The Steve Dangle Podcast - A Trade Finally Happened Before the Podcast, Wow | February 25, 2018

Episode Date: February 25, 2018

On this episode, HOLY CRAP, the Leafs got a nice Tomas Turtleneck (00:00), Eric Engels joins the show to talk about this trade impacts the Montreal Canadiens (10:00), the Leafs shouldn't be worried about what they gave up in the trade (49:00), the Rick Nash trade (59:00), the Brassard trade (1:08:00), what the hell is going on in Ottawa geez (1:15:00), how will the Leafs down the stretch? (1:27:00), and the press conference: the NHL standings and the Olympics (1:48:00). Originally aired: February 25, 2018 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/ySK0T3tHYh8 Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

CannaGo Pizza presents S.C.P. The Steve Dangle Podcast with your hosts, Steve Dangle and Adam Wilde. Leafs trade, looks at his phone, for not Luke Glenn Denning. Yay! All right! Yeah, so the Leafs get a couple things here. One, Thomas Plikanitz, who is not a fourth line center at all. He's better than that

So that's really good Two Sensible turtlenecks Really good Three Not Luke Glenn Denning And not Luke Glenn Denning For two more years

After this too I mean there's still time You know Dude Buchanitz's contract I'm not being negative It's real Thomas Buchanitz

Is done After this season Glenn Denning's got two more Maybe they get him in the summer Thomas He'll probably go back To playing in Montreal And it's funny

Montreal Canadiens fans Are already looking His If he plays every single regular season game for the Leafs it will bring him to 999 games in his career. So it's conceivable he plays his thousandth with

Montreal. Oh, interesting. I was talking to Berkshire because he's like he's going to play his thousandth as a Leaf. He's not. Interesting. Nice. Very interesting. He's going to be in an outdoor game with the Leafs. That's right. That's super weird. I mean, depending on I guess there wouldn't be visa issues. If you'll be able to see him with those white

jerseys though. Yeah, I know. Well, he'll have a blue turtleneck. Ah, of course. He'll be the only player you can see. So I wanted to ask the question. I think it's an important question. Who wears a better turtleneck? Dimitri Filipovich or Tomasz Peklanek? See.

Because I met Dimitri. Jesse and I met Dimitri at NXT. Guests of Eric Young. You didn't come because you had to do other things. I didn't have to do other stuff. It was too unimportant for you. Superstar. I had pizza.

Shut up. But yeah, Dimitri came up and he's like, hey, man, what's going on? And he introduced himself. and I was like, wow, that is a sharp-dressed man. Dimitri is very much the new old school, whereas Thomas Placanitz is the old, old school. It depends what kind of vintage you enjoy. I mean, Dimitri's are growing on me, though.

His vintage seems to be scotch of at least 15 years or more aged. See, I feel like he's one of the blended scotches, but high-end. High-end blended. whereas like Placanitz's type of scotch is like the diesel that like hardened

former oil rig working Scottish men drink instead of tea I like that, okay, alright I want I want Thomas Placanitz I want him to catch on in Toronto

I want people to start wearing turtlenecks to the game No, that's weird It's weird that he's a Leaf period I'm so cool with it His 5 on 5 numbers are great I'm jacked about it I'm not saying that Montreal didn't make out well in this trade Because I think they absolutely did

But if you look at what the Leafs got This is what we needed God, there's so much to unpack here So, one, it's What's more weird? Thomas Placanet's in a Leafs uniform He's been with the Habs since I think 2004 Or the fact that a trade broke

before we started recording our show. Placanics. Still weirder. I don't know. Well, you know what? This has happened before. We got a poor batting average,

but decent slugging. Did I get it, baseball person? Did I get it? Yeah! Yeah! No, that made sense. Yeah, nice, go me They're Mark McGuire at the tail end of his career You know what I mean?

