Spittin Chiclets - Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 523: Featuring Pat Verbeek

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

On Episode 523 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Pat Verbeek to talk about his rise in hockey and where his work ethic came from, being inspired by Bobby Clarke, and messing around with Ed Belfour. But first, the Pacific Division preview is underway as Colby Armstrong, Bob Stauffer, and Gary Lawless join in to figure out who’s the beast of the division and who’s set to make playoffs this year. Biz is hurt again and with Chiclets cup right around the corner, he’s doing everything to stay healthy after filming a new episode of Road Warriors with Scott Gomez. Sidney Crosby signs a team friendly deal; Could this be what Pittsburgh needs to make a run at the cup? Luke Hughes is injured, the Leafs make some great signings, and will anyone… ANYONE sign Phil Kessel to a PTO? All this and more on this weeks episode. You don’t want to miss it. 00:00:00 - START 00:00:41 - Biz filmed a new Road Warriors episode with Scott Gomez 00:18:43 - Sidney Crosby signs a team friendly deal in hopes of making another cup run. 00:26:01 - The New Jersey Devils face more injuries with Luke Hughes out for the beginning of the season 00:30:01 - the Toronto Maple Leafs Sign veteran free agent Winger Max Pacioretty to a PTO and Nick Robertson re-signs for a 1 year $875K deal 00:41:07 - will anyone sign Phil Kessel to a PTO? 00:53:55 - Vancouver Canucks Preview 01:06:54 - Seattle Kraken Preview 01:17:05 - Colby Armstrong Joins the Show to discuss the San Jose Sharks 01:36:55 - Anaheim Ducks Preview with Colby Armstrong 01:49:39 - Pat Verbeek Interview 02:56:13 - Bob Stauffer joins the show to discuss the Edmonton Oilers 03:20:04 - Calgary Flames Preview 03:25:39 - Gary Lawless joins the show to discuss the Vegas Golden Knights 03:45:59 - Los Angeles Kings preview with Gary Lawless 04:02:10 - Braxton Whitehead of the Western Hockey League's Regina Pats received a verbal commitment for the 2025-26 season from Arizona State University's Division I program despite NCAA eligibility rules that prevent any player who has appeared in a major junior hockey game from playing college hockey Support the Show: PINK WHITNEY: Take Your Shot with Pink Whitney SPORTCLIPS: Sport Clips. It’s a Game Changer. https://sportclips.com MEN’S LEAGUE SWEATERS: Visit https://mensleaguesweaters.com/chiclets and save an average of 500 bucks  Instagram @mensleaguesweaters  Twitter @MensLeaguers  Tik tok @mensleaguesweaters VIATOR: Download the Viator app now to use code VIATOR10 for 10% off your first booking in the app. LABATT BLUE: Find Labatt Blue Light at labattusa.com/finder JACKPOCKET: New customers, get your first ticket FREE using code: “PUCK” ($2) https://jackpocket.onelink.me/sY17/CHICLETS GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, NY Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY. 18 or older (19+ in Nebraska, 21+ in Arizona). Void where prohibited. Promo code required for $2 non-withdrawable credit. Prize amount may differ at time of drawing. Terms jackpocket.com/tos/free-ticket-promo/You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Well, she's your love. They say you're drunk at speech. She's just so good at that. I like to poke her fair. I like to stir the pot. But then you come on in and take it up a notch You hit me with a cheap shot, a cheap shot What is up, folks? The Wit Dog here.

I'm joined by Paul Biznasty, Missinette, and The Murr. But before we get to these legends and episode 523 of Spittin' Chickets, we got to talk about New Amsterdam's own Pink Whitney and the Birdie Buckets. The Birdie Bucket explosion that people have been sending me pictures of nonstop. Just add ice, Whit. Just add ice. It's genius. It's amazing. And it's brought to you all by New Amsterdam and Pink Whitney. So whether it's the Birdie Bucket, whether it's the big old 1.75 liter bottle, or whether it's just one little nip for you to enjoy maybe looking over the ocean or the lake or the moon or the sun rising doesn't matter because pink

whitney farm new amsterdam is always by your side so thank you so much guys what's going on amazing we're coming back this week with the pacific preview we had a lot of great discussion and a lot of great feedback after a lot of great feedback after our discussion of the Metro. So now we're going out West, boys. We're going out West, and you know who's in the Pacific Division? Let's go Oilers!

So I get to talk about them, and we have some special guests coming today. Before we get to these guys, we got Pat Verbeek joining us. Amazing interview we did over the summer talking about Anaheim and his career. We got Bob Stauffer coming in about the Battle of Alberta, the Oilers and the Flames.

And we got Gary Lawless, the lawman out in Vegas, talking about the Golden Knights and what should be an interesting year with that organization and some big changes. I'm surprised they haven't fired him yet. Fucking cutthroat organization. He's the longest tenured Golden Knight right now. Yeah, exactly.

They don't give a shit. People golden knight right now yeah exactly they don't give a shit people i can't believe that inside marshall so oh you can't have you seen how they do business out there in sin city biz what is going on buddy i thought you were at a wedding this weekend but it was just a big old shindig yeah 40th birthday for our friend sophie mckay uh cal's sister and and her husband mike threw it on at their family residence. It was awesome. And it was really the perfect send-off because all of our friends were there and some of which I hadn't seen throughout the summer. So it was just good to touch base with everybody. And yeah, they had a band play and then our buddy Galen, who's a DJ, and it was awesome. I actually had

a really good week too. I actually filmed our third episode of Road Warriors as well. I'd done one with Sean Avery and Terry Ryan, Terry Ryan Sr. It'd been a while since I'd done one, and I caught wind that Scotty Gomez was actually going to be the head coach out with the Surrey Eagles, a BCHL team that he'd played with. Is he the owner as well too? No, no, no. No, he's not the owner.

But last year, I didn't even realize last year he went there as an assistant coach. And I guess he got the itch so bad that this year he wanted to take over as head coach. And you know who his assistant is this year? Mike Motto. Ring shrinks. The ring shrinks are in the mix too. Mike Motto of the ring shrinks. Brian Yandel himself, he went out west.

So, you know, my wheels got spinning and I was just intrigued by Scotty Gomez. What do you make? Probably $50 to $70 million playing hockey, two Stanley Cups. You think you'd ride off into the sunset. I'm like, what's this guy doing living out in Surrey, BC, coaching these kids? So I said, hey, do you mind if I bring Pasha by and a couple other people to film this and see what you're up to and how you coach these with, I was blown away by his professionalism and how he's setting these

kids up for success. Both of them with his offensive mind and then Mott's defensive mind. And I was able to go spend a full day with them. I actually trained with the kids, little bad news though. The L5 S1's barking again after training with their train buddy, buddy. I try, I thought I was good. This is like a fucking joke now, right? You're kidding. No,

buddy. This, the trainer that they had there ended up putting us through the ringer, trying to put on a show for the camera. So I couldn't back out of the workout. And then I skated after that. And I was doing one of the drills and I was like, ah,

so I stopped the drill and it's, it's a, I might be on the shelf for the full chicklets cup in London. my god I know I know I know I know I know but let's not team it's been a summer of eating right two days I've had people say is biz trying to play hockey again I'm like no he's just insane and you're still getting injured working out what the fuck is going on with your body, dude? Maybe that's a side to slow it down.

Maybe one workout a day is good enough. The witty workout. Witty workout. Just enjoying yourself. But no, you're injured again. Yeah. I did the same thing. I'm not lying.

I got it written down right here in the notes. I went out today. I got the baby. I'm at home alone got it written down right here in the notes. I went out today. I got the baby. I'm at home alone with the baby. So I have the great idea. I'm going to push the stroller up this mountain, this little ski mountain, do a little altitude training,

you know, last day to train chicklets cup. So baby, I put the baby there. He's sleeping, sitting there. I start doing sprints in this parking lot. Third one.

I feel something in my own. No, I shut it right my old hip flexor. I shut it right down right away. I said, I'm not dealing with this, but I feel you. I can't believe it. You can't pull fat. And you guys trying to be these heroes

working out. Biz legitimately back of his mind would never admit it, but he's like, I think I could still play hockey again. And he couldn't get through a BCH practice but i'm very excited to hear and see what those guys are up to i love motts one of my heroes growing up he was at their academy right i was a little younger go to his games then watch him at bc he was so dominant in college hockey it was nuts and then just like got to know him great guy and they got the chance to play quickly with gomer in florida and then getting to see him and moths be together and and also pasha mentioned on the notes g right now is out with alana she's um having a a procedure or surgery so we're missing

him this week he might be back for the end of the episode so shout out alana amazing person g's fiance so we got pasha man in the man in the back wires here he said uh gomer's also the gm of the team so he'll be doing the coaching and maybe some trades here and there and i i'm not surprised to see him do that because you could tell when we've interviewed and just chatted that he's he's a hockey lifer he loves the game he loves the guys and i think the biggest thing and now for me coaching i'm coaching six and seven year old mit, but it is giving back to the game. And at times I get frustrated. You're like, oh my God, these little kids aren't listening. It's like you're giving back to the game and you're hopefully teaching kids some of the wisdom that we've learned along the way that we were given and we were taught by very special people

in all of our lives growing up. So it's amazing to see and I'm happy for both those guys. I always thought Mott would be an incredible coach. I really did. He just knows the game. He's passionate and I think their team, I don't know anything about their team, but I'm hoping that they have a good season. Yeah, I think they're going to be pretty stacked. They won their league last year from my understanding and then

they go off against the AJHL. The AJ, I think that's what they call the Alberta League and then they lost the MAP final. Yeah, they had an issue with the BCHL, right? Some teams left? Yeah, yeah. It's kind of, I guess it's what they call the Alberta League. And then they lost the MAP final. Yeah, they had an issue with the BCHL, right? Some teams left? Yeah, yeah. I guess it's kind of reformulated. Is that the word I'm looking for? But going back to your comments,

the knowledge that Gomer's passing off to these kids, he had a bunch of clips cut from their game, and he was breaking them down. And I didn't realize how him and Adam Oates still communicate nonstop. He looked up to Oates big time. So he's enforcing a lot of those teaching clips and teaching these kids the offensive part of the game,

these little subtle details that you would never expect at that level that these kids get to learn. So the fact that Gomer, an offensive savant his entire career, is passing this along and then along with the defensive side, like I mentioned, one of the other funny things is every time that he comes in the room, they stand up and they salute him. So he's bringing the Lou Lamorello shit with him then.

Oh, bud, bud, bud, bud, bud. I get in the coach's room when I first get there, and there's this grumpy framed picture of Lou Lamorello. So I start dying laughing. He goes, oh, yeah. He goes, that's so when the kids come in, they know what type of meeting is going to be. This is my other one.

And then he pulled up one where he's smiling. So go where it's hanging dependent. So he'll, he'll put the one up, whether what type of moody's and what type of meeting it's going to be with the kid. I was fucking dying laughing. I took a photo and then he told me not to post it.

Cause I'm sure Lou would probably be pissed. He hadn't liked any of the social media bullshit but oh man what I thought he was just doing the saluting thing for well like the day that I was there just ball busting I go you guys are fucking with me and then afterward he texted me and he's like yo did you think that I was messing with

that and I was like yeah you know no but every day these kids another cool thing to wit is they have these three Korean kids that came over. They're playing on the team this year. These kids, like they they'll listen to every word. Their work ethic is crazy. Their skills are unbelievable because that's all they really develop over there in Korea. So the three kids came over, they ended up having a word of the day that they bring in every day. Like they say

the Korean word. I don't, I forgot how to pronounce the two words, but one was breakaway and one was empty net. So I incorporated the last drill was going to be the three of them. You know, the one where you round the net and the whole bag skate depends on whether they can sink it in the empty net and they can't cross the dot. So I made that the, the, the, the word of the day. I made that the, the, the, the drill. And if they missed, they had to beg skate. Obviously two guys missed it. So they had the bag, but the one Korean kid that came over, he's a defenseman. Like I was watching throughout the practice.

This kid was like six, two unreal skater. Uh, so fluid with his movements. He was snapping the puck. Great shot. And I, I go over to go. He was snapping the puck. Great shot. And I, I go over to go around like this kid's nasty. And both him and Mott's go. Yeah.

We think that this kid could maybe play in the NHL. Like they did the, the, the, and like for a big guy to the minute that he had to get going, his first three steps, you're like, Oh my goodness,

how fluid and how explosive they were. So I'm going to be keeping an eye on this team all season long, and I can't thank them enough for their time, and I got to spend the whole day. This video should be coming out in about three or four weeks, and I just want to thank the Surrey Eagles, Gomer, Motts, and the rest of the crew for letting me hang out and be a part of it. I think you guys will really enjoy it, and that's all I got to say.

And like I said, I had the 40th birthday, so it was a very eventful week for me to end my summer here here and now it's off to chicklets cup in london boys chicklets i played in korea for two years so i can tell you breakaway is don doc because you know like i i had the breakaway speed that's what it is that's what it is and then uh empty net i don't think i ever end up getting many empty nets because we didn't win too many games my first year was ben gold day was empty net so i didn't think I ever end up getting many empty nets because we didn't win too many games my first year. It was Ben Gold Day. It was empty net.

How do you fucking remember that? That's the one, too, because I remember it was like a three-worder. That's crazy. Pasha's in the group chat and just told me that. He doesn't look at the chat, which is great because you can make him think you're a genius, but I feel like you did remember Dan Dock on your own, Murr. I remember Ben being a goal because we actually had a Japanese guy called his name was Ben.

So that was the big thing. All he cared about was scoring goals. Oh, yeah. They put it in her bin. But that's good for those kids to get over there because that's the one thing lacking in South Korea is the coaching. So they don't usually have great hockey sense. So that's great that those kids are getting out of there. Go over there. And I mean, Gomer was one of the smartest players mott same thing so those kids are in good hands well biz that's awesome that's awesome that you did that i can't

wait to watch that video my coaching experience this weekend first win first win for the boys luckily the other team they um i think their four top players missed the game because they had football that was huge put food poisoning at their house no that was enormous that was absolutely enormous also i would have loved to hear you ask the korean kid how to say l5s1 in korean that was i'm sure a conversation that you had and uh as as i was helping one kid i was kind of talking like he was kind of round in the net a couple. And then he was going like hard and then trying to beat everyone. I'm like, hey, buddy, you just kick it off the wall. I remember my dad talked all the time about using the boards.

He used to say, use the boards team game. Like I'm going to say 10 times a game. Use the boards team game. You know how many times these little kids, they try to stick in. If you throw it off the wall with speed, you skate around the kids. You got it. Break away. So I'm telling the kid, I'm telling the kid, he looks at me, he's like,

what's your favorite kind of tree? I'm like, okay, this is my hockey. And in the meantime, Squanto is in the room before the game. Ryder had his new Team Argentina shirt from his soccer team at the soccer game before the hockey game. And he's screaming, crying, I want the shirt. I want the shirt. I'm like, get out of the room.

Get out of the room. It's his only shirt. He needs the shirt. Well, in the middle of the game, I see him walking on the other side of the glass with his shirt off into the locker room and he leaves with the shirt. I'm like this fucking kid. Meanwhile, I pick him up from school and the teacher's like you got to talk to him about uh his potty words potty words so he was using his potty words like poopy face and my horn in my

peanuts and he's saying all these things my horn in my peanuts my horn in my peanuts and they're like potty words are for in the bathroom so they'd let him go to the bathroom and then he'd be in there just saying them for like two minutes yelling to the bathroom and then he'd be in there just saying them for like two minutes, yelling them out loud. And then he'd leave and he'd stop saying them. So at least that's a win. He's not doing it in the classroom. But getting the first dub for the boys on the dogs, the junior dogs was an enormous, enormous victory. We needed one. Lost Sunday, but what are you going to do? One and three to start the year. It's a lot of hockey left. Sunday, but what are you going to do? One and three to start the year. It's a lot of hockey left.

Chicklets Cup. Amazing that this is the week. We are all back. All the teams are fired up. Got a couple messages from people that are going to the tournament that are very excited. I think our first event in Canada is going to be enormous. I was already sent a sign. Some of the street signs

are, this street will be closed for Chicklets Cup. They're getting fired up in London. The home of memes. The man, the myth, the legend will be able to show us cop like they're getting fired up in london the home of memes the man the myth the legend will be able to show us the air canada strike memes ended the strike is it over it's over it lasted like six minutes meme said we're not fucking we're not doing this we got chicklets cup coming to london we can't embarrass ourselves we had pearson airport with wit on lockdown we can't have this again they're selling Pink Whitney at Pearson now come on that today yeah are they trying to kiss old

bottles of Pink Whitney at Pearson so I it's the greatest thing I've seen because to get through an experience at that airport you do need Pink Whitney because that airport has not gotten any better and I will not be flying through there as I mentioned I'll never be there again right hope to Billy Bishop from Boston for Whit Dog. And then I'll be driving up to London on Wednesday. But I did want to mention one thing on the outline here. We got the live show Thursday night. Centennial Hall hot stove, I guess we're calling it.

And then Friday night, London Knights game. And then at Joe Cools for the Pink Whitney party. So general public is welcome to come by the tournament Friday and Saturday at Victoria Park. It should be an amazing weekend. I think everyone's fired up for that. I know I am.

We got a sandbagger going on there, and then it's off to Chicago for Barstool Survivors. So I think that's all of the housecleaning stuff we have leading up into the week. Besides you two being injured, which I'm not surprised.

That's why I got this sweatshirt on today, W wick i wanted to let you know i'll have this on friday because it is our one of our pink whitney events and i gotta have my black hoodie on so i want the people to see me but one more thing before we move on before i gotta get in there today is september 16th does everybody we listen to this september 17th but brady kachuk's birthday is today which which I love him. And I started going down a rabbit hole of birthdays. So today, when this drops, September 17th, Ovi, The Glow, Austin Matthews, Horkoff, Mario Ferraro, who we'll get to later, San Jose Sharks, a bunch of guys, but also two NHL coaches sheldon keith and scott orneal

are born today is like that's why that's a lot that's a lot of good players and coaches ovi and matthews have the same birthday that's pretty fucking wild that's what the internet told me today so i didn't really fact check it too much i think you're the new facts guy but that's kind of amazing isn't it like the the what's going to be the greatest goal scorer ever, possibly then to have his record be broken by the gloat? I mean, what are the chances they're born on the same day? Pretty wild stuff, Murr. That's the research that Matt really brings to this podcast.

What are their horoscopes? Now I'm nervous. I meant to double check it. I ran out of time. I'm actually on the cusp, Biz. I'm not a big horoscope guy. Some people are into that stuff i bet you got crystals in your office i i actually uh i'm both i'm pisces and aquarius apparently according to the internet february 19th is a day that switches back and forth so i think that's why maybe i'm bipolar maybe sometimes

i'm in great moods i'm gonna pisces thatces that day, and maybe I'm pissed off, and I'm an Aquarius. Who knows? But that's always been told. That's always been mentioned when I talk to horoscope people. Oh, you're a cusper. You're a cusper. So I thought I'd mention that. Biz, you ain't special like me.

Let's go over. You've got the L5S1 horoscope. Instead of doing the Pacific Division, let's go over horoscope breakdowns today. I'm sure our fans will love that one. I'm a straight up Pisces. What are you, Murr? Sagittarius, December. Do you know what that means?

It means you don't age mentally or physically. Or wash your hair. You wash your hair once a month. Is that true? No. I don't use shampoo too often. Heavy conditioner. Use conditioner all the

time so i wasn't lying you were correct and that's how the hair still looks so good for you yeah my wife like because my i use my wife's stuff she has two bottles and she's like why is like the conditioner keep running out sooner than the shampoo i don't know if she thought i was doing weird stuff in the shower or whatnot but i'm like i don't shampoo too often i just go heavy conditioner that's that's why mine ends up uh running out sooner well guys speaking of this hold on hold on speaking of great hair speaking of a man who doesn't age yep sydney crosby yeah yeah i knew it was coming sydney crosby oh my god has re-signed an extension with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and this lunatic is making $8.7 million again. He's only ever signed for $8.7.

I saw Pete Blackburn and DJ B, I think, what chaos is there showing? Does Crosby know that he can make more than $8.7? Elliott Friedman interviewed him. He's like, where will the $8.7 be in the contract? He's like, oh, I don't know. I can make more than 8.7. Elliott Friedman interviewed him. He's like, where will the 8.7 be in the contract? He's like, oh, I don't know. I don't know about that. Well, every deal you've ever signed is 8.7 million. But he gets an unbelievable team-friendly deal for two more years.

So he's got this year at 8.7 and then two more at 8.7. And I guess as everyone talks about money, and I know Dreisaitl came in with a big ticket and I was hoping for a hometown discount, all these guys looking to be the next biggest contract. Sidney Crosby has never changed, never taken anything close to what he's worth and will retire and live on as a Pittsburgh Penguins legend, probably the best Penguin ever. I know it's crazy to mention Marlon Mew and Crosby, but three Stanley Cups versus two,

who knows what he'll end up doing in the next three years, but how happy are Penguins fans to know that Sid's true to his word on giving team-friendly deals and retiring a Penguin? Well, Army came in with it last podcast saying basically the highlight of the team

going into the season, which is true, and when that's the case, it's kind of sad at the fact that that's like the one thing that they have to look forward to, but they got to be thrilled. Like I was shocked. I thought it was going to come in around 10 million. Even then I thought it was going to be a bargain. But I mean, if they would have known this and I'm sure that they did, how could they not have afforded to keep Gensel around? I'm sure that they did. How could they not have afforded to keep Gensel around? Like how, like with, with him making such, such few dollars, Murr,

how can they not have brought Gensel? And the fact that he ends up taking this, this, this deal, it pretty much, it's the only way that they're going to be able to win while he's still around. Like he had to take a team friendly deal. So maybe miraculously in the next,

well, this year it doesn't look that good, but you got two more years to work in and somewhat find some guys who you could bring on in other bargain deals to chip away at potentially to make yourself a contender. So a great job at getting them locked in at 8.7, but that's all on him. Yeah, I read a quote about him. He said he liked, he didn't mind that they're not a favorite anymore to win the copy. So as I still like showing up every day, knowing I got something to prove. It sounded like he almost liked it even more, being an underdog and being told they're not going to make the playoffs.

I expect big things from him again. I just wish he signed this deal before they signed Malkin and Letang. Because then maybe they would have taken a lot less. And then we're talking Gensel's there, and they're adding a couple big pieces in free agency but like you said now now going forward guys will come cheaper and guys will will go there because there is room for them well i wonder also like with the new ownership and the fenway sports group and like are they cross me's a different story whatever he wants he's getting but with theensel deal and how it looked like, were they the ones like,

oh, we don't want to pay that much money unless it's Sidney Crosby, right? Like, that's a legit question. I mean, people have seen, like, they've done amazing things and they bought the Red Sox. I don't even think it was Fenway Sports Group then. And they won all these titles. But since then, they've gone cheap. I know they own Liverpool.

I don't think they're cheaping out there. But some bigger Premier League fans than myself would be able to tell me and I don't know if it was Gensel it seemed like he really wanted to stay there and was kind of given no love I don't know if it was the ownership I don't you don't really know and until one of us could maybe someday get the full story but it is crazy to see you can just pencil sit down for 8.7 and Gensel's gone and they were boys. They had chemistry on the ice together, chemistry off the ice. It's still confusing to me,

but Pittsburgh still, as Biz said, to have this be the biggest storyline and now have it be done, which is good, it could be a rough go for the Penguins. We'll see. I guess Rucker and McGroarty's look great in their rookie camp. Who knows if he has a chance to play on a top two line with Geno or Sid. I don't know.

But it is cool to see. As much as I mentioned Sid, I want to see him competing for a cup and trying to get another one in the playoffs. I don't know if we'll see that again. But this is a loyal man. And this is somebody who has never changed his tune and never done things that he that he didn't say like the opposite of what he said publicly so he's just in it to win it and i guess he realizes this is his

best chance do you guys think there's uh maybe a handshake deal down the road your assistant gm or gm or a little ownership take this deal now and we'll clean it up later? I don't know. I think he'll just be it. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean by that? Like, oh, well, in three years when you're our assistant GM, we'll pay you $10 million since you didn't take any money now to get the cap. Oh, you think they got backdoor deals going on in the bird? I'm asking you guys. Highest paid assistant GM of all time?

Something like that. Why not? These other guys are deferring the money now. That's becoming a thing. I thought you were going to say ownership. Give them a percent of the team. Yeah, that too. Either one. something like that why not these other guys are deferring the money now that's becoming a thing ownership give him a percent of the team yeah that too either one i don't know i i mean i i yeah i i think that there's no doubt in my mind that he gets into management when he's done playing and i'm curious to know if there's any guys who have ever gotten paid handsomely

after retiring haven't taken a deal in the latter years of their contracts yeah that's a great question murr we have to we have to dig into that it would be pretty sick to see him like now granted like it's not as easy easy as you say like look eiserman's done a phenomenal job but it's also coming to the point where the eyes are planned and detroit fans are like all right well when are we going to make that next step like it's just so hard to be that good on the ice and then be that good off the ice and signing guys and building championship teams. But Sid is so competitive and such a lifer in the game. I'm with you, Biz. I would be absolutely shocked if he's not like an architect of trying to build the Stanley Cup winner on the other side of the game.

