The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 354: Quarantine Rewatch, Ducks vs. Oilers 2017

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

Mike Johnson helps deep dive Game 5 of the 2017 second round series between the Anaheim Ducks and Edmonton Oilers, the epic late comeback and dramatic overtime finish, and how much both teams have changed in such a short period of time since. The categories we cover include:3:00 The legacy of this game18:00 Ryan Getzlaf's quiet and underrated dominance27:30 The McDavid vs. Kesler matchup34:00 The talent the Ducks had on their blueline44:00 Officiating in the postseason58:00 The late game comeback1:02:00 Biggest Heat Check Performance and 'That Guy'1:09:00 Calling a game like this on TV1:15:00 Most unanswerable questions1:26:00 Apex Mountain Stay safe, get comfortable at home, kick back with a beverage of your choice, and watch along with us. The full game isn't available on Youtube unfortunately, but you can still see the broadcast in its entirety on NHL TV. You can also go back into the archives of the show and catch up on the previous Quarantine Rewatchables we’ve already done: Penguins vs. Red Wings 2009 Bruins vs. Maple Leafs 2013 Canucks vs. Blackhawks 2011 Flyers vs. Penguins 2012 Capitals vs. Canadiens 2010 World Cup of Hockey 2016 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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Not a whole heck of a lot as we are all stuck in neutral right now and hope the world gets a little healthier and then at some point gets back to normal and the hockey we can evaluate will be current games, not games from the past, but all good. Everyone's healthy, everyone's hanging in there. So we're as good as could be hoped. Yeah, it's good to hear your voice. Hopefully the listener is hearing your voice listening to this podcast. It'll make them feel like hockey's back like they just turn on the TV and you hear Mike

Johnson talking about hockey. So it feels everything's normal again. that would be nice. I can't wait to that to come, whether it's in the summer or the fall or whenever. Yeah, yeah, I wish, I mean, listen, like anyone else, I wish right now you and I were just geeking out over playoff matchups and asking each other questions, like,

should Tampa Bay be going top line first top line with the Bruins or should they be using Anthony Sorrelli instead? Like, you know, those are my favorite shows to geek out on the playoffs stuff with you, but there's obviously important. Did you just give Tampa the first round win over Toronto? Just curious for our Toronto listeners and just want to make sure that we got that.

That's great. Unquestionably. I thought, you know, there's obviously so many horrible things going on. But from an NHL perspective, I thought that the Lightning were kind of the big losers here because I thought this year's team was actually better than the one we saw last year's crazy, that is to say, about a 62 win team. And they were kind of firing all cylinders, especially after their deadline acquisitions. And I thought they really got all their ducks in a row.

So for them to potentially miss out on this opportunity to sort of get over the hump and make people forget about what happened last season. That's a big shame for them, I think. I say glass half full, because now whenever they come back and playing, and I'm hopeful that they will, they're going to have to see Stamco's available from the get-go. So their captain will be part of the whole run, however long I left. That is true. That's true.

Okay, well, we are going to make do with what we have, and what we have is old classic playoff games. And so I thought that you and I would rewatch the Ducks and Oilers, game 5, 2017, as part of this PDO-Cast quarantine. rewatchable series I'm doing and yeah it's fine I actually gave you some homework and I think considering how little we have going on right now in the way of work you you probably appreciate that as much as I did just having a game to watch and and kind of sink your teeth into so we're going to go through the usual categories that I've been doing for those of you that are tuning into this one

and haven't heard the archives for whatever reason we've got six games we've already done so go back listen to that please leave the podcast the rating interview and and most importantly stay safe stay indoors, watch hockey with us, and that's kind of the point of this as a little bit of a reprieve. And so with that said, you and I are going to get into it. And let's get into the legacy of this game and sort of why we picked it. And when I pitched this to you, I know you, I gave you a list of games, and you said this one was the most interesting, kind of rewatching this and sort of thinking back to where we were at in 2017, these two teams, everything that's happened since. Like, what's sort of the lasting legacy of this game now that we're roughly

three years out from it. Well, you know, Edmonton, Anaheim, you're thinking, okay, so the legacy of this game, I think, was the beginning,

even though they won the game, like it felt rewatching it, it was kind of the beginning of the end for Anaheim, where, you know, this team was really, really good. And,

you know, they had a great run for a lot of different ways. And it was kind of like, the legacy of the game you thought was going to be, you know, one team kind of just,

hanging on and one team ascending in Edmonton and Ebbington would clearly pack that in the near future and roll on to be a good team for years to come. That hasn't been the case. So the legacy of this game was like that kind of gutsy Anaheim team just, you know, that was playoff-hearted.

I mean, I know they didn't win and I know they had some bitter, bitter disappointments in the playoffs, but they were really good for a really long time and that triumvirate of Getslap and Perry and Ryan Kessler. And you could kind of tell Kessler wasn't quite as healthy as he wanted to be, but he was still battling and just kind of the last stand

for that group that was so good. And the other legacy of this game is the transition you thought Anaheim was going to make from those older guys I just mentioned to this young core of defense and there were six of them who played in this game that you're like, this group will be set for years and how that hasn't played out. That's going to be a real curious part about evaluating this game and what happens at the defensive core for Anaheim. Yeah, the legacy for me is, I think you were touching on it there, it's whenever someone points to a young team having a lot of success or whatever and then sort of mapping out what the next eight to 10 years of their franchise is going to look like and just sort of taking for granted all the steps in between. I'm always like, we need to sort of remember how the NHL works and how quickly things can change. This is less than three years ago.

It's three years ago mid-May or so. and just if you watch this game obviously you know mac david and dry sidle are still doing their thing and a few of the players are on different destinations but the actual constructions of the two teams themselves has has changed so dramatically on both sides where it kind of just threw me for a loop watching this being like oh i can't believe like how big of a role ben wapuliot and mark letestu are playing for the oilers and and you know cam talbot's standing on his head and he's got 60 saves in this game and it's an entirely world now for both the Oilers and the duck. So for me, it was just kind of watching this.

It was remembering just kind of the steps they go along and this sort of cyclical nature for NHL franchises. It's a great reminder. You know, I think I was players we can relate to it. You talk to a lot of guys like, oh yeah, I made the conference final. I made the final on my second year. I thought we were going to be there every year. And you never get there again.

Like, that's how the NHL works. This straight line ascension growth of success that you think any team that has the talent of McDavid and drive. I said a lot of it would be assumed to take. We know, and we should have known then, although even, you know, losing the series, whatever, a lot of people thought, okay, well, this is just the beginning for everything. And it doesn't always work out that way, and the Oilers are certainly proof of that so far. Yeah.

So, Tyler Sagan was recently on Craig Cussons' podcast, and he was talking about how when he won the cup with the Bruins in 2011, he sort of just assumed that early in his career that that's kind of like going to be the new norm, and you're just going to keep getting back there and keep tasting that success. And then now he hasn't really felt anything like that. it back to the cup final with the Bruins in 2013. But for the past six or seven years for him, it's kind of been, you know,

first second round here and there, very minimal playoff moments. And it's, it's a kind of, you know, it's a humbling reminder of how difficult the NHL can be, especially now that we're headed towards having 32 teams here in a couple years.

I made the conference finals with the Leafs my second full year in 99. I never made it back that far again. 10 more years I played the league. So, and I was, we were very much a young team. Oh, yeah, like we lost a Buffalo. who went on to lose to Dallas

and the foot in the Cree school by Brett Hall. And I think every one of the young guys in our team, we had Steve Sullivan and Freddie Modine and some of the older guys in Gujo and we had Al McCauley. You know, all the young guys were all like, you know, we were obviously devastated, but no doubt we thought we'll be back next year.

We'll be back next year. It'll happen again. We're only going to get better. And then by the time they got there next year, like half those guys were gone anyway. So it's, you really do have to take, advantage of every opportunity and maybe that's one of the other legacies of this game is that emminton had it i've had this game and maybe this series right there for them to win and they

were not able to do it and a missed opportunity for the oilers for connor macdave and for dry settle will be one of the real takeaways as well and i think re-watching this game i sort of had forgotten how many twists and turns similar it was a real like encapsulation of this entire series it's you know right out of the gate i i've kind of forgotten just the duck sort of really took it to Edmonton and Camp Talbot stood in there he stops or Ryan Getslav penalty shot they have a couple of power plays I think the shot attempts were like 27 to 10 or something like that for Anaheim through through one period and it's still scoreless heading into the second and then Edmonton quickly scores two

three goals they go up and then obviously like any game there's kind of these twists and turns and the ducks make a pushback in a third period but I was curious from your perspective you know when you were playing and you're on either side of this so let's say you're on the team that is dominating like the ducks were in the first period and you feel like you're controlling territory lately you're up big on the shot clock you really feel like you know you've got your foot on the gas pedal but at the same time you look at the scoreboard and it's still zero zero and you don't have anything to show for it are you feeling like um kind of quietly encouraged or optimistic that hey we're the better team here and if we keep doing what we're doing right now

we're eventually going to have something to show for it and we're going to break through or are you thinking, listen, hockey games typically have these changes in flow, the referees will probably even up the penalties, and now the team's going to have some power plays, they're going to have their own chances, and all of a sudden, if they capitalize on theirs, we're going to kind of be kicking ourselves looking at it thinking, oh, man, what a missed opportunity for us. What sort of headspace are you in when you're in a game like this where one team is dominating so much, but nothing's really happening on the scoreboard? Well, the eternal optimist of both teams, right? It comes to play. And I think,

If you're an I'm in this case and you're playing well. Like you absolutely, and you 100% you're like, you know what? Just keep going, boys. Like do the same thing for the same way. We will get there eventually. Their goalie can't be this good. We trust our shooters. And you genuinely believe that.

But somewhere in the recesses of your mind, you know at some point no one dominates the game for 60 minutes like that. No one, no one, you know, there will always be ebbs and flows. And you can convince yourself and keep at the top of your psyche, you know, the positive of thoughts of, you know, we're doing fine, keep doing the same thing, until the other team scores. And then once the other team scores and now you're like, okay, we're losing in a game, we absolutely deserve to be winning, then the negativity of like, boy, did we miss an opportunity,

you know, we should have been up. Those kind of less positive thoughts creep in. But as long as it's even, you'd have Anaheim saying, keep doing the same things, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine. And you'd have Edmonton saying, listen, guys, we've played terribly and we're fine, we're fine, We just got to be a little bit better. Both teams and I think athletes in general always want to convince themselves of the best case scenario. I mean, we're willing to be almost delusional in our beliefs that we can come back or we can win this series or we're the equal team or still a chance.

