The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - The Hockey Show: Holy Lefts

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

It's another edition of The Hockey Show with Roy, David and Ethan filling in for Rose. The guys start off with their hot takes and David is fired up about embellishment calls around the NHL. They move on to their wins and losses of the week that include some epic fights and an advertising mishap in Washington. Then, Florida Panthers' radio announcer, Doug Plagens, joins the show to discuss a rough week for the Panthers after they dropped two games to the New Jersey Devils by a combined 10-3. Also, Samson Reinhart is really good! Plus, Connor McDavid scored his 1000th career point and the boys dive into who could make the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2025. Finally, the fellas look ahead to this coming week of games for the Florida Panthers, which includes a very important home-and-home with the league-leading Winnipeg Jets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Red One. We're coming at you. Is the movie event of the holiday season. Santa Claus has been kidnapped. You're going to help us find him. You can't trust this guy. He's on the list. He's a naughty lister. Naughty lister?

Dwayne Johnson. We got snowmen! Chris Evans. We might just go back to the car. Let's save Christmas. I'm not going to say that. Say it. All right.

Let's save Christmas. There it is. Only in theaters November 15th. Hello everybody. Welcome to The Hockey Show. My name is Roy Bellamy. David Dwork for The Hockey News is here. So is Ethan. Hello everybody, welcome to the hockey show. My name is Roy Bellamy. David Dwork for the Hockey News is here. So is Ethan.

Rosie is somewhere with Lucy right now doing college football because that never ends. It's hockey season for us and that's a good thing because we get to do slap shots. We're going to start with our hot takes. And Dave, take it away. What's your hot take? My hot take is I've had enough with embellishment penalties. Enough. Yeah, it sounds like you had enough.

Nobody likes this, it's not consistent, it's annoying. We just saw in back to back nights how inconsistent it is. First there was this Matthew Kachuck getting called for embellishment after he was tripped by Brett Pesci when literally all he's doing is falling on his face. Like I'm sorry, am I supposed to put my hands behind my back when I'm falling on my face? And hitting the microphone with your face. No, well, because what are you supposed to do?

You're fa- like, so, all right, anyway, the next night, two nights later, we get another, can we roll that one, with Nico Micaulay getting, he gets called for a, watch Jack Hughes. He doesn't get touched, but he throws his head back like a friggin' Sports Illustrated swimsuit model in the ocean, and what happens, the call on Nico Michola, no embellishment call that time, so the consistency is just rolling right along. I'm tired of this rule.

That led to a PowerPoint gold, didn't it? That one. Yes, it did lead to PowerPoint gold. Yeah. I'm over this, if we can't get a consistent rule, if we can't make a reviewable, then get at the bleep out of here because it does no good. In Benjamin, it's never called on its own. It's always ought to be with the penalty.

Yeah. And I got one more video just while I'm really pissed off. Just I've railed on this before. This is Nito Nidorander hitting Tampa's Isimont. Isimont can't handle getting hit. Oh, I got hit really hard. My reaction has to be dropping the gloves immediately because this is hockey and you gotta fight

if you get embarrassed a little bit. You can't just take a hit because it's hockey. What, what, I'm trying so hard not to drop an F-bomb right now, I know I can, but I'm trying to keep it civil. But what the, when did hockey become such a whiny little Braddy type of game like we've been seeing that a lot of clean hits down leading to fights I guess based on who's being hit. It's hockey Grow a pair take it like all right

Just all right I've never seen you this angry Jorkie it just keeps happening and I feel like we're just moving in the wrong direction and in the in a time where I feel Like moving in the wrong direction might be a little sensitive to a decent amount of people around here Yeah, I'm a little sensitive I mean there's an unwritten rule and I'm not saying that Eastmount is at that caliber But you're not supposed to touch certain players on he's not a certain. Are you kidding me? No, he's not a rookie I need a rider isn't like out there headhunting either like come on. What are we doing?

It's hockey lady being over here business and this guy my hot take is this is one of the most dangerous things you can do to yourself in the National Hockey League in the sport of hockey itself and that's playing without your equipment and in this situation Anthonylaars was in the crease and he froze the puck by taking off his blocker. Now that's a bad situation because it was along the ice and he's got a bare hand down there and a whole bunch of sharp knives skating around.

