years through the reason i'm laughing so hard is because i could picture him going up to the show and experiencing life the way he had and that complete separation for what 10 years and then you and you come back down to realize it's like still the same so you're you're all the stories you have of them like i could picture every one of them and the worst part about it is so the year before was my first year pro and that's when i played 40 games in the nhl so i had just been sent down in the minors. Like at the time I was like an entitled 21 year old fuck. Like I thought I just, you know, on top of me being miserable, they bring

this guy down who I hang out with every day, like the most depressed person in the world. So imagine the two of us sitting in the back of the boss at the after games. It was not good. No, I remember shortly. Oh, that's a funny memory. I wouldn't even remember this stuff. It's making me remember things. I remember the Panthers won on the road, and they'd been losing. You're like, I think I'm going to go up if they lose again. And I picked you up in the morning.

They won 4-0. You're like, the cats. See that game, Whit? See that game? Hey, do you know what your name is what your name in my phone is donnie wit roscoe do you remember this story no no i love that movie though okay so on the anniversary of like how many all-star games did you play in the nhl none dude i played in a young stars game and then i made an all-star game but i

got uh my elbow i mean my ankle blown out and never played again well i think so i think on the anniversary like of that game you were supposed to play in the all-star game we played in texas and we got blown out texas at the time was unreal we were sitting in the back of the bus and whit was like i was supposed to be on a private jet flying to the all-star game with Sid now he was like minus three and he's like I feel like Donnie Brosco and I didn't know who that was at the time and he's like I feel like I went into hiding and my whole life has changed so he was a good influence for me when I was pouting at 22 was he the grumpy vet in the room the grumpiest of all time but the funniest

he did he would always take all the guys out to dinner and pay every time so i will give him that oh he's like the most generous guy like that i'll see him like we'll we'll go up to people on the road and he'll be like hey can i get a cigarette and uh and and they'll give one to him he'll give him a hundred bucks yeah just peel off yeah but i'm not smoking the cigarette i just want to you know i just want to give it to somebody else he was good to everyone like he would always take like ahl guys out to the nicest restaurant, pay for it all. So, I mean, that is true.

I mean, yeah. Looking back, I'm like, fuck, man. I was so miserable. I was still making a million down there, but I just knew my ankle was done. I knew I was so done. I was so pissed off. Yeah, it was pathetic how mad I was every day.

Mott's cheered me up, though. You couldn't move, but fuck, you could still walk the line. Yeah, exactly. Head up, dude. Always. All right, well, Shorzy, we got to get into your career and your life growing up. I mean, you got three brothers or four?

Three. Three brothers, four Shorzy. All of them played at the University of Denver or just three you guys did? Just three. The youngest one's at Harvard right now. Dude, this poor kid. When was the last time he played

a game yeah so he didn't even go to school this year he just worked this year and now he's going back next year wow good for him that sucks but um so are you the oldest what's the order and what was it like in your house when you're like 12 years old I mean I can't imagine your parents and how many weekends they spent in rinks all year long. Well, I told you. That's why now that I have my own kids, I have a brand new appreciation for them. But no, so there's four of us total. I'm a year and a half older than Nick, who played in L.A. for a while with Biz. Then he's a year and a half older than Quinton. Then there's about a seven-year gap between Baker, who's now at Harvard.

Who's the most skilled? Who's the most skilled, honestly? i heard baker is the best at everything in the whole family no he is i mean the golden goose he saw me have to go play hockey in europe and like russia and stuff he's like okay i'm going to harvard fuck it um but no he he uh he is the best at everything so i'd give it to baker at golf no not at golf but i mean just as an athlete good looking smart he's uh he's got the full package we're probably going to talk about all these sports you guys play against each other but far far and above you're the worst golfer and i think uh i think you went on a bachelor party recently and and then and then you ended up uh tossing your

new clubs or something dude so. So, all right. I, so this guy's a mental midget biz. I am. Okay. So playing golf against Nick is like my wife's like, why do you, I play golf with him almost every time, regardless of the two other people. And like, so we've played 500 rounds together. We've never once left the 18th hole and both guys been like, that was fun. So it's like, i like we're just miserable

and it's like i should give him or he should be giving me like a stroke or two aside but i refuse to take it i'll never take a stroke from he's the only guy i'll never take a stroke from and i mean i think i've single-handedly paid for his last five summers because i won't take a stroke but i respect the hell i can't take a stroke from him i respect the hell out of you. I can't take a joke from him. I respect the hell out of you. I heard you press every back nine. Oh, yeah, automatic. This guy ships it. No matter what he's doing, he ships it.

Down to press every time, but you can't make him nervous. And then the other thing is, like, he's got no kids, so he plays six days a week. So this is all going to come back around. Like, eventually, when he matures into a normal human being, he's not gonna be at the plan six times a week and my kids will be 30 by the time he gets married so then i'll be at the range every day and so it'll come back around i'm not hey in your 50s you're gonna

be waxing him and then you'll all have more dough too to be taken from him and i know you said i know you said that you've never both left like and said that was fun but the times you win must feel unreal oh it's never better i mean it happens about 50 i like i lose by one 80 of the time because he's a three i'm like a six or a seven but i just i can't take a stroke i can't not press every two holes i'm down and that's just how it goes so you're so you're the only one other than baker i didn't know and the reason i fucked up off the hop there is i started studying for a guy named Devin. So there's so many fucking shores out there. And I, I was kind of reading along and I think that you have a lacrosse background as well, or maybe your father does. And then, but I was like,

man, where's, where's Nick and Quentin? I play with those guys. There's no connection here. So, so maybe one time we can get Devin on to interview, but fuck, I I'm getting all jammed up. Cause all the shores out there. Wait, you'll love Nick calls me today he's like you're going on spitting chicklets right he's like yeah I played with biz Nick goes you want to know how I knew I was too good for the minors I'm like he's like you remember when I mean Oni called you and I'm like what he's like yeah me and Brian O'Neill were drunk one time and we called you and we're like we're way over a point of game playing on a line with biz. Fuck this league. We're playing two on three against the other line.

No, no. They would have never fucking been on a line with me down there. So that's bullshit. There's no maybe by accident for like 20 seconds. He said me and O'Neal had over a point a game playing on a line with biz. That's when I knew I way too good for the a and and he and he would mope around to begin with i couldn't imagine him the day that he was on my line or or maybe not moped around he's just a very very chill individual he's got no heartbeat that's his he's gotten zero heartbeat that's his that's his like mo like just doesn't give a shit no he gives a shit he just doesn't like like he coaches like he just doesn't he's not like MO, like just doesn't give a shit. No, he gives a shit. He just doesn't like, like he coaches, like he just doesn't,

he's not like a rah-rah guy at all. Like he's not like, he doesn't like rah-rah guys. He's not a rah-rah guy. Oh, he must have hated me. It's just how he is. He's like this bitch and that guy won't shut up. Played with me and he doesn't like the rah-rah guys. I had pom-poms on beside him on the bench.

No, he's a good dude. My teammates, like everyone who's played with both of us, likes him better than me, so I'll give him that. So I was talking to Quinton, and he says, yeah, you're the tough guy to play with when you guys get teamed up in sports because he says that's usually Baker and Nick and then you and Quinton together when you guys are going 2v2 in the driveway. He says mainly basketball.

You're the worst teammate of all time, and you like to refer to yourself in third person. He's such an NBA guy, this guy, Biz. I'm telling you. I love the NBA. I know. Exactly. This kid loves the NBA more than anyone.

He explains it all. I love it. I don't know how hockey guys don't like it. I watch all the playoff games. I love it. It's like a reality show with basketball like i love everything about it i love everything you so you follow the fact that like durant went on a date with atlanta roads like you follow all the dirt stuff and brought another girl as a backup

like i don't know how anyone who doesn't think that that is funny or likes that i don't understand the shit that durant seems like get away with funny oh yeah he's an absolute character but the stuff that they get away with we were talking about it last podcast uh i think it might have been harden's security guard who's on salary with the team got on the court when they were having a little or was it durant okay yeah so you just follow all the bullshit kind of like the rap drama yeah i love it and then going back to your your driveway episodes what's going on with that yeah i'm not a great two-on-two partner and like it said it's like it's always me and quinton versus nick and baker and they are baker's the

most athletic by far and yeah quinton and i normally aren't very successful in those hey so you ended up uh going to the national program huh you got to experience it was still in ann arbor when you were there right yeah um were you like one of the top players like no doubt you you made that team at 16 17 or were you kind of like a late later bloomer because like i was a little late developing like some of those guys you know how it is for like 14 and 15 year old guys like some guys are like six two already and like really strong i wasn't a guy like that um so i wasn't a for sure guy to make it but like i ended up making it and really enjoyed my time there and it was fun i got to go back to the club story because we kind of cut you off while we were josh in there back on the bachelor party what happened to your golf clubs oh yeah

so i did so i finally went so i had a issue hitting a driver for two or three years where i'd have to hit like a two iron off the t and then so finally i was like okay i'm out of the game with that i'm gonna yeah because then you're hitting seven you're hitting like six irons into greens and it's just yeah it's a nightmare so i went and saw some professionals and finally got a new set of clubs and then once again because i refused to take strokes had a pretty bad golf summer and i I was leaving for Switzerland the next day. And I was like, you know what? I want a clean slate.

So I had my brother when we drove into my apartment, pull around back. And I just threw my whole bag in the dumpster because I just wanted a clean slate. And we couldn't believe it. And then like four hours later, we're on our balcony and I see Quinton like digging through the dumpster. And I like talking to my wife.

