The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Brian Burke on Slovakia Upsetting Finland, North American Goaltending, and more

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Brian Burke joins Jeff Marek to react to Slovakia upsetting Finland to open the 2026 Milan Games, the goaltending for Canada and the United States, USA Women dominating Canada, and more.Reach 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.

No stranger to this podcast. No stranger to hockey fans everywhere. He is Brian Burke, and he joins me on day one of the men's side of the Milan Games hockey tournament. Joining us outside of the historic Royal York Hotel, which I see over your right shoulder right now, Berkey. That was a legendary hotel, as you all know. That's where they used to do the Hockey Hall of Fame Inductions. And that's where a very boozy Harold Ballard once sold Frank Mahavlich, the Chicago. Blackhawks for a million dollars, but then it was rescinded by the NHL because the two parties had been over-served and the trade never happened. So you've got hockey history over your right shoulder right now, Berkey. How are you today?

I'm good, Jeff. How are you? I'm good. I'm excited. Like yesterday, I was really excited to watch on the women's side, USA and Canada. Abby Murphy was incredible in that game. Five-nothing is the final score. I do want to get your thoughts on that.

and I want to get your thoughts on what we expect on the men's side, specifically in the game that we're watching this morning slash this afternoon, Yerazovsky with a pair of goals, Dahlabur Dvorsohn, the St. Louis Blues. He's got a marker as well. As we speak right now, it is three to one. Just a wide-brush thought, just on Slovakia and, of course, Finland. This one would qualify as an upset here, Berkey.

It would qualify as a huge upset, and I'm not surprised. the issue is how all the teams play the European teams play when they get a lead so Slovakia goes up 1-0 right away everything changes they go into a five-man shell they still chase bucks

but they defend their area from the red red line end not the blue line in the red line in they contest every puck so it's very hard to get back in a game 3-1 take a miracle yeah it's looking great now

I was just mentioning too. Like, one of the things that I love about this tournament is, one, names from the past that you haven't thought about in years that all of a sudden appear on these teams. Like Roman Shurvenko is pointing out yesterday is the captain of Chequia. I remember that one glorious season he had with the Calgary Flames. He's the all-time leading scorer for Chequia at the World Championships. And, you know, sort of everybody has their Christers Grudevskis that they remember from years and years ago who populate some of these teams.

but it's a Montreal Canadian and a St. Louis Blue getting it done for Slovakia right now. I don't want to put too much on one game or even one player for that matter, but is it possible that, or have you seen before, players riding a successful Olympic tournament back into the NHL and carrying on that success, I'm guessing Montreal Canadiens fans are crossing their fingers for Yeraislovsky here. Yeah, I'd have to think hard about who's, done it, but I know it's happened a number of times, not once or twice, 10 or 12 times,

where people who come out of the Olympics and really rode that wave. So I'm not, I'm not, I'm expecting that to happen. Not surprised again with Slovakia. They're a real good story. Yeah. I was mentioning the goaltender as well. So Samuel Halavai, and I would be lying to you, if I could tell you anything about him other than he's a Minnesota wild prospect, played a couple the games in the ECHL and has pretty much played the balance in the American League for Matt Hendricks's team in Iowa. I don't know if he's good, Berkey, but I see a big goalie like that and the way that he's, like we tend to see big goaltenders and they just want to get hit by the puck. And he's rolling and tumbling and jumping all over the, like I'm just not used to seeing a big, put it this way. I'm not used to seeing empty net goals.

So it's 4 to 1 Slovakia. Wow. I'm just not used to seeing a big guy like that. Play like he's Dominic Haschick in 1998. You know what I mean? Well, it's unusual for an oversized goalie who has a part-time job as a giraffe to be athletic. Most oversized goleys are shop blockers. They stand square.

They face the puck hits them. Blocking the net area. This guy looks like I just watched a couple minutes of it. He looks like a real athletic goalie with good athletic ability. and he's willing to gamble. Pretty exciting to watch. It's, you know,

every year there's one team in the tournament. And it's funny, too. It's, of recent note, it's either been usually Germany or Latvia that, you know, casual fans will fall in love with,

with like, you know, the underdog, you know, you're going to cheer for your country's team. And then after that, they become your second favorite team in the tournament.

Again, not getting ahead of myself. Don't want to. But I wonder if Slovakia could be, could be that team. Somewhere, Yaroslav Halak says, I still got a couple of games in me if you want to give me a call.

Yeah, no, I feel the same way. You never know. There's always one hero team, always one overachieving team, maybe in Slovakia, way too soon to say. Yeah, way too soon. But empty-in-knit-all right now, it is 4-2-1 Slovakia,

so that is a lot of fun. I'm going to talk to Tessa Bonam a little bit later on in the program pretty thoroughly on the campus, United U.S. game from yesterday on the women's side. I don't know that I have ever seen Team Canada handled like that. Canada looked slow. They looked confused. At times, they looked scared.