Well, and people are jamming their sticks looking for the puck. You're gonna break a finger? I didn't know this was legal I figured this would be an illegal play for you to just grab the puck with your hand. It was a goaltender Yeah, but still that feels wrong You can't do it on, well who is gonna do that on pearly? Who in their right mind is gonna Take their gloves off. This takes me back to Mike Richter actually in like 1996

I remember there was a play where he was on his back Swimming through the trees and both of his gloves came off and he cleared the puck out with a bare hand. That's scary dude. Yeah. As a goalie? No thank you. Yeah that wrist is wide open to be slit. You know you can lose a finger based off the skate. Why the hell did we play goalie? What's wrong with us? We? I was not a goaltender. We as the goaltender. My position would be center Goaltender, but yeah, I mean Stolar, he was smiling too like an idiot. I love it Cuz he's out there having fun. He's such a good guy like probably didn't think anything of it, but that's scared me You have a hot take Ethan? I do not. Dave, what's your win of the week? Oh come on, man

Oh, well, I got plenty of hot takes I just didn't get prepared for one, but now you're making me look I'm gonna treat you like Kenny Smith, but I will come fired up next week. Don't worry. I'm gonna treat you like he's Think I still think Jim Montgomery is gonna be fired really soon 7-2 last night the Stars We can kind of continue last week's off of last week's hot take Jim Montgomery Seven to loss of the stars last night the Bruins not getting their shit together at all you Know only thing that might week no The only reason this take might not come true is because Mike's

Best to get fired. Yeah, but Mike's all of Sullivan, he'll get hired like that. Yeah, he will. Dave, your win of the week. Like that. My win of the week goes to a family. It's the Duchenne family. Matt Duchenne put video up on his Instagram from his in-home camera of his family watching him play earlier this week. He scored a goal like a minute into the game and his son, Bo, just goes screaming through the house like, ah, daddy scored, daddy. It was so cool and sweet and wholesome.

And I think we have the video if you wanna put it up there. Straight shots for the- Yeah, here we go. Homeside the- So the kids are up there watching him. Playing star Zeiss. Nice move to Shane, he shot scores! Zeiss! Zeiss! He fouled a hole as it leaked through Blomkist. in stars ice nice move to Shane he shot scores

he found a hole as it leaked through Blomkist and the stars on their first shot of the night speaking of the penguins ah well that was the game wasn't it that was the game where they were losing like six nothing in the first period yeah they gave up six in the first period oh Oh my god. That's a beautiful night. But that was really cool. So Matthew Shane and his wife Ashley sharing that video with us of his son Bo and their daughter James. Really cool as a couple of dads.

I thought we'd appreciate that. So definitely my win of the week. Good on you, Duchenne family. My win of the week is something that the league is actually trying to take out. We mentioned it earlier, and that's fighting. But this one is actually not based on a hip. Or at least, I don't think it was based on a hip,

but it was a couple of fights from back to back games between the Panthers and Devils. It was Jonah Gadjovich at the forefront of both of them. On Tuesday, this is the big one. This is the one that brought us back to late 80s, early 90s. No vision, jersey over his head still just swinging. Yeah and no strategy. Over under like he was thinking it through man. I think Freage said on 32 thoughts this morning he threw 37 punches. Yeah that's what ESPN said

they tabulated the punches and that was the knockout blow on Brendan Dillon. Bucci loved it. He absolutely did. On Thursday, Jonah Gadjiewicz fought Curtis McDermott. And it was basically the same thing. He's a big man. Yeah, I mean, those are big men. Those were two heavyweight fights that happened. On Thursday, this is the fight right here.

This is so good. This is so good. Them lining each other up. Yeah, they got the square up. They got the set up. I thought the refs here are just going to step in and just call it. Nobody's thrown a swing yet. And then all of a sudden, they just start swinging.

You want to jump in there at the wrong second and get one of those haymakers on the side of your head? The best part is, I thought right around here-ish coming up, that Gadziewicz was done right here. I'm like, oh,'s going down, right? Yeah, punches back. And then oh he comes back swinging! So good.

He had him square on the nose, probably the top of the visor, but that one knocked him down. So Jonah Gadjiewicz this week was basically the only winner that the Pants has had with those two big fight wins. Ethan, you have no win, do you? I do not, but I love this series that took place the last two nights and I would love to see seven games of this. It's a litmus test.