I'm like, did you know Quinton was coming over? She's like, no, he was in there grabbing like talking to my wife I'm like did you know Quinton was coming over she's like no he was in there grabbing like my putter and my wedges and everything else oh my god see all the shit that went down in the NBA today with Dallas you've been following that the Mavericks what was that well there was an article that came out the other

day and Cuban said it was all bullshit like it was you know they were saying there was all kinds of disarray in the front office while the last 48 hours the GM of 16 years quit and their coach of 14 years quit. So basically, I guess he trusts this guy on the internet. He used to be a gambler, gives him all the advice. And he basically tunes everybody else out. And these guys fucking bailed out the last two days.

No, I didn't hear that. What are your favorite things about the NBA? What draws you in? What players? Well, just the whole thing of it like you said like the kevin durant bringing two girls on a date like his security guard running on the court like there's always like james hardy love the drama camp because he's with his trainer in las vegas like it's i think it's great yeah there's definitely a lot more side drama in the

nba than there is in the nhl for sure jo as a local kid, did you grow up always wanting to go to Denver? Were there any other college options for you, or was it Denver all the way? It wasn't Denver. Actually, there was a kid who was a couple years older than me named Drayson Bowman, who was kind of like my idol growing up. He was like the first kid to get drafted, I think, by Carolina. And he played hockey in the WHL. So that kind of perked my interest there.

I was actually drafted in the whl so that kind of perked my interest there um i was actually drafted in the whl but at the time like you got drafted at 14 and then you had to take a year off so i went to camp as a 14 year old and thought it was the coolest thing ever like you're playing in a rink in front of 7 000 8 000 fans and it was my dad who was actually like well you can't play next year anyway so give it a year and if you still want to go that way in a year go that way and that's when i ended up uh at the national program so you're hanging out on like University of Michigan's campus because at the time it was in Ann Arbor and I realized that the uh college scene was pretty cool and decided to go that way how much did you love the abs oh you're like eight

years old when they won it with Bork yeah so it was pretty cool like that's kind of how I got into hockey is because like I said my dad played lacrosse and my mom was a tennis player, like no hockey background at all. But like when the abs moved here, like when they had, there was no salary cap or anything. So they had like 12 hall of famers on their team. So it was like, even for non hockey fans, like watching the abs when the cup, um, was kind of like the thing to do. And it was like, I actually got to play with like, uh, I know Ryan Bork and Chris Bork pretty well. And like still as a kid watching like Sackick turn and give him that cup, like I'll,

I think that was one of the coolest things in hockey ever. I think I was talking to Quinton and he said that you're, you mentioned your father with a lacrosse background. He would watch all the hockey and you watch as a three-year-old and you saw the Stanley Cup final game. And that's what you got. You got you in a skating, right? Yeah. It was like, like I said, my dad didn't even play, but it was just like everyone in Colorado was loving the abs.

Cause they were such a big deal in town and kind of, that's how I got into it. And it was like, it's kind of cool cause it's back now. But like when I was growing up, like getting a ticket to the abs game was like unheard of. And then they took a couple years off and now that they're good again denver is like a great bandwagon town yeah it's like a great bandwagon town not the broncos right are they die hard for the broncos broncos are probably the one team that they're die hard for but anything else is kind of like when the rockies made that uh

run a few years ago that was sick yeah so it's like other than the broncos it's a pretty fair weather sports town but like when things are going good i think it's a pretty tough place to be well it's kind of hard because it's not like a crazy populated city and it's got all four major sports so they can just like hop around who's ever having the most success it's kind of like arizona everybody's on the sun's train but four years ago it was so easy to get a ticket yeah big chris paul fan point god who do you remember as the uh like the vets i guess it would be like jovo and stuff when you got up to the show yeah it was like so i felt like my first two or three years in the league i mean biz you might know more than me but i felt like that was kind of like the last

like kind of breed of like old school guys like i don't know like that was kind of like the last like kind of breed of like old school guys like i don't know like that's kind of how i felt that would have been in like 2012 to like 2014 so it's like when i started in florida it was like jovo verstig was there gomer was there stig was amazing to play with man man. Versteeg was the best. I love that guy. I've never seen him. He would be miserable sometimes. He was another whip. I'd only played in college and the AHL. Everyone tells the coach yes.

Versteeg was the first player I saw. At the time, Kevin Deneen was coaching, and he'd be like, Steeger, get in my office. Steeger would look at him and just be like, nah, I'm fucking busy. He'd be like, nah, I like, get in my office. And, like, Steger would look at him and just be like, nah, I'm fucking busy. Or, like, he'd be like, nah, I got to tape my stick. And, like, shit like that.

Like, he was the first player I ever saw, like, just blatantly, like, tell a coach, like, nah, like, we're going to do it my way. And I was just, like, as a young kid was like, I was like, I didn't even know what to say some of the time. You played with Gomer, too. He was on one of those first couple years uh with the panthers wasn't he gomer was like one of the best teammates i ever had and i spent a lot of time with gomer that year because i either played with him on the fourth line or was healthy scratched with him

and like either of those were great because like the shit he would say to me when i would play with him would be like like if it was a two-on-one i'd try and force him the puck and he'd come back to the bench and just look at me with like disappointment and be like kid i've seen you try and make a pass just shoot it and like he'd say stuff like that or like he'd be like if he scored a goal in practice he scored a goal in practice i'd be like gomer nice shot and he'd look at me dead serious and be like i don't know how many goals he has but he's like kid i have six like whatever i have 350 goals and he'd just stare at me and then like off the ice the guy was just like he was a legend too like he's the most generous human being alive you'll love this and then it was like and so like he loved it like because i loved him right so it's

like one time he put like he put like a i guess it would be a five figure number on the board and like i was and we hadn't played in a while like we were playing fourth line we were out of playoffs in florida i was like gomer like why'd you put that on the board and he'd look at me and just be like because i can kid and you just walk just walk away like he uh there was i remember hey it had to be 2006 maybe and i was at this like it was a club i guess in boston back then and i was with like 15 guys some girls probably 20 people and uh jay pandolfo showed up and gomez was in town in town to see him and so those two had like a table with like three people and at the end of the night i was like i'll get the bill she's like no uh scott scott paid and he was like i was i think any person you talk to in hockey could tell you that exact same story about him

just like picking up a check and goes it must have been like 5k he didn't know anyone i hadn't even met him i was like that is that is ridiculous. Just a nice guy. Going back to, to, to Gomer, even when he came here, we did a little bit of an interview and then he had his sister like sending a shipment of like wild salmon that they just caught from like a couple of days before. So he, he kind of, like you said, with between you and your brother, you've played with every player from, from like in the last, like 15 years you have played. Cause you guys have been such such suitcases he's paid for a meal for all those guys he for sure there was a time when uh we were both healthy scratched in columbus the day before the olympic break i don't know what year that

would have been 2014 and i text him i'm like gomer are we going to dinner and the game was at seven o'clock he's like yeah 6 30 lobby so i, ah, that seems like a little bit tight for dinner, but like, I'm not going to tell Gomer like, no, let's go earlier. So six 30, we go best. I don't know where we went somewhere. Like probably best restaurant in Columbus. We sit down. It's like six 50. I'm kind of like starting to get real nervous here. I'm like, Gomer, like, are we going to eat here? Like let's order. He's like, kid, we're healthy scraps. We'll watch the game on the tv i'm like okay next thing you know like nicest couple bottles of wine come and then urban

meyer walks into the restaurant like the football coach next thing you know like he's sitting at our table with me and gomer because that's just how gomer is like he knows everyone and like he's people drawing him so we're watching the panthers game i'm sitting there with gomer and urban meyer when like i'm panicking because i'm supposed to be at the game we get out or we get florida gets pumped during the game so we're running into the arena as fans are leaving and the cannon you know in columbus is just going off just sit at the back of the bus and gomer just hey that probably would have got you sent down that like that night like a young kid that's not even at the game i wasn't like i didn't know what to do though like at first oh yeah i can't say no it got to the

point when urban meyer was sitting there with me and gomer i wasn't going to be like okay like we're going to the game but i guess i could just blame it on gomer if i was uh if i had to yeah he would have been like i got your back kid you're fine you're fine yeah he uh we got beat seven zero one time and the next day you were there were you there in st louis remember we had that football day that was my last i think that was it i think when i got back i might have got 7-0 we had a team event the next day and we're in the line at breakfast in front of all of the coaches he looks at me and goes i was healthy scratch hey kid how happy are you this morning and i knew what he was talking about because i was pissed i didn't play but i just played it off like i'm like oh what do you mean

like that was a tough loss or something he's like in front of the whole coaching staff you just got healthy scratched and we got beat seven nothing just walks out of the room well uh who were some of the other vets you said uh joe vanosky you must have some good joe joe stories yeah so it was like after my first year i I had wrist surgery. And I'll never forget, like, so he lived in Florida at the time, and I was there by myself. And it was me and maybe a couple other young guys were there doing something like rehab, and he told us to come to his house to watch a playoff game.

We show up at his house, and, like, we're about to sit down on the couch. He's like, no, we're not watching in here. We walk out back of his house. Some sick boat pulls up. It's his boat. We go watch the games on his boat in the middle of the ocean. He's got TVs everywhere and shit. No, he was a pretty cool guy as well.

