Spittin Chiclets - Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 524: Featuring Liam O’Brien

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

On Episode 524 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Utah’s Enforcer Liam “Big Tuna” O’Brien to discuss the inaugural upcoming season for the Hockey Club, how he made a name for himself in development camp, and playing under Ovechkins wing. But first, the boys are coming off an unreal Chiclets Cup in London, Ontario and even though the Big Deal Selects fell short of a championship yet again, there was still plenty of drama that ensued over the past week as Bruins GM Don Sweeney had some choice words for the Spittin’ up on yourself podcast. The Central Division preview has a lot in store as John-Michael Liles, Colby Armstrong, Billy Guerin, Barstool’s Big Cat, and Doug Armstrong join to talk all things hockey as we are just under two weeks away from opening night. A star studded cast and lots to talk about, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. 00:00:00 - START 00:00:41 - Chiclets Cup recap 00:19:59 - Don Sweeney 00:34:14 - Around the League 00:49:40 - Colorado Avalanche Preview joined by John-Michael Liles 01:13:48 - Dallas Stars Preview with John-Michael Liles 01:26:19 - Winnipeg Jets Preview with Colby Armstrong 01:39:17 - Nashville Predators with Colby Armstrong 01:49:18 - Utah Hockey Club Preview 02:00:42 - Liam O’Brien Interview 02:45:20 - Minnesota Wild Preview with Billy Guerin 03:06:41 - Chicago Blackhawks Preview with Big Cat 03:34:19 - St Louis Blues Preview with Doug Armstrong 04:07:53 - Murls got Pearson’d Support the Show: PINK WHITNEY: Take Your Shot with Pink Whitney KRAKEN: Go to https://Kraken.com/Barstool and see what crypto can be.  PETER MILLAR: Head over to https://www.petermillar.com/CHICLETS to shop the Signature Sateen as well as the rest of Peter Millar’s lineup THE LATE GAME: Check out The Late Game—available now in Canada and the US on Apple TV--go to https://thelategame.com/stream for more places to watch LUCY: Get LUCY shipped straight to your door. Visit LUCY.CO/CHICLETS and use promo code CHICLETS to get 20% off your first order. Subscribe for another 15% off & shipping’s always free! BODYARMOR: Head on over to your local 7-Eleven & get your BODYARMOR SportWater today! LABATT BLUE: Find Labatt Blue Light at labattusa.com/finderYou 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, here's your love. They say a drunken speech is just so good. I like to poke a bear like a stir-fry. But then you come on in and take it up a notch. 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, and welcome to episode 524 of the Spittin' Up On Yourself podcast. I mean the Spittin' Chicklets podcast. We'll get into that in a little bit. I'm with Merle's. I'm'm with biz we got a bunch of special

guests this episode army will be joining us amongst many others and what an incredible weekend in london ontario for this chiclets cup now first we do need to talk about pink whitney right here that's why this show is presented by new amsterdam's pink whitney and this is the 1.75 liter bottle biz it's an absolute wagon it's almost as big as your nose. They look very similar. But everyone was enjoying it in London. Drinking age there is a 19. It's a little bit different than the States, but it was a hell of a weekend thanks to Pink Whitney.

We had a Pink Whitney party. We had a great time at the meet and greet, and it was a blast. And it's all because of New Amsterdam and Pink Whitney. So everyone, thank you for support and drinking that. And check out the birdie buckets. Check out the buckets. I'm getting a lot of messages

about people running into the buckets. But Biz, it's a sad day. And it's a great day for G and it's a great day for Merle and we'll get into that. But it's a sad day for the big deal selects. KC has struck out again. The mighty KC at bat

and the big deal selects are not the Maple Leafs. They're the Boston Red Sox from 1918 to 2004. You guys can't win the big one. And it was very unfortunate to be a part of, and it was a hell of an effort, but you lost again. You didn't even get to the finals again, biz.

Would you admit that that was the best team that we've assembled? And in that semifinal game, the saddest part about it too, is like the people, like locals can show up, it's open to anybody. So people are showing up expecting that we're going to be in the finals the past two years. And we haven't even made it out of the fucking

semis. So we ended up putting 40 shots on this team, this goaltender. I don't think anybody knew his name. They don't know. He might've been one of the crack hoons our army was talking about in London that was keeled over downtown that

they just picked up. Didn't even wear a jersey and net. And he put up 40 stops in that semifinal game where I think that they had 10 shots and they just figured us out. They blocked everything and

they had Radko Gudis. That's true. They had this dude. He was just a shot blocking machine. He was actually good. He scored some big goals too. And yes, I actually went in and talked to the team quick they probably hate me considering i'm chirping them non-stop on the podcast but it was an unreal effort they played great the guys you

brought in were phenomenal that well that was that was all terry the adjustments he made and some of that jp how do you say his last name m Moquine? Machine. Machine. He was a handsome bastard too. Yeah, yeah. Handlebar mustache. Looked like a starting quarterback on Friday Night Lights. Just like absolutely silling in it in London, Ontario. Hide your kids, hide your wives. But we just can't find an answer.

We just, we spit up on ourselves much like Don Sweeney said. The spit up on yourself podcast. The worst dad joke of all time. We spit up on yourself podcast. The worst dad joke of all time. We spit up on ourselves when we get in any type of controversy or any type of big game come Chicklets Cup time. And it's sad. It's sad. I don't know what the answer is. Now, there's even more rumblings coming in that like Yans is a big hater.

The big deal select. I was reading a lot of the comments online. Like we have, like people are calling us the Toronto Maple Leafs of ball hockey. The selects. I was reading a lot of the comments online. Like we have, like people are calling us the Toronto Maple Leafs of ball hockey. The frauds. We have all these good players, but just can't win the big one. Can't even get out of the semifinals.

So we're going to be going in the next Chicklets Cup with, I don't think many adjustments, but I think that it might be a loser goes home as Jans is talking about even maybe putting in his own team where he's saying, I'm so sick of these prima donnas coming in and being highlighted all over your Instagram and Twitter page where I'm going to put my own team

in. We're going to wax you. That's what he said. We're going to wax you. And then you're done. No more chicklets cups. Loser goes home. I will.

I'll make Yans this promise. He can put in a team next year. We'll be in the same division. My hope is to expand to 16 teams given the amount of uh professional ball hockey players are showing up and you see a lot of people also commenting online with like oh it's ball hockey who cares you fucking assholes put in a team and come see how you fare at the well i will i i will say like some friends at home are like well i want to put in a team. I go, this isn't street hockey.

This is probably the most intense off ice playoff, NHL, AHL hockey I've ever seen. Cross checks, hitting along the boards, butt ends. Like it's, it's, it's vicious.

It's very like the security, Danny and Jordan with us from Barstow. They were just, they were like dumbfounded. Like how is nobody getting killed out here? I say, cause these guys are tough. They're all in shape.

It is very fun to watch. You can chirp online and say what you want, but it is not like, if you're a street hockey player at home, this is not street hockey. This is like, it's like UFC basically in a little rink built by, uh,

Brad Jones and crew. And I think that after seeing the effort you guys put for, while you were frauds and you lost again, there isn much to complain about like you guys played your hearts out you ran into a great who collapsed as well he collapsed and they had that extra time out which is a goalie time out but it was about 10 minutes and people were chirping I was like let's go and the guy's like he's he's he's having a heat stroke yeah he legit and I guess he like completely collapsed two years ago so not I don't want a death on the hands of chicklets cup not only is the hockey hard but the elements the elements are hard because sometimes the sun's beating right in your eyes i mean even when we had

trevor gretzky play net in vegas he almost had a heat stroke as well uh one thing we do have to mention though or maybe some of the distractions coming in to the tournament for the big deal selects like i had terry r Ryan losing it on me on Wednesday night, thinking that he wasn't invited to some team party. That didn't exist. That didn't exist. And I'm yelling with him on the phone. I'm like, you're supposed to, we flew you in a day early

before we even get going before the live show to get some rest. And now you're all fucked up downtown. He's like, I'm not fucked up. I'm on shrooms. And I'm like, well, that's kind of the same thing. It doesn't really matter what substance you are, whether it's booze or shrooms, you should be in your hotel room,

11 o'clock curfew getting ready. The other one was con man. And we're going to have to be very sensitive about this because he was upset about, you know, kind of like some of the comments coming in. The weight jokes. Yeah, but you know, he ended up sitting out the first game.

He said, fuck you. I'm in salary arbitration. You want to call me out on your podcast? Every time you do so, I'm getting 500 texts from buddies, so fuck you. So he actually sat out the first game, so we rolled nine forwards, which I thought, or nine players, excuse me,

which I thought we looked really good with. And then we ended up losing that second game when he reinserted himself. So a lot of drama surrounding the big deal selects, but nonetheless, a valiant effort, very impressed 40 shots in that semifinal game. We ran into a hot goaltender, no excuses, play like a champ. And the last distraction, and I'm sure we're going to get into it soon, was Don Sweeney trying to throw a curve ball at me and considering I didn't even make the comments about how

he can't pay sway. You need to pay sway. Pay him! Pay sway! We'll get into that, but quickly, Merles, a D-Division champ, buddy. Easy living, easy cruising. You and Rob Schrempf on a D-Division team, kind of amazing, considering Rob Schrempf's one of the most skilled

players I've ever played with. Oh, Mer can't hear us. Yeah, Mer just, something happened to his headphones. Mer's out. You know what, Mer? We love you. We could fill in. Murr won with, I think it was the Upstate Stars, maybe? Upstate Stars. Upstate Stars. D Division. D Division, but his buddy, Big D, it was his 40th birthday, he played goalie.

So that was great for Murr and all those guys. And I can't imagine the seven-hour ride back to Troy, New York those guys had today. Robbie Shrimp was the best roller hockey player I think I've ever seen. Yeah, Robbie Shrimp, I said at the live show, walked so Trevor Zegers could run. Robbie Shrimp, if he came to the NHL these days,

I think would have a lot different career. It's just a different game. And he was kind of, I think he was like tortured a little bit, like trying some of these moves that are common now when he tried them, like it was more than like, don't ever try that again, even if it worked. Do you remember how we kind of were raised and came up in the game biz like yeah

anything flashy was not he said he even dealt with it a little bit in junior when he first got to their team from mississauga he threw like a saucer pass it was 20 feet in the air uh um like when he was last guy back and he ended up setting up a guy and uh and then i think he got back to the bench and dale hunter was like yeah we're we don't do that here but uh i think he got back to the bench and dale hunter was like yeah we don't do that here but i think he still kind of continued to do it regardless of what dale told him and lit the lamp for over 100 points in junior but he was incredible he didn't look down at the puck never not like his i don't think he made i don't think he knows what a roller puck even looks like considering he's always got his head up he's always got that peripheral vision buzzing

and uh just an absolute ringer and it was just great uh being able to do a sandbagger with him and prusty and and spend some time with him he's doing a lot of this video breakdown skill work skill work he's doing the stuff that daryl belfrey is doing adam oats to i don't know if they all do very similar stuff but he's been helping a lot of these young young kids excuse me come up and learn the game, especially from an offensive standpoint. And every touch matters, especially each level you get bumped up. So if you can sharpen your tools with getting everything as far as video and breaking it down and knowing what you're doing out there on the ice with every second, it's huge.

For him to play in the D division too, I thought it was hilarious. I walked up to the 9 a.m. game. Merles is playing against Colby. Some kid's like, dude, we signed up for the D division too. I thought it was hilarious. I walked up to the 9am game. Merles is playing against Colby. Some kid's like, dude, we signed up for the D division and there's three NHL players who were good players playing against us. Well, Merles' team was down 6-2

in the finals. So, I mean, obviously there was some sort of competition for them. Came back, got a big dub. G, congrats to you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And our first three games we only won by one goal so there was no sandbag i mean it was fair competition but i will say welcome back murr next year i used all my i used up all my luck this weekend in the championship games but next year we've already talked about it we're going to be men of honor and we will move

to roller c okay since we won. Well, it doesn't count until you win in the A division, as Biz said. I was hard on Grinnell, but he got it done in the A division. You know what he did? He came in the room, you weren't in there, and all the boys from Big Deal Selects were down, sitting there, just kind of having beers, and he came in, he goes,

you fucking losers. I was like, I won, you fucking lost. I said, I thought of it, I created it, and I won it, you fucking losers i was like i won you fucking lost and i said i thought of it and i created it and i won it you fucking losers dude i actually said fuck you grinnell i kind of like it i know he was the he was razor ramon they need a kick in the ass oh yeah be careful some of them are sensitive you don't want to do it too hard you don't want any of them to quit but i don't mind that g hopefully it lights another fire under their ass. So they can come back bigger,

better and stronger. And you deserve it. When you win, you could talk smack and you look great out there. You guys had great jerseys. Were they sponsored by CCM team CCM? So that I got free gear, gloves,

stick helmet, like everything. It was awesome. Yeah. Lazarus was on the team. He's on cup of hockey with Colby Cohen, a hockey daily show during the season. He was actually good.

He's incredible. I know he played at UMass. UMass and Mercyhurst. He was really good at ball hog. I was watching a couple of their games. So it was a blast. It was an amazing weekend in London. And I know some people are like, oh, enough with the Chicklets recap.

Well, this was our lives the past four days. And we had a great time. I actually flew in. And Jonesy took me to play Hamilton Golf Club. Like I know people that are listening that aren't maybe Canadian, even Canadians. This place, it blew me away, this course. Now the greens were a little messed up.

They had to fire the greenskeeper, but it was sight of the Canadian. Greenskeeper Willie? It was sight of the, yeah, the super dunzo. But the Canadian Open was there this year. Unreal course. Then like you mentioned the sandbagger, we were lucky enough to play Redtail, which is an exclusive, very private, I think 100 members.

Beautiful course. In the middle of nowhere in London. I'm talking we're on dirt roads going through farms. And you pull through these gates. We were like, holy shit. People were shocked we were allowed to do a sandbagger there. So thank you so much to them. I think people are really going to enjoy this video.

A little back to our roots on the sandbagger with a bunch of just hockey stories with these guys. Great dudes. We had a lot of fun. Thank you to Redtail. But I have to mention that Jonesy then took me. I hit some balls. I actually hit balls on Sunday morning or a Saturday morning before your guys semifinal game at London Hunt Club. And then he drove me around this course. I think it's one of the most beautiful tee to green golf courses I've ever seen in my life. I didn't even get to play it. And like, I'm not like Redtail, thank you so much for having us. But if you're talking first tee to 18th green, you cannot compare these two courses. That's my honest opinion.

A lot of people agreed with me. Some people didn't. Any of the boys members there? Doughty's a member. Perry's a member. Savrette's a member. There lot of people agreed with me. Some people didn't. Any of the boys members there? Doughty's a member. Perry's a member. Savrette's a member. There's a bunch of other guys, but dude, this course looked unreal.

I drove around. I think I drove like I saw 15 holes, but blown away. I can't wait to go back. We will have a Chicklets Cup in London again, and I'll definitely play the London Hunt Club. But how about the lowest moment of my weekend? I mentioned this to you.

This one was tough. And we talk about Pink Whitney and we appreciate everyone drinking it. And we had our Pink Whitney party, which was a blast. I actually went to get a drink and then stood and my feet moved like 360 degrees for an hour and 45 minutes. That was at Joe Cool's.

It was nuts. And I was moving around. So then we went over to another bar when it ended. Like, all right, let's just kind of decompress. And I think it was Deli. Delilah's spot now granted it's younger spot it's a college town but we had our little table in the back and it was 11 30 i was kind of a little tired i was i gotta go pee so i go up and i take a piss and i'm sitting there and some kids like wit wit dog and i'm like hey what's up man he's like holy shit i love chicklets i love banquet

he thanks you can we get a picture yeah Yeah. Can I finish hosing, dude? Yeah, yeah, sure. So I go out, and as I'm walking out, he was with like five or six guys, and they had like three or four girls with him. And I don't know what was said to this girl, but it must have been something like, that's the Pink Whitney guy, or like, that guy's from Spitting Chicklets. But I didn't hear that. All I heard was this girl say that fucking old guy

dude i felt this big the ugliest oldest and i took the picture and i walked directly downstairs and i look at you guys and i go see you later boys and i walked right out and i actually didn't walk right out i missed the exit and it was so nuts to butts in there that I went all the way to the end. And the guys said, you can't leave here. It's back where you came from. So I had to go back. And all these people are like, oh, my God, wait a little longer to be in here. I was like, I'm going to fucking jump off a roof when I get back.

I was just feeling very down on myself for being an old, old man. But it was a great weekend. It was unreal. So thank you. We have a bunch of thank yous. It was the first ever Chicklets Cup in Canada as well. So thank you guys for, I mean, agreeing to do that as well as the sponsors. Sometimes it's hard to like the cross border stuff.

So shout out to Body Armor, Kraken, Pink Whitney, of course. And that's it. Those, those are, those are the three major sponsors. And we have a lot of thank yous, obviously, for setting all this up, whether it was Jonesy's team or of course the Barstool staff who they put so many hours into this. We've also mentioned before, it was originally G's idea, but it takes a lot of people to put

this thing together and just even all the locals showing up, it made it a very special weekend. I got to see my sister, her kids and my brother in law, Paul. Yes, my brother in law's name, Paul, if you're a new listener and I've already explained the story, so you're gonna have to go a new listener and I've already explained the story so you're going to have to go back

and listen. I've been asked not to bring this up ever again by your sister. Paul. Yes, I walked in on Paul thumping Natalie. She literally is begging me not to do it

and you're doing it. When I was there for brunch. I met the, the Paul I met was not the Paul that was crushing her but it was another Paul, her husband Paul

so I don't want to go there, but you just brought it up and I can't help myself now. Quickly, yeah, quick thank yous. I do want to give out a bunch of thank yous. I know Biz just said that, but Taylor Rae and Mariah, Brad Jones, Joe Cool, Centennial Hall, the City of London, Pink Whitney, Barter Armor, Kraken, Avid, Donors, who bought G, Merle's and Army. We auctioned off G, Merle's and Army. I believe Merle's and Army went for right around a thousand to 1100.

1400. Okay. I want to say that Merles went for 1300 and then, uh, uh, is it who, who, who bid on you?

What's his name again? Big D. Dan. They, they bumped up their donation to match what army was bought. So $1,400 and, and the Terry Fox, uh,

foundation, which apparently all across Ontario and maybe even Canada, they're having kids participate where they're starting to do these runs every day. So getting the kids more active and also to bring more awareness around Terry Fox, because some of these younger kids have no idea who he is.

This guy's a legend. He might be the most famous Canadian ever based on what he did in order to provide, you know, uh, money and fundraising for cancer research and running across Canada. It's just insane. So a great, a great cause. And I know that we were getting maybe a little bit of flack wit for at least online, you know, Instagram, these people are lunatics because we talked to, well, we're, we're going to donate a thousand dollars for every time that Ovechkin scored a goal to the alumni program, which goes to a great cause.

So they were like, Oh, close to our hearts, close to our hearts. So we figured, Hey, for every time that Ovechkin scored a goal to the alumni program, which goes to a great cause. So they were like, oh, how close to our hearts. That's close to our hearts. So we figured, hey, why not switch that donation up and go towards the Terry Fox Foundation? So I'm sure they'll find a way to rip on that too, but nonetheless, both great causes. And it's also like Breast Cancer Awareness Month is next month.

So we're doing a ton. We have a ton planned for merchandise. And so we're going to take care of cancer. We're going to cross that bridge. We're going to snap it around to a lot of different places. Exactly. There's a lot of people we can help with our platform and we're going to do that. I love that. Trying to bring us down, guys. Jeez, we're just trying to help different groups of people. That's it. That's all we're trying to do.

I guess that kind of wraps up Chicklets Cup. An awesome weekend. I got one more. What's up, man? I love that. I figured you have something. Brendan Muir gave me this chain. I think he made one for the Big Deal Selects, too. Unbelievable. It worked perfectly. Once I won the trophy, I had this on.

I don't know if you guys said it already, but the boys from Upstate Stars from Troy, New York, we took the cup out last night. We were out on the town. We had, I think, half of London drank out of the Roller D Chicklets Cup last night. Great time. Great great event as always. It's the best event Barstool has. Is it like the best event in the world? I can't think of something that's even better than that.

Like hockey, good people. There's never any problems. Bunch of drinks. It's amazing. I love it. Well, there's problem on the big deal select. I was going to say there's plenty of problems on one team I know of. Says the three guys who won a fucking championship.

Yeah, exactly. The only loser here is Biz once again. Although I was technically somewhat of a coach. I'm a loser as well. I couldn't do anything to help. A lot of people are like, why don't you play? Dude, because as I said, the pace and the physicality, I wouldn't make the team. I didn't get one shift.

And at least I know that. At least I know that. I went in as a healthy scratch thinking maybe I would get in the team. I didn't get one shift. And at least I know that. At least I know that. I went in as a healthy scratch thinking maybe I would get in the game and given the competition because we've been talking about it all these years, it's elevated and I didn't even end up getting one shift, me and the on the bench guys. So we were there filling water bottles and just

being peasants. Biz, can I ask if you do do this competition with Jans at the next Chicklets Cup, does he have to play and are you going to play in the next one? We'll see. We'll talk about everything that's going to happen with that next podcast, because actually, uh,

game notes is going to go off next podcast can prepare for the launch of their season, which will be coming to you every Friday. I want to say at noon or we do, we decide 11 o'clock. So it's noon every Friday on the spit and chicklets YouTube channel. So next week, Yans will be joining us and we're going to have a full out Donnie Brooke.

We're going to have a discussion. We're going to have a discussion. Well, I guess that leads into the main story for our podcast this week besides the Chicklets Cup. And that is a GM, a general manager being Don Sweeney, deciding to really make fun of us and say that I'm not credible and I don't know what I'm talking about

and renamed our podcast with the worst dad joke of all time. So why don't we throw it to that clip and then we can discuss. What specifically inaccuracies are? Go ahead and ask me a specific one. If you've got knowledge of it, like that we haven't offered an eight year deal or we haven't, you know, we're not willing to compromise or we haven't moved on things like in a day, I'm not talking about specifics. You're not going to, you're just not going to compromise. We haven't moved on things. Like, in a day, I'm not talking about specifics. You're just not going to get it. But, you know, the fact, I did reference ones, as a matter of fact. I think it's bullshit that somebody says, I wouldn't return a call for three weeks.

There. That's inaccurate. Was it written? Was it said? Was it written? That one, I'm not sure. Well, I will tell you, you know, I don't listen to podcasts as I said my son loves you know loves biz thinks he's fabulous and he's a great entertainer

but at the end of the day they're inaccurate and that's okay because that's all part of the business nowadays it's okay if you turn around and say it's your opinion or your belief and such but don't report it as fact that's all listen to everybody you know bark at you for doing things right or wrong.

You have to put the earmuffs on at times. You know, I laugh because my son loves the, you know, the Spit Up On Yourself podcast. And he, yeah, I did that on purpose, Joe, you're right. Because I'll go back to the inaccuracies of what everybody's reporting. And, you know, it's great entertainment. It's great entertainment. But at the end of the day, you know, it's not a lot of fact-checking going on there. So that part of the business, you've got to recognize.

This city is awesome for that because they want their teams to win. Well, there it is, folks. We're making waves again. Preseason. Babcock last year and now Don Sweeney, the Harvard nerd, coming at us, coming at me. And in a way, making what I thought was an obvious mistake that Biz had mentioned the three weeks no discussion and the contract offer when in actuality it was me. Well, it turns out he knew it was me. And I don't – I'm not going to share any info because paul that

was a conversation you had but he he there is there is a legitimate um uh what is the word right conflict and gripe between don sweeney doesn't like me and i'm not a big don sweeney fan i'm just going to be honest i'm not and i respect the hell i believe since he's taken over the bruins they have the most points in the nhl yeah since he became gm and he's made some great moves and they haven't won a cup but they've been very close and they're consistently a top team in the league so i will not judge his uh body of work because they've had a really good team their prospect pool is very bare but i knew don sweeney or didn't know him i met don sweeney a long time ago and he wasn't very friendly or very nice to me. Now I was training and I was working out right as I defenseman in a day and age when that was hard to do. So as a player and as a general manager, like he has made a hell out of a career for

himself, but he wasn't the friendliest guy. So I really don't care. I don't really care at all that he doesn't like me. And that's obvious, but I will say this. I gave that report and I got that report from a very, very credible source. who's been correct on a lot of things he's told me that I haven't always shared. And he's been early on a lot of those things. And I got that report and I gave it out. And now if you want to talk about delays and with a player and his agent and a team in contract and not talking for a little while and delays and talking to one another, I understand

that throughout the course of a negotiation. What I thought was very, very weird and odd, though, was that I never caught any flack or nobody ever fought back on the offer that was given, which was the offer. But for some reason, he's saying that I was incorrect on the three weeks. Now, I sometimes or somewhat think it's kind of semantics in that maybe he didn't indirectly not return Jeremy Swayman's call. But I will say this, this entire negotiation was fumbled from the beginning. That is my opinion on it. It was fumbled from the beginning when you decided to trade Allmark before you had a deal with Swayman. You decided to not take Swayman to arbitration, right? That

could have locked him up for one or two years. You could have punted this down the road, but none of that happened. And all of the leverage was put into Jeremy Swayman's camp. And this guy, I do not think personally he's going to give in. I don't know where this goes from here, but his agent also represented William Nylander. And when did he hold out, Tobiz? December.

Right around December. Right around December. So now I think Don Sweeney's taking out his frustration on really fumble fucking this entire negotiation on me a little bit and indirectly on you because he didn't even want to say my name no no we're buddies that's fine yeah you guys are buddies you guys are buddies but i just don't understand not talking that long to a camp and and i i stand by what i was told right like he's gonna call me a liar i think he's fudging a little bit the truth now who knows right i guess maybe the truth somewhere in

the middle but i knew the offer and it was a low ball slap in the face offer and this is a player's podcast i like discussing what helps players and jeremy swayman was very open in discussing he does not want to ruin the goalie market so i don't see this kid giving in i really don't i think eight times 8.2 eight times eight gets the deal done but it seems like that is not on the table on the bruins end and it seems maybe if like the frustration from sweeney and and kind of showing his cards that he is frustrated but probably will hurt him as far as a price tag even more moving forward would you not agree like so much is riding on the start for Corpo solo.

Like if Corpo solo has a tough first 10 games, they got a tough schedule in October. The noise of that fan base is going to get so ridiculous that they're going to have to cave in and probably give swimming what he wants. And I mean, if you're going to try to, you go to arbitration last year and I think we

should even back up even further. People are probably wondering like, why did they deal Allmark? There was a reason why they dealt Allmark when they did, because at that time, if July 1st hits, his no-trade list of teams could have changed, and they thought that they wouldn't have been able to get as good of a deal as they were getting with Ottawa, which surprised me a little bit. Considering that you're supposed to worry about your team, whereas if you wanted to lock in Swayman for the number that you wanted to,

you have so much more leverage with Allmark. Because even if he is sitting at home to December 1st, you got a Vezina winner in net from two years separated as a Vezina winner. Yeah, Swayman was the better goalie last year, but Allmark still had a decent season. Like we can't throw that off. That's my thing is that this team has been built the past few years on great goaltending and yes it's been a tandem so you decide to trade one of the really good goalies and you let your new number one drift in the wind

throughout all summer it the the i i i i understand being a gm is very difficult i would never even really get how hard it is because you're balancing all these different players and egos and contracts and agents. But when your number one goalie is drifting around without a deal and there's not much communication, let it be two weeks, three weeks, one week. I don't know. I'm standing by what I said. That is crazy to me. It's crazy when your team has been built on defense and goaltending. So that's why I say this negotiation has been fumble fucked. And now. I'm also surprised that they wouldn't have thought that it wouldn't have been as easy given what we heard about the arbitration hearings. Where I think that Swayman really left those feeling like he wasn't confident maybe he would be in the organization long based on what they were saying about him.

