The Steve Dangle Podcast - 6ix Digits | January 18, 2021

Episode Date: January 19, 2021

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Happy MLK Day America (00:00), Celebrate with Frosted Flakes (02:40), who wore the crown?!? (09:30), Leafs go 1-1 versus the Sens over the weekend (13:30), is there a goalie controversy in Toronto? (23:00), Robertson is out for four weeks (28:00), Leafs play the Jets without Laine tonight (31:00), Leafs lose Dell on waivers (33:00), Eric Engels joins the show to talk about Pierre-Luc Dubois and the Habs (36:00), president and head coach of the Toronto Six, Digit Murphy, joins the show to talk about the NWHL bubble (1:00:00), and Jake Vorachek loses it on a reporter (1:20:00). Originally aired: January 18, 2021 Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/uMJtfLuX_F0 We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: theathletic.com/sdp Visit this episode's sponsors: https://www.manscaped.com/ - Use code SDP https://www.bluenile.com/ca/ Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake hey happy uh martin luther king jr day to our friends in the states if there was ever a year to really stop and appreciate mlk and like everything he did for society this would be of the year is it a day off i don't think so i don't know that's a good question hopefully i don't know somebody of our american friends can tell us that you know yeah it's uh no it's it's very i'm always confused as to so is it his birthday is that why this is martin luther king junior day you know what steve i'm gonna look it up wow so you just decided i'm gonna start the show but something i don't know anything about no it's an american holiday you're right but is it a real

holiday to me it's not a holiday if you don't get the day off do i get time and a half or the day off i think it's one it's a real holiday all right at least it's a day of celebration that's but that's different from a holiday yeah that's very true so mlk day is a federal holiday in the united states marking the birthday of martin luther king jr there it is it is it is observed on the third monday of january each year king's birthday is january 15th so because it's a holiday it's set up like a holiday where it's like everybody gets off this monday so then you get the long weekend but his actual birthday is the 15th that makes sense yeah that makes sense all right that makes a lot of sense very good i learned something today yeah as a canadian who

likes mlk absolutely absolutely so adam's not here today yes anybody who's on twitter would know that adam's out he's out sick with the diarrheas he got a got a stomach bug and i don't think he can like be away from a toilet for two hours to do a podcast so he's uh he can't join us he might not be available for wednesday i don't know if the runs let up maybe i spoke to him just uh before we started um he wasn't sure yeah it's too early thursday thursday yes yeah new schedule i have to get used to it yeah so steve just need to start with uh something special what's that one of our favorite segments of all time what's that frosted flakes oh like we just eat frosted flakes or yeah we just eat bowls of frosted flakes and while we do that loudly tell us who had the celly of the

week the celly of the week uh you know what jumbo joe first is a leaf that's a very good one uh any leaf celly is obviously a very good one but just because of the ridiculousness of this goal and the fact it was his first career nhl goal i as a biased laughs fan have to give the celly of the week to tim stutzla tim stutzla the ottawa senators that that ridiculous goal that ridiculous goal that you can't convince me he meant to score he meant to put it on net but it was a hope and a rare puck way in the air bounces just a little bit off the ice thwacks it past jack campbell and you know jack campbell he just he just he said he should have had it and he just wanted to shake his hand do you know uh zach bell he's at always hockey on instagram he's like oh yeah yeah he

does like hockey trick shots on instagram and he's like pretty he's relatively like his channel has a lot of fans and um he does these these um one-timer puck shots all the time and people are always like oh that would never work in the game like when would you ever use that your skills are meaningless and then you see something like Tim Stutzel and you're like you know there's a reason these professional athletes practice these things sometimes they're gonna come up oh like when I tell you this I'm gonna try not to sound old but when I tell you people have no idea what's coming in hockey they have no idea because you get a guy like uh sasha barkoff on the panthers who likes pavel barber and they have hung out right and they have you know done little videos together

there's such a difference between liking pavel barber and being raised on him and the next generation of hockey fans were raised on pavel barber they were raised on zach bell like you're you're going to see stuff uh you know the svetch or the michigan goal whatever you call that's tip of the iceberg yeah every there's no reason that you can't do things in real life that you can do in video games so any of the ridiculous goals you've seen um you know remember when rob shrimp went viral for like 10 years because of a shootout attempt he did like in the minors somewhere like everyone's going to be able to do that and they're going to be able to pull it off in a game you're not going to recognize hockey in 10 years because it's going to be you know

there's some someone who's going to be drafted in 10 years is eight right now like i need you to understand that you're going to have a whole generation raised on barber and zach bell and whoever comes after them and it's going to be awesome and if you spent time enough on hockey instagram you've seen eight-year-olds pull off these moves like they're at a very simple level but they're doing it on the ice and it's insane and like you said we're 10 years away from the game being completely changed at like the professional level not just like recreationally or in rep leagues like at the nhl level we're gonna see guys just get more creative and do all these wicked things on the ice yeah it's it almost feels like matthews is gonna be the old guy

when all this happens he's gonna be the guy who did it once like he's he pulled off a michigan or they're they're going to show when he tried it and then passed it to nylander and they're going to be interviewing him he's going to be so bald all the way bald he's starting already and he's going to be man kids these days i tell you they're special and he's and he's going to be doing it while looking out at the lawn in his white new balance shoes and you know just sipping a coffee going ah you know with his old man justin bieber shirt that's going to be what old people wear like it's it's i'm telling you man i'm telling you i can't wait till bieber's playing on like classic rock and that's our that's our this is still andy frost

mitch marner is going to be an og too because he's like one of the pioneers just with his speed and like when he does like he did uh he did a move on i think it was saturday where he like hot hot kick the puck with his skate yeah he passed it do you remember that move like that that sort of stuff's just gonna be regular and mitch marner's gonna be an og of it time makes people forget like i'm i'm gonna call out dimitri filipovich right now oh dimfip dimfip because he tweeted uh a video compilation of jason spezza like back when he was with the sins he's like man jason spezza is one of the most underrated mixtapes of all time and i'm like jason spezza he was a second overall pick a monster for the better part of a decade before he was just kind of a very good nhl

player underrated yeah don't talk to me about underrated for second overall picks people just forget they just forget because he was drafted like 20 years ago uh people just forget oh it's daniel chara man people don't understand what a beast is what yeah time does does do wonders to people you know yeah it's it's very weird man like i can't wait for the first time like this sort of happened with my dad where i would because he's a big music guy every now and then i'd be like do you know a band called and he would just be like yes i do and he would open me up to that entire world you know there's gonna be some 12 year old man i found these highlights so that you ever heard of pavel datsuk right right because he's been out of the league for how many years

you know it's it's gonna be very interesting or like with your music analogy some kid who's eight is gonna be like whoa do you hear about the backstreet boys and you're like they sold 1.2 million copies in a week yeah i've heard of them you know oh but it's it's new you know i don't believe that because i found one of them for 60 bucks on cameo i can go pay nick carter to make me a video like a worldwide superstar hey man this nick carter just want to wish your grandma a happy 75th birthday and then and then he sings happy birthday yeah at one point he was jesus you know like he was huge lance bass went to space didn't he or like he trained to go to space and sink relax that's right by the way you are all seeing the value of adam wilde oh yeah right

now the kids table episodes are always different the sally of the week goes to uh tim stutzler thank you tony also out with a stomach bug oh is he get to this episode yeah yeah tony is up got the he got a tiger thing i don't know what it is but doubt the the tiger flew the other tony joe exotic gave it to him also out of the lineup with being a pain in the ass all right second favorite segment who wore the crown so today uh this segment is brought to you by barb's beer cozy if you want to drink an ice cold beer while also keeping your hand warm why not why not why not grab yourself one of barb's beer cozies this season they're introducing beer cozies for dogs get it today at barbsbeercozy.org are you making this up

that's our sponsor of this episode barb's beer cozy grab one today at barb's beer cozy.org absolutely yeah steve i'm gonna i'm gonna go first you're gonna go first for who wore the crown today okay i think i'm gonna i'm gonna bat lead off so it's friday the world sucks you know like in general but the leafs are on so we're kind of back to normal it's 9 59 into the game zach hyman backs a puck bats a puck out of the air into the net it's a goal on the ice ref goes to review points at a goal like that's that's the peak of the leafs weekend right there because we're coming off we're coming off a good game on what was it wednesday we go into go into saturday going to friday first goal of the game we get it for

Zach Hyman Zach Hyman's goal it came off of a rebound of a John Tavares shot oh my god John Tavares's shot came off the puck of a pass from William Nylander oh my god I just have to I have to give William Nylander the crown this week for for spurring the highlight of the Leafs weekend because after that pass to John Tavares that was then the goal by Zach Hyman the rest of the weekend was downhill let's be honest they lose that game then the controversy saturday then sunday is just a mess on the twitter versus and then we're here on monday so for the peak of the toronto maple leafs a weekend now we're here on monday we got to go all the way back to friday at 959 in that game i got to give my crown to william nylander for getting us that peak of