I can't wait to see how it plays out. cup winner on the other side of the game i can't wait to see how it plays out but by the sounds of it he has no no like thoughts or questions that he could still be this good and i think that's really cool to see that he's aging this gracefully and able to change his game up a little bit from being the fastest most dynamic skater i ever saw his first day of training camp as a rookie to now still being great in just different ways and his strength's never changed it's probably even gotten better which is crazy but just a dominant dominant force and and a true legend in the game of hockey yeah and it's also also nice to know like he seemed like one of those guys that at least maybe halfway through his career when he was dealing with those

injuries that'd be a guy who would maybe shut it down a little bit sooner. But the fact that we're going to get to watch this guy for three more years, that's a treat to the hockey world. And I think by the end of it, boys, he's a Mount Rushmore guy. It's undeniable what a team player he is and taking these bargoon contracts. So stick taps for Sid. And I'm sure he's still driving that same Range Rover he had way back when, the Sport,

the first ever Range Rover model that came out. So he doesn't even need the money. All right, well, staying in the Metro and kind of current news, the devils, the poor, poor devils got crushed by injuries last year. We talked about it last week, just hammered nonstop by injuries.

And what happens? News breaks. Through the busting with the boys, our guys, Will Compton, Taylor LeJuan, who were at Michigan for the big game against Texas where Michigan got trounced. I think they posted a picture and all of a sudden the internet sleuths out there, they realized, is that Luke Hughes in the background in a in a sling yes he is in a sling and he had an injury training off ice this summer condition they're saying six to eight weeks with his shoulder same injury jack hughes i know i shouldn't say same injury obviously it's the shoulder i don't know exactly what happened but just a kick in the dick

right and obviously dougie hamilton's back and you brought in those big-time defensemen. You have Pesci there now and you have Dillon there now, so it's not as tough, but to see a rookie defenseman dominate the way he did offensively and to know you're going to be

starting the year without him, just a tough scene for the Devils there, Biz. Yeah, I just look at the way that they replenished the back end and they got Dougie Hamilton coming back.

It's not the end of the world. Like, if they're struggling out of the gate, it can't be because they lost Luke Hughes to a shoulder injury early in the season like they have enough weapons and enough around to to get off to a good start but obviously not ideal uh a shitty situation Murr uh did they did they mention how he did it other than training like any more details no no they didn't and i was wondering like what do you do like obviously anything can happen shit happens training but it had to be a fluke right because the way these guys work out and train they're watched so closely by their trainers strength and conditioning coaches the exercise are all towards i mean this is all kind of prehab type

shit you're working out while also strengthening muscles and your body to not be injured. To have something happen during training is such a bummer. Now, who knows if it was a fall while running and not necessarily like actually doing some sort of shoulder exercise or a clean or a jerk, something like that. I don't know. But I didn't hear exactly how it happened. It just sucks to have to play this game. 82 games. It's such a grind.

There's so many different ways you can get injured during game to have it happen in the summer off ice is that's when you're just like fuck man that that that just sucks and you do wonder if right away if fitzy hears he's like well did this happen like not even training was it like a fluke like playing doing something else that's where teams probably do do some research to find out what happened and i'm guessing uh as as media the we won't we won't know the public won't find out yeah kind of private i guess the the silver lining too is last year it seemed like towards the latter half of the year you know being a college guy they tend to burn out a little bit in their first year because of the heavy workload so maybe after not having to play a full 82 he's actually got a lot of energy later

in the season and he's ready to go into playoffs because there's no doubt in my mind that's a playoff team so if anything it's a it's a lighter load for him and he can kind of come in whenever he's ready and those other guys will will carry the load in the meantime yeah that's what i was gonna say better now than later and that wasn't the only news barstool broke in the hockey injuries remember we had frankie borelli on he told us about the sorok Barstool broke in the hockey injuries. Remember we had Frankie Borelli on. He told us about the Sorokin injury before, and then the next two days, Lou came out and talked about it. So we got a couple of rumor boys.

Now we got the busing guys and Frankie starting the rumors and both of them were true though. I think Frankie mentioned he heard Elliot say something. You could tell the tension in his voice. I don't know. Friedman's talking about some possible injury and next thing you know, it was true. I guess the back or something like that?

Now luckily, they do have a hell of a tandem in Long Island so Varlamov's able to take over and play as well as he did hopefully last year. I don't even know if Sorokin will miss time. They're still a ways away, I guess a little under a month till the season gets going,

which is crazy to say. But Biz, after that, we'll head on over to your boys. And as the Toronto ball licker yourself, we got a couple different stories coming out of there. One is Max Pacioretty signed a PTO to be in camp.

And the other is Nick Robertson agrees to a contract, a one year $875,000 deal. Kind of one of the most bizarre contract negotiations. I'll let you take over with your thoughts on both of those. Yeah, as far as Nick Robertson, I think you texted a group chat. You're like, kind of a weird number to hold out to basically close to training camp and then finally get it. But I don't think he had any leverage.

Just a guy who's got unreal wheels. He's got great finish in the minors. It doesn't seem like that finishes that has exactly translated over at the NHL level. I think he's poised for, for a pop off season. Um, nice to know on a bargoon contract. Cause they need those types of guys.

I think the, I think the most fair comments came from Brad tree living. I want to say, I read it from, uh, from a guy online basically saying like, yes, he,

he does have that offensive power. He does have that speed, but we're looking for a guy to take the next step where he has an ads, more intangibles to his game. And that's a fair comment for a guy who hasn't been a full time NHL or so. Here's your, your, your basically league minimum deal.

You're going to be getting to play with all these these big guns making all the money and you can go have yourself a big fucking season put 25 20 in the back of the net getting to play with these guys and then you can get your payday as well as show that that's not all you have in your bag right like you especially when you get to the nhl level in the ahl what he's doing and the points that he's putting up, there's other areas of his game where he doesn't necessarily have to show up. And that's not taking anything away from the guy. If he's more of a one-dimensional guy,

and that's the way he's been his whole career, it's his year to evolve and show that he can do a lot different things other than just score at the NHL level. So, hey, it's like, approve it year. That's exactly what he needs to do. Go out there and get it done. Um, as far as patches, like I have just shocked at the amount of people online that just write off these guys over the age of 30, especially if they've had a couple off seasons, like this guy has dealt with a, with a brutal Achilles injury. Um, he re aggravated it and he hasn't played a lot of hockey. Finally, he gets a full

off season to train. I've been talking to some people. He's been in the gym. He's been on the ice working on his skating, his acceleration. He's the fastest he's been in years, but going back to the times where he was putting up 25, 30 goals a season. So for me to believe that he's going to step in and play on a power play like that. And once again, play with these big guns. I think that he could come back and have a big year and score 25, 30 goals. I got lambasted online saying that I'm a fucking leaves bag liquor.

Cause I think that a bonafide 30 goal score can come back from a serious injury past the age of 30 and get it done. Cause he's devoted all of his time and energy off the ice to getting back to where he was i'm a i'm a glass half full guys if you want to be a negative nancy and be a glass half empty and write these fucking players off the minute they hit it over the age of 30 go ahead but i ain't gonna do it all right well this is our year this is our year we talked to revo he said the same thing i don't want your fucking negativity right now okay well biz i think yes a full summer training without the injuries he's had to battle it is meaningful but as you get older the injuries

are that much harder to come back from four holes last year and 47 games, it is something where I don't think that you can completely write him off. I can also see the skepticism on him being a 20 to 25 goal guy. It is going to be very difficult as you get these injuries that pop up, and these are serious injuries he's battled, to then come into with the pace of this league and be able to really be the player you once were. It's very, very difficult to do. Now, I'm rooting for the guy because I've always appreciated watching him play. Elite goal scorer for many years. But there is a reason he's on a PTO.

Now, he could go out and prove everyone wrong. That would be a hell of a story. In terms of Robertson, what was interesting to me is wanting to be traded and sticking by that. It was like, well, there's a new coach there. And if I'm somebody like Nick Robertson, it's like, all right, maybe Sheldon Keefe didn't appreciate his game. Maybe there were things he didn't do that drove him kind of nuts. All right, dude, there's a new guy there. I could actually understand more so if it was still Keefe.

He's like, all right, this is not going to work. And even saying all that, 875 grand for a guy with 14 goals last year, that is a nice signing by Tree Living. That is a nice signing. And all of a sudden, Berube could see something and give him – I feel like he would get chances as a top two-line guy, and it would be quick. It would be like one of those, all right, yep, you got a period there,

but it's not working out anymore. Maybe he gets a longer leash with Berube. Maybe he can step up. But even if he doesn't, if you get another 12 to 15 goal season out of him for 875, that's a hell of a signing. So I'm interested to see what he can do because he can skate like the wind, undersized. It's just funny. Forever in this game, and Merle, you've seen it, Biz, so have you,

that there are players that just dominate the AHL and then get to the NHL. And it's like, there's these guys, they're the in-betweens. I guess, Murr, maybe you were kind of one of those guys where it's like, there needs to be another league for certain people. They just can't do offensively what they're able to do in the AHL and the NHL. And then they're not great enough defensively to stick in the NHL while also not creating so much offense. So I don't know if he's going to be that type of guy.

They can't be as effective on the bottom lines. And a guy like that, you're not always going to be in the top six. What else can you bring to our lineup? The most optimism, though, I have for the Leafs is all of a sudden they have a guy like him. They got that Bobby McMatthews who started lighting it up last year Bobby McMahon so you all of a sudden have these guys making you know very little money who can contribute offensively and then hopefully in Robertson case you know start

to contribute in other areas as well what do you got Murr what do you think about that whole ordeal well the 875 I think he was just trolling Crosby with the 87 there. But the Pacioretty one, I don't care what he really does in the regular season. I love the deal. We all know the problem with the Leafs is the playoffs. And he's a guy, I think he's been to the finals at least twice. And if he can get you two goals a series, that might actually get you guys to be a cup contender for one. So you're going to get him probably for the 875 too if he does make the team also i love the fact that the leafs have

this much competition and they're able to do it because they're able to have guys and just be in the minors they're not worried about paying big salaries playing for the marlies but tree living's made an on a pretty like open stance that that we are bringing in a ton of bodies. We will figure out the cap situation however we need to, but there's competition in this camp. We're talking big-time competition for the bottom six forwards. I think that that's amazing because even Revo mentioned to us, he's like, there's a lot of bodies there.

I got to come in and have the best camp of my life. I finished the season in a great spot last year, but that does not matter because with the amount of people that are coming in here, there are going to be guys that have to be traded or have to be sent to the minors that are making NHL money. But because of that,

it turns your training camp into that. It's like some teams go in and they have cup aspirations and their roster's set. Maybe they got one spot, seventh defenseman, 13thth 12th forward not with the leafs they have enough people there where like if you don't have a good camp see

you later and i think that that's amazing because because to go into the season after a training camp well you're fighting for your life and you're fighting for a job it gets your team that much more ready and you've seen leafs the leafs struggle out of the gate so calm so so like every year every year it's the first six and six after 12 games and you're like what the fuck oh yeah everybody's ready to blow it up because they go 500 after fucking 10 games it's the same fucking story but agreed i think that they're going to come out to a better start for that reason you just mentioned it it's there's no country club mentality in leaf land anymore it's fucking come to camp be ready to play raise the bar let's go brad tree living era keep the change marube chief hey i got you here wit how about

the other former is a former leaf giordano's in talks i guess with maybe toronto buffalo edmonton and also Calgary, surprisingly, even though our boy Tyson Berry just did a PTO with Calgary. What are your thoughts on Giordano? Can he make any of those teams? That's something where you're bringing a guy in, maybe you're penciling him in for 15 minutes and leadership in the room,

former Norris Trophy winner, respected by all his teammates. I don't know what he has left. Like that is somebody where it's like, listen, you're not going to play a ton. You're probably not going to be in the lineup every night, but we need your leadership. Maybe a team like Buffalo. I know they're, they're one of the teams you listed Edmonton on the, they need help on the right side of their D. So I don't really see that. And with Calgary bringing in, bringing in, Calgary bringing in Barry, I don't know what will happen there. But Buffalo, that is somebody who could go in with Owen Power, Rasmus Dahlin,

and be like, guys, in practice, this is what we need to do. This is what you can do better. Kind of like a player coach, not being behind the bench at all, but somebody who's so used to the NHL grind and what it takes to be a high-level Norris Trophy winner. Buffalo, I could see that. And you get why he still wants to play. There are guys who just, they're not ready to hang it up. And it doesn't matter how much money you've made. It doesn't matter what awards you've won. You're like, I'm not ready to go yet.

You've heard Brad Marchand say, I'm not leaving until a team like doesn't let me in the building like every team locks me out of the building i'll be playing hockey so maybe giordano is the same i know buffalo is close to toronto if that's where his family lives that would make some sense to me for a pure leadership type thing with a team that has to take a step forward has to take a step forward that makes the most sense i don't know what you're going to get on the ice i don't think um last year showed that there to take a step forward, has to take a step forward. That makes the most sense. I don't know what you're going to get on the ice. I don't think last year showed that there could be a ton left in the tank. But if you're talking about what it takes

to be a high-level player, he can help all those young D-men in Buffalo. I completely agree with your Buffalo take. And they did it with EJ last year, Eric Johnson. And then also Dan Girardi. We had him on the podcast talking about so having any of these these vets who have played a ton of games who who these younger players in buffalo while they go through their struggles can lean on i think uh i think that's that's all the

positive in the world so you it would hate to see him go to calgary and then maybe potentially take a job away from our other buddy tyson berry so but then again're going, they're going to be going through a rebuild here until they get their new arena. So maybe that type of leadership there, a place where he was captain and another guy who can, you know, rub off onto the rookies as well. So I should be interesting. And there's a, there's a kind of, it took a while,

but it seems to be a lot of these older guys, the PTOs have started being announced. Like finally, you know, I'm sure there was a lot of guys living in limbo and it sucks finally you're you're into september and you're like fuck i don't even have an invite to camp i'm sure the nerves get up there and i know matt martin i don't know if you guys have mentioned that he ended up getting a pto as well and uh is it was there any other names that i missed uh matt martin got one with uh the islanders so he could be staying there i guess clutterbuck will not be an Islander. Lou Lamorello mentioned that.

Surprising. I feel like maybe he could still be in the room. Just energy, right? Just running people over. I know as you get older, there's fans who will probably think we're crazy, but it's older guys in the room that can make the difference throughout a long season. Taylor Yamamoto, he signed a PTO with Utah. So that's another guy who, man, I thought that,

I thought there was going to be more there. You saw some times in Edmonton where he really, I'm not going to say took over games, but you saw a possible future as maybe a third line, solid winger in the NHL, but it really hasn't worked out that way for him. Let's see if he can stick on with Utah. Utah, I think Utah is going to be pretty good this year. I really do. I know they're the NHL, but it really hasn't worked out that way for him. Let's see if he can stick on with Utah. Utah, I think Utah is going to be pretty good this year.

I really do. I know they're the central divisions. We won't be chatting about them. Also, Biz, apparently Phil Kessel really still wants to play hockey. And Phil Kessel, I think, is a little surprised he can't even get a PTO. Oh, I should mention, we were talking about veteran players. James Van Reams, like signed a one year,

$900,000 deal with the blue jackets. Uh, makes sense there with the, with the loss of Johnny Goudreau and, and them, them realizing we need to get some help. So JVR, who Keith Yandel had brought up still has a lot to give.

He he's going to be in Columbus, but I don't know about Phil Kessel, man. I don't know how he looked when he played a little bit last year was skating with Vancouver's uh farm team and and it seems to me like teams are not blackballing him but he hasn't gotten any calls from anyone I think that's crazy personally guy always won three Stanley Cups like if your argument is like ah he's a little bit on the slower slower side he's lost a step. You know, he went to Vancouver last year. My understanding with the Vancouver situation is they were going to sign him. They were going to put him down in the minors, but they couldn't promise him that he was going to be the first guy called up. That wasn't a promise that they could make to him. So I think he elected to say, ah, you know, maybe 10, 15 games with a couple injuries on a different team, he could be able to slide right in.

Well, he goes this whole year without playing. Do I expect a guy of his status and three Stanley Cups to go play in the American Hockey League without a promise that he's going to get called up? No, I don't. If you want to keep playing, you don't? No, I can understand why a guy of that stature who has made that money, who has a family,

wouldn't want to go grind it out on the bus and eat soggy subs. Like I did. I can understand that, especially with the money he's made. But then on the flip side is now I can understand why he hasn't been offered a PTO come this year. But I still think that it's crazy that you wouldn't want a guy like this around in half of those training camps rubbing off like i know that maybe sometimes people talk about the demeanor of like and the one but it's more of like his character and and the humor that he brings to the locker room and it seemed to work out a lot of other places that he's been and you talked about the chemistry that he had with march or so and

the levity that he brought in the locker room so even did you think that i had a chance of making the saint fucking lewis blues when we went to camp no they brought us in there i thought me and the levity that he brought in the locker room. So even, did you think that I had a chance of making the St. fucking Lewis Blues when we went to camp? No, they brought us in there to be jesters. I swear to God, I thought we both had a chance. I swear. I was like, I think when I got there, I realized we didn't, but going there,

I'm like, me and Biz could make this squad. No. And then the first day, I was like, I don't think we're making this. No, they called it the new confidence building. The other players on the team would see us and be like well i actually got a lot of game left here so that's that's just that's what i expect but but for phil like i i think it's kind of an insult at the fact that a three-time stanley cup champion and even a guy who's going to bring attention to your team

and training camp and like even for a team that hasn't maybe gotten any type of headlines bring them in i'm sure even the love the young guys would love to have a guy like that around. So I was talking with a close friend of his and then understood the frustration that Phil's going through at the fact that he even got, can't get a, a, a PTO. And I just think it, it, it goes to show like how young this league's getting. getting the minute that you're over the age of 30 years old and maybe you've lost a step it seems like they're just moving on and bringing all these kids on an entry-level contracts to see what they got right away the the that that they with with how young the league's getting and how quickly it's it's moving on it's kind of really alienating any of these older players with yeah um it just sucks because I think now looking back with how much he still wants to play,

had he still gone to play for the AHL team and played 40 games and had 18, 20 goals, he is getting a PTO. So I totally get what you're saying. I don't want to go do that if I'm not promised being called up. But had he done it and played well, I think he would have a PTO. So that one

probably like maybe a little bit of regret there and i don't think phil kessel's a guy with a lot of regret in his life what he's accomplished um but interesting to see maybe maybe something pops up for him i hope it does when when you see a great player who's had this incredible career want to keep playing and they can't that's probably harder than like the the struggles that we all had when we retired. Everyone goes through it, but when you're that good and you still want to play, it's like, fuck, that's got to be really hard on a guy like Tess. He still thinks he has a lot of game left.

I love it. That's what I'm... I offered him a deal with the big deal selects, given my back situation. I didn't get a reply on that, but still waiting. But who knows? If he doesn't get a PTO offer, we might see him in London. So going around the league in other spots, it was kind of one of those weekends where you saw some rookie tournament action going on. I saw Celebrini score a beauty out in the San Jose. I don't know who they were playing. Cutter

Gauthier was really good for Anaheim's team and then the bell center was fucking rocking completely sold out and Lane Hudson was putting on a show for the ages and now I'm not going to get ahead of myself I'm not going to get ahead of myself here they're playing prospects and rookies but Lane Hudson is so goddamn dynamic and special. I think he's going to turn heads this season. I think it's a nice little bet for the Calder Trophy, and I think he gets 50 points. Because I watched some of this game.

It was like he was playing against middle schoolers. He is dominant. He is at top of the... He will... Kael McCarr embarrasses people. I'm telling you, it's going to be no different with this kid. I watched it at BU, and you're literally amazed when he has the puck. His creativity, his edge work, and his head fakes are out of control.

I cannot wait to watch him play for the Canadians this season. And while embarrassing players offensively, there will be times he gets embarrassed defensively. He's an undersized guy, and I think he can grow into becoming a full, all-around great defenseman. But off the bat, the offense will be there, and the playmaking, and the bring out of your seats, and the Montreal Canadiens fans, I think Army said it on the chat, they might go full Subban mode for him. Do you remember that place with PK? It's when he gets

the puck, everyone's standing up, everyone's cheering, and every little stick handle and spinorama, the place goes nuts, and it might even be more crazy with Lane Hudson. That's how good this kid is. So if you're picking fantasy players or possible futures on Calder Trophy winners, it's a nice little bet to make he's that good. He's 10-1 on DraftKings Sportsbook, Whit.

10-1? The rookie of the year. 10-1, fourth or fifth favorite. He's tied with Will Smith. So we got, let me guess quick. It's probably Celebrini, one. Carter Gauthier, two. Michkov, three.

Nope. You're wrong, wrong, wrong. What? Is Michkov one? I gave you the winner. I gave you the winner on the Metro preview. Who was it? I gave you the winner. I gave you the winner on the, uh, Metro preview. Who was it?

Matt by Mitch cough. He ain't winning shit this year. I saw a clip of him. I saw a clip of him trying the Michigan. I guess Tortorella was shaking his head in the stands. No, I don't even know about his stride. His stride looks choppy as shit to me.

Well, sometimes, I mean, sometimes those, those practices early in the season could be baggers. So maybe it was at the end or, or he was, you know, his stride his stride looks chompy as shit to me well sometimes i mean sometimes those those practices early in the season could be baggers so maybe it was at the end or or he was you know they're going so frequently they don't have gas but seeing that stride it reminded me a lot of my own towards the end of my career what my what my l5s one of the east coast league game yeah yeah

but uh celebrini and him are tied for 450 but a a strange one in there is Logan Stankoven. I thought he would be over the games played. He must not have played enough games last year. Oh, wow. To me, that's a... Yes. I think he's probably... That's my bet.

Dude, he's going to get 30. I think he just played so many playoff games there. We just assumed he played. I think it's 25 games you have to play to not be a rookie. Did you see the clip that went viral of Wyatt Johnson's stick handling, by the way? Oh, that was gross. Oh, my God. Is he not the coolest?

Is he not one of the coolest players in the league right now? I think he's going to make that Four Nations team. Oh, I don't even think that's a reach. Okay. I think he's going to make that Four Nations team. I don't even think that's a reach. I think he's that good. I think he is so fucking good. His hands are silky. He plays defense.

I'm a Wyatt Johnson super fan. I'm a simp. I really am. He's got great hair too. Going back to Lane Hudson there, he's like a hybrid between Quinn Hughes and Fox. He's got that pop like Quinn Hughes,

but the head fakes you mentioned, like Fox is really good at it, but I don't know if he necessarily has that pop that Quinn Hughes does. Like the overall speed, you mean? Yeah, the overall speed. He's very water bug ask and i see a lot of that quint from quinn hughes on the west coast i mean i don't know how many

people on the east get a chance to watch those late games but uh just so good at patrolling the blue and just make guys look stupid kind of like you mentioned uh with kale mccarr so i think and i would imagine from a pp standpoint he's probably getting those 1A reps, right? Is he going to slide right in? Yeah, I think so. I know Reinbacher's really good, but yeah, I think the way Hudson quarterbacked a power play in college, I know it's way different. You cannot go at him with any sort of speed.

It's one of those guys you're just going at him. Get in the lane. Please don't embarrass me. And if he's able to distribute the puck the way he did to Celebrini, it could be something special. And I love what you're saying because Fox is the king of the little head fakes while moving slowly, right? Quinn Hughes is so fast.

Quinn Hughes, I think, on a lap would dust Hudson because Hudson isn't that smooth. He's a little more jerky, but he's so quick. Yeah, almost jerky like Duncan Keith. Jerky like Merle's with his wife's conditioner. That's how he's jerky. So I love that. I love all that talk about the rookies.

I love seeing rookies come into the NHL, getting to watch their first season. It's just so sick. And for Leafs fans, there was a clip that'll not, I shouldn't say went viral, but I, it did pop up on my feed of,

of Frazier Minton hunting, hunting Hudson down on a breakaway, lifting his stick and then firing a pass up for a breakout. We talked a lot about him last camp and how he's a lead developer. He could make the team. Yeah. There was talks of him potentially cracking the lineup last year, but another full year of development.

I'm excited for what the Leafs have in store this year. That's a lot of rookie talk. Are we off to the Pacific Division previews now? It's time for the Pacific, baby. Time for the Pacific. All right. Before we go any further, let me talk to you about sport clips. Guys, it can be intimidating sometimes to get your hair cut.

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like sport clips it's a game changer so the So the Pacific Division in a weird spot right now, I would say, and some big question marks going in like and what we're starting with in the Pacific. What we're starting with is out West, obviously, right? It is the Pacific Division, but we're starting with the Vancouver Canucks, guys. They won the division last year with 109 points. They beat Nashville four to two in the first round and then lost to my Oilers in game seven at home. Oh my God, was I so sad to see that. But what do you think boys? I don't think one person out there saw them winning the division going into last year. Nobody could see that. Nobody could foresee the success that they were going to have.