Abby Murphy was an absolute force yesterday for the USA side. And Canada seemed, now, again, Canada playing without Marie-Filippe Palin, but with all due respect to the greatest player ever, I don't think that she would have helped either. This was total domination by the United States yesterday, Berkey. Yeah, I don't think she would have, well, she would have helped, but I don't think she could have made a difference. I agree with you.

I think Marie-Philippa Lenn is the best player of her generation. I don't think she would have helped one bit yesterday. I thought they were out-classed and out-played and out-worked and out-thought and out-hit and everything. and I thought they lost their composure, which is unusual. I will make a prediction. Very unusual for a veteran Canadian team. Lose their composure won't happen again. Yeah.

Abby Murphy drawing four penalties in this one. I know Cassie Campbell, Pascal accusing her of diving at certain points or embellishing, but she got three assists. She drew four penalties. Abby Murphy did her job for the United States yesterday. And, you know, you look at that game, too. And one of the things that popped out for me, whenever I see a team go offside as much as Canada did yesterday,

my first thought, and I always think, oh, Wayne Gretzky would always say, offside is the most selfish play in hockey. That is the most selfish play in hockey going offside. And when I saw Canada go upside as much as they did yesterday, I think to myself, that's a team that looks really, really uncomfortable. And it seemed like right away they're uncomfortable with the United States speed, and they just came at them with,

All of a sudden, everybody skates like Kendall Coyne-Skoffield. You thought it was just her that was fast. Everybody's fast on that team now. And it just looked like the pace of it led Canada into mistake after mistake and Burkey offside after offside. Yeah, you've got to look at some of those offsides. One of them, Natalie Spooner, who I love. Spoon made a move right at the blue line.

Yes. Right where two wingers committed to go in, she made him move right at the blue line. They couldn't recover. No one could stop short like that. So I don't know. I blame at least one offside for that type thing. But yeah, the rest of it is you're getting behind. You're like you're saying, I've got to go faster,

got to make the play happen quicker. You force it, you're offside. Not selfish so much as maybe not the smartest. Yeah. Okay, so more on the women's side of things towards the bottom of the hour with Tessa Bonam gold medalist from 2010. Burki on the men's side, back to it. Canada faces off against Chequia tomorrow,

morning. This program goes on the air immediately following that game. So not at the one o'clock start time, Eastern, but a little bit after. Your thoughts on what you expect from both sides. Like for Canada, it's always gold or bust. Like that's it. A quick thought on Canada. I know you have a couple. And then I want to get to talk about Czechia a little bit here. But thoughts on Canada and expectations, McDavid, McKinnon, and Crosby all on separate lines. Okay. So first off, I'm going to predicted, goaltending will not be an issue for either North American team. I'm concerned about the goaltenders who's going to be the starting goal for Canada and for the USA. But my prediction is they'll solve that quickly and neither team is going to suffer from poor goaltending. That being

said, it may not be the goaltenders you think are going to play. That's my first prediction. Second is watch out for Sweden. Everyone's focusing on two teams. It drives me nuts. Like Canada Who do you like Canada, U.S.? There's a bunch of other teams, sorry, guys. Sweden looks pretty good. They got great cold hunting, and they got great players. But Canada, I love Canada's makeup. I love their distribution of players.

I love their injury fillings. I think they're going to be the force in the tournament. You know, it's funny, too. I was making this point yesterday on DFO Live. That is, when you tell a, and you know, this, you've gone through it for so long with so many different players. When you tell a NHL hockey player he can't do something, that's a protein shake for that player, right? You tell a player he's not good enough to do something?

Like, that's rocket fuel for a player. And there's one player specifically on Team Canada that has been maligned, even going back last year to Four Nations, and right through this season. And I know he's had a really poor season. I get that. But the only headline around Jordan Bennington has been a negative one. Yet he's won a Stanley Cup. He won four nations.

Getting there, there were a couple of bad goals. I know that. But in that final game, he was outstanding. And all of it Jordan Bennington has heard is how if Canada loses, it's going to be because of the goaltending. You've been around elite athletes your whole life. Is this fuel for someone like Jordan Bennington? Well, remember, Canada's never afraid to change goaltenders.

middle of the Olympics. They did it with us, 2010. It changed to put Louis in for Marty Burr, and they won a gold medal. It seemed to work pretty well. So I'm not worried about the gold time. I'll repeat that. Here's my prediction on Jordan Bennington. I think Jordan Bennington is a winner. I don't care how he's playing right now. And the reason they won the four nations is because of Jordan Bennington. The Tuesdays, the three stages he made right before McDavid won it for in Canada. They should have won it twice before Connor McDavid ever got a chance to put the game away.