Leafs fandom. Steve, who wears your crown this weekend? I should give the crown to you because you have this unbelievable ability, Jesse. Every now and then, I would say

you are comparable to the feeling of maybe this is the episode the Coyote actually catches the roadrun. Maybe this is the episode. And you actually had me going, Zach Hyman, okay, I wonder where he's going with this. i actually didn't realize you were going with kneelander um okay i'm gonna give a guy

his due um who is often criticized in this market and it's getting a little silly uh friday his criticism was warranted and he had a bounce back game saturday to me that could apply to two guys in particular tj brody was terrible on friday very very very good on saturday but i'm gonna give it to mitch marner um a huge bounce back from friday 24 and a half minutes zero goals zero assists zero points a minus one zero hits zero blocks zero steals uh nothing nothing 24 and a half minutes nothing and then he is in on each of the leafs goals uh two drop pass assists two drop pass primary assists one to joe one to austin and of course a goal of his own uh so mitch marner needing to come up with a big game on saturday and he did so i'm gonna give him

the crown and that is who wore the crown brought to you by barb's beer cozy if you want to drink an ice cold beer while also keeping your hands warm why not why not grab yourself one of barb's beer cozies all right so we're gonna work our way backwards we're gonna start on friday Leafs lose to the Sens now four is the magic number of this game so it's four straight goals by Kachuk, Watson

Tierney and Stefan middle of the second to the beginning of the third Steve Jesse what's your analysis from that game so the Leafs have this bad tendency to just be awful for little stretches of a game

right they'll have a good relatively good game for 55 minutes and they'll have an awful five minutes and that'll ruin the whole game i don't know if that was the case here they were good in the first were terrible in the second giving up all those goals and then they only had four shots in the third so it was funny how many shots four magic number of this game magic number and sheldon keith calls out the offense after giving up five goals he calls out the offense i'm like what is nuts and then i look at that and i'm like okay yeah you're right in those four straight goals particularly the three that came in five minutes at the end of the second yes the defense was

terrible brody had a giveaway the riley brody pairing was was a mess um do you not need a save do you not need a save once on any of them on one give me a save on one one there's yes the leafs defense is porous um the goalie is the last line of defense though every time the goalie touches the puck it's a breakdown of some sort you need one one and they didn't get it they didn't get it and it wouldn't have mattered if he did get it though because they only had four shots in the third period. Friday was a brutal game. And coming off of that game, we were all texting,

and you were pretty down on the team in terms of their effort and not so much their play, I guess. Because we all know the skill is there. If the Leafs are peaking, they should be amongst the top five teams in the league. Or at least the top four in Canada, for God's sake. Right, at least the top four in this division. and they don't seem to ever be at their best. And you were pretty down on the team,

and that obviously turns around with some time and some breathing, some deep breathing. I meant what I said. I remember exactly what I told you. Do you want to expand on that? And if you're still that down on the team, okay, go ahead. Yeah, I do. So I told Jesse, I go, I don't like these guys.

And Jesse goes, you'll go right back to liking them when they win tomorrow. and what was funny about this stupid team that we cheer for is we knew they were going to win the next night because they freaking should they shouldn't have lost the first one every game they lose to the Sens this year is going to make me mad more mad than losing to any other team but when you talk about the one team they should beat it's these guys for god's sake anyway so I said I don't like these guys and you said oh you'll like them again when they win the next day and I said know alike that they won there's a little i feel like there's a little something going on with my fandom right now and i wonder how many other leaf fans feel the same where i like the leafs but not

necessarily these guys these guys piss me off these guys drive me nuts and the whole the whole night saturday like when the final horn went and they're all dapping up jack campbell i was just sort of like yeah because you should like yeah you won because of course you won you should like it's i'm at a bad place sometimes now i think where when they win it's what i expect and when they lose it's because you can lose you're allowed to lose the leafs are allowed to lose that was terrible on friday right so they gotta put together some efforts they gotta put together some performances that make me like them i'll always like the logo on the chest i'm a leafs fan but these guys gotta earn our respect back and in some ways when you talk about

these guys i think of the big six i think of taveras matthew taveras matthews riley marner nylander freddy freddy's got to earn it back big time um marner is he's a guy i've defended i think the fan base is too hard on him now i was hard on him during the contract negotiations but like that's over a year ago now guys but he's making no off game money so okay you fought for the money you got it now you're making no off game money you can't have an off game willie unreal uh i know you gave him the crown for friday he had an off game um matthews was invisible on friday uh riley is this so is it does he look slow not necessarily i think he's he played he's got to play different now that he's not with um

with barry you know like i feel i feel like i feel like the games for him has changed a little he's not maybe he's not pinching as much he's plays a little different more up the boards but it's not the same but i think it'll come back yeah like oh if there's an adjustment period with him and brody yeah that would i'm not shocked but the the i think we agree that the issue with this team is just effort on a lot of nights um and i can't respect that I can't respect that. There's a reason why heading into the season, I had like almost an affinity for the Sens and the season they're about to

have, because I know Sens fans every single night are going to watch a team that tries and they're going to watch a team that it's going to have a lot of guys hurt and play and hurt because all they do is block shots. Cause that's all they can do. But like, you have to respect the team like that. They're going to try the more of the Leafs play like that.

the more this fan base will respect them. That's the type of team this fan base respects. And that's, I think, the kind of game that they played against Montreal. They were really sacrificing the body in the final few minutes and stuff like that. And Wayne Simmons, we were all losing our mind for him. There's a reason why that was talked about for 48 straight hours, his fight and no points.

You know what I mean? So I'm not sure what this team needs to give uh in order for me to have should i be saying should i be saying in order for me to have fun watching them again no because i think you have fun watching them every time i have fun watching hockey there's no the passion has not died there and i still love the leafs but there's something about this group where when they surrender a goal i'm like you like i'm just i'm just so pissed at them every time they make a mistake i don't know why i don't know there's something to the leafs not having long stretches of winning because the last time I remember that

happening was probably December 2019 after they fired Babcock and they went on that little, it was like good three weeks where they just kept winning and they had a 12 and four. Exactly. Like one of those, one of those 12 and fours, the 15 and two,

the 17 and six kind of runs from this team. They haven't had them in this era. And I think when you have those long stretches of winning and very little losing, the losing, people will give it to you. Like people are like, okay, but they're 12-5 in their last 17. They can lose that game. They're 18-2, you know, they can drop a couple. But the Leafs have never had these long stretches of winning. It's always been this wishy-washy kind of, okay, we're going to take three of two.

We're going to take, we're going to go four and five and one. And they need just to put it together for a couple weeks, like a three-week stretch for people to start being like, okay, we can accept losing from this franchise every now and again. I don't think we've seen that in this era. That would definitely help, Jesse. But, like, I'm still thinking about, like, I do know that they had a comeback win against Florida that was a good one. But there was one where they blew a 3-4-1 lead at home, I'm pretty sure, to Florida. and they were in a race with them last year it was around a year ago this time and i remember just that night just being like i hate these guys i really do because i don't know what it is like

it's i almost feel like i'm having my time wasted because there are a lot of there are like a lot of nights where i watch these guys i go they're going to make the playoffs and they're going to do nothing again again i feel that less so this year um but there's something about this team they need to put together a few performances they could lose a game i just want to see this team stick up for themselves and try they could lose a game and beat the shit out of the out of their opponent and i'm and i might actually make me feel better i realized there's an absence of logic to that right so there's also a reason i feel this way about this team all of that being said friday night we come out of that game you're really down on this team i was very upset saturday

we go into it the leafs out shoot this ends 40 to 19 because they should jack campbell's in net he gets the w he looks great um marner to thornton thornton's the oldest second oldest leaf to ever score goal for the team i think is the record um something like that yeah uh jack campbell on stutzla's goal it's all cute and that's kind of the narrative you come out of that and then everybody's upset about camp campbell and anderson and then uh going into sunday uh you sent an article by rory boylan who uh penned this great thing for dot ca about the thing the questions after like uh the first weekend of hockey for each canadian team and he writes about how okay do we know that anderson is going to finish the season as the starter

is is frederick anderson not exactly how i described the leafs just now you don't know what you're going to get every night you don't know right you don't know so what are your thoughts on the whole campbell anderson and now that we know aaron dale is a member of new jersey devils right that's also a wrinkle in the situation what do you think of the least goalie controversy i it's just something to keep an eye on at this point but like freddie's gonna play against the jets tonight regardless of how that game goes it is the right decision they have a three-game homestand right now it's jets oilers oilers you don't want yourself in a situation where you play campbell against the jets then let's say he gets lit up and then you have back-to-back

games against mcdavid and dry sidle and you're now going to a starter you don't have confidence in and a backup you don't have confidence in let freddie play the jets play it hopefully play a good game win or lose and then i think the leafs play five games in 10 days or something like that it's it's no no back-to-backs but no real rest either and there's a bunch of travel in there you know why not have jack play at least two of those like that that that i think is the perfect situation jack campbell is here to be a dependable backup for frederick anderson that's his job um not a threat to his job i think he's there to make freddie a little less comfortable in that regard but like to me there's no controversy it's it's until it is very very

