The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Rachel Kryshak

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

Rachel Kryshak joins Jeff Marek live in studio downtown Toronto to breakdown Alex DeBrincat's massive extension with the Detroit Red Wings, Elias Pettersson's evolution as a player, Connor Hellebuyck's situation in Winnipeg, the Flyers' 8 game losing streak to open the season, Rick Bowness calling out the Blue Jackets, and more Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who's delivering? New one. Welcome aboard DoorDash. It's presentation of DoorDash. Hockey Night is one of those rituals that brings everyone together. DoorDash is an official partner of the NHL, making it easier to get your game night favorites delivered so you can stay focused on the action and not miss a moment.

Could he use this last night? Whether it's wings, pizza, burgers, or your own go-to order, DoorDash makes it easier for the whole game night experience together at home. Good food, good company. and good hockey. So Rachel Criachak, who joins me live in studio, welcome to town, by the way. Good to see you again. Who's delivering? Like when you look around the NHL right now, who is putting the spice in your chili around the league?

Given the discourse around this particular player for it feels like two years, maybe honestly, maybe even longer, Olias Pedersen is delivering and forward PD, not DPD, nine points in eight games. One of like four or five Vancouver Canucks who's above the ledger on expected goals. I mean, he looks different. You watch him and he's engaged. The game, when they lost, they got smoked by Carolina.

He was a plus player. I'm like, they gave up seven. How was he a plus player? Yeah. The thing about him right now is, and again, I mentioned this on Secura's from Price. Actually, Blake Price this year, right down the holiday. I said, like, I want to see 20 games until I decide that

Elias Pedersen is, is quote, unquote, back. And, man, did I hear from it? Did I hear it from Vancouver fans? Who just wanted to be back so bad? It's like, I've seen five games and he's back. He's back like a vertebrae. This is the old Elias Pedersen. Do you have a number?

I don't think he's, I would say he's back. Like I think that's maybe a little overzealous. Yeah. But I think it's fair. Like, I think 20 games, the problem is, is he's had two, I would say two down seasons. I think Rick Tocott is probably part of that problem, quite frankly. But when you look at Ali's, There's a guy in New York that was a little bit of a problem too, that kind of...

Yeah, he... Clipped his wings. The guy at the garden, not the guy on Long Island. I think when you look at Elias Pedersen, yeah, 25 games, if he's still a point-of-game player and he's above the ledger on a team that we know isn't... is trying to lose, right? It's trying to have competitive losses. And if he's still a plus player for them bringing in positive...

energy and positive outcome when he's on the ice, I think it's fair to say he's quote unquote back. He's delivering. He's delivering. He's delivering right now for the Vancouver Canucks. Okay. Just really quickly, how many games can you watch at the same time? I have four televisions.

So four, I guess. Four and your laptop and social media or like four is your Macs? Because for me the max is three. Not to dwell on this. I'm just curious more than anything else. So if the Leafs and the Rangers play because of the dynamic of my marriage, they're on one or two TVs and then I like to have another game and then if there's another sport that I really like.

You can do it? I can do that. You can do another sport? But I will not have my laptop up. I have a rule like if I'm watching sports, I'm locked in and I'll send the odd tweet. But I do that less now. Yeah. Because I just am trying to enjoy my life.

So what then? And there's a few things to pull that. We had the Rick bonus tirade after Columbus dropped one to the Florida Panthers in less than spectacular fashion for them. Bonus going back to that well, we're going to get there. There's another injury because every night there are big injuries, and this one's Taylor Hall,

and this one doesn't look good. According to Rod Brindamor, it's going to take a while, and Bradley Nador has been called up. But I want to ask you about Nathan McKinnon, just like fighting everybody last week, Brand Clark and now Rupa Hins. And I don't know, right now currently in the NHC,

he has to be the player who's had either a broken or an injured nose more than anybody else in the NHL at this moment. Like there are other guys that have had, like Tim Hunter used to always have the flat nose, right? The line used to be ran the 100-yard dash in a 90-yard gym. That was what you always say about Tim Hunter. But right now, like every time this guy, he's getting pucks in the face, as we've seen tips in the face and punches in the face,

like last night from Rupa Hansen was busted open pretty much the whole rest of the game. Yeah, I mean, Enforcer, Nathan McKinnon. The guy, Nathan McKinnon is so much fun to watch because when he gets going, when Colorado played the Leafs, I was Thanksgiving for my family. And we're watching Nathan McKinnon and he looks like a rhinoceros on skates. He does. And then he fights.

And when he was fighting Brant Clark, he looked like a rhinoceros that was fighting. Less so Rupa Hints, but I mean, oh my gosh. Hins? Like, I got to give it to it. him because he stood there and opened up. Like he didn't come in to try to seatbelt or nothing. He was like, if we're going to do this, we're going to fire punches from the cellar. And they both did.

Nobody wanted to try to block a punch. That was obvious, but both of them just went for it. And we've seen it from Nathan McKinnon. I was surprised at Rupert Hins. I was too, because he's a pretty like, I would say, docile player in the sense of. He's there to be fast. Yeah, he's fast. He wins his puck battles.

He's not a kuchuch. He's not a bash brother where he's going to do that. Although I wouldn't even consider Matthew and Brady. I think both of them would probably be in pretty big trouble if they tried to fight Nathan McKinnon or Tom Wilson. Tom Wilson, yes. Nathan McKinn doesn't have like the technique down like Brady does. But he's so strong.

He is strong. But you know, the thing is like the master of this was George LaRoc, who the first thing he always did. Like when LaRoc grabbed you, the first thing he did was the LaRoc shake. He would have a lot of fights because George. George would grab you, and the first thing he would do is he would shake you to get you off balance, and he was so strong, and then he started throwing. If McKinnon could do that.

Oh, that'd be a problem. Get, like, the La Rock shakedown first, then there's problems. Because he's strong enough to do that. Strong enough to do. He's a thick. You have some hockey players. You look at Connor McDavid's build outside of equipment, and then you look at Nathan McKinnon's build. And they're two different builds.

McKinnon starts doing the La Rock thing. First of all, ideally Nathan McKinnon's not fighting. I don't think you want... You should throw that out there too. A heart trophy. You've got two under your bell. Like, that's good for the season. Yeah, if I'm Joe Sackick, I'm going down there, going maybe dial it down a little bit.

Dial down the anger. Don't throw your helmet either. We don't want that. He didn't do that yesterday. I was disappointed. Didn't chuck a helmet. What the heck? But I feel like you want Nathan McKinnon on the ice.

You want Nathan McKinnon playing with Marty Natchez, scoring goals. You don't want him getting his nose broken whilst punching Rupa hit. I did like that the rest of the rest of the rest of him. of the game like the cut just kept opening out like that that's like the knuckle dragger in me still like that's yeah chrome magnon still have a lot of but that's like you talk about like fighting in hockey that type of fighting and hockey I think is that's a legitimate emotional they're angry they want to go it's not dudes talking because they've fought eight times in their career kind of thing this is like guys actually angry you know dick irvin when I worked at a hockey night

When I ever get a chance to talk to Dick Irvin. You know, he always stressed this point. Once upon a time in the NHL, the best players were also the toughest. Rocket Richard, Gordy Howe, Ted Lindsay, like all these guys, like fought their own battles, right? And the best fighters. Now, I would take exception. I'd still think that there's plenty of other guys that were better fighters. But still, like, the top guys were also tough guys.

That's what kind of liked about this one. Like, Rupa Hins and Nathan McKinning throwing down, like, that's old school. Yeah, that's fun stuff. I mean, even when Sydney Crosby fought, what was it, Nick Folino way back in the day, that led Sports Center for a long time. It's been in every Sydney Crosby getting angry compilation. Right, whereas Connor McDavid, the fight everybody remembers is when he broke his hand in junior. Against the steelheads, I think it was.

Chianfroni, Bryce and Chianfroni. Brice and Cheon. Frony. That's right in the corner, Eerie. versus Mississauga. Oh, wow, good for you. Great recall on you. That's right, Bryce and cheerfrony.

Okay, the Brinket contract. Let's just start, let's bounce around everywhere. I get a text from someone last night who's cynically said, interesting time to do this, smokescreen for a bad Edvenson deal in 48 hours. But nonetheless, we'll see what happens. Sean Harkoff saying their attention in Detroit is to still resign the defenseman, who's come back from Sweet and I believe to train with a skills coach.

So if he's with Edvenson, right, you look at some of the contracts that got handed out, Tristan Leno, Zeev, Boolean. Yeah. Like some of those guys, none of them have anywhere near the experience that Edvinson does. None of them have proven they're capable of playing on the top pair the way that Edvinson has. With cider, yes. Or so you have the DeBringa contract. You're clearly willing to dole out money. You're clearly allowed to dole out money now.

Mm-hmm. How is the contract not just sent to Sweden via hopefully something other than a fax machine and said, okay, you can have 12-5? Because I feel like for a top pair defenseman, 12-5 in three years is going to be peanuts. Yeah. I mean, unless the play, like legitimately at this point just doesn't want to be there. Maybe the offer that occurred when he went to training camp was so offensive that, like, that's it. It's just time to piece out. Like we don't know what Dylan Larkin wants.

Sorry, why Dylan Larkin wants to go. Although, you know what? As far as a strategy goes, that was really smart. As you look at everything that Conrad Hallibuck has gone through right now. Coming back to play? Take your medicine getting roundly booted at the home opener. I got to hand it to Larkin because he knew it was all coming. And he hasn't said why he wants to be traded, which I didn't like it first.

And now I think I understand a lot better because only, only bad things can happen. I wonder if there's been a lot written, a lot of ink spilled and a lot of air time filled about Larkin-Eiserman, I think. And so I wonder if part of the reason he hasn't said anything is, is he potentially willing to change his mind? Because if he's willing to change his- Yeah.

I don't know about that. I don't know if he is or not. I don't think he is. I don't think so, no. But if he, even if there's a 5% chance, if you go out and you now fill that air with your reason, you can't have 5% anymore. Yeah. Right?

So I don't know if it's even 5%. The only, the only thing, and I can see, I was talking about this on the show yesterday. The thing about the Hala Buck situation is if he does end up going back and then we'll have the conversation about team suspensions and all those types of things. Oh boy. As far as saving face, the one thing he can do, and we've seen this before, it does throw the agent under the bus. but you can come back and say, look, I apologize, I took bad advice.

I do not like that. I know. I know. So the way I see it with these no move, no trade clauses is if you're going to do this with your no move, no trade clause, you need to stand on two feet and be accountable for it. Hockey loves to wax poetic about accountability. If this is what you want and you want your trade request and you're willing to hold out and all of that, If you do come back because it didn't work out the way you wanted it to,

you don't get to point fingers. You get to be accountable for your own actions. Otherwise, you don't get to wax poetic about being accountable. That's not how this works. I don't disagree. I find that with this situation, I think the one thing that's going to make it harder for him is that press conference last year where he essentially said,

Teams no good. Right. That's going to make it tougher. It's not true. Because listen, you saw Kyle Conner come out and say, like, look, if he's going to come back, he's got to prove it to all of us. But teams no good. Part of the reason Winnipeg was no good last year is because he was terrible. Well, there is part of it.

He was good for two weeks last year. And none of them were in a Winnipeg Jets uniform. Yeah. Like, he was good for two weeks. Like, you can't, if you're the goalie who just came off winning the Vezna and the heart, like, you can't have a safe. percentage under 900 and then turn around and say my team's not very good because you're not very good either if he had a 940 and the jets were a lottery team i get it if you had a 940 though they wouldn't be a lottery team they wouldn't be a lottery team so part of it is yeah are they were they great

defensively no they weren't but you're rocking a sub 900 safe percentage so maybe look in the mirror big part of it okay a couple of things here um Philadelphia Flyers oh Still with a bagel beside their name in the standings. 05 and 3. Picked a point. Loser points suck. Get pretty. Listen, that's for a whole other conversation, but I'm with you 100%.

But I'm the guy that still like ties. I'll take a tie. I'll take a tie. Some games I look at and say this game should be tied. This game deserves to be a tie. Yeah. I think we've all looked at some games like that. Like, yeah, this game doesn't deserve a winner, but here we are.

Can this game end? It's terrible. Eight straight losses picked up points in three. Last night, there was a, skirmish. There was a moment in the second where it's like signs of life from the Philadelphia Flyers, but then they're playing the team now that seems like they're skating with a chip on their shoulder because nobody wants to go there. The Seattle Cracken, you have a thought on the Flyers situation here. And I know there's the howls for the head coach, but do not lose sight of the fact that he's in year two of a five-year deal and making over $5 million a copy.

Okay, so let me ask you this. You have an investment, right? You have an investment, let's say, that is three years at $5 million. Okay? Now you have other investments, and those investments could be 10 years or 15 years, and they're probably going to cost you more money, but in the long run, they might make you $40 million or $50 million. I understand where you're going with this. Do you have a responsibility to make sure that if you don't want to fire talk it,

which is fine, that's their prerogative? If you don't want to fire him, do you have a responsibility to sit him down? I don't say, listen, you need to develop guys like Michkoff, like Martone. That has to be the focus here because by the time the flyers are good again, Travis Keneckney is going to be 1,000. Sean Ketriere is going to be retired. You can't be in a scenario where, like, this happened with Clinton Keller. This happened with Elias Pedersen.

This happened with- Okay, so here's the other question then for the Philadelphia Flyers. Again, in any situation like this, you ask yourself, is the issue coaching, is the issue of composition? Does this team have a number one center? Nope. Does this team have a number one defenseman? Yes. Travis Sandheim's a number one D? If he can play on the Olympic team ahead of Evan Bouchard and Matthew Schaefer, he can't be a number two.

Do they have a number one goalie? No. They don't have a number two. So is not a part of this composition then? Absolutely. I'm more worried about, so they have these draft picks. And the other thing is, is they've left a lot of value on the board, I would say, at the draft.

They've not taken the best player available. every time. They did so with Martone and Michikov, and I would say outside of that, they have not. So you have a responsibility with Martone and Michikov, who have the potential both of them to be point per game players in the National Hockey League. At least their draft predigree would say so, and their potential would say that as well. You have a responsibility to steward that development efficiently and properly. Porter Martone came out of Michigan State last year and being in their development and look incredible down the stretch for Philly. He's now starting his first full season in Philadelphia, and he doesn't look like the

same Porter-Martone that came out of Michigan State. And that's when my kind of spidey senses start tinkling and go, is this a Philadelphia Flyers organizational problem? Is it a development issue? Is it a coaching issue? Is it everything? Yes, you need more composition players. But the hope is some of the players that you draft are going to develop into those players.

and if you believe that your development system or your head coach are handicapping that development, then you're in some trouble because then you don't give those players a chance to develop into the players that you're going to need. Let me finish up here. I want to get your thoughts on the Rick Bonus quote from last night. And is it too early to go to this? I love Rick Bonus though. We all love bones. Everybody in media loves bones.

He's like one of the great guys of all time. you just do wonder, this is Rick Bonas last night after losing to the Florida Panthers, the way they did. You have to hope you got to believe that performance tonight will embarrass them enough to stop this, right? Because if they're not embarrassed by that, we don't want them on the team. It's as simple as that. This is the second time that Bonas has gone to this well for a bucket of water.

And the second time he's walked right up to the line, although he even did this in training. camp, but he talked about a couple of guys being out of shape. So maybe this is the third time. He's gone right up to the line and hasn't stepped over it by naming players. Having said that, is this too early to go back to this well? Is there an element of, you can imagine the players saying, oh, this again, we're not even 10 games into the season and we're getting the, if you don't want to play here, leave. Well, okay, so he ended last season.

Fire and Brimstone. With fire and brimstone, which is a. directive to the players like go home and enjoy your summer, but you better come back ready to work and you better be in shape. I don't know how if you were a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets, you could have gone home at the end of last season seeing that because surely it was more colorful in the exit meetings and come into camp out of shape. You're a professional athlete for a living. I'm not sure how you could have done that. But now we're here. That ship sailed. You have to move on. And maybe part of it is because some of those guys came back and they were out of shape

after his fire and brimstone. And he's kind of like, yeah, get rid of him. I don't want these people. We know that, I mean, for a guy who missed training camp, and the numbers would say that guys who miss training camp historically struggle, Anna Fantilli looks pretty good. Ken Johnson looks like a completely different hockey player. Right? Matthew Nises fit like a glove there. You can clearly tell he's not the problem. Nobody for a second thinks Sorensky is a problem. So then who are you? Here's my question. Who's it at? What that, what that quote does. Like when a coach says like if you don't want to be here,

like we don't want you here, what that does is that kicks it into Don Waddell's office. Right. That's like the general manager when he's negotiating a contract with a player says, I've gone as far as I can go here. It's up to ownership now. I can guarantee you. Owners don't like that. Nope. And I'm pretty sure a general manager doesn't like it when the coach says, well, you know what, when we get you out of here, that's a GM's decision. It's Rick Bonas's job to coach this team as opposed to, these guys better be embarrassed. If you're not embarrassed, we want to get rid of you. Can he sit them?

I mean, we saw Mike Babcock sit Frank Carrado, Justin Hall. He sent Geoffrey Lupel to the sun, basically. What does Rick Bonas have at his disposal? Because he can't make those trades. It's not a John Muckler, Brian Murray situation. Control who's playing and how long they play. Control the ice time. Right.

So I guess... My only question is, is it too soon in the season to go to the... You should be... All these players should be embarrassed. And if you're going to play like that, we don't want you here. I would say it's too soon to make that statement about the team. But if you're talking about certain players and there are guys who did show up out of shape or there are guys who aren't playing to the standard even after you've had multiple meanings,

you can send the press box for a game or two. It's not like they have a shortage of young players that couldn't play. And they are up against the cap, which, I mean, great that their ownership is spending that way. But at the same time, you need to send the message that if you're going to be here, there are standards. Otherwise, you're not going to be competitive. And then you will lose a guy like Zach Worensky. And now you're starting all over again. That's the big one.

A lot of this is the audition for Wrenski to stay. Will you come back? Yeah, I'll come back. All right. Enjoy the rest of you, good. It's good to see again. It's good to see you, too.