Right? Like I feel like there was a little bit of tension here based like we always joke around with a small cock bad breath like you know two pump chomp teammates don't like them about what they're throwing at these players in order to get their confidence down so maybe they cave in to a certain number man they probably could have locked in swayman last summer at like a six times six well because they're coming off uh om, Omar went in the Vesna too. What? Well,

that's true, but you still know that you have a young prospect goalie and then you only have all Mark for one more year remaining on his contract after this year would have been up when you had to re-sign Swayman. So two years separated. Do you guys get what I'm saying? Yes, I do.

But, but okay. So yeah. You want to go to my conversation with Swayman or with Sweeney? With Don? Yes. He called me twice the one day. I didn't know whose number it was.

And then I, and then I caught wind that he was trying to reach out to me and it was a mass number. I mean, it wasn't a long conversation. I'd say the first 10 minutes was me trying to beg him to get Phil Kessel a PTO in Boston. And then it just transferred over to like him saying that he didn't really want any smoke with me. I said, I don't really want any smoke with anyone, especially a GM in the national hockey league.

But some of the comments that he made kind of made me feel that he, he, he just doesn't like you. Oh, I think he hates me. So I had no idea that there was like a prior riff. And I don't, there was never a,

like, I didn't know him, but he, like I said, he's working out and he's this dialed in like underside defenseman. And a lot of guys work out and they stick to themselves. That's what he did. But I just think of the other guys that I'm friendly with that were awesome veterans.

So he didn't owe me anything, but I'm also like kind of a prick sometimes myself. And I was like, oh, this guy's kind of grumpy. So I never really rooted for him. And I've never really rooted for him as the Bruins GM. And that's just kind of how it was. He's a Harvard nerd. Now, now I don't care at all if he doesn't like me i really don't it's not like i don't like the guy like personally like i want something bad to happen to him dude it's just like you just what you wouldn't dab him up if you saw him yeah it's just like whatever don sweeney i don't care like i i like I, I had news about this entire contract negotiation and you're so mad about it.

I mean, how mad was that guy in that press conference? He flipped out out of nowhere. And I stand by what I said. What do you, what do you, what do you think the rest of the round table? Cause we often talk about,

you know, he's the GM and he's ultimately making the final decision, I'm sure. But you know, he's probably consulting with guys like Cam Neely and the rest of that round table. What do you think they made of that outburst after that press conference?

That was probably unbeknownst to them that he was going to bring up our podcast and maybe take a personal shot at me, but actually you. I don't know. I don't, I, I, I, who knows? Like these teams and these guys are so calculated, not the Bruins guys, like all these GMs and presidents. But there's nothing, there's nothing being calculated

about going after a podcast when you haven't signed your number one goalie. Like there's some idiot Bruins fans who are like, oh, these guys are always reporting fake news. Well, yeah, sometimes we do rumor boys for fun. Like everything you said was basically correct other than the discrepancy about the fact that he maybe didn't return his call for three weeks where there was radio silence still just

as bad the fact that you're not talking to your your star goalie for three weeks but nonetheless yeah and i i think that swayman now now on the bright side of things for bruins fans i feel like these type things they can like end boom all of a sudden something switches something flips and the team comes or the player starts panicking a little bit because while Swayman holds the cards right now there is there is worry for him like say the Bruins are like no I don't care we're not giving in like then he's like I gotta play hockey this year right like there there is some risk for him but from the fans and from the Bruins fans I've talked to and seen like they are like signed Swayman you traded all mark you haven't signed Swayman we signed Zdorov we signed Lindholm we're all dialed in to have a really good

team again and you don't have your goalie signed and not only do you not have him signed you gave him an offer that is a slap in the face and that's why i do wonder along with the arbitration where you said it was kind of like with the arbitration hearing like maybe they don't really have the trust in him for the future well now how would you change your opinion on that with the offer they gave like what signs have they showed that they really believe in him that's what i think i think that's what's going on i i feel like they believe in their team and maybe the system that they can plug anybody in there. And any goalie is going to be good. So they're confident with Corpus All.

They're confident with the decor. They know that system. Every goalie is good there whenever they go there. Okay, so maybe that's it. And that is a great call by you, Murr, where they're more like, it's like, what NFL, I'm trying to think, there's a team that's like a system team. Like San Francisco 49ers, like people say like anyone could play QB on that team, right?

Like maybe the Bruins with Monty System and Bob Assesna, I can't say his name, I'm sorry, Bob. Maybe they're like, I don't, we don't need to pay Swayman what he wants, but Bruins fans would disagree with that right now. And that is, I guess, we can kind of wrap this thing up. You got anything else, Murr? About the Bruins?

Yes. About the Bruins, this whole situation, I think it's hilarious. I think we had a couple good ideas going. We were going to make a bib. What's that on there? The spitting up on yourself? It's going to be interesting when we go to a bruins game this winter and the reaction wick gets i he said he would get dragged out of there and go dead body so i thought no if they tried dragging me out which i don't think they would i

think we're making this sound a lot bigger than it is i would i would go portnoy dead body and like you know why why and ride a bit why is my dad dead body getting dragged out right now but well the bruins did reach out after the fact, after all this happened, and we're like, we love you guys. This is between Don and you guys. We love you guys. We're still willing to give you guys players to come on the show. I think we need you and Don with the sumo outfits on

at center ice at a Bruins game. He's pretty ripped up. Oh, he's jacked. He's jacked. I don't know if I want a piece of that. But, yeah, so it's also GM's bringing up our podcast on pre-training camp meetings with the media is amazing. So Don, thank you for the clicks, baby.

Thank you for the clicks, even though you hate me. Yeah. Okay, so moving on from there. We can go, I guess, to Detroit, staying in the Atlantic. And also, this is... Oh, teams that can actually lock in their superstars? That's a good transition. This is a Central Division preview show, but some big news out of Detroit.

And that news is that they signed up two of their future and current stars to long-term deals. That's Lucas Raymond to an eight-year contract with an AAV of 8.05. So that's just over 64 million for eight years. And then a couple of days later, Maureen cider, the machine to a seven-year deal with an AAV of 8.55. So amazing news for red,

red wings fans. This is what this is. Excuse me. This is what Bruins fans wanted is right before camp. Let's get our guys signed. Let's get these just start events.men who's never missed a game. And Raymond, who popped off last year and is a very high pick and going to be a star in this league.

Let's get him signed up and we're ready to go. We got Tarasenko in. We got Kane coming back. It's Larkin signed up. Boom. And it happened. And I love both of those deals. And Biz, I think you said it best.

This is what. That's what an eight times eight should look like. After those seasons, you're saying. Like just, absolutely. I mean, you just touched on Sider. He's played all 82 games all three years. So as far as durability, he had 50 points his first year. He ends up winning the Calder trophy.

The last two years, he's had 42 points. Like, I still think there's room to grow for him from an offensive perspective. I still think there's room to grow for him from an offensive perspective, but even if it doesn't happen, his, his durability and his toughness at both ends of the ice is exactly what you want in a defenseman. He's a throwback. In my opinion,

is he as, as tough and as mean as Chris Pronger? Absolutely not. But from today's standards, in my opinion, I could see him being that type of, of, of tough and that type of player moving forward

he's a foundational piece on the back end that is a huge fucking contrast to lock up he gets seven years and obviously i think that he deserves a little bit more than lucas raymond as a defenseman he's playing a little bit more minutes we talked about the fact he's played all 82 did win the calder and yeah you're the the, the reason that seven-year contract happened and it wasn't eight-year is they wanted to keep the number under Dylan Larkin. So Dylan Larkin, the captain, I think he's pulling in, what, eight, seven AAV on an eight-year deal.

So showing respect to the captain and not wanting to make more of them. As far as Lucas Raymond's concerned, the reason that I think he deserves it, his first two years were fine. But last year, especially even when Larkin went down, he was controlling the play out there. That second half of the season, he was dominant. He clawed their way close to getting into the playoffs, and he was their star player. He led their team in scoring last year. Probably wouldn't have happened if Larkin wouldn't have been out with that concussion.

But nonetheless, a 30-goal guy, he had 40 assists. He can make plays. He can put the puck in the back of the net. He's an incredible skater. He wins battles like these are foundational pieces. And if I'm a Red Wings fan, I am so thrilled to get this done and over with right before camp. You're going in with that jubilation and that excitement. Maybe this is the year we end this playoff drought and we get back in there. We got our guys locked in's fucking go so i couldn't be more pumped for the eiser plan and everybody in detroit and these are two guys who really deserve these eight times eight yeah they've done enough and and cider you mentioned didn't miss a game raymond's only missed eight games in his career so he was 82 74 82 in terms of games played his first three years.

So like, what's the best ability biz? Availability. Yeah. That a boy. So I love it. Zero distractions going into camp for them. And just think about that.

If cider keeps progressing, like we think to have him in five years for 8 million, that's when number one D are going to be getting 12 or 15 million by then so what a move same with raymond a 30 goal guy is going to be worth 12 million in five years and they're going to have them for eight great things ahead for them they just got to find a goalie you you think marie cider could be a 60 point defenseman maybe like a 15 20 goal guy 40 assists i feel like he could be a headman you know he's just he's out there he's doing everything power play penalty kill logging 29 30 minutes certain nights for you so that's that's a guy i always will pay and for eight million now it's gonna be an awesome deal also you got like

this simon edvinson like this kid's coming and this is another top 10 pick that can fly. That's about six, six, another suite. So like Detroit is in a good spot, but just having them locked in is just, it's an amazing feeling for their fan base is what it is. And I think that there was probably, especially coming into this season, maybe a little bit more pressure on the eyes or plan.

I think this loosens the collar a little bit right now. There's a, there's a reinstilled, even more trust from the fan base. Like we believe in this guy he probably had great meetings with their agent locking these guys into fair deals because if we're being honest here i think that both guys could have held out and got more money like let's just be real here right yeah i i would think i would think maybe but that's like buddy brock faber just got eight and a half and marie cider is making the same amount i think from a body of work perspective, I would take Cider all day long over Faber,

Minnesota Wild fans, and even Billy G who was coming on later might scald me for that. But nonetheless, man, that's a great deal. Yeah. So, I mean, look at their, we won't even get into them. The Atlantic is next week, but a nice top six. But Merle did mention goaltending, a little bit of a question mark, but we'll see. We will see another signing and a no holdout situation is in new jersey so that idiot lunatic psychopath pasha was celebrating in our face at chicklets called the devils re-signed dawson

mercer and what a deal this is for the team also for the player it was a three-year deal for 12 million bucks this is a guy hasn't missed a game has played this season struggled a little bit i think okay like obviously with the injuries to the devils and what happened offensively it was it was understandable everyone struggled a little bit there but now you got this guy i was thinking it would be a two-year deal for for four a year at eight but then the devils and fitzy got in that other season that third year where that's probably the year that you'll see like, wow, this is not a $4 million player. It could happen this year. It could happen next year.

But definitely three years from now, what I've seen from Dawson Mercer, the smarts, like we always talk hockey IQ. He has that. That's why he played in the league as such a young player. All of a sudden, you got three seasons from now and he's playing. He's playing for $4 million. And that's already not even included with with jack hughes making eight that jack hughes is the best contract in the league now so awesome work by fitzy he had a great quote this week too i think it was his pre-training camp

um media availability what was uh asked and what they were looking for this season in their signings and he just said no dickheads i don't want any dickheads so i do get a kick out of that um some gms come at us and some gms just say i don't want any dickheads on my team i don't want any dickhead podcasters talking about me in terms of don trini so i think that mercer's a nice deal i think the devils are in an awesome spot we already went over the metro they're my favorite to win that division and this just got rid of any distractions now they're just ready to go ready to get get into the season and devils fans were fired up for that signing i couldn't agree more on that and getting that third year

at that number i think that uh with uh the height of expectations if you kind of look at like tampa can he be that anthony sorelli could he be that you know maybe that's maybe that, in some cases, maybe second-line center, maybe third-line center who could just really dominate and chew up other teams' second or third line? So just a great signing, and yeah, that's going to help them moving forward here. They got an absolute juggernaut. Merle, how much did you like the signing? Yeah, he's awesome. I love that guy, and I think this is going to help him. I feel like he maybe had some pressure last year. He knew the the contract was up he didn't play the same way as he did

before but again two or three years from now it's gonna it's gonna be laughable that he's making four million when he's scoring 30 35 goals and he could be a stanley cup champion by then too so no shit great deal good job fitzy that could actually line in perfectly with him really crushing like i think he would be ufa at the end of that three years i guess i'm not sure exactly So great deal. Good job, Fitzy. That could actually line in perfectly with him really crushing. Like, I think he would be UFA at the end of that three years, I guess. I'm not sure exactly. Maybe you can look that up, G. But Palat, Heashier, Bratt, and then Meyer, Jack Hughes, and Dawson Mercer as possible top two lines.

Look out this year in New Jersey. I guess also with the signing news. Now, we are talking the Central, but there was a couple Central signings. One of them being kind of shocking news, and that was Utah signing Dylan Gunther to a long-term extension after how many games played biz? So he had a tough training camp last year, and they actually sent him down at the start of the year,

but he wasn't poopy pants. He didn't sulk at all. He went down to the Roadrunners in Tucson. He played great and then got called up, I think halfway through the year and put up some really good, impressive numbers. And just from like,

I mean, I went on that hike with Bedard. I talked about, did the gross grind with him. He was like talking about him. Like, man, this guy is going to be special.

Any guy you talk to on the coyotes last year, they absolutely love them. A great locker room guy and just has an incredible shot. A great one time with good just has an incredible shot. A great one-timer with good release. He's just a crafty gamer. That's the only way to describe him. Probably not the biggest guy and has to put on some size and some weight and get a little bit more muscle so he can compete in the corners. But he's a guy who has world junior experience. I want to say, did he score the game winner in the world juniors?

Yep. Yep. Yeah, he score the game winner in the world juniors? Yep. Yep. Yeah. He's an overtime winner. Overtime winner. So he's played in some, some high level situations and he's just an absolute gamer. Giving that type of money to a guy who hasn't even, I don't think he's played 82 games yet in his career.

There's always a little bit of risk involved, but I mean, if this guy gets to where everybody expects him to get this is going to be an absolute steal but i can i can understand some people saying hey you're being a hypocrite because you're saying oh handing out these eight times eights for nothing well this is a prime example of it but if billy strongarm thinks this is the right move this could be a huge catalyst for this team moving forward with guys like lo Cooley and some other young studs in the pipeline like those Russian defensemen they drafted a few years ago so they got a good base they got Schmaltz and Kells on that first line uh Lawson Kraus so they have some good foundational

pieces in Utah and they lock up another one so as much as some people were surprised by this I think that people who know what his game is like and where it's going to head to aren't, and they think that that's a bargoon. It's just, it's a risk and it's very calculated. And if, if it hits, it's amazing, but you need it to hit. You got it. You, you, you cannot have these deals turn out to be bust where players don't ever turn into that type of like score getting paid that much money, but you just got trust the gm if you're a utah fan and i think that when we talk to liam o'brien we'll be dropping that interview in a little bit he talked about dylan genther and and what his shot is actually like so i think from like hearing from a teammate is a little more valuable than like talking to maybe media members and stuff

because this kid's seeing it he's seeing it in practice he's seeing it right now in their pre training camp skates and it's like all right i get it i completely get it and if it does hit like the jack hughes one you are laughing for the next eight years or seven years and i know it's not nhl competition but even aside from the world juniors he's won two western league titles so he's been playing a lot of playoffs over the last three four years in big games and he's able to produce so he i i forget who the first western league title years in big games and he's able to produce. So I, I forget who the first Western league title he won, but I think he went to Seattle and then won one with them. So, I mean, this guy has won three championships. Uh, he he's proven that he can

play at the NHL level when he gets his feet underneath them. And once he gains that extra half a step lookout, I think he's going to be a very, very special player. And I can't reinforce this enough. Kind of like a Fitzy said, New Jersey, no dickheads, a great kid. I think he's going to be a very, very special player. And I can't reinforce this enough. Kind of like a Fitzy said, New Jersey, no dickheads, a great kid. I think they have so many good people in that Utah organization and including coach bear, and he's going to work with them and he'll be a full-time NHL or, and producing my assumption would be this year. I think he's going to get 30 goals this year. Bedard said he could be a 50 goal guy in the NHL. I would say he's going to get 30 goals this year. Bedard said he could be a 50-goal guy in the NHL.

I would say he's going to get 30 and 30 for his first year under this name. Buddy, he had 18 and 45 games last year. I know, I know. So that is not a reach. I think he's getting 30 guaranteed this year. There was a couple other signings with Dallas. They extended the contract of Esa Lindell and Thomas Harley, which was enormous.

We'll get into that actually a little bit more because that is another central team. I guess other than that the canucks signed goalie kevin lankan into a one year 875 000 deal which is kind of demko insurance i i would think with his injury and the news about that even though he is good to be skating now and the edmonton oilers brought in a veteran winger mike hoffman on a professional tryout. The team announced that. And this is like, I don't know if he could stick. I don't know. He'd probably have to be a top two line player for them.

But you go back. And now, granted, this was starting 10 years ago. But he went 27 goals, 29, 26, 22, 36, 29. Granted, the last four seasons, it's been a lot different. He's gotten older. But man, that guy can shoot a puck. And I don't know if he finds a place on the Oilers roster, but interested to hear that he was coming in on a PTO for Edmonton.

Yeah, I don't think he's got the best of boots. He's a little bit on the slow side. So to keep up with that Edmonton team and the pace they play at might be a little bit difficult, but who knows? I mean, I don't really... He's 34. He doesn't have a spot on that first unit. I think that's, I think that's been solidified. So it might be hard to squeeze them in, but a good Yans loves them. Yans loved having them around in Florida.

So he's, he's a glue guy type guy. So maybe he'll fit in with that locker room and you never know with injuries in training camp. Everyone's trying to go to Edmonton. Everybody wants a taste of the cup. They know they're going back. The times have changed changed people used to be begging to get out of there and now they're just loving life if the oilers call you on july 1st skinner and arberton and god we can't wait to celebrate that stanley cup so uh with that i think it's time to go to the central division

preview biz do you have anything else for us before we go over there no we got some stuff later on that we'll get into more news. But yeah, we're going to dive into the season previews for the Central. I'm looking forward to it. It's kind of a weird division. I'm interested to see who you guys got in and got out. Like, you know, Minnesota, that's a cusp team. There's some other teams in there.

I'm curious. Utah, like what do you guys think of them? So I think we're going to start off with the Colorado Avalanche. And actually, we're going to bring in a former Avs player to help us break that down in John Michael Lyles. This podcast is presented by Kraken, one of the longest standing and most secure crypto platforms in the world. Kraken is your guide to financial freedom, offering safe and simple access to crypto for all. Trusted by over 13 million individuals, traders, and institutions around the world, Kraken offers professionals 24-7, 365 client support,

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Kicking off the Central Division preview now, we got John Michael Lyles, a good friend of the show, good friend of all of ours, joining in to talk about the team we're starting with. That's his Colorado Avalanche, and he's in his wine cellar. Go ahead, Ben. I was going to ask, you got a glass poured right now? What are you drinking for this interview? You know what i i uh i did have a glass i just finished

it um but i i need yeah i was being a pro i'm i'm holding off we had a we were camping this weekend as a family so i needed to lay on the plate after uh after two nights of camping okay yeah camping's just like uh family talk for a little bit. Where do you go camping? You got, you set up the tents or do you have one of those RVs? We have a, we have a sprinter van,

um, with like beds and kitchen and stuff like that. So we went to the Western slope. So, uh, like two hours West of, uh, of the mountains,

kind of like, um, Western Colorado on the, on the Colorado river. Oh, that's amazing. Any fishing? Yeah, do you guys go hiking and stuff?

Do you kind of teach them the outdoors, how to live off the land? No, I'm the last person to teach anybody how to live off the land. But my daughters were fishing with their friends. Yeah, we, you know, throwing the ball. We went in, there's a place called Palisade there. You know, really cool little town, great restaurants near Grad Junction and a lot of beers.

And a few other things. And then right back to the wine cellar to talk some hockey. And then right back to the wine cellar. I love that. Well, quickly, before we talk about the team, we can bring up the departures and the arrivals. Zach Parisi's gone.

He retired. Andrew Cogliano's gone. He retired. Pavel François is retired. Sean Walker's in Carolina. Jakob Trennan's in Minnesota. Brandon Duhame's in Washington. Jack Johnson's in Columbus. Ivan Proziskov goalie's in the KHL. I don't know that. Caleb Jones is in LA. They brought in Parker Kelly. They brought in Calvin DeHaan. Oliver Shillington, I believe is how you pronounce his last name. Eric Brandstrom was the former first round pick of Vegas. He could possibly replace Bowen Byram. I'm hearing Jacob McDonald and Matthew Phillips. What are you thinking here, Johnny? What are you thinking? I think the big question that everyone's thought about or asked is will Nachushkin play this season? Have you heard anything in that storyline?

Well, I think that he's more than likely going to play um i would be shocked if he didn't play in one form or another i think it's a matter of you know when he comes back in november um you know what does that look like is is you know i see he you know at the top of his game um you know can he step right back in and uh i mean it's it's a big question mark man he's man. He was a huge loss last year against Dallas. Now that's a couple years in a row, playoffs,

where they lose him to circumstances that not an injury. It's a big question mark. The other big one is Gabriel Lanskov. I saw him recently actually up here in vale um for a little bit of connor's wagon and he is absolutely shredded

right now i mean he hasn't played in two years but he's been working his butt off he's skating um you know what does that look like when when you know if and when he comes back i don't i don't think it's going to be right at the beginning of the season but um you know could it be sometime in november when when nitschushkin's back and and you know is you know i see a guy that can he play every night or is it a one game on you know two games off kind of situation and you know how does that knee feel um you know there's there's a lot of question marks surrounding that but i know he's working you know working really hard to get back so it'll be interesting to see definitely some question marks there is it a situation like thatcher thatcher demko where they're saying that it's the possibility that he's going to have to just play with pain

isn't the rest of his career is that going to be a situation for landis gog where even when he's practicing he has to constantly ice it after practice and stay on top of it you know i mean i think it remains to be seen just because he hasn't played games. I mean, I know he was in a tremendous amount of pain that year that they won the Cup in 2022 and, you know, came back for training camp and just couldn't seem to get through that pain.

And, you know, they were trying everything they could. And ultimately, I think this is, you know, pretty much a last resort for him. So, you know, hopefully it's something that he can manage and the pain isn't too severe in this surgery. Yes, it's taken a long time to recover from it, but hopefully he can get back to a point where he is able to play

regularly and not have pain. You know, I came into the league with Peter Forsberg playing and he was practicing six times a year and playing games. I guess that could be a possibility if it's something where

it gets inflamed or it bothers him if he's practicing and skating too much. But if he's able to play, they'll take him any way they can get him because he's the guy that sets the tone. Yeah, Nathan McKinnon, obviously the MVP and tremendous player, but Dave Landeskog is that guy in the room that everybody looks to,

and he does everything the right way. That's part of my understanding, too. McKinnon's obviously extremely intense, but he was the guy who would keep him a little bit more even keel, where you would have the good cop, bad cop. So with his absence, it kind of seems like maybe the tension levels are maybe a little bit too high in some cases. Now that's nothing against McKinnon. Cause we all talk about that MJ comparison where he doesn't give a fuck. You're, you're bringing a hundred percent day

in and day out. And that's why we love the guy. And that's why he's the dog. But, uh, with, in a world where there is no land of scog and there is no in the Chushkin to start the year at least. And Lekkonen to start the year. And Lekkonen. This doesn't look like a lineup that could win a Stanley Cup. This looks like a very average team aside from their top guys. Listen, it's going to be, you know what?

You're going to have a lot more pressure on Nathan McKinnon without Val Nachushkin. You're going to have a lot more pressure on Cale McCarr. I think, you know, Cale McCarr. I think Cale McCarr came into the season last year. He had some things that were maybe hampering him a little bit. You could see it. Those little escapes and explosions

where it just wasn't quite what it was in the past. Hopefully, that's behind him. I think he had a good summer of training. It's going to be hard work. Listen, there's some great teams out there. Nashville got better. Dallas is still an absolute wagon.

It's going to take guys like Jonathan Joanne coming back and Casey Middlestad. They're going to have to elevate their game. Hopefully, you can get some guys chipping in. I will say, Sid had his camp in Vail here a few weeks ago. And I mean, it was McDavid, Crosby, McKinnon.

I mean, the top two lines were McDavid, McKinnon, Kachuk, Crosby, Hall, and Marner going against each other head to head. And McKinnon and McDavid, I mean, all those guys look unbelievable, but McKinnon looks really good. And every year I'm like, I don't know, can he get any better? And he just continues to get better. And he's so, like you said, he's so focused that it's just, I, you know, nothing surprised me with him at this point. Yeah.

He's doing the pool tumbling. Everybody tell him he's doing these pool exercises and that's why he got brought to the next level. Is there any truth to this? Have you been to the pool to see him do these exercises? Is he wearing water wings when doing this? What the fuck is going on in the pool? I have no idea what's going on in the pool.

I've only heard stories about the pool. I've never seen a pool. I don't know what pool he goes to. I've just heard the stories. And listen, he's going to do, if he thinks it's going to make him better, if he thinks that not drinking for an entire year is going to make him, you know, the MVP again, he's probably going to do that. Right. And, and if he thinks going into the pool and doing tumbling and whatnot is going to make him better and, and, and, you know, allow him to, to, you know, bring it to the next level and that team to, to win and get into playoffs and

have another Stanley cup run, that guy is going to do it. And they're just, I mean, that's just how he is. What's the weirdest thing that you've seen him do? I'm not around the team on a day-to-day basis. I mean, no, no, I haven't. I mean, is he drinking his own urine? Not that I'm aware of. Oh, man.

I've heard of guys doing that to get to the next level. Imagine all the little kids. I tried it just to get in the lineup. I couldn't get in the lineup i was drinking my own piss no you did it with some riot the yeah that's true i had i got a golden shower it wasn't my own johnny i got i got two questions for you first uh involves on nachushkin seconds about ranting with nachushkin as a guy who played as long as you did what's the worry and what's the maybe idea upon, like, can we trust this guy? Like, Biz talks about McKinnon and his leadership and him leaving them out to drive.

His own decision, two years in a row, like, is he going to be welcomed back in the room, in your opinion? Well, I think he's going to be welcomed back in the room. But yeah, I mean, listen,

it's a delicate situation to say the least. And yeah, it's been two years in a row in the playoffs, it's a delicate situation to say the least. And yeah, it's been two years in a row in the playoffs that it's happened. But when he's on and when he's incredible and that year in 2022 against Tampa in the finals, I mean, the way that he played, I mean, it just he's so good. He's 6'5". He's shredded and he can fly up and down the ice. He never seems to get tired. And like, they just don't build guys like that.