Talk it had come in at the end of the season prior, gotten to know the guys. A lot of tough conversations were had that summer, and then they had a phenomenal season. Departures, Casey Smith's in Dallas, Ian Cole's in Utah, Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zdorov are in Boston, Ilya Mikheyev's in Chicago.

Additions, Jake DeBrusk and Danton Heinen come over from the Bruins along with Derek Forbert. Vincent Desjardins leaves my Oilers. Signs with Vancouver. Kiefer Sherwood is no longer in Nashville. And Daniel Sprong, who could be a nice little sneaky pick up there. Sprong, Sprong, Sprong. Comes over.

Their projected point total is 99.5, which is 9 less, 10 less than they had last year. DraftKings' odds to win the Pacific Division are plus 425, and they're 18-1 to win the Stanley Cup. Biz, what are you thinking about the Vancouver Canucks, buddy? Well, I think the first thing I think of is living up to last year's expectations, and I wouldn't really set the bar there. I don't think that they're going to win the division. Although I don't think that their team got worse. I think that they lost some significant players. I love the fact that they make those additions earlier in the year to get

the team acclimated, but with the way that they replenish the lineup, I was pretty pleased with their off season. Uh, I mean, let's start with the coaching staff. You mentioned the job they did last year and how they they galvanized that group they got them prepared to come out of the gate i think three of those wins in the start of the season the first 10 games actually came against your oilers when they were in panic mode so it was great that they got out to that huge start and didn't really lose much steam throughout the season. Maybe there was like one period of time where they were sinking a little bit, but all in all an incredible year. Uh, aside from the coaching staff who are awesome,

they got a lot of guys there who can help out, uh, is let's start with the goaltending situation. Um, I think it's a good thing that they ended up signing. She lofts to, to that deal before they found out about the Demko news. Because I don't know if that would have changed the number at all and the leverage that he

would have had to sign that deal. So they got him two years under a million bucks in everything that he was able to accomplish at the end of the season, especially in a come playoff team. So he doesn't need to kind of sit in limbo, give Demko back the net, and then play maybe 30 games. He's going to get to go right back in that starter role and take that confidence and everything he gained from last year and roll it in.

So I think that he's a great goalie. I think that he's going to continue to do what he did in playoffs, especially with the structure they have on that team that will help him out. I guess after that, let's move on to the back end. I don't think that they were able to replace Sidorov. I thought that he was a huge addition. He had so much intimidation. He actually brought some probably unexpected offensive play

to their lineup, scored some big goals in playoffs. But once again, they go out and they get a couple big D and Forbert and Deharnais in order to replenish those big Ds. So as far as their top two pairings, pretty good. They got Soce, they got Tyler Myers, that top pairing Aronic and Quinn Hughes are awesome. Maybe it tails off a little bit with Forbert and Deharnais, but ultimately big bodies that will help them and especially with that net front presence in boxing guys out and not allowing a lot of the easy bullshit goals in the crease area.

Uh, and then you look at that forward group and I know they lost Lynn home and he's a great second line center, but they go out and get the brusque. They get Sherwood, they get Heinen. And to me, if anything,

they had an incredible bottom six last year. A lot of guys who had like 10 plus goals who contributed. I think that from top to bottom, their forward group is actually deeper this year. And they're going to have, like right now they have Sherwood and Heinen slotted in that fourth line role. These are guys that are coming in and just going to lay down and be like, yeah, I'm a fourth liner. These guys are going to be guys pushing the pace in order to try to be a third line player.

So from top to bottom, like I said, very impressed with the way that they were able to replenish that forward group. And I think that the brusque is really going to help out PD as well. I think he's going to calm things down on that line. That's who they got him playing with at least to start the season. they got him playing with at least to start the season. And I think that probably the biggest question mark is going to be mentally how does Pedersen recover from what happened in last year's playoffs? He's now making $11 million, guys.

And I think you probably have a fan base divided in whether they think that he's worth $11 million after seeing last year's performance. I said it at the end of last season when they got beat out and after he had that tough playoff. It took the Sedins, I think, eight or nine years to really find their groove playing that playoff-style hockey. I'm a firm believer in staying patient with these guys.

So let's see what Petey's going to come into the season with. He's never really had a problem with regular season hockey i would imagine it's right back to to his 100 point style season but it's gonna be like can he can he really elevate his play and figure things out when the going gets tough so i i couldn't agree more that was actually a great breakdown by you i love the joshua re-signing now the question is, does he get 18 goals again? I don't think you can pencil him in for that. Sometimes you just have career years at the perfect time. I don't know, but I love his game. I love his grit and how he played in the playoffs.

My question is kind of around some Swedish guys. And you bring up Pedersen and you bring up not just the lack of production and just overall passion in the playoffs, but it was like the second half of the year. It was also like a couple weeks, months leading into the playoffs where you thought after the contract extension was signed, it would be like explosion time. It almost went the opposite way. I don't know if sometimes he's a tough player to get through to. That's something that Talkett and the coaching staff would know.

It seems like he can just kind of get a little poopy pants when things aren't going his way. So it's something for Canucks fans are probably really, really hoping for him to get off to a hot start and kind of change the narrative of the second half in the playoffs game. Gabe, my other kind of questionable player is considering right now, and I'm using the dailyfaceoff.com line combination. Shout out to our boy Frank Cervalli, his website, all his podcast network. They do a great job. But it has Hoglander playing on the first line with JT Miller and Brock Besser. This is a guy who at times looks incredible.

He's like a fucking cannonball out there. He'll run people over skill levels high and then you see him be healthy scratched and in and out of the lineup like if that if that is right now where he's penciled and granted this could only be kind of where daily faceoff has him not the vancouver canucks coaching staff and management he's gonna need to show a lot more he's gonna be need to be more consistent while continuing to bring the physicality as an undersized player he's gonna have to score more so let's see what happens there and then my final swedish question is is kind of for the mer and that's that is about jonathan uh is it leckermacky and that sounds good

to me i i i i know that this is a first round pick in 2022 okay This is a guy who was able to score in the SHL. And then he came over. He played six games in the AHL last year. And I don't know if he's going to have a chance to make this team. He's got a crazy shot, I guess. I don't know if you know anything about him. Do you think he'll fight for a spot there, Murr? Yeah, he's a huge prospect for him.

I believe that when they were trying to get Gensel, that's who Pittsburgh wanted. And they said, no, no, no, we won't give it to him. But I saw him play SHL. He was awesome. He was in the world juniors. He was their best player in the world juniors. He's actually a lot like Phil Kessel. You know, he's speed down the wing, great release. He's on that same spot in the power play. I found it funny when they went and signed Sprong there because he's actually a similar player to him too. Kind of soft, but knows how to score goals. So I'm interested in this training camp to see if Lekermaki can steal that spot from Sprong

and be there with Pettersson. But my number one thing is I'm going to try not to make the Vancouver fans so upset this year. Number two, I have them in the playoffs. I have them going third in the division. And my player prop of the year, I think it's an absolute no-brainer, DeBrusque over 48.5 points.

If he's playing with Pedersen, he's getting 50 points. Okay. I love that pick. And for Vancouver Canucks fans who I battled with hard, and then one of the classiest group of fans, has that ever been said about the Canucks? But when our son Cal was going through some things

and I was missing some shows, like all these people who were coming at me sent me such nice messages. I really can never say a bad word about the Canucks again. The way that their fan base at least supported our family throughout a really tough time

I know that's making it a little personal but also I think we should mention that Sammy Blay signed a PTO am I saying that right? Blah? Yeah Blay I saw him the other night on that dovetail I saw a bunch of them saw Quinn Hughes

saw Pedersen, Forbert there was a bunch of them out having dinner hughes saw petterson uh forbert there was a bunch of them out having dinner so we actually ran into them they all look good look ready poised and ready to have a big season so uh he's on so he is he on a pto or yeah he could be maybe sneaky ad there oh yeah who knows how how he fits in with that lineup but um i i have them no doubt a playoff team uh demko injury is kind of kind of concerning but I know from what we saw from Shelovs, it's like, all right, well, he was money. So I have them as a playoff team.

I'm not really prepared to say where I think teams are going to finish in the division. Maybe that's on me. I apologize if that's the case. But playoff team biz, I'm guessing you have them as a playoff team as well. Yeah, I got them as a playoff team, and I alluded to it when I started talking.

Rutherford and Alvin, they typically like to go snag a guy early. They got a little bit of cap space. So if they don't necessarily get off to the hottest start, my assumption is at some point they will go out and grab another defenseman. That would be my guess as to what the vancouver canucks do i mean they did it last year they end up bringing in zadorov but i think that that's where they're a little bit weak and once again they have cap space so that could be a huge tool that they've typically used and rutherford has in the past where they bring in a guy to to address that depending on how things pop out so uh this is a playoff team boys no doubt in doubt in my mind. And for Vancouver Canucks fans, there will be zero JT Miller bad-mouthing this season. I'm telling you, if Pasha says a bad word about JT Miller, he's done. He's a dominant force, a superstar in the NHL today. And I'm not listening to that moron talk ill will about JT Miller anymore. So moving on.

Last thing, though, do we mention last podcast that the rumor or the conversation, I think Elliot Friedman reported it. So it definitely wouldn't be a rumor if he did that. The Demko injury is something that he might have to become used to playing with. Oh, yeah. It's to the group. That's crazy. It's a pain that. You know.

If he wants to get back in the net. That that might be something that's lingering. Where you know. Throughout the course of a game. He's just going to have to mentally block that out. That's at least. What the word is on the street. So all of a sudden.

You would assume. If that is the case. This probably isn't going to be a guy. Who's going to be able to play 60 games a year. year if you're dealing with some clicking in the knee and some aggravation or or whatever it is as far as a lower body injury so that sucks to hear um it's kind of goes back to to land a scar like that was something that he was dealing with where there was just constant pain uh based on the traction in his knee and what was going on. But he had surgery.

Whereas they're saying this Demko surgery didn't or wouldn't fix it. So it is a little – that's tough. Okay. Well, either way, playing through pain is a mental grind, and I'm hoping that that's not the case as time moves forward for Thatcher Demko. So that's all I have on the Canucks, boys. All right. Well, now we're moving on. We're moving on to the Seattle Kraken. Last year, they finished sixth

in the division with 81 points, no playoffs after the year prior. They shocked the Colorado Avalanche in seven games on the road in their second season as a franchise. So they've gone really struggled the first year, had a great run the second year, and kind of had that step back in the third year. I would say a surprising firing of Dave Hacksaw. I don't know if you guys agree with that, but additions, Dan Bilesma comes in. He was the minor league coach that brought his team to the Caltech Cup Finals two years in a row. He's a former Stanley Cup champion coach at the Pittsburgh Penguins. Jessica Campbell is brought in first women's assistant coach in NHL history. And then the two big signings of Chandler Stevenson from Vegas and Brandon Montour from Florida. They lost, as I mentioned, Hacksaw, Yamamoto, Thomas Tatar went to the Devils, Brian Dumoulin signed with the Ducks, Pierre-Edward

Belmar signed a PTO with Colorado. Murr, I'll start with you on this team. Kind of a surprising third season and a real struggle. And we talked about the sophomore stump for Berniers, but they make some big signings. What do you think about this team going in? Yeah, first I was shocked with the coaching change after he pulled that miracle in the first round and everything's looking good.

But I guess when Biles might just kept winning down there. And I think Hackstall, I think when he was in Philly, he wore out on the guys. He's tough. He's an old college coach. So that can get a little old. So maybe that's what was going on. So they made the change before it got too late. Chandler Stevenson, they brought him in, obviously, to help out down the center when you're playing

against the Oilers every night and Pedersson and Miller, all these great centers. You needed some help there. So that's a great one. My big question is, will Shane Wright become a full-time NHLer this year? He dropped to number four in that draft when he was supposed to go number one. So Ron Francis loved it, but he really hasn't done it. Is AHL, he's done great. What we just talked about.

Is he one of these guys that's AHL only, or will this be the year he makes it? I also should mention that a nice big deal for the Kraken in terms of re-signing Adam Larson. They signed him to a four-year contract extension with an average annual value of 5.25 million. Nice deal for a really solid top four defenseman. That's kind of like, ironically, he's a part of the Edmonton Oilers.

That is exactly who the Edmonton Oilers wish they could have right now on the right side. Just eats minutes, blocks shots, breaks the puck out well. Nice signing for Seattle. Really nice player. Probably didn't live up to the draft hype but still an overall really good nhl player so that's nice for for them to have him extended and locked up i i i like both signings and i think that there was kind of some heat going around on the stevenson one just in terms of the term i mean they need help they need help it forward they needed berniers to get some like

yeah an older player to take away some of the heat as the top line center he skates so well that you're not really as worried about him aging uh montour same thing i know he plays he's played a lot of hockey but biz i don't know if you had any thoughts on the team but i i think they're going to be better than last year i still do not have them in the playoffs, though. Agreed. I think they're going to be better than last year. It's funny because at the Winter Classic, I'd never met Adam Larson, and we ended up at the same bar after the game.

And great guy. I was chatting with him. How do you like the town? How do you like the team? He loved it. And I said, what are your hopes moving forward? He goes, buddy, if I could get a four-year deal at $4 and a half five million i would sign that tomorrow and he got more than that and he got a little bit more and he's worth it a great uh a great defender a very smart hard-nosed

defenseman and i i like the dynamic in which they have on the back end on those top two pairings right you got alexiak who's a big big stay-at-home defenseman you got Alexiak, who's a big, big stay at home defenseman. You got Vince Dunn, who's a puck moving guy. And then all of a sudden you got Montour and Larson. I don't know who's going to play with who, but you got the one puck mover who will jump in. Then you got the one stay at home who's going to be responsible. So I love that dynamic in their first two pairings. And then, you know, up front, like you mentioned the Shane Wright thing, is he going to come in and make a contribution? Because when you're picking in the, up front, like you mentioned the Shane Wright thing, is he going to come in and make a contribution? Cause when you're picking in the top five picks, if you don't end up having a guy who can at least come in and be like a, a solid third line center or, or, you know, a goal winger minimum, we're talking minimum here.

And, you know, you're, I guess you're just hoping for the crack and that it ends up being like a Lafreniere situation where it does take a little bit of time and you do remain patient. And I think the dynamic of the fact that Bilesmo was able to work with him and that he was having some success in the AHL will add a little bit of comfort to Shane Wright coming up and at least trying to get his feet wet to start the season. So I completely agreed on that. They had to get some help for, for Baniers. And if you think it's a too much of a term or money for chandler stevenson well it's right place at the right time and once again completely agree on the speed element of it i have no problem handing a deal that long to a guy who can move up and down

the ice who's bringing um not only experience in winning a stanley cup but also an awesome guy in the locker room i mean he's a Sasky guy, right? Isn't he from Sasky? I mean, those guys are unbelievable. And you look throughout their wings too. They got some crafty players, man, like Burakovsky, big body. He can play. Schwartz, who won a Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues.

You got Tanev, who's a fucking honey badger. Eberle, the wily vet who can still make plays. So they got a lot of fucking good, good pieces. Um, I unfortunately don't think they're going to make playoffs. I think that they're going to be just on the outside looking in. And I just think it comes down to the, to the strength in the middle of the ice for them. Like you're talking about other teams in the Pacific here. Like I still have LA as a better team than them i still obviously have edmonton i have vegas as well so i just think it's going to be one of those those cusp teams and i i don't i think they're on the outside looking in and agreed with you guys on the fact i was a little bit shocked

at the fact that they moved on from their from hackstall uh it seemed like even from the uh behind the scenes stuff at the winter classic like had, despite him being hard-nosed, it feel like they'd embodied what he was about, right? That hard-nosed style coach who was all about systems. But hey, on to the next one. And it should be a very interesting year in Kraken land. I got him like fifth in the division. I just think Vegas, Vancouver, Edmonton yeah and um and whom in la

are better and i think one guy you did forget to mention and i'm sorry if i missed you saying it was jared mccann i mean 97 goals in the last three years so 40 goal guy so somebody who has like really turned it on he led the team in scoring last year. Now, here's the problem. It was 62 points. And you're in a division where you have powerhouses and you have truly gifted offensive centermen. You got Eichel, McDavid, Leon, Pedersen, Kopitar, Fiat. Like, there's just so many legit high-level players in that division. And they really don't have a 100-point guy. It just crushes them. And in terms of Shane Wright, it's an interesting situation.

And I'm rooting for this kid I've never met him but you remember I mean he was the long talked about first overall pick and he had the exceptional status and some of these some of these cases with these guys it's like you're under the microscope for so long that all that happens is your the warts in your game show up a little bit more. And then all of a sudden the draft comes and he fell down and you're kind of shocked as it's happening. And then now you look and it was Slavkovsky, Simone Nemec, Logan Cooley ahead of him.

Kind of all makes sense. I know I was hard on Slavkovsky, but the way he turned it on last year, you could tell with Nemec how good he's going to be, Logan Cooley, then Shane Wright. Well, then after, Carter Gauthier was right after him. David Juracek, the defense for Columbus, was right after him. Pavel Mintnikov, we'll talk about him. He's an Anaheim solid rookie year.

Rutger McGrory was 14th that draft. So it's like, fuck, you really need this guy to end up being a home run. And Biz saying, minimum third line, it's like, that's where you need a guy to end up being at least a second liner. So I'm rooting for him.

It just seems like it's been slow out of the gates. I don't know if his foot speed's a problem, but we'll see what happens there. So none of us have him in the playoffs. Am I correct with you saying that for humor? We didn't mention Yanni Gord, another Stanley Cup champion. Here's my prediction. If they do make playoffs, I think they're going to have to have seven guys in their lineup

with at least 20 goals. Okay. Which I don't know if that, is that a lot? Is seven guys with 20 goals a lot for NHL standards? And also on the back end, between Montour and Dunn,

they're going to each have to have over 45 points. Because you talked about the McCann being the leading scorer with 62 points they just they they need they need to go back to their first year of existence where they have four second lines and they just come at you and they just come at you they just come at you and they're disciplined they don't take penalties and they're relentless and they're attack that's how they're going to make playoffs again with this lineup last thing yeah montor's my

player prop because he he's gonna he's gonna play so free so confident there it's 41 and a half points like you said he's gonna get at least 45 he's gonna be buzzing everywhere taking all the shots he's the stanley cup champion that just signed last year he came in injured too right he missed the start of the season so got off to a shaky start. Barely maybe regressed based on the year he had prior where he really came out of his shell. I think we see the Montour we saw two years ago. And my last thing is like goaltending has been a struggle for them,

but Joey Decord, what a bright spot. We got to interview him. It was an amazing interview. If you're a Kraken fan and didn't hear it after his shutout in the winter, the outdoor game they had, which was really cool. So rooting for him. He's a local Boston guy. So pretty cool story there.

But now we're going to SoCal. And I think actually we're staying with San Jose. And then we'll do Anaheim. We've got the Armdog. And, Army, I don't know. Do you want to mention the special news for your son Cruz and what happened over the weekend? Oh,

just craziness. Hockey dad craziness, you know, and my son is now playing for a different team in Rhode Island at Mount St. Charles. Yeah. Just a wild turn of events for us.

14 years old off away goes, but I'm here. How hard was Mel crying? Oh, just brutal. Just giving it to me uh not happy with my decisions as a hockey father uh 14 is young to move holy shit buddy get brian yandel on here we need some hockey strengths here mount saint charles is producing a lot of players and so

if he was in a tough spot i get it yeah yeah exactly and i just want him to be in a spot like they're completely immersed in hockey at this at this place it's unreal it's a hundred year old it just turned a hundred years old this this school and so he lived i checked him in he's boarding and on in the dorms with all these guys he's staying with two players on the team above them which are national champ team like these guys are dialed shooting thousands of pucks working out like beasts all day skating whenever they want pretty much when there's open ice uh and going to school and it's all right there on boots on the ground and one socket road island yeah home of brian broad i met his brother the other day his uh his nephew plays here. A kid that's on my son's team was coached.

He's playing up, actually, coached by Brian Yandel. So lots of good things he had to say. The dad did, too, about his coaching. And so, yeah, I dropped him off yesterday, got him, went, hit up the store, bought all the stuff, flew out here, first of all, Boston, hour and a half drive out here, went to the store, bought all this bedding, all this crap he needs for his room.

Dropped him off. How much conditioner? Yeah. I got him three in one body wash, hair and everything. Rip it up. Files your taxes, hair, body wash, all of it. All of it. So armory.

I said bye to him today to come back to the hotel, record with you guys, get this done. And yeah, he'll be off and on his way going to school gets his classes starts already so um pretty crazy but awesome for experience guys i'll say that i i walked into this place and i'm like holy smokes i wish i was a kid again so i could do this like this is just awesome um that's what i was gonna ask you is um it's probably a crazy full circle from you like leaving your home leaving home for red deer in the whl and you snap your fingers and and cruz is gone chasing his hockey dream had to be probably i mean obviously emotional but like holy shit like i i've aged pretty quickly here oh buddy i dropped him when I said bye to him today.

First of all, I did his room up last night, made sure all his clothes are put away in the little areas that they have. There's three kids in a little dorm room. I'm like, holy smokes. But I get it all done. And then I was like, all right, see ya. And he's like, he's like chatting with the boys and stuff and ripping it up with them. And he's like, see you, dad. Like, not a big deal.

First night at the dorm, I walk out of there. I'm like, Oh, I'm almost like crying. I'm like fucking guy. He fucking doesn't even know I'm leaving. Fucking Jesus Christ, man. I don't think I talked to my parents for three weeks after I got to North Bay's camp. I was, I just, I dove right in and I loved it.

Like it wasn't like an insult to my folks. Like keep in mind, we didn't have cell phones back then, but I was just, you know, we dove in a training camp. And like you said like you said if you if if you want to go chase your dreams i mean you got to take that leap now was this something more that he brought to you or you guys came to the decision together like yeah you mentioned mount to me last year yeah yeah it was just something i know that's well cruz has this on his mind so it was so weird how this turned around and how this whole thing ended up like um and and for for us to be here i i i don't know it was just through contacts like but boys we know a lot of people right and and through contacts and my son's

talking with wasserman guys a little bit right now or boy juddy uh is you know he's the guy so um that's how it kind of got into my brother help from him and his advice and people he knows so the coaching here i guess is off the charts and they just produce players out of here and develop players and that's what i was looking for and so i think he is too and it's it was awesome seeing him there today he's showing me around today i wheeled back out there saw him take to the ice for the first time. Their colors are like Montreal Canadian style, so he looks awesome out there just buzzing with the boys

in his first session today. Just a goalie session, but they had sticks in the middle. Kids don't do that anymore, sticks in the middle, boys. On the pond. Yeah, they came up with it on their own. They're just wheeling and dealing on an open session, having fun. Kids are running with their school bags on to class off the skate. It's awesome.

It's awesome the way it's set up. Well, I think we wanted to, oh, I was just going to say, we wanted that game notes injection again. You're going to be joining us for San Jose and then the Anaheim preseason preview here. But before we get to that, you had the ability to go to the NHL media day in vegas and you were rubbing elbows i saw a picture with sid i saw you uh chumming up with macklin celebrini did you get

a chance to talk sid into doing a game notes interview did you did you any mention of that yeah or did you only tell him to take the the hometown discount to hang out with you more yeah i said to d two year deal and like this thing's in the books already eight seven who knew that was coming hey boys what's wrong with that guy that's slave labor for sid yeah that's right yeah did you lock him in for us army i will say this i haven't locked him in but i I did at Media Day, Merle's, ask a bunch of guys to come on Game Notes. And I also got a message.

I was talking to Quinn Hughes, doing a little thing with him on the ice, doing the Colby's Couch episodes. And I said something to him, and he goes, yeah, just let Merle's know that. He threw in a little dart at Merle's, and he started laughing. He started laughing afterwards. Merle's, so it's all good. Can you imagine if we got him on Game Notes? That would be pretty good. He's a beauty. Merle, so it's all good. I think, can you imagine if we got him on game notes? That would be pretty good. Pasha's like, that's my friend, man.

That's my friend. Yeah, even better. Pasha's our guy. Pasha can rope him in. Pasha was cheating on the Devils the other night at Dovetail playing tummy sticks with Quinn Hughes. Oh, they're Western Conference, though, Biz. They're Western Conference.

