The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Pierre McGuire on Parros' Response, the Avs without Landeskog, and more

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Jeff Marek is joined by Pierre McGuire for a loaded edition of The Sheet, diving into the fallout from Connor McDavid’s comments on NHL Player Safety and George Parros’ response, plus a deep look at the tightly packed Central Division and the ever-intensifying playoff race in the Eastern Conference.Leave a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheSheetEmail us: [e-mail] TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼Uber Eats: https://www.ubereats.com/caReach 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/@FNBarnBurner🚨 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-faceoffReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pierre McGuire joins me now. Pierre, before we get into everything with George Peros, and I do want to ask you, Pierre, about Nathan McKinnon. You did the pregame last night for the Penguins and the Colorado Avalanche. But give us like a hot 60 on a player by the name of Molly Boyle. Give us a hot 60, why we should know the name Molly Boyle. Because she's just an outstanding defense person that plays at Yale University. Her coach's name is Mark Bowie.

who's a person out of Red Deer, Alberta, a longtime NCAA women's coach, coached at Norwich University as well. Molly Boyle has brain power, Molly Boyle is slick with the puck. Molly Boyle can change a game. Molly Boyle helped engineer a huge upset over Minnesota to loot the other night scoring the only goal and a 1-0-0-1-1-1. Eventually they lost in the NCAA tournament, but nonetheless, Molly Boyle is a real deal. And for the next Olympic sequence and cycle, she will be a prominent name. for USA Hague. She's really good, really, really good. Molly, where's she from?

Situate, Massachusetts. She went to Phillips, and then she matriculated to the great Yale University, and she just completed her, or she's about to complete her first year at Yale. Excellent. All right, Molly Boyle, we will circle that one very much. Okay, the news of the day, and we'll get the court board up. This is George Perros, the head of the Department of Players Safety, slings and arrows ever since the, this is, suspension for the knee on Austin Matthews of Radco Gudis.

And today at the general managers meeting, George Perro's responded. Zach, if we can fire that one up and have a look at what George Perro has said here, essentially defending his department, the DOPS, Zach, if we, there we go, the DOPS responding, quote, we sweat over these decisions and pour over these decisions every night all season long. We have a process in place that's consistent. And we have a team that works for me and together with me that evaluates. all these plays. A very experienced team, a veteran team, guys that have been there since the beginning of the department, not to mention all the former players that have a large set of

experiences playing NHL games and accolades. Some of the best guys that have played the game, work for the department, helped to make decisions. So our process I feel very confident in, we've got great guys who make these decisions and I think the players should be confident in this team to do so. Now, a lot of this is in response to, and I'll end it on this one and get your thoughts. Connor McDavid commenting on the process. Now, he did compliment the DOPS, they have a hard job, et cetera, but when everybody, I'm paraphrasing Connor here,

but when everybody is complaining about every suspension, maybe we should have a closer look at it. First place my brain went was, well, maybe you should call the executive director of the players association or they just went through a whole negotiating period with the NHL. And if you want to look at the DOPS, like it's all this stuff's in there of how these things are called. But nonetheless, I submit the first.

floor to you. Where are we at right now in Pierre McGuire's head about the DOPS? I do think they do a lot of good work. I think it's a thankless job. I think it's almost an impossible job, quite frankly. It's gotten better over time as well. I think George's worked diligently at it. I've had some discussions with him at different events over the course of time. I think he's really intelligent. He's very passionate about the game. He obviously played at a high level. He had a unique role as a player at a high level. So he understands the trials and being a physical force in a game that wants to celebrate more skill than it does the physical force part of it. So he gets that mechanism of it. I know that he's trying to step up as a good

teammate for the well-being of his group, which I respect a lot. I don't think the good of suspension is appropriate. I thought it should have been longer. And I was surprised by that. And I think a lot of people in hockey were surprised by it. And that what leads to Connor McDavid saying what he said. there's a few things to that too anytime it's against a superstar and there's a significant injury Austin Matthews season is done here there's going to be more of a focus on on the discipline a couple of mitigating factors here to all of it one and they did mention this in the video too if the department of player safety's job is to deter you know Radko gutus essentially went an entire career seven years without a suspension like that to me is it's like it would be