You know, I would say I was on a golf trip actually this summer in eastern Colorado with Fednar. And just like what he was saying about like everything we think we know, like he just, he has so much more respect for him than even I thought. And yeah, that's all that stuff aside. It hurt him. It hurt him. It's going to take a little time for him to get back in the good graces, I think, with some of the

guys. But as he said, when he's going, he is so valuable to that team. I mean, you look at the first round of the playoffs against Winnipeg, what are you, eight goals, nine goals in the first round? I mean, like, that's just, he goes to the front of the net, you can't move him, he can skate up and down the wing. Like, he's not afraid, like, he's not, it's not like he's, like,

burying guys, but he's just not afraid of physicality either. And that's stuff that they need. They're not, you know, Colorado's not a huge team by any means, right? When you look at, you know, what they have, you know, up front, like Nate, Nate can play a physical game.

Nate can play a skill game. Miko's big enough that he can do that stuff. But guys like that are guys that they need. And so to me, if he's back and he's, you know, helping the team

and it seems like he's in a great place, I think they welcome him back with open arms. Yeah. And I do see the side uh certain fans or players that are like this guy's let us down and really left let us out to dry here but there's also like he's obviously he has some demons and he's and he's had some substance abuse problems so you root for somebody to be able to beat that and come back and and be the player that everyone's seen he can be. So a huge storyline. My other question involving Rantanen.

So the last three years, we got 140 goals, 300 points, and in the playoffs, 50 points in about 50 games, if not less. So he could have been re-signed this summer. He could have signed an extension. That question will now loom, similar to how Edmonton was so thrilled they're not going to be answering the Leon questions all season. Have you heard anything about ranting? It's possible extension.

It can be signed all season and what he would want. Cause he's coming off a monster deal and the numbers only going up with how good he is. Yeah. The numbers only going up. He is. I mean, he's,

he's a tremendous player and, and you know, when he's on his game, he's really, really tough to contain. And that, that when you have that, the top six that the abs do, and they're all healthy, and they're all in the lineup

with Machushkin and Lekan and guys like that, it gives Jared Bednar some real flexibility. And he moves those guys around. He moves Mikko away from Nate sometimes. He moves him back with him. And it gives them some flexibility to match up with other teams that a lot of coaches don't have. A lot of times, it's like you have this set first line and you have this set

second line with the abs. If, if, if they have all those guys in the lineup, it gives them so much flexibility and so much more depth. And Ben Miko, it is, I mean,

his nickname is the moose. And, um, you know, when you're that big six, you know, six, three and,

you know, 220 pounds, he can still skate really well. And, you know, he was, he came into league and he was really almost a pass-first guy. Now you see it. Like you said, 140 goals the last three years. Now his shot,

he understands how big and strong he is and he's not afraid to shoot the puck. When you have him and Nate working the half walls on the power play and him pulling to the front of the net a lot of times at even strength, he's a tremendous player i haven't heard anything directly aside from this summer there were some some rumblings that extension was getting close but nothing seemed to materialize so i don't know i i think you know the dry style extension probably

plays a little bit more where you know maybe rand is like hey my number was maybe here but now it's kind of going up and uh you know i've got a cup and, you know, my numbers, maybe they're not exactly comparable to Leon's, but like they're pretty close. And you don't want to split up, you know, Nate and Miko. You want those guys playing, you know, as long as possible together. So it wouldn't shock me. I mean, the Avs have a tendency to get things done, you know, relatively early. The Avs have a tendency to get things done relatively early. Nate's extension was announced at the golf tournament, I believe it was last fall, which is mid-September-ish.

It wouldn't shock me before game one for the Avs if there's a Miko extension announced. I don't have any inside info, but I'm just saying that's the way the Avs tend to do business. They try to get things done early. Nate's extension last year is a perfect example of that. Well, with those guys making so much money, obviously you guys need some bar goons and, uh, the Jonathan Duran experiment last year. Uh, how did you feel it? When I don't think it started out great. I think it accelerated a little bit through the second half of the season. And it feels like Nathan McKinnon and Duran got a little bit of their

chemistry back from junior when they play with Halifax together. So what do you think of him and what he can provide to the team? And do you like the fact that he's back? I love the fact that he's back. He's, he's a skill guy. And, and,

um, you know, in the end, like the, the abs, when you look at what they have on the back and obviously Taves and McCarr unbelievable together, you know, arguably the top, you know at what they have on the back and obviously taves and mccarr unbelievable together you know arguably the top you know d pairing in the league i mean there's definitely a couple other ones out there that you can put right there but uh you know

gerard manson but then you look at you know you lose jack johnson bo buyer is traded and so what they did is they brought in some guys that are still you know they're not overly physical but they're they're really good puck movers because they want to get the puck to their forwards as quickly as possible. And they've got guys that can jump into the play. Brandstrom, you look at Shillington, great skater, has had some issues, but could easily be a guy that plugs in on the back end and adds a lot with his skating ability. I think he's a little bit underrated. And I think when you look at the Dru in resigning yeah it started off a little slow and he actually got healthy scratch I believe it was in November last year and December you know

10th or so all of a sudden it would like a switch flipped him and Nate regain that chemistry and drew in went just he flipped the switch where he was like, I'm just going to skate. He's a passer. He sees the game really well, but ultimately, they needed him to skate and be part of that up-tempo offense. It was like all of a sudden, he embraced that and understood. Then he was a different

player. Bedsie had moved him up and down the top two or three lines originally. After that, it was like, he was first line or second line every night because he was contributing and he was making a difference with his feet. And it allowed him to, to fit in,

you know, on those top two lines and, and really contribute. Um, it drops off a little bit, like we said, without Landis Gog and without Nachushkin. Um,

I was reading up a little bit in this Nikolai Kovalenko played in the KHL, put up pretty good numbers in the KHL his last couple of years. Do you think he's a guy who can come in this year and make an impact? Like sometimes you see these Russians that you don't know much about and all of a sudden they're fucking buzzing.

They get 60, 70 points. You think he's a guy who could help contribute offensively right away? Or is he going to be an up and down guy? I don't see him getting up and down guy. I think he's a guy who could help contribute offensively right away or is he going to be an up and down guy yeah i don't see him getting up and down guy i think he contributes now i don't know if he's a 50 60 point guy or maybe a you know 30 point guy here in his first year put him in in one of the playoff games and i think the speed kind of caught him off guard a little bit in that one game but now he's had another summer he's you know he's been in training camp he's had the opportunity he came right from the khl and they put him into a game. He played a little

bit in the AHL, I think a handful of games and then they put him right into an NHL playoff game. It's a little bit of jumping right into the fire, but he's a bit of an bowling ball. He's not overly tall, but he's really, really strong and just very,

very thick. Not afraid to get into the corners and muck it up and throw the body around. And he's got some skill too. So I think they hope that he can be a top nine guy. You know, another guy is Cal Ritchie. He's a guy that, you know, is a high traffic for the ads. They've got a lot of hope for him. It wouldn't shock me to see him get, you know, eight or nine games.

And if he can contribute to that top nine, he was actually up at Sid's camp as well, as I understand it. So Cogliano's working for the apps front office. I think he called in a favor with Sid to get Cal into that camp. And he looked good. He's bigger, he's taller than you think, and he's got a heavy shot. And for him to be in that camp with those guys and the speed that they were playing at,

I mean, it looked like a mid-season camp. Those guys do not mess around. Matthew Kachump day one, he's like, I cannot believe the pace of this camp right now. I was at that camp once. I made that camp. I was at it once, too. You were? Buddy, I was at that camp.

And five minutes into the skate of the first day, I was like, what am I doing here? I was like, I got no business at this camp. Okay, so what is going on at this camp? So can you kind of describe it like from top to bottom? So Sid obviously leads the way. I think he's been going to Vail since the beginning of his career, training at high altitudes. So I'll let you explain what the hell is going on there. Well, so as I understand it now, I

don't know all of it. I was there one year. I think it was 2013 maybe and that was Hort texted me. He's like, hey, come up to Vail. You're doing this camp and I'm like, oh, okay. Sounds good. I'll be there. But Sid, I know they've done it in different places. It's not always in Vail. This year was

in Vail. I think they've done it in Florida years past but Andy O'Brien, he used to work for Pittsburgh. I think they've done it in Florida in years past. Andy O'Brien, who used to work for Pittsburgh, I think he works for Florida now. Great guy. He sets it up a little bit. The players in this camp, it's the top tier.

I was laughing, but I had Matthew Kachuk get a jersey for our alumni weekend a couple weeks ago, and we put it in our auction. I mean, it's literally an all-star game jersey, basically. When you look at the signatures on that thing, and that's kind of Sid's thing.

And it's Matt Duchesne and McDavid and Marner and Taylor Hall. I mean, just the list goes on. Tyson Berry was there. I mean, so many guys that i either played with or against or whatnot and uh like i said they they jump in taiwan and it's not there's no warming up there's no feeling out like it's it's go for three straight days and the pace is unbelievable like the the mckinnon mcdavidachuk line. It was so funny just watching those guys. How was Kachuk catching up to those guys?

No offense to Kachuk. I think Ice Skate just as well as him. He's extremely efficient. Unreal net front. Doesn't lose battles, but he's got some heavy boots. Yeah, he said he was basically just going behind the net and doing protection. Spearing someone.

Those guys are buzzing around, and he's looking for them. But he's like, man, he's like, half the time I didn't even know what to do. They were going so fast. He's like, it was awesome to watch. So I actually,

I took my nine-year-old daughter. She's just started trackball hockey. So I let her skip school to go watch for a day. She was really, really happy. It was super cool. That's awesome. Speaking of superstars,

let me ask you what you think. I'm looking right now at the over under for goals scored by kale mccarr this year can you guess what that is and i'm going to give you a little clue i've hammered i've hammered the over i bet you it's 18 21 21 and a half wow and i think i think i think he's getting 28 to 32 28 to 32 he's the decisive favorite to win the norris trophy at plus 300 the next guy i think quinn hughes and uh yeah adam fox are both plus 600 i see after him not winning the norris last year it's just being an explosion and him reaching somehow another level as mckinnon has all these years yeah i think so i i i would say i was gonna say 28 29 that would have been my pick for his his

goals this year um i was gonna ask you quickly about bednar he just seems like the best guy like do you have a great relationship with him do you ever go grab drinks and and you know what's what's your feelings on him he's awesome he's unbelievable and it's super cool like i said you know we we had um uh the other two guys that i do tv with, Kyle Keefe and Mark Rycroft, and actually Sackix. We had a sixome that went to Balladio in Eastern Colorado. And we got to just sit, smoke cigars, and just chat. First of all, everything he says is very well thought out and very well spoken. And you see that in his press conferences.

Everything is... And I think he said it yesterday, but, you know, somebody said, well, why isn't this guy getting a chance? And he's like, listen, this is the best league in the world. We're one of the better teams in the best league in the world. So if you want to play on one of the better teams in the best league in the world, you have to make your mark.

You have to show up every day and you have to make an impact. I just like that to me is the epitome of how he answers questions. It's not, you know, one or two words or a half a sentence. He really thinks out those answers. He's very well spoken. And he's an unbelievable guy. The players love him. And I just, you know, I don't think he gets enough credit for what he does nightly with

this group. And, you know, it's not, I mean, listen, it's not easy to win in this league. And, you know, his first year, they had 48 points. You know, it's like it was the lowest point total of all time. And then to turn it around within four years and win a Stanley Cup, I mean, it's pretty mind-blowing what he's done. And, yeah, like I said,

I just don't think he gets enough credit. I have the utmost respect for him. I think he's a tremendous coach, and he's an awesome guy. I think his calm demeanor compliments McKinnon perfectly. He always seems so calm. I feel like he kind of seems like a pothead almost, the way that he talks. He's kind of like, yeah, man.

Lyle, they weren't smoking cigars out of that golf course. Well, I think that kind of wraps up Colorado. A couple of blunts for him and Sackick. Let's wrap up Colorado right there. I love Bednar as well. The last thing I was just going to ask you about, Cogliano's retiring. I thought that he was a huge add at the deadline

when they ended up winning the Stanley Cup. Just an unreal salt of the earth locker room guy. So that's going to be a tough loss in someone that you really can't replace. Yeah, and listen, Cogs, I mean, we all know cogs. Like he's, he's unbelievable. He's,

he's a guy that one, there's a reason why he played as long as he did. Right. Like he just, he was, he was the ultimate pro. He can skate for days. He was smart.

And, and he had the respect of all the guys in the room. And, and when you, you know, when you have that and you're missing a guy like Gabriel Lannis, God, he's a guy that can really step up and his voice is respected.

And so it'll be interesting to see kind of where that goes. I mean, you hopefully get Lanniscaug back sooner rather than later. I know he's around the team quite a bit, but a guy like Hoggs is going to be tough to replace in the fourth line, bottom six, because he's just willing to just go to work each and every night and do you know the unsung things wow that was a big double wrister to the colorado avalanche they deserve the time though they got the the reigning mvp on their squad the dog so uh we were actually

going to keep you around for the dallas stars if that's okay with you yeah that's one of their rivals across the way so i'll let you tee it up with. Yeah. So Dallas, they finished first in the division last year. Hundred and thirteen points beat Vegas in seven games, beat the Avs in six and lost to the Oilers in six departures. Joe Pavelski. That's a big one. He retired. Ryan Suter was bought out. He's now with St.

Louis. Ty DeLandria is in San Jose. Chris Tanev is with Toronto. Wedgewood's in Nashville. Radek Faska is in St. Louis. Hakampaz in Toronto and Craig Smith's in Chicago. They brought in Matt Dumba. They brought in Ile Labushkin from Toronto. They kind of switch bought him and Tanev. Casey DeSmith from Vancouver,

Brendan Smith from New Jersey, and Magnus Helberg from Pittsburgh. I am very, very scared of the Dallas Stars as an Edmonton Oilers fan. The fact we got by them last year was a very big shock to a lot of people. But the craziest thing was it was just the beginning for the Stars. They are in their window, not just now, I think the next several years, in terms of being able to win the Stanley Cup. Let me quickly read you their top nine as of right now on Daily Faceoff. Robertson with Hintz and Wyatt Johnson. Mason Marchment with dushane and

tyler sagan jamie ben with maverick bork who's going to come in and be a star i believe with logan stankoven as well so you look at the top nine you look at now having lindell locked up you got thomas harley walked up which we had a monster season everyone talks about everyone everyone talks about their goal their defense right it's all about Heskinen well Harley's young and he can skate I think he had 14 goals so in you seeing the Colorado Avalanche battling these guys so much and Ottinger exactly that's the biggest thing all these teams who need a goalie like Dallas is here and they're not going anywhere so I guess what is their the best part of their team in your mind well listen I think you know ultimately, you know, ultimately, I mean, Pete DeBoer, I mean, the guy does it everywhere he goes, right?

And it's pretty amazing. His assistant coach, Steve Spott, tremendous guy, unbelievable coach. I actually had him with the Toronto Marlies when I got sent down when I was with the Leafs. And a guy that I have the utmost respect for. And I know that, you know, he's kind of DeBoer's right-hand guy. So I think it all starts there. And then when you look at Wyatt Johnson and Stan Colvin, that's what you have to have in today's NHL.

You have to have those guys on entry-level deals that make an impact. And they not only track your top six, but they're really, really good players for you in your top six. It allows you to have that depth where you're not right up against the cap trying to figure out how to fill holes. If you can have those young guys come in and make an impact, it makes such a difference. And yeah, Hasketton, unbelievable. The guys, I mean, that back end,

when you look at that back end, they just, I don't know, they're just solid. And they were solid against the Avs in the playoffs. They were tough to beat. And really, they're well-coached. They don't make really high-risk plays ever. If there's no play, it's a

flip. They punted so many times against the Avs abs and it was hey we're not gonna we're not gonna do anything stupid and give you know have a transition goal against and they they did it to a tee and and they you know it was hard it was hard on the abs and then when you have auteur you're not giving up grade

a chances left right and center I mean he is so good he's he's one of my favorite goaltenders in the league to watch. The top nine, there's depth. They can score on any of that top nine, and that's a luxury that not a lot of teams have. Based on production last year,

it was basically like they had two first lines at the rate that they were scoring. You talk about discipline too. They didn't take any penalties, rarely took minors, rarely gave up any type of odd man rushes so as far as structure and then what they had as far as firepower it's unreal and i i know that it's going to be tough to replace chris tanev because of what he did when he came in there for playoffs like you saw that they had the amount of time he played and i don't even think he had a minus he might have he might have had only one minus in that series against the abs but uh i thought they

did a good job of replenishing them with uh the, the backend with Labushkin and Dumba. And then you, you touched on it, the entry-level contracts and the fact that you think that Maverick Bork is going to come in and have that same type of impact that Stan Colvin did. And, and also not having to rush these guys as well. Yeah, exactly. For me also the biggest key, and we've seen a kind of a resurgence of Tyler Sagan and Jamie Ben, where I think like two or three years ago, people were starting to write them off where they're like, Oh God, they're going to have these anchors of contracts where over the last two years,

they've really stepped up their game and not only brought that leadership, but now playing more to the value in which they're making. But once again, those entry level contracts and what those guys bring, it kind of just balances all that off. So I have them as one of the best teams in the Western Conference. We didn't give our predictions,

I don't think, on Colorado. I have them making playoffs. Obviously you do, and I'm sure Witt does. And then the Dallas Stars, I got them making it as well. They do not have many weaknesses and one of the best, if not the best scouting staff

in the league. So look out for another surprise in Maverick Bork, like you said, Whit. Yeah, I think a lot of questions, Johnny, were like, oh, well, they got to replace Pavelski on that first line, on the power play, right? His tipping ability, and he was great in the regular season, but it just kind of,

it just, his age. What I'll say is, is in the the playoffs that was the first time i've ever seen paths look old he never ever looked his age he always played younger and and he was always impactful not to say he played bad by any means it was just you have such a high expectation for him that when he wasn't at that level and he wasn't making the you know he didn't have the impact that he's had in years past it just it to me it was it was almost shocking just because he's please done it for so so long but yeah you're gonna have to replace him he's a leader he's a guy that that you know he goes those dirty areas he scored scores those greasy goals but when you have a top nine like that, it's really

hard. Like you said, you have essentially two first lines. It's so hard to match up against that. And so when you have that luxury and you can score in your top nine and your fourth line, it's just gravy on top. If they chip in, it makes such a difference for how know for for how you um how you go in the playoffs how far you go in the playoff my one bit of criticism would be uh maybe jason robertson's uh playoff performance i don't know if his game exactly translated over i'm not as uh not as invisible as petterson but just you know he's a little bit slower paced he kind of likes to play at that with a little bit of type of flow that doesn't really equate to that speed that comes playoff time nor does his physicality so i'm curious to see if when the going gets tough where he's able to bring his game this year i would assume last

year was a big learning experience for him do you know i agree like i felt that he just he seemed a little bit invisible based on the way he's able to perform come regular season yeah and and the it was 16 points in 19 games but even the regular season wasn't the same the same and that's why this year i think he's gonna pop off he had 41 goals two years ago or three you know and then the season before last he had 46 and then this year it was 29 and then it was it was 109 points to 80 so it's like i think that after last year, for him, disappointed in that season, disappointed in how they lose to Edmonton where he probably could have been a bigger factor, and now it's a man pissed off and possessed.

And while Pavelski did look good in the regular season, now if you have Wyatt Johnson on that top line with him and Hintz, I think he's going to explode again. I really do. I think this team's unbelievable. He's so good. I think without Hintz is when he was struggling. That's when he was struggling the most

because when Hintz came back in from injury, I think he had three points that first night back. So that's obviously going to be a big key is him staying healthy. So I think we pretty much covered it all for Dallas. I mean, this is a top team in the league. Well, Johnny, I do want to get your kind of breakdown as a defenseman on how much you appreciate Heskinen.

You get to watch McCarver all the time. he's right behind him it's it's barely any it's but he's not macar but he's right there and he's so beautiful to watch yeah i think people would have had him as a performing a little bit better in that series though last year he's gonna yeah johnny me and um uh merles and biz were at a game, Coyotes versus Dallas last year for IceCon. Shout out Mr. Ice. And Merles was sitting there and he's like, he'd never seen him play in person. He's like, this is wild.

He's floating around out there. And I have a stat right here that last season, while Heskin was on the ice, the Dallas Stars outscored their opponents 716 to 490. It's just wild how much he dominates. If he's on the ice, the ice is tilted, and it's crazy to watch. That's over the course of his career? That's last season.

How many goals? Heskinen is out there. Dallas outchance. Jesus, not outscored. Outchance. I was like, wow, that's a good number. I said outscored. I wonder they had two first lines. I said outscored. I said outscored. I was like, oh, chance. I was like, oh, chance. That's a good number. I said outscored. No wonder they had two first lines.

I said outscored. I said outscored. Oh, chance. Wake up. Wake up. You're good. By the way, you're like, he was on the ice for 490 goals against. Fucking guy sucks.

What a loser. But it's cool to watch him play. Let's go back with that one. Honestly, it is. And that was actually really fun last year uh that series because you had mccarr and hayes going kind of head to head and you got to see those guys and what they bring from the back end and i mean mccarr is an explosive skater he you know the way that he uses his edges to escape and make plays and uh i mean it's it's

amazing to watch and then you watch hayes and like you said he And I mean, it's amazing to watch. And then you watch Haskett and like you said, he floats around the ice. It's like effortless. You know, like I almost look at him like almost like a Paul Coffey, like how Paul Coffey used to just kind of float around the ice. And he was able to just never really burn any energy because he was so efficient with his skating and so smart and just read the play so well. So, yeah, I mean, just watching him play is is a pleasure and last year i mean unfortunately the abs lost but um seeing mccarr and hayes gonna go head to head for that series was was a lot of fun yeah big

hockey boner there for sure yeah a team that's just in a great spot and i guess the question will be is can they get over the hump right last year was the second most points the Dallas Stars had ever had in a regular season. That's the one thing I think hanging over DeBoer's head is they say he can't win the big one. I don't think it's fair because he's had success everywhere he's went, but he's one guy that I really like, and I hope that at some point he's able to lift Lord Stanley. It would be cool to see because he's done so much, like you said, everywhere he's gone. Steve Spott, his assistant coach, it would be cool to see him win a Stanley Cup.

Like I said, a ton of respect for him. He got me back into the NHL and out of the minors. So I owe a lot to him. I want to tire pump you too. You guys over at the Altitude Network, you know, I owe a lot to him. I want to tire pump you too. You guys, uh, over at the altitude network, you guys do an incredible job. One of the best,

uh, home broadcast going, you guys keep it light and fun. So congratulations to you guys. And I look forward to tuning in this season and, you guys are the best. And thank you so much for joining us and breaking down these two great teams. Thanks,

Johnny. Of course, guys. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate it. That was awesome. Before we go any further, guys, I need to talk to you about peter millar the dog days of summer

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It's easy to style colors paired with the perfect fit are for sure to make the Signature Satine 5-Pocket Pant a must-have for your everyday wardrobe. Head on over to petermillard.com to shop the Sign sateen as well as the rest of Peter Millard's lineup. Thank you so much to Johnny Lyles for joining us. Great friend of the show. Awesome guy. And now we got one of our boys on, a man who was in London for the Chicklets Cup, to talk about his favorite team from last year, the Winnipeg Jets. Colby Armstrong, what's going on, buddy? How's the body feeling right now?

The fraud squad from last year. Oh, I forgot about that. Oh, yeah. Body's feeling all right. I got in late right after I took off like you guys. I know you guys are on the run right now. You're on the move. Maybe on the run too, actually.

But awesome. Awesome turnout. Awesome experience. Once again again met so many people i was saying to myself i think i talked for five days it felt like and chicklets is the the chicklets cups only three days long so it was just insane all the events i mean it was a great setup where we were with the the park we played in um yeah boys great job great job by everyone involved well thank you, man. The fans love having you and love interacting with you.

And, uh, from my understanding is there was a Winnipeg jets fan. That's who we're going to be getting to who came up to you at the chicklets cup and considering they were your team last year and you were riding them, he asked you, he's like, what do you think about this year's Winnipeg jets? What did you have to say to the guy? I said, I don't know. I told him straight up.

I said, buddy, I know I was, I was believing in the jets last year. pegged jets what did you have to say to the guy i said i don't know i told him straight up i said buddy i know i was i was believing in the jets last year like for whatever reason i i was right i was pretty much right about them i said they were going to win the division they didn't win the division but they were right there just behind dallas i believe you guys um talked about just recently here but i mean it's just a team that I think is just will determination. They've got the right pieces. And can they pop and do it again? I do have high hopes for Cole Perfetti, who, you know,

last year with injuries, boys and some of these things. He's one guy that I'm high on. But just overall in general, I'm not sure what I think and I don't know if you guys feel this way too maybe you're still on fraud squad I don't know what I think of the Winnipeg Jets going into this year I felt like a fool well let's quickly Perfetti's not signed okay so that is a big question mark right now what does he want what does he deserve in the same way Bruins fans are like pace swayman I think there are some Jets fans like on the other side like Perfetti you haven't really done enough yet to be holding out like almost like against the

player a little bit. That's not everyone, but you want to see a guy be ready, be starting the camp. It's hard for guys to miss part of camp and get involved. We don't know when that guy's going to sign. He is a very talented young player. But for me, I felt like a fool. I was somebody dogging the Jets. And in our preview last year, I felt like a fool. I was somebody dogging the Jets. And in our preview last year, I was like, I don't think they're making the playoffs. And Army, you stuck to your guns. And all year, you made us look like idiots.

And then come the first round against the Colorado Avalanche, I felt vindicated. I was wrong about their season. Yes, they made the playoffs, but they might have been better off missing the playoffs with how they looked in that first round. So now I'm back to like, I don't think they're going to make the playoffs again.

I think that Hellebuck struggled so much in that first round. That was shocking. So you don't think that's going to leak into the regular season with how good of a goalie he is. But you just wonder, I don't know if this team has what it takes to repeat the awesome regular season from last year, especially if they're going in with Perfetti unsigned.

Right now, he's got no deal. And then the Ehlers drama, which he's going to be UFA after this year. There's all these trade rumblings, and some people think he'll be re-signed at some point this year. So I actually am going to have them missing the playoffs again,

which I think's crazy after how stupid I looked last year. But if that first round hadn't happened the way it did, I wouldn't feel this way, if that makes any sense to you. It does. So so wait so you probably don't have them making playoffs i don't wow i'm doing this again i had them as a cusp team i was leaning towards no but the longer i keep looking at this lineup like i really like their strength on the left side and down the middle i think like you said army that Cole perfetti and him hopefully having that year where he comes in and he establishes himself as a, you know, a 70 point NHL player where he can

play on the power play and touch a lot of areas of the ice. I think that's going to be a huge factor because if he doesn't, the Lardy's had a little bit of a hard time staying healthy over the course of his career. Then you got perfetti who's essentially a wild card at this point. And on the third line, you got Appleton. Like I really liked that third line. I think they have a very solid top nine. I don't mind their backend,

although it was a very difficult loss, losing, who'd they lose to, to New Jersey, Dylan. Dylan. I love Dylan. I love Dylan too.

Great locker room guy, but I think that you're going to get regular season Hellebuck. And with regular season Hellebuck, that just isn't not a playoff team. So as much as I was leaning towards no playoffs to start, I think that they're going to squeak in and a wild card, but I think that they have a lot of question marks coming in. And last year was such a high.

They've lost some guys. They got a new coach in there. It's going to be a challenging season for them compared to what they did last year in riding that momentum of that early good start. And the one thing I agree a hundred percent, I agree with almost both of you. I'm kind of like unsure of what I think about them. The thing that got me as I saw them, I saw them live. I saw them at ice level, how they play.