I know we'll get to this later, but I would love to see seven games of the Devils and Panthers. That would be the conference final. Well, unless one of them falls out of the... I doubt that. Most likely scenarios, it would be the Eastern Conference final and it would be a doozy. That'd be fun. Yeah. All right, loss of the week.

Let's go to you Dave. My loss of the week, it's also fight related Roy, look at that. Hey. My loss of the week goes to Nathan Bastien of the aforementioned New Jersey Devils. They played the Calgary Flames and our old friend Ryan Lombard this week. And Ryan Lombard pummeled him to the point where he told his teammates after the game, he actually felt bad at the last couple of punches. Go ahead Ethan. Where's that f***ing animal? Where's the f***ing animal? Where's the f***ing animal?

At the old log ball house. I think you just tried to hurt my friend. Yeah You should He didn't? No. Where have you been? It's there. In the last couple, I actually did feel a little bad, too. And you should. I wasn't going to stop. I was. Here's my favorite thing about Ryan Lombard. And I noticed this in the documentary that ESPN did about the Panthers cup run. He doesn't wear a shirt on the ice under his jersey.

Everybody kind of wears one of those long sleeves. I imagine to protect against cold and also add a little bit of padding. That dude's out there shirtless under his jersey. That says everything you need to know about Ryan Lombard. I think we have footage of the fight from the glass actually of Lombie unloading on him, railing this guy. If you can get the hair it is.

Oh my God, this was, I mean look, we know Lombie is a tough dude even though he's not the biggest, well he's not the tallest guy, but he's chiseled out of the side of a mountain. The guy is so strong, but holy cow. Man, I miss that guy. I miss him so much. I miss him as well. Fortified on the fourth line, man. He brought the energy on the ice, and that brought the energy to the team. And yeah, he was big for the past few seasons for the Panthers, but we wish him well in Calgary. My fail of the week, the L, goes to whoever put the ads on the boards in Washington, because Ryan Reeves

ended up with a portion of a Lexus advertisement on the back of his jersey, and it looked like he had toilet paper on his shoe. He's more of like a Range Rover guy to me, I think. Yeah, and he's a big truck. Yeah, you know, Hummer. Yeah. One of the, I don't know. Yeah, one of those big cars.

I'm looking at, look, brought it up. I'm looking at the screen right now. It's a doggone GMC Hummer. This is just big brother listening to us, I guess. Yeah. Around the new, around the what? Your hand is up. You got something? Say something. I was gonna lead us into what we were gonna talk about next here. No go ahead, segue away. Yeah I don't have, I guess you could say my win in the

week is for Connor McDavid because what a week it was for Connor McDavid, what a night it was for Connor McDavid last night right and Roy I'll let you set up the rest. Thanks Ethan. I appreciate you. The Edmonton All is defeated the Predators 3-2 last night in Edmonton and Connor McDavid ended up swan a goal. That goal was his 1000th point of his career that is an accomplishment that actually makes him the fourth fastest to that achievement. The fourth fastest. The fourth fastest. So Wayne is obviously on that list. Yeah.

Is Lemieux on that list? I believe so. And who'd be third on that list? Solani maybe? Maybe. Maybe we're going further back here. Maybe it's like Gordie Howe or something. Yeah, so I can tell you right now.

Mike Bossy was the third fastest. It was Gretzky, Lemieux and Mike Bossie. Okay, two out of three. I'll take it. Yeah, 55 players scored goals on his assists that led him to a thousand points in his career. 55 players. That's it? Yeah, that's it. Wow. And 192 of those goals belong to Leon Dre side Yeah, yeah, that that's the that's actually the fourth most in the NHL history goals scored on This guy's just 27 years old Connor McDavid. Yeah, did you score from one player on? Assist from another player. Yeah, so yeah, that's fourth most in NHL history The second in second place is Nick Bastrom's