obvious freddie is the starter and jack is the backup and i'm sorry you can't tell me a game where campbell had 19 shots on on him you can't tell me that's all i needed to see right and it's nothing against him well what about that save on to donna it was a terrible shot what about it plus we've seen freddie make that save a thousand times because he's been forced to because this team forces you to do that you know so to me there's no freddie is the starter so those are your words to a fan base that sees freddie anderson with a sub 900 career save percentage in uh first month of the season starts and but i understand the fan base's feeling because you're like what is it about the first month of the season whether it's in the fall or the winter

that makes you a sieve you know give it give me what i want in batista's voice that's not what i want like we just we just want consistency we know the leafs can be great and we know freddie can be great and it just feels like they are so rarely both great at the same time for three to five consecutive games you know what i mean it's so it's so rare that win or lose we just watch the for two straight weeks and we go we got the same team every night right we got the same freddie every start you don't you don't know and he's doing he's doing what he always does when he's off the there was the one goal where uh i think it was riley brody they don't have the right coverage he's like out of his crease get in there he swims he goes way too far out of position when he doesn't

know what's going on and it's like you're just bigger garrett sparks like when you're that far out of the net it's true okay so you're you're on both sides here so we've got yeah we've got a whole that's why i'm losing my mind all right so i said there's not a controversy yet seems to be the sentiment yes but one could develop yeah if it continues to trend this way hell yeah also out of uh the game on saturday nick robertson terrible news out for four weeks sheldon keefe set up practice today very unfortunate your first nhl regular season game on what was it his second shift even second or third he was he was yeah and he was wheeling he looked great and then he's out for four weeks now so yeah so unfortunate and you know i brought this up a thousand times

but he's been here since may uh he's been in canada since before leo was born nick robertson has been in canada more uh consecutively than my son has been alive um trying to make this dream happen and uh you know he gets hurt right away you know this wasn't a case of a teenager being in over his head it was just a fluky weird play and by the way the reason leaf fans are so high on robertson he was drafted over a year ago now in 2019 he's four months older than tim stutzla that's it oh wow yeah he's only four months older than tim stutzla because he was one of the youngest players in the 2019 draft um and a very important note for anyone who's like a nerd i know if you're steve simmons you maybe don't care about details i guess we'll get into that later um but

earl schwartz you got to follow this guy uh on twitter earl schwartz 27 really good with like cba stuff so this is important to note with nick robertson if nick robertson is on the least roster for 27 games injured or not he accrues his first professional season of experience a four-week recovery which is what he has uh would be 16 games on the roster and march 13th is the 27th game for him if he reaches 27 games he hits ufa unrestricted free agency in 2027 instead of 2028 so that's just something to look for something the leafs might try to manage at some point you know what i am having trouble looking towards 2027 and the contract situations that's the first thing i thought when i read it i'm like okay you should note that if you're with

leaves management but also that's so the leafs management in place now won't be here for that contract that's like two prime ministers from now yeah i don't care like yeah but you should i don't know it's noteworthy write it write it down on a notepad somewhere and lose it lose the notepad in like six months the reason the reason it's relevant is if you see the leaves do some finagling with robertson later in the season you'll know why right right um so leafs go tonight versus the jets as you mentioned and patrick line a left uh practice this afternoon he had left uh practice on sunday and then he left again today and now the reports are that it's an upper body injury and he's listed as day-to-day that's from paul maurice so we don't

know what it is but uh upper body day to day and not tonight pretty surprising because he's having a really good start to the season you wouldn't think he'd been playing through anything just looking at him but i don't know the leafs i mean they gotta win that game that's a gift um to you know play the jets without patrick liney one of the most dynamic scorers in the league and by the way his first few games the highlights from them i think he had an ot winner i'm just like okay i was right like whenever i take a hard line on things i'm like i don't know this could bite me in the ass but the jets would be nuts to trade patrick linea no i'm 100 right i'm absolutely right they're not replacing him um like it they could get a good package for him

but they're not replacing him there's maybe five players in the league who can do the things that he does uh with the puck and i i would assume based on the start to the season they're not looking to trade him and i don't know why anyone would want pierre luke dubois i don't know if you're getting to him next uh based on what happened today i think we should do uh pierre with uh eric engels who's coming up on the show ah interesting because now all of a sudden he's going to the habs because everybody's been talking about pierre luke dubois to the habs so when uh eric angles joins us that's the first thing we'll hit i think it'll be very interesting to hear his perspective on that right i didn't realize what time it was wow we're gonna have him on very soon

we're very close um uh i think a quick thing we can hit before uh angles joins us do you have any more thoughts on the leafs the they have game tonight i don't most people hear this it'll come out while the game's on so i don't think there's any point to predicting what's going to happen tonight but um do you have anything for the week before yeah jason spence is a real one that that dude is a leaf that dude is a leaf he he pulled a rob gronkowski and he said i'll friggin retire uh if uh you claim me off waivers i saw a few people go well should that shouldn't that be allowed i'm like it's just a it's just a trade request before you're on the team pretty much like just don't claim me he's being up front and honest you can't force him to play for you

um and as for aaron dell i think people made way too big of a deal because now michael hutchinson is the third goalie listen if you want a good third goalie who is not going to be a waiver problem uh draft them that's the only way to do it everything else is crossing your fingers um the leafs tried to have a really good third option and the carolina hurricanes literally ruined the league by claiming anton forsberg a few days ago like think of the complete game of friggin musical chairs it was that and cory crawford's retirement and cory crawford's retirement those two things screwed up the entire league in terms of the third goalie situation and now it's all wonky and and the leafs held on to dell to try to protect him

and Dubas could probably went well the Devils claimed Eric Comrie to alleviate their goalie problem so oh I we have to put him on waiver so let's try now and then the Devils got him anyway so the Devils have now stolen two goalies off of waivers and all the Leafs can hope for is a goalie makes it to them right really because and this is the other issue is they're kind of middle of the pack in terms of waiver wire priority because it goes by where you were in the standings last year so i saw some oilers fans because they're desperate for a goalie now yeah the rumor is they're gonna they're looking to trade for one which is crazy they're gonna have to they're gonna have to but who's got all these goalies now right and the other issue is that

like dell would have been perfect for them uh because he's in canada but the issue is that the Oilers have two guys on the way who can't play for them for like over a week they have they have a guy coming over from Austria because they're they're so hard up Friedman was speculating yesterday that the Oilers would try to claim Aaron Dell and then just leave him in Toronto because they play here on Wednesday unfortunately that's not going to happen now the the border screws everything up and the hurricane screwed everything up and Corey Crawford uh leaving the devils uh screwed everything up I assume the Leafs are going to be able to pick someone up off waivers but they're not going to be Aaron Dell quality and I'm struggling to see how this

is Kyle Dubas's fault are you ready to get into Pierre-Luc Dubois with Eric Engels so am all right let's go all right we're joined here by eric angles of sports net eric how's it going it's going good it's going good we're in the fun zone we're in the red zone here in quebec but we're also in the fun zone because hockey's happening it's very true wow very good uh we're we're in the fun zone now uh as well there eric ontario is in uh you know there's new restrictions and none of us know what any of them mean it's great i think there's hockey on every couple days they all mean stay at home yeah they all mean stay at home i really hope we're in the vaccine zone soon to be honest with you i i've never been more excited to get a needle in my life

so uh all three of us are very not oh yeah there's there's a website there's a website that's a calculator so you just plug in a bunch of information about yourself three healthy men who are relatively young nope not us not soon my wife's a teacher she'll get it soon but relatively soon i mean look we didn't think a vaccine would be developed possibly ever let alone within a year and it was eight months before one was and it's 95 effective and even though it looks like it's slow going now and it's very frustrating to see how slow going it is uh you know the world is working on this so hopefully it happens faster than any of us imagine at least for the three of us i don't know how other people feel about vaccines or whatever

i'm not going to get into that but i know how i feel about it you know people come to us for the vaccine takes you definitely do no i think there will be here this isn't a vaccine take there will be a moment there will be a moment in the not too distant future where we realize everything's going to be fine yes you know where it's gonna where it's gonna dawn on us you were talking about the light at the end of the tunnel jesse i i have a feeling it's around the corner we're gonna figure out everything's fine you know what also might be around the corner pierre du bois to montreal you never know so so eric we were just talking about before you came on we were like okay we're gonna pause on this conversation because we want to hear your thoughts on this the rumor over the

weekend is that Pierre-Luc Dubois should be the number one center in Montreal do you think that should happen and is it do you think it will happen well first of all that was an elite transition second of all uh you say it's the rumor over the weekend I'd say it's the rumor over the last month um to the point where I addressed it in a column on Friday uh or last Friday on Sportsnet and uh it's always our it's always our end game to keep things to roughly 800 to a thousand words it was tough in that one because he really wanted to explain all the different um things that go into that not just from Montreal's end but also from Columbus's you know start with Columbus they have the player he's under contract for two years at five million