And we have that bad. Like all of these different things you want to believe it to be true. So you almost will it into your head. But until the other team scores. And then once Edmonton scores, I imagine if you could get honestly in the, the brains, the Anaheim players, they'd be thinking, man, do we, do we blow this? Do we blow this by not scoring on our penalty shots and our two-on-ones and our power plays? And then they would be thinking, we are in great shape right now because we don't have

any business being up one-nothing, two-nothing, three-nothing, but we'll take it and we'll ride camp. I'll be right on out of here and go home and win this series. So, yeah, you believe it until, what is the expression? Everyone's got a game plan until you get punched their face. You believe it until something bad happened. and then I bet Annam would be kicking themselves and Emmett would be full of confidence

as they kind of took the lead in the second period. Well, at one point when Edmonton is up 3-0, Chris Cuthbert very prophetically says, well, if this series has taught us anything, the Ducks will be, you know, we'll have someone to say about this, and sure enough, they do come back. But I think this game and this series really are a tough one

for people who believe big time in momentum in games and playoffs, because, you know, Edmonton goes into Anaheim. They win the first two games in the road. Then Anaheim goes back to Edmonton, you would think, you know, in front of that raucous crowd that really hasn't experienced anything like this

in the postseason for like a decade or whatever. You'd think Edmonton's got this under wraps and Anaheim steals two games, including a game four and overtime, and then you head back into this game five in Anaheim and it's got its own series of, you know, twist and turns and momentum. And then, funny enough, you'd think after this game,

okay, well, now the series is over. Anaheim has got this under control, you know, emotionally, how is Edmonton going to bounce back from this? And Edmonton just smokes them 7-1, and they're up like 5 or 6-0-0 in the first period. And then it goes to this game 7. And I think the only disappointing thing, because I do think this series is incredibly rewatchable. A lot of the games are super exciting. This game 5, which we're going to really deep dive, is filled with the drama. And I know it's going to be kind of pulling at the hard strings for allers fans, but I do think there's a lot of learning lessons and there's a reason why I wanted to sort of view it as this historical time capsule.

But the issue is that the game seven for the series was so underwhelming and boring, I thought, from an event's perspective, it was kind of this low event, two one, squeak through a win for Anaheim. And they finally rid their demons and got over the hump after losing at home in game seven for four consecutive seasons heading into it. But if this was like an actual game seven, I think it would be considered one of the sort of most, you know, all-time. rewatchable classics just because of how crazy it was.

Yeah, you're right, a bit of a letdown, but I mean, that's how it goes. It's hard. It's hard to momentum, and I've always heard this conversation, like, I don't know game to game how tangible momentum is. I mean, this series would probably would tell you that game to game momentum doesn't really mean much. But within a game, I think there's definitely something to it, and this game kind of had different swings in it. but yeah it was curious and what made this kind of compelling to me as well as we touched on it's just like one team hanging on for one last run one team coming up for one more run you know like this is this this is you know two teams knowing that they're going in different directions

and just trying to you know anaheim trying to stave off the time those those two those paths those arcs cross and eminent trying to make them cross at this moment it was it's just it was an interesting time Because you thought the teams were heading, you know, one was evident going to get much better. And Anaheim, they were kind of running out of real estate. All right. Well, let's get into what age the best thing, rewatching this. You know, it can be as small as an individual performance or it can be as big as sort of a concept or whatever. What kind of struck out to you watching this sort of what age the best?

Okay. What age the best for me? This game, this series, the idea that Edmonton's, probably better off when Drysidal can play on his own line. And I think this would age well is that now sometimes he played with McDavid in this game and in the series, but a lot of time he carried his own line. And I think there was a lot of question marks about him. And could he do it without Connor?

Was he good enough to kind of do it on his own with wingerers without being on McDavid's line? And I think what age best, because a lot of people thought in the short sample of this playoffs, he was actually better than Connor McDavid in a lot of ways in these two rounds that Evanston played. And that age really nicely. The thought that Leon Drysettle, as a centerman, is

good enough to make his line effective and dangerous without playing with Conrademich David. I thought that was something that was not taken for granted. I mean, now it seems obvious. But I don't think it was as obvious back then, and that is something that Drysettle was showing in that game,

in that series that he's more than okay on his own. Well, that's That's a great point. And this was the period of time as well where after this postseason, the Oilers needed to decide what they were going to do with dry sidle and how comfortable they were with him as a building block because his entry-level contract was up. And they clearly felt very comfortable despite the fact that we hadn't really seen him for an extended period of time, especially during a regular season, run his own line and do it successfully. A lot of his success at this point had been with McDavid. So it was certainly a leap of faith from them. And now, clearly,

you look back and with what we know, it's one of the bigger sort of non-entering. level deal steals in the league at what they're paying them but um it it was funny because in the first two games of the series they were exclusively playing them together and i think by the time they got back to edmonton they realized that you for all of randy carlal's flaws as a coach he was doing a remarkable job of just getting hampaslin home and ryan kessler out there every single time macd david was on the ice and then they were like well if these two guys are going to just neutralize our only scoring line we're going to be in big trouble and so by the time you get to this game five you got three separate lines, which those are done very sparingly, because even now, what the success

Dr. Seidel had on his own line this year, he was still playing with Ryan Nugent Hopkins. At this point, they're rolling those three guys on their own separate lines, where you've got McDavid playing with Patty Maroon, Andrea Cajula. You've got Leandro Isidl, playing with Milan Luchin and a real throwback in Anton Slepechev, and then you've got Ryan Nugenthev, playing with Benoit and Jordan Eberle. And so it was really fascinating to see Todd McClellan in such a pivotal game make that type of leap of faith and be rewarded so well

because I thought you're right. Especially in the first overtime, there was a couple chances Drysaito had there where they were creating a lot when McDavid wasn't on the ice and so that really has aged very well. Yeah, and I think the other thing

that this game reminded me of and maybe age the best like he is is, Ryan Gesslass was a stud. I mean, he still is, but like that guy I played against Gets Left. That's how long he's been in the league.

But, like, so many things that he does is just for this game, just a reminder of, like, I think we should really respect how good, borderline great this guy has been. Everything from the production, we know that. But when I'm watching him playing, like, two, two and a half minute shifts at the end of games, and he doesn't look like he's tired. When I watch him go in a pile and throw guys around

because he's got that weird, crazy strength whenever he decides to flip it on. Like, just when he is, when he's at his best, he was as good as anybody in the league. Like,

Ryan Getslaff at his best was amazing. And he was awesome in these playoffs, in this series and this game. But just to me, just like another, you know, sometimes you think back, yeah,

he was really, really good. And then you watch you like, no, he's better than just really good. Like, he showed watching this game, that was a strong reminder

of just how dominant he could be physically. Like, I don't even know what his shift length were, but he must have had multiple shifts, whether it's on the power play or whatever, and he gets out there 90 seconds, and he's got to chase someone down at a back check. And he can. I'm like, where is this guy finding the oxygen to do this 90 seconds in?

But this is something he did all the time. So to me, Getslap was a standout, and he's, you know, just a reminder of how great he was. Yeah, I'd play off Getslap on my what-eat-es-law. the best I'd kind of forgotten how dominant he could be. And this was a nice little reminder. He was the best player by far, I thought, in this game, in this series. By far.

His ability to control the game, you look at it now, and it's so easily visible when you watch Nathan McKinnon or even Connor McDavid in this game, to see why and how they're effective and how they can put their stamp on a game with their sort of speed or in McKinnon's case, his kind of raw power. and how they drive up the ice where they're skating. With Getslaf, he's got this kind of like old man game,

and he's only 31 or whatever at this point of his career, but he's got this ability to sort of like a pocket passing quarterback. He kind of just like sits back there, and he dictates the game, and he uses his frame, and no one can get the puck from him. And everyone else is moving a million miles per hour around him, but it doesn't matter because he is the puck and no one can get it from him,

so everyone has to play at his pace. And he just sort of, it's this unique ability. Like Joe Thornton had it. during that cup run the sharks made in 2016 or whatever and you know henrik siddean had it towards the end of his career but it's his ability to you you stylistically don't match pretty much what anyone else on the ice is capable of doing but he's the only player that matters because he's the one that has the puck but i will say this about him and i and i and i from firsthand from calling games he is fast like he doesn't look like it he doesn't always play like it you're right he uses

strength and his reach and he boxed his guys out with his body and you know he's we know he's one of the best passers of our generation. But you know what? You get into a foot race with him. His top speed was better than, I don't know, maybe anyone in that series except for Connor. Like it's at full speed. He might take a couple seconds to get there,

but going full bore, he might be faster than anybody else in that series. He's that good of a skater. But I like watching him. I like watching a guy who's like, I'm going to slow it down to my pace. I'm going to maneuver the players on my team and the other team with my eyes and my body

and my stick position to my hands. everything I'm doing subtly that I'm not even thinking about, but I'm just still orchestrating everything that's happening on the ice, and I got it the whole time. And you can't take it off me. And it's just, it's a unique style that not many players could play, and he did it very well. Well, you know what's funny. He's one of those guys similar to, like, I think, of Jason Spetsa and his prime, or maybe even Nicholas Baxter, where he's such an elite passer, and he's so dominant as a playmaker. And I think he prefers it that way that you kind of forget that he's also got this amazing shot and then whenever he does flash it occasionally

you're like oh I wish he kind of would shoot it more and I would tell him that thing all the time we yeah I covered Anaheim series like three years in a row prior to this one and we joke about it and you know because I played whatever we'd chat and and I you know we talk about some two-on-one I'm like getsy like at some point are you going to shoot he's like oh I know oh he knows it I'm like you have a rocket like why don't you he's like oh my he's like coaches have been telling me that since that's 15. Like, shoot the puck more, shoot the puck more, and you're right.

And he knows it. The coaches, though, everyone knows it, that he should do it. But he has the Joe Thornton mentality. Joe can shoot as well, so can Mickey Baxter. But they would rather pass it to a guy in the back door than shoot it past the goaltender. I honestly believe that. That's just how they are wired.

And there's, there was moments in the series where you're like, man, he can really shoot it. Boy, he should do that more because he could, because there's some goals in his career, or some years in his career where he'd score 15, 18 goals. There's no way. That guy can score anywhere less than 25 to 30 goals because he has the puck all the time, plays a ton, and has an absolute snipe of a shot. So, yeah, not lost on you, but not lost on him or the coaching staff.

Who encouraged him to try to shoot all the time. You just couldn't get him to commit to it full time. Well, he took it to heart in this game. And I think maybe it was a game plan thing. Maybe that's what the Oilers are giving him. And I love that where this idea that a great player sort of changes what he gets steps out of his comfort zone a bit because we know how he'd prefer to play based on how his career is gone. But in this game, he takes 13 shots.