A little bit, from a philosophical point of view, it would be philosophically inconsistent if for seven years, Radco Gudis completely corrected his behavior, took no suspensions, and the minute he paints outside the lines, the Department of Player's Safety throws 20 games at him. Because if that happens, the message to all the other guys is,

don't bother. Don't bother correcting behavior. Like there's a lot of different layers with this one? And I wonder too, Pierre, if McDavid doesn't make comment, is this the big firestorm that it is today? I think it is because there are a lot of, first of all, it happened in Toronto. Secondly, it happened to the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Third, it happened to the captain of Team USA that just won a gold medal.

There's a lot of mitigating circumstance. And I hear a lot of, and this doesn't mean people are wrong. This is just my own humble opinion. I mean that humble opinion. Everybody says we got to protect the star players. I'm like, how about every player? How about protect every player? Not just star players. Protect every player so that the rules are actually appropriate. You know, I know Brian Burke comes on your show. Brian hired me in Hartford. I'm a big fan. We get along real well. We're going to be at Mario Lemieux's fantasy camp next week together. Nice. And so my thing on that, Jeff, is Brian created this thing called the Burke Bearhead rule. He didn't want to name it that, but some of us named it that.

Yep. I think just a simple thing like that would alleviate so much of the hard job that the Department of Player Safety has. If you just put the Burke Bearhug rule in so you can take a guy in, ride him into the boards from behind, you get 1001, 1002, 1003, then you got to release them. Okay. If they did that, all this other stuff where people say,

I drilled him from behind or he did this from behind, And all that stuff would go away. And then we wouldn't have as much inflamed craziness. The argument against that, and I've brought this up with Brian, too, is the argument against that is you go to the rulebook, that's holding. It is. But I also know that there's things called hitting from behind that don't get caught either. That's in the rulebook. So guys break the rules all the time.

This is more for safety. You know, and they say, if you can see the bad. of his sweater and you can read the numbers you can read the name don't hit him yeah well i don't know every game there must be like 10 of those guys can't read but that's become okay i'm glad you got us there because that's become a tactic in the nchl i remember asking someone this is this is years ago a player on the columbus blue jackets like said like why do you guys always turn your backs on the at the boards why like it is so dangerous you're putting yourself in such a vulnerable position said, well, it's simple. One, it's an easy way to protect the puck. And two, if I do get hit

from behind, we go on the power play. I go to the bench and the coach gives me a cookie. I've done my job either way. There's a couple other things that they forgot. Number one, we have all these skill development coaches. And what do they teach? Protect and shield the puck all the time. So players are doing what they're taught to do. What's the newest thing that's crept in? into all the discussion. Possession numbers. And who wants to espouse that? Agents and analytic people.

So players are going to be reticent to want to move the puck. So how do you maintain puck possession, look good analytically, and look good to the people that make these decisions? Guys, at turn, protect the puck. So yes, I agree with everything they're saying, except there are other things that come into play. And that's why the Burke-Ber-Hug rule would probably be a good thing, not a bad thing. You come in, you wrap up, boom, you move.

on. You know, it's interesting you mentioned Brian because he was, before there was a DOPS, Brian was essentially the sheriff of the NHL. And he would always tell me it's the worst job in the league because every day you wake up, you wake up with the knowledge that everybody thinks you're an idiot because nobody agrees with anything that you do, any suspension. Like to the point that Connor McDavid made, one, that should be a conversation with Marty Walsh. Two, they've just gone through a round of CBA negotiations.

Three, the general managers could turn the heat up, but this game is called the way the managers want it. And they don't want the 15 game suspensions. Thank you very much. And, you know, if you want to change it midstream, that's fine. But understand that then it does turn into a negotiation because it goes, Connor McDavid to Marty Walsh to Gary Betman or Marty says, our guys have a problem with the way this game is discipline. We want to do something about it. To which Gary, veteran negotiator, will say, yes, I hear you.