dollars which is a really good number and regardless of the fact that he doesn't want to be there or that it's been reported he wants to be in Montreal that's his place of preference Jarmo Kekalainen is under absolutely no rush to get this done he he's likely to come out the loser in any deal he makes where he's giving up a 22 year old six foot three centerman who has already proven something but also still has a ceiling above him and he just needs to lose as little as possible or perhaps end up in one of those anomaly situations like Joe Sackett found himself with matt duchesne where everybody thought he'd lose that deal and well he ended up the big winner so you know montreal's end of it is obvious you know like over three decades they've looked for

this profile of centerman and mark bergman for nine years has been talking about how they're never available and now one is and he speaks the language and and you know is a guy that's willing to come to montreal at least according to reports that are out there but Mark Berge may also as I led my column it's like it's like when you're looking for a job and nothing's available and you can't find anything and then finally you land a job and then six other opportunities flood into your inbox it's it's one of those things he's got Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kakuniemi he's in a great situation cap wise with those two players on entry level contracts one in Kakuniemi that could develop as he's a 20 year old right now but in two years

from now he could look like what Pierre-Luc Dubois looks like at 22 um he's got Suzuki who plays that two-way mole uh game you know he's he's not as established as Dubois but he looks to be headed in that direction that much quicker than anybody thought he'd get there so it's those have to be the pieces that if you're Jarmo Kekulainen you're not making a deal with Montreal unless one of those two guys is involved because there's other teams out there that would want a player like Pierre-Luc Dubois and they have things to offer so I love Pierre-Luc Dubois as a player too and like I was I was saying during the Columbus series I think it was even after game one I'm like wow this guy's a problem uh and sure enough the the Leafs had a very difficult time handling him but

like you said um Kekalainen is under no stress uh no pressure to trade this player which is I think it makes more sense when you put it that way that the rumor was out there that they're asking for nick suzuki because to me you have to be on some kind of extraordinarily powerful psychedelics to think the montreal canadians are trading nick suzuki they're not seriously seriously entertaining offers on that kid right no of course not it's not their angle it's not what they're looking to do and the the but the other side of it is you know any discussion about pierre-luc dubois has to start with the question and related to the canadians do the canadians feel they have a better chance of winning now with Pierre-Luc Dubois at a $5 million cap hit this

year and next year. And then you weigh how much better do they believe that chance is if they're really considering making this move? And how much better is it if it's Nick Suzuki and not Jesperi Kotkaniemi in the deal? And I personally, I think the net gain there is not high enough to take the risk of what we haven't discussed yet, which is the whole quarantine issue. um you know if you make a trade you're going to be missing a player that you're trading away for 14 days as well as the guy that you're bringing in right so what if the reason you're bringing in Pierre-Luc Dubois and willing to trade Nick Suzuki I'm not saying they're willing to do that but what if the reason is that you believe it gives you a better chance to win now and then

you're putting your playoff hopes in jeopardy and boy you burned you know the one one of the two years you get Dubois at five mil because after two years he becomes if he continues on this path an eight nine million dollar player it's there's so much risk involved and there's so much that needs to line up on both sides of this that you know I think we can all agree it's most likely something if it does happen happens in the offseason and even then it's it's a tough call for me Nick Suzuki is probably a non-starter because even if I think Pierre-Luc Dubois is is more established and is a different profile player to begin with but he's that he's a better player even if i believe that i don't know that that it's that much of a

difference that gives you the opportunity to win whereas is very cockney emmy if if i was mark burge bay and and i believe in this very cockney and i believe that in two years from now he could very much be a player that is like dubois but it will take him that that amount of time to get there but if yarmulke line and called me tomorrow and said i would take a package that revolves around cockney i mean i would consider taking that risk to have suzuki and dubois and if for whatever reason that risk gets in the way of what happens this year i know that for next year and for 10 years to come my top two centers are suzuki and dubois in a division that if it's not all canadians still includes austin matthews and john tabera's on one side and you know patris

bergeron another and this is what they're competing against here so i believe you went up the middle And I love Jesperi Kotkaniemi as a player, but I also think that if that deal was available to Marc Bergevin right now, it'd be hard for him to say no to it. Because you look at the division right now, and it's stacked with number one centers. It's Auston Matthews, it's John Tavares, it's Pedersen, it's McDavid, it's Dreisaitl. And Montreal, if they're going to compete, that might be the move where they think, hey, it's win now, Mo. Dubois is going to put us in the company with those teams. yeah and that's the question about the canadians this year right they don't have those guys what they do have is a deeper roster than most the other teams right you know you probably i would

i would trade you know outside of ottawa the top two lines of almost every team in canada to montreal for their top two i would i would if i was montreal i'd rather have those the shifleys and lineys and matthews and martyrs of the world but the canadians and their whole group and their four lines and even a fifth line that is better than some fourth lines in canada that's that's the question we need to have answered this year is their depth going to prevail over that star power and in a right in a normal regular season it probably wouldn't but in a regular season where the reg where the games are going to look more like playoff games as we move long that you know that tends to really help in the playoffs when you have that when you have that

ability to roll things over and deal with the exhaustion element because you can trust that any line that you put on the ice is going to do the job so that's that's the most interesting dynamic of the canadians versus their rivals this year i look at it from the other end too it's like will the star-powered lead teams beat up on the canadians because they can't match up with those with those star elements and like i wrote after the canadians beat the oilers the one equalizer here is carrie price because he's a superstar all right there so i'm looking at so there was vegas with the thomas tatar trade uh a couple years ago where they gave up far too much for him um and then didn't play him for some reason but that was a completely separate issue

they just had so many assets that it at the time it almost didn't matter so no one would refer to the habs current roster as old there are parts of it that are old but it's a young team since 2017 they've drafted in the first two rounds one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve times do you think mark bergevin could potentially be tempted to trade any of those guys outside of suzuki and kakeniemi just because there's no possible way all 12 of those guys make the team yeah it's great point because only detroit has made more draft picks in the last three years than the canadians have had not just in the first three rounds or whatever um and yeah they've built up by consensus if you read the draft analysts and all the people that know much

more about that than even i can pretend to um they consider montreal to have a top five kind of prospect pool here if not for the elite level prospects that are in the system guys like cole Caulfield and Matthias Norlander and Caden Gouley for the actual depth of that of that system so and and the Canadians have entered at least in my mind but I think you guys would probably agree watching what they have and what they're building here that they've entered a kind of window where it can be digestible for them to potentially move some of these future players to get something that helps them now um we're running up the you know I sat down with Mark Bergevin last week and we talked about trade and he believes just like he echoed jim rutherford's thoughts in pittsburgh

that it's it's it's nearly impossible this year it's really you know that was what made it so important for bergman to make so many moves prior to the season to bring in so many players to the point where you even had to risk losing some good ones on waivers and the leafs did similar things you know like and they also ran up against those risks and just like montreal you know they've lost aaron dell and montreal lost noah juleson neither team wants to lose those players um you bring in the depth for that specific reason that you know the trades are going to be that much harder to come by uh this season so it depends on who the player is that they're after if they're going to consider moving some of those prospects but i think there's a willingness on burge of his

end to do that more than they're much more than there has been over the last three years it's so when you go to the states um let's say you're traded there is do they have the same quarantine as canada no well and also it's it's this is what's so complicated about it's the rules are different from state to state not just it's not just a blanket across the states and and same here you know even though we have an applicable rule in canada uh regarding people coming in from the states to here from even canadian teams to canadian teams the local governments have different rules bc seems to be a bit more stringent than somewhere else manitoba is is a bit more strict than other places to the point where they're telling visiting media coming

into manitoba to quarantine for 14 days beforehand so i don't know if i'll be going to a winnipeg jets game this year so it's just these are the circumstances we're dealing with and and for as much as you want to stay on top of it as a reporter in terms of what all the semantics are it's it's it's very complicated and requires almost a day-to-day let me reach out to this person just to make sure i understand this properly so before i sat down and wrote 1100 words on pierre luke dubois on friday i wanted to make sure i was right about saying that if he's coming in from columbus you got to wait 14 days before he gets integrated into a practice because you go back to training camp guys had to who are coming in from the states or europe had to

um quarantine for seven days and then for the next seven they had to have four negative tests in those seven days and for the next seven days they were allowed to go to the practice rink and home um the reason why it's not the same rule now is because the canadians are no longer in their own bubble they're sharing a bubble with the other teams in canada not you know if an imaginary bubble but there's other considerations you can't bring in a player from the states and have him around your group after seven days and four negative tests and play against opposing players if they're exposed to those players. Like it's – anyways, it's annoying.

It's boring. I don't even think we can keep talking about it. But it's one of those things that I'm trying to give you some insight on how much we have to think about that stuff before we write something or say it on the air and get it wrong. Like a situation where the Winnipeg Jets have six games in nine nights coming up. If you just traded for a player and he has to quarantine for 14 days, he's going to miss maybe 10 games. Then after that, he's got to get into the lineup and use all of his new teammates.

