Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 368: Featuring Bill Guerin

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

On Episode 368 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Bill Guerin. The Wild GM and 4x Cup Champ (2 as player, 2 as executive) joined the show (1:37:00) to discuss his playing career, his career in the front office, and some of the moves he’s made as the Minnesota Wild’s GM. But first, the guys open the show discussing all the recent NHL news, including Cale Makar's game winner and the red hot Nashville Predators. The guys also discuss a reality TV star selling her farts, some recent trade requests and some dark days ahead in Montreal. The guys wrap up the show with a tribute for the Balkind family, who recently loss their son Teddy, and dedicate the episode to him. #RIPTeddy #SticksOutForTeddyYou 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' Checklets 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 368 of Spittin' Checklets, presented by Pink Whitney. From our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka, here in the Barstool Sports Podcast family, what is up everybody? We had some fun stuff on the NHL in the past week, feels good to say that, we'll get to it in a little bit, including the rare delayed penalty goal. Haven't seen one of those in, I feel like, decades. But let's check in with the fellas first. Mikey G, you battling flu symptoms or what, like the rest of the gang?

No, I'm feeling pretty good, R.A. I'm less than a month away from Chicklets Cup, so I'm feeling pretty great, to be honest with you. I'm booking hotels, booking parties. And, you know, I just keep getting texts from Merle's, who seems to be pretty upset right now that Biz just won't put him on his team. This is fucking disgusting. Wow. Wait, introduce the rest of the guys and then I'll say my piece on Merle's.

First off, R.A., who else has the flu besides you? Well, I probably could have worded it, but it bounced around from all of us. It's called the hangover, R.A. No, but listen, I wish you could believe me.'ve all had the hangover all right no boy listen i wish you got the hangover virus that's called being hung titties yeah there's a fucking uh we're gonna get you a needle for that too buddy fucking i went to the jungles of columbia the fucking wilds of sudbury ontario then i go to minnesota and i come back fucking hacking up lungs left and right but welcome to my welcome to my work week

all right well biz well do i introduce what's going on you buddy i usually like going last out of the gate ah what dog's always in the three hole am i i didn't even know there was an order oh i always did g biz what that's always that means that means that means there isn't an order. Guaranteed it flip-flops every pod. But no, good to see you boys. Oh, my goodness. Jam-packed hockey week.

A lot of great storylines. A lot of great things happening. Aside from that, though, gee, I couldn't agree more. Now we're past Minnesota. Vegas. It's going to be a great all-star weekend. We got something planned for the Friday night. So normally we'd do the big shaker on the Thursday

because we start the tournament Thursday and then we got kind of like the more important games, semis and the finals on the Friday. Well, fuck, we got to learn from our mistakes. We got absolutely obliterated on the in-between night in Detroit. I mean, I couldn't even fucking spell my name the next morning. And then you guys heard us on the podcast. And then we ended up doing a sandbagger,

which we dummied those fucking young guys. Keep the change. But we're going to do the big shaker on the Friday. So we hope, can I announce where? Gee, yet? No? No, we cannot announce where yet. But it's big.

It's very, very big. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be awesome. So another opportunity to interact with the fans. But we're also not taking that experience away from the fans that are showing up, though. Because on that Thursday, we're going to have a setup by one of the bar areas where there's also a bunch of tables. And let's see if old man Murley can bring the fucking hot hand. And then maybe I'll fucking let him play for our team on Friday

if he brings us to the roulette gods. The roulette gods. Hey, Biz was so buckled in Detroit that he added the letter V to the word obliterated. When? Just now or there? Obliverated. Did I just say obliverated? I think so.

I caught a V in there there was that a niner murray murray feels disrespected i don't really blame the guy when you say he's out of shape possibly true but i'll have i'll have you know he's lost 11 pounds since minnesota i go dude that was like a week ago he's a guy i haven't eaten one thing and i haven't drank so 11 pounds yeah but that's not the way to do it though then he's gonna come to the tourney and then he's gonna balk because he's like he's going that's not how you should be treating the body if i could see some improvement in the health department maybe a couple training videos over there in sweden i'd gladly add him to the roster but he also has to be the fourth line guy the guy

making sure the beers are cold maybe he's also working pr for our team so he's got to wear a few different hats if he wants to get named to the uh the the big deal selects well they'll be cold but unfortunately he'll probably drink them before anyone else can have one so and that's another thing though so the first trip we went on to nyc even teddy was like jesus christ this guy gets buckled i was was like, yeah, he makes RA look normal. But then this last trip, he buttoned it up a little bit. So, hey, if you can bring that professorial. I'm going to add a couple other letters to this word.

Professionalism to Vegas for the hockey side of it with dedication to the fitness, Merles. And you're going to have to light up the tables you can join the the big deal selects pal is that a deal for you uh wit is that am i no longer the bad guy here we'll see if he can get into one game if it's like it's like rudy like people are gonna be putting their jerseys down like just to get this guy into a game action by the end we're gonna be chanting his name getting he'll be getting carried he'll be getting carried off the street hockey court but just because he's too waffled not because he scored the game winner so i think some people are still a little confused as to like the the the connection between maybe the podcast and murals and it runs deeper through you because you play with them longer in wilkes-barre correct

yes yes murals and i have gone way back. My first professional roommate, I've told this story many times, I showed up to play the Bridgeport Sound Tigers in my first professional game, an AHL playoff game after leaving BU. He made me drive him and a bunch of other guys, Reed Simpson, Colby Armstrong, to the Mohegan Sun Casino, and we ended up missing curfew the night before my first pro game which was a playoff game so I I know I know Merles goes ways back and he's a gambler like in a sense of I really like gambling like he's a gambler you know he's just a big time as as you know loves the action and he's really kind of hopped on with RA as our gambling guy so he crushes Europe and for anyone who has any other questions DM Merles or tweet me and we'll fill you in on this guy and who he really is.

But we want to get him into a game in the street hockey chicklets cup. What else did I have to say? Oh, actually, he let me know. Is it Mea Culpa? I remember we brought that up one time. Last week, I wasn't sure about who fixed and really helped Alex Tuck become the dominant skater that he is these days. And it's actually a guy, Francois Mathot. He's in Rochester, New York. So Merle's actually did a little work with him. He texts me right away. He goes, hey,

Mutt, you pigeon. You didn't even know the guy's name. So shout out Francois Mathot for making Alex Tuck one of the fastest skaters in the league, I'd say. I had that incorrect, so mea culpa on the wit dog. My weekend, phenomenal. Watched hockey Saturday. It was great. We got about, it was one of those, like, you're getting three to four inch news broadcasts in the snow. And we got 13 inches at my house. So it was just covered in snow.

And the guy who plows my driveway didn't come. I shoveled my whole driveway. It's about half a mile long. I'm telling you. My back was buckled. Get him the Medal of Honor, folks. Absolutely. And then the worst thing is I did such a bad job.

Hey, can we have a moment of silence for Witt here for fucking shoveling his driveway? Can we get a moment? Thank you. Listen, when you shovel, you're taught as a youngster not only to bend your knees. You cannot be bending over at the waist. You have to get to the concrete. You have to get to the asphalt when you're taught as a youngster not only to bend your knees. You cannot be bending over at the waist. You have to get to the concrete. You have to get to the asphalt when you're shoveling. I wasn't doing it because I was alone.

I was tired. I was exhausted. Cutting corners. So I didn't – yeah, cutting corners, exactly. And so I didn't get to the end. So then what happens? It freezes overnight. I could have skated on my driveway.

So then I had to go out. I bought like – I bought 160 dollars worth of the salt and i was laying salt instead of plowing the driveway i basically salted the driveway so now it's like he's got the himalayan the pink stuff no they asked you want the pet safe salt on his driveway just trying to get so salt bay yeah in his driveway with pink himalayan all right that might be the funniest salt wow it's actually oh fuck off pink whitney himalayan uh yeah you'll be i'll be hawking that in no time cool because fucking dry side all keeps ignoring my calls for the cologne uh i would be remiss if i didn't mention one of the toughest tweets I saw over the week was the guy who was just curled up in a ball in his house.

He's a politician. His wife, who's a nurse, comes home from a 12-hour shift. She's shoveling the driveway, and he sends out a tweet like, hey, how awesome is my wife? 12-hour shift being a nurse, and she's out there shoveling the driveway. With a picture of her. You thought that was going to go over well? Yeah.

Well, listen. Now, to the fair point, maybe after a 12-hour shift, she needed something to kind of calm her mind, and that's how she chose to do it for her. Oh, yeah. That's what everyone hopes for, a post-12-hour work shift. I'm going to calm my mind with a nice shovel job on the driveway. But the fact, yeah, it's a politician and I think

he thought it was going to go over as a compliment. Oh my, this guy was under siege. Oh my God. What's the term? Ratioed? Ratioed? Oh, big time. You don't want to get ratioed, folks. Now he's an official meme too.

It sucks. Mind you, I'll say this. My marijuana smoking has gone down enormously. I do it way less, way off, and I actually am pretty happy with it. I picked it up for you. I'm kind of going down towards maybe at some point quitting, but it can't just be one of those overnight things. Shoveling snow is maybe the best thing to do high you could ever imagine.

Talk about a good thing to smoke before doing because you just go into your own planet. Now, mind you, that's maybe why I didn't get to the asphalt and I had to salt the whole thing the next day. But still, not a bad thing to put in some music and then shovel after feeling pretty good. Well, it's funny when you said that because since I've been living in a condo, I said the G a couple weeks ago.

My ounce lasts probably like three months now, because I'm in a non-smoking building. So it's like every time I have the urge, you got to leave, you got to walk downstairs. It's just like, it cuts that. No, I mean, as opposed to walking out of your back door, that's a huge difference. You cross in the fucking Sahara Desert.

By the way, Ari moved in there like three weeks ago. Talk to me in two months when he's hot box in the kitchen. I'm not walking downstairs anymore. Yeah. Ari's blown. He's got his head stuck in the window. The little window that opens.

With the hotel when you get to do this much and you're like hiding in the drapes. He's like the dog between the bars on the stairs on the way upstairs. Good one. But the best part is not having a shovel. That's like when dog between the bars on the on the stairs on the way upstairs good one

but the best part is no not having a shovel that's like when we got i'm like i don't care if we get two three feet i don't have to fucking shovel don't worry that was nice just move along you know what you know when they got the dogs that stick their head between the poles on the staircase on the way up the stairs and they get their head caught that that's all right. Anyway. That's what edibles are for. Anyways, well, the football playoffs, boys, they're starting up this weekend. Going to be some cocktails with the gang,

so make sure you're stocked up on your pink Whitney to either celebrate your team moving on or to drown your sorrows waiting until next year yet again. And if you don't like football, stop by your favorite local spot and slurp down some pink Whitney there. You guys have any pink Whitney over the weekend or what? No, I got, okay, I'll let you go first. Oh, sorry, sorry. No, no, no, no, buddy.

It didn't matter. I was going to pump up Pink Whitney on the side of, we got a sandbagger coming out soon, brought to you by Pink Whitney as always, a little birdie juice action. A lot of Pink Whitney activations over the course of that all-star weekend when we're doing the ball hockey in Vegas as well um we reached out to the guy who won the the event or not the event the merch thing for Pink Whitney uh Grinelli uh we mentioned his name I'm drawing a blank right now but uh I actually offered him said hey do you want to come to the all-star game instead he goes

no in April it's come out he's going to bring some buddies we're going to do that round of golf and then I'm going to put them in a box at the Coyotes game. So this is all cool things that we're able to start doing with Pink Whitney now because you guys have shown so much support so we can give back. We did that GoPuff thing. So I'll hand it over to you, but lots of amazing things, merch-wise coming Pink Whitney, and, of course, the content. I'm glad you went first because he just asked

anyone drinking pink whitney i was like yep i don't really have much else besides i crushed some sunday um but i did have a little bit of a panic this week at one point i saw like i don't know if it's tweeter on the news that massachusetts banning the sale of nips now mind you for anyone who doesn't know massachusetts we might as well be in Canada. It is one of the worst states in the country. You're not allowed to do anything here. You can't sports gamble. You can't buy flavored jewel pot.

No happy hour. Happy hour is not legal. There's no happy hour. Like, this state, I'm telling you, sucks. We couldn't buy beer on Sunday. All right, run for office. But, okay, that'd go well. I'm sure there's no skeletons they'll dig up.

Yeah, fucking crypt. It's just one town where he's got the graveyard it's bearing banning nips so um we're good we're good on the pink whitney i had a little bit on the rocks with my brother-in-law so you should call ra the the the rim what was your something reaper the rim reaper bowl reaper no that was lame i don't know if this is good or bad news, but when we met up with PJ Stark for the interview a couple weeks ago and he force-fed me scotch that night, boys, I think I might have developed a little bit of taste for scotch because he sent me home with a bottle.

Oh, great. Oh, nice. We should get a lot accomplished on the next trip. Everyone's waiting for the episode when R.A.'s like, I'm sober, and now he's instead telling us he's taking scotch on as a hobby. Scotch, scotch, scotch. Down into my belly. I've never liked... I don't like whiskey.

It's not my thing, but the other night I couldn't go to the liquor store because I didn't want to get people sick because I was very sick. So I opened a bottle of scotch and whacked a couple back. Yeah, I didn't get buckled, but it was pretty nice. Hold on. You were very sick and you decided to drink scotch? Yeah, alcohol.

He's a sailor. That's how they used to do it. Chrissy Malpasanti. Man, I was sick as a dog all weekend. What did you do? Get an IV? No, I just crushed a bottle of scotch. I feel great now.

Yeah, I mean, if you feel like shit, I mean, you might as well catch a buzz. I had no wine. I didn't want to drink beers. But no, the scotch, it warms you might as well catch a buzz. I had no wine. I didn't want to drink beers. But no, the scotch, it warms you up a little. It felt good. Like I said, I didn't drink a whole bottle. I just had a couple glasses. But yeah, it's a nice new option to have.

It'd be cool to do like a reserve bottle of booze for RA. Maybe call it like Warthog Whiskey. Wouldn't that be cool? Warthog Special. You can make your own fancy one like out of like rich barrels that are smoky, but not from tobacco smoke, but from weed smoke. Coals from my fireplace. Or an old metal trash barrel.

But no, it's a nice alternative buzz. It's brewed in trash barrels. It's like Oscar the Grouch. The old, what is it called? Spinach and trash, but the whiskey pops out. Compost. Perfect. You mean compost?

Compost, yes, Biz. Holy shit, back to minus one. You're back, baby. Good way to end the first. Deliverated. Well, anyways, boys, Saturday night action. It was nice to have, I don't know if it was a full slate. I know there was some more postponed games,

but tons of great stuff. Just felt like a regular Saturday again. I know we've been struggling with all the postponements. We had some unreal games. I think the marquee one that everybody was looking forward to Toronto, Colorado. The Leafs get a 4-1 lead and well, we know what happened next.

They blow a 4-1 lead. Colorado ends up winning 5-4 on a Devin Taves goal. They had a pull. What's his face? Oh, God. They had to yank him, bringing Fransuz who played his ass off late, but the other Leafs guy, they pulled Ben. Beforeossie Kemper had to yank him, bringing Fransuz, who played his ass off late. But, Biz, the other Leafs guy, they pulled Ben. Before that, Kemper had been great on that seven-game stretch.

I think he went undefeated with insane numbers. I don't know if you have him there already. Yeah, before he got pulled 7-0 with a 2-2-8 goals against 9-2-9 save percentage. But then he gave up the three quick goals. And a great move by Bezzi to pull him out of there, putting Fransuz, who hasn't been great this year, but he pulled it off. We saw a couple good goaltending pulls. We saw it in the TNT matchup between Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

We'll get to that later. But agreed, R.A. Like, at that time, change up the momentum. And, like, listen, credit where it's due, and let's focus on the positive. Colorado is humming right now. McCarr, I would say the way he started his career is established himself probably as the next Paul Coffey as far as what changes, like what differences you've seen in defensemen over time.

Like Carlson was probably the next last defenseman to come on the scene like that and be able to produce offense and do all this fancy shit i think that mccarr is kind of changing it in a paul coffee type level off the gate here so mckinnon is looking more like himself they ended up fucking rolling back i will say that wit do you not agree that sometimes when you go into colorado at the start of the game you can feel all right but that altitude eventually catches up to you throughout the game.

And I'm not going to say that that should be an excuse, but they just, in that third period, in the second half of the game mostly, Colorado just took over. Toronto looked like a completely different team. Yeah, ironically, I actually remember the times I played there, the first 10 minutes were really hard.

Now, maybe that's because their team's coming out so hard and maybe we had a poor start. But if you were to look at it and think, when would you actually be affected by the altitude? It would be later in the game. Having said that, I think Colorado just had a real slow start and kind of figured it out. I don't know. None of the Leafs guys, I don't think they mentioned, like, feeling brutal as the game went on. Colorado just took over.

And first thing, I got to give the Leafs some credit. I had no idea that they're the least penalized team in the league. That is a stat that is very nice to be able to, like, call your team that because, in a sense, like, the rest of the team can really concentrate on getting their roles, getting the first, second, second third fourth line out there without having penalties disrupt like the whole chemistry with line matching and things like that so i didn't know that but um even going up against colorado it kind of shows that you're never really safe i mean three nothing against them r is actually the one that's really gotten me on three nothing now it's like doesn't mean

anything what it's it's the new two nothing or you know how it's like you know 20s yeah i guess it's just more like it doesn't if it's the first period well we were in minnesota i had what game was that ra i had we bet against each other we were on opposite sides it was nashville washington and washington got up three nothing right yeah that's right yeah when we were interviewing billy garum by the way, who was dropping a little later. Yes, this is perfect. Boom, 3-3. So I know as confident as Leafs fans probably were,

all of a sudden with that offense and what they can do, it's like you're never out of it as a Leafs fan or player. The one guy I keep watching, and you talk about McCarr and Gerrard, like this Devon Taves is unreal. And what's interesting is he doesn't... I can't believe the Islanders got rid of him. Looking back now, I'm surprised that they didn't really

notice, alright, this is a guy, legit, 25 minutes, top two defenseman, can play against anyone, can play offensively, and is solid defensively because of how well he skates. So he gets the OT winner, but he was creating the entire time. The other thing I noticed in the game, besides Matthew's two goals,

the first one was he kind of tried to redirect it and then got it back, empty net, backhand easy. The next one, he was pissed off. He wanted a penalty called on. Forget who was covering him at the point. Instead, he goes in, buries one bar in. That was sick. So he gets two goals, which he's making it look easy, as he always does.

But the guy that I watched and the two passes he made was Rontanen from beneath the goal line. It was stupid. So he had two assists. Both of them he was beneath the offensive goal line, and he throws it in front. The first one was Landiscau ends up scoring it. I didn't even know it went in.

And then the next one, who scored the other one? Was it Comfer who tied it? Yes. Short side. The cameraman couldn't even tell. McCarr got another second assist on that. He got juked. Yeah, exactly. and then the next one who scored the other one was it comfor who tied for yes short side the cameraman couldn't even tell mccarr got another second assist on that he got exactly the mccarr goal so cameraman's rip this week holy shit colorado fucking toe tagging cameraman yeah i mean did you see the fucking mccarr ot winner i know we're going back from the marquee matchup to the one against uh uh chicago on the

road our our boy uh kirby doc i mean oh hey poor bugger boys i think it's just could have been happened to anyone kirby yeah happen anybody buddy fuck that's on uh yeah that's it that's you compare him to paul coffee yeah because because i think when paul coffee came about it's it you can't compare him to bobby or because when bobby or came around at his peak he was like leading the league and scoring and nobody ever done no yeah it was like so it's not i mean am i saying that it could never exist again no but i think it would be unfair to put him in Bobby Orr category unless he goes on a fucking heater of four Norrises and they win two or three cups and he gets a Conn Smythe in there. And he's talking.

I think if he can consistently get to 30 goals a season as a defenseman in today's NHL, I think Green did it one year with Washington, and it was fascinating. I remember he had those Easton stealths. I might be mistaken. Who's the last defenseman to go back-to-back season scoring 30 goals?

That's a good question. You know what I'm saying? It's very hard to duplicate, but he's a guy that, as a defenseman right now, is scoring at a rate where he could put up 30 a season. But could a defenseman even do to revolutionize the position in a way that Orr did? I mean, Orr took it to this other level.

Is there something a guy could even do further? I don't know. I think given how good the game's gotten, it's going to be impossible to ever rival Wayne as far as his ability to put up points and how he figured out the algorithm and how to kind of beat the system at the error that he did. That's kind of how it is, right? He just kind of found these holes and he was able to develop these tools in order to –

he didn't even have the hardest shot, but he had this kind of like – sometimes you see in his old shot where he has this like pump fake where the way the goalies played back then, they start sliding across, and then all of a sudden, a foot on the other side of the net's opened up. It's like, yeah, it's not fucking Ovechkin TN1, right under the bar, like, took in the fucking goalie's ear off. But he figured out how to get it done.

In 1985, 1986, Paul paul coffee had 48 goals with 90 assists for 138 points yeah so i i think that if as a defenseman did he did he what did he do like the next year the year before that was he getting more than 40 goals in 83 84 he had 40 goals 86 assists 126 points. I think in today's era, if you're scoring, if you can go on a rip of having four or five years in a row where he gets 30 goals, I think that that's ridiculous. Green had 68 goals in a three-year span. I think he went 18, 31, 19.

I don't know if that if things exact years in a row but that was that was i don't ever ever remember seeing anything it was fascinating i remember it was i remember seeing him in the uh in the ahl right away in hershey and he had the sickest toe drag too and basically i think macar is very similar to peak mike green offensively while also being like, probably stronger. Mike Green, he didn't do much defensively. He didn't really have to at his peak. He was just so good with the puck.

He had such a hard shot. Sick style, too, his gear wear. Makar's got the similar tongues-out look. Yeah, he's got nasty gear wear, too. The same way with Paul Coffey and the same way with Green, with Ovechkin and Baxlum'm like, when McCarr is able to do these things and you watch how he skates and his vision and his shot, and then you see these forwards up front, his numbers are not going to slow down because of that core that's there and that's going to be there the next four or five years. So as long as he's able to be, he could be doing this on, I, I'm telling you, Kale McCart could lead, say Columbus in scoring. Like there's teams in the league.

He doesn't need great players to produce offensively. But when you have Rontan and McKinnon, Kadri and the rest of this crew, it's that's when you look at it. You go from like Yossi numbers to then once again, like Paul, he was able to be surrounded by other great offensive talents as well. And that's why his numbers are inflated. So it's just like right place, right right time and it's fucking awesome to see and it's like you got to put all your team's focus to to protecting the net against guys like ratting in and and

mckinnon and then all of a sudden you get this next wave of guy it's like holy fuck now we got another fucking uh bowser you know it's you beat. It's like that fucking guy in the Mike Tyson boxing game. Or I guess Mike Tyson. That was stupid. There was a couple guys right before him that were tough. I don't remember exactly who they were. Bald Bull. Yeah.

Bald Bull was a tough bastard. Let's not forget, though, Carlson had... So is it... That's why I said he was fascinating was fascinating too oh dude he went 78 points then he got hurt then he went 74 points 66 points 82 points 71 points i don't think he i don't think he drives it he mccarr just does it in a very more aggressive way much like you would compare mckinnon's game to a lot of guys it's like this kind of embarrasses people more yeah like he just kind of like he'll do this like 10 and 2 move where he just like

thrusts his hip and next thing you know the fucking guy's on sports center we gotta talk about mike green's off ice style as well from 24 7 remember they showed him putt putt in a practice on his like uh what honda vespa with like his house slippers on he's a cool he's a cool cat yeah He's a cool cat. Yeah, he's a cool cat. You look at him and you're like, how do you keep up with being so cool? That's a full-time job. Of course, Auston Matthews, he got two goals in 33 seconds.

He tied for third in the league with 22. Leon in the lead with 26. Ovi with 24. Another note with the Leafs, Nick Ritchie, he was waived a couple days before the game. It wasn't claimed. He ended up getting his second of the year the other night. But any other notes you want to finish up on?

No, I just fucking, I mean, it sucks it was Toronto and they blew a 4-1 lead, but whatever. Who gives a shit? They're going to make playoffs. I still think they're an unreal team. If anything better to happen now, a little bit of a learning lesson. And, buddy, they're still on a rip right now. They still get a point in Colorado.