Goal total when Alex Ovechkin had an assist so yeah, that's an interesting stat right there Did you guys see what else McDavid did last night on the OT winner first of all? I love that all his teams came out teammates came out to celebrate his thousandth point with him kind of gave a longer celebration where they could kind of acknowledge the moment and his teammates all poured out on the ice. But I think his best moment of the night was this pass he made on the overtime winner. I think we have the video where they're on a breakaway, it's Tricidal and McDavid in overtime and McDavid makes this sick pass to Darnell Nurse. No look pass behind the back. Nurse was caught off guard like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm playing with this guy. Nobody's more surprised

that he scored the game-winning goal in overtime than Darnell Nurse. You know, Sarah Sivian's happy though. Yeah, yeah, so is Sarah. Sarah Nurse is also happy about that. Yeah, they're two Sarahs. Yeah, that was a trade this week. Laws Eller was traded back to the Washington Capitals. The Penguins ended up getting a 2025 fifth round pick and a 2027 third round pick. It's a reunion for Laws Eller in the Washington area for him. That's actually heartwarming.

But what I wanna get to right now, to end this segment, is the Hall of Fame. All right. So the inductees this year that have this happened this week with Shane Webber, Jeremy Roenick, Pamela Dasuk, Natalie Dawood, Chrissy Windle-Pole, Colin Campbell, Colin Campbell and David Paillet. All were the nominees there who were just inducted into the hall of fame good for them So our memories two years ago. We were there. Yeah. Yeah, Lou getting his shine again. It was cold that weekend

It was cold So next year is the first ballot for these players. All right, listen up Joe Thornton Duncan Keith Kerry Price is a Dana char. Ryan guess laughs took Geslav, Tuca Rask, Dustin Brown, and Eric Stone. Those are first ballot. Those who've had second ballots or more. Jennifer Baderul, Rod Brendemore, Megan Duggan, Patrick Elias, Sergey Gonchar, Curtis Drosser, Patrick Marlow, Ryan Miller, Alexander Moguilny, Peck Arina, Keith Kachuk, Justin Williams and Hendrick Zetterberg. Now Alexander Moguilne, this is why we need to find out about public voting for the Hall

of Fame because there's absolutely no reason why Alexander Moguilne should not be in the Hall of Fame. I don't know if I want to open it up to public voting or maybe you can have an element where like the public votes in that vote acts as like one vote and is weighted in with other vote. Like there maybe should be some input because obviously this has been something that we've talked about a lot over the years now is Alex McGillinney and is not being in the Hall of Fame.

And look, there's arguments both ways and I get that, but like at the end of the day, it just feels like this is a man who based on his hockey deserves to be in there. I just don't know about Does what you're talking about is a slippery slope? So if you're gonna do something like that, you're gonna change the voting you got to do it, right? Well baseball did it Yeah, okay baseball has the worst Hall of Fame voting ever. I don't want to hear about baseball's Hall of Fame voting. I didn't want to go there, but I'm like, I feel like we're bitching about baseball every year.

It's subjective though. I mean, if you talk about grabs against players when it comes to the media, that's the sport that has the most. Yeah. But there's also like the most polarization, I think, between some of the players. Like in hockey, there's not that much drama and intrigue. Right. Like Alex Modigliani is basically it

Yeah, baseball. There's a whole You know the whole steroid era element is like really I don't wanna say screwing things up But really kind of making it murky waters. How do we get talking about baseball? because So of the first ballot guys Thornton Keith Price charred gets laugh rass Brown stall Who's getting in? Definitely char and price Definitely good and then I would install probably as well

I was listening to a pot the other day that says Joe Thornton is all but a guarantee first ballot. Yeah I don't he hasn't won a cup. I need it at price for that matter, but... No, I think definitely Chara for sure. We can all agree on that. Probably Gatslaf. I would think so. Canadian Stanley Cup winner. Is this Keith Kachucks year finally? It better be.

Do you think his boys are helping his case at all? Like, do you think the fact that like... He's back in the spotlight because of his kids? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's just absolutely, absolutely. It helps. Yeah. So hopefully walk gets in there.