Cona McDavid is an interesting name here. And McDavid has references in that Players Tribune piece looking around the room and seeing all these players that have won goals and have won Stanley Cups. It seems as if, like, McDavid has a really hard time hiding. He has got a bad poker.

face, right? Like, you know what Connor McDavid is thinking and you know what burns inside of him and you know how much it burns him that he doesn't have a Stanley Cup and here's his chance at winning gold medal. Like athletes at a certain point in their career, McDavid is still at the height of his powers, but started thinking about

legacy. What does this tournament mean for Connor McDavid? We've seen what the Stanley Cup means for Connor McDavid, but what does this tournament mean for him? I'm going to go back to something Harry Sinner and said,

years ago when Ray Bork went to Colorado. Harry Sennan said to me, is Ray Bork a Hall of Famer? This is 15 years ago. Is Ray Bork a Hall of Famer? I said, well, of course. He said, of course. He said, the reason Ray Bork doesn't have a ring is not Ray Bork's fault. It's my fault.

Harry Sennon's fault. I haven't given them good enough players to win a cup. That's how I feel about this. Connor got them to the final slice. My prediction is he will win against Stanley Cup as a player. if he doesn't won't be his fault. This tournament is stacked on the Canadian side with gold medalists and Stanley Cup winners.

On the American side, there are players, you know, the Jack Eichols of the world who have won the Stanley Cup, but you look around the Canadian room and there's rings everywhere, you look around the U.S. side of things, not to focus it down just the two teams, to your point about Sweden,

but they don't have the same amount of, quote unquote, rings in the room? In a tournament like this, is that a factor? It can be. It can be. Experience is a factor. The number of people with rings, that is critical. We won with just a couple guys. Scott Nehiermire had three.

We had very little else. Everyone else was new, I think. Maybe one other. We went with very little experience. We played in the Stanley Cup, our conference final the year before, and we got some valuable experience. I think it helps, but it's not going to determine who wins.

No way. This tournament is, listen, we haven't seen Best on Best, NHLERS since Sochi. And even just, again, this is very unscientific. And I know the whole world doesn't live on social media. But even just watching the excitement, Berkey, for Slovakia, Finland this morning. And watching on the women's side, Canada, US, again,

just watching how how the entire hockey world, casual, hardcore, everybody gets together and gets excited about this thing. I understand the issues from before. I understand Beijing. I understand Pyong Chang. I get it. But this is like, I always wonder, like, why did it take so long? And what was the hesitation for all of it? All I see are positives for capital H hockey.

I know you can grumble a little bit about, okay, how much we were getting monetarily out of this. The IOC is getting all the benefit. We're not getting all the... I only see benefit, I mean, outside of injuries, it costs you Stanley Cup, but I only see benefit to taking your athletes and putting them on the biggest stage and having the whole world watch what they can do. What do you think? Well, there better be a goddamn benefit.

We've got a terrible schedule. We shut down for three weeks. who had more injuries than we should have, it better have be a benefit. I would like to see this tournament move to the summer. I've said this before. It's not going to happen, but I'd like to see it happen. That's what I did with the dream team in basketball.

Used to be a winter sport to move to the summer. That's what I'd like to see. The chance of that happening are slim and none, and slim just left town. I know, but let's entertain that thought, because I've brought it up to a couple of different times here. People look at me like I've got three heads, and finally I've got someone,

who's on the sane side of things. We play hockey indoors. In a controlled climate, there is no reason this has to be in the winter. I know we are a salmon swimming upstream on this one, but it does make sense to me to play. And this is how it all started. We used to be a summer sport. Play the hockey indoors in the summer. Satisfies everybody's issues with it.

And bring a smaller field. We don't need 16 or 24 teams. need eight teams maybe 10 the plan something but bring a smaller field the costs go down cost of housing you remember and this is a whole different rant and I'll say it for another day because we should be reveling in the Olympics right now

not attacking them but the games are too big I watched the biathlon yesterday a skier went off every 30 seconds there were 60 of them 60 or 70 are you guys there are 70 qualified by athletes? Are there 70 could possibly win? No! Everyone in the world

knows it. Bring 30. Bring 25. I don't know what the right number. Bring a smaller number. Anyway, different rent. For hockey, we could play this tournament in August. We can play with eight teams, maybe 10 with a play in. We don't have to have everyone in their dog there.