Okay, yeah. I think he's trying to lure him over to the Devils, that dirty rat. Yeah, he is. You know who's a beauty beauty and we'll get to it i think you want guys want to start with the sharks yeah let me uh let me quickly just kind of goodness oh my god i love oh yeah radco well yeah yeah we'll go to him with with the ducks but when we when we go to the sharks right now and thank you for joining army so departures david quinn is no longer there uh anthony duclair is with the Islanders. He was traded to the Lightning as well as Thomas

Hurdle was traded over to Vegas. Philip Sedina is in Switzerland. Oscar Lindbaum is in Sweden. Kevin LeBanc is in New Jersey on a PTO. Additions, I think Mike Greer did a hell of a job with this team in trying to get them more competitive and bring in some

veterans. Ryan Wasowski, new young head coach with a great pedigree coming in. I'm very excited for him. Family, friends. Will Smith leaves BC signs. Macklin Celebrini leaves BU signs. Tyler Toffoli, awesome signing. He was with New Jersey and Winnipeg. Alex Wenberg comes over from the Rangers.

Jake Wallman, defenseman from the Red Wings. Cody Ceci comes over from the Oilers. And Barkley Goudreau comes over from the Rangers. Jake Wallman, defenseman from the Red Wings. Cody Ceci comes over from the Oilers. And Barkley Goudreau comes over from the Rangers. Their projected point total is 64.5 with DraftKings. They had 47 points last year, minus 150 goal differential. Odds to win the Pacific Division, 25,000 to 1. To win the Stanley Cup, 40,000 to 1. Armie, I guess I'll start with you.

250 to one, 400 to one. It might as well be 25,000 to one. I've read that wrong. 25,000 to one. I still wouldn't bet it. No offense to the Sharks. But Armie, what did Celebrini have to say? Buddy, he's pumped.

How about this? How about him? He's living with Joe Thornton. How sick is that? That's one guy. And Smith with Marlowe. Smith with Marlowe, but like Celebrini gets to live with Joe Thornton, bud. This guy is all time.

I want to follow him around. He's the biggest beauty. Saw him in Vegas at the draft too. He's like, what's up, bud? Like with his laugh. No bad days. He's the happiest guy ever. The coolest dude to ever play.

He's like the big Lebowski of the NHL. Coolest dude to ever play. I just think he's like all time to have a guy like that. You're going to go as a rookie and be able to settle in and live with a guy like that. One with hockey knowledge, but just that, that attitude of like,

you know, every day is amazing. And having a guy like that in your corner, I think it's, I think it's awesome. I just want to hang out with Joe Thornton. I want to like interview him or do so. I've never done anything with him in media or anything.

And I just think he's like the coolest guy ever. So it must've been a, all I, all I hear unreal teammate and now a billet dad. So that must have been all I hear, unreal teammate, and now a billet dad. So that's pretty cool for Celebrina to have that opportunity. Do you think they have to pay for his groceries? No. Do they give him money for the...

He'll just be wheeling around the house in his Lululemons with Joe just chilling on the couch. And he'll have him just absolutely, totally relaxed at all times. I also love the fact that Joe Thornton had a real struggle of his rookie season. And that was back in the day where you never played after being drafted. And the game's completely changed. But there's going to be tough stretches for Celebrini and Will Smith, no matter what.

And to be able to be with a guy who's a Hall of Famer, who had his own struggles, I think that's going to mean a lot. And Celebrini doesn't even turn 19 until after the season. So that makes total sense to me. I think it's going to be awesome just to be able to like, go over your shifts, go over your game. You know,

Joe will be watching all the games and like the help he's going to get off the ice at home and not really be lonely. That first year as an 18 year old in the NHL, it's awesome. I also forgot to mention biz before you maybe give a little breakdown is uh ty de landria came over from from dallas he was also another another veteran guy who can help out yeah and just like you i mean you touched on living with joel like there's obviously going to be a lot of road bumps along the way in these guys first year and uh you know some of the the the dog days of the season where they might rattle off five

losses in a row it's nice to be around a guy who's positive and will tell him to look at the bright side who's lived through that to pass on that knowledge and just get his get his mind in a better place rather than this kid maybe living on his own and then like living in his own negative thoughts right um i think uh like it's kind of like chic Chicago. Last year was brutal on these guys. I think they've done an exceptional job of surrounding these three young players specifically, like William Eklund, Will Smith, and Celebrini. That's the future right there. Surrounding them by bringing in those other veterans is going to be huge,

where I think they're going to be a lot more competent. Just the way that Chicago brought in the veterans to surround Bedard with for this year, more so than they did last year, this is a year that won't be as rough on them. Like absolutely not are they nowhere close to making the playoffs, but this is when you're going to start to see that next jump and then that veteran presence

really rub off on these younger players. So I think everything they've done as far as setting up the pieces and having Patrick Marlowe and Joe Thornton around along with Greer and all these old school veterans, I just really think the organization is finally in a spot where they're saying this is going to be our bottom line and it's only going to hit a rocket ship

from here on out. And I'll say this, it could busy can't get worse than last year. They're not, they can't be that team. I went in to call a game with the penguins and i believe vancouver hung double digits on them i'm sitting at a bar in santana row going oh my god penguins played them back to back the next night hung 10 on them on the back i couldn't believe i was watching it i was

just like this team this is like how do you live through this? That's a hard year for like a Vlasic. And, you know, a guy that no one talks about with them anymore is Logan Couture. You know, like he's been like an all-time guy for them there too, the captain. I don't know if you guys heard anything. I think he's supposed to be back the start of this year,

like in October. Yeah. I don't know if he's starting the year, but he will play again. He's not starting, I don't know. Yeah, but he will be back early or mid-october um near the start of the season which is huge for them because he only played six games last year and we know the kind of competitor he is and how good he is so get him in there with the celebrinis and the tie i know sorry the will smiths and uh you know the eklins that we talked about that are guys that are going to be their impactful

core young guys coming up um i think that's i think that's exciting because like last year's behind them now and i think with what greer did for their team this year like they're they're they were like beyond the basement it was it was tough through stretches and and big chunks of the season and 47 points only i mean that's that's a grind of a season. So he's done a good job, to your point, Biz, of insulating a lot of the bright spots and future of their team to give them a little bit of a softer landing. And I think I'm excited, to your point, too,

to it. Worsofsky, I called her cop, assistant coach last year, comes in, takes over, head coach, young guy, new ideas, enthusiastics, you know, a guy that you don't see too many coaches just getting breaks and coming in there and and so for San Jose with some of their new young talent to have this guy just kind of okay take the reins bud this is your

group now and and wildly successful in American Hockey League as well and I believe coached Team USA at World Championships to assistant coach there So a young guy with a ton of experience and knows how to win and knows how to work with young guys as well. I think a little bit of a rebound year for them to kind of get their wheels under them through this rebuild that they've been doing. I love Toffoli being there. I mean, forget the on ice, he can score, he competes, but just the fact that he's won a Stanley Cup,

he's a champion, and he's able to just help these guys grow. And yes, not a playoff team, but a great step forward from last year. And they really did deserve that first overall pick. And they got a true legendary player in Macklelton Celebrini. We interviewed him. I think everyone heard that, saw the maturity. I think he's going to be a star. It'll be interesting to see if Will Smith and Celebrini kind of steal

Calder votes from each other, if they're both able to make the impact that we think they can. Talking to Kevin Hayes in the local Boston Skates, a bunch of great pros around here. Everyone knows that. I mean, he said he was dominating. Will Smith is. And he's like this kid and he goes defensively, it'll be a little bit of a struggle, no doubt for any young, super skilled forward. He goes, but he is so ready to be an NHL game breaker. And it was amazing to see in the summer skate. So very happy having gotten to know that kid too. Awesome dude. So I think that it's going to be a bright spot. I know the season's going to be tough. And like Biz said, there could be five,

there could be eight game losing streaks, but it will not be like last year. And then what I didn't even mention is Eskarov, right? That's another enormous- Was he tattooing that goalie? Yeah, that's the goalie. And that's the possible goalie of the future. And we can't say what we think he's going to do.

He hasn't really proven it in the NHL yet. But when you have like a resume and AHL dominance the way this kid has, and his size with the new way netminders play, I think they're in a great spot for the future. And even if they struggle again, and they're a bottom five, bottom seven team in the league, probably bottom five, another high pick.

Another high pick. And I think Eklund doesn't get talked about a lot as nobody has in San Jose. Dude, this kid's nasty. He's skilled, he's crafty, high pick and i think ecklund doesn't get talked about a lot as nobody has in san jose dude this kid's nasty he's skilled he's crafty and i think he could make a jump up from 45 points to around 60 so well as they get better guys like that will start to shine way more you get better talent around them obviously those guys like that kid's that kid's like all world skill level you know you watch him he's he's he's like a he's ultimate

dangler uh puck on a stick like dancing around kind of guy you need you need guys with him to do that so i think we'll we'll talk a little bit more about that ecklund this year with teamed up with the likes of celebrini smith and others through their lineup i don't think you have a bigger jump in the nhl where last year you couldn't have paid me to watch one of their games on television where this year like i can't wait to see what these young guys are doing like I'll be tuning into all their games just to see what these kids are doing at the NHL level and seeing how they can break out so uh exciting times in San Jose and they they weren't short-sighted they fucking tanked they got what they wanted and now it's off to the promised lands what do you got there murr um i had a buddy that was actually in san jose and like can i it just

makes sense i picture this joe thornton's living room there isn't like couches it's just hockey lockers around in the middle of the room on the coffee table it's just that double bubble gum and you know the body armor jug with a beanbag chair you know so now he's got a little buddy to come and sit there with him the wife is so sick of sitting there with him he's got a little buddy to come over and hang out with murder you saw a prop i got a prop and you kind of took it from me they're talking about smith i think smith's gonna do great i think he might actually score more than celebrini he's a little bit older not going to get as much of attention from the from the other players i got smith over 18 and a half goals okay i like that and my final thought is it is it fair to compare uh uh celebrini to like a nico he sure is that kind of the caves i say

jonathan taves is your comparison wow that's a fucking hell there is so much i know i know that's i know that's yeah i'm talking about a three-time stanley cup champ hall of famer but there is so much responsibility defensively and there's such a ridiculously high compete level that it it reminded me of him it's like oh my god there is no cheating in this kid's game dude and that's the same way taves was shout out taves by the way i think he was at burning man burning man yeah i wrote that in the outline we were skipped over because we had so much other stuff but he's just living life now i love reading the comments like that's my captain out there probably fucking crushing shrooms he was in tofino earlier this summer i reached out to him and i asked him to come on i think in due time i think he's just kind of going out and getting the living out of his system he was fucking dialing in hockey for captain serious 32 to how many ever years of his life it's his time

to go off and enjoy other things that the world have to offer i could not have pictured jonathan taves as a burning man guy but hey let's see what else he has in store he's been through a lot and who knows you know now he's just kind of really enjoying it maybe some extracurriculars are helping his mind and i hope he's doing well legendary hall of fame player my final go would i did you go to burning man yeah no i'm not what are you gonna do there like walk around if they have a five-star resort that you could stay at and shower and eat good meals and a golf course i'm in yeah yeah my. My final thought on the Sharks, it goes as to what Biz said about I literally wouldn't have watched them if I had a rink in my backyard

and they were playing on it last year. And I think teams were going in knowing this is like the 92 San Jose Sharks. It's point night. It will not be the case this year. You're going to have to be ready to play. They're going to lose more than they win, but it won't be a pushover. I mean, it's just we didn't even like Jake Wallman and Cody CC. That's a pairing right there. Last year, You're going to have to be ready to play. They're going to lose more than they win, but it won't be a pushover. I mean, it's just, we didn't even like Jake Wallman and Cody CC.

That's a pairing right there. Last year, their D were horrible. That's two solid NHL defensemen. You could say what you want about both guys. They're NHLers and that's going to make the world of a difference. So good luck to the San Jose Sharks. Should be interesting to watch their young studs. And we're going to go down south to the Anaheim Ducks, a team I am very high on, very high on. I made a bet with Pasha. I kind of regret that, that they will win a Stanley Cup before the Devils. I actually really regret it.

But I love this squad, dude. I really do. I think that Pat Verbeek is no fucking nonsense. Right after this preview, we're going to go to our interview with Pat Verbeek. We can go over the team quick. Finished seventh in the division, 59 points. I believe only one point higher than the season prior, which was the worst in the organization's history.

Departures, Jacob Silverberg went back to the SHL. Max Jones is in Boston. Gustav Lindstrom, he's a UFA. Robert Hags, a D with the Vegas Golden Knights. Benoit Oliver-Geroux. Geezoux geez I don't know who that is Rangers Ben Myers Seattle Glenn Galdwin William Lagasin a bunch of kind of no names no offense to those guys I was a no name at many times additions here's where we're talking Carter Gauthier comes over in that crazy trade from Philly I don't want to play for the Flyers all right you can go over to Anaheim.

Good luck. I think he could win the Calder Trophy. Robbie Fabry comes over from Detroit. Probably play third line there. Brian Dumoulin's on the defensive side. And Jansen Harkins comes over, I think, from Pittsburgh. Projected point total 70 and a half. Odds to win the Pacific Division 10 to 1.

Odds to win the Cup 20 to 1. What do you got, Murr? What do you got here, buddy? I love Kodogothier. I think this kid's going to have a great year. I don't know where those numbers went, but I think he's going to get the most goals this year. What did I have him at?

Where is this? Oh, no. The points. 44.5 points. I think that's a no-brainer. I think he might score 30 goals. I think he could get 32. 30 goals? I think he could. His shots andiner. I think he might score 30 goals. I think he could get 32. 30 goals? I think he could. His shots and saves. He's going to be playing with who?

Zgris and Vetrano? What if he's playing with Carlson? Yeah, even that. Hey, speaking of Carlson, I got to tell you guys this story. Don't get Merle's going on Carlson. Here we go. Merle loves Leo Carlson. One of the best guys we met, right?

Like the nicest kid we met down in Nashville when we did the interview with him. So I got a Swedish buddy that's become friends with a bunch of the guys out there. So he's taking Leo to go golfing. So he's on the phone. He's like, hey, Leo, I'll just meet you over at the course. It's kind of in the middle of both of us. So I'll just meet you over there. Leo, I don't know where it is. Like, I don't, I won't be able to get there. My buddies tells him,

Hey, just put it into your GPS, into the Google maps on your phone. And I'll show you how to get there. He goes, Oh, I don't have internet on my phone. When I leave my house. What, what? He has no data roaming. He kept his Swedish phone number in anaheim and it only works when he's on wi-fi fucking genius if he's not in his house i love this i love that no distractions he's off the grid when he's out i'm gonna get my kids a swedish phone can we not get this guy like a bat phone caters his agent like get this kid a bat phone. Cater's his agent. Get this kid a bat phone so he can use the GPS. No, this is what they're saying to kids now. Get them phones without internet. You can only text and call.

Yep. Get him a phone. Holy shit, this guy is old school. Old school. I love that. Biz, I'm going to ask you, is this not, by far and away, the most important year of Trevor Zegers' career? Because I know there's something

you want to talk about i love this kid but it's kind of put up or shut up time and and he came in he's got the long mullet we've all seen the pictures and i love his flair and i love how he's willing to put himself out there and things don't bother him kind of i don't give a fuck attitude but it's like all right dude it's time for you to really play some two-way hockey, produce points, and be the player we imagine and know you can be when we were drafted you. Yeah, last year, before coming in, the contract talks, bit of a distraction.

He dealt with injuries last year, his worst season offensively, hearing rumblings that they were going to move on from him. Like, what did he do this off season? Was he partying in the South of France with the DeMello sisters? Or was he working on his game? Was he fucking in the lab cooking up more tricks? Right?

So what are we going to see from this kid? It's pop off or shut up time, like you just said. So I think that like you talk about California hockey in general, we just went through San Jose, like their young core group is one of the most exciting in the league. And I can list them off right here. Uh, Zegers, McTavish,

Leo Carlson. You mentioned cutter, go, Che, uh, Olin, Zellweger, uh,

Pavel, Minchkov. Is that, you say it? Minchkov, like that's a fucking, that's a nice young core group, man.

So is Trevor Zeg egress gonna find his game and and maybe become a little bit more than one dimensional just the offensive tricks and flair is he gonna add something differently to his game that we can see this season so i think that that's a a massive question mark but i'm just as excited as you guys are i think um it's kind of the passing of the guard too, where it seems like John Gibson, maybe at some point they're going to move on from. And then after listening to 32 thoughts last week, it seems like they're going to,

Cam Fowler is going to be probably looking for a new home, probably come sometime earlier or midway through the season. If things get off to a hot start, maybe it sticks around, but that's a guy who I could see as a contender going off of. And you even talk about how Vancouver's D, I mentioned earlier,

they're maybe a little bit shakier than last year after losing Zdorov and Cole. Maybe that's an earlier season addition that they go and find if they can make that cap situation work. So it's going to be a young team. They are going to have their struggles, but as a fan,

you have to be absolutely thrilled with this young core group and what it has to offer. Just like we talked about with San Jose, the other name, um, I always draw a blank on, I don't know how to say it. The third overall pick,

he did sustain an injury and probably will miss some part part time at the start of the year. I don't think he's going to be involved in training camp either. You guys can help me out with the name, but yeah, he's just another guy to be excited about who, um, you know, after talking to Shane, don't have the draft, they go, man, this guy's he's, he's going to be huge. He's going to fill out. And his skill level is probably one of the best in the draft.

If not the best, he was shocked that he went as high as third, but they weren't because they believe in this. And I think that this organization is not too far off. I'm turning things around. Uh, and, but going back to your original question with, I think probably the biggest question mark coming into this year is Trevor Zegers. And I think that's at the top of a lot of people's lists from an NHL talking point overall, just based on how much attention this guy garnered early with probably the hatred towards his style of play. I feel like with the Michigan and everything he did, there was a lot of haters that came out with the tiki torches early on. So let's see if he can shut those haters up. And I hope he does. I hope he fucking pops off

because it's only good for our league when guys like that do. Did you guys think when that glamour shot of him came out with the new mullet that it was kind of like old school, like Wayne Gretzky, like Lion's Mane? I don't know. I think mullets are like, there's little kids with mullets now. I think it's the worst look in the world. It was so feathered.

It was so feathered, though. The word that you're looking for is a blowout. He got a blowout. That thing was blown out. Yeah, he got a blown blown out and he looked like wayne can he play like wayne yes that's a big story and can their young guys take a jump but trano and terry were the only players with 20 or more goals obviously vitrano 37 huge pump terry the year before 37 dropped off dropped down only 20 goals for troy terry this past season. So they need a lot of guys just to pop. They need their young guys that are exciting players to take a step.

You know, they weren't, they weren't great at all this year either for scoring goals or 30th in the league and goals per game. They were 29th in the league for shots on goal per game. Like they just don't generate enough. So they need as a team to take a major step there. then they've got veteran guys to wit's point hanging over their heads still this year um with fowler and uh with gibson and net um and great cronin too second year head coach um can can run a tough ship just like for beak and i don't necessarily know and i think

it was a challenge for them last year they played like a hybrid defensive like man-on-man type of thing i was watching there was there was some confusion in there a little bit with their guys as they're trying to adapt to this kind of hybrid man-on-man zone system uh look more man-on-man but i think that's a challenge when you're dealing with young players too and executing and systems and different things like that. So another year, we'll see if everyone can get growing. And yeah, that hair, Gretzky, very Gretzky-like on Zegers. Can he do it?

Can he play like it? Outside of the Zegers stuff, my other question is, is the coach going to lower his blood pressure? Because I don't know if you guys watched games last year on how red that Cronin looked on the bench. And also my understanding is the reason they

moved to the orange jerseys was to take a little bit of the focus off of how intense that was. That was at least the things that I heard behind the scenes. So I just, I hope that they're able to generate a little bit more for the sake of his health. You know why he was so mad? Most penalized team in the NHL, dude. And then a horrible PK.

So like, listen, if you're, if you're trying to grow as a team, Most penalized team in the NHL, dude. And then a horrible PK. That's a bad man on man. If you're trying to grow as a team, you cannot be taking penalties all game. If you're the best PK in the league, a coach would lose his mind if you're the most penalized team. Forget a young team trying to find their way in the league. That is just not a good way to play.

You think Cronin. I think Cronin at the end of the season mentioned like he's got to be harder on guys he's got to expect more out of guys like he's going to be hard on Zegers we also should mention remember Killorn broke his finger in training camp he's an enormous impact player for them on and off the ice he's got to be able to stay healthy they did battle a lot of injuries you know Zegers had a couple different injuries so it's a question yeah I think Leo Carlson could really pop off this season i think he's going to be a superstar i think mason mctavish is the future captain of that team the

way he plays little gets laughish mean he'll fight he'll hit so i think it's i i really think this team's going to be special um i don't think they're making the playoffs this year but i think two to three years from now you're going to see like a wagon, especially when that Seneca comes into his own, the high pick that Biz talked about. Gibson is interesting. Gibson started off his career. He was a star. And then now it seems like Lucas Dostal is kind of the guy who will be taking over and maybe Gibson ends up being traded.

I think he makes over $6 million. I don't know if they'll be able to move him or how that'll work out. I don't have him in playoffs, but similar to san jose i think they're better than last year i do like i do like their decor though with the young guy old guy like uh zellweger with fowler then you go minchikov with with the butcher uh gudas then you got dumoulin who they brought in with lacombe who's a nice big stud defenseman too young kid for them um I was at NHL media day biz to your comment on the jerseys full-blown orange Gutis comes in with that beard and his visor and his orange helmet full decked out too right yeah oh full orange I go well at least if you get burned

this year you'll have the pylon jokes coming out he's like he's died laughing he loved it oh he's a beauty man I loved him i loved hanging out with him it was the greatest and he was so fun but a little story he has butch he has the word butch on his gloves like a nickname and i says that for the butcher he goes oh yeah keith yandel gave that name to me butch the butcher i put butch on my gloves now so a little yan shout out and i started thinking i'm like in all of our careers, you know, like Jordan Stahl, we called him the Gronk. I don't know if they still do, but that sticks with you.

That's like your legacy. Like Jan's has a lot of legacy nicknames and a lot of legacy things. Like this guy's got Butch written on his gloves from Jan's calling him Butch, Butchy all the time and stuff, I guess. So amazing little Jan story, a little shout out there. But Goudas, not only a savage

beast i love how reckless he is on the ice just a lunatic but just an absolute awesome guy and i love spending like 15 20 minutes with him during that nhl media day so i'll be watching for him they yeah they look better those orange jerseys look better in real life than they do when i saw the pictures on the internet. And same to the other team I just did, San Jose. The all-teal looks awesome. I like the teal. It looks incredible in real life on Celebrini. When he came in, I was like, man, that looks sharp.

So two jerseys down in California, two setups that look awesome. I could not disagree more on the orange. Those are fucking brutal. Those are fucking brutal. Those are fucking brutal. That wraps up the Ducks. We'll see what happens in Anaheim. We are now going to throw it over to Ducks GM, Pat Verbeek.

When we come back, we get the Battle of Alberta with our boy, Bob Stauffer. So thank you so much and don't go anywhere. Before we go any further, guys, I need to talk to you about men's league sweaters. You know what is a pain in the ass? Ordering jerseys for your men's league team. Somebody's always in charge and somebody always get the hate when their jerseys come and guys aren't happy. That does not happen with men's league sweaters. Enough of that. Men's league sweaters makes it easy. Men's league sweaters makes it fast and their jerseys are unreal. We've been working with them for years. The jerseys that

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1999 Stanley Cup champ with the Dallas Stars, and current general manager of the Anaheim Ducks, the little ball of hate, Pat Verbeek. Thank you so much for joining the show. Hi, guys. So you said you're working right now. Apparently you have a ranch, what is it, 100 acres in Michigan, and you're cutting grass right now? right now. Apparently, you have a ranch. What is it, 100 acres in Michigan, and you're cutting grass right now?

Well, I don't call that a ranch, but anyway, it's about 165 acres. Ranch is more like 600 acres and above for me anyway, but it's a small little farm. You're from Sarnia. Did you have a ranch there, or did you grow up on a big piece of land? My dad and I and a couple of our brothers we ran about 2 000 acres there so and actually we still do we still do actually so i don't help as much on the farm as i used to i got i got a day job now it kind of takes up a little more of my time during the spring and winter anyways is that where you got your work ethic growing up and your strength from working on the farm, all those, those off seasons?

Uh, I would say probably the best example of work ethic are my parents. My parents were incredibly hard workers. Um, my dad and actually my mom, they just, they just stopped working. My dad still works. Uh,

uh, he called, he calls himself semi-retired right now, but, um, so yeah, they've been working hard all their lives and they've been great examples. And, um, York's, he calls himself semi-retired right now. So, yeah, they've been working hard all their lives, and they've been great examples. And I would say a lot of the stuff on Farr,

when you got to get after it, you got to get after it. There's going to be some down times, but when you're getting after it, you got to go hard in long hours. Where'd you get your temper? From my mom. Actually. You embraced that little ball of hate? Yeah, she's the toughest one in the family. Anyway.