Uh, coming up next, we got Doug Plagans from the Florida Panthers radio network. We're going to talk about the week that was coming up next. All right, guys, the seasons are changing. You know what that means? Time to layer it up a little bit, change the wardrobe in Miami, a little bit of a different story, but across the country when I'm traveling, I'm getting those layers in when it's just effortless and comfortable and looks good. Rhone's Commuter Collection combines comfort, versatility, and breathability, massive in

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dot com slash DLS and use code DLS, it's time to embody your most confident self. Okay. Joining us now is Doug Plagans of the Florida Panthers radio network. He does play by play and we've seen the Panthers take back-to-back losses from the New Jersey Devils after having a seven game winning streak. Yeah, that was pretty deflating what happened this week against New Jersey. Yes, the first time the Panthers have lost back-to-back games since the second and third games of the season was into the Senators and Sabres. Doug, what happened? Well, first, thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I think if we're looking at

that, a couple of things, a couple of different points to bring up in relation to the Panthers Devils games this week. First of all, New Jersey playing in simple is a good team. Um, there's no doubt about it. They're a team that came into this season, having identified a few shortcomings with their roster, uh, last year, they short up the goaltending, they have two reliable veterans now, including one who's a workhorse who's going to play the lion's share of the games and Jacob Markstrom. All their young guys are a year older and you can see that experience and they also shored up their back end a bit too so it's really a balanced roster and Sheldon Keefe's a good coach

so it's a good hockey team over there on the New Jersey side and that's a team that's going to be in the contending mix in the Eastern Conference, probably not just this year, but for a number of years to come. And we're gonna see some good battles between the Panthers and Devils, I think, in the years to come. So first of all, it's a good team. The other thing to keep in mind is,

before we overanalyze two midweek games, I know they were two Panthers losses, but at the same time, let's not forget the Panthers were on a seven game win streak leading up to these couple of games so big picture at the time that we're having this chat right now the Panthers are still in the top spot in the Atlantic Division they had a really grueling month of October and you know took care of business for most of that month of October and into November put themselves in a good spot and put themselves in a spot where you can, you know,

you can handle taking a couple of losses should that come around and still find yourself in a good position, which is where they are. But I think if you look at the game on Tuesday night, part one of this little back-to-back, that's the other thing is it was kind of a scheduling quirk here,

but the back-to to back on Tuesday night, that was just a hard fought game. Paul Maurice said as much. That was just a hard fought game between two really good teams. New Jersey came out on top the game on Thursday night, the second part of the back to back. And Bill Lindsay and I talked about this post game. It seemed like in that one, I know the final score was six to two, but it didn't feel like it was necessarily a runaway win for New Jersey. They were really opportunistic on a few occasions.

They scored some power play goals, and not once but twice, they scored in the waning seconds of a period. Late in first, late in the second. Those can be tough to overcome. So, you know, you went from a situation where, you know, when New Jersey took that 4-2 lead late in the second period, you know, not long before that, the Panthers had opportunities to get the game tied up and who knows how things could have transpired if that had taken place. So, again, I think closer than it looked, but New Jersey is a good hockey team, credit to them. They went in and had two big wins and responded from a tough loss in their last home game prior to coming down to Sunrise. And I don't think at the end of the day, it's too much to overanalyze. Like I said, I think

big picture, you have to look at it. Panthers have beaten a lot of good teams. They put themselves into a good spot. And at the time that we're having this conversation, even though the Panthers have lost back to back games, they still find themselves atop the Atlantic division. Doug, Paul Maurice said the other day that he thinks this Panthers forward group is actually better than last year's. It's deeper. He kind of pushed Anton Lindell in his kind of next step.

Kind of a two-part question. Do you believe that this is a deeper, better club than they were last year when they won the Stanley Cup? And at what point does Bill Zito get a statue for putting this team together and just making it better year over year? Well, to touch on the second part of your question there, as far as Bill Zito goes, the fact that he hasn't won at least one general manager of the year award at this point, if not more than one.

Bullshit. Bullshit. It's beyond me. It's beyond me. It's beyond me. He should have at least one, if not a couple of those on his mantle here at this point in time. But I think, I have to guess there's going to be one in his future, probably multiple GM of the Year awards in his future at some point. And it's going to be long overdue when that happens. As far as this forward group goes, it's really deep, it's really diverse. They have a lot of different skill sets and I think it goes back Dave to something that I know going into the season and throughout the offseason something that I was really pushing. I

thought way too much was made and again it's obviously the guys that were a part of the Stanley Cup Championship team last year they're going to be a part of not only Panthers lore, but South Florida lore for a long time, and South Florida sports lore. They were special guys, great guys, and guys that we're always going to enjoy crossing paths with down the road. But I thought way too much was made over the players that weren't going to be here anymore, and not enough was made over the players that weren't going to be here anymore. And not enough was made over two things, the continuity on this team and the guys that Bill Zito and the Hockey Operations Department identified and brought in.