If you set the mindset to, hey, if you thought you were going to walk away with a point, yeah, you're still on a rip right now. They still get a point in Colorado. If you set the mindset to, hey, if you thought you were going to walk away with a point, yeah, you're still on a good stretch, and you're going into Wednesday TNT against the Coyotes. I love the Coyotes to death, but that's on a T right now. And Pablo's coming back to the desert. He's coming home. He's coming home. He's coming home. Am I trying to kidnap him?

Even Looch got into the action too. Did you catch that? Yeah, Looch was active on the social. I mean, he can because who else is going to fucking tell him not to? He'll cave their face in. Yeah, you know, I mean, until they overcome that, that's just going to be something that's always going to be associated with the Leafs. What did Luce say?

He basically goofed on him. I've seen that before. I think he asked, like, what happened next when the Leafs had a full-on lead? Oh, Jesus. He basically tripped in on Instagram with a little comment, but I think he's earned the right to do that. Well, I'll say. He's on the team that did it, so he can say that.

Let's pump the brakes here because I'm not even going to be very aggressive anymore on chirping Edmonton because the Flames haven't been playing the best of hockey either. So both the teams of Alberta, and just to clarify, if neither team makes playoff, the bet is null and void. Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. That was null and void.

Okay. So, I mean, geez, like right now it's, I mean, the way that things are trending, it's not looking great. Now, I think that Mike Smith's getting healthier. I think Edmonton's going to be okay here. I actually, if I'm a betting man, I would probably hop on like a next 10-game wave of gambling for the Oilers. Thanks, Biz. I appreciate that, buddy.

Yeah, I mean, they've dropped five straight. They've fallen out of the wild card position. Mikko Koskinen didn't appreciate. He felt he was thrown under the bus. He spoke to a Finnish newspaper. But like you said, Biz, Calgary, they were swept on their Sunbelt trip. Lost three games to Florida, Tampa, and Carolina. So struggling in Alberta.

Well, we should probably get into the talk on. Yeah, I want to get into that now. What do you think about all that being a being a booster i was i was uh i was upset and disappointed in dave tippett um so for anyone who isn't aware i think everyone kind of is by now if you're following the nhl but the oilers had a really big game in new y, and they played well. And at the beginning of the game, the first goal, Koskinen completely misplayed the puck beneath the goal line in the defensive zone, obviously. Trapezoid got him. Trapezoid got him.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't. It was ugly. Either way, the goal was on him. And then the Oilers played real well. But then what was the other goal was kind of his fault too. I can't remember the second goal. I'm blanking out. It was a squeaker, and it ended up being the backbreaker,

and I believe it was a point shot from Fox. I don't know if Kreider got credit for it, but it was in his body, and then all of a sudden it trickled in, so a bit of a weaker squeaker. Exactly. That's what it was. I think Kreider did tip that. Back to even after the game if you're an oilers fan you're furious because you actually you actually played pretty well you didn't score that's that's an important factor here you didn't score which you haven't really done lately and you lose the game basically because of cost getting right he

played poor well tippet comes out right away and just throws him under the bus completely he's like our goaltending isn't good enough. You know, first goal, horrible play. What else are you going to say? It's a horrible play. It's like it's just hard when a team's down in the dumps and you have this team that has to make the playoffs. This is not an option to miss this year and things

haven't been going well. And I'm not going to say Tippett coaching in Canada hasn't felt that the fans hate his guts right now and all want him to be fired. So he's 100% feeling the pressure. But as the leader of the team, it's really hard to just chuck the guy under the bus when the whole team has not played well enough lately.

So for me, Koskinen, he has a point. And now he talks to a Finnish newspaper. So everyone needs to know when these European guys are talking to newspapers back home, so much is lost in translation. The way they say things can be completely worded in a different way. It's how you start wars. It's how wars were started.

Oh, really? Well, like lost in translation. Oh, yeah. You know, it's not actually what's being said. I like that. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, you know, like it's not actually what's being said. I like that.

Yeah, I like that. And in the end, he comes out and says, like, basically, that's bullshit because the team hasn't scored any goals. My last seven starts, they got seven goals, whatever it is. I can't score goals as well. Really sticking up for himself, which I understood he'd do that. But you just can't have a team in disarray the way the Oilers are and have a coach come out and shrivel a guy. To me, I don't like it.

I wouldn't appreciate it as a player. And I'm not even sure that his teammates would think that's a smart play, even as upset as they probably were at him for his mistake during the game. So I didn't like it as an Oilers fan. I did not appreciate it one bit. I heard a few people refer to it as the Giselle comeback. He can't throw and catch the ball like in the Super Bowl, right? Who dropped it in that Super Bowl?

Right in his hands. Man. So did he ever win a Super Bowl with them? No. Oh, my goodness. Sucks. He was a great player for them. That's tough.

He was such a honey badger. Fuck off, Biz. I know what you're doing no no no no listen doing i nelly no no no listen he's kicking us while he's not down he knows absolutely not i am such a fan of belichick and i actually embrace the patriots dominance i i am a packers fan and if the but if the packers't win, I think it's funny when the Patriots win. All that deflate gate shit, I was like, this is fucking amazing how intense this is all.

What was the other... There was a few shady ways that they won Super Bowls that drive people nuts. And then they won the comeback in Atlanta. But where did this get started? Oh, going back to Tippett and them. Unless you guys want to talk about the Patriots. No, I do not right now because it's a big game this week we're getting ready on to buffalo no but were you surprised that you played for him yeah a lot and i think

like you touched on the fact that sometimes the media pressure in canada can get very heavy and i don't know if he's ever dealt with it to this extent i don't think he has because he was in dallas before he was arizona and things are not going well and and man like part of the fan base is part of the people buying tickets like want them canned and i'm sure that he's probably feeling that and then the media sees that so the the questions tend to get more more intense and more intense and more intense well i don't know man i think that they've had been had been having a lot of things go against them enough to not turn on each other and in a sense to say hey back your goalie up for another maybe week or two and if it gets really really bad it's just like

well fuck dude the goaltending is going to speak for itself right like it's just kind of like what do you want the guy to do you know but yeah it was not a good look so hopefully that things can start rolling in the positive direction here that i'm assuming that they're going to happen because you mentioned the d that they lost they finally got their roster together and clicking and i think that everybody important is going to be back in the lineup that's been through covid protocol and Smitty is now back in in what we think is game shape that's what's being kind of sold to the Edmonton fan base correct he's back now from here moving forward you're going to get great goaltending from Mike Smith right is that kind of what you're understanding I really hope what we need okay so

now it's like now the clock's ticking. Now it's ticking. Okay. Well, like I said, they're looking on the outside, looking in right now as far as the wild card. Like, R.A., as a fan, are you like, you know, if say Tuca got called out by, that's different because Tuca's career is so much better than Kostin's. But as a fan, are you like, oh, what the fuck is that?

Or are you almost happy? Like, yeah, this guy's got to wake up and play better. I don't think it helps. I don't think a coach calling out a goalie in the media is really going to help a situation, especially if a guy's struggling. His confidence is probably struggling. He can probably handle that in-house and not have to throw it out there. I don't think too many guys are going to get motivated by getting called out in the media.

And then I think Tip actually said after that he might have taken it a little out of context because people tend to glom onto that one quote and make it look like that's all he talked about when it was one sentence out of, you know, he probably talked for 10 minutes and they pull the one sentence out. So he might not have, like, sued him as bad as people are implying. But, yeah, why even go there? Because nothing, I don't think there's any good benefit. Maybe an older veteran who, you know, who's been through some trenches can say,

all right, yeah, I get it. I'm getting the message here. But I don't know if Koskinen's that guy that you want to send that message to. And or maybe he got asked three times in that presser about it where by then he just kind of combusted. And like you said, it's just a bad moment. I'm going to chalk it up to the fact

that he's probably feeling a lot of pressure right now to get this team in the playoffs and having success. So put it under the rug, move on. I think that they're going to have success. So look out for the gambling. Who they got coming up here? I haven't even looked at their schedule coming up. They play Ottawa Friday. I think they're off until Friday.

Yeah, still have the Canadian. Hey, we did the Islanders guarantee. There's another guarantee. That should be fucking a barstool boost. Yeah, there's all the postponements because of the Canada. You know, these owners don't want to have empty buildings, so they're flip-flopping. Oh, no, they're playing the Wilds.

They're playing the States and doing all that shit. Oh, no, it's the Stones. Sorry. I'm mistreating this. Well, that's all right. That's a great segue with the Wilds. What's about the Polo's load over there? Jesus.

The Wilds had a game Saturday night at home versus Washington. They were missing like i think eight or nine guys through all this covid shit losing to the caps they crawl back they beat the caps three two in a shootout absolute crazy game i mentioned it in the intro we saw a six on five pulled goalie uh on a delayed penalty goal which i the last time i remember seeing one was the bruins probably 30 years ago there probably has one since. It's a very rare situation when the delayed penalty is on and the team basically has an own goal. And our buddy Moose, Marcus Foligno, he was the last wild to touch the puck.

He didn't have possession, so he didn't blow the whistle. It was his 100th goal, too. That was his 100th goal. And then what's even crazier is Washington goalie Zach Focali, he has the NHL record for the longest start to a career with shutting out. Let me rephrase that. He set the longest shutout streak to start in NHL career, 138 minutes and 7 seconds.

That was the goal that broke the streak, even though he wasn't in the net. It doesn't go as a goal against him, but he doesn't have a shutout anymore, even though he wasn't in the net. So this kind of combination of two things happening at the same time on one goal. Pretty freaky, man. Do the gif of the guy's head exploding. I know, that's tough. I don't even understand what you just said.

I'm just going to let everybody else enjoy it. I get it, R.A. I get that. Thank you, buddy. Zuccarello tied it up late. Foligno was in front. That was a big win for the Wild. Now, funny enough, they had eight guys out, which I believe I read is like 40. It was a Russo article. I was reading it in The Athletic.

They had about 45% of their offense this year out of the lineup, 40% of their salary cap. All these enormous big players, Greenway, Capri, Soft, Spurge, and all these guys we mentioned. And still, within that game, Fiala got completely benched. He took three penalties in a four-minute, ten-second span in the second period. And Evanston benched him. And it's funny, reading this article, I had no idea.

When Fiala came over here with Nashville, he was a high pick. He played in Milwaukee, and so Evanston was his coach there. And I got the sense that they've always kind of butted heads. Like the way Russo worded it is he's a frustrating guy. I think it was a frustrating guy to coach, or there's ups and downs with him. He's opinionated about his game. From what I've been told by former teammates, he's a cocky, cocky kid.

And at times you see – He's a handsome fella too. Yeah, he's a good-looking kid too. Probably got an absolute rope on him. He had had enormous quads i saw those in me i was like he's short but fucking jacked um so he was done he wasn't evanson was not gonna play him in the third period and he actually went up at a tv timeout i think he said something like i apologize for the penalties i'm here to support my team so got another chance gets out there gets the puck out of the face off on the tying goal I don't know if he ended up getting a point and then scores a shootout goal in the wind so a nice comeback for a player who

I guess from the sounds of it has a little bit of a love-hate relationship with his coach so Minnesota though they needed that win they need to get guys back and then they finally get Brodine back and I think he could now be out three four weeks again so that's a tough loss that guy is an unreal underrated defenseman the spurgeon used to be the guy it's now brodeen on that team in terms of underrated underrated players but many needed that win and washington just keeps getting points they keep collecting points yeah what a team their fucking. I mean, it gets better and better every game, too. I love how they post the videos. We got a nice Ovi typewriter.

We had Oshie last episode kind of breaking it all down, folks. And they are having, who is Bradley Cooper Jr.? Can we roll the clip? Can we roll it? Hey, quick cleanup, too. Whoa! Woo! Wow!

He's killing himself. Bradley Cooper Jr. That was Nick Dowd coming out looking good. The slick back hair. I don't know who called him Bradley Cooper Jr., but he loved it. They should, like, sell the experience. Like, Bezos sells the experience to the moon. You get to, like, dress up as a guy and get to go.

You can buy season tickets. They get to whack your cock. It's like, oh, here it comes, lift off. Dude, the other crazy clip from that game, Biz, the goalie Kapo Kakanen, he come about 30 feet out of his crease, played the puck, he backhands it right to Ovechkin and somehow makes the save. That was, like, under a minute left too and

I guess Moose said to the media after, I don't know why he didn't go with his forehand there. He went with his backhand instead goofing on his goalie because that could have been ugly but just hilarious when the screenshot of the goalie like in his like prone position but he's 40 feet out of the crease. Something you don't see every day. Yeah, well going back to Oshie

interesting comments about, because sometimes when you're wrapped up and doing the interview, you don't really talk about what's being said. I don't know if it's fair to say like coaching the skill out of the player, basically, like him not thinking that he's as skilled as the player. And you just said that you talked about the Fiala and butting heads with the coach. Like, you know, sometimes you see things in your game and you're persistent and stubborn about them,

but you're actually right. And another example, like right now in the league, is like Anthony Duclair. Like, you know, I don't know necessarily how much his game has changed that much since from when he came in to as opposed to like, maybe sometimes you just got to let the horse run wild hated him hey yeah i don't think he i i he liked him as a person i didn't just i

don't think yeah like but like yeah because some people sometimes like get like oh you're just like no like there was i don't think there was much conflict i actually asked um duclair about it and he's like he's like no i just maybe you know maybe he didn't trust his game as much but it's so awesome to see when guys are able to go to places and actually find that spot where they fit in i think that fiala has found that in many despite maybe what's that they flourish they end up flourishing and you know and sometimes it takes the right coach and the right personality of the player and and sometimes you gotta siphon through that now who are we talking about right before that kevin fiala i'll tell you what though you could say fiala looks good and he had one monster year there this year the stats haven't been great

grandland like dude he's right about a point per game this year like that was the deal and i think a lot of people immediately thought mini might have won that one. But Granlin, after struggling last year, has been dominant this year for Nashville. So... Yeah, yeah. We'll get to them because I got a firsthand look at them when they played against the Coyotes. Oh, you know what?

DeClaire can kind of lead us into another great tilt. I didn't get to see all this one, but watch the replay a little bit. It's Florida Carolina from Saturday night. Two teams that could easily end up, like, going to the Stanley Cup final from the East. I really think they both kind of have what it takes. And Duclair had a monster game-winning goal in overtime. He also had a beautiful assist.

He kind of stopped up, hit Huberto in the first period for a goal. But Florida went up 3-1, and Carolina came storming back like they always do, 3-3 and lost in overtime. But they got a point at home. It was a back-and-forth tilt. Jarvis, that young kid Jarvis, is a player on Carolina. It's like him and Ajo have a real good connection. D'Angelo had another power play point on a goal by, who scored that one?

Tara Vinen on the power play for Carolina. So watching those two teams play, I will give Carolina credit too, Carolina fans. They've been brutal when the team isn't good, and I don't really blame them. When that team struggles, it's not an enormous hockey market to begin with. But when that team's good, like this year and the runs they've been to the Easter Conference Final, the Cup Final, that fan base is wild. That barn gets loud. They're rocking. You could tell Saturday night when they tied it up, the place was going bonkers.

So Carolina this year is going to be a tough out if anyone's able to do it. Same with Florida. I was going to say, as is Florida, but how about that pass from Hubedo to Duclair on the OT game? And then with the move Duclair made to corral the puck and score the goal.

Just an absolute beautiful watch. Quiet Norris season. Sorry. Quiet Norris season for Aaron Eichblatt as well, playing unreal hockey. Oh, yeah, he's one of your guys. He's one of my guys. Could be in the top three. Well, if we're talking about Florida, we do have to give props.

Joe Thornton, Thursday versus Dallas. He became just the sixth player in NHL history to play in 1,700 games. Patrick Malo, Gordie Howe, Marc Messier, Jeremy Jaeger, and Ron Francis, the only other five guys to do it. So tremendous accomplishment once, by Big Joe. But moving right along with the Saturday games, another doozy of a game. What do we got here? Oh, yeah, Chicago Vegas.

If you're speaking marquee matchups, Coyotes in Nashville could be one of them. Okay, we can get to them in a minute. But I mentioned Chicago Vegas. It was Marc-Andre Fleury's homecoming. We could have put this one first, Biz. This is a pretty big story. He beat his old team 2-1. He has now beaten every single team in the NHL, all 32 of them.

Of course, he's the first goaltender to ever do it because no other goalie's done it. It's a huge accomplishment by him. They did a nice little video tribute for him as well. But some pregame tummy sticks with Rob and Lena. You know, if those guys are the same tandem together. I know people have been talking about it, Biz. Like, what do you got on the old tummy sticks here?

Goalies don't count. I've always said that. Yeah, goalie, you're at the other end. I'm not going to be physically battling against the guys, so the tummy sticks doesn't matter to me. Tummy sticks is only if, like, you're going to laugh it up and be buddy-buddy, and then in the corner you're supposed to run the guy. Goalies never get in that, so tummy sticks is only if like you're gonna laugh it up and be buddy buddy and then in the corner you're supposed to run the guy goalies never get in that so tummy sticks is allowed and a very very cool moment uh what was uh oh the coach was joking around the presser about uh

about like not playing him when he was back in vegas and then like they put they posted a tweet about and then like alan walsh hopped in oh, yeah, could you imagine if they wouldn't have, what I would have done? Could you imagine if they wouldn't have played him in Vegas? We would have had another fucking sword fight online. Fucking 17 swords in his back. It was also Ryan Reeves' return. He got a beautiful video tribute.

They gave him a hell of an ovation, and Gerard Gallant's as well, but then buddy PJ Stark, who he recently had on, he thinks these video tributes are a little out of control. Maybe there should be some minimum standard, maybe a number of games or a number of years with the team. But I don't know. If a guy wins a cup, of course he's going to get one

if he was a big factor in it. But what do you think, Piz? There should be some rules on these video tributes? Are they out of control or what? I think there's a lot of factors that go involved in it. I mean, Fleury just left there after winning a Vez and then he came over as like their first goalie so him for sure i mean revo too though because he came over right away and he had a big impact on that community so it's hard i get what stalker saying though like sometimes you see him for guys and you're like

like he played like a year and a half there like what's going like they don't even have enough footage of him to fucking roll a long enough video on the Jumbotron. I think Stalk is dead on. And I think the reason he tweeted it was because Hyman got one when he was back in Toronto. It's like, come on now. Like, Zach Hyman, nice player.

But it is, what is the saying? Jump the shark, R.A.? Fucking right. That's the saying, yeah the shark, R.A.? Fucking right. That's the saying, yeah. Plus, it was an empty building, too. I mean, if you're going to do it, just wait until the next time the building's full so fans can applaud him.

He's tipping his helmet to nobody, to the usher who's ushering nobody around. To the speakers. Tell me this. If Hyman got one in Toronto, I feel like I could have got one in Pittsburgh after the trade to Anaheim. Seriously, I went to the cup finals. I had 59 points one year.

I was part of Generation X or whatever the hell it was. I didn't sniff getting one of those. I seriously think nowadays I would have got one. I think that's how ridiculous it is. I think they owe you one. They did owe me one. They shipped me off to Anaheim. I think they fucking owe you one. By the way, I also would have gotten one. I think that's how ridiculous it is. I think they owe you one. They did owe me one. They shipped me off to Anaheim. By the way, I also would have gotten it in the game I was minus four.

So that would have been just classic. Imagine me like raising my stick minus four. Randy Carlisle just baseball bats me in the head with somebody else's stick. But I'm with stock. If you won a Stanley Cup or you were there for, I got to say, five seasons. Other than that, I don't know. Video tributes jumped the shark. I love that I got that saying right, so I said it again.

Yeah, it seems like any guy who played for a team before is getting one. And, yeah, there maybe should be some. Maybe I'll get one when we go back to Everton for a game someday. Just as a fan. We'll have to see what happens there. Biz, another game on that Saturday night slate. You gave the early gambling tip on our text thread. Yeah, I was feeling it.

You said you like the Bruins versus Tampa Bay, and they ended up rolling 5-2. The Bruins finally playing pretty well. They've won four out of five since their little COVID break there. Butch Cassidy finally mixed up the lines. He dropped Pasta down to the second line. The offense has really clicked. I don't know if you guys saw the story.

David Krejci was quoted about Pasta getting bumped out of the second line. And again, what Witt just said, you know, sometimes these translated quotes, you know, you take them with a grain of salt. But he seemed to be kind of baffled as to why that Butch all of a sudden drops Pasta down to the second line when he seemed to be apprehensive about doing it when Krejci was here. But either way, he wasn't he didn't seem pissed off. He just seemed a little bit baffled by it.

But either way, Kucherov, he returned the previous game. Unreal Assist, he had Braden Point. Olmoc finally playing like the guy the Bruins expected when they signed him back in September. And Tuka Rask, he signed his PTO with Providence. He was supposed to get a start in over the weekend, but they had games delayed because of COVID. And then we had the chirp fest between Marshawn and the big rig.

We were wondering, like, you know, Marshawn was saying, I own you, I own you. And it's like, well, do you? Because Maroon beat you for a cup a couple of years ago. And Biz, you brought up a great question. Whose career would you rather have? Would you rather have three cups and, you know, some nice paydays or one cup and some nicer paydays? And it's a pretty interesting argument.

Oh, I think so. And quickly, Whit, now going back to the pasta being surprised by it, I look at it more like I don't think they needed to bump him down because Krejci was able to drive a line, and I think that Halsey had kind of hit a stall button on his offensive production, so they more needed him to maybe even get Halsey going. So I see it as more of a compliment to Pasta's game.

Is that how you see it? Yeah. And, G, you mentioned it too, right? You mentioned you noticed the big difference in Halsey's game playing with Pasta. I don't at all think that it was a slap in the face to Pasternak. That's just looking for a team to start producing. You can't win with one line. They kind of had shown that this year.

And by the way, there was times that line wasn't even playing that good. So it was just time for a shakeup. So Pasternak being the guy that drops down, it doesn't mean anything, I don't think, trying to get other guys going. And if you talk about Maroon and Marchand, listen, I love the big rig and three Stanley Cups, three in a row. Unreal. But there's 50 million reasons I'd rather Brad Marchand's career. So if you're going to talk about I get a cup and I make like 73 million.

And Pat Maroon's probably made 12, 13. Come on now. Come on. He might be Gronk when he retires, though. Oh, yeah, but that's not the question. He'd be doing like tie-dads and stuff. That's not the question, dude. You know?

No, no. Yeah, trade right now, I guess. I don't know. I'd be like to cruise around with three rings on. I'm sure the day Marshawn retires. You're not going to be able to spend all of it anyway. You're not going to be able to spend all of it anyway. You want to bet?

I'm just kind of playing the round chair. You want to bet people can't spend it all? You ever seen your fucking NBA players? I think that you're also crazy. As much as we may see Maroon in the mix when he's done playing, whether it be media, whether it be partying, I don't know what he's going to do, but it's going to be good. I don't think Brad Marchand is going to play his last game in the NHL

and we're never going to hear from him again either. So I would think he'd still be in the mix somehow, whether it's a guy who's looking to build teams or whether a guy was looking to talk about the league marshall won't be going away you think he's going to be a psycho gm like eiserman grilling young guys about cannabis consumption just hoping to get an actual hit of what he thinks the kid's carrying i don't know man like something about being patty maroon like he's like that common man where like i feel like 50 of people who like sign up for beer league do it because they're like hey man maybe there's a scout at the game like patty maroon can get around looking like that you know so they kind of think like and fuck dude the guy's got three cups and he can he still finds

his way around an ice surface being a crafty player and adding an element like hey man brad marchand's wasting oxygen on on patty maroon patty maroon's taking some focus off the game no not to say that that doesn't maybe feed into to what marchand kind of likes and how he kind of elevates elevates his play but yes but i think that uh patty patty patty maroon by the time it's all said and done i think the the legend there's still room to grow there. As much as I'd rather Marchand's career, Marchand saying he owns Pat Maroon makes zero sense.

He doesn't. He doesn't. He beat him for one. He's got two more cents. And the other Tampa thing, I think I mentioned it last podcast, Perry's probably going to get 20 fucking goals this year. How many has he got now? He's at 10, and I don't think he had – At he had... He might have not had one in the first 10 games.

