The Sheet with Jeff Marek - Maximum Chaos, EBUG's, American Goaltending, and More ft. Greg Wyshynski & Jay Downton

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

On today’s episode of The Sheet, Jeff Marek is joined by Greg Wyshynski for a full dose of Maximum Chaos, pitching their own trades, signings, hirings, firings, and other moves that would create the most chaos across the NHL this season. Jeff and Greg also dive into the rise of American-born goaltenders, why the United States continues to produce high-end talent in the crease, and what has gone wrong with Canada’s development pipeline as the country struggles to produce elite NHL goalies of its own. Plus, they break down the world of EBUGs, how emergency backup goalies work and some of the unique situations surrounding the role. Then, after Greg signs off, Jay Downton joins Jeff to discuss the evolution of Daily Faceoff, how the company has grown and changed over the years, and the journey that has helped turn it into what it is today. #thesheet #NHL #Hockey #DailyFaceoffReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Live from our Nation Network Studios in downtown Toronto, Jeff Merrick along with you, for another edition of the sheet for this Tuesday, August the 18th. Check's date. Yes, it is still August, Greg Wyshinsky, who joins us from New York in his tastefully decorated pad, which I understand is going to get a little bit of a lift. We'll get there in a couple of seconds. First of all, how are you today, Wish? Thanks to you, Tom. Thank you. I am warm. It's a humid New York summer. day. Of course, I'm wearing this in honor of Carol Wemalka. I don't know. I just pulled the name out of the hat as far as why we're wearing a Utah hat. Clayton Keller. Some good Americans on that team. Yeah. No, just I'm doing all right. You know, you mentioned

the new environs that I'll be getting soon. I am moving at the end of the month, which is of processes in and of itself. Going from the internet company that I have now, I won't say their name, except it is all of the colors in one spot. Gotcha. And going to Verizon Fios, where I will be having the fiber optics put in for the internet, which should, I imagine you could watch the show in 4K after I get the new internet going with the show.

Can I move in? Can you carve out a little corner? For me, we had to scrub the show on Thursday about a cozy 10 minutes in because of issues. And that's why I'm at the studio today is we get everything sorted out. Oh, your house is still revolting against technology? It's, yeah, it's my plate. Now, listen, I love it. You know how much I love being out in the country, right?

And I love it. It's awesome. I don't. Like when I go for my runs, I see more livestock than people. It's great. I go to bed every night to the sound of coyotes, not cars. It's amazing. wake up the birds every morning.

I absolutely love it. Internet sometimes can be a little bit of an issue. But basically it's fine. You take the bad in Snowville. Like you live on the Manson family compound. And that's fine. I visited it. It's great.

You've got a very nice plot of land. Nice. But I do imagine that the wires don't make it all the way out there necessarily. It's okay. For whatever reason. And Nick Corolli, who works with us here, it handles all of our tech mentioned. For some reason, it's always August.

So I'm just going to come here for the remainder of August. Everything always acts up for me in August. Nonetheless, hey, I wanted to play something for you to put a smile on your face because you mentioned American good old American players on Utah. So sticking to the theme of Americans in hockey, so on this week's edition of the hockey lifers, I talked to Kevin Woodley from Ingold Magazine and our good friend. Also right to NHL.com. Great guy.

friend of the show. Super smart. And he dropped something on me that dropped my jaw. And as an American, you will probably love this. This is from this week's edition of the hockey lifers. Where should give this one an ear and an eyeball? Are we seeing the rise of the American goaltender? Well, this one of them, this one jumped out at me.

We kind of buried the lead here a little bit. The Steve Thompson's presentation. included a slide, and good on him, because I would have led with it if I was him. It included a slide about halfway through about trends around the game and what their 51 and 30 program is all about and where it's headed. What is that? What's the 5130 program? It's a very ambitious goaltending program.

They started a number of years ago, and basically it was a target for them to have 51% of the minutes played in the National Hockey League in the PWHL by the year 2030, so 51 and 30, be by American goaltenders. That's a pretty big number, obviously. That's ambitious. But hey, aim high. Let me tell you this. For the first time in the history of the National Hockey League last year,

and I've got a slide to back it, more minutes played by American goaltenders than Canadian. The first time in ever. No way. Canadian goalies did not play the most minutes in the NHL. Now you can quantify different ways about the skill in the talent, who's the number one, but minutes played. Because what do we do?

We play the goalies that we think are the best goalies. Minutes played. Americans were number one last year. It's the first time ever Canada hasn't been on top of this list. It was like... It's bad enough at all the gold medals that the United States stole from Canada. This was just like more salt of the open wound as Kevin. That was from the USA goalie symposium,

goaltending symposium, which they've done now for two years this year. It was in Boston. And that's what Kevin was referencing. That's from the Hockey Lafer's podcast. Available wherever you get your podcast and here on YouTube. Thoughts. My thoughts were that graphic was really interesting for a couple of reasons. The first being that it wasn't just the American part of the graph that was pointing up.

You know, that was also the Czechs and the Swedes and the Finns and the Russians too. And I thought that was kind of interesting. But, you know, the biggest movement on that chart is the Canadian downward spiral of Goldstein. talent, which I know you've had theories through the years as to why that is, correct? Oh, yeah. I have a number of theories and some recommendations, too. One, first of all, United States, good on them for doing these symposiums, right? It sort of promotes this idea, and we saw this in Finland, we saw this in Sweden.

We've seen this in Russia as well, some of the hot spots of goaltending of the last 25 years. they do these top-down seminars, sharing information, not protecting information like little mafia fiefdoms corner to corner to corner. You know who doesn't do symposiums like this? Canada doesn't do symposiums like this.

The United States does. I think that there is, and I'm guilty of this too, like parents across Canada, Like I very much remember because every kid has a chance in net. Every kid starts in net. You get a couple of wax at it. And most of the parents just don't want their kids to be goaltenders.

Okay, I know like, I remember when my oldest first head in House League went in, I'm like, you hate to cheer for your kid to do well, but I hope he just gets lit and comes off crying and doesn't want to play goal anymore. Second, okay, it's super expensive. We all know that. The equipment is expensive. joining rep teams is very expensive too ice is very expensive I've put forward to Catherine Henderson who's ahead of hockey Canada a couple of different times the idea that if you want to encourage more kids to start playing net

because there's a there's a shortage right of as we've seen now and it plays itself out in both the PWHL and the NHL elite level goaltenders in Canada you see it at the Olympics this is why we made a big deal about check Rees of the world championships I said like look if you want to encourage more kids to Play the position. Wave the fees. Wave all the fees. You want to play, it's free.

And I was talking to an OHL general manager and goaltending came up. And I mentioned this idea. And he said the area in Ontario where he lives, they proposed that last year. And you know what happened? Like as a way to attract goaltenders, more kids to pick up the position. He said, you're going to play net? Fees are waived. It's cheaper to be a goaltender.

You know what he said happened? The executives from the neighboring territory appealed, I guess would have been to the OHA, the Ontario H.L. The Ontario H. Federation to accuse them of tampering, that it was essentially recruiting from different areas, luring them financially. This is how we can't stop getting in our own way in Canada. This is this sport that we claim to adore, and we can't stop getting in our own way. And there's little pockets of information that exist around the country and nothing is ever done top down for the entire country. Just a couple of things I lob out at you.

But we are seeing the rise of the American goal tender right now. We see it in just about every single international tournament. There's another one coming up here. And we'll see how Long Dobish has the number one spot in Montreal because there's another one coming there too. Two Canadian goalies played over 3,000 minutes last year in the NHL, in the regular season. Two of them.

those would be Logan Thompson and Jet Greaves. Yep. And Jet wasn't even the number one goalie to start the season. And do you know how many Americans played over 3,000 minutes? American goaltenders last year. I want to say seven. Six. You're close.

Six. Okay. Hello, Buck, Spencer Knight, Jeremy Swamen, Jake Ottinger, John Gibson, Dustin Wolf. So a good amount of top heaviness going on there as far as who. who's earning the minutes, but I think the, I think it's like nine Canadian goalies played over 2,000 minutes, maybe 10 or 11 American goalies played. It's, it's close. But, you know, Lutley has mentioned the 51 and 30 to me before. They're obviously doing a hell of a job with their development right now. Yep. As evidenced by the extremely deep bench that the

Americans had for various international tournaments, one in particular. I don't know. I was talking about. In Italy? I don't know what you're talking about. So it's, It's interesting. But, you know, ultimately, is it going to be cyclical? Are we just, have we just been in a downward trend for Canada until we get a few great young Canadian goalies that are, you know, the poster on the wall guys for the next generation of Canadian players? We'll see. There's still very much a dearth of elite Canadian goaltenders. Again, I guess that's why I think a lot of Canadians are making a big deal about Jack Reeves because I think we're all crossing our fingers and saying, do we finally have the one?

Do we finally have the answer here? Anyhow, I do have some, by the way, I do want to park some time talking about ebugs because I have some eBug goaltending questions for you and for our audience and for the league and for ebugs themselves because these are the things that I think about in the middle of August. But the theme of today's show, and I sort of rolled over on this one as something that should be self-evident if you really think about it. We want to do something called Max Chaos. And Zach's going to join us here in a couple of moments. And we sort of put out the Clarion call yesterday.