That's an NHL night. He's a National League type guy. Don't trust him on the golf course. His short game is a joke. Oh, dude. He's not a four handicap i'll tell you that wait you'll love this one i played poker with him right so i knew him that summer and as a young kid all i wanted to do was get on the team poker table but like at that

time young guys didn't get on it so i knew jovo from the summer so he's like short as he come on let's play so i'm pumped right and i go sit down there's like stephenorzy, come on, let's play. So I'm pumped. Right. And I go sit down. There's like Steven Weiss, all these vet guys, the stewardess or whatever, there was no blanket for the chips. So Joel, in front of everyone looks at me and he's like, Shorzy, grab all your dress shirts. And I got the time. Luckily, I didn't know what to do because I couldn't get up. Cause I was like, okay, if I get up, like, I just look pathetic, but I couldn't be like,

no, like, like fuck you back to him. So I waited him out like 10 seconds. And then he's such a good guy. He started laughing. But like, I legit had anxiety for 10 seconds. I was like, I can't get up here, but like, I can't tell him. So no, he was all your properly folded shirts. He was great.

I would have got up and done it. Snippety snap. Did you ever get a chance like on one of the top lines there were you always kind of shriveled it was like so i feel like now looking back that i was good player dude fuck i feel like that was kind of my problem was like i felt like i wasn't quite good enough like to play top six and i never was really able to like an established like a bottom six role and now like looking back well that's another reason like i kind of want to get into the agency business just because like i wish someone at the

time when i'd like complain in florida and stuff about like not being on the power plant stuff i wish someone would have grabbed me and been like listen that ain't it dude you're like you need to be the best third line center you can possibly be like i didn't need someone to be like oh like yeah sure like ask for a trade or like someone should have just sat me down and like gave me the honest truth then like listen like if you want to play for 10 years you need to be the best third line center you can be and I never really got that honest advice and like I was just never like you said I wasn't quite good enough to be like a top six guy and at the time like bottom six would be like me peros and like chris barch like it's a

little bit different now but it was like so i wasn't really like a fourth line guy at the time anyway so i feel like that was kind of yeah one of my downfalls yeah we've talked a lot about guys who are willing to kind of accept that they're not going to be and not that you wouldn't have accepted it's just like you wish you knew right i mean it's like you could have been a pretty sick third line center if you'd been so focused on that at 21 opposed to like getting points and having to produce i don't think i wouldn't have done it i just wish like someone would i wish i would have had a little bit more of like a direction like we had somebody on and they i think it was chris thorburn and he wanted to introduce this type of role so these guys especially not coming from from backgrounds

you know with family members who have played hockey where those types of conversations can happen to where this he doesn't feel that he's gonna go back to the coach and be like yeah this guy wants more pp time just he needs that conversation and it's i don't know if it's because the coaches sometimes are so wrapped up in like keeping everybody organized and game plan and all that that maybe some of them just don't have that approach where they they spark up that coaches sometimes are so wrapped up in like keeping everybody organized and game plan and all that, that maybe some of them just don't have that approach where they spark up that conversation. So there's never that dialogue happening. Would you have felt comfortable going up to the head coach and having that conversation? No, not at, not at the time at

all. And I mean, like you said, I just feel like it was uncomfortable. Like you mean you wanted as a player to stand up for yourself, but you also didn't want to come off as a guy who, you know what I mean? Like thought he was above the team or something like that. For sure. I was just going to quickly go back to, to, yeah, I agree. There was a window there of, of when the old school guys kind of got drifted out. Like when we came into league, who was your captain in Wilkes-Barre? Was it Nazardine?

Yes. And a true veteran unreal guy that was old school so there was just kind of order in the locker room and you yeah you did notice as time went on uh I guess yeah it just got a little bit different and there weren't really those throwbacks and that's because a lot of things got younger too over the course of that time as well yeah I guess like if I think about it, like my first couple of years, there were tons of guys like in their mid-30s, I felt like, who had been around forever.

And I mean, as you guys know now, like, I mean, I don't know how many teams, but like every team might have one or two of those guys, but the majority of guys are 20 to 24. So, I mean, I think that that definitely could contribute to that. Who was like the one, like one throwback you played with? Like you can't, you couldn't even believe that this guy was still, he was just from a different era.

You'll laugh at this, but you know the name John Sim? Oh yeah. I know. I don't know Simmer, but I played against him. I heard he was hilarious. So Simmer like came back to San Antonio my first year.

I think he won a cup in Dallas and stuff. And the team wouldn't buy him Easton sticks so he told him in practice he wouldn't like go to the net and tip pucks and he'd turn his stick over when he was like in front of the net because he wanted to save his easton sticks so yeah i would say like i just remember seeing that guy and being like he we got traded to us and he met us at the airport and all the boys were looking and thought we got a new coach um but no he no, he was definitely old school. I think he liked his pops too, didn't he? Yeah, I think he had a few of those, yeah.

Drew, Florida traded you to Calgary. Were you happy to get traded given the states of each team? Florida was kind of doing shitty. Calgary was heading to playoffs. Well, like I was kind of talking about, I was really excited at the time because I thought I was, like, going to be going right to power play one and stuff like that and then uh i went to calgary and met bob hartley and things did not go as planned there wow not a big fan of the shorezy no not really like we uh biz you might know you had a lot of healthy scratches i think he's the only head

coach in nhl history to like do the morning skate then he'd go off and do media then he would come back on the ice to skate the healthy scratches oh usually it's the assistants and they like can be somewhat easier right yeah it's always this it got to the point where it was so bad like at home like when or like on the road when we'd skate after guys would start paying the guys the zamboni guys at the rink to come clean the ice because it was like it was like it was to the point of the worst bag skates i've ever had and you'd have to wait the 20 minutes for him to do the media too before you started it you'd skate with the assistants while he did the media and

then he'd come on and just roast you himself every day. Do you be doing like at least skill stuff? Oh, no, no, no. It would just be like skate down to the ice, stop in the crease, skate back like it was. What have you heard on like what he's like in the KHL? They want it. Yeah, but you know how it's a little bit different over there. I think he's a really – I think he's like a good coach for like one or two years

because like he's very detailed, like he's like a good coach for like one or two years because like he's very detailed like he's very hard on guys but it gets to a point where it's like when he's somewhere for an extended period of time that type of coaching just wears on guys to the point of like guys i mean making a lot of money and stuff like on long-term deals are eventually just going to tune him out he's a player's coach in the khl that's the difference though because they go from like military backgrounds i don't know i i haven't played for him over there but i couldn't imagine him being a players coach even over there i saw your instagram post and you know you were thanking everybody you thank your coaches and then you said well most of them and obviously you didn't get along with hotly was the coach like that like detrimental to a point like he's just

not even helping you at all at a certain point yeah i mean i was like to the point of well the other thing is like when i got traded there like i said florida wasn't very good and that was the year they had a really good team so i kind of got traded there as the 13th forward so it was never really a spot in the lineup as it is and as a young guy who didn't really have myself established in the nhl it was tough going right to a playoff team um when like think when guys were rolling and stuff like that. Do you guys remember the name Dougie Murray? Douglas Murray? Yeah, Douglas Murray.

Yeah, the guy who played in San Jose? Yeah, with like a very big head. He's a Viking. So I've actually been told by several people that nobody in the world can hang with him. No. He came in when I met him in vegas and he picked me up and squatted me and then trugged two beers and then put me down he's a

complete viking when he parties okay so he comes into calgary on a pto that year and bob's like you know the referee circle like in front of the penalty box it's probably like you know it's probably like four feet like the whole circle the half circle is probably four feet me and dougie murray so i'm 22 year old just traded there me and dougie murray are doing one-on-ones against each other in the referee circle at center ice it was like oh my god in warm-ups dude no it was like during one of our bag skates it was just like we were the two guys like he was the extra guy and it was like during one of our bag skates, it was just like, we were the two guys. Like he was the extra guy. And it was like, like this guy, like you said, like biz said, this guy was a Viking. Like he could pick biz up, slam two beers and put them down.

How do you think him and I were doing one on like, it almost like he felt bad for me. So he took it easy on me. Cause he's like, this is fucked. He could have killed you. No, he could have killed me. That's why he transitioned perfectly to the KHL. That's the type of of that's the type of shit that you can get away with over there i had so i had a guy dave king who was very similar to that he coached over in the khl we were doing some stuff that i was like this is like come on here it's four and it was like 45 he would he would grab me after practice on regular days so not only did i have the healthy scratch bag skates i i was just like

hiding behind guys and then he you know peek around and then boom he'd snag and you're like fuck there goes another 30 minutes but hey i guess it kept you in better shape and and for him it seemed like more of a punishment yeah that's how it was with bob it was like i was in good shape but everyone who skated with them had a groin reflexor issue when they finally did play so i don't know how good of shape you're in as far as social media goes uh quentin was saying that you're you'll send out funny videos to them and you'll send it out to everybody on your text chain or whoever it's going to and it'll say uh it'll say drew thought this was funny and they're like yeah like we we know like like so you don't know how to use social media. So I was never a big social media fan, like when I was playing and stuff, just because I never really got into that stuff. But now that I'm transitioning, that's what these young kids are really into.