I was between the benches and I was just like, man, this team is just, they're big. They're huge. They play a sturdy, steady game. Like they got players that even their big boys can play that style of game. They've got Lowry, their captain, who's on that third line with Appleton and Niederreiter is probably maybe one of the better third lines in the NHL and Larry has a big part of that like he might be I wonder if anyone he may be a dark horse for Team Canada yeah some of the stuff he can he's able to do face off big guy I could see him being a fourth

liner on that team if they wanted to to get a you you need guys who are used to playing that role in in limited minutes compared to maybe all the high end guys where all of a sudden you got a 22 minute forward playing 10 minutes and he's like, I can't get my fucking legs going. You're like, Connor, we need you to block shots here. You know? Yeah. You need some of those meat and potato guys.

So maybe a good thought, give him a little pump for that. But guys, the one thing about Winnipeg they get shit on all the time their city gets shit on their team guys are leaving fleeing they lost their whole decor number of years ago like everything was in turmoil their coach ran away to florida he's like i'm done i'm out of here what's going on all this dressing room drama everything was happening in winnipeg and they still just go and get it done they still just go out there and play good hockey i admit colorado series boys i was doing the game and i said this is a period right here where hellebuck has to come out and have a third well he didn't

have a third he just completely folded and they just ripped him apart folded like a crackoon downtown london like a l a London crackoon onto the sidewalk. And it was just amazing to see it because he's the one guy you think you could put your chips in all in for, right? So I hear what both of you are saying. Witt saying no, you're saying wild card. And I'm saying really, I don't know. I got to see it just because I think these last few years of the way they

looked and the way they played, are they that same team? Can they still do that? I did go to NHL media day, little boys. Perfetti was there, unsigned. Kind of strange, right? Kind of strange that he still went on behalf of the Winnipeg Jets without a contract.

And he was there. I was talking to him. He says it's going to get done. So we'll see here. When he said that, did he give any details as far as a bridge? This reeks of a bridge deal. It reeks of a bridge deal. Which is why I'm like, why isn't it done?

Yeah, it reeks of a bridge deal. It probably should be a bridge deal. Let's put it this way. If Dawson Mercer got three years at four, there's no way that he deserves more than that. Yeah. There's no way. But I think he's due to to be

healthy to feel good um he's good boys with shifley they both like talk hockey all the time like those true hockey nerd kind of guys um and the fit i i think he's i think he's poised for like a 30 30 season this year like a 60 point season if he could stay stay healthy and they can get him signed. So I think a promising guy that's probably close to or ready to popping for this Jets team. And I think that it's probably exciting for him when he does get signed that obviously Bonus didn't see some things in his game he liked where he only played one game in the playoffs. He was healthy, scratched at times.

And maybe Scott Arneal, just a different voice, him taking over with rick bonus retiring as he had filled in from when rick bonus was away uh dealing with some some personal things with his family maybe he gets a better chance and he doesn't feel like if i make a mistake i'm off a top line you know when it can be a certain coach has an idea of a player and you're just not playing loose and fast and you're thinking about what what mistake may drill you to the bench so that could change but he's got to get signed first. Now I do, I look at their roster last year. They had 10 guys play over 75 games. They were pretty lucky with injuries. Velarde obviously only played 47.

That was tough with the amount of games he missed and Kyle Connor missed 17. So they were healthy overall. They had an unreal year. I mean, mean you look at it was 110 points they finished second division you were the only person i think that saw that coming it's one of those things that i just don't see it happening again and maybe i'm just i i i'm bullish on this team not being a legit contender in this league i just think that there's not enough firepower i think i i i know that kyle connor's probably the most under-discussed player in the league. He's right up there. A true elite goal scorer.

Scheifele's a great two-way centerman. But in that conference, they don't have 100-point guys. They don't have a power play that's going to light it up. I don't know exactly where their power play finished last year. If it was top five, I'm going to take that statement back. I don't think it was, though. I love Morrissey on the back end. He's awesome offensively.

It's just something about their depth and something about their lack of like true superstars in the Western Conference that worries me. So I think the biggest question mark is that second line, because if you have Nemestakov as your second line center, I've loved what he's done. He's kind of been a, um, that was your guy years ago. Yeah. When he got traded to Colorado, I think he came over from Ottawa, and he's a good player. But when you're matching up in the Western Conference,

second-line center against some of these other guys, that's not a name that really pops out to me. He's been a bit of a journeyman. It's nice to see that he's found a home in Winnipeg, but a lot of question marks with Perfetti currently listed on that second line. I could easily see him taking Velarde's spot on that top line on the right side,

but also Ehlers, who I think Ehlers, he's a water bug out there. I love watching him play. I think, like I said, that left side is very impressive with Kyle Conner, 40 goal guy, Ehlers, and then you have Nito Niederreiter, just that big body. So between the first line and the third line,

I like them. Question mark on the second line, I think maybe their back end is a little bit underappreciated. That Pionk's a solid player who came over in that Troubadille. I don't know much about that Samberg, but they got some young guys back there who can hopefully get the job done. But ultimately, with Hellebuck and Nett, that's a wildcard team in my opinion. It won't be smooth sailing. Winnipeg Jets, playoff team market and i do think

to your point um biz dylan is a big big uh guy missing on their back end like he did a lot of hard things for them like he's a heart and soul guy you know you'll fight anyone too he plays physical block shots he can chip in offensively not having him there that's makes him a little less deep i think on the back end so that's that's that's a big loss for him and to your special teams comment uh wit they were around 20th in the power play and penalty kill areas last year so and they still had 110 points i know so and also lauren brossois is not there anymore in his 23 games played last year he had a 2.00 goals against and his save percentage was 927 so they you know they bring in capo cocking in but that you got to have two goalies now and

i know hellebook's awesome he played 60 games last year he's another year older do you want him playing 60 games can they rely on cocking in to be as good of a backup as broswawa's i don't know so there's a lot of questions that remain to be seen. And obviously they got that Brandon Yeager in the McGrody deal. I don't think we're going to see him in the NHL this year, but that's still a nice prospect to have for the future. And I know what you're saying, that Winnipeg does get shit on. And the crowd in the playoffs, amazing. It was disappointing for a regular season like that to end the way it did.

And all these players, they've put that in the back of their mind, and they're not even thinking about it. It's a new season. that to end the way it did. And all these players, they've put that in the back of their mind and they're not even thinking about it. It's a new season. Here we go. But as a fan, you're like, Jesus, I remember that series against Colorado and it was nothing like we saw Winnipeg play like in the regular season. So that's why I'm not picking them to get in. And I would be happy to eat my words again on that one.

The fraud squad. Well, I guess we can move on. That was a great little breakdown to your team last year army and we're going to move on to a team i think maybe outside of new jersey and washington who was a surprise with their offseason moves maybe you even have them ahead of them as far as the guys they brought in a tremendous offseason for the nashville predators and barry trotz bringing in stammer marchesho brady shea edstrom and then also a backup goalie and scott wedgwood but those top Phil Predators and Barry Trotz bringing in Stammer, Marcheseau, Brady Shea, Edstrom, and then also a backup goalie in Scott Wedgwood.

But those top three names, those are the ones that stand out the most. Maybe getting a little bit older overall, but not a lack of experience and not a lack of hunger given the fact that these few guys thought that they got pigeon tossed. They thought they got pigeon tossed. And I think more looking into this season and being in nashville and playing in that arena like with that team and the firepower that they brought in it's going to be one of the most fun atmospheres in the nhl this year like that place is going to be rocking it's already a scene even when their team hasn't been good it's a fun

arena to go to and now those fans get to see bar Barry Trotz win free agency and not only bring in those guys, but re-sign Saros. And you're just laughing like, this team has a legit chance to win the division. I don't think anyone would have saw that coming before the free agency, but Marcio and Stamkos, yes, while older, these are proven elite goal scorers that can score, they can make their power play better. Yossi is so sick at power playing the entire quarterback and like his rushes the way he plays he's a superstar defenseman and then now you

just have a team that's going to be fun to watch they're going to be fast they're going to be physical and they got a great goalie so I'm more excited to see how these guys gel because that's the question like Stamkos it's going to be hard it's going to be a different feeling when you put on that jersey and with the excitement of a new deal it's still to be hard. It's going to be a different feeling when you put on that jersey. And with the excitement of a new deal, it's still like, holy shit, I'm not in Tampa anymore. Like I don't know all these guys. I don't know how they play. I always had Hedman giving it to me.

Now it's Yossi. And then Martial had that amazing run with Vegas. Like he's in a different uniform. The best thing for Predators fans is these guys have something to prove. With my teams that I did so much with didn't want me. and now I'm out to prove them wrong and to light it up so the atmosphere in Nashville is going to be wild I think the team's deep I think the defense are awesome Brady Shea is one of those like undervalued guys he skates so well he could PK he could be on the second power play I think it's going to be an amazing year I have them making the playoffs for sure and I really I want to catch a

game but I do have some questions right right? Like you look right now, the second line centers, Tommy Novak, I don't know a ton about him. He's had some, some really, I would say like awesome moments in the NHL and you've seen his skill and he's fast and he could skate, but like, can he play an entire season being the second line center? I don't know. Fully Forsberg's a guy for me that's just incredible like his size his strength you've seen him score some michigan style goals he's a monster ryan o'reilly had a year better than most people would have thought last year can he continue when he's older there's some questions but it's more excitement for the preds i think well army the one thing they lacked last year especially come playoff time against vancouver and vancouver is

very good at defending and they you know they can adjust to any team's type of offense but they couldn't put the puck in the back in that in that series against them in the first round very low scoring but they've addressed that what do you see as their weaknesses i look at that back end and outside of yosi and brady shea those two bottom pairs i just don't know anything about these guys can they advance the puck and get that moved up to these forwards with the skill? I think Carrie and Stassny are two young guys you're talking about that have potential to pop.

I think the Evangelista and Novak conversation are guys that are kind of coming along that. So like to wit's point about the veteran guys have something to prove. I think there's some young guys in that lineup from the backend biz, a rate up front to those guys that are getting put in a pretty good damn position to, you know, put their feet in this thing all the way and just take it and run with it.

And, you know, you remember a few years ago, they almost snuck into the playoffs with like all their guys injured, all their veterans sitting out. And it was those guys that Evangelista is the Novak. Some of these guys that really stepped up and, and, and, you know, took, took the team and led the way, I guess, offensively and got things going.

I know what you're talking about last year. They obviously didn't want to be in that position again. You have an opportunity to go and punch a hole through free agency, and they did and get some guys. 15th in the power play last year at 21.6% and 22nd on the penalty kill. I got to think that power play with Stammer over there, just ripping bombs. Marchessault also out there, just really loves shooting. He's going to be a shooter all the way. You got Yossi, like you said, can it come together to Witt's point? But I think the perfect storm for them is to Witt's point about guys with something to prove, whether it's on the upper end guys that they got that are saying,

you know, screw you. I'll show you to the younger guys that are, are looking to, you know, hopefully take a big step and, and, and go for it.

And to your point, Philip Forsberg career year, last year, 48 goals, 94 points. He's a, he's a study. You can play it any way you want it.. He's a stud. He can play it any way you want it.

And he's a guy that probably doesn't get talked about enough in the NHL as well. I got a couple questions here for both you guys. And I guess if you're looking for question marks with them. So Nyquist is 35 and Ryan O'Reilly is 33. Nyquist had 75 points. O'Reilly had 69. Nyquist missed one game. O'Reilly didn't miss

any. Forsberg didn't miss a game. Yossi didn't miss a game. So it's like, you got to really kind of rely and think that Nyquist can have another season with 75 points. Yes, they brought in all this offensive talent, but who knows, right? He could not be the same player he was last year, and it could have been just an amazing season for him. I love him as a player, but there's a legit possibility that he's not the same player as last year. Yeah, I think overall it's an unconventional approach where you would have thought probably a couple years ago Nashville was going to start selling off and look to rebuild,

where it was more of like, no, we're retooling this. And sometimes, obviously, with the league getting younger, you can come and get some of these older players in order, like on decent, like, you know, four or five year contracts. And cause some cases three to come in and kind of replenish the team.

So I was actually going to ask how many draft picks do they have stacked up? Cause this, this to me reeks like a team that maybe if they get off to an okay start, they could try. I have no doubt that Barry trotz would trade some of these first maybe second rounders in order to get themselves some help i think with getting rid of mcdonough and some of these other guys that they have some they have a lot of draft picks stocked up and that they could move g's currently looking at it but they got three first rounders in next

year's draft there you go and there you go that's why two second rounders so there you go this to me reeks of, of a team that could take advantage of maybe another team struggling where another team is looking to unload some of these old, old Wiley veterans where they could come fill in some of these spots. If some of these younger guys can't come in and help out right away. Cause if you look at those, all those guys over 30, like these are guys who are proven playoff performers guys who are have won stanley cups and can help them get it done they just kind of need to fill in these other areas if these younger guys aren't up up aren't up up to snuff is that the fucking word up to snuff up to snuff that a boy yeah thank you nice job oh nyquist has one year left on his contract so he's up after this year so So this is a big year for him. So you put all that in front of him. I'm happy for him because he had a couple tough years, right? He had some years where he wasn't really doing much

and you wondered even if he was going to be in NHL or anymore. It looked like a guy who was going to end up heading overseas, Army. Yeah, and he landed in a good spot with opportunity, right? And a couple years ago too they like i said they had a bunch of guys like forsberg yosi all their main guys they were like out of lineup there they weren't playing any of these guys at the end of the year and it was uh they're injured or banged up and held out of the lineup and it was just young guys able to go with it but some of these other guys were given opportunity and you know he's a big part of

the team nyquist is a big part of this preds team so um i i think just for nashville fans i can it get any more exciting than to have you know a team they're they're right to the cap uh but a team with the with the gm like trots he comes back in the mix and he he just puts his stamp on this team by saying hey like we're going for it and getting some big time names, some big time players. And at the end of it, yes, we'll see how it all pans out, but that's pretty exciting stuff. Sometimes you don't give enough credit to coaches either. I thought Andrew Brunette, he kind of got the shaft in Florida, given their playoff performance two years ago. And obviously

Paul Maurice was the answer. He went off to New Jersey, helped that team out big time. And then finally he gets to be the head coach of the Nashville predators, where I thought he obviously had a first, a credible first year where I think that he's a very, he has a laid back approach. He's very intelligent. And I think he's going to get these guys firing on all cylinders. I have them making playoffs.

So do I do too. And I think when we did bring up some of the worries, like, like can, can these guys repeat their good seasons o'reilly and and nyquist and some of the maybe questionable lineups uh in the bottom bottom two lines it's sorrows that is the thing for me it's like the fact that you have this goalie is like it covers up any warts they may have and quickly as a shout out on d fun player to watch that's really turned into an NHLer in Nashville is this Jeremy Lazon, who kills

guys. One of the biggest hitters in the league. Sneaky name that if you watch Nashville play, he is throwing the body, flying around. So keep an eye on him. Maybe taking one of your favorite players' heads off. I think that's probably good for Nashville. I can't wait to see this whole season play out for them.

What have we done? What do you guys got left? How many teams you got left? This is an interesting division. This division is pretty interesting when you look at it, right? Like with the Dallas and Colorado. And who would you throw next? Like what, Nashville?

And then it's like, okay, what else is going to happen with these bottom teams? Well, the next team is probably the biggest question mark. And I'm sure a lot of people will have them as a sleeper team. And that's the Utah Hockey Club. Apparently, they have a name picked, but they haven't announced it yet. Really? I think 100% it's the Yeti or Yetis. I think it's a no-brainer.

Such an unreal mascot opportunity. I think that the head of a Yeti on the jersey, like that big snowy white fluffy hair head. Clayton Keller let it slip too. I don't know if you heard in an interview. Yeah, he was like, I think the name's going to be Yeti next season. I don't know if that's out there yet.

And they were like, oh, I think you just broke the news. Oh, wow. Okay, Clayton Keller on waivers for ruining all the chaos there in Utah. I guess, you know what? Let's do the fifth team before we hand it off to Liam O'Brien, who is a member of that team, signed a three-year extension.

Uh, good for him. Uh, a great glue guy, locker room guy, tough as nails. Uh, when I'll hand it off to you, buddy, to, to break things down. So the Utah hockey, hockey club, which is a new organization in the NHL. This is not the Arizona coyotes moving over Utah. The first goal scored will be the first goal in the history of the utah hockey club's uh organization so very exciting time i'm more just like pumped to see these guys get to have a fan base and that's no offense to the amazing fans

that the coyotes did have the seven of them biz as biz is leaving the room right now but the utah hockey club last year as arizona seventh division with now. But the Utah Hockey Club last year as Arizona, 7th in the division with 77 points as the Coyotes missed the playoffs, obviously. Connor Geeky's gone in Tampa Bay. J.J. Moser's in Tampa Bay. Josh Brown's in Edmonton. Travis Boyd's in Minnesota. But the arrivals army

is where we're talking. They trade for Sergeyev. They get John Marino from New Jersey. They get Kevin Stenland, who had a big part in the Florida Panthers, grinded out style as a huge body. And then Ian Cole, who has just proven himself to be a stay-at-home, right now in this point of his career, kind of a bottom pairing, but reliable guy.

And I think it's just the excitement of the guys up front. I cannot wait to watch Logan Cooley play hockey this season, Army. I think that he's going to pop off. I think last year was just the beginning. He's going to be a star in this league. I already, you know, Clayton Keller every year produces. He can score. I have this team being really good this year,

and maybe I'm just buying in, and maybe I'm just excited that they sold 15,000 season tickets and that all these guys get the chance to really feel like they're in the NHL. And it sounds crazy, but when they were at home last year, we went to a game. It's just like, what are we doing? And now you're going to this sold out barn with a new owner. And Liam O'Brien talks about who is in it to win it. He will give them anything they need. He's talked to all of them. They're building this insane practice facility and they're going to be able to be given a chance with new team, jersey new name new city to really have a completely different turnaround

from last year so i can't wait i don't know what you think army but the forwards get me excited i think that the genther uh the dylan gunther extension we talked about biz likes him for 30 goals this year i love nick schmaltz barrett hayton's tough lawson kraus can play mean he kind of needs to be it's a smaller team but what are your thoughts on on utah yeah i'm excited for i think it's like a welcome to the nhl moment for a lot of these young star players that they have to your point with with the ownership group that's willing to pour all this into them um That's one thing I think exciting. If I'm a player and I'm in that situation, I go from getting dressed at a college barn

outside where you walk into the rink from the outside from a separate building into the NHL rink, which is like virtually a bowl. And I watch IceCon too. You guys are sitting in like no seats. There's literally no seats. There was no back to the seats. There were no back to the seats. It's just a bench. And so they're going to be in a real stadium and they're going to try to

retrofit it for hockey right now it's not built for hockey but i know they're going to put a lot of work into getting that done and then the treatment that the setup that the care that um i think the resources that are offered now through just being a part of the new ownership in this organization i think that the players are going to be like okay like like here we go this is we're in the nhl and this is the way it should be and this is the care that we should get and these are the things that we should have so i think from that perspective i think the fresh start element is super exciting for me for guys like cooley and keller who's been there a long time, Schmaltz, who's a stud as well.

These guys are going to get a fresh lease on life with a new team, new organization, a new city with new fans. So that, for me, is really exciting. Plus, I think the aggressiveness also in the offseason of going and getting some of those names that you said that can fill massive holes, solidify certain spots, make them harder to play against in a lot of different ways. And so I think there's lots to be excited about for Utah's fan base

or just people in hockey in general with a new team coming in that they're going to be pretty good. They're going to be able to stand on their own two feet and they're going to have a team that's not just going to wither away. Because we've had what? Seattle came in, didn't hit expectations right out of the gates of, say, Vegas. This is not an expansion team.

This is a flip-flop over of another team. But they've done some work this summer. And they're going to be a team that you're going to have to be ready to go to play these guys. I think there's a lot of excitement also with this club and with these players. So that's what i'm looking at i can't wait to see it i saw clayton keller at nhl media day chatted with him he's fired up for it trained in the off season back in arizona with matthews and all his buddies and had it going

but he's excited i gotta say those jerseys too as simple and plain as they're kind of like a main black bear like them almost are the colors but i gotta say in person for how simple it is just with utah across it looks pretty damn good it looks really how good can josh stone be so that's the thing i feel bad for the arizona coyotes fans because i look at this prospect pool and the and the guys that can very soon the national hockey league make impacts like josh doan matthias macelli logan cooley dylan Gunther, Barrett Hayton, who finally started developing chemistry on that top line with Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz. So I really like this team. I think they're going to be very exciting to watch. I'm a little bit,

concerned about their size, especially in their top six. Obviously, Lawson Kraus helps that up. Logan Cooley is a tall kid. He hasn't necessarily filled out yet, but maybe getting thrown around a little bit, but it just sucks that they lose their team when this team is trending upwards. Like you look at this roster full of the young guys and you look at, there's just so much goddamn potential. So I think Josh Doan is probably going to have a 20 to 25 goal season. People think that he's slow. I think he looks slow, but he's deceivingly fast. So I think that he adds a great, he's great on that third line,

and he's going to have that Matthias Michelli making plays and setting them up. I think he's a natural goal scorer. He's not afraid to go to the hard areas. You saw that in that first game where he scored those two goals in his first game right near the blue paint. So overall, guys, I don't have this team making playoffs, but I see them making major strides. Mikhail Sergeyev, this reeks of me.

Remember who ended up getting up? It was Florida who got off of Trocek because he ended up having that nasty leg break, right? It's almost like, ah, are you getting off of him at the right time? He's going to have so much to prove and he's fired up. So that's such a big ad for them to add a power play guy, a puck moving defenseman, a guy with that type of experience to kind of, you know, help out those other guys. I like Dersey. I know he's a little bit undersized, but he's got a great motor. Uh, he ain't fucking shy to chuck them either. I think that Vela Mackey is very underrated and no one really talked about him because he was

lost with the coyotes in Arizona. And then you get a guy like John Marino who had a couple of great seasons. You know, he, he's a guy who came over. I think he was in originally in New Jersey or no Pittsburgh and then moved over to New Jersey. So I don't mind their top four, but I just don't think that they're there yet. Um, I think that, um, the goaltender, he doesn't get paid shit.

I'm drawing a blank here. Fumelka had an off year last year where the season before he was standing on his head. So I was expecting him to have a bounce back year and just going to be an exciting season in Utah overall. But, uh, like I said, just not quite there. They have so many young guys up front that it's, it's going to really be hard in that Western conference. You don't think they're going to bang on the door in a wild card.

I don't think they're going to be in the hunt the entire season, but I just don't have them. I'd have to, I'd have to delegate to experience. And that's why I was between them and Nashville. That was, that was where I was drawing the the line but i just liked that those old guys that they brought in and with that experience but it's going to be a great year there they have tons of draft picks as well a stockpile they got a ginla this draft and and and maybe if they are in the hunt maybe they get off some of those picks man they have so many stockpiled right now, and you can only have so many contracts. So some people like that philosophy of stockpiling them all,

and then you never know what these picks are going to turn out to be. Use them in order to replenish that lineup if you do need a little bit of help in order to kind of get these younger players some playoff experience. So I really like that Tourney as coach, a guy who came over from the ontario hockey league who doesn't get enough respect and the work that he's done with these young players in order to help develop them so i just really like the organization i'm really sad that arizona didn't get to see these guys flourish but uh it's going to be a great year i i uh i have them making

playoffs i i don't know why and i and I understand it's a complete reach. My main thing is the excitement and the change of pace these guys are going to have at home games. I think it's such a young team that they're going to be just like, oh, my God. The fans carry them the same way. To be fair, they had an incredible record at the mullet last year. To be fair. Yeah. I'm not saying that they weren't good there. I just saying like all of a sudden like it's just different it's a

different feel and the guys they have like i think that barrett hayton is a guy and i know if you look at his numbers he's a former fifth overall pick it's nothing special but as you said at the end of last year they really started connecting him sch Schmaltz, and Keller. I think my main reason, I think Logan Cooley's going to go off this year. I think he's that good. Army, I know we were talking about him. You love his game as well. I think Sergeyev's that good. The goaltending's question mark.

It's more for me like Vegas came into the league, and they had this fan base that just carried them. I think Utah games are going to be nuts. I think they're going to be nuts, and I think Dylan Gunther is going to have a big year. And I know I could look like a fool on this one, but I think they somehow get in the playoffs. It's just so hard that young up the middle in that conference. Like look at Barrett.

The center spot. I know it's, it's a little thin. It's a little thin. It is. I think they'll be exciting. I think it's going to be exciting either way. I think they're going to,

I think with the excitement level, I think this team will respond as such as well with the way they play and and they got exciting players too right like they got a young group of exciting players that are fun to watch so um little kick in the butt here we go we're in a real spot they're putting everything into us let's let's see what we can do so that's i think will lead to to them being in the mix. In the mix, but not in for you? Not in for me, but in the mix. I think they'll push. I think they'll be there in the wild card, banging away.

Well, I'd love to get out to a game soon. And now we can actually send it over to Spicy Tuna himself. Liam O'Brien joined us, I want to say two weeks ago, to talk about his move to Utah and what the team's feeling. So right now, enjoy Liam O'Brien of the Utah Hockey Club. This episode of Spit and Chicklets is sponsored by the Late Game Movie. Let's be honest. For all hockey guys, eventually, all roads lead to beer league.

But as you get older, shaking off the rust and lacing them up only gets harder and even tougher if you're the new guy. Starring Zach Bell, a.k.a. Always AKA always hockey and chicklets, very own Mr. Rear Admiral. The late game is a hilarious tribute to beer league hockey and a salute to the poor bastard stuck with those brutal late night ice slots. This movie perfectly grabs the people and experience that comes with playing in beer league. The hockey action in the movie is actually realistic guys.

I saw the movie. It was awesome. Rear did an incredible job, and I recommend go seeing it if you have a passion and love for the game of hockey, the late game, folks. So crack a beer and check out the late game available now in Canada and the US on

Apple TV. Go to the late game dot com slash stream for more places to watch. We are now pleased to be joined by a very special guest, Biz. Spicy Tuna himself, straight out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Maybe the first human being from Nova Scotia to ever have the nickname Spicy Tuna, but I love it. Utah Hockey Club's own Liam O'Brien. What's going on, bud?

How you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on, boys. So we were just chatting kind of before we started that you're all settled in there. It looks like you have a beautiful pad and you're right in downtown Salt Lake, basically. How's the city treated you so far? The restaurants, everything. What do you think so far?

Yeah, no, honestly, it's been unreal. We've got so much support behind us. You can already tell. The people here have been amazing. Anything you need, they're willing to help you out. Overall, it's been a great experience so far. from the beginning of guys' careers and how they got into hockey, but considering the last, like, what, six months has been pretty crazy, I want to just dive into, you know, how you got the information that you guys were going to end up moving from Arizona to Utah. Like, when was the first that you guys caught wind of this? Did you know before the media found out? And who addressed the team in order to tell you guys

that this was all going to go down? Yeah, it was kind of crazy. We were in Seattle. I think a few guys had heard rumblings the night before. And then that morning in Seattle, we had a meeting. And Bear told us, Coach Barry told us. So we were all kind of in shock, to be honest. I don't think any of us thought we were leaving Arizona.

