Spittin Chiclets - Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 535: Featuring Larry Brooks, Sean Avery, Bryan McCabe & Yands

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

On this Episode of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Hockey Hall of Fame Reporter Larry Brooks and Special guest Sean Avery to talk about the recent drama within the New York Rangers; Igor Shesterkin’s Contract, the Jacob Trouba trade and much more. But first, the Colorado Avalanche acquired goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood, The Blackhawks fired their head coach and the Four Nations team rosters have finally been announced. Later on, Bryan McCabe joins the show with an all-time interview to talk about his iconic fight with Chara, getting the boo birds in Toronto, some intense Mike Milbury stories and much more. Barstool Survivor premiered and the storylines are just starting to unfold, Biz continues to sample everything from restaurants, and the footage of Bizzy’s Brawl will be released soon. What a time in Chiclets Land, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. 00:00:00 - CHICLETS UPDATES 00:31:32 - Trouble in Ranger Land 00:44:10 - Larry brooks and Sean Avery Interview 01:43:19 - Avalanche Trade 01:50:10 - Chicago Blackhawks 02:00:04 - Four Nations Rosters 02:18:17 - Bryan McCabe Interview 03:39:28 - Quick Hits Support the Show: PINK WHITNEY: Take Your Shot with Pink Whitney YETI: Shop YETI at barstool.link/YETISC GAMETIME: Download the Gametime app today and use code CHICLETS to easily score great deals with the new Gametime Picks! BODYARMOR: Get yours today at Walmart or a local grocery store near you! https://www.walmart.com/brand/bodyarmor/shop-all-bodyarmor/10009869 JACKPOCKET: New customers, get your first ticket FREE using code: “PUCK” ($2) https://jackpocket.onelink.me/sY17/CHICLETS GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, NY Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY. 18 or older (19+ in Nebraska, 21+ in Arizona). Void where prohibited. Promo code required for $2 non-withdrawable credit. Prize amount may differ at time of drawing. Terms jackpocket.com/tos/free-ticket-promo/You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Me and Ryan have been officially welcomed to the jungle that is Boston Sports. Our white whale, Sidney Crosby. Shave his head! Shave his head! Shave his head! Ryan Whitney, Paul Bissonnette, R.A., Mike Grinnelli, Spittin' Chicklands! What is up, folks? How y'all doing? Yeah, I'm saying y'all, because the Georgia Bulldogs, SEC, change.

You see this hat? 47 brand. One of our sponsors. Let's go, Dawgs. Go, Dawgs. Welcome to episode 535 of the Spittin' Chicklets podcast. This is your boy, Witt. Talking right now, we got Keith Yandel joining us. We got Biz.

We got a bunch to catch up on. But first, we got to talk about Pink Whitney. Head on over to your local bar and make sure to order some Pink Whitney. Pink Whitney, I love the drink. Winter, summer, fall, spring, doesn't matter the season. Pink Whitney always, always makes for an excellent evening, afternoon, or even morning if you're a real, real sicko. But Pink Whitney's where it's at. It's exceptionally smooth, great-tasting vodka with notes of refreshing lemon.

Pink Whitney is the number one flavored vodka. Can you believe that? Number one. First time I've been number one in anything and now they have the 1.75 liter bottle more more that big old bottle beers down south for the sec title game more of the pink whitney we know and love great for parties and sharing with friends take your shot with pink whitney boys how are y'all doing you guys guys got me watching the Georgia Bulldogs. I'm invested because you guys are. Now you can only talk in that Georgia accent.

I'll do the whole goddamn podcast talking about Gunnar Stockton, that backup QB coming in, winning the SEC title game. You want to talk about some dogs? You want to talk about some dogs? An incredible game. It's just unbelievable like i i was i was i was nervous now they were in even if they lost according to what i read um but it's all about winning your league you know biz it's like when you you know you never won the oh though did you

never won shit right oh sorry you want to call the cop that's true that's true i did hey but also the the sc the sec is the strongest division of all of football it's like people say that the top teams can compete with nfl teams no no no no no no that's a take that gets really really that's like that's like so down south right now you're getting carved that's like the michigan hockey coach saying that mich Michigan's the next step under the NHL. Oh, okay. So that's what you thought of that take? Like you think an AHL team would cripple them? Of course they would. Okay.

Maybe the year that they, maybe they, they could have maybe given it. Yeah. They're losing the NHL teams, college teams against professional sports teams. I mean, we're talking like mercy ruled. Like, hey, it's 11-0 in ping pong. You're off the table. You know what I'm saying? Actually, speaking of Georgia, they just built a brand new 3,000 seat

arena for their club hockey team where every girl at the school thinks the kids are in the NHL. So I was on the rink shrinks with Brian Yandel and Mike Mono. I said, if you're looking to go play at like Salem State and you could possibly get into an SEC school and play club hockey, you're absolutely crazy. I understand these NESCAC schools, amazing educations so-called nowadays.

I don't know what you're really learning at school if you're a liberal arts major like myself in Maine. But I will say that this club hockey hockey thing it's it's just going through the roof biz it's amazing it's amazing but going back to that liberal arts thing wasn't there like a photo that went viral where this girl got a degree for smelling or something did you guys see that thing that went viral no maybe don't let our devil here like on your raya where a girl like wanted to smell you i don't know what you're thinking of there um but yeah message in the chat if i'm if i'm going crazy here if that actually happened but going back to the game that first drive by that backup qb i'm like oh i think they got

something here it changed everything can we talk about the hit that he took and got up and still i thought he broke his leg acl mcl ankle tibia fibula head almost came off his body keep going he's l5 s1 uh but and then his head his helmet comes off they have to drag him they they didn't let him play because the spotters came down with like hey this guy's basically decapitated you got to take him out for a play the entire nation knew that they were going to run the ball they ran the ball right down their damn throat right down the middle they gave the the starter uh carson back he comes back in he can't even move his arm and then he just hands it right off game over sec title um biz that girl went viral for her thesis to her phd being about smells being racist so you were

like one-tenth of the story i think correct wow but i guess smells are racist so i don't know if like my fart is my smell of my fart i did recently's races i've been now blaming certain farts on like kids like the kids are old enough i'm like that was not me right or admit it and he's like crying like I didn't fart. Sometimes you just got to face the music, bud. I remember my dad blaming me for some. So that's how it goes. When in doubt, blame it on the dog. They can't talk back.

Very true, actually. I never blamed it on Yoshi. I never blamed it on him. He's too dumb. He doesn't even like you. I'm surprised. No, he hates my guts. Can't wait to get a golden retriever someday. I got to do that coast-to-coast show with yanza last week i just want to finish one one topic of the dogs i was at i was at a bar in tampa uh i was up there for the girls lacrosse tournament this place called walk-ons awesome little bar but

the whole place was going insane it was all georgia dogs and there was like three texas fans sitting over there everyone's giving them the horns down. It was unbelievable. I became like best buddies with the guys sitting next to me. I sat down. I'm like, who are you rooting for? He's like, anyone but Texas. I was like, my man. Gave him a high five.

And we were going insane the entire game. It was so fun. I was sitting in Starbucks this afternoon having a coffee, just catching up on things, getting ready for the show, being a pro's pro, as they call it. And a very attractive woman um started walking over towards me i'd say 35 to 40 years old and i was like still got it still got it still got it and then she just pointed at my hat well she pointed at me and i'm like what's up what's up how you doing yeah i'm married see my ring see my ring she's like no your hat and then she just like pulled her jacket apart, had a Georgia shirt.

She goes, go dogs. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was like, these women, these people from Georgia are nuts. They're sickos, Biz. It's all they care about. So I've been rocking this the whole day. You have a random cougar barking in your face over college football. Yeah, yeah.

I was eating one of those egg sausage, the egg sausage sandwich at Starbucks. No free ads. I don't get the cheese on it. And I take one of the pieces of bread off. So I feel like I'm cutting some. Oh, wow. This sounds a lot like my ordering that I got criticized for. Oh, when I go, hey, can I get the egg, sausage, and cheese without cheese? Not can I get the egg, sausage, and cheese, but just try a bite, and then I'll give it back to you.

Then you can give me the egg bites, and I'll try a bite, and I'll give it back to you. And then maybe just give me a little bit of yogurt and put a little bit of granola on it and we'll be good. Actually, speaking of coast to coast, I haven't talked to you guys in so long. It was awesome watching you guys. It's amazing being able to get that broadcast through ESPN+. Oh, okay.

Forget the hockey. Forget the Josh Morrissey talk. Very funny. Keith, apparently Biz had another ridiculous restaurant order experience with you. Well, it started at Starbucks. There you go. Started at Starbucks. I texted him.

I said, hey, I'm at Starbucks. We're going to go to Chipotle, which was right next to it. I was there before him. I go, hey, I'm at Starbucks. You want something? He goes, yeah, just get me. Did they have a blonde roast? Whatever named like three roasts and then he's like just get me whichever one's the freshest and i'm like okay i asked the lady i go which one's the oldest coffee that you guys have

she was like oh this uh blonde roast has been out the most like i'll have that thank you as if anyone's ever so whatever he gets his Starbucks. We go into Chipotle. We're in line. There's a new meat that we didn't know what it was. So I'm like, hey, what is that meat? What was it, Biz? Brisket. Yeah, they're like, oh, it's the new brisket.

Biz is like, oh, can I try that? Can I get a sample? No, Biz. Biz. This is not this is not like acceptable social behavior so she gets a little she gets the little cup that they put like the guac probably the guacamole and yeah exactly puts a little in there he one times it it's phil it's like this much is like he could have went home a lot like it could have been yeah he could have been done for the day finishes it and then he's like yeah no i don't want it it's a little too spicy so i asked the bandager comes over i'm like has anyone ever asked

for a sample here in the history of uh chipotle the guy's like not once never seen it not one time she gave him a sample and he's like no just throw a little block on top too yans goes what's that one and then she said brisket and then he goes you should ask for a sample i go can i him a sample and he's like, no, just throw a little guac on top too. Yance goes, what's that one? And then she said brisket. And then he goes, you should ask for a sample. I go, can I get a sample? He told me to. So he gave me the green light to do it.

So I was like, okay. I think he's doing it thinking he would never hear. He would never hear. Imagine if, was this down in Florida actually? Or were you? No, this was in New Jersey. No, it was in Secaucus. Surprised I didn't get shot.

I was going to say, if it was Florida and some dude randomly happened to be in there that was in Sloan's that night and got double whammied by you asking for fucking trials or taste tests, the poor prick would have just jumped off the roof. You know who sent me the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode clip was Shaddy. Shaddy. Shaddy texted me and he's like this is unbelievable i go it was worse it was worse than that and i wasn't nearly as funny as larry behind you just disgusted with it all busy he'd be like can i get the uh caesar salad but instead of romaine can i

get the iceberg with uh and instead of caesar dressing could i get blue cheese and bacon bit they're like oh that's the wedge salad. He'd be like, yeah, but I wanted it as a Caesar. Can you put a grape in there? The guy's like, great. Yeah, they're fresh this time of year. Oh, this is awesome. So did you guys enjoy working together? It must have been a lot of fun.

Oh, yeah. It was awesome. I would say the first half was a lot more high octane just because there were so many more games, Eastern starts. As you know, a lot of them are not staggered so you're boom it's off and running and then that night they only had two west coast games which was calgary st louis and then edmonton smoked somebody i forget who it was so you get a little bit more of the gameplay and action as opposed to like us coming on camera as much right would you agree you agree with that? Yeah, yeah. It's exactly like the NFL red zone where it's just you read and react.

You're talking about plays. Teams go on power plays. You're kind of just reviewing goals, hits, you know, big saves. So easy to do that. It's such a blast, though, because you're watching all these games, and then you got TVs everywhere, and then something happens over here, and then Biz is watching something, and I'm watching something else and then andy does such a great job as the bus driver just kind of bringing it all in together so it was a me and i mean anytime doing something with

biz is fun but we we had a blast together we were just shitting on each other and andy patrillo does a great job of snapping it around and like keeping the conversation fluid and you know you're messing around sometimes but then she'll turn it over to like you know what do you make of what's going on with this team this year in this situation then we kind of talk more hockey but uh it was great working with them and a great concept by the league like we talk about all these different broadcasts and different networks that are getting in the mix so i feel like hockey definitely needed like a version of red zone people like to be stimulated and and maybe they're more fans of the league than just one team biz you're you're you're porch garros um discipline

suspension of brad marshall one of the funniest things you've ever done uh accompanied with you in a neck brace um and i think something else maybe a wrap around your head when interviewing my dome classic classic week of of content for you on tnt yeah because well the week prior we had marchion and that's when that fight story all broke loose and then that's when he came back after i tripped him about the hairline about uh just want to look like the guys who beat the wheels off you and then that just kind of propelled it into then then we had the outline call the following Monday. And I'm like, guys, we got them against Chicago.

Like I like Chicago and all. And I know we got Bedard to talk about, but this is a potential skit that we could do if you guys are interested. And the whole team jumped on board, Liam, uh, Tyler Lassiter, uh,

Morgan, like the whole crew from TNT was behind it and, and helped execute it when we got to the studio. So I was just thankful that they were able to do it. And boys, like, Marchie, like, give me 12, 15 more guys in the league like Marchie. I think we'd be bringing in more revenue than the NBA. Like, that was fucking comedy. He's so quick on his feet, and he just put me in another casket,

as you mentioned, and buried me again. NBA is falling low right now everything that i see there it's no one wants to see just people shooting threes and it's it's bad it's a bad product and i you guys know i love basketball like i watch basketball brutal it's not a good product hockey's in a good place right now i don't know what they do about that where where yeah it's literally three after three after three and i i there has to be discussions with the high ups right now like what do we do if the ratings are down as much as i read now sometimes you see like i don't necessarily know what to believe on on the

internet i don't know that that's kind of an issue for people these days like i don't know if the ratings are down as bad as i'm seeing they are because it seems like people who hate the nba are the ones tweeting this stuff but yeah like i don't watch it but if you throw it on and you just see three after three it's like i i don't see the excitement in that but i think that's all analytics like telling them like that's what you're supposed to be doing that's the best way to win game score points i have no idea but biz it was classic to see that marshy kind of pumped my tires. That's the last thing he probably wanted to do. The last time I saw him, he was driving.

He drove past me in Milton, and I shot him a text, and then he chirped me back real hard, just classic Marshawn style. I feel bad saying I can't wait for him to retire, but that's only because he promised he'd come on then, and it'll be amazing. I mean, I can't wait for him to retire, but that's only because he promised he'd come on then. And it'll be amazing. I mean, I can't imagine. But,

but even for him to do that and unreal chirp about that was, that was post game about the carrying, right? That was that post game. Like the fact that he goes and does the pregame, he was, he ended up being late for the power play meeting as a result to that interview.

And then goes out there and scores two goals and then finishes me off with that dagger that you just mentioned so it was just classic brad marshaw and i don't know how many messages i'm seeing from other fan bases who hated this guy's guts who are starting to say that they're now a brad marshaw fan so that is they've done a complete 180 based on what he brought to the broadcast back-to-back weeks what did you make of it yans yeah he's great i've known marty i played junior with marchie i played with him in monkton so i always forget that because he wasn't even like a a big player on that team right he was he was uh you know i think he's probably too so he was probably a younger player maybe like 17 years old 16 or 17 years old um but you could tell he had like that ratness in him but he also had crazy skill he

scored some like crazy high-end goals but he was probably on like our third line uh probably didn't even play power play was you know just a young kid in the cube making his way but he he was still funny like chirping guys and and you know being ruthless like he is today so um yeah i i've always loved him and his antics he's. He's been great for the league for close to 15 years now, probably. He's so skilled. I didn't realize until I skated with him during the lockout, Keith, when we were with him.

You're just like, holy shit. He's actually heating up as well. Good for him. We talked about the surgeries. Bruins definitely look a little bit better. I think that game might have technically got Luke Richardson fired. I think they fired i think that game might have technically got luke richardson fired i think they fired him after that game i believe um we were good we i mean bedard was i think he ended up breaking another stick and just a little bit frustrated breaking sticks every game

okay it's yeah do you remember sid getting that frustrated in in the first couple years he got 100 points his rookie year and then won the MVP in the scoring title. I think his second year. So there wasn't really much for him. I mean, the famous stick breaking thing for me is when Malkin had five assists and we won five nothing. And he was in the shower after because he did against Toronto. So that was kind of classic. Before we kind of get into the hockey biz, one more thing.

I guess as of right now, today, the videos will be released of your melee with the Irish Travelers. So I got to see them. They're going to release them tomorrow. Pretty much, like I said, everything that I talked about, how it starts inside the restaurant, how it goes outside, how at first there's nine guys and it drops off to like six or seven. Then by the end, it's about six guys. The only thing that sucks as of right now end it's about six guys the only thing that sucks as of right now is there's no video of me knocking out that william carroll guy because you're gonna see the last video that has the best clarity whereas there's a tree blocking it and

it's actually a like a like a street camera but because there's movement and there's nothing else on the street moving it veers over and it has a whole shot of when we come out past the dumpsters after that happens and then one guy tackles me and then they just start boot fucking me so you get the visuals of the whole shenanigans from inside the restaurant all the way and how it works its way all the way around the parking lot so you guys will see it um yeah it sucks that we couldn't get me knocking out william carroll but you'll know he's not one of the guys that's chasing me past the dumpster so he took his his right to the chin and yeah it was uh it was a crazy experience and let's see if they show up to their fucking court date did you see draft draft kings has the odds whether they'll come to the court date or not i

took the under minus 10 000 that they won't show that that shay stevens guy online is saying that their camp is saying that i started it so that's uh so maybe they will come in defense all six of them the scottsdale typical goon typical we're we're innocent here we were just finishing up business that he started so it should be interesting but i would guess what you guess and they don't show up imagine your credibility if the videos were released and you just walked up to him in houston's and suckered him just suckers whoa uh biz we got some issues here buddy you ever heard of the internet um biz just oh my last thing my last thing well one thing we have uh brian mccabe on today's episode,

which was an awesome interview. We sat down with him at Keith's house a couple weeks back. Great interview. I think you'll all enjoy that. We have Larry Brooks on. He came on to discuss all the happenings in the Rangers and the New York Rangers organization, what's gone on the last week that we'll get into ourselves.

And Sean Avery popped in with that interview to give a little hello and talk to Larry a little bit. They go back a long time from Aves' time with the Rangers. But my final thing before we get to everything else is it's kind of time for my annual complaining about Elf on a Shelf. For people without kids, there's an elf. You name the fucking elf. The thing shows up. Every night you got to switch it around.

It's like a who's who and a what's what to what you can do what you can make your elf do how original you can make it if you forget to move the elf the kids are crying it's an absolute joke the one thing that does crack me up is um our elf's name is keithy so keith as many people have known tough name uh great guy tough name he even says it himself sorry keith it was said in the family guy you know it's true what's the worst name in the English language Keith open the door so Keith is back and it's funny this morning he came back this morning and Ryder all I heard from upstairs was Keithy I started laughing no matter what so that was me I was in your I was in your do you do this elf on a shelf Jens yeah you still do it for your daughters?

I don't want to. Yeah. I don't want to ruin it for Witt. Oh, what? It's not real. Oh, shit. I didn't know that. Yeah, I didn't know when I had to pretend that it was like brushing his teeth. Yeah, no, my kids are going to pass that, which is a huge plus because I don't have to do it.

And none of us grew up with this, so I think people, I don't know, 30 and older didn't have to do it and none of us grew up with this so i think people i don't know 30 and older didn't have it i don't know when it came but some person i hope they're laughing with bundles and bundles of money like scrooge mcduck over this thing i don't know when it came into existence but now everyone needs one and i get the text wife goes to bed hey forgot to move keithy like do something funny like okay let me spend the next 45 minutes trying to figure out how to get him on a cookie tray next to some chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies and see him kind of eating something chocolate on his mouth so it's a disaster there was this note though that my wife should burn him like the lasagna she says

she just put him in there oh i left him overnight no i used to i used to do the hershey's kiss and make him look like he was taking a poop there you go i do that i do that one i do that once a week i got tonight but now like rider just turned seven he's like how does he get here and i think it's like like the wheels are spinning a little bit like what what's going on like why are his eyes why why aren't his eyes moving i got that one so'm like, just shut up and behave or else he's going to tell Santa. My wife wrote this note. I'm back. Ian Straw's in red in the eyes.

He's popping blood vessels, taking shits. It's all in the detail. It's all in the detail. Biz has his with an enormous blunt. I have Snoop on a stoop. I have the Snoop Dogg one. It's called Snoop on a stoop. Yeah, it's Sno Dogg one. It's called Snoop on a stoop. Yeah, it's Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart,

and he has a blunt in his mouth. No. Yeah, I think I have it out here. You got to bend it. I'll go get it. Hold on. I have it out here. Hold on.

I have it right here. Get it. Get it. This is the note, though. I'm back. The day has come to play and laugh and have some fun. Each day I'll be watching. Be kind and be sweet.

I'll fly back to Santa at night while you you sleep remember to be good and spread holiday cheer i can't wait for all the fun we have this time of year ho ho ho ho keithy i was like oh my god you're so talented she's like that's on the internet i didn't i didn't write that myself still she shouldn't have told me because i would have believed that my wife my wife chance Snoop on a stoop Oh shit That is unreal I didn't know he actually had a blunt in his mouth And then Martha Stewart Actually that kind of reminds me I don't know why I forgot

First three episodes have been released Of Surviving Barstool I guess it's the blunt in the mouth And it reminded me of Gilly Which reminded me of Surviving Barstool Biz what have you thought Have you watched them Biz or no I've watched probably like a total of like I guess it's the blunt in the mouth. And it reminded me of Gilly, which reminded me of surviving barstool biz. What have you thought? Have you watched them biz or no?

I've watched probably like a total of like a little over one episode, just like periodically and just traveling. But like, yeah, like it's like, it's everything that I remember. Like Gilly kind of steals the show. The first couple episodes,

he's just a cartoon character. He gets ahold of that helmet. The way that like Jersey Jerry was treating it like it was the mob. I was there to play. Did you see the clip with you and him? Yeah. I was playing a clean cut game and I just get thrown in this fire of guys just going to mental warfare right from the right from puck drop.

Like there's no softening process. Hey, worry about winning your comps and keep it chill. Those guys were going to work early, but that's why i think it cost jersey jerry his spot because i it was like he was plotting too quick where nobody trusted him yeah he was playing the game too hard all in on this show i am all in it's great it's you guys have been great besides wit doing the fuck wit dude i almost dude you were shooting that thing dude dude i was bringing it back like four inches thinking about accuracy and then i look over and kelly keegs is laying down like bringing this thing back like a rocket ship and and i was like this is so and i just then i

i was in my own head i thought maybe it was a water balloon that you were afraid to break the balloon while you were bringing it back. And then I'm like, no, these aren't water balloons. But why did like, why did big cat not tell you? I didn't like that out of big cat. He told,

I have no idea. I didn't like that one bit. I did not like that one bit. I just think back to biz, like being in the show, it feels like it was two years ago, but at the end, finally at at the end when everyone goes home i think you and i were in a car together and looked at each other and just said like get me the fuck it's you you think it's the entire

universe you don't understand real life outside of this game we won't give out give out any more spoilers we'll try to maybe trickle a few stories in from each one throughout the next month or two. And you got to go watch it though. A lot of people are saying probably one of the best produced things Barstool has ever done. The quality, the manpower they put behind it. They

outsourced people who were doing all the audio and they were militant. When we would turn our audio on, like every person, the confessional situation. Like Houston's they were militant. Hey, when we would turn our audio on, like every person, the confessional situation. So more militant than that's what you're going to say. Yeah. Last thing.

Did, did you guys appreciate my acting when, when Robbie Fox got gassed? Did you see my, and nobody could even see me. Like I'm in the back. The cameras got it. The cameras got it. That's how dumb I am. I'm in the back. But the camera's got it. The camera's got it.