Hey, give us like your Max Chaos move now. Because this summer has been a Max Chaos summer. Like it's not just the Leo Carlson offshoe. That's the major one. But there's a cascade from that too. There was a lot that happened before. There was a Robertson saga, which can take off. There's a lot of things that have happened in this offseason.

A very vibrant July 1st as well, too. Can I mention something? So, Instagram is filled with meme accounts and aggregators. And my daughter gets most of her hockey. My daughter gets most of her hockey news from Instagram and TikTok. Most of the time sharing things that are said on this very program, in fact. Sometimes. One of those meme accounts mentioned, I guess, an article that proposed a trade between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Toronto Maple Leafs in which the Toronto Maple Leafs would acquire Mitch Marner.

for Gavin McKenna. And I just mentioned this because the summer has been so absolutely bad shit that for a scintilla of a moment, my brain said, that makes sense. Based on what we've seen. Like, honestly, like,

I was saying this, Zach in back, but I was seeing this on a show not that long ago. Aliens could arrive tomorrow and take over the National Hockey League and change a game. And I kind of go like, yeah, that's the summer that it's been. Yeah, that's kind of how it's going.

Well, aliens would be a surprise. Interdimensional beings would not be a surprise. Obviously, that's who is visiting us on the reg with their crafts. Yes. But aliens would be a surprise to travel. By the way, if aliens from another world traveled all through that distance galactically, you know, light speed, wormholes would have you to get here. And they landed and they said, our plan is to take over the National Hockey League.

Wouldn't you side-eye that civilization as being maybe one, one that we could conquer. Like, your goals are very myopic. Have you ever heard of the National Football League, my little green friends? No, to me, though. But instead, they want to take care of the NHL. That would be an indication to me that this is an intergalactic sport. And we're looking at this too myopically.

We're here. We're chasing balls everywhere. We should be chasing pucks. You know, we should all be on ice and should be skating. And this is the sport of choice intergalactically. That would be my reason. That would be my take on it. A lot of people don't know this, but on the Voyager probe, it was recordings of Beethoven and Bob Cole Gold calls were on the gold record in the Voyager probe.

So another civilization obviously got to know hockey through those means that come here. And we're like, do you have the cure for cancer, my little green friends? You're like, no, we want to take over the National Hockey League. Bring us to Mr. Bettman. Okay. So the theme of today's show sort of loosely is like, what are the max chaos moves that are out there? And I just want to mainly put this out just to see your reaction to it. I tested this one with Zach and a couple of people on the way in today.

And actually one person said to me, you and Greg got John Scott to the All-Star game. You have to do this as a campaign. Okay? All right. Okay. my max chaos move with the offseason. The Tread Red Wings are currently searching the replacement for Steve Iserman. That's correct.

You know who they should hire? Who should they hire. Jim Hughes. If you want to say, maybe Alan is the assistant general manager, director, or player, or whatever. Jim Hughes, of course, of CAA and famously the first, the first, the first, father of the Hughes boys who, oh, just happened to all live in Michigan at the same time. And part of the beauty of all of this, Greg, is then Jim could also go on the New Jersey Devils' father trip, father's son's trip, and also the Minnesota Wilde father and son's

trip. And there would be no whispers whatsoever about tampering. Tell me that wouldn't be the max chaos move right now. At the end of all of it, Chris Illich hires Jim. Hughes. Hey, everybody. I'm Quinn's dad. I have these travel pamphlets from the Detroit Chamber of Commerce.

I wanted you guys to take a look at here on the bus. You know, just some light meeting as we're traveling on this dad's strip. Me and you and dads. Just hanging. A couple of boys. So this is obviously a fantastic idea from a recruitment standpoint, but I'll do you one better. Ooh, then Jim Hughes as the manager of the Red Wings? I'm all years.

Because A, this is a clear level of tampering that the NHL would never stomach. What is this tampering you speak of? But the other thing about it, Merrick, is that I don't think you're thinking as grandiose as you should be thinking here. The Detroit Red Wings are what? They're an original six team. Multiple, multiple, multiple Stanley Cup champion. A franchise with solid ownership and a legacy.

see through the decades of being one of our finest franchises. Is it hurting? Is it licking its paw because it's got a boo-boo for the last decade? Yes. It's an injured, injured franchise, but one that could be revived with the right leadership. Now, it'd be nice if they could get all the

Hughes boys there too. Yeah, but it would also be nice to have somebody... Yeah, to get Jim Hughes in there. Somebody in charge who could go beyond the Hughes Boys. Go beyond the Hughes Boys. Wait a minute. And bring in other people

that this person might have some association with. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Jim Hughes as general manager and Keith Kuchuk as assistant general manager. No, no, again. You're thinking too myopic. You're thinking to familial. You're thinking DNA. You're thinking gene pool. I'm thinking back to the drawing board here. Okay. I'm thinking, hey, look, Jim Hughes could be the general manager under my plan. As long as you make Pat Brisson. your president of hockey operations. First of all, now you get the Hughes boys. Pat can not take the pay cut.

You might have Sid playing there by 2028. Nathan McKinnon's heading over last time I checked. That's the play. Who's that first overall pick in Toronto that you mentioned off the top of the show here? Exactly. Jim Hughes could be your day-to-day general manager. Pat doesn't want to have to go to the meetings. Pat doesn't want to have to get them to the.

phone and talk to people at the deadline. That's not what Pat does. Pat wants to be the over, the ruler of all he surveys. Jim could do the day to day. Pat is the president of hockey operations. You get the Hughes Boys and everything else that comes with Pat Brousan running your franchise. I did consider Pat Brisson.

I just thought it would be more profound and obvious if I said Jim Hughes for the obvious reasons. And again, like I'm sure Pat could have been general manager for a number of different teams. You just can't take the pay cut. You just can't handle that pay cut, man. Can I, let me push back on the, on the Jim Hughes thing. Oh, I don't know this out in Kayfay. I don't think this is going to be Jim Hughes.

This is like an August 18th podcast. I know that. I know that. But we're playing it out in Kayfabe for a second. Okay. All right, all right. What was the problem that the Detroit Red Wings had with their most recent general manager?

Too slow. Besides him not, not being good. Too slow. No, it's no draft. They couldn't fire him. They couldn't fire him. He was stuck there because he was a franchise icon. No exit strategy.

And there was no exit strategy. Yeah. What if the Detroit Red Wings suck balls for three years under Jim Hughes? But Quinn and Jack are both on seven-year contracts. They're the franchise. Luke's there too. How do you handle that one, Merrick? Well, that would never happen because these are American superstars.

who lead you gold medals and Stanley Cups, Greg Wischinski. That's why that would never happen. I wouldn't even entertain that idea for one second here. Let's get to, by the way, do you have any other ones other than Papua, any other sort of max chaos moves around the back of your head? Oh, I have a number of Max Chaos moves. I would figure this is kind of a podcast that's designed for you. Shoot, what do you got?

I'm ready. Tuss up. Let's go. Let's keep it with the devils for a second. Okay. They got a couple more years of Jack Hughes before him and Quinn go off to wherever they're going to go. Detroit with their dad. So that means you've got to maximize the opportunity to win.

What right now is the fatal flaw of the New Jersey Devils? Well, is it the lack of a Tyler Chifoli scoring winger? Absolutely. But it's not the main concern for me, as I heard from a number of Devils fans who watched the show recently and said, oh, this idiot, he hates the Devils. He's overly critical. So no one knows he's a Devils fan. He's wearing old green pants right now.

I've heard this for years, that I'm overly critical of the team. because I'm trying to throw people off the scent that I'm a devil's scent, even though I have the hat hat behind me. That's good. Okay, so listen. Okay. The devil's fatal flaw right now is the fact that they're going into this season with a three-headed monster of Jake Allen, Nico Dawes, and David Ridditch.

That's not ideal. Maybe it's ideal if you have a coach that plays a stout defensive system, like a Jim Montgomery system, but they don't have that guy. And so you're going into this season with a big question mark and goal, which is not where you want to be because you were just there a couple years ago. So here's what you do for maximum chaos. Okay. You send a communique across the river and you say, New York Rangers, you're in a different mood right now of contention. You would like to be in a rebuild.

You would like to clear the decks and start anew and get some. draft picks. Really? So here's what we're going to do. We're going to take away the one thing keeping you. Pederson and Jersey. We're going to keep, we're going to

take the one thing away that's keeping you from really doing a proper rebuild, which is that you have one of the best goaltenders in the world. So we're going to give you Alexander Command, number 12 overall pick in this year's draft. We're going to give you Mikhail Jureoff, our top goaltending prospect, Boston University.

I think the devils are hoping will solve their goal hunting problems at some point. And we're going to give you two conditional first round picks because the devils have two first round picks in both next year's draft and the draft after that. And all you have to do is put Igor Shethrkin on a boat. Oh, geez.