Sure He struck out a lot Yeah But he hit home runs See, I watched highlights in like 2007 Thank you for your 20 year old reference Or something like that No, so the deal, which I'm sure you know

Is the Leafs get Placanets and Kyle Bond In exchange for a 2018 second Is it the Leafs second? Or the Sharks? It is the Leafs second The Leafs, thanks to Roman Polak and James Reimer Two years ago, have a second and a third from San Jose Yeah

And also Renat Valiev and Kirby Reichel So we're going to have Eric Engels On in a moment We can maybe learn more about Kyle Bond And Thomas Placanitz What I understand, Placanitz still has a lot of gas in the tank He's kind of a jerk

Loves giving you little butt ends His 5 on 5 numbers are good, like you said He's a penalty killer and he's probably better than Dominic Moore who has, I think, been good recently and I think the fourth line had the best possession of any Leaf line last night in their win over the Bruins

so it's unfortunate for him The thing is though, if you look at it so now you've got Placanik and Moore and Bozak and potentially Nylander and Marlero and Matthews and Coddard, that's the point is to stack your team with as many centermen as you can

and what this also gives the Leafs Is time You don't need to bring Matthews back 10 days from now You don't need to bring him back 11 days from now when the Leafs play the Sabres You can wait after the 4 day break And then they play the Penguins Maybe you don't want them playing a hard game against the Penguins

And you can play them after that You can rest Matthews right up until Right before the playoffs if you really want to It could potentially give them that time Habs fans Here's what you get You lucky sons of guns For the second time in as many seasons

The Leafs give a second-round pick to a divisional rival. Not a huge fan of that. But the other option was like, I don't know, Mark Letestu. I'm not sure how much you're actually upgrading there. Or Luke Glendening, where I think you're taking a step backward there. So that would have been bad. And the second from San Jose is going to be higher than the second from the Leafs, which is nice.

Yes, it will. I think it partially depends on how they do in the playoffs, right? Because if either team makes the Final Four, then we're talking we're having a totally different conversation and the sharks have a lot of cap room um valiev was a favorite of babcox with the marley so i was surprised to see him giving up and kirby reichel i mean big body forward he has some nhl experience son of uh is it warren reichel yeah both of those guys reichel and valiev could be depth guys for for Montreal, but the thing was they just were not getting

into the, especially Kirby Reichel, there's no way he was getting into the Toronto lineup. There's no way. Reichel, yeah, was especially buried. Valiev was at least, he's played games with the Leafs and he was called up earlier this season and not used. Like Reichel, I don't even think there was really a prospect of him getting called up.

A little bit surprised given that the Leafs might lose JVR next season, because I looked at Reichel as a guy who may get an audition there, but... I think with Andreas Johnson, scoring 49 points in 49 games. Yeah, he's so

good, and we know what Mark Bergevin likes. He likes his big boys, so he got two. Valiev's big. He likes big boy hockey, Jesse. He got Valiev, who's big, Reichel, who's big, and honestly, with the Habs playing the way they are this season, like how

bad they've been, and I mean, they're probably maybe selling off even more guys. and with all their injuries I think Valiev and Reichel could get into the lineup absolutely

right away absolutely so I really like the trade for the Habs for the Leafs I mean it depends on how they do right it doesn't really

deadline rental it really doesn't take away from what the Leafs already have and then I think I think that's the fear I don't think management really wants to dip into

a guy like Andreas Johnson I just don't see them wanting to trade a guy like that no they shouldn't and that's the thing those are fringe guys

who are coming out of prospect territory. It's do or die for those guys now, right? Well, Valiev... I was about to say Valiev was drafted in 2014,

which is true, but it was the second year he was eligible to be drafted. So he's... 22, 23? Yeah, around there. And Reichel,

I think, is around the same age. They're creeping into what-the-hell-are-you territory. Yeah, and the second round pick is clearly the piece that matters in this for Montreal,

I would think. Those two are bonuses. if they pan out. Right. Somebody, Darren Fyfe, actually tweeted me. He's like, hey, overlooked aspect, the Leafs also have an extra roster spot now. Woo!