That's all that matters. The camera's got it. So episode four is tonight. This is on Rumble and YouTube. Episode five tomorrow. Episode six every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. There'll be an episode. Even if you're not into Barstool, I recommend going and checking it out because it's entertaining.

It's a great product. It's a lot of fun so 24 heavy hitters and i guess they put on rumble because there's certain things they can put on that one they can't put on youtube this seemed to be the issue last year when they released it well that's why he's gonna blow someone's head up i mean blow someone's house off house up that was oh you can't yeah so youtube does not allow threats to blow people's houses up. But Rumble seems to allow that when taken within context. So enjoy it and looking forward for you guys for your feedback on that, too. But YouTube allows me to see Mincy's body. And that guy is absolute filth.

That guy is one of the dumbest people. When they announced them to your team. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, God. Yeah, everyone needs a mincey. Just guys. I'm actually glad all this. I know as we move to hockey, I'm actually glad all this Ranger stuff happened before we get Yanz on.

He played for the Rangers. He knows what it's like being there and the pressure under the bright lights. And we got Larry Brooks coming on. I'm sure you had had a couple run-ins in a good way with him like you always seem to really get along with media throughout your career yeah I had no issues with with Larry and probably because I never read anything that he wrote on me and I'm sure he absolutely dogged me a lot of the times but I never really because I didn't want to have those relationships with guys you know you're seeing them every day i never wanted to have a bad relationship with a meet i know they have to do their job and write you know hit pieces sometimes

and stuff like that so i never or even if they wrote something about a teammate i wouldn't like to read that either so i never read anything i stayed out of that stuff um he was always very cordial with me nice guy i know something like dan boyle he was there i was there for that year that boiler uh flipped out on him at the year-end meetings telling him to get out of the room and he wasn't gonna do the interview and he had told boiler told me before he was gonna do it he was like hey i have mine next you might want to just stick around the locker room for this so i got a front row seat to that and larry's like nope i'm not leaving i'm not leaving boiler was just boiling like this guy doesn't leave i'm gonna absolutely overreact because he knew he was retiring too so it's his last ever uh outro

meeting so he was all in and i wish i could remember what he said to him exactly but it's just one of those things he had probably read one or two too many things that he didn't like and just had enough we'll get we'll get to it in one or two too many things that he didn't like and just had enough. We'll get to it in the interview. I think he said that he tried to bury the hatchet with Boyle. Yeah. And he just, he said Boyle was not having it. I don't know what he wrote about him or said about him that set him off to that degree. But do you remember one thing in particular?

No, I do not. I wish I did. Actually, I should have texted Boyle. Text him now while we're on the show. Maybe he'll get back to you by the time we're done. Yeah. Say like, ask him like,

what was the, what was the thing that like really sent you over the edge that, that Brooksie had written, but that kind of brings us into, Oh, go ahead, this. Oh,

I was just saying, and go, Hey, we got him on the pod. Do you have any questions for him? He might not respond. If you tell him, he would not like me.

If he knew that I was talking to him, he's, he's such a stubborn old man. One of the best guys ever too, but just a stubborn guy. And he would not like me if he knew that i was talking to him he's he's such a stubborn old man one of the best guys ever too but just a stubborn guy and he would never if larry books was like i'll give you a million dollars to sit down with me and just hash it out he'd be like no so so as stubborn as derrick morris very cut from the same cloth those same person okay we got to get him on at some point oh my god he's coaching uh he's coaching uh um uh joey superstein's brother raf he loves him as a coach i go buddy he is so fucking intense

i so smart too he was a nail gun when he played i remember him um six days a week he would go into that exos he was a machine animal in the in the gym where he would leave the rink and work out somewhere else no no summertime but even at the rink like during the season like i would say that from all the guys i played pro with he had probably one of the strongest work ethics i'd ever seen on and off the ice like gamer and practice like always on he actually had pretty silky mitts too like the way that he could walk and and he was a reliable passer like i love i thought i always thought he was one of our more underappreciated players when he was with the coyotes like for what he was making at the time did so much for my career i got

to play with him like my first four or five years he was he was a general on the ice he just like told you where to go he was so good talking talking. He would just be like, all right, you stay in front of the net. I'll go to each corner because he was a savage. And he would just go blow people up in the corner. And I would just stand there. And he was unbelievable. And kind of one of those undercover nail guns wit where you're like, well, I was just going to say, well, no, I didn't fight him.

I went on Keith's bachelor party with him. And then he beat the wheels off me, I believe, the next season okay i think i was celebrating an overtime winner and he didn't like it and he just just just boom bing didn't give a shit done lay down wit shut your mouth behind the same batch that was the same bachelor party that we played a trump golf course on the way in new jersey on the way to the city and trump was in there after and we walked in eight guys and he's like i wish you were like eight women it'd be a lot cooler if you ate with women i was like okay gotcha donald uh and then i think brian yandel had on a uh ed hardy t-shirt that was popular about seven years prior and the bouncer was giving him shit and stuff very very funny

a 15k minimum and you can wear ed hardy's shirt in here yeah is that how the conversation went i think wit said uh no i don't even want it but take your affliction hat off please sir please so well guys in new york crazy news breaks this week. All of a sudden, it was reported that Jacob Truba for roster management was going to be sat or wasn't going to be playing because they had a deal in place. They were going to trade him. This all comes kind of to fruition after the summer where it was reported that they told him, we want to trade you. He had a no trade clause. He blocked it for his family. He ends up going on after to mention after the trade.

Yeah, I made the decision for my family. I had 100% do it the next time as well. He's traded to Anaheim for Earl Vekanainen and a fourth round pick from Anaheim. I don't know what you guys thought of this. I don't know what you thought of how it was dealt with Biz and Keith. I don't know what you thought of how it was dealt with, Biz and Keith, but surprising to see him able to be moved and the Rangers not have to retain any salary. Was there confirmation on whether the waivers thing was a threat from New York? He said that.

Okay, so that was kind of used as a threat that never came to fruition, and then they were able to work something out because I would assume with the threat he was finally like all right yeah anaheim i'm willing to waive that and and then sayonara i mean sorry but he said say no to go into columbus that was the first deal in place he said no to that and then probably the threat came like buddy you're going on waivers and then okay i'll go to anaheim yeah and what was the term he used is kind of like uh you know to be kicked out of msg well yeah to be fired from msg um g look it up quick is uh is a right a badge of honor yeah a passage badge of honor which is which is kind of true i guess i talking to talking to brooksie obviously we already have i don't know how it played out in in the summertime and the fact that it leaked out and and how now part way through the year like i think that his play could have helped things out and i think that i he he did have a couple

good first games but then his play dropped off and i would imagine that that everything that went on this summer knowing that they want to move on from him kind of just trickled into his mind and his play. And then, you know, created chaos, a little chaos in the locker room. And it was just kind of inevitable. I think it's a little crazy how you go from a few years of naming him

captain to this point. And if you ever had these types of feelings about him or any inkling type of inkling of these feelings, why you would even bother naming a captain anyway. So I also agree with one thing that you said, where it's like, was there ever a situation where he could have maybe took the C off and handed it back where maybe that would have made things less chaotic.

But I think it ultimately just came down to his production based on what he's making cap wise. The fact that they want to try to bring in guys who can get the job done and they didn't think that he was going to help do that and uh i don't think it's going to affect anything moving forward for the rangers and and bring in guys in or any of that but i just think it's odd now that all of a sudden as all this is going down now it's like crider's name is getting out there uh you know whoever what other names are popping out there as far as trade bait where it's like holy fuck like you think the truba stuff created hostility now you're hearing a guy like chris kreider who's done everything he's done for the rangers and even been a pretty good playoff

producer throughout his time it's not like you could you can't just like point at him and saying well we haven't gotten over the hump because of him and now like it's like there's really like it's cutthroat you know it's like it's like nobody feels safe if Kreider's a guy's that name that's coming up who else could be gone so I would imagine a lot of hostility in that locker room even despite calming things down with the Igor signing but even the fact of playing there and when I was my last year there I was UFA and they had offered me a deal and in the back of my mind i was like you take a deal here you i saw it with you know you see guys like uh callahan got traded he was

the captain like they're just they have so much money they're just willing to move on with guys there's not like that you know they're there to win and you respect the hell out of them for that that they want one job and one job only and that's to win and i love the fact that that drury went out there and made the deal now that gives them time to kind of make some trades before the trade deadline happens where they can go out they can get like you're getting eight million bucks off your uh your cap it you can get a legitimate superstar if there is teams willing to trade for it so i love the fact that they did it and did it now obviously you know as a ex-player i feel bad for troops and i know he put a you know everything into the game he played hard for the organization um you know you go back

to when he threw his helmet that kind of got them going got them into the team that they were you know they had a great season last year they just ran into a nail gun with florida so it's you can't take away anything that he did for that team i thought he did a lot of great things and it's just one of those things it's a business and when you're playing for a team like the rangers that you know if you're not winning it every year and obviously you're not going to win it every year they're going to look to to make changes they're going to look to try to bring guys in that can help you win but um i i think that drury's setting himself up nicely here to to make a big move at some point to bring somebody in and and take them to that next step and uh you know maybe maybe they have a defenseman in the in the minors or they have a guy you know that they think that can kind of do the

same type of job that jacob did but um yeah at the end of the day i really think it's a it's a good move for them and uh yeah i hate to see if a troops troops is a great guy he's got to move across country and you know kind of thing he's got to go play for cronin a little bit but that's not that's not going to be that fun but uh yeah i wish him the best and you know and i wish the rangers the best as well and i think that they're they're going to do something big i i've made it clear that I really respected him this summer saying, I got a no trade clause. That's part of my contract.

I don't have to go anywhere. That's a player using his leverage. I love that. But I completely see the side of Chris Drury and that threat of saying, listen, you're going on waivers. You're not going to be on this team anymore. And it is very cutthroat, and it kind of reminds me of when I was little and I wanted to play in the NHL, wanted to play in the NHL. I'll never forget my dad saying, it's not everything you think it is. like as a young kid you don't even think about the business aspect of it and every single player goes through times where it's like this this isn't necessarily what i thought it would be like

and it's still a dream come true and you're still the luckiest person in the world to be in the nhl and i'm not i'm not saying any of that isn't the case but there are just sides to the game as you get into the game at a very very high level the highest level that that you don't think about as a young kid dreaming about being in the nhl. And this is one of them. The guy's the captain of an original six franchise. Like Keith said, he's done everything he can for this team. And all of a sudden, it's like, we're giving you away for nothing if you don't agree to this trade. It's a shot to your ego, and it'd be hard for anyone to handle. But on Chris Drury's side, It'd be hard for anyone to handle.

But on Chris Drury's side, there's no room for worrying about feelings. This is a billion-dollar industry. It's a company. It's the same way anything else works in the world. We need to make our team better. We need to make our business better. Unfortunately, the reality of it is we cannot be as good as we think we can be with you on the team. It sounds so harsh. That's just like the realities of pro sports that you don't think of as a

young kid. But now all of a sudden you see the Rangers and it doesn't really like all fix all their problems. Like you look now, like they're still going to need that. They need to make other moves. Larry Brooks goes into, in the interview mentioned,

like they are not even close to being done. So I do feel bad for Truba at the same time you're making $8 million. You're still in the interview Mentioning like they are not even close to being Done so I do feel Bad for Truba at the same time you're making Eight million dollars you're still in the NHL In Southern California It just sucks gee what do you got before You guys move on from Truba I just I was thinking this past weekend and part of me

Thinks that the Anaheim Ducks are just Going to eat half a Truba's salary and Then flip him to a playoff team for some Picks you guys think there's any chance that happens? I think that he's a, I think he's like a three, $4 million D man. And I think that that's perfect for a team who wants to have him as a

fifth or sixth, right? The same way I would want Luke Shen on a roster to win a Stanley cup as a, as a fifth, six, or maybe even the guy who's the six. And then sometimes he's healthy, not in the lineup,

but at the cap that he's making now, no, like I said, I'll just go back to, i'm just shocked that like it went from like that to wanting to name him captain to all of a sudden this it's like what who who decided to name him captain given that was going to make things way more complicated to eventually move on from him right and then there's no there's no disagreeing that I think that with moving on from him and having to be cutthroat about it has put them in a better situation, not only as a team, but to then make a trade to improve their roster to go win. Because with the way things were, I would say, ah, they're not a cup contender. Now with Igor as goalie, now the fact they have cap space and they're probably

willing to move on to some of these other problems that we will talk about where so benajed's not necessarily playing that great crider is probably not playing that great but he's still scoring some fucking goals and then keandre miller so there's a lot more issues as far as this roster is concerned and maybe even like outside of trocek like who's your second line center like who's your who's your who's your most powerful centerman outside of, outside of Trojack? They're a team that you look at and, and,

and Larry goes into it. It's like, they're a good team, but are they a Stanley cup team? I don't think so. Now they can make a bunch of changes. I guess we should go into the fact that they did sign Igor Shostakhin. Amazing news for Rangers fans who I think started to worry a little bit.

Like, is this guy going to go to the market? Is this guy going to actually test free agency? Sterkin. Amazing news for Rangers fans who I think started to worry a little bit like, is this guy going to go to the market? Is this guy going to actually test free agency? Probably be able to get more than what he signed for, but no, they lock him up to eight times 11.5. I guess the offer originally was eight times 11 this summer. He ends up getting another, what is that? 4 million on an eight year deal? The largest contract ever signed by a goaltender. Now, there's some worries to that, I think, in terms of how much cap he's taking up. My thought right when I saw it, though, was, wow, it's under $12 million. That, to me, is a win.

It came in under $12 million. This guy is, if he's not the best goalie in the world, he's top three. In the playoffs, it seems like he's even better than in the regular season. Without him so far this year, I don't even know if this team's like close to a playoff spot. They currently sit in those second wildcard spot. So Rangers fans are excited because you do have your star goaltender locked up, but this is a year now where they do have to make some moves because when his cap hit jumps up, I think it's five, six right now, almost doubles or does double then some for next season.

It's going to be harder. It's going to be harder to fit guys in. It's going to be harder to get a roster that could win a Stanley Cup with a goalie making that much money. But Rangers fans can also look at Sergey Bobrovsky and his deal of $10 million. It ended up looking phenomenal last year and the year before in the run to the finals.

I think it's a good signing. I think they had to make this signing and to have that done, at least it's some positivity around a team that hasn't had much this season i and and we get into it with brooksie like the noise started amplifying with the team not playing well and just to get everything settled down and and then a positive note with all that trooper news and quickly move on to the news cycle it's probably a fucking like drury must be so fired up do you think igor because i i think even we talked about in the beginning of the year he was going to get closer to 12 maybe even 13 when the rumors were he turned down like 11 and a half whatever it was no one really knew but you think if the way that he's been playing hasn't been that great he

was kind of like oh my god let's just sign this get this done and i also think it's going to help him that now the deal's done he doesn't have to worry about it the rest of the year he can go and play his game he's got his bag secured and just go out and be a goalie then be the goalie that he is which is a top two top three goalie in the league so i think the pressure that's going to come off him of just signing this deal and along with the whole organization too it's like okay we got our goalie yeah they've had a good they've been lucky having a goalie for the last probably 20 years where you have a guy you know who who it is who's going to be there so just having him i think just

is going to ease it down a little bit and and it's going to let drew uh do his magic in the next couple weeks he had some uh some some other pressure of his wife was due and they just gave birth or she gave birth I think yesterday to a baby girl. So congrats to him. Congrats to his family. And that's just another thing. The contract and the healthy baby. It's like, alright, let's

go play some hockey now. So we'll see what happens. I think this leads into the perfect time to bring on Larry Brooks. We go into a lot of this. We go into his past beefs with some players and coaches. So I hope everyone enjoys Sean Avery hopping in as well right now. Larry Brooks. Before we continue, I want to talk to you about an amazing sponsor of ours, and that is Yeti. Yeti has NHL custom drinkware.

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hockey hall of fame reporter for the New York Post and the New York Rangers and the Devils and the Islanders and the entire league, Larry Brooks, otherwise known as Brooksy. Thanks so much for joining the show. Well, thanks for having me.

I'm grateful. Thank you. Well, we appreciate it. And as Biz just mentioned before we started recording, it's an amazing time to have you on. I mean, the Rangers, as Biz calls it,

the headline hogs. So much news, a lot of it being reported by yourself. So kind of take us through the last week in what may go down as one of the crazier weeks in New York Rangers history with what's happened there these past seven days. Things have been churning basically from the start of the season. You know, they weren't playing well. There was all the Igor news, you know, the night of the season. You know, they weren't playing well. There was all the Igor news that, you know, the night of the, the night, you know, the night of the opener.

So there's been so much outside noise and it actually started in July. As you guys know, when Jacob Truba blocked any attempt, the Rangers had to, to move him, move on. And that kind of, you know, that was quiet for a couple of months, but as The Rangers had to move on. And that kind of, you know, that was quiet for a couple of months. But as soon as training camp began, that started to churn too. So there's just been so much noise outside the Rangers buffeting them. And they have been like the number one headline across the league for the last two or three weeks. the number one headline across the league for the last two or three weeks. There was the sub stack memo that Drury sent,

uh, alerting teams that they were open for business, that maybe you would like to have Jacob Trubin. Maybe you'd like to have Chris Kreider. Um, so it, it, it has been more noise around the Rangers than for years,

years, maybe since when they went into their teardown in 2018 I mean there's so many different ways we could take this is with a conspiracy theorist he said that the true betrayed then then Shusterkin signing had a lot to do with one another is that true or I made it I made a guess he's not he's acting like I said this is a fact. I said, oh, maybe he wanted to sign once Truba was gone. Biz is nuts. No, this had started as my information, my best information is that the Rangers reached out to Igor maybe 10 days ago and wanted to restart this.

I know that they thought it was very important to try and quiet the noise around him because as they were playing poorly, as they were sliding, there had been more conjecture. Well, maybe they're not going to be able to sign him. Maybe they're going to trade him now. You know, we don't know what's going on with the Rangers. And I think they wanted to make this commitment to him to also quiet the conjecture or, well, maybe they're not going to be able to keep him now, too. And the whole thing was just going to bottom out. So that, I think, he wasn't playing well. Probably from like the, I wouldn't say the half mark on, maybe a little bit before that, but then before they signed him, they said, holy fuck, it was the main headline in town. So before the year, they offered eight times 11,

and then they came up half a million per year and just said, hey, because there was rumors that he didn't want to be the, or he wanted to be maybe the highest paid player in the team, given he's their superstar. And I believe Panarin makes what 11 6 11 6 4 2 and and honestly that's what i had been reporting that he wanted to be their highest paid player he thought he deserved to be their highest paid player and i kind of agree i don't think it matters if you're a goaltender if you're the best player on the team you should be the highest paid

player on the team you know there's certainly a case to be made for that. I don't buy the distinction between the goalie and the player. I just don't. I get it because teams have won with, you know, maybe B goalies or C goalies over the last few years, but teams don't get into, you know, marginal teams don't get to the final four without an elite goaltender. So there was no doubt in my mind that they, they wanted him, that they knew they needed him and they wanted to get this done. I was, I was actually shocked that they got this done for less than 12. I thought that was going to be the bottom line. So that's a win for jury. That's a win for jury. I thought, and they probably traded off, they probably traded off a few no-move years

in exchange for that. So again, he's the best goalie in the league. He's their most important player. He has been since he's gotten there. It's great that they have now taken care of this. And I think also it was a commitment from Shusterkin. I think it was always, well, what was the number going to be for Shusterkin to be happy here?

And one of the other things I think that came with this signing over the weekend is that, no, players are not going to be scared off committing to the New York Rangers because Jacob Truber was traded and because Barkley Goodrell was waived. No. No. I agree with you. I agree with you.

And I think that part of it is people want to play for the New York Rangers. I mean, you go to a game there one time, let alone playing in that building, and there's just some vibe and special meaning to being there. So I agree with you go to a game there one time, let alone playing in that building, and there's just some vibe and special meaning to being there. So I agree with you on that. But my question to you about this entire ordeal, it's similar to the Bruins where everything was made so public.

And Neely and Sweeney came out and talked about the Swayman negotiations. And I know Chris Drury well. I'm biased. He's a friend of mine, and I have so much respect for him. But all of a sudden, like everything was so, so public. And I'm wondering like, in your opinion,

did that kind of have to happen? Was that a mistake? Like to, to move on from true, but you have to make it that open in the summer. Should they have maybe stripped him of his captaincy, which true, but said was very difficult to be the captain of the team.

Who named him captain to begin with? Like if they were willing to take it with them that quick. I'm just wondering your opinion on how public everything was made and would they go back if they could and try to keep this all in-house? Well, they didn't want this public. I didn't get my information. Brooksie made it public.

I knew. But they didn't want this public. They didn't. Honestly, I'm not getting into sourcing on anything, obviously. But the information that I printed on July 1st about Jacob Truba did not come from the New York Rangers. It was no benefit to them to have this out at all. And I understand it really was probably no benefit to Jacob Truba, but that's the way this business works. And Jacob Truba understands that. I, I, I look,

I am sorry that this story had such a profound effect on his life, but it was his decision. And his, and what he said the other day in his press conference, after he was traded, And what he said the other day in his press conference after he was traded, he chose his family. That's what I reported. Right. And he said, I'm not I'm never going to apologize for it. That's fine. And I have a world of respect for Jacob Truba. I think people know that. I think that people only have to go back to the archive and see that I kind of defended him every time he was in, you know, every time he was a subject of controversy and people were calling him to be suspended. And I kept saying, no, no, no. And this is exactly what the Rangers need. They need a menace back there because they've been beaten up for their entire franchise history except for you know the few times when you know when mess was here and you know a couple of a couple of other exceptions so yeah i like jacob true by respect him he's a good person you know it sounds trite you know but i had a job to do he understood that i had a job to do. Should they have stripped him of the captaincy when he

blocked them from trading him? I don't know. I guess I was naive a little bit too, because I thought that, okay, he blocked the trade. He's coming in. He'll be the captain of the team. It doesn't have to go into the room, but apparently it did. Apparently he was detached he knew they wanted to get rid of him it's maybe he should have relinquished the captaincy maybe he should have walked in maybe there should have been more oh there's so much coming out of a short amount of time there there should have been better communication you know wherever you want to you know weigh that you know jac you want to, you know, weigh that, you know, Jacob, Jacob's, you know, representative, Chris Drury, the Rangers, there probably should have been better communication between the two parties. But maybe when Trouba realized early that leading was going to be very difficult for him because of this circumstance, maybe he should have volunteered to give up the C. I'm not saying that that's what he should have done, but maybe.

If the Rangers stripped him of his captaincy, I can imagine how that would have been over. So it was a tough situation and exacerbated by the fact that he played poorly and the team played poorly, basically from the start of the season. Like Jake had a couple of, you know, his first couple of weeks I thought were okay. The Rangers first couple of weeks were, you know, were okay. And it was interesting because he was playing with Braden Schneider at that point, who was a righty on, on his left side. And so there was an adjustment to be made, but,

on his left side. And so there was an adjustment to be made. But when Ryan Lindgren came back, they switched the pairs and kind of like everything's gone, you know, downhill from there. They just weren't playing well. He wasn't hitting. He was no force on the ice.

I think he was detached as a leader. You can't have a lame duck captain. You just can't. And, you know, this is now in hindsight, but no team can have a lame duck captain. It just does not work. And it did not work for them. I think there are other issues. I think there are personnel issues. It's not all Jacob Truba, but he, you know, this discourse about him kind of dominated the first seven weeks of the season and you can't have that. So what about Kreider now? I feel like now that his name's out He's heard his name in trade rumors a lot, not necessarily for the last little bit. And all of a sudden you're like ready to shed yourself of, I would consider Mr. Ranger to a certain degree.