So I'm trying to get into it a little bit. But yes, I like to send like I send I have the same 50 people like my friends selected. I just send them everything. It's like my wife's actually one of them and like so she'll get like golfing videos or something else and i don't think she's watched one of the videos i've ever sent her so him and his him and his i think it was your uh your brother and your wife were like how many has he sent you that you haven't looked at and then and then they both compared it was like 40 something yeah so everything you think is funny you'll just send everybody's way yeah it's not my fault some people don't have a good sense of humor but exactly and one of the things you you said apparently is uh gambling picks too you're a bit you're like you think you're the gambling guru

dude he thinks he's billy billy waters is that his name billy walters billy walters that's who you are well i'm a big nba fan So, I mean, I do like to, uh, I mean, I'm not going to turn down free money. That's for Tim. Donahue was like your uncle that, that ref at the NBA, you guys are related. I think no, but do you remember the one year you and I, we picked every series on who we thought was going to win. And I remember cause I was on vacation and we'd be texting each other, but that was pretty funny. Yeah, we were going back and forth. You love shipping the cards at the blackjack table. I was talking to Willie Garrett Wilson,

one of the all-time great teammates I had that guy. And he said one night, he said one night they let you stay in Vegas on a crossover and you ended up making like a month's salary. Yeah, so we played in Iowa and then to get home in the American league, we had to fly through Vegas. So I actually went up to Tom Rowe and I was like, Tom, if we win this game, like you don't care if guys accidentally missed the next flight,

as long as we're at practice on Monday. And he was like, you said, you know how he was, he was a pretty good guy, but he was old school. He'd be very happy or very mad. Yeah. And it was like, I could, yeah, it was either like he was going to be disappointed if you got off the plane, or he'd be judging you if you didn't get off the plane. Yeah, yeah, you need to know.

It's like you either, like you weren't a team guy, but yeah, I respect that. But yeah, Garrett Wilson was one of the best teammates ever. You guys, we played a lot of golf, me, you, and him. And yeah, we had a good night. I love that. After Calgary, you ended up going to Switzerland. Uh, how'd you end up over there?

Was that the best offer? You want to change your pace? What's the story behind that? Yeah, that was another thing. It was like, obviously I wish now looking back, I felt like I gave up, um, on the NHL dream a little too early. Like I went over only at like 25 years old. And the first year I went over there was awesome.

It was, um, I played for Colton. So I lived like five or 10 minutes outside of Zurich. And we had like four North American imports who all had girlfriends. No one had kids. And it was awesome. I had no idea what to expect. And it was a blast.

When I went over to Russia, I wanted to play in Switzerland so bad. And that team for like a week or two you know how weird it is when you try to get over to europe like it's just so different at least it was for me and all of a sudden i heard like they were out i was i wasn't getting a contract i was like oh my god because i'd done all my research it was right outside zurich crazy fans right yeah the fans that are awesome it's like i think that was one of the coolest things is like some of the rinks like burn in the league has like 18 000 fans but like 12 000 of them are like soccer fans and it's like standing room only so it's like 18 000 seems like it's probably the

same attendance as an nhl game but it's 12 000 of those people chanting the whole game playing drums stuff like that and uh it was in a way smaller arena too yeah and it was like uh you get to travel a lot like i'd never really traveled i'd been to europe for hockey but it was like if we had two three days off we'd go to like london or like monte carlo or something and it was like it was awesome did it fuck with you at first with all the chanting non-stop playing because when i when i played over there before it messed me up a little bit. Yeah. Well,

I liked that. I was like, I don't know. I enjoyed it. And it was like, I don't know. I feel like it gave you a little bit of energy. So I liked that.

What was the best spot you went to when you did you traveling? I was a big fan of London. Like to me, London was like, had all, all kind of the best things about Europe, but also like, there's a lot of English and stuff like that. So it almost felt like a little bit of the best things about Europe but also like there's a lot of

English and stuff like that so it almost felt like a little bit of a European New York for me so I think London was probably uh the best but I went so you had a big year and then you you know I guess you're figuring like I'll go give the NHL a shot again especially if I can get a deal and you go to Vancouver what happens right when you get there so i had a good year you'll love this so i had a good year i had like three four teams kind of all say like come in like you'll you know what i mean like we'll come in we'll give you a great opportunity this is your chance so like i got on that plane in switzerland thinking like i'm never coming back to europe like this is my chance and so like in vancouver at the time was out of the playoffs because there's a deadline now where like, if you sign late,

like you're not eligible to play in the playoffs. So it was like my whole time to talk with them was like, we got five or six forwards. You need to have season ending surgery. So we're going to shut all those guys down so they can, you know what I mean? Start their rehab. We'll come in, give you a great opportunity and go from there. So I'm like, perfect. So I play in switzerland on saturday night fly on sunday monday morning is an optional morning skate in vancouver they're

like team meeting at eight o'clock like i'm super jet lagged like you know what i mean you know how it is when you fly back over there yeah and like we have this meeting and they're like you know what no one's quitting on this season you're like i know guys are banged up but like how we finish this year is how we're going to start the next year so this is the biggest lie in pro sports i'm like here we go so it's like start the game like fourth time left wing and then so i actually so then like that night i'll never forget in vancouver i've been playing on olympic ice all year and i play center so it it was like, I have lining up on left wing, which I had never played in warmups. Like we're doing like three on two, like breakouts and stuff.

And I'm calling for the puck. I'm all fired up like a journal. And I run into the board. So like, you know how when it, when you're opening up to pivot, and this is like first game back at Vancouver, I'm opening up in warmups. You know, you're used to having six, eight feet in Europe. And it's like back to the nhl sheet boom um ended up actually having a good game got an assist that game and i was like okay here we go i'm like i'm back maybe you're up like i'm back like baby and then like i end up playing like 12

or 13 more games finished with two assists um i actually really enjoyed it like it was pretty cool i uh at the year-end party i sat next to one of the sedins like just with my wife him and his wife and like to this day i still have no idea which one it was okay i was there for one month like with those guys every day sat with one of them at one of the dinners and i have no idea who it was oh i actually said to people is there any chance you know and they said if you're there a little while yeah but if you're there early on you have no clue that was like growing up so i played a couple years of minor hockey in vancouver like when there wasn't any triple a or competitive hockey in denver so it was like i kind of idolized those guys what do you mean you'd fly out there

every weekend no it was like so when i was like 14 15 before i went to the national program there was like no hockey in denver and now there's triple a teams everywhere like there's people like that and that drayson bowman who i talked about a little bit his family lived there so i spent some time up there playing with him so i obviously got to watch the canucks and then coming back years later um that's cool yeah it was cool and then back to switzerland because you figure all right money's pretty good life's pretty good over there yeah well it was like i said my first year i kind of had like an unlike i had a really good year we had my wife and i had no kids and stuff so it was like we were traveling all the time and then at the time i was like got a really good offer from

zurich where it was like even if i would have gotten a one-way in the NHL like this was still better for me financially and it was like I got to play a lot like I was enjoying playing hockey um so just decided to go back what'd you think of that like I mean were you looking to get to the KHL because some guys want to get there it's where the most dough is are you pretty happy in Switzerland and like we were having my first daughter right away um kind of that first year so I was comfortable there and like looking back now I wish I would have went to the KHL before I had kids and stuff you know what I mean like I kind of did a kind of story of my career but I kind of did everything backwards like you should go to Russia when you're

single or you have no kids and stuff like that. I was in Switzerland, you know what I mean? With just a Fiat or wife at the time. Yeah. Wife and like no kids. And then I went, tried going to Russia with a kid. Yeah. It was a bit of a different situation. Did you enjoy your two years there though? Yeah. I mean, I loved it. Zurich is one of the coolest cities in the world. Like it's a, it's awesome. We won the championship my first year there um we had an unbelievable group of guys was shannon on that team or no what was ryan shannon retired yeah ryan shannon retired the year before uh kevin klein came over that year oh nice

do you know him at all yeah he played for the saint mike's majors yeah he was awesome so like and he was so good to have over there because he had four million dollars left on his deal in the rangers and just was like nah i'm good so he comes over to switzerland to play with us and he was still an unreal player but he just obviously his care level was pretty low at the time so it was like anytime the boys needed a day off or like if they made a skate too long or something like that, he was the first one to stand up. Oh my God. Nielsen was on that team. Yeah. This guy was like,

I think he might've been the best pastor I've ever played with. He's one of the most skilled people I've ever seen. Yeah. Was he with the Islanders? Yeah. He played like in the NHL, like 200 games and had like a hundred and something points. And then just like,

he had a couple head issues when I started playing with them, but his skill level was through the roof. Unreal. What do you think of Russia when you got there, dude? Oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh, no, I want to talk more about Russia, but I was going

to ask you about the Quebec Peewee tournament because we got to mention like every single did you win it no i mean i remember it being really fun but it was like i don't think we won it or anything yeah loser yeah i did so you go to switzerland from switzerland to china right yeah that must have been a bit of a culture shock no yeah it was and it wasn't like so at the time so the way it works in russia is all the russian team gets to get five imports so five non-russians are allowed to play on their

team and all the teams outside of russia don't have an import limit so i kind of had like a false first year when i went to china because there were like 10 or 15 north american guys there um it's the funnest place in the world too, Shanghai. It was unbelievable. And it was like, you guys know, like Brandon Yip, Wolski was there, Victor Bartley. And like, we were pretty good. And it was just like 15 North Americans.