He's like, I felt like probably maybe even had more. Maybe that's an undercount. Like he was hammering from the point, whether it was on the power player or when I was late in game out of desperation. Like he was putting every single thing on net. Yeah. It got me thinking because when you think about this year's generational players, whether it just because he played in Anaheim or, you know, maybe because he never really

had the full raw counting crazy stats or didn't score a ton of goals. So he didn't really get a lot of the accolades. But he's kind of quietly cruised. towards a thousand regular season points now but if you look at and the reason why i said playoff gets laugh he's got 120 playoff points and 125 playoff games for his career and and since he entered the league in 05 that's fifth and and it's amongst the usual suspects of crosbie malk and i'll chicken and patrick and it's like you wouldn't typically if you ask someone oh from this generation or the generation that's kind of phasing out now who were like one of the who's one of the five to

ten most dominant players of that era i wonder how many names you'd have to list off before where your casual fan got to Getslap, but he's built quite a resume for himself throughout his career. That's all functions. He never, I guess he won a Cup, period. He never won the Cup as, like, the leading guy as the prime time gets up.

But if you were to get around international players, the best player, the guys who plays on the team Canada, the Olympics, the World Championships or the World Cups, they would tell you that Gatslap is right there. I mean, when he gets those best on best tournaments, he shines. We quickly mentioned Joyce Idol.

I did have him as my What Age is the Best, too. And the reason, obviously, his production is one thing. But what really stuck out to me, I think his skating has certainly improved the past couple years. But you saw that sort of vintage, what has become vintage now, it's kind of his trademark play. On the first Oilers goal in this game, he's entering the offensive zone. And he does this, like, backhand sauce to a defenseman where it goes cross-ice, full speed off his backhand. tape to tape, like over a couple of Ducks Defender sticks and eventually makes its way back to what he scores.

But it was like, I don't know if at this time it was a trademark move, but now that he's one of the league's trademark players, it's like he's taking it from Crosby as I think the right up there is the best, most dominant sort of backhand player in his game. And watching that, I was like, oh, my God. It feels like I'm watching a 2020 version of Dryside all this one. Yeah, you're right. and his backhand I'm a bit of a stick junkie,

curve junkie, right? So every time I go to the rinks and I'm covering games, like I'll go to the room and I'll kind of poke around the stick rack and just look at the curves and who's got what. And a lot's been made of it

and I've talked about it before, but Leon Paddle, like his blade is noticeably longer than anyone else. It's exceptionally long. I'm not even sure if there's a legality on how long you can make sure of stick blade, but if they're in,

he's right up against it. And he doesn't have a very big curve. Both things probably lend themselves to being so strong on his backhand side, whether it's shots, face-offs, past receptions, and certainly passing. So, yeah, he's very good at it.

And, yeah, that's a very kind of common play that he would make today. You'd expect that to see that a dozen times a game. You didn't see it quite as often back then as he was still kind of growing into his dominant self that he is now. But that big, that huge paddle is something to behold. And the fact that he can handle the puck as well, because at some point I think almost it becomes too big and cumbersome to manage it so well. But he obviously has it figured out.

That is aged well. That back end pass, that kind of seam pass. And then having him just kind of cruise through and have it bounce back to him. And one time at home, like that is, we've seen a awful lot of that kind of weak side one-timer, drop to a knee, gets lots of velocity on his shot. That is something that he's continued to do a lot in his career. My final, what age the best, and it's kind of a bittersweet one since it's the only time we've seen it, but Connor McDavid in the playoffs. What age the best from that for me was, you know, we've seen with Nathan McKinnon last year, for example, the abs run sort of what it does for like it's the only game on on a given night.

High stakes are high, national audience, everyone's watching. It really does a lot for both the player in the league. but from this specific case for me it was sort of this chess match and it's what I love about the playoffs where it kind of you go game to game depending on where you're playing some of the home team has the advantage and obviously certain coaches care about it more than others but this was like uh the wet dream for for people who um just love that chess match component of like top defenders going against top offensive players because especially in the games in anaheim you're sort of seeing how anaheim wants to get Kessler out there against McDavid so that Getslaf can play against the second, third, fourth

lines and crush offensively. The Oilers want to get him away from them. And even if you stretch it for this full postseason, you know, in round one, the Oilers had played the sharks. And I think, like, Mark Edward Vlasic had been basically tied to McDavid's hip for the entirety of that series. And so just sort of watching the machinations of one team doing something and the other team trying to adjust and them trying to get a leg up on each other.

It's tougher to see in hockey than it is, you know, other sports like in baseball you try to get like you know pitcher versus hitter matchups or in basketball it's like a size thing or whatever so in hockey it's much tougher to see especially since it's so fast and shifts are happening so dynamically on the fly but this series it was so easy to pinpoint what both teams were trying to do strategically yeah yeah there was no secrets out there right um but i mean that kind of we'll get into it a little bit later but you know the idea of watching and watching kind of macdavit deal with and you know he dealt with his whole life right i'm since he was 12, I'm sure they had guys matching against him or trying to be physical against him or talk to him or get him off his game or get chippy or whatever.

But I don't know if there's anyone in our recent memory that did all those things with the same kind of gusto that Ryan Kessler did. Like that might be better defensive players. There might be more physical guys. But guys who just thrives on trying to think their teeth into an opponent into a matchup, like, Kessler is like, I don't even care about the game. Like I only want to bother him. And he's just so greasy. I watched the game and I watch it

cool and I watch it through my players, former players lens and I see all like a little cross-chacks, little popes and little slashes, little chit-chats in the ears. And it's just like to watch McDavid have to deal with that. Now, again, I'm sure it's something he's not formed to him, but I don't know if anyone

did it quite as enthusiastically as Ryan Kessler and to watch that matchup of all throughout the series. And even in this game, what was fun to do. Well, and I sort of forgotten because I thought Kessler, and he was kind of laboring physically already at this point,

and you could see that he didn't have his full fastball. But, you know, he played all 82 games this regular season. It was his age 33 season. He finished second in Selke voting behind Bergeron, and it was pretty legit. Like a lot of his underlying numbers were very good. He sort of allowed Anaheim to play the way they wanted to with their top six,

and that kind of combination of him, Cogliano and Silverberg were very good as their de facto checking line. and maybe if anything this is sort of you know what age the worst in the sense that Randy Carlisle relying on him so heavily at this point probably sped up the process of how quickly he did deteriorate physically because he's 33 at this point he's playing over 21 minutes a night through the regular season he's and they're tough minutes on the penalty kill he's chasing around other things best players and in this game you're right there's you could basically

put a 10 minute highlight reel from this series of Kessler just after the whistle chopping at at his shins and just doing all this stuff where it's not it's he he became a master at um that sort of pest thing of you do just enough where you're not going to get called for a too yeah you can't get called but if if you're doing it for a full game the player you're doing it to if it's an accumulation process it's like it snowballs you feel it but um man that's five thousand cuts man and it's hard not to like say rest come on like i know maybe like that flash in the back my ankles when he's going for a change is not worth of penalty. But when it's the 22nd time, like at some point,

there has to be a cumulative factor here. And Kessler just loved it. He loved it. He'd talk on the bench. He'd be leaning across. He just loved it. I mean, even to the point where it's great, Ryan Kester, if you go to an old game tape,

if you don't watch warm up, and I'd be standing between the benches. And one of the things he would like to do is he would come down and stand right basically beside me, one elbow on the bench, drinking water. I don't know, about six, seven minutes in a warm-up. And he would just eyeball the other team. And he'd sit there for like two minutes,

which is a long time to warm, just sit still. And I think some of it was kind of visualizing the goaltender. Like he'd watch the other goal he gets shot. But then he would like lock in on McDavid or Dry Settle and almost like will them to like, look at me. Look at me the way I'm looking at you. Because I'm coming for you. And, you know, you'd have some guys come by and like,

they'd trip like, what the hell are you looking at? you're like whatever you're in for a long night at you at you other guys would like you would fear clear of that eye contact and not try to engage with them but like it right from the second he stepped on the ice for warm up he was dialed in into jerk mode and i said i was like as a compliment like you know he was there just to do his job and i used to love i'd be like get an ice go get an iceo camera on him check out him eyeballing patrick kane check out him looking at tags watch him getting after macbid without even moving without even saying anything like he's willing them drawing them into his mental game which goes along with his physical game he was a fascinating

guy to cover and i don't know uh maybe that's what age worse was the fact that you know this was maybe the last kind of time you could do it remotely close to that level because his body just it just gave out yeah yeah no that's that's a great point and he came up with those connect scenes with uh with bxen burrows and they pride of themselves on that uh on that jerk puck for sure um all right let's get into what age is the worst end and uh i'm going to kick us off with one so the ducks the ducs defense in theory it age the best because it's a list of really good players the problem is very the problem is right out of my mouth the problem is very few of them are still on the ducks um and uh so in this game and it's interesting because uh i'm glad we picked this one because

there was stretches in this postseason where whether it was because of injuries or because of matchups, Randy Carlisle was using Corbinian Holesor. He was using Kevin B.XA. But in this game, they just fully unleashed. He went with the six. I mean, 26-year-old Camfowler is like the old guard, 25-year-old Sammy Vatten, 25-year-old Josh Manson, 23-year-old Hampas Linholm, 23-year-old Brandon Montour, and 22-year-old Cheathodore. And man, that is probably as good of a combination of six defensemen as you're going to get from a skill set perspective in the cap era like i honestly cannot imagine accumulating six better defensemen um in this era could you could you imagine if they if they were together now like where they've become oh and i guess that's

what age that's waged the best and the worst i'm with you 100 percent because it's aged the worst because they're not together yeah and they've all gone other places they're all broken apart and vatman was you know off in jersey and then dealt and you got montour or what in Buffalo and Theodore and Vegas and you know Lynn Holm was there and Manson's there and I understand I understand the salary cap or the expansion draft played a significant role Kevin BX and that no move club they offered him was just a death blow to that team because they have to give up some of their players but it was just a crazy reminder how good this young group was and yeah that their defensive core management shall we call it that has

to be the thing that has aged the absolute worst out of this game. Yeah, and I mean, their hands were tied in a sense because of that BX and a move clause, but I do honestly think they probably just didn't think Jay Theodore was going to be this good. Like, they drafted him. They had him internally. I'm sure they appreciated him. I just think realistically, like, they made a choice. They could have, in theory, kept him and exposed someone else or made some sort of a

sweeter offer for Vegas to take. But it's funny because at this time, you can still tell that, 90 Carlisle doesn't really trust Shay Theodore. He's not playing very much as the game goes on. He doesn't do anything particularly great, but I remember from this postseason, you would sort of see that that neutral zone work, which is his bread and butter now, just how he'd be able to dictate the flow of a game and control it with his skating and his puck movement and his positioning and everything.