We also have these issues that we'd like to address at the same time. And then it becomes a negotiation. And that's to my previous point. You just had this. You just had these negotiations. I know nobody likes to do the boring stuff. I know players don't want to do the boring stuff, but it's that boring work that leads to how the game is disciplined.

Does that make sense to you? Yeah, that's really good. It's all fair. It's great. And I love what you say because it really makes a lot of sense. What was really the focal point of the last collective bargaining agreement that's created all this labor harmony? And I would say the star players wanted to go to the Olympics.

And they wanted that to be a big part of what they did. And the NHL was kind of like, I'm not so sure about the Olympics. Well, now I think they're pretty sure that the Olympic thing worked out right. But look what it brought us. It brought not just you and I, but everybody that's a fan and his passion about the it brought labor harmony. When's the last time you can honestly say everybody was kind of singing from the same songbook? when it came to the PA and the direction of the league.

It's been a long time. It's, well, no, we haven't seen it. Like, just to be blunt, Pierre, like, we haven't seen it. We have not seen labor harmony. It's certainly not with, you know, with Gary Bettman as a commissioner. There was the 94-95 lockout, which ended halfway through. There was the full season scotch. And ever since then, it's been sort of clawback and clawback.

and clawback as well. Maybe a final note on this one with George Peros and the Department of Player's Safety. I'm of the mind that this is a story that comes and goes. I think that it doesn't matter whether it's George Peros or it's Ryan Getslap or Damien Etcheverietta who's the head of the Department of Player Safety based on the process that they go through

and the historical precedent that this department has set. And George just doesn't wake up and decide. I think this feels like a five. I think this feels like, and again, like, good as to me felt felt like a seven to me. Maybe if I squint it's an eight,

but like I don't think it's way off. But again, that's just... No, no, I think you're right. That's where I thought it should have been, honestly. I kind of look at it and say it's not, it's not George Peros. I know he's the figurehead of all of it and he has the final say, but they look at like all the historical precedent from all other,

from all other infractions. And the idea of, and this winks back at your point, not just protecting superstars, but protecting everybody. I always get really uncomfortable when I hear we got to protect the stars. Because that says to me, we need a separate category of how we're going to officiate and discipline around these players. Hockey's a dangerous game. And I've always, and I've always,

and this is maybe, you know, a question, a follow-up question for Connor McDavid. Not that he said stars, but if anyone does say, we need to protect our stars, the follow-up question for anybody in media, listening or watching right now, the follow-up question is,

show me the list. Make me the list. Make me the list of star players. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. We all talk about the need to have character players to win in the playoffs. Those star players know you need to have those guys. If those guys aren't getting protected, then the star player is not getting protected either.

It's in a vicious circle. It is an unbelievably vicious circle. But you're right. So I don't think Connor said anything bad, by the way. I think he handled that actually really well. I was kind of glad that he said what he said. That being said, I also don't like people piling on and trying to rip George Paro. apart. Knowing George a long time, respect him why. He's a highly cerebral person that really

cares passionately about the sport and about the league. And he wants to do things right. He's been a paying member of the association. He understands what's going on. He cares. And the people around them are good hockey people. I've known Damien, darn, since he was breaking down tape for Coley Camel and Roger Nielsen in New York, the New York Rangers. That's a long time ago. That's almost 35 years ago, 36 years ago. So they're all good hockey people. They can. care a lot. I don't think they're trying to subvert or sabotage the league, but I do think there's got to be some form of mechanism where a penalty to a player like Gouda should have been, I think, a little bit longer. And I like Radco a lot. I would have Radco on my team. I had players like

Radco on my team. I had the late Brian Marchman. I had Alfie Samuelson. I had some guys that played like Radco. And I enjoyed those guys. They were really important to how well our team did or didn't do. And so I don't have a problem with that, but I thought the penalty should have been greater to Radco. I do. Okay. This one is not over.

We'll probably still be talking about this by the time you come back here on the program to share the mic with me here. Let me ask about a couple of other things. That Colorado Pittsburgh game, first of all, statement win by the penguins, holy spokes. But Nathan McKinnon, not exactly thrilled at his team, his performance, all of it, personnel, everything.