And now you've got a future and the devils have a present. You take that contract. You never really wanted to give the guy anyway off your books. And the Devils and Rangers do a trade that brings Igor Shishirken to New Jersey. That would be max chaos. First of all, I don't think that's enough for ego Shish Durkan. Second of all, I don't know that even though things have changed now and even, you know,

the Oilers will deal with the flames. And I'm sure if the Nordiques were still around, maybe the Habs would deal with them. I don't know that the New York Rangers or their fans, the people that have the nerve to buy the tickets, would stand for the New York Rangers helping bring the New Jersey Devils that that much closer to a Stanley Cup. I think they can do like little deals, like tiny little little. deals that don't translate directly to any type of playoff success or eliminating them a few years ago where Jack Hughes said that was New Jersey Stanley Cup? I just can't see that in any way, shape, or form.

I do think that they would love a number one goaltender. First of all, I don't know what that's going to happen. Just claim that it's not enough for Igor Chichikin. Did I mention Alexander Command, the number 12 pick in this year's draft is in this deal? The real reason it wouldn't happen besides the Devils Rangers being the Hatfields and the McCoys or Blurred Oasis. pick your reference, is the fact that I understand that our friend Sunny Mehta is not a guy that necessarily is looking to add a franchise goaltender for a high cost, which is why the devils

are right now in this pickle with their goaltending right now. And we'll see what it ultimately leads before the season. I think he would be the reason this doesn't happen, is treating all those assets for a 30-year-old goaltender, despite that goaltender being, you know, one of the best in the world. That would be maximum chaos as well. I just can't. I think my idea. I think my idea has more legs. Jim Hughes getting hired as a general manager the Detroit Red Wings. Can I give you another maximum chaos idea? That's what we're here for today. Zach's, Zach's chomp and he's ready to go too. What do you got? So here's an interesting thing about the Colorado Avalanche, their coach. The much accomplished Jared Bednar. Boy, do we love

him. Behind the bench for a president's trophy winning season, but also behind the bench for a string of playoff disappointments. And a lot of injuries too. It's not forget. Soft for landing there for that guy. He's a good coach. Anyhow. I don't even wait for camp. I fire him today. I fire him today.

And I hand the reins of the franchise over to David Carl. Bednar has one more year left on his contract, 26, 27. Carl has been very stubborn about leaving the University of Denver for a national hockey league job. This obviously would be the ideal one because he doesn't have to move his family. His family is already in Denver. I know. Stuff's already there. But here's the thing about, because I think we've all thought about David Carlin.

in Colorado, all of us, for the obvious reasons. I just don't know that David Carl can walk into a room of veterans, i.e. Landisg, McKinnon, McCar. You can't walk into that room with any kind of heft because these guys have all won medals and cups. Okay, like, you're not walking, you're not walking in there with an authority that a veteran coach would. To me, David Carl is like the coach you have,

that's bringing a team along as opposed to here's a room of veterans hey David Carl from college go tell these NHLers what they need to do to get it done that would be my only fly in the oitman here

for David Carl in Colorado here's the beautiful part of this plan okay you don't need McKinnon you just need McCar oh I forgot McKin's gonna be it's gonna be in Detroit with Jim Hughes

I don't know. You just need one of them. And McCar, we've seen grow into his own. He's his own man. He's his own leader. He is not the Robin to McKinnon's Batman anymore. If anything, it's their team. Are you going to tell Mikal McCar isn't going to...

Hold on. Are you going to tell me Kayle McCar isn't going to bend the knee to David Carl? A guy who understands how hard it is to win in the NCAA, looking at a guy who all he's done. done. Is winning in the NCAA? Very good chance that Kail McCar has faced the University of Denver at some point during his college career.

The idea that he wouldn't pay respect to David Carl as an accomplished coach, a genius behind the bench. All you need is McCar. You don't need them both. As long as you have McCar's ear, you've got part of the brain trust with that team, and you have a lieutenant on the ground in the war for the heart and soul of the Colorado Avalanche. A little bit late to be fair in a coach, don't you think?

I mean, it's the Colorado Avalanche. It's within their DNA to fire their coaches this late. How do you think Jared Beddard got the job? I was going to say, well, no, that was Patrick Wall walking out. That was him saying, yeah, I'm only going to do things my way. And if I can't get it my way, I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. And if I can't have it all, I'll take nothing. And he exited.

And don't forget to, like that first year was awful. And a lot of it was because when Patrick Waugh essentially walked out right before the season began, two very strong Max Chaos moves. Those are very strong max chaos moves. Let's see, Zach, as we bring you aboard here. Producer Zach Phillips, throughout the clearing call yesterday on Twitter, what came back as far as Max Chaos moves? Can I actually give you mine first before we go to Twitter?

Oh, is this a partner for, no, okay. No, not leaves related, which I know is surprising, not leaves related. Okay. There is a guy right now who is one of the top RFAs out in California. He's looking for a new conference. Contracts here. Everyone's trying to figure out how this will fit in. What number is he going to want?

Well, at the same time, there is a general manager who has not one, not two, but three players who have been the nucleus of his team for a very, very long time. And in Greg's scenario, he might have one of those players going to Detroit at some point. But they're going to graduate on so he needs a new nucleus. And why not get a proven young player who's 22 years? years old to stir up max chaos and bring back the battle of pennsylvania and kyle dubus goes out and acquires cutter goatee pittsburgh would be brilliant is that yours zach wow that's a awesome what's going back the other way i don't know i didn't think about that part of it well i mean all we did was Eric carlson all he did was to score 40 goals um i mean ben kindles in that package obviously yeah

Um, that's a great one. Uh, not going to happen, but that would, that would be a great max chaos move. See, I really thought you were going to go, I thought you were going to go. I thought you were going to like a yesper brat for Cutter Goet trade or some such is where I thought you were headed on that one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We've, I think we've talked, we've floated Jason Robertson for Cutter Goce. We floated that. We floated that one before just because Roberts's name has been attached to Anaheim now for 18 months. That's a good one. What else you got? That's good.

That's a good one. Let's start here with this one from Beast at Almedin Beast on X.com. This one says, Babcock does Babcock things, and the oiler season is a tire fire. McDavid calls his destination and chooses San Jose. Oilers get back to unprotected first, but with Celebrini and McDavid, the sharks win back-to-back cups. Wow. I think we've all thought about. what the package would be and the decision that the Oilers would face.

Like, oilers are going to be, again, one of the more fascinating teams to watch all season long. Like, let's say the Oilers don't win the Stanley Cup this year and don't come close. I think we could say that. Okay. Listen, I don't want to bet against McDavid and Dry Sidel Hyman, et cetera,

all the way down, Evan Bouchard. Don't have the goal. Do I love the goaltending? No, am I in love with the head coach? But the decision that, then is do you trade him with a year left or do you ride or die for one more year with Connor McDavid? Well, if you are to believe some at Edmonton, it's not ride or die for one more year

because he's going to sign another contract. There are people in Edmonton that have convinced themselves of this. I think he's trying really hard to win a Stanley Cup there. He doesn't want to be someone that chases it. I agree with that. But again, like last year was the first round exit. I know there were injuries. but last year was the first round exit against the Anaheim ducks.

What if it's the same this year? So essentially... And then what the package would look like to get Conn and McDavid in the first place? Well, I mean, the sharks have a bevy of stuff in the pipelines. More than two unprotected first. The listener viewer who suggested this is kind of a genius in the sense that, you know,

We've all compared McDavid's plate to that of Wayne Gretzky. Are you telling me that all these years later, it's Connor McDavid leaving for a California team? Is that you trying to tell me? Is that what we're doing? Time is a flat circle? Or does he go to the Los Angeles Kings, if he's going to go anywhere else?

We've talked about that, too, and keeping Cal's open. Unless he loves hearing Kenny Holland Spinney Yarn, I don't know why you'd pick the L.A. Kings, with the standard of instructions at this point. What else you got? I want to do a thing on eBugs here with Greg here in a couple of seconds because, man, do I have questions?

Okay, so this one just made me laugh. It's very simple, very straightforward. This one comes in from Daniel at D. Green 9999. Proposes a one-for-one trade. Oh, geez. Pedersen for Mitchcoff. I'm guessing that's Elias Pedersen. Yes.

Okay. That's what I guess too. I still do think that there's like a really, I still think that there's a, I know a lot of people would disagree. I still think there's a robust market for, for Elias Pedersen out there provided that draft picks are conditional and Vancouver takes back a bad contract.

Like I think there's a way you can give, you can make a safe Elias Pedersen trade. I don't think the Philadelphia Flyers are close to giving up on Matt Pay, Mitchcoff yet, though. No. I don't think. I would agree with that. especially a team that needs goals,

specifically needs goals on the power play. I don't think that they're ready to give up on Matveh Mitchkoff. But a Pedersen deal is completely doable, right? And it's like two conditional firsts based on production, take a bad contract and a prospect. I, yeah. I mean, I understand from the Flyers perspective why that might be interesting, you know,

but I don't know. I think that's a team with a lot of upward mobility right now that doesn't need to take take on a brook and Elias Pedersen and in the hopes that he fixes himself in other places. So I was talking to someone on the wait. We bring up Philadelphia here with Michikoff. I was having a phone call on the way to the office here today was someone who said,

do you think Daniel Breyer is going to have a hard time making trades? And I said because of the offer sheet? And he said, yeah, because of the offer sheet. Because it changed everything for everybody. change the money for for everybody. And I don't know, I mean, I don't know what the right answer to that is because I'm not 31 other general managers. Like, I'm sure, listen, I'm sure Columbus wasn't thrilled at the offer sheet.