No, they don't. See, I said that to Berkshire. Oh, but Braun. Put Kanitz and Braun. Oh, right. And then, yeah, that's what I thought, too. Underrated. Montreal is also sitting at four second-round picks

in this upcoming draft, as well as three fifth-round picks. Wow. So they got their own first, their own second, Chicago's second, which is getting better by the minute, by the way, the Leafs' second, and Washington's second. Holy mackerel. Yeah, so those will probably be moved to trade up, I would think,

because you don't sit on four second-round picks and take four guys. Why the hell not? Here's how valuable Thomas Falkanik is in Montreal, by the way. Jeff Molson tweeting this recently. Merci, thank you, Pleky, for everything you did to this organization. You are a true pro and a gentleman. Bonchance and that's pretty cool. He's trending on Twitter

because of it. He, oh boy it's a shame he's not a Hab anymore. It's even more of a shame. Like a lot of Habs fans gotta be feeling pretty bad right now. Yeah well Gilmore was a Canadian once so this is payback. But at least he wasn't traded from the Leafs to the Canadians though. Yeah I think

he was traded from the Canadians back to the Leafs. I want to say the, yes you're right actually. You're right. I think he was traded to, I want to say the Devils or was it the Blackhawks? He Man, him and Wendell Clark They just started putting around The NHL towards the end

Gilmore was traded to New Jersey Then signed in Chicago I think you're right, yeah Hey, we gotta get Eric Engels On the phone Sure, let's do that So I think that's Important time to pause

And dial that phone Yeah Eric Engels Sportsnet.ca Montreal Canadians Reporter extraordinaire Just finished up his column

And is now making time for us On the Steve Nangle Pocket Eric, thank you so much For rejoining us We appreciate it Oh, it's my pleasure It's a long time no speak I'm happy to speak to you guys

seriously um now this deal we'll call you tomorrow if something else happens this deal is very very interesting from from a few different perspectives and we could start with the fact that this deal for montreal at one point could have included being a part of an eric carlson eric carlson deal correct yeah i mean there's there's a lot floating around and i can't say for certain you know because things didn't go down that way that that that was going to happen But one of the things that I had heard last May was that Montreal was among four teams involved in a potential Eric Carlson trade. And that might have seen Playcannots going to Tampa Bay as part of all the package kind of scenarios that you could run through. But since that didn't happen and is off, as far as I could tell, this deal went down with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

They were a team that were in the hunt for Playcannots going back for quite a few weeks now. And I think it's a great addition for the Toronto Maple Leafs and a deal that worked out really well for the Canadians. So, I mean, this is a little tinfoil hatty, and I mean, it sounds just based on what you're saying that it wasn't all that close to happening, but I wonder if part of what the Leafs get out of this Buchanitz deal is they were kind of cutting off that four-way deal at the pass.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we can't get so far into the ifs that we get that far into them. know but too much yeah i mean i guess i suppose uh suppose you can make that argument though i highly doubt that it has anything to do with anything i think you know the leafs had an opportunity to add a centerman that can move up and down their lineup that at 35 years old he may have lost a bit of offense but has not lost any speed virtually any speed he can shut down some of the best players in the world and um a real role player for a team mike babcock is going to have such an appreciation for this player and you know that claude julien had massive appreciation

for thomas placard it's claude was here from the day that placard stepped into the lineup as a young player drafted by the canadians organization and he was here towards the end and still using him you know upwards of 17 minutes a game um on a team that understandably has depth issues up the middle but you know Placanitz is such a reliable player he's such a predictable player in terms of

what you're going to get out of him night after night and he's such a consistent player so this is a great addition for a Maple Leafs team that looks a lot stronger

up the middle than they did yesterday so sorry go ahead Steve well I was going to say like the one thing we've noticed from literally day one of the season

is Babcock didn't appear to be the biggest Dominic Moore fan even though in my opinion he's been playing better recently but that leaves fourth line now potentially you know when matthews gets back of course kamarov there on the left

kapanen who babcock raved about yesterday on the right and now plikanets and they don't have a fourth line anymore they don't have one and and all things considered i mean if they keep dominic more through through monday uh that's serviceable playoff depth i mean he has a history of being a performer in the playoffs and you never know when you're going to suffer injuries and the leafs are dealing with that right now and it's it's it's a big factor and to be able to get a quality center like placanets who can play in every situation um they will rely on him as their number one penalty kill one number one penalty killer if not their number two and uh he can play at five on five against the best players in the world and to have that kind of player that you can rely on for more

than 12 to 15 minutes a game, that's worth the cost that they paid. That's one of the things that's been interesting about the Leafs is that they have this, we make a big deal out of everything at Toronto, as you know, Eric, but one of the things

that happened last night was you have the Marleau-Kadri-Komarov line reunited and they go 60% possession against the Bergeron line, which is the big line for Boston, who they're likely going to play in the first round. But they look terrible on two goals.