I kind of look at this one. Pierre, I'm curious your thoughts. I look at this one and I say, this is life without Landisg, man. Like Landisg, as the captain in that room, everything just seems more settled. You know, I saw Stad online today something about how without Landisg

this team trends to 88 points. Like without Landisgog, and with them, I think it trends like 120. Like the difference is stark with or without Gabriel Landisag. And just from a like turn the temperature down in the room, it's March 17th. Let's all chill out here. Landisg to me does it better, better than only a handful of other guys.

So unless you're around there. Yeah, but you're right, Jeff. Unless you're around their team all time, you don't appreciate that quality that Gabe has, number one and number two. The way that Nathan is as intense or more intense than any player in the league. And if you don't know that, trust me, I was there for a month and a half. actually two and a half months in Edmonton in the pod when Colorado was there. And I would tell you that you could hear everything that was going on in the bench,

the broadcast position. How loud was that bench? How loud was that bench, Peter? Extremely loud. Nathan is an amazingly demonstrative leader. And he holds equal opportunity. He holds himself just as accountable as he holds everybody else accountable, including his coach, by the way, Jared Bettner.

So that's just how he runs. But you know what? sometimes every team's different and you just nailed it. The Lannisog factor is huge there. They miss him a lot and it's not just for what he does on the ace. It's what he does on the bench and what he does behind the scenes. World Cup of Hockey was one of the things coming out of the general manager's meetings as well that I want to get to before we run out of time here.

They haven't named the eight. I think it's pretty safe to say that we're looking at Canada, U.S., Sweden, Finland, Czechia, Slovakia, Germany and Switzerland. I think the NHL is probably waiting on the double. IHF here to make a ruling on Russia. And I don't think, Pierre, correct me from it, I don't think the NHL wants to take a lead position on that issue.

I think they're waiting for the AAHF to make their decision. I would say you're right. I would say you're right. Here's my, here's my, again, like I'm going to just nitpick because of what I do. I have no issue with Calgary Edmonton

winning this thing. Congratulations. That's going to be fun. 28, you know, February, between those two cities. It's going to be fantastic. I love that there's a European city involved. I think of the cobblestone streets of Prague, as you do and think of this is wonderful. I like that for big events like this, the NHL is paying more than just lip service to European countries, too.

Like this is significant. But I think about, and maybe it's already too far down the road to change. But I just think of the momentum that the U.S. just won triple gold at the Olympics. in hockey and they can't carry that momentum into a Boston, into a New York, into a Philadelphia, into a Chicago that. Vegas.

Vegas is another one. Like that's the one that I thought of too. Into Vegas. You always wonder, okay, so you have like the dream. Okay, USA successful at the Olympics. The gold medals are coming back. What do we do with it as the NHL? I don't know that I would have said, let's put this thing in Canada.

I don't have a problem. So I would have done it in three different places. I would have done one, Canada. So whether it's Edmonton or Calgary, you choose. And then you choose, is it New York City? Is it Los Angeles or is it Vegas? No disrespect to Boston that just had, you know, the four nations of them. But no disrespect to Detroit, which I think would be an amazing host for any event like that.

And you get a lot of cross-border population coming across from Canada. but there's something about marquee destinations. That's why the Super Bowl goes to all these amazing places. There's something to be said for that. And you just touched on it brilliantly. The cobblestone streets of Prague, they're spectacular. I've been there so many different times, whether it's been for scouting or broadcasting,

and Prague's just a spectacular world-class city and an amazing hockey city. So I have no problem there. I have no problem with one of the cities in Edmonton, but I really do think there should have been an American component to this. I'm just glad that we're starting to really see a vibrant international schedule. You know, like I can recall years and this would have even been before Pierre, even before Betman, like this would have been in the late Ziegler era.