That's awesome. Was that something where you guys were like skating out there? Was there an area you could freeze or be frozen? You're playing outdoor hockey growing up or is that all just work? No, pretty much. I mean, when I was, my dad built our first rink um when i was seven and probably helped us build the rinks uh for the next couple years but by that time we were 10 my younger brother and uh i we we built our own rinks so we ended up uh having to do our own

rinks and then shovel and uh make sure the ice was good and all the stuff. When the rink got full of snow, we had to shovel it all off. So there was a lot of, the more I think about it, man, I worked way too hard as a kid. So anyway, but it turned out to be all worth it. And then at some point, my dad ended up pouring a rink, a cement rink, where we didn't have to do it anymore of about, I don't know, 45 feet by 90 feet, you know, dimensions. And so it gave us a good half-size rink to work on, you know, until we were probably 15 years old. You mentioned you had siblings. How many siblings, sorry? So I got three brothers and one sister. So all my brothers played, like my brother Brian played,

I think in the IHL. And then I had another brother that played college who was in the middle. And then my sister was a figure skater. My youngest brother played a little bit in the AHL, but mostly in the East Coast. So most of us got our turn at playing pro hockey. bit in the AHL but mostly in the east coast so most of us got our turn at playing pro hockey we actually uh we just we just dropped the interview with Sean Pronger and he talked about beating up Chris all those years and that was how Chris gained his strength was that similar to you and and how you became such a good player and and and I guess that aggressive approach to the game that you took was having your brothers around and kind of teaching you the ropes and and maybe having a punch above above your weight class well I was actually the oldest, I was punching down. So

I, anyway, there might've been more punching bags than, uh, than me, but, um, so they used to couple of, they used to gang up on me a little bit. So it used to be two on one. So anyway, it, um, yeah, we all had, I would say there was, it wasn't too bad as far as sibling rivalry, but we were competitive. Certainly challenging each other to be better, even my brother below me and even the one, Gerard, who played college. Yeah, we were all very competitive. Now living in Southern California, do you miss being back you, how often do you even get back to Michigan?

Just for, I'm guessing a couple of weeks in the summer. I got back May 15th this year. So it was some, last year was a lot, a way more busy. I had a lot more things to do this year. Wasn't as many contracts to do.

Once I got through, once we got through the season, I kind of did a bunch of scouting until all junior and college was over and then started to prepare for the Combine. It made more sense because the Memorial Cup was in Saginaw. The Combine's in Buffalo. So it just made it easier for me to have a home base where I am in Michigan. I'm just west and south of Ann Arbor. uh, it just made it easier for me to be at, have a home base of where I am in Michigan. Just,

I'm just West and South of Ann Arbor. So it, it gave me a good, uh, spot for a base, you know, a base, uh, that I could,

you know, dart in and out and catch games and, uh, be the combine. There's always like players you play with that you assume eventually that'll get into management. Like, were you one of those players where you assume when you were done,

you would want to get into it? Or is this something you kind of just like, there was like a natural progression to all of a sudden you're the general manager of a national hockey team well i think my route um initially i i left hockey um i left the pros once i retired i went and coached my son for about three years um that that ended up being uh part of Bantam hockey, minor midget, and then, uh, junior B I ended up coaching on junior B for, uh, one year. And then, um, and then once my son kind of moved on from there, I, um, that's when I started the pursuit to get back in the hockey. I sat down with Kenny Holland when I had left the Wings and basically called him up and asked him,

how do you do it? And he informed me that just start making contact with all the people you know in hockey that you've come across. So that's essentially what I did. And then I was fortunate that Dave Lewis, who was a pro scout with the Detroit Red Wings at the time, got the head coaching job with the Boston Bruins and the pro scouting job opened up. And I pursued it pretty aggressively, as you can imagine, because I kind of, you know, I love watching hockey.

So it's it's something I've been like that since I was a kid. So getting to get out and watch games was exciting for me. And then during just one of the times, one of our times when I sat down with Kenny, I asked him, he asked me what I wanted. You know, you're getting in. What do you want? Where do you want ultimately to go? So I basically said, I'd like to sit in your chair one day, you know, and how do I get there? And he laid out, he laid it basically out a step-by-step plan for me.

And I just followed it. And, and I was glad of the route that I did take because I learned along the way, I, I got my first job as a pro scout and I learned, you know, a lot about scouting and then took on more responsibility when, when Steve, Steve Isman and I went to Tampa, become director of pro scouting and then assistant manager and then director of player personnel. So there was a step-by-step process for me, and it was a slow way to gain experience, which was perfect for me. So ultimately, the only thing that i really hadn't had any responsibility was was sitting in you know the steve this chair where steve eisman was at the time even though i was in

on you know a bunch of his calls and stuff like that i just wasn't the guy doing all the talking so but i was there don't i heard don't show up late for those zoom meetings if you're if you're on if you're always stevie why if you're at the round table and you show up late you're gonna get scalded well steve was uh yeah he was uh uh steve's a really really hard worker it's hard to outwork steve eisenman so um being in and you know working with steve in tampa and even with detroit um i think that um we developed the culture a culture all the way through top to bottom of hard work. And I think in the end, if you have the talent and the talent works hard, you'll be successful. As a player throughout this long career you had, you always kind of see the GM. Some players are hoping they don't hear from the GM, but you're going about your business trying to produce and play as well as you can. Is there

anything now that you're sitting in that seat that's a lot harder or a lot more difficult or different than you kind of imagined as a player that it would have been like? Yeah, when I was, I think you want to hear, the players want to hear a little bit from the general manager. I was never one that really needed to talk to the general manager, but I think players are different today. And, and when I went into Anaheim, I kind of had a,

not a laid back, but a kind of standoffish approach in the sense that I just wanted to observe more than kind of get in there. I just wanted to see how things were going. And, and I think probably, well, this year will probably be, I was a little more,

I was a little more involved like around the team more last year, and I'll be a lot more involved around the team this year. I'll be there, you know, constantly. I feel that now we've got three drafts under us. I can feel comfortable about where, you know, our depth of our organization as far as prospects is the young guys are starting to take a step. and so now I can kind of now participate with the young players and kind of help them along with you know with stuff that I've experienced stuff that can kind of help their game grow hopefully faster than than it would

otherwise going back to what you said about like even just learning how to scout early on, like obviously if you're the guy in the position now, the decision probably falls on you to make that, that pick. Correct. Yeah. Ultimately. Yeah.

It's my responsibility. Like what, tell me what you learned about scouting that you wouldn't have normally normalized or normally known as a player, just watching and trying to evaluate talent. Like what did you have to learn in that position? Well, I think when, once when known as a player just watching and trying to evaluate talent like what did you have to learn in that position well i think when once when you're a player you're sitting on the bench you can kind of see the day-to-day um the inner workings of a player what he does to you know make himself a better player you know the day in and out you don't get

to see that as a scout and so there's lot, not only are you watching his work ethic, are you watching how he plays the game, but you really have to dig into a lot of times how they are as a player away from the rink, you know, whether it's off the ice. And so I, you know, that, that's probably some of the hardest things to, to work. And I think the big, the big thing I keep telling our guys is you got to keep watching, you got to keep watching because, um, players do change. Um, and some of them take big steps and, uh, and you have to have a sensor, um, or an inkling of when that's going to change. And so if you can kind of pounce on those things, you know, there's an opportunity, there's opportunities to, um, you know, make trades or, um, um, draft players that

are kind of on that verge, but haven't quite reached it there yet to be able to, you know, find some gems. And so I think patience is required. Um, there's certainly some players, I think in our organization that I probably, probably, even though I had an extensive background scouting some of these players that are in our organization, watching them over the last three years, patience has taught me, well, patience is required. And so I think that's one of the things I always preach as well, patience, because there are players that all of a sudden the light bulb goes on and they understand what's required of them, what's there, you know,

and what they're supposed to do and they take off. So we've got a couple of players in the organization that, that, you know, ended up, you know, changing my mind completely. I'm wondering like people have different approaches,

and the game has changed with kids being younger and maybe even a little bit more sensitive, but has there been times, or could you picture yourself meeting with a player saying, hey, wake the fuck up? What's going on here? Were you more leave that to the coaches in terms of calling guys out who at the time aren't doing what needs to be done? Well, when I sit down, the players get that probably on a daily basis from the coaches.

There's some times when I will take an approach that will be a little more stern than I probably would normally come across. But what I try to do is give is, um, give them what I went through as a player, uh, give them other players that, you know, that I've played with, you know, that maybe their games, um, are similar and how they approach it. And so sometimes it's not always, um, you know, get after it. And sometimes it's, um, you know, show them, show them that them away of, you know know where they need to go i was just going to ask i mean particularly this year uh and you talk about the scouting and

the approach what did you guys see in in betting bet bennett seneca i hope i'm saying his name properly yeah there's an e on the end i don't know why there's an e on an a uh but he's drafted third overall and and he was as shocked as anyone so what made him what what drew you guys to him at such a high pick where a lot of people maybe thought he was going to go later in the draft well for me uh one of the you know and this is you know this is part of you know amateur scouting is a way more difficult job than pro scouting. And so there's a lot of projection. You have to kind of, you know, you got to kind of see where they're going to go. The thing that really intrigued me when I watched Beckett, I, you know, he's, he has really high skill level, has really, really good vision.

And I really love his sense. But what, what I really loved about him was the way, you know, I see the ability as he gets stronger, he's, he's grown so much in the last year and a half that he hasn't caught up to his body yet, strength wise. And so we're going to remedy that, you know, in the near future to kind of help him get stronger. But what I loved about him was he has an edge to his game, and he has, I think, at some point, the ability to play any game that's out there on the ice, whether it's a physical game, whether it's a skilled game,

whether it's a fast-paced game. He has all the tools to be able to play, you know, ultimately what a playoff game is going to be about when you try to win a Stanley Cup. I think he has all those elements. This year on Chicklets, we actually talked, we interviewed Leo Carlson before the draft last year, and then we talked this year about your guys' decision

to not necessarily play him every game, and game here, game off, game here, game off, and how smart that is for a young kid who's still growing, apparently, according to his agent and many others. Now, I know that's probably a team decision, but overall, as you said, you make the final call. How did you go about deciding, like, let's get this kid in the weight room a little more.

He doesn't need to play every game. And was it difficult to decide to do that? There was nights when, yeah, the coach and myself, when, you know, he had to sit out. Well, when I said, when we laid it out, you know, I met with our sports science guy, Mike Barowitz, and we just laid a plan out for him. Okay. I want him, you know, to gain some weight and I want him to get stronger. One of the things I noticed when he was at development camp, he looked really tired. He had gone through just a long season.

He ended up going to the big world championships, men's world championships. So he didn't finish really until June. And then quickly he went right into the combine. And from the combine, he went right into the draft. From the draft, he went right into the combine. And from the combine, he went right into the draft and the draft and went right into a development camp. So he, he looked tired when I saw him. And so, um, having about a month and a half, I know he was, he got back training. He looked a lot fresher when he showed up at training camp, but he's still like with our

testing and stuff. He wasn't, uh, I was worried, you know, if he played every game that he was going to get hurt. And so I didn't want to put him through that. And I wanted to, you know, I wanted to, uh, take a step back and just have him train, have him train, um, and gain that strength. Um, and by January he was able to play all the games. And so that was our plan. And I think it's, uh, for the most part, I was very pleased how it uh how it went incredibly talented player yeah oh he's he's exceptional to watch I mean you guys have quite a few young bucks in the lineup that are going to make impacts another guy Mason McTavish who I mean he's he came from the Ontario Hockey League he's built like a brick shithouse so he's more of a man what do you think about his game and where he could finally end up in the future well i i'm really excited for him too um you know being you know the hardest

part um when you're a young player and i you know and i kind of when i sit down with these guys because i was 19 when i played in the league and i played center and it's a hard hard position to play and i would say it's probably more difficult now with the speed of the game and that sort of thing. So I think Mack, you know, had some ups and downs, you know, last year during his season. I think he learned a lot as far as, you know, playing in his zone. And I think the game's going to slow down for him even more. And I just, I'm really excited. He's got a great shot. He's going to be, I'm just excited how he's going to be. Just what I would like to see is a grinding centerman that can play,

you know, in the trenches and score goals and tight, you know, score goals, you know, from the outside. I think there's a lot of tools that he has and he's And I think he's got an underrated passing game as well. So we're, I think, up the middle. I'm really excited for our team. Obviously, with how competitive you are, like some parts of this season, it's probably difficult and you're watching your team lose. But there are organizations that are going through tough times

that don't have a ton of prospects. Whereas you guys, it's a loaded bank full of guys where you see the future as being so bright. Was that something on the back of your mind as the team's losing, like we're going to get there? Or was it still that difficult to go through like a really tough season? Well, I think when I look back on it, like it's funny. I draw a lot of experience sitting in the chair that I did as a player when I was 19 I was playing for the New Jersey Devils we had a rough season and so we ultimately drafted high we ended next year we got Johnny McClain

the year after that we ended up getting Kirk Mahler. So, and, and so we had some, it was basically very similar type of situation, a lot of young players in the lineup and then transitioning over into a better team. It took a couple more years. And that's kind of how I see this team. I'm hoping, you know, I'm expecting our young guys to take another step, but they may not. You know, they may not. But I think the more games they can get under their belt and the more the game slows down for them, I think the experience is going to pay off probably over the next two to three years.

So I can say I went through as a player and those are, those are some of the talks when, when I meet with these guys that, that we have. Going back to the leadership and bringing guys in your early days in New Jersey, does that kind of speak to why you guys went out and got a guy like Alex Killorn and even Vetrano and kind of spiced it up with some, some KG veterans who can make an impact and teach these younger guys how to win. Well, I think part of it,

uh, bringing Alex in a couple, you know, he's won a couple of cups. Um, you know, seeing those guys work on in day-to-day habits is very important for our young players.

Um, but also giving them support offensively and defensively, um, you know, whether it's, uh, whether it's players coaching, you know, older players coaching or giving them a little, you know, little tidbits here and there on how to, you know, execute properly, I think is very important. I think with Frankie, you know, even, you know,

Gudis on the back end with our young defense is very important. I think Radko is tremendous with our younger players. And so, you know, that to me is very important for their development because it's funny, like we have a young team and, you know, if they were on a, on an outstanding good team, they'd be in the minors. They'd be down, you know, you know, honing their game down there, but it's, it's now we, you know, I've kind of taken the approach that these players have to, you know, they

have to develop at the NHL. They're really good. They're talented, but obviously there's experience as far as, you know, learning how to beat top four defensemen, you know, defending against, you know, top six forwards in your own zone. Those are all things that they have to gain experience in. And I think there's a, you know, there's one thing, you know, the players, they're young and they got to get stronger. They have to continue to push hard in the gym um to gain that strength that allows them to be able to put the game that they are able to play on the ice and be able to play with

those top six player or six wards and and top board of fans i also find a lot of these younger guys they don't really like lifting the weights too much they like skating a ton and even in the summer so do you you have to constantly reinforce these guys like i don't give a fuck how many times you're on the ice every week in the summer we need you putting a little muscle on so you can win some battles yeah it's hard it's it's they they you know a lot of them they don't understand uh or maybe they do understand but it you know lifting weights is is tough you know and and that's not the fun that's not the fun, you know, lifting weights is, is tough, you know, and, and that's not the fun, that's not the fun part. You know, it's definitely not the fun part and I'll- Can't toe drag a dumbbell.

No, it's, but I, you know, I, it's, it's the most vital, it's the most important thing for them, not only to, you know, to be able to make an impact, but have longevity in their careers as well. Being able to, um, you know, be strong and fast. It's what the game's requiring. And the sooner they can get and adapt, you know, that type of mindset that, you know, this is the most important part right now for me, and then we'll take care of the skating skating and the skills um a little later um yeah that that that's a hard thing to kind of get through joel pat what do you think the pa would

think about you putting them to work on the farm is that is that against is that against want to ride down more sit down well i would uh i would give them the jobs that I used to have when I was a kid. I'd make them pick up rocks. And there's different size rocks and you're constantly walking. You're walking miles a day and you're constantly bending over and lifting a lot of different size rocks. That would be a good job for them. And there's other things like pitching bales of hay and stuff like that, the nasty jobs.

This year, a huge deal in Carter Gauthier. You guys acquired him for Drysdale, and it was pretty shocking to everyone. I got to see him play at Boston College, just a pure goal scorer, but he was such a big prospect. Nobody saw it coming. And in hearing more about the deal, it was that you had to kind of keep it quiet right because of the fact that like you didn't want anyone else to find out you want to be able to get it done before insiders are breaking news was that was that hard for you because you're wearing a little bit the whole time if teams find out they could up their offer

or vice versa things like that well i would say one thing about when teams, they're talking, they're looking to get the best deal. Philadelphia was looking to get the best deal. And I think I know they were talking to other teams. So that's just something that we're constantly aware of. I, you know, I gave up a really good player plus a draft pick to get Cutter. a really good player plus a draft pick to get Cutter. So, and I think, you know, I think we're fortunate. The reason why I was able to, you know, to, you know, trade Jamie Drysdale is, you know, we've got some really good young right-hand defensemen coming.

And so that allowed me to be able to add an important piece up front for us to our forward group and who's who's right in the same age group as the rest of our guys. What did you make of how it all went down? I mean, I mean, we loved it. I mean, we're an entertainment podcast. And then you see him at the national championship barking in that interview before the game all confident i feel like that's what the league needs we need a little bit we need a little bit of flavor i don't think we need to go full nba here pat but i think there's a nice line in the middle well i had a nice talk with cutter about uh his comments from the espn i think it was the espn interview i think yeah um yeah i um i'm kind of a little throwback um i like i kind of like like barry sanders when he handed the after he just stabbed you to heart after he ran through the whole whole team and he hands the ball back to the referee that that's you know i'd like i like that

more you know so we cutter and i had a good talk about it so anyway he did he understands now did you have any um welcome to the nhl moments like that or were you always pretty just like straight narrow never not much tomfoolery or was there a moment maybe your rookie season with the with the devils where where you were getting out of line and you got clobbered uh i don't know if i got claw like um uh yeah i i got hit a few times pretty good um did i get out of line i wasn't a real talker on the ice um it was more um i would just tell him, this is what I'm going to do to you, and you better get ready for it. That was just a matter of fact.

I wasn't really a trash talker. I just told them what I was going to do. Was that the way you were even in junior? I mean, you played two years in suburbia with the Wolves, and then it was right off to the NHL. Were you always one that was willing to engage in the fisticuffs? Yeah. During that time,

uh, Paulie, like we, I was a smaller guy and I think going through, um, I had to prove to people that I was, you know, not only strong enough,

but tough enough to be able to, you know, go up against, uh, bigger players, bigger players that, uh, obviously in the early eighties,

the late, late 70, early eighties that there, you know, there was still, the game was still played old school style. So in order for me to be able to get there and for my size, I had to prove I was tough enough not to shy away from the physical element and or be willing to drop the glove. So it was something that I started learning at 16 years old

when I played junior B playing against 20 year olds. So and I got a little temperament in the sense that I don't like to take crap from anybody. So there's that mindset as well. You mentioned that your mom had the temper and I didn't know if it was a coach in junior or your parents who said like, hey, this is how you're going to have to play. Or is that something that was just within you from the get go? Part of it was in in me um but i think as as i grew up i think the guy that i you know well i'm not think the guy that i followed was bobby clark i loved how bobby clark played um he was extremely tough to play against he could uh you know he could play a skilled game but he could also play you know a

dirty game um and um and so i followed that i followed him a lot and uh and i kind of enjoyed how he played and watched how he played so it kind of i kind of patterned my game a little bit after how he played anybody that you ended up fighting throughout your career where maybe there was a little bit of fear going in? Because you have some crazy doubts. I always had fear, Paul, going into fights. I didn't want to get beat. And I was always operating from a disadvantage most of the time

with the exception of a couple guys that I would fight. But it was a good fear. I guess it's a fear in the sense of a butterfly fear, you know, to where it's no different than getting ready for a game, you know, that adrenaline. And I guess it's, I don't know if you'd call it fear, but it's more adrenaline that um that um starts getting through you and and and so you I never got there was only a few times that I ever got mad in a fight you know um and and sometimes I wish I could have you know I could have got madder quicker uh in some of the fights that I got into. So, but anyway.

You're with the Devils for a while. And in one of those years, you guys make a nice run in the playoffs. But overall, it was probably tough for you, I'm guessing, right? Like, each season, you're not in the playoffs. And you're just, I just want to chant at that Stanley Cup. And then when you move over to Hartford, were you excited? Were you nervous? Like, how did that whole thing go about?

Was it a trade or a signing? I'm not even sure. Uh, it was a trade. I ended up getting traded for Sylvan Turgeon. Um, uh, I'm not sure why it happened, but I think, you know, Lou Lamorello was there and I think he was just maybe looking to change up a little bit of the mix. Um, going back to Jersey, I would think it, we, would think we were getting better every single season from my first season. We just kind of started taking bites, you know, a little at a time. And I think Lou made a couple of good trades that really helped our team. He brought in Tom Curvers, brought in, I think, Claude Lozelle, Dave Maley came in, Andy Berkley. And so we started adding more depth. And then Sean Burke kind of in that whole run, Sean Burke came in and was outstanding in goal, which gave us, you know, even though Elaine Chevrier had really carried the load,

You know, even though Elaine Chevrier had really carried the load, Berkey kind of came in and was, you know, they had, you know, Ron Francis was their captain, was their centerman. And they had a little bit of an older team than what we had when I was in New Jersey. And so they could win games differently. They won games playing more defensive. And just, you know, I think the veterans on that team were really good defensively. And that allowed us to win a lot of, grind a lot of games. And we had some good forwards too, as well. Is that the favorite jersey you ever wore?

The Hartford Whaler? The Hartford Whaler. It was a cool jersey um i think um my son is a huge fan of the old green jerseys i was kind of a fan of the blue the dark blue uh i love the logo logos is a cool logo um you know probably i mean when i played with the original 16 with Detroit Rangers, those were pretty cool jerseys as well for me. And we, we do have a lot of younger kids who listened to the pod and you got a

chance to play with Ron Francis. I don't know how many guys we had on who had been able to like talk about just his style of play and the type of guy he was though. And I think the first year that you showed up, that was his first hundred point season. So what was it like playing with a hall of famer like that and just like a a guy he's built he's a he's a big guy too even now you walk in the hallway and you're like holy shit for those days he must have been standing over everybody um well he was yeah he was a big guy he was uh incredibly skilled uh very had great vision um it's funny he told me uh he was able to really uh he did really well one-on-one and actually he never wanted any

help in the corners ever you know to come in he he gave me crap one night for coming in to help him i said uh he, you just get open. I said, well, I have no problem doing that. So just make sure when I do get open, I get the puck. Anyway, but he did. He always did. So he was really good in one-on-one play in the corners, strong along the boards.

You know, his vision was outstanding, and I think that's what just a really smart player. Really good face-off man, too, like an underrated face-off man. He started with the puck a lot, and very, very fun player to play with. Very fun. People often talk about the Bruins-Canadians rivalry, but being from Boston, Bruins-Hartford, they had some battles. I imagine you went hard

against neely or chris nylan in in those seasons was it fun playing against the bruins in that new england rivalry they had going it was it was it made hockey uh very interesting when we played uh playing even in hartford there would be a lot of boston fans come to our games you know and so it was kind of like when I played in New Jersey, the Ranger fans would come to the, you know, to the devil's game. So we always, we were always playing half pissed off, so to speak, because there's there's too many, you know, visitors, fans in the rink. So anyway, they were great. Very physical, you know,

especially playing in the Boston Garden. Small, very, very small rink. You couldn't there was no place to hide in those rinks. So it made it made for tough games, tough grinding games and no space. What was your favorite arena to play in? Like so many of these arenas are done now. You know, they got new ones, all these teams teams. What was your favorite barn to go into? I had a couple different rinks. I liked playing in the old Chicago Stadium. I liked

playing in the Boston Garden. And I enjoyed playing in Edmonton just because at that particular time, the ice was probably the best. There was no ice like that in the league. And so I enjoyed there and I always seemed to do well scoring. So I enjoyed going into there.

Yeah, I mean, the Edmonton ice, it was always talked about as the best. I think it's changed, obviously, now a little. I think it was so good that the guy Dan Craig was running it, and it ended up taking over the whole job for the league, I thought. Yeah not sure if that's uh but you know yeah craiger is running he's running the whole show now when it comes to uh um the rest of the league you know i i would say now we probably have a lot more consistency with uh with the ice um night in and night out um even though there's some rinks to um um you know there's events the night before i i remember playing and when when i played with the rangers there the circus during the month of april i

believe the circus would be there in the morning we'd be playing games that night and they would break down the circuit the circus would be there at one o'clock we play a game there at 7 7 30 later that night and you know so that was that was very interesting when the circus was in town when you went to dallas well actually you were in new york first but when you're in new york i say you're 30 31 um haven't had a chance to to win the stanley cup yet did you start questioning like is this gonna happen for me like you start worrying about like i don't know am i gonna run out of time was that even going through your head or no oh yeah no yeah no doubt yeah it did go through my head um you know it's funny um i got traded to the rangers uh the year after they won the cup

and uh we had a pretty good team um obviously there's always a little bit of a cup hangover. It's always tough to recreate the intensity, the passion. I'm not saying you can't do it, but it's difficult. And to be able to elevate the emotion that you need to play with is always difficult. But I would say the next year when I play with the rangers we had a better team and um and losing losing out that year was was uh really really really tough and we had a team that uh um we probably shouldn't have lost um i still still know i still feel that that team was, uh, was way better than, uh, than how it performed in the playoffs. So it's, but as you go through, you go through these scenarios.