Right, of course. And then you've got, now you've got another line that could shut it down because it seemed like, you know, you've got the Matthews, Nylander, Hyman line, which are, you know, they're young. You've got the Bozak, JVR line, which is you'd never throw those out there against offensively strong lines. And then, so now we finally, it seems like we've got a center that can actually kind of jump in and you

wouldn't be afraid of Kadri, Kadri's line or whatever line he's on, being out against the best players on the other team. And that's kind of the whole issue with Bozak on the Leafs lineup, you know, from an outsider looking in is like, he's, he's right in the middle. you know he's a guy who's going to get those kind of third line minutes who can't necessarily play the role of a third line center so to have that kind of depth behind him and alleviate him of those responsibilities knowing that that's not his forte i mean it's it's a great move by the leafs now all that said this was an excellent move from the montreal canadiens and one of the

biggest reasons why it was is because thomas placanitz had no trade protection in his deal everybody knew that it was one of the things i remember the day that he signed this deal going back two years which was a two-year 12 million dollar deal um my column that day was about the fact that he had no trade protection and it was very unlikely that he would finish this deal in montreal um i might have been wrong on that day had the canadians had somewhat of a a much more respectable season than they've had so far but considering the road they went down it was clear it was going to go that way now knowing that he had no trade protection mark bergman uh out of respect for a guy who played 981 games with the franchise went to him and said

listen you know we're in a position where there's a lot of interest in you you know so and so teams are involved do you have any preferences if you do we will try to with no guarantees we will try to work something out for you because we like you we want you to come back in the offseason if we can have you back you know there was a there was a contract that was worked on uh to extend play candidates if for whatever reason he wouldn't have been able to move between now and the deadline and i gotta believe that the parameters from those contracts from everything i've been told would extend to the offseason so the fact that thomas play candidates told mark bergman listen and I don't want to go to the Western Conference.

And Marc Bergemet had a deal in principle in place with the Winnipeg Jets and opted to trade him to the Leafs. He keeps Placanitz happy. It's bittersweet, obviously. He didn't want to leave Montreal to begin with. But he keeps Placanitz happy and potentially opens the door for him to come back. And if the return on Placanitz is a second-round pick, Kirby Reichel, and this young Russian defenseman,

And the fact that he might actually get Placanitz back on a very cheap contract to serve his important debts on a center line that is not all that good in Montreal, but stands to get better with some other moves that Bergevin makes, then he's really knocked it out of the park on this deal. So for all the criticism Marc Bergevin has received over the last year, and a lot of it very justified, this is one move where he really deserves to be commended, and it's looking great for the Canadians. Absolutely. It seems like just a fair trade. yeah there's there's no doubt about it when you have two parties uh happy about what they're doing you know even if even if bergevin is not able to secure placanets on a new contract come

the off season um and he still has to be happy with what he got in this deal uh yes he had to retain 50 percent of placanets remaining six million dollar cap it i mean that is a negligible part of this it's great for the mapleys but it really doesn't matter to the canadians considering most of his money has been paid and they have the fifth most gap space in the NHL so that's not even really a factor and and you know the one beauty of this whole situation is if all that good faith leads the play can it's coming back the Maple Leafs have 18 games remaining in their season which would bring him to 999 if he plays in all of them and he'd get to play his thousandth game as a Montreal Canadian that's that's special because you know he's 13th in team scoring

in the history of the team that's won 24 Stanley Cups and has more Hall of Famers than any other team in the league by more than double. That's nuts. Yeah, that's crazy. He's seventh all-time in games played for the franchise. And a guy that was drafted in the second round and turned out to be a star player for them at one point.

He had five seasons of over 20 goals. and, or sorry, six seasons of over 20 goals and five of 50 points or more. He played on one of the best lines we've seen in the last 20 years with Andrei Kostitsyn and Alex Kovalev in 2007, 2008, and