Let's swim it down, bring it down. But that being said, okay, we're playing now. We've designed a multi-year agreement. We're going to play in February. for the next couple Olympics. Okay. Am I excited about it? Absolutely. It's a great hockey. Absolutely. Let's focus

on the negatives later, a month from now, a week after it's over. Right now, I'm as excited as anyone. Let me throw in one more thing, too, that I think managers like yourself will think about. One more point about the August, the idea

of playing hockey in August at the Olympics. Injuries are a reality in hockey. Sorry, folks, like that's just say we don't cheer for them but they're a reality and it happens as a manager would you rather your player got injured in august or your player got injured in february look there's teams with as many as nine guys going to the olympics every olympics we've had so far we've had at least one major injury in the olympics and torino and so chie we've had major injuries john tavares got hurt matthias holing got her on and on on on key players that miss the rest of the year so it's

going to happen. You can't play hockey without or you can't play good hockey without it. You can play flag football hockey without it. But if you play real hockey, people are going to get hurt. I'm willing to live with that as a GM. Because I think the excitement of this best-time desk is worth a lot of trouble for the league. Right now, the league is shutting down for three weeks to play this tournament. I support that. I think there's a better way to do it, but I still want these guys to go. Okay, Team USA. I haven't asked you about them today yet. Very excited to see them. We're all curious about roster configuration and who's scratched and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Listen, this is a blue line that should frighten every single team in the tournament.

Good goal-tending, strong forward group. Where's the weakness for USA? Can you pinpoint one, or are we really nitpicking to try to find one to begin with? There's not a weakness, but I think when you compare it death-wise, then Canada's got the edge. I think they do have strong goaltending. The MVP of the goaltenders, but he hasn't had a great year. He didn't have a good playoffs last year. So we got to see how Bucking does first.

So we see about Buck, you see about Otter if he steps in. That's number one question. Number two is I don't think it's not a case of the, there's anything wrong with the U.S. roster as much as I look at this Canadian roster and say it's deeper and better. Okay, one thing that I want to ask you about, so something popped up online yesterday was a note that Fred Schiro, former head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, wrote to all the wives. And then he said that you wrote another note to all the players as well about family relationships

and marriages and all these types of things. Anyhow. And it was sort of, I've always heard that one of the most important addresses that managers would make is, you know, to the families, especially when a team is either, you know, going to the playoffs, what you need to expect, how, you know, advice for the family unit when all of a sudden hockey becomes everything. What advice, if any, would you give to players and their spouses, or what advice would you give to players that are on their way to the Olympics? managers talking to families, I'm curious about. I would talk to the players, not to their families. I would talk to the players about their families.

Same as a pre-season speech for the playoffs. So in the regular season, I would call the players and say, all right, here's the deal. We're here to win a Stanley Cup. Number one, we're going to eliminate all the distractions. Any ticket requests, any hotel room requests, you come to Gilly, Alex Gilchrist. He was our PR guy. You come to whoever's in charge of that. I'm going to take that all off your plate because it's maddening.

It's draining. Someone calls you at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on the day of a game. I get a hotel room for my brother. It's aggravating. So, number one, strip away all the white noise, all the stuff you don't need to deal with, all the stuff will give it to somebody else. Someone will take care of it, but you don't worry about it today. That's number one.

Number two, your families will enjoy this if we win way more than if we lose. Let's figure out a way to win together. I never spoke to the wives. Real quick, when you look at this, we'll end on this one, Berkey. By the way, love the jacket. I've always loved that duck's jacket, by the way. It's black, it's felt. I love this jacket, but it's going right in my hunting bag after this.

Every little hair, every piece of lint, everything shows up. It's going right in the hunting bag after this. Okay, well, it looks like it's fresh off the runway. of California right now. So nonetheless, wear it with pride style. I am curious about when you look at, you know, where USA hockey is right now, and Tesla's going to stop by any couple of seconds.

We'll talk about the American side and that team right now and the future, which looks great, Leila Edwards and et cetera, et cetera. When you see USA hockey right now today, you know, take it back to like from 2010 to 2026, what do you see the development as? Well, the guy that deserves the most credit for is no longer with us is Jim Johansson. Yeah.

You should never talk about USA hockey without talking about JJ. He was the force between much of this expansion and creativity and the growth of the game, and he's missed sorely. But the strides that have been taken under Pat Kelleher have been unbelievable, unbelievable to watch. I look at the NCAA women's hockey, the players that are coming out. I think the whole league's going to turn over in the next two years, the entire league, except for a handful of star players. There's players playing now at Wisconsin and Ohio State and Providence that are going to bury these older players as they come along. So USA hockey's done a marvelous job.

There's a whole bunch of theories going back to the miracle and the Gretsky trade expansion. There's all these. Number one thing for me is Gary Batman. It's the number one reason. and we've grown like we have. For the Southern Expansion vision? Oh, for everything. And the growth in the game, international hockey,

all these games we play overseas, the Olympics, that was Gary's brainchild to get the games in Nagano. It took a big fight to get it there, too. So I'd say lots of factors, lots of people deserve credit. The biggest one with boots on the ground is JJ and Pat Keller, but the guy that oversees the whole thing and deserves the most credit, Gary B. Bedman.

This is great. We'll let you and your soon-to-be hunting jackets. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon outside the Royal York. We'll check back soon, Berkey. You'll be good, pal. Thanks, Seth.