You know, someone from the hockey news sent me all these like pro formas that they had from the NHL on like cities that they're investigating, creating an NHL Europe. And it's the obvious ones like Stockholm and Helsinki, et cetera. But there's like Paris and London and Milan. And like this is something that really the Simon Schemberg has always maintained. And I agree with them that the beginning of international hockey was 1972. Because all of a sudden someone was at par with, like that was a beginning. And then Canada Cup 76, et cetera.

And we're off to the races. Like we've wondered about this for a long time. And at various times the NHL has dipped its toe into this and then gotten back and out of the diving board and walked back down the ladder, et cetera. But now it finally seems as if there is going to be a consistent and robust schedule of international hockey. There's going to be. I tied Bill Daly on my podcast called Inside the Game and he talked about it really graphically. And one of the things is the league has opened up in office in Zurich, which I think is really important.

That's number one. Number two, they're going to play obviously Ottawa and Chicago are going to go over to Germany and play two games there next year. One of the things I admire about the National Hockey League, they understand how important the European component is to the player development part of this process. They don't want to alienate a lot of those national foundations for hockey. The Federation in Sweden, the Federation, obviously in Finland,

the Federation in Germany, the Federation in Czechia, Slovakia, they don't want to alienate those people in this process. So I think they've treaded a really difficult line and they've treaded it really well. I have a lot of respect for the way the NHL is trying to do their business in Europe. I really do. It's great to see. As a fan of international hockey, and I think we all are by now.

It's not like it's not like it, again, I'm going to sound like an old man shakes fist of clouds. It's not like it used to be, you know, where you didn't know the players. Like I can recall my dad telling me about, you know, all the players on Czechoslovakia in 76, and here's Young Stasnian and here's Vlad Zirilla and Holocke. in Holacek and like I can still remember and there was like a mystery about them like that's that doesn't exist anymore but here's the thing that I want here's the thing that I wondered about

I have wondered about since USA won gold and I would ask the same thing of Canada won gold how many players on USA would trade their gold medal for a Stanley Cup ring probably a bunch of them I couldn't give you the number but I don't know the number either But I would say a bunch. So over my left shoulder are two Stanley Cups and the Patrick Division Trophy.

And those matter a lot. They matter a lot. All the individual accolades I have from broadcasting, they're over on my right. They'll never be behind me. I'll never show them because this was more about team than anything else. And I think that's the biggest thing. The Stanley Cup matters unbelievably. If you really have been around the National Hockey League forever and ever,

They matter. It matter a lot. There are very few people that get to the top of the NHL mountain. And when you do get there, you know how hard it was to get there. For sure. The only thing that I wonder about it too is, once upon a time, that was a two-foot pot. Oh, Stanley Cup ring all day. I'm saying like Olympic gold, like for a lot of, and we've always just, as always assume,

that would only be the Europeans. But like, gold medal means a ton to North Americans now. Oh, well, now it does. Yeah, because. the Olympics are massive. The Olympics is big business. Now it is. It's the true best on best, except this year we didn't have the Russians, obviously. And that's a component that they're going to have to figure out internationally. I like the way you phrased that before with the HF and the IOC. They're going to have to figure that out. But the Olympics are special.

You know, I've had the honor of doing eight of them, eight Olympics, and it never got old. And it was great. But I can tell you, just from the broadcasting component, the only one that felt that was as large as a Stanley Cup was a 2010 Olympics in Vancouver because it was Canada, U.S., in an unbelievably tense environment with overtime and a Canadian country that was just dying to win. And it brought so much emotion and so much passion to the event, it felt as big or bigger than the Stanley Cup final. O2 wasn't like that in Salt Lake,

06, even though it was a walk. Canada ran away. Canada ran away with it. This was overtime. And 06 was different. Finland and Sweden are playing there. Yeah, it mattered to those countries. But I think if you were to talk to the guys on Sweden who eventually won, what meant more of them?

Probably short-term, that event did. But long-term, they're always, that Stanley Cup that they won in Detroit or the numerous cups they won in Detroit. Those matter, those guys. Yeah. You know what I mean? The guys that didn't won. So I still think the Stanley Cup matters a lot.