I think if you look at the continuity that this team had going from last year into this year, they returned their eight leading scores. They returned their top three scores. They returned their top three defense. They returned, obviously, Sergey Bobrovsky is still going to get the lion's share of starts in net. Paul Maurice is still the head coach. This is a team that has, feels like guys, more continuity, especially for a championship team in a salary cap league, more continuity from year to year, than you usually see for a championship team. Teams that have sustained success,

it's kind of the nature of the situation. When teams are good year over year, and they make the playoffs for a number of consecutive years, in a salary cap league, you're gonna run into situations where obviously you can't pay everybody. Guys are gonna get raises and get additional opportunities elsewhere, and you're going to lose players because of that. The continuity that this team has had, especially going

from a championship season into the following season, where there's still very much a contender and will be in the mix and will be for a number of years to come, I believe, I think it's unusual. And that's just, again, a huge credit and, you know, a lot of credit goes to Bill Zito and the hockey operations department for the decisions that have been made, the players who've been extended, and that's allowed the Panthers to be able to really keep this thing rolling. So I think as far as the forward group goes, it's incredibly deep.

You know, you look at the way that the options are now on the fourth line. I think that's a big part of it. Not just on the fourth line, but really up and down the lineup. Jesper Boquist has shown an ability to play the wing, play in the middle, play up and down the lineup. He's got speed and a skillset that lends itself

to playing a lot of different roles. And I think you look at the way this, for example, fourth line has fallen into place. Tomas Nosik is an outstanding face-off man. AJ Breyer, Jonah Gadjiewicz, two tough customers that have offensive instinct as well. We've seen Macky Samuskevich, who let's not forget, first of all, led an AHL team in points as a 21-year-old.

That's no easy task as a first-year, first full pro season for him last year did that. Yep. And didn't have a training camp this year. He was injured during training camp, had one pre-season game. That was that last pre-season game. And you can tell that there's a confidence and you can tell there's been a lot of growth in Mackie's game now in his second full season at the pro level. So this team is deep. And I think there might not be any other anywhere else that's a bigger example of how deep the forward group is, guys, than the options that Paul Maurice has

when it comes time to kill penalties. I mean, we know Markov and Reinhardt are all world penalty killers. And we know Lundell and Lujo Sturinan have great chemistry and are great in that part of the game. But even going to guys like Jesper Boquist, like AJ Greer, these guys can kill penalties. And that's allowed the Panthers a ton of flexibility.

And over the course of 82 games, it's going to allow the Panthers to keep a few minutes off the plate of guys like Barkov, like Reinhardt, who I mentioned, because the penalty killing depth that this team has. And when you have a lot of forwards who can kill penalties, that means you have a lot of responsible forwards who are trustworthy at all ends of the ice. And like I said, I think that's one of the biggest illustrations of how deep this forward group

is, how many options Paul Maurice has when it comes to time for the penalty kill. Doug, I want to ask you real quick about a guy you just mentioned who's leading that forward group, and that is Samson Reinhardt. He has really taken his game to the next level this year. I'm going to ask everybody about him until somebody finally just gives him the credit he deserves. What have you seen from Reinhardt that has most impressed you in terms of the way he's taken his game up from last year where he scored 57 goals to this year where you could argue he might be the best forward on the team right now? Well at the moment we're having this conversation, I don't think he's flying under anybody's radar anymore. At the moment we're havinginhardt is he's doing it in so many different ways. He's got a great shot.

He can score off the rush. On Tuesday night, Bill Lindsay and I were talking about it on the broadcast. An area of his game that we don't talk about enough is how good he is in front of the net on deflections. We know how good he is in that bumper spot in the power play right out in front of the net. We know he can score from pretty much anywhere on the ice, but the way that he's able to deflect pucks out in front of the

net, you know, maybe that's an area of his game we don't talk about or appreciate enough. And I think what it all boils down to, guys, he's got three short-handed goals. I believe at this moment that here in this early stage of the NHL season still leads the NHL. He's got more shorthanded goals than he does powerplay goals at this moment. Like I said, he's leading the league in goals. He's an all-world two-way forward. He's incredibly responsible defensively. As I mentioned, he kills penalties too.

There is nothing that, there's no hole to his game whatsoever. He can do anything and he can contribute anywhere and as time's gone on the things that we've learned about you know as far as Sam Reinhardt goes we know Paul Maurice has given him a ton of praise for his hockey IQ. He's one of the smartest players out there and he's compared him to Ron Francis in terms of you know the the smartest and highest hockey IQ, highest hockey sense players that he's ever

had the chance to coach. But with Sam Reinhardt's game, like I said, plain and simple, there just are no holes in his game whatsoever. And the other thing that's come out, as we've gotten to know him since coming in from Buffalo and you see the way he plays every night, this is a guy who has all world skill in so many areas, but all world competitiveness and work ethic too. And that fits in so well with this Panthers team because it's a high character group.

It's a group that collectively has a ton of hockey sense and plays a really smart game, but it's a group that brings the lunch pail every night too. And Sam Reinhardt fits that mold exactly. He's a smooth player. He does so many things well, but you'd be hard pressed to find somebody with more of a competitive edge than Sam Reinhardt has night to night. Like I said, this is a team that's just loaded with really special players and Sam Reinhardt's

one of those guys. The Panthers are now going to playto-back games against the Winnipeg Jets and you can hear Doug Plagans Give the blow-by-blow on both of those games Dougie. Thank you for joining us. Thanks so much Stu gots here for my friends over at simply safe The holiday season is right around the corner that means you're away more and burglars know it that means you need to protect your home Right now simply safe is giving exclusive early access to its Black Friday sale to LeBotard Show listeners. SimpliSafe is the home security I trust to keep my home and family safe. SimpliSafe is a new way to protect your home that stops intruders before they break into

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I hate the Jets. Oh, wait. No, that's not those Jets. That's a different sport. The best team in the league currently and they got the Vezina winner in Conor Hellebuck. What do you see happening with this home and home? Hopefully some good hockey. I mean, the Panthers usually rise to the level of their competition. Lately, they've been at that level every game, basically. They're coming off two very tough games against a Devils team and they really didn't look

good in either game. Right. Like, Paul Maurice said there's shifts here and there that he liked, but certainly not at the level that they're used to playing. And this is a Panthers team that corrects their mistakes rather quickly. It almost reminded me, the last week reminded me a little bit of the Stanley Cup final in the middle there where they just kind of couldn't get to their game. Their zone exits were very sloppy.

I say that as if it's their fault. Edmonton did a great job in the final, and Jersey did a really good job of gumming up the neutral zone, of getting on Florida at their own blue line and stopping them from getting any momentum coming out. So I think the Panthers didn't have their hands full against a very good, strictly defensive playing,

tight, excuse me. Man, I'm just having a hard time coming up with the words right now. They- Tight is pretty good? Well, no, like they play a very smart, methodical game. They're positioned well. I just couldn't come up with the right words. So you're a writer. I know.

God bless spell check and all that stuff. But no, I'm excited to see it. As you mentioned, they've got a great goaltender in Connor Halliburton. A.I. No, I will. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No AI. No AI. Jachie BT. No AI. No, no, no, no, no, no. Sam Bennett missed the first game against the Devils. He came back for the second game. He didn't look right. He might still be injured.

How you think he's gonna look coming up against Winnipeg? I would think that they wouldn't have played him against the Devils on Thursday night if he wasn't there, just because they've been very good about being cautious and taking their time with the injured guys But yeah, I mean if there's something wrong with Sam Bennett, you've got to keep them out for as long as it takes Fortunately, the Panthers are a very deep team right now, and they've got a lot of guys that can play down the middle Hopefully that Bennett's okay though because you're gonna need him against Winnipeg as I said there their heavy team They play very tight on defensively as I knocked the almost not depends over here. You knocked yourself into the microphone already.

I'm a mess today. I mean, what is going on here? I mean, look, Bennett is so important to this team, whether you want to talk about how he is in the top six, how he plays a role in special teams. This year, particularly, he's at a point per game pace. You don't talk about it with Stan Bennett that much, but if he's producing on both ends like that, he's a key player. We've mentioned that they need to resign him.