Like, you know what I mean? Like running around and like, I was there by myself. So, I mean, we spent a lot of time together. And like, we had a couple of guys like Marty St. Pierre and stuff, like guys who had been in the league. Like if get dropped off in moscow as like an american you just feel like you're in like it'd be like dropping someone off in new york city who doesn't speak any english you'd just be so overwhelmed but like if you go with guys who have been there and stuff before who know where all the good restaurants are good hotels good places to hang out it makes

it a lot better so i really enjoyed enjoyed that first year with those guys. What was Yipper like? Awesome. Like, so he was the captain at the time. And so I played on a line with him and Wolski and he had like a high ankle sprain at the time. And this was the year he scored 20 goals. I think he had like eight power play goals and seven empty net goals. And so he couldn't practice and so he obviously was uh enjoying his beers off the ice and then on the ice it would be like we'd get a power play and like the puck would just he played net front and

the puck would just like come to him and he just put it in the back of the net and then that would be it but hey that's all that matters over there yeah and points are all that matters it's it's insane yeah it's like so i really enjoyed that and then like i'll never forget though the travel in china was insane like it was like it's like a 12-hour flight to moscow so and i just remember like getting a visa is a pain there and everything and our first road trip we were going china moscow and i was with yipper and these guys and we're on the plane and I remember falling asleep because I'd been traveling and I was exhausted and the plane lands I'm looking at these guys and I'm like oh that wasn't too bad I like start to pack my stuff together and Yipper looks at me and's like bro what are you doing I'm like getting my stuff together he's like

we stopped to get gas so when we would fly from China to moscow we'd have to stop in sabir which is actually a great city to get gas just to make it all the way to moscow goodness um did you end up meeting billy the billionaire owner i did and it was kind of funny so i actually called brandon yet billy yep because like he would be his son so like yipper would play horrible and this guy who didn't know anything about hockey would come in after the game and be like great job in front of the whole team he wouldn't give a speech to the team he would just say like god bless brandon good game brandon but like yipper was pretty good like yipper uh would like tell him like he'd come in before the game and yipper would tell we'd be out of the playoffs at that point and be like hey billy like billy's friends would

be at the game and he'd be like we need double or triple bonus if you want us to win this game. And he'd be like, okay, he didn't care. So it'd be like double bonus. And like that never happens for teams that are like out of the playoffs, but like Yipper was awesome. Double bonus, triple bonus. I think he told the story on our podcast when we had him. Yeah.

Those if you want to see like guys get in front of shots and like block shots and stuff, just have one of those owners come in and say double or triple bonus. What was Minx like the next year? So Minx was awesome for a while. Like the thing about the KHL is like, so actually I just, so you played with Costitzen dude. Yeah. Listen to, so I played with both Costitzen both of them and andre costitans to this day like pound

for pound like might be the most skilled big guy i've ever seen like he's like six foot five 260 pounds and like can absolutely rip a puck like how about his snapshot it's so hard like i would be scared in practice because he didn't care if guys are in front of him he'd just shoot it right so it was like you'd almost be scared out there because like your ankle would be scared in practice because he didn't care if guys were in front of him he'd just shoot it right so it was like you'd almost be scared out there because like your ankle would be right in front of him and he'd just shoot it but uh mince was good i um i like the thing about the khl is when it's going good it's amazing so we got over to mince and like i don't know if you know mark andre gregani at all but like sick puck movie playing buffalo yeah european d-man and like we had this thing there where they were like okay we're not giving you guys bonuses

but the way we're motivating you is if we win day off no matter what like doesn't matter how bad wow so that's huge over there so i went over there unheard of so i went over there by myself and like we had like 10 games in oct October and we went like nine and oh, or like nine and one. So I'm like calling my wife. I'm like, you can come here. Like the city's pretty good. Like we get days off all the time. Everything's great. So then a couple of D man get hurt and like in mints, they don't have a super high budget. So like they need the imports to do well.

We went on like an eight or a nine game skid and it just turns like, it just turns into chaos. Like we, uh, my final road trip there was like, I had an all time road trip before I got fired. So it was like, I was leading the team, uh, when I got fired and I had a pretty large bonus at 20 points, like for the whole season, like at 20 points, I got a big bonus. And I large bonus at 20 points like for the whole season like at 20 points i got a big bonus and i got fired at 18 points and at that time i had like a five or a six point scoring

lead on like the next guy and that was another bonus and that was another one so then it was like the week before i got fired it was like we got beat six zero at home against torpedo and like normally we get the schedule at like 9 p.m nothing at 9 nothing at 10 at like 11 a.m it was like be at the rink at 7 so i'm like oh boy here we go go up to the rink at 7 all of the game jerseys are still in the stall like haven't been washed or anything so i'm like okay they're like you guys didn't work last night we're gonna work tonight so i'm like okay so we go on the ice the coaches don't come on the ice they just put cones on the ice and they sit in the stands with a microphone on it was like a speed skating rink so instead of music and it was like so i was a

centerman so i had like a route with like three cones on each end and i'd have to skate the route for 45 seconds and then sprint to the bench to change right so so we do this for like an hour and then i think we're done for the day and then we have to watch the whole game and then like have to decide like on the scoring chances against so like in north america they always do the scoring chances but like guys don't really care but like in russia none of the guys want to go on the sheet that goes to the coaches to be on like a scoring chance against so we're sitting in this meeting and guys are like almost up like d-man are up like screaming at forwards and like we don't really know what's going on but it'll be like a forward turned over the puck and the d-man got walked so like

they battled yeah like whose guy is it right so anyway we're at the rink till like five or six so now we're tired right going on this three-game road trip so not only are we bad we're bad and tired so like this is good so then we went i don't know where we went and i knew at the time that 20 point bonus was coming so like all i wanted was this 20 points and like went pointless like the first game of the road trip pointless second game of the road trip scored the third game of the road trip but we lost seven to two in Ufa good team good team really good team and my wife's back in Mince now with my daughter at the time so I was like all excited to get back for the day off the day we we got out shot like 52 to 12 i think that night in ufa the next day we have to go to church for like three four hours and finally shane prince this guy

one of my good buddies is like what the like what are we doing here and they're like we need better puck luck we need better puck luck shut up he's bro, we just got outshot 52 to 14. Like the scoring chances were 16 to one. Like we don't need better. And you're praying. Yeah, it was, it was wild. But I mean, I enjoyed like, and then, like I said, then I got fired. What'd they say?

Hey, see you later, bud. Were you just sitting at a church for four hours? Well, we didn't know what was going on. And then Prince is like, some of the guys can kind of speak English and translate, and they're like, we need better luck. We need better luck. And Prince, who's a pretty funny guy, just lost it. He's like, the shots were 15 to 12.

He's like, we lost seven to one. We don't need better puck luck. We need a deep man who can pass the puck like and then i ended up getting fired from there went home for a few weeks and then ended up signing back in torpedo and like that was okay any run-ins with the russian gas no so like this is my thing like i know i've heard like a lot of guys like come in and talk about that on the pod like so there's only a few teams in the league that have that like my brother has played on one of them and it's like crazy expensive so it's like there's only a few teams in the league that really are going to pay for that but it was

like overall like aside from i mean obviously i wish i would have hit that it's gone it's gone up in price since we started talking about on the podcast yeah probably but uh all these other places used to have it all the time no i i always said i got the i i didn't have the gas i got the shot i got a shot and i was buzzing but i never had the gas mask i never had that i know you didn't like it but like i think a lot of it depends on as like as an import it depends on your other group of imports because yeah i didn't i didn't like hate it as much as probably it sounds it was just so ridiculous to me but having good imports i had cory emerton was a really good guy andre peterson from sweden was the most ridiculous human we had a good still doing really good over there i know that kid is sick player man i i remember i

was like how aren't you in the nh because i don't know i went to anaheim or something and then they just felt i want to make money but it's like for people who don't know it's like so if you're over there as an american and you have like my first year in switzerland like four or five other like canadians who like speak english or americans or swedish guys like it can be really fun but if you go over there with like a couple guys like three or four other imports who speak no English, like it can be really lonely and be hard. Was there any situation over there where you had to legit look somebody and say, no, like I'm not doing this. This is like, we're, we're beyond the goalposts here. No, I can't really think of anything. And like I said, like I always got like some of the paychecks were late, but like I always got all of my money and stuff. So like overall, I have pretty good experiences of it all.

All right. So then this year, I mean, I'm assuming you didn't know what you were going to do after the end of this season. Like now you have a job, you retired, but you came back to the NHL again. How did you get a contract with Carolina? What all happened that off season? Again, how did you get a contract with Carolina? What all happened that offseason? Well, so my wife and I last year, like when I was in Russia, like I said, they came to Mints for a while. But then they did not go to Torpedo, and I went back there for playoffs in the second half. And, like, my daughter is getting to be, like, almost four now.

We wanted to have some more kids, so I just kind of wanted to be around. And, like, the funny thing about it was, like, so I was like, okay, I'll sign back in North America no matter what deal i get just so my family can all be together but then like the season gets pushed back to like january when camp starts my wife can't even fly so it like ended up being like a disaster anyway like then i got sent to chicago for a few weeks like then i'm on the taxi squad so it was like i'm back in north america my wife like doesn't even know where i am she's like where are you today like you might as well have been in Russia. Carolina was awesome though. I enjoyed it there and it was pretty good. When did you realize you were going to become an agent? With Wasserman Agency, has this been in the works for a while? You'll laugh at this so my third year after my entry level deal like i had enough games

to file for arbitration and my eight and so i went to calgary for that playoff run didn't play at all but i was still restricted by them going into the off season um so i had once you play a certain number of games you're eligible to file for for arbitration. And that's like one of the one time, like times in your early career that a player has a little bit of leverage. So my agent at the time was like, no, like they really like you. Like, let's not file for arbitration. Like, you know, I don't want to like piss them off. And I was like, at the time, like I've always understood hockey better than I've played hockey. Right.

So it was like, at the time I'm like, no, like, let's's go dude and like you file for arbitration at least you don't mean to at least protect myself so we ended up not filing i got because they're like no way you'll go through waivers i got waived in camp had to drive from calgary to stockton and i pulled up to this hotel with my wife at the time in stockton california i don't know if you guys have been there right beside the rink isn't it yeah and there's like a beautiful lake out back and i'm looking at this brown water and like this just disgusting lake and at that time i'm like a i'm firing my current agent and b i'm becoming an agent because some of these guys the representation they're getting is just not like, it's not okay.