I remember my first year in Dallas made the playoffs. We lose out. We ended up finishing, trying to think we finished second to Colorado on our side in the West and we lose out to Edmonton in the first round and in seven games. And that was a learning experience for us the next year in the sense that we, I don't think as a team, we handled the pressure well of being expected to win. And I think that was a learning lesson the next year we get through the first round we ended up losing to detroit in the semifinals that year and that was a team that had won the year before and uh and they knew how to

win and we hadn't you know they could win those tight games and we hadn't gone through or played you know an opponent like that that had the experience understood you know the little new the little nuances of how what it takes to win and so we learned another valuable lesson and i think when my third year there when we did win the cup we we had we had everything that we needed to win that year were you going back and forth with hitch at all because we've heard legendary stories biz and i were in camp at st louis with him and no he wouldn't have been bitching at you you're a hard worker he wouldn't i think he gave it to everyone no hitch hitch give it to everybody there's nobody i the only guy i don't think ever got in trouble was yuri lieutenant and uh he was the only guy i no one no one else escaped uh hitch's

uh criticism from the from the time that you'd enter the league till when your time in dallas when you guys ended up winning it like how much had the style of the league changed and like did you notice it or was it just kind of this gradual change but you know it just seemed like the game just had involved that much more throughout the years, gotten faster, maybe more goal scoring. I don't want to say less clutching and grabbing, but the game had just started to evolve so much more come the 90s than the 80s. Well, I think there was kind of, it was probably more wide open in the 80s, It was probably more wide open in the 80s, and the reason why it was more wide open was, you know,

I think there was more, you know, the talent was probably distributed throughout the teams a little more evenly. But I think where it started to change in the 90s was teams started to have, you know, television. We were able to, you know, we were able to scout better, you know, teams and systems. And so that's kind of like the game went, you know, obviously really offensive in the 80s. And then it started to clamp down in the 90s. It started to kind of slow down. And I think when Florida started, you know, when they first came into the league and, you know, I think as Roger Nielsen introduced, you know, playing the trap, you know, with a team that was probably not looked at as having a lot of talent, but they were, you know, they were really hard workers and they played their system and they played it well. That kind of began the change of all the other teams sort of going toward that defense first versus offense type of wide open game that the Oilers used to play. When you guys won the cup, I mean, now Buffalo Sabres fans still say Hull was in the crease.

But when did you guys even realize that people were talking about that? Was it something right away after you're like, oh, I think you're in the crease, Hully? Or was that like, what the hell are they talking about? I don't recall. As soon as the goal went in, we just jumped on the ice. And I didn't hear a word about it until we took the cup off the ice, you know, that there was even a challenge. It's funny.

That goal, I ended up – that year was so weird. There were so many things. I had a couple goals disallowed during the playoffs. One of the goals, I was going back door, and the puck went through the crease and out the crease on the other side. If you can picture we're attacking the net, and it's left to right. The puck's going from left to right. I'm playing the right side.

And so the puck goes through and you remember how big the crease was. The puck goes through the crease and I tap it in back door. Okay. Now the puck had gone outside the crease, but my toe went inside the crease, my left toe, because if I was six foot three, it wouldn't have mattered, but I'm, you know, five, nine. And so my stick wasn't as long. Anyway, I tap it in and they disallowed the goal because my left toe was in the crease.

So stupid. Goalies on the other side of the net. Exactly. It was the dumbest. It was the dumbest thing. And I, there was another play earlier where I ended up, they ended up counting the goal and it was very similar to the one Holly scored

where Vakun was playing in Nashville and, and the puck was to the right side of Vakun. He was on the right side of the net and I had to pull the puck from my back hand and pull it around him in front of him. And as I'm pulling the puck outside the crease, my feet have to turn so I can shield the puck to shoot it into the net. So they actually looked at that goal to see if my feet were in the crease. Well, they deemed it, you know, they deemed it possession.

And you're allowed to, you know, if you have puck on your stick, your feet are allowed to go in. So that was the reason why they allowed the goal because he had possession of the puck as he pulled it outside the crease to shove it in and his feet went in were there so many times in the regular season where you guys are like they have to change this going into playoffs yeah this is the well no not so much the playoffs i mean we we knew what the rules were i i think when that season concluded they knew they had to change the rule it was would you deem it the dumbest rule they ever had in the NHL? I think it had good intentions, but the unintended consequences proved to be detrimental.

Yeah, stupid. That's a great way to describe it, actually. What was it like playing with Hulley? Was he all over you? I heard he's just the funniest guy in the locker room. He's doing the crossword puzzles he's got the splits going yeah i know he was um he was certainly um a guy that certainly spoke his mind uh there was never uh you never uh were ever in doubt of what uh holly was thinking ever so so you would you say on that dallas team like even going into playoffs did

you feel like you guys had the right group did you guys have the mojo that year where you knew you guys were going to get it done i think one of the cool things um and i you know and hopefully and hopefully or not hopefully i have you know i don't have to say this you know to our group in anaheim at one time but what the year we did win the Cup, Detroit was – they made a lot of moves. I'm trying to think if Colorado made a few moves, getting flurry. And, you know, all the top teams on our side, they all made – you know, I think Detroit got Wendell Clark. So they all made what deemed to be improvements

or added, you know, some more added some high power to their team. And I think as a group, we were a little on edge because of that. But I think one of the best speeches probably came from Bob Ganey. And he said, guys, we didn't make any trades because I believe in this group. This is the group that I think can win. It doesn't matter what the other teams went and did. I think this group can win. And when Bob said that to us, I think there was just a huge relief.

And whether it's a vote of confidence or whether it's it gave us the confidence to move forward and not to worry about anything else other than playing. Was Ed Belfort like an interesting guy on game days? Was he somebody, you know, you hear all the crazy stories about how weird goalies can be. What was he like as a teammate? Ed was a great, great teammate. Very, very intense, very competitive individual. He was also very superstitious when it came to preparing for games. So there was a lot of stuff that I used to watch Ed do, and I would mess with him a little bit.

Oh, no. I saw you smirk when he asked that. So what were you fucking around with Ed with? There was just one game, you know, and Ed, I was sitting in the locker room all by myself, and I was just reading, you know, part of my deal. I used to read the notes all the time, so I just kind of know what the other team is up to and sort of.

So I was just sitting in my stall, just minding my own business. And we had gone through, I don't know, I think a three-game losing streak, which was really rare for our team. And Ed had kind of lost the last couple. And so I was just sitting there watching him, how he would set his pads up and stuff like that. And when Ed would leave the room, I went over and I'd kick him over and I'd go sit back in my chair again. And I'd just sit there and be reading my notes and Ed would come in there and I'd be looking just kind of out of the corner of my eye,

just seeing what Ed's doing. And Ed'd be looking around to see who the hell kicked his pads over. And he goes, Beaker, you see anybody in here? I go, no, Ed, I haven't seen anybody. Anyway, so, and that's the truth. I didn't see anybody. And so anyway, he leaves and I kick his pads over again. And I did it three times and we won the game that night. And I looked at Ed, I go,. It was me, by the way,

doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how you set your pants up anyway. So it was just kind of a thing for me to mess with him. Actually, this is a little off topic, but we were talking about that in the crease rule and now being a GM in, in this side of it, we've had a lot of discussion about the offside rule.

Do you have an opinion on how that could be better? Would you change anything? I actually wish they'd completely get rid of it because I think the refs get it right so often. Biz is on the other side where he says you've got to get it right every time, but it is ridiculous how they go back two minutes and play. As a GM watching, what do you think they can do with that rule? Because it does frustrate fans um I think the hardest rule about that is when a puck is on the tag up and so you know when the guy has it on a stick or he doesn't have it on a stick and there's the tag up and then

he and the puck goes over the line and then he puts a stick back on, and the guy's a skit. You know, he's now gotten past the blue line to tag back up. I think that's the hardest rule for fans to understand. And it's, I guess at some point, I think what the group, you know, when the group of managers get together, I think what we want to do, we want to make sure it gets done right. You know, we don't, we have, we have the technology. I think, I don't think we want anything in the back of our mind to say, okay, that was, or do we want it to come back to bite us in the butt later in the

sense that, you know, that was a mistake by the referees on, on, on rare occasion, and it turned into a big play. And in some instances, especially in the playoffs, it could be a serious changer. And so I think our feeling is, yeah, it may slow the game down a little bit, but I think ultimately we want to get the call right. We want to get the right. This is another one that's off topic.

We read that you're a big hunter. Like what does hunting do for you? Do you like the solitude? Do you like the silence? It's well, what I do is not, I like the pheasant hunt. So I'm more, I'm more of a bird hunter. So I'm with, I work with my dogs. I have two really good hunting dogs that I, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, I trained them myself.

I've done a better job with one of them than I did with the other one. So I've learned a lot training. And so what's cool about it is, you know, the dogs love to run, and they love to flush birds. You know, the prey drive that they have in them is off the charts. And one of my dogs is a flushing dog. It's a yellow lab. And then one of the other dogs is a Deutsch-Trahar, and he's a pointing dog. And so it's so much fun and they make you so proud in how they hunt

and work. And when they do point or when they do flush a bird and you ultimately shoot it and the retrieval to find. And sometimes birds are, one thing thing about pheasants is they're extremely tough, very hardy. So if you don't make a good shot, there's a good chance that they're going to hit the ground and they'll run. And so that's part of the other thing, the dogs being able to track these birds and find them when they're hurt. And so, you know, making sure that, you know, the bird, you know, the birds get found once you do shoot them. So it's, it's, it's a cool thing with teamwork, you know, and, and when I do go pheasant hunting, it's, it's a social, you know, I have five or six guys that I know that I hunt with. We have a lot of fun. And, and then at the same time, you can, it's, it's a thing that you can do by yourself. So it gives me lots of – I got a friend that tells me,

Pat, you need balance. You got to have balance. So this gives me balance. I'm not a hunter, and I've asked many horrible questions over the course of this podcast, but do you eat pheasants? Love pheasant. Okay. Yeah, no.

So if I hunt, I eat what I shoot. So I'm not one of these guys that just does it for sport. I get a lot of grief from Scott. He'd eat a miter all the time. He gives me grief. I go, Scott, this isn't killing. To me, I shoot, and I me. I shoot and I eat what I shoot.

You're not killing elephants just for the tusks in your office. You know what Scotty messaged me and ended up calling me about the other day was he's got a buddy who's trying to put a GoPro inside of a puck and they're going to try to get it eventually into the NHL.

I don't think these players are going to try to get it eventually into the nhl and i'm thinking i don't think these players are going to want to be playing with this camera puck just so you could see him toe dragging and saucer passing out there so yeah well scotty's scotty's in the tech world hey but i tell you what we can do when they don't work we can throw them up in the air we can shoot them there you go there you go that'd be fun. What does pheasant taste like? What's that? Very close to pheasant. And it's just a little, maybe just a touch stronger than domesticated chickens. Oh, okay.

Yeah. But it's not much. I mean, we cook it basically the same. The breast, I would say the legs are pretty sinewy, so they're kind of tougher to eat. I do have, you know, friends that do eat, you know, will eat the whole bird. But I'm kind of more towards the breast than the thighs. And so, you know, and then my wife knows how to, you know, you have a crock pot that slow cooks them and, and in different sort of, uh, um, recipes that, uh, they, it falls off the bone and they're wonderful to eat. Yeah.

Get a little pheasant stew going. Yeah, exactly. Pat Verbeek's pheasant stew. We could do it. We could do a brand deal. Well, I'll hit you up after about it. Now, one of the more fascinating things about you, I don't even think we mentioned it off the hop, was you lost your thumb in an accident?

Like how old were you when you lost your thumb and how much did this end up affecting your stick handling and how you shot and how you had to kind of reinvent the wheel in order to do so? I don't know how much. It happened in 1985. I was probably in my second year and, uh, just finished my second year in the NHL. And so I was staring, uh, at a possible career

ending injury. Um, very fortunate to have a doctor that, uh, knew how, yeah, that the thumb was severed completely. So it was a, it was a pretty, uh, nasty, uh, injury. And so they had the, my dad ended up finding the thumb. Um, and it was obviously it was a farming accident. I was planting corn at the time and, um, an auger, um, kind of took it off. And so, um, they ended up finding it. And, uh, what does that mean? Like an animal, like bit it or something? No, you know what an auger is uh no

basically it's like an auger kind of feeds um i was dumping fertilizer into uh into these into the corn planters boxes and so it basically if you've ever seen a corkscrew what a corkscrew looks like how it feeds into um feeds into into the cork as you twist it. Well, if you can picture that having flighting on it on all the corkscrew, and it just kind of keeps pushing things along and drops them into the boxes. So a very, very sharp, I guess, instrument. And it didn't take – it felt like a paper cut when it happened. It didn't really, part of me, I was kind of being not very careful. I ended up slipping on the machine and my hand went in the machine. I was lucky that I lost the thumb, but I almost

lost my index finger and the tips of my other two fingers. So I was very, very fortunate for not to have my career completely ended. So ultimately, I ended up having like six hours of microsurgery and, uh, and I had to get through 72 hours. So they, they had to take a vein out of my foot and install it into the thumb, um, which was, uh, kind of radical. Um, and, uh, ultimately I, once I got through and they had to, so they would test it every hour, they'd come in and push, push the tip of my thumb to make sure it was red and it would go to white and then back to red again to make sure that they, they had blood flow. Um, and so, um, so that, that was every hour for, for three days. And then once they said, once you get through the three days, um, there's, you know, almost a hundred percent chance that, uh, your thumb's going to, uh, heal.

And ultimately it ended up being like a six week injury when it was six weeks. It was like, yeah, I had a broken thumb and, uh, I was back playing in six weeks. Can I see it compared to your other one right now? Yeah. So this, uh, let's see, get to the camera. So if you look, I can't, the tendon was ripped out and I can only, I can't do like this thumb where I can bend it. I can only want, I only have use of two joints versus three joints. And so. That's amazing. There had to be a moment that you thought I'm never going to play again, right?

Oh yeah. That was being, that would be about two hours after it happened. Oh. right oh yeah yeah that was being that would be about two hours after it happened oh yeah i came to the realization that uh uh it was that that hockey was over yeah that was it that was a that was a tough one but it was uh once i once the doc once i was told you know you got to get through the three days um once i got through the three days, I was really positive about what could happen. A doctor ended up, the doctors who performed surgery on my hand sent me, sent as I was getting therapy, because I had to go down and get therapy. They had to start to develop, you know, the muscle,

you know, the thumb muscle. Like you just, when you sit in the hospital, everything just atrophies. It's incredible. Like I spent two weeks there. I was probably 192 pounds when I went in and came out. I was 175 pounds. And so just, you just lose everything. And so when I went to the therapy room for PT, the doctor sent me another gentleman. And so he had, if you could picture this, he had a skill saw and he had cut his hand in half and it

kind of went like this. And so he had reattached the second half of that guy's hand and he showed me and the gentleman showed me how he had it functioning. I said, if that guy can do that for his hand, I can do this. This is going to be a breeze. And so it was all, you know, just a mental confidence thing that the doc sent me that down that gentleman to kind of help inspire me to kind of keep pushing was that season a little more difficult or or was actually by the time the season came you you were good like you didn't i was good the the issue i ended up having one more surgery the next year in the sense that uh so they they ended up taking a nerve out of the calf of my leg the next year to give me and install the nerve into my thumb the very next summer. And that healed up pretty quickly. And then I ended up gaining some

more feeling at the tip of the thumb. It was kind of pretty numb. And now I've got okay feeling there now. So I can touch things and it's not acute, but I know I've got feeling at the tip of my thumb now. I mean, people talk about modern medicine. That's 40 years ago. That's just incredible. It's insane. I never knew that. You better send him a life supply of pheasant stew to that doctor.

No, the interesting thing, the doctor learned under the gentleman that invented the whole process. So he trained under him. So there was, you know, God was on my side that day and, you know, wanted me to play hockey. Well, I mean, we can't thank you enough for joining us. I mean, it's crazy. You go from that and then you look throughout your career, like not only yourself, the amazing career that you had.

I'm sure at some point you're going to get a call from the Hall of Fame. What was the stat you said, Whit? The one of only, I think now currently, three players who have scored 500 goals in the NHL not to be in the Hall of Fame. The amount of times that you scored 40 goals and also had 200 penalty minutes. And then looking back on your career, all these amazing players you got to play with,

like all the Hall of Famers on the Dallas Stars team, the Detroit team, playing with Mark Messier in New York. So looking back, I mean, it must just be a whirlwind on everything that you've been able to accomplish and the fact that you're still going in the game. Well, I had Mel bridgman tell me uh i think when i was 19 he goes pat you better enjoy it because it's gonna go by fast and and it did 20 years went by fast what's amazing to me is like when i got out of the game and then

went to work with steve in detroit 10 years went by fast with the tampa bay lightning that that i was there and I went wow 10 years so now now I'm you know going on my third season here in Anaheim and I go holy crap time's flying by again anyway well it's it's an amazing career now you're doing it on the other side uh being a GM so we appreciate your time and I I made I made actually a bet about the Anaheim Ducks with our scumbag buddy who's a Devils fan about how good you guys are going to be. So good luck with everything. What was the bet that they were going to win a cup before the Devils?

Yeah. Five grand. I believe that too. Five grand. I was then worried about the bet, but now it's a done deal. I'd like to prove you wrong, but I'm not so sure just yet. Well, we appreciate it and uh good luck with with your farm and good luck this season and thank you for coming on

all right enjoyed it guys hey and make me one promise pat when you win a stanley cup as a gm we get to go pheasant hunting for a content piece for our spit and chickles youtube channel um yeah i could arrange that certainly i've got that. I've got, I believe I've got the best pheasant hunting spot in the world. Whoa. And I guess, I bet you're not saying it either. Cause you don't want anything else. I don't not going to tell you. You only have, you can be invited only though. So I don't own the land, but I've, uh, uh, I've developed some good relationships with a couple of fellow farmers. So we're on the same page.

I love it. Well, we appreciate your time and best of luck. All right, guys. Take care. What's up, guys? I'm here to talk to you about Viator. If you want to book a travel experience, Viator is the only, only way you want to do it. You talk to Pasha after his

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Find travel experiences for you. Do more with Viator. Thank you so much to Pat Verbeek. What an amazing player that guy was. He's still out doing the farming biz. No days off for Pat Verbeek. And as we mentioned, it's up to Alberta and our boy Bob Stauffer, the legend

himself, the Stauff. Thank you so much for joining, Stauff. What's going on? I see you're watching some hockey right now. And I gotta start it off with the Edmonton Oilers. I'm gonna ask you a simple question. What's your biggest worry about the Edmonton Oilers this season? A little bit concerned about

the depth of the bottom six forwards and second Perry Wright D in terms of who's going to be able to step up there. I think they're going to have a terrific top six offensively. And to answer your question about the Young Stars tournament in Penticton, Edmonton's just

wrapping up with Winnipeg right now. The Oilers, we've come here, Ryan, when you were an Oiler, that was the first year of the tournament in 2010, and Taylor Hall was wrap it up with winnipeg right now uh the orders uh you know we've come here you know ryan when you were an order that was the first year of the tournament 2010 and tanner hall was the story and then we had newton 2011 connor in 2015 a little bit different focus edmonton's in a little bit different evolutional place right now as an organization uh but for me the biggest concern you know let's see how the d rides out i I think that might be the end-season move that Edmonton makes. And then who's going to pop up

to provide a little bit of speed and energy in the bottom six. Stoff, any young prospects at those young games that you're watching right now that could come in and fill a bottom six role or maybe one of those defensive positions after Doug Armstrong

took a shit on the Edmonton Oilers this offseason when he offer shaded two of your studs no Paul there's nothing like I'm gonna be honest like Matt Savoy there's Matt Savoy uh they've got two first round picks here Samuel Riley a late first rounder he's gonna be going back to junior strapped at 32nd overall Matt Savoy was acquired in the rhyme of cloudlin. I think that he could be, if they could do something like Dallas was staying COVID last year, where maybe he plays a lot of the year in the NHL and then comes up, he

might be an option as maybe a third-line winner. And then they've only got one drafted defenseman here, Matt Slaughter. Their prospects are years away. They don't have a lot of prospects. They haven't had a lot of draft capital. They've invested just right to the team.

I'm not going to BS you. In terms of this event here, I think that Savoy might be the best to get some games this year, but he's not your prototypical fourth-line player. I am with you. I was disappointed in the Broberg situation.

Partially, I think, agent-driven, but I think the owners, Ken Holland did a lot of good things. He drafted Philip Broberg. He drafted Dylan Holloway. It's disappointing to see the organization lose both players. Stoff, I'm wondering, a lot of excitement,

and I know we're kind of talking about worries and maybe lack of prospects that are game-ready, but it's an incredible vibe going into the season in Edmonton. Unreal run last year. The vibes are as high as they've been in such a long time in Edmonton. And then you go out and you get Jeff Skinner and you get Victor Arvidsson. What are your expectations for them?

Will they play with Leon? And it looks like Hyman and Nuge play with Connor. Have you heard anything on possible line combinations? Yeah, Chris Knobloch was here. I've known Chris 25 years now. I think they're going to have a couple options. It wouldn't surprise me if they start the season with R&H, with Connor McDavid and Hyman,

and then you end up seeing Skinner out of the gate with Leon and Arvidsson. And really, as you guys all know last year, Connor Brown started the year on right wing with Connor McDavid and Evander Kane who's probably going to be out a while in the start of the season on left wing and day one in

training camp. So, you know, Evander was compromised most of the last season, was not the same player and Connor Brown took a while to come back from a torn ACL. So really, the Oilers played, I would suggest to you, with four top six forwards most of the season. They've got a top six. There's no question

right now they've got a top six. And then Henrique Zagata can move up and down the line. That's very successful in the final with Connor Brown and Janmark. Specifically, Brown got his game back. So I like the makeup of their drafts they're going to be able to score, there's no question and Knobloch's teams can defend

and I remember I fired you off a text there Ryan when the coaching team was paid and how Edmonton would commit to zone and Edmonton had the 5th best defensive team in the league under Chris Knobloch that's something that other coaching staffs haven't been able to do at Edmonton it's just to get them to improve the defense a bit.

Skinner's had, what, five or six 30-goal seasons? I think Arvidsson's had five. I do think Skinner might get some time with McDavid. The only problem for Skinner is he's not going to play the power play. That power play is record-setting. It's five straight years,

nothing but 25%. That's the only thing that's going to, unless there's injuries, if Skinner's out on the first year power play i don't see him scoring 30 but i see both skinner and arvidsson scoring 20 issue because you're talking about the skinner up there i wanted to ask about the skinner between the pipes uh peckard came in in that playoffs and he did a good job are they happy with him as the main backup is skinner have they talked how much skinner's going to play? Is he going to play 70% of the games? Any talk about the net minding in Edmonton?

Well, 70% of the games would be 56 to 58 starts. Looks like we got another fight in the background here. I want to... Who is? A groomed in a fight? Okay. I think Skinner is a... He's probably comfortably a

50 to 55 game year starter. I don't know if Victor can play 27. I think it's a fair question. I all say this world's about Victor. Sometimes your backup will just need the right centers. You know what I mean? I just guess the guys love him.

I do travel with him, Steve. I'm always hesitant to say what's going on in the room and that sort of stuff since I'm not in the room I'm around the team but I get the sense that there's an appreciation that Skinner is you know Skinner and Pickard are a good complement and

Pickard certainly understands that he's the backup and he needs to support both and I wonder if that's important and on a team like Kevin didn't, don't give up the goal like this. This rate that Stacey is supposed to make is they're probably going to outchance and given their high-end offensive ability with David and Grice

leading the card, those are the two highest scoring players in the league over the last seven years. Two highest scoring players in the playoffs last three years. As long as they're competent, as long as they're competent, as long as they give them a solid vote at it, that the owners will be fine. I was just going to go back to the offer sheets

because I like stirring things up. Were you surprised at the fact that they didn't at least match the Holloway one? Like I can understand Broberg from a money standpoint. Obviously, I think the Broberg one hurts the most because of how much upside there seemed to be to his game but i loved holloway's game i feel like he could jump up in the top six provide energy he's got great skating ability but he wasn't that expensive like why didn't they just

match that one i think they associated a price for i mean you know sad moment's coming in with jeff jackson that's you know that's the ce's come in with Jeff Jackson. That's the CEO of Locky Ops and Stan's the GM. They basically went out and traded for Quinn Colson to replace Holloway, at least in the short term. And then we'll see where it goes from there. I like Dylan a lot. You know, he got derailed with the wrist injuries when he was at Wisconsin. You know, he went through family who's gone through a difficult

personal challenge. His father, Bruce, who was an NHL player, briefly suffered a stroke. We used to see the family a lot in Edmonton. I know at the end of the day, I didn't think there was any chance

they could match Broberg at 4-5. That just logically... Evan Bouchard, I don't think there was any chance they could match Brobert at 4-5. But that just logically... I mean, Evan Bouchard... I don't understand the side of Evan Bouchard last year until August 24th. He got two times 3.9, and he was coming off back-to-back 40-point seasons. By the way, Bouchard's third in the playoffs since going the last three years. And Brobert played 12 games last year in the winning season. They do have some empathy for the position that the agents were in.