Obviously, with the team being there so long and it kind of battling through adversities over and over and over again we just thought okay like we're gonna just keep keep trucking along um so we found out we were moving everybody was you know pretty honestly upset you know and and um it was uh yeah it was uh you know it was big news. Well, I mean, I kind of went through it when I play with the coyotes in a sense of like ownership changes, potential ownership changes. So when you say the adversity, was it more so like dealing with the moving into ASU and just like not really knowing what the future was going to hold for you even personally? Yeah. I mean, you know, there play there right and and there's always there's always been there's always like turbulence and i think i really do think that a team could work there in arizona i really do i believe it can

um i think it's a a great sports market and you know we had such great fans and and i feel so bad for those fans that you know don't get to watch hockey anymore um and I and I really hope that they they bring a team back there and they just need to get the the rank in the right spot they get the rank in the right spot and and it's gonna work I think it must have been exciting for you though because you know even though you're moving it was like you really found a home and you played pro hockey for a long time, undrafted and, and worked your way up like a lot of time in the Myers. We'll get into Hershey too, kind of a legendary like AHL organization,

but there had to be a part of you that said, all right, no matter what, like I'm with this team, I'm with this organization. So I don't really mind where we're going. And you were rewarded with a three year contract this year. So it must've been exciting to know,

like I'm now a part of this team. I don't really care where we are as long as it's the same group. And now you have that and even better, like, market fan-wise. Yeah, definitely. We've got, like, the best group of guys, too. And I think when you're in the role that I'm in,

it makes it easier when you love your teammates. And so, like, moving here, it was a no-brainer for me what about that intro too when you came on stage i'm sure that had a lot to do with you with you establishing yourself as kind of the new fan favorite because in arizona after that i don't think you really gave him much of a choice i get i get a lot of questions about that because everybody thought oh like you planned that or like um like even. Even Ryan Smith asked me the other day, hey, did you do that on purpose?

And I was like, honestly, no. What happened was we were told two minutes before we were getting on stage, hey, by the way, you guys are going to be getting the mic, and you've got to stand up and introduce yourselves. And I'm like, oh, shit, all right. And as the mic started to kind of work its way down to me i could just feel the guys like there's kind of an expectation there for me to to kind of do something like that uh so i could just see them staring at me like hey like get these people going like get you know get this place rocking

so i was like all right i'll uh i'll give it my best and uh i i can't you know it obviously didn't hurt me yeah well i mean whenever you're not on the ice and probably not in the locker room you seem very reserved are you very raw raw are you the guy who's bringing energy every day to the rink and snapping jokes around making sure everybody's getting chirped and really making making the team feel like a team are you kind of that glue guy in the locker room i think i do it in like my own way um i i just i try to be myself i don't want to like overdo it or um i don't try to say too too much uh but when it comes to like doing you know before the game lineups or things like that like i kind of have my thing that i've been doing you know for a long time ever since junior and it's a little bit wwe so i think whenever we get into situations

like that where there's a mic or something like that i think there's just there's just those expectations from the guys like hey like get up there and give get you know give it to them get them going now how many it looked like there was a ton of fans there, like a lot of maybe new season ticket holders or people who wanted to be a part of the hockey club's fan base. How many people were there that day? So I think we had in the building, I think we had 15,000, I believe. That's unbelievable. So they just let all these people in,

and then you had another 7,000, I think. This is kind of just coming out of my ass but 7 000 outside uh so there's just a lot of people and they were going nuts like i'm excited for you guys to get in that building and see how loud it how loud it is because it's it's a super loud building i don't think tnt has a broadcast till early January. And I was actually hoping, considering I live in Arizona, it's not a, it's a quick drive or even a flight away. So I might pop up and just try to catch some of the action. Um, it's funny that you said in your last answer though, uh, before that about WWE, now you kind of look like a WWE wrestler. Like you have the, like the nice slick back hair, theured beard are you a big wwe

guy and is that why you kind of when you're reading the lineup card and you bring that energy is that stem from maybe your like of the wwe not at all but you know what if you guys go on google you look up uh lee will brian seamus you guys look that up you'll see my my my ahl rookie party i think was garrett mitchell chris newberry uh dame byers missing a guy too there's like i had four of the vets they dressed me up as seamus i was like roaming around this is in december and like a speedo and knee pads you guys can look up it's actually hilarious it's actually hilarious i went to jim duggan one year too i had the knee pads and the speedo on too it's it's a nice little get up yeah well they weren't letting me into restaurants

or bars they weren't letting me in anywhere as i had to like walk in like put this jacket on and then and then the boys like oh well you gotta take the jacket off now like we get in the private room they're like yep you gotta take the jacket off so yeah no but a great night but yeah if you guys look it up you'll see it on i looked it up right now and then i also see another one ahl enforcers take fight to twitter liam o'brien tells tom sestito to take the rocks out of his head oh no what's that from oh so uh we were we're playing them in playoffs and he was in will well he was in pit actually got sent down to wilt we fought we had fought a month before that and uh i don't know i don't know what happened i didn't like i sell it after the fight didn't like it anyways um

i ran i ran a guy on their team. Pretty good. I got suspended for it. So then he, he went into the media and he had this interview and he just, I don't know. He, he didn't sound too smart and he was like chirping, yapping at me, telling me he was going to kill me,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I just kind of fired back at him on Twitter. And then, um,

I think it was game three, game three. We we fought i think we fought like i think we fought three times that series me and him uh so so it was uh it was a busy a busy playoff series for me but uh you weren't uh you weren't shy down on the minors i think when we played you when we were with manchester you fought Josh Gratton. So you would answer the bell no matter who it was in the AHL, which I think at that time probably had tougher guys than even the NHL. But now saying that, as far as the NHL, it seems like there's been a little bit of a revival of the heavyweight division. Are you excited? And do you think that that's why that makes your job that much more important?

The fact that even new guys like Rempe are coming in and all these young guys who are willing to throw down yeah no it's great it's great to see some young guys starting to step up I think there's a little bit a couple years there where we didn't have any young guys kind of coming in trying to do the job and so it's nice to see that there's some young guys that are starting to find their way into the league. And Ramps has done a great job. He's come in. He's fought the toughest in the league. And you've got to have respect for the guy.

He's just a young kid. I was in the same spot as him when I was 20. I'm in the minors. I'm looking at the lineup for the game. There's Paul B. Sinet. There's Josh for the game. There's Paul Bissonnette. There's Josh Gratton. There's Scott Saverin. And the boys are like,

you probably shouldn't fight those two guys. It's great to see young kids starting to take on the role. I look at your career and Quebec Major Junior League. I guess the PIMs were a little lower at the beginning. Were you kind of a late bloomer? Did you grow a lot at some point or was this always kind of who you knew you'd be and if you were to get to pro hockey right like some guys get to junior and

business even talked about he switched from defense to forward and realized this is what it would take like did you have aspirations of being really offensive when you got to the Quebec League or how did you kind of approach what you do now back when you were a teenager playing junior I think the I think yeah I think I still play the game the same way I did when I played in Huey like I I just want to take your head off um and I think that's why I've been able to get here and play in the NHL and have a role within the NHL was just because from a young age you know even when the cage was on it was like I'm I'm running you like review if you run one of my one of my guys from behind like I'm coming for you uh so yeah I think junior is tough for me I I don't I never really had a great year a great year in junior a great two-year hockey career at all

I get 20 goals one year but I think once I got into pro hockey, I had my role. And then from there, I think I just had access to skills coaches and development coaches and psychology, psych coaches. He had everything. And I took full advantage of that. I think I lacked a lot of that stuff growing up. And so I just took advantage of that i think you know i i lacked a lot of that stuff and in you know growing up and and so i was just you know took advantage of that and and developed and you know i was able to get my game to a high enough level of play in the league well i mean what you alluded to it you played in hershey obviously probably the best place you could have ended up in a sense of getting those resources you're basically playing in like a an nhl barn they're selling out every night i'm sure that washington's

providing you with all those stuff you mentioned like how did you end up getting there because you were undrafted so you ended up what signing like a two-way contract was it a an east coast hl deal to start was it an nhl two-way no i i walked i walked onto the end of the nhl that year so it's actually it's a crazy story so i uh i went to development camp but i was hurt the day before i went to development camp i took a skate to uh the top of my ankle it was like it was deep deep cut so i tell my agent i'm like i don't give a shit like i'm going there i'm going to go for the experience whether i'm rehabbing the whole time or not so i get to washington i rehab i think five or six days and i'm i'm like fuck it like i'm just i'm gonna throw the skates on and i'm just

gonna run guys you know i don't care how much it hurts i'm just gonna put the skates on i'm just gonna run guys so you know it was nowhere near ready for just gonna put the skates on i'm just gonna run guys so you know it was nowhere near ready for that anyways threw the skates on played in that like you know the development game that you play in the end of the week played in that ran some guys that you know probably asked a couple guys to fight whatever tried to make an impression they call me in and they're like all right we're gonna invite you to rookie tournament you know go home get healthy and then we'll bring you back to rookie tournament so i was like i was fired up i'm like you're like i did it i fucking did it let's go right so i go home train my ass off i you know go to junior camp i was supposed to be an over asian sherbrooke fly into DC for rookie camp

I fight in the rookie tournament played against Philly, fought that Moran that 6-7 giant and then Trotty was like we're going to give you a preseason game I'm like shit alright

play my first preseason game fight Bobby Robbins and then i had uh i had one and one i had a gordy that night and then the next game play against uh philly again fight derek mathers picked up an assist and then you know play against montreal play a good game then i got a fourth fourth i might have got five games in there i had i think i had four points and four fights or something you're like i might make this team and uh anyways i had a great camp trotty is like all right we're gonna sign or trotty my agent calls me he's like we don't want to sign you

i'm like so i'm like ecstatic right i'm like holy shit i just went from playing my overage year in sherbrooke to now i'm signing an hl contract probably play pro hockey this year and um how my my like meeting a camp trots he brings me and he goes hey how'd it feel if i told you uh you're gonna play your first hl game against the montreal canadians tomorrow night holy fuck are you kidding me right uh so i i dress up and then i only played like four or five minutes that night but i fought uh i fought rusty that that was my first game first fight rusty so wow yeah that's how i did you cry when he told you oh yeah i was i tears my eyes i just it was crazy dude that's an incredible story because as you started telling it like when you

busted up your ankle when you got cut right and you told your agent i'm going anyways he must like even even washington must have been like why is he coming I showed up and they were like Why did you even come here You're in their lineup You guys want to know the best part My jersey number in Washington Was 87 You think they were

Planning on keeping me around My jersey number was 87 You walk into the you walk into the uh training facility now and there's like they have all the numbers on on the gym on the wall and there's like 87 and there's like me and then donald brashear like nobody nobody wears 87 especially if you're from halifax no shit i was gonna say that's your guy so i think i think i saw that you played around what 12 to 14 games in that first year did you stay up that first portion of the year and then eventually get sat uh sent down or was it kind of like an up and down

thing all season that first year no so i was i was up till december uh and then i got sent down like right before the it kind of sucked actually they had the winter classic that year so i got sent down right before the winter classic which i was upset about because i don't i don't think i would have played in it but just like to be around it and yeah like take on that experience would have been pretty cool so um and then i got sent down to the minors they had their guys already right i kind of like struck gold at that time like bull patty got hurt um he was i think he was getting his neck figured out and i think brooks like had an injury at the time so they had injuries so it was like i kind of just came in at the right moment and then guys got healthy and i kind of knew when guys got healthy i was like i think i'm

probably gonna get sent down the minors like i i knew I wasn't there, ready to play in the NHL yet, but I was willing to do the role at that time. They're like, we got this kid. He's hungry. Anyways, I get sent down on minors. Yeah, everybody wanted to fight me. It was probably the craziest year of my life. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

It's similar to Jack to jack guy a little bit biz yeah right like you go to a rookie camp and like not not many expectations and boom you're in the nhl that's wild it all happened so fast yeah yeah it all happened so fast so the the coolest thing like so i didn't have a like not too similar but when i ended up making pittsburgh i think i played 15 games in that first year and what was cool is the fact that i knew one day that i was gonna be able to tell my kids if i ever have any that i got to play with like sydney crosby uh malkin was there flurry letang so for you to be getting dressed next to ovechkin like was there any any silly stories that you can remember and just being starstruck about the fact that you're around these like legends

in the game like ovi's gonna be the old all-time goal goal record holder like that's fucking crazy you get to play with him yeah ovi was till this day he's always so good to me i mean uh he kind of like took me under his wing i think he just appreciated the fact that i was a little kind of like this young crazy dude you know and i remember i think my the crate the funniest ob story was i think we were going on a trip to calgary and uh i get on the bird i got my bag and whatever put it away and i'll see ovi get on the plane he's got no bag just has his toiletry kit so i guess he just the whole trip he just was like buying clothes like he was just on the trip buying clothes the whole time uh him and and koozie and and i think uh who's the other russian maybe maybe starles maybe orlock they showed up to

cowboys they were dressed up as cowboys they had the full like head to toe outfit jeans boots hats um i don't even think they kept the stuff either i think they just like hey boys if you guys want it here you go like iverson style yeah no but it was it was cool to play with all the like nicholas backstrom um i got to play with green i got to play with uh you know john carlson too and all those guys like it was a veteran team jason chimera wardo like uh it was it was a really cool team to play on. Definitely an intimidating team. Like, I remember, like, practice, I'd be like, I got to dial it in here. It was just the puck would just snap around, and guys were so good.

And I knew I just wasn't there yet. So it was almost good for me to be sent out of the minors and and and develop and and and work at it that kind of goes back to like you know a dream coming true for you like obviously you call your parents i'm guessing and like is that who got you into hockey did your dad play was he was he a big influence in you in your career like just at the beginning and i i looked it up you're seven years younger than sid so this legend from nova scotia like when you're 10 or 11, he's coming into the NHL. Like you must've always kind of looked up to him, I'm guessing. Yeah. Sid and Marchie are both guys that I've always looked up to. Just the way they carry themselves off the ice too,

the way they take care of themselves. They're just, they're good pros they're good you know they're just good people and and they're great hockey players and um you know i think we're we're privileged and you know where we're from to have those guys um from halifax or cole harbor and uh yeah it's uh those guys are still heroes for the kids coming up now. So it's cool to see. When, when you were younger, were you going a lot of moose heads games?

And was there like a guy that you looked up to as to why you ended up embodying the role that you did? Did you see some guy running around and the crowd going nuts? And you're like, I want to be like that guy. Not really. No, no,

never. I would say my, my, my favorite players growing up were rick nash and then scotty hartnell so i always wanted to have a good mix i always wanted to be like uh i always wanted to have rick nash's you know skill and and and be a power forward like that and then i love the way scotty played he just played hard and he just he just ran guys and he'd fight and score goals and i just i knew he had the hair too he had like the the orange the orange beard and the hair right so uh yeah those are those are the guys that i looked up to g let me know before we hopped on that you actually played

uh under 17 for is it the maritime like team like i don't know how they they divided up or at least when you played but you played with nathan mckinnon on that team correct yeah so i put i grew up i grew up playing against nate my whole life um he played for cole harbour and i played for halifax so we we we and he always played a year out right he's he was so good so he was always with us he was always playing with us a year out he was he like even at 10 years old like it was that evident like prodigy style yeah and and he was never really uh when we were younger he wasn't really a big strong kid like he is now like now you see him and you're like wow okay this guy's monster yeah he's a bull and and so when we're younger like oh you know he'll probably be like a smaller skilled guy so it's

really cool to see where he's at now in the nhL. And he's like a power forward, right? He's just so explosive and strong on the puck. And yeah, so yeah, we played with him. I played with him. I played against them, you know, Adam, Peewee, Bantam. And then we played together, U17. You kind of look like a bit of an outdoorsman. You mentioned Marchie being from there.

I know he's a big bow hunter and shit. Do you ever go out with him in the woods and hunt and shit? No. He's always posting the photos on Instagram. He's killing stuff in the wild. I think that he said, I read in an article, that he just does it to clear his mind and get away. So I just figured since you look like an outdoorsman and a rustic guy i figured maybe you're out there shooting with him i mean

i like to hike and and do things like that or you know i like to get outdoors but i'm not i'm not i'm not hunting anything no not yet at least maybe maybe now i feel like there's probably tons of spots to do that here you You mentioned Hartnell's hair. Your hair is way more manicured than his is. I think we posted a photo on our social. I was just ripping him when he was at NHL Network this year for an awful salad. What's your routine? Because you're obviously all about your hair.

You have to be open about this. You're a bit of a girl when it comes to being manicured and shit. Honestly, I do nothing. Nothing? this like you're a bit of a girl when it comes to be like being manicured and shit i honestly i do nothing i wash my hair maybe i do i wash my hair maybe maybe once a week if that's maybe once every two weeks and then i i never put anything in my beard like no beard oil or any of that i get it trimmed i had a barber in scottsdale and then i just i just found a guy here that is named Cisco. Good fella. And so he just comes over to the house and trims the beard up. That's it. That's

nothing. Honestly, nothing. Even in season, like when you're sweating and you're putting your helmet on every day, you usually go about 10 days before you wash it? Yeah. I was told you're never supposed to wash it. I think Merle's is the one that's like he washes his hair once a month. He's like you're never supposed to wash it i i think merles is the one that's like he washes his hair once a month he's like you're gonna lose your hair even more if you

that's what merles told me never wash your hair i don't know once a month but i i would say i wash my hair probably three times a month three times a month you're in there scrubbing it up every morning i gotta fuck I got a velcro Head I got an afro I have to I got flies around it if I go three Days without washing it with the body odor coming Off of my body um this is kind Of a random one I know you haven't been there

Long but uh any like Any differences like big time differences About people from Utah like I know There's a lot of Mormons there and stuff and people Try to make a big deal about like the docking Going on and all the swinging going on apparently the the housewives of Utah is like the craziest one I heard the Salt Lake City ones are out of the rocker it kind of made me want to get a job with the team because of all the swinging going on Salt Lake City swingers I haven't been approached I haven't been approached yet i'll let you know

what i do but you know there's always always the thing i'm like hey they don't they don't drink or like i've had my neighbors have dropped off you know whiskey and i've had two neighbors asking me to go for beers and i'm like they drank like and i I'm in Southern, the Southern part where I've been told there's, you know, more Mormons and, um, hell people here are so friendly. I had, I had a nice family. They dropped off muffins yesterday. Like, uh, they weren't, they're not even like my close neighbors. They're like two streets down.

So the problem is muffins may mean like, Hey, we're looking to swing. Like your wife could pop around the corner and be like, I forgot to mention to you the neighbors who dropped off the muffins gave me a possible little situation. I opened up one of those muffins and there's a butt plug in it. What the hell is this? What the hell is going on here? You can leave that one alone.

We don't want to get you in trouble in Utah to start out. We don't want you getting pee-pee whacked by the GM. It just must be really nice for you guys to go from such unknown in a college rink to now you're like, we got an owner that's willing to do whatever. I mean, Sergeyev comes over and all these moves, and it's not dogging Arizona and what happened, but you're now like in the NHL do you know what I'm saying like it is

a little different I'm sure for all you guys oh it just it's it were we want to like it's a different yeah for sure different mindset it completely switched you know I think we were in a rebuild and now it's like hey like let's win you know like let's go so

Sergei and Marino and you know colesie and uh stanlin you know who just won a cup and so it's it's great it's great to have these guys i've met most of them already and they're they're awesome guys and uh just happy to have these guys part of the team um there was a story too that uh ryan smith he flew down to Scottsdale. He brought you guys to Scottsdale national, the golf course. And he basically laid it out and said, Hey, like, what is it that you guys aren't being provided now to where I can provide it to help you guys win more games? What, like, what was, what was the feeling like amongst the group and nothing to bash on Arizona about, but what did you feel that you guys could could use as a group

in order to get to the next level he was just like okay you know flights like how do you guys fly hotels where you guys stay and things like that like what needs to be better food what needs to be better uh nutrition what needs to be better so he just tried to check all the boxes there with us uh he wanted everything to be done right. And so far, everything's been done right. You know, like really well, like top notch. So the guys are happy and it's been nice. It's been really nice. You know, they're building that brand new facility for us in Sandy.

Right now we're in our temporary one, but our temporary one is still great. I was going to ask how the temporary one is and when they think the new entire practice facility will be finished. Yeah, so the temporary one is at the Olympic Oval. So the rink is in the middle of this big speed skating oval. So it's pretty cool. It's unique. And then our facility is still it's still not done we're in there like the change room and the dressing room is all done so we're in

there right now but a lot of the other stuff isn't still not done but it's great yeah like it's you know he didn't you know he he went all in on it and and and then you know we he didn't, you know, he, he went all in on it. And, and, and then, you know, we've already looked at the floor plan for the one in, in Sandy and it's going to be ridiculous. So, uh, we're, we're pumped and excited for that to get done. You mentioned a Sergi. We talked about Ovi, uh, another Russian. You played with Kucherov in junior. What was this guy like in junior?

Yeah. Kuchi's the man. Uh, good, good buddy of mine. What? What was this guy like in junior? Yeah, Cucci's the man. A good buddy of mine. And yeah, I got to play with him. The crazy story about that is Quebec City had three heroes. They had Sorensen, Mikhail Gergorenko, and they had Nikita Kucherov. So they had to get rid of one.

And we had a space for one. So we ended up getting Kucherov. That's who they got rid of? They got rid of Kucherov, one of those three guys. Yeah. And I'm telling you, this guy was, as soon as he got on the ice, we're like, holy crap, this guy is unbelievable. He was just two points a game.

You know how he is out there. He's very smart, smooth, cool, collected. Same way in junior. Just super calm, lets the game come to him, can shoot the puck, and sees the game so well. He was dominant. He was extremely dominant. We all knew he was going to play in the NHL.

We all knew he was going to be this good. We would talk about it. We'd be like, all the boys be together and you wouldn't be there. We're like, coochie, right? He's going to be like a 100-point guy in the NHL. It was that obvious then? Here we are today. It's a second-round pick in the NHL. It's a pretty good second-round pick.

How was his English then? It was good. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, he was a great guy. He was just a good teammate. He was a very happy? It was good. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, he was a great guy. He was just a good teammate. He was a very happy guy, easygoing, low-maintenance. Yeah, really good teammate. Did he ever have some shady Russian buddy come around?

Sometimes these Russian guys. Malkin would have these two random Russian guys around the locker room all the time were they coming in in red jumpsuits oh oh yeah oh yeah i don't think i played with another russian that had had that sort of thing where he had like his his body coming in and like the reds jumpsuit and it was like his treatment guy or whatever you know but kooch no koochie never had anything like that. His vitamin guy. Yes. Getting him the multivitamins, the Z-Packs.

Oh my God, that's incredible. Are you in like the anxiety part of September of like getting ready for the testing? Like do you guys have hard testing with Utah? Yeah, so we're a week away. A week away. What do they have you guys do? Everything. We used to have this bike test. It was like the wind bike, right?

Windgate? It's horrible. Windgate, yeah. We would do that. We don't have it anymore. So usually I'd be a little more stressed out because that one was tough. But we don't have that this year, which I'd be a little more stressed out because that one was tough. But we don't have that this year, which is nice.

We got an on-ice skate test, got sprint tests, and we've got a bunch of other tests. So this time of year is always stressful. But I'm looking forward to the season. I'm looking forward to getting things. I'm looking forward to getting, getting things rolling here. As an English guy growing up in Halifax, like how was it playing in the queue?

Cause it's not often we, we have guys who played in the queue on, like, was it hard to, to adjust? Like being in a French speaking place, like there's French speaking players on the team, like all the communication going on in the locker room.

Like was your coach French? Like how does it all work? So I, I yeah i speak french so i was i was lucky that way i had a lot of buddies that that were in french towns and they they they didn't speak french and it was it was hard on them but i luckily i spoke french i i live when i was younger i lived in montreal for four or five years. So I had like this base of French that I was able to kind of stick with. And, you know, I'd be in French class and stuff like that. And obviously it was kind of a breeze for me because I already knew all of it.

But yeah, I was able to, you know, keep my French. And it kind of paid off for me in the end because I played in Rimouski and then I played in Rwanda, both towns are predominantly French so yeah, I was lucky What were you doing in Montreal? Like one of your parents jobs or like what? My old man got a job

in Montreal so we moved I was only 5 I think at the time. So from like age five to age 10. So I started actually playing a lot of my minor hockey in Montreal. Were you rattled when you guys moved back to Halifax? Cause you had all your buddies and stuff. No,

no, no. I was, I was excited. I was excited to get back to Halifax. You know, all my family was, was there.

We actually, we actually had another stint too. I had another stint in Toronto. I actually played two years in Toronto after we had moved back to Halifax. It was Halifax, Montreal, Halifax, Toronto, Halifax. So I was used to moving around. My old man

got a job in Toronto, a really good job. So we went up there and then realized, you know what, we just like being around family. We moved back to Halifax again. Do you go back there in the summers? Do you spend all summer there this year? I just had a baby girl. Congrats. I was in Arizona for most

of the summer. Most of the time, I ended up going home, training, and spending time with family and stuff like that. This summer, I was only able to get back for a few weeks what's the dad life like it's great it's great yeah um yeah it's a lot of fun right but yeah it's it's uh it was a lot at first and and i'm sure you know right and then you get you kind of get into like the swing of things you're like okay yeah you know and then that's when your wife says i want to have another one you're just like you're like holy crap

oh kind of hits it kind of slaps you in the face but yeah i know it's been so much fun and so biz has said that someday if he has kids when the kid's crying he's just gonna meditate through it all could you yeah could you picture that could you picture yourself meditating posing as your wife i've also had a vasectomy too though, though, so I don't know if I don't know how strong my swimmers are to bust through that wall. I don't think I don't think you're going to be meditating through any of that crime. But there's no way. There's no way. You got to just you got to just take it on the chin.

You did mention earlier. I'll just put the headphones on. Yeah, exactly. No earlier he'll just put the headphones on yeah exactly no he'll just leave he'll just like where's biz oh he just left he's out in the park no but uh you you did mention earlier uh like in arizona being with that group of guys and how awesome they are like i've had the chance to hang out with a lot of them like kel's krauser like an unreal group so i'm sure that you have a lot of a lot of close friends on the team who are like the silliest guys on the team that kind of you're hanging out with the most like who are your closest friends on the team who give you a lot of laughs i mean the silliest guys you got you know krauser and um you know d Dylan Gunther is kind of like one of those like quiet, silly guys. You know, Jack McBain, like we got some really funny young guys, too.

You know, even that Matias Michelli, like we got so many guys that are, you know, just hilarious. So it's just it's comical going in the room every day. It's comical going in the room every day. And then, you know, as for the guys, I'm probably closest with, you know, like a Kels Krauser. And then, you know, pretty much everyone really like it's a really close group. You know, you've been around us enough and it's, you know, Schmaltzy and these guys like it's the best you know it's just such a great group of guys is schmaltzy talking in lingo like his brother schmaltzy is actually probably the biggest goof actually now that i think about it schmaltzy is the biggest goof um you know when you get him going he's man he's something else him and his brother are fucking top tier they're

funny bastards he's got some of the best dance moves. You get that guy on karaoke, like, it's game over, man. Like, he just takes over. Takes full control. You mentioned Michelli, who, like, the fact he's from Finland and his last name's Michelli just always will crack me up. But Arizona was a team not often on, like, national like national games he's nasty and i feel like he's somebody that normal hockey fans especially at out east are like don't really even know who he is

can you kind of describe his game a little bit because he was great as rookie or last year he's even better so i'm feeling like it's going to continue to we're going to continue to see his game grow as like a playmaker right yeah he's got some of the best, if not the best vision I've played with. He just sees the ice so well. He can find your blade from anywhere.