He's on fire right now. I should have swapped that out for my James Neal hot take, eh, RA? I saw he went on waivers, the real deal. I love that guy, but Bisc called 33 goals for him this year, I think. No, I said 20, maybe

25. I think I might have... 20, 25. Yeah. Yeah. What are you going to do? Another game Boston had earlier in the week versus Minnie. Awesome game Thursday night. 3-2, Minnesota ended up beating them, but Matt Boldy, local kid from the Boston area, he scored in his hometown NHL

debut. Just an awesome moment. He was the 12th overall pick by Minnie in 2019, and also Marco Rossi also made his NHL debut the same game he was their ninth overall pick in 2020 uh but what good stuff seeing Boldy I mean you're a local guy you played at home Tom imagine your NHL debut in Boston scoring man and they end up winning the game just awesome I was watching it right away kind of asking a friend of mine about his game I knew he was a high pick and he's had success in the garden with BC, but right when he scored, it was a beautiful goal to a given goal. I don't remember who assisted on it, but you could immediately see like the camera went to the crowd and,

and they were going nuts. He had family and friends. I just started thinking like your first NHL game to be in your hometown and to snipe a beautiful goal. And then after I think the wild, if not the NHL tweeted a video of kind of his dadipe a beautiful goal. And then after, I think the Wild, if not the NHL, tweeted a video of kind of his dad watching the play develop, and then he scored, and the amazing celebration with what looked to be like 30 people around them just going nuts. So I was super happy for a kid I've never met to be able to get a goal in his hometown first game. What a beginning to his NHL career.

And I think there's a lot of great things ahead for him from what I've been told the type of player he is. He's battled different injuries and things like that. So good luck to him and congratulations. And also, I mentioned Rossi. His parents flew over from Austria to make the game. They had just come back from a vacation not too long ago, and then he called them up today.

My dad, I'm playing. So they flew all the way over from Austria to see their son's debut, which is pretty cool. But another big moment from that game is the Trent Frederick hit on Kirill Kaprizov. People have been asking us, they want our opinion on it. And listen, I watched it. You can't watch the slowdown gif of it. You have to watch the play before. I don't think that he did anything deliberately dirty. I think he kind of committed to the hit. And if you watch, Kirill kind of got tripped up by Grizzly, I believe it was. It threw his trajectory off enough where by the time Frederick came in,

he hit him, and it looked like he even laid up a little bit. Two minutes for Borden was fine. I don't think it was suspension-worthy. I believe him when he said it wasn't malicious. He didn't mean to hurt him. Obviously, fans were upset, but I didn't see it as a dirty play. I know I'm the Bruins guy, all that. I think I call a spade a spade here.

That's not what I saw. Yeah, I don't think you're a homer at all on this one. I saw a big, fat nothing burger. Now, what people were barking about was apparently he was running around a little bit prior in the game so it's kind of like he was running around and then he finally ended up injuring our guy like fuck him it's like hey sometimes that's the nature of the beast and maybe what goes around comes around but yes that's not a suspendable play it just sucks that capri soft guy and kulikov came right in he fought him and then he fought felino too so he had to go moose uh which you knew he was

coming to call and he was yelling at him from the bench later in the game and i actually thought because uh kaprizov's it was his right arm he was it was hanging as he was going off and it looked like it was up top as he got hit where almost it could have got dislocated like who knows but uh russo also mentioned that article i was talking about fiala that i i don't think it's long term i think they're hoping to have him back pretty quick but if you looked at the hit it looked and the way he went off i was like oh no is that a shoulder he could be done for the year um or the dreaded biz you know the dreaded guys have buckled shoulders where they try to play with the brace on and it just sucks trying to do that.

For a skilled guy, that's the worst. But I didn't think the hit was dirty. I think you guys described it pretty correctly. And Frederick's always running around. That's what he does. Yeah. I mean, it was taken care of on the ice. This is a good example of why hockey should remain in the game.

I mean, I don't know when these two play again. They're in different conferences. But it was resolved the way it should be resolved. Guys fight, and then they move on. And, you know, we don't want to see Karel Kaprizov miss any games. We love watching the guy play, and hopefully he'll be back there soon. Well, Biz, this didn't happen Saturday night, but Sunday. How about the Anaheim Angels rally monkey shows up to drop the ceremonial first puck between Anaheim and Detroit Red Wings?

Absolutely hilarious. I did not have that one on the bingo card but i guess it all draws back to the fact that they did those cool jerseys with the anaheim angels so i get is was that the year they made their magical run or something like did it all yeah a few years back i forget specifically what yeah but yeah it was a big deal out in southern cal the whole rally monkey stuff but just hilarious the way he's sitting there imagine being a player sitting, one thing, it's usually like an old retired guy or a relative of somebody, but they're waiting for a fucking monkey to drop the puck.

Yeah, so there's a couple of these that have gone wrong, one of which in the AHL. Remember the Condors? They had that big Condor coming around. No, I don't remember this. And then it got- The giant bird? Oh, it got-

Huge wings bird. It ended up going off on the bench, chased the players down the tunnel. Oh, yeah, it was a bit of a shit show. So sometimes these face-offs, they end up being pretty dangerous. We had a Star Wars night in Manchester, and the guy had the special Darth Vader costume on. The boots were really slippery on ice. Well, he comes out, tries to drop the face off,

and fucking tears his ACL. His fucking helmet goes flying. Oh, yeah. Awful. That's a bad look for Darth Vader. Yeah, that's a tough look. I mean, hey, karma's a bitch, right? Karma's a bitch.

You turn on your family, you fucking tear your ACL. Whammy. Maybe that was a little foreshadowing for how my career was going to end. No better puck drop experience, I guess I'll call it then when AJ Brzezinski had the Blackhawks jersey on at the Coyotes game and Jens buried him with a water ball yeah he's walking off and he was like he was there for the Coyotes but he had the Blackhawks jersey on he dropped the puck and then he's walking off, and Yance just put the top off the water bottle

and just buried him with a full water bottle. I didn't know that he fucked. I must not have been there when he did that. Holy shit. I guess he had no clue, did it? He's just got water in his face. What the fuck is he's walking off the red carpet? Holy cow.

Hey, so there was a real tough one when there was an international game. I think it was Canada. I'm pretty sure it might have been Canada, U.S. And they set up this mat for this girl to walk off to do the Canadian anthem. And there was a bit of a, like about probably an 18-inch step down. And as she stepped down, she goes ass over tea kettle. She gets so embarrassed. She goes running back down the tunnel.

They finally calm her down and get her to come back out. She ends up bailing again. She bailed again. That was it. I don't even know. That's the worst when you take a step and you don't know there's a drop there. Even if it's eight inches, six inches, that's a nightmare city, man. I'm telling you, it's one of the worst secondhand embarrassment videos.

You just feel so terrible for the lady. You have to watch it literally looking through your fingers. It's because you don't want to see it. You think the ending's going to change the next time you watch it, but no. Guys, Keith Yandel, actually, the first time he came on the podcast, he told that aj bierczynski story i'll play it right now if you guys want okay yeah run it up all right yeah so no we were playing chicago uh blackhawks and he was playing for the chicago white socks at the

time i believe and it was during major league preseason so they had him drop the first puck and as he's dropping the puck he pulls a a Chicago Blackhawks hat out of it. This is in Phoenix. Pulls a Chicago Blackhawks hat on and puts it on. Just an asshole move. Yeah, just to be a funny guy. But he wasn't. He was just a big, goofy bitch.

And so he's walking by the bench. And I'm like, fuck this guy. Grab a Gatorade bottle and just blast him right in the face with the Gatorade bottle. And he's like looking up in the stands like someone in the stands did it. And Ulf Samuelsson, our assistant coach, was crying, laughing. Like I thought he wasn't even going to make it to the game. He was losing it. You know when the Gatorade bottle is filled to the tits and it just squirts

on rail? Oh, dude, just by picking it up. Oh, yeah. Like a Pete North money shot? I emptied like half of it, basically, from his face to his jersey. You can't come into somebody's barn and try to be a funny guy.

So there you go. Don't come in my house to be rooting against my team when you're walking by our bench. Bad move, AJ. R.A., is that fair game to hum-chickle water in the guy's face if he wears the other team's jersey in your building? It might be a little extreme.

Not the most accommodating host when a guy's in your building to drop a puck, but it's Yandel, so we're going to let it slide. Hopefully, the rally monkey didn't leave any unexpected shit shows on any of those nice jerseys those guys were in, but if they did, we have the right solution for you oh yeah guys i'm here to talk to you about a very very special partner with spitting chiclets that's laundry sauce your laundry deserves better right a lot of guys they struggle at home they they hope to someday like have a partner that can do laundry if they struggle with it you gotta meet laundry sauce the world's first designer laundry

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khl line off the like off no i didn't i i just read that thing word for word and kind of crushed it because i think they just hoped i would announce it the way they wrote it um should we bring up the wagon talk we haven't talked about wagons yet biz well a couple things going back to the marshawn and patty maroon thing they're slap another five million each on the franchise values for the amount of entertainment they provide to the league. And is, oh, there was one other thing I was going to bring up. Oh, Leafs. They're fine.

Everything's good with the Leafs. We're going to keep on rolling here. You mentioned that at the time of the Leafs recap. Okay. The Penguins, they won 10 straight before losing the game. And we were wondering, what constitutes a wagon? Is the label given out too easily? Is the league just too stacked right now?

And there are so many wagons out there. But you alluded to it earlier, Biz, the TNT game versus St. Louis. Awesome game. Pens ended up winning 5-3. Sid ties the game at 3. The Blues challenge for a goalie interference. They end up losing. Pittsburgh runs away with it.

What do you got for us there, Biz? Well, I mean, 10 in a row, you're a wagon. Like, if you win 10 straight, how often does that happen? Maybe a couple times a season. So then you get the status, especially if you're going to knock off St. Louis the way they did at home. But I just think it's one of those years where I can't remember a year

where you could list off this many teams who, in fact, during the course of the season, had winning streaks at the length that they've had and been, like, very, very dominant. Like, right now, during the course of the season, had winning streaks at the length that they've had and been very, very dominant. Right now, you could say that Colorado is listed in, right now, wagon status. Just because Pittsburgh lost one game and gave it up to Dallas doesn't mean they're off of it. Yeah, if they lose two of the next four,

they're off that wagon status throne. So I think that there's plenty of teams that can be in like i mean edmonton was in wagon status at the beginning of the year wit when their power play was at 50 and nobody could touch them right everybody usually gets at one point in the season wagon status now most of the time most of these teams choke with it every time granelli granelli ends up printing the shirt they fall off although new y New York Rangers, New York Rangers, we made one, and they have kept on winning. They are not bending a knee to this pressure of the wagon status.

What's your opinion on all of this? I think it just depends on what's going on with the season. If you've got a team that's won six, seven games in a row, boo, they're a wagon right now. In terms of making T-shirts, I feel like it's got to be like you go back to the Buffalo wagon that originally ruined the entire franchise. They'll probably never recover from it. But I like the Rangers wagon shirt. I think there could be a Penguins wagon t-shirt going down the side diagonal like those jerseys they wore this year.

Those throwback from the mid-90s. You got to say St. Louis, Colorado, Nashville. Looking at the central, they're all wagons right now.. Louis, Colorado, Nashville, looking at the Central, they're all wagons right now. Florida, Tampa Bay, Toronto, you could call them wagons. Carolina, Rangers, Washington, Pittsburgh. There's legitimately like, I mean, you know, we talk about the parity in the NHL. There's like 12 teams that could win the Cup.

So in terms of wagons, yeah, we got a million of them, it feels like. I do think, though, to be a true, true wagon, you've got to have some playoff success. So, unfortunately, Toronto doesn't count. Oh, snap. Wow. Yeah, it's like a radio fly effect. But, I mean, you could say the same for this core group with Colorado.

They've gotten out of the first round. Okay. Fair enough. And the collapses as well. They haven't had those. But keeping with the wagon talk, the Nashville Predators, what you just said, absolutely on fire. This team leads the West with 48 points thanks to the UC and Yossi show.

They've been absolutely unreal so far. They haven't stumbled. A lot of people thought these guys were going to stumble to start the year. They lost some players, but they haven't missed a beat. Dushane and Johansson have been playing up to their potential. They're getting absolutely fantastic results. And we need to talk about this rookie, Tanner Janot. He put himself in the call of the mix easily.

11 goals, 11 assists in 36 games. He's third in rookie scoring points. Also had a bunch of fights. This kid has fought in probably six or seven guys. 62 penalty minutes. Is 17 more than the next rookie. So this kid's unreal. And again or seven guys 62 penalty minutes is 17 more than the next rookie so uh this kid's unreal and again Yossi I mentioned still playing at an elite level leads the team in scoring with 34 points 18 to 1 Norris preseason odds so Biz you saw the Preds

up close the other night what did you see I mean you summarized it perfectly I shot Dushane attacks man like it obviously been a couple years that he hadn't really been playing like himself you can really sense a difference in his game he's playing with a lot of passion this year he ended up making this fucking saucer pass in the game the other night backdoor it was stunning the that's a big component to their success right now him and johansson are playing to what they expected so they have all of a sudden this secondary scoring element right because you know you're going to get norris caliber play from roman yosi he's a fucking machine it's like he i still think he's criminally underrated and not talked about talked about enough now because you get these guys like adam

fox kale mccarr uh headman, you know, and maybe certain guys in bigger markets get talked about. He's not talked about enough. So between that secondary scoring, you mentioned this rookie component with Tanner Janot and what the spice he's added to the mix. Uh, you get the production from the backend with Yosi, you get the goaltending that you do. And a guy who's known as a streaky player is probably on one of the hottest streaks right now as far as goals he didn't play in this game the other night against uh um arizona and you know they they didn't end up needing him but i think he had 16 goals in his last 20 games was philippe floresburg and he's been red fucking hot and you talk about

that elite skill and some of these insane goals that have been scored this year go back to the one where he's dancing uh petro in vegas and guys petro is not really a guy that's easy to walk around he's a very competitive guy at both ends of the rink and he comes off the wall and he ends up flicking the puck in the air and then ends up hitting it a second time over petro and he gets shot out of the cannon and then ends up hitting it a second time over petro and he gets shot out of the cannon and then ends up finish the thing off so he is just playing at a different level right now and i got jammed up on the tnt broadcast about who i think coach of the year should be because i still think there's so many good teams and like there's still so much to figure out but

talk about a team like i i don't even know if i had them making playoffs much like at the beginning of last year when they were struggling you got to think of heinz coach of the year right now they're leading arguably the toughest division in the league with a team that nobody probably even had in the playoff picture with the teams no doubt i remember last year i think a couple people were saying this guy could could have been let go and you talk about a patient gm and poil but n but Nashville's a special team. I mean, it's shocking to see what they've done. I love the Tanner Janot story

because I really appreciate undrafted players who spend time in the East Coast Hockey League. And I think two different seasons he's down there. And just to see the success he's having, he's only 24 years old. He's having a great year. And this is a kid who you you're dealing with and failure is not the right word but undrafted that's a disappointment you're dealing with the east

coast league a lot of times that can be a disappointment and and in the end this kid continues to get better and better now he's got a shot and who knows when the fuck he'll ever even see the ahl again let alone the coast so i love stories like that and it's a player who's definitely changed the vibe of that team where it's another guy who could play offense and be a prick to play against. And all of a sudden, like, whoa, that line's different with Tanner Janot playing on it. I think Duchesne's play has been completely different this year. You mentioned that, Biz. And Forsberg, when he's going and playing, I mean,

he pulled off one of the coolest, smoothest Michigan goals of all time. I think it was in Edmonton. Quickly, he put it up and roofed it the way you've seen a lot of guys do lately. And I think that Yossi, you said it perfectly, he's so underrated because he's like 55 points every single year. This year, he's leading the team in scoring. We'll also play in PK in 26 minutes a night. It's like this guy is top end. So I know I mentioned Ekblad for the Norris, but then you got Makar, Fox, Yossi. There's so many amazing defensemen out there. Who knows how that race is going to go down. But

in the end, with the offense and the defense and the coach and how well they've all gelled together, R.A.'s boy Saros is still the MVP of this team. So you get a goaltender that can be this good, and you get guys with bounce-back seasons, and this is what happens.

Yeah, 40-1 Vezina odds preseason in his last 51 starts before Saturday. 34 wins leads all NHL goalies. 207 goals against was fourth. 9-3-4 save percentage was first. His 9-4-2 save percentage at even strength was first. And I don't even understand this one, but 4-2-point-1-9 goals saved above average, courtesy of Natural Statrick. That's number one as well.

So this guy for the last calendar year has been probably the best goalie in the league. And also, too, their preseason odds for the Cup, 70-1. I wonder what it was to make the playoffs. Obviously, they haven't won nothing yet. Seriously? Yeah, no, 70-1 before. And then just to go back to Forsberg, we got to mention that goal versus Vegas.

The tarantula draped all over him. Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to mention that one. No, no, sometimes you're getting ready to tee up the next thing, buddy. It's that good we can talk about it again. Biz mentioned that Petro's not a guy that gets walked, but I happen to remember Biz sort of walked him

in St. Louis training camp when we were there. But what he did was he tried to flip it in. He hit him in the face. He went down, and Biz walked in. So he walked him, but it was a different type of walking. Also, we've got to talk about the gif of McPhee, of course. I think he's still getting PTSD from having traded him back in the Washington days. That was in that game, or I thought that was one that was used from another game that always comes back around.

That was actually in that game? I thought. I'm going to double check it now that I'm saying it, but I'm pretty sure it was. But yeah, he basically flipped out after the goal. Of course, he traded him back in the day, like I said, at Washington. But back to Forsberg. He's going to be an unrestricted free agent this summer. He's coming off a six-year, $36 million deal. What can he get on the open market this summer,

boys? That is a guy that when he's on, you're looking 40-goal player. He's only 27. I think that he wants seven years if it's with another team and probably eight years if it's with Nashville at around seven and a half, eight and a half million a year. I don't see how you'd get around that guy. Now, his numbers aren't, like, amazing, but he never plays a full season, at least in the last five years. So he's always around a point per game, though, and he scores. I mean, the thing that he's loving is his UFA year, he's got 18 goals in 26 games right now.

Last year, in 39 games, he only had 12. But it only really matters what you did that year before. He's streaky. He's very streaky. So I don't know if Nashville, I mean, that's a tough one because Nashville needs a guy like that if they're going to continue this core together. And they really are going to have an issue in looking at the deals Johansson and Duchesne have. So I don't know how that's going to go out.

I know they want to re-sign him, but he's going to want his payday he's 27 years old 28 this is when you really this is when you hit that last jackpot absolutely and i'm busy i did double check that it was a writer from the las vegas review journal david shown he said that he tweeted about the goal then he added the gif and said george mcphee's reaction to forsberg scoring against his club so i'm assuming it's it's the same one well well we got to reference why it's still rattling him is he ended up he was he mcphee who was a great gm in washington was never really able to get that team over the hump and forsberg was one of the guys he parted ways with to bring in martin erat so that was in fairness forsberg hadn't played in the NHL yet. Yeah, yeah.

Those are just the ones that come back to hurt. Those are ones that they might use against you on the exit meeting. You know? Like, hey, kind of like the Bowman Panarin. Like, that's an unforgivable. Moving right along. We actually have a San Joseose update for you evander kane he was placed on unconditional waivers so that the sharks could terminate the remainder of

his deal uh he apparently violated covid rules once again this time in the ahl uh it was reported that he allegedly flew to canada which i don't know after what he's already done i don't know why he would do that but it's kane we're talking about his agent said that they were going to file a grievance because quote the sharks do not have sufficient grounds for taking this action end quote and last night the nhlpa did in fact indeed file a grievance for him uh if the termination does go through it cost him about 23 million in salary and of course san jose would love nothing more than to get out from underneath that deal uh right now he's unrestricted free, regardless of how the grievance will file out. But I got to ask, Whit, I'll go to you.

Which team would sign him? A lot of people think they're going to sign this guy or some NHL team. Is it worth the risk to bring this guy in? Is he that bad of a guy? Has he done that many bad things where he's going to possibly infect a locker room or what? I don't know Evander Kane personally, and I'm not in any locker rooms, but I can't see any team signing him. If a team were to sign him, I would think it'd be a team on the fringe trying to get in the playoffs. You cannot even imagine or I cannot imagine a successful team that's on a roll this year bringing that guy into a locker room because

obviously last season ended. His teammates said we don't want him back. Since then, all he's done is basically be in trouble. He can't get out of his own way. In a way, I actually hope the guy figures out, like, life in a sense. Like, all he does is continue to fuck up. So why would you want to bring that attitude and what he's bringing to his life right now into your locker room to just basically have some guys be upset by it, maybe have some guys want him there.

I can't say, but I would be shocked if he's on an NHL team. And if he doesn't straighten up what's going on, will he even play in the NHL again? Because when you continue to be in the news for negative reasons, it just gives teams reason after reason to not want you there. And so the exact story was he tested positive for COVID. He went up to Canada before he was supposed to be able to travel. And then after saying he'd return, I think, December 31st or January 1st, he didn't come back until January 6th.

Earlier in the AHL, he had missed two practices. One, he said he had food poisoning. The next day, he said he had food poisoning the next day he said my shoulder's too sore so he needs money it's the bankruptcy it's just so much drama that goes with this guy why would any team risk bringing him in it to me it's a no-brainer that you do not sign him and you hope for his sake that he can get his life figured out yeah I mean that was summarized perfectly i just you never know there might be a few teams where they see the juices worth the squeeze in order

to bring them in for the second half of the season on a deal that's not going to pay him a lot of money it's a and if it doesn't work out over the course of the first 10 15 20 games and you have a strong enough leadership group that he can't kind of infiltrate the group if if any maybe there was those negative energies that from away from the rink that are kind of seeing they seem to keep kind of trickling into the rink is that a fair assessment like the problems away from the rink kind of start becoming a bit of a too much of a weight for the organization and the team i think that if you i I think for some teams, I mean, especially in how competitive the league is right now,

that might be the guy that they couldn't afford to go get that they can now get. I respect it. Sorry, go ahead. I don't think a team like Pittsburgh would do it, but you wonder like given how, like no one's going to go in there and infiltrate that group. They have a great culture. how like no one's going to go in there and infiltrate that group they have a great culture

well what's maybe separating them and and the other teams in the east like the east is a juggernaut right they get malkin back do they think people pittsburgh fans might be saying absolutely not you fucking idiot shut the hell up but some might be saying hey that would be maybe a piece that we couldn't have went out and got for dirt cheap that we can now use to fucking maybe get us over the edge. And if you're confused at all by R.A. describing how the P.A. is now handling it, the NHL P.A. is infiling the grievance, it's because that's why the P.A. is there. They have to protect every player in the league. And for a team to be able to just completely eliminate and cancel a contract, they've got to have a full-blown reason.

Now, San Jose has given their reasons. Bill Daly came out and said the NHL agrees with them in terms of them being allowed and able to eliminate this contract completely. But the PA then comes in and says, hold on, hold on. He does not deserve, he deserves some money here. So he's owed about $22 million. He's not going to get that. I also don't think he's going to get nothing.

I think that it'll end up being, there'll be an arbitrator involved, and they'll probably be in an agreement because neither player or team can really risk them winning or losing, if that makes any sense. Like, if all of a sudden San Jose is willing to come to an agreement,ane says all right well i'm not gonna get it i'm not gonna get nothing here and then san jose also if kane agrees to an agreement says all right well we're not gonna get stuck with the complete contract that we thought we were but for them to to pull this move it shows not only do they want to get this guy away from this this entire organization they want to get this this money off their payroll.

I mean, that's a lot of dough he's got left. So sitting in the minors, I don't know how that's going to work out. But San Jose's biggest issue right now, and somehow being in the hunt for the playoffs, I didn't see that coming, was Tomas Hertel is a stud, and he's a UFA. So I don't know if he's going to get dealt or get signed, but that's their real worry, I would say. And it goes without saying, too, like what you were saying,

like obviously you want the guy to be in a state of mind to where he can worry about. Sometimes his skill and how good he is kind of clouds our judgment. It's like if the guy's not ready to go back and play hockey yet, go worry about life in general and get that sorted before you come back and play some hockey. Well said, Biz. I know we talk about this guy a lot, and we don't wish him any ill will at all.

It's like we hope this guy can figure it out and get his life on track because he's a hell of a talent, and I just want to reiterate that. We're not rooting against this guy. He's a story he keeps popping up because he keeps making news, but we'd love nothing more than this guy get his head on straight and to succeed as a hockey player. It's like the A.B AB situation and what Tom Brady said. It's like now AB is still going on these podcasts

like trashing Tom Brady. And that's kind of what I went back to the leadership portion of it. It's like obviously with the issues that he had even before he got to Tampa, Brady was willing to say like, listen, this guy's obviously made a lot of mistakes, but maybe when he's made him he hasn't felt the love like hey we all make them and then it just kind of get boiled over now the other side of the coin is Michael Tomlin should get like a Nobel Peace

Prize for how he's able to juggle all the people that have been through Pittsburgh and the drama and all that but yet maintain 15 straight winning seasons. So that's kind of a little bit of a side note, but it's, it's like an AB situation where you're like, all you want this person to do is get to a place where there's no chaos. Cause you could just see that there's chaos. And we all know that when life's like that.