Assuming he can jump right in without a practice and to add to what you just said, if you're trading a player off your roster to get that player, you're missing that player and the one you traded for. It's a huge sacrifice. Yeah, and you've got a guy off your taxi squad in your regular lineup for a quarter of the season because that's how long 10 games is. And speaking of taxi squad, I'm having a hard enough time understanding what the Leafs are doing. Can you explain the Alexander Romanov situation to me like I'm five? Yeah, just really simply, people see the salary cap. they see 81.5 million dollars for the season and what they need to realize is that that number

to get to 81.5 is calculated daily it's it's a daily calculation the minute the season starts every single day you're you're leading up to filling up that 81.5 million dollars so if you take a player who's not eligible to be put on waivers when you're in a day that you're not playing and you put them on the taxi squad you're not exposing them to waivers number one and number two you're saving six thousand bucks on the salary cap and that's important because that every day that you do that you end up in a situation where you've banked a certain amount of money that would normally be counting against your cap if you just left them on your roster and that's important for a team like Montreal and it's important for a team like Toronto because they're

right up against the cap and they're carrying less players than 23 that are allowed to be on their active roster so right now cory perry is on the taxi squad for montreal he's cleared waivers something that i didn't think would happen but it did um so he cleared waivers he's on their taxi squad if they want to insert him into a game right now they would probably have to take a player like jake evans who's their fourth line center a player that they want in the lineup and they'd put him on the taxi squad for a game knowing that he doesn't have to clear waivers he's on his entry level deal and they would put paul byron at center move him from the wing he's not a centerman but he can play center and put cory perry in the lap whereas if they've made those moves like they did

with romanov and evans already on off days and then reactivated them and they've banked enough space they can go from carrying 30 days from now from right now they have a 21 man roster they could have a 22 man roster once they've banked enough space to have them so i don't know if that works for the five-year-olds that are listening to the podcast right now but it's about as simply as i could express it without writing you a book no i think you did a great job you did simple terms you get to bank enough cap space to acquire your own players yeah basically yeah or at least be able to use them without getting into that situation where you have to wave cory perry again and hope that he sneaks through waivers well they're the waivers

that's another thing because it's 30 days on once you've cleared waivers it's 30 days or 10 games played until you have to until you're once again eligible again to clear web anyways we should just screw this whole that's also fascinating because once you go through you can go through again for 30 30 days or 10 games yeah so so cory perry right now for 30 days can float up and down to the Montreal roster without having to go to waivers unless he plays 10 games, which is really interesting to me because that's the rule in a normal year. And this year is a 56-game schedule,

and I feel like the numbers probably should have been prorated. And maybe they have, and I'm just totally unaware. And we'll find out later, and I'll kick myself for it. But so long as they haven't and that's still the rule, it's interesting to me that in a 56-game season, that waiver rule is still the same. yeah so spezza would be in the same position then he can go up and down they have the flexibility with him he's cleared for 30 days or 10 games oh you brought up romanoff there i over the two games

that the canadians have played so far is it romanoff and price who are the two game mvps and with those guys playing as they have been unbelievably i think it has your projections for the canadians changed after those two games no like my projection was that the canadians would finished second in the division behind toronto and i still believe that that that probably will be the case but again these projections and predictions like as we know all the covid complications not just if you have it or you've tested for whatever it is like i was saying over the weekend like look at the winnipeg jets they they canceled a practice the day after they had a day off and they're about to start as of today five games in seven nights it's going to affect

how you play if you have to cancel practice 15 practices in a season that will have as much of an influence on the standings as whatever you believe about these teams on paper but if assuming nothing wrong happens i had montreal finishing second in the division i think they would have a very good season based on the depth and the balance of their roster and also based on the fact that Carey Price is going to get some rest and that you know Jake Allen is going to step in and he's a capable guy and that Carey Price would look like he did in the bubble which so far so good even if he allowed five goals against Toronto he wasn't the reason they lost that game and he was amazing against Edmonton and Romanov I knew this guy was a player you know I've heard I've

followed his story quite closely as closely as you can with him being in Russia for two years i've spoken to people in russia about him i've spoken to people here about him i know how the canadians feel about him i know how they felt about him before he showed up for training camp they had very high expectations which is really unheard of when you're integrating a 21 year old or just turned 21 year old defenseman into your nhl roster and like guaranteeing them a spot right off the hop like that's that is that doesn't happen in most cities and it definitely doesn't happen in montreal and i think they're probably thrilled that like everybody is watching and seeing exactly what they already knew about alex romanov and there's going to be growing pains like

he's a 21 year old defenseman he's going to get burned especially in this division with some of the guys we named that he's playing against on a nightly basis but he's a fearless energetic smart physical great puck mover um i don't know if there's a lead offense in him there is no evidence to suggest there is so far but i think there's more than what the khl suggested because his numbers his ice time was cut down dramatically a because they don't trust defense been there young ones and b because they knew he was leaving for montreal and had no investment in his future right so you really do gotta we sort of ran into this with rodion amirov when the leafs drafted him 15th uh just a few months ago you gotta throw khl stats in the garbage because we were we had

a conversation about Romanov a few months ago and all the hype and then I saw him like wait he had seven assists this past year and no goals what is everyone talking about and then he hits NHL ice and apparently scouts are pretty good at what they do there's this great conflict with Romanov in one sense is that the Canadians have based so much of their opinion on what they saw in two world juniors whereas under normal circumstances everybody else around will react to what they see in the world juniors whereas they'll say this is a snapshot of a much larger picture and they don't overreact to a two-week tournament even if it's best on best competition they do draw certain conclusions from that but in romanov's case it's like this is the main picture for them because he

was actually used the way he was supposed to be used and he dominated so that i think informed a lot of why the canadians were like this kid's not coming here to earn a spot he's already got one let's see how far he takes it and in game one he's up against matthews and tamaris for more than half his ice time and he i mean i could say it but i i think you guys saw what i saw he he was he didn't look like a kid who was playing his first game he looked like a veteran and one guy a year ago compared this kid to drew dowdy and he wasn't making the comparison in terms of what the offensive uh style or even a style of play the comparison was Romanov's energy level and his wantingness to be involved in every aspect of the game and just how much he wants to impact it and

how involved he is that's where the comparison was to Drew Doughty and when you watch Drew Doughty play and you watch him go to the penalty box and he's screaming and cursing at the top of his lungs and he's going insane and he's yelling at the refs and he's doing it's he cares so much and he's so involved and that's and he wants to make the difference he wants to make the difference every time he gets on the ice and i there's very clear signs and evidence for me like right off the hop that that's exactly who alex romanoff is he wants to make the difference he wants to make an impact and he's not shy or afraid to do it even as a rookie eric we have to let you go to bring on uh digit murphy of the toronto six but thank you for joining us i encourage everybody to go

to uh sportsnet.ca and read your article on pierre luke dubois it's it's a lot of words but they're well worth it thank you guys it's always fun being with you all right so we we're now joined by two time clarkson cup champion head coach and president of the toronto six digit murphy everybody thank you for coming on you are here you guys you're the first a professional head coach slash president we've ever had on the show so it's a big deal for us come on you guys are a big deal i'm hearing you guys are such a big deal here i got introduced to you guys from nick patina who was one of our interns slash brother of uh one of the kids on the boston pride and he's like stevie dangles you gotta get on that podcast it's the best one i'm like all right let's talk so you know steve and

i chatted and here we are and and here we are absolutely so you you got a busy uh few days coming up so we really appreciate you coming on um speaking of those busy few days what are you doing because you're heading somewhere so we are heading to lake placid for the first ever bubble for women's professional sports and hockey um i know that the n wmba has had one and the women's soccer league had one and now we're going to have one and we are going to be leaving on january 21st uh we get into lake placid the night of the 21st we practice on the 22nd and we start our games the 23rd and away we go in an action-packed fun-filled 12-day adventure in the miracle arena uh in lake placid bucolic setting we're just going to be pumped and toronto is represented that's right

so yeah the toronto six play their first games their first ever games first ever games yeah this saturday not in toronto this can't be how you picture today it's epic it's it's one of the craziest rides and i've i went to china right this is one of the craziest rides i've been on um we start in april there's it's kind of like covid's just happening you're like okay it's covid this will be fun and then everything shuts down as a president i can't get up there i have to do all my recruiting on zoom. Um, and you know, I, I didn't get there until October. And then by that time we hadn't named a head coach and we didn't know if we were playing games. So our owners are like, why don't you just coach? I'm like, all right, let's do it. So that's what I

did. It was, it was really cool though. One of the biggest challenges for you guys, I know from the league was just getting everybody to agree on two weeks. Cause most of the players, it's not their full-time job so you gotta find two weeks where everyone can be like hey i'm gonna commit to this i'm gonna go to this bubble at lake placid and just play hockey for 12 days yeah and don't forget yeah and don't forget we're in order like it's not that we're just going to some random arena it is new york state sanctioned arena during covid um god bless ty tominia um and actually through a relationship at Brown, believe it or not, Paul Wiley, who now works with the arena, that's how this all kind of transpired, just chatting about some things. And the next thing

you know, the bubble starts happening. And once it became a reality, I think it was really tough to get the players, not tough to get them to say yes, because they always want to play hockey, right? They're so dialed in. They're so focused. But it was like, how do we fit it in? Because these guys they've got full-time jobs um but I think to be honest like COVID was it's a welcome kind of distraction right for the COVID the COVID thing was a welcome distraction for our players and their employers we're happy to give them some time off so it's really been um kind of a lesson in cooperation so it's really cool you mentioned having to that didn't even occur to me you had to you had to recruit an entire expansion team yeah on zoom essentially so how has that been for you

as the president what are some of the most ridiculous conversations you had and how can you tell you want a hockey player just speaking to them through a computer i think the good news for me is that i knew most of the players you know i've been in the game you guys have been in the game older i'm older and been in the game for 45 years older than you guys like literally i'm 59 years old i'm old old as dirt and all the players i know all the players i know who's available but and here's what i was on the phone this morning with um labrador in newfoundland because amy curlew plays for us and she's she's such a a breath of fresh air energizer bunny i've seen her play at uh cornell for years and you know for the last four years because i'm a