Like over the last 10 years, there's been no more consistent Ranger than Chris Kreider. I think he's getting you 30, 40 goals. Like I'm not saying he's a five on five juggernaut, but I understand the Truba situation. But now all of a sudden the locker room's like holy shit like now they're ready to shed mitts with or get rid of crider where it's like they're now the instability kind of it's throughout the whole locker room not just a jacob truba situation

but don't you think that listen the fact that again people who think that drury leaked this in order to send a message i i I don't think that makes sense. Because it does. It upsets the locker room. And especially this core, which, you know, you talked about all the great things they did. They went to the conference finals. They lost in the conference finals. They went to the conference finals two years ago. They lost in the conference finals basically for the same reasons. They're not big enough. They went to the conference finals two years ago. They lost in the conference finals basically for the same reasons. They're not big enough. They're not physical enough. They can't get to the inside. They can't get to the net when it gets to the final four. They're a

wonderful team. Fun to watch most of the time during the season, even during the playoffs too when they're rolling. But they can be shut down. When their power play is shut down, they can be shut down. Their five-on-five game in the playoffs is an issue. It has been an issue. So I would say you take a look at the Rangers. You take a look at their contracts. And Chris Kreider probably has the most value of any tradable player on that team. But he's also your best guy on the inside

which is part of the problems you say they have in playoffs like he's literally your best guy and i i i get it i get it but if if it's like this core hasn't been good enough right i mean we we like them we respect them they're one of the better teams in the league. They have been for, you know, now two out of the last three years. But is that enough? They haven't won. They haven't won since, again, you know, we're looking at 30 years again. So shouldn't, like, if Chris Kreider can bring back essential ingredients, more physicality, maybe,ity, maybe more size,

maybe a defenseman who can clear out the front better than the Rangers do now. Are you not going to make that deal just because he is the senior Ranger? I don't think so. But I also don't think that they're actually looking to move crider the way they were looking to move true but i think it's a little different i think i think it's saying hey he's not untouchable you know he's he's not untouchable and there just aren't that

many players on the rangers who are who are real assets when you look at their contracts now you know does someone want to to make an offer for Adam Fox that would blow them out of the water before he, you know, before his no move? I don't know. I mean, is it sacrilege to talk about players? I don't think so. And I also think that somebody out there, and this is how our business works, so, you know, good.

But somebody out there is circulating a lot of stuff around the Rangers. Honestly, that that is a fact. And I think it is weird to see Adam Fox. Adam Fox has no goals, which is shocking. But a guy I want to ask you about is Zibanejad. And you go to last year's playoffs. He struggled. He does have 20 points in 26 games.

But it's one of those like stats don't always tell the whole story. He only has five goals. Are you worried about him as a player, like being an elite player, or do you think he's almost in a funk that he can get out of? Because I see he's 31, never been the best skater. So as you get a little older, you lose that half a step. Where are you on his game, and can he kind of get out of

what's gone on for for a while now i think and almost enough to a rangers fans who loved him and it was an amazing trade when they brought him over from ottawa now we're kind of saying like where is this guy's game at because it's been a while since we saw his a game i thought actually he had a better playoff than he was given credit for it because not against Florida I don't think well here's what because I think like he just had come off a six-game series against Carolina where he was going up against Jordan Stahl who is as physical right as physical a center as you can as there is in the league Mika is not that I've always thought that the Rangers have asked Mika to do too much in the playoffs

that he's really not capable of doing. That's why I've always thought that they needed a strong, physical, third-line checking center who could take some of that responsibility away from Mika. When teams want to go best on best and there's a physical center matching him it's it's hard for him so I actually thought he had a better playoff than he was given credit for like he actually kind of you know suppressed Barkov too I mean there was nothing on offense coming from Mika and you know know, five on five in that series, but there wasn't that much coming from Barkov either. So,

but come into this year, I think a lot of the criticism got to him. And I think he's a, he's very sensitive, way too sensitive to what other people are saying about him. It gets in his head and it spirals and it spirals and it spirals. He did not, I mean, he hasn't played well this year at all, honestly. And I think, you know, to the question about where his game is, I think he's going to have to make a commitment.

I don't know if you can do it. You guys know, you know, far better than I, whether you to make a commitment. I don't know if you can do it. You guys know far better than I whether you can make this commitment in season or you have to wait till the next offseason, but he needs to get bigger. I think he needs to change his offseason a bit. It's tough at that age, though. It's hard at that age.

But yeah, I think it's a combination. Him not playing well and when he doesn't play well, he's his own worst enemy. I think there's been an improvement over the last week, but it's nothing that his performance is not acceptable. I mean, the Rangers will not thrive. The Rangers may not make the playoffs if Mika Zibanejad has a season like this.

He's got to get out of it. Whether that means he should sit a game and watch, I don't know. But he did have a pretty good game Friday night when he was matched against Crosby. Their line, actually, with Kreider and Riley Smith was back. They had a really good game matched against Crosby. Of course, after the game, Mike Sullivan said it was the worst game the Playments had played in a month.

So, you know, I don't know how you want to say it, but no. So, I don't know how you want to say it, but no. The Rangers need a lot more from Mika Zibanejad, who essentially has become their third-line five-on-five center. Brooksy, should Matt Rempe be the next captain of the Rangers? No, but he should be on their fourth line every night of the season. You love Rempe. I love him, too, and they got a hell of a record with him in their lineup. That's what I don't get about it, honestly.

If you want to tell me that Matt Rempe's not good enough for this league, or if he played the first eight or ten games of the season and was committing terrible penalties, and the Rangers were 3-7. No, he didn't even have a chance to lose his job. I don't get it. Honestly, he changed the dynamic last year. He did.

He changed the dynamic last year. He, there was something going on. He may have only gotten two shits, but he, you know, the Rangers were different with him around. And honestly, that's... Well, now that Trouba's gone, they need another meathead. So you might as well bring him up. So not the next captain, but you want him in the lineup. On a more serious note, I think another guy probably on the back end

who's struggling is Keiondre Miller. I don't know, is it unfair to say maybe looks a little bit disinterested? He just doesn't seem like a self. If they're willing to move off of Crider, could you see them potentially moving off a defenseman of his caliber? Cause I feel like he's still very raw, but he has all the skill and talent in the world. I don't think disinterested.

I, I don't know that he plays really in, you know, with, with instinct. I mean, you can, you can talk to this.

You played lead forever on D. He didn't start playing D until he was really older in his career. So I just wonder when things begin to waver for him, whether he has enough experience to fall back on, enough of his instinct to fall back on. He is a great skater. It's really interesting. He has always been criticized because he doesn't hit.

He's 6'5". He doesn't hit. But until Saturday, he actually had the most hits per minute of Ranger defensemen. I don't know if that's particularly good or bad. I remember. Or the guy keeping track had a couple of pig Whitney nips up in the press box. So, listen, he's coming up on a contract. He's a restricted free agent.

I'm sure going into this year, he and his people were aiming for a long-term, you know, seven or eight-year commitment. Seven or eight, you know, six, seven, eight. Well, fuck, they're giving them out to all the rest of the guys in the league. I don't think he's earned that over the first 25 games. So there will be a, you know, what are they going to be offered for him too? Yeah. I think they need, like I've said,

they need a stay-at-home, big, physical guy who can clear out the crease, who will protect the goaltender, who won't allow, you know, who won't allow the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning from two years ago to, you know, encroach the crease and bang around, you know around Igor anytime he wanted.

So anytime they wanted. So I don't think anyone's untouchable. I don't think Keandre's untouchable. I don't think they're looking to move him because you have to fill those 22 minutes on the left side, but he's not untouchable. Neither is Ryan Lindbergh. How can anyone be untouchable when they haven't won? No. Panarin. Panarin and Shusterkin. The defenseman you just described kind of sounds like Jacob Truba. But I think that obviously I joked there.

Now, we got to get to another report. And it made waves today around the GM meetings. And that was your report Friday of the Rangers being interested in Brady Kachuk? We actually have a resident rumor boy rat producer who's been saying that Brady Kachuk would end up on a metro area team at one point in the next two, three years. That's Mike Grinelli. But you have sources and all of a sudden now they got the Ottawa owners saying this is soft tampering by the Rangers. Now, you can't give a source by any means, but take us through what you've heard in terms of Brady Kachuk and maybe his displeasure with Ottawa continuing to struggle. I actually, I thought there was a,

it was a joke when someone told me there was going to be an investigation. I mean, what? I mean, can I get a day of peace? I mean, honestly, not when you work for the post.

No, I guess not. But no, I had been told earlier last week that Brady Kachuk was a target of the Rangers. And then I was told a second time that Brady Kachuk. And then I was told by a third party that the Rangers' priority was to try and find a way to get Brady Kachuk. I had heard some talk about, you know, that there was some sensitivity in Ottawa about whether they were going to be able to keep him. And so I wrote that Jacob Trubo wasn't the end, that the Rangers want to do more.

And they were targeting Brady Kachuk. And all of a sudden, this is- Who's telling you that, Dolan? Who's telling you that, Drury or Dolan? No, I thought it wasn't in our text chain. No, you know what was the memories concussed no no no hey not only do i have a surprise for you the reason uh we got you on was that original text you sent you go hey can we keep this between us question mark i go this go this conversation. Yeah. You go, the moment has passed.

Catch you later. Regards to your teammates. And then you ghosted me. I was trying to get ahold of you and you kept ghosting me. Now, before you answer that, I got a surprise for you. We talked about your current favorite Ranger, Matt Rempe.

I probably have your all time favorite Ranger about to come on right now ladies and gentlemen yes Sean Avery yes oh no doesn't he looks better now you look phenomenal Aves first of all I'm the second I'm Brooksy's second favorite ranger after Yaramir Yager Yaramir Yager and and Larry Brooks are very they had a they had a special kin, those two. They did. I remember there was this one game before the garden was refurbished, and Yags didn't like to take, he wouldn't go in the shootout because he thought he was bad.

He just wouldn't go. He wouldn't go. He would decline. So there was, I remember an afternoon game. He didn't go. They lost. I think it was to the Devils. And then he wasn't available in the locker room,

which at that point was, you know, it was different. Like everybody used to be available pretty much. And so I just started yelling. Yelling. First he won't go. And now he won't talk. And within five seconds, here came yogs walking out the door what do you want what do you want no i i yogs and i were good but um sean is actually and i and i won't i won't give the other um party's name to protect him but sean is is really the only, like one of only two players I've socialized with like over

the last 30 years. It doesn't happen anymore. It doesn't happen anymore. To me, if I'm a New York Ranger, like the first person that I'm creating a relationship with is the guy with the pen and paper. Like, you know, before Twitter, even now today with Twitter, Brooksy's words in the New York Post carry weight. I mean, it's not tampering what he writes

because it's real and it's going to happen at some point, you know? So. Oh no, now we're in trouble. I think that, and by the way brooks he's got a a promising young future nhl or in his stable his grandson is a hell of a player right brooksie scotty brooks pretty good player all right good play emote pretty good they just they just won the can-am tournament or they came runner up yeah then won the gold yeah because did you play 14 you do

you do you remember the fourth no it is wild i didn't make the good teams brooksie no i know 14 you now is the first year you can you can have hitting in the in in the u.s and so it is just wild west i mean you have you know if kids were just 13 and 13 and have not gone through puberty, and they're playing against kids now who are almost maybe 15, and beards are going to the prom. Smoking cigarettes between periods. Where's testosterone bouncing off the walls every place you look? And he's a finesse creative player.

But I'll tell you what, he's learned to keep his head up. That's for sure. What are some of your favorite Sean Avery stories while you were covering him? Like what was some of the ridiculous shit that he was doing? Like the Martin Brodeur when he was doing that, were you like, I cannot wait to go talk to this guy

in the locker room after this? Well, I remember after the brodeur, you know, the face-washing incident, I remember calling him the next day, expressing my, I guess, disdain. And he said, not you too. I thought I had you brooksie um but most of the stories you know what though i know you know the relationship my relationship with john tortorella's you know technicolor

but most of the reason that most of the reason we could never get onto the same page i mean we talked dozens of times about, we need to settle this down. We need to settle this down. This is ridiculous. Everyone's laughing at us. So let's settle it down. And we would, we, you know, we did, you know, for weeks at a time.

But it always came back to Aver. It did. He was, he was, he was the issue. Like torts would tell me around i can't believe you're allowing this guy to fool you i can't believe you're allowing this guy to lead you around and and it was like i could you know we could get by almost every other issue that we had we could never get by sean abry true sign of a, you know, reverse it on to the other person. Because, no, I'm going to say this about Brooksy. He's seen every single player

that has ever played in the NHL over the last 30 years. He's seen their good days, their bad days. You can't fool this man. And if you ask Brooksy right now, I'm sure he's going to say, I don't want to assume, will John Tortorella wear his welcome out in Philadelphia before they win? I don't know. What would your answer be to that, Brooksy? Well, I thought he was coming close to that at the end of last year. But I also think that he has such a great support system with Keith Jones and Danny

Breyer. I mean, you know, it's so will he ultimately become the worst enemy that we, you know, we always know that he's he has been and be ushered out or will there you know is there just a a tone to him that's changed a little bit listen i think if i were if if we were together now we would both do great i mean honestly we're fuck off i don't think it'd be one week before you guys motherfucking i thought he's been a little bit better this year but I agree with your take towards the end of last year with like the Couturier

stuff I'm like holy fuck that was a John Tortorella rollercoaster last year from the beginning to the end of the year but he's reeled it back in now Abe's like so you and Torts would just go back and forth all the time like were you guys going at it like no I think that that would happen was Brooks he was only um ally like outside of flats and certainly in the press and when i played well

or he thought that i could add more to the lineup he would say that you know i didn't have a lot of bad minutes with torts i just didn't have a lot of minutes so it's not i think it was more i think it was more that stumbling block like torts just wanted me gone from day one right like it was like four years of just misery and i think honestly the only thing that kept me there were the fans and probably brooksie to a certain extent and then myself like i don't know why i didn't just walk in one day and be like just choke them right to get out of there well aves that's true because like there weren't many rangers getting their names chanted in the garden like i remember playing you there and they were chanting every and then brooksie to be like pumping your tires when you play well towards it's probably just infuriating them even more but were you there aves when when

brooks he had the legendary uh battle there with dan boyle in the locker room no i wasn't but i can tell you that when brooks he walks into that locker room it's just a different feeling than like arthur staple or whoever it is or whoever it's been because you know pen to paper the truth's coming out like he's not you can't buy him you can't you can't you can work them you can finesse them give them the old finesse-a-roo biz but you know that's just good business that's being a smart New York Ranger because you're in a big market but But once he starts writing, like he's too, he's, he's, listen, he's been the best for a long time. I tried to look it up.

Are you in the hockey hall of fame, Brooksy? Or did they just give you some stupid award? No. Well, it's the Elmer Ferguson is the equivalent of being in the hockey hall of fame. It's like the most amazing thing about the most amazing thing is is my plaque is in the same room as rocket richard i mean come on what are you talking about that's dope but you know honestly here i gotta say look look oh here's me uh here's john

beliveau here's mike bossy oh and here's larryossey. Oh, and here's Larry Brooks. But, you know what, Dan Boyle and I, we just never hit it off at all. I mean, not from the first day. And the interesting thing about that is when he was in Tampa, I can't count how many times I wrote, oh, this would be unbelievable if the Rangers could get Dan Boyle. This would be unbelievable. And then when they actually, you know, and he had his no trade, right? And they told him, well, if you don't accept this deal, we're going to put you on waivers.

And I wrote about how this was disgraceful for a team to do that to a player you know we'd been there so i was always a dan boyle guy i loved watching him play i honestly what what a player he was when he was in tampa and maybe at the start in in dallas but um when he got here it was just we didn't like each other um at all and so what made you not like him like the first interview with him he's kind of giving you attitude and you're like fuck this guy one of those yeah yeah i thought and he basically told me he didn't like the way i did my job so i said oh okay that's fine and then so we barely talked the first year and which is okay there was like one you know, came up in the locker room with a guy who I really liked a lot and the guy who liked me a lot. We just had a, you know, um, a blow up for, for a minute or two. And, and Dan Boyle came running over across the room. I told you, Brooksy, I told you, I told you. And so the start of the second year, his training camp, I went over to him and said, hey, you want to talk?

You want to try and get this resolved? And he said to me, he said, no, I don't. I said, okay, fine. So basically, I didn't talk to him all year. It's not my fault that he was scratched for the final game of his career when the Rangers dressed seven defensemen. I didn't make that decision. He was a very disappointing player in New York. He complained all the time, not to me, but to other people.

And so I go in on breakup day and he throws this hissy fit that he didn't want me there. I told him, if he had told me before, you know, I didn't really think he had anything worth saying that I needed to be there. You know what's funny about that? Like, I think about with a guy like Yogs on a team, nobody would have done that when Yogs is on a team. Like, Brooksy, you can't, like, dan boyle should have never have done that and somebody should have told him that like like what are you doing you know what i mean but i don't know

making an unnecessary enemy like why make an enemy out of him yeah yeah yeah i mean it's just um on big picture stuff you need him as an ally you need brooksie as an ally because, you know, he turns that switch on and one week becomes two weeks and it's the third article the third week and it just starts building momentum with the people. You have to be smart in that big market. Brooksy, talk about Jim Dolan because you have a relationship with him. He's the best owner in sports and you got a lot of inside track on him over the years so please because you're being too coy you got all the shit i don't i don't have it i don't have anything i don't have anything on me on the owner okay so aves is gone now but do you have one more favorite avery story before you get to that next thing well i'm not getting to that next thing um well let me ask you then about dolan quick it's true though that he's he's uh, that he's an owner who's in the mix, right? There's some owners that are very hands-off. Would you agree he's hands-on?

There's times that he wants something done and it happens, or he's going to make it happen? I think that's probably fair, but I don't think he's an owner who meddles either. Okay. He's not walking into Chris Drury's office and saying, we, you know, I want this, I want this player, I want this player out,

I want this player. See what you can do to try and trade for this player. I think that might have happened with the Knicks maybe, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. I've never been on that side, so I don't know. I know that there was talk that he was involved a lot. But he basically has, certainly when Glenn was here, Sather, he basically just said, run know run your team run your team and and you know of

of course the owner like steve cohen right steve cohen of the mets he's now being uh lauded because he's involved because he wants juan soto because he died wind and dine juan soto he told them we we're going to get juan s. So owners are always involved at a certain level. I don't, I don't think that like this owner has always been willing to spend to the crap, to the cap. He, he, the Rangers do treat their players like royalty and everyone knows that. Yep. So, um, and he is always there as a resource to give the general manager whatever he wants. Will he say, listen, I think we need to be better.

This isn't acceptable. What's going on with the captain? You know, why is this happening? Yeah, I think they have those conversations, but it would be derelict for him not to, right? I mean, he owns the team. So, but there's not, he owns the team. So, but there's not, I don't think he's,

I don't think he's involved at a granular level where he's saying, well, we should look at, you know, Adam Fox isn't having a good year. Well, you know, what can we get? You know, or, you know, Ryan Lindgren may not, you know, we may not re-sign him next year. What do you think? I don't think that those conversations are held on a daily basis, but I think as an overview, of course, the owner's involved.

You mentioned treating the players like royalty. Is it true that you gave Henrik Lundqvist his nickname, The King? Was it said in an article? And what's the backstory behind that as to why you would even say that? I have no idea. It was his third game. I have no idea. I could just tell.

You could tell there was something different about Hank, and it was Henrik then. It wasn't Hank for a long, long time after that, really. It was Henrik. But you could tell there was something different. There was something special about him from training camp. So he's playing. I think it was his second game at the Garden.

He had a great night. Fans are chanting, you know, Henrik or Lundqvist. Lundqvist, I think it was at the time. And I just wrote, he is, you know, and I think he had said something like, it's amazing that people know who I am. And I said, he is King Henrik of Sweden. That's who he is. And then I just started, because I knew there had been a King Henrik.

Apparently, he was not an official King Henrik, as Henrik would later tell me. So I wrote, like, he's King Henrik. And I just kept writing it. The King, you know, the King, the King. What did he say when you went in the locker room? Was he like, hey, man, pump the brakes on the King? He didn't say anything to me about it until the summer he showed up, I guess, in training camp wearing a crown thing. And I asked him when I was going to get the royalties and he started speaking in Swedish. So I'm still waiting

for that. But no, it is very cool. It's really one of the coolest things on my career i've broken stories yeah which is great but it is just cool you know that he is uh his nickname and he and i are so closely attached and and honestly i i don't know the the hours that i you know chatted you know with hammered you, you know, over the year, he was always there. He was always available to talk. He would always talk. Um, I've really missed him since, since he, uh, since he left and everybody who covers the team does, but I, I certainly do. But yeah, that, um, he, uh, he never really quite, uh, said anything said anything about the nickname to me. Were there any other, because everyone knows about torts and then the Dan Boyle incident, were there any other players or coaches that you kind of battled with regularly?

Like somebody where it's like, oh, we do not see eye to eye and I'm not letting up on my questions and how I ask them. Not all that many. There were certain guys who I knew that I had, you know, criticized to such an extent that there would be no productivity in going over talking to them. I, you know, again, I didn't necessarily want the drama of a confrontation. There were, but that there are also guys and i and i would say this this applies to glenn say there who i battled with all the time i can't count how numb you know the number of times we would wind up actually hanging up on

each other and then the next day it was like it's just it didn't happen and that's part of the job that's that's how i grew up honestly that's that's the way i grew up when next day it was like, it didn't happen. And that's how I grew up. Honestly, that's the way I grew up when it was a much, much smaller industry. I started in 1976 and it was a much smaller industry and you traveled with teams and you sat down at the table of the coffee shop with guys, you know, um, the next morning reading the summaries and, and you were friends and you went out with them, uh, you know, all the time. So, um, that was a different era, but that's, that's the era also when you could have a, you know, an FUFU with a guy. And then the next morning you'd say, Hey, uh, you know, you, you, you know,

And then the next morning you'd say, Hey, uh, you know, you, you, you know, yeah, I mean, that's, that's the way it was. And that's, and that's the way it was with really with torts for a large part of the time until it just, you know, finally ended. But that's, that's the way it was with him too. You know, we'd have this and this and, and the next day it would be fine but and it would be with with um with glenn um a guy who i had epic epic battles with was uh jacques lemare um and you know we always were able to you know come back and and have civil conversations so they're really they're you know they're they're i think there's probably a perception that i've had you know i have this long list of enemies you know or i'm on a you know i'm on all these lists i don't think so and you know if so guys you know we're pretty good at hiding it you know most of the time so no but again it's good confrontation is part of it, but that's my, that's what I grew up with. Okay.

So that's what I was going to ask you about, like as a, as a writer doing all this over time, like how, what does it do into your nervous system? Are you getting like, uh, like fucked up for a few days when something pops and there's a lot of conflict and, and you know, whether it's an argument with torts, like where are you at on all that? Oh no, I was always, well, well now that I'm, you know, a's an argument with torts like where are you at on all that oh no i i was always well well now that i'm you know a little bit older um it both it both energizes me and enervates me it's kind of like i i don't quite need this drama at this point but it's a drug but it but it okay. It's like a healthier drug.

Yeah. That's wild. What would you, uh, okay. So I just wanted to go back to yogurt. Cause, uh,

you guys made a few comments and, and yeah. And Abe said that would have never happened with yogs in the locker room. Like how closely did you become? And like, like, I mean,

it seems like you guys would like maybe go out for lunch, go for beers. No, no, no, no, I, I, I never socialized with yaks never but we had an extremely close working relationship because i i just i i loved i love watching him play i love listening to him i you know the the

you know he you know he bared his soul a number of times. He was a great player to cover. And he resurrected his career in New York, right? I mean, when he was leaving Pittsburgh, his image was at the bottom. He was a coach killer. He wanted out. You know, that was the perception. He came to New York, and he carried that team. You know, it was Hank's rookie season. His first

full year in New York was the year after the lockout. And Yager carried that team. That team was supposed to be a lottery team that year. They had missed seven straight years going into the canceled season. Everyone thought they were going to miss coming out of the canceled season. Everyone thought they were going to miss coming out of the canceled season. They were going to be a lottery team. And Jager said in training camp, well, we're going to make the playoffs. And then he set a franchise record for goals.