And you go for you. You know what I drew out of this game though? Like, and you're right. And I guess part of that was like one of the things that stood out was like how good Theodore has become versus how unsure he looked of himself. He looked like a guy who didn't have confidence of playing in the NHL the way he was. You know, he's just like, maybe in a glimpse

you see a quick little brief, oh, there's the guy who's a powerful skater, the transition passenger can jump up in the rush. But then you saw him kind of kicking around the puck a little bit and backing up. You can just see he was not sure of himself. And, you know, some of that's you, some of that's coaching, some of that's maybe the playoff and the pressure.

But like I thought, watching this series, Cottonon was excellent. Oh, yeah, he was so good. Excellent. And, like, I don't think he's been quite as good as he went to New Jersey. Maybe it's a role. But, like, I thought that he looked so good.

And Brandon Montour, if you were to ask watching Game 5, like, he looks like he's going to be better than Cheathito. Yeah. He's more assertive. He gets involved more. He's got more confident. He's got the puck. He made more plays.

He was cleaner in his decision-making with the puck. And that hasn't proven to be the case. and again some of that is situation Vegas versus Buffalo and everything else but you just the entire you could do some sort of flowchart from that six guys and where they've gone and how their game has evolved because it's not

it's not played out as you probably would have thought watching that game no it certainly has and I think this was a it was a weird time in theater's career where because of the cap and because of how deep they were remember like the ducks kept sending them to San Diego and I don't know if he was actually making those trips or if it was just a

paper transaction, but it was like, he was just going back and forth. And it was a really, um, weird time. And, and it's funny looking back at it now, because I did see enough from his neutral zone work where at the time of the expansion draft, um, Theodore and Nate Schmidt were the two guys that really stuck out to me as like modern day defensemen that could plausibly be available that could really like, if you can get those guys, get those guys. And they obviously got both those guys. And it's worked that well for them. But I don't think even in my wildest dreams, I expected Theodore to, blossom into like he's probably one of the 20 best defensemen in the league at this point based on his effects and and so you know um that's one thing but the montour thing that you pointed

out is very interesting to me because in this game he's remarkable like he's flying around the ice he's like he's just doing stuff with the puck where he just he as soon as he gets it he flings it to the guy and and it's weird because i'm not sure how much of it is him how much of it is the situation he's in but watching them these days in Buffalo, it's like the physical tools are still there. The skating is there. The puck handling is there. But he's not as quick with his decisions.

And when he makes decisions, it's like, I don't know if it's a hockey IQ thing or what, but he's always in the wrong place. I don't know what's happening. He certainly has not developed the way I thought he would. And I don't know what to attribute that to you. But yeah, if you told me at this time that Montour wasn't going to become a star,

I wouldn't have believed you because he was that dominant at this point in time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's strange because, you know, he's a couple years in his career. He's in his early 20s. It's not like he's 18 and, you know, you think you'd be a little bit more sure of the direction a player might go. And, you know, maybe just, you just got lost in the shuffle and lost some of the confidence in some of the systems maybe playing a bit better team. Obviously, everyone looks a bit, looks better when they play on stronger teams. And maybe he's one of the guys that need the kind of structure. You know, I see Marco Scandella resigning with St. Louis. Like, he didn't look quite a good. when he played in Buffalo as he did when he played in St. Louis. And I mean, there's something to that for guys. So maybe he, maybe he wanted to need a little support in that regard. Now, what age the worst for me besides the Anaheim defense, of course? The idea that Jordan Eberle can't play anymore.

Oh, man. Because if you remember coming out of this playoffs, he struggled, and I don't know if it was a health thing, confidence thing or whatever. But like a lot of talks like this guy, he'll get to 25 in the regular season, but he won't do anything when it matters most. and you're like, do we watch the World Junior? It's like, do we watch the world? Just because it's not, he hasn't done in the NHL,

because the team hasn't been there. Doesn't mean he can't do it. And yeah, he might have gone through a couple bad series and didn't score goals or whatever. And admittedly, like, he was quiet in this game. I'm not suggesting he wasn't. Like, if I were to watch this game, and like, he doesn't look like a guy who's going to be able to

to maybe help a team to the degree that his salary might warrant or whatever. And I think that that idea aged poorly. It really did. And he's moved on. and he's been a big time to score still. And in many ways, does a lot of things that Evanton needs wingers to do, that they need wingers to score goals. Like, he's not a perfect player,

and he's not, you know, a guy who's going to lead a team as a number one guy, but as a complimentary piece, I think the idea I come out of this was like, he's not that, and he's not worth $5 million, $6 million, whatever he was making, but I think that idea, that thought aged poorly. Because he is worth it. He does score goals. And I think he showed even with the Islanders, for their run to the playoffs and the playing.

He led the honors in scoring when they made the playoffs the last year. So the idea he can't score is factually incorrect. Yeah, the takes here were bad, and I think it was just a genuine misunderstanding of how shooting percentage works. Like, he was basically a 13% shooter for the entire of his career.

He was always above league average. This year, he scores 20 goals on 208 shots, which is 9.6%. He doesn't score in his 13 playoff games on 22 shots, and there's this idea that, you know, he just doesn't play the right way he doesn't get to the dirty areas he can't score in the playoffs they dump him in basically a salary dump for ryan strove then they wind up trading strome for spooner spooner for ganier it's a whole mess and yeah the islanders get him and it's hilarious because he

instantly that season jumps back to 13.7% and he's been at like 12% ever since he was a great last postseason he like single-handedly outscored pittsburgh in that round one sweep um and yeah so this was a this was a great reminder of not to buy huge into a short-term shooting percentage fluctuations because I'm going to take the eight-year sample or whatever he had at this point in NHL as opposed to a 13-game stretch where he just couldn't score. Yeah, but I was around Edmondton. I called the first game against Zanos, and like it was, they were an angry mob.

Like, they were angry. And he's, and at Jordan's credit, he's actually been quite frank about how he was hurt and how it bothered him to kind of take the kind of criticism he was taking and probably bled into his second round performance because the heat he, took in the first round. So, which I give him credit for for being honest to say, yeah, like it hurts when he gets talked about that way. But that was that was a poor take.

And the other one that is maybe not as strong, but we've seen a lot of this. And I remember, again, being around the order, and Drake Cajula had come out of North Dakota, I'm not mistaken. And he was quite highly thought of it. And then like a guy who, I think he scored big goals in college. And, you know, he might be a Jordan Everly kind of player. He might be a guy who can get you 25 to 30 goals playing on one of those top. six roles and maybe what age the worst and I know he's an NHL player and I get why coaches like

him he's quite reliable he's energetic he's spirited but the idea that he's a top six guy and a good team probably which they were trying to make him in Evanston probably did not age the best yeah yeah certainly uh and that era lasted pretty short um it didn't work out the way i think they thought um yeah the way connor mac david has officiated age the worst for me because and you can stretch this out to I'd say most stars in the league and especially when the playoffs come

where the rules seem to change but he drew 52 penalties this regular season since then in the three years he had 36 35 and he drew 24 penalties this year which was tied for like 20th most in the league or something with Tyson Joe's ridiculous I mean listen

like you can certainly make an argument that you don't want to turn the game into the product that it was after it came back from the lockout in 2005 where it's just penalty box after penalty box just marched there. So it's slowing the game down. The game is at its best when it's free-flowing, 5-1-5 trading chances. But, I mean, at the end of the day, like, you need to protect your star players. You also need to just call the game as it's intended to be called. And teams take such liberties with McDavid, and they sort of just have to because they realize

the rest will not call everything. and they're better off taking their chances because otherwise he's just going to blow by them. So there's so much hooking and obstruction. It's obscene. And early in his career, he was drawing more penalties and it feels like now the referees have almost become like kind of desensitized by it and it's just become such a norm.

They're just used to seeing guys on him. So they just think it's the new normal and the opponents get away with it. And so just rewatching this. There were a couple instances where it happened, but it's like pretty much every time he gets a step on someone, there's some formal destruction happening and you could call five or six penalties

a game if you wanted to if you were actually calling it by the letter of the law. Yeah, you're right. And that's been a point of contention for me. I've talked about this a lot. And to me, I don't use the phrasing, protect your star players. Now, there's probably something to that.

There's a reason why the NFL goes out of their way to make sure nobody touches a quarterback because they are more important. But there's something to the meritocracy of hockey mentality. You don't need to protect the heart that star players. You just need to call it the same way. You just need to apply the rules. And whether it's the Chris Pronger or the Shaquille O'Neal defense, like, I'll foul them every time.

And they won't call me every time because they won't. And so I'll just, you know, I'll take my two penalties, but it'll help me the rest of the game. And it's a net positive for me. Like, I don't think we have to go down that road. And you say, well, we don't want to see a parade of the box. You're right. But guess what? If you do that all the time because you can't skate.

And like, if you can't skate as fast as them, that's too bad for you. Like, you should not, that should not be his problem that he gets directed. down because they'll get as fast as he can. That should just be his advantage. And you know what? Those teams, if they take eight penalties a game because they can't defend someone, then they won't be playing for very long. If they don't figure it out, if they don't change the way they do it.

So my whole thing is like, call it the way it's written, call it the same the whole time, whether it's overtime or the first period, or whether it's a playoff or the regular season, call it the same. All the same throughout the game, and the smart teams and the smart players will adjust. and the teams that can't do it as well because they're physically not capable or mentally not willing to, then they'll lose more games

and they'll change players and they'll adjust too. I don't think it's as confusing and yeah, there might be some more penalties. I don't think it's like this massive undertaking to say, and it's not to free up Conner McDavid, it's just to call it the same. You know what?

If you're going to commit an infraction, we're going to call it. Simple as that. And now McDavid would probably benefit more than that because he's better than everyone else. But you're right. I can't even imagine how frustrating would be for him you know because at some point like you know bitching and moaning at the rest won't work it

probably work against you but every time he skates off the ice you're like okay that's a hook that's a hold that's an interference every single time it would it would be very frustrating for him i would imagine yeah well it's not it's not protection is the wrong word you're right i think it's more so like you know you know the mentality of a competitive pro athlete it's like you're going to try to get every advantage. And so if the referees tell you that a certain thing is okay, you're going to keep testing the boundaries of what's okay, right? So it's going to keep escalating.

We're going to keep doing it more and more until you get slapped on the wrist and you eventually get told, no, you can't do that. And then you go back to square one and you keep trying to work your way up to kind of figure out what the line is you can't cross, right? And so if the referees are stretching that line further and further, it does become dangerous, both the product of the game and also player health. So I think the other thing in terms of officiates, the call of the end of regulation.