Cornell alum. But when you think about talent, okay. And it's not hard to recruit in Toronto. Think about it. You have 40,000 women that play hockey. Okay. Just in Ontario. Okay. So you start from that point, you're going to get 20 players, right? And then you start from the standpoint of who's good and who's not, who's like Olympic caliber player and who's not. So then it becomes really simple. You're good. And then the next thing is, do you have the right heart? Do you have the right heart and soul to play for our mission? And that's how I've always built culture. I did it at Brown. We did it in China. We did it for the blades. It's about the people. And if you have the right people on your team, they'll go over the wall. They'll go over the walls. They're

going to war for you. And then you have fun because every kid believes in your mission. And I say kid again, because I'm old, every young woman, every lady believes in the mission. How have you been building that culture of the team? Because like, obviously, I assume they haven't had much time together. And like a big part of a hockey team is playing as a team together. Like so how have you over the last few days or in the coming days? Are you going to build that that team mentality for these girls? Well, I think a lot of it comes from just them knowing each other. A big part of who I recruited as well were people's friends, right? With women, probably with men too, but with women, they love playing with their friends. So if you start from

the base of, if you look at our captains, there are three captains that played at Quinnipiac, you know, and Cassie Turner, who is the coach of Quinnipiac, played for me at Brown. So it's like this little family that we already have created. So it's not as difficult when you just try to, you just kind of bring people into it so you know like we have a bunch of we just have fun like i don't know if you've seen any of the twitter stuff uh that i do like oh yeah a miracle on ice you have to do stand-up you know like i'm doing stand-up comedy like every day and i've got i've got lisa haley from ryerson head coach she's she's uh ryerson she's a head coach in the u-sport team i've got spiros anastas who's the brampton beast head coach like this is the best staff i've

ever had, right? So you utilize your staff and their strengths. You know, I'm the setup man. I'm the humor. I'm the relationship builder. I'm the person that puts the lines together. I understand the people. It's fun. We just have fun. I can't explain it. We just have fun. Everything's fun. What does Digit Murphy's team play like, even though you haven't seen them hit the ice yet? Fun, fast, furious. We already know that. We say that all the time. We're fun. We're fast we're furious we go at you we come hard um i don't care like when i saw pk subban play i'm like thank god we have d joining the rush we have shots on net we have we have defenders in the freaking corners in the offensive zone that's how my team plays go get the puck go do

something with it get shots on net score goals and last but not least eat pancakes that's what i tell them score goals and eat pancakes it's an old saying and they just look at me is it we're crazy why pancakes you know it's really funny i'm so glad you asked me i say it every day and my players don't ask me why they just go she's crazy back this was back in the 90s russell j mccurdy was um one of my mentors and i went out on maternity leave in 1994 and he'd be like margaret because my real name is margaret he'd be like margaret if you eat a pancake you score a goal and i was like really russell he's like yes because their pre-game meals back in the day were on sunday mornings and that's what he would tell

his team in the 80s right he's totally old school so now i just changed a little bit and i say score a goal eat a pancake you know and they're just like yeah score a goal eat a pancake don't even know why they say it it's just fun this is the kind of stuff coming to my you guys can come to my practice anytime by the way oh we we will be there what's yeah as soon as it's legal uh you can absolutely any time come skate with us get a get so you guys should get a team to play against the six i we would have well you're asking us to get our butts handed oh yeah you would have fun okay we'll mix the teams up like okay this is the kind of thing we want to do we want to become you know the talk of Toronto like we want people to understand who we are and what we bring to the

table which is women's leadership and empowerment and fun and you know I think we have that opportunity to do that I mean just coming on the show is so fun with you guys like let's let's have everyone have fun and I and I and I don't want to just say one last thing I don't want to belittle it because it's women's hockey but i think all sports we need to have more fun okay it was invented to be you know get in shape uh sports was invented to have some camaraderie beat the crap out of each other on the field and go drink beer after like that's why sports was created and now it's become this big warrior industry and mentality but let's have some fun so you're in it for the for the fun and the pancakes basically fun pancakes but also to win the cup like that's

the fun so um i you know i think that part of the method to my madness is not distracting them but keeping it loose right players play but what gets in the players uh head can make them stop playing and you want them to maximize every shift every period every game and if you can keep it fun and loose and not have them take themselves too seriously and forget about the mistakes you're you're going to be a better team. Hockey is a game of mistakes. Okay. Women and girls hate to make mistakes. They're perfectionists. I don't know if guys are, I guess they are, but I think they're more like, you know, who cares, you know, but women don't like to make mistakes. For you as a builder, I was, I was trying to figure out something you were saying earlier,

and I think I get it now for you as a builder. I feel like this bubble is you in your absolute element and you love having a captive audience. I am this. I, and I honestly think that Ty, being the commissioner was like foreshadowing that she's like you have to coach because i didn't know it was going to be in the bubble like they keep it kept it a secret from me so i think she knew that about me you're absolutely right um we'll be doing twitch like they'll be having beauty cameras on the bench for twitch so what that means is um they call them beauty cameras without beauty like but they'll be lined up on the bench and you can actually see the players live during the games which quite frankly that's phenomenal that's where the game has to go it's got to be more

interactive people need to see what's going on in the locker room on the benches um and i i can't wait yeah for anybody who wants to watch the uh the cup over the next 12 days or starting this saturday and then 12 days you can watch the whole thing on twitch and then the final four will be on nbc yeah like that's a that's a huge deal for the game massive and again it's ty you know and i i keep i know that she was our chair right that was one of the reasons why i was excited to come to toronto um between her and jojo john and uh miles um jojo and jojo and john boynton they own the team miles are known owns the team and ty was going to be the chair but when tyler moved over to the league like she's part of the power couple like she's married to ben charrington

like she's a scout for major league baseball she owns six minor league clubs in baseball so she's got relationships that transcend hockey you know so i think that i think having her at the top of the food chain really helped us and this is this is massive for us i can't wait pumped how many of the games did you watch on twitch uh before you joined the six not a lot because to be honest i was in china um and i actually i don't even know what the teams look like i mean besides for what i've seen on um the scout tapes right um and i and i and i say that because not because i don't want to watch the the people being scouted but because the teams change so much every year right there's a lot of turnover so one year they play one way one year they play the other but um i

watched actually my son watches them more than i do on on twitch um and i was in china and not even part of women's hockey they grabbed me out of some other world i was living in and i was i was doing a startup basically for you know some other things but jojo and uh jojo plucked me out of that and pulled me into hockey i'm like no don't i don't want to do it so there's no one going into the tournament that really spooks you on the other side oh no not at all no i don't know i mean boston and minnesota are going to be the teams to beat because you know looking up and down the roster the players they have but anyone can beat anyone especially us because we've only practiced for seven like games like we've only practiced together seven times or eight i don't

even know it's crazy it's not like it's not like anyone's got game tape on you guys right oh no but they do have they do have game tape on digit murphy's teams they know they know we're coming at you hard we're coming at you hard yeah you haven't exactly been uh shy about that doesn't sound like is there anything about you that's shy i don't think so i don't get that impression no there isn't but my mom would say that when i first started you know out as a kid i was very shy so somehow i came out of my show but uh you guys like i'm so pumped to be on the show like just be coming to toronto and hearing all that you guys do like you're awesome everyone's like steve dangles you're going on that podcast that's gonna be fun uh tell us about your show because uh you

got one coming up from the bubble so yeah we have the um six fix podcast um that we do but we we are going to do it from the bubble after every game um we're still trying to figure out how to like plug it in and do it live, but we will have some kind of streaming mechanism that people can ask us questions, talk about, you know, magical plays that our team, team did just being very open. So we've got as many people that want to, you know, hear about us and just, just talk, just rap, rap six. And then the six picks podcast is on Spotify. It's on Apple. It's on Simplecast. I think there's all these, like, I don't know, the podcast guys do that. You guys do that um and it's called six fix and there's eight episodes up right now if you want to binge