Yeah. We get that. It gets there sometimes, but when it's constant, like eventually like things can, can go pretty sideways pretty fast. G, did you have something? No doubt.

Yeah, I was just going to say, at what point do you guys think he cuts his losses and just goes over the KHL? Is he even allowed to do that? He's going to need money. I would imagine that that's happening. I'm just going to see if he can get a deal over here. But I don't know.

He's got a lot of demons going on right now. In the AB situation, the one thing that cracks me up is this guy's got he's got a lot of a lot of demons going on right now and the ab situation the one thing that cracks me up is this guy's saying he's too injured to play he's doing jumping jacks as he ran off the field so ab's definitely got some issues but i i i i find it kind of crazy that people are so afraid to just call ab a complete asshole like he he's got some serious issues i think he's also a complete goon yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it can be both yeah it's not black and white on either uh another san jose note mark edward flassic was basically for all intents and purposes a healthy scratch for the first time in his career he had missed only 77 games in 16 nhl seasons they were all injury related back in 2014 he was rested for a game.

So it wasn't like a health bomb. Uh, he still got, I think three, four, four more years left at $7 million. So this is something to keep an eye on. He's yeah. This is a Seabrook type deal. Like a guy who'd done so much for your organization for so long. And he was such a durable piece and, you know, you start slowing down a little bit and all of a sudden that like stay at home defenseman is just kind of an average defenseman making seven and um but

on the flip side of it sometimes we've seen it with uh with other guys in the league later in their career like remember when bo meester was a healthy scratch in st louis wit i you know sometimes it's more of a respect thing to say hey this is how I would treat you if you were playing this way in the prime. You know, like, you haven't been playing good hockey. So, you know, we're expecting you to work on your game a little bit, refocus, hit the reset button, and come back and contribute. I believe that was the year Yosey helped bombed him, and then Ruby came in.

I think that was the same season they won the cup. And Beaumont used to play an enormous role. Yeah. Yeah. Enormous role. I don't know how things turn out. You just mentioned Tomas Hurdle as well. Last year, his deal, he's making $5.625 this year.

Again, what kind of race is this guy looking at? He's only 28 years old. He's in the prime of his career right now. I'm going to say right now, mark it down that the salaries and the term that Hurdle get will be similar to Philippe Forsberg. Whatever those two guys sign, they have a lot of similarities,

age, skill, size even. So I'm wondering who ends up getting more on the AAV, but we'll see. Both amazing players. Hurdle Zibanejad? Hurdle Zibanejad type money? I think both of those guys are going to get if they don't sign with their current teams they're going to get seven

year deals they're going to get max deals at their age and they're going to get seven to eight million a year so maybe a little bit more if they really rip up the playoffs one of them but hurdle had the natural hat trick in philly the other day they won three two it was a sick game by him. Hurdle. I like Hurdle to the avalanche a lot. I think he's been very vocal about the fact that he wanted out at the beginning of the season. I don't

know if that was tying into the drama behind the scenes and the fact that that hadn't been resolved yet. I haven't heard much of those rumors rumbling as much as I did at the start of the year but I think that they're going to have to go through a bit of a rebuild process I don't think that they're in a win now situation I think that they get a really good return if if I'm Colorado and it's it's let's let's be straight about this Kadri hasn't even been playing like

a second line center he's been playing like a first line center this year. Well, you got now you got two first centers there. Is it fair as a GM to watch your own back knowing that maybe this player has a history when when the level of play gets a little bit more

intense that the wires cross? How many times has it happened in the postseason? Three times? At least twice. Yeah. No.

Yeah. Twice against the Bruins on two different years and then last year against the Blues you're right three times three times now so I think that what you what you get concerned about as a general manager just like you would be as maybe grabbing another goalie is fucking up with the feng shui and fucking up with the rhythm and maybe where the ice time's getting distributed but a nice hedge would be to pick up that that extra guy up front because they are already a wagon up front like there's no denying they're taught like they're 12 forwards they can go against any top now you add that to the mix well you're saying well what would be the return well i mean you're in a really win

now state in my opinion and and like byram like i don't he's i think that's a very significant piece one that definitely gets the conversation started you just talked about taves and what he's making for how many years he's making it for well we both know that gerard like if if byram all things go well byram turns into gerard right but you have gerard but he doesn't even need to be your ace because you got Makar. So it's like you are so stacked on the back end. You don't need any more resources, and you're even okay if you lose Byram, in my opinion.

It's tough though. Yeah. No, I just think that it's a good hedge up front, and it just gives you a little bit more of a security blanket. Now, I don't know who becomes the third line center. I don't know if Hurdle's the type of guy who'll move over to the wing. But all of a sudden, if you can keep him in that 18-minute range and he's getting his reps, you're fucking just rolling over teams. The way that Pittsburgh won their cups their last two

were they were so strong down the middle. Strength down the middle of the ice and take out the back end out of the equation and like i think a fucking ra could play net for them at that point i mean you saw me in detroit i saw you in detroit i think you'd be doing you you do well under pressure so it was just something that was my moves now much like a lot of these things like I don't got a capologist or rocket Scientologist at the table to say, hey, does this work? I think that they got cap room to work with, and I don't think hurdles on this ridiculous deal. What's he making? Just under six?

Five, six, two, five, yeah. So I don't know. Just some food for thought. I might be a fucking donkey with another column that was on me after this one. No, I appreciate the in-depth look at that. It's just really tough if you're going to talk about them dealing byram or a guy like new hook a young player that really they could they could stand to lose in colorado it's going to be hard to defend that if you're getting a guy that's a ufa it's really difficult yeah it's almost like if i'm going to lose one of

these young guys i need a little bit of term. Yeah. So who knows? Yeah, I mean, Newhook and Byron, I think that's a whole different conversation. I was just thinking individually. I'm thinking of younger players that kind of get moved. That's such – yeah, that's such – no, buddy, it's such a good proposition to bring up on the podcast. Like, Grinnell is salivating right now. What do you got, G?

Well, I was just going to say Biz they'd have to send some money out the door because it looks like right now they only have $330,000 in open cap space. So it looks like they'd have to send one of their forwards out the door. Yeah and for those of you who off the hop said it's not going to work financially and you just wasted 10 minutes of my life

really apologize about that one. You see a lot of things get worked out at 3 o'clock Eastern trade deadline. Exactly. there'll be magic happening every those are the same people who told me i go to vegas wouldn't make sense well and grinnelli is the one who ended up kind of bringing that up to begin with but then i was like yeah it's pretty close to getting back to vegas and starting to be with the team and when he does come back I'm hearing Riley Smith I'm looking at Dadnov I mean there's going to be guys going out the door there to make room for his 10 million because they do not have room now and they're going to need to gas them forward so we'll

see what ends what ends up being the move that Vegas has to make to get Eichel in the lineup and they are they don't give a throat and they are – Yeah. I'm sorry, Biz. No, no. All right. Don't apologize at all. Like my wheels are spinning right now, and I don't think if they want to go deep in the playoffs, they can get rid of Smith.

I don't think they can get rid of Danunov. I don't think they can get rid of Marchessault. So who's a guy who's making a decent amount – enough of money? Well, I just thought of Smith and Danunov. Smith and Danunov and over 10 million combined so i think smith is is a pavelski type you they don't have enough of those guys to to and he's an og night he's been there since the beginning he is all the front office they're gonna have to decide and uh that's a nice little segue to we got a little front office note for you here uh

per pl lebron the habs began reaching out to teams to ask permission to speak to potential GM candidates. He believes they've done so with Roberto Luongo, Daniel Breer, Mathieu Dachet, and among others. We'll keep our eyes on that. And this is an interesting note, Biz, that come across Twitter. I think you shared with us. At Eric Macromala,

the last time the Canadians had a top 10 NHL points leader was Mats Naslund in 1986. Imagine the Canadians haven't had someone in the top 10 in points since 1986, 36 years. I would have never, ever, ever guessed that. That's bananas. I saw that on Twitter, and I sent it right over. I said, an opportunity to shit on the Habs?

Why not? Right? Why not? I mean, it's oddly impressive. Not in a good way. No, no, I know. But to go back to the burger van. Oh, yeah.

The LA Kings, they brought in the burger van in a consulting capacity as senior advisor to general manager Rob Blake. And that brings us to Rob Blake. He just got extended. This is per at Mayor NHL. He covers the Kings. He said that they extended Rob Blake.

It's believed to be from four to five years. So, you know, Blake, the Kings, I think they're slowly getting back on course. They're right in the playoff hunt right now. Their drafting has been phenomenal. So they're obviously keeping Blakey around to keep it rolling. Biz, did you want anything to add? Agreed. Deserves a little bit more runway here to see how he can

turn this team around. Now, Adam the Burger Van, like, I mean, he's a great hockey mind. He he's been around the game um you know say what you will about his body of work in Montreal but you know sometimes a little bit of luck plays a part and I thought he made some good moves there some not so good ones I think that you know maybe one of the bigger criticisms before last year's run was that he'd given Carey Price the money that he did. But, I mean, Christ, how many GMs during their tenure get to go to a cup final? So right away, like, you kind of look at it like that's, in my opinion, justified. He got it there. And sometimes when you don't get those high, high-end picks,

you know, they ended up drafting Cockney Niemey. I got that out pretty clean, didn't I? They get him at third overall. And from a guy who's been in an organization like Arizona, like those one and twos really sometimes can make a difference. The Eichels, the Matthews. And he was never really able to get that first line center. So with all that not so much success in Montreal,

I think he very much deserves a second chance. And as I said, he's a great hockey mind and a good guy to have around. And I'm sure it's just going to add to that artillery. I saw that and I think a lot of people saw it and thought, what's going on? Is this the next GM possibly? And then Blake, I think that day or the next day

gets the extension. So that's definitely not the case where Bergevin's brought in to be the GM there. But there's a connection with Luke Robitaille. They go a long way back. And I don't know. I mean, Mark Bergevin made some big trades. And I don't think a big trade's really been made by Rob Blake in L.A.,

not the one I can think of. Who knows? Maybe this year they look to make a midseason deal to bring some help in. I feel like making the playoffs there is pretty important this year with what's gone on the past few years. So also looking at Montreal just quickly, I don't think it's crazy to think. We're looking at possibly a dark, dark, gloomy future of the Montreal Canadiens.

I don't see when the hell they're going to be good. They got some older players. Price is older. It's like that could be a disgusting next five, six years. I don't know what happens in Montreal. But L.A. is looking different. They're on their way up. They got some nice young players.

They still got Dowdy playing good hockey. Kopitar's had a great year. It'd be pretty cool to see them get into the playoffs, I think. Well, all this general manager talk, boys, it's probably the perfect time to bring on billy g uh we mentioned it last week when we were in minnesota this guy uh just class personified had us over for an interview grilled us up a bunch of steaks and had a bunch of drinks and uh just an awesome time so we're gonna send it over to billy garren but first we do want to let

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And now, enjoy Billy G. Well, it's a huge pleasure to welcome our next guest. He's been in the NHL in some capacity for about 30 years now. He spent 18 seasons with eight franchises playing in over 1,400 regular season and playoff games. He won a Stanley Cup with the 95 Devils and won with the 09 Penguins, and he was elected to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013. After retiring, he joined the Penguins front office and added two more cups to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013. After retiring, he joined the Penguins' front office and added two more cups to his resume.

And these days, he's the general manager of the Minnesota Wild. Thanks so much for having us at your beautiful home and for joining us on the Spittin' Chicklets podcast. Billy Guerin, how's it going, my friend? It's going great. Thanks for making the trip out here. Absolutely. Our pleasure.

A long time coming. Suitcase. Suitcase. Eight teams. Like Brent Ashton over there. Eight teams. He's got helmets, jerseys everywhere. But they were all in the NHL, Biz. You had more teams

in a different league. Okay. All right. Is that how we're going to start out here? All my teams were the show, he said, Biz. We got two hours, Billy. You don't worry about it. Maybe two and a half. We're going to go Star Wars style. He's like, wait, what? I thought this was 50 minutes. Get out of my house. Contract said 50 minutes.

So how you adjusting to the Midwest lifestyle? You know what? It's been great. I mean, Minnesota's been awesome. Like, just from job perspective, living perspective, like, you know, my kids, we have one

daughter here full time, but all the kids love it have one my one daughter here full-time and and uh but all the kids love it they all made friends here real quick and my wife loves it everything's been really good like nothing negative it's uh it's awesome when when you retired from the game you got right into you know front office things with pittsburgh did you know right away like not only do i have to stay in the game but i don't want it to be coaching i want to be in the front office i want to be building teams is that something you knew right away after like, not only do I have to stay in the game, but I don't want it to be coaching. I want to be in the front office. I want to be building teams. Is that something you knew right away after retirement? I knew I had to stay in the game.

You know, like, I just, I knew I wasn't one of those guys that could just, first of all, I'm not a very good golfer. But, you know, I just, I can't just hang around. I can't just play golf. I have to, I have to do something like you know what for honestly for my mental health like you know somewhere to put my energy somewhere to put my anger somewhere to put my you know there wasn't that that was the void after after playing there there's nothing to do nothing so so you know life's pretty gets pretty empty and and you know i just knew i was to have to do something I knew it was either going to be coaching or or management and um when I started I I started

in player development and I got to do a little bit of everything that kind of helped steer me in the direction of management but GM was always kind of a goal yeah well I'll start there you started in player development. You look back and say, that's probably exactly where I should have started in order to kind of get to where you are now? Yeah, 100%. I mean, that is the greatest job in hockey.

That's probably the most coveted job in hockey that everybody wants to do player development in some fashion. And I absolutely loved it. It was the best. It was, you know, like I spent a ton of time in Wilkes-Barre. I spent a ton of time traveling around, kind of learning the ins and outs of, you know, scouting and, you know, just finding your way around these junior

rinks, college rinks, just learning the business. And then, you know, because I broke in with Pitt and Ray Shiro was there, you know, and I was allowed to go to the pro scout meetings, the amateur scout meetings, the draft, free agency, July 1, all that stuff. So, you know, I'm fresh off the ice. And you guys know how it is. When you're a player, you know, I'm fresh off the ice and you guys know how it is. When you're a player, you worry about yourself and, you know, you prepare yourself for the season, for the game, for all that stuff. But when you get into management, there's so much more. Yes. And, you know, people always told me, too, as a GM, you don't really know how much there is until you sit in the chair.

And that's, that's the truth. Were you surprised you got a GM gig before you turned 50? I mean, I know you paid your dues, but I think, I think a few people might've, you know, a little surprised you got it so young. No offense. No, no, no. There's some people that surprised I got it at all. No, it was kind of a, it was kind of a goal.

That when I, when I set out, I, I, I wanted to do, I wanted to do the things that I felt I needed to do to, to make myself better. And to, when I, when I did get a job eventually that I would stay there for a long time, that I wouldn't be like kind of a flash in the pan. Like, so it was, you know, everybody's different, but, you know, I did. I started traveling around more. My weekends were gone, you know, and I missed a lot of stuff with my kids again. We all sacrificed, and it paid off. Because now, honestly, I have a phenomenal job. I love my job. It's absolutely great.

great. Well, you know, you've made a team that I notoriously called pretty boring, pretty exciting to watch. I mean, it's true. It's like, I think getting back, getting into that is something we want to get into later because more importantly, the career you had is what we're really interested in. And we'll go back to the beginning like we do with everyone, but you got into the game, Massachusetts guy, somebody I really looked up to, like, was it your dad who got you in the game? What was your beginning into hockey? No, it was actually my mom um and uh you know i know you guys have had gomer gomer on my mom's from nicaragua and they they don't have a ton of hockey down there no no but she you know my dad was all you know he was working every day but my mom needed something for me to do in the winter because i had a lot of energy as a kid and And she had a friend that just said, you know, bring him ice skating.

And she did that. And I just fell in love with it. So my mom actually got me started. And then it just kind of started going from there, you know, and, you know, instructional hockey out in Western Mass. And then, you know, they put me on a team with, you know, played for my town. Growing up 8, 9, 10 years old, were you always one of the better players or was it something where you were slower developing? And, you know, they put me on a team with, you know, played for my town and just started. Growing up, 8, 9, 10 years old, were you always one of the better players?

Or was it something where you were slower developing? Like, what was your whole role as, like, a youngster in the game? You know, I. You can be cocky. It's okay if you were really good. Yeah, no, I was. Like, not my first couple years. But then as I started to go, then it just started to kind of kick in

and yeah yeah and and for me like growing up it's high school hockey it's it's changed in massachusetts i think minnesota is the the best at that but you always played junior you know like everyone played prep school and stuff like that like how was it that you never ended up at a at one of those you know new england prep schools well, we were really lucky. So my mentor, my coach back then was a guy named Gary Dineen. Gary was from Montreal. He played for Toronto, for St. Mike's in Toronto. He played for the Canadian Olympic team. And he ended up playing in the L.A. organization.

And they had an American League team in Springfield for a short time. And he played there and ended up settling there. So what he did was he started his own junior team. And, you know, summertime he had a hockey school. You know, wintertime he had the junior team. But he knew how to run it. He knew know, wintertime he had the junior team. But he knew how to run it. He knew how to run it like a Canadian junior team.

So, I mean, we didn't have any money or we didn't – nothing was fancy. But the way he coached you and ran it. The way he coached, the way he emphasized practice, the way he made us dress up, like the accountability. You know, like he checked, you know, you know, everything. It was a full package thing. Like I got, he, he suspended me for two weeks one time because my grades were so bad. Like him and my dad got together and they're like, yeah, he's, he's not doing well. Like, he's like, all right, Garen, you're shut down for two weeks.

He's like, all right, Garen, you're shut down for two weeks. But it was a complete package, and it was kind of crazy because we played at the Big E, the Eastern States Exposition, like great old rink where the Springfield Indians used to play. But the high school teams used to get all the prime ice slots for practice. So, you know, Longmeadow would practice, then East Longmeadow, then, you know, Agawam would practice. I got 50 goals in 10 games. And then, you know, we were the Springfield Olympics,

but we were called the Picks. So then the Picks would practice. So our practices were at, like, 11, 1130 at night. So come home, do my homework, shoot some pucks, take a nap, get up, go to practice, come back and wake up, go to school and do it all over again. But we practiced all the time. It wasn't, he didn't, I don't want to say he didn't care about the games. It was a development.

It was a practicing. We practiced, you know, an hour and a half, you know, every night. And it was phenomenal. Before that, had you ever thought about playing pro hockey before you ever went to Springfield? Since I can remember. You were like this is – That was it.

And was it Bruins? Bruins all the way. The Bs all the way. That's awesome. I used to – like the game would come on. Two seconds, Anderson. I'd have a a stick i'd have a tennis ball you know i'd make a net out of the sofa cushions and i'd be watching terry o'reilly and rick middleton and you know john retell and all these guys brad park it was the best i i yeah i mean i i don't know what I would be doing if I didn't play hockey.

So given you talk about after your playing career and how hyper-focused you've gotten in becoming a GM, is that similar to kind of becoming a player in the national hockey? That's why you ended up going over to Springfield. Now, did you already have that offer for Boston College on the table when you went over to Springfield? No, no. So I played all my high school years in Springfield.

Living at home the whole time. I lived at home the whole time. I went to local prep school, right, in my town, Wilbrand-Munson Academy. It was – Valedictorian, right? Yes, valedictorian, yes. Yeah.

That's an actual fact? Yeah, yeah, he's valedictorian. He? Yes. Valedictorian, yes. Yeah. That's an actual fact? Yeah, yeah. He's valedictorian. He had a 4.1. Your Boston humor is going over my head already in this interview. We know. Sorry, I interrupted you. But it was, I don't know what I was talking about.

But yeah, so I lived at home the whole time. And then back then, you know, the kids today, they commit so young. They miss out. I took five recruiting trips. Yeah. That was like the best time. Where else? I went to BC, BU, Providence, Maine, and Michigan State.

And it was unbelievable. Everyone got better and better and better. Oh, yeah. They're putting all the red carpet for you. Yeah And it was unbelievable. Everyone got better and better and better. Oh, yeah, they're putting all the red carpet for you. Yeah, it was great. And then I committed to BC my senior year. Yeah, I mean, it was much, much different back then. And you were taken fifth by New Jersey 89 draft.

Were you actually here in Minnesota for it? Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was at the old Met Center where the Mall of America is now. Did you have a – privately, did you have a preference where you want to go? I mean, New Jersey was kind of coming along a little at the time, but were you hoping to maybe go somewhere else at the time or you didn't care? No, I didn't care. I was kind of naive too.

I didn't really – I'm like – like they're telling me I'm going to go like pretty early in this draft. Like is that for real? Did you get drafted out of the picks or freshman year? Oh yeah. So, which was really out of that field, out of left field. And like, everybody was like, where, who is this guy? Yeah.

And, um, yeah, they, they, they took me fifth and it was actually, it was a great place for me to start. It was just awesome. Like, the Devils were unbelievable. So I was thrilled. And then you go to BC. I mean, everybody knows about Jerry York, legendary coach. But before him, Lenny Saglowski, he's a guy who broke you.

And what did he mean to you as a coach? How did he help you game in college? Well, Steve Cedarchuck really recruited me. Okay. I mean, he was, you know, doing all the recruiting for them back then. And Lenny ended up coming to my house for dinner, which I guess was a big deal. Because we lived way out in Western Mass. Yeah, you didn't go past Worcester.

Yeah, you didn't go past Worcester. But it was, you know, and I just loved BC. I fell in love with BC. You know, I was like 14 years old when doug flutie threw the the hail mary pass and you know i just it was just a perfect fit so it was great two years i tell the kids i said i i graduated in two years let's see if you can do that and my and my and my salary coming out of school was amazing yeah so exactly before taking these trips though did you had you already made up your mind

like did you know where you were going no no you would go on these just you know looking to have a good time have a few pops get to meet the crew and then and then well i definitely did that yeah and um you know so when i visited uh michigan state i stayed with rod brindamore you guys worked out it worked out for six days he's like get me the fuck out of here he's giving him protein shakes he's like a sick visit dude the protein shakes didn't even exist back no brindamore made his own oh he made his own roddy made his own yeah but we had we had a great time we've been we've been buddies ever since too it's uh uh jimmy cummins was on that team they were stacked they were loaded then they were ron

mason right was the yeah ron mason was a coach um you know uh they had kit miller yeah miller was an unbelievable college hockey player like he was incredible they they were stacked they were loaded jason was out he was playing net for them they were it was awesome it was a great trip i almost went two years, like sophomore year ended, it was pretty evident. I mean, you had a huge sophomore year looking at the numbers. It was time to go. Let's give this thing a shot. Lou made them.

It was really funny because, you know, there were no player development guys back then. You just figured it out. There weren't even any, I think, when Biz and I came up. No, you guys are getting old. No shit. I guess that's bad. Fuck.

So back then, you know, you guys are getting old. No shit. I guess that's bad. Fuck. So back then, you get drafted. If you're a Canadian junior kid, you go right to camp. And so the Devils, they just didn't say anything. So they knew I was going to BC, Didn't really hear from them at all. So, my sophomore year, we get beat out by Alaska Anchorage and the NCAA. So, it was a huge upset. And, you know, so we went out after the game and blew off some steam and had a couple beers and, you know, woke up the next morning

and wasn't feeling too hot, but my phone rang at 10 o'clock in the morning. I said, hello. And, uh, this is a landline. This is, this is a landline. And the voice on the other line said, Billy, it's Lou Lamarillo. I'm like, I'm like, who the hell is this? Like, stop, like shut the fuck up. Like, and he's like, Billy, it's Lou Lamarillo. I'm like, who the hell is this? Like, stop.

Like, shut the fuck up. And he's like, Billy, it's Lue Amarillo. We got to talk about the next part of your career. And I was like, oh, wow, this really is Lue. How did you get this number? Like, hadn't heard from him in wherever. But I called my dad. I'm like, dad, like, Lue called.