I can't, well, those fans are probably like, I can't believe you're taking 50 minutes to get to this point because it's like the main point of the game. But the reason why it aged the worst for me is beyond the fact that it decided the outcome of the game was I still, three years later, don't really know what goalie interference is. Right.

It just seems like... That was my most unanswerable question. Right. It still is, yeah. What's goal interference? Yeah. I mean, because there's no real consistent. sincere clarity, right? And that's the thing that's infuriating. I think if you just lay down the

guideline of you can't do a certain thing and every single time you call it that way, regardless of the result, I think people will be okay with it. But in this case, you get this instance where you could make the argument that Darnelner's pushes Ryan Kessler into the goalie, but Kessler makes no attempt to leave the crease and Talbot cannot play his position. And I was under the impression that those are two main tenets of what constitutes goalie interference. So, I think they just chose to focus on, okay, darn all nurse initiated the contact,

and so we're going to go with that, and they just, it was too big of a play to change it. So I think they just went with a call on the ice because it was this complete scrum and mayhem, but I just think that's sort of a flawed way to view it, and I just wish at some point in time we did have a definitive rule, because I watch a ton of hockey,

and at any point in time, if there's a review for goal interference, I have no idea what the outcome's going to be. You may as well flip a coin. Listen, I'll do broadcast, they'll come up. I'm like, so what do you think, Mike? And I'm like, I think that's the only interference, but I don't know.

Like, you know, that's how I would call it. But I, you know, again, because what makes this one so difficult to figure out is that I think Ryan Tesla most definitely was pushed into the goal tent. And that's on the oil. So if I'm standing in front of the net, you cross-checked me hard and I fall on your goalie. Like, that's not goal interference on me. That's you for being silly. But there's no doubt you're also correct in typical Kessler fashion.

he takes a long time to kind of extricate himself from the goalie pad. He's hooked in his knee. And that probably should have resulted in the goal interference. But then we're trying to split hairs of like how quickly should I expect you to get out of there. And that's a hard thing to figure out. I mean, as quickly as possible, I guess. But yeah, I mean, the Oilers fans have an absolute case to be, you know, livid about how this played out. And the Ducks fans have a pretty good case to say, you know, I mean, he got shoved in there.

And he was trying to get himself out of there. They're all tangled up. and, you know, don't hit them in there if you don't want them in there. So, like, I get both parts, but yeah, maybe that's, you say what age the worst? The most unanswerable question is, you know, would that have been called? If that's called today, that happened today, would that be goal interference? Has anything changed? Does the clarity change?

I still think we don't know about what would be there. And I guess that's what can make it frustrating. But I also can understand the difficulty. I understand and have sympathy for the challenge for the referees to determine that, because there's so many moving parts that happen all in once. There are. It's tough. It's certainly tough.

My final, what age is the worst. How much time I spent arguing about Chris Russell at this point in time? I wasted so much time and effort online, writing articles, doing podcasts, talking about Chris Russell. And now in 2020, it's like, I just look back in it. I just can't. I mean, it's the game has changed so much. I think that those kind of wars or online wars arguments are over, but it's like, man, it seems really outdated how much time we were spending arguing about that because this was sort of, maybe it was like a year before this where he was still in Calgary and he was playing like 24 minutes a night and people were wondering how good he was and what his effects were.

But it was just a, it was just a completely different time. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I think there's, you know, the idea of the like Chris Russell is a tough guy. Yes. physically a tough player and and I think he's a very much a a light and respected teammate so that that that adds into teams that are trying to evaluate them it's not just about you know well boy do we give up a lot of shots or boy do we play at our own end an awful lot we get out score we get out chance but like you know he blocked shots and he plays through broken fingers and guys love him and he sticks up for his teammates

and you know maybe in the last minute when it doesn't matter if you have the puck you're just asking for something to put their face in front of it like he's the guy you want. And I get that, but over the court, you know, I don't know. You know, I guess I respect for how Hardy played. It's just, you know, it's the game, it's, some of the things that the game does right now are tough for him. They were tough back then.

It's just Edmonton fans, the Calgary fans, were, they're so passionately defending him, even though the numbers would stack up and say, you know, you, you know, on an aggregate basis, like, you're not doing as well with him on the ice as you might be without him. Well, not playing so much. The thing that bug me is just like every online. argument is everyone was overcompensating to try to make their points so everyone was like stretching both sides were stretching the such extremes it's like oh he shouldn't be in the league or it's like oh we have these internal metrics that show that he's actually really good which every team would require and would say that and it was just like can we fall somewhere in the middle and say he's like a useful third pairing defenseman that can kill penalties and be out late in the game when you need to sacrifice your body like there's a certain role by that on team can we not disagree like that makes sense it doesn't have to be either out of the extreme no one's saying he can't play in the nchel no one's But no one's saying he's the first line.

Let's just, let's use some common sense to dictate a conversation. I mean, that's too hard. Common sense is no fun. We don't want to hear any of that. Well, on a related note, I think the reason why this series holds such a special place in my heart too is it was like, it was such a perfect meeting of Randy Carlisle's ducks, which like bugged me so much with how they played dump and chase so much. And I think rewatching this, I was actually kind of blown away pleasantly surprised by. the roster talent they had at this time we talked about the defense kessler still has 75 80 percent of his fastball gets laps playing really high level but you've got like

rale and silverberg were flying around in this game it's yeah i lament the fact that the ducks at this time weren't this modern team that was playing this uptempo track meet style similar to how like the leaps play let's say now because they had the defensemen to like certainly play better defensively but just move the puck up the ice quickly and they had the forwards to play a fast game despite you know gets laugh wanting to slow it down and they just chose not to play that way and maybe it was all these like playoff defeats in the years past where they fall short in game seven so it makes you kind of react and be overreactionary and you fire bruise buddrow you hire randy carlall you you decide you need to play slower you need to play more physical to get over the hump and they do

get over the hump in the series but it's it's like man this team should have and could have have been really special to watch. And I remember at the time, certainly not thinking that they were appointment of viewing televisions by any means. No, you're right. If you're running a team and you've had a ton of success, right, then whatever it was, 700 points in a row, whatever, like, you know, lots and lots. It would be hard to get right away from that style, from that philosophy.

Even though you're coming up short, I mean, there lives to Chicago in games, whatever, four game sevens at home in a row. But you're right there, right? It's not like you're miles away. So it would be challenging. And if you're the GM and you're like, okay, we're going to get rid of Bruce Boudreau, who we know is a very good regular season coach,

you know, you probably go back for a low risk because we have the group for really close. I get how you can fall into this sort of group think mindset of just do the same thing, dumb it down, down, down, because we're good enough to basically get there like this. I don't know what will happen if we go the other way. I kind of know what happens.

And we know management coaches, like, it's all about control. It's all about controlling variables, controlling the outcomes, and they would feel they had more control going this way than they would, if they would have turned it over to, you know, a more contemporary style that might be played now. Yeah. No, I get it. I get why they did it.

I'm just, I'm still disappointed by it. Okay, so listen, a couple of fun. Yeah, you're right. Listen, it would be way more fun. Everyone just played it open and free, and then we'd all be very happy. but you talk about rewatchable moments, CSN turning points. And, you know, it would be easy to say,

well, the review at the end or, you know, missing the penalty shot. But I go to the most obscure thing. So it's 3-1, and it's late in the third period. And obviously, Anheim's pushing score effects or, you know, I haven't been hanging on, but Camtelbert's playing often. And Adam Larson goes in the corner and tries to get a puck and loses his stick.

If you watch the second goal, then instead, so he has a decision to make. His stick is sliding up towards the point. He can either stop at the hash marks and go back to the front of that without a stick, engage in a fight, maybe grab a forward, battle, block shots, or he can try to chase a stick and get back into the play. He goes to chase his stick, pulls himself up to basically the top of the circles. There's an underneath pass, and I'm watching the first time.

I'm like, why is that pass lane so open? It's because Adam Larson is above the top of the circles on the board trying to grab the stick, and it gets out to Camp Fowler, and there's bodies in front, and the defenseman who'd be there in front, either blocking a wrist or, which is what Cam Fowler scored with, or clearing out or attempting to clear out the Ford that screened Cam Talbot, he's not there. So the TSN attorney point to me

with Adam Larson dropping his stick and electing to chase it to get it back prior to Cam Fowler's second goal with set of the tire and the winner, everything else. But it's just such a... It's a thing that happens all the time, and I get in these conversations all the time. What do you do if you break your stick or you drop...

Did you chase in the defensive zone? Do you go back and get it, or do you retreat for position and try to start it out later. He went to get it, and it did not turn out well for him of the Oilers. I like it. That's a very, very niche and very deep, deep dive turning point.

I like it. I mean, listen, that entire sequence, so it's 3-0-0-oilers with 3-34 left, the ducks pull their goalie for an ozone draw. There's so many, this might seem kind of like... Dricidal, he drops this, he blocked it with his back twice for the first goal.

Yes. Adam Larson chases his stick after dropping it very strange second goal. We can talk about the goal of the interference, but as Mark will attest you, I think he has the puck on a stick about 15 feet inside his blue line, he doesn't get it out,

which allows it to get dumped back down the front of the net, and the mayhem, and then the Raquel tying goal. Like three different incidents where either the Oilers didn't do something right, or had a bad break, or didn't quite get it over the blue line. That would have ended this game,

and three times in a row, in the last four minutes, it got in the back of their net. It's wild. how many things worked out for Anaheim or had to be messed up by Edmonton to allow them to come back in this game because the game should have been over

even with Anaheim pressing and everything else because the Oilers had it. They just made some bad decisions in the wrong spots. Well, not only that, but when it's 3-2, Gibson stops Letestu, like, in-tight, and then Ben-Wa-Puliot hits the post. And Chris Cuthbert goes, mark that one down.

And then they score shortly after, And you're right, like on the first goal, like, Getslas just teeing off as hard as you possibly can. And it's like using Dreisdahl's body as target practice, basically. On the second one and what you mentioned with Adam Larson not being there to clear him out, Talbot is literally getting triple screened. Like they've got this triangle going, Kessler, Perry, and Raquel. It's like, oh, my God, being an NHL goal, he looks like the absolute worst. Like, you just cannot see a single thing, and the puck just finds its way through.