I'm sure Chicago wasn't thrilled about the offer sheet. I'm sure San Jose wasn't thrilled about the offer sheet. But does it make it that much more difficult for Daniel Breyer? to make trades? No, I don't think so because I think that someone is going to sign a contract at some point that is going to knock the market

out of whack. It just happened to be on an offer sheet. But that's the thing. Don't forget, like Philly and Anaheim that we just talked about Cutter-Goche did the Go-Shea-Drysdale deal and now here's this. Well, think of this way, Merrick. Those two teams from trading.

If this was 10 years ago, maybe. You know, back in the day when Dean Lombardi was like you offer sheet my guy, you got your guy and it was a whole thing. But, you know, those are fun.

If we're to believe, we're to believe the Keaters, the Leo Carlson's agent, the flyers were not the only ones in consideration of an offer sheet. I believe that. I believe that 100%. And so the idea that Danny

Breyer is going to be an outlier here. Like he broke the the sacred code of the boys club. Again, maybe 10 years ago, that's true. In today's NHL, I don't think that's true. I don't think there'll be any of your repercussions for what he did. I hope not.

I really hope not. I just don't know. I just don't know. I think for some teams, they'll be sour. Other teams will be like, at the end of the day, I just got to do what's right for my team. And if that means dealing with the Philadelphia Flyers, I deal with the Philadelphia Flyers. And that's in, and it's just the cost of doing business. I didn't like it.

It raised the cost. Like, once I've told the story a million times about Gary Bettman's first GM, for his first manager's meeting where Bob Ganey and Serge Sivard almost came to blows because Savard had signed someone to a contract that made Gainey have to pay that much more for one of his players on the stars and they got into it at a manager's meeting

and next thing they're taking off their ties, taken out their jackets, people are cleaning away chairs and tables and Gary says to Brian Burke, what's going on? Brian Burke says, well, Gary, you're going to see a fight. And that was over a contract. Now, Serge and Gany never liked each other

when they played on the habs, but that's another story, but I do think we are long away from that. Like, I don't think that Utah, whose hat adorns your head right now, and New Jersey will stop doing deals over the Barrett-Haten offer sheet. Time heals all broken egos and bruise egos. You know, I think that's the case. I'll give you one more max chaos move. And again, this isn't something that I want to see happen.

This isn't something that I expect to see happen. But I would say there's a percentage chance of it happening. Okay, what do you got? What if the Tampa Bay Lightning fired John Cooper this year? Now, he would not be the first Jack Adams Award winner to then see his fortunes change quite dramatically in short order. Hello, Jim Montgomery. Hello, Gerard Gallant. And there's probably a certain amount of expectation for playoff success that has not been there for the Tampa Lightning. It's an aging roster.

I don't know. could it be a possibility this year that John Cooper finally leaves Tampa for what will probably be a year of television on TNT and then gets the pick of the litter after that? I think there's a lot of people we wonder about around Tampa, around Utah rather, just because of the owner, right? And his associations, whether it's with Ray Whitney, whether it's with Wayne Gretzky, whether it's with John Cooper. Like we all know how everybody in hockey kind of travels and packs, right? Just happens. Doesn't mean they all get together and work, but you always wonder like, okay, like somewhere down the row, say Whitney gets hired. It's like, oh, yeah, because they had this and golf and always trying to make it happen and it never really came together.

This person was already there and doing well, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I think we've all wondered. We've talked about this before. Like you do wonder. Like, I think that I've had people tell me that the one, like, I know the Maple Leafs have a new coach

in Jim Hiller. I was just, I was just thinking unfair. I was just thinking it though. But I do think that John Cooper is of the mind that that's a real challenge that he would embrace.

Yeah, like Babcock. Like, I mean, it takes a guy that has won before that is convinced of, of, you know, their kung fu is the strong. strongest to go there and accomplish the impossible. Babcock tried it, failed, but you could totally see Cooper doing it at some point if he really

wanted to. Now, again, this means that he doesn't have the pool, he's not smoking cigars in the Tampa in the Tampa weather. But if you've accomplished all you can accomplish in Tampa, that's in the pantheon of professional sports merrick. Yeah. That is one of the last great missions to accomplish. The Cubs won, the Red Sox one.

Maybe somebody decides they want to coach the New York Jets to a Super Bowl one day. Who's to say, the Leafs are one of the great unaccomplished missions right now in professional sports? It is. As far as hockey goes, because the Rangers got it in, 94, right? Like the Rangers got it with Keenan and Smith. The one great accomplishment that a couple of generations have grown up with here is who can make this team win? Yeah. Who can finally climb to the top of this mountain and win a Stanley Cup in color TV? Is second to that Vancouver insofar as like what? Because it's 1970, right?

Yeah. Same as Buffalo. Sabres are 1970 as well. Yeah, Sabres in Vancouver are probably right there with them. I think Vancouver is an interesting one only because like they've come so close. And also that market now has the reputation of being a bit more of a meat grinder than Buffalo is. The other, you have you have the cover of the Buffalo Bills right now if you're a Sabres coach. Right.

The bills are a narcotic. Like the bill, as long as Josh Allen's slinging the pig skin, and you're going to have a little bit of a narcotic effect in that market that people are like, you know, the sabres suck. Oh, the bills are good. I think Vancouver, see, Vancouver's in it because they were kept out of, they were kept out of 1967 expansion. Essentially because bluntly, Toronto and Montreal didn't want to share the TV revenue. Like that's just it. Like I think the public response was the NHL wanted a singular owner.

And the original Vancouver ownership group for 67 expansion was like eight or nine different people or entities. And the public cover was, no, no, no, nope. The NHL wants like a singular owner. Like that's why Mr. Snyder got the Philadelphia Flyers. Thank you very much. But really it's because Toronto and Montreal didn't want to split the revenue from Hockey Night in Canada. Like it's that simple. And so they were blocked.

And so I think that Vancouver, even going back to then, have a legitimate gripe with, you know, being blocked from getting into the NHL in the first place. So they've always had their backs up. And like this is historical. Then there was the spin the wheel for the first overall draft pick in 1970. And they thought it was number one. It turned out it was number two.

So instead of getting Jolbert Perot, they got Dale Tallon. and the lottery luck has not been there either so I would Vancouver's not there yet like with Toronto because 19 or 232 is it 232 or 31 when the band when this neck when when the next band

comes off the Stanley Cup that means there will be no Toronto Maple Leafs teams on the Stanley Cup anymore. There'll be five Dundon kids, but there will not be any Toronto Maple Leafs teams on the cup. Also, hang on, for more context, there will no longer be a Bob Eur on the Stanley Cup. And there will no longer be an Henri Richard on the Stanley Cup either. But so I think, like, there's just like so many different like rake stepping moments along the way for

Toronto. That is still the one. I still think that's the big one. Off the dome, the toughest, the biggest missions yet to be accomplished, be the Leafs, then Vancouver, then the Sabres,

and then probably the Flyers, 75. Well, they went back to back though. In the mid-70s, you're just talking about Bobby York coming off the cup. I mean, that's how long it's been for the Flyers. Bobby Clark's next.

You're not wrong. Absolutely. Toronto, Vancouver, Buffalo. Flyers. Or, oh, hold on. Now, a new entrant into the chat. Where do we slot the sharks in this as a team that has never crowned a champ?

They've got to be behind the flyers, I imagine, because they came into the league in the 90s. but they're in the mix too insofar as like coming close inability to scale them out and yeah

they're probably behind the flyers sharks yes uh this is like sort of as far as like teams that are like way overdue to win the Stanley Cup I was going to see it like Atlanta Flames

but I think Calgary won it in 89 your reaction to the flyers they won back to back cups is my reaction to the Islanders and that might be a function of my dad having been an Islander's down when I was a kid and going around our basement

and seeing all the four straight cups memorabilia framed cartoons from the New York Daily News by Bill Gallo celebrating the fourth straight Stanley Cup. Like it's hard for me, despite obviously we all know how long it's been for them and for the Oilers, for that matter, how long it's been for both of those franchises. It's hard for me to gin up too much sympathy because I am of a certain age

and I remember living through those dynastic years for both of those franchises. Oh, and by the way, you had fucking Gretzky and you had fucking trache and bossy. Okay, in the chat, people are bringing up

the Winnipeg Jets. That's a trickier one because of the relocation. Like, just the clock reset because they used to be Atlanta? Atlanta. I'm thinking more of the city than the franchise.

Zizz. Yeah. Right? Sure. Because one Winnipeg Jets organizations on your head right now. Yeah, I mean, listen, if you really want to do the city,

I mean, I mean, Ottawa didn't win since they were the silver sevens or some shit, right? So I mean, like, you got to throw them in the mix too probably then if we're doing cities. I love when you try to do history. It's my favorite thing. I just love it. I just freaking love it. When you go hockey history, I always, I always, honestly, it will never stop making me laugh. It's the best.

If you wanted to slot Winnipeg is five behind the... I think the Flyers are still four in my books. Like, I think the Flyers... Because the Flyers, I've seen... The Flyers fans had to sit through the Islanders dynasty. They had to sit through the Rangers' drought ending three Devils Cups. The Penguins went in a bunch of cups throughout these years. Like, I think the Flyers fans have dealt with a lot of pain.