This could be it. Wow. So, I mean, that was. It was obvious that it was time to go it was time it was time to go yeah it was time to go but it honestly like sitting now like doing player development being a gm now i see the importance of players in college getting to that level so many guys leave too early after my first year would have been too early after my second year it was it was good timing it goes back to like even watching high school kids now like why ever move up a level until you truly dominate the level you're at and that kind of was what you what you find yeah you have to dominate and and as the devils go

i mean you go back to like pretty much all their prospects you got to spend a little time in the minors and that was no different for you i mean you're in utica i think yeah yeah i went from bc we had a national team that year uh for before the um uh the mayor was it france yeah the alberville alberville um so we played all year from August up to the Olympics as a national team. We traveled all over the country, all over the world. It was a blast. Any other NHL guys ever on that team that made it? Big Walt. Chuck, yeah.

Walt was on. You guys were traveling the world together? Yeah, he was my roommate. Oh, boy. Nobody else wanted a room with him or me. So they put us together eventually. It was a buddy. We had the best time. He did a beer tasting worldwide clinic.

It was, we had the best time. We'd spent a ton of time up in St. Cloud. And we spent time in, you know, like Cromwell, Connecticut had a new rink. We spent a bunch of time there. But most of our time as a home rink, like to practice, we spent in St. Cloud. And we just had a great time. I mean, there are a bunch of guys. Scotty LeChance, Scotty Young, Marty McGinnis, Stevie Hines.

Tons of guys. It was great. Was it like a culture shock getting to the nhl though especially with the new jersey devils you step in from college scene and all of a sudden it's like a a pretty buttoned up organization where it's uh it's almost like a little bit robotic yeah it wasn't like that though like i think everybody from the outside thinks it's robotic and it's not. You, I had a great time.

It was all I knew, but like a great teammates. We had a, we had a ton of fun and we won. And you know what? Like you, you got to sacrifice somewhere along the line. You know,

you can't just free wheel and do anything you want. You got to have some discipline. You got to have some accountability and you got to make sacrifices. You know, you can't just freewheel it and do anything you want. You got to have some discipline. You got to have some accountability. And you got to make sacrifices. And that's what we did in New Jersey. And there's still time for the fun outside. Yeah. Oh, my God.

We had the best guys. Like, it was awesome. You know what? We had a really tight team. You know what? We drank a lot of beer together and hung out. It was awesome. Was there, like, like a first Lulu moment?

Scotty Gomez talked about the time that he sent him to the Boss concert. Bruce Springsteen. Was there a moment where he kind of tried to, you know, did he do anything to kind of get you off guard? Announce his presence with authority. Like get you to sign a stick on the way in from curfew or something? No, no, no, no, no. I don't have any stories like that

like it was pretty funny though because he um he when i so i got cut from that national team no shit yeah the the day we were going over the olympics me and walt were packing our bags and i got the call and they let me go oh it was brutal it brutal. So I go home for a couple of days, you know, then Lou calls, you know, he's like, Hey, look, we gotta, we gotta get going here. Um, so he flew into Bradley airport and, uh, I went there with my, my, my buddy from home, um, my dad, my uncle, and we blew out a room at the Sheridan hotel there. I signed my contract, you know, and he had Dr. McMullen's plane. Dr. McMullen used to own the Devils. I'm like, Ooh, this is big time.

Like private jet, like New Jersey, here I come. And it was like, Ooh, see, it dropped me off in Utica. I thought, yeah, he're making a stop sir to the pilot it was uh yeah i was i was like oh man going to the chopper going to the show and it was like right to utica what did the coach say who coached that team that cut you from that olympic team uh dave peterson just like what are you gonna say yeah no just suck Just say. Sucks though. You got to let somebody. At least they didn't win the gold like Herb Brooks in 60. Well, I tell you, it was unbelievable because Herb was my coach in Utica.

Yeah. Oh, shit. When I got there. Wow. And, you know, I got to Utica. There were like two reporters and he chased them away. He's like, you're not going to leave this kid alone. And he's been through enough and blah, blah, blah.

So he protected me. He was awesome to have. Like he was great. Wow. I didn't know that. He knew what you were going through. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he did.

Now, when you played, I think, what, 18 or so games before Jersey called you up? Now, Pepe was a big guy in the Devils at the time. What were your predictions? Oh, man. Pepe, I think he scored 40 that year. He was awesome. I'm still good friends with him. I played five years with him.

He's great. You know what? He would do anything to win. Legit. Like anything. And he just loved winning. He just wanted to win. Like anything. And he just loved winning. He just wanted to win. And I learned a lot from guys like that.

I mean, I didn't know anything about life in the NHL. Like nothing. And you know what? I had him. I had John McClain, Scott Stevens, Bruce Shriver, Kenny Danico, Randy McKay. You're listening to every word these guys are saying. Yeah, Stephon Richer, all these guys that have been around and been All-Stars and won Stanley Cups already.

I'm like, this is incredible. I'm just soaking it all in. They're unreal. Did they break you in at all? I don't I don't say hazing but things were a lot different like 30 years ago what kind of things would they do to break you in as a rookie no you weren't first in line at team meals

no no if when I was when I got out of line it was like hey and it's like Scotty wouldn't even say anything he'd just look sorry because I was kind of loud you know sometimes the rookie thing And like Scotty wouldn't even say anything. He'd just look. Sorry. Because I was kind of loud. You know, sometimes the rookie thing. Who would they stick you with as a roommate?

You know what? I had Val Zalapukin, and he was an awesome guy. Like we were roommates for like two and a half years. He ended up getting, when I got traded to Edmonton, he got thrown in the deal too. He was so nice to me. thanks billy oh it was unbelievable we we were flying into edmonton he didn't say a word to me the whole time not the whole flight and we're flying in and it's you know it's january it's all white outside like snow it's freezing cold all of a sudden he just snaps he's like billy what the

fuck are you doing you could have stayed in new jersey the whole time and this and that he's like and now i have to come to edmonton i'm like well sorry but he was he was a great roommate and uh roamed with bobby holick with foraleek for a couple nights, and I couldn't take it anymore. He just ate the whole time. But he was good. We had unbelievable guys. We really did.

It was an awesome team. Well, the team in 94, you're a part of that brutal Game 7 loss. And the next year, you come back, you guys end up winning it. Was the whole year like pretty focused like we're gonna get the job done like we were you know next step here we come like that's a stanley cup team from that whole season because you're enormous underdogs going into that final right yeah huge underdogs it was um i mean you know the the funny thing about that devil's team is that everybody says well they didn't have any stars they didn't have any stars. They didn't have any stars. We had stars.

You know what? Scott Stevens was a star. Scott Niedermeyer was a star already. You know, Marty Berder was becoming one. But, like, Stephon Richer, Paul Lemieux, John McClain, these guys all played in all-star games, scored 40, 50 goals. They had won Stanley Cups. Like, they just maybe weren't like the marquee names like

i mean that that detroit team was pretty stacked too and they just they just kept getting better and and we were we were really good yep like we played that system to a t and we did whatever we had to do and and jacques lemare was know, with all due respect to all my other coaches, Jacques Lemaire is hands down the best coach I ever had. He was unreal. Dialed in, huh? He was dialed in, but you're talking about a guy with, what, 11 Stanley Cups, a Hall of Fame career.

He had done everything. So he was going to do things on his terms. He did not care. He'd bench a star. He did not care. He cared about one thing, winning. That was it. Oh, you had three goals last game?

Great. You stink tonight. You're sitting. That's the way it was like you're having a good game you'll go on the power like we didn't have set power plays no shit it would change that often yeah like if you're going well that night you're gonna play if you're not going well and we talked like we had a 20-year reunion in 95 and he was unbelievable just kind of telling us everything like and he's like you

gotta you gotta hold your cards to you pretty close as a coach right so then after all these years he's like this is what was going through my head during the time yeah he's like you know billy how's billy tonight he he's not gonna help us win tonight so i'm not gonna play him much i was like that's what it was oh that's why i never saw the ice i should have stopped i thought i had a great first shift. I should have stopped in the D zone, and I should not have turned that puck over. But that's the way it was, and it was game to game. And he was just – he was an amazing coach.

And he told us that night too. We were asking him all sorts of questions, and he said, you know what, the coach has the most powerful thing in the game, and that's ice time. And if you give me what I want, I'll give you what you want, and I'll put you on the ice. But if you don't, I won't put you out there. And I'm like, ooh, that makes sense. I wish I knew that 20 years ago but

no it worked out it was it was great was he responsible for implementing that whole like whether you want to call it the trap the left wing block whatever was that all was that all jacques lemaire did he do that in cahoots with lou to sort of build the roster how did that all kind of play out i mean i don't know how i I think he was, and Larry Robinson too. You know, I don't know. I mean, that's behind the scenes. Right. So if Lou was involved in that, I don't know.

But the whole part of like Lou's accountability and, you know, the professionalism, the – you know, he's got this great saying, you know, we don't have a lot of rules, but the ones we have, we follow. And we followed him to a T. You know, and then Jock's, you know, hockey knowledge and things like that. I think it just – it was just a perfect storm. It was great. Not to bring up that Game 7 again, the Matto game, but was that the toughest loss you had as a professional,

the Game 7 double OT loss? Yeah, yeah. That was a tough one. That was – I mean, but like I look back now and I'm like, oh, my God, what a series. Like it was – just to be able to play in that was – That was like my – I said before I fell in love with the game. Sorry to interrupt.

That series and that whole like two-year stretch was amazing. Yeah, and that was and that was a war. That was a battle. Those two teams just did not like each other. It was great hockey. It really was. How did you sleep before game four when you guys won it, though? I mean, you guys, like you said, Detroit.

Better than he slept after they won it. Detroit was favored, then you guys end up going to sweep them like you're you like i'm gonna fucking end up living my childhood dream here lift the stanley cup yeah it was didn't sleep well i mean like the night before i you know you're fine but like that afternoon you're just the same thing like game seven in Pitt. Like – Oh. Like I – 14 years later, right? 14. That's the third longest that somebody's won from winning the stretch.

14 years. Yeah, like Chelly and Rex. Chelly and Recchi. Yeah, it was – you know, you think you're going to – when you're 24 and you win, you probably win like seven or eight of these things, you know. No problem. Was there like a – 14 years later, not a sniff.

Was there a vet in the locker room that ended up saying something between one of the periods that like was like, wow, this is fucking sick. We're about to do this thing. No, no, no. It was – you could hear a pin drop. Nobody said – Even game four, after the second intermission right there you're just just everyone's silent yep yep yep and then you know and then i i guess that my recollection of it was

like uh looking down the bench and seeing mikey peluso and he's and he's crying he's bawling his eyes out and it was awesome it was it was great he couldn't like he couldn't even play anymore like he was and i'm like wow holy shit this is really gonna happen and then uh yeah it was it was incredible i i then you know a commercial huh and then you're not a commercial yeah cup commercials all those years later yeah i know that i love that commercial that's a good one yeah you guys steamroll to that one 16 to 4 years i. I'll beat the opposition. I'll not outscore them. What am I thinking of?

Win, win. 16 wins to four. Sorry. But how are you guys not only able to beat Detroit? That team had seven Hall of Famers, but you swept them. What did you guys do that was able to beat them so handily? Such a good team. Well, I don't know.

Honestly, I think our system was so new. We hadn't played them that year because it was a lockout year. Oh, yeah. And I think we just shocked them. I think we just took them by surprise, and we won the two games in Detroit. By then, it was almost like it was too late. Almost like they underestimated you guys perhaps a little bit. Yeah, probably.

Yeah. And we were legit. Like we were good. I think, yeah, being on the team, you look at it like we were better than everyone. Like that's how we beat them. You know what I mean? Like I think that their Hall of Famers changed everyone's perception. But, you know, two years later, you're talking about the trade.

It's hard because like everyone's first time getting dealt it's like oh my god especially winning a cup I'm gonna be here forever like how did you find out an initial thought like where you were going like take me through your reaction to that well I you know I was looking for more you know I think one thing that happened with that team was like, you know, we missed the playoffs the next year. And then things just started, you know, there was some some chinks in the armor and things were starting to fall apart a little bit. And then, you know, I went to the 96 World Cup. Had a great experience with that. So I started to want a little bit more, which I think for a young player, I think it's natural.

I'm not a third liner type thing. Yeah, yeah. And I was on that team and I just, I wanted to see how good I could be. And, you know, so I had a contract to hold out. I ended up just, you know, asking for a trade. And this is how Lou operates, and it was great. He called me to his room, and he said, hey, look, what's going on? What's the problem? Are you okay?

And it was just a very honest conversation i i just just said i i i think i need a change and he's like okay you know what that he's like that makes sense that week later i was gone probably hard to say though it took like you must have been a little nervous it was tough to say because i love that team. You know what? Those are all my buddies and my guys. We won the cup, you know, two years before. It was rare for, maybe not around that time, but it was rare for players to trade teams back then,

especially like New Jersey Devils, it was like you guys had established yourself. It was rare for guys to kind of get out of their teams, no? Yeah. Yeah, it was a little, yeah, free agency wasn't what it was, you know, now or what it is now. Guys didn't jump around as much. But I just – I don't know.

I just felt like I needed to kind of see what else was out there. And, you know, Lou acted quick. And, you know, I i was you know still even though i asked for the trade when it happened i was really shocked uh we how old was kayla we and kayla was like six months old or something four months old and she's like where are we going i'm like we're going to edmonton. She's like, where's that? Siberia. Yeah.

I'm like, it's going to be cold. Well, he knew, I think, I'm guessing he knew, you know, what type of player you were going to be because he gets you out of the conference. I'm not dealing with this guy, right? He sent me out west. Yeah, yeah. There was – yeah, he sent me pretty far. The good news is that's where you met Doug Waite though, right? I met Waite.

I had known Waite for years before that, just from USA Hockey stuff. Is he your USA image? Yeah, yeah. Wow, so all the national teams. Yeah, and the World Cup. Actually, I'm a year older than him because our birthday so i played in the world juniors in like 89 and 90 and he played in 91 i think okay um but uh yeah that's where we played together and it was the best like waiters waiters just oh he's just the greatest was it hard going

to a canadian market like did you feel a lot more pressure like you were in the the news and media a lot more back then it wasn't really like that no i i i didn't feel the pressure i knew it was bigger i mean i got there and like you know somebody hands me their baby to take a picture with them i'm like yeah the mcdavid treatment like in the airport and then the next day I'm on the cover of the paper. I'm like, it's not even the sports page. It's the paper. And it was different.

It was different. You mentioned the 96 World Cup. I mean, I know you played the Olympics as well, but was that World Cup in 96 the best tournament you ever played in just the caliber of play? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was unbelievable. It was, I mean, the series against Canada was like the dirtiest, fastest, so skilled hockey.

Oh, God. It was like an NHL playoff game, which makes sense, I guess. Whit said there was a European division. Now, is that true? Yeah, that tournament of games in Europe at the beginning. Yeah. I think that's the way it works. Okay.

But I do remember like we played, we played Russia and I want to say Slovakia at Madison square garden. So I think they played in there. Must've been nuts. Yeah. Yeah. For the Russian game. It was definitely, but that the the Russian game, it was, definitely.

But the tournament was great. It was just – I mean, like I said, the games against Canada were definitely the highlights. The other games were great and good and everything, but that was – we could never beat them before. And we finally did. We were finally pushing back. And was a, it was a blast. We had a, we had a bunch of characters on that team too. That was,

that was a team of beauties. Just awesome guys. So much fun. Did you, sorry, Ari, did you, you and Dougie Wade play together that tournament? Was there a connection almost to where Edmonton might've said like, let's get this guy over the edge? No, no, I played with, and this is kind of how it went for that tournament and then the three Olympics. It was Madonna, Kachuk, and me. Decent.

Yeah, it was good. You guys are trying to catch up to them all though. They punted me when it was power play time. I cheered them on from the bench for power play. Holly got your spot? Yeah, Holly got it. But Dougie played with Holly. I forget who else.

Maybe Tony. Tony Amati, maybe. But that team was just – every guy on that team was a character. They were just – I mean, from Chelios, Suter, and Dougie, like every guy was – Brian Leach. I mean, Brian Leach was unreal. That guy was so good. Like I had played against him all the time, like, you know,

Devils Rangers and stuff. And then we were we were practicing before the tournament i'm like like holy shit brian leach is way better than i thought he was like just to be you know who else was great adam deadmarsh i mean his career got cut short but he was he was yeah god he was and a great guy too like you know matthew schneider like all these guys are just absolute beauties mike richter was gonna say guy, too. Like, you know, Matthew Schneider. Like, all these guys are just absolute beauties. Mike Richter was. I was going to say, you've got to mention Richter when you talk about 96. Ricky was out of his mind that tournament.

I mean, was that the best he might have seen a goalie? Sorry, at that level? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was the highest level of goaltending I've ever seen. Like, he was that save on Vincent Dampfus was just – I don't know if you guys remember. It was just crazy.

Did you feel a little bit different after you guys had pulled that off, like when you would walk around Boston? Like, did you feel like everybody's name had just grown even bigger and, like, the game had gotten bigger as far as, like, at least American eyes were concerned? Yeah, I felt like we did something. We knew we did something special. Because if you look at Canada's roster, that was a wagon.

They were stacked. Were you partly intimidated or were you like, fuck this, we're going in there, we're going to punch them in the jaw? We couldn't be. That was our – for guys like me and Keith and Darian Hatcher, Kevin Hatcher, Johnny LeClair, Dead Marsh, like, you know, Joel Otto. That was why we were there. We were there to push back.

So, yeah, you know, you're a little, you know, I'm like, oh, crap, I got to go fight Keith Primo again. Get my head pounded in. All right, I'll do it it's for the country it was worth the black eyes and all that stuff it was it was great like yeah we we knew it like that was and we had a good feeling for like right off the bat like right off the bat the team the team got close like that and we're so close like a lot of guys you mentioned hall was he like the guy in the locker room who was that superstar who really created that levity in the locker room the holly the one-liners right it's just it's it's it's this cock this funny cockiness that just

a lot of people can't get away with i've's the best complainer I've ever heard in my life. Oh, God, the bus times at this? And like, God, that's stupid. So kind of Phil Kessel-like. Yeah, they are very much alike. And then Hollywood just, he was so confident. Like he'd walk in the room and be like, all right, I got to start acting like that a little more.

Like I got to be that confident. And then he was scoring the biggest goals too. You know, and then, and Chellio, I think somebody, he came late. Somebody was getting married in his family, I think. So he's like, I'll be there. I'll be there in a couple of days. I'm like, wow. That's power.

I'm scared. I went a night early on my own dime. Like it was, but yeah, like the, the, I learned a lot there too, because like, just first of all, the guys like don't let them fool you. They worked really hard. Like all these superstar players, like they worked hard, but this, the confidence that they had was, was unreal. Did, uh, did Hall in the locker room joke around at all about people insulting him

for the fact that he was Canadian born, but then playing for an American team? Was that all talked about through the tournament? No, we knew he made the right choice. Yeah. Okay, there you go, there you go. Yeah. No, Hull, he's a good friend good friend and god he's just so funny well the

reason i say that is because the last two games moved back to canada and you know upsetting him on canadian soil so i know that he dealt with a lot of you know criticism fans yeah they were nasty yeah oh god they were nasty yeah they brutal. Like we were walking. We stayed at the Marriott right there, that Chateau Champlain. And we walked over to the Bell Center. And it was like carloads of people like hanging out the windows at us. Screaming at you. You're going to die. You're going to get your ass kicked.

You're going to do this. We're like, oh, my. Wow. This is a big one. It's like Primo on his way into the ring. So a few years in Edmonton, you get traded to Boston. Now, what are the circumstances of that? Do you know that's coming?

Is that something you wish for? Did that come out of the blue? I was totally blindsided by that. Okay. But they knew the money. Yeah. You still had a couple years left on the deal, right? No, I had one.

That was my final year. So, Dougie Waite and Ryan Smith and I were aligned, and we were playing really well. We were all, you know, I mean, it was mid-November, late-November. We were all pretty high up in scoring, and things were going great I mean, it was mid November, late November. We were all pretty high up in scoring

and things were going great. Like it was, um, so, so we go to the, my wife and I, um, uh, you know, we've got two little kids, uh, Kayla's my, my daughter's, uh, I don't know, she's two or something. And, you know, we take I don't know. She's two or something. And you know, we take her to the mall and she's doing skating lessons. Uh, my daughter Grace is in a stroller. So my wife's like, Oh, I'm going to go shopping or whatever. And she, she tools around the mall for a little while. And I'm standing there watching my daughter Kayla, uh, ice skate.

And there's this guy and he's just kind of looking at me. And I'm like, what? What's up, man? How you doing? He goes, no, I didn't think you'd be here. I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, well, I just didn't think you'd be at the mall. I'm like, just watching my daughter skate. He's like, no, I was listening to the radio.

I heard you just got traded. Oh, for Christ's sake. I'm like, what? He goes, no, I was listening to the radio. I heard you just got traded. Oh, for Christ's sake. I'm like, what? He goes, yeah. I know. He's like, I heard you just got traded. Eddie from Edmonton told you. Do you mind telling me where?

He's like, yeah, Boston. I'm like, oh, my God. You're trying to hide your fist pump? No, no. I was pissed. Were you gutted? I was terrified. Oh, yeah.

That's a good point. When some guys go home. So my wife, Kara, comes walking back. She's pushing the stroller. And she looks at me, and I'm like, why does it go? She's like, what? I'm like, I think I just got traded. She's like, you're kidding. She's like, where? I'm like, Boston. just got traded she's like you're kidding

she's like where I'm like Boston she's like oh Ed pokes his head good luck though man so you know we're going it's just I'm from there she's not it's just I'm going back around

all my buddies and this and that so I went before Twitter, I left my cell phone in the car because you didn't always have it on you. So I went to the pay phone, use my calling card. I called my agent, Bob Murray. And I'm like, Bob, he goes, Billy, you got traded. I'm like, Bob, he goes, yes, to the Bruins. I'm like, Oh my God. I talk to her. I'm like, Bob? He goes, yes, to the Bruins. I'm like, oh, my God.

I talk to Kara. I'm like, yeah, it's confirmed. Boston. Holy shit. It was, yeah. So that was a bit of a shock. It was a bit of a shock. And then you get there, and you get the double whammy.

You got Pat Burns and Mike Keenan, your first two coaches there. How was your relationship? No, I didn't play for Pat. Oh, he was gone. I didn't play for Pat. He was gone. They played him already. Okay, all right.

And Mike was there. And you know what? I mean, talk about a Turner. Like, I loved it. I loved it. And I loved playing for Mike. Mike was great. Like, you know, he's just one of those guys that if he likes you,

he's just going to play the doors off you. And that's what he did. Like, he played me a ton. It was like the first time I ever killed penalties. We're in Detroit one night and we, we took two penalties and it's a five on three PK and he taps me in the back. I said, yeah, he's like, what's up coach. He's like, go ahead. I said, but it's a five on three. He's like, I know. And we ended up killing it. And i think it's because i confused detroit

they're like this guy doesn't know what he's doing like he's running around like the crease like like i'm shadowing the point man i can't i can only imagine the far blue waiting for a defenseman i can only imagine what they were saying like this guy has no he's never done this he's trying to fight lid yeah yeah but they but the the two years in boston were it was it was a dream come true it was honestly i loved it and you got to witness joe thornton his first 100 point season yeah 100 point season yeah he had 107 i think in one year i think your first year there i I don't remember. Which is, I mean, like watching a young guy of that caliber just dominate, the next wave of NHL superstar was a fucking nuts.

It was crazy. It was crazy. It was like him and Sergei Samsonov was a young star at the time, but, you know, Joe was different. Was it hard? Oh, go ahead. He wasn't even, he wasn't even, this is the way I remember it. He might say something different, but like I was the half wall guy in the power play jason allison was down on the goal line and joe was

like the slot guy i think he had 19 power play goals that year the bumper yeah he was the bumper yeah he's no bumper there was overload oh okay i think he had like i don't know how many power play goals he had that year he had a ton but jason allison my god that guy could pass oh don't know how many power play goals he had that year. He had a ton. But Jason Allison, my God, that guy could pass him. Oh, don't get an RA goal. We're going to spend 30 minutes on Jason Allison. He was unbelievable. And everybody's like, yeah, he's not a great skater. I'm like, yeah, but he carries three guys with him.