And on the third one, you talk about these like kind of make or break game of inches types of plays. Cam Fowler saves the game twice because on the first like breakout pass when it's 3-2, McDavid's hounding him on the forecheck. And he kind of spins around him and gets the puck out of his own zone as they're trying to break out with empty net. And then at the blue line, when you're talking about the test-do clearing it, he makes a beautiful save and then just basically spins around and throws the puck into traffic on net and it gets the record. Kell and they score, but it's these plays where like high leverage, uh, he makes one misstep and the puck is an empty net and it's four to and it's over and, uh, it doesn't happen. And so I thought

Cam Fowler's poison that it was was pretty remarkable. Like he, it really stuck out to me the final three minutes, just like how in control of it was, what he was is sort of this, uh, last line of defense. Yeah, but you also have to respect at that point, your default, like your safety mechanisms are gone. So he can hang on the blue line with great coil. but it's also very risky because you wouldn't do that if it was a tie game. Because if it doesn't work out, the game's over. They're going to get an empty netter. But because it doesn't matter at that point, you put yourself in a spot to play with toys

and make strong plays with the blue line, but because you've absolved yourself from screwing up. And it worked out a couple times in a row because he could have very easily stood on the blue line there with Letestu at the end of the game. It popped over a stick. And he's not going to beat McDavid to the puck on the race. But because he was willing to stand there. he happened to knock it down. But it's amazing because you just, you know,

when at that point, you don't care if you get scored against. So you give yourself chances to look really good and he did. Yep. That's very true. Biggest heat check performance. Two things. Well, biggest heat check performance. Well, I thought the biggest that guy,

like random guys that popped into the series. Two guys from one on each team stood out. And kind of surprising. So they're basically the same player. Marka Testo and Antoine Bermat. Yes. and how much their coaches relied on these guys. And for good reason, they're both very good on their face-offs.

But I remember Lettastu was like the power, they had a five-on-three out there where McDavid scored the goal in the second period. And I'm like, okay, yeah, there's there's Nuge, there's Dry Settle, there's McDavid. I'm not sure, maybe it was Clefbaum playing the point. And like, oh, there's, that's, that's, Eberle. That's, that's Letststis. Yeah. Let's test you was their power play right-shot trigger guy.

He was. And I know he had a couple of years where he had. had, I don't know, anybody had eight or ten power play goals, whatever it was, but just the prominence that he played with the Oilers was noteworthy, because I kind of forgot that, you know, he was, you know, that important of a player would play in those kind of situations. He's out of the end of games, out of that penalty kills five on three, four, he's out there with those guys. They obviously saw something really neat.

And Antoine Vermet, same kind of thing. Like, this guy was, you know, he's playing on the center, you know, down the depth. centerman, but he played it off a lot. And you could see Randy Carlisle, like, would just love the fact that you can always put him out there. And every single face off, he goes the power pull. So he's a lefte. He turns his bottom hand over

and he just reeks back to his backhand side. And he's just so good at it. And every single face off, he ends up on his knees because he dives his whole body into trying to pull it back. It's just amazing to watch from a guy who was no good at face off to myself. Just like, God, how committed

he was. Every single Fade in a neutral zone with 10 seconds left in the period, a total nothing face off. And he is diving into it with everything he has. Just those two guys stood out just because they both found a niche. And every team has guys like this. Currently, always. But just the coach, clearly the coaches love these guys.

The amount that they play in the role that they played. And they just were very good at a couple different things, but it was things that the coaches clearly valued. And so they found themselves a nice, prominent role on the club. Well, I love it. You watch, like, I've been watching the Michael Jordan documentary on Netflix, and, like, they're showing the highlights of when he scores 63 points against Boston, and the commentators are like, every time he scores a buck at, they're counting, they're like, that's 50 points, like, that's 60. And in this broadcast, the broadcast is treating Antoine

Rameh, face-off wins like that. They're like, yeah, that's 22 face-off wins. Oh, my God. And, like, he was just out there on every draw, and he was just sing, like, so smooth. So that's a good one. Letestu was, he was this weird, like, special teams ace at this point of his career. Like, there was one play on the penalty kill where he does this, like, lob pass over the defense to Cassian and he elbow scores on that. He's just out there for, like, 22 minutes in this game, playing a huge role, scored a couple of power play goals in game one of this series. So, yeah, that was a good call.

My biggest, that guy was Benoit, because in preparation for this, I stumbled upon his cap-friendly page, and it's the most random piece of literature online. It's, so he gets drafted fourth overall in 2005. Yeah. He gets traded after 65 games for Guillamatta undress, and it was kind of this like, oh, both guys were high picks. Let's try a change of scenery. And then after his ELC expires, he signs five straight one-year deals.

So he was just like perpetually in a contract year. But for five different teams. He was just bouncing around. He had a couple moments. And then he finally signs this long-term deal with Edmonton five years. And he's playing a pretty big role in this team. But shortly after there, he gets bought out. And he's out of the league now, but it was just like, I remember him being a hot sort of,

he was kind of like this lightning rod player because he would take sloppy penalties. He, you could see the physical tools where you just wanted more from him and, and be like, oh my God, I can see why he went top five in the draft. He's so gifted physically, but the sort of end result wouldn't justify it. And so people were very frustrated with him. So he was my, my biggest that guy, because it kind of just reminded me of the Benwapulia era. Biggest heat check performance. Do you have anyone that really stuck out to you?

I guess it was, I guess for you, it's also like Letestu, right? Well, yeah, I mean, Let's ask you, but I mean, I don't know if he even applies, but like, Camelbert, kind of, like, I mean, he was really good in this game and in this year and like, you know, he was, maybe he's not unsung performer in that sense, he's a heat check guy, but just like, just Cam Telva just being so good was impressive to me. I thought that that was the guy that just, you're like, you forget how, you know, maybe good he was supposed to be. Maybe that's one of the things that it doesn't age that wealth in this game is that the idea

that Cam Talbot's a franchise goalie for the next decade. But I don't know, he's not unsung because he's the goalie, but, you know, Camp Talbot just was the guy that just was like, whoa, he was so, so good. Well, he stopped 60 of 64 in this game, and honestly the three he gave up in regulation. Like, he did not see any of those pucks. Like, they were just bouncing off bodies. And so he was on another level. For me, the biggest heat check, and this might sound weird because of the career he had,

but Corey Perry in this game So I think people forget at the start of the series They had acquired Patrick Eves at the deadline And he was on a complete bender He scored 30 goals this year He was awesome when he came to Anaheim And so he was playing on the top line For the first three games of the series

With Ricard Raquel and Ryan Getslav And then he gets injured Between game three and four And so in this game five Corey Perry's up to the top line And after playing 12 minutes in the first three games apiece he plays 30 minutes in this game. He scores the obvious double overtime winner,

but he has a couple assists on the three goals that they scored a tie late in the game. He's around the net causing havoc in typical Cory Perry fashion. It just felt like this sort of turned back the clock. He stepped in a time machine and just gave us one last vintage Cory Perry performance. And it was like everything that his career was

which is annoying around the net, nice hands, scoring that goal. Yeah. Yeah. So for me, it was kind of heat check. Yeah, that applies well Because you forget kind of the role You just assume when you watch this game

While he's playing with Getslap, that's where he's always been You forget how much his role had been diminished that year Under Randy Carlisle So yeah, that for sure is a good one And the fact that he's still going Yes, he's still chugging along Or at least playing in the NHL Because between him and Kessler

They were both just kind of like Just I respectfully just so greasy And everything like You know bump it in the goal and extra little elbows and falling back on the guy like just every kind of little not very subtle to the players maybe people at home don't pick it up but just like every top moment possible they could do something annoying they went out of their way to do it yep yeah and running on fumes at this point so I respect the fact that he could turn back the clock

doc and eddie's commentary corner so I was excited to do this one uh with you obviously because you can speak to it personally but so I chose the NBC feed specifically because Chris cuthbert was doing the play-by-play and if i can listen to him i will um awesome yeah he was so good so in this series it wasn't in this game but i was watching the highlights and in game three macdavid scores his crazy goal and he just goes like mac wow and then on a tie angle he just goes ricard rakel and he just i don't know what it is about like his inflection point of his voice or whatever but he can just say someone's name and it's like he said 50 really well-thought-out words even though he didn't but I just feel like he did based on the way he said that one particular phrase,

that one particular name. And that's why he's one of the best play-by-play guys in the league, because he is capable of saying so much by just saying so little. You're right. And I've had the great fortune of working with C.C. often in my career. And the bigger the moment, the better, the more he distinguishes himself.

And, you know, I thought that, you know, when the last four or five minutes the game, when, you know, you know, it was Bush who was doing the color, if I'm not mistaken, Brian Boucher. And, you know, you don't do a lot. You don't say a lot of the color guy because, you know, so much is happening. You got, you know, the played by play guy carrying it. And C.C. is so good at that. Some of my favorite broadcasts are ones where I'm just standing there listening to them for like four or five minutes and other games while I'm doing the broadcast with them because, you know, I'm enthralled as well

with hearing him describe what's happening right in front of me. But yeah, like, he's certainly on top. of his game. You know, he certainly did, like mark that one and remember those goals. And we probably should, you know, they're very prophetic in this game, both guys just predicting that the game wasn't over

and we probably will see some different moments. Yeah, so I like that. And then I think Bush was still a little bit earlier on in his career doing this, but like he was putting a really tough spot and I empathize because I do it. Because where you're sitting there trying to explain what happened at the end of the game

on the tying goal and whether it's goal interference. And, you know, some people might want to hear, like, okay, what's your opinion? Like, what should the call be? What will the call be? And those don't always have to line up. Like, and maybe this is my own personal bias. So I'll say, like, I would call it a goal, but I don't think it's coming back. And that's okay.

Like, both, both things can be true. But, you know, you're trying to explain what's going on. And it's a tough spot in such a big moment. The crowd's going crazy to try to accurately. get through, you know, all the stuff going on and the potential interference. And I don't know, and maybe correct you if I'm wrong, that could be like, if you ever said,

that will count, that won't count, that should count, that should not count. And I think, generally speaking, I like the color guy to kind of just, like, give me your opinion. I don't care if you're wrong. I'm not going to like, oh, you're an idiot, you don't know hockey because you said that should count and didn't,

or you hate the oilers because you said it should count. But I'd like to hear your perspective. You're right there. You're watching the replays. What do you think, to happen as opposed to like you know you everyone can see both sides of it he was pushed in but did he get out in time you know everyone can see what's happening but like you're right there like what do you think should happen and i know that that can be a tough thing especially in a massive moment like

that yeah no i don't think he did i think and i agree with you completely whether it's right or wrong or you agree or disagree like the color commentator is there to provide their opinion and perspective especially whether it's as a former player or in this case like from ice level what you're seeing what you're hearing. Cuthbert, yeah, after the after Raquel ties it, he goes, are you watching this? And it's one of my favorite calls. But I wanted to ask you. So as you kind of alluded to it, but as the color commentator in a game like this,

if you're so fortunate to call something like this where it's so frantic, there's so much happening, there's so many things to parse. Like what's it, what's it just like, especially if you're doing it from ice level, just kind of, because you want to capture that moment, you want to sort of reflect the energy in the building. but at the same time, like I was saying, with Cuthbert, like less is more sometimes. You don't want to be ramping it up

where you're just like yelling at the person sitting at home either. You kind of want to still sound like you're in control of the moment. Like I imagine it must be really difficult sort of finding a nice balance between those two sort of energy levels or emotional states. Yeah, you know what? I think, listen, we're all passionate about the job, right? So you enjoy it. You ideally reflect the energy, enthusiasm, the emotion of the moment with your voice,

and hopefully that's not screaming, but just, you know, it comes across because you're excited and you're into it, and people can feel it. I think the greater challenge, and having said that, I think Bush is one of the best in the world that being a color commentator now and you could see it back then. But understanding that, like, you know, you might watch one of my games, And I love to explain what's going on and why and breaking it down and helping people understand. But at some moments when it gets left followed by Fowler, at that moment it's probably not so much about let's get that extra replay in.