Okay, let me do a quick memory lane here before we split. Yeah. I had a lot of thoughts rushed back into my head last night at the end of that Kings Rangers game, watching Anjik Kopitar and Jonathan Quick, embraced, and then have a chat. And I think back to 2012, obviously, when Jonathan Quick was the best gold tender on the planet, bar none, just an incredible season, both regular. season and playoffs for Jonathan Quick. And of course we know about Copa-Tar overtakes Marcel Dion as the all-time leading score for

the Los Angeles Kings, a record that, by the ways we all know, stood for 45 years. Little Beaver had that one for 45 years. Incredible. Do you have a thought on Copatar beating Dion? And I don't know if you saw the exchange between the two, but like Quick stayed back to wait, you know, and then had that. It was just a beautiful hockey moment. Well, the 12th kings and the 14 kings were phenomenal.

Daryl Sutter did such a good job with those guys, and the players obviously responded. People don't talk about Dustin Brown's leadership enough. Dustin was a phenomenal leader. They don't talk about Alec Martinez in the way he played. Young Drew Dowdy, phenomenal. We all know that. There were so many moving parts there. They were a tough team.

They were a big team. They were a nasty team. Here's my Kopitar story for you. In 2005, when we had the nuclear winter, I was sitting in Innsbruck, Austria watching the Slovenians practice. And there was only one other person in the rink with me besides the Slovenian entourage. And it was David Conti of the New Jersey Devils. Yeah.

Leeds go. And so David was, you know, a legendary scout and still is. But at that time, he was Lou Lamarillo's right-hand man. And we were talking and he said very politely, he says, you know, this Crosby guy is really good, Pierre. And he's going to go number one. Who do you think should go number two? We started throwing out all these different names.

Yeah. I never said Kopitar's name. right in front of me. And I should have, but I didn't. And he goes, I'll tell you who the second best player in this draft is. It's not even close. It's Anse Coppatar. And Conti's called that. He, David Conti, too, I will never forget that. It was at the Rinkin-insbrook in 2005. And he called it. And you know what? He was spot on. He couldn't have been more right. You know, there was, and again, not, and injuries were a main factor, certainly. But do you remember how good Joe Berlis was?

Do you remember how flat, like, yeah, like, he was a great player in Vancouver. I watched him with the Giants. He was great. One of those conversations, as part of that Dave Conti conversation of like, who's the second best, I'm guessing Joe Berle's name came up. It did. Brulay's name came up. So did Mark Stahl.

I remember Mark Stahl back in those days. He was an ultimate shutdown defenseman that everybody wanted to have. Kerry Price's name came up. Carrie Price was drafted by Montreal and right after Gilbert Berlis. You go down the line. There were a lot of good players that went. You know, Jack Johnson's name was brought. There were a lot of guys who were brought up.

There was. It's crossed me and Kopitar from that draft and Kerry Price is probably three. You know, you speak of it. You got to go. I just wanted one thing, 2012 draft. I went back to look at it again the other day. You could make the argument

that the top two players should have both been goaltenders, Andre Vasselofsky and Connor Hallibuck. Phila Forzberg's in there. Hampus Lindberg's in there. Tom Wilson's in there. Who else would have been in there?

A couple of others that would be in there. But like you can make the argument. In 2012, the top two picks should have been goalies, which if you made it at the time, be considered insane. if you consider nuts what are you doing i'll take you one more back 1990 draft the one nolan goes first

peter nedved goes second keith primo goes third mike ritchie goes fourth yarmur jogger you can make the argument that yager should have been won and with the 20th pick overall louis j lamarillo from the new jersey devil selects from saint hyacin quebec martin broder you could make the argument that those two guys should have gotten one and two. Yeah. Trevor Kidd went at 11. Trevor Kidd went ahead of Marty Burdert. Vremont.

Okay, I know you got to hustle. Thanks so much for stopping by, as always, in indulging me on the little goofy draft stories. You're the best, Pierre. Thank you, Montyby. Take care. Bye-bye. Thank you, Jeff.

Great Pierre Maguire, stopping by the program on a consistent basis here, and we always thank him for his offerings on the show.