So it was like, that was kind of the first time sitting in that hotel room, like looking at just the Stockton river. I was like, okay, like I want to try and help some guys out. How did you ask the guy? Well, I was just going to say your frustration must've been, you must've been livid. Was he at least like apologetic about the whole thing? Well, yeah, but the thing was, is like, he was, well, I fired him that thing well yeah but the thing was is like he was

well i fired him that day right so it was like he kind of apologized and stuff like and stuff like that but that was like one of the first and i never thought about my career after hockey and like when that occurred and i was sitting in that hotel room like looking in stockton i'm like okay like this is not it god your wife must have been i know how you can get she must have been like talking you off the ledge yeah that was another thing i had a little bit of an issue of is like i was always very high when i played like very low like i was never in between me too but i was like it was kind of like like i wish i could have been a little more just even keeled because like if you want to have a good long career you can't be like that but i was either like on top of the world, like even last year,

like when I started off in Minsk and I was like leading the team in scoring, I was like, I'm the best player in the KHL. And then like three months later, it's December. I'd been fired, hadn't been played. And I'm like, I might never play again. So it's like, I have no. The highs and lows, man. It's just, that's what kills you is that is the time in between right it's if you can just

even heal and and and stay like the same way it's just going to be so healthy not only in like sports and life yeah i mean you just waste so much energy like being like you know what i mean and at the end of the day like it's not going to change anything you know what i mean so it's like yeah it's like i mean you live and learn i guess was the connection to your uh to the agency you're now with is it from judd yeah so it's pretty funny so once i found out um judd was facetiming so one of the i was in chicago for a bit this year and he facetimed one of his clients so i was just out to dinner with and i was interested in getting into the agency world so i was like hey like obviously I'd known Judd's story how he kind of where he started at CAA and how successful he's been come and I was like hey can you give me his number so I'm calling Judd for two days and he's

not getting back to me so finally I call him again and he has and he's like hey like it's been a we had a really good relationship when I knew him but this guy has a speech prepared to tell me how he doesn't have time to represent me as a player so like he thinks i'm calling him to ask him to represent me and this fucking guy is not answering my call because he doesn't want to tell me because he's good friends with me that he doesn't have time to represent me but no it's uh i'm really excited like it was jerry mcguire couldn't get this kid a deal i love to like i love like i said i've always understood like the business side of hockey and then like i was never represented by those guys at all but it's just um i've seen kind of what they've been able to accomplish and i'm pretty pumped to be a part of it is part of it the off

ice as well because he's got austin matthews and they're able to branch out because there's there's it's like a new game has evolved in the social media world with you know what guys can make on and off the ice sure is he strength yeah well like i said like you kind of laugh but it's a joke but i love the nba but that was also one of the things is like i have a lot of interest outside of hockey so kind of like what judd and even rachel and kind of austin's team has been able to do for him in terms of like almost cross he's kind of been the first player to maybe start to cross over into other sports in terms of marketing and i just think that that's so cool and like i want to learn a lot about that stuff too you know what i mean so it's like i've

definitely uh been pretty impressed by that it's pretty cool how successful they've been able to be with him off the ice does the league have requirements for you to become an agent is it like a test or a process you have to do it like a license or anything like that you have to play blackjack straight for 12 hours so he crushed it he qualified highest is he a degenerate he just loves blackjack dude it's a really i understand math i'm smart like i said um it's um it's a long process and you got to have references and like you got to have a player and stuff like that and like you uh the other thing that like judd and those guys sold me on is like obviously i talked to a couple different agencies like when i was gonna feel out kind of who i was gonna work for and some of them

kind of the role that they gave me was more just kind of like running around finding kids but these guys like all their senior executives who have been super successful, like they represent McDavid Matthews have kind of said like, Hey, like we'll teach you the business and like, you know what I mean? Make it so you can become a super successful agent. We're not just going to have you kind of running around doing stuff for us. And I mean, I want to become as good of an agent as I can become. So that's kind of why i was drawn to these guys well it's uh it's been a pleasure having you on man this was such a good uh good convo to catch up and we we've said long time we got to play more golf so sandbag or maybe you and nick take us to on you guys can get along for once that would be that would be an all-time

rating thing for you guys but yeah it would be uh oh okay we'll do it i got thanks for having me i got a few on the way out though you said blackjack guy do you hit uh do you hit if you have 12 and you're seeing a two from the dealer the math says to hit yes what about what they're showing a three the math says to stay no you go every place though everything by the book what about uh if you have 11 are you doubling every time no yes every time single time yeah even if they're showing a 10 yeah this is like when a player has arbitration rights you just use the rights because that's the thing to do it's the same thing and in cards and hockey and anything else it's just like the numbers play a certain way and that's the way you gotta go.

This guy's an agent already, Biz. You gotta have the feel sometime. You gotta know what's underneath sometimes, baby. But the numbers don't lie. It always comes back to the numbers in the long run. Alright. Fair enough. Alright, buddy. Hey, it's great catching up. We'll talk to you soon. Alright. Sounds good, guys. Appreciate it. Later.

Take care. Good luck on retirement, Drew. Big thanks to Drew Shaw for joining us. I hope you guys were entertained. Some fantastic stories from a guy who just left hockey. So we were certainly entertained. We hope you were as well. Well, lately, folks, you might start noticing these strange tall boys of beer in the bottled water section of your local stores.

Well, it's not beer. It's actually mountain spring water from the Alps, and it's called liquid death. This water is called liquid death because it will brutally murder your thirst, and the infinitely recyclable Tallboy cans are helping to bring death to plastic bottles. They also donate 10% of the profits from every can sold to help kill plastic pollution.

When I got a box, I thought it was malt liquor. So I had fun biz walking around, chugging out of the people I got. This is already public drinking again. It's like, nope, just my liquid death water. By the way, I get the salsa. I burned through the salsa water in about two weeks. I love salsa water.

It's so good. So anyways, the freezing cold water from the Alps. And that's the thing, dude. Sometimes you hear a place, something gets bottled, a can there. This stuff is legitimately canned in Austria and I'm drinking it in Boston boston it's so good you get a frozen can of it you cannot beat it so go to liquiddeath.com slash chicklets to get a free set of koozies with your first order of any case of water or you can just grab some at any whole foods or 7-eleven get out there and

murder that thirst with liquid death i'm on my third can already today. Good stuff. All right. It wasn't all good stuff in the hockey world this week. Not everybody got paid or traded or whatever. Now, the Jack Eichel Buffalo saga, and that's what it is at this point. It's gotten officially ugly at this point. And, Witt, I know you wanted to share your thoughts on this one.

Yeah, enormous news coming out of this entire Jack Eichel scenario in Buffalo, and that is a statement that his agents released. And for everyone knows, leading up, Eichel was hurt last year. He has a disc issue in his neck. He hasn't played. There's a surgery he wants, and his agents came out with this statement. The process is not working. As previously stated, we fully anticipated a trade by the start of the NHL free agency period after the agreed upon and prescribed period for conservative rehabilitation lapsed in early June to 2021. It was determined by the Sabres medical staff that a surgical procedure was required. The recommendation by Jack's independent neurosurgeon, other spine specialists consulted,

and the surgery Jack feels most comfortable having in order to correct a herniated disc in his neck is to proceed with artificial disc replacement surgery. A further point of concern is that our camp was initially under the impression that the Sabre specialist was in agreement with the artificial disc replacement surgery until that was no longer the case. What is being left out of the discussion is that Jack would be able to play in the NHL for the start of the season pending medical clearance if he were allowed to have a surgery that he desires even as of this date. Repeated requests have been made to the Sabres since early June to no avail.

The process is stopping Jack from playing in the NHL and it is not working. Peter Fish and Peter Donatelli, the two men that represent Jack Eichel. So where we're at now is the Sabres do not want him to get this surgery. And I highly recommend everyone to go on the 31 Thoughts podcast by Elliot Friedman and Jeff Marrick, two friends of the show that do a great job.

They interviewed in the last podcast they did, Dr. Chad Prusmak. I don't know if I'm saying his name correctly, but he's the neurosurgeon based in Colorado that wants or will be doing the artificial disc surgery for Jack Eichel. Now, he talks in depth about the difference between that surgery and the fusion surgery that the Buffalo Sabres want Jack Eichel to get. Now, my issue is this.

I think the Sabres are such a joke of an organization. It's been proven long, many years now, how disgraceful that place has been. And what's crazy is you see all these fans hate Jack Eichel and you can hate Jack Eichel for wanting a trade. You can hate Jack Eichel for not wanting to be there anymore. But the fact that all these fans or many of these fans hate him because he wants to get a surgery that he is comfortable with after speaking to many different specialists is absolutely crazy to me and so when you look at it the biggest point of concern is that the surgery has never been done to an NHL player that sounds a lot worse than after you hear this interview Elliot Friedman and Merrick did with

this surgeon Dr. Prusmak because in the, this surgeon talks about how much better and healthier Jack will be playing the game of hockey after the artificial dick, artificial dick disc replacement. Now, the thing is, when you fuse, when you fuse together something right, there's screws involved. There's a lack of mobility. There's also a high chance that later on in life you will need not only one fusion done over, but again and again. And with the artificial disc replacement, the biggest issue is that you can still do the fusion if it doesn't work. So now you have this player who is so comfortable with a surgery and he's so willing to get it yet fans are saying no you have to listen to the team who's paying your salary uh they they have the player's best interest at heart you don't think jack eichel has

his best interest at heart do you seriously fucking think out there as a fan who is against jack eichel getting this surgery that he's willing to try a surgery that is so riskful that he may never play hockey again. Like, I do not understand how there are fans out there that actually think he should listen to the team instead of the surgeons he's talked to in giving him definition and explanation as to what his recovery will be like.