He set a franchise record for points and he carried them. They were in first place almost all year. They fell apart at the end. You know, They lost. And honestly, one of the biggest miscarriages of justice throughout my entire career in the NHL was Yager not winning the heart that year, losing it to Joe Thornton. I mean, Joe Thornton had been traded from Boston, right? I mean, so one team already gave up on him. And I know that he had

a great year in San Jose. I know that Chichu had a great year playing with him on his wing. The numbers were great, but Jaromir Jagr carried a team that was supposed to be a lottery team, put the team on his back, led the league in scoring almost all year until the last week, led the league in scoring almost all year until the last week, set franchise records, and there were people who, because of his reputation, because of a lot of things that Mike Milbury had said about him on the air, just wouldn't vote for him. And, you know, it's unfortunate.

He won the Lester Pearson that year, the NHLPA Player of the Year that year, and he should have won the heart, which to a tangent to this, at that point, there were incentives in contracts that were tied to all-star voting, awards voting. And if Yager had won the heart that year, his Ranger contract would have been extended by a season. So he never would have gone to Omsk after 07-08. He still would have been in New York. So, you know, there is a lot to it. But Jags was a bigger-than-life personality, a bigger-than-life player. player. And, you know, over the last, you know, 30 years of, you know, incarnation of my career,

he is, you know, at the top of the guys I enjoyed covering most. I think we can leave you with this. This has been great. We appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. It obviously depends on what happens with their game and their season. But right now, are you confident in saying that the Rangers are not done at all making moves? The Rangers are not done making moves. They're not good enough. I think everyone knows it.

What's your take. If you had to make a move, like, like draw one up or is that, well, you know what? I, I,

I can't really say, cause I don't know what they're being offered. Would I dangle Crider? I'd want to find out. I'd want to find out. I like anyone who doesn't have a no move clause. I want to find out. I'd want to find out. Like anyone who doesn't have a no-move clause, I want to find out what I can get. Because, again, I respect this group.

They've gone to the conference final twice in the last three years. But they kind of did that last decade too with a very, very good team. And I think that team, you know, with Lundquist, with McDonough, with Callahan, you know, that, you know, and then later with Nash, you know, that was a very, very strong team too. And they broke it up when it became apparent that they weren't going to win. I think this is the time where you have to take a hard look and say, look, this group has been really good for us. Not good enough. I'm putting everyone out there that I can and finding out what I can get back. And I also think the narrative that, well, this isn't the right time for this.

You know, you need to wait until March. Yes, there's obviously a lot more activity coming up to the trade deadline, but there are a lot of teams that have been major disappointments. Nashville. Take a look at Nashville, right? Buffalo, again. Detroit's not quite there.

Ottawa, well, I don't want to say anything. Ottawa might get sued. No. You're done, Larry. You're done. i think there are teams that are ready to trade just as much as the rangers are so yeah i'm i'm putting everyone out there and i but but my goal is to transform the rangers into a tougher meaner more physical team that's that's what those are the players that i would be looking to Larry last question it's a yes or no answer and we thank you so much for your time

are the Rangers Fugazis yes or no no ah you heard it here first Larry Brooks baby the Rangers are not Fugazis let's go Thank you so much, Larry. We appreciate it. Thanks, gentlemen. And we will talk to you soon. Before we continue, I need to talk to you about game time. The easiest, best way to get tickets to anything that you want to go to. Sports, music, does not matter.

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What time is it? Game time. Thank you so much. Hockey Hall of Fame reporter Larry Brooks. Keith, Dan Boyle has responded to you, I believe. Let's go. Yeah. So I just asked him, I said,

what was it that Larry Brooks said about you that you had had enough? And he said, nothing in particular. He abused me year one, blamed me for goals that weren't my fault. One, I wasn't even on the ice for. Took up a full page after a seven and oh start to say how finished I was.

So I told him to stay the fuck away from me in year two, which he did physically, but he still abused me at the newspapers. And keep in mind, folks like Boyle was done after this. He never played another game in the NHL. So this was his goodbye to the NHL. Yeah.

Swan song reporter. He never played another game in the NHL. So this was his goodbye to the NHL. Yeah, swan song. It's all a fucking reporter. He just wants drama and scoops and feeds on negativity. He's a tabloid writer, not a sports reporter. Oh, so clearly. Yeah, that's true hatred. This guy's been retired for what? Eight, nine years.

And he's sitting right now in his mansion. And he's a fucking now in his mansion and he's like fucking larry brooks beyond mansion larry brooks did say boyle i remember him um obviously in tampa but playing against him when he was in san jose and i was and i'm he was disgusting running a power play unbelievable player with the puck so good remember he wore the eastern skates like i wore too so i kind of always appreciated that for my disgusting ankles um keith another thing we forgot or i forgot to mention in discussing jacob truber going to anaheim and having to play for greg cronin who the guys cannot stand playing for they hate him there's a classic there's a classic story involving patty yandel and greg cronin yeah so anyone who knows my mom, she's a real one.

So, you know, she's going to stick up for her baby or anyone. If something happened to you guys, she'd stick up for you guys more than anyone. She'd whip the razor blade out. Biz, it's Patty Party and her sister, Karen Cocktail. It's just an amazing crew. So it was at the time I decommitted from UNH, and I was on the open market, and he was coaching at Northeastern at the time I decommitted from UNH and I was on the open market and he was coaching at Northeastern at the time. So they call me, they bring me over there, they bring me out to dinner, you know, show me everything, have a good night, whatever. Next day, I tell my mom because my best friend Billy Ryan's at Maine.

I go, I'm going to go to Maine. Bill's at Maine. I want to go play with Bill. So she's like, all right, well, you got to call Northeastern and tell them that you're not going to come there do the right thing so I'm like okay sure sweet I call I call him he loses his mind on me for about 15 minutes he's like you piece of shit you're never gonna play anywhere you're an absolute bum I went to Maine I know all those coaches i'm calling them right now you will not play one single game for that team there is no way you got that personal come on you're like you just offered me a full ride clown boy yeah and like paying for dinners and stuff which they probably yeah whatever and then uh i'm in the kitchen of my parents house

phone this is before cell phones and i'm like this in the kitchen of my parents house phone this is before cell phones and i'm like this on the phone you can my mom can hear him screaming she's like give me the phone give me the phone i'm like no no it's fine she's like give me the phone so finally i just hand her the phone and she like kind of walks into like the kitchen or the dining room or something and all i hear say you ever talk to my baby again like that my husband will be home in 15 minutes blah blah whatever she said i didn't really hear the end click and then she walks back she's like all right good job calling them you're fine committed to me but yeah he was a loon dude like threatening

he was going to call the coaches at main which he went to main and he was like there you will not play one single come on i promise which he was right i didn't i didn't play a game there so i didn't go there so he was he got you but just trying to bully of sick how much longer would you have sat there letting him scream this on the phone to you were you like saying anything back or you you didn't say one word back i was like this i'm like he was petting his dog the whole time were you didn't care. Would you say like, okay, can I go now? Like, nothing? You just let him keep ranting?

Yeah, I didn't give a shit. I let him, I'm like, just whatever, just whatever. You want to feel tough yelling at a 17-year-old kid like, okay, yeah. Oh, yeah, sure. I won't play there. Yeah. And I remember like when we used to play them in the NHL, I think he was an assistant coach or like eye in the sky for someone.

He used to be on the bench during warm-ups, and I'd look at him and be like, ugh. That's a fucking wild story. Good thing I never went to college. I didn't have to deal with that. No, most colleges, you don't have to deal with that. You couldn't have got in either. Don't worry about it. I could have played at the SEC for the Georgia Bulldogs.

Them Georgia Bulldogs. I could play for that club hockey team, boy. Other news around the league. The Colorado Avalanche, guys, they have completely transformed their goaltending midseason. Very tough to do. They announced today that the team has acquired goaltender McKenzie Blackwood, forward Giovanni Smith, and a fifth fifth round draft pick in the 2027 NHL draft from the San Jose Sharks in exchange for goaltender Alexander Georgiev forward Nikolai

Kovalenko a 2025 fifth round pick and a 2026 second round pick so big news where now Colorado they have Scott Wedgwood and they have Mackenzie Blackwood and I think now it's it's it's Wedgwood and they have Mackenzie Blackwood. And I think now it's it's it's Wedgwood's played very good since he came over there, but maybe he didn't trust necessarily he'd be able to carry them. They bring over Blackwood, who has so many tools. There's times he looks amazing. He's had some great starts recently for San Jose as their seasons turned around a little bit. I love this move. I also really respect Mike Greer and San Jose who acquired the rights to Mackenzie Blackwood for a sixth round pick and then turns around and deals them for all that in return. So biz, I don't know where you stand on that. Do you like the move? Are you more confident now in Colorado's goaltending

that's been abysmal this year, uh, where, where they're at this point in the season? Um, to say I'd be more confident in it, I mean, it can't get any worse, I guess. Mackenzie Blackwood has done a great job of reviving what people thought he was going to be like a next top 10 goaltender. I think those were the vibes in New Jersey. I think those expectations were also put on his shoulders

at a young age especially for a goaltending a goaltender where he also not only kind of battled uh you know figuring out his big body but he also dealt with a lot of injuries he was injured a lot so he never really got like those reps in without you know without getting blown off of his momentum so the fact that he's been able to go to san jose get out of the limelight, be peppered with shots and have success there, I can understand Colorado taking the risk and thinking maybe he's that goalie that people thought he once was. But to say that he's all of a sudden going to go over there and that this is going to continue and he's going to run with the starting position, I don't know if I can kind of give that stamp of approval. Like, I don't know enough about goaltending. I think that he's had great success this year, and I'm really happy for this kid,

especially when you hear like a young prodigy goaltender coming up and dealing with what he had to deal with among playing in a fairly big market. But I think Pasha would be able to tell you even a little bit more about his experience when he's with New Jersey. Now, Keith, what do you know about him? Not much.

I honestly, I thought Colorado was going to be all in on getting Gibson, but I think having this tandem of the Wood brothers with Wedgwood and Blackwood, I think it's going to be a good name. They got Miles Wood, too, so they got all the Woods. A lot of Wood. A lot of Wood up there. But I think it's a good move because, like most teams, you got to have two good goalies nowadays to win.

And two guys that are also fighting for that next contract and to be that guy, to be that number one goalie. So I think it's a great deal by them. And like you said, Witt, teams don't really get to revamp their goaltender position, especially during the season like this. So it's an absolute monster deal that they had to have done because they've got everything else right they've got two of the best players in the league one on the back end one up front and um i think at the end

of the day it's a home run hit by them and two two goaltenders that are hungry to get wins and you know that are both willing and able to play minutes to when healthy. And they both played together on New Jersey. So there's some familiarity, which I think helps. Maybe I don't know his goalies, but maybe, you know, your partner, if you know him a little bit, it becomes a little bit easier. I know Blackwood was unreal that law, not lockout, the COVID shortened season. He was playing incredible hockey. Then the season got canceled and revamped in the summer.

And yeah, Biz, you mentioned injuries. I think that he could be great. I mean, you look back at Colorado's cup and how they were able to get by without a true number one. It's a different team now. We've talked about them being so different ever since Nazem Kadri left. But I still believe in that team. I think that they're going to be right there in the mix come playoff time. You saw last year, everything kind of just fell apart after an amazing first round. So I like to move.

I like to move for both teams. Like I think both teams get a good grade on this trade. Love where San Jose is kind of headed right now. It's, I think I said last episode, I wouldn't have watched them. I, you couldn't have paid me to watch them.

And now because of Celebrini, it's so interesting to see their team. Will Smith's really picked up his game. William Eklund. They got a bunch of really good players there. And it's a good move by Mike Greer. As I mentioned, what he had to pay for getting Blackwood to now get that in return. That's asset management at its finest right there.

So exciting times for Avs fans, I think, to know that they'll have a goaltender that they maybe believe in a little bit more than Georgiev. I will say this. When they won their last Stanley Cup, Colorado, I think they needed average goaltending. I think with this roster, even when healthy, they're not as deep on defense. And I don't think they're as deep on forward, although they're top six when they're humming. I don't know Landy, but even this top six, maybe you could say they're close to his equivalent, but I think that they're going to have to get better

than average goaltending from both of these guys, which I think that they're capable of. I agree. They needed to make this move. I like the upside of it. I'm just saying if they don't end up getting goaltending from guys who haven't really necessarily proved themselves as starters for a long period of time now,

I wouldn't be shocked. But a great move nonetheless nonetheless that's kind of where i lie on it i think that the confidence the confidence too that the players have like when you when a coach and gm when they go out and bring in goaltenders like that and you know you you see that the gm's willing to make these moves to help your team out and you're not giving away a big piece of your offense, and you're bringing in legitimate goalies, I think the confidence in that group, you're going to see them play even better knowing that they have two good goaltenders at any night that they can put out there.

I want to shout out to Nachushkin because we mentioned before, everyone's rooting for him. Obviously, there were some issues in his life, and it was very public with how he was off the team You know, we mentioned before, everyone's rooting for him. Obviously, there are some issues in his life. And it was very public with how he was off the team two years in a row in the playoffs and the biggest moments. He's come back. He's dominated. He's got six goals in 12 games, exactly what they were missing. And to take that much time off and hopefully get healthier and figure out his life away from the rink. It's incredible to see what he's been able to do coming back in and how much of a difference he makes for that team. He is such a horse. That first round last

year was like nothing I've ever seen against Winnipeg. He looked like McDavid. So he hasn't missed a step at all. So it's really good to see him healthy and hopefully he can stay on the right path and continue to light it up for the Avs. Staying in that division, just a disaster so far this year in Chicago. Disaster for Conor Bedard, disaster for the entire team, and Luke Richardson gets let go. He was fired this week. New coach Anders Sorensen was the coach in Rockford the past few seasons.

First Swede head coach behind the bench in the NHL. Both Winter Classic teams have now replaced their coaches this season in St. Louis and Chicago. Richardson was hired before the start of the 2022-2023 season he posted a 57 118 and 15 record during his time with the blackhawks the team's off to another horrible start with an 8 16 and 2 record in 26 games felt really bad for him still do um. Brought in in a situation like that, not set up for success at all. And from what I read, there was an article in The Athletic by Mark Lazarus talking about how positive he stayed around the group,

how spoken so highly of around the league. I mean, this guy played over 1,400 games. He was a high first-round pick, played forever, tough as nails, stay-at-home defenseman, had been an assistant coach in the NHL for a long time, gets his chance. I mean, there was no chance he was going to win. It's just Kyle Davidson, what he saw this year,

and he looked to be getting a little emotional when describing the firing. It was time to make a change. They had beaten Dallas and Florida a little while ago. Then they tied or lost in overtime to Philly. It looked like things were turning around, and then they started getting trounced again. Yeah, I think he gets the short end of the stick here a little bit. You know, not the time for this group.

I think expectations had grown over last year based on the moves they made in the offseason. But sometimes it takes time for these guys to gel and get acclimated. I mean, how many new guys they got? They got Maroon. I mean, I know Halsey wasn't new this year, but he hasn't had the greatest start they got martinez in they got bertuzzi i think mckeah was a guy they brought into so a lot of new faces and tara vinen was another guy so i think based on those moves and the money they spent to try to get connor bedard

around more of a winning team and less frustration was the goal it looks even like it looks even worse than last year because at least last year I felt like he was playing better he was putting the puck in the back of the net and and it's evident that he's going through a little bit of a sophomore slump we had him on the broadcast and he said that you know you gotta you gotta sleep in the bait the bed make yourself. And I think he would be accountable for maybe the way that he started the year. And so I think that everything just kind of came to a head. And the fact that Connor's not having a great year is probably the straw that broke the camel's back.

It's like, fuck, there's nothing really going for us right now. At least maybe getting this Swedish coach. I'm drawing a blank on the name, but my understanding, he's also had experience in taking over a team partway through the season and maybe he's a little bit more offensive minded maybe he's going to allow them to be a little bit more creative whatever he can get out of him hopefully will be more than what Luke Richardson despite like everything you said you heard nothing but great things shows up with a positive attitude works his balls off and you

know he has to pay the piper because that's what happens with the head coaches in this league. And Sorensen was in development, too. So maybe he's come up with these kids. He's been on the ice with them, helping them out. And like you said, he's probably more of an offensive minded guy where maybe it was, you know, playing for a stay at home defenseman. His vision of, you know, the way that you play in the NHL isn't the same as maybe it is nowadays but I think Luke Richardson I think he's gonna I think he'll get a job quick probably as an assistant somewhere I think he's done a great job um as an assistant I you know

from look at the hand that he was dealt in Chicago it's not like he came in and you know was taking over the Tampa Bay Lightning and the team team just absolutely went to the shitter. But I think he's capable of being a head coach in this league. I think he'll take his time, go back to probably being a system for a little bit, and then he'll get another shot in a few years of being a head coach and figure it out. So you hate to see anyone get fired,

but I think he'll land on his feet but and also you hope that this guy comes in that sorensen comes in and i know i think biz you might have told me he he coached pasta and kneelander in sweden or something he's been kneelander's like skill coach for a long time and keith you bring up a great point i think some of the complaints um that i've heard about the season was they were playing like a very defensive style where it's almost like just let them run free. Yeah, let them run if you're getting smoked. You're getting smoked. He's like, let Bedard play free.

And the other big complaint from Blackhawks fans I saw was like every game, it was four different lines. And I think as a forward, you'd know better. four different lines. And I think as a forward, you'd know better. But even on D, if you're switching up the pairs, if you're switching up the lines, like no ability to get comfortable and to gel together as a unit, I think you got to have,

I just think you put Terravine with Bedard, like give him a chance. I would not be shocked at all though with a more offensive coach to come in and Bedard really like find another level. Maybe get some some standard line mates that he's going to be knows he's going to be playing with at least 10 games 8 to 10 games give him a chance but now maybe the team's able to play a little bit more

free they don't they don't have the the roster to be able to shut down other teams like at least let them try to win or lose six five like if they were if they had the same record right now but bedard had 15 goals and 15 assists. I don't think he's fired. He's not fired. Like that's just, you know, they would only care about what's good.

What's that? You're blaming it on Bedard? No, I'm, I'm saying that it's your, fuck, here we go. Clip it.

Hey, clip it, post it. No, I agree with you. It's Connor Bedard for coaches. Yeah. Yeah.

Coach killer, but our, no, we're not clipping that either. We're trying to get him on the fucking pod, but that's it. That's all I really got

in that Chicago situation. I just hope they become a little bit more exciting to watch because you mentioned it earlier with San Jose making that trade. Like I like watching

San Jose games way more than I like watching Chicago games. They're fucking boring to watch, man. They're boring. And hopefully this offensive coach brings in some more excitement and they start high

flying, you know, flying around a little bit more. I do think, though, that you got to keep things in perspective for Hawks fans. And that is like they tanked. They got Bedard last year. It's the second year of a rebuild. I mean, you got realistically three, three, four more seasons before you're in the playoffs. I know that doesn't sound great, but it's a long time. And it kind of goes into the discussion we had, Biz, of truly breaking it down and rebuilding.

It sounds like a great idea. It's a lot tougher to actually make it happen. And you got to hit home runs in the draft, not just with your high first-round picks, but some solid second and third-round picks. So chicago you were in the midst of it right now you had that amazing 10-year run with three cups you're now in the doldrums and it's not going to change quick like tell me a player other than bedard and he's not even as good as haggle right now but who have they had player wise who's better than haggle since they traded him you're telling me that was worth the picks that you got like i don't know man like if like you like you see you're kind of making the point like you want to burn it to

the ground and give away these good players well how'd that work for fucking buffalo they gave away sam reinhardt look at they gave away we were talking about buffalo later i i don't i'm just using examples here like burn it to the burn it to the ground you might be there for a while fans uh a bright side is frank nazar right now played at michigan he is lighting up the ahl and that was for andrew sorenson so i think you'll maybe see him called up i think he has 16 points in his last like eight or nine games down there super skilled player so maybe he gets his chance to come up and this is something that that i did witness firsthand and and Olchuk, as the coach of the Penguins, I'm not going to say it was a super defensive style,

but they were really struggling. They fired him. They brought up Michelle Terrien, who then brought a bunch of us up from the minors. Colby Armstrong had a huge year. Rob Scuderi goes on to have an amazing career. I was brought up, a bunch of other guys. And the AHL coach, having been with players,

there's some familiarity. I've used that word twice now this podcast and maybe then they pop off start playing a little better because it has been ugly but that uh speaking of the winter classic and the blackhawks uh our first live show guest has been announced and what a doozy december 29th tim stapleton if you talk to a lot of long-time spit and chicklets listeners i think it's in a lot of people's top interview ever just a hilarious person absolute comedian and now we get him on stage with us great storyteller tickets still available at barstool sports.com slash events

did you know stapleton at all had you ever met him never met met him. Oh, funny bastard, man. You guys will have a riot together. What's that? Didn't he have that bill tongue or something? Oh, yeah, yeah. Bill tongue. Boinkies. Yeah, boinkies. That was the only thing you guys had to eat that day when we met you for the sandbagger. Yeah, I wanted him dead, actually.

I'm like this fucking. Oh, yeah, you'll be good. We got three strips of bill tongue. 23 holes that day. Went to five extras here on spit and chiclets we talk a lot about hockey including the best ways to enjoy game day that is right if you need help getting those game day essentials you got to have discover in your back pocket discover is accepted by 99 of places that take credit card nationwide so when it's time for wings and drinks you're pretty much covered yeah you don't want to be the guy scrambling for cash

like wit when the round's on you and remember y'all discover is accepted by 99 of places but attempting to start a wave at a critical point in the game is not it pays to discover percentage based on the february 2024 nielsen report and don't miss the puck drop for the discover nhl winter classic on new year's eve moving forward biz we'll start with your team your country the four nations rosters they were they were announced yeah canada conor mcdavidney Crosby, Braden Point, Anthony Cirelli, Seth Jarvis listed as centers. Sam Reinhart, Brad Marchand, Brandon Hagel, Sam Bennett on the left wing. The right wing, Mitch Marner, Nathan McKinnon, Mark Stone, Travis Konechny. What a forward group.

What are your thoughts on the team? Anyone didn't make the team you were upset by or wanted to see on? No, I would think that everybody would agree. And the biggest surprise up front, probably Jarvis. That's why it was the one question I ended up asking Don Sweeney when we got him on during the broadcast. I said, hey, like nothing against this guy's game.

I love him as a player. I heard nothing but incredible things about him in the locker room as to why he probably for sure made the team. But, you know, some other guys left off like i thought like shifley was probably having a better year offensively but i think it comes down to and what don sweeney said is like if he's not in the lineup he's going to be unreal in the locker room and you need that you don't need anybody creating bad mojo right and he's also a guy who can play on

the fourth line he'll be ecstatic about playing the fourth line he'll just be getting in on the four check and maybe not taking as many risks offensively and can really bounce up all the way to the top two lines if you need them for a short tournament like that so I think it came down to his ability to play all scenarios including special teams and the fact that he's a glue guy and will be fun in the locker room potentially being the healthy scratch so i had no problem with it but i think that that just came down to the biggest surprise and given with maybe somewhere somewhere where these other canadian forwards are at and how much they've lit things up like i thought maybe adam lowry was a possibility as like a depth center you called for him and tom wilson to be on the team i wouldn't't have minded Tom Wilson either because you're looking at the other side

and you're thinking, who are we? You're not trying to stack yourself up against the U.S. either because you have other teams to worry about here. But you look at a team with Matthew and Brady Kachuk, you need some guys that are going to be able to handle that if you're going in a one-game match. I like the Tom Wilson given the way how he's played to start the year. He's been a fucking tank out there.