um the next ones will be the ones at the bubble and we're just going to just keep rocking and rolling i mean you know how it is it's pretty it's pretty fun it's pretty easy to do this stuff just to chat with people be exciting have fun i think once this is all over like the pandemic and the toronto six have an actual home in the city and people start getting the merch and they see the games i feel like there's going to be a real energy from the team that people are going to grasp onto and really get a hold of in the city. You know, like, I feel like you guys can be a little, a little hub in the city of fun hockey, fun women's hockey that people can come to watch and enjoy. I couldn't agree more. And, um, I think it's all about just getting exposed

and having exposure to, to the game, to the people. Um, you know, we, you can come down to our games. The players are accessible. You can sign autographs with them. I mean, anyone, it's not like we're like this big secret like no you can't talk to us it's like we're like yeah bring it let's talk to anyone you know anyone that wants to listen and hear our messaging about empowerment education and inclusion and how you do that using sports as a platform I mean I think that's the way sports has to go in the future you know we've seen it now without these huge like stadium kind of revenue models and streams like people have to start thinking about different ways to expose sports to populations that they otherwise wouldn't expose them to so every so

often i'll get a message from someone steve i want a leafs jersey but i don't know who to get on the back i'm getting a toronto six jersey who should i look at getting on the back who are some names so we've got um cheyenne dark angelo who's uh played for us over in china she's played for team usa we got emma woods who's one of our assistant captains she played for quinnipiac she played over in Sweden. You know, personally, Lindsay Eastwood will be a huge fan favorite. She's like 6'1". She went to Syracuse. She does a lot of shows on the radio. You can look her up. We have Brooke Boquist, who's on one of our top lines. She played at Providence. I mean, every single one of these kids just has has so much jam oh the other line that's really good is mckayla grant

mentis bucky okay she can you watch her she's gonna score some goals i'm not gonna jinx her but she is gonna score some goals she played at merrimack um and then frenchie uh sarah ev uh kutu gabu that's i can't even say that i just call her frenchie um and amy curlew that whole line they can rock it they are scoring so much we call them the kid line they're all out of college then you got elaine chule in the net you've got sam ridgewell uh kristen barbara like they're all like just really cool women um so i know there's a lot of names you can always get digit murphy on the back but i don't think that's a good player i was thinking about it i just don't know what number uh i would use well you know i was always number nine but you could put six on it because

you know we got your six baby we got your six i get we got your stick stevie dangles what is what is everyone like calling me stevie i don't get that everyone like it's a hockey nickname it goes stevie dangles i just gotta believe you i just gotta trust you i'll call you steve if you want no i like stevie i like it it's stuck now so six fixed podcasts make sure i'm gonna have you on by both of you guys sure the whole show we'll wait for adam to come back in the whole show. Yeah. Adam was sick.

He's got an upset tummy. I hope he feels better. Yeah, us too. Well, we don't want to take up too much more of your time. We know you got a team

to get back to. But thank you so much for joining us. You guys are the best. And this Saturday, the season kicks off. First ever game for the Toronto Six.

We're super excited. Watch it all on Twitch. Follow us. Follow us. Twitter, Instagram, at the Toronto Six. Let's go Toronto six.

We're bringing home the cup, baby. I love it. That would be absolutely perfect. Digit Murphy, the woman, the myth, the legend. Cannot wait to watch you guys in the bubble. That's going to be fantastic. Digit Murphy, everybody. I'll die mad that Adam wasn't part of that.

I know. So I spoke to Digit. I spoke to her on the phone sometime in the summer. I think Leo had just been born. we were i was just sleep delirious and i was up early one morning and we spoke morning coffee in the backyard um and i was just like i cannot wait to get this human being on the show and uh you know we right right before the deadline before they were leaving for the bubble i can't wait to have her on again digi murphy's absolutely fantastic she reminds me of the most fun gym

coach you ever had you know she gives me that she seemed like she'd be a great uh a great great gym teacher to have for sure or or coach um something about her reminds me of uh just a cartoon character like she just reminds me she's really fun and i think she'll absolutely be in her element with a plucky group in a bubble setting which is not an ideal setting but um i think it'll optimize her skill set and make the toronto six a really fun team to follow right you can you can tell how good she would be at leading a group of people you know like you put her in a situation where she's the head coach and she's gonna excel that's why i'm really hopeful for like the franchise and the team and the bubble it's gonna be a lot of fun there was a moment where

i was on the phone with her um where i was like like i was almost i was behaving like i was applying for a job right you know what i mean and i think she has that kind of that impact on people oh it's awesome awesome i'm jack for the season now so one thing before we go because we've uh we've done quite a bit of time here but we need to touch on um voracek and the things that have happened to him over the last uh week or so with philadelphia columnist uh mike sealski so mike sealski um like i said sports columnist for the philadelphia inquirer friday night the flyers beat the pens 5-2 during the post-game zoom voracek and uh travis are sitting at the podium and vorachek is asked by michael uh sealski it's a mundane question

about how like uh the season is different like how is it different over is given these circumstances and this pandemic in these unprecedented times how is it different and vorachek's response is i'm gonna i'm just gonna read it verbatim here do it does it matter what i say mike you're gonna write fucking shit every time so it doesn't matter what you said yeah it feels different i mean we got four points out of these two games i wasn't even going to answer your question because you're such a weasel it's not even funny next question and boy did twitter have a good time with that quote a very very good time so funny so funny and the only person i saw who had any trouble with it was sam karkady uh mr uh i don't care what his political beliefs are sam karkady i think he said

i don't even remember the content who is who is sam he's a he's a flyers writer and i and i don't know it's it seemed i got the impression he leaned a certain way anyway um and i think most of twitter did as well and he and he said the old timey scribe thing that you always hear in this situation you know voracek should have spoken to mike in person if he had a problem why why why should voracek privately work out his problems with a writer who wrote about him publicly and like i i understand you know the potential hypocrisy here i criticize players all the time and if one of them were to tweet me or whatever at me and be like steve you're a fucking plug shut your mouth you're gonna say you're a weasel and you're gonna

say fucking shit in your video anyway i mean i'd be sad about it but i i certainly wouldn't expect them to approach me privately you would get it like you'd be like oh yeah i get that i probably deserve that if cody cc one day signed up for twitter just to tell me to fuck off i'd be like it's about time like absolutely you know what i don't blame you you played hundreds of games in the nhl and here i am saying that you shouldn't be playing on a on a on a top pair i i get it i would not be in the least bit uh surprised so that that game the happens friday post game happens friday uh the quotes go around on twitter all day and then saturday voracek actually tweets and he responds to the people who the columnist who said hey why don't you report to this guy

in the locker room you did person and i didn't even see this oh you didn't see this no no oh i love it oh hit me oh there's even more of the story after this i'll keep going i love it okay tweet saturday what you think he was doing last year in the locker room he didn't even look at me because he knew i was gonna snap trust me i'd love to to his face that was our first interaction since so to everybody saying hey you should have done this to his face he's like i tried to and this is the first time i got a chance to and now i did so interesting mike sealski goes to a website called uh i have the name of the website crossing broad it's a philadelphia sports website he did an interview with a writer named kevin kincaid and he explains that voracek

has a problem with a story he wrote uh back in 2019 around halloween so he's okay mike says that he was at practice uh when philly was practicing in new jersey they're at practice and i go to write a column i'm now quoting mike they had gotten off to a slow start that year and alan vigneault is talking and he says he needs more from his veteran group of players voracek and james van reamsdijk were laughing as he was talking i go home and i'm hosting a party at our house we've got 60 people coming over for trick-or-treating i'm on deadline and trying to write this column about what happened at practice. Flyers PR got in touch because they thought I was writing that Voracek and Vam Vremeste were laughing at Alan Vigneault. So I apologized and said that I

could understand why they saw it that way. I went online and we fixed the column at that point to clarify that I didn't know specifically what they were talking about. And I said I'd be willing to smooth things over with jake that i would speak to him at practice or over the phone again we went in and fixed the column and that was it so that's why mike sealski thinks that voracek has a problem with him so so there was a thread i can't find it but it's everything mike sealski has written about voracek and there was one where he straight up just writes jake voracek is the reason the flyers are losing or something along those lines and he has he's been on a like a twitter tirade over the last little bit responding to all these people who

are calling him out for those those columns and those tweets and he's been like like that one specifically he was like oh that was just me being twitter funny you know i didn't actually think you should trade them and he's provided a bunch of excuses but i think most people have drawn the conclusions like yeah vorchek probably if he had a problem with you he could definitely call you out and he was very in the right to you know like i i don't understand why someone i don't understand the old school mentality of privacy or or this should be this should be behind closed doors like you and i have a working relationship together like there there is a give and take a professional but like we're not co-workers you know what i mean um i'm not co-workers with the

toronto mapleys um so if they want to rip me they can this is this is an important story that i wanted to talk about like for this show i mean in real life who actually cares but for this show it's something i wanted to talk about and i messaged you this morning i go jesse i want to talk about the voracek story and after digit left i go we have to talk about the voracek story and then you set up the voracek story and as you're setting it up i realized i don't know the writer's name and now i do right now i do like you are in the business of selling your words you're selling the things that you say and for this to be anything but amazing for you mike sealski as i check the screen for you to view it as anything but amazing for you i i don't