Also, looking around their city and seeing all these other teams win in championships so the Flyers can get their shit together. So I think there are still four and the Jets are five. So here's my problem. This is my, and this is like the moment where my bias completely gets exposed. It doesn't feel like that long for the Philadelphia Flyers for me, even though my first recollections of watching hockey were in my cousin's house in Livonia, Michigan, Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins.

I was probably, I think five. I was five years old, maybe six years old at that. Like that was my first time I can remember watching hockey, like watching. watching NHL. And ever since then, that Flyers team, that won those two Stanley Cups, like I've devoured every single,

like whether it's video, whether it's literature, books, everything. Anything I can get my hands on about that Philadelphia Flyers, and I continue. I just picked up Watson's book again the other day just to flip through it

to see the stuff about the Red Army game. Like, I am forever going back to, like I reread the Ed Snyder bio a couple of years ago. Like I'm constantly going, back to that flyers team because it was such an inflection point in the NHL that it doesn't

seem like that long ago until someone like you says, dude, that was a million years ago. And I go, oh yeah, that was a million years ago. I'm going to give you two dates. I'm going to give you two dates. I'm going to give you two dates. Okay. May 27, 1975, June 20th, 1975. May 27, 1975 was game six of the Stanley Cup final in which the,

Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Buffalo Sabres and captured their second straight Stanley Cup. June 20th, 1975, was the day Jaws debuted in theaters. That's how fucking long ago it's been since the Flyers won the Stanley Cup. My parents, I can remember, they went to the debut in Toronto, and they were giving everybody shark posters of a great way, like coming up to the surface, right, with the mouth open. Not the actual benchley cover or the promo for the movie, but just like A Shark. And they're giving it to everybody to the theater. And so they brought it home like, oh, that's so cool. And I put it up in my bedroom.

I'm six. And the light from the hallway would shine on it every night and it would terrify me. But I didn't want to tell my parents that I was scared of it. So I refused to take it down. So I went to bed every single night for like months in terror of looking at this. shark that my parents from the debut of jazz

my post giveaway my poster giveaway story is it was early 90s I'm living in Jersey the movie clerks comes out clerks Kevin Smith's

great great seminal 90s classic it has its premiere at the middle town movie theater by me or actually no

the Haslett movie theater in New Jersey and I go with my friends we're like we're going to go check out this movie looks pretty funny the entire cast Kevin Smith, everybody that's in the movie is at this table and they're signing posters.

And my friends are like, oh, we got to get some signed posters. I'm like, I don't care about this shit. I'm getting popcorn. I'm just wondering like a clerk's poster from the premiere of the film signed by the entire cast, including Kevin Smith, framed. What would that be worth today? But the popcorn, the popcorn was priceless, obviously. That better have been really good popcorn.

That's a great flick. And it was not. And he was on a run back then, too. That was some great movies. I don't tell my Kevin Smith story on this show. I forget, if I ever told you the Kevin Smith story. Shoot. Kevin Smith was going to do a movie about a hockey goon.

You've told me this one before, yes. Yeah. So the folks haven't heard it. So it was going to be called Hit Somebody after the Warren Zivon song. Yeah. And it was going to be about a hockey goon. And so I was running Puck Daddy at the time. And Kevin Smith's working on this hockey movie.

And he and I had talked before, you know, as a jersey guys and Devils fans and whatever, just here and there. But I've never had a really long conversation with the guy. So, one day. Robert De Niro, by the way, always told me never drop names. One day, Kevin Smith texts me. And he's just like, he's just like, hey, do you have a second? I have a hockey question. He calls me at 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning.

9 a.m. on a Sunday morning. I'm in my office. and he pepper he's high as shit I should say that not a surprise at the time the man was smoking a lot of week but he's highest shit we spent the next it had to be three hours

going through all of the nuances of hockey so he could better understand what he was trying to write about he's like it's like an hour and a half into the conversation he's like hey what do assistant coaches do like what the fuck are they doing they're just standing there they're just wearing a suit like what does the assistant coach do

what I'm saying. Getting more ice chips for the coach to chew on. Like, what do they really do? But it was like, it was awesome. Like this is the guy who grew up two towns over for me, kind of a personal hero, a guy from my, you know,

neck of the woods that made, made his headway in the business and did great. And at the time was probably the most recognized Devils fan. And we just chatted for like three hours about hockey and life and comics and the whole thing. And cherish that moment. Still in my phone somewhere, I think. You could,

but, but yeah, cherish that moment with Kevin Smith. You could have, you could have been either a consultant or some type of contributor on this movie? I could have. That would have been the coolest thing ever, Greg.

But honestly, for me, like, the treasure for me was making him laugh, which I know is not that much of an accomplishment because, again, he's high as a fucking kite. But I made him laugh a bunch of times, and I was like, okay, I've made one of my comedic idols in some way, shape, perform laugh here,

and that's good. I feel the same way when I make my son laugh now. He was born in October. It's a challenge. He's a bit like his mother, where when you make them laugh, it feels like an accomplishment. My older daughter, Iris,

who's like going to be three in January, easy. You just make an elephant noise and she laughs. Graham, a bit tougher audience. Same deal with Kevin Smith. They grew up and they start talking back. I get the eye rolls.

I'm at the eye rolls, phage, phase. Our daughter still laughs, but the boys, it's tough. Okay, I want to get some eBug stuff in here for you. Please. before we wrap this whole thing up. And this may take a little bit.

So this year, there will be 32 e-bugs hired. I think a number of them already have been hired. You have until 48 hours before opening Pucktrop of the season, which is earlier this year, unlike the last few seasons. Yeah, 48 hours before the first Puck Trop to officially hire e-bugs. So I got a and I'm not exactly saying or asking all this on firm ground because a lot of it I don't have answers to. I just thought on a program like this in the middle of August. It's good just as good to get some e-bug questions out there that I at this point don't have any answers to.

Perhaps you do. So my first big one for e-bugs is, let me frame it this way. Okay. mandatory to have e-bugs. So they're going to go out there and they are going to face in practice if they are needed. Okay. NHL shooters. This is the first thing in the morning.

And again, the condition is you can't have played for the last three years pro, can't have played more than 78 games. We understand what the definition of an e-bug is and who is qualified to be an e-bug. and maybe make it into a game. You're going to face NHL shooters in practice, and it's going to be in a lot of skills sessions. So you are going to get a barrage of puck's point-blank high-quality NHL shooters on the regular if you're a practice.

What happens if an e-bug gets injured? Do you have to essentially have an e-bug for the e-bug? Because you have to have one who can play games and can travel with the team. But if an e-bug gets injured in practice, do you have to hire another e-bug? Now, the e-bugs that are getting hired, like a lot of them are just going to have, like, other responsibilities with the organization, whatever they're going to do. but if an ebug gets hurt, which given they're facing off against NHL shots here, there's probably a good chance that a couple of these guys

are going to get concussions or something hip, something groin, you know what it's like being a goaltender. Like, it's not beyond reasonable to suggest that someone's going to get hurt. At what point, since you are mandated to have one who can play and can travel, do you have to go out and hire another ebug? Again, I don't know the answer to that. But I have a sidebar to that too.

So ebugs will show up every day, okay, for practice. Sometimes they will be needed. Other times they won't. So there's a chance that this ebug is going to spend, I don't know, a couple of weeks without facing any shots and then be expected to go in there again and face a barrage of NHL shots. shooters.

Can you, and I think of like Toronto, where the HL team is right there across the street, can you send an eBug down to the American League to practice with the team? So when they do practice with the NHL team, they won't just be dropping in their cold. I mean, does the HL have, I mean, the, the HL is usually the, you know, the petri dish for NHL rules. So they, do they have now the same eBug rules that the NHL has? No. No.

Can you assign... So anyone could just show up and play. Well, you have to be... You have to have to have an American Hockey League contract to play. But essentially, can you ship your e-bug to the American Hockey League so he can face shots? So if he does have to practice with the NHL team, he's not just dropping in there cold. And here's another question. even though if they do play a game they'll have to wear

K Whitmore legislated equipment if you're an ebug and you know you're facing a a cajillion NHL like hard shots like here's Austin Matthews here's like pick your player like who can rip it can you wear bigger equipment like in the KHL like once in part of like they would have like yoga blocks underneath the chest protectors yeah they keep it safe these guys would look massive

can you do that in practice? I see no reason why the e-bug can't show up looking like the guy who the dog attacks in the self-defense class. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Right. Okay, I've got more. How much are you paying them? The e-bug? The e-bug.

Do we have a salary rate? Because I've heard everything from, like, one person said, I think it's between like 40 and 60. And then had someone else tell me 80 to 100. And if it's 100, then you're making it. making more than like American hockey league goalies. Because I think what their bonus is, it's like 92 or 925 or something like that. That I don't know. I was looking through the rules because I knew we were going to talk about this and I didn't

see any salary information. That one thing I will say is that the individual may also be employed by the club in another capacity. Correct. So the question I have is like, okay, so let's say you're paying. Who's the, I think Carolina's trainer is also a goalie. I want to say that's the situation. Do you build into their salary the e-bug availability, or is that a separate contract?

I think it has to be a separate. Again, I don't know, but does it have to be a separate contract? Well, like, stretch with the Washington Capitals, for example. He's been there forever. Yeah, Brett. He was there. Yeah, Brett Linnard. He's been their e-bug in the past.