He's not intimidated by guys like that. He'll go to the net and he could also play on a third or fourth line or end up jumping up top. So I thought connect, he really deserved it. And I love what he brings, like as far as his ferociousness. Um, and then the other surprise was Sanheim but um i won't question him because i don't need joel ferabbee barking down my neck online like he did that j fresh kid yes so some j fresh kid came out with the fact that i guess analytically maybe he's not the best defender but

he basically joel ferabbee shut that down he goes go watch some fucking games like he can close on you he's fast he's long and overall has been really good not only last year but the start the year here so uh really excited and happy for him and it kind of went with the theme of their d they have those couple high-end skill guys like morrissey kind of that second layer if you know macar's not playing the full power play and then even theodore but then you got like the perencos the the Perankos, the Petrangelo. These guys are long, big, will close on you, and they can also play nasty in front of the net.

So really happy with the roster. I still think the question mark's in net, but who knows? Who knows in a small tournament like that? Surprised Logan Thompson didn't maybe make it, but your guy in Montreal, Mont montembeau you love this guy i'm telling you i think he's gonna play his way into maybe getting a nod in these games from what i've heard i do i mean if you're looking at it now he's the third string right obviously

but everything that i've read or seen they're gonna play the hot hand whoever's playing good he had a big shout out the other night when me and biz were doing the amazon um show and i don't know i could just see him going on a nice little run he's he's got that like naive confidence about him where he doesn't really care what's going on he's just like i'm here i'm a goalie he's really good at playing the puck he's played in he's playing in montreal probably the hardest place to play especially as a goalie and he's doing well um with not a great team in front of him so i think he could be a sneaky guy to play some games and if he gets that net you better watch out he could be your guy biz yeah but the fact that you guys were trying to the fact that you guys were trying to steal our pride and joy joey decord from America. And bring him up to...

Unbelievable by you. The fact that if... What do you mean? We're the 51st state. Donald Trump said it. That's not illegal. If you asked, I don't know, who's an old... Like Phil Esposito or somebody like,

hey, in 2024, Canada is going to be asking for a USA goalie. He'd puke on you. He would be absolutely disgusted by even thinking that out loud. Are both of his parents Canadian? And he maybe was born on the Cushion Academy. He went to the high school I went to. He's as American as they get. I do love

the size of their D. Looking at the USD, I think better puck movers overall, but the size of Canada is definitely intimidating. And you know, like they're just looking to just take away time and space from the other teams and all those guys can move. It's a hell of a team.

It is so weird to see three goalies on a Canadian roster and best on best where you're like, I don't know who the starter is. And it's not necessarily a good thing. Like when you looked at Luongo and Brodeur, it's like, all right, well it's a win win this one one it's just kind of odd and keith makes the point that there's so much time to

go until this tournament happens whoever's playing the best in the nhl the time i think starts that first game um but it's going to be amazing just saying on the back end for canada like that that macar taves pairing i mean that's the best d pairing in the world right now i don't think i had to mention them i want to shift focused over to the American side. The goalies in D for me is where the States have it. Like, I like actually even their D from front to back compared to Canada's. Like, they got, I mean, you can offset Makar with Quinn Hughes.

He's maybe not that good, but then they got fucking Slavin, best shutdown defenseman in the world, or one of them. McAvoy, he's a fucking giant, can play both ends of the ice. Wierenski's having a fucking hell of a year this year. I mean, he's probably top three for Norris right now, for fuck's sakes. Yep. And I think Brock Faber, too, is going to make kind of one of those, if you don't get to watch Minnesota play a lot, like, holy shit, this guy's good.

He's young. He skates like the wind. He's a truck out there, can just eat minutes. Noah Hannafin was so excited to see him make the team. Unreal human being. Great player. He's played great. I think he's kind of listed as the seventh offensive right now,

but if he gets in and he's playing, not a worry at all. The goalie, the goaltending is just wild, though. Like, Hellebuck, Ottinger, and Swayman, the depth and the choices that you have there, that is such a different thought looking at the U.S. than Canada where it's like, hey, it doesn't really matter. As an American, I trust all these guys. Whoever's in net, it's like, we're fine.

We're fine. We got three studs back there. Did you hear about how Wierenski got announced or found out he was going to be on the team? I saw that. You see who was with Billy G when it went down?

No. Chris Kelleher. He's like the assistant general manager of the team. He's working for the Wild, and he's helping out with the team, and they were out to dinner for people who don't know.

They were in town to watch Columbus play. They just had some dinner and drinks after the game billy g and chris kelleher and wierenski walked in with his fiancee and and kells actually said to him like hey why don't we tell him now we don't really get to tell many guys if any guys in person that they're going to make the team and so they had said hello and then um i don't know what exactly wierenski's girl was like, hey, we'll buy you dinner if Zach could be on Team USA. It's like, I guess you're buying us dinner because he made it.

And then boom. Send over the wine list, ma'am. Thank you. I think just talking about their D a little bit, I think McAvoy is going to be so good in this tournament because he's not going to be relied on to have to go play offense and be the power play guy and put up points for them like he's kind of had to do that

with the bruins the last couple years and i i think him going in they're just going to be like all right you're going to play with whatever quinn hughes or fox whoever him and fox are both from upstate new york i could see them play together but it's like hey listen you can kill people you're amazing defensively just do that for the next couple days and it's going to turn his game around completely for the rest of the year for the bruins so you said upstate it's long island g just corrected you in the chat um i cannot wait i cannot wait for the hatred between the u.s and canada when they play like just knowing and picturing in my mind already Matthew Kachuk running into the corner

and trying to murder Sam Reinhardt or Sam Bennett. It's like, that's just what's so amazing about this tournament is everything's pushed aside. And like, I think there's fans of teams like, no, no, it wouldn't be like that. Like, yes, it will. Yes, it will. The hatred is real.

The pride for your country is real. The thought of getting to see McDavid play with McKinnon and Crosby and the Kachuks playing with Austin Matthews, it's just so exciting to me. And I don't know if a lot of fans are looking forward to it as much as I am, but I cannot wait. The perfect appetizer to the Olympics next year. And yeah, like U.S. up front, I really hope JT Miller is able to come back. And I think they know he'll be back and be playing or else they wouldn't have named him. But like him and the Kachuks and just like how good Eichel's been this season, knowing like Dylan Larkin is your fourth line center. You got Trochek and Kreider maybe on that line. It's just it there's it's amazing to see the players left off of a United States best on best roster now. That's how far the country's come. I think a lot of people were maybe surprised about Tage Thompson, as was I. That's somebody, if he was on the team, I would be very excited as well.

I do feel bad for him. I think he was the number one snub. Cole Caulfield's had a great year scoring goals. They don't really need that undersized, but it would have been cool for him to be in Montreal representing the United States in at least the early parts of the games, but it's going to be a hell of a tourney. Biz, when you stood up, I mentioned seeing Kachuk just try to run over Reinhardt or Bennett,

or what Bennett would do to Kachuk, and just the hatred between teammates in this tourney. Or JT Miller to Elias Pettersson. Oh my god. Oh my god. Vancouver might have to make a trade afteren. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Vancouver might have to make a trade after this, Tony. Jesus Christ. What did you guys make of the fact that I guess they called a bunch of guys who didn't make the teams, and they didn't call Nick Suzuki, I guess, for Team Canada, and I guess they weren't pleased at the fact that he didn't

end up going to the Worlds last year, like maybe as like a tryout or, you know, so they were, I don't know if they were poopy pants like it seems like a bit of pettiness maybe the story's being blown out of way out of proportion or he forgot to get called but it seemed to run a little bit with montreal canadians media well i do know that leading into these best on best tournaments before every single person asked was going to the world championships. It was a big thing. Like, Hey,

if you're not in the playoffs and you're asked, you're going, or you're not going to be coming to the Olympics. Yeah. Sidney Crosby doesn't go. It's a different story. But if Suzuki, who I don't know if he was injured,

if he decided not to go, that is a mistake. Like this is leading into a year in which there's a best on best team. You have the possibility of making the team. You got to go when asked. And that's just kind of always how it's been. So, yeah, you wonder how much of this is truth, truth and not truth. But if you're asked prior to one of these tournaments, you're going, you're going to play in the world. And that's kind of a no brainer. At least I always took it that

way. What I was interested about was it was a tweet from Gino Hard enlisting Team Russia. about was a tweet from Gino Hard enlisting Team Russia. And I will say once again, they better be in the Olympics next year, or even if the U.S. wins, I don't really think it's legit. Russia needs to be part of the Olympics next year. Let's look at this possible roster. Artemi Panarin, Evgeny Malkin, Nikita Kucherov, Kirill Kaprizov, Pavel Bichnevich, Andrei Svechnikov, Alexander Ovechkin, Ivan Barbashev, Valeriy Nechushkin, Matvei Michkov, Vlad Nemestnikov, Karel Marchenko up front. That's a fucking forward roster and a half. And if you're getting a little bit of a chubby thinking of some Russian hockey players, just wait till I tell you the goalies.

Vasilevsky, Shisterkin and bobrovsky are you kidding me what the are you kidding me canada's gonna be fun canada's goalies yeah so we're hoping that they're involved in um the turin olympics in 2026 but what a roster and even our guy murrells um he listed out a possible if they had decided to maybe go with a Team Europe for this tournament. Yeah, this was fun. Pasternak, Dreisaitl, Neches, Timo Mayer, Kopitar, Stutzl, Nikolaj Ehlers, Hichir, Protis. Protis, by the way, in Washington. Doesn't he lead the league in five-on-five points right now or one of the league leaders?

Doesn't play any power play? This guy is a monster. he's dominated this year i'm trying to find the message i sent to the group chat so uh when are we going to talk more about alexi protas having 24 points in 27 games despite playing just one minute and 33 seconds total ice time on the power play this season he has more five on five points than mcdavrosby, Kucherov, Dreisaitl, Matthew Kuchuk, Nathan McKinnon, David Pasternak, et cetera, et cetera. So they have found a wagon of a man in Washington that has come on, and I believe is only 23 years old. Carberry.

Carberry. He's working his magic, man. That team is just. Carberry. He's working his magic, man. That team is just... Leading by more than anyone else is close in any other award for the Jack Adams this season. Now, the Jack Adams apparently can

mean you're going to be fired within the next 180 calendar days. So I don't know if coaches even want to be a part of that discussion. Hey, wasn't Todd McClellan the top, like after 15 or 20 games, the top listed guy to win the Jack Adams last year. And then they lost like 10 in a row and then he got snipped.

I think Merle's might have bet it. Merle did. He bet it. Merle's mushed the coach out of a job. But yeah, good for them. Oh my. Hey, so you would want Team Europe. I feel like maybe Slovakia and Czech could put a team together as one or no.

You think it's too thin? I don't even know. I mean, they split up as a country. It's kind of. No, but I'm saying the most likely if you were to want to maybe do seven different teams. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you got enough there. Because considering seven different teams like oh yeah uh i don't know i don't know consider you're willing to do a team europe are you just going to throw t all of team like all

of europe together outside of yeah that's because you need dry sidle like there's so many good players even like zuccarello like guys like that from countries that aren't going to be in the in the tournament right but you need to see those guys play. But I feel like there's enough from Slovakia and Czech together to make a solid team. But if you're going with just six strong teams, I think that the way you just said it, Team Europe and Team Russia would be the two that you add.

And then if you continue this type of Six Nations tournament or something, or you guys think that now the Olympics is cooking back up, that they're not going to do this type of tournament anymore thrown on by the league? I wouldn't mind seeing the tournament every two years. In between the Olympics, do a

World Cup type thing like they're doing. I would rather see that every four years where you basically intertwine the Olympics and then that. So you're getting one of them each every two years then see an all-star game that year. Even both those years i'd rather watch the sacramento kings play the milwaukee bucks than an all-star game in the end hey

protoss is this might be a bad protoss it says he's from belarus is that the same as russia no different country different country so how would he be on the russian stupid that's two different countries no no no he was listed as a possibility on the European team. Oh, sorry, sorry. Which I don't even... Is Belarus part of Europe? Maybe Merle's is off there. Hey, this guy is 6'6", 225.

Keith, notoriously when I get chirped on this podcast for being a moron, then that person who chirps me says a moronic statement. So welcome to the program. I thought he said that he was playing for Russia. Yeah, because you weren't fucking listening with those Dumbo ears. Last thing on this tournament, I was surprised to see

OEL, Oliver Ekman-Larsen not make Sweden. He's been great in Toronto and apparently he hasn't made teams prior. Maybe there's something there, but I know Sweden's D's strong, but I thought he'd be on that team. I think maybe if it was a 25-man roster,

they would have brought him as that next defenseman. I think that although Eric Carlson has played a lot better as of late, like Pittsburgh in general has played a lot better hockey. They found themselves into a wildcard position or at least the last time I looked, but I think that you know i think that oliver's probably played better overall but you know it comes down to also your your prior history with the country and everything and uh

you know he's just it's been what 18 months to two years since oliver's truly found his game again so i think he's just happy to have won a cup and and be in a situation that he loves again and uh from florida to toronto um i don't really think i had spurg biz against the leafs He's just happy to have won a cup and be in a situation that he loves again from Florida to Toronto. I did watch Pittsburgh, Biz, against the Leafs. Carlson looked good. Jari was unreal. They've won five of their last six. So maybe something brewing in Pittsburgh.

I mean, we buried them three weeks ago. Well, they deserved it. They were playing like dog shit. They had no life. They did make that trade with Nashville. They brought in the one kid, and he was a bit of a spark plug. Tomasino. Tomasino.

We had him on the broadcast, and he was very noticeable. Got a lot of shots off. He scored one goal. I think they beat. I want to say they beat Boston 2-1, and he had a good showing. So ever since then, they've seemed to be playing a lot better. I don't really have much else outside of the four nations. No, no.

I think it's time to throw it to a man who represented his country, Brian McCabe. Awesome guy. Thanks again, Jens, for letting us into your house to interview him. I think we throw it over to an all-time guy, Brian McCabe, right now. Guys, before we go any further, I need to talk to you about Body Armor. If you're watching on YouTube, you see me holding up the bottle of Body Armor, my favorite drink, my favorite water to ever exist. This episode is brought to you by the Body Armor Sports Drink.

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for toronto maple leafs defenseman brian mccabe caber what's going on abor how much boys thanks this is an honor to be here a long time coming i see you got the flavor saver still do you still have the frosted tips or no that's, I got the reverse mullet now. Hulk Hogan going, don't dye your hair, kids, because it never comes back. I got to have this because the broken jaw, my whole face is frozen still. So I keep this. And then I got the greasy Movember stash, which. Do you have the broken jaw NHL, junior?

NHL. Like my last year oh shattered my draw like you know wired shot and it never came back i still got like no feeling that was when you were in new york right before i got trained i got traded to new york with a broken jaw okay yeah and had to finish the year with one of those like chin strap things yeah it was terrible you were gonna sit out with torts as a coach. You come over, he's like, you're playing with that. You got to play through it. We're tough.

Block a shot with your face. That's why he traded for him. I saw him break his jaw with that puck. Oh my God. So what's going on now? Like you enjoying what you're doing? Like getting and staying involved in the game when you're done playing?

And then the year last year was incredible. Yeah. I love my job. I love working with the young kids. Very fortunate to kind of step into it. Like, I didn't know what I was going to do when I retired in 2011. I went down to the rink at Christmas time and see the trainers. Just say hi to the boys.

I hadn't been down since I retired. And I ran into Dale Tallon, who had traded me to New York my last year. And he's like, what are you doing? I'm like, Mr. Mom. He's like, what do you want to do? I'm like,'m like i don't know he's like why don't you come on i'll send you on some special assignments we'll see what you like and i went out with like pro scouts amateur scouts and then i went out with brian screwlin who was doing development at the time and i came back in june he's like so what do you think i'm like well i don't want to be a scout like no i'm not traveling

28 days a month like Those guys work so hard. I'm like, but I think I could do player development. I can relate to the players. I just finished playing. I think it'd be fun, kind of flexible schedule. And he hired me on the spot, and I've been doing it ever since. So I'm very grateful to him to still be in the game and be doing this. But I love what I do.

Probably smart, though, to do everything, to see, like, all right. Because if you were like, I'll do a scout right away away you might have been out of it yeah exactly do you do you get to like go with the drafted players say in junior college and get on the ice with them at all or is it only on the ice with like ahl guys uh college is tough i always found because i don't know they always feel like that you're gonna poach their play you know what i'm saying oh they're gonna pull them after a sophomore year or stuff so uh it's about building relationships with those guys but i have been on the ice with college guys junior guys they always open up the floodgates like hey we got ice for practice you want to bring your gear you can come out with us

run a practice with us and stuff so i've done a little bit of both with everything but obviously when i go to the minors um i'm always on the ice with the guys when i travel to charlotte and stuff so it's fun you're trying to teach him the can opener still you want to be out of the league in two years just take minor after minor try this one that rule came in you're like no i know it was unbelievable when that i thought my career was over honestly i'd lived by that for years and then they made that rule and i was like i gotta reinvent something so i i morphed into the rob blake hip check and tried to do that and stuff but uh it was fun while it lasted my dad was a volunteer fireman i would go to the fire hall sometimes and one of his buddies taught me that

like i was a defenseman coming up and he's like yeah as soon as a forward comes at you just make sure you get your stick in between like brian mccabe and can't open them you never get by you and i was doing it because it was still legal and minor i was like well that's why that's probably why i got drafted to the old buddy and uh would would teach us in front of the net like if he's waiting for a tip you're behind him just that and immediately the guys like gloves off he's going they didn't call anything i think it was post lockout they took it out i was like no that's why i got sent to the coast are fighting man it was funny because i was a ford like my whole life like till i was like 15 and then you know they used to have like those all-star select tournaments like in the summer they had this thing called the vancouver super series and i was on like

team southern alberta or something and we had no defensemen for this tournament there just wasn't any so i was like oh i'll play d for the weekend whatever and i was listed by the medicine tigers and they saw me play d at this tournament never played before went to their camp they're like if you play D this whole season like as a 15 year old and ban them back in Calgary you'll make our team as a 16 year old so I roll into camp and like Calgary what I'm like 15 years old and had like led the league in scoring the year before as a forward and you know they're like forwards down here D down here so I go to the D line the coach comes out and he's like what are you doing i'm like i'm playing d this year he's like no you're not i'm like yes i'm playing d and i played d and that

was it wow it was it was the major junior team who told you to do it and hadn't even talked to the no didn't tell anyone and the coach was like no you're not i'm like yeah i'm playing d this year and i played d and i've never stayed there ever since how was your like backwards skating because i feel like a lot of forwards especially in the nhl drives me insane how forwards can't skate backwards it's one of my biggest pet peeves was better backwards yeah faster too you saw me play there wasn't much defense funny you say that because at the hockey game the alumni game this weekend tony amante had to skate backwards he almost went down he was like on all edges it was hilarious but yeah a lot of forwards like i remember like steve thomas you know when they use coaches used to switch like all right d you're gonna do this drill forward yeah yeah oh it was hilarious there was literally

guys that couldn't skate backwards hubie was the worst oh my god hubie we'd be on like a power play and you'd look over you know if it gets turned over and you think it's going to be a two-on-two i'd look at my guy on the right look to see where the puck carry is with who hubie he'd be on a breakaway and hubie would just be standing no he's like doing this pivot i don't know why it's insane to me yeah work on those c cuts so um i i saw you were born in saint catherine's ontario just down the road from me but as a kid you moved to calgary yeah everyone thinks i'm from ontario i was born i always catherine's uh but when i was six months old my dad got transferred he worked for like ge general electric like electrician stuff and he got

transferred to calgary so i grew up in calgary calgary's home my mom brother still lived there all my buddies so that's where I played youth hockey. Flamed for your squad? Oh, yeah. Growing up as a kid, man. They won the Cup in 89. I was like 13, just turning 14. So Lanny, Doug Gilmore, Robs, all these guys, I grew up idolizing and got to play with some of them.

It was really cool. Calgary was great. Great place to grow up. Was your dad your biggest influence? Most of the guys we interview like he got you into the game he loved the game himself 100 my dad coached me all the way until I was probably 12 and then kind of just let me go on my way my way but yeah biggest influence he was an old goalie so he used to put the pads on for me and my oh that's actually sick rip it out of him in the backyard but uh yeah I had an older brother I could look up to too too, who played a little.

Demanding as a coach and your dad? Like someone who would almost yell at you more because you were his kid? No, my dad never, like, I swear, never yelled at me. Never, like, got down my throat after a bad game and just let me be. There was no, like, internal pressure at home at all. Unlike today with all these parents that think their kid's gonna be the next mcdavid like every parent but my dad was cool as hell and he kind of just let me go on my way and my mom was a rock star and they both worked full-time and cost all our hockey we were talking about before

you showed up to play in the western league at that time you had to have toughness were you like you know getting in like schoolyard brawls type thing and prepared for that when you got there as a 16 year old no i wasn't prepared for it but you hopped right in though always had a lot of pimps always oh i can't say i won a lot of fights but i showed up for all of them but the western league was crazy back then like crazy scary there was was that the separate warm-ups oh that's what started when i was there because like i i just saw dave manson uh when I was on the road last week, but Mance and Kim Baumgartner used to steal the nets. That's what you were saying. Warm up and no one would go get them.

But when my first year junior, I actually told this story the other day, um, we had a wagon of a team in Madison hat. Like Rob Nehmer, I was going to be a first round pick. Mike Raff. Gee,

we had all these Chris Oz. Ozzy was there. Yeah. Sick team. First in the league we play swift current broncos in the first round of playoffs warm-ups are still together first game game one in the hat we're skating around skating around dodie wood you remember dodie wood i know he played for san jose i remember the name sounds like a little native guy. Off as hell. He played for San Jose a bunch of years.

And our captain, Clayton Orr, squared off in warmup. No refs. Fought with a circle around him for probably 10 minutes. The whole team's are standing here. The whole team just watched the whole thing. Just beat the crap out of each other. Get the cut man out. The coaches are in the circle.

It was unbelievable. The guy's still warming up. And then they both got suspended for like three games and one period ended up sweeping us in the first round and huge upset we're like the best team in the league and you know we lost our captain we lost our mojo whatever but that was one of the sickest things i've ever seen but fighting was crazy in junior like i remember this were you told hey i got it you're gonna have to do this or did you just know no i just knew for me that i was big and yeah everyone did it but like my

first year yeah guys were like i got knocked out remember brendan witt played had a good career oh yeah lefty on the capitals and yeah caps uh islanders so he was in seattle and it was my first year and we were in seattle and i fought him and he absolutely buckled me with a left like down out you know back then there were no concussions so all the guys even the coaches were like yeah don't let him go into a shell he's got to get back out there like next game you got to fight you can't hit timmy next game another fight get over the hump kid you know don't be scared of it and you know it worked out because i was never afraid i like i said i didn't win any but you just had to do it so was it the dave manson thing that that made them separate the

warm-ups at that time or you're saying that you're around because they i think they had separated and then they said oh we can go back to it but then then, because I got traded the next year to Spokane, and I remember specifically separate warm-ups again. So I'm probably thinking because of the Dodie Wood thing, they went back to it. It was the worst. If you're a road team in junior, you'd warm up. It'd be 45 minutes to an hour before you went back on the ice.

It's fucking ridiculous. It was crazy. Pete Vandermeer used to tell me he'd go down and just take all the pucks from the other team and just put them at the red line stand there and be like, alright, does anyone want to go? I think, what do we do? No, I just want a stick handle. Please, I'm just trying to get the legs going.