The doctor talks about after the disc replacement, the disc replace, uh, the disc replacement surgery, he can be moving his neck. The doc just wanted to move his neck right away. They want there to be movement in six weeks. He could be skating and playing. Whereas the fusion it's six months possible and there's lack of mobility. And the issue being that the NFL has had players who've had the fusion, right? And you've heard of Tiger Woods had a fusion. It's different type of contact. And that's what this doctor talks about. That's why I really recommend listening to this guy talk.

He does a great job of explaining it in layman terms. But what it comes down to me is a player is comfortable with the surgery. Yes, he is being paid by the Buffalo Sabres. Yes, there are fans that do not like him because he doesn't want to be there anymore. And there was no gun held to his head when he signed the big deal in buffalo but in the end this is this kid's life and career and for people to think that he should listen and get a surgery that a team wants him to get instead of listening to himself and his beliefs after talking to different professionals i think is so fucking crazy because not only is the recovery less, but the ability to do the surgery that Buffalo wants him to have can still be

done. If the surgery Jack wants doesn't work. So I, I, I, at this point, you know, they don't have to trade them. That's a, that's a fact. Um, they, they do not have to do anything. You know, this guy's under contract, but when you're looking at a guy and wants what he wants for his health, how do you not listen to him and believe that he has his own best interest at heart? I don't get it. I'm so confused at this point at where this team's at. And are they going to stick to their guns and say, no, you have to get the fusion surgery?

It's like, all right, well, I guess I'm not going to get it. I guess I won't get paid. And you can sit around and fucking have a guy on the shelf not even doing what you signed him to do. So I don't know what you think, Biz, but the entire situation at this point has gotten so crazy where it's now in the media. I guarantee they never wanted this to be the case.

But what else do you do? I don't know if it's out of spite because you got to think that, yeah, at some point, they would agree for him to be able to do the surgery that he wants to get done considering if it does not work and they said he could be ready to go for the season if he still gets it done the rehab isn't even close to the same time as right and that's another thing too so if it isn't if it doesn't work out the first one that he wants to get done then come season time if he's like ah he tries it out in training camp and and uh i just feel like it's gotten it's gotten ugly and things are maybe being done out of spite at this point and that's when when that's when i can't agree with it it

goes down and as far as the fans disagreeing with jack i just think that they're just bitter buffalo fans that are mad that that things aren't going well for the team overall. And they think he's poopy pants. It's like, listen, and you talked about, was there a gun being held to his head when he signed that contract? No, but I'm pretty sure he signed that contract, assuming that things would get cleaned up as far as front offices, front office and decisions being made to surrounding with surround them with

better players so they could start winning some hockey games. It's gotten worse. So it's gotten worse so it's like okay well like yes it was a gun no was a gun being held to his head no but have they held up their end of the bargain no they haven't so now this player wants to move on and go be happy somewhere else and i don't think that they're they're going to be happy unless they get back a ridiculous ask as far as the return is concerned and i just don't think that with this this neck surgery up in the air that that people are going to be willing to give buffalo what they want as far as a return so here we are okay which is a hundred percent right so let him get the surgery that he's comfortable will yeah a hundred percent and then and then you know what you don't

want to trade him he's going to have to start the year if he wants to get paid, and he's going to be ready to play. And then you could see him light it up, hopefully, and then you can get what you want. Because in the end, he still wants to be traded. Maybe it will not happen now before he plays again. But the fact that you're not trusting the player is what I really don't understand.

Well, Whit, I mean, you can go back and talk about the fans who are bitching online. It's the same type of people online complaining that simone biles is not competing in the olympics ultimately it's the the person who is going through it who gets to decide and and i'll leave it at that it's like you're not going to deal with rational people on there but i will say that i think that behind the scenes that this has gotten very spiteful from both ends and it's gotten gross and I hate seeing anybody in this type of situation where they feel like their hands are tied because all he wants to do is play hockey and at this point the way it's going it doesn't

look like he's going to be doing so to start the season and and the longer he's not playing I'm sure the the less other teams will be likely to give up exactly what Buffalo wants, which leaves Jack between a rock and a hard place. And at what point, like, I would imagine that in no scenario is Jack going to agree to do the surgery that they want to do. Like, let's take that completely off the table. Oh, at this point, there's no chance.

No, I bet you he'd be happier sitting at home and just giving him the fucking double barrel and maybe we send ra in like cousin eddie to fucking kidnap the pagulas and we will it and that that and we the disc replacement surgery is about 20 years old so people that consider it and say online it's a um it's a very risky surgery it really isn't and in i've said it three times listen to this interview you'll understand what i'm talking about uh there's there's um you guys know chris weidman the ufc fighter he's publicly had this he's fought in ufc where i mean dude the the neck cranks and the type of physicality you deal with that and he's been okay

um there's been a lot of rugby players who have had it it's it's it's it's a surgery that this surgeon mentions he would give his son if it was the choice between fusion and the artificial disc replacement it's just crazy now and maybe you're right biz maybe it is so spiteful where buffalo says fuck you like this is what you want but in the end like who wins from that so it's just it's ugly it's crazy it's become this public but for me when you look at what you're paying that guy and what you need to happen to have him move on or to at least have him playing hockey for you again how can you not trust the player and and and and at least acknowledge that all he cares about is the game of hockey all he wants to do is play hockey and he knows and

believes in his heart that this is gives him the best chance to come back one the quickest and two the healthiest so a crazy situation in buffalo and it only keeps getting uglier and the fans who do hate him now i think you're right biz they just take out all their frustrations on him he was supposed to be the savior he doesn't want to be there now and now they consider this uh this surgery that he wants to be to be risky and a crazy move and listen to the team docs no dude team doctors don't have your best they don't give a shit you're fucking kidding me they're doing what they're they're they're they're doing what the team wants yeah so i mean i don't know how it's gonna go now but that's a conflict of interest that's why that's why they put in the cba that you're allowed

to go to get a second opinion, guys. Like on the San Diego Chargers, how you had fucking Dr. Nick, that awful doctor they had years ago. Like, oh, he was so bad. Like, giving guys – he fucked up a guy's procedure and shit. He was like a hack, like total Dr. Nick. Yeah, I didn't realize that was such a – that was the opinion to play. It's like you don't really necessarily trust team doctors.

Not across the board, but that's the sentiment. Not to keep dragging it on but well i mean it's it's it's a it's a strict they want the players playing right that's where they're valuable they don't want them sitting out and and i i guess it's bizarre because what if he did get this neck fusion surgery and then all of a sudden he can't play anymore and there's more issues then then all of a sudden you get no return and he's no value at all. I don't know. It's weird. We've spent a lot of time on it, but I think you guys understand

that we're buddies with Jack, but we're also thinking pretty rationally about this. I mentioned the Simone Biles thing. I can't imagine giving any of my time and energy to caring why she's not competing. All I care about is from human to human is why she's not competing i just all i care about is from human to human is like is this person doing all right like what i think that that's just people venting their own their own like frustration their own issues that's all it

is if you have that upset about someone not fucking doing something that they work their whole life at it's all you don't you don't think it's tearing her apart no it's like yeah she spent her entire life working for this well at least the last four years and and she's probably at this point the most decorated gymnast to ever live and she doesn't she doesn't have anything else to prove so call the goat jesse thorpe was the goat um how do you want to transition out of this uh well i'll tell you biz at, at Labatt, they don't care if you're good or bad at most things in life. They only care if you're good at beer, being yourself,

and not pretending to be someone you're not. And if you are, they're good with you. After all, if you choose Labatt Blue Light, you're good at the most important thing there is, beer. We already know you're good at watching hockey, so be good at beer, too, with the pristine Canadian pilsner, Labatt Blue Light. We're going to be working with Labatt Blue Light all year, watching hockey so be good at beer too with the pristine canadian pilsner labatt blue light we're going to be working with labatt blue light all year we have some exciting content coming up so

grab a pack and enjoy and we'll certainly see you this weekend in detroit enjoying a few as well a couple more hockey notes to get to before we can have some fun again uh mike sullivan is going to coach team usa assuming the olympics happen next year they should i don't i think if they think if this session of the Olympics is going on now, we hopefully should be good next year. So Sully will be coaching them. And another story. This is a yacht one. We really weren't even going to bring it up because it started off as online hearsay. But the NHL tweeted something out about it.

So it's therefore news we have to cover. The NHL tweeted out that it's going to investigate claims posted on social media by the soon-to-be former spouse of San Jose Shocker, Vanda Kane, about his alleged gambling activities. She said that he was betting on his games, that he was, quote, throwing games, which, to be frank, is impossible for a forward, one player to do. Just some wild stuff out there.

And basically, we talked about it, off camera and we're like, yeah, you know what? It seems like an, an ugly divorce and nothing substantiated. We don't want to talk about it, but again, the NHL announced they're now investigating it. So we do have to at least acknowledge that. And then just this morning, Robin Lane a goaltender for the Vegas golden Knights.

He put out a pretty extensive tweet that tweet thread, which I thought added some really good perspective to it. It's not taking sides. It's nothing like that. It's not breaking down. He said, she said. He's just kind of offering his thoughts on a guy who has mental illness, who's been around Evander, who knows about addiction.