But like we need crowd shots. We need emotion. We need the bench. We need to paint the picture of the game at this time more so than they need to understand why Adam Larson dropped the stick. Like I think it's fascinating and I love it. But like in the moment that you want the fans watching to be wrapped up. in the emotion of the last five minutes that game and finding that balance. Like you still have to explain what happened here and why did they score,

but, you know, maybe not to the same degree of detail as, you know, here's a crowd shot, here's the bench shot, here's the, you know, I'm standing beside the bench, they're celebrating like they're 10 years old again. And in bringing in that kind of thing. So finding that balance, not so much energy and emotion, but just kind of technical evaluation analysis of the game. and kind of the emotional storytelling of the game. And at that point, it's probably more about the story than it is about the technical stuff.

Yeah, that's very, I mean, it's, yeah, it's pretty crazy. Just because, like, I watching this game, I was a bit overwhelmed just sitting on my couch. We were watching a game that's three years old. I can't even imagine at the moment how, how hectic it must have been. Most unanswerable questions. So you already said yours was sort of, what was yours again? My most unanswerable question, yeah.

Yeah. If that goal happened again. Right. Yeah, yeah. What would be the outcome? What would be the outcome? And I don't know.

And I guess the other thing that pops up, you know, it's kind of a, you know, if Andre Secker, I didn't blow his knee out. Like, I mean,

you see that in the minutes that some of the Emmett and other players played. Like Adam Larson played like 45 minutes in this game. So, Secker was a, you know,

a decent defender on that team. And I thought when David, when Benning went down. I thought he separated his shoulder. They were down two defensive to the first five minutes. Like, oh, my gosh.

God, it's going to be a nightmare. I don't remember this, but Benning came back and played a ton, but, you know, the other answer, like, if Sakerra is there, you know, does his experience, does his kind of, his poise, perhaps, result in a different end to that game? Well, yeah, Sechre, it was interesting because he tears his ACL at, like, he had just two minutes into the game, and at one point he comes back and he's sitting on the bench and the broadcast is talking, it's like, oh, it's good to see Sector out there, like, they're going to need him. And obviously he doesn't play more because he has a torn ACL, but he just wants to support the game. team but I mean even beyond just the outcome on this game like that was kind of the the end for

secra right like at this point he was their leading ice time guy for the first four games of the series and after this he plays 36 games the following year 24 the year after and then he just gets bought out in the summer 2019 and like he was a very important player making a lot of money for this team so that was a big one for me it was which fan base is more bitter reliving this moment in time because on the one hand I know it's still a really sore subject for Oilers fans because they feel very aggrieved and justifiably so as we talked about because of how this game wound up turning out but i think like for ducks fans it must be really tough just looking back at the team they had considering what they have now and sort of how the

decisions i mean obviously like attrition and father time taking its toll on perry and kessler is one thing and that's going to happen no matter what but then just when we talked about the blue line what's happened since with that and some of the decisions they made and trades they made. Like it must be really tough as a fan going back and reliving this. Part of it is glory days, but, you know, this team had its questions and had its flaws and didn't ultimately win a cup. So it's not like you really remember this era fondly. So I think for Ducks fans, you're rewatching this and you're just sort of lamenting

what could have been and just sort of the misery you're kind of stuck in now as a fan. Yeah, I mean, I think the other fans are still probably livid about that call at the end of the game. I think they're legitimately sour thinking, like, we could have had our shot. Like, we could have gone out there. Who knows? And we know this. Like, who knows what happens when you get through, you know, around or two? Like, there's no reason why Evans could not have won a Stanley Cup that year.

I mean, you just don't know. You know, they weren't that good. You know, the injuries. But you just don't know. And so they are, for sure, still irritated. I still see occasionally, you know, a picture of Kessler with his hand inside Talbot's pants, like inside his knee. and people are like, I don't understand how that, like, there'll be a goalie review call during this past season, and it will be called goalie interference.

And then some evidence would have been like, how was that goal interference? When this, they'll do a screenshot of Kessler, like, diving on the Talbot. So like three years later, they're still drawing on it with frustration. And I understand why. I think for Anaheim, it's really, you know, this year would be lumped into this in the previous, you know, three or four as, you know, disappointing because, they weren't able to do it when they had a really good team. I don't know if this, you know, this playoff run or watching this game would make them think more fun.

You know, this was a cool game where they won. But just, I think all of them, they, I think they thought they were better in a lot of these games, or not games, but a lot of the series. They should have won these games seven. They should have beat Chicago at home. They were good enough to, even though they might not have played well enough in that game.

I just think that whole half decade, a run of excellence will be just kind of remembered as a bit unfulfilling, because they were never able to quite get all the way over the hub. Certainly. And it's a good lesson. Like one of my unanswerable questions is also like what lessons can future teams learn from where things went wrong for the ducks,

where things went wrong for the Oilers and sort of maximizing on the cheap years of dry saddle and McDavid. But for that ducks team, it's like it's what we talk about with the lightning now where, you know, if you have a playoff failure but you still believe in the quality of your team, you can't let it fully dictate your decisions in terms of making drastic stuff happen in the summer.

and for them going hiring Randy Carlisle sort of doubling down on, you know, BXA and Kessler. And like they, I think a lot of their, that sort of postseason failure really did dictate a lot of their decisions at this point of time because they were so close. They were on the precipice. They wanted to maximize the last productive years of Getsa and Perry. And I don't blame them for that at all. But it's a tough spot to find yourself in because if you do fall short and chances are you probably will based on how odds work in the Stanley Cup playoffs, you're going to want.

up kicking yourself for five, six, seven, potentially a decade to come. And so it's a really tough spot to be in if you're someone like Bob Murray trying to build a team. Yeah, trying to see the big picture, trying to appreciate the small picture, trying to manage. I mean, like, yeah, and I don't know, look at the timeline of the transactions, but like, you know, did the fact that they weren't able to go out over the hump, would that make them more willing to say, we don't need six young guys like this that we can do without a baton and we can do without a Theodore because we're not sure who they are and we want to make sure we have

tried and true veterans like a Baxa or Clayton Stoner made an appearance like you know we needed more stout physical guys that we just need something to get us over the hump not maybe appreciating what they had because if you give me Gibson and those six defensemen like I don't need much else I mean really like

you can build the rest of the team around it to be good year in year out still and be a Stanley Cup contender if I could have those six defense in that play in that game and John Gibson today. And so I guess that will be the unanswerable question or whatever you want to call. What could have been?

I mean, for this team, but also just for that back end. Gibson, to me, one of the best goals in the world. Those six had they continued to develop on the curve they were on would be the best top, best six defense was core in the league. And you give me that foundation and you're going to have a lot of success. And they're not there at all anymore. They're kind of like, you know, recycled the entire. thing and they're nowhere near what they maybe otherwise could have been.

Any other unanswerable questions or is that it? Yeah, I think that that's how much is John Gibson hating his contract? But you know what? I don't feel bad for that. Just like I watch the bulls. I don't feel bad for Scotty Pippen. If you want the security, like everyone should be smart enough or you should have an agent that's smart enough.

Like if you want security and you don't get, you know you're probably going to leave some dollars on the table and you have to be willing to accept that and not complain about it. I love the quote in the last dance, Jerry Reinsover, is like, you sign a contract? I don't want to hear from you. Again, it's all over. And I'm like, if I ran a team, I would kind of want to run it that way because I give you that you don't get it both ways. I'm not going to come cut your contract, unless it's the football team.

I'm not going to cut your contract if you play crappy. I'm not going to give you a raise if you play well. That's how this works. You want security, you take the discount and you don't get upset about it. So I'm hoping that John Gibson, who makes whatever 5.8, is saying yes, I could have made more. I deserve more. My market value was more, but

this is what I wanted at a time. I'm going to have to be happy with it until it's over. Yeah. Well, I think he's making six four. Like, he's making good money. I always like my man, that we kind of get off on a tangent with. Damon Lanko,

who I play with in Arizona. I think he went to arbitration three years in a row with three different teams. Tampa, Phoenix, and Philly. Tampa, Philly, then Phoenix. Because he's like, I can't get the term. I'm not going to sign for less than I think, long term. I'll just keep going to get what I deserve until I get finally that big

contract. And he got it with Calgary a five-year $5 million dollar year deal. But that's a guy who understands it. I'm not going to be happy with anything less than my market value on a long-term deal so I won't take it. So sign shorter. So Scotty Pipp, I don't feel bad for you that way. You're being a little bit whiny about your contract. Do you, uh, did you ever go to arbitration or do you have any, any, uh, like, like good war stories of guys just being upset that their teams trashed them trying to get a better deal? well I filed for arbitration one time in Arizona I had led the team of scoring goals assists points all of it but the year prior to that I had been injured and played on the fourth

line and only had like 27 points in 50 games so a far cry from the 65 I had in my platform year so I filed and you exchanged brief and I joke with um whenever I see the coyote guys uh because Lawrence Gilman because he was the assistant GM and I have the brief I still have it in my house where they called me not my year where I led the team of scoring, but the year prior, they said he was one of the worst forwards in the NHL. And I'm like, wait a second, guys. Like, I don't know if that's true. I mean, I had a bad start. I played with Mike Sullivan. We didn't cross the red line. But like, come on. I wasn't the worst. The league I was plus whatever. That matters at the time. I had 20. Anyways, so I wasn't bothered

by it, but I filed. And I'm like, well, I guess we're going to go. If they think I'm the worst forward in the NHL, then we're going to have to go to this. And in true Canadian fashion, as I went the morning of my arbitration. I was in the law firm waiting upstairs my agent who went downstairs to get some coffee, ran into the coyotes guys, Cliff Fletcher, Mike Barnett, Lawrence Gilman,

in the Tim Horton's. And they started talking, does Mike want to do this? And my agent Pat Moore is one of the best. Like, yeah, he's totally good with doing this. And because I was. I was excited. I had a good case.