Did they think to maybe put out all the officials during warm-up first? I think they started doing that too. Yeah. But yeah, that'd probably be a good idea. The officials were around the circle when Doty Wood was fighting. The prison prison guards what did you say the prison guards oh unbelievable so in that time there's we know you played world junior but there's something else on here that you played in the pacific cup in japan that was like a u17 yeah it was in japan that's sick so way back when yeah uh i wish i went there when i was older

because you know picky western canadian kid didn't even like sushi back then never had a piece of fish in my life ate mickey d's every day in japan but it was cool like to go over there you know experience the culture and stuff and we had some good good players and we won the tournament it was like one of those little u17 things like they they do at christmas now that i i had one in timmons ontario you got to go to tokyo a little different i guess but being the captain of a world junior gold medal winning team like that's biggest honor for a canadian you can give especially growing up watching them the boxing day games oh my god it was special yeah i got to play twice the first year it was like 70 and stuff and we won in check and then the next year it was actually

in like red deer edmonton calgary so i grew up in calgary and i got to play in the saddle dome front of friends and family and it's packed packed like just like that year was the lockout year too so it was like there was no hockey and it was there the buzz was just unbelievable we had a unbelievable team and we won the tournament. It's back when it was that seven-game tournament. I was going to ask, yeah. We actually ended up winning the game after game six. Sweden had choked.

Someone scored late, and we had won. So we got to celebrate that night, and we had a day off, and then we had game seven against Sweden. Then we got to celebrate so we got to celebrate twice oh you'd already won we already won we got to go out and then we had another game team picture and then all right let's go try to win this one and go seven oh we waxed them and then we got to go party again it was unbelievable man we had the cowboy hats the long trench coats and what other nhlers on that team oh my god everyone like it was we

were stacked so like uh tuxy who i know you guys just spent time with jeff o'neill ryan smith that was like maybe our fourth line wow jason allison eric dazay marty murray todd harvey eddie joe wade redden myself oh fuck uh the goalies were like jamie storm dan cloutier um who else was our like oh jeff friesen sean donovan like honestly i think like probably 18 of the 23 guys like had like oh dennis peterson like real nhl yeah not just not just a cup of coffee we're talking like guys that played like 10 12 years in the league like we had a sick team so cuz we're down here we just did a a sandbagger with tucker and and you're playing against him he's in cam loops he must have been just up like playing in

toronto with him you must have looked back on the battles you had with him oh my god we went out because i played against him my whole junior career and we actually and cam was was like the epitome of like the london knights you know like now like i think they won three of four when i was in junior and just had like the best of the best coming through but he was such a mouthpiece i hated his guts in junior wanted to kill him they beat us my last year in junior i got traded to brandon we went to the mem cop they were actually hosting and they went through the whole just killed everyone but then fast forward like years later go to toronto tuxedo's trade there we end

up being roommates for like five years or six years on the road so me and tuxy is one of my closest friends and a great teammate guy you hate to play against and is annoying as hell but you love to have on your team well he anything to win he did the sandbagger with stumpy and they fought three times before he got to toronto and he said it was the first guy he saw when he walked in the room in toronto and they were like hey buddy and like all of a sudden you know his under water under the bridge uh you were known for your shot so like growing up like did somebody help you with your technique like how did you get that big bomb i just literally shot pucks every day.

I have a shed in the backyard. There was a net and a shed and a piece of plywood, and I would just shoot. That was all I did. I swear to God, just clappers all day long. So I guess that's probably where I got it. It's not something like, oh, I got to work on my shot. I just like to shoot pucks and always had pucks in the backyard.

Not even plexiglass? No. What was plexiglass back then? just a piece of plywood on the ground i would just rip pucks in the shed just took a beating there were holes in it and everything and uh but it was fun you know like i literally just grew up street hockey every day my brother friends like home from school street hockey or outdoor rink hockey hockey hockey like no joke since i was probably five all i ever wanted to be an hl player that was it it's my only focus in life i was lucky enough to live it i see so 93 draft new york islanders 40th overall

yeah we like to usually find out if you knew anything going in were you like first rounder am i going first round hoping you would i thought i in where you're like first rounder, am I going first round? I thought I was going to be a first rounder. So the draft for me was like one of those like eyeopening experiences where, all right, maybe I'm not as good as I think I am. Like my draft year, I wasn't, I got traded my draft year. I kind of let the hype get to me. I was cocky and like, oh, I'm good.

And then I had an okay, like i had 60 points but i think i had three goals like i wasn't good i got traded and we're still one in the draft thinking like i was think i was ranked probably like 13th or something like so i was like oh i'm going the first round for sure and then the picks start going the picks start going and like i was rattled when i got picked i was rattled like just i thought for sure i was going but it was the best thing that ever happened to me like put my head on straight like okay you're not as good as you think you are like you just drop till whatever so imagine if it was now where it's the first round that night and then you gotta go to sleep because then it was just right through

yeah in the afternoon i dealt with that i thought i was going to be top three rounds so i went to nashville and i ended up not going on the first day went fourth round so i had to fucking go out all my buddies you didn't even have a suit for the second day no i i did my mom told me to pack a second one but it was like a who shot the couch and i don't know what i played a road game that night because i met a girl and patrick o'sullivan or no that wasn't patrick o'sullivan danny fritchie and he must have packed my suit so i had to wear this horrible suit my hair look was on an afro and had to go through that experience but like you said it it puts a little bit of a chip on your shoulder and you know absolutely train a little bit harder that it did absolutely it did it was an eye-opener for me it was the

best thing that happened to me it was just like a kick in the nuts and i was like okay i'm not that good i gotta wake up here you said you got traded where most of the time like elite players are it's like a team's loading up to grab you but was it more like surprising for you you didn't know or was spokane trading spokane trading for you because they were going to the memorial it's like a huge trade back in junior like i was young and like i said it was my draft year we weren't we had a new coach it was duane sutter he was a hard ass and i don't know we just butted heads probably because i was cocky and thought i was better than i was and i wasn't playing very well it had me playing forward like just like and then i didn't know i was getting trade i got traded it was like a four for four like eight players huge trade and i ended up going to spokane

and i had a coach in spokane that i'll tell you to this day, I would not have made the NHL without this guy. That's awesome. Scariest human being in the history of the world. His name was Brian Maxwell. Tough as nails, played in the NHL, had this raspy voice, and he would call guys out. And I've never been so scared, but he taught me like, he taught what made me tick.

He knew I was an offensive defenseman, but what made everything else come was me just being a prick and playing physical and i had to fight i fought but that's what made the rest of my game go and if i didn't play like that i was terrible so he would like literally come in a locker room and look at me you're not ready i can tell you're not ready by the look of your eyes i'd be like this is before the game started oh yeah you come a lot i was terry and too same thing you're not ready i can tell he called it a burr like i had to play the burr up my ass and he could look at my eyes and when you had that look you know and he could tell when i

didn't have that look and he literally taught me how to prepare to be a pro and what made me successful and he was awesome but talk about like scary he kicked a guy off our team for not cutting his hair it was he traded for like an overager i think his name was darren perkins from prince albert and he had rules you know like almost lou like he had to have shorter hair and whatever and the guy got traded there he was there a week and he still hadn't cut his hair and he came in before the game and he goes you won't play tonight because you won't cut your hair and then he goes the guy like lipped off to him he said get your stuff you're off you're off your team and then he

like the guy left and he like looked around the room but like justified it he was like i felt that was coming anyway like it was the funniest thing i've ever heard but guys were like i was gonna find a way to kick a guy off everyone shaving their head and then guys like just sat up and we're like okay this guy's for real but it was awesome do you think he like helped you make that step because you didn't play in the minors coming out of junior you start right in the big in the big times which is especially back then kind of unheard of right it's uh would you give a lot of credit to that coach oh that coach without a doubt in my mind like he he left after that year but he had such a dramatic impact on what it like how to prepare i didn't know how to prepare back

then i just showed up and played games like everyone else did like and he really gave me the tools to make myself successful and be ready and be more consistent and stuff like that was video a thing then like with the with the because like my i had a coach like that and he would just like bring out the laser pointer stop the video and just rip into guys and explain yourself yeah it taught us accountability and prepared me for the pro game as well but like it was just more about like you know yelling and knowing that you were ready yeah it was more just about like literally scaring the life out of children and teaching them how to be ready for games and then he left he got fired and then i actually had uh i had my babcock in spokane before before he was like babs okay like his second job in the western league i want to say so i had babs for full like year and a half

uh in spoken he was like hockey wise he was great for me like i played 30 minutes a game and like yeah he you know he had a lot of confidence in me and i played a lot and stuff so you know it was a good experience too looking at your your career here so drafted 93 then you go back and eight i mean 84 points like dominate that year yeah and that makes sense right after you get drafted you go back to junior but then you went back the next year too when you probably could have played in the ahl or you still know i couldn't play in the a but i was close that was another like to making my lockout year i was the last cut i remember uh with the islanders yeah so i fuck it was tough it was like i don't know i don't know if i was ready or not ready i thought i was ready i think but looking back i think it was probably for the best that i went back and uh like you

said yeah i got a chance to like grow my game and light up junior but when i got drafted by the islanders another like guy that had like a huge impact on me i went to my first islander camp like i said after i got drafted i was a little cocky and kind of set my head on straight and you probably know this guy chris prior used to work he's been around the league forever i think he was with pit like most recently but when berkey when um uh what's his name dubas came in i think he got let go but he was like the player development guy for the islanders and i'll never forget i came in for like development camp we met we did all the testing i was like 18 body fat he literally looked at looked at me and goes you're a fat pig and you're never gonna play and then i went and they gave me

like a summer regimen and stuff and i came back i worked my ass off and from that point on i was like never over 12 like you know 10 12 whatever like he he gave me those tools like hey you got it's a full-time i was in the fat club no more mcdonald's on the bike every day after practice yeah taught me how to eat nutrition stuff like he was the first guy to really like teach me that part of it because i thought i was working out hard but it was a joke i wasn't doing half the stuff you need to do to get there because back then i feel like like when i came in the league the older guys were good to us i feel like when you came in it was probably a little different like the older guys were kind of were they standoffish towards the younger guys there were

some but you know all you wanted is to be you know to fit in you get there you just want someone to be like hey kid let's go for lunch or whatever so i had some great older guys like i like you said before i got lucky to go like right to the nhl it's part i'm not gonna say i deserve to be there but they were going young at the time kind of rebuilding so we had a bunch of young guys in new york for the islanders uh but i had some great bats like i remember my first camp like steve thomas you guys just did the sandbagger with he's the guy like took me for lunch and that like resonated with me like i always made a point like every camp.

I know, like Jens, you were like this too, just to take the young guys and make them feel like part of it, take them out for lunch, show them the robes, bring them out. You're having dinner on the road and training camp. Never leave a guy behind because you don't want to be that guy. But when I got to the Islanders, I was a young buck, and it was like culture shock. We had Pat Flally, Derrickrick king wendell was there my first

remember when wendell went to the islanders right with the ugly fisherman jersey and uh some great guys mick vocoda richie pilon i know i know you guys had mick on oh he's a treat man these guys they were like we actually just ran into his kid randomly on this trip he's uh they were great though but there were like ways to do things they were hard on young guys like i remember putting like my music on and cds and i remember they just came in one day and just broke all my cds like you don't touch that stereo again kid i was like what were you bumping i was big music or metallica or something he's a snap he's a big putting the highlights in your hand oh yeah named

his kids after one after stevie nicks right and then my daughter stevie after stevie nicks and my son is lincoln after lincoln park l-i-n-k-i-n so i'm a big music guy and uh this this team is nuts your rookie year 48 guys were on the roster yeah i was gonna make the size of this team i feel like the islanders were a bit of a shit show during that period of time. Oh, my God. So did you experience that shit show? It was a gong show.

I was there. Well, obviously, Milbury was running it at the time. Mike was really good to me. Don't get me wrong. They played all 82? I played all 82. I got a ton of ice time for a young kid. Had a ton of fun.

Probably not as... Probably too much fun. But like we were out of playoffs like by freaking Halloween. Like we started the year like two and nine. So, but it was a lot of fun. It was, it was a gong show though. Like Mike was crazy. Was he doing the GM coaching role then?

Oh, everything. He was running the show. Sharpening skates he literally once i think this is my first year in the league we lost a game at home to st louis blew a lead we came in the room he said leave your gear on we're going back out nhl but take your jerseys off you don't deserve to wear them i shit you not we go back on the ice at like 10 30 at night after a game he's bagging us we have no jerseys on and brett hall is standing beside the glass like laughing at us just like what is going on last guy i vividly remember this and the vets were like we had a beer in his hand how embarrassed like i was a young kid what am i gonna say but some of these

guys have been in the league for like 14 they're disgusted this is like i would have loved to see ziggy palfrey i would have loved to see wendell clark saying clarky well clarky didn't last long there because he's he stood up to big mike and that was the end of that clark he was awesome so you were actually second in the team in pims that year 156 the first was i don't know this guy brett severance western boy he had a lot of penalty minutes everywhere he played that guy was built like a greek god like literally bodybuilder he actually lived with me for for a little bit he was a great guy but he was jacked but we had all these we had mac we had him we had pilon we had a lot of guys that could fight and some young guys that came up but like like anything else back then like it wasn't just heavyweights everyone fought you just got to kind of you know fight a lot for your first few years

and then only fight a little bit just like the western league and then it kind of fades away when you grow your game but this is commercial flying still oh god commercial flights no team meals where you had to go eat on your own on the road but before the finest sabaro on the road there was nothing prepared for you at all oh i thought always they had the road no so you're taking a taxi from the rink to like buka to pepo yeah trying to find somewhere to eat like you're eating subway like before there's nothing oh no oh my all you want to do is get the bed you know we're the we're the guys still pulling off the pranks like the dildo wrapped in tinfoil when you're going through the god i still do all the pranks now like i'm the worst

nightmare for putting like i don't know where where, who'd I do? You know, P Bob Litch, the icon, he used to work with us. He is a huge man, hilarious beauty of a man, but he was working with a team a few years back. And I, uh,

he was leaving after the second day of the draft, you know, all the scouts leave and we were up in the suite and I filled his whole backpack with all the silverware and like chopsticks and everything. So he's going through security pulling all these knives and forks and he's like what the hell is going on he's still detained oh my god it was great that's so good the next season actually so millbury gets fired rick bonus takes over yeah and just the fact that he finally retired this season like did you enjoy playing

for him visit was on tnt with him right yeah oh yeah he seems like a player's coach and knows his stuff bones was awesome uh yeah mike stepped down as coach and i think he's just gm so he didn't get fired he brought bones back in and bones was unbelievable um great guy great team coach that was the year um like i got named captain that year at 22 wow and i was terrible that's the year i got traded but i was named captain at the start of the year at 22 years old like holy crap i had no clue it was coming what an honor though no clue honored like completely honored who was the captain before well that's why like you know i was 22 and had all these old guys only been a league for two years and now i'm captain. And now I put all this pressure on myself. Like, Oh, I gotta, I gotta do this.

And it backfired. Like I was bad. Like I don't blame them for treating me. You know, I would have liked a little more patience, but also in the back of my head, I was like, I just got named captain. I'm going to be a lifer here, you know? And then all of a sudden I'm gone six months later, like gone, like out of like nowhere it was crazy who was the captain prior yan just asked that like did they they take it off someone no no it was like pat flatley was the captain when i got there and then when he had transitioned out i don't believe we had one and then this was my third year and i had two good years but i was young you know like and mike called me in like um right before the season started so i want you to

be the captain i was like awesome like that's what an honor i love it and then i just got like so caught up and like not performing just wanted to be that guy like be better well it's like when billy garren signed um who was it boldy matt boldy and he's like don't change a thing like we're we're signing you for who you are and then but what you're saying so normal like i gotta be something else no exactly and bones was so good to me that year because it just seemed like i was trying so hard but it was all backfiring and i'd always you know always end up on the short end of the stick and he called me and he was so good with me trying to help me through the process and then i got piped and traded so

you mentioned you were part of a big trade in junior too and you were part of some big trades in the nhl that first one you want to talk about that first one was crazy because like i said cell phone no cell phone no nothing and you know like i said i just got named captain 22 and i'm thinking in my head like i'm here for 10 years like and then literally like out of nowhere i just flown all my idiot friends from calgary down spend like a week in new york with me so we had played on like a thursday night went out after the game had some fun the phone rings the next day and it's milbury my buddy answers like house phone and he's like it's mike milbury my first thought is oh shit someone saw us out i'm

in trouble again you know shouldn't have went out last night i answered the phone he's like hey we just traded vancouver you're on a flight tonight you play tomorrow and i pretty sure i threw the phone against the wall like it was like shock yeah captain yeah shock like had no idea it was coming i at that time i'd live with uh brard and fischel like we were really tight we lived together for a couple years and uh i had to like pack and leave it was like and your buddies are there my buddies are there they got to stay in new york and closer to calgary yeah it was yeah it was closer to calgary so i flew in played one game hit the roxy just got absolutely bundled and then it was uh nagano olympics break so then i flew back to van or

back to new york packed all my stuff and then went back and made like the move there but i was like you had to make the drive no i like shipped everything or i don't know what and you were with bertuzzi right it's me bertuzzi and a third round pick for uh trevor linden yeah and it was funny because i saw my keen this weekend at the whole fame thing and he was like you know bringing up the trade or whatever he's like i fleeced him or whatever you know his best trade i ever made like it was bird obviously went on to have like oh how many hundred points superstar they're crazy whatever so but i was a mess the rest of that year like in van well you know that city too or can eat you up and spit you out and i was like just depressed and culture shocked and

it almost ate me up and spit me out and and like linden linden was a legend he was an icon and then like matt living up to that like why these young guys who the hell are these guys you know trevor's an icon they're a captain and been there forever went to the cup final and yeah it was tough shoes to fill the rest of that year i was a a disaster but could you tell then um bertuzzi was going to be that dominant like it was him nas and who was the morrison and it but But you even knew in Long Island, like, holy shit, when Burt... 100%. Burt was...

His hands. We got drafted together and we came up, we got traded together. So I was with Burt for like six or seven years, like just coming up. And he was always huge. I think when we went, after I got drafted, when I was the fat kid at 18%, he was like 240 as an 18-year-old. Just the widest human I've ever seen. But he was the most skilled softest hands for a big man I'd ever seen.

The problem with Bert was like much like, you know, carrying the load as a captain. When he went to New York, they kept comparing him to Clark Gillies because he's the same build and Clark he's an iconic, but Clark, he was a killer. Bert was a skilled like skilled player, not necessarily a tough guy or fighter and i think he always felt that pressure so i think the trade for him really let him be who he really was meant to be and he went on to have an unbelievable career and that magic that he had

with naslin and and mo there for a bunch of years was was special to watch because that's what he was he was a highly skilled huge power forward he was great that season ends and you're saying like mentally you're not really in it and the next year we're like all right now i'm excited to be here like i'm ready to get going and unfortunately you don't make the playoffs so now you've played five full seasons you haven't made the playoffs that's got to be exhausting but playing wise were you better that first full season yeah i was better for sure um but it was it's wearing when you don't make the playoffs and the fan base oh my god it was just

being on bad not even being close good thing twitter doesn't exist then oh my god it wears and playing in canada and like carrying that load and then but you know it i got to go the world championships a couple times which was cool ended up winning over there and stuff and getting experience that meet a bunch of different players from from other leagues but yeah it was like a another short stint in in van there and then I was bounced again so now you're like questioning when you're yourself that much that you're like what's wrong with me why does no one want me like do I not have what it takes? Absolutely. It weighs in the back of your head. Like I'm on fricking now it's, what is it? One, two, three teams in four years.

And it ends up being four teams in five years. And I'm like, oh my God, what is wrong with me? Like, I got to figure this out. Well, the next trade was. That was the city. That was a big one. Yeah. I saw Berkey too.

That one wasn't like the first one was tough. Like it was because it was shock but i give berkey a lot of credit like he honest to god was open and honest with me like leading up to that trade like my year-end meeting that april he looked me right in the eye and said if you make it through this summer you're going to be here a long time and i want you to be here a long time but i'm just giving you a heads up there's some stuff in the works like literally that's what he said wow straight up and then he called me that's what i respect most about him all you want to hear is the truth i heard he was like that with

all of his players with trades call me like a month before the draft and say hey yeah we still got some didn't tell me what it was but we got some you know coals on the fire here and there's some stuff going on and they called me the night before the draft and said i'm gonna make this thing happen so be prepared tomorrow and then call me from the draft it's like it's done your trade to chicago did chicago have the third van second or chicago i want to say there was a lot of flip-flopping i i think how he explains it i ended up being for the fourth pick or the third pick because they got him two three was it so it would have been the third pick so um you know he got the Sedins and you know that's a franchise changer for that team like that's probably one of my career highlights I got

traded for a hall of famer and a first round pick who would ever thought right so um I wasn't devastated about that one obviously he made a great trade and those guys had great careers and they're in a hall of fame now and stuff so it's actually looking back it's pretty cool that i was traded for such a good player like that did they say they weren't gonna play unless it was with each other going up to the draft or i i don't know if they like i don't know if it was like 100 like i'm not playing without my brother but i think it was like we'd love to play together if someone could make it happen and they the teams are probably they won't like the the packages them like they won't be the

same without one another like imagine the amount of work that berkey had to put in to pull that like how hard he's done a lot of crazy ones he had the pronger one like he had some balls like it's a lot of time and effort had to go into making that action you had to get a lot of teams to jump through hoops who had other picks and stuff like it couldn't have been easy so yeah berkey's awesome i love that guy so when i came into the league like oh six right after the lockout uh chicago was it was the most depressing atmosphere ever to play it was crazy and and who tells the funny he could yell at his kids if his kids were fucking around the

crowd across the day hey stop making stop being a pain in the ass for your mother shut the fuck down was it like that in 2000 they terrible they're terrible the games still weren't televised we i it's so sad because i i know they've had their dynasty in their runs that it's my favorite city like i played in i love chicago i love the people i love the vibe like you know you go out you go to a pub you walk to wrigley just midwestern people are just so outgoing and friendly but i regret not being able to be a part of it when it was like good because i was only there a year and we were terrible and now their games are back not on tv oh my god it's it's it's like what is going on there they had this little like 10 year incredible window and it's it's we'll see what happens there but that old barn must have

been fun to play was it the old barn so sad my first year in the league i missed the forum they moved in in like february and we didn't play montreal until after so i didn't get to play in the forum and then chicago that was the first year of the united so i missed it by a year or two um because that would have been i missed the garden obviously too but i love those old rinks like i loved i love playing in the odd and buffalo oh yeah i love the spectrum those were my like i love those rings like we couldn't afford leafs tickets i'm from ontario so we would always go down that's where the real fans went oh yeah absolutely it was so rowdy we go for wings beforehand and go

to the game it's just like a like going in those the smell of those old barns too because you could smoke cigarettes oh yeah but you would go and watch any team or when they played Toronto? No, like it was easy to get the Buffalo tickets. Leafs tickets were so expensive. So even at our bank, they would give you free tickets, right? Because they had seasons. And I think that at the time, they would do tickets at par. So if you bought them in Canadian dough, they'd do it at the exact same price.

So yeah, it was cool back in the old days. like what what was your time like playing there other than that like i mean it was fun i had some great guys on the team i got players like probie and doug gilmore and some legends of the game so but we stunk again like i was always we were on bad teams man like we weren't even close to making the playoffs so that stunk but great guys and stuff and just to play in chicago i actually ended up like staying because i didn't have kids or anything we kept our place in chicago when i got traded to toronto i lived there for five summers that was like my summer off season home i loved it there and still got a lot of good friends there but uh the hockey wasn't very good um and then and then did you sign as a free agent

in toronto how did you end up there no i got traded again oh my god just absolute name captain for five years that one was uh i don't know we were terrible so they fired everyone they end up bringing i don't know if you guys remember that old gm mike smith uh he was like a werewolf he was drafted he was he was always loved the russians so that's what it was i had him and he came in he just started bringing in the russian influence and i got traded to toronto for alexander karpatsyuk um and then went to toronto and then that's when i finally got to stay somewhere we were talking uh about josh morrissey recently how he had like all these

seasons of like 30 points 25 points points, and he just popped off. And it's very similar to your career. Now, granted, he was in the same spot, but something clicked. And I'm wondering if after that many trades and like, fuck, dude, what's going on here? Did that like piss you off enough? Or was it more playing time and playing with better players in Toronto that you just took off? Yeah, it's called Thomas Cabriolet oh yeah that's that's that's no coincidence my career took off after I went to Toronto and I started playing with him but and Pat Quinn and Ricky Lee and like those teams

Matz and all those guys but when I went there yeah it was like I said before like what the hell is going on like I had no consistency no i've been moved now four times my mom my fifth team it's like painful but when i went there it was like me and cabby got put together and it was just like it clicked and he was such a pleasure to play with for those eight years and i just rode his coattails to the cleaners but it was also opportunity and pat really believed in me and it was the first time i really got an opportunity to like run a power play at the nhl level and then like obviously playing with mats and tucks in front and cabby it just it honestly we were like the yin and yang

like i i was physical and could shoot and he could skate and move pups and he was so underrated and he made my job so easy and we just uh we had the mojo going for a bunch of years it was a lot of fun do you think he used the shortest stick oh yeah what's that what was the flex on it looked like it was a million oh mine no his oh yeah it was it was high yeah he was not a big slapper guy but he could dish and look guys off and patience and poise and almost like an adam fox right like he wasn't necessarily the fastest guy but always had his head up and just like tight hands and always made the right play he was he was my billets were huge maple east fans when i went there in junior that was 405 and i used to watch all their games and

i was like i wanted to be caber i'd go out there i couldn't hit the one time of that well i'm like i'll try to be like this guy he was unbelievable we just had mats on recently because he dropped that book and i was talking to ty beforehand just kind of getting prepped and he said just like the locker room culture like mats just was such a good leader and made it so fun was was that kind of your best experience of going into a locker room where everyone really felt like a like a really tight group 100 mats was unbelievable uh best captain i ever had he was quiet but he was a presence led by example always made sure that everyone on the team felt like they were like a big piece of

the puzzle something i learned from him like whether you're the fourth line guy or a call up you were a part of it and uh he was an unbelievable leader always like mandate you know like i know yance was one of those guys and i learned this from mats like you know throw the team christmas party every year like this is what a leader does bring the boys together and just the way he like practiced that's when i learned how to practice like he practiced hard like and demanded it of other people and it made me a better player and then come to the rank and then we had like robs and joe new and ike and these guys robs was sick robs was unbelievable for me too like even then i kept evolving and you know i was in shape and stuff but when ro's came to Toronto he was training on a different level that I had this Olympic lifting I'm like what the hell is this

literally followed this guy around to the point that for the Christmas party you know the gag gifts they got me a shirt that said be like Rob's remember those shirts be like Mike because I like literally sidled up to him for a whole summer and just change your career kind of chain no literally smart it's no coincidence that after that point in time i had like you know 17 goals 16 goals that whatever like it took off like and i do attribute that a lot to like mats and Rob's and the strength coach there, Maddie nickel who trained me my whole last 10 years. He's the best. I love that guy to death. I would not have like had the success and consistency without those guys in my

life. Like they changed just the way I prepared and like, just it was an everyday job now. And it just, I, from then on in, I would, you know, when you're young you need someone to push you but when i met those guys and spent time with them it was like that when i went home in the summer i didn't need a training partner like i was dialed in maddie had my program i knew what i need to do and i did it i didn't need someone down my throat to do it whereas when i was younger it's like i need tell me I got to do this many runs or this many. But I'd grown up and finally found that happy mixture of having fun and being professional about it.

And it was great. Oh, I was just talking to Matt and then also hanging out with Stumpy and Tux. The Pat Quinn stories are incredible about him smoking the stogies and having a scotch after games. You must have a number of funny ones. He was the best man. He was such, I know Matt's had touched on this. I watched your,

your guys interview with him and he was just such a presence. He was just a huge, huge human being. When he taught, he was so well-spoken though. Like he could grab the room, but he was funny as hell. Like he, he was old school-spoken, though. He could grab the room, but he was funny as hell. He was old school, like Praxis, like old drills.

Go to the board for every drill. Like, hey, we're going to do this drill on the horseshoe. We're going to have half the guys. We'd have to whiteboard it, and he'd always erase it with his hand. And then he'd somehow end up getting it on his face. It was the best but pat was he was and he like i know matt said this too he was such a player's coach and he would never bury in the media but he would bury you in a subtle way like in meetings when they had the

video it was the funniest thing he'd never call you out by your name but you'd be on the video and he'd have a clip and he goes we got a guy here who thinks he's a zamboni and it's me lying in the middle of the ice like slide blocking and just swimming and you know he was calling you out but he would never say it was you and everyone would be laughing because uh this look at this guy he's got poopy pants he won't go back and get the puck like you're looking at his cabbie going back i love a good roast video session would he have one-on-ones like carve you one-on-one in his office no he was like old school like well you could always talk to him but he was never like down your throat he was like let the boys

please themselves it's your locker room and we had a great locker room obviously and we just like we had to we talk about this we still laugh about it we had like top five power play in the league for many years we had some sick players though like mcgillney matts talks cabby whoever you you name them all we never like ricky lee was ran the power play and he'd give us like a vhs tape he'd be like you guys watch it if you want and he'd like throw it to us oh you were you were doing it we're just doing it on our own man like just wow we work on it in practice and stuff but we were not watching video and it was just instincts man you know mats would you get the full two minutes oh i'm pretty close to it pretty close to it and then you know we would please ourselves like mats would yell at whoever

cabbie shoot the puck once in a while you know you don't have to yeah capers not open 24 7 and we'd all roast each other but we had some sick eyes on that power play i just reaped the benefits the coolest thing for you uh is you're in the playoffs oh finally you get in and and and that started this ottawa toronto yeah so they finished second in the east you guys are seventh and you sweep them yeah and it must have been just so exciting for the city and like that rivalry form where the next year you got them, you beat them in seven. But that first one, do you remember like being surprised,

being up 2-0 or 3-0? Like, cause they had a real good team. Yeah. Like you said, I was chomping at the bit. I'd never played in the playoffs and we just kind of stumbled in at the end. Like I wasn't sure we were going to make it. I got traded there and we ended up making it. And we get ottawa who's they had unbelievable teams and obviously the ontario thing and stuff and i just it was so electric just the feeling and then when you win

and we won that series like you win one series in toronto like you won the cup like their city is shutting down parades up and down young street it was so much i'm scoring my first um playoff goal i remember that like it was yesterday matt's hitting me back door and the energy and the fun and just um how i know all you guys play in playoffs like the difference in the level of play in the intensity they tell you you can't i got it i like during a regular season game i would lose like i don't know four pounds or something during a playoff game i'd lose like 10 plus pounds like the amount of like the mental strain and the the physical toll on your body it was so much fun to be around but that was the ottawa series where they were awesome i played in a few and like

obviously not many minutes it felt like the game was being played in fast forward i remember the one year i got in against detroit i'm like ah i don't think i belong out here i'll go back to the ox court i had mccarty though hey uh talking about uh tux told us a story that was pretty funny because he got rocked by alfredson and he separated his shoulder pretty bad oh yeah i want to say he missed the rest of that series like to the point where the bone was sticking out of his shoulder and they had to like sew it back and um you guys played them like the first game of the season that next year and tux was just waiting to line alfredson up and he ended up getting them and he took a two minute minor and they scored on that and it was late in the third period so after the game um

pat quinn was having a stogie and a scotch and he called them in the way he told the story oh it's like it's all unbelievable and he's like he's like yeah grab a glass pour yourself a scotch and he's like i waited 12 fucking years to get a guy back when he hit me dirty you couldn't wait one fucking game take that scotch and get the fuck out of my office yeah he said he walked back into the room with his scotch the scotch though yeah he got the scotch but the best thing too he was saying that pat quinn would inhale his cigars and he'd be like and he cost he'd be coughing oh my god the funniest i don't know if tux told this did he did he tell the nathan parat story about no this is my funniest we still laugh about it to this day i don't know if you remember this guy

nathan parati was a tough guy fighter yeah could skate like the wind like fast he was jacked to This is my funniest. We still laugh about it to this day. I don't know if you remember this guy, Nathan Perotti. Tough guy. He was a fighter, yeah. Could skate like the wind, like fast. He was jacked, too. He'd play a ton now. Oh, my God. Could he fly?

But just, you know, not the sharpest tool in the shed, whatever. Great guy. Worked his ass up. So he's coming up the ranks in Toronto, and we're playing a game in Detroit, and we're all on the bench. we're we're playing a game in um detroit and we're all on the bench and nathan brought comes up the wing and like shoots it in the stands we're talking like 40 rows up and he comes back by the bench and he's like looking at the blade of a stick to see if it's broken and pat under his breath is the only pack of do he goes it's not to stick with you son me and taxi were dying i swear to you we were in tears

on the bench it was the funniest thing he had these subtle sarcastic comments and oh my god i just about died that's one of my favorite pat quins i've told it before as he came into the room you know those suits he had the three pieces you guys had played the night before yeah he's like we need to be going tonight boys you know and and we're like we don't play tonight it's just a day early and now he was older yeah you had me i remember he went edmonton yeah but that year in 01 smoke uh smoke ottawa you losing seven to Jersey they end up dusting Pittsburgh and losing in game seven of the cup final so that team you had I mean you had enough to maybe go on a big run here Jersey in game seven in Jersey just yeah we had that was it was a tough one we we had them I don't know if you remember we had them right where we wanted them we were playing great we

had a good team and that's when uh Ty took Niederm meyer's head off do you remember that yes they hit no the puck was nowhere near yeah and it kind of obviously ty got suspended and then they kind of rallied around it was like a big moment stevens went at your bench went nuts and it just it was kind of a morale thing for them they were like screw these guys and we we pissed it away and ended up losing were you up three two and we're up three two fuck and that happened and then we lost back to backers they came back and beat us um but then the next year i think it was next year we went to commerce finals right yeah you got auto in the second round but that one went to seven that year so that year we played

the new york islanders in round one oh that was the game steve webb bloodbath series i think if you ask any guys that we played in that group of guys i've never it was a bloodbath there steve webb was became a household killing people batesy had the penalty shot that's when i tripped batesy the the the uh penalty shot and he scored so i was like it was a nightmare that game that won seven so that was game four when i trip eightsy it was all over you know they see scores they win i'm like crying myself to sleep like we're gonna cost us a series and then we go back to toronto i end up scoring two the next game. Sorry, I'm off the hook. I'm good.

I'm good. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I bounce back. I bounce back. I'm not in. I can go to the grocery store. No one's going to mention it again. Yeah, no Toronto Sun appearance tomorrow morning.

But we went seven, and we were beat. Like, we lost. Mats broke his arm. Tux was out. Like, it was just never. Like, that's the one where Ericic karens and course course pulled his hair got suspended line brawl it was honestly a bloodbath like it's when tux took peck as neo it was a crime scene like you never saw the nassau coliseum like that when oh my god was

that place it was nuts buzzing loudest ring what were they chanting for webs didn't he have a name like webby webby and he was just killing oh it was something it was something different he buckled everyone every guy he killed mats he killed jonas hoagland i can't believe he's still alive like put him through the end boards roberts i think like knocked out kenny johnson like from behind like horrible hit no call like just like there were no rules and we ended up beating them but we were so beat up yeah going in that next series like matt's tried to play through a broken wrist like no joke i've never seen like it like got shot up like not only broken but like displaced fracture and he tried to actually play like he got shot up for

warm-up and he couldn't couldn't hold a stick but he tried like i was like this guy's a maniac but we ended up winning then we played ottawa and we're beating down but we ended up beating them again like their kryptonite like we beat them in seven just grind it out like laleem was it laleem we had a tough series that was the first year that was when we swept them um yeah he let the softy in i i think or no that was game set no that was game seven no that was that year yeah next year that was yeah we beat him because we beat him three times in my tenure but the one i think that was game seven he let it like a squeaker newie like muffin down the wing uh and we ended up beating up but then we got carolina and we were so tired and beaten up and missing our captain and we ended

up going six and i think we lost three of the six in overtime like it was just yeah tough breaks we didn't get there uh we had a good team kujo was sick like in that in that run oh that's when kujo was just standing on his head. But those weren't even, I don't even think those were our best teams. After, when we got Eddie, and then we had the one year when we lost, when JR scored that OT crippler.

Oh, that's right. That year, our team, that's when we got Leachie. We got Leachie at the dead end. They booed him out of town, didn't they? What's that? Didn't they boo him out of town? Oh, oh no they didn't move him out of town he only played a short time oh yeah yeah we went to the hall yeah exactly but we got leachy we had just a squad mcgillney like all these guys belfort uh roberts new and dyke owen nolan greener travis green like we had depth we had studs we had everything

and we lost uh in game six there jr when he sniped at short side there and the dance and yeah and but then the lockout happened and all those guys would have been back for a full year together like that everyone was signed oh and that's like my biggest regret is that we lost that season because i truly think that would have been like our best team we would have been together the whole year and we cancel the season all those players contracts expire everyone left and that's when like they didn't make playoffs for like it was like 13 years they hadn't won a playoff series until recently yeah that's when i went to go the other way so that one season that could have been like just looking back like that was a special team coming that team

that team that years the team that i really think was our best team did you were you one of the guys that had signed a big ticket and had that 24 percent rollback oh yeah that was awesome what a absolute and i was the pa rep too so people are motherfucking that on top of playing in toronto being like the face of the team and saying we're never gonna take a cap we're never gonna take a cab we're there and then waking up one morning no one tells you cap phones blowing off the hook yeah i had signed a two-year deal and i lost almost all of it plus the 24 percent and then had to deal with the toronto media on top of that and being like what i thought you said you're not going to take cap

and i was like oh okay looking back we were saying the other night at dinner that their first offer was probably incredible compared to the what it settled to but at the time all these guys and you're being led by yeah it was bob like no cap we're never getting a cap that was like the man that you have to tell it we're never taking it that was like that was like the quote so no we're never taking the cap we're guys saying like no but we're gonna have to like these billionaires are gonna win or was it not even discussed within the group i don't i think the small group it was discussed in. And then just to wake up one day and just like we caved.

It was like we missed the whole, if we were going to cave, why didn't we cave at Christmas and at least save the year? We're going to give them everything anyway. Get some money out of this. Get something to get to play. Like what a waste. Missed a whole year. In your primary career exactly primary

career great team and you know never mind the money that i don't even care about that it was just like that window that we had with that team was gone now and then everyone left and then it was never the same why did everyone leave because of the cat all their contracts expired and free agency came along and they all i think eddie newey and robs came to florida and and then you know we had to rebuild and you know we had some good teams still but we missed the playoffs i think by like one point two points the next couple this team was good too like dude you had 68 points that year after was in 73 games wow matt sundin 78 points but like jason allison that's when Steen was young.

Fuck, was that a tough trade looking back, but Kyle Wellwood. That's when Skilzy was Skilzy on that team. Skilzy came all right. You got to go down on the hockey DB to pause. Yeah, yeah. He got two assists. He might have came the next year. The next year, actually. Ken Klum couldn't reach

the net. Couldn't reach the net in the air from the blue but no we had some good teams yeah that year coming dog coming out of the lockout that was yeah that's that was like i think my career year i think that year that's a big season it was funny though because you know all these guys were playing during the lockout and i wasn't and it's so funny when you're you know it's the lesson i learned when your heart or your head's not in something mentally so i didn't go and play because i just didn't want to and then i felt like all these guys were playing and what if we settle and we start playing january 1 i'm gonna be behind the eight ball so i'll go over and play so i went to sweden with uh brian boucher beauty oh yeah he's great the goalie uh and honors erickson i

went to yon shopping um hb 71 was the team and literally didn't see the sun for like the four weeks i was there like two days you go to the rink sun's not up you come out of the rink sun's gone just miserable we lost every game so i go over there i suck i'm terrible on the big guys i can't ski i'm minus 10 we're 0 and 10 the coach comes up to me in his swedish accent he's like oh we're going to uh switch the lineup tonight and he's like uh you're not going to play but we want you to dress you know how they dress like the extra t on the other bench and i was like i was like buddy if you think i'm putting my equipment on and cheering on your team you're sadly mistaken packed my shit i was on a plane that day and i came back but i i would have scratched me too i was horrible because i didn't care and i didn't want to be there and i was in the big ice did not

suit my skating abilities so but funny thing is i go back the season gets canceled whatever and i uh get my head back on straight and i um i trained my ass off that summer like and then i came back that next year and had like a year like it was crazy like everything was going in 19 goals dude i just had my first kid so i was just flying on a high i was no sleep at night like but like just but i was just dialed in um even the year after that, 15 goals, 57 points. Like those two seasons, you and Caberle were right next. The year before you had 68, he had 67. And then that year he had 58 points, you had 57.

So just the connection on the power play, it's so sick. Yeah, he was just sick. Like we just, I don't know. It was just, it worked like with us. It was just, it just meshed. It was awesome. Toronto's legendary for just getting on guys. us it was just it just meshed it was awesome toronto's legendary for just getting on guys and it's usually a defenseman and you've you probably in all those

years of the success saw certain guys like you remember i remember cory cross there aki berg and at some point did they start kind of getting on you yeah i mean i was that guy my last year buddy i was the guy how depressing is it going because in edmonton i was that guy and i wasn't your type play like i wasn't your resume you went through it i was getting guy i was glad you brought this up because i know you went through it too it in business talked about the mental part of it where it's it's like legit depressing oh my god and and then in starting the game you know first mistake there they go and then like how are you gonna play good after that and what's even tougher i hadn't done anything i hadn't been to but you'd been so good there you must have been

like oh they turned on me and i dropped the hat it was unbelievable like so was it was the last year so it would have been whatever it was my eighth year and it was like game seven of the regular season start sensing it no no well i started sensing at the end of that last year started to hear a few boos and they were starting to turn a little because we missed the playoffs again and then come back the next year and it hadn't happened yet we're in buffalo we're in overtime it's like a four on three power play for them and there's like four seconds left and razor stops the puck and it comes to me in front of the net i'm boxing a guy out and i go to i'm trying to like whack it into the corner and i catch it just right and it goes off both posts and i score an overtime winning goal on my own team on the power it's a power play goal though that's my

forte that's what i did but and as soon as that happened buddy i was on the front page of the sun for like three days i remember the posting my wife still has it's like brian mcclutz was the oh gee headline and it lasted like every for like the next week it's all they talked about and then i went home after that every time i touched the puck like for a breakout it was like the boo birds oh no buddy how hard is it was misery it sucked the life out of me i was getting like my house was getting egged i was getting like hate mail people anywhere i went like you go to the movies you can't get away from it it was the hardest year of my life honestly it sucked the life out of me and i couldn't mo was the coach then like mo was he was so good with me during that tough like he was trying

everything but it just seemed like every time i started to make like a couple steps forward had a really good game and then like the last play of the game i turned it over they'd score like something bad always happened and then i broke my hand in montreal and i missed like the only time i ever missed like a significant amount of time you're almost like happy i was like almost like happy that like i was like and then it was just like i had gotten so like distraught and depressed like it wasn't fun like they'd suck the life out of me and like the best thing that happened was like not that i ever wanted to leave but i needed like that's i know matt's talked about it like cliff fletcher came in like everyone got fired and like we were still in the playoff hunt and

they wanted no part of it like they brought cliff in and he wanted to trade everyone this is like at the trade deadline we all had no move clauses and he he literally came in and we all said no and so now the media is all over us they were calling us like the muskoka five or something i think that's what it was called it was like kind of a sick these five guys are holding us hostage like this was awesome when we're in the playoffs winning and but we're like we can still make the playoffs they want cliff wanted no part of that so my year ending this is my exam being the end of the year i walk in his office i don't know cliff very well whatever they brought him in to write the ship and uh he goes i think it would be best for you and the organization if you played somewhere else next year i'll call you

in a month let me know where you want to go literally i had no move clause and everything and i was like at that point i was like i need to get out of here just to save my life like i just it wasn't fun anymore and then um had my agent like call some teams and stuff and florida was one of the teams that jock was like yeah we want them so um ended up getting traded to florida and it was like a breath of fresh air like just to get away and to come you know how it is down here no one knows who you are you can do whatever you want and just to like i got back to having fun the opposite of toronto oh complete opposite and for going through that it's like thank god but that being said i literally i wouldn't trade my time in toronto for any right even that bad

year yeah i think everyone should play in a hockey market yeah like it's a special thing and looking back like yeah the one year sucked but at no point would I ever not want to go through what I went through. It was the best years of my life, the best teams, the most fun. And now it's funny because I go back and. They love you. Because they had so much. They love them, yeah. Just, you know, like I said, they didn't make a plus.

Like, they haven't won a series in like 13 years since we all left. And now you go back and they're like, ah, maybe it weren't so bad. And now they're like good about it. But initially it was the best thing to come down here. No one knew who I was. I could just play hockey and have fun again. And I got that love for the game back. And I honestly thought I might not play anymore when I left there.

Like I didn't know if I could mentally get it back. I was so far gone. But it was nice. I came back and I like, I was proud of myself. It was nice. I had some decent years here. 15 goals that first year in Florida. far gone but it was nice i came back and i like i was proud of myself it was nice sitting back on the horse and i had some decent years here 15 goals that first year in florida it's like uh playing in arizona right you leave the rink and you can leave it there exactly yeah you can go to

the movie theater wherever not be harassed or get your house egg that for the four muskokas are there's a beauty they ran with that thing unbelievable t-shirt that's when you're like the media is funny hey let's do let's do some alumni t-shirts but before you moved on we have to ask about one of the most insane clips and maybe the ballsiest thing i've ever seen i knew and it's it's an it's an incredible clip because it looks like a man and a child but like to fight him dude like that's ballsy i told you realize like i told you i didn't win many but i showed up for a ball but it's funny so i saw eddie belfort this weekend beauty like unbelievable teammate one of the best goalies ever most competitive guy ever but eddie's the reason so we me and eddie were having a beer

this weekend and he wanted me to tell the story it's his fault that i fought chara they got big z in front of the net on the power yeah and eddie is trying to break his kneecap from behind stop eddie eddie he was vicious two by fouring the back of his knees and i see the wires crossing for chara and i'm like the closest guy i at no point do i want to do this but i'm like i gotta do this he's gonna kill eddie so i stepped in and i've never felt it was like i was a feather like in my equipment easily easily i'm 250 pounds in equipment if not more maybe 260 you know skate sticks gloves he picked me up like i was nothing my legs were like three feet off the ice and he was just like it was nothing and he was just like dusting me and thank god he didn't hit me with a punch and then i fell down and then i rabbit punched him once it was like one of these and i went to the box and i was actually laughing i was

like so embarrassed and i was like actually laughing that i made it through okay he actually hurt his back had to leave the game i got him guys holding my full weight a kettlebell he missed like a week because he tweaked his back well i would have tweaked it too picking up a grown man it was classy of him i mean he could have been just like throwing uppercuts but when it's when you're flying through the air is like time slowing down oh my god i was just like please don't hit me please don't hit me i'd probably still be in the hospital and you guys know z he's like a specimen like i came up like z was in the islander system and he came up and he was just a

beast like he was benching i thought he broke somebody's sternum with a punch one time didn't he buddy i don't know i saw him hit david coach yeah yeah thought he broke somebody's sternum with a punch one time didn't he buddy i don't know i saw him hit david coach yeah yeah yeah he punched somebody in the chest one time broke their sternum wow i mean i just made that up surprise me yeah i'm sure yeah i made it through that i'm escaped um the boys must have been just like for like at the same time we're laughing they're like fucking ak but like ballsy but that was the funniest thing we've ever seen so funny it's so funny so many viral there was no social media that's how fucking funny that clip was it created the internet oh it still makes like the tsn top 10 list like once a year whether it's just you know whatever it is uh but it's funny looking back it's funny he's a

great guy like he was he came up as a kid with me with the islanders there and uh what a career he had for a guy that came up and looked like bambi like at the start like the change in the player he was and became at the end was unbelievable yeah it's nothing this work ethic nothing like having a blue mohawk getting ragged up in the air oh yeah you had some crazy hair oh the mohawk was great yeah i said don't do it to any kids out there. Don't dye your hair because now I've got the reverse Mohawk on. It's like terrible. Sidy backy. But it was fun.