He's just... His seam passes, when he gets over the blue line, are the best I've ever seen. That's what we talked about last year. Entering the zone on the power play, just that seam pass, just zinging it

through triangles, unbelievable. He can score, too. That's the other thing. He's got great shots. We're trying to get him to shoot the puck more. He's definitely a playmaker. I think that that's our,

and we're doing the division breakdown pretty soon, but he's like, there's a lot of guys who do fantasy hockey that listen, like he's kind of one of those sleepers, like somebody's going to grab him and win their pool because of Michelli from Finland. I still don't get that. It's got to have Italian family members,

but the other guy we had to ask about and we had him on um logan cooley do you see some of like what you were saying about kucherov in junior like this is a future 100 point player like one of the goals of the year granted it was pre-season when you guys were in australia but kind of a game breaker high draft pick, future superstar. Yeah. He's so dynamic and he's got so much skill and speed. He's creative. He's one of those guys who's got that creativity

to his game. He makes something out of nothing a lot. It's fun to watch. That goal he scored in Australia when we were playing LA, we were like, uh it's fun to watch it sometimes just like how did you just you know that goal like you go back always scored in uh australia when we're playing la we're like what the fuck yeah like never seen that before settle down kid settle down buddy and that's another kid like he's a goof too like he's a funny kid you know super super great kid humble um and so we just have a good good group of guys like that

grabner lost his roommate unfortunately that was a good guy to live with his first year he's probably chucking a lot of weights and gaining a lot of size since we're on the topic of these young studs coming up for the coyotes when i went i went and hiked with bedard uh on sunday and he was raving about dylan gunther i love him. You said he's a silly guy. He's really good with the one liners. He raved about his one timer and how he's able to get it off from everywhere. So he, he was confident that he's a 40 goal guy in the national hockey league.

That's coming out of Bedard's mouth. Not mine. Yeah. So we a hundred percent, like we were out there today and we're doing this shooting drill and you're watching this kid shoot the puck, and you're like, what the fuck? He's like 180 pounds.

His release is crazy. It's so quick. And it's not even just him. We got Josh Doan, too. You watch these two guys shoot the puck, and you're like, oh, my God. So our young guys are so good. They're so talented. I'm excited.

It's awesome. They're so talented. You know, the guys, you know, I'm excited. You know, it's, it's, it's awesome. They're all great kids. So it's, yeah, we're lucky.

Do you guys start the year off at home or are you on the road? We are starting the year off at home. First games at home against Chicago. Place is going to be buzzing. Yeah. Well, I don't have anything else, man.

It was great getting to chat with you. And I know you're going to have your hands full protecting a lot of these guys given the the rejuvenation of the heavyweight division of the national hockey league buddy so congrats on a three-year deal well deserved and uh and looking forward to watching you play this year and i'm going to hopefully pop up there and watch you live in action yeah i appreciate it boys hey thanks for having me on. See you guys around. Congrats. For you to get that contract, it's awesome.

The way you got to the NHL is a cool story, so I'm really happy for you. Good luck with everything. Alright. Thank you, fellas. Alright. See ya. episode of Spittin' Chicklets is brought to you by Body Armor Sport Water, the alkaline water that provides real hydration with electrolytes for taste. Chicklets Cup was magnificent, and part of the reason was because of Body Armor's support. Everyone was thirsty. Everyone was hot. It was about 90 degrees in the sun playing those games, and people were crushing Body Armor. It was amazing. They hooked it up. We can't appreciate and thank them enough so body armor is where it's at for me it's about the wide mouth bottles that's what's great when you go into a

gas station you see body armor at least now me i love it i'm like thank god they have it they send it to my house my family loves it it's the perfect water and as i mentioned it's got the alkaline it provides real hydration with electrolytes for the taste. So also you got to include the Flash IV after a long weekend. After running around during Barstool Survivor, I'm crushing some of that Flash IV drink and I'm feeling good because it tastes great and it helps you get rehydrated quick. We cannot get enough of Body Armor, the sport water. It's in my opinion, the best water on the market. So head on over to your local seven 11 and get your body armor sport water today.

Well, we're on to Minnesota biz. And with that, we have a very special guest, the general manager of the Minnesota wild, a friend of the show, Billy Guerin. Thank you so much for joining the boys.

How you been? How's the summer? Star Wars, jock sniffer, Billy Guerin, NHL player, jock sniffer billy garrett nhl player jock sniffer paul bisonette okay all right that's how we're gonna start off i'm doing your job for you i negotiated the favor deal you gave him exactly what i said to you didn't even have to work this summer i negotiated the brock favor deal i said the number and the term and you just went with that and he took it oh you know thank you biz you're welcome thank you what a classy

guy you are biz marching numbers i guess with that deal though we can kind of start there i thought it was really cool the quote you gave um when talking to him if you don't need to change a thing like that's probably one of the biggest things, the pressure of signing that deal, but you signed it for the kid he is and the player he is now, right? That's something you've got to remind him of? Yeah. You know, I mean, you guys, though, you've seen it a million times. Guys get these big deals, and I do.

I really think guys, hockey players are great. They want to earn their money. They want to make sure that they're doing everything they can to, I mean, make that look like, you know, make it legit. Like they want to earn their money. And sometimes when they try to do that, they try to be something that they're not. They try to play a certain way that, you know, they didn't play before. They try to score more. They try to make more plays they try to you know raise the level the plays that they make whatever it is just just do what you just do what you've been doing and you know brock's so young he's going to continue to get better but you don't want him going crazy

trying to you know be that because they'll just hurt himself like that's just it's too much pressure they put on themselves so try to take that off of them and and uh and just let them play is it a little nerve-wracking though given that much money in turnover especially in a hard cap era to a guy who's only played one full season i mean it's not a common thing i would imagine it's the first time that you've ever done it as general manager where you hand up that much money to a guy who who's only played one season do your homework biz we deal with boldy um okay all right thank you that's why we bring you on you're spicy you're spicy buddy come on come on okay no honest you know what though it's a little it is a little nerve-wracking but and i i have a ton of respect for the veteran players but i'd rather give a 21 year old that

looks like he's going to be a star or a 22 23 year old whatever i'd rather give him the eight year deal than a guy that's 31 or 32 an eight year deal or a six year deal whatever that's where you got to make sure you're doing your homework, you're giving it to the right guy. I mean, I think there's got to be a lot of character involved. I mean, like, you've got to know who you're giving it to. And I think you're seeing a lot of it happen now, but those are the players that we're investing in for long term. And we're going to get their best years, that we're investing in for long-term and we're going to get their best years, not when they're kind of getting older and,

and maybe on the back nine. I got to ask, cause the, you talk about Kaprizov and Boldy, but like my guy last year and watching him was Marco Rossi. And like all of the, the good things you hear about him coming in, it seems like he made steps along the way,

like the early struggles and then finding his game. Like you see this guy as a, as a, as a possible point per game scorer in his future like what do you love about his game so much well i love that he's well-rounded he uh i mean you guys saw coaches are too they i mean they love these two-way guys right especially when they're young they if they got the d-zone figured out they're willing to do that um they love so marco's got that figured out he he's he's a very responsible player i think when he learns the times where he can take more chances to to produce more offensively he will but i think that just comes with experience but um uh yeah i think i i think you know, what did he have last year?

He had 40-something points and he had 21 goals. But I mean, there's no reason he couldn't, you know, get into the 60s this year. You know, you got to get on the power play too for that to happen. So we'll see what kind of power play time he ends up getting. Sometimes fans get a little bit impatient with some of these young guys with rossi i believe he suffered from covet and there was some lingering effects like that obviously played a big part into his development

as well right yeah it's really slowed him down um you know he he had, I think it was that myocarditis, and it just really basically took a year off of his career at a young age. So we had to make sure that we kind of brought him up at the right pace. I think everybody was expecting a lot more from him maybe at a younger age, but, man, that took a lot out of him. It was pretty scary. I got to let my dog out of my office. Oh, we'll just kill time that's all right we'll just shit talk you while you stand up no worries i figured i figured biz would just take up most of your time anyways he just starts talking he just starts talking about himself and well i got a question actually about about you as a as a

forward right like i got to know matt boldy great kid and he can score i noticed watching he's streaky right like he goes on like 10 game runs he gets 15 goals and then maybe quiet for a little bit he's young is that something as a forward you just got to deal with like were you like that as a score and like as a gm can you talk to a guy and and help a guy i mean more consistent scoring as opposed to like these runs of hot and cold yeah i mean as a forward i mean i went through it mainly when i was younger so i understand that he's that he's a little more streaky i think consistency something it's probably one of the hardest things to get yeah in the game right is become a consistent player or

perform at a high level uh each and every night but i think a guy like matt is learning a little bit more year after year um he had a he had a brutal start last year he had one goal uh you know late november um but and then we made the coaching change and then he had like 28 after that so that's a pretty long stretch if he you know if he can figure out the start of the year and then continue like that he's gonna i mean i think matt could be a 50 50 guy i think he'd give you 50 goals 50 assists all day long he's he's that talented i mean big too he's a ridiculous athlete i mean just a naturally gifted kid um if he wants to shoot the puck a lot more he'll score a lot more but i think that consistency is something that he's going to continue to figure out over time billy g you're not much of a complainer but

i want to say it was last year you got a little bit vocal about uh maybe some of the attention that kaprizov had gained and maybe lack of calls where you're seeing superstars in the league now when they are getting hooked and slash and gaining that extra attention normally there is a penalty called where did you feel the need that you had to step in and say something just based off the frustration that kaprizov was was dealing with at the fact that he was getting that extra attention. Now you're trying to get me to put my foot in my mouth. No, no. You're going to get you fined.

Now you're trying to get revenge on me. No, I'm not. I don't care that you stuffed me in a locker. I'm always going to be Team Billy G. But last year, we had them on the broadcast. And I remember it was a week or two prior. And even throughout that game, I was paying attention. And I agree with you.

Sometimes the Russians, they don't get the calls like the north american guys and they deal with a little bit more shit you know what it was just at that time yeah i didn't i didn't feel uh i i just didn't agree with the calls that were made or not made and um yeah i just didn't agree with it at the time and and you know what sometimes you just want to speak up and support your player how much of a loss um was it was jonas prodean missing 20 games last year like not talked about he's kind of similar to erickson eck and like doesn't really get the respect around the league they deserve like hockey people know but maybe like the random fan doesn't but missing him missing 20 games it was just a nightmare for you guys with how good he is all around.

Yeah, I mean, you're right. He goes so under the radar, but people that know, know. He is so good. He is so good. I've always said this. If he had a higher offensive game, he would be in Norris Talks because he defends as good or better than the, you know, so-called top five D in the league.

Jonas Brodine defends as good or better than those guys. His feet are as good or better than those guys. He doesn't have the offensive part of his game, um, to, to be considered in, in those, you know, Norris talks or whatever whatever but on the defensive side coming out of your end breakouts things like that no question he is one of the best defensemen in elite as a gm do you ever look at like me i know your eye test is i mean it speaks for itself but do you ever look at those analytic sheets as far as like breaking up plays in the neutral zone closing on defenders and breaking up and closing off plays in the neutral zone, closing on defenders, and breaking up and closing off plays

in the defensive zone. Do you take a look at those in order to make that type of opinion? Yeah, absolutely. I look at that stuff all the time. We talk about it all the time. You know what? His defense against the rush and coming out of our end, they're just silly.

And he's just yeah i mean you know when when you lose a guy like that for 20 games you go back and you can look at some of the you know some of his numbers and things like that and and you see why you miss him i mean he is in defending against the rush and breaking out and, uh, playing against, you know, higher end guys like McDavid, uh, like McKinnon that can really skate. Um, he's, he's one of the best. Um, you, you mentioned Erickson Eck. I believe he got injured at the end of last season, but probably one of the more underappreciated 200 foot centers in the league. Just so consistent provides offense all the time. Like what type of a guy foot centers in the league just so consistent provides offense all the time like what type of a guy is he in the locker room you know heck he's uh you know he's pretty

pretty quiet kid pretty kind of mild-mannered but um he's he's an animal like he's like a workout freak like i mean he they go mr september he comes in and crushes all the tests he's um yeah i can't say enough good things about him i think he had 30 and 30 last year like he's he's unbelievable like that kid is uh i mean he's such a well-rounded player it's not and he's miserable to play against yeah like he's just every single game guys are punching him in the back of the head because they're like i mean he doesn't even know he's doing it he's just bumping into guys he's running people over he's you know he he's he's just awesome it's great having him on our team. Honestly, I'll tell you a quick story. My first year in Minnesota, I was just trying to figure out,

okay, who are we going to keep? Who are we going to get rid of? This and that. I didn't really know Eki. Quiet guy. And we're in Montreal. They're on the power play, and he's killing the penalty. And they give it back to Shea weber and he freaking wires

one and eckie blocks it i'm like wow i would i would not have been able to do that like and then they they get the puck after it hits eckie they go back to shea weber again again it again oh honest to god third time back to weber again this time i think we're just trying to hit him like and he blocked it third time in a row he could barely get to the bench but in my mind i was like all right my mind's made up we can we we're gonna win with this kid there's no way we're getting rid of him can't question his uh his toughness but maybe as an intelligence yeah maybe i would i would definitely go away and now oh imagine me i would have got hurt getting out of the way do uh do you always

address the team every training camp and and what was your what's been your message or what is going to be your message going into this one and And what are your expectations going into this season? I do. I feel the guys want to hear from the GM at the beginning of the year. This year was a little more, it was a little different because John and I had talked before and I felt like John was going to hit on a lot of the points that normally maybe I would have covered so that was great I could focus on something different but

to me this year was all about opportunity and every day is an opportunity and don't let it go to waste you know everybody's looking for this opportunity or that opportunity they want to be given this or given that.

I'm not giving me shit. You have to go out and make your own opportunity, create it. Don't let a day go by where you don't just use the opportunity that you have. You're in an NHL training camp. Like you got to make the most of it. And we've got to get back to where we have to get back to we have to get back to the playoffs those are basically the two things and and we talked about this when you were nice enough to have us over to your house that night but you made that hard hard decision

of the buyouts of Suter and Parisi and this is the final year where you got I think 14 15 million dollars tied up and is it is it hard not to think about all when this is off the books like next summer what a different story for us or are you more just focused on this year right now tied up and is it is it hard not to think about all when this is off the books like next summer what a different story for us or are you more just focused on this year right now now we're focused on this year i mean you know from time to time it comes up because you have to plan right yeah i mean this time last year we were planning for this year now we're planning for next year and in in some ways and and you know the decisions that we make now will affect us in the summertime so you're always you know you're always looking forward in that sort of way but we're focused

on this year because yeah we're not just sitting here saying ah let's just wait well let's wait a year from now we'll be all set like yeah that's not the case we we have a full season in front of us and we our expectations are high our expectations are to get back in the playoffs and and do better there than than we've done and and um and continue to get better you know we'll deal with next year next year uh my last question for you on the team is like you know it's a 15 point drop off from the year prior and it was like the gustafson numbers were like two years ago he's incredible and then this year was a little bit of a struggle for him did you notice anything that that maybe affected his game do you notice something now that

that looks like he'll be back to two years ago like what was it last year for him and or was it more maybe just the defense in front of him a little bit yeah i think you nailed it right there with um look he he was probably wasn't as sharp as the year before but i don't i think when people mention him now everybody's like oh he was nearly as good well you're not nearly as good when you don't have jonas brody for 20 games and you don't have Jairz Bridgen for 70, when the penalty kill is crap, that affects the goalie. And the better your decor is in front of you, and the better, if you're forward, so turn the puck over. If you play in the offensive zone, goalie's numbers are going to be better.

So I don't always just look at, you know, oh, a C percentage was this, you know, it, it all goes hand in hand. You got to look at everything. Um, I had a couple last ones. Uh, I don't think we've had you on since, uh, the Dean Edmondson firing, uh, probably the hardest thing that you probably had to deal with as a general manager so far. Uh, my understanding is you guys had a big embrace in the office and that was a very difficult decision for you uh just maybe touch on that and the follow-up is why john heinz why do you believe that john

heinz was the answer yeah you know what i freaking love dean emerson he's he's one of the greatest guys i've met in this game and we And we had not just a great working relationship, but a great relationship. He's a good friend of mine. And he was so good for us. And, you know, we got close. You know, he had a big hand in turning Minnesota Wild around, like the culture and the expectations and all that stuff he had a tremendous

uh amount of uh amount to do with that and and yeah it's it's hard to it that's a that's a shitty part of the job like i i that is not fun at all and he was a friend and it's just not fun at all. Your other question, John, I've known John Hines for close to 30 years now, and I know John's detail in the game. I know how organized he is. I know his messaging. I worked with him for a long time at Pittsburgh. I'm comfortable with him. I feel like him for a long time at Pittsburgh. I'm comfortable with him. I feel like he really communicates with the players.

There's a lot. And he pushes the guys when they need to be pushed. And, you know, he knows when he's off the throttle a little bit. And, yeah, I'm a big believer in John Hyde. So we're off to a, believer in John Hyde. So I, we're having to, you know, we're off to a good start to camp right now. I just love, I was kind of dialed in and really got the guys focused and ready for trying to get them ready for game one. And my last one, Billy G you're, you're, you're such a smart hockey mind and intelligent guy

for a general manager from a self-evaluation perspective like this offseason do you always like look to work on something is there something that you felt after last season that you needed to be better at and that you try to work on this offseason yeah yeah and you know what I always looked I always look at my staff and I always look and see how happy everybody is. I want to make sure that guys are, that they're engaged, that they're proud to be working for Minnesota, that they like working for Minnesota, that they feel important in their role, that their voices are heard, all that stuff. So that's something that I really, I really focus in on in the offseason, making sure that everybody's kind of not getting what they want, but being hurt. And I think that's really important.

So I'm always checking on that in the offseason. I always try to self-reflect on the job I did or our hockey ops group did. And I admitted last year, I don't think I did a good enough job with the depth of our organization. And that's something where I missed, and I needed to get better at. And I get a lot of help from my hockey ops staff and our pro scouts, and we've improved that a great deal this year in case of injuries. So, yeah, you always have to to just if things don't go well always have to look in the mirror and and evaluate yourself and um hey look it's not just a team that

that missed the playoffs so did i so did the egm so did everybody in the organization so i need to look at myself and get better. I lied. One last quick one. Can you, can you give an update on, on your captain, Jared Spurgeon, hip and back surgery when you think he'll be back,

if he'll be back for the start of the regular season? Yeah, he'll be back. He looks good. Participating in camp, full blast. And yeah, he looks great.

Great to hear Billy. We can't thank you enough. It's awesome. You'd spend the time just going over your team, and good luck this season. Thanks, fellas. Great to talk to you. Any more insults before you leave?

The fans love hearing you ribbing me. Anything else? You got one for me? No, that green doesn't look very good on you. Well, with all that said, I do not have the wild making playoffs, especially with that $14 million on the books from the Parisian suit of buyouts and, uh, Billy G just not doing enough to get the depth up in this

organization. Oh, you're still on. Oh, sorry. In the next episode. It just changes. Well, the good news is we're mushes and you guys will probably win the division now. So there you go.

We appreciate you. We love you, Billy G and you're doing a hell of a job man and uh we love having you on thank you thanks fellas we're talking hawks what's up buddy hey boys what's up buddy i didn't know you were in that room over there when i came in i would have came say hi no it's all right the game's afoot i. I got it. I was there last night. Did the Bears lose that one today? Yeah. Fuck. I never saw the ending.

Yeah, okay. They were on a trip. Okay. I'm not chirping yet. This is a hockey podcast, not a football podcast. This is a hockey podcast. It's a hockey podcast. We still can just chirp you, though.

We can still just chirp you. But let's stay on task. People are tuning in for hockey. They don't even care about football. Yeah, so what do you think about Tevu Taravine coming in? He's back. Yeah, he's back. He's back, baby.

He's back. Are we hopping right into this? We're hopping right into this. He hopped in. Tevu. Look at him as the producer chair. It's awesome. He looks pretty big in that chair, but he looks great.

No offense. Departures. That's fine. Anders Bjork, Caleb Jones, Joey Anderson, Jared Tenorti, Austin Wagner. Who? They brought in Tyler Bertuzzi from Toronto. Wow Toronto I want to know someone else we brought in oh because he came to the office and I was like oh shit is that is that big rig wow and I was like shit is he on the Blackhawks so yeah by the way renewed my season tickets so I'm all the way back I mean I was already in as soon as the the Conor Berdara got uh as soon as we got the number one pick last year i went online bought

season tickets i think i'm on auto renew so i think that's for life um but i'm i'm in okay this team could be semi-competitive they're they're gonna be better they're not gonna be in the playoffs but they're gonna be better and'm wondering, my question to you would be, you went to a Connor McDavid Oilers at Blackhawks game, and you texted me, and you said, holy shit, I understand what you're saying. It's different. Something's different. I took my wife, and she was like, who's that?

Yes. Oh, yeah. She's sliding those DMs. Okay. Just relax. There's got to be a sex thing, all right? We're talking about speed on the ice. Oh, okay.

Do you notice? I do the speed at home. Do you notice? I'm faster in bed than Conor McDavid is on the ice. Do you penetrate the box? Do you penetrate the box as well? Pucks on net. Pucks on net.

That's how you get three kids. Just shots on goal. Shots on goal. Do you notice Bedard being a little different looking to you? Yes. I also think like his first season, obviously the jaw injury sucked because it was like he missed some time and it's like you never want to have a rookie, you know,

be out for a little bit. But I think he's going to be incredible this year. I think it's going to, like you can even see the flashes where the game looks slower for him than everyone else on the ice and that's the special type of talent that he has so i'm excited how many goals are you thinking i think he's gonna get 50 50 i was gonna say 40 i think he's getting 40 and 40 this year a nice 80 point season some progression yeah it's gonna be hard man he's gonna have some hard line matchups and i was just gonna follow up with like do you think that size will be an issue no dude patrick

kane proved that doesn't matter well patrick kane's also a couple inches taller than him i understand but that was like the whole thing when when the hawks were in their heyday and it was oh fuck who was it was it uh goddamn i hate him on the ducks when he's who was it? Was it, uh, goddamn, I hate him, on the Ducks. Kessler. Was it Kessler? No, I don't think it was Kessler. Bieczka? No, he was on Vancouver then. You're talking about a small guy? No, it was a big guy. It might have been the Blues or someone who was like, they can't, no one

can withstand this type of punishment. And he was like, we're just going to keep hitting them and hitting them. And it's like, but dude, they're like, the Hawks are just better. Like, if you have skill, I think you guys know the game has changed where it's like yeah if conor bradar was playing 20 years ago he might he might get his head cut off but now it's guys are so fast so skilled so i think it's a different league speed who was that i gotta i gotta find bergland on st louis i'm trying to think of who you're talking about that was just beating down on the Hawks. Nobody beat down on the Hawks then.

They just dominated everyone. That's what... It was... Fuck, I hated him. I think he ended up coming to the Hawks. This is just too much sports in my brain. This is a football Sunday with Big Cat. This is a football Sunday.

It was Kessler. You're right. You had it first. Kessler said it. We could have saved ourselves. Yeah, no human can withstand that many hits is what he Sunday. This is a football Sunday. It was Kessler. You're right. You had it first. Kessler said it. Yeah, no human can withstand that many hits is what he said. Really? And then we won in seven. I think that was the series where we played that game seven against the Ducks

was just fucking perfect hockey. Considering you have season tickets, outside of Bedard, do you have a favorite player? Big rig now. Okay. But somebody who's maybe currently on the team that you might watch. Give me someone. Give me someone who I got to be excited about.

Tell us about Lucas Reichel. Who's our draft pick? Oh, Lashunov. He came from Michigan State. Love him. Yeah, he's money. Defenseman. Next up.

I didn't even want to. But he's got a broken foot. He's got a broken foot. What do you make of that? What is that? Is he a Ryan Whitney clone? I don't know. You better hope not. We get one broken foot. You don't want some. What do you make of that? What is that? Is he a Ryan Whitney clone? I don't know. You better hope not.

We get one broken foot. You better hope not. The speed goes away? Fuck. Do you think that Taylor Hall has the best DSLs in Chicago? He does have some nice longtime stoolies as well. Taylor Hall. Yes.

I think I introduced him to Barstool Sports. You can thank me. I mean, you guys should do a Spittin' Chicklets like coaching tree. Whitney in the locker room, how many guys you got into it. Yep. Because there's a lot, right? Yep. I remember back in the day, I used to get so excited because just random dudes would

follow me with the blue checkmark. I'd be like, who the fuck is Logan Couture? And I was like, oh, shit. This is awesome. And now you know you're old because a lot of these guys are retired. I know. Logan, I saw the other day, Logan's still playing. He's got a kid now. And I was like, oh, shit. This is awesome. And now you know you're old because a lot of these guys are retired. I know. Logan, I saw the other day, Logan's still playing. He's got a kid now.

And I was like, goddammit, he's still out there. All right, good. But yes, a lot of these guys are retired. He was on the IR for the most part of last season. I think so. I think so. He's not going to start the year, but he should be back. We chatted about that in the Pacific.

He was a shout out Logan. Yeah. He had a 10-year window. Those Sharks teams were awesome. Oh, my god. Yeah. We always talked about surviving the first 10 minutes in that building. Yeah. He had a 10-year window. Those Sharks teams were awesome. Oh, my God. Yeah. We always talked about surviving the first 10 minutes in that building. Yeah.

And they would just score in the horn. It was just a nightmare to play there. The Shark tank. Hey, can I ask you a question? Are you a Utah fan now? Yeah. Yeah. I like all those.

Oh, that's terrible. What do you mean it's terrible? You can't. Those are his buddies. Yeah, but you lost the team. Those are his guys. I wasn't part of the organization last year. I wasn't,

given the fact that maybe ownership wasn't treating my former friends. Oh, you took a stand. Not my former friends, my current friends, but former people who I was employed with. So I didn't really take a stand. I just felt that it was just like

it didn't feel as comfortable. Okay. It didn't make as much sense. Like I like to, the year before I did 10 games. Cause I enjoyed working with the staff that they had for the, the, the valleys broadcast.

Yeah. But yeah, it just kind of got a little bit weird and it's, uh, yeah, it's, but I, I,

I wish them all the success. It sucks now because they have such a good prospect pool and all their young guys are unbelievable. And then all of a sudden they're off to Utah. It's just, it's a really big sky dump on all the fans that were there that supported it for that long what else we got on the blackhawks preview well i'm gonna listen to this anyway because i need to learn learn up it's football season i think the biggest felino name captain was big that was big big huge he's a great

it is great locker room guy i'm kidding i know who he is piece of shit i know who he is he was the guy piece of shit. I know who he is. He was the guy who last year, Bedard's like, he's like, Hey, he was telling Bedard, like you could have caught me there. He's like,

dude, you were going too slow. And he was like, are you calling me slow right now? He's like, Oh no, no, no.

I think the biggest key to this season is like last year must've been like a mental warfare on some of these players. Cause they just had no guys, especially when Taylor Hall went down. They've surrounded them with players. Right. Right. So you bring in a guy like Tyler Bertuzzi, who's a good net front guy.

He's a skill guy, could play on the top lines. Who else did they bring? I mean, you mentioned Patty Maroon, but Tebow Teravine, and he's fucking nasty. That's going to be a very difficult loss for the Carolina Hurricanes to get over, but they're top six, way more competent. So they have a little bit of depth to take more focus off of Bedard, which he was getting a lot of. I feel like too, like this is, it was smart how they, how they took this off season where like, when you get a guy like Bedard, you could,

you could be like, all right, well, we're going to sell tickets now. We can just wait and, you know, slowly build up. They're actually going to put a competent team around them. Right. Give them something. Try to maybe get that 8th seed, 7th seed. I don't know. They're not going to be great, but they could be in the playoff mix. You don't think they can make the playoffs? No, I don't.

Big Rick told me they could make the playoffs. What's he going to say? He just got signed by him. I will saw my cock off in the office on a live stream. Don't you still need to get circumcised? Yeah, a doctor told me to die. Are you getting a little nervous now with all these things that are going around Twitter where it's like the guy from Florida State didn't eat the poop and, you know, yeah.

What happened to him? He got run off the internet. There's a guy last night, a Kansas State fan, who has to shove a five-layer burrito up his ass. Oh, Biz would like that. Because they lost to BYU. Biz would like that, though. So people are starting to up the ante, and they're starting to get called out on it,

and you still, as far as I know, still have an anteater. We have a problem on this podcast of people making calls like that and then not living up. Pasha's supposed to get a tattoo, right? This is bullshit. And guys aren't living up to bets they make, which upsets me. But apparently a doctor told Biz it's very dangerous for an adult man to get circumcised. That's bullshit.

It's painful. Dude, you know what I do every year? I pick a pinky team, a team that starts 0-2 that has Super Bowl aspirations. I'm like, this team's not going to win the Super Bowl. Who you got this year? The Rams. They won a big one today. They were down, weren't they?

They were down. They won that game. If the Rams win the Super Bowl, I don't even think a doctor will like, you can't go into a doctor's office and be like, cut off the tip of my pinky. Well, you can use the saw he cuts his hog off, which Chicago makes. But I'm going to do it. They won't let you cut off your pinky, but you can cut off your cock? Yeah, because one's the actual surgery that people get, and one is

you can't just be like, hey, cut off my finger. Okay, fair enough. But I'll still do it. I i'm gonna double down on the foreskin bet of the maple leafs win the stanley cup where i said i would chop it off to if the blackhawks make the playoff love that the whole thing i'll love it so you're getting circumcised no you're getting circumcised no i'll chop the whole no no no no no no no no no no it does i'll just keep my balls you're getting circumcised as blackhhawks make the playoffs. Okay, fine. That's fair.

All right. Big Cat, can I give you a player to get excited about that you can go watch on defense? Yes. Oh, yeah. Kevin Korchinski. Okay. Seventh overall pick in 2022.

He flies. And I think last year, I don't know exactly. He played over 20 minutes. He's on the ice all the time. And he'll be the guy in three years when Chicago's maybe competing for a cup again. This year? That is their guy. That is their defenseman.

I love that. And he skates so well. He's a big guy? I wouldn't say he's enormous. He's 6'1", maybe. Compare him to a defenseman from when the Blackhawks won the Cups. Jarmilson? Jarmilson was small. He's offensive. Jarmilson? Jarmilson was small.

He's offensive. Jarmilson's not small. He was not huge. No, he's offensive. Oh, he's more offensive? You could say maybe someday he's like Duncan Keith. Oh, that's big. I'll whisper it. I'll whisper it.

I'll whisper it. But he flies and he can move the puck and he can run a power play. So Korchinski, maybe you buy a jersey. A Korchinski jersey, big cat. That could be your guy. Okay, I like that. By the way, we'll meet in the middle. Jarmelson was tall, but he was not, like, big.

He's jacked. He was jacked, but he was under 200 pounds. I don't even think he was that tall. He was, like, 6'2". What? Yeah, Jarmelson's... I just remember seeing him in a suit and being like, oh, you're not as big, but that's also Seabrook. Well, they all got nice-fitting suits. Yeah, Jarmelson. I just remember seeing him in a suit and being like, oh, you're not as big. But that's also Seabrook.

Well, they all got nice fitting suits. Yeah. All right, so a Duncan Keith. Sealing Duncan Keith. That's high. That would be like a dream come true. But he's very good. And like high pick.

Like not just like. Like Duncan Keith is a second rounder. Is he going to be top pairing? Yes, I think he will be. Maybe a hybrid between Seabrook, Keith, and Jarmelson. Wow. If you put them in a blender. Maybe throw in a little Johnny Oduya?

That would work. Sure. Sure, if he gets a nice tan. The best was when the Hawks won in 2015, and Sharpie was nice enough to let me go out with the cup. And we went out one day. We went out the second day. Then the third day, they did the cup at this,

uh, bar called the pony in. And it was like for friends and family of like the, like sales staff and like all that. And I'm sitting there. Cause I brought my friends to finally get a picture with the cup. And Oduya is there. And he's just like,

where is everyone? He was still fucked up. He was just like, where's the party? Like he looked at me. I was just like, dude, I don't fucking know. Go home, Johnny. Just go home. It was still fucked up. He was just like, where's the party? It's over. He looked at me and I was just like, dude, I don't fucking know. Go home, Johnny. Just go home.

He was the only player there in me. He's the only face I recognize. Despite the moves and the fact they are going to be better, but they're not going to make playoffs. No, they are. Let's go back to the past in those three Stanley Cups. What are your fondest memories? Who are you hanging around with the most? Honestly, it goes back to the past in those three Stanley Cups, what are your fondest memories? Who are you hanging around?

Honestly, it goes back to the fact that that team was like, it's a rare thing in sports where they were just, they were so nails where it's like, they were down in so many series where it's like, they'll just figure it out. And they just got better as the series went along. Like even the Lightning Cup final, they were down 2-1. It was like, oh, fuck, the sky's final, they were down to one. It was like,

Oh fuck. The sky's falling for straight for straight. It's just like our three straight after that. Yeah. Like they, they just, every Q would just make the adjustments and it would just be like better and better and better.

So you like so many teams probably thought they had them and they just never did. Did you see that? Uh, Jonathan Taze went to burning man this summer. I did. He, Hank,

uh, went out with him the other night. Oh, Hank told me the story. So listen to this, Biz. So Hank's playing golf with this kid. Kid gets a hole-in-one, and Jonathan Taves is right on the hole behind them, and his car is parked right where the hole-in-one happened, so he's going nuts, and this kid's like,

Jonathan Taves is my Tom Brady, Hank. This is my hero. He loves hockey. He watched the Hawks win all the titles. So he finishes up, and they're hanging out, and comes over he's like what's up boys congrats the kid what are you guys doing tonight he's like oh we're going out like dude would you ever come out comes out with the kid with his hole-in-one it was like hank's like this kid it was like his dream day they literally went out all night yeah did you ever hear uh um wits hole-in-one story no you hit one no i didn't i lied about one and then my

grandfather made me a plaque i'll never get one i'm not his grandfather you can't get one now no i don't even want one is that worse than well you do want one is that worse than not falling through cutting off your force you definitely want one uh i don't know that's pretty bad no the foreskin still i was like 16 though so like you like, you know, young, dumb. Yeah. What, did you even get it close? Or was it the second shot? You just made the whole thing up? No, I just was like, watch this to my buddy.

And I was like, I got a hole-in-one. I guess. I didn't know what a hole-in-one meant either, though. I didn't play golf at the time. So I didn't understand. It's like sacred, you know? But like, I didn't certainly get one and then have my childhood idol, Jonathan Taysen, come with me at the club.

Technically, I've done that, too, because I do the the fake scorecards and I've definitely put a one on. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. People are like, holy shit. They're like, oh, congrats. You shot 63 at Shinnecock. You just post them on your Twitter. Yeah, you can score whatever you want in golf. You just put it down.

I shot a 72 at Shinnecock. Dude, I shot a 72 at Shinnecock. I probably played like half the holes. And I had so many people hit me up being like i never knew you were a stick we got to go out like this is awesome like dude that was completely fake what are you talking about golf jock jock stuff oh people get so mad about it and i'll do it like i'll be like five under in the first on the front nine and then like just lost my focus in the back nine like went 10 over and like people like what are you talking about i smoke man i got i got high like seven consecutive birdies and then i had a

quadruple bogey they're like that's not possible actually you know another chicago thing back to the blackhawks alex vlasic okay 22 years old strong big defensive play to bu so i love the kid they signed him to a long extension. He's only making 4.6. So that's something in like two years, like this guy only makes 4.6. Love that. Shut down. He's your Seabrook.

Okay. He's going to be your Seabrook. He's the big boy. Okay. So I'm just really reaching here to give you No, I like this. But that's a guy like you got Korchinski, you got Vlasic,

you young stud D-men, you got Bedard, you got some really good prospects. Speaking of Seabrook, really good. Future, future Blackhawks head coach. I'll call my shot right now is he even coaching i feel like he could be maybe maybe not but he's the future i'm calling my shot we'll just in 10 years when it happens

we'll we'll play this back and be like holy shit uh did you go to uh chris chelio's jersey retirement i did it was awesome oh my god it was so much oh isn't that where your kid was like wondering who wayne gretzky was we went into the wayne's box and kid rock was smoking a cigar and like i think wayne was eating steak with his hands and uh my kid got a picture with wayne gretzky and was like it looked like it looked like my kid who was four at the time five uh it looked like wayne was using my kid to hold him up, like to hold Wayne, his own body weight up. Cause he was so buckled, but, uh, it was, yeah, it was a great time.

And then on the ride home, my son was like, I was like, you just met the greatest hockey player of all time. He's like, how's he the greatest hockey player? And he's like, well, he scored the most goals. And he's, and my son was like, how many goals did you score? And I was like, none, but I I'm a hell of a golfer. And I was then but but i i'm a hell of a golfer and i was like yeah i'm a hell of a guy i do have a hole in one and then he got confused because they were we watched the uh when they shot at the uh in the intermission between second and third period

and i was telling him like they're gonna shoot the puck and then on the way home he's like so who which one of your friends got shot and i was was like, oh, man. This is going to be a lot of Chirac. Oh, come on. Stop reading the news. What do you make of the fact that they took away the rockets shooting between the second and third? Lame. So lame. Guys can't be horny anymore?

It's not fair. It's fucking bullshit. Do you think if Trump gets reelected, they'll bring that out? Probably. Probably. He's running on that in his Illinois. He should. It would work.

I think so too. But yeah. Did I tell you that Taylor Pyatt met his wife that way? I didn't. Yeah. Cause her, her friend shot and we were having our rookie party here two days. We were here two or three days before and there was a Blackhawks game on television.

We were eating at Gibson Steakhouse. So there's a couple of rocket shooting. One of which was, was Taylor Pyatt's wife's friend. So we go out that night too. I think the place was called Cuvée. Remember the club Cuvée? Yup.

So we're down there and I'm like, that's the girl who shot. And they're like, you're an idiot. You're just making that up. Only he would recognize, he wouldn't recognize like a hall of fame. He'd be like, that's the girl who's a just making that up. Only he would recognize. He wouldn't recognize a Hall of Fame. He'd be like, that's the girl who's a rocket and center ice.

That's the missile launcher who put her off the post. And sure enough, it was. Broke the ice. They came over. And the next thing you know, Taylor Pyatt's married with two kids. Love it. You're welcome. You're welcome.

There it is. So that's why we need to bring it back. Bring it back. You're basically stopping guys from finding the love of their life. Yeah. We could do almost like a dating show for one of the members of the Barstool family. Yeah, no, it's sad. It's sad.

They nerfed it all. All right, I got to get back to football. Okay. Thanks, boys. Can we ask maybe one or two more questions or no? Yeah, yeah. Do you have one, Whit? No, I don't.

I don't have anything. Actually, who's your now white whale? You guys just keep hammering out big guests on Pardon My Take. Who was it? I think it's still Durant. Probably Kevin Durant. Really? Yeah.

It was Rodgers for a while. I guess Brady, but he's been bad on those calls. Oh, really? Is he not getting better? Belichick. I don't know. He's been calling blowouts. Belichick, Brady, Kevin Durant.

LeBron would never. MJ obviously would be my personal, but I don't think. He should have bought his house and then. I know that thing. Dude, that thing's been on sale for like 10 years. I know it just sold for like 10 million less. It was on for 20. It was 24.

Yeah, but it sold for like 14. 14. You should have bought it and then worked in an interview as part of it. Yeah, he really needs the money. Yeah. Literally, that thing was sitting there for 10 years. I think that he would have done it to get rid of that house At a certain price

I gotta know who bought it because you don't buy that house Unless it's like you're making a museum Because it's just 23 everywhere And it's the court How can you not get Belichick now that he's like doing media And you're the number one pawn I know It's crazy

Tell Hank to do something Last question How do you feel about Patrick Kane wearing a red wing I know. It's crazy. Tell Hank to do something. Last question. How do you feel about Patrick Kane wearing a red wing? It hurts. I really thought he was going to come back this year. Like, I thought this was going to be the year. I think Chief did, too. Well, that's probably why I thought that.

Because I consume Chief's Twitter. All-time favorite Blackhawk. Oh, man. Patrick Sharp? I mean, Sharp, it's Kane, though. I mean, how can you beat Kane? Were you in a bar when he walked in? What was his aura like?

Well, the first time I met him, he was like, who the fuck brought the blogger? And then Sharp was like, no, he's cool. He's with me. Because it was right after all the shit happened and everything. But that was the other thing. When we went to Chelios' night, I explained to my son, I was like, all right, we're rooting for the Blackhawks. Like, this is the team we're rooting for.

And like, he got it. He like understood it. And then five minutes into the game, 20 minutes standing ovation for Patrick Kane. And he's like, I thought you said we were rooting for the other team. And then he sniped. God damn it. I was like, yeah, this is confusing. I we're, we'll, we we'll we'll do this later so

did you get chills when he scored the ot winner i mean it was incredible the whole night was i mean the ovation was incredible how can you not he's the best showtime and he always comes up big it's showtime well big cat we can't thank you enough you're you're a legend buddy and uh we didn't even know i was coming down here uh i believe you're just doing you're he's going on autopilot right now. What does that mean? That was autopilot ending an interview. We can't thank you enough. The,

you're the best autopilot, right? Busy guy. He just went on autopilot. It was autopilot, but he also, it's really from the heart with him. Yeah.

But like I was literally sitting upstairs getting ready for my show and, and Grinnell, he was like, here, just popped out. He could say, fuck you. We didn't even want to take that over autopilot. I just got autopilot ask I think we're past autopilot

I think you need to ask Jans I say thank you to everybody and he says silly you're so silly he hates my my favorite word silly and he just actually between him and Jans they fucking carved me and I'm not even in a group chat they have a they have a text thread going they shit on my ball hockey team. They shit on all my hot takes. I don't. Do you know who Yann's golfed with the other day? He played with who?

Jake Marsh. Did he really? Yeah. Oh, wow. Wow. That's a great pair. So he went from playing with Dustin Johnson, Caleb, and Hank to Jake Marsh. Jake Marsh.

There we go. Listen. There we go. Jake's a great guy to golf with. I guess that's when Caleb was like, he just met Dustin Johnson. He's like, do you like being married? And DJ's like, what the fuck? I don't even know this guy.

That's a hell of an opener. That's a hell of an opener. All right. Thanks, boys. Hey, thanks. Appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Thank you to Big Cat.

What an absolute beauty he is. We appreciate it. And I guess wrapping up the Hawks, because it was just big cat time there similar to san jose and like so bad last year they made enough moves where it's not going to be just like we're playing chicago we're going to crush them tonight i actually like bringing in martinez and brody it's like two legit nhl defensemen definitely on the back nine but it's responsible players that won't make them a complete pushover in their own zone which was a disaster last year. We talked about how good Bersoit was.

He's now there, right? So you get some goaltending help. And yeah, it's not time for the playoffs, but with their prospects and who's coming, I think in three years they could be really competing for a Stanley Cup again. I do. And I hope it happens because I love when this team's good. I love when this market has a winner. Amazing place to play and watch a game. And if I'm a Hawks fan, I'm very excited.

I'm in a good place mentally. Actually, I like the big cat take where he said first year, Bedard coming in, like you're going to get all these new season ticket holders. The building's going to be full, but you can't have a year like that. And you need to surround these younger players that you do see coming up and eventually being this core group surrounded by professionals and you just mentioned like alec martinez like stanley cup champion scored the game winner in in in the finals uh to solidify that stanley cup and these are the types of guys that you need rubbing off on your young players

like it's like the little subtleties and details of as much as like after a tough game after a tough loss getting back in the gym and going to chuck weights uh the way that you handle yourself off the ice the way that your nutrition works the way that you're doing recovery so all these little things will help impact these younger players and credit to the organization for surrounding these guys with competent guys so they can be a a better team this year. So I have big expectations for Bedard. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders, but he lives and breathes it just like the Crosbys,

just like the McDavids, just like the McKinnons, and he had a big summer training, and I'm expecting 40-40. If he scores 50 goals, I will be so fucking happy for that kid, and it'll be so good for the league. They got the Winter Classic this year. So Chicago being in the mix is so good for our game, given how big this market is.

So I just want them to be competitive. I want to have a blast when we come back here and do that live show. And maybe, just maybe, we'll get Bedard on stage because we have not interviewed him yet, and he's one of my white whales at this point. We didn't mention Mikheyev comes over. I actually like him. He flies.

He's so fast. Wouldn't want him in playoffs, but that's another story because he won't be. And question mark in terms of needs to make a step, Lucas Reichel. 17th overall four years ago. Every time he's been in the AHL, he's dominated. Can you make that step? Can you become a second first-'s been in the AHL, he's dominated. Can you make that step? Can you become a second first-line player in the NHL?

And that would just make this rebuild go even quicker. So Blackhawks are in a good spot. They're in a good spot, even though this year will not be their season to get back into the playoffs. And as a former captain, switching subjects,

is there some captain talk this week? There was a lot of them announced. Victor Hedman will don the C. Makes total sense. After, uh, after Stamkos takes off, he'll be the 11th captain in lightning history. Um, and then also you, you mentioned the Goudas of ball hockey, but the real Radko

Goudas is going to get the C in Anaheim. Uh, just a warrior, uh, Chewbacca out there on the ice and a well-deserved for that hairy bastard. And I think you touched on it. Nick Foligno, 35th captain in the franchise, uh, in franchise history for the Chicago Blackhawks and our last team, we're going to shift over to the St. Louis blues who completely bent over our boy, Ryan Whitney here with those offer sheets. You too.

And, uh, what do you need me to? Well, you went on a PTO there with me. You didn't make the team. No, I got a per diem pack. That's all I expected going to that training camp. And you stole some T-shirts. Yeah, exactly. I got some nice gitch, and I got to bring home the gear.

I actually took the bag home as well, the St. Louis Blues hockey bag. And hopefully we're joined by Doug Armstrong for that. Guys, before we continue continue I'm here to talk to you about Labatt Blue lots of things are better together hockey food golf I think nothing beats some playing or watching some hockey and having a Labatt Blue and if you really want to take things to the next level drink some Labatt Blue Lights with your friends your family and live life to the power of we take a page out of Labatt Blue Light book your friends, your family, and live life to the power of we. Take a

page out of Labatt Blue Light book and enjoy your beers together so you can live life to the power of we. Labatt Blue Light, always flowing in Canada, always flowing in the United States. It's perfect for you and your buddies to enjoy a game or to have a bunch of laughs on the golf course while having a few beers so find the bat blue light at labattusa.com slash finder and now we are so lucky to be joined for our st louis blues season preview by general manager doug armstrong actually biz i don't even want to talk to him he really dummied my edmonton yeah you take over this one i mean doug 2014 you Witt on a PTO and then you snip him with a per diem pack in hand and that's all he got. And then this summer you end up suing him,

kicking him right in the dick with those two moves you made by sending those guys offer sheets to his Oilers. What's the deal here? Well, I knew, I knew his second career was going to be much more lucrative than his first one. So I wanted to get him out of there in 2014.

You were just looking out for me i was i was i could see greatness on the horizon army an all-time quote to after this i'm going to read it for everybody doug armstrong i think it was reported that i wouldn't have done this to kenny holland that's the furthest thing from the truth quite honestly i'd do it to my mother if she was managing the oilers did that come out of your mouth? Yeah, it did. It was, uh, I don't know why I said it. I think it was just more that, that this wasn't vindictive to the Oilers or anyone individually.

It's just part of the business. And, and it just was a situation where I was trying to improve the blues. That's my job. And I quite honestly would have done it to anyone that that's, you know, you have to take care of the franchise you represent. And, represent and uh for me it's the blues and since um that that went down there has been talks in different media articles that we may start seeing a lot more of that in terms of offer sheets do you think that that's something that that'll happen a little bit more often in the league right now based on the way the cap works and and how you don't really have to give up crazy amount if the contract isn't crazy with the offer sheet yeah i don't think it's the

compensation though what as much as it is you know you have you have to have the cap space or or believe you can get the player because they might not have the ability to match for whatever reason and if you look at a couple of examples this summer, like the Red Wings had two premier players that they've signed now, but they left $18 million there to make sure that they didn't get offer sheeted. And you look at the Boston situation, I think they got eight or nine million available

to make sure they didn't get offer sheeted. So there has to be a situation where you think you're going to get the player. No one does this out of spite or to put anyone in a bad spot the reality is we did it because we thought we could we had the cap space to take advantage of a situation uh potentially uh because the whalers i i thought they did a great job on early july they they added three really good pieces to their team and to do that they had to put themselves in a position where their cap space was at a premium.

And, uh, we were a situation where we had the cap space and we want to take advantage of it. So it's a, it has to work in that sense. From a behind the scenes perspective, like how early was this being cooked up? Would you say all the way back into last season? Or is this some, something where you're sitting on your hammock in the summertime where all of a

sudden it pops in your brain and you're like, I'm going to be diabolical about this and ruin life, Witt's life even more. No, I think obviously you look at who's going to be a free agent and you look at their cap situation. And as I said, uh, it really started to take hold for us, uh, July 2nd, 3rd, 4th, when we saw how aggressive new oilers were how they really improved their team like you're not a you got to remember they've improved their team they had they have a good summer and uh uh and then it just said okay well if we did this how would they respond to it and you at least what we do is we sort of break up into teams on why we should do it and then a team on why we shouldn't do it then we come back in and we debate it and then we again again it's only if you think you can get back in and we debate it and then we again again it's

only if you think you can get the player and we understand we overpaid the players for what they've accomplished and we're hoping they can grow into those deals but um that that's trying to maximize the value of your cap space which we tried to do so it's been uh i think 17 years in january that you've been with the blues 15 as as the GM. So you've seen way different teams throughout that run. Like you had to build it back up, then a great, great run for a long time, the Stanley Cup in 19, and then now you're trying to build them up again. So how do you approach like rebuilding without tearing it all down? Like that's the main goal here, right?

Yeah, for us, we didn't see tearing it all the way down and and and you know as you guys know you have to have pick a really good year to have a really bad year yeah like some some years you get you get crosby or you get ovechkin and uh where you get mcdavid some years you don't and you see taking it down you could you could go seven eight nine ten ten years out of the playoffs and maybe not get that marquee player you the year that you get it and you've earned the first overall pick you lose the lottery uh and it's funny you look back at a year where colorado had a really difficult season they went from first to fourth and they basically won they got my car yeah and

so it's sort of dumb luck on on how that works at that time but for us we just didn't feel like like going through an extended period of time at you know 50 to 70 points for for the better part of half a decade or more was the prudent way to go we've tried to keep the values of our organization which we're we're always the strength of the pack, is what's given us success over the years. That's the way the teams that I've associated with Bob Ganey built and Dallas and how we want to build them here is that we just build not relying on any one or two players,

but more the depth of an organization. And right now, I think we have 12 first round picks from 2019 in in our in our possession so like i'm not i'm not all gonna make it they're not all gonna play but let's say you get three quarter those guys to play they can grow together for five six seven years and even even our rookie tournament like we uh just out of where they've played and things like that we're gonna have five guys five first round picks put the jersey on for the first time next year rookie development camp you know coming from europe coming from college you know our first round pick this year was hurt so he didn't do it and won next year so again we're just trying to build

the way that we know how through through depth and we'll see how it works out um since you're i think it's fair to say you guys are in this retool phase right now like as a general manager what are your expectations coming into this season and and i asked billy g the same thing do you address the team and have a certain message heading into this season especially at the fact that banister did take over last year you got new new leadership in the locker room as a head coach and what's that message to the players right now going into a big season well for us and again i i don't want to get the cartoon too far in front of the horse but i think we've we've improved we brought in you know veteran players like like suitor and fasca we brought in like the joseph brothers we brought in texier now

you're bringing in uh holloway and broberg so we brought in Texier. Now you're bringing in Holloway and Broberg. So we brought in NHL-ready players, more than a handful, to play this year on a team that had 90-plus points last year. So I don't want to say it's this, we finish here or bust, but I do think that we've expedited the process just by the number of people that we've brought in. And the exciting part is we've brought a lot of people in under the age of 25 that can grow with the thomases and the kairos and and uh you know we signed buchnevich so i i guess hope always brings

a turtle in the summer and if you don't feel good about your team now you never will but we do have some excitement in our group last year leading up to the deadline buchnevich was a huge name and a big topic of conversation and you you just mentioned you decided to re-sign him um what went into that just because you've watched him play underrated around the league but he gets it done on both sides of the ice yeah it was funny because you you can't control the narrative uh at the trade deadline but i you know i talked to buch after and i said uh i know you heard your name out there. I'm not going to lie to you, you know, where we were, you know, it was out there, but the reason you're here is because I asked, I asked a bucket load for you.

Yeah. And, and, you know, that made us smile a little bit. And I said, we, you know, we didn't, we didn't hit the mother load of all, of all trades. So let, let's talk. And he wanted to be here. And it was a little bit having steen come in like he when you're free and you're that age you you want to hey you want the money like i get that it is a business you should get your money

but also once you get that let's say the money's within five to seven percent you want to be in a winning environment or something that you believe can be a winning environment so i had to sell boots that we weren't going to be he wasn't going to sign a five six year deal and and just be at the bottom like what we talked about earlier being at the bottom of the barrel for five or six years he wouldn't have signed up for that so we tried to sell him a little bit of a vision on how we could get back and be competitive quickly he bought into that and i hope we rewarded him a little bit with moving that ahead this year and you know we got to keep moving i got to keep moving those goal goalposts ahead for our group

they they've entrusted me to to help their careers along and and that's my job and steen's job and everybody else's job is to to to be competitive and we've all seen like when you get into the playoffs anything can happen i and my the reality is is alleys won two stanley cups i think they were the eighth seed and seventh seed so you got to get in and i know one thing we can never reach any of our short-term goals if we don't make the playoffs i mean you said yeah chip in the chair right um you mentioned steiner what's it been like having him around and does he make you ride the monarch bike with him because when i went to training camp like he was a throwback he had he was basically quadzilla like you'd have to

put both of mine together look like one of his he's an absolute workhorse and i would imagine he's the same way on on basically shadowing you right now and learning the ropes yeah so last year uh he and i he came on to our group on player development. I went over to Europe three or four times to meet him, and just my own personal opinion was he had management qualities written all over him, his work ethic, his attention to detail, those things you saw as a teammate, as a player, how he pushed himself, and he's the ultimate team guy. And, you know, again, working and learning under bob ganey and bob clark there's a lot of similarities get having the opportunity to to work with steve eisman on

some international events like the guys that put team first are the ones and then steve does that and i think he's got a got a great management career ahead of him and he's all in and he's for what you guys know i mean like he he's a pro like he he's quiet he has two ears one mouth he's used him in that order he's getting a lot of biz yeah exactly exactly so he's he's he's going about it the right way and one of the things we talked about internally like right now he needs to learn from from our scouting staff and our management staff. But he needs to teach the players because what he has is teachable to the players and what he needs, we can teach him. And I think it's going to be a great couple of years as we get him up and running.

I actually playing with Sean Horkoff, who's now high up with Detroit. They reminded me a lot of each other. Like, it makes sense, like the way they approached everything off the ice. So it's cool to see Steiner make those steps up. A guy, a part of your team I got to play golf with this summer was Jake Neighbors, and what an unreal character, like a throwback,

but a quiet 27 goals last year, and what is he, 21? That's got to be exciting for you. He's an old school, he'll throw his weight around he'll get in the mix he'll fight you gotta love seeing him make that big step last season yeah i think you're bang on he has a throwback he he's got that personality too that people gravitate to hilarious you either have that or you don't you know what i mean like he

he can walk into the room and the the veteran players like to talk to him be with him and then he can go with a beer with a 21 year old not a 20 year old 21 year old and and uh and and they feel comfortable with him uh he reminds me a lot of guy i i had the privilege to work with in dallas brendan morrow you know fights for the team fights for the right reasons, scores goals, plays hard. Everybody wants to be around him. And, uh, he's, he's got quiet, strong leadership qualities. And, and, you know, again, getting back to what we took, how this started, you add Broberg and Holloway to, to him and some of these other guys, Kairou Thomas, we're just trying to build a team and he's a massive part of that. And I'm a, I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of Jake's on and off the ice.

Yeah. I was going to ask you about Cairo and Thomas. Those are two very, very important pieces to you guys. I guess I'll, I'll focus more on Cairo, maybe the communication between him and Berube last year, especially with the, a bit of that drama that went down at the start of the year. What are you hoping to see from Cairo and his game

this year coming into this season, maybe giving those rumblings early on last year? Yeah, I think, and he had a conversation that he's, you always can learn and get better, but the learning portion is, when I say young players, I don't put him in that group, but he's a man now. He has to take the next six, seven years of his career. That's going to define how you talk about him in 10 years. And that's the challenge that he has.

You can put up points, and not just him alone, but it's no good to get 30 goals or 40 goals and 40 or 50 assists to be minus 20. That's not helping the team. So to round out his game uh to be become a player a leader on and off the ice and his leadership isn't going to come like like a jake neighbors in the sense it's going to come just showing up working hard every day and producing offense and i'm excited about where he's at and you know again i have to you know i i spend time with these guys and you end up building that relationship and i'm getting at that age now where it's it's not as pure as much as it is almost

not father son but like what one where i just want to see him maximize his career i think this is a great opportunity with robert thomas with some of these young guys to take charge of this thing and we're really fortunate that we got a guy like shen as our captain and branco and falk and letty and saw like guys that have won before around these guys and it's you know they're great on sharing their experiences and we need these guys to just keep drinking from that hose of guys that have won and know how to win just going back quickly to that conversation you had with kairu did you feel like he was more receptive and and had grown and matured a little bit more like in in i guess response to your

comments yeah i i do and it was it wasn't a it was just a brief conversation on if we're gonna go you have to take us like you guys know there there's certain alpha males uh on a team and and skill wise he's an alpha male on our team and he has to take us there and there's no sense hiding from it you know you know you you got to get the job done you but you can't you can't cheat the game to get what you need you have to the game rewards you if you do it right and i think he can be a top point producing player like thomas can and still be a plus player and still be a positive aspect to our whole 200-foot game. But no, he does want that challenge.

And you guys can understand that we have the Four Nations, we have the Olympics. Guys of that caliber, whether they make it or not, they should want to make it and they should think they're good enough to make it. And to do that, you need to be a well-rounded player. You say to a player, like, okay, well, if you're just going to be just offense, you've got to be better than McKinnon and you've got to be better than McDavid.

Or you could be a well-rounded player and be better than other guys. And they're better to take option two. And talking about well-rounded, like in talking to neighbors and Kevin Hayes, who's now with Pittsburgh, they were both like, I don't think you have a clue how good Robert Thomas is with. And it's crazy.

Cause then I looked him up that night. He's 24 years old. It feels like he's been in the league forever. His rookie year, you guys won the cup, but he's definitely someone as, as a team Canada guy that you're building this squad. You have to be looking at him because his 200 foot game is nuts and he's got sausage fingers too his fucking hands are like a bear he's huge he's built like a brick

shithouse doug well we were talking about it today and like you you you look at a guy and and this is really the first adversity he's had to go through in his life. It's like as, as a 17 year old, he plays with the Chuck and Marner and they win the Memorial cup. Then he goes and wins the world junior. Then he pops the NHL and he's, and he's carrying around the Sally cup. Like you just, you just get to a point where this is pretty easy.

I like when this rolls out and then all of a sudden he's missed the playoff two years in a row. And, and you know, he's, they, they just had their first child. Like he,

he's, he's, he's their first child like he he's he's he's a man now again he's not a young player anymore and and he i think having the year that he had last year personally i know the team wasn't anywhere near where he wants it to be but he hears his name on this and now he i know he believes that he's in that conversation and just talking to him and seeing in his eyes he doesn't want to be in the conversation he wants to be leading the conversation and that's me saying that for him that's not him saying that but you know what i mean you could you could just tell when a guy knows that you know what i am i am i do have the ability to do this i'm going to maximize what i have

and if he maximizes what he has the blues are are going to be in great shape for a long time. It was such a kick in the dick for Blues fans and you guys, and even getting to know Torrey Krug myself. Just a great person. And then he gets this news about being out this season. So how hard is that for you to have to hear? And how are his spirits right now? Well, it's very difficult. And the season ends and everybody signs their exit medical and he's off.

And then all of a sudden we get a call in July that, you know, he was dealing with something. And he's a pro. He's an old pro. He's an old school pro. You know what? A little bit of healing. Stay off. And it'll be fine.

It'll be fine. And then he got back training again and it wasn't good and we did more research and he had a serious surgery and that first conversation was hard because when you've when you've put everything in and i'm i'm not speaking from experience i'm talking to guys that do have that experience like you put your whole life into being a hockey player and then the phone rings and says if we do this you're not going to be a hockey player for at least a year. And it was emotional. This is who he is. This is how he views himself.

And so we had some good conversations. We're going to keep him very connected to our team. We're going to push him. We're going to do whatever we can do. But yeah, it was difficult. And then it's the hard part again. It's seeing the press conference and asking about what it is. And the emotion

wasn't from the surgery the emotion was his love and passion of the game and that that makes everybody in this inside the game well up because like as i said i've never done what you guys did for a living but you don't get to that level without loving every second of it you love the hard part you love to grind. You bitch about the bag skates, but you actually miss them. You don't hit. There's all those things that, and being probably

part of a team too, in the locker room, you know, those four or five hours a day that are, that you can't replicate are going to be difficult to miss. Doug, DraftKings Sportsbook has the line for fights from Bennington at two and a half. I'm going to take the to, to, to miss. Doug DraftKings Sportsbook has the, the line for fights from Bennington at two and a half. I'm going to take the over on that. Any truth to the rumor you guys wheel him out to the ice with a Hannibal Lecter mask?

We're going to take the under. He's not going to get too many palis this year. Have you, have you had to call him in to calm him down? He's such an intense guy and that fire is what led you guys to a stanley cup but sometimes you got to probably pull the reins back a little bit uh how are you feeling about him and where he's at coming into this year yeah i thought last year he had a great year uh in the sense that

a couple years ago he wanted that dust up with with uh flurry and and you know what at the end of the day enough was enough like he he he's not a character he's a goalie and he's a hell of a goalie and you know the the hard part was he did it for all the right reasons he wanted he was disappointed how the team was playing he wanted to change the emotion of a game he wanted to change the momentum of what was going on but ultimately it can't come from that position you know it just can You know, his job is hard enough. And so I thought he did a great job. And we're probably one more year he's going to have to deal with what he had to do with last year is that if the opposition thinks they can get under your skin, you know, they're going to try. If the referees are tight at protecting it, they're going to give that guy that extra poke.

And I thought Bender put up with a lot last year and was able to just focus on the task at hand, and he had a great year. He's another guy that's got short and long-term goals of Four Nations Olympics. He's got reasons to stay focused. I thought he did a great job last year. I think with him and Ofer, we have an underrated goalie tandem that can keep us in a lot of games as we find our footing.

So last year, you know, you make a really difficult decision, I'm sure, with Craig Berube moving on and Drew Bannister comes in. How do you decide to get rid of that interim tag? Is it what you saw when he took over the team? Is it discussions in the offseason that led you to say, all right, you're our guy moving forward? and also that that discussion with chief must have just been kind of like heartbreaking in a way after after what you guys created in 2019 yeah it wasn't and and so the chief thing started back actually in 2016 now he got let go by the flyers maybe 2015 and and i was i was helping out hockey canada for the World Cup and Paul Holmgren called me and said, you know, he's looking for something to do.

And so he started scouting for us for that team. And that's how I got to know him. And all of a sudden he's coaching our American League team and then he comes up as an associate coach. Then he becomes head coach. Then we go on a great run and win a cup. And to know Chief is to be a friend of chief and he he is one of the best guys i've ever met as far as that like loyal as the day is long and

you know certainly a guy you'd always want in your corner not because how tough he is because how honest he is and what a good person he is and so that that was very difficult uh and and it made me feel good in the sense that like when you when you get traded as a player or and you take your friends with guys in the team i'm sure and you never heard from again you probably think back we were we were really that good of friends i guess but with chief when we had to make that decision and then and then he would call me i would call him. We did some scouting for us at the end of last year. I talked to him the other day about how things are going in Toronto.

We try and stay in contact. So the friendship is something that I'm going to remember as much as anything with Chief on how I'm not naive. Without Chief, without Bennington, without O'Reilly, without Petrangelo, without Perron, I don't have trophies behind me. They're not naive. Without Chief, without Bennington, without O'Reilly, without Petrangelo, without Perron, I don't have trophies behind me. They're not there. Those guys did

all the heavy lifting. I call Chief a friend, and that was very difficult, but to get onto the bastard part, it was an honest conversation. Come on in. You're going to be the interim coach for the rest of the year, but part it was uh an honest conversation that come on in you know we're not gonna you're gonna be the interim coach for the rest of the year uh but what we're gonna do i'd actually say the rest of

the year you're the interim coach until you're not and and that you put a long list of names together and then as we were interviewing people or talking about people i got to know them i got to see how we treated the players i got to see our team responded and i put guru's name against one guy i crossed that guy's name off because i like drew or drew was as good and then all of a sudden you go through the whole year you see how our team responded and we were down to a very short list of guys and i thought he did a good enough job for that opportunity to come in with a fresh start for a couple of years. Again, we got back to that retooling part.

This was before we had our active summer. I thought he had earned the right for a couple of years. Dean's taken over in a couple of years as manager. Everything seemed to point to having given him an opportunity, and we haven't been disappointed. He's run a great training camp, and probably his feet are a little hotter than he thought they might be just by the the the acquisition we had over the summer

but he's excited about i think two guys bringing a guy like claude julian you know a guy that's won a cup won the president's trophy been part of canada's national teams on on big stages olympics world cups uh like what a mentor it is for him and And you got Otter and Mike Weber learning from him. It's a really fun group to be around right now. And I think Drew is taking it all in. And Drew's like a young player, like a Jake Neighbors type player. He's at the start of the infancy of his career. And he wants to have a long career.

And he's putting the work in to make sure he's going to be a good coach in this league for a long time. Doug, you've alluded to the four nations a few times over the course of this interview. How excited are you that the NHL and hockey has best on best again? And also how excited are you to be at that round table with all those other guys with team Canada, where just some incredible hockey minds, it must be a blast talking shop with those guys at that round table. It's amazing how much you learn, you know, you like, I try and go into that, like, uh, let me talk about two years. I usually end up the other way around, but I

start that way. But, but I mean like what, whether, whether it was Steve Eisenman and Ken Holland and, and Kevin Lowe, you know, back in 2010 and 14 with Peter Shirelli jumping in. And then in 16, I had Mark Berger, man, and Blakey and, you know, guys like that. And now it's John Cooper and it's, there's so many good guys there, but on the management side, I have Don, I get an opportunity.

Don Sweeney is going to be the GM of that four nations team. Yeah, Witt's buddy. My boy. Yeah. And I'm going to, I'm looking forward to working and watching Don put that group together with sort of a, uh,

oversight on how we're going to roll that into the Olympics. Uh, and, and, and those guys will be part of that staff, uh, Julian Breeze block cup champion, Jimmy Nell,

uh, a great two time manager of the year, Randy, you know, Sweeney, and then, uh, I'll do is to help us us out too in a role so we

have a a lot of good people there a lot of different backgrounds uh some of the kg veterans like jimmy and donnie and some of the up-and-coming bucks like julian and uh kyle so it's a it's a good mix and then the coaches are just like my first opportunity to really work with rick talking rick and i got to spend some time together in the bubble he was an early riser and we were in uh josh ain't pen there at edmonton every morning uh uh locked in looking at the outside world you guys look alike you look like you'd be twins you and talk but that's a compliment to me not to him yeah yeah exactly actually i gotta pump his tires here biz it was uh army's the first version management to become a part of the double, triple gold club. He had two gold medals in the Olympics in 10 and 14.

He's got two Cups, 99, 2019, two world championships in 07 and 16. So it's cool for you that you've been around and you've won them all. So now the pressure's on, though, right? I mean, first time best on best in what seems like forever. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be so exciting. And, you know, the top teams are so close now. Like the Americans, they're going to be a blast to watch.

You know, just as a hockey fan, that whole next generation's coming. And they've been clipping off world juniors for a long time. You know, they've been a've been clipping off world juniors for a long time you know yeah they've been a hell of they've been a hell of a program and uh you know this is the first time that connor's going to get to put the men's jersey on for team canada at this level uh not the world's but you know it best on best you do you see him and mckinnon and maybe maybe a line of uh eastern line with with marshall crosby mckinnon there's so many like coop's going to be a kid in a candy store putting these guys together i could coach that team what do you need coop for well but then you look at that american roster too like there's oh yeah those coaches are going

to be happy too and and uh who knows what's going to happen with the russians you know if they're in or not but the swedes and the finn the fins are always my, if they're in or not, but the Swedes and the Finns, the Finns are always my, they're, they're like Canada light, you know, they're, they're hard-nosed, they play hard. They, they keep it honest. I love Finnish players and they, and so it's going to be a great tournament. I can't wait for the Olympics. And I think the four nations would be a great kickoff for the guys to, to get up and run.

If you need, if you need to hire anybody, I can give the, the team USA, the Nancy Kerrigan special. If you get a guy like that. I know. You won't get near that team, Biz. All the Team USA the Nancy Kerrigan special. You won't get near that team, Biz. You won't get near that team. Armie, before we let you go, I do got to share this. He goes on a really special golf trip every summer. Two years ago, I got a text.

It said, hey, where? It's Armie. The guy just dropped out. Any chance you could make our golf trip? Right away, I said to my wife, this is unbelievable. I said, what's the itinerary? He's like, uh, it's 18 nights and we're playing. And I was like, yeah, I can't make it RV.

So I didn't know where this, where did, where did this year's take you guys? That would cost Whit half his portfolio. This year we went to band and news and it was funny. So my roommate was Ken Holland and it was right. We'd already put the offshoot in. So when it was the seven days and him and i were rooming together and they're figuring out what they're gonna do but we played uh come on yeah he's like i got a line for you say you would have done it to your mom too well we didn't really talk about it until it was over because i want to

put him in a bad spot but uh no, we went to Bandon Dunes. We played 15 rounds in nine days. It's a golfer's golf trip. It was crazy. What was your favorite course there? I like Pacific Dunes. I like the trails a lot. You don't remember.

You were buckled the whole time. No, not that much. But when you golf that much, you can't get buckled. You can't. The guys who get buckled are easy time No not that much but when you golf that much You can't get buckled Guys who get buckled are easy money they're donators You guys do the pink Whitney nips when you get the birdies No it's a golf trip It's a golf trip Apparently he cleans up too every year

Oh do you? Maybe sandbag or something Speaking of cleaning up My understanding is since The Washington Capitals got gutless and stole cap friendly that you and the blues have kind of created your own that was what was explained to me before we hopped on is he wrong or is that is that true you guys got your own cap friendly yes yes then no it's not it's not nearly as in-depth as what the cap friendly was but we do

put our players salaries out there so the you know what know, what, what, if you're on the roster, this is what you make. And you might say our fans, Hey, they, they, they deserve to know it's a cap system. They, they want to understand how the cap works and what guys make,

but, uh, uh, cap friendly, it went into pretty in-depth detail, but it's a, Hey, it's anything we can do to make our fans life easier.

We're trying to do it. Okay. This is one last random one. If you could go back and undo one move you've made as a general manager over your course with the St. Louis Blues, what move would you undo? Not signing you two. What an answer.

He knows how to finish it. He knows how to finish it. Hey, Harvey, we love you, man. We appreciate your time so much, and we wish you the best of luck, especially at the Four Nations, and we look forward to getting you love you, man. We appreciate your time so much, and we wish you the best of luck, especially at the Four Nations, and we look forward to getting you on again, man. You're an OG, and you deserve everything you've gotten. Thanks, Army.

Guys, I always love being on. I always love listening to you all, so take care. Did you get a hole-in-one? We're catching wind here. You got a hole-in-one at the Bandon Dunes? No, not this year. No, that was this summer at Doug. We won the cup, and then we went out to Cabot

on that golf trip and I got a hole in one. Oh, for Christ's sake. 28 guys. Summer of 2019. Probably got a 12-inch rope too. Yeah, I'll just say to Kenny,

I gotta fly my wife to Canada because you only take 10,000 across the board and you still have to take the rest of it. Army, you're the best and we appreciate it. You guys take care.

Thanks for having me on. thank you so much see you later what's up guys wit here and we need to talk about lucy lucy is the obvious choice for true nicotine pouch connoisseurs that's why they're the official nicotine pouch partner of barstool sports lucy pouches go up to 12 milligram in strength and have a unique shape that feels great. And Lucy Breakers are the only pouches with a hydration capsule inside. They're a totally new kind of pouch only available from Lucy. Put it in your mouth, crack it with your tooth, and just get an explosion of flavor. I love the espresso. I love the apple flavor.

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to get 20% off your first order. Subscribe for another 15% off and shipping's always free. That's lucy.co slash chicklets. Thank you so much to Doug Armstrong. What an awesome guy, a great Armstrong. What an awesome guy. Great GM. What a funny bastard. Yeah, I love it.

I love that double, triple gold club. The first man in management to ever do that. It's wild. Two cups, two gold medals in the Olympics, two gold medals in the world championships. And they got high hopes for the four nations and then Italy 2026. So it's awesome.

I mean, obviously Don Sweeney hates me, but then we have on two GMs that we're close with hopes for uh the four nations and then italy 2026 so it it's awesome i mean obviously don sweeney hates me but then we have on two gms that we're close with that are nice enough to come on bust our balls and i i remember saying to uh debris when he asked me to go on that trip i'm like this is unbelievable networking and being around all these gms and hockey guys and you know like i mentioned i think 17 day trip that's insane 17 day trip in ireland and that's i think you have to be married over 20 years no i think it's kids out of the house oh and then and then you know good good relationship where your wife's like yeah i don't care i i don't want to see you for two or three weeks and they love golf they pay for it they love golf they do a big trip

every year i know ken holland as you mentioned their roommates are all i bumped into him in Edmonton when we were there for the cup finals. I went to say hi to Elliott Friedman at a bar and he was there and he came over and he just seems like the best guy too, Kenny Holland. Yeah, I don't know him. I don't know him, but Danny Cleary and Horkoff know him pretty well. Especially Cleary after being on the wings all those years. They love him. And yeah, golf nuts. That's what hockey players do. They play golf in the off season, and those guys have mastered it.

Kind of a different tone now that it's just me and you. I mean, this was a crazy pod. We started off with Merle's. Where did we start this pod? We started off with Merle's, and then we sent it to John Michael Lyles because we started out with Colorado after we talked about the Chicklets Cup.

Now, we have a little bit of housecleaning to do about Chicklets Cup, but first, Merle's kind of just disappeared after we threw it to lyles because he was having an issue at the airport well he didn't think he was he didn't think he did and then he got pierced he got pierced and it's so funny let me pull up the tweet because um when he was traveling to meet us in in toronto and then drive up to london he had kind of sent out a message something oh here it is um oh shit i gotta no you're good you can take your time i don't think the people mind we're already four hours into this pod so i think it's just our parents listening uh sing z's probably

still listening yeah i met sing z i met sing z we uh we got to finally finally catch up and we had some things to maybe go over and clear the air with. And we ended up, uh, we ended up. Some of you are wondering who the fuck is Singzy. Singzy is this animal who hangs out in the

game notes, uh, chat. Cause when they do their YouTube show every Friday, starting at noon, um, that'll be kicking off,

I believe in a couple of weeks here. Cause they will not be on the next podcast. As I mentioned, uh, Keith Yandel will be joining us as our guest host be on the next podcast. As I mentioned, uh, Keith Yandel will be joining us as our guest host, give the game notes guys a week off, uh, in order to prepare for their launch of their season.

Um, but, uh, they, they open it up to the group chat. I don't know if that's going to continue to happen this year. They were getting so engaged with all their fans and stuff and, and communicating nonstop throughout their podcast, but he was the most hardcore one and he actually

came to Chicklets Cup. So he, uh, he's a diehard game notes guy. And for all you people listening, like they came on and did an excellent job, uh, through the first three pods of these divisional breakdowns. And, uh, it's great having them in the mix. It was great having them at Chicklets Cup. And, uh, it's, it's going to be fun to keep

expanding our, our Spit and Chicklets network where, uh, we kind of have branched out to those two guys. So here's the tweet. So Merle said, and this is on the way. This is from Sweden. I think he went to Amsterdam and then he went right to Pearson. In and out of Pearson Airport in under 30 minutes, did Ryan Whitney make the whole thing up? And I saw it and I was like, one one i was happy for him because he ripped through

customs and that can be a nightmare but two i was like oh man he's getting pretty like cocky like he's pretty he's thrilled with his experience but like obviously i didn't make the whole thing up i spent 27 hours in that godforsaken place and i saw him at dinner and i said hey pretty smooth how he goes unbelievable dude i walked through no line like I don't know man I don't know I think things have changed and I said you're going back there right on the way home and he said yeah yeah I said all right we'll talk we'll talk and so he finished up with us and and he had a nine o'clock flight I think it was 7 15 he's like I gotta just get over there you know international and as shit, what happens? He sends us a text about 45 minutes later. He's like, my flight's delayed an hour.

And it was like, uh-oh, Merle. I was like, oh, you were getting pretty cocky when you got to London. And he said, I know. And then, boom, he hit us with the next text. I'm missing my connector in Copenhagen. This is adding 10 hours to this trip. I got a 10-hour layover now in Copenhagen. Army goes, I think you could, could like drive to Sweden sooner than that.

So Merle's got Pearson and he kind of took it all back on a private group chat with us. And he realized don't ever, don't ever think that you're in the clear when it comes to Pearson. Avoid it at all costs. I'm Billy Bishop till I die. Now I said, I will not fly to Pearson.

It doesn't matter. I will not. If there's nothing to Billy Bishop, I'll drive up or I'll fly to Buffalo. I'm done. And he got crushed by him. But we got to really think, I mean, unreal story. And I'm sorry that Merle's had to go through that,

but he said it was all worth it just to win a championship in the roller division. And we had him on, we had army on, obviously Michael Lyles before that. Spicy tuna was incredible. Congratulations to him on signing that three year extension with Utah. Then we had a Billy G who's fucking hilarious. And then Doug Armstrong was hilarious. So jam packed podcast.

Long pod I'm sure. And I know we started out long winded about the chicklets cup and how much it means to us and all the funny little storylines that transpired. One of the things we forgot to mention was how the the the setup is in that a division and how the ottawa godfathers the reigning champs of the a division street they got fucked and they did get well want me to go kind of go through what happened yeah you got to go through what happened

the way this tournament set up it kind of jammed them up a bit where they ended up not even making the semifinals with so eight teams were in the in the a division and what happened was i believe one team went three and oh one team went oh and three which left six teams that went two and one so the top two teams were getting a buy into the semis and then the next four teams were going to the quarters. Ottawa figured, all right, well, we're 2-1. We won last year. We won last year. We're in.

And then I think Mariah and somebody else and Taylor from Barstool, they were like, hey, you're out. They're like, what do you mean we're out? They're like, well, it's most goals scored is the tiebreaker. I was told that of the 3-0 team we're in, the next two and ones, you guys led the way. You got the second seed because you had 30 goals. I think it then went. We also brought one of the games to overtime,

so got an extra point for that. So that's why we automatically locked in that second spot. So that helped us out. But people were a little confused that normally it's goal deferential. Which I think it maybe should be, but it wasn't. It was written. It was in the rules. It's goals four.

And they didn't read the rules. And they started exploring. There was one guy, and I wish I knew his name, because he fucking unloaded on some of Jonesy's crew and some of our Barstool guys out of line and just giving it to them. How much of a joke it was that it wasn't goal differential well yeah i actually agree with that guy and that team that goal differential maybe moving forward is the way to go but in the rules and they pulled it up and showed to him that was emailed out a month and a week in advance i think somebody said it was goals for so read it and know and then there won't be this issue now they do have a gripe it's like

if you're two and one and there's six teams at two and one maybe being reigning champs should have given them a leg up in terms of getting into the quarters of the semis i get that and i understand them wanting it to be goal differential that's more of a better look on how teams are playing but it wasn't it was goals for they lost their mind and they were pissed off to say the least yeah not the way we wanted to end it, but I mean, Hey, I was even going to offer up where,

because even though we locked in the second spot, I would have played them like a quick 15 minute game. Like winter moves on, like as like a quarterfinal matchup, just so they weren't as fired up. But I think it would have been too hard to figure all that out. And I apologize to the Ottawa Godfathers. You were fortunate enough to win it the year before.

I hope you guys still come out to the tournament next year, which I also hope we expand to 16 teams. And maybe we can give you a little bit of merchandise or something to make up for this mishap, but probably a better way to handle it than yelling in people's faces about it, considering they sent you the rules. So I think that about wraps up this pod.

I know it was a really long one, but I loved having on all these different guests, especially the Game Notes guys and a couple of GMs. And it was a fun way to snap it around for these season previews. Yep. And next week we'll be finishing off.

The last division we haven't talked about is the Atlantic. Keith Yandel will be on. That will be electric hearing him talk to you about his thoughts on his team in the next chicklets cup and going over um what i would say is probably just with toronto and boston like the most talked about division throughout the course of the season right i mean you got ottawa you got detroit and buffalo what the hell is going to happen there toronto florida, Boston, Tampa look really good again. It's an awesome division. We'll see what happens there, but we

cannot wait to be back with you next week. We got some more special guests lined up. Ryan Reeves gave us an awesome 30 to 40 minutes about two weeks ago. It was classic. He called out biz and what should be an electric electric. I'm not even going to say

boxing match when Reeves does retire i don't know if it's gonna happen but you'll have to listen next week we love you all thank you for your support and thank you for listening this long if you still are listening you are an og fan of spitting chicklets peace love your mom How much is your love? They say you're drunk in 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 You 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 was safe and 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 Outro Music A cheap shot I think we need a deep talk We've been so wrong

God Yeah