He gives you a tap-in. I'm like, he was unreal. But those were good teams. You played with him and Samson off for a stretch, the old gas line. I mean, he's probably one of the more underrated guys. I know his career got cut short with the wrist injuries, but. Yeah. I mean, one of the better probably centers you played with that most people

don't even probably know about nowadays. That guy could pass the puck as well as anybody. He really, he was, he was big and strong and could just fight guys off. And yeah, he, and he just liked to pass like that i was like yeah i'm good with that what year did you uh you won fastest skater at the all-star game one year right yeah that same year that i went that i got food poisoned everybody beforehand yeah exactly i just want to go back in their water bottle i want to go back to boston. I know when you said, when you initially heard that, that there was an element of fear after playing there. Like, did it end up, like, you know, living up to the hype?

Or was it kind of like, fuck, it was what I expected it to be? Yeah, getting tickets for everyone and stuff. Getting tickets, all the distractions, going back home and not living up to what you thought it was going to be. No, it was so much better than I could have ever imagined. I did. I loved it. It was awesome. It was I could have ever imagined. I did. I loved it. It was awesome.

It was just such a great experience. You know, when I first got there and did all the press conferences and stuff like that, I made it a point to say it publicly like, hey, this isn't a homecoming. I'm not coming here to hang out with all my buddies and people. If you're coming out of the woodwork, I'm i'm not getting anybody tickets yep like that's it like you know what if you want tickets if you want tickets you know where the box office is yeah and that kind of put everything and you know what my buddies back home my my buddy peter munir who i've been friends with since we were 10 years old he he was like the bulldog. He was like, don't call him.

Oh, he was your muscle. Yeah, he was my muscle. Don't call him. Like, hey, can BG get some tickets? He's like, no. So he would kind of. Had you gotten the heads up from somebody before who had experienced a homecoming and maybe it didn't work out?

Or like what made you like prepare in this type of way to kind of expect that that was going to be the case? I just saw guys, some, some guys went home and just, it was hard. Whether you're from Boston or Toronto or wherever, there's a lot of pressure. And I think some people do try to, you know, manage their, you know, their family and people coming out of the

woodwork and you know that's why i like here in minnesota i was a little reluctant bringing minnesota guys back here because of that but that's the advice i give them now i said just tell everybody no yep you know what even your cousins and this and that you know you take care of your immediate family your parents your, your brothers, your sisters. Everybody else is no. If they want to go to the game, get to the game. Figure it out. Yeah.

You know where the box office is. Because you guys know how it is, too. Everybody thinks you got a handful of free tickets. Oh, I make my parents buy their own tickets, too, Billy. Yeah, I know you do. Fuck off. Yeah, but American League tickets aren't that expensive. Yeah, yeah.

You fucking asshole. Free Chipotle sandwich with it, too. You had your highest goal output under Robbie Futark that year. Who were you playing mostly with that year? Was it Joe? Joe Stumple. Oh, Joe. The other Joe.

Yeah, because he came over from the Allison trade. Yeah. Now, how did that go over in the room? Because Allison was the captain at the time. I know he was having contract bullshit like everybody at the Bruins did. Was it just kind of like, oh, this is the Bruins. Did it have a huge ripple effect when it happened, being the captain and a huge guy on the team? No, because, I mean, we all understand.

Right. You know, we all get it. We all, you know, everybody has a holdout or, you know, pissed off about their contract or whatever. So, you know what? He wanted to trade and he got traded. Fine. Yeah. You know, everybody has a holdout or, you know, pissed off about their contract or whatever. So, you know what? He wanted to trade and he got traded. Fine. Yeah. You know, you move on.

We all know that this is the business. And, yeah, you know what? Like, Joe Thornton was playing with Glenn Murray. I played with Stumple. And, like and like worked great it was I mean we're I think we were first

in the East that year and we didn't do great in the first round against Montreal but like we had a hell of a regular season

like we're we're a good team we're a really good team and then you were UFA after that and like I know the Bruins probably weren't even

close to what Dallas offered you I can't imagine Harry Sender that was well that was around the time. That's why I said the moving around didn't happen maybe as much.

But then all of a sudden, mid-'90s, the big deals and the big free agency really started. Yeah, yeah. That was like big money. Yeah, it was. And there was a lot of movement. There was a ton. And, you know, I wanted to stay in Boston.

I, you know, never got an offer. Really? Wait, they didn't even give you an offer? No. Did they know that they just weren't going to be close to what you were going to get on the open market? I understand it now more than ever because the lockout was coming up. They weren't going to sign anybody past the lockout,

the two years or anything which i totally get and you know dallas and a couple other teams came with with five-year deals and i'm like can't wiggle in that tit so that oh yeah what do you want me to do yeah was that day not to me because you know it's such a huge deal like and you got other teams calling like figuring it out and usually from what i've been told it's like hey we need an answer pretty quick here right like yeah how was that whole day did it play out july 1st well it was it was crazy um my my wife and i stayed at a hotel the night before um because teams could meet with you after midnight. And midnight, my agent arranged it and everything like that, but like Terry O'Reilly was working for the Rangers, and he was my favorite player.

And he showed up at my hotel room like 12.01. There was a knock on the door, and it was Terry O'Reilly, and I'm like, oh, my God. How am I going to say no? This is unbelievable. If I if i say no he's gonna beat the crap out of me so is this boston or new york city boston okay and um he came in he had he had a jersey for me jerseys for my kids he had like a tiffany glass apple with the rangers logo on it for my wife they had a dvd like a recruiting thing with like like jerry seinfeld and tim robbins and billy crystal were all the ground it was hilarious it was a hologram it was unbelievable like and

then you know then other team so but then dallas came in and it wasn't like boom deal like it was there was a bit of a negotiation. Where you got more money or more about, like, maybe term? Different, like, structure and stuff like that. And, yeah, it wasn't just kind of like, you know, bang, bang, here it is. It's done. It took two days or three days. I mean, you were the belle of the ball. They didn't have A-Rod on a video recruiting you down to Dallas too?

No, they did a video too, but it was more like team-based and stuff like that. That's why he was so mad in training camp is they didn't do the videos for him. We got to get to that. They did a great video. So one of the infamous incidences in training camp in Dallas, was that your first year or was that a couple years in? No, that was my first year. So your first training camp.

The one day RDS was there. A lot of people have probably seen this. We were in Breckenridge, Colorado. That's where you guys were? That's where training camp was. Getting the altitude, trying to get in better shape. Oh, yeah. And then you send this other guy.

So what was the whole incident and how did it go down? I mean, I know it ended up going viral, but what, you just fucking snapped on this kid? Yeah, yeah. It wasn't my greatest moment. Are you embarrassed by it? No, I'm not embarrassed by it. I shouldn't have done it. What what baseball swung a guy over the head

yeah i should i i overreacted and i i yeah i just did it i just you know what i was just signed this free agent contract and it was a young kid taking a run at me and i just yeah i just uh i overreacted. The wires touched a little bit. He said, I walked around earlier. I told all the kids, hey, don't be running at me. Before the camp started. Before the camp started.

Just don't run at the older guys. Don't run at the older guys, all right? And then this kid comes flying by and misses me. And, like, yeah, I overreacted. I told you. Did he get sent down the next day? Like, did you have to go over and apologize? No, I went over and apologized to him.

And he came back to camp the next year, and we were actually roommates. Did they do that on purpose just to fuck with you? I think so. I don't know. I don't know if it was to fuck with me but it was well i was i was surprised to hear you sign that contract and then they actually have you with a roommate in training camp or was that just kind of how things worked back then everybody had well we went up we so with dallas we went to breckinridge one year and then veil the next year and they had like five-man condos so they had like one vet and you know like a couple

guys like maybe depth guys and then two rookies that's how they would set it up and it was actually great like we got there and it was like yeah you know what pull up and like we had brought 60 guys like it was crazy the size of the camp, and everybody got mountain bikes. Dolphins. That's an expensive camp, by the way. They were spending some dough on that. Oh, yeah, that was, yeah. And they were nice places. Yep. Yeah.

And you take your, you know, you go out to dinner on your mountain bike, and you have a couple beers, and you're trying to get back. It's uphill, and you're dying. You got a steak in you and a couple beers, and you're, like, huffing and puffing. It was awesome. It was great. So you and a couple beers, and you're like huffing and puffing. It was awesome. It was great. So you signed this monster deal five times nine,

and then after the third year, Dallas by Joel, what went sideways there that led to the buyout? Was it just, I know the one off year, and you had almost 60 goals, I think, your first two years. What changed? What happened? You know what? We had the lockout year,

and I spent a lot of time with the PA and negotiating and all that stuff. And I just don't think – looking back, I probably just didn't train properly and take care of myself as well as I should have. And I think I had a lot of stress and some anxiety from doing that job. It was brutal. You were a big part of that. I remember that.

Yeah, and like I said, I mean, I just did not have a good year. Just flat out, I was terrible. And you know what? For Dallas, looking at it that way, and I think it was a compliance buyout. Everyone was allowed a few of those, right? Yeah, so it didn't hit the cap. It was just the money. Guys were going down with those, too.

Yeah, a lot of guys. So it was the right move for them to do to pick up cap space. Because they didn't know if I was going to bounce back from that. But it was definitely motivation for me. It was one of those things where it was like, oh, man, you know, it really stinks. We loved it in Dallas. Living there is amazing. Like, it's a great city.

We made awesome friends there. But the hockey's got to be better. The hockey's got to work. So if it wasn't going to work there, maybe it'll work somewhere else, you know, and we're off again, you know. Here we go. You said that whole, like, stressful experience of being involved in all these negotiations.

Is that the first time you really had a firsthand look at how this all works? Like, now that you're a GM, are you looking back being like, I'm glad I really understood the whole dynamic of this, you cba one of the best things i ever did and i remember mike gartner saying you're gonna get a crash course in hockey law 101 and it was it was unbelievable so to be you know to be in uh these my god we were in new York City at these huge, this huge law firm called Skadden Arps. And they had all these giant boardrooms and, you know, Gary's in there, Bill's in there. All the owners are in there. And, you know, their negotiating committee, our negotiating committee.

And I just got a front row seat to how this whole thing works. So you were allowed to listen to the owners speak? Like you're at that big table. Yeah. And they're speaking to us and they treated us with respect. And, you know, it was, it was a meeting. Like it wasn't like they're talking down to you or yelling at you, but things would get heated every once in a while.

But I did, it's amazing. Like when the lawyers got in there and went back and forth, you know, like when Gary and Bob would go back and forth or, you know, Bill, Ted's asking all the, the, the level. And then some of the owners, these, these guys, some of these guys are brilliant. Right. And they've built these huge corporations and it was just so eyeopening for me. And it was, it was a And it was an unreal experience. It really was.

And you know what, too? It really helped that nothing was personal. Nothing. The fact that the Bruins didn't sign me wasn't personal. The fact that I got bought out wasn't personal. Nothing is personal. It's business. Helps you now.

Totally. It is not personal. And then after that, of course, you go to St. Louis, sign as a free agent. There was the big draw playing with Big Walt and Dougie. Was that the main reason you ended up there? Yeah, that was it. I felt like I needed to go someplace where I could really set myself up to continue my career.

And I really rededicated myself that summer. I didn't drink that summer i was eating like like ostrich that was the year kale salad was invented yeah exactly it was a terrible thing too it's changed the world um it's just and then yeah i went there and and it was it was great you know I had a comfort level with those guys and it was really good. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Like, was it at that point starting to get hard seeing all these different teams and always being the new guy and then having to prove yourself to a new coach, organization, fans, teammates?

But, I mean, you mentioned how it was comfortable moving in with those guys. But just overall at that point, how much you'd moved around in those you know five ten years yeah so including the lockout we had we had lived in dallas for four years and then getting bought out that's where it really kind of started like st louis san jose you know the the islanders and pit like boom boom boom boom yeah that's where it really on the back nine too nine too, right? Yeah. It starts. You know what? That's when my kids were getting older. You know what? I was getting into my late 30s.

And it's like, oh, wow. Now this is really getting tough because it's really affecting them. And that's what kind of stuck. I could walk into any locker room and just, you know, I was getting used to it now. Oh, my God. It's like every six months. I think I need a new bag i need a new logo saloon doors that's why he's got 14 helmets exactly hey but but you end up having an incredible year that year and making the all-star

game and go back to what you're saying sorry yeah no i mean you just you get used to it it that part is easy the part that stinks is off the ice with the family. Moving. And moving. It all falls on your wife, and she's getting the kids re-enrolled in school because we don't know how to do that. No. Getting the kids in soccer teams and hockey teams,

and they have to make new friends again. It's easy for us. We roll into town with a new bag and 20 new friends, and we're like, yeah, this is great. They're grinding, and it is tough. And if I'm not mistaken, that next year in St. Louis, you make the All-Star game. It's in Dallas, and then you get introduced,

and then you end up getting a standing ovation. Obviously, they loved you, and you're a fan favorite there. That probably felt pretty good given how it all ended. Yeah, it did. It felt really good. It was, yeah, it really did. I felt, because you know what? Like, you know what?

After a bad year, you don't know how the fans feel about you or how the organization feels about you. But I got to say, leaving like that, getting bought out, since then it's been nothing but a great relationship with the Dallas Stars. That night was really special. That was really cool to have that. Now that trade from St. Louis to San Jose, they picked you up at the deadline for a cup run there.

Did you sort of facilitate that? Was that something that the general manager said, hey, where do you want to go? How did that trade come about? Yeah, I had a no trade in my contract, and we weren't going to make the playoffs in St. Louis. I was getting old, and I wanted another crack at the Stanley Cup. Yeah. So, you know, I was actually talking to San Jose before I signed in St. Louis that year. And, you know, with all the new cap stuff,

they couldn't fit me in. So, you know, I signed in St. Louis. So when that opportunity came, you know, John Davidson and Larry Plough asked me if I'd be interested in going there. I said, yeah, absolutely. They had a great team. Joe was there, and they had a bunch of good young players.

Was Chichu still there? Chichu was still there. I mean, he was scoring 50 goals a year back. Scotty Hanna, all these great guys. So, yeah, I said, yeah, but here we go again. You know, I'm on the move again. New bag, new helmet. The whole family went?

They must have maybe stayed. No, they stayed in St. Louis. And the kids were, I guess, still young enough where they could miss a bit of school and stuff. They did a lot of back and forth. And, you know, I guess, still young enough where they could miss a bit of school and stuff. They did a lot of back and forth. And, you know, we just, I just, I don't know. We don't like living away from each other. So we do what we have to do. But, yeah, it was, you know what?

It was a great experience in San Jose. I wish I played better because I really loved playing there. Unbelievable place to live. Really? That area is incredible. Incredible. I stayed at Hotel Los Gatos. Oh, nice.

La Quinta? Honestly? La Quinta Special? Hit a happy hour. I'm telling you. Look it up. It's got one of the greatest Greek restaurants you could ever be at. So I was there like every night.

I was eating lamb chops like every night. It is one of the greatest areas you could ever live. Like it was so cool. I loved it. I just didn't play that well. So then we move on. Then again, the Islanders, like what was the draw there? Did you get a lot of options at that point?

They needed a captain. They needed leadership, which is a wild story because you signed there, and then in training camp, I think you got named captain of that team, right? Yeah. It's pretty rare for a guy to get signed and then all of a sudden get the C, right? Yeah, yeah. It was a pretty cool experience. I mean, Snowy was, you know,

he, he had other guys on the team too. And, and he took the plunge with me, which was, which was really cool. But who was the coach? Good way to make friends coming in. Eh?

Yeah, exactly. I think they're getting to see this fucking new guy. Sorry guys. Yeah. Uh, Teddy Nolan. Okay.

It was a coach there. Um, and you know, it's surprised. I mean, surprisingly. No, I was surprised. I had nothing. Like after, I don't know how many, 36 or 37 goals that year or something.

I know I didn't play great in the playoffs and whatever, but I really didn't have anything. No shit. And the Islanders came knocking and they had a two year deal for me. And I was like, well, that's it. I got it.

I got to take it. Like it's, and you know what? And, and Snowy, Snowy put the time in. He, he called me all the time.

Like it went on for a couple of days and Teddy called me and had some good conversations. I got comfortable with it. I'm like, you know what? This is great. You know what? They're giving me a two-year deal. Like they're obviously very interested in me.

So this could be good. And then, like you said, when I got there, they had like a press conference or like a lunch or something like that where they named me the captain. And that was, I mean, that was a huge thrill. Like that was, they were nothing but great to me. Like it was – I actually – I loved playing there, loved living there. There's good things and bad things about everywhere, you know, but it was a really good experience.

Batesy, he was still there, right? Kaka? Kaka. Oh, my God. Kaka's the best. What a guy. My kid's still like – because he'd come over and he's like, yeah, you know, hey kids, it's Uncle Kaka.

And so my kids still, hey, where's Uncle Kaka? And I'm like, he's back in bed. You just tell kids that you're their uncle and all of a sudden you brainwash them enough to believe it. They loved him. You guys know him. He's got the biggest heart in the world. He's just the best guy.

He's unreplated BU and every offseason. They loved him. You guys know him. I mean, he's got the biggest heart in the world. Like, he's just the best guy. This guy's unreal. Played at BU, and every offseason. Yeah, but he lived at home. So he's from Medford, which is right outside the city. Like, you know, 10, 15, 10 minutes from BU. He never once slept at BU. In all the years he was at school there, he'd always go back to Medford. But the funniest thing was, every summer, he'd be at Mike Boyle training,

and he'd gain, like, 15 pounds every summer he loved crushing beers and then sure as shit end of july august would come he'd go two-a-day workouts he'd lose all 15 and be buzzing at camp it was unbelievable this guy loses chin and just ready to go or what i don't know if he lost his chin he's a beauty what a great unreal guy so i want to ask you about ted nolan because like his name comes up sometimes and i think he still wants to coach and nhl loves recycling coaches like what was your experience with with him and and like you think he's still coaching the nhl today yeah i don't know i mean it's been a long time and you know i i i don't know. I mean, could he coach? Yeah, of course. Biz could coach, though.

Yeah, but the game's changed so much. And if you're not in it all the time, it's tough to jump back in. You know, and, you know, what happened there was tough. Like, you know, well well teddy got let go and then um and then the the islanders kind of went in a totally different direction and they really started getting younger you know uh so it was kind of a rebuild and i you know i'll admit it i just wasn't that guy i couldn't i couldn't do it i couldn't be there and just be you know well the end's coming and i'm not yeah that's what i'm seeing like i want another crack

at this i want to i want to try to win again like i want to win another stanley cup so we were all like my kids weren't born when we won in 95 so we all they heard were the stories of how great it was and this and that, and they never experienced it. So after a while, it just kind of wasn't working out with the Islanders anymore. And, you know, it was time for a change, you know. And it was kind of funny because I came off of warm-ups one night and snow he's like hey i think i got a deal for you i'm like all right and it was it was philly and he's like yeah they just have to try to you know make some moves to free up some cap space

for you and i'm like yeah sure i'll go to philly you know it's easy you can drive down and you know my wife's from south jersey so no problem and they're a good team and great um so that kind of went on for five days so i stayed you know i didn't go to practice missed two games oh they were sitting you out so it was pretty much all right it was pretty much, all right. It was done. And so I'm calling Snowy every day. I'm like, anything yet? He's like, nope, they're still trying to work it out. I'm like, great. And went on for five days. I'm like, what is going on?

And it's just, you know, it's hard to make deals. So eventually Snowy called. He's like, that's not going to work out. I'm like, oh, my God, no. Like, okay, who else? And, you know, then the Rangers sniffed a little bit, and that kind of, you know, we were excited about that because it was, you know, right across the river. And, you know, it would have been easy family-wise. And that kind of fell through.

And then 15 minutes left to the deadline. Snowy calls and he's like, Pittsburgh, yes. Let's go. He's like, done. They just dumped Whitney's terrible contract. Yeah, seven days before. They said, we got rid of Whitney. We think we can win now.

Hey, call Billy. We got a chance. Whitney's still there? No, he's gone. I'm in. Let's do this. But it was, yeah, it was like 15 minutes to the deadline. I agreed to it.

And it was, yeah, like I hung up the phone. I look at Kara and I'm like it's Pittsburgh. She's like, I've been through this before. I've seen this look before. What's going on? We're getting traded? Exactly. And then after a little while, I didn't even think.

I'm like, oh my God. You know what? I think I could end up playing with maybe that Crosby kid or Malkin kid I'm like these guys are good I'm like this this could work out and it was unreal yeah I mean you've let's see 15 points in 24 games it's not like you're a passenger there in that run at all you had a big overtime goal as well for us depends who you ask Sid was Sid said I was a passenger yeah

move your legs move legs. Move your feet. Move your feet. You guys had a bit of a fuck you match in the playoffs, in the finals? In the finals, after the first shift of the first game. Game one. He's like, I ain't losing these fucking guys again. Yeah, it was incredible. We were both so high strung.

And it was like, he told me to move my feet i told him to shut the fuck up and you know we were going at it like this is after shift one in game one we're both losing like okay we gotta calm down we gotta we gotta refocus here we had we had we had a lot of fun and cooney chris kunitz um was he was like the calming factor he's like you guys just gotta stop uh i felt like i wouldn't say anything you just lost both there again did no yeah we lost you there and we we won two we got smoked in game five and then we won six at home and seven on the road. Yeah, it was unreal. That team was – That Detroit team was better than the team the year before.

When you first got there, did they tell you, like, not only are you going to provide the leadership, but we – did they say anything about maybe the relationship and the dynamic with Sid and the fact that he maybe needed a little bit – do you feel then that he needed a little bit of pressure off him as the leader of that team yeah I I knew just hearing from other people other guys what he was like and um yeah I think that the team was still relatively young and you know even though it had been 14 years, I had still been through it, you know, and, and I guess they just needed somebody like that. And,

and to be quite honest too, I'd been on so many teams by this point, like I was fine walking into a room. It was like, you know, I was myself. I was, you know, you could bust guys chops right away. And, you know, guys like Hal Gill were there and scuds and great guys like that that helped me out and mark eaton and you know craig adams like these guys were great like it was an unreal group oh it was unbelievable and um we we just had yeah we just had really good guys like sergey gonchar like what a what a unbelievable oh you mean malcolm's interpreter yeah how about gone hey how about gon like, in between periods,

sitting Indian-style, taping his stick? Yeah. Drinking tea. Drinking tea. Is that green tea? Yeah, and then he'd go out and throw about a million little head fakes at guys, and they'd just go flying. He was one of the best power play D I've ever played with.

Like, that guy was – he could walk the line looking at you right in the eyes. And he's like, try to try to send you a signal. Like, you know, I'm going to shoot like shooting for your stick. Yeah, exactly.

You knew when he was shooting to score, his head was down and he was going to wire that thing. And he just pray for the best. But that team was awesome. Going into your last season, you're 39 years old. How much gas do you think you got left in the tank at this point? You just won a cup.

Do you have any thoughts of retiring on top going out like that? No, no way. No way. I was having too much fun. Okay. Those guys were just so good to me. They were just – everybody says, oh, you're the older guy. You came in and you gave them all this and this.

Those guys gave me way more than I could ever have given them. They just injected so much life back into me. I wanted to be five years younger. Not 10. I'm not getting greedy. Five. Just to continue to play with that group because I knew they were just so special. I forget like Jordan Stahl.

My guy, he was our third line center. Beast. They were just so special you know i forget like jordan stall like i mean my god he's our third line center like east like they were just so young too the tang was young was uh like that chris letang wasn't the chris letang we see today either but he was like he was coming like he was he's just so fast that kid was it after that cup or was it your first one where you end up getting pranked by the carrier of the cup? Oh, the first one. Okay. Oh, my God. Let's go back. I thought it was the second one.

My apologies. Could we go back to that story quickly? Yeah. So this guy's name is Pat Plunkett, and he did the whole thing by himself. He had a rough summer. He was the guy carrying it at the time? Yeah, yeah. He had a rough summer.

He was the guy carrying it at the time? Yeah, yeah. And I think Lou had the cup down in Rhode Island. He was done with it, but it was like a day early. So Pat calls, and he says, hey, do you want the cup a day early? So I'm like, so do I get it for two days? He's like, yeah, you get it for two days. I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Let's go. So he's, he's, you know,

he's got this minivan that's rented and he's got the cup back there with the case. And, and, uh, he, he pulls in and he's like, it's right in the back, open it up. And I open up the case and it's empty. And I'm like, I look, I'm like, it's, I can't,

I can barely talk. It's not here. Like did, did, did Lou hang, hang onto it? Like I, I could barely talk and he let it go on for like a little while.

And I'm like, I can't believe this. This is terrible. Now you got to go back to where you got to go get it. And was he pretending like what happened to it? Oh yeah. Oh, he pretending like what happened to it? Oh yeah. Oh, he was leading me on the whole time.