They probably think their players were yarded up and down a little bit too much. There wasn't one sort of consistent half for the two guys. Both of them played in the minors and in the NHL each of the last three years. But at the end of the day, no no i'm not surprised just because i think there was a structure in place where where the number needed to come in at and uh you know i wish those two guys the best of luck i will say this the order is there's no salary cap on research and development and edmonton has grown out there like from the time that ryan was with the organization it's a completely different one and uh they've added the iron kelly larson uh a swedish guy to working ushl for a

number of years to head up with the ballpark they've got those guys that are out here they spend investments so money because i know it's something that's important to jeff jackson he's the ceo of hockey operations and i think if you know there's something that was important to Jeff Jackson to see all the hockey operations. And I think, you know, there's a lesson out of this, Paul, is that everything's going to have to have a better structured process in place to ensure that they don't have that happen again. Because, you know, like I said, we hadn't seen offer sheets like that in a long time. You know what I'm saying, Paul?

Like, I remember when the dust on the other end, when Kevin Lowe stepped up and did dust enter, the infamous Lowe exchange with Brian Burke, that occurred a long time. You know what I'm saying? I remember when the dust on the other end, when Kevin Lowe stepped up and did dust at the center, the infamous low exchange with Brian Burke, that occurred on my show. And, you know, you want a cup, so what? I won six. It's cold to the bar to get this settled. And Dustin Petters scored 91 goals in four years.

There's no doubt. It wasn't that bad of an opportunity. We'll see where these end up for St. Louis. I get why they did what they did. I'm a little bit disappointed that Edmonton was in that position. And to me, it was not on the new scene of Jacksonville

until they ended up in that spot. Stoff, what did you mean by that? Did you mean that there was potential for them to be able to avoid the situation where both those guys were off for shooting? I remember I don't think they're in for them to be able to avoid the situation where both those guys were offer sheeted. I remember. I,

I, yeah, I'll, my, I don't think Darren Ferris, the agent for Broberg was very happy with sort of the course and direction of how things had gone at Edmonton forum. He's a left shot. He was drafted eighth overall in 2019.

Um, you know, he came up a bit, he ended up over the right side, his rookie season. He's again, he came up a bit. He ended up over the right side his rookie season. Again, he's a left-shot D. Then the Oilers traded for Kulak, signed him to a four-year deal. I mean, you can't argue.

Ken Holland had the second-best record in the Western Conference the last five years in speaking of the Oilers. The Oilers have played the second-most playoff games in the league last three years. Those are the positives. His top two picks picks and really is only two prospects that were higher end were Broberg and Holloway

and the organization has lost them both. So if you do an honest assessment and general evaluation, you would have hoped to have avoided that. And I think what happens is at times, agents and Ferris is within his wherewithal to go search out an offer sheet

uh you know maybe they get frustrated the family gets a little bit frustrated at the course and track to the players with love i mean in the holloway's case i think he was a year away from playing in the top six of them okay roberg was gonna play in the top four as a right shot this year, but he was behind nurse, I call her, I call nurse and Kulak on the left side for the upcoming year. So I understand it from both sides. That's what I'm saying to you. And that's why,

was I surprised there was an offer sheet? No, because the cap went up and I think the cap is going to jump up even more next year. I think right now the cap is chasing revenues. I think for a lot of years, revenues were chasing the cap. And so as a result of that, it might not be as infrequent as we've seen in the last 10 years.

Just a quick follow-up. Do you think Bowman's the answer? Like what has been your experience so far in the moves that he's made? I mean, I know there hasn't been a ton, but do you think he's the answer to solidify the pieces that they're made? I mean, I know there hasn't been a ton, but do you think he's the answer to solidify the pieces that they're going to need to get over the hump? I think that he's won before, and I think he's philosophically aligned with Jeff Jackson,

who was an assistant general manager around their farm team. Like, if you look at Wasserman's agency, and you look at the movement like Bill Zito former agent he was with Zito or he was with Acme you know he got Kent Hughes with Forset like some of these organizations have brought agents in

because they've got their own developmental process in and they're helping take a look at some of the second round picks out of Wasserman that have become players, the agencies, the better agencies, they have got their own developmental models in place that organizations

have to be working with and are congruent with. And so what I would say to you is I completely understand why Jeff Jackson hired Sam Bolton because I think they share the same thing. And I think you'll see the other, again, there is no salary cap on the players. There's no

salary cap on insertion and development. They'll spend it. And the Oilers are spending it. And it's going to take a couple years to bear fruit. They're right on prospect right now because they've invested so much draft capital in going forward making trades. And that's the

cost to do doing business with. But nobody was sucking out Cat Olin's trade with Matias Beckholm, the game changer for the organization, right? So, but as a result, you have to backfill your organization. And I think that's where, you know, Stan and Jeff are probably still softly lying. They're both here right now watching the Oilers' third game against Winnipeg. And that's a good sign. And everybody, you know, they've got a collaborative approach going. You need, when it comes to players' development, the CEO, the general manager,

the NHL general manager, the NHL head coach, the NHL assistant coach, the American League head coach, and the American League assistants, in-year development people, all need to share the same vision for the second level. Instead of being disjointed and being my turf in this area. Everybody needs to work in congruency and secrecy. And I believe that's what we're going to see taking part in everything that it actually will.

Stoff, we'll let you go here. I got one more question and we'll take over the rest. The audio is not great, but I never ever would blame a player for the money they make. Now, having said that, Darnell Nurse is overpaid. That's just the case. What do you need to see from him? What do Oilers fans

want to see to have him at least be solid and have him doing his job? He's never going to live up to 9.5, 9.25, but what do you need to see from his game for him to be a legit difference maker for the Oilers Ryan one of the things you did well

as a defenseman is you realized that less is more it's about transition the puck not transporting the puck he just needs to get the puck up the ice and it needs to be a brick to play against in his defense and so like to me and he can do that I mean at this tournament

I remember back in 2015, uh, you know, a little bit of a face washing back and forth with Raskin Sanderson. And then, you know, they ended up getting into it. Nurse Strug Raskin was out and beat the living crap out of them.

And then the flame sent under Smith to go get Darnell in the first preseason game. And Darnell broke his face in a fight and all like these Darnell can do that. I think he's got to be selling that be able to shut down the bed foot, and then when he has the puck, let the puck do the work.

Less is more. Well, Stoff, thank you so much. We appreciate it. And keep doing your thing. You're a fan favorite. We love you. We'll always, always ask you to come on this show, and we appreciate all your support and all your in-depth knowledge.

So have a great training camp. We'll talk to you soon. Anytime you're stuck and can't get somebody better out of Edmonton, you let me know. Nice stuff. You're our number one. There you go. Looking good, Stoff.

Johnny Cash. Cheers. I mean, his audio wasn't great, but fans are still happier to hear from him talking about the Oilers than hear you talk about him some more, Whit, after that playoff. I know. I know. You know what?

Stop being at a game. It didn't really surprise me. That's what he does. He watches hockey. He breathes hockey, that guy. So I think we could take it a little bit further. Obviously, we talked about most of the things. But, Merles, do you have a play?

I wonder, I wonder, can Connor McDavid go even higher than 152 points or whatever he had two years? I seriously think that he could end up getting 160 points this year. Do you think that's hard coming off these long playoff runs, though, with not as much time to train? Or do you look at it more, he's in rhythm? I think he's that much better than everyone else. Yeah.

And you think he can exceed the 152, 152 point mark? I do. I really do. I think that you're just seeing like he's coming in to his prime. And I think it's like with that, with the additions they made, the power play they have, and like we're watching like, you know, he's one of the greatest players any of us have ever seen. And it's like you keep maxing it out. Oh, he can't even do this again. know, he's one of the greatest players any of us have ever seen. And it's like you keep you keep maxing it out.

Oh, he can't even do this again. No, he goes further and further. I mean, look at his playoff numbers. It's insane what he does. And I think the hunger of going to the finals. Now, you make a good point. It's a short summer. But we talked to Gary Roberts.

We've talked about his training and and how all he does is think about the game and his own game. I just don't see like 152 as being the highest he'll ever get. Well, I was just gonna say, I think a few positive things taken from last season, the fact that they didn't like overload those guys and have to play them the 25, you know, 26 minutes, especially come playoff time. So really, really making sure they're not overworking him early and he's, he's conserving energy for another big, long playoff run. That's where maybe I think it might be hard for him to get to that point total. Although it always goes back to the power play.

We know that they draw them because of the speed that they possess. And when they're getting them, they're executing at a rate that we've never seen before. So that's where he can do his damage and i think we all know this is a playoff team but given the situation with the offer sheets and with what guys are making on the high end a bad contract and darn el nurse it might seem on paper do you feel like that they've maybe regressed a little bit and expectations might not be as high as they were last year. I disagree. I think they maybe have regressed a little bit on D. I think they're better up front. One of the reasons, the main reason being Arvidsson and Skinner.

Now, can Arvidsson stay healthy and quickly? It was 153 points, not 152. That's my bad. Arvidsson and Skinner are that good. They have the best top six in the league in my mind. And on the backside, with not having CeCe, obviously it's an issue. They're going to get help. And when you bring up Vancouver looking for help on the right side of their defense, Edmonton will probably be in the hunt for the same players. But I think they'll be able to make additions throughout the year. And the team that you see start the season will not be the team that starts the playoffs now i don't really think it's like imperative or for sure that they win this

division but i don't think they care either like it's more about like preserving energy having the the right rhythm going into the playoffs it will be a different roster come the playoffs i just think that with the those guys up front now yeah they're undersized skinners never played a playoff game but it's just there's so much like firepower in their top six forwards i i don't look as at this team as worse off than last year also connor brown who struggled mightily at the beginning of the year he turned into one of their best players in the playoffs that's now gonna roll over he was just coming back and trying to figure out his knee. And now, dude, it's like, I think you're going to see the Connor Brown from playoffs all regular season.

And all of a sudden you're able to bring back, what's his name? Fuck. Jesus Christ. Henrique. Oh, you're all good. And you got Henrique playing with Brown. It's like, I love this team. I think they're poised to make another run to the Stanley Cup final. It's like, I love this team.

I think they're poised to make another run to the Stanley Cup final. And goaltending is always a question. And can Skinner do it? And can Picard do it as he's filling in? I don't know, but I think it's Stanley Cup or bust. And I really believe in this squad. Well, they are the Cup favorite on DraftKings. But if you really believe in the 150,

you're going to love what I tell you next, Whip, because it's over-unders, only 132.5 points for McDavid this year. So I think Biz is on the right kind of... Biz's idea of having a long season and a short summer, along with just getting these guys ready for playoffs and realizing... Yeah, I don't think they care as much about the regular season.

And I think that even with Sid, you saw it to a certain degree where he's more smart about his approach. Paced himself. Yeah, I don't need the four points tonight in a 6-2 win. If I get my one and one and we win 4-2, hey, we're good to go. I don't need to play that 24 25 minutes. Let's go. Let's go. Let's try to get it under 20 tonight

and have a full team win. Everybody gets their reps and their touches and let's just move on. We're on to Cleveland. McDavid's psychotic. He's psychotic similar to when you played with or air biz you know, the coach would come down in a tight game be like, like hey take off

the clear tape you're done that's what this coach needs to do to leon and mcdavid in the blowouts in the third period take the clear tape off loosen up the skates you guys are done we're worried about june yeah but i don't think it's a big deal like like stuff you heard stuff say those guys played what 12 broberg played 12 games the other guy played 38 games there and now they picked up Arvidsson and Skinner they're they're gonna be strong again they're right there ironically like CeCe was the whipping boy like they they will miss him a little bit like people shit on him but you saw how much he meant to the team as a teammate he had some big goals you think of the goal against Vancouver in game seven like they will miss him now they'll get help at some point in the season but i'm also interested to

hear uh and see if savoy can end up coming in like i i love what he's saying about stankovin and just hey go down to the minors you're gonna have to dominate to have us be willing to give you the chance but if you dominate down there we'll find a spot for you. And come playoff time, you could be an impact player on a third, fourth line as a skill guy, too. So no doubt, playoff team, my Stanley Cup pick once again. And we'll see how it plays out. Guys, before we continue, I need to talk to you about Labatt Blue. A lot of things are better together. Hockey, food, golf.

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So that's labattbluelight at labattusa.com slash finder. How funny was it too, as that fight broke out, I could see Stoff's chubby through his Joseph A. Banks suit. He's like, oh, fight. They throw it right. That guy loves fighting. Old school hockey, Bob Stauffer. Also, I guess we'll see how long Evander Kane's out.

Is he able to be an elite player when he comes back? Another question for Edmonton. But we're staying in Alberta now. We're going to Calgary. And God, personally, guys, I have some serious low expectations with the Calgary Flames this year. They lose Jacob Markstrom to the Devils. They lose Mangiapane to the Washington Capitals. Oliver Shillington goes to Colorado.

They bring in Anthony Mantha, kind of an odd player there. He could be so good and then so bad at times from Vegas. Kevin Ball comes in for Jersey in the trade for Markstrom. Jake Bean comes in from Columbus. Ryan Lamborghini from Florida. Tyson Barry's on a PTO. Projected point total 81.5. They had 81 last year.

I think they're going to be worse. I think they're going to be a bottom five team in the NHL. Maybe I'm completely underrating the Calgary Flames, but in a time where a lot of these Pacific Division teams have Stanley Cup aspirations, it seems like things are going the other way in calgary will nazam nazim khadri be there the entire season i i just don't know huberdo is not the same player he once was he's battled injuries a little slow-footed

it's just a crazy story in calgary they need a new arena biz what do you got if anything yeah i think one of the bright spots going back to last year was uh sarin govich or sharon govich excuse me i think he had 30 goals last year so that was a big pickup for him but i agree this i think this is going to be the start of the doldrum years for the calgary flames until they get their new building and i think that maybe that's even what they're prepping for to kind of slowly get to having a competitive lineup by the time that those doors open. I think you sent it to the group chat and I would have agreed with you. It is probably the most thing I'm excited for with the Calgary Flames to see how Dustin Wolf plays.

Back to back years in the AHL, he was incredible. I want to say he was the player of the year and MVP of the league at least one of those years, if not both. Just a tremendous goalie prospect. So that is pretty much all I got. This team is just like, I think they want a high draft picked. I think they're looking towards the future. And I think that they have some trade pieces come the deadline that they can move off of. And I would love to see Nazem Khadri end up going up to a contender

because I still think he's got a lot of game left, and I'd like to see him help a team much like he did in Colorado come a playoff run. Yeah, I want to see Connor Zeri is like a very former first-round pick, had dominated the AHL. Will he take a big step forward? What will Anthony Mantha do? Like, as I met, like, Anthony Mantha can decide to play and dominate games.

And then it just seems like he kind of shuts it off, like a little bit like Pierre-Luc Dubois in a way. Kind of a confusing player there, but it's just weird. It's like you don't really know where they're headed because there's just so many question marks, like, in their bottom six six on D. I know Mackenzie Weger is a nice player. Rasmus Anderson's nice. Other than that, like Jake Bean really couldn't even play for Columbus. He's there now. It's just it's just odd. And I think once they get the new arena, once they get some better prospects, maybe in the future, they not maybe they will turn it around. It just seems like even talking to certain flames fans, the expectations are really low for this year.

And it's just weird. Cause for a long time, Calgary, um, you know, they, they were in the playoffs. They were a tough team to play against tough building to play in. And then when, when Kachuk and, and, and Goudreau left, it was just like, Oh, like, I don't think they expected that all of a sudden they're, they're kind of like having to turn things around quick. And I don't mean to disparage Huberto by any means. It just seems like he's just kind of lost a step. And I feel bad. I mean, for a guy making that much money, it's hard to feel bad for him.

But you still want to be the player you once were. And it just seems like it's that much tougher for him now. And he was shocked to be traded to begin with. So it's just an odd time in Calgary. I don't know if you have any props, Murr, or if you have any thoughts on the team. Yeah, I don't have much to say. You guys took it out of that.

Connor Zeri, he seems like he's going to be a good fit. He had 14 goals when he got in last year. I think he might even scored his first NHL game. I feel like I was watching and he scored. So that's one bright spot, but not much else. Sharon Govich over 55 and a half points. They're going to score some goals. Somebody's got to do some scoring.

So I would take the over on that. See if he can have another good year. I think it's going to come down to Craig Conroy and asset management and what he can bring in as far as draft picks and future prospects. Because I mentioned you have a lot of guys who could help a lot of teams. Like Blake Coleman, I feel like that would be an unreal deadline pickup for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations. We already mentioned Kadri. Also Rasmus Andersen, he's a left shot defenseman.

I know those come kind of a dime a dozen. Most teams are looking for righties. But I think he's just over $4 million, and he's a left shot defenseman. I know those come kind of a dime a dozen. Most teams are looking for righties, but I think he's just over 4 million, and he's a gamer. He's a good secondary scoring defenseman where he's providing a little bit of offense. Why are you celebrating, Murr? No, he's a righty. Oh, is he a righty?

Oh, my apologies. I thought he was a lefty. Blake Coleman might have had the sneakiest 30-goal season in NHL history last year. That guy is a player. And Kadri, I think he had 16 more points than the next guy. So he still had a hell of a year, 75 points. Will he ever end up back in Colorado, Biz?

They haven't been the same since he left. Who knows if they can ever fit him in. But we'll see what happens in Calgary. Not much in my mind going into this season so now we're gonna bring in the vegas insider not not our vegas insider but the vegas insider known to the nhl gary lawless he knows everything going on for the golden nights what's going on gary how you doing dumb dumb dumb guys so granelli says to me hey we'll we'll do it at two o'clock eastern so i come into work today i get all my buddies in the tech department look

at the shot here look how good this is it's completely high tech all set up what time is it now that is great first of all i've been in this meat locker for three hours. That's why I can tell your nipples. I just heard what you guys did on Calgary. If that's what I've been sitting waiting for, holy lifting. What do you expect out of the Flames this year? Yeah, you tell us what your breakdown is. You guys are right. That's going to be a fire sale.

We're trying to keep it positive. I would agree with you. And right shot the Rasmus Anderson. A lot of teams will like him. He can move the puck. I would agree with you. And right shot, D, Rasmus Anderson. A lot of teams will like him. He can move the puck. He can play offensively. And he's got some bite to his game. I like him the best out of their pieces.

Forward, obviously, you're right. Coleman and Kadri are nice pieces. So, Gary, I think it's also a pretty interesting time for the Golden Knights. And it seems like every year there's a different storyline. This one, I would say the biggest story being Marcio gone. And I saw, I think he was on the Cam and Strick podcast and said something like, are you really going to, are you really going to let me get to free agency?

Like, did you know that was going to happen? How long had you kind of been aware? Wow, I think they're going to let him go. And this is a cutthroat team that'll let anyone go. What are your thoughts on Vegas and Marcioso no longer being a member of the team? Well, I'll say this. Both sides did really well by one another.

Jonathan Marcioso, I think he made $750,000 his last year in Florida before joining the Golden Knights. He comes to Vegas. His centers in Vegas were William Carlson and then Jack Eichel, and he exploded as a player. He made, you know, they signed him to a long-term deal, walked out of Vegas having made a pretty good bag, $30 million for a guy who was never drafted,

won two Campbell Cup, two Campbell Bowls, Conn Smythe, Stanley Cup. He had a great run in Vegas. Vegas obviously had a great run with him. There was no indication that they weren't going to sign him. As a matter of fact, they thought they had a deal done like going into the draft weekend. Kelly McCrimmon said, we thought we had a path

where we were going to get a deal done. And McCrimmon offered him a four-year deal. Barry Trotz shows up with five and good for Jonathan. He's got a five-year deal at that stage in his career. You know, you have to be thrilled for the individual. Has a guy who's been in Vegas, you know, a couple of days long. My first day at work with the golden Knights was June 7th of 17. And then the expansion draft was later that month. So I watched him go through everything here, spend a ton of time with them, uh, loved them. He's beloved here. It's, uh, it's the business. It's just the way it works. He got his bag and everything that he, and you can't blame him,

right? This is probably his last deal. He's got, you know, he's got a wife and three, four kids. He's got, he's got a lot of kids, so he's got to maximize. He developed late, right? Like same as Chandler Stevenson. These are guys that, you know, took them a while to hit their peak. And then when they get a chance to cash in, you can't blame them for doing it. I heard a rumor that the Golden Knights

offered Alex Petrangelo for Mitch Marner. Is there any truth to that rumor? I don't think so. That's it? That's all you got? Do you want me to comment on the crazy leaf greens that you come up in your mushroom enhanced grouse grind crap in your pants opportunities? I'm sorry, Bess.

Fan of the show. Fan of the show. Thanks for listening. Fan of the show. Gary, you're obviously a listener. Now that you sat there the whole show, you don't have to worry about listening tomorrow. That's one good thing. I'll tell you what.

there the whole show you don't have to worry about listening tomorrow that's one good thing the the so when i met this i was uh i was working for tsn in canada and we got into a little twitter scrap one day and then i said to him i said hey big mouth come on my show let's do it he responded right away what time and when yep this, he was still playing that this, you were in Manchester, I believe at the time and like spitting chiclets. I don't know if you guys had started or had just started. It's amazing what has happened in the landscape. I gotta be honest in the summertime, I'm at my place in Canada going for a bike ride or whatever. And there's nothing, there's no, there's no local sports radio. There's no, uh, Elliot goes on like a nine month sabbatical in the summer.

Ray and dregs are off the air and you guys are the lifeline. You're like NHL network is playing like serious XM. They're playing reruns and the only thing there is the chicklets. Now, some of the stuff you say. What do you mean? Your tangents are

fantastic, but it's such good listening. I enjoy it so much, but it's the only thing there in the summer. And, like, the media landscape has changed so much. A year ago today, Paul Bissonette cracks the Mike Babcock story. Who would ever have thought that three guys that played for Mike Tarian and Wilkes-Barre in the American League,

he used to bum cigarettes off me back in the day, by the way. I would come. Elaine Vigneault was the coach in Manitoba, and we'd go to dinner, and Mike is, like, hitting me. Did you bring any cigarettes? I didn't even smoke. I'd have to, like, smuggle DeMaurier over the border for him. That must have been wild playing for him and Wilkes.

Anyways, I have to congratulate you guys. It's a lot of fun. Thanks, Gary. No, I appreciate that. He was bumming cigarettes from us on the bus too. So we got that in common. We didn't have to show him dick pics though. I got a question for you, Gary.

And that is obviously big change, big turnover. I think the three forwards you kind of look at, like Alexander Holtz comes in. Can he become a dynamo offensively? Victor Olofsson with an amazing shot. Like, can he play with Eichel and Barbashev? And then Brendan Besson along with Pavel Dorofaev. Like, who are you expecting to make a big leap

offensively on this team? Well, that is the big story going into training camp. You look at this team at center ice, you're going to go Eichel, Hurdle, Carlson, Waugh. That's as good as any team in the NHL. You look at this team at center ice, you're going to go Eichel, Hurdle, Carlson, Waugh. That's as good as any team in the NHL. You look at the blue line, you got Petro, Theodore, McNabb, Hannafin, White Cloud, Hegg, Hutton, and Korczak is going to play in the NHL this year as well. That top eight is as good as any in the league.

What happens on the wings will be fascinating. So with Eichel, you would think that Olofsson, because they had chemistry in Buffalo, Olofsson's best season was playing with Eichel. That's probably what they start with. But they could load up. They could put Mark Stone on the right side on that line as well. I just watched him skate.

He looks fantastic right now. He'll be injured in a couple of months and then be on LTIR. No worries. Let's hope not. No, no, no. Knock on wood. He told me last year at the Winter Classic in Seattle,

one of the big goals for him was to play 1,000 games, but he said, I just haven't been able to, because I haven't been able to stay in the lineup the last couple of years, it's been a huge, that's been a drag on his progress to that point. Petrangelo had hit 1,000 or was about to hit 1,000, so they were all talking about it.

Anyways, you're right. Holtz, I have a friend who's a scout, a pro scout with another team. He's based in New Jersey. He thinks Holtz is a 35 goal guy because of his release. Drafted seventh overall for whatever reason, didn't work with Lindy Ruff. And he's going to get, he'll get looks here. He'll either play. His center is either going to be Eichel, Hurdle, or Carlson.