Yeah. And so the question that becomes like, I mean, he's been there forever. I imagine being the e-bug is part of the overall reason why he remains employed, besides being very good at his job. But, I mean, the fact that you can also be the e-bug is probably, you know, when you go down to contract negotiations, I'm the videographer. Oh, and by the way, if, you know, Logan Thompson can't go, I might be available to fill in. I don't know. Is he going to be the e-bug for the Washington Capitals? I don't know. Good question. I don't know. I, okay, so here's, here's another one.

If you're a team, and I think the answer to this is, I think the answer to this is no, but I'll throw it out there anyway, if you're a team that carries three goaltenders, like let's say, let's say the Rangers are going to carry three, right? Because you mentioned Chisdurkin, they picked up Corpusallo and Dylan Garan. Like, I don't know if that guy's got clear waivers. Well, I mean, the devils, the devils can throw in Nico Dawes into that trade, yeah, if, for Shisholkin. So it would be Dawes, Corpuselho.

Of course. Yes. Montreal. There's another one. So your team is carrying three goaltenders. If your two goalies get hurt, do you have to play the e-bug or can you play your third goalie? You play your third goalie?

That's what I think, too. Oh, you be during a game? Yes, in that game. Ooh, that's a question. I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question. I think you can play your third goalie, even though he's not on the rock.

roster. But again, I don't know. Again, I'm doing all of this on less than firm ground. Like these are all just questions that your boy has here about the formalizing of the ebug, which I don't know. This one looks like it's just like, especially when you consider the injury factor here. I don't know how long this phenomenon lasts, to be honest. When both goaltenders are on a club's playing roster that become,

are on a club's playing roster become disabled during a game. Yes. That's when the e-bag comes in. So I don't think you have three, though. What if you have three? What if you're, Buffalo Sabers carry three. What if you're the Buffalo Sabres? Can you?

You can't. You can't, no. This one I think I'm comfortable saying, I know the answer to, which is that your third goalie would be your emergency goaltender in this situation. That's what I think, too. He's not on the roster for the game. Right. So unless there's some crazy-ass backstory to this guy, most likely this goaltender will have played more than 80 professional games

or will have a National Hockey League standard player contract which would invalidate them from being the emergency backup goaltender. So the third goal, it could not be the e-bug. They'd have to play the e-bug. They would have to play. Again, I'm doing this based on I don't know the answer. To you're saying they would have to go. How would that go over?

You lose a game because the e-bugs got to go in when Dylan Garan, Dave Riddick, who met Sam Montembow, Sid Coltellis, sitting right there. Oh! You can do it.

Oh, that's going to sting. Oh, if that's right, that's going to suck. Oh, that's a tough. Because I thought it would have been, no, you know what? Dylan Garand, come on down. We're not going to play the ebug.

We're going to play our third goaltender who's not dressed. No, that's why they've, got these ebug rules in place. You know, it's funny. I was trying to figure out what was the impetus for establishing these rules? Was it to try to

like avoid the embarrassment of having some guy who's a plumber come in? Who was it with Florida that was going to go in in that one game and then Roberto Lwango came rushing back from the hospital? Who was the defenseman for the Florida

Panthers? Who is going to go in? Like For a matter of history here, the last position player who went in net was Jerry, everyone thumbs up Sudbury, Jerry Tapazzini with the Boston Bruins in 1961. It's a Chicago Boston game. And he came in for like three minutes at the end of a game. But he was the last one. Again, underscoring, this doesn't happen very often.

But nonetheless, now that it's actually a thing in the NHL, formally and mandatory, we can have these types of conversations. My pet theory on this is that the goal union banded together because eBugs embarrass them. And by that I don't mean that they're sieves. I mean they're just as good as the professional goaltenders. David Ayers stopped eight of ten shots and won a game.

Scott Foster stopped all seven shots he faced. Okay. You've got Thomas Hodges back in 22, 28-year-old accountant, two saves on three shots. A bunch of guys didn't even face a shot because how good the teams in front of them are. So I think the goal you all got together and been like, guys, we're all trying to make like $12 million a season. And there are Zamboni drivers and accountants doing just as well as we do. Zach wants in here.

Go, Zach. Jason Greger tweeted August 11, 2026, clarification on incoming ebug rule in NHL. All teams must. employ an e-bug, but he is not required to be at arena on game night if an NHL team is carrying three goalies. The third goalie can be e-bug. His starter is hurt. He can go get dressed, but will remain in the room unless the backup gets injured. You know, that is the most NHL thing ever. You spend all this time establishing all these rules. Your e-bug can't have a player contract. Your e-bug can't be a pro for more than 80 games. Your e-bug can't be this. Your

ebug can't be that. Oh, by the way, if you've got, you know, a guy who's played 10 seasons of the NHL who just happens to be your third goaltender, he can come in and play if both guys get hurt. What a league. Love this league. Makes total sense. Just because they don't want picker player to go in.

Oh, it's great. Just so everybody knows, once upon a time in the NHL, there are, there was an eBug. Like there was, every single team had like a designated, I think for Toronto when I grew up was Ian Turnbull. They had a designated player that if both goaltenders were hurt, this guy was going in net. It just wasn't called the eBug or whatever and nobody really knew who it was. But if you ask all the teams, like who's your player who would go in net here, they would tell you, oh, it's this guy. And you should be a defenseman. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. If four defensemen get hurt in a game for you, you've got to just. play with two guys the entire time. But if two goys get hurt, well, then you could tap Dave Ritch on their shoulders and be like, hey, you've been playing in the league for 75 years.

Come on in. I know there's all these rules that say the plumber in Section 203, he can't come in even though he's the e-bug because he, you know, as a played 81 games in Sweden when he was 22, but you can come in and

fix the problem that we have now, David Ridditch. This is what, listen, I don't know, listen, I don't know how long this is going to last. I really don't. And we could be sitting here just like doing all this for a situation that might not even happen all season long. Yeah. But I think there's enough sort of like, eh, to think that maybe this doesn't last more than a year. And dovetailing that, could you see? The NHL expanding the roster by one to accommodate for a third goal tender for every team.

Now here's another one. Oh, you know what? Here's another. I want to get this into. I think I'm almost positive. It was Bill Ranford who proposed this. I like this idea. So Ranford proposed the eBug should actually be a development position.

And you use like your ECHL guys, but it's on a rotation. So the ECHL guy will come up for one month, face some NHL shooters, be around the NHL team, travel. Generally, you're not going to get called upon, but it becomes part of their development. Then they go back to the ECHL. Another eBug comes up and they get that development month or two weeks or however. And then you keep all of your goaltenders on this development slash ebug rotation. I, listen, I like that more. I happen to think that expanding it to three roster spots for goaltenders is fine. I know there's a lot of people worried, okay, we're going to have expansion.

Do we really have enough goalies to go around? And to that I say, yes, because apparently America is exporting goaltenders like wheat and Marvel movies. And so there will be plenty of goaltenders to go around. Keep cranking out goalie. Hockey League and all over the world. You're going to be responsible for one additional roster spot. That's right. That's what USA.

We began by talking about the rise of the American goaltender. And here we are once again. The U.S. goalie is going to bum. bump ebugs out. We're going to save the day. We can go five deep if we wanted to. All right. Any parting shots?

Final thoughts from you? None whatsoever. On a Tuesday, you're feeling good about yourself? You ready to start watching hockey again? I was thinking about this the other day. Are you ready to start watching hockey soon? Like, when do you start to get itchy for it? For me, it's September.

No, no. I need, as a New York Jets fan, I need to see an actual game that counts in the NFL before I watch any hockey. That's kind of the sequence of events as an American sports fan. As the NFL starts, and then training camp starts, and then the real hockey starts. Around this time of year, whenever we're on together, and usually it's actually a little bit later, I love asking this question to you. What's happening with the Jets?

It's not good. That's always the answer. Our top running back is already injured. He should be playing week one, they hope. Yeah. I mean, they're in like a two-year re-year, they're like in the second year of a two-year rebuild. And they're going to like hopefully tank the season to get a quarterback and go from there. But I mean, they're the Jets.

They'll find a way to screw it up. All right. Best of luck with the move. I mean, we'll talk again before then, certainly. But love the hat. Thank you. I love that logo. Love it all.

And we'll, yeah, no, it's good. Yeah. Do you have like one more, do you have one more chaos before, for wish before he bids us good afternoon? Hang on, Zach. Zach's finding himself up here. I mean, I can give you one here, but it's kind of a nuts one. That's what we're here for. It's middle of August.

So NHL Trade Alert tweeted at us three and one here. Oh, geez. All right. Matthews for McDavid. Oh, geez. McDavid for McKin. Drey Settle for Kutrov and brackets, finally, as we've discussed. That was discussed in the Vancouver draft, yes, yes.

McDavid for McKinnon. So McKinnon is now on. Three separate transactions. I thought it was a series of trades. It's not a domino, domino trade. No, no, no, no, no. Would you do any of those? Well, it depends on who you are.

I mean, if you're Toronto. If you're Toronto, you do it. If you're Toronto, you do it. If you're Colorado, you do it. McDavid for McKinnon is really interesting, isn't it? Like, if McDavid signed, if you wanted to sign there. Oh. We'll have to meditate on this one.