I'm dying here. I'm dying. And then he just went in the back and he had like a, he had like a, uh, you know, Stanley cup blanket over it or something. And he pulled it out.

I was like, Oh my God. Thank God. It was great. It was great. That was, that was the coolest day too, because nobody knew,

nobody knew I had it. So I called like, you know, just a couple of close buddies and stuff like that. And like, we're at my parents' house and it was just sitting on the picnic table in the back. And, you know, there wasn't like mobs of people and, you know, that guy, Gary Dineen, I called him up and I said, no way. I'm like, Gary, you know, I'm like, I got the cup. He's like, what? Like Gary, you know, I'm like, I got the cup. He's like, what? I'm like, I got the cup. And, you know, he dreamed of this.

He came over. He came to my parents' house. He went out back. He grabbed it. He cried. No way. I was like, this is like the greatest day ever. Gary, I told you.

That was the guy from Springfield? Yeah, he's like, I told you it didn't matter about those grades. Yeah, exactly. He was just sending me that game. That C-minus average was fine, wasn't it? The guy from Springfield? Yeah, he's like, I told you it didn't matter about those grades. Yeah, exactly. He was just sending me that game. You sound like it. That C-minus average was fine, wasn't it? But that was a great day. Okay. Sorry, I thought it was the second cup where you ended up getting pranked.

But going back to the second one, was there any conversation of the fact that Sid was going to pass it to you first? No. I had no idea. No. And just looking back. It's just totally organic, I guess. Maybe I elbowed my way to the front of the line.

You're like, skills, he beat it. You'd conquer him in the fuck you match in that first game. No, but hey, that game, Sid didn't play, right? The second and third? No, he was injured. He had the MCL sprain. He was on the bench, but most of the guys had to take his reps throughout the second and third period.

It was unreal. Yeah, he got a – I thought it was a Charlie horse that Johan Franzen hit him. And you see the hit and his knee just – it wasn't intentional, but his knee just – and Sid tried. And so we played half the game without him. And that was – I mean, Stalzi and Gino were like pulling Craig Adams. They're all pulling double duty. And I forget whoever, everybody was playing center, you know,

except me, of course. But it was telling you to move your feet. Yeah, exactly. He was coaching me from the bench now. I got back after a shift. He said, can I offer a bit of advice? Move your fucking feet. That's unreal.

But that part was really cool. And then of all guys, Max Talbot to score the two goals in game seven. The gamer. The gamer. He's a beauty. He's the best. He must have been doing his thing on, what was it, Mario's? Right beside his place.

He had that house right next to Mario's. No, he lived in the back room. He lived in the kitchen. He was a big game player. He was. He was. He always was. He learned that in junior and hall.

He would just rise to the occasion every time. He was awesome. He's one of my favorite guys. I love that kid. I'll say this. You were one of the last guys I'd see where they would get, like, a six-pack in your stall. You and Skilzy would be crushing beers after games. You guys were, like, the last wave before the protein shakes.

Yeah, yeah. Not too many protein shakes. No. No. No. Definitely on the bus. You had to have him on the bus. Well, that's just such an amazing career we went over. And then now what you're doing now, it's –

you mentioned how much different it is and how much more goes into, like, your daily activities as to when you're playing. It had to be a little overwhelming at the beginning, right? And you have this Kaprizov contract. Like, has there been moments when you're like, holy shit, this is a lot tougher than I imagined it would be? Yeah, that was tough. That was tough because you know how it is.

Even when you're a player and you're doing contract negotiations or whatever, you're like, I can't believe they're not seeing my side of this. Yeah, like what am I not saying? Why won't he say it decide five times five they'll definitely say yes to this well they they have their own thoughts too you know so i i think not even the contract stuff that contract stuff's fine i don't mind it like you know what i had been through so much you know i had two holdouts as a player also the pain in the ass but so i feel like i i have still a kind of a connection of what the player's thinking and going through so you know i can be you know

sympathetic to a guy or empathetic whatever it is and and not make it personal and not make it personal but i can also you know going through my my situations with Lou and then Glenn Sather they drew a line in the sand and that was it like when they said this is it this is all we have that was it and I just I learned from that so you know that's kind of what I use nowadays but I guess the biggest thing for me like now is the GM's not you just don't deal with just hockey. You get pulled in a million different directions. You know, PR wants to talk to you. The business side wants to talk to you.

You know, I have a great relationship with Craig Leopold, our owner. But, you know, we talk quite a bit. You know, you just get pulled in a lot of different directions. But the key is having, having great help. And I have, I got the best people around me, just awesome, smart, hardworking guys. And, and when you interviewed for this job, like, what was that like? Because when was the last time you had an interview for anything? Right.

And you hear some of these interviews being four or five hours long like what were you interviewed at friendlies you're like can i get a fribble please uh i'll have this job by the time it's made that's ice cream jason dynandash kids yeah um the interview was uh you know craig is such an easy guy to talk to. Matt Maka, the president, is the same. And, you know, both times I interviewed, I just felt real comfortable. I was prepared, too. So when you're prepared, you know, you have more confidence. And, you know what i

was uh i was ready i knew i was ready so i felt very comfortable that i felt like this was going to be the right spot for me and my last question when you say prepared because it's just i'm very curious in this are you talking you knew their roster inside and out you are you more prepared in terms of like knowing about the business side of it like what does that mean well first of all being prepared is like how you're going to run how you're going to structure every fact how you're going to do pro scouting how you're going to do amateur scouting where those guys are all going to be how you're going to do development you know your plan for development who you're going to buy out yeah you know just everything like you have to have a an actual plan of what you know where do you see the team

you know is this a full rebuild can we rebuild on the go um you know i had a uh i had a list of about, I don't know, 20 to 30 things that I would do in my first 30 days. No shit. And all these things. And you know what? I had a lot of help, like, preparing for it. Randy Sexton, who works for us now, helped me a ton in preparing for it. And, you know, because he had been a GM twice before, and he knew how to do these things. because he had been a GM twice before, and he knew how to do these things and helped me put it together and just ready to go.

I'm not one of these guys that had like – I didn't have like a PowerPoint presentation and hand out these booklets. I'm more of a people person, just talk and spell things out. Let's just mention the, the buying out. You obviously bought out Suda Parisi. It was a big deal. Was that, did that feel like kind of a cross on the Rubicon moment for you as the GM of Minnesota? Like, all right, there's no turning back if I do this.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I knew I was sticking my neck out, but you know, that decision wasn't made overnight. Right. It was, you know, I brought it, the idea to Craig, you know, some months before that. And it was just a series of conversations with, between him and I, um, and really spelling it out. Like, Hey, look, it's going to do this for us year one, year two, year three, or four or five. And, you know, but this is what it will do for us also and and you know i i just felt it was it was it was the right move i felt it was time and the way the team's played so far this year is just pretty great thing to see if you're a wild fan so i mean personally

it's amazing we got to sit down and interview there's like almost too much to cover i know he's got 19 helmets and 43 jerseys in this basement. So all in the NHL like you reminded you. We thank you though. I'll tell a quick personal story. I know I spent the one training camp with you after you'd won the Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh. I remember I ended up getting picked up off waivers

and things weren't necessarily going so great. I know that we'd hit it off personally in that training camp we were together and I go over to Phoenix and you and Don are chatting at the the red line this is our third game of the season and then you're like hey make sure you take care of my buddy and we'd barely known each other that goes a long way though billy g i'm being dead serious when i felt that that really helped break the ice for for me to really be a part of that coyotes roster and in that dressing room and i i'll never forget in pittsburgh when that happened it just felt like me and donor donor for me to really be a part of that Coyotes roster and in that dressing room.

And I'll never forget in Pittsburgh when that happened, it just felt like me and Doner became closer buddies. Doner's like, this guy? He's like, wait a minute. He's like, you're vouching for this idiot. And the reason why he was probably calling me idiot is like the first game of the year is I was chirping about being on the table in the locker room.

So I guess I never got the pep talk to not chirp a vet for being on the table. But that really broke the ice for me. And, Percy, like how good of a guy you are. You know, it goes a long way. Billy G., and I felt the firsthand. And I thank you a lot, pal. I appreciate it.

And you know what? What you guys are doing, I just think this is amazing. Thanks. You know what the the show the way you guys treat all the guys are comfortable and you guys know you've been there and you know the freaking pink whitney oh my god like i know it's incredible i just think it's i just think it's awesome what you what you guys have been able to accomplish and you know what can i do something first i want to give my sons on an-day road trip with the New Mexico Ice.

Liam's grinding it out right now. Liam's grinding it out on the bus. As long as he doesn't fall asleep on the sleeper like Markstrom. But all the boys down there are huge fans of yours, and I just want to give them a shout-out. And you wore the jersey. I got a jersey. Which was huge.

I'll get you one, too. I'll wear it. I'll wear mine. All right. You want one, too. Hook it up. Absolutely. If it's free, it's for me. That's a jersey. Which was huge. I'll get you one, too. I'll wear it. I'll wear mine. You don't want that. All right. You want one, too. Absolutely. If it's free, it's for me.

That's my slogan. Yeah, absolutely. There'll be a cigarette hole in it if R.A. has one. With kids like that age, I mean, these guys love you. I don't get it. Biz used to tell really ridiculous stories. Same maturity level, so it kind of resonates. I get that.

The high school guy. I got my grade 12, but I shouldn't have. Actually, I got one more, Bill. There was a clip of you. I don't know if it was Dumbo. The high school guy. I got my grade 12, but I shouldn't have. Actually, I got one more, Bill. There was a clip of you. I don't know if it was Dumba. You asked a question, what are you here for? And I think he might have said, here to have fun. And you're like, no, fuck that.

We're here to win. Now, you don't usually see the attributes of a player come out as a GM. Do you feel that? Like, do players still feel like you still almost are a player in some regards because of your resume? I do. I feel like, yeah, it was Spurge, by the way. But I do feel like I can still communicate with the guys.

Like I'm not – I mean, oh, my God, I think this is year 11 or 12 that I'm retired, but I can still talk their talk, and I don't pretend – or I don't apologize for that either. Like, so if I can help guys out, I will. Like I talked to guys who I feel like I played like, like Felino or Ryan Hartman or, you know, guys like that, guys that play emotional or whatever, I'll try to help them. You know, and just, I just I like to know the guys. I like to have the feel of the room and what's going on.

And, yeah, that's kind of the way I am. Yeah, yeah. It really comes through, like, just the way the players respect you and stuff. So, well, this is a blast, man. Thank you so much. Yeah, this is awesome. Well, gang, an absolutely gigantic thanks to Billy Guerin for the incredible hospitality he showed us out in Mini.

What a night. Absolute all-time night for the Chicklets boys. Great time, great guy, great hospitality, great family. Can't say enough about the guy. You can see why the entire NHL loves the guy. So we do want to also mention that that interview was also brought to you by our good friends over at Cross Country Mortgage. Buying a home can feel like a brawl.

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slash barstool so Cross Country Mortgage can take care of you through the home buying process. Cross Country Mortgage, LLC, NMLS 3029, all loans subject to underwriting approval, NMLS 3029 all loans subject to underwriting approval www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org Check them out folks if you're looking to buy or refi. Once again, I know I just said thanks to Billy G but that was just

an awesome interview. Hopefully you folks enjoyed it. Awesome time. Too bad all our interviews couldn't be like that. Biz got fed a nice fat steak You mean when they're cooking up Wagyu for us? Yeah, I mean that would be unbelievable wagyu billy g is the man i couldn't really blurt it out properly when we were sitting there but yeah man like uh when i got traded away from pittsburgh that's like the only organization in pro hockey that i had known and it sucks because you spend all this time like developing these relationships and like kind of being known as a certain person in the

locker room and being able to be comfortable kind of being a as a certain person in the locker room and being able to be comfortable kind of being a clown and around all these guys and it sucked like I was pissed when I when I left the organization and I wasn't exactly feeling it when I first got to Arizona so Billy G really helped me feel comfortable there by that exchange at the red line with Shane Doan like it just kind of something shifted I could sense it i think i'm a pretty aware guy and i'm forever grateful to billy g and the way that he treated me being the peasant that i was back then you didn't uh you didn't exactly come in quiet either in the law no i know but you know you got i guess you got to be yourself right fucking coming in, fucking full court press with the fucking hands up. Defense! Defense!

Hey, I don't know who I remember told the story. I don't even remember doing this. One day after when I was 18, I come to the training room and Mario was there. Or he walked in as I was getting treatment. And I was like, hey, what are you doing for lunch later? You want to grab a bite to eat? Kind of just talking to Mario like he would have considered going to eat with like an 18 year old guy with pimples on his face who just got drafted fourth round of the organization so yeah i was uh maybe a little bit of a fucking dummy early on everyone's afraid to talk to him

you're asking him out to lunch i'm like hey what's up i'm like fucking by the way you weren't even't even like I'm like you guys were a little light on the per diem to like cuz he's part owner What did he say they weren't even worried about Mario you just know No, I think just he just thought of a nice way to be like, oh no, like I'm busy like, you know It's just like okay. Cool, man. Well good seeing ya. See you tomorrow like guys look Like guy rubbing my leg in the training room. Like, is this fucking guy serious? Get a good night's sleep. Yeah.

Be ready for tomorrow. Doing battle drills. We were in Minnesota for the Winter Classic, and one little note on that. It was the most watched regular season game on cable all time. Average 1.4 million viewers. It's the most watched on traditional TV of the season for any network as well.

So nice to see people are tuning in. You know, a little slow crawl biz. Get these numbers up. People loving hockey. Games are great. Teams are great. This league's never been better, so hopefully we get more on board. It would have been awesome to be there.

I don't know whose call it was to get us back in studio. I would imagine that was a veteran decision by Ueno to be like, guys, we really want to be sitting there so i don't know i don't know who got us back there but uh it was uh yeah it was it was a fun game to call folks it was great to see that many numbers and i think all in all a very successful event and like i don't know if there was like a shift where people were kind of ripping on these outdoor events a little bit um am i okay with the criticism by maybe some of them lose their luster if you're doing too many of them?

But that overall experience, man, is a fucking blast. And I actually, the way that it looked on camera, I can understand why they also switch them around from football to the baseball diamond. That had a really good scene to it, did it not, R.A.? Oh, I had a blast i mean the cold yeah it was cold but like it's minnesota in january you're gonna freeze your balls off i had i had a fantastic time all weekend again the people are great the food was great everything

was fantastic and i would go back in a heartbeat so uh kudos to minnesota you guys pulled it off and uh i was actually gonna uh talk more about it. Not only was that broadcast fun, we've been getting treated with some pretty good games on TNT, so we had that one between St. Louis and Pittsburgh. What did you make of Berube's call in real-time wit when he tried to call the goalie interference on that tying goal by Sid? Thought it was a bad call.

Like right away, you're like, no, like you, cause RA, I remember in the group chat. I was watching, I was like, oh, I wouldn't challenge that. But that doesn't really mean anything because there's a guy whose actual job it is in the locker room, the video coach saying like, hey, challenge it. So he's being told what to do. And obviously a professional saw something I didn't. Now, if you're down in the game no doubt but a tie game it just made no sense made no I feel like sometimes like even

the best of coaches make poor decisions in the midst of the moment like also a factor that plays into it Bennington was hot as soon as it went in so maybe that not maybe trying to like put to put it into the hands of the goalie, being self-aware enough to be like, yes, this is something that needs to be challenged, with it being thrown to the head coach. If I would have seen that replay on the monitor from the overhead, I would have personally, obviously saying that,

it's like a Monday quarterback kind of thing. No way I would have called that. But do you think that the goalie's reaction plays into his decision making possibly where he's trusting his tender and believing that this guy knows that that wasn't a legal goal that's a that's a good point i actually didn't think of that i was more kind of looking to blame the video coach which is unfair but i i do think under the bus a tip it would have just kidding I'm disappointed in tip because I'm actually disappointed in myself.

You know, like people like... Yeah, exactly. What's he saying? I can't think of it. So I was shocked by that. I mean, if you think, though, that St. Louis... Are we jumping into... Can we jump into the next game

or are we going somewhere else? All right, sorry. Well, I kind of wanted to talk about that and then the fact that right off of that penalty called and you talk about momentum momentum shifts in a hockey game you won't see one that fucking quick i think it took 19 seconds later after they tied the game for them to score on that power play do you see crosby off the face off against o'reilly right through just like you saw that Clayton Keller did. Ended up doing it in the Nashville game. But it's like you're saying like after the game,

Sullivan was stroking him off saying vintage Sid because it's like he smelt blood in that moment. He went forward on the draw. He didn't end up getting an assist on it, but he gets the whole play going by just that momentum shift. Boom, he gets the tying goal off of a defenseman who he'd been battling with all night, who ended up sucking him in the face,

got the blood going. And then they were down two. They pulled a goalie, Jari. I thought that was one of the most entertaining regular season games I've ever seen is what I'm trying to say. Biz, I did text over. I'm like, that's not a goal.

And then my next text was like, I bet the fucking Blues. So I was rooting for it. But yeah yeah Sid didn't initiate the contact I know um Bennington's feet were in the crease he put his elbow out so it wasn't anything that that should have disallowed the goal I said it right away because like I said I bet the other team but in hindsight no there was nothing that there was no reason that should have been a disallowed because any contact was not initiated by Sidney so there should have been no no basis to disallow it other than me betting the Blues that night. I'm such a loser, like one of an all-time loser.

On Monday last week when we recorded, I said, watch Crosby just go on a tear in the next 10 games or in a 10-game span coming up. I then bet against him. I took the blues that night so complete loser there and then i don't take flurry not betting flurry on his return to vegas is another loser move by a clown yours truly i'm just missing out on gambling games that just seem too obvious not that pittsburgh was obvious there but the flurryurry return, it's just, I'm just losing. That's why going back to that Boston feeling I had on the Tampa game, Cooch was coming back in the lineup, and I feel like when you add like a big, big piece,

it just like— He already played, though. Oh, I thought that that was his first game back. No, it was the previous one when he set up— That's when I tried texting you. Oh, I could tell now on the text. Well, then my fuck- up led to a win. So fucking thank me.

Oh, your whole reason was that it was because of Scrooge's first game. I thought it was his first game back. I'm like, oh, that always fucks things up. Damn it. We want to send congrats to our pal Jake Voracek. Played his 1,000th NHL game Thursday in a 3-1 loss to Jersey. We had him on the show a couple years ago. Absolute character of the game.

This is a guy we've got to get on another point. He was just an absolutely hilarious fellow. But congrats to him once again on his 1,000th NHL game played. Moving right along. A couple of trade demands or perceived trade demands. And the first one, Dallas defenseman John Klingberg. There were rumors he wanted out. He addressed it the other night after a game.

He said, I've been at Dallas Stars since day one. I've been pretty clear that I want to stay here. I understand it's a business. For me as a player, I don't feel like I've been appreciated. I don't think it's entirely true that he wants to get out. But either way, Dallas isn't really making that much of an effort to keep him after this year. The writing looks like it might be on the wall. He's going to be unrestricted this summer he's currently making four and a quarter million

dollars a year the question is does Dallas end up dealing this guy try to get something for him if they don't want to keep him yeah that's I mean wait that's one guy they can part ways with on the back end I mean they got Haskinen who can do what he can do offensively although you maybe the line walking is second to none the league He's really good at walking the line. But Haskinen can produce that offense, and he's also a lot more reliable defensively. And at what Klingberg's going to command on the open market, I think that's an easy pass.

I think they should try to trade him. Yeah, he's going to get traded, I think, at this point. They stopped talking in the fall. And when he says underappreciated, I understand what he means. I understand both sides here. And this is such a business where you look at Dallas and you look at the contracts that Ben have and Sagan have. And I would guess, right right like you're looking at those

deals now it's kind of tough both those guys they're not the players they once were and a lot of that has to do with injury and getting older but Klingberg's 30 years old so he wants an eight year deal he wants that max deal his numbers support that I mean when he like this is a guy who he can completely dominate a game offensively as a defenseman i mean the walking the line i mean might be second to macar in the league and embarrassing guys like breaking ankles out there and so and one mixtape tour yeah exactly he's got those top fakes he's got the socks over the back of his white does he still have those white wheels remember he was rocking those forever but an offensively gifted like kind of wizard running the power play.

So he's going to want a lot of money, probably like $7 million a year on a long deal. And they're not willing to pay it. They've probably looked at what they just gave Heskinen and just realized they're ready to part ways. And when that happens, now I actually shouldn't say they're definitely going to trade him because they're still in the hunt. It's going to be hard, right? As the season goes on, that's why that loss they had, we'll get to that loss and the bonus freakout was such a kick in the dick. They could end up missing the playoffs by one point.

It's going to be that kind of grind. So I don't know. Maybe they will keep him on trying to go for a run. But if you can get some assets and figure that your team's either not going to make it or can do what they're doing without him, run but if you can get some assets and and figure that your team's either not going to make it or can do what they're doing without him then you trade him and get get some draft picks or maybe get a player that could help but it is weird for him to say under he feels underappreciated it's kind of like i've been here eight nine years every year i'm a top offensive defenseman and now it's

just like you're done with me he did sign a pretty team friendly deal when he got it i think he's making what five three so for what four and a quarter oh fuck even less so that's a guy who probably feels like he had never he played above what his payday was and we're going to get to another guy pretty soon and then all of a sudden the new hot guy comes into town and he gets a little bit of your money. But, buddy, that's the nature of the beast right there. Now, I think he's still going to get it on the open market. Now, you mentioned Bonas' snapshot. He wasn't the only one. We had Farabee and Philly went down the hallway

and fucking the wires crossed. Yeah, and Tarasenko. Yeah, and Tarasenko on that TNT broadcast after the third periodperiod meltdown. So, whew, baby. We're in playoff mode. And Bones went nuts. They called two penalties on Dallas, I believe, with under a minute left.

And at least one of them was kind of chintzy at that stage of the game where it's that close. I could see why he got that pissed off. And, Biz, you just mentioned another defenseman who could be on the market. Your guy, defenseman Jacob Chik on the market yeah your guy uh defenseman jacob chickering in your hometown coyotes jeff marrick said at least 10 teams have asked uh he compared it to minnesota trading burns to san jose for setaguchi coil and a first way back in the day he mentioned la st louis and anaheim as teams that are pretty good fits chicken has three more years left um after this season at 4.6. This is a guy that a lot of teams seem to be horny for, Biz.

Yes. And so Bill Armstrong, I think he's done an unbelievable job at doing what needed to be done to this point for this team, right? But this summer, being as close with the organization as possible, I kind of look at the roster and I kind of do these fake things of what I would do as if I was in control. And moving Jacob Chikorin probably in the summertime would have been something I would have looked to have done.

And I love him as a player. He's an unbelievable guy. The guys like him in the locker room. He's dealt with injuries and has battled his way back every time with a massive amount of commitment to his body and how much he cares about the growth of his game, right? A component being that the injuries would play a factor into my decision. He's went through four major surgeries.

I think he's had wrists, two two knees and a shoulder his draft year and he's coming off this year where he has 18 goals for your organization despite how maybe not so good the team is so right now based off of what they'd signed him for i think he would have had three years you said he has two years after this year correct left on his deal chicken three three more years after this deal wow so you're getting an exceptional defenseman at a really good value and you still have term on his deal that is a that is a massive massive asset that you could trade in a period of time when he was able to do that with the with the way that the roster was last year you also had all of recman larson here which despite how people want to talk about maybe his decline as a player when you have another guy there to take the focus off

you i think it helps you as another d wit is that a fair comment as yeah i mean a guy that a guy that's going to still play a lot of minutes it certainly makes it a little easier on you like he's minus 29 this year i think he's a good player and the team's really struggled but it it hasn't been as easy correct and in chickren's case now it's like all of a sudden the team is is like obviously in a position where you're looking to lose every single night like you want to that's where you just come off this big massive year and you're like well i kind of am feeling this offensive game and i want to play with the puck and I want to – I mean, you're looking at – you look over at Colorado and you're like, fuck, would it be nice to be a defenseman on that team

and then mix with that offense, especially with what I did here with maybe the talent that's surrounded by me and have an 18 goal. So I think you've lost – on what you just said, now the fact that he's minus 29, he's played nowhere near to the level he played last year um i think that he can get back there it's just like you know you're in a bit of a rut and you're playing on a team where if you're not playing with that top line who plays with the pucks most nights you're on a team where you're going to be playing in your end every night and then you're going to be fucking getting the green jacket and all of a sudden if you find yourself

on a team like that for two three years in that situation instead of going on the uptrend like he had last year you're now being forgot about and you know you're lucky to maybe even get your next contract at the term that you want so I can completely understand that the fact that he's probably wanting out now I was I guess just surprised why knowing what the position that the team's going to be in why it didn't happen in the summertime I would have looked to shop at them and maybe the return wasn't there but apparently now they're looking for what was the term being

used online RA an Eichel type return Kings Ransom no no that was the fucking Gretzky trade wasn't it I think they call any big haul a king's ransom. Oh, do they? Okay.