And all those guys, you know, we just talked about Marcia. So look what he did playing with Carlson and, and Eichel and Holtz has that type of release. Can he do it consistently? You have to give Marcia. So credit, he was able to, the guy put the puck in the net consistently. We'll find out if Holtz can do that as well. Those are the, those three guys to me, and Dorofeev, can he, like he's really

come along, can he step forward and, you know, be a 2025 goal guy that, and then Brisson hasn't popped yet. He's had, apparently had a really good summer, worked real hard on his pace. That's the next thing for him. I think there's no surprise that the gold Knights are able to pull rabbits out of their ass and none greater probably than that hurdle trade at the

deadline last year. I think that was one that surprised most, most teams, right? Yeah, I think probably not going to keep asking my question if that's all right. I don't think that they were probably thrilled with his playoff performance. I think that probably if he shows up and he plays to his capabilities,

they probably end up getting past Dallas. But what are they expecting from him, or what are you seeing maybe if he's already there skating, where he's going to be able to make the impact that he did in San Jose? Well, that deal, Kelly McCrimmon looked, everyone knew there was going to be money in the system because, you know, the after effect of COVID, all of a sudden the cap was going to go up. There was going to be a lot of money in the system

and they wanted to avoid free agency. They knew Stevenson at that point in time, probably they weren't going to be able to keep him. So they looked at San Jose and targeted Hurdle. He has been an excellent player against the Golden Knights over the years, and they're able to make that deal. Obviously, you're right. He was not the player that you would want him to be, but they had shut him down. If he had remained in San Jose, he wasn't going to play another game next last year. He would have stayed out of their lineup, would have gone home for the summer,

trained, come back, and seen if he could have been an impact player. He has already kind of stated that he expects himself to be much better than he was last year. It was not to his standard feels way better, better shape. You know, you guys know better than me how long it takes to recover from a knee surgery.

He's had a real good opportunity now to, to get through that, get past it. The expectations on him are to be, you know, for it to be one a and one B with him and Eichel at center ice. Do you think it makes it hard on the team knowing?

I hate using the word cutthroat, but I think that's being a little bit honest in the sense where they're okay moving on from players. I mean, Hannafin comes in last year, so all of a sudden it seems like the dynamic of the team changes so frequently. Do you think that kind of maybe rattles other guys and maybe guys who have put in time in the organization

when these new guys come in and all of a sudden, oh fuck, I'm not in the power play anymore. This new guy who came in just took my job. Well, I think it's an inaccurate myth because if you look at the rosters in the National Hockey League from 17, 18 up, Vegas has had as much player retention. They're like in the top five in the NHL in player retention.

Brian Burke went on Merrick's show one day and said, all Vegas is moving on from all these guys. And it became something that the media grabbed onto. It's just not accurate. Every team moves on from people. Players get old. Players get, you know, players get old, they get traded or a team is crappy and they trade all of their good players to bring in youth. That changes, changes life in the National Hockey League. Vegas isn't any, isn't more cutthroat than any other team. They're just better at it. Kelly McCrimmon has, well, it's the truth.

I know. I love it. He's moved on from, you know, Nate Schmidt just at the right time. And what was he able to do before that? Bring in Alex Petrangelo. Who would you rather have? I love Schmitty, but Petro's an alpha dog. He's a number one D in the National Hockey League with two cups under his belt.

The timing here has been, The timing here has been genius. It's been a master class in management in a salary cap era. Do you refer to them as pinky in the brain just like I do? I don't know what that is. Pinky in the brain, the pinky in the brain. One is a genius, the other's insane the dynamic between uh uh mccrimmon and mcfee there it's pinky in the fucking brain well they work very well together and uh it's you know i think george mcfee realized what he had in kelly mccrimmon you know what the

oilers were going to hire mccrimmon that like got Holland, the Oilers had decided we're going to target him or Seattle was going to target him. And George said, I'm not going to let that happen. Went to Bill Foley and said, I'm going to be president. You're going to make Kelly GM and we're going to keep the band together. It's not just those guys that they're the pro scouting side and the amateur scouting side. They have stayed together. It's been, it's been really fun to watch it. Gary. I wanted to ask you about those D that we were just talking about when I was watching you guys down the stretch.

And then in the playoffs, Hannah Finn came in, you got Theodore, you got Petrangelo. Like who's, who's the top guy on the power play? It didn't look like everybody knew who the top dog was. It seemed like there was too many cooks in the kitchen.

Did you feel like that at all? Is that going to be straightened out early in training camp this year? Thoughts on that? Well, you know, I think they have, now they've got a couple of shooters. I expect it'll be, you'll be 4D and one forward, and there's going to be some competition for that. I would think Bruce Cassie would want to establish that early on

and have that one guy, but who knows? With injuries and the way things go, I'd rather have three guys that can do it than have just one. I'm wondering, goaltending position. And you saw Aiden Hill lead these guys to a Stanley Cup. And I kind of love bringing in Samsonov. I mean, the lack of the difference in pressure from Toronto. And you saw times he'd be great. And I don't know if getting out of that hockey craze market and into Vegas helps him. But do you believe Aiden Hill is a true number one? Do you think you see more of those guys splitting starts?

What do you think happens? And what do you think of Aiden Hill's kind of future as like a true number one goalie in this league? Well, I think he obviously has the upside that he can do that. We saw it. You could have made a case for him to have won the Conn Smythe when Marcius O won it. And, you know, Eichel was right there as well.

There were lots of people you could kind of, it was more of a team thing from my perspective. Hill was tremendous. And when he's been healthy, he's been lights out. He's played at 930 for long stretches. And I don't think that Bruce wants a, you know 58 game goaltender i think it'll be a lot closer to you know what hill will play a few more games than samsonoff but i would expect you know it'll be not a straight rotation but less than two two for one uh and samsonoff

we haven't talked to him yet. So I don't know if it's Samson off or Samson off. It used to be Samson off. Like that's the only question in the right here on the briefcase caster area every day. Someone will say Sam Sonoff, Sam Sonoff one day, Samson off the next day. We need to talk to him about it, but I expect he'll be, he'll play a lot of games here and be a real good counterpart for Hill. What about the coaching aspect? Personally, I've heard things where Bruce Cassidy is hard on players. He expects a lot.

I totally get that. I've also heard there's times when the message is a little redundant and it can be tough on guys playing for him. Have you heard anything like that? Or do, do guys enjoy him as a head coach? Jack Eichel said to me, we are lucky to have Bruce Cassidy.

He's kept us accountable. You know, when you go back to Boston, the guys that complained about Butch were young guys, guys that he was trying to, one of their, one of their executives with Boston said to me, we gave Bruce a good team and expected him to make us great. And he got them to game seven against the Blues.

It was a masterful job of coaching, but really hard on some of the young guys to get them immediately when they got to the NHL to have a mature game. And that's hard to get from young guys. And, you know, did he push them? Absolutely. It's a more mature group here. And after they won the cup, we wrote a book here and doing the interviews for the book, you know, a lot of the veteran guys, Martinez, Petrangelo, Stone, they said at a certain point, Bruce realized he could trust us. And we kind of took the team over. And that was really evident with Marcheseau.

And Marcheseau and Cassidy, they went at it for long stretches. And then finally they got to a place where, you know, Marshall so got his point across to Bruce and Bruce left him alone and off he went and went on that great tear in that playoff run. So I think the maturity of this team is a little different than what they had in Boston. And I don't foresee it being a problem. I could be wrong. is a little different than what they had in Boston, and I don't foresee it being a problem. I could be wrong.

I was just going to ask where you view their biggest weakness going into this season. I do look at that left side, and it does look maybe a little bit weaker than usual. What do you think is their biggest Achilles heel going into this year that they'll have to overcome? Well, they have flexibility for the first time. So if that is, like you're right, I don't expect center ice to be a problem, and I don't expect the blue line to overcome. Well, they have flexibility for the first time. So if that is like, you're right. I don't expect center ice to be a problem and I don't expect the blue line to be a

problem. And I think they really, they really added, uh, some veteran savvy and experience in that with, with Samson off slash Samson off. Um, so the wing is, is obviously one area where, but if Holtz arrives and finds magic with Carlson or Hurdle or Eichel and if Olofsson, obviously if guys can be misfits and get opportunity in Vegas and pop, then we won't be talking about that but for the first time in a while they go into this season with money that if they have to address something like that

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dash ticket dash promo slash. Gary, that's a hell of a breakdown. We know you're sticking around. We really appreciate the talk about the LA Kings. I think we all have Vegas as a playoff team. At least I do. I don't know. MERS, Biz, agreed? Gary, agree? Let's go to LA where

I actually think LA is a lot better than people are giving him credit for personally. Merles is shaking his head, and I know goaltending is a question mark. I just think that Quinton Byfield, I think he's going to take another step this year. I think Brent Clark on D is going to be phenomenal. Dowdy still is doing what he can do. I look at this team

as getting rid of Dubois. There was just kind of a headache there. Hiller stays as he goes from interim to the head coach. Now, obviously, Kemper coming over. Can he find some magic again? Gary, I guess I'll start with you. What do you look at their biggest weakness as? Well,

let me build on what you said first, because that is the story of their training camp and of their season quentin byfield if he steps in they're going to go copetard to know byfield down the middle they're moving byfield to center ice he is not going to play on the wing he's ready with with copetard well they don't have a choice, right? They made that decision when they traded Dubois. They would have spoken to Hiller, Rob Blake, all of his people. They would have said, we have our third C, and it's going to be Quentin Byfield.

So he looked really good playing with Kopitar. He's a man. He's big. He goes to the hard areas. He can skate. Good around the net. All of that stuff. He's a man. He's big. He goes to the hard areas. He can skate good around the net, all of that stuff. You love it. But playing center ice, a lot different than playing on the wing as we know. So it'll be fast. That to me is the story for them, their weakness, uh, in goal for sure. Uh, big save Dave and Darcy Kemper are your goalies going into this season.

Kemper, since he left Colorado, it's been 890 was his save percentage last year in Washington, 909 the year before. That's below replacement goaltending statistics in the NHL. If you're going to hang your hat on that, and don't forget, you know, Dubois got Todd McClellan fired. So now you have Hiller, and McClellan is a structure guy. They were going to play a certain way in front of their goaltenders and give them a chance.

I'm not saying Hiller isn't a structure guy, but he lets the horses run a little more. He signed a three-year deal. That, to me, is the real scary part for them. On the blue line, that pairing of Dowdy and Mikey Anderson, that's as good as it gets. That's an excellent, excellent pairing. But they're going to ask Brent Clark to step in and play in the NHL.

Highly skilled player for sure. Jordan Spence can create offense, but they'll have Gavrikov, and they brought in Joel Edmondson on a pretty good deal as well. And I love Joel Edmondson, but he's a bottom-pairing guy. It will be interesting to see if their D can hold up. Yeah, I totally agree with you. That's exactly why I don't like him. I don't like the D.

Yeah, Clark is going to be a star, but it's hard to carry those minutes. Dowdy a year older. The goaltending is just, it's not good enough for me when you see these other teams. You got the Canucks, you got the Oilers, you got Vegas making the playoffs, right? They're going to win the top three. And then you got to start thinking about the wild card. And when we start talking about the central division,

I'm going to want five teams from there. So I got, I got LA out of the playoffs and that's, that's the surprise team for me. That's out. And they just keep losing Edmonton. That's what I'm wondering. Well, youmonton. Who are the five in the Central? That's what I'm wondering.

Well, you're going to have to tune in in the next week or two. That's the host of another podcast right there, just teasing his action. I respect that. But I like Gavrikov. I think Edmonton's going to fit in real well as a bottom-pairing guy. Big body, blocked shots. Granted, doesn't skate well. Now, I look at the question on the wing a little bit. Like Leferriere, I believe that's how you say it,

had a nice rookie season. Can he make a big step? I think that obviously, like, if you're looking at Kopitar, he's another year older, but he's just so solid and sound defensively. Up front, I don't worry about them. Yes, goaltending is a big question, but I think like they're going to get away from that ridiculous one,

three, one, they paid where players talked about like, we need to change this mid season. You really couldn't. Now they're going into a completely different formation for checking wise and playing hockey. I,

I still like this team. I think Fiala is an awesome player. I think he can get 80 points. I, I don't know i i just think that go ahead their top six wingers laferriere and kempe they brought in tanner genoa i think he could have a rebirth trevor moore no one talks about him he's unbelievable in the east coast he's fantastic and then they added fogel from your Oilers. And then we've got Fiala.

They've got good. I don't have any problem with what they do up front. Now, Byfield has to prove he can do the job. It's the back end and the goaltending where they get scary for me. They haven't won a playoff series since the last time they won the Stanley Cup. And the last three years in a row, they've regressed. They lost to the Oilers in seven. They lost to the Oilers in seven. They lost to the Oilers in six.

And then they lost to the Oilers in five. Like if they draw Edmonton again. Oh. I'm sure Witt's got the Oilers winning the Pacific. That's the sweep. We got to bet the sweep. It's got to be next. Seven, six, five, four.

And I feel bad for Rob Blake because I love the fact that he took the swing on Dubois. Like he went and made a trade, but if he could go back in time. Yeah. And Velarde, Iafalo, and Kupari in that pick are still with your team. You can package up some of those guys. You know, maybe you would have been

in the Markstrom sweepstakes and changed the complexion of the Pacific completely. And I'll tell you what, whoever is at the bottom of the Western Conference or in the mushy middle, they better figure it out quick because Utah is coming. The way they're operating right now, the way that organization is running,

this isn't the dark days of the coyotes where they take Bissonette right from the ice and put them right up into the press box. This is a new franchise. They're going to be impressive. You mentioned that Dubois was the reason that McClellan got fired. Was that correct? Did I hear that right? Yes. Yeah. So do you think that part of it had to do with the fact that they have some of these young offensive players also coming in with the mix of guys you talked about who maybe also wanted to play a little bit more freely, freely offensively. You mentioned that structure that McClellan loves.

Do you think that was strangleholding what they thought was a better offensive team? Like, like there had to be more that played into than just Dubois. Cause that seems to be something that's on management. You're saying that McClellan had to land on a land on the grenade there. For sure. He tore that team apart.

Like you bring him in there and he can't, he doesn't play. And all of a sudden, like he's, he just didn't produce. He didn't, the effort wasn't there. And you've got to play him. And that team imploded. It came apart at the seams as a result of that. McClellan's a good coach. These guys had success in the NHL.

And all of a sudden, they're awful. Now, the way they play, that style, you might be right. Maybe it was time to move on from that, and certainly Hiller has done that. And, you know, they went, Hiller had success. They went 20-12-1 under him. Like, they made the playoffs as a result of what he got out of them down the stretch.

So, listen, I think that lots of those Kings that won Cups playing for Daryl Sutter, they probably understand structure and like structure. I don't think Kevin Fiala wants to play that way. So you do, you're right. You do have a mix of guys that probably were ready to move away from that. But the biggest factor for me was Dubois not being an effective player. I also wonder about Arthur Kaliev who who found himself, he wasn't even in the lineup in the playoffs. This is a guy who scored a lot of junior, played in the USA World

Junior Team, I think twice. And it just seemed like, talk about being in the doghouse with McClellan and with Hiller. So I'm wondering if he could take a step because he's going to have to play well. He's a winger that they're going to need to score. I don't know if he's able to. I know he's not the fastest player. I guess Merle's has me questioning my idea of the Kings a little bit more. Thinking of Utah also in the Central coming up. But we'll see what happens. Gary, do you have him in the playoffs?

No, I don't have him in. Wow! I actually think Seattle, some of the work that Seattle did in the offseason, I think they're going to get a bit of a bounce with Disco Dan on the bench there. I don't think that'll last for very long. I'm not a Balsamite guy per se, but they added Stevenson. They added a D. They did good work in the offseason.

Montour. Sorry? Montour. Yes, Montour. They're going to have offense from the back end. They're going to play a little looser there. I think Seattle might surprise some people. I think that's crazy with a team with the three-center Iceman

that you just mentioned, especially with Byfield moving to that second-line role. Last question I would have for you. Of all those younger players they do have in the mix in L.A., especially with Byfield moving to that second-line role. Last question I would have for you. Of all those younger players they do have in the mix in L.A., who do you expect to make the biggest impact this year? There's a few of them. Like right now they have Akeel Thomas listed in the lineup. Turcotte's still a younger guy.

I would consider Laferriere. I think that's how you pronounce it, as Whit mentioned. Who do you think has the biggest impact of those young players? Well, those guys are fighting to play center on the fourth line, Turcotte and Akil Thomas. Leferriere is going to start on the left side, I believe, with Kopitar, but it's Brant Clark for me. If he can step in and be on your middle pairing

and give them that opportunity to not – listen, you mentioned Dewey is a year older. To me, he's still top 10 D in the National Hockey League, but if he doesn't have to play huge minutes every night and you get some offense in the middle of your back end from Brent Clark and whoever he's paired with. Maybe Clark and Gavrikov is your second pairing,

and if he's effective, I think he could have a big impact. I think that's the most frustrating thing because you probably have two more years of high-end production with Kopitar and Doughty, and you almost burned a year off of the PLD move and the fact that they couldn't address the areas you just mentioned, and all of a sudden now you're back to the reset. So that's a tough one.

That's a, what's that? It also, it's longer than that because now you have Kemper at 5.25 for a number of years. Like, it's not like, it's not like they got off Scott free. Right. They gave away all those players and then they had to take on a contract that, uh, you know, frankly, that's a lot of money for that

goaltender. If he's going to, if he's going to go eight 90 again this year. So I, I think I made an inflammatory comment where, uh, the rumor was that is Rob Blake got on the ice with PLD. And I said that reeked of, of a, a GM trying to save his bacon, but by no means was I insulting the fact that he was willing to go on the ice and try to get through to this player that he signed.

I think that's a very gracious move by him. Um, I think that he's done an excellent job as GM there. I think their draft and development has stayed very good. Do you think that that's the type of move that maybe puts him on the hot seat? Like, is that maybe. Well, I don't, you know, I don't think there's any question that Rob Blake's on the hot seat. I don't, I don't know if I would agree with that. I don't even know if Dubois was his idea. You know, there's, there's some Dubois is a Pat Bresson client.

There's a lot of connections there in LA. Like, Rob Blake may pay the price for that. Like, if they miss this year, certainly I think, you know, he's going to get looked at. They just signed Hiller to three years. I don't think they're still paying McClellan this year. They're not going to sack him. This is going to be a, this is a tough year for LA.

Now, if by field can step in and be, you know, a legit center in the national hockey league and eat up a lot of minutes, then they will be a playoff team. And Rob Blake will be, uh, won't have to worry about it. The LA Kings are playing for Rob Blake's life as a GM right now, and for that reason, I'm saying they are making playoffs. So fuck you, Merles. I got him in, too. I got him in, too.

Gary, I know you waited around forever, but we appreciate it, buddy. You're awesome, one of the best in the business. And your audio and visual compared to stoffs is like the vegas nightlife compared to edmond's nightlife so i think i think we're not surprised to see how clearly you came in and we appreciate it so much dude have a great one i have one two shout outs real quick you guys talk a lot of college hockey i don't know anything about it, but I do know this. Minnesota State, the Mavericks of Mankato, they have a new goalie. Eli Pulver happens to be my best friend's son. The guy who I grew up with in Peterborough.

This kid played in Vancouver. He played in the BCHL last year in Salmon Arm. He was fantastic in the playoffs. Almost knocked off Penn Tictton, who run that league. He signed with Mankato. He's going to play there this year. He's a stud. And my man, Jeff Chavez, who set this beautiful,

like this is, who's had a better look, better production look in the history of Chicklets? No one. That's tough to beat right there. Well, Gary, before you leave, see, that's why you got to listen to me and Army on Game Notes. We cover all the college hockey stuff. So get on

Fridays this year, get the Game Notes on. You remember Army. You took them to Taco Bell during the finals a couple years ago. You're responsible for that Taco Bell moment because at the elbow room, you were buying all the drinks, all the shots. You got Colby melted. He's a big man to have to try and put over your shoulder

and haul out a taco bell. He was Sasky drunk. You probably looked like me filling up my Lululemons a couple weeks ago. I can't get that out of my mind. And just Gary Lawless, you guys got to follow him on social media. Obviously, he covers the Vegas Gold Knights, but Peterborough born and raised. I started covering

Mel Engelstad in Thunder Bay. That's how he got his start. Ten years covering the AHL. Obviously we talked about that earlier. Carlisle, Smile, Vigneault, and Arneal were head coaches there. You were with the Winnipeg Free Press columnist for a long time. TSN National

columnist for four years. Hired by the Vegas gold Knights. And only one of two men alive with in Merle's, uh, uh, Gretzky and himself to have both won a great cup and a Stanley cup ring. So thank you very much, Gary Lawless,

couple of clicks for you. And we're going to have to get you back on buddy. You're a, you're a pinky in the brain defender through and through. And there's a reason you're the longest tenured Golden Knight. No more of your chirping, Bess. Oh, it's just starting, baby. Pinky in the brain.

Pinky in the brain. All right, Gary. We'll see you. Thanks for having me, guys. There it is, boys. The Pacific Division breakdown. We got two more left with for having me, guys. No problem. There it is, boys. The Pacific Division breakdown. We got two more left with the Atlantic and the Central. So very, very big thanks to Stoff.

Very, very big thanks to Gary Lawless. Army joined us after dropping Cruz off at Mount St. Charles. So an amazing episode. And always, Merles, we love having you on. I appreciate it. I guess we got one thing, and then I got a little shout out at the end. The last thing hockey wise is Braxton Whitehead of the Western Hockey League's Regina Pats has given us verbal commitment for the 25-26 season for Arizona State, the Division One program out there, despite not having NCAA eligibility because he's played in

the WHL going to his overage year this year. So he's the first player, the first NCAA commitment for a Canadian Hockey League player since a proposed class action suit was filed against the NCAA in 10 different universities in August claiming that the eligibility rules violate antitrust laws. The suit seeks to allow players to play hockey in both major juniors and then college, which would be a dramatic, crazy shift in the player development landscape. We'll see what happens there. I mean, this could be absolutely insane if this kid's allowed to play not this season, but next and really change. I could kind of cross the USHL a little bit.

I don't know what's going to go on there, but an interesting storyline nonetheless. And my last thing is, I want to shout out a very, very special person, Biz, and an enormous Spittin' Chicklets listener, Joe Crumple. He was injured in the line of duty. He's a Navy SEAL, and he's going through a really tough time with a bunch of different surgeries.

And it's just been, I've been given word that he's listened to every Chicklets episode ever. He's a huge fan. I guess he's an enormous Yandel fan. He loves Yans. And so we want to send him our best wishes. Thank you so much for what you do protecting our country, Joe. And get better soon, dude. We can't thank you enough for what you do and for listening to our show and that

the same goes for everyone listening who's tuned in long episode these previews are long episodes but I hope you guys have enjoyed bringing in some different guests and and having Merle's give out his possible DraftKings bet so that's all I got boys I don't know if you got anything else I don't think there's any bigger

compliment when you hear things like that when they listen to every show and it helps them get through tough times. And the fact that he's a big Yandel fan, I think that even better news is that we're going to be getting him on a lot more frequently this year. So that's a little added boost to Joe. So thank you for all your service and we hope you heal up and maybe at a certain point get you out to an event or something when we're close to you

and celebrate in style. But Murr, we thank you guys. The Game Notes jolts have been awesome to start off these previews, and we love you guys, and we can't look forward enough to what's in store for Game Notes and you guys popping off in your second full season. Yeah, I've always loved coming on for these predictions because I'm always awful at them, but maybe we can get that guy

taping of the London live show we're gonna have on Friday we got the chicklets cup I start my travel today when you're listening to this I start my travel from northern Sweden I will be there I'm getting auctioned off this year me and army will be separate Grinnell will be separate so three teams will grab some chicklets boost for the tournament and I will have the Friday. I'll have this gear on Friday at Joe Cools. That's your uniform. That's after the live show, right?

No, Friday night's Joe Cools live shows Thursday night. Thursday. Yeah, live show. And I know Glawless joked around and he mentioned about getting the 11 a.m. West Coast start time from Grinnell. You mentioned off the hop, G's had a busy day helping out with Alana. Apparently things went very successful.

So we just want to send our thoughts to G and Alana today. And we love them. And G's been her rock throughout this whole process and needed to be there again today. So luckily we have amazing people behind the scenes like fish and pasha to take over boys i fucking love this team and i can't wait to fucking next week i love it don't forget about the new guy in here dyer he was throwing out picks in the chat he wants calgary flames lowest points 16 to 1 so oh oh my flame stands bring the heat to the new guy we did two minutes on the flames and we got our new guy dire points 16 to 1. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh But how much is your love? They say you're drunk at speech, it's just so good that I like to poke the bear, I like to stir the pot But then you come on in and take it up a notch

She hit me with a cheap shot, a cheap shot She hit me with a cheap shot, a cheap shot I bet she needs a detox to cleanse her mind Another week rolls in, we're on the road again Thought I would see this sound in my minivan But I said something that crossed the line And I know she felt it So I said she could have a free one on the chin Thank you. A cheap shot. I think we need a deep talk. We've been so on time.