Wow. This one actually, of the three, McDavid for McKinnon, it's not smoke and it's not fire. It's that little smolder that you see on Survivor when they've rubbed two sticks together vigorously and the grass starts to maybe change color. That's an interesting one. Okay, we'll leave you with that one then.

Who is that? NHL Trade Alert, that's right. NHL Trade Alert with those three proposed. And I do like the dry-siddle Kutcher-off because that was discussed. Finally, the Vancouver Draft. And as was the Luchich-Neil deal, which both sides denied to me.

happened happens. Okay. You go be Greg Wischinski in New York. All right. Thanks, everybody. Talk to you soon. Greg Woshensky from ESPN and ESPN.com. One thing I wanted to mention, you probably should have done this when Greg was on because he works for ESPN.

Bill Rasmussen passed away today. So he was the founder of ESPN, but also famously, essentially went on that pursuit or started down that road. After getting fired by the New England Whalers of the WHA, he was actually the communications director of the WHA for the New England Whalers for a couple of years. And then when he got turfed, I want to say 1978, he went on to found what later became ESPN. So whenever I see anything with ESPN, I always remind myself that like all great things, Zach, it began in the WHA. I guess that makes sense too because ESPN's in Bristol Connecticut

Yeah, Connecticut. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, I guess that's your easy way of tying everything back to the WHA. Always, always. I think Jay Down's going to join us in a couple of seconds here, our boss here at the Nation Network, and I'm going to start off by referencing the WHA when he stops by. So you let me know when Jay's aboard and I'll sort of

frame everything here in WHA lore. Just one thing here before we bring them aboard. One thing for you. The last player who was close to being a goaltender having to play net, do you remember who that was? It was Florida Panthers, right? Yes, it was. Was it 2015?

Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Keith Ballard? No. 2015 Florida Panthers. Good Branson? Do you want me tell you? Yeah. Derek McKenzie.

Oh, so it was a Ford. It wasn't a defenseman. Derek McKenzie. No way. Okay, well, that's good. That's the last thing I got for you as that. Okay, because I would have been driving home today going like, damn it, who was that?

Damn it, who was that? Jay is ready for you. I'm getting old. I'm getting old. The gray hairs are true. I'm forgetting things. Who is like, okay, let's bring Jay Doughton on of the nation. We're going to talk about the evolution here of a brand.

And Jay, first of all, thanks so much for stopping by. I wanted to have you on Thursday and then Thursday turned into a chaos day. But I want to frame this. this way. The Edmonton Oilers were not originally the Edmonton Oilers and the WHA. Originally, they were called the Alberta. That's right. So you know your history on this day where Bill Rasmussen passes away, whose history goes back to the WHA and the New England Whalers. The evolution of a brand as Daily Face Off emerges now as Daily Face Off Calgary, Edmonton,

Toronto, Vancouver. Your thoughts on this one initially? They will sort of drill down. Well, initially my thoughts were this is a pretty emotional exercise for us because we started this journey in 2007, launching a passion blog about our favorite team, Oethersnation.com, was started and it was interesting to see kind of how this scaled out across other markets, so we realized we actually had a business on our hands. And then along the way, we were able to bring on daily face off into the fold. You know, it started as a fantasy site. But, you know, it had this really strong brand that had an ability to build a league-wide content strategy against.

And we started doing that with heavy, heavy lift and effort about five years ago. And quickly off the backbone of what the daily face off V1 was and still is today on the fantasy side, we built a pretty robust network of hockey shows, web articles, or sorry, website, social accounts. And all of a sudden, you know, we've created a bunch of confusion in the marketplace. So we're very excited to bring all of our market brands into one house so that everyone understands what the UFO Vancouver is and how it's part of this giant ecosystem as opposed to, all this confusion when we're talking to different audience members in different markets or if it's, you know, sponsors and partners, always trying to have to explain how everything connects. And still, you know, years of explaining to the audience, to partners, to just everyone at large, you know,

we still felt like we're still having to tell the same story and that we've hit the ceiling. And the only way to punch through and break through that ceiling was to bring everything under one brand. so it's cohesive. It's easy to explain. It explains itself now. And then allows us to continue on its journey of growing this big hockey community under one house. And now it makes expanding into the U.S. a lot easier. You know, that's as part of the evolution, too, because I can remember back in 2007,

I would have just been starting at CBC at Hockey Night in Canada and watched a lot of this, you know, what you put together with your group. watch this grow to where it's at now. And you're right. Like a lot of it kind of seemed like I would hate to have to describe what this is to someone because there's sort of a, and this is just inevitable because you're pulling together a lot of different properties. There's a sort of cats and laser pointers kind of vibe about a lot of it, which when I

looked at this before I came aboard, I looked at this and said like eventually this is all going to have to exist under an umbrella where. You can look at it and you can point at it and you can describe it in one sentence to make it really easy, to marketplace, to sponsors, to partner to all these. Like, this was marching towards this inevitability all the time, wasn't it? Like, it's just how brands go. Yes. And, you know, there's, there was some ignorance along the way in terms of, you know, we thought we could get away with the setup that we had. And at one point, all these bridges would connect. but, you know, they wouldn't.

And I'll tell kind of a funny story. Last year, we supported the U of A. they have this like sports, business, media program. So we sponsored a business case challenge. And the case was to kind of build what the future of the nation network is, you know, given the fact that, you know, platform trends change, all that stuff. Like, what do kids of this generation think of us and what do we need to do to kind of grow?

I was interested to get their perspective. All three groups that presented, isolated the brand identity within our hockey vertical as extremely confusing and that it should all be under daily face off. Like, these are 20-year-old kids. And I'm like, all right, Jay. I think you've heard enough. You know, it's funny too. And reading all the reaction online, the instant reaction that you get on social media,

it was, to be honest, as expected, people get married to what they find interesting and like that brand and attach themselves to that brand. And I understand that it's personal. And I look at this evolution of the brands here and say to myself, there's kind of a vibe of, you know, we've always had that band that we thought was ours. and then they got really popular and things had to change by the very nature of they got popular and they got bigger and by definition things had to change around them. Did you get that vibe too? When the evolution first happened here last week? Oh, for sure. And, you know, our mission always is to build community around the sports we love.

And, you know, we're born out of hockey. We started in hockey first before we went to baseball and basketball. And our passion as a business is to build community. And when you build community, you build connection. And there's a lot of people that unfortunately, because of what we're doing and the mechanisms we have to do, we couldn't bring them along the ride to tell them like this is coming and inform them and kind of bring them along into the decision making. Because when you make that decision, you need to flip brands on YouTube channels

and on social accounts, you can't announce that before you do it. Because people will take the name from you, right? So it's very risky. So there's a lot of people that, like I said, have a lot of passion because they feel like they belong to something, which means we've done a really good job building community. And like, that's not going away. It's just we're just all living in a bigger house with a bunch of other different brands, but they're all going to have their own separate communities that talk, you know,

Vancouver, DFO Vancouver will talk to Vancouver rights, you know, the way you should talk to Vancouver. It's about hockey or whatever it is. Sam as we'll do in Edmonton and all that. But, you know, we're not changing. It's just we've got to bring it all here. And we're growing up, but we're still going to stay kids like kids when it comes to creating content.

The first thing I think that people wondered about too, from a content point of view, like what we put out, and does anything change there? I mean, it's always, listen, I say that knowing full well that everything is always in a state of change and always looking for, like the one thing that I found attractive joining here was it is funded, it's well funded that it can be supported properly, but not so massive that it can't pivot quickly to reflect the tastes of the audience or of sports

slash hockey fans. So then the question becomes, what changes now? Yeah, it's not like now the companies like this big ship trying to turn at sea. it's it's agility and speed are still in our DNA. There's still core values of the business. And actually, I would say putting all of our hockey brands into DFO can allow us to be faster and more agile and pursue different opportunities that, you know, we couldn't maybe normally before because it would be tough to like, well, how do you, how do you connect this to the network? Well, now if there's an interesting hockey opportunity for us in the U.S. market, say Chicago, you know,

we have this engine behind it with daily faceoff to then go spin up a DFO Chicago. And it's, you know, starting from literally scratch, like from the bottom, you've got this momentum already when you go to do something like that. So for us, you know, we view this as something that allows us to be quicker and more agile. It's funny too, because the day of the announcement, I got a text from a very prominent media member from New Jersey or had a DFO New Jersey mock up already done

saying, you know, where do I send my resume? So that I'm sure you've gotten similar from sort of all over this country, all over the United States as well. So then here becomes one of my last questions for you and that is what's next? What can you tell us? Well, so

there's a couple things, right? The important thing we need to do in like this short moment in time until, you know, puck drop is to continue to prove that we have not changed. So nothing's changing. The content's still going to be the same. But now it's about going and pursuing and creating what this unlocks for us.

Because this removes some barriers now. It's going to unlock us to be able to do more. It's going to unlock us to have better partnerships that will ultimately allow us to serve our audience. So it'll be interesting to see and what we can create once these, you know, these opportunities come to us. to prove to the audience, you know, now we can better serve you. Our dream is, if you're a hockey fan, we want you to come into the DFO ecosystem and not have a reason to leave.