Hopefully they get that done at some point during the season. But I'm just excited to see how these next two games are going to play out, Roy. And sorry, Ethan, but just to say that we've already seen how this team looks without Sam Bennett. We saw that last season. We saw that during the playoffs. And we've seen it here. And a fully healthy Sam Bennett would absolutely change the dynamic of this team, especially considering that this second line, the chemistry between him and Matt DeKuchuk

is so palpable that it seems like every shift with them ending play ends up in a scrum. Yeah, my takeaway from that first game was just how important Sam Bennett is to this team because they clearly lacked an edge in that game. But then he came back for the second game and they clearly lacked an edge in that game too.

And like Doug said, he was saying that, oh, that game wasn't that far off from being competitive. No, that was not a competitive game. Like the Panthers made a ton of mistakes. They gave away two bad penalties in the offensive zone at the end of both periods that led to goals with less than 10 seconds left. And don't forget the breakaways that they gave up. One second left, they gave away a bunch of breakaways. Bob had a softy, like that was not the Florida Panthers

we've been seeing. And last week we talked about how in Finland, they matched up with the Stars and coming up that New Jersey would be a big measuring stick for them. They did not measure up with New Jersey. And New Jersey looks like a team that kind of might be their kryptonite in the regular season this year.

We'll see what happens in the playoffs. All bets are off once the Florida Panthers get into the playoffs, right? But I just think that New Jersey looks like a team that's gonna be really tough on the Panthers in the regular season. That'll be a really fun playoff series if we see that in the playoffs.

And coming up with Winnipeg, you kind of wanna see them look definitely more competitive than they did the last two nights. And Winnipeg 16-2, they're coming off a loss to Tampa. You would like to see the Panthers win at least one of these games to kind of make you feel better about, okay, that New Jersey series was just kind of a, you know, write those off, burn the the tape throw those away because we get back to Florida Panther hockey where we're playing very well against one of the best teams in the league I have to wonder when we talk about Sam Bennett how they look that line looked a little bit off Against the Devils on Thursday. They had a new winger. It was the first time that Jesper Boak was playing with them

Usually it's gonna be Carter Verhege or Evan Rodriguez and there's a lot of familiarity there from the last two seasons And yes, he scored. He did score So I'm just saying like if we're looking for something that's a little off perhaps You know getting that continuity with a new guy in the line. It could be why real quick on Jesper He looks like a guy kind of like erod last year where you thought okay? Erad's gonna come in he's gonna be maybe a bottom six middle six kind of guy. He's been plug-and-play, right? He's been up and down the lineup. He was on the first line He was obviously great in the Stanley Cup final last year and then Boquist kind of looks like the same guy where you kind

Of thought maybe he's a bottom six forward all the sudden now He's playing on the second line with Kachuk and Bennett, and he's been awesome I mean that goal last night he scored was beautiful so definitely a big guy to add to the lineup and looks like a guy that him and Erod kind of be plug-and-play put them wherever and they're gonna produce. Finally before we get out of here a stat rolled across my timeline from Matt Lock in a daily face-off the NHL's average save percentage has dipped to 90% that is the lowest mark in 29 years and currently Sergey Bobrovsky's save percentage is at 89% and Spencer Knight is at 90%.

So what are we seeing here? What's going on with the goaltenders? The scorers must be that much better because the goalies can't be getting worse. The equipment's not getting smaller. The net's not getting bigger. Sure isn't. No. So no, I think, I do like to say, early in the season,

I feel like scoring's a little bit up. I've noticed in the last few years, since I've gotten more into betting, that I feel like the overs hit more early in the season than they don't. And I think this is probably something that's gonna even out after a while. But yeah, I mean, as a goal-tender,

it's a little interesting, disheartening, I don't know what the right word is to say that overall. The save percentage is, the average safe percentage is at 900 I mean that's usually like the watermark for like whether you're kind of having a good year having a not good year So it's a little alarming. I think I'm not worried about Sergey Barovsky. He'll be there in the playoffs. That's all that matters until then That's what I don't care about anything until the playoffs come on next week We have Linda cone of the Kraken Hockey Network.

She's up in Seattle now doing, I guess what, anchor work right now. ESPN also. And she's still at ESPN as well. So Linda Cohn will join us next week. Until then, goodbye. Seasons Greetings podcast audience, it's Mike Ryan. And now is that time of year where you start hosting your family gatherings, be it Thanksgiving, be it the upcoming holiday season.

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