understand i don't understand this is awesome for you dude this is awesome who the the next article you wrote is probably the most clicked on article you've ever written and it should be about vorchek and it should be about oh but you're gonna write i don't know like a part of our shane goss despair story or like no no it should a hundred percent you like matt cook had a fight with i think it was dean brown in the ottawa media and uh his next article was uh matt cook had something to say about my junk or do you remember the story no no i don't and i didn't know that writer but i was like click like how do you not click on that right how are you how are you not now invested in this beef yeah no i find your perspective on the story very interesting

because i would have never looked at it from the side of oh this might be great for mike's career you know i just looked at it i was like oh vortex probably right and because mike wrote this shitty call him about him and had to go edit it and now that fortress calling him out he's kind of everybody's kind of piling on him but when you when hearing your perspective on it it's like hey you should be thankful that he's calling you out and now people are actually talking about you on podcasts and yeah as if you got to defend your your friend or or something like no man this is great for your buddy this is great this is especially in the digital world um and i don't want to sound like you know i think i think there was a long time where older writers spoke down

to digital writers people like me and now there's been too much of an overcorrection so i don't want to speak down to mike but like for for a lot of the old school newspaper guys they aren't grasping that this sort of thing is actually extraordinarily good for you you know who's grasped this steve simmons well i don't people who do not like him and have have never agreed with a word he's written uh-huh click his shit do they click it or do they get mad on twitter about it financially it does not matter fair people are tripping over themselves to go can you believe this shit and this shit is followed by a link that people click i've never looked at a link and gone i can't believe it the counter argument i go i wonder what's in there and

i click it the counter argument reputations do matter and if you're like and if you're the guy who's shit posting about hockey you don't want that to be your reputation of course not no i that i'll agree with you don't want to get into the game and everyone no one respects you because your takes are just just trying to drum up controversy and aren't based in anything yes so there's a huge difference then between writing shit that is shit and just not true and having a beef with a player because you criticize like stand behind it stand behind it um i i think that's the way to go here that's the way to go here and i mean it's not like you're never going to be able to it's not like the flyers are ever going to freeze you out like when when

was the last time a writer was actually freezed out kyle dubas was answering steve simmons questions like a week or two ago you know what i mean and if he's not getting freezed out um i remember hearing a story with like dave festchuck and who kessel called an idiot and there was a supposedly like an internal plot within the leafs we're not talking to this guy anymore i hope i'm not getting the story wrong but we're not let's pretend it was fester we're not talking to this guy anymore and it lasted two minutes before someone was speaking to him again you know what i mean it's it's not gonna happen the the i read the story a few years ago with the oklahoma city thunder back when they still had westbrook and durant at the same time and there was a story

about how the whole team just froze everyone out that's an outlier though you know it's it's just not going to happen so for for mike sealski like i don't know i think it's been a good week it's been a good week i mean if people are sending you heinous shit as a result yeah that's bad if you search any of his twitter replies it's literally flyers fans calling him a weasel so because they're siding with the players and their favorite team so lean into it that might be tough for him for like a week but if you lean into it like you're saying it'll be tons of twitter reactions change your picture to a weasel change your picture to a picture of ron weasley like lean into it friggin you know like i think of i think of like what rap used to be

and now we get like takashi69 leaning into the fact that he's a friggin snitch and he's but he's made of the thing right right and he's going lol i did that he made a whole music video about lol i did that and he's fine it has had zero negative impact on his career did you well lean into it sakashi's streams are in question you know like he's uh he's been accused of buying his his streams so i don't know if you really that yeah yeah sakashi sakashi is a different a different animal because um i didn't know that the the legitimacy of his career is in question like the actual amount of people who are listening to his music and his numbers on youtube are in question so um that's a different that's a different thing he's also when when you

go to when there are criminal cases against you and you're in court it's a different it's a different ballgame than hockey replies oh i know but i'm just not a very smart guy and that's this first example i thought of i don't know i'm with this comparison no but like like i've like it was taylor swift for a while let the snake thing hurt her feelings and then she figured it out you know what i mean like dude be you don't have to be an asshole but be the weasel yeah yeah no play your role like there's there's uh there's roles for villains and there's heroes and if somebody's panning you as a villain lean into it like i don't hate that at all no i call nick robertson a defenseman so then i made a video with nick robertson about how he's a forward

and the shirts old t-shirts yeah yeah like like man you're gonna fuck up and like this isn't even a fuck up right like lean into it i don't know i just i just oh i know why i was like wait it feels like we're making too big a deal of this the reason we're making a big deal of it is it was shocking to me and frankly pathetic that supposedly the nhl had to speak with jake voracek about this then right afterward according to sam kirkety that's why i brought him up in the first place so yeah i'll read that tweet because that was the that was the last note i had on this it's like are you serious this came out today uh it says the league had a discussion with jake voracek for his explicit failed tirade during a virtual news conference after friday's game

per bill daly tirade deputy commissioner he wouldn't comment on whether a fine was assessed so yeah that wraps the story for now but yeah that's that's nhl you need to calm down to even entertain the idea of a fine there is asinine asinine so then i just won't speak to you or i'll give you boring answers or dude this was on hockey night and this wasn't the panel tutting at it like it wasn't the panel going this is a terrible thing for the sport and they were going this is pretty great yeah bx had like three minutes on it bx had three minutes on it anthony stewart spoke about it kelly rudy was like well i used to be a jerk to reporters and then i became one and dave ridditch got in my face one day because i said he should have had a uh uh save

that he didn't and it turned into this great discussion uh like how often are the philadelphia flyer is going to get brought up on hockey night in canada this year it's an all canadian division it's i think it's great for the sport it's great for the flyers it's great for mike skilski um and to even speak to voracek about it is ridiculous ridiculous this is oh my god does anyone in the nhl watch the nba once ever ever once a month even for god's sake have a good time with what you do right oh it's exhausting it's exhausting good for voracek and i would i'll say good for mike if he leans into it make your profile picture a weasel do it yeah you can't you can't ask for players to show more personality and then when one guy is honest for like 30

seconds on a zoom call you have a talking to him like you're just discouraging anybody from ever speaking up again and this this has been the most fun out of our nhl press conference in like years and you get a talking to from bill daly that's a shame that's that's a mistake it's it's awesome that he that he did that and it's not even anything against the guy like i haven't watched vorachek closely enough to even know if i agree with him right it's just it's it's you know it's to to to put a cap on that is terrible terrible you can't do that you gotta you can't sell a sport with hitting and fighting and then get mad at them when they swear like it's and it like a swear like that you know what i mean he didn't say it you know it wasn't a slur it wasn't derogatory

he called him a weasel you i don't even know if you'd get sent to the office for doing that in grade six calling someone a weasel they just tell you to shut up and go back to your desk you're getting grown men in trouble for uh ridiculous ridiculous learn to have fun for god's sake yeah and if you look at like controversies across sports that are going on like right now like deshaun watson wants out of houston and he goes on there's a report it's like oh his is um the amount he wants out of houston has gone from a two to a ten and then deshaun tweeted he's like it's been at a 10 for a while or something like that like that's a dude calling his own team that's not the exact quote but it's something along those lines and then you had james

harden for the first month of the season publicly climbing his way out of houston and it's just like okay nhl you're gonna trail all these sports for a long time if if you got calls from the deputy commissioner over uh over swearing in a press conference come on good man watch something on netflix go walk your dog go do anything but make that phone call to voracek like it's such a waste of time what are you doing no this and and this is relevant it's philadelphia yeah are you joking you know what he was speaking like flyers fans been there guys i don't get it i don't get it how anyone could interpret this as anything but great for the sport for the flyers for for mike i almost called him sam for everything and now i know his

name right now i know his name and next time i hear his name i'm gonna be like that's the voracek guy cool what who's he pissed off this time or what has he got to say or you know if he compliments voracek or you know voracek is having an mvp caliber season i'll be like well that means something you know what i mean uh just learn how to have fun in your thing that is literally professional fun please next episode if we have room because there's so much hockey stuff going on like we can't get to extracurricular activities but if we have some room i'd like to just crap all over novak djokovic if we get a chance what a moron oh just the biggest biggest boner in sports like screw that guy and he should change his profile picture to a no

no uh also also um as casual mma fans maybe if adam's still not around we do is mcgregor still a draw in 2021 because he fights this saturday that might be fun i guess the answer is no because i didn't i like i forgot there you go i don't know i'm sick of his uh bro you're a fighter go fight but that's what he's doing so we'll talk if there's time on on thursday about that but yeah we got a couple leafs game in between then uh they go tonight you're probably watching the game right now it's probably over and you know what's happened so please in the future tell us what happened because we don't know we're stuck here in the past steve do you want to wrap the episode like how you wrap every youtube video

so that is it for this one thank you very much for watching click like if you like this video click subscribe if you really liked it tell all your friends to eat a pancake score a goal And don't be a weasel The Steve Dangle Podcast Follow the guys on Twitter At Steve underscore Dangle At Adam W-Y-L-D-E And at Jesse Blake

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