He just had some, I thought, some very good insights. You could pick whatever side you want if that's your thing. But I think it's worth reading just for a little perspective on what's going on. I thought some very good insights. You could pick whatever side you want if that's your thing, but I think it's worth reading just for a little perspective on what's going on. Again, we're not going to get into who did what. He said, she said he's going through a divorce. There's stuff getting posted online that probably shouldn't be in any situation. But the bottom line is the NHL is going to look into these wild claims that he was either A, betting on Shox games or NHL games, and B, somehow, again,

this is from a gambling perspective, questionable how one player could throw a team. Well, and he was also their leading scorer, wasn't he? Especially when you add in he led the team in goals, assists, points, and had a pretty damn good season. So, again, it's news we have to pass along. I don't know if you guys want to add anything additional, but I don't think there's really a lot to add.

You just think of, like, family stuff. For it to be online is fucking brutal. Exactly. Some stuff just should stay private. Obviously, if the NHL finds something, we'll get back to that later. I suspect they won't, but we'll see. All right. Lollapalooza in Chicago this week.

I don't give a fuck about the crowd size or fucking city rules on masks or whatever I just want to talk about Fred Durst did you guys see Fred Durst at Lollapalooza yesterday no but I watched the Woodstock 99 documentary on HBO Max it was interesting and Fred Durst had a big role in that oh a little tie into another car category here what did he do this weekend he was at Lollapalooza, and he looks like an extra from the Sabotage video the Beastie Boys made. Yeah, he did. He's got gray phone hair, no more backwood baseball cap,

full on Fu Manchu, full mustache. If you looked at him, you would never in a million years guess that was Fred Durst on stage. I feel bad for that guy because after his reign, they did some pretty big numbers. They sell out like shows all across the country and then i feel like he became the butt of the joke for a while was there a reason oh i mean i think the the style of music wasn't really the best that whole new metal scene it was just kind of like you know so-so music for for a certain oh yeah i mean i'm not I mean, I'm not a fucking hardcore Limp Bizkit guy.

Did I listen to a few of their jams because they were jams at the time? Sure, but I feel like – Biz used to play Nookie when he was getting Nookie. So he's probably trying to – So he's probably – is he trying to go unrecognizable? Is that partly why he – No, I think he just became a suburban dad, and someone probably wiggled their tits out and said,

hey, Lollapalooza, here's $5 million or whatever Limp Bizkit gets these days, and he probably wiggled their tits out and said hey lullapool is his five million dollars or whatever limp biscuit gets these days and he probably said fuck it and didn't want to shave his head and put his baseball hat on backwards again whoa he performed yeah guy chilling no he was performing and he looked like like someone's fucking dad waiting at the mall for them or something but i'm glad what you brought up the woodstock 99 doc that dropped on hbo max last week i told you guys to watch it biz i'm not sure if you caught it yet i didn't go to woodstock 99 had no fucking desire to like i hate festivals that's not my scene plus the bands are nothing really up my alley um the documentary what i thought was very interesting to watch but i thought it was way too much hypothesizing and navel dude i couldn't agree more they made it so like political and stuff like it brutal like the people weren't even there first of all half of the cultural critics talking they were just like doing their

own navel gaze and their own yeah thinking of what it meant they weren't even at the fucking concert i would have rather heard from more people at the concert like more women who were there because there was a tough scene for a lot of women there was some gross gross behavior going on but i thought it was a they were kind of just shitting on a lot of people i mean there was a half a million people there and grant that even if 10 of them are shitheads that's 50 000 people i don't think 50 000 would be in total shitheads that day it just seemed like it was kind of painting a lot of people at a broad brush yeah it was it turned into like there was so much talk about it was angry white males i was like oh i was like it's a music festival where there was some definitely some awful sexual harassment that

went on in terms of girls oh yeah yeah yeah assault girls crowd surfing and guys grabbing the girls awful stuff to see um you actually saw a lead singer of offspring in the in the documentary like basically yelling at the crowd like like, what the fuck are you doing? But it just turned into, like, what the culture was like in America at the time. And I loved some of the videos and the scenes. It was crazy. But I agree with you, R.A., the whole, like, vibe of the documentary was weird, how they went about it.

All over the place. It was like a shotgun blast of, like, just, like, okay, Y2K, Columbine, you know, music changed. But it was like a shotgun blast of yeah just like okay y2k uh columbine you know music change but it was like well what the fuck is it like like i was there for the 90s i didn't listen to new metal i was in my 20s i don't really like i couldn't relate to so much of it i mean i i'm probably uh definitely a gen z i hate fucking saying that more than a millennial but i just couldn't like even relate to a lot of what they were saying and you know and then they did fred dur pretty dirty because Biz, what happened is, so as like, as the concert's going on, right, like starts on Friday morning,

Friday night, it's getting crazier. They, you know, they're selling bottles of water for $4. All the porta parties break. It becomes, you know, Saturday morning, it was a hundred degrees. Saturday night, finally late Fred Durst comes on. And Limp Bizkit at the time was, you know, not the top end band there by any means, but they were big.

They were huge. And he came on and he just got the crowd going. And like the documentary goes into like this guy who's running the fest was like, Fred Durst's a fucking idiot. We're telling him in between songs, calm down the crowd. It's like, dude, it's Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit. What do you biscuit what do you think he was gonna do and you know he's fucking telling people to party and

it was a crazy scene those scenes were pretty cool seeing the crowds and the mosh pits but those crowds were insane oh my god it was like a wave because they were catching the sound late so when rage against the machine came on that's why part of the documentary was cool it was just how they went about the whole story but fred durst they basically blamed what like some mini riots came you know because of him and like the yeah dude you hired fred durst what did you think that's gonna happen i mean and the promoter that there are two promoters one of them did the original woodstock he's still kind of like a hippie dippy guy i think he was playing dumb in some of the 94 and 69 that guy michael and then the guy john sure i think he was a piece of shit like he was like yeah like there might have been a few assaults he's like but you know those girls are walking

around with their tits out what do you think's gonna happen it's like uh buddy they're expecting people aren't gonna sexually assault them but they're walking around i mean you might peek or take a picture or whatever someone who's out of touch not to mention they were talking about how many girls were topless the entire time and then my wife's like why are they showing every fucking thought like they showed 4 000 pairs of titties while talking about like too many titties road it's like what are you doing here and uh some nice titties though yeah and then dave matthews is even like he's some titties out here he sounded like a wicked creep the way he said it but yeah i got another show guys yeah let's hear

it it's called hundred foot wave holy shit everyone right now gets hbo garrett mcnamara okay uh one of the original uh big wave surfers right he actually pretty much invented the game of of taking a jet ski out and getting brought out to catch the sets like away from away from the shore and he had a dream of like finding and and riding 100 foot waves so he ends up finding this area through a random email from this guy in Nazare, Portugal, where they go into this documentary. I don't know how, there's been two episodes. I don't know if there's a couple more or what the entire season will have in terms of like length.

But the first episode was enough to have me hooked in where they talk about this area in Portugal, like what's underground creates these enormous swells, but it's so dangerous because of all the rocks. So I won't go into, I won't ruin it, but it is so sick. The footage, they have footage of the entire race to find a hundred foot wave back in the, back in the years that they were doing this right around the year 2000. I think it was,

he gets these guys from Ireland where I never knew there was big wave surfing off the coast of Ireland. That's pretty crazy. I just, I think this show is awesome. And this guy Garrett McNamara is nuts, dude. He was the first guy who ever ran like surf the barrel of a, of a big giant wave. So they have the footage of him doing it years ago where he's, you know, you just see this fucking 50 foot wave and it's breaking.

And then all of a sudden at the end, he's out of the barrel he's got his hands up just some crazy footage and some like entertaining uh not content i guess it's a show but i couldn't recommend it more it's fun watch all right yeah those guys got some crazy balls doing that stuff there's another surf talk years ago it's called step into liquid it's not about big waves it's just about surfing around the world because you mentioned you didn't know people surfed in ireland and yeah i didn't either until i watched this documentary step into liquid they show you different ways to surf around the world i got one last show before we let you go uh the white lotus another hbo show it started um i think it's episode four tonight it's about a resort in hawaii that a bunch of like rich folks show up and that

did they just show like the staff and the guests, but it's weird. Mike White wrote it. I don't know if you know Mike White. He played Schneebly in School of Rock. The fucking roommate who looked like Neil, Bastu Neil on the original Chicago. Well, he wrote that. He wrote School of Rock. He's written a fucking bunch of great movies. Is it a show, like a fake show, or is it based on a true story?

No, it's a miniseries. I'm not sure if it was written on a prior book or some other source material but it's it's you're watching like what's going on here but it's weird enough to keep you intrigued we're like next thing you know you're like all right give me the next episode it's it's great acting some great characters in it but might not be everyone's cup of tea but uh i'm definitely hooked on it so check that out uh boys it's been a monster probably the biggest episode of the year which is appropriate because we're almost uh we got one more regular left after this before we go into our interview shows uh

any final thoughts or are we good to go no guys i know it's a long episode and part of that can be a little boring where we're just kind of listing off the signings but that's that's kind of our role to just try to fill in every team's moves and i think drew shore was awesome thank you so much to frank cerebelli too And it's a long one, but we appreciate you tuning in as always. We appreciate all you guys listening and we're really looking forward to the sandbag is going to get it done in Detroit as well as the street hockey tournament. So it's going to be a ton of videos of that stuff coming out.

And if you're in Detroit and plan on coming to the tournament, either playing in it or to watch or to come to the party at Shillelagh's Friday night, we can't wait to see you. We love all you guys. And thank you so much. And don't be shit. If you got to go, you got to go. Don't clog strangers. Spoilers. As always, we'd like to thank our terrific sponsors here on spit and chiclets.

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I've been slugging this stuff like crazy. It's straight from the Alps. You can't beat it. And, of course, thanks to our friends over at Labatt Blue. Grab a pack if you're looking for a nice cold Pilsner. Have a great week, everyone.