I was, whatever. I was fine with it. I was 30. I wasn't going to get my feelings hurt. And they said, well, you know what? What about this number? And they literally worked my contract out

on a Tim Horton's napkin. Oh, man. That's very Canadian. Yeah. So somewhere in my files, I have this brief, and I think I have the Tim Horton's napkin. Not bad for one of the worst forwards in the league. Yeah, exactly.

Two one year, two point three or whatever it was. Yeah, exactly. I do chuckle. My comparables for my arbitration case were like Patrick Marlowe and Marcos, like, pretty good players. Yeah. Okay, I'm dragging myself up a little bit here. Yeah, not bad.

Yeah, it's tough. I remember the first year William Carlson had in Vegas when he scored the 40 goals. And it was like he was going to go to arbitration. And that's a tough one because if you're building a case for the team, you're saying, listen, he had a high shooting percentage. We don't think he's that good. He was lucky. And that's like a pretty tough thing to hear as a player where someone's saying that you didn't

fully earn every single goal you scored because it was just luck was on your side. Like you're not trying to hear that case. No, no, but you can get over it when you get a $4 million award. Yeah, not bad. All right, Apex Mountain. I think, like, Cam Talbot is the most apexe apex mountain value that I've gotten on the show. Like, he was on another level at this point in time. Yeah, like that whole year, right?

Like, he played a ton of games and it was incredible in this game. And it just seemed like, you know, he was the real deal. Like, he was it. I mean, he was the backup coming out of New York. He had some good numbers in behind Eric Longforce. They made the deal to get him to Emerson because they needed a starter. And he showed them to be correct. And you thought, this guy is going to be a top, whatever.

eight goalie, that kind of that's your elite group, he's going to be that. It's going to be that for a long time. And yeah, he was he was contented. I don't, like, I don't I know it's hard to evaluate goaltenders and we can talk about the merits of paying them a lot of money, but I don't think anyone really thought that

he wouldn't be pretty good for a while. And I don't know if he's ever been better than he was. That year, that playoff run, this game, he was just amazing. Well, I guess a good unanswerable question is how different things would have turned out for him if he hadn't been used to such an insane degree this season. I mean, 73 regular season games, another 13 in the playoffs.

And he was so good. Like he only had a 9-19 percentage or whatever, but plus 31 goals saved above expected. It was second in the league behind just Sergey Bobrovsky that season, saved another seven in those 13 playoff games. And 86 games for a guy who played a bunch of years in college where you're not playing that many games. And then HAL, not many games. and then backing up Enric Lois, you're playing 20, 25, 30 games.

You don't wonder what the last time he played 50 was. Was it eight years prior, nine? I mean, I don't know. You never played 50 in college. I don't know if he ever played 50, like, in the minors. So you make a very good point because I don't think it hurt him this year clearly. But, yeah, unanswerable, like going forward, like, he never was quite the same after that workload. No, he wasn't.

I mean, he's been a 906 percentage goalie since minus 16 goals, say, to what I expect. Like, it just, it hasn't. It's been a completely different case for him. Yeah, I mean, you're looking, I'm looking at his elite prospects page now. He played 55 games for the Connecticut Whale in the HL in 2012-13. So that's the only time in his career he had played even 40 games before this. Well, he played 85. He played 56 in his first year in Edmonton, 15, 16, and then 73, and then 67, and then now he's a backup.

And yeah, it's tough. Like, that's a physical and mental toll that there's a reason why teams are not playing goal he's that much anymore. But in this game, he's top 60 of 64, and he basically, I think, stopped every single goal he could see the puck on. So, yeah, but he was good. I think any other sort of Apex Mountain guys? Because for a dog, the ducks, all the guys are kind of old.

For me, like, I thought, like, Sammy Votnin was really good in this game, I thought. And, like, I liked him a lot when I did a lot of West Coast playoffs and stuff. And I'm like, this guy is an underrated defender. Like, he's very good. He's a smaller guy, but good passer. but he can defend well. He, like, he defends kind of the blue line. He handles, you know, he turns pucks over.

And I thought watching this game, maybe because it hasn't been that way for him as of late. I thought this might have been his apex as well or somewhere and around here. See, here's mine. Hemp is Linholm. He was still good after a couple years for this, but this was the point in time where, like, they put him and Josh Manson together and they were like the league's best defensive shutdown pair. And we were talking about, like, Montour, for example,

where the effect the team you're on can have on you as a player i think for linholm his numbers have dipped like his underlying numbers have even dipped the past couple years but he strikes me as one of those players where like if he's on a good team with smart players who know where they're supposed to be like he's that much better because he sort of thrives off of that whereas now he's playing on this young team with a bunch of unproven guys where it's just kind of learning the ropes and it just i don't think that's like the the most optimal uh environment for his particular skill set because he's not this like eric carlson type of dominant guy where you're just going to take the puck and do it all himself he's sort of he's a supporting player but man like i look at him

yeah it hasn't really been talked about that much because he's a good player and i don't see why anaheim would want to move off of him but he has two years left on his deal it's his age 27 and 28 seasons only 5.2 million per like he's a name where if i was a Colorado or a Tampa bay i would be looking to make a godfather offer because i think if he was on a good team with players in their prime right now, like he would jump right into being one of the best defensemen in the league. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Again, I don't, you know, maybe to watch

as much anti-in games now because they're not good, but like you see this on the highlights and he's involved in a lot of them and not all them good. Because he was so good. He would just kill you with his feet. Like, he would just get up on you so tightly, you'd like, you couldn't breathe. You'd have no room to go anywhere. And

yeah, so maybe that applies to a lot of those guys. the defensemen that were at the height of their powers. And the other one, and then now I know he wasn't even remotely close to the height of his power physically. I mean, that probably would have been the National Series and that was the Kastler. But the height of his greasiness. Because like I still think he had the mentality and he had the role and the coach that would let him do it to just like this with him at his, like it's a young Connor McDavid. it's the perfect foil for him.

Grizzled veteran who just wants to slow it down and make it physical and bend every rule in the book to try to get advantage against the best player of the league who's the young guy going through the first time. It was just a perfect guy for him to try to get after. And he was pulling out every trick he had in the book. So in that sense, it was apex mountain, not for performance, but just in mentality

for Ryan Tessler to try to get after Connor. Yep, I completely agree. and who won the game it's got to be Getslaff, right? Yeah, yeah, I mean, he was he was awesome and I think, I don't even know me, these guys are so good, but I wonder on some level players as good as he is,

not that he would need any extra motivation, but does he see, you know, everyone fawning all over McDavid as they should, but he's like, you know what? Head to head, maybe a little, a little spark to say, I want to show these guys that I am not dead yet. I don't know, because, you know,

he went up against the two up-and-coming star centers and strides out of McDavid, and he was better. He was better in this game. He was better in the series. He was awesome. So, yeah, he probably, he won the game for sure. He was just, he's just a really good player.

He has been for a really long time. He showed all the reasons why in this game and in the series. So, yeah, to me, gets left the big winner for sure. Yeah, I agree. All right, MJ, this was a blast. This was a lot of meat on the bone in this game. and I think we chewed off most of it. So this is fun.

I'm glad you're a good sport about taking the time to watch it and deep dive it. And I think you're the only guest I've had so far for these rewatchables. You, you like took control of this podcast at one point. You're like switching the new categories. You're bouncing around. So you were in full control. You were apex mountain for this podcast. Does that mean I'm only going to get worse from here?

That's a bad thought. You're going to be the guy that aged the best. You're going to have another greasy Kessler level to you at some point in time. I hope so. I hope so. Listen, it was fun. It was fun to actually sit down and watch a game with an analytical eye because, you know, we haven't had to do it for a couple months. So I appreciate it. And we'll, hopefully we won't have to do it too many more times. But we have to do it again in the summer before we ramp up for something in the fall. Then we can do that for sure. Cool. Well, definitely, if this goes on for any longer, I will be calling you again to do so. And hopefully we have a live game to talk about at some point in time.

So stay safe in the meantime. Thanks for taking the time. And we'll chat soon, man. All right, man. Take care, stay safe, and yeah, we'll talk soon. Before we get out of here, I just wanted to thank everyone for listening to today's show and to touch on a couple housekeeping things. First off, hopefully you're enjoying this quarantine rewatchable series we're doing. This was the seventh part we've done so far.

So if you haven't checked out some of the others, I highly recommend going back into the archives and digging them up and having some fun with that. All the games we've done so far are available on YouTube so you can watch them in their entirety and watch the full broadcast. and go through it at your own at your own leisurely pace. This one actually that we just did with MJ isn't available on YouTube. Only the highlights are. But if you go on NHTV, especially on your laptop,

I'm not sure if the Apple TV app allows you to go back that far. I think it stops at the 2018 season. But if you go on your laptop and you dig it up on NHL TV, you can watch the full NBC broadcast as we referred to it on this one. The plan moving forward. is to do a number of other games. So I know I've teased it before, but we will eventually get to Kings Blackhawks game 7, 2014.

I've also got Sharks Golden Knights, game seven from last year plan. I've got the Blue Jack and Lightning game four from last year planned. I want to get into Capitals, Golden Knights, game five from 2018, and the Predators Jets, one of my favorite series of recent Membray, games two or three from 2018 as well. So we're going to be doing all those,

for those of you diligent students out there, to want to get ahead and do your homework. I really hope you guys are enjoying this. And if you are, as much as I am, please consider taking a minute to go leave us a rating and review on iTunes on Apple Podcast. It means a lot. I know it's a really quick little thing. It may seem like nothing,

but it goes a long way to help in our show and help spread the love during these trying times. So that's greatly appreciated. And the other thing is, I just hope everyone out there stay safe. The reason why I'm doing these shows above all else is, I mean, first of all, it's a nice little sort of distraction for myself and helps keep me busy since there isn't much else going on in the NHL and the hockey world. But for you, hopefully it provides a little bit of normalcy, a little bit of a distraction, a little one or two hour reprieve in the day, it allows you to think about some other stuff

other than what's going on in the real world around us. So hopefully it does that for you. I know some people don't really care about old games, but I think there's a really interesting lessons to be learned with all these. For example, apologies, Toilers fans for doing this one. I know it's still a bit raw and it's still a bit of a sore subject for you. But I think there's a lot of really interesting nuggets here, the MJ and I parse through.

And we'll hopefully continue to do that. So that's it for now. We're going to play the outro music and get out of here. Thanks for listening. And we'll be back next week with another episode of the quarantine rewatchables. The Hockey P.DOCAST with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdfast.