The Sheet with Jeff Marek - What a Night ft. Pete Blackburn

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Jeff Marek is joined by Pete Blackburn to kick off the week on The Sheet... discussing the Cutter Gauthier/Matvei Michkov/Travis Konecny beef in Philadelphia, Lindy Ruff's comments and the Buffalo Sabres, Daniel Sprong's recent comments, and a whole lot more...Shout out to our sponsors!👍🏼Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/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.

Mondays are generally an easier day to come up with things to talk about. There's never a shortage of things in hockey to talk about. That's always a given. Mondays are specifically easier because you have a whole weekend to deal with and boy did we have some things coming off of this weekend and yes Red Wings fans we are going to talk about the Detroit Red Wings winners of seven in a row how are they doing that we'll get into that coming up in a couple of uh moments here. Big win by the Philadelphia Flyers over I want to say the Anaheim Ducks, but I really wanna say Cutter Goche

because that's the way it felt. And speaking of how it felt, man, that must have felt great for Jamie Drysdale scoring that goal on Saturday. Now, Pete Blackburn's gonna stop by here in a couple of moments. Zach, of course, from the What Chaos Show alongside DJ Bean, so we'll get to him

in a couple of moments, but quick wide brush thoughts from you, Zach Phillips, if that is indeed your real name. What was the biggest thing for you this weekend? Because my timeline, I know it's just me and Daniel Sprong is kind of my guy for reasons we went into last week, my timeline was full of Sprong takes. What about you? What was yours full of? Mine was Flyers, Flyers and North Flyers. It was Konekni going at him. It was Drysdale scoring. It was Mitchkov and Cutter going, having, well, I mean, I guess Mitchkov potentially here, the conspiracy theorists are out there that he's taking shots at him on Instagram. Totally is. Totally is. Come on. It was my weekend. Totally is. Come on.

That was my weekend. Yeah. Come on, he totally is. Yeah, I think that's great. And good for him. That's funny. But you know what though? Part of me is like, you know, once upon a time when two guys, like, had beef and hockey, you know what they did?

Took it out on the ice. They fought. Yeah, not on Instagram. That was just like social. We've talked about this all year long. Now, it's just like social media sniping. Like, that's it Like I've always Colby and Armstrong and I we used to work together

Colby and I wanted to make a website In honor of hockey fights calm like hockey fights calm is a revolutionary website all the fights all in one place and everybody's Dance card and the whole deal right was fantastic And it still is get everything documented there I remember Brad May would tell me when he would go into playing games against other teams, specifically when he was going to fight Chris Barch, when Barch was playing for Dallas, that he went to hockeyfights.com and would look at all of Barch's fights to know what his tendencies were, how he moved, like what his thing was, lefty, righty,

clinch, spread, like all of it, those seatbelts, like all those different types of things. And he said he would do it, all those different types of things. And he said he would do it for all those guys. NHL players would use that. But since fighting has kind of made its way, ushered its way sort of out of hockey, it's still around, it's on life support, but it's still kind of there.

Colby and I wanted to do a website called hockeyscrums.com. Because that's all's all look at that face wash all glove stick down glove in the face just rinse it I'm looking oh look at liney break them up to oh man oh that was an intense scrum because that's all you really get anymore but now it's not even you don't even get hockey scrums because you know what's interesting? And this is me taking a shot at your generation, Zach. Your generation, okay?

Your generation of hockey players. You know what happens in scrums now? Once upon a time, when there, this is old man rants here, okay? Old man's gonna rant here on the show. Once upon a time in hockey, here's what happened. Two guys threw down and everybody grabbed a partner. And you held your partner and you made sure that nothing happened. But then your generation came along, Zach.

You know what you guys do? Yeah, well from your generation, guys will grab on, no one will drop a stick, no one will drop a glove in case that might be that you might have to fight. Grab on. They don't even look at each other.

They do this. Oh yeah. They're up staring in the stands to make sure that there's no I die there's no you know I love it I love it yeah they are anyway come on this okay so this this sort of began as I was talking about Mitch Coffin cut a coach so well you know who'll be great on this Pete will be great on this I'm sure Pete's gonna have more than a couple of different things to say about this phenomenon of stiping at each other on social media.

That's what it's come to. I know, it's sad, it's sad. All right. It's sad. Let's get to what we have on the show today. Daily Outlines presented by FanDuel, North America's number one sportsbook app provider and coming up on the program today, we have a few things to get to. I'm curious to see how high on the list here our man Zach has Daniel Sprung.

No other to tread red wings. They are the number one story right now. I've always maintained and it was a good weekend for like someone like me who maintains that the NHL is always better when the red wings are playing well and in the playoffs. They're not in the playoffs yet. And the Philadelphia Flyers are playing well and in the playoffs and they're not in the playoffs yet. But still some signs of life from both teams and that was a really emotional game from the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.

We'll see what they come up with today against a defending Stanley Cup champion. So after the Red Wings, I did this on purpose. Zach wants to talk about Daniel Sprung. Daniel Sprung was treating the American hockey league like a beer league and he had some, for me, they weren't controversial comments. To me they made perfect sense. If you understand that everybody who's in the American Hockey League doesn't want to be in the American Hockey League, they want to be in the National Hockey League. All Daniel Sprong did was vocalize it and he was honest about it. I don't want to be here.

I want to be up there. That's everybody. More on Daniel Sprong coming up in a couple of moments. Two goals Saturday, one goal on Sunday. Welcome to the American Hockey League Beer League. Pete Blackburn we mentioned from the excellent What Chaos podcast, but I've got beef with Blackburn right off the top of the interview when he gets here. So we're going to go over a lot of the hot button issues around the NHL with Pete, including

the Red Wings, including the Flyers, and the Boston Bruins as well. So we're getting that with Pete and there they are, the Boston Bruins, who ended their losing streak by beating the Florida Panthers. That was an important game for them, right? This is coming off all of the drama of Pasternak and Brad Marchand and the alleged bad blood, which Marchand went out the door and around the block to try to make his point about how there's nothing there between the two.

And again, he went on to do it on social media. So maybe it's not just your generation, Zach. Maybe it's the generation after your generation. So maybe it's everything except my generation who were perfect, who did everything perfectly and haven't wrecked the world for your generation. Feel like every morning I should wake up and apologize. Nonetheless, we'll get to the Philadelphia Flyers as well. They're in action tonight. We'll talk about that. John Twitterbell are very much defending Wristeleinan this morning at his presser.

If we have time, we'll get into that one and we'll talk about the Cutter-Goche game on Saturday. Goche, by the way, was great the next night. Two goals, overtime, snipe against Carolina Hurricanes. Kind of a stinky goal and OT there but nonetheless they all count. Buffalo Sabres. Was it just me, was it just me Zach or did Lindy Ruff, if you put on like your Lindy Ruff decoder ring, so they're playing Seattle on Saturday. Score the first two goals, here we go, Buffalo Sabres! And then they go about giving up six in a row. Lose the game six to two. The fire Kevin chants are back at Key Bank. And the post-game press conference lasted, I think it was three minutes and 38 seconds. Like you could tell when Lindy Ruff showed up

that every word he was saying, like Zach, did it sound to you, and everybody in the chat weaned on this one as well, did it sound to everybody who watched and listened to that thing? Like everything that Lindy Ruff said, it sounded like he was spitting. Like you know when you're like really angry

and every word that comes out, it's like you're spitting. Like you know when you're like really angry and everywhere that comes out it's like you're spitting it out. Didn't that kind of sound like like Lindy Ruff on Saturday and then it got so bad. I mean he just kept going on about embarrassing, embarrassed, this is embarrassing, this is what I wanted them to do, this is what they did instead, here's how we need to play consistently. Like there've been a couple of things, been a couple of moments for Lindy Ruff this year. Saturday was a big one for me. There was that time earlier this year where Lindy Ruff,

this is about after game 25 or 26, and he said at this time, by the time this time of year rolls around, you know what you have. You know who your team is. And this is during a bad spell. They've mostly been bad spells for the Buffalo Sabres this year. And I kind of read that one as I had my Lindy

Ruff decoder ring on I read that one as Lindy saying we're doing it my way now I know what I have and I'm just gonna do things my way I don't care about the politics of this guy's contract and this guy's got to play here and we're trying to showcase this guy and this goalie this and this blue line got to play here, and we're trying to showcase this guy, and this goalie this, and this blue line, no. We had, that was the moment Lindy Ruff said, if I'm going down, I'm going down on my own decisions, not someone else's. And then I listened to Saturday's presser,

and Zach, he came within a hair, and again, maybe if you just read him between the lines, he was saying it anyway, he came within a hair. And again, maybe if you just read him between the lines, he was saying it anyway. He came within a hair of calling his team dumb. Yeah. Did you not take away like him? He's trying really hard not to come out and directly insult the team and call them stupid. But you listen to everything that he is saying, everything behind all the words and the message he's trying to get out. Like, did you take away from that, that Lindy rough is calling his team dumb? Because I did.

Yes. Uh, and specifically to your point, there's moments in that presser. Like I watched the whole thing where he's like bad decisions. I think he says stuff along the lines of like bad decisions or ill advised decisions and things we shouldn't be doing. Yeah. What's that code for? It's like ill-advised, poor decisions.

You know what my kid does? You know what one of my kids does something stupid? I want to say you did something stupid. I use flowery language like that, right? Yeah. Eventually they're going to kill the world. I'm like, yeah, stupid. Oh, that was a poor choice you made there.

Like I think he talked about one of the plays exactly and he was like, he said, we have defensemen making pinches or making bad plays at the blue line, bad decisions, that's what it was, at the blue line. And then spending really long time out there and extending shifts and being tired

in the defensive zone, things we shouldn't be doing. And I was like, well, okay. What's that? What's he trying to say? If the cameras weren't on and there were no microphones, what would he be saying? I can't believe how dumb these guys are.

Yeah. And also, you know what I thought was interesting, Jeff, this is like, I was, cause obviously I get these clips for the show. Like I've got a Lindy clip here if you want to play it as well. But downloading the video from the Sabres YouTube. Do you know what they called the press conference from Lindy rough? Oh, no. Do I want to know rotations? He was like, quotations embarrassing. Yeah, he was dead on their

YouTube channel. Yeah good for them for being honest it's a tough one by the way big Willy Stiles says uh where's where's your Boston hat oh don't worry the Boston hat is right here I gotta find a place on the shelf back here to stick that you'll never see me wearing one Boston what be you Bruins no that no B-U? Bruins? No. That one. No, I'm not saying Bruins, but you wouldn't even, like are you that kind of fan that you

wouldn't even wear? I remember, you know what's funny? I was texting, I always say this to Johnny Lazarus whenever he drops a name. You know, Wayne Gretzky always said, you know, never, you should never drop names. I was texting with Jake Allen a while ago and we were talking about 2019 and what he used to do in the playoffs is the backup to Jordan Bennington. What he used to do is like he's like the student of the game and he can mimic the movement patterns of goaltenders in the NHL.

And so he did that with Tuca Rask for the St. Louis Blues shooters. So when they're playing the Boston Bruins and Stanley Cup final, they can kind of have an idea of what the goalie's tendencies were because Jake Allen was that good. And I asked them, I said, would you go as far as putting on a Bruins jersey? And he said, no, no, that's a line. But it would make sense if you get to do that, though, right? Get them completely accustomed to what it would look like what they're shooting on. That's that's commitment to the craft. That's what is it called in theater, the understudy. That's full commitment.

He's the understudy and that is the, the full commitment to it. All right, you want to do the Daniel Sprung thing real quick here before we get to Pete? We'd be doing a service to the show if we didn't. What's that? We'd be doing a service to the show if we didn't. If we didn't get to Daniel Sprung essentially.

And I went over last week why I have this thing about Danielsbrong. It's become an even bigger thing. I really do appreciate every time he scores, everybody sends me notes. I appreciate it. I love it. I laugh. That I've somehow become tightly associated with, you know, a guy that got three goals in two games for Coachella Valley, the Firebirds of the American Hockey League.

So after Saturday's game where he had two tucks and seemed like he was just breaking sticks, this is easy, when are we going to start playing? Daniel Sprung, again, you can't fault a guy for being honest. I think this is just honesty from Daniel Sprung. A couple comments here in a couple of seconds, but here's Sprung who cleared waivers on Friday commenting on his two-goal performance on Saturday. Yeah I think you know it's been a couple tough couple days and I think my mindset is here is one to help the young guys you know it's a young team and I've been a young guy before and

you know I try to lead by example and try to help in little things and for myself I think just I want to prove that I don't belong here. I think over my last two years in the NHL, I've kind of speak for itself. And these are the cards I'm dealt right now. So I think for me personally, just prove that I don't belong. And for the time here, help the young guys work hard and try to fix my game a little bit. I don't think that's controversial whatsoever.

I think that if you ask any player in the American Hockey League, I think if you ask any player in the ECHL, essentially if you ask any player, now that I really think about it, if you ask any player in North America, if you ask the majority of them in Europe other than ones that have already been through, would you like to be here? The honest answer is no. I want to be at that next level. You know if

you're in the Western League, the OHL, the Quebec League, you want to be at the next level. You want to be in the AHL or the NHL. Ask any guy in the ECHL, he wants to be up in the AHL. Any guy in the AHL and that guy wants to be at the next level, you want to be in the AHL or the NHL. Ask any guy in the ECHL, he wants to be up in the AHL, any guy in the AHL, and that guy wants to be playing in the NHL. They want to show that they don't belong. It's an ultimate frustration. But I'll tell you what the actual ultimate frustration is. And we've seen plenty of these guys float through hockey over the years, whether it's Darren Haydar or Brett Sterling or Eric Westrom or Kirby Law, you can go on and on and on with the names. It has to be the most frustrating thing to be caught in that place where you're too good for

the American League but you're having a hard time sticking in the NHL. That to me has to be the most frustrating place in hockey. And maybe Daniel Swong finds himself in that spot right now. You know what, maybe we'll begin by asking our guests this. He is Pete Blackburn. He is from the very excellent What Chaos podcast alongside DJ Bean. He joins me on the sheet and we're going to kick things off here, Pete, and welcome

to the program. Glad to have you aboard. First of all, before we get to any of these topics here, I just want to make one thing straight. Tattoos are for effing losers. Excuse me? I just want to see your reaction as an ink guy. Yeah, I mean we might be the two of the most secretly tattooed men in hockey media. Yeah, I would always get that whenever I'd just be like in a t-shirt and a dry fit. Like, I didn't know you had tattoos because normally I'm just, as people would know me, I'm just like a pink balloon in a suit

Like that's it like that's what I've kind of always been my entire career And then when you see like scratches on the arm, it's like tattoos But then I just assume now that like everybody has ink Pete. No, yeah Everybody has ink not everybody has like a lot of ink is that I I think that's kind of the separating line there. Everybody's got their, you know, like little cutesy designs. So like those Instagram tattoo type things, those are becoming way more popular.

But the whole, the whole kitten caboodle, I think is a bit more rare. Would you ever get a hockey tattoo? Yeah, I would. I actually thought about one. I wouldn't get like a hockey team. Like I wouldn't get like the Bruins logo. I thought about getting Paddington Bear, but as a hockey bear, I thought that that would be, that would probably be my hockey tattoo move.

There are, I'll tell you, as a Canadian, there are a lot of, there's two things. One, there's the Hockey Canada logo. They're tattooed on a lot of beer league players. And two, there's two things. One, there's the Hockey Canada logo. They're tattooed on a lot of beer league players. And two, there's the Tasmanian devil with the hockey stick. Like the old barbed wire around the shoulder was like the equivalent of like the Tasmanian devil in beer league with the broken hockey stick. That shows up as much as cheap beer coming out of hockey bags

after beer league games. Okay, before we get into like, there's a lot I wanna do about Detroit. I wanna do a lot on Boston with you. I wanna do some Philadelphia. But first off, I wanna ask you about, it's a small thing, but I was trying to make the point with Daniel Sprong.

So Sprong gets waved by Seattle Kraken. No one claims me, goes down to Coachella, scores two goals Saturday, scores a goal Sunday. Like this league is, he's too good for this league offensively anyhow but he's having a hard time sticking in the NHL do you have a thought on the hardest place to be or the most difficult place to be in hockey is right where Daniel sprong finds himself right now too good for the American League maybe not good enough for the NHL. Yeah, it seems like a really frustrating place to be, especially if you're constantly having

to travel and not be able to sink down your roots as a player. Like, I feel like one of the most valuable things for a lot of players is consistency, consistency in the approach, consistency in your personal life and just being able to get comfortable both with your team and with yourself. And I feel like that's a really hard place to be in if you're constantly, you know, bouncing from team to team like Daniel Sprong has been this year

and bouncing from league to league as he's been this year. Yeah. Okay, where do you want to begin? I'm gonna let you choose. I'm gonna hand you the menu and the menu says on it, Detroit. The menu says on it, Boston. The menus on it says Philadelphia. What would you like for your appetizer?

What would you like for your main course? So what would you like for your glass of brandy after? Let's, let's do Boston first. Cause it's the oldest at this point, but it's also the closest to home. Is it done? Is like all the Marshan, Pasternak, the 6388, was that just a controlled fire and now it's flamed out? Or I mean, you're there, you know? Are there still embers burning here?

No, I think that the embers that might still be burning are on the media side, not on the team side, not on the players. Like the embers that are burning are, you know, Rich Keefe from WEI defending himself and saying, here's where I was coming from. And I think from that that whole player side of it, it probably never should have left the building. And I think that somebody probably fed rich Keith something and he's been right about a lot

Of stuff that's come out of the Bruins camp Over the past year or so, but I think that whatever he was fed this time around was dramatized by him sort of Built up a little bit by him and I don't buy into it being a festering problem in the Bruins locker room especially given how they've been playing over the last couple weeks basically since the Christmas break they've stunk if you don't have anybody raising some noise or raising them issues within that locker

room I think that's a bigger problem than you know then what was thrown out there and I don't believe that Brad Marsh and David Poshnock have a festering problem with their personal relationship that is preventing them from playing on the same line when they show up to the rink every day. Yeah I'm you know I kind of look at situations like this and like I like this is specifically true of Patrick Laine. So let me give you a couple of examples here. See, I kind of look at these situations almost like gifts to a hockey team.

I know it's uncomfortable and you gotta come out and bark back and defend your team and all that. But I kind of look at it as if that was kind of a gift for the Boston Bruins. Like they spin around the next day and they beat the Florida Panthers. Okay, defending Stanley Cup champions. You look at when Patrick Lyonet

lipped off about Columbus and, you know, sort of in the other, their default setting is losing and they're fine with it. And they go meekly into that good night and they greet all the losses with a shrug, paraphrasing. That was a gift to the Columbus Blue Jackets. I don't exactly know what their record is

post Lyonet comments, but I'm pretty sure it's really good because the Columbus Blue Jackets. I don't exactly know what their record is post-Lion 8 comments, but I'm pretty sure it's really good because the Columbus Blue Jackets have been a really good story and kind of started right around that time, probably a little bit before. But I kind of look at these situations and say, this is a gift. Now, it hasn't been a gift for the Vancouver Canucks, that's a different story,

but these kind of controlled fires here, aren't they kind of a gift for the team? Because, you know, Pete, as much as anybody, if you give a bunch of hockey players one issue, and it doesn't even have to be a good issue, it could be a dumb issue to rally around, it's remarkable what can happen. That's right. I mean, you need to be galvanized as a group in whatever reason you can find, especially when things are going as, as poorly as they had been for the Bruins. If you can find an outside point of reference to say, let's rally around

this rather than, you know, pointing the blame inside the locker room and, and hating each other because you're losing every night. That is a gift. And if Rich Keef, if that was Rich Keef's intention, he for sure threw a grenade and fell on it for the sake of the hockey team. I don't believe that that's what he did, but I'm sure they appreciate it nonetheless. Yeah, I don't think that he was trying to put a ribbon on something here for the Boston Bruins. If he tries to claim as such,

I think we can look at him sideways, but nonetheless, I think he may have done a solid for the Boston Bruins. We'll see how the week proceeds. Let me ask you about the Bruins themselves. Now, there's only so long you can go without drafting and developing players. And if you go to EP or HockeyDB

and you have a look at the draft history of this team, I mean, it's a long time ago, Swainman would have been maybe their last elite pick. Before that, it was a couple of defensemen. But it's been, and that one 2015 draft where they had three in a row and now that's turned into feathers. Mind you, I got a defense,

talking to someone about this on the weekend, mind you the one place where Boston has done well is with trades. Like the Hampus-Linholm trade, Picasso. Charlie Coyle trade, Pacquiao. They've done well with trades, drafting and developing. Not so much. Should we maybe not look at this and say this is inevitable? What's happening with the Bruins? Yeah, I think most of it is that it it's caught up

to them a little bit like they're they're lacking of building the roster around the key pieces like they came in, they had these pillars that they built around and they did well for a while to fill in those gaps, whether it was through free agency, whether it was through trades, and they just never drafted well enough to plug those holes like a team like Tampa did, where you had guys in the system

and you could fill out the roster and that's where you need to save your money. Like you get those minimum rookie contracts and you plug guys in and they play key roles that really helps you on the cap. And the Bruins haven't been able to do that. And I think, you know, people were expecting them to fall off over the past couple of years. Didn't happen because you got league best goaltending from that tandem. And then this year, you know, the roster, you can make the case that like the roster in places is a little bit better than it was last year, you know, with, with Lindholm and Zdorov and like those guys haven't been amazing, but they're seemingly upgrades on paper.

But really where you've kind of been exposed is that you no longer have league best goaltending. And not saying that this is a full Jeremy Swainman problem, but if Jeremy Swainman had been playing as like a top five goaltender for this entire year, it would look way better than it does right now. And they're just not, they're not papering over some of the holes that they have in their roster. There's a couple of things with Swamen. There was the arbitration last year. Like the one, maybe I coddle goaltenders too much, Pete. Maybe I treat them like these, you know,

fragile little pieces of China that should be sitting on the shelf for us to look at in Marvel. But I've always maintained the last player you want to take to arbitration is your goaltender. Right? Like the story is legendary about Mike Millbury making Tommy Sallow cry in arbitration, sitting across from them. Now maybe it's the true of every position, you know, Brian Burke going to arbitration with Brendan Morrison talking about the elephant and the mouse and who's carrying what

and saying to the arbitrator that Brendan Morrison is the mouse with Naslund and Bertuzzi here and he's being carried. Like, that's a dagger. Like, this is what arbitration is like. Like, it's like if you you wanna, I've always maintained, if you wanna do like a real gritty behind the scenes look at the NHL, get the cameras in an arbitration room. If you wanna get like the most watchable, like I understand like the draft table trades,

like all those types of things, free agency, like that's all really interesting. But if you wanna see like the nasty, the gritty, the real behind the scenes, how cutthroat it can be, let the cameras in the arbitration room. That's, Pete, would be a show. But I've always maintained like, don't take your goalie, don't let your goalie get to arbitration.

You can get to the building, you can get to the waiting room, but don't let them walk through that door. Because there's no going back. And did you not get the feeling that Swayman has carried this thing with him and he ain't gonna let this thing go? What he heard in that room, he ain't gonna let go of. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if Sweeney and Neely made him cry, but they definitely pissed him off. They definitely pissed him off. And that has been very, very obvious for like almost like 18 months at this point. Like even when they were filming the Amazon series

and they were following around Swamen, like he couldn't, he just kept bringing it up. It was like, yeah, he was very, very sour. And then letting it fester and letting it carry into camp this year, after, by the way, you had already traded Linus Olmark the other half of the tandem. So like you didn't hold those cards and they allowed it to carry into this season,

which never should have happened. And it never should have gotten to the point where Cam Neely went to the press conference and aired the grievances whether he was rightly frustrated with the media leaks or not it just could have been handled so much better at a million different points and it just seemed like they got off on the wrong foot to start this season with a player that was far too important to this roster as is currently constructed to to allow that to happen. You know, I'm morning cup of hockey the other day.

Last week, as a matter of fact, Andrew Raycroft was on to me. This was the best I've ever heard. Andrew Raycroft, the guys had him on for like half an hour. He was breaking down the Boston Bruins. And the one thing like right away, the first thing he mentioned was the Hampus Lynn home injury. And, you know, there's an old saying, you know, you can, I'm going to butcher this.

I think it's from Bertrand Russell around turn of the century. Something like, you can, you can rightfully expect a man to be able to walk on a tightrope for two minutes, but you can't expect a man to walk on a tightrope for two years without falling. Like you can put up with not having Hampus Lindholm for a little while, but after a while, like your warts really show.

And I'm not saying it's all Swainman and it's all Lindholm, but you start to add things up and then, you know, to your point, the way things are handled sometimes, it's kind of like, man, this looks like you're roller skating down a gravel road, the way you're handling all these things. Like it's step on rake, step on rake, step on rake. But I thought the Hampus Lindholm thing

was really interesting. That as we talk about underrated and undervalued players around the NHL, I remember when he played with the Anaheim Ducks, someone out west saying to me like, look, I know all you guys in the media are crazy about Drew Doughty, I'll take Hampus Lindholm. I'll take Hampus Lindholm over Drew Doughty all the time.

Like you're crazy, you're eating space cakes. Like no, I'm telling you, I would take Hampus Lindholm over Drew Doughty all the time. Like you're crazy, you're eating space cakes. Like no, I'm telling you, I would take Hampus Lindholm. This is like a significant like player power person in the Western Conference. Like how much do we look at this and say, yeah, it's the goaltending, but it's also you don't have Hampus Lindholm. I, first of all, I don't agree with the Lindholm

over Doughty thing at the peaks of their powers. They're even close to it. My counter to that would be if your team can't survive the loss of Hampus Lindholm, then it's not a good team. And that's nothing against Hampus Lindholm. At his best, he's a very important part of this blue line, but he's not the most important part of this blue line. He's a very important part,

but you should be able to survive a loss of a player like that. And you look around the league, there are teams that survive losses that are worse than that of Hampus Lindholm. It's a very important part, but the roster is so thin that you really can't, you really, you're doing a lot of damage

if you're taking away any of the important pieces from this team, that's how thin it is. Where are Bruins fans laying the blame here? I mean, they've already moved a coach. You know, there used to be an old saying, you know, before you fire a coach, owe that coach a trade, that doesn't happen anymore because of the salary cap.

Where is everyone, we'll move on here from the Bruins page, but where is everyone laying blame here in Boston? Well, I went to a game last week and it was the Bruins-Oilers game and I don't know if you caught this, but the crowd, the crowd very vocally laid the blame at the feet of Don Sweeney and I think that's where most Bruins fans fall right now. A lot of them were mad about Jeremy Swainman and the number that he demanded and then didn't back up with his play to start the season. He's been much better of late.

And I think that most fans are just a little fed up with Sweeney and Neely and the fact that they didn't see this coming or didn't protect the roster enough to see this coming. Okay, I the roster enough to see this coming. Okay, I want to get ahead of myself now. Although this could apply for the Boston Brohens too. It could also apply for the St. Louis Blues. Having a conversation with someone on the weekend who brought up an interesting point because we're talking about coaching changes. And he said, do you realize that in five of the last six seasons, there has been a team who has changed

coaches midstream that have made it to the Final Four? Craig Borubey, bonus in the board in 20. Dom Ducharm in 21. Woodcroft in 22. And Chris Knobloch last year in 24. Are the Detroit Red Wings going to the final four this year? Seven game rip, Pete. I don't believe so, no.

I'm glad that the Detroit Red Wings have found a little spark, but operating at over 50% on the powerplay, I don't think is... No, no, that's good. It's super sustainable, right? No, they'll stay there. They'll stay. They'll stay. Yeah, I think that's very, very sustainable for sure. I actually thought you were going in a different direction.

I thought you were going to mention the St. Louis Blues, who have been much, much better under Jim Montgomery. Yep. They have, although I still don't like, I look at the St. Louis, St. Louis Blues, I look at and say, like, I still don't know who they are. I kind of describe them as a nice bunch of guys. Like, but I say that about every single player on that team.

Like I love Robert Thomas. Like I think Robert Thomas, we talk about, again, I'm going back to the underrated and doing talk. I think Robert Thomas is one of the best playmakers in the NHL. Again, I'm going back to the underrated and don't talk, I think Robert Thomas is one of the best playmakers in the NHL. Um, I still don't know what I'm getting night in and night out out of the St. Louis blues.

It's, it's a number of different teams all at the same time. And if you're the Vancouver Canucks, you love that. If you're the Vancouver Canucks, you love that Utah can't get their act together and there's still a lot of coyote there. And you love the fact that, you you know when push comes to shove, Craig Conway is gonna do what's right for the future so the Vancouver Canucks probably are okay as far as a wild card spot goes in the in the in the Western Conference but I don't know I don't know who st. Louis is I have no I don't

know but we're starting to see the shake the beginning so I'm all over the place we're starting to see the beginning of what the wings are and that is under under the new coach Tom McClellan This is a really aggressive team. This is a really aggressive team. They're aggressive. They look like they they're inspired They look like they're having a little bit of fun, which I don't think that that any of that was applicable under Derek Alon like Some of the lawns final games there were... They're tough. They were some of the most uninspired looking games that I've seen for a team in a long time.

And so, especially with him being in the last year of his contract, if you knew he wasn't the guy, I was just like, we had this discussion early on in the year on our show, like saying, you know, we know the Red Wings don't fire guys in season, but like what is the purpose of hanging on when it looks like this? And so, you know, if this is the beginning of the ISER plan coming into focus, if this is this group finally getting, you know,

some value and some spark out of what they are, which I don't think that they're a great team, but at least they are a palatable and at least entertaining team over the past couple of weeks. And that's a step in the right direction. How did you see the Philadelphia Flyers versus Cutter Goche on the weekend? And boy, that must've felt great for Jamie Drysdale scoring that goal. And it was, and it was good to see, by the way,

it was really good to see Philadelphia Flyers fans acting like Philadelphia Flyers fans. That's always great. Your stereotypes of fan bases come to life. That was a Philadelphia Flyers crowd. Oh yeah. And honestly, like the worst thing that Cudder Gochier could have done

is go out and score two goals the next day. Next night. Because he looks like a big old coward for not doing it the previous day. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, tough, tough night for him, but it was, it was awesome to see from a, a flyer standpoint, you know, things haven't been amazing, but that was an amazing day for flyers fans and an amazing result. And I said it last year when it year when all that stuff went down,

it was, it's cool to see the Flyers have like a F-U mentality, us against the world, Philly versus everybody. And if that's where they need to rediscover that identity and he's the guy that they need to target to do it, then let's do it. I'm for sure into that. And I heard you talking before I came on, like, sports so much better when there's do it. I'm for sure into that and I heard you talking before I came on like sports so much better when there's hate involved and I feel like so

much of that has been zapped out of the game because of all this Instagram like sub tweeting and like guys used to fight each other and like I don't want to see guys go out there and kill each other but save okay save some of the nastiness for on the ice but this is all like this is what's happening now in in hockey like you're right I mentioned it before he came on like once upon a time two guys didn't get along well they you know they faded back to center ice and the gloves came off as sometimes the elbow pads did too and you made sure you had your tie down, tie it all, and you were ready to go, right? That's the way it used to get solved.

Now it's social media. Well, how much of it, how much of that is that, like, these guys know each other and have more of a direct connection to each other, even if they play on different teams? Because they can be connected through social media, they can message each other, they can, you know, be in contact as much as they want.

Yeah, they're on group chats. So, like- Yeah, they can message each other, they can, you know, be in contact as much as they want. So like essentially essentially blame the players association, essentially go all the way back and blame Ted Lindsay for getting this all started because they're all brothers in the in the union. I hate it. I miss when guys like hated each other's guts. It was and that's why even for like a guy like Jordan Bennington who has ruined my life and I will hate him to the day

that I die for what he did to my Bruins. I can respect that like he goes out there and he causes problems. Even if it's usually in a six one deficit in which he's given up five goals on like 14 shots. That's when he has his temper tantrums. But I do respect that. Like he, he goes out there and he doesn't care about being well liked.

It's kind of one of the reasons why I like Nikita Zdorov. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like there's a guy that gives about two thirds of the square root of sweet FAA about what people think about him. Yeah. Does not care. I'm a Boston Bruin, I'm a Vancouver Canuck, I'm a Calgary Flames, me versus everybody.

I don't care. I'm not here to make friends. Radko Gudis, same way. Not here to make friends. Not here to be chummy with anybody. But there's, like, I know I set off a topic, it sounds like, you know, old man shakes fist, but there's, that is still lacking. And I know, I have fun like last week holy

smokes like the New Jersey Devil social media versus the Rangers is just it's like from a social media point of view that's vicious let me see that on the ice let me see some of that on the ice a little bit here too but to the point about like well sort of bring all this together as far as giving a team an issue. Philadelphia Flyers had an issue that night. Philadelphia had, Philadelphia Flyers had one issue and that was Cudagocce.

And that was the rallying point. And the other player who came out, who came out of it, now he denied that he was asking for one, but blah, blah, blah, I don't believe that for a second. The name's Tucker, not sucker. Travis Koneckny saying, let's go. We'll do this right now. Like that's what you're talking about, Pete.

That's like, no, no, no, we're doing this right now. Let's go. I'll fight you right here, right now. Like, I'm sorry, man. Like everything about that night was Philadelphia. And I always say, that's the moment that Travis Koneckny became a flyer. But man, it sure felt that way watching that.

It was good to see. It was also great to see Michkov with the little stick twirl after the goal. Felt like they all had it going and they were feeling themselves, both aggressively from a mean nastiness standpoint, but also from a team standpoint. So that was just a good night to be a Philadelphia flyer. Nick Davis in our chat says, Pete's ire for Bennington keeps me breathing

minute to minutes with the light in this. Oh, by the way, do you have a, my guess, and I know they don't meet very often, but my guess that's maybe more of a hope is that it's Pyotr Kachetkov who gives Bennington his first fight Because that guy's got a little snap to him too, right? Like he's got you can have a screw loose and that's why it's like, oh man Please just give me like a st. Louis Carolina final

Sorry, NHL close your ears a st. Louis Carolina Stanley Cup final just in case like just just to see that one Do you have a clubhouse leader for who we almost saw with Mark Andre Fleury is finally going to give Bennington his fight? I like I sort of hope that it's not Ko check off because like you can't have two psychos go at each other like they both might whip out a knife in that fight and try to shank each other. Somebody needs to be a little bit more level headed. I honestly, I wouldn't be surprised

if they also don't meet very often, but Jeremy Swamen, Jeremy Swamen's been looking for one for like two years at this point, and I know, I've talked to him, he wants one. He wants one before he retires. I could see Bennington being the guy that pulls it out of him. It just like, the right moment would have to present itself

and that I don't see it happening given that they only meet two times a year. You know what, but at the same time too, I'll throw another log on this fire. You kind of want a goalie to come out of nowhere that no one expected to be able to throw down and just start feeding sandwiches. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Whoa. Like you think about that Felix Potvan, Ron Hextall fight that everybody

delights in. There were two people, like I know this well, there were two people that night who knew that Potvan was going to beat up Hextall. One was Felix Potvan and the other was his coach. All right. So Pat Burns used to be a cop in Montreal and the Potfan kids were sort of well known as, not like street punks, but they're like street tough, always getting in trouble with kids. So Burns knew that the Potfan kids had that in them.

And you know, Burns would talk about it, said, you know, I saw Hex Talos skating down the ice and I'm like, Ron, stop. This is not, stop, Ron. There were only two people in Philly that night who knew how that one was gonna end. It was the goalie and it was the coach. And that was it.

Okay, I got you for a couple more seconds here. I do wanna ask you about the Buffalo Sabres. So the point that I was trying to make before he came on, I'm not sure if you saw, did you see the Lindy Ruff press card? It lasts like three minutes. I didn't. Don't blink. But he talked a lot about, you saw, did you see the Lindy Ruff press card, it lasts like three minutes. I didn't. Don't blink.

But he talked a lot about, you know, this was embarrassing. This is after the 6-2 loss of Seattle. I'll paraphrase Lindy for you. He talked about how everything was embarrassing, how they were playing, we need to do this instead of that, and they're making this mistake. And to me, this was Lindy Ruff walking right up to one very specific line. Like I think that

the worst thing you can call a hockey player is soft and he wasn't calling them soft but he was calling them another S word which players would get their back up and that is stupid. Like he came right up to the line of saying my team is dumb. When you look at the Buffalo Sabres there's a lot of problems and now Lindy Ruff has come right out and said like it was honestly it was three minutes of saying this is embarrassing this is embarrassing this is embarrassing and walking off stage. I don't know what's gonna happen with the Buffalo Sabres. I don't know what Kevin Adams is going to do if anything at this point but when you look at the Buffalo Sabres what comes to your mind

first because Lindy Ruff is right the line where he's calling his team dumb now. at this point, but when you look at the Buffalo Sabres, what comes to your mind first? Because Lindy Dreyfus is right at the line where he's calling his team dumb now. And we still have more games to play. Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing, and it's not a new thing, like there's just a lack of culture there. There's a lack of, you know, there's a lack of experience. There's a lack of like senior leadership

at almost seemingly every level. You can tell from a game to game basis, it seems like sometimes they just take their hands off the wheel and let the car drive itself, but it's not a Tesla. It's not one of those cars that has the assisted driving. They just let the car go wherever it takes them. And then it's given up six straight goals to the Seattle Kraken who aren't a good team. It's been one of the worst teams in the league over the past few months. Like that is, there's no other word other than embarrassing and humiliating. So like that's just a problem

that the Sabres have had for years at this point. And it just feels like it's not gonna change until something changes at the top. And like from a senior leadership perspective, they need players who have a better idea of how to get a grip and control on things and grab the steering wheel and direct themselves where they wanna go. They also need that in the front office. They need it on the bench.

They just need it at every level. They need more leadership. They need more of a direction and they need more of a culture and they just don't have it at any level at this point. I look at the Buffalo Sabres more so than any other team in the NHL, Pete, and I say more so than any other team in the NHL, Pete, and I say, everybody is playing one level higher than they should. Like, this player is a first pairing defenseman, this player should be a second pairing defenseman. This player is a first line set,

this player should be a second line set. And that's like all throughout the lineup. Like every single player is being asked to do so much more than they should. Like, I'm with you, like everything is out of sync in Buffalo, right down to every single player is slotted incorrectly because they don't have anyone to play in the correct slot.

So all of a sudden, how did this guy end up on the first line? Well, who else is gonna be on the first line? Quick plug for what chaos, give us the latest, the 411, the 555-1212. Give us the info on this great pod with you. And by the way, so I tune in and I'm getting like tons of football, football.

I know nothing about football. Like I'm listening to this and I refer to this talk as Sportchese. So I recognize all the sounds and you're talking about sports, but I don't understand any of it. It's Sportch Portuguese to me. But give our listeners and viewers a low down on what chaos,

an excellent hockey podcast. You and me both, because we started off today's show talking about the NFL for like five minutes and I had no idea what was going on. All I watched was called the NFL. And Texas let me down again this weekend. So I just excluded myself from that conversation. But yeah, every day noon Eastern, Monday through Thursday,

we have Dylan Holloway on tomorrow. We sat down with him at the Winter Classic and talked to Oilers, talked to Blues, talked to the Offer Sheet stuff. He was great. I think people are gonna love it. So we have him on tomorrow, was a big fan. He was very, very impressive

and he's having a great season. So we got a bunch of stuff in the can that we, you know, player interviews, things like that coming up, but Holloway tomorrow and every day at noon. You know, it's interesting about, about Holloway here. So there were two other teams, I'm sure you know this, there were two other teams that were prepared to offer sheet Holloway and Broberg. Calgary was one. And we talked about how now fights exist now on social media, not on the ice.

And the Oilers in the Flames used to settle their scores on the ice and the games would take four and a half hours. Man, if that were the offer sheet that would have gone through and if it wasn't St. Louis, and I think their preference was St. Louis, but if Calgary was the one, all of a sudden Dylan Holloway goes down Highway 2 to Calgary.

They would have had to match, right? They would have had to find a way to match just from an optics standpoint. Listen, I get it. I know if you're Stan Bowman, like, oh man, I'm getting totally hosed here. I'm gonna get killed. New general manager back in the NHL.

I've thought about that a lot. Like if it were Calgary and not, and there's one other mystery team that I still can't figure out. But if it were Calgary. I think I know the mystery team. What does it rhyme with? I've got an idea.

Okay, don't say who it is, but who does it rhyme with? The Mostamuans? No, no, no. In the Eastern Conference. So, okay. The Smuhackets. No, no, no. In the Eastern Conference. So, OK, the the the the the the the smooth hack. It's. The smooth hack. You know, it's funny, too, because they've I've I've with this. We all wonder about, you know, with Mitch Marner so many years ago, the smooth hack.

It's I don't think that would surprise anybody. Although I don't know what you're what you're who you're talking about whatsoever. No. OK. And that will wrap you the best path. Let's let's do this again. You'd be good. Although I don't know who you're talking about whatsoever. Okay. On that we'll wrap. You're the best, pal. Let's do this again. You be good.

Absolutely. Be great. Pete Blackburn from the What Chaos? podcast, Monday to Thursday at noon on their YouTube channel. That is an outstanding offering. Some real great stuff there. Okay we got a couple of minutes to wrap up here on the show here. I'm trying to keep an eye on the chat too and it's really funny as it usually is. Nick Davis, heck yeah, tuning into What Chaos tomorrow. John Evans, I always

heard that pod fans suck. That's the Rangers, Islanders thingy from so many years but that's a very hip pull. Zach, what are we leaving on the show on the table here before we get to the games? Anything? And by the way, Pete was great, eh? Yeah, great. Also quickly, one thing I thought about when you're talking about the goalie fights, my guy from the Leafs Nation but he also does the starting goalie show, Carter Hutton. We had him here a couple of weeks ago on the sheet. Pete Morazek.

He went nuts on Pete Morazek. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought about that. He was like, he was like, semen on stall, like just like bongos. Yeah.

He just went crazy on him. I was watching the video like, this is Hutts? Like that was Carter doing that. And then I started dying laughing. But yeah, that was what I thought about during that. Things left on the table. Is that your favorite goalie fight by the way?

No, actually you know what one of my favorite goalie fights is, there was one that came out from a junior hockey a couple of months ago and it was the best one I've ever seen, I wish I'd seen it. Oh is that Ivan Kovach? My- From Brampton? No, no, I don't think it was Ivan Kovach it might have been someone in like junior like tier 2 June okay okay and it was two goalies just throwing bombs and actually connecting and I was watching it like because you know you see the goalie fights are they usually like they're swinging they can't

really get each other elbows in the way. Yeah, yeah. No, no, these both these guys were like actually hitting each other might have been in like the what is it the the Manitoba Junior League or whatever, you know, Flynn Flawn out in that area. The Quebec semi pro Quebec semi pro, you know, LNH. The I'll tell you what there do yourself a a favor and the late great Ray Emery who would fight players he was a past fighting goaltenders his fight with Josh Gratton. Yes you got me to watch it at the end. Did you like it?

Yes. Pretty like you're like oh he's not just fighting a player he's fighting a tough player. You already desecrated that. Anyhow, we're getting a Scott in the chat says Swae Man versus Kachak fight will happen. I could see both Brady or Matt. Like you don't even have to say which one cause I could kind of see both. Yep. Yep. Could see it.

They've also both live in the crease. So it's not like it would like take too much for that to come about. You know, Swae Man's not having to chase the guy up to the blue line or something or to get it to go but they're gonna park their ass in his nose and it'll spark something. Oh here's one in the chat Kel Slater says I was lucky to be at that Smith Talbot goalie fight in Calgary a few years back and wow that was unreal. Mike Smith was tough. Like you

know you look at, one day we'll have to do this. I go through like the toughest goalies of all time. Sean Burke would be, would be in there as well. Mike Smith's going to be up around the top and he loved to do it too. That was, that was, that was gutsy by Talbot. I'm like, oh man. And everyone knew like, what are you, what are you, what are you doing? I get the, it's the battle of Alberta, the BOA, and you got to go and do this, but ooh man, do you really want, do you really want this in your life right now?

This is gonna be like 90 seconds of hell. Fun fact, Jeff, I taught Mike Smith's kids how to skate. You did? Where, give us that story. There's not really too much story to it. Where was this? It's a fact, it's in New Market area there in the summers when you train. I think I was training with Gary. Was it St.

Andrew's College? Over there. It wasn't there. It was at NTR in New Market. Oh small rink. Yeah the small rink. You do learn to skate with the kids. Yeah. And one day I'll never forget there three little kids come out on the ice all wearing the exact same gear and all wearing Mike Smith Arizona coyotes jerseys. Oh wow I wonder who these kids could be. You know who owns that NTR? Mike Gartner. Yes correct that's where I learned to skate. Really eh? Yep. You learned to skate that I'm taking my kid to here in about 20 minutes? Yes, I would believe so. I think I used to skate with him there.

Oh, no way. Yes. Jerry Cheever's from Slater, Jerry Cheever's toughest goalie. Eh, not so sure about that one. He was an angry goalie, that's for sure at times. Although my favorite, can I tell you my favorite Jerry Cheever story of all time?

Please. Jerry Cheever's, maybe the best mask of all time. So Jerry Cheever's was the goalie who had the mask with like the puck marks all over the, all over the mask. Great idea. So he comes back from the World Hockey Association in 1976. He had been playing with Cleveland. So he comes back to the Boston Bruins and it's Saturday night. It's hockey night in Canada and the Boston Bruins are playing the Toronto Maple Leagues.

And that was a night where Darrell Sittler popped off for 10 points, right? Setting a record, which we all believe will never be broken. And you know why it'll never be broken, Zach? Cause players and teams suck now. No, and here's what, cause players and teams, no, not like suck, they're not good. But they're sucky about this record. Remember when Tage Thompson had like a kajillion points against Columbus and then he shut them down? Because there was a blowout and they didn't want them to just chase cookies?

That's why that record, like that record should probably have been broken by now. But NHL teams are so sensitive and players are sensitive about offending anybody oh it's a blowout just dump the puck in don't even send it an F1 oh it's neutral zone regroup after that's how we're gonna play the game now they're all still like F you I'm gonna break a record yeah I don't care what this what the score is that's why that record is never gonna be broken Because teams are so soft now about breaking that record players are like, oh, you know, I've already put up six points All this is gonna make me look bad. Go break a record Give me the guy that wants it. Okay. So anyway, so Jerry Cheever's Dave Reese was the goalie. Sorry, but do you agree with me though?

Yes, does that agree? I hate it a player player get like six points like oh wow, Sittler watch. This is gonna be awesome. Two minutes in the third period. Oh, what do you think? That was shifting. Full two minutes every power play. Diving to try to get on the power play. I agree. I agree. What was I saying? Dave Reese was the goalie for Boston that night. Cheevers has just come back. Sittler's pumping in goals past Reese. It's insane. The Leafs are dancing all over.

One of the biggest and best nights, you'll love this, as a Maple Leafs, like for any Maple Leafs fan, was that night at Maple Leaf Gardens as Sittler breaks the record. Never to be broken again. You know why, Zach? Oh, I already told you.

And Jerry Cheevers at the end of the bench, he's the backup goaltender, just with the white towel, like right over his head like I'm not going in. Dude I look back like do not even think about putting me in net. I am not going in to play those minutes. No no no not tonight. Now there's my Jerry Cheever story. Not tough but it was funny. Funny goaltender. A lot of players didn't like playing for him too. Anyway Anything else we're leaving on the on the floor here before we get to our games tonight?

Yeah, you want to take a look at the most majestic edge work I've seen in the very very long time Oh, man, okay, so everyone in the chat everyone listening everyone watching on YouTube right now like I Don't know what got into Zach today, but he sends me, I don't know how I missed this. This was incredible. I'm like, it's a cutback. And I am okay. If you want to put it on and treat it like the first time you saw the Michigan. Okay. Let's come on. You're not doing it justice, Jeff. It's Celebriini, it's Macklin Celebrini in high ice doing a real, like that's a cool move to get, to get space. And the thing, the thing that makes it good is you see who bites on it? That's one of the best defensive forwards in the NHL, Joel Eric Sinek.

So I will give that, I will give that a soft landing for you. I will give that a soft landing. When at first I'm like, he's in high ice, a little bit riskier, but it's a cutback. What am I missing here? What did you like about it so much other than it's Macklin Celebrini does something like that every single day? Right, fair enough but what you just said about Ericson Ek defensive forward yeah Macklin Celebrini is 18 years old and he's doing it in high ice. The confidence, the balls on him to be able to do that in that spot in that

situation against that player go into it This like I grew up playing lacrosse, right? This is a move you do in lacrosse where you hit it and stop back with your back to the guy that quickly and turn Back in transition. He's doing it on skates on the ice with the puck and going back like in lacrosse You're holding the ball in your stick. So there's at least that advantage where you cut back your Maintaining possession he's got a hit it stop put it back the other way and then grab it the other way of the puck going turning around I

Just had an admiration for this play and again. It's not like it's like someone whoa How did he do that? But it's just like that's awesome man like I could watch this all day watching that footwork and watching him have the confidence to do that at 18 years old in the NHL. It's like you just did a card trick for a dog. Pretty much. It's a nice play I like it but it's it's um yeah it's good it's good play by Michael and Celebrity. He's gonna win the Calder Trophy. Like right now, if you're voting Calder like right now, today, like at this moment, January 13th, I know that by the time we get to the end of the season, Macklin Celebrini is going to be overwhelmingly number one on pretty much everybody's ballot. But if you're voting right now, today,

is it Macklin Celebrini or is it Lane Hudson? Cause for me it's Lane Hudson, but I know that Celebrini is going to overtake him. Today I would agree Lane Hudson, end of season Celebrini. Yes. That's not really anything different than what you just said, but yes, agreed. Is there an echo in here? Yeah, I know. Sorry. All right. No, but we all know Celebrity is gonna walk away with this thing.

I know kind of Mitch Kauff flirted with it for a little while and you're gonna get a lot of Calgary fans saying Dustin Wolf, and for good reason, we'll see Dustin Wolf tonight. We will just said, yeah. But you know, this one Celebrity is. Okay, games tonight brought to you by FanDuel, proud to connect fans to the major sports moments

that matter to them. I wanna get to a couple of things here. Philadelphia Flyers are facing off against the Florida Panthers at the Wells Fargo, really emotional night as we've been talking about today for the Philadelphia Flyers and that win over, I don't wanna say they beat the Anaheim Ducks or the Philly, they were just beating Cutter Goche.

And it feels like every time Anaheim goes to the Wells Fargo, it's gonna be the Flyers versus Cutter Goche and eventually maybe Travis Koneckny is gonna get his wish. Sam Erson starts, Sergey Bobrovsky starts as well. Calgary Chicago. I want to pause on one player so Dustin Wolfe starts this one, Peter Morazek starts for the Chicago Blackhawks. Rory Kearns, six-round draft pick, okay, makes his NHL debut tonight. Here's why this one is important. So he's been in, you go back to, you go back to Flames camps, okay, preseason camps. He's been in the C group for years didn't play a single exhibition game in back-to-back years sent to the ECHL okay think about you're thinking about your career Zach and

you're saying yeah I'm in the C group two years I'm not getting one exhibition game and they just sent me to the cheese toast. The East coast hockey league. Cause that's all you can afford to eat cheese on toast. Raleigh Armstrong told me that one. Yeah, I'm coaching the cheese toast, the cheese toast. Yeah. East coast. Oh, okay.

The cheese toast. So a lot of players would get, you like that one, a cheese toast. So a lot of players would get like really discouraged by that. Like how do you stay focused? And more importantly, how do you keep improving? Like how do you come back from... Like I'm so impressed at how like mentally strong this guy must be to have that happen to him and continue to improve and work hard.

And now it's finally paid off. He's getting his first NHL game. And so what I'm told about him is, one of the best things you can have as an athlete is the ability to be brutally honest about who you are as a player. To be able to evaluate yourself honestly and not flower it up.

Not try to believe that you're something that you're not. I mean, you played, like, you know how hard that is. Like, I think, I belong on PP1 all the time. Oh, that one went off my heel, that was a bad pass. Oh, refs were terrible. Like, to be able to be that honest about yourself is the only way you're going to get better. From what I'm told, this guy has it.

Otherwise, how do you not go from, I'm in C group, no exhibition games two years, they sent me to the East Coast Hockey League and I'm still coming back and tonight I'm making my NHL debut. I am so happy for this guy, right? Because most guys would quit. Most guys would pack it in either consciously or subconsciously. That might be it for these guys, but not this guy. I'm so happy for Rory tonight. And I'm told that he still goes back and skates with the kids in the suit as well,

where he played his junior hockey. Calvin guy, played for the Rebels in the GTHL. Anyhow, looking forward to that. And then I'm looking for the, again, because we all know that it's gonna happen, the first round preview of Edmonton and LA tonight. Those huge big games. Yeah, well well also in this one is climbed out I'm I know Edmonton is really good right now they're hot right now but I think LA I mean I'm looking at this on

Jeff like plus we got plus 168 on FanDuel on the LA Kings tonight that's a big number for a team that I think is really good. Did you see what they did really not what they did to but did you see that Winnipeg Jets game on Friday? I caught some of it. I'm not gonna lie. That was I don't want to say whenever I say this is like what you think playoffs are gonna be that boring. Like I know it wasn't like the most action packed game. But like one pegs

really good. And what Jim Hill's Kings were able to do to them on Friday night now the velari pass was full value on that on that shapefully goal, but that one had like a Playoff vibe about it not a playoff vibe in the first round like the first round of the playoffs is always great because You know the referees put candy in the penalty box and all the guys go and chase it It's just like power plays and stuff, right? That's the way the first round of the playoffs is. But it had like, like, Hiller's gone on playing with like,

almost like a playoff intensity already. Like that kind of, I don't know. It's hard, hard to explain. So I'm curious to see what happens tonight, knowing that we all know, Knoblock knows it, Hiller knows it. These two teams are facing off in the first round. So I'm curious to see what happens there. So those are three games. Oh by the way Edmonton's going 11 and 7 tonight. Josh Brown is in and Derek Ryan

is out. Stuart Skinner starts tonight for your Edmonton Oilers. Anything else to add Zach Phillips? Anything from the chat? Anything from the day? Anything from your life? Anything from confession with your priest I don't know anything you want to finish the show off with today. I Got something for you. Just one quick one quick one here to get out. Okay, so I was looking again on fan Oh, you know, this is something I like to do when I look ahead. Yeah think about Conceptually, how could things happen? And what is the path to get there? There was one that caught my eye It was in the Atlantic division,

as I'm watching the Leafs kind of stumble a little bit here. I'm watching the Florida Panthers, and as good as I think they are, I think the Florida Panthers are a team who is not gonna put as much emphasis on the regular season because they know what it takes in the playoffs, and it doesn't really matter to the same extent. A team that is kind of picking up some fire in my eyes and I

was looking at to win the Atlantic division the Tampa Bay Lightning plus 360. They're behind the Maple Leafs at plus 155 and the Panthers at plus 125. Third in the Atlantic right now getting rolling they got some games in hand on the Leafs they got some games in hand on the Panthers. Yeah three games in hand they're playing great they have an elite team. I just don't know that, I just don't think they're like blowing their brains out to do something they've already done as opposed to, and fans hate hearing this, but pacing yourself for the playoffs.

I don't know, like I hear you, because I watched Tampa and I'm like, this team is so good. So good. I don't know. I don't know. It's something that I'm wondering, I'm thinking about, like, in just kind of having a flyer on. And you know, Jonas Johansson was this guy I was looking at every time you went in. I was like, wow, score their problems. And then next thing you know, it's like this guy's Vasilevski 2.0 behind them there. Right, pad save you made all the weekend? You see that?

Yeah, it's like he's like all of a sudden he goes in there the team figures out how to play in front of him but we're gonna kind of give him the title of oh wow look what he's doing. I think they've kind of helped out around him and kind of sorted out some of those issues and now they're rolling. Every single time I turn you know whose highlights it is? Sorelli, Hagel, Nick Paul. Hagel is so good. Oh dude, Hagel is having an incredible... He is so good. Brandon Hagel is... I mean Kuturov's Kuturov point is Brandon Hagel like for the hipsters like... Sorelle used to be the hipster conversation, now it's Brandon Hagel. He's so good. Okay, anything else or are we wrapping up and thanking the chat?

Thanks to everyone in the chat. Like chat's always awesome. I have a hard time like not staring at the chat while the show's on. I'm supposed to be like talking about stuff and making points and not just saying goofy things like there's candy in the penalty box. But that's true, right?

There's candy in there in the opening round. It's great. It's fantastic, it's fun. Thanks everyone who took part. And thanks everyone listening on the podcast or if you're watching the archive here on YouTube, thank you, thank you, thank you. Be sure to hit that thumbs up button. I am told that helps us.

So please be kind. Rate review if you're listening on a podcast. We appreciate it. We are back tomorrow. Tomorrow's Tuesday. So that means we default to our friend from ESPN, the one and only Greg Waszynski for MVSW Redux. Thanks to Pete Blackburn from the What Chaos Show for stopping by. That is an outstanding pod. Check it out live or in podcast

version or on the archives and YouTube much like this show. Thanks again. Enjoy the games. Free them this evening around the NHL. We will be back tomorrow, 3 Eastern noon Pacific for more of the Sheet with Greg Waszynski tomorrow's NHL. Have a great rest of your day and we'll talk tomorrow. Peace out. I can't get out my head, lost all ambitions day to day Guess I can call it a rut I went to the dark man, he tried to give me a little medicine I'm like, nah man, that's fine

I'm not against those methods but no It's me, myself and how this gon' be fixing my mind I do wanna break it I turned on the music I do wanna break it I turned on the music It's enough to help out against the sometimes losing Helping on the days that went wrong