And right now there's a few reasons to leave. So now this allows us to like plug those gaps because, you know, we want to, we want to own hockey in the digital space. Sticking with Canada here for my last question for you, unfortunately, one of the stories this off-season has been the, The Extinguishing of Vancouver and Calgary, sports radio. I know as one door closes, another door opens here, does this open up DFO, Vancouver, and Calgary to serve those markets better, knowing full well that there's like, just bluntly,

there's a lot of hockey fans in Vancouver and a lot of hockey fans in Calgary that are saying, where did my editorial go? Where did it all go? Does this open up to cover those teams better or more profoundly? 100% and we have an odious to those markets to do that to ramp that up and to to fill those gaps that these voids that these people now have because of the changes in those markets 100%. So there's a lot of brainstorming and discussion and strategy and meetings and all the things around those two markets in terms of what we can do to deliver more at scale, different floors. flavors, you know, other things that, you know, maybe, you know, we'll hopefully can maybe talk about a little bit later. But these are the whole, the whole thing that allows us unlock. And

also, once again, like, you're bringing that DF Daily Faceoff brand into that market. So, like, the credibility there, like, it just, it's, it's, it's a trusted home that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, to fill, uh, those, those, those, those, those, those, those, those voids of content for those audiences in Vancouver. Do you have just, just because it was a huge part of the sports conversation in Canada and stateside as well too, like they're not bereft of it either or away from it? Just have a general thought on like I've I've looked at what happened with radio and Calgary in Vancouver and I feel awful for those, A, people that were employed and affected sports

fans who now don't have those choices to make in those marketplaces. and like, look, like, I come from radio background too. I still think it's, it is important. I still do think that, you know, radio is responsible over the years for shooting itself in the foot, but this is the evolution of where sports media is going. How often do you sort of, Jay, sit back and sort of crystal ball and say, okay, I know right now the media world is a moving target. It looks like it's headed in one direction.

how do you see like the sports media landscape right now considering how Canada just lost two sports radio stations? It seems like the industry is getting smaller by way of traditional media, but there's a whole world of digital that's opened up here in the process. Where is it all going, Jay? Well, it's tough to predict like, you know, what's what's going to be after digital? Like are we going to be, you know, consuming. and watching content in the Metaverse type thing. But right now, like, digital is the home, and it's going to be the home for quite a long time.

So our mission here is to make, you know, what we do in the digital space, investment-ready or safe. So investment-ready in the sense of, you know, partners don't want to connect with a sports audience. We want to force the issue with what we're doing with digital content, to be like, we're the only home if you want to go big with digital sports media in Canada

or in the U.S., depending on the sport. Same goes to talent. Like, there's, we're, we have a roster of 30 shows, albeit some big, some small, some very niche. But this is all, you know, been put together because we want to serve and cover all the flavors of content. You imagine that kind of poker table with your buddies. and you're all just talking shop about hockey. And someone's super analytical, someone's just super hot takey, someone just likes to have informed analysis.

Like you want to make sure you cover all that with, or we cover all that so that we create that home. So it's safe for our audience and build that trust. They know they can come to us to either be entertained informed or whatever it is or for partners to know that we can deliver to a robust audience in an authentic way. And authenticity for us is the mechanism that's allowed us to grow and allow people to really show their true talents when they come to the digital side too.

So it's predicting the future is tough, but like there's a lot of runway here in the digital space, but the one thing that we've always been, like we started as a blog. Twitter wasn't even around or act, right? And so as the world changed in the digital space, we changed with it. or we brought it in and we always make sure we focus where attention is. So then maybe the natural follow-up, and I'm keeping you along, I apologize. You have one more question because I talk to a lot of kids too, people that want to get into the industry.

How do I do? What should I do? And I always say the same thing, you know, like make all your mistakes when no one's watching or no one's listening, right? Like start a podcast. Oh, no one's going to listen. Great. Make all your mistakes when no one's listening, but start a podcast, start doing it, ASAP,

write as much as again. No one's going to read it. Make all your mistakes when no one's reading. no one's right. When you talk to kids, like young people that want to get into the media field, we'll end on this one. What advice do you give them? I mean, you're the founder of the nation network. Like you've seen a lot. You've been part of a lot. You've experienced the growth, as you mentioned, going back to 2007 before social media wasn't the phenomenon that it is now. You know, the transition from traditional to digital, all of it. What advice do you give to kids,

younger people that want to get interested in this industry? Well, the reality is, is the barriers are virtually zero. You know, you've got to have Wi-Fi, you've got to have, you know, a phone or a camera, and like, and all this equipment is cheap now. So if there's something you want to do, just like to your point, Jeff, like, just start. Yep. You know, you know, just get on a mic and talk to your friends or just start a podcast and have zero downloads and get your reps in and learn how to edit.

Good. or start us to be a content creator and just focus on TikToks and and Instagram Reels. Like just cut your teeth. And then as you evolve, like Mr. Beast, you know, the biggest, you know, video content grader started with, you know, zero views on his first whatever videos, right? Like you've got to start there. You got to get your reps in. And the barriers to do that now are like virtually zero because everything's in front

of you and it's affordable. So there's nothing stopping you from just doing it. And remember interning at the first. in Toronto in 1994. And my program director said to me, I'm not putting you on air. You're nowhere close to being ready to go on air. You can answer phones overnight on the Spider-Jones show

and say, fan 590, Spider-Jones show, what's your question for Spider? That's about all you're qualified for. And I'm not going to send you to another market to get your chops. That's not going to happen. But what you can do is when you leave every day, don't listen to the radio,

start talking as you drive home and pretend that you're doing a show and you'll realize really quickly how you repeat yourself how you talk yourself into corners how you have a very limited vocabulary and that's going to be the best lesson because no one's going to be around to hear it it's just you and your brain and it was some of the best and I remember I would think to myself everybody driving beside me must look at me like I'm an idiot or a psychopath because I'm just in my car talking like I'm doing a radio show and do like all the janitorial work. Welcome back. Fab 590.

Coming up on the program later, we're going to talk to blah, blah, blah, blah. Like all the stuff that goes into doing media. So it sounds like you and I are on the same page. Like the barriers for entry into this have all come down. Get your reps. Do it when no one else is looking and then look to distinguish yourself. Anyhow, this conversation took a turn that I didn't expect, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. But before you go, it would be remiss not to shut out a personal like Zach Phillips.

Oh, my goodness. Philly. Right? Don't talk about him anymore. We're going to have to widen the door frames that fit his head in. We're already glowing about it before he came on. I know, right? Like, Philly's a great story.

Philly, you want to share yours? With everyone here real quick? Yeah. I mean, for myself, I just started a podcast with my buddies. It was the same thing. And we were just sitting in a basement recording together. And then it was going out to nobody. Nobody was listening, really at that.

But then all of a sudden, you know, we went, we got invited to some event. We met Paul Bissanette. We invited him to come on the podcast and he came on. And that was my first experience getting to interview somebody. And then I learned how to interview. And then I learned how to get guests because after that I would reach out to people and introduce and learning all that kind of stuff. And then from there, I started my own YouTube channel. And at first I was just making reaction videos.

And I thought, you know what? Let me try doing this live. So do live post game reactions. And then I was like, well, this is fun. Let's learn how to do calls. And I start taking callers. And everything to all the points you guys made was just building from, who cares if people don't like it? Who cares?

It's just out there and we'll figure it out. There's not that many people listening right now. We'll get to a point hopefully where maybe it does matter. But for the time being, it didn't. And it just continued to grow from myself. And I think I like to think that I continue to get better at it, whether it was the producer, the editing, the Photoshop that came along with it, or if it was the hosting as well. And then landed me a position here at the Nationau.

We're doing the AfterDark and then working with you, Jeff. And, you know, I'm going to sound like the old guy here. All of that, Jay, you know this. Back when I started, that was all real. All that editing was like real to real and chalk and razor blades and tape. And it took forever. A little different now. A little bit different now.

Jay, thanks so much for stopping by today. thoughts on and a discussion about the evolution of daily faceoff. Thanks, Bell. Thanks, Jeff. There he is. The Nation Network Evolution continues. DFO, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver. Okay, we are very selfish with your time today, but it's the middle of summer. Come on. Thanks, Rick Woshenski, for stopping by, as always, and Zach Phillips. One thing before we go that I do want to mention as well, and you saw Jay in the hats. Welcome to the next era of Nation Gear. The Nation Network has partnered with level wear to bring you a whole new standard of apparel, premium fabrics, elevated fits, and more variety than ever before.

Introducing the limited edition off-season social club collection built for the sports between sports, from polos to premium teas to hats and hoodies. These are pieces designed for every part of your lifestyle, not just game day. Because being a fan isn't just a passion, or isn't just a season, rather, it's who you are. Head to Nationgear.ca, follow Nationgear on social and subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to shop new products, limited edition collections, and exclusive drops. It is some really sweet gear. We are back 1 o'clock Eastern on Thursday as this program soldiers through the summer,

keeping the feet hot as we've talked to you about already, and then there'll be a full-time schedule coming up sooner than later. And thanks to Zach Phillips for not just producing all of this as well, but sharing the Philly Origin story. and now you know. Keep your Zamborni driver on the way out. We're back on Thursday.