It was like a thing too, Toronto. Like they had a barber's chair set up outside the rink and kids were getting Mohawks in the playoffs. Really? That's so cool. Bad call with a blue dye though. It's like leaking in my eyes. Like during the game, I was minus four because i couldn't see looking like braveheart like william wallace with the face paint it was fun that was fun actually

that was my wife's idea she was like yeah you should do a mohawk switch it off do something i was like all right let's do it i always like to ask the retired guys i mean obviously the game was growing when you were involved but just the growth of the game and where it's at right now from like a world perspective of in North America with all these Southern markets exploding, you guys must be proud of like, well, the way that you guys helped establish it. Oh yeah. It's great. Like what they've done down here. It's unbelievable. Like how hockey crazy people have gotten and you know,

the atmosphere the last couple of years in the playoffs, it's just the parade. It's like something could never imagine when i played down here like there were there were tuesday nights against carolina where there were literally 500 people in their building for warm-up and it was like now we're like selling out there's a buzz there's uh it's great it's just great for hockey to have all these different markets when you played in phoenix obviously you know that yeah um i think it's awesome that the grain game's grown this much and there's players like matthews is from phoenix you're getting all these players from a place like california how many players in league are from california now and stuff it's like it's awesome like it's not just you know canada

and us and stuff it's like little small states now you'd never think that we have a goalie in our system that's from like knoxville tennessee and i'm like they even have hockey there like how is that even possible so yeah they've done a great job obviously the game's grown tremendously in uh the skill and the stuff that these guys do now man it's oh it's fucking nuts that mcdavid man i if you don't see that in person it's hard to even explain i've never seen a person that like no it's a guy at barstool that isn't really hockey guy and he went to the game again and he texted me he's like oh this i know what you're saying like you go to the game you don't know anything you're like what the hell

is that guy like we played and it makes our jaws drop like when the first time i ever saw him accelerate live i literally was like what the fuck i didn't even think it was possible to go that fast in such a short amount of like time with the puck on a string yeah exactly like just dancing people so yeah the game has definitely changed in the skill level and just it's it's awesome the speed and stuff what was uh so in your third year in florida you had had two real good years you got traded to the rangers and made the playoffs lost first round and then you know you hung them up was it something that we've all talked about about like pretty hard and a couple months into that next season retired it's

like a little depressing like you were struggling with what's next absolutely yeah yeah it was hard it's hard to say goodbye i i could have probably played like it says february you retired so that no i i got traded the rangers i knew when i lost in the playoffs here against washington i knew that was my last game kind of my heart like i did a little lap around the ice and just kind of took it in but uh i had offers to play that summer like contract offers but they were only for one year i had a young family we had made a home here i didn't want to make a move again uh not for a year i might have done it if someone would have guaranteed me two years because then you can justify maybe we like it there build a life there maybe not uh but my body was also i had surgery like five summers in

a row and i was getting old and i didn't want to be one of those guys like getting carried out the door like I still was all right and kind of relevant and the bottom line was my wife's like if you want to do it you know go ahead go play a year but we're not like we're not going I wasn't I wasn't going to go without him and I was just like you know what I'm done I had a very lucky to play 16 years I was happy but I literally didn't know it's hard when you you know you leave home at 16 and you're used to being on the road and being away, and then all of a sudden you're home for like ever.

All the time. It's forever. And there's kids and there's responsibilities. And you're like, oh, my God, I need a road trip. Like, boys, you want a golf trip, anyone? So, yeah, and then I told you I just kind of stumbled upon this with Dale and got this opportunity to do this. And I've been doing it ever since. So I've been very fortunate to stay in the game because I didn't know anything else.

Dale Talon deserves a lot of credit here. Even Bobby Lou said when he went to the rink, it was him who kind of extended an arm. So it seems like he really brought the old guard around and established what's going on here. Yeah. Dale deserves a lot of credit for, you know, not only here, but Chicago. He had a big hand in their dynasty, and he he built things up here he's a great guy to work for uh great mentor a really good friend i love dale to death he was so good to me like you say he didn't have to be he traded me it's not like we were you know best friends or anything i got to know him when he became the gm and stuff but um dale is one of the best in the business and uh i truly owe him a lot for giving me this opportunity and being able to stay in the game and stuff and uh

you know he still lives around here and all time stick you gotta get him you sandbagged him yet that guy i don't know i was like when he went to the nhl like there was like a chance of like no i'm gonna like be a pro golfer no he won like the canadian amateur golfer of the year award before he was in the nhl yeah and i didn't want to say he's like 74 and like i talked to him all the time still and see him and he uh he shoots like in the 60s yeah yeah and he's in the 70s he's in he shot a 68 that day he's a stick crazy yeah and he's funny he'd be fun to be around for i mean we can't thank you enough for doing this, man. It was great getting to know you and chat with you.

I hadn't really talked to you before. 1,135 regular season games, 56 to the playoff. It's amazing, dude. Congrats on everything. Thank you, guys. I really appreciate you having me. This was fun. Guys, before we continue, we want to talk about Jackpocket.

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I didn't know he still has it based on a jaw injury, but an awesome guy. What a player he was. And just him recounting and remembering that Chara fight is so classic. I think he knew that was coming at one point. On to Dallas. Tough news for Tyler Sagan. He had a great start to the year. He has to undergo hip surgery. He's out four to six months. Just news for Tyler Sagan. We're at a great start to the year.

He has to undergo hip surgeries out four to six months. Just a kick in the dick for a guy who's played very well. The team, while it's odd, like Robertson hasn't had a great offensive season. Wyatt Johnson hasn't had a great offensive season. Matthew Deshane's been carrying that team. Their goaltending's been phenomenal. But Dallas, along with Mason Marshman has has looked great well that's what sucks about this right so that line of Duchesne Sagan and Marchment they've been playing together since last year last

year they played 60 together until one of them got injured but their chemistry was off the charts and last year it was they had two first lines going with the point production and what the guys were doing. Well, that second line hasn't let off the gas. And you mentioned it. I think that, that hints Robertson.

And I think Wyatt Johnson was in there a little bit. They'd all been struggling. They haven't found their chemistry quite like last year. And now all of a sudden you lose one guy from that line. I guess the, the positive news is, is all of a sudden you have close to 10 million in cap space available to go and make a big trade uh it does suck because it looks like it sounds like he won't be available for like he's done like he's he's not coming back even maybe playoff time

uh barring a miracle um so i mean if we're talking about the big picture here yeah marchman's been an absolute fucking beast he can't stop scoring uh really a guy who does it all he's tough to play against too he'll throw the body and they look good like ottinger's playing at the top of his game right now uh maybe didn't start out as as good but over the stretch of the last like 10 to 12 games they've just looked like a well-oiled machine uh being ran by the back end by hayeskin and so I think we all suspected them to be a top three team in the West this year. And I still think they are, regardless if they have Sagan in the lineup or not. But a huge, huge loss based on how their chemistry was buzzing on that second line.

It just sucks for Sagan. I feel bad. But our guy Jeff Merrick has said that Dallas is big game hunting now. And you've seen Vegas do this year after year. And now with all this money, they're going to be very aggressive to replace Sagan with a top end player. So we'll see how that plays out. I just wanted to touch on Robinson. He's having a little bit of a down year.

If you had the Four Nations last year, he would have been on the team home run slam dunk but this year he's struggling a little bit but this could be the fire that kind of lights underneath him that he's like okay i'm not untouchable i i gotta go out there and give it and i think you're gonna see the back half of uh the end of his season this year go back to form of where he's been the last couple years and being the young superstar that we've seen him be. Yeah, we described Dylan Strom, how he's not like the fastest guy, but he plays at that slower pace. I think Robertson's a lot of the same way

where he can't move up and down the ice like Hintz does, right? But he does play on his line and it's a good compliment to him. But sometimes I'm watching the games and I'm like, hey, he's got to get a little bit more of a of a pep in a step going so hopefully that's what you're talking about you're saying just kind of digging in a little bit more as opposed to just floating around playing that perimeter game yeah i think so i did i think when he's at his best and like you said not the fastest skater but he gets to the net he makes plays like he he's one of those guys like he can dangle he can make good plays but he's also he's kind of that you know not not too fancy but just finds a way to get to the net get to the

hard areas and score goals and you haven't seen that as much it doesn't really look pretty sometimes but he gets it done sunday night he had a beautiful goal against calgary getting assist as well so keith i like that like hey like i'm taking this as like an insult almost like fucking let's go let's prove them wrong like tage thompson's been on fire since not getting named he's been scoring uh he's been on fire so it's you know some guys take it that you know away you could sulk about it and not be happy and you know he reminds me of a guy that will take that and run with it also on fire the washington capitals holy shit I actually should have mentioned I think one guy that got maybe screwed over a little bit is would have been cool to see John Carlson

on Team USA what a season he's had the Capitals are not the same without him but Tom Wilson taking the puck to the face coming back scoring two goals and having his face he's now called quagmire by the team was one of the most nails thing we've seen in the in the nhl season so far this year and his interview after was great he's like my dad always told me if you can play you play and he could play no problem but the look on his face and then biz i believe you hooked him up with a miss peaches sweatshirt less than 24 hours later i get a message with a screenshot tom wilson it's a miss Miss Peaches sweater sold out online. Hey, any chance I can get this?

So I text Witt and Portnoy, same group text. I'm like, this handsome bastard took a puck to the face last night and all he cares about is getting a Miss Peaches sweater for the Misses. And Portnoy pulled the trigger

and then Witt, I go, okay, nice. Now this solidifies. We're going to get you on the podcast. He won't come on the podcast i'm doing favors for him getting a miss peaches cancel that order cancel that peaches send a small send a small so we can't wear it no send a stuff for him the one send it for his old shirt it's for his lady so i thought we had him on once we've never had him on i think we might have had him on early days but fuck not the tom wilson as colby armstrong describes it the washington

capitals are tom wilson's team now we haven't had him on since those moments so i think that the fact that i'm getting in this sweater and he's not coming on is absolute bullshit that's worse than the sampling going on guys Guys, how about him doing the interview and then he's talking, he's like, oh, I haven't really seen it until right now. And his face is out to here. Legit. Legit. He had a softball in his mouth.

Yeah, what an absolute nail gun. He's a mutant. Insane. Handsome bastard mutant. As good as things are going for the Washington Capitals, guys, the Buffalo Sabres. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

They're up 4-0 to the Colorado Avalanche. They don't even get a goddamn point. They don't even get a point in the game. You're now what looks like to be, just as the Jets, continuing your longest pro sports run without being in the playoffs, the Buffalo Sabres, and just looking at the team and looking what's happened, and Kevin Adams did a press conference where, understandably, he's defensive.

He's talking about the taxes in New York and not having the palm trees that they have in Florida and just the absolute disaster. Sabres fans are chanting fire Kevin, the next home game. It's just amazing. I feel so bad for what is one of the best hockey markets in North America, hockey markets in North America to go through year after year. And just looking around the league, I mean, at one point within the organization, they had Ryan O'Reilly, Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhardt, Brandon Montour, Linus Allmark, Brandon Hagel.

Brandon Hagel's on pace for 105 points. Sam Reinhardt's on pace for 111 points. Jack Eichel's on pace for 114 points. All three of these players, all these guys, were a member of the Buffalo Sabres. It hasn't all been Kevin Adams, but holy shit, Biz. Holy shit. That one the other night when they go up four at home to start a five game homestand

and then blow it in regulation i was like my god every time and they'd been playing okay they were trending finally a little bit in the right direction right sometimes when when these rebuilds go down it's like ah that 20 game mark okay wow they finally figured it out yeah we're gonna make no i thought if they won that game, okay, here we go. You know, great start to the homestead. No, they lose that one. They lose the next one against the Jets in overtime, and then they lost the last one.

So they're 0-3 on that homestead now. You got Adams coming out doing a press conference, which I like the guy. I don't think it came off the best. It sounded like a bit of a venting session. And like, I don't know why you're bringing the bills into it. Cause they've been able to have success and talking about the palm trees.

So now you got fans bringing fucking blow up palm trees to the goddamn hockey game. Like this is fucking, this thing's off the rails. And you would have to assume that maybe that frustration is in the fact that this management staff and people in organizations days are numbered. If this year they don't make it at a certain point, they're going to have to look in a different direction. And I'm not pointing the finger at anyone. I'm just saying is the results

are the results. Um, you keep handing over these big long-term deals to guys who haven't proven anything. There's no bridge deals. It's just like, hey, here, take the money, and you're our group of guys, and then all of a sudden, there's just continue to be no result. So it is ugly for the Sabres. You spent the offseason trying to reconstruct the bottom six where, you know,

might have been other issues to identify, and here we are. And it's ugly, boys, and I don't see it turning around anytime quick. Well, you just talked like for teams that don't have the palm trees and the no state taxes, you have to draft well. In wit, you just listed off about 10 guys that are legitimate stars in the NHL that started their careers there.

And when you're young in the league, you can't I mean, you can't ask for a a trade but you also the team has the power to whether they're going to trade you or not so you got to look yourself in the mirror at some point and be like okay we've done our job drafting some good players here in the past like sam reinhardt what's he 27 28 years old he should still be there you're not trading him at 31 32 years old those guys should still be there playing for that team teams that drafted them but it's uh i don't do you see it getting better there at any point oh and the worry is like so they they pick zach benson high he looked really good last year like he's kind of having us little sophomore struggles like do you want these young guys even in the nhl you're losing you're losing and I understand some of these guys. Yeah, they're totally skilled enough to be there.

But as Biz said, it's just like giving too much too soon. Like you got to go out and earn it. And I think a lot of guys there have been given things and given responsibility within the game that they didn't necessarily deserve yet. It's not a shot at these guys. Some of these guys may grow into great players like Dylan Cousins. He looked awesome. He's got six goals and six assists in 27 games this year if you told me that two years ago it's like what what's happening to the development and the losing and losing and losing and the fans like almost turning into where you don't even care that's the scary part is having a fan base that just becomes totally like we don't even give a fuck anymore.

And it's just been so ugly for so long that you just feel for this fan base that that had a nice run for a little while. 2006, 2007, some great teams. And then since then, it's just disaster. And I don't know what I don't know what you do. I don't. And then on top of that, it's like then you go out and then you make like a a very quick nostalgic hire where it's like yeah is is like lindy ruff like he he might even already be a hall of famer i'm sure he's going to be in the hall of fame coached his 1800 game last week like legend but is this guy the answer for the future of the buffalo sabers at

this point is he the one who's going to get through and break through with these guys? Like, come on here, man. What's going on? It's just like too many mistakes after one another. And yeah, this is not the group. This is not it. Now, in fairness, currently they are up 5-3 at the second intermission against the Red Wings. Let's see if they can hold on to this.

But the other night, it was incredible against Utah. They were up 1-0. They had a good first period. Going to the second period. Let's go, boys. Let's get something going. I think 22 minutes on the game clock later, it was 5-1 Utah. So it's like, let's see if they can hold on to this one tonight.

We'll see what happens with Buffalo. Can they get anything going? Did you guys catch Connor McDavid, including his dog in his 1,000-point ceremony? Did you like that? How about Leonard? I love dogs. And how about Leonard? Didn't trust the silver or the gold.

It's gold when it's 1,000 points. He didn't like the bone. He was sniffing the bone out. What was with the bone? Yeah, he didn't like it. And maybe he was a little nervous in front of 20,000 people. Dogs probably. But it's funny.

I mean, when you're a guy like Connor McDavid, you let him do whatever you want to bring your dog. They should let him play shift with him a couple of times. Like, bring him on the ice. But that means he's going to stay at Edmonton for the next eight years. Let him play a couple of games if they really want. Oh, yeah. No.

Yeah. I thought it's great. You're struggling you're not playing the first we got leonard in there lenny's gonna go to the net hard here same nose too um i do i i mentioned before i have to ask him i think that uh our dogs are from the same whatever they what do they call breeders wow yeah like my dog is so fucking dumb like he makes us look like geniuses and we're morons i mean he thought bella russia and russia were the same play bella russ and russia were the same places

we're idiots my dog makes us look like einstein and i don't know what's wrong with him so i'm wondering if lenny's a moron as well i'm not trying he got they got the high end yeah i was gonna say like no offense to your dog, but it's way prettier than your dog. Leonard seems way more intelligent and better looking. And way bigger. He was sitting facing the wrong way, though, Biz. Remember we talked about it?

No, he wasn't. He was looking right at Connor because he loves him. That's true. He's looking at his owners. He wouldn't even look at the cameras. He was so obedient to whatever Connor was going to do, and he just him. He's looking at his owners. He wouldn't even look at the cameras. He was so obedient to whatever Conor was going to do and he just stood there and sat.

G's letting us know Tom Wilson was on episode 92. Jesus we're at 5. What is this? 535? Holy shit. The guest on that show with Barstool Nate was the other guest. That's why he hasn't came back what's up with these barstool guys going to get the

hair transplant next time he comes on so funny bald stool they went over to Turkey and they got they filmed and apparently like Donnie does who's a beauty Portnoy on the unnamed shows. I don't know.

Why did we even do that? How much money did we lose? Donnie said they made money. Everything. Flights, hotels, the hair transplant. Everything was paid for. Plus, they sold some sponsorship. So I think that content will be hilarious.

That lunatic idiot, Nicky Smokes, my guy. He got it done. Eddie Barstool. Big guy, Eddie, got it done. They barstool big big guy eddie got it done they looked hilarious walking out after all getting the surgery it looked like a old like a mob like a mob crew um and then um white socks dave he looks so bald what an idiot so but i also don't mind him doing the treatment i'm gonna go out on a limb You might puke in your mouth when I say this. He looks like the Costco brand of Jason Statham. Now he just, what he needs to do now that it's fuller and it's not like a shiny indent with no hair, he just needs to keep shaving

his head, but allowing it to grow it a little bit. And he's going to have that Jason Statham. So he actually looks better at the fact that he's going to have more. If he grows it long, though, it's brutal. When he tries to grow it out like three inches, his coif is embarrassing. It's like three times worse than Trump's. Did you say he looks like Jason Statham? He has to shave it down basically to like a quarter of an inch.

He's 5'6", 235 pounds. I don't think Jason Statham's that tall either. He was voted sexiest man in the world like three years ago. I'm saying the Costco version of it compared to what White Sox Dave was. He was a scrub. I think this is going to help him out in the long run. Am I the Costco Tom Brady? If you get the hair done yeah no you know that uh um the the current

world's sexiest man i saw is uh jim from the office pretty good looking cat actually the office he wasn't great but i saw the picture of me look phenomenal great movie he's in 12 hours in benghazi or something like that you You ever seen that? I haven't seen it. No. I'll check it out. John Krasinski. John Krasinski. He's funny in those Boston commercials.

Is that Kyle Park itself? From Boston. Hey, but those Barstool guys, I don't know, correct me, are they married? Are any of them married? No chance. White Sox Dave's married. Although now that Biz called him Jason Statham, he'll probably have girls coming out of all ways,

like me and the Starbucks. But they're bloggers, right? They wear hats all day. It's not like they have... They're on camera. They're on camera. Right, but they always wear a hat. They can get away with wearing a hat. It's not like they have some job that they have.

I know, but Keith, it's like a woman getting the BLL, or whatever they call them or the BBL or getting their tits done or getting their lips shot up. They're just trying to gain a little bit of confidence. It's all about the confidence. I got such a pizza box bomb. I might think about

getting a BBL. You guys should do a bet. You should do a bet if we're calling Jeff now. We already got the sponsorship sold. Imagine if I just had a mugsie jeans on me. Merle's has a dumper on him. He looks great in the mugsie jeans. Yeah, the Whitney waistline.

Mugsie jeans are phenomenal. New denim. That guy, Nicky Smokes, though, he like, I think the swelling went to his forehead. He looked like Shrek for a minute on the flight home. It was disgusting. Then I saw him drop a video. He dropped a video.

He was like a priest. He was like a priest. He was like speaking about thinking positive. Usually his videos are like, I fuck broads. I do blow. And then all of a sudden he's like giving life advice on being positive and manifestation of good things in your life. So I'm like, maybe this scumbag's taking a turn for the better in his life. So I love that kid. He had a spiritual experience over there. Such a Florida scumbag's taking a turn for the better in his life. So I love that kid.

He had a spiritual experience over there. Such a Florida scumbag. He's so Florida. It's amazing. So I'll always regret it. He just was rubbing it in my face when the Oilers lost game seven. Last thing on hockey biz, shout out Mitch Marner. For as hard as we were on the playoffs, he is incredible right now.

14 million. I had written that down. Yeah, I don't know if he'll be on the Maple Leafs next year. That's going to be a crazy story. Him and Rontanen, the two big free agents, will they be locked up? Will they go somewhere else? I don't know. It's been a pleasure having you on, Keith.

What a joy to do the show with you, buddy. Thanks for having me, boys, as always. Love it. Since you said thatallas is going big game hunting like if you're colorado you obviously don't want to get rid of of rotten but if he's not going to sign before the the deadline like what do you do knowing that he's going to probably walk because you're not getting him to the number that he wants i i've always said if you have a player that has told you i'm not resigning or has given you the number that they're getting and you're like,

we're not paying that, you have to trade him. You have to get something. And I know Colorado fans are like, well, I tried to win the cup this year. No, dude, just try to get something. You're going to be able to get a lot back. I mean, granted, he's UFA. So the issue, though, I think with Marner is that he has a no-move clause. So he controls that.

I don't believe Rotten has that in his deal. They ain't trading Marner. I agree, but the thing is, is now if he plays out the year, you have to essentially hopefully get to a number that you guys can agree on because the way that he's playing right now in that market, I think that a hometown discount's

probably $13 million right now. Wow. That's a hometown discount. Now the numbers, and Rotten and Sain, he wants $14 million. 14 like leon it's like holy shit buddy by the time summer hits boys they're they're hey i'm here at the the governor's meetings the board of governors i was breaking up a fight between dolan and and shoots today these guys are going at it for the tampering and lauer or and lauer i said and shoots that's the la owner amlauer my bad uh but uh but you guys want to go

out i'm shut i don't even go out anymore you fucking donkey that's true where are you staying biz the breakers no this place called the old palm beach it's beautiful oh yeah beautiful oh for orgasms i'm gonna be giving out boys boys, right down here. You guys are donkeys. Last thing, there are tickets left. Chicago. Let's go. We'll be here. Us three, Merle's, Army, Tim Stapleton, and many more very special guests will be announced.

BarstoolSports.com slash events. Let's pack the house. We're going to rip it up. Going to be an awesome evening. Pink Whitney will be flowing. Shout out to all our sponsors. Body Armor, Yeti, Muggsy, Pink Whitney. What else we got?

We got them all. We got them all. So thank you so much for everyone listening. We love you all. We love you, Keith. Biz, keep doing God's work. I can't wait to see these videos, you warrior. Love you, buddy.

I love you. Love you. Peace. Love you. Peace. Love you boys. This feeling is so hard to break Don't know any other way Even if I could go away Don't know any other way This feeling is so hard to break

I'll get you someday