Yeah, but that was also the title of the 30-30, so you are right. 30 for 30, so you are right. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So, like, I just don't, I would, I don't think you're saying anywhere near the return you would have saw in the summertime for him now, given with what the numbers are at,

where he's at as a player. I've told you everything I know, I like about him him as a player and i think that he adds very good value to any team i thought a good trade would be for winnipeg when i think winnipeg they did make those moves in the offseason who they pick up they got schmidt and they also got dillian schmitty yeah i still think that maybe one more there couldn't hurt and i think that winnipeg's in a very win now state and they're so heavy up top it's like okay well they're you know what's i don't know but uh from from from from any other perspective what do you what do you think about the the fact that he's asking out from him? I think it just makes sense.

And what they could get back from him because of the term is going to be, that's going to be the biggest thing. Arizona can get a big-ass haul for this guy. I don't know where he'd go. I know the Bruins could use a left-shot defenseman making that money for the next three years. So there's going to be a ton of teams that want him. Like Merrick said, I don't know where he'll end up.

Yep. Well, wait and see and keep you posted. Biz, you talked about earlier, Trevor Zegers trying his trick once again. You talked about like wafting the puck from behind the net. You raised the possibility. Is this a defensive liability issue? And I don't know, man.

I think if you're dropping it right in front of the crease, I don't think it's a pizza. Might be like not even a slice of pizza. It's just a little why not? I mean, you just... I think what's happening is he's acquiring some haters some people are barking they're calling it a fancy turnover and and he's a he's a tiktok nhler i mean you know i mean it's kind of funny no well he's he's willing to try anything now that play was kind of brutal so all I'll say is he did it once. It was incredible.

That one, I mean, it just looked like there was no chance, right? Like, to flick it up that softly, it has to be kind of bang, bang, like the way it was with Milano. To just kind of throw up there slowly, nine out of ten times, maybe even more, it's going to get swat away by somebody. And then if fans get mad that he did it one other time and it didn't work at some point if he were to continue to do it and each time it just gets smacked into the corner or they lose possession the coach will be like hey enough with

with your own with the zegras what if it becomes his yip where all he does is just start flicking it to the front of the mat chuck knoblock couldn't throw it to first he can't noticking it to the front of the net. Chuck Knobloch couldn't throw it to first. He can't not flip it over the back of the net. Gretzky's office overhead. He starts hitting the net, and then it looks even worse, and then he really just, it's like a golfer with the yips. But talking about the Ducks, Biz, you mentioned Troy Terry. He's got 21 goals already on pace for roughly 47, and we were saying, you know, what's he doing different this year?

Is it his confidence? Is it maturity, a combination? What's your take on that, Piz? I will say when he first stepped in, he looked fragile. He looked very skinny and maybe not in as control of his body. But other than that, I mean, he's just, he's riding a wave right now. He's just, he looks like he's so fucking silky offensively. And he's just like a natural hockey player. I don't, I don't, I natural hockey player i don't i don't i don't

i don't really have any any other strong opinions about his play uh wit other than he's just finding a fucking way to get it done every night yeah i haven't seen anaheim play enough to really like judge how he's been doing it but he just keeps getting it done so when you talk about fragile that's definitely true and he wasn't he wasn't a high pick right he's a fifth rounder i think so it's gonna take him time for the most part and then maybe he's gotten a lot stronger in the past year or two i don't know i'd love to interview him and ask him because when you see a breakout year like this and the stats are making that big of a jump it's like what changed and maybe he'll say i don't know i just kind of maybe change my my off-season workout all of a sudden I was just naturally stronger.

I felt more confident. And then that explodes the stats when you have confidence. So we got to talk to him to find out the real answer. But he's taken off. He's looking good. It's interesting about that he was a fifth rounder. And I wonder if that's why maybe he gets a little bit more time of a pass. But I think that the reason everyone had such high expectations is even though he was a fifth rounder, he came on the scene at World Juniors, didn't he?

Yes. Was he like the star of their team that year? I don't remember if he was like the best player on that team. Five-hole Terry. Five-hole Terry. He had the shootout where he won the shootout. Yeah, I just remember the shootout. He was like Oshie in the World Juniors, basically.

Okay, so that's when he came on the scene for the first time. Yes. Okay. Well, he's been looking good, and you can look good too, a little Peter Millar. Hey, gang, let's talk about your button-down game. Still wearing the same stiff shirts that wrinkle every time you look at them? Well, we're here to tell you there's another option

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All right, we've got a few more hockey notes for you here. Pal Jeremy Jablonski, he returned to the East Coast Hockey League after a six-year retirement. He signed with the Idaho Steelheads on December 31st of last year. Then, well, something came over the wire. It said he was suspended by the team. He was removed from the roster. I was like, oh, shit, what happened?

But per ECHL week, that was done in order to protect playing rights, I guess. I don't know the particulars of East Coast playing rights, but I guess they had to suspend him to keep his rights for whatever reason. I don't know that he's played yet, but either way, six years, that's a long time just to jump back on the coast. Imagine seeing the fucking game notes before that one if you're across the hallway, you're their team team fighter i would imagine he saw that jousting match and just got the itch to come back and fucking patrol maybe that was it yeah maybe he was like i want to go get that i think the echl

is the next biggest thing in hockey going back to the you just talked about how tanner janeau and and we jumped in on that echl player relief relief fund. I played in the coast, guys. Next thing you know, you got a diamond in the rough. I think Bunting spent some time in the coast. Sometimes you get these players who become very, very relevant players for your team where they were able to develop at that level when they couldn't have stuck around the AHL. So it is a fun fucking league.

There is some tomfoolery that happens on a nonstop basis. So we're going to be more, and that's why we're doing that jungle series. Me and Grinelli are diving into it. We're going to Orlando with the Polar Bears. We're going back to my old stomping grounds. Solar Bears. Solar. Oh, it's the Solar Bears?

Solar Bears, baby. Oh, okay. All right. Well, threw a curveball at me. I sound like a donkey now. Sorry about that, Solar Bears. But the only team that matters on the list is the Wheeling Nailers and then, of course, the Atlanta Gladiators

for my boy Nesbitt's 1,000th game celebration. Another crazy note. Trevor Daly won a Stanley Cup a few years back. He actually came out of retirement for a game or two. He briefly joined the Florida Everblades. They were having the COVID issue, so he kept his friend office position, but he basically came out of retirement to play a game or two in the coast. They were short on bodies, and he jumped in there.

It wasn't some sort of elaborate thing to talk about him or whatever. He just jumped in. They needed guys to jump in. Kudos to Trevor, man. That makes him the smoothest skater this year in the East Coast hockey league. There you go. I was just going to say. Wait, wait.

Can I jump in real quick? I don't know if you guys saw, but the Worcester Railers tweeted at Witt this weekend saying that they would love to get him to come play a game for them, ECHL team, obviously. Oh, my. I saw that. Witt, how much would it cost for you to suit up for one ECHL game? One million dollars. Yeah, a million bucks bucks I'd do it and then if he agreed to play G they said

they would have me in the broadcast wait what if they gave you what if they did like Mario and you became the Mario where they gave you ownership in the team and then we created this wagon team out of the Worcester team and like it was this dynasty and you got in at the right time because they can't actually afford to pay you a million

to step on the ice. I love Worcester Country Club too. You owe your liability defensively. I would do that. Make me owner, I'm in. Trade me right fucking down. Hey, we should get Rene Raincourt out of retirement to sing your first game.

He's singing the anthem. No, he charged too much. Well, we'll give him part ownership. You can afford it. You're the owner. Yeah, exactly. Give him a couple. Yeah, no, then I got to immediately start watching my spending as I'm an owner.

I'll be calling Jacobs up to play croquet with him in Buffalo. Who, Jeremy Jacobs? Yeah, the old guy. He's up there in Buffalo. I'm an owner. I know how we can make more money at concessions. We can have the boys fart in jars and sell them because that's turned into an industry online.

I don't know if you guys... That's so disgusting and deranged. I'm going to sit this one. I don't even get it. Who was ordering those? Some reality show gal. I don't know who it is explain the backstory i don't even know what reality shows she was on apparently i do sorry

she was selling her 90 day fiancee oh it's a great show check it out she had to retire from selling her jar farts after a heart attack skia uh what wait what like how like how do you have a heart attack so no so so um obviously a lot of people during the pandemic they're cooped up in their house and i feel like the internet has just became a wackier and wackier place on like x acceleration mode to where you know nfts and all of a sudden this girl found a market where she'd made i think it was listed as 200 000 pounds or 200 000 us dollars whatever farting in jars jarring them up and then selling them to her fans who were willing to buy these who were i'm assuming finding out about these on her only fans page so i don't know if

you bought one of those that's pre-crime that's like get to his house with a SWAT team, knock down the door, put him or her in handcuffs, and drag him off to prison. All right. All right. He's like, uh. Yeah. I mean, you guys can goof on me at the wick a lot of fat and all that. Don't we see the SWAT team bust into his apartment right now to get him?

Like Silence of the Lambs crashes. We teed it all up. He's like, if you chai the egg ones They're not that bad actually You get a bit of a rose potpourri smell I mean the only farts you want to smell are your own And they are kind of pleasant if they're your own But you don't want to smell other people's farts Come on you don't smell your own farts

I don't mind it I take pride in it Would you pay for like a celebrity Fart in the jaw Well I was going to say I'm off the pot if he says yes I take pride in it. But would you pay for like a celebrity fart in a jar? Well, I was going to say, who do you... I'm off the pot if he says yes. Oh, absolutely. Okay, what would be...

Okay, if you had to get a shipment of a jarred fart from any celebrity, but you had to or death was the other option, who would you pick, Whit? Rachel McAdams. Oh, Jesus Christ. I wasn't thinking about it at all. Jesus Christ, right by this shit all right hey i mean gun to head dude if someone's gonna die i mean fuck man okay rachel mcadams uh who's who's fart in a jar who do you think would sell for the most on the podcast well do you want to bang for your buck?

Then probably me. I mean... If you're smart, all you're doing is spraying in a little of that... Or maybe dropping a stink bomb in there. No, no. We would provide an NFT of the video watching you fart.

We're a legit operation. We're going to give actual air biscuits here wait i'm gonna put stink bombs in there but it's a biz what celebrities fart would you want give me that big dude's fart from lost that fucking monster of a human that guy just to see how bad it would be okay okay margo i would probably say margo robbie is a great answer i don't want a girl's girls don't fart or poop so i don't want a girl's fart they don't you don't want to envision it um i would probably say based on uh uh if if you don't have to open it up and smell it yourself i'd probably say the rocks just for resale value can you smell can you smell

that is i wasn't even thinking of that all right that is genius um but you know yans you know yan says he's never once and never will fart in front of his wife. Yeah, no, I know. That's a weird thing about Yance, folks. He's actually, his, like, I leave the door open when I shit. Like, I don't care. I don't even care if my lady does, too. Like, I don't care. I don't care. She closes the door, but, like, I could care less.

I'm like, I know she's shitting. I'm all good. Like, I don't get creeped out by that. Girls who get hit with Dutch ovens by their husbands and boyfriends though. I'm not hitting her with Dutch ovens. I'm not like, I'm not leaning over and farting in Katie's face. No, no, no.

But I'm just saying like in the morning or at night, like you're in bed, like boom. And all of a sudden they're reading it. Oh, I paid 13 bucks for that though. So it's not bad. I think when you're dating someone,

well, a girl, you got to do it within a first, like once you're comfortable with them in the first five or six months. Because you can't fucking, if you don't fart in front of them in the first five, six months, then you're holding them for God knows how long. And you just let it rip. And then your stomach's getting sore on these fucking car rides and shit.

And if they're disgusted, then they run than it wasn't meant to be. Because, like, you know, you can't hold ass. You're going to bust ass. And it's like all right you guys like we giggle over farts we idiots about farts girls don't fight in front of i will i will say i do i am a bit of a hypocrite like i don't like it when my old lady farts like i don't know mine hasn't she never will oh okay yeah all right yeah although like if there's a squeaker childbirth changes your game the game on that one when you're up there in the mix.

Oh, that's what I mean. Like you guys are seeing poop flying around. Like who cares about a fart, right? That's kind of a game changer. No, my wife can fart whenever she wants. It's okay. You got to be honest in a relationship. But she doesn't.

So I just wanted to make that clear. So I don't know. I don't know why people are buying other people's farts. But I do know that I think that, R.A., you definitely bang for your buck would have the biggest selling fart. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. It means a lot.

Speaking of causing a little wind as you go buy somebody biz, how about Pat Brisson's kid, Brendan Brisson, Michigan goal? He does this little birdie dance going by the – What's the dance called, Grinelli? All the kids are doing it. I don't know. Oh, the gritty, I think. The gritty, that's what it's called.

And Schefter tore his ACL doing it on the field before NFL broadcast. He tore something, yeah. I don't know if that's what Persaud's kid was doing in his goal line, the thing of a jig, but either way, if this was in the NHL, there'd be many coronaries among the the torts crew of guys dancing as they do a drive-by they're the fab four in college hockey it's it's national championship or bust they could beat the sabers we know they could beat the habs they could probably not even beating college teams aren't they like no they're like number six in the country right

now they've lost a few games with all those guys and they're gonna lose a bunch of them fucking dancing like that to the olympics i know man i'm telling you i don't know about this team i don't think i think that like there's they're not the favorite to win the national title all right they're still my favorite they're still they're definitely still my favorite but you mentioned brendan berson and that'sley. He's been writing tons of blogs for us on BarstoolSports.com. He's killing it. But he has Brendan Bresson on his EBR Team USA going to the Olympics. And so does Powers on it.

Powers on it. And Jake Sanderson, too, just broke off the wire a little while ago. Jake Sanderson, North Dakota product. He was invited to join the squad as well down here in the States. Let's see. A couple of notes here before we move along. The Hockey Diversity Alliance teamed up with Budweiser Canada, Biz, your business partner,

to hashtag tape out hate. They came up with a roll of tape to tape out hate and they dropped a video message in cohesion with Bud Canada and it was actually pretty descriptive about the type of bullshit that these players have to read in the DMs and online. And, you know, we're not going to repeat them here, but it's the type of language that nobody should have to read,

let alone when they're doing this social media, let alone their professional athletes. But I think it was important for these guys to do it and say, hey, look, we're at the cream of the crop. We're the best players in the world, and we have to deal with this bullshit. So what do guys who aren't at this level have to deal with? And, you know, we've beat this drum before, and we'll continue to beat it. But, you know, there's no place for the league in this bullshit. So what do guys who aren't at this level have to deal with? We've beat this drum before and we'll continue to beat it, but there's no place for the league in this bullshit. It's fucking 2022.

It sucks we even have to continue to talk about it. And we don't... This isn't stuff we deal with. We're white guys who don't have to deal with this stuff. So I think it was a very important message that the HDA come out with and said this is the type of shit we read and have to still deal with. We've been in the league for 10, 12, 15 years, and we still hear it.

And, you know, again, just cut the shit, man. Whoever does this stuff, whoever types this stuff, you're a fucking moron and an idiot, and just cut the shit. Yeah, and guys, we just preach inclusivity here, and that's like we're going to do it. So when videos and things like this happen, we're going to mention them on the podcast. So job by uh budweiser to to do the video and very well said ra thank you buddy thank you uh there was actually a pretty funny clip to switch

gears a little bit of course when the blues showed up at the winter classic we talked about them showing up in their beach gear well they started a trend they all these youth teams showing up with coolers and sunglasses and towels just just pretty cool how you know like these guys are repeating but I don't know if you guys saw this tweet and I'm not going to put the guy's handle on I don't want him to get bad hate mail whatever but there was a clip of Thomas Shabbat he come on the ice uh to skate around it was his first game back in a while the Zamboni was still in the ice it was just about to leave and he come out to get in a couple quick shots and some dork was like Thomas Shabbat is setting a bad example for the

kids he should wait until the Zamboni is off the ice before he's out there and this guy got ratioed to the moon and again I don't want to make it worse for the guy and this guy fought like till the end he's like this is bad like kids are gonna see this and do it it's like dude this guy plays in the NHL the Zamboni's going off the ice like nobody's gonna get hurt like he's not gonna break the zamboni it was just like come on dude wait wait wait the zamboni driver came out and said that no the if there's not the guy who was driving the zamboni some random guy who drove a zamboni in his spare time like was commented like that he was saying on twitter saying thomas shabbat was setting a bad example guys on twitter what's hilarious is the guy i kind of agree with him i agree with him that he was saying on Twitter, saying Thomas Shabbat was setting a bad example.

Guys, I kind of agree with him. I agree with him because I think that Zamboni should have their time to shine. And, you know, Shabbat's out there 30 minutes a game. Maybe just let the fucking Zamboni guy have his little exit all the way to the finish. And maybe that guy, being a Zamboni driver, knows what the other guy's going through and just felt that he could stick up for his...

It's kind of like when the anthem singer for the Nashville Predators was pissed when Carrie Underwood took over. You know? Do you remember when that happened? Yeah, he got all pissy. Not going with the people that got you there? Yeah, dancing with the girl that got you there.

No, but that's ridiculous, Ari. But what's funny is the guy who actually was on the Zamboni, he replied on Twitter. He's like, I had no problem with it. Like in other words, this one guy was like dying on this stupid hill about setting a bad example. It's like, dude, he's a professional player. He's not going to get run over or fuck up the Zamboni.

But just, you know. That guy's like, fuck, he's a professional player. He's not going to get run over or fuck up the Zamboni. But just, you know. That guy's like, fuck, never meet your heroes online. Biz, this is another one of your doozies here. Of course, we were just in Minnesota. Dean Everson, coach of the Minnesota Wild and Creed, we talked about the lookalikes. Well, we got some great replies. We tweeted about it on our Twitter account.

And some of the replies we got from players who look like celebrities, and sometimes they might not look 100% like them, but there's certain pictures where they line up like the Artemi Panarin and the Jack Hollow with the hair. It was like stunt doubles. But Biz, I know some of them jumped out at you too. Shifley and Robin Thicke was pretty good.

Andy Sandberg and Sid, that's always a classic to go back to, especially when Sid was younger and he wasn't as filled out. What are some other really funny ones? Matt Martin and Brad Pitt was a good one. Oh, yeah, they looked a lot alike. But somebody also put him next to one of the Hainsworth brothers. Chris Hainsworth. Oh, Hainsworth.

Hainsworth? Yeah, he does look like him. Yeah, well, yeah. That's not too bad, guys. Luongo and Warren. Goodness, those guys are rocket launchers. Let's see. Ray Oates.

Yeah, Ray Oates. Adam Oates and Ray Liotta. That was an unreal one. That was one I did not expect that is bang on, especially in Ray Liotta kind of tailed off a little bit now right he's a little bit haggard looking but yeah he doesn't look great with age oh is he that old he's oh he's up there well he looks like he's been hacking two butts or two packs of butts a day and and and fucking i think he looks like he has a lot of work done to his

face kind of oh kind of went mickey rourke on him do you know what i'm saying all right or no i do know what you're saying i don't look at look the the the the ray liotta in uh goodfellas like it's just it doesn't look like that person anymore i don't know if that makes sense yeah but that was also i mean goodfellas 32 years ago. You know, we all age. I know you're saying he doesn't look. I know. Let's see. He's 47. He's 67 years old.

So, but he, yeah. Maybe you could just start using a little bit more athletic greens and turn things around. Wolf and whiskey. Merle's and Kyle Dubas was a good one as well. Oh, my goodness. That was a good one. So, any of you fans out there, we're interested.

Maybe throw this on Instagram and Twitter, and let's get some engagement popping about find the hidden gems in the league of the lookalikes. Who are the best celebrity lookalikes in the NHL? Somebody put Cody Eakin and Joe Dirt, but I think with the... Oh, Brian Campbell and Carrot Top was fucking good. I was dying at that.

I didn't see... Is this on our Twitter? No, there's a bunch of them floating around the internet. These are all ones that have already been thought of. These aren't exactly off the top of my dome. Any ones that you can think of, R.A.? This is someone else who included Steve Ott and Steve the Pirate. Oh, yeah.

Dodgeball, Alan Tudyk. I mean, they look alike anyways. And then I included my own that I mentioned more than once on this show, Pavel Borei and Rocco Siffredi, the Italian porn star. I mean, those guys are doppelgangers, basically. Yeah, but not many people know an Italian porn star. Well, from the VHS golden era. I mean, learn your history, kids.

Uncut tube is. One that I can agree with in the sense of maybe the facial structure, but some people might say, no way, was Sylvester Stallone and Evgeny Malkin. You know, back tomorrow, too. Oh, my goodness. Or tonight, I guess. All right.

Well, I don't have much else to say, boys. I've been talking a lot. We got to give props to our buddy Frank the Tank as well. He was at, I think it was, I don't even know else to say, boys. I've been talking a lot. We've got to give props to our buddy Frank the Tank as well. I don't even know if it was an AHL game or an East Coast game. I forget who was playing, but he did the blue line shot and the half-court shot, and he hit them both. He was trending on Twitter. I was surprised that hashtag wit missed wasn't trending as well

given the way things went in Chicago. Maybe it's easier than we think, all right? It's just, I don't know. But maybe not, because a former NHL superstar couldn't even fucking sink it. And one last Boston. Thanks for calling me a superstar. One last Boston or two. Kudos to everybody who got the new River North bar in Chicago up and running.

It looks fantastic. We don't know when we're going to get back out in Chicago, because that fucking team hasn't gotten the playoffs lately, but we absolutely can't wait to check this place out. It looks fantastic. If you are in Chicago, by all means, check it out. All right, we had a lot of talk. We had a lot of fun and some good laughs from the show,

but unfortunately, I'm sure most of our audience has heard about this awful, horrific story that happened since we last met. Teddy Balkant, he was a hockey player for St. Luke's School in New Canaan, Connecticut. He was playing a JV game the other day, and apparently there was an unavoidable collision that resulted in a neck wound, and he was rushed to the hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries. Just a terrible story. Something we were horrified to hear about we're still crushed it it's tough to talk about as you can probably hear in my voice um we just want to send our

deepest thoughts condolences to his family friends teammates anybody who knew this kid by all accounts he was he was a beautiful wonderful kid everybody liked him uh and sometimes what we we come up with a loss of words because they just some things happen in the game of hockey and in life that there are no words that provide any solace yeah i mean i would never take anything away from somebody hearing about a loss like this who didn't have a child i really wouldn't but i uh i've had a lot, a lot of tough times just thinking about this. And, you know, it's one thing to hear that story, and then you see the picture of the kid.

You know, he's just a beautiful kid. So I'd never heard of a strategy like that. I know, you know, we've had players pass away, you know, hard issues in games, but something from the actual game of hockey, it's a loss for words and a true, true tragedy. So I send my love and prayers to that family because that's just a terrible thing. I'm so sorry for them.

And I'm so sorry for everyone that was a part of that game because that is... That's a very traumatic experience, especially for the... His father was in attendance and just like, guys, I don't have children. I couldn't imagine what that experience would have to be like having to witness that.

And on top of all of it, it's just, yeah, it's... These are... Yeah, this is brutal. So for people who, and listen, we talked about starting the show off with this, but I mean, right now, I could never do a show after talking about this, so we left it till the end because, you know, this is dedicated to him and his family, and that's when tragedy strikes and things like this happen. And we went through this with, you know, the bus crash a few years ago.

And I think that's why the hockey world is this amazing place because you come together and you saw sticks out for Teddy. And so we'll be thanking his family right now, no doubt. It's a tough way to end the show. Thank you so much for listening. But we had to send our prayers his family's way. We also, I think, send extra prayers and hopefully everybody for the other player who was involved with the incident. He's probably going to need some extra help and extra hugs and care too.

So everybody hopefully can help him out as well. So that's going to wrap up our show everybody again it's a tough way to end but it's it's an important thing to to get out there and uh just be good and take care of each other and uh we love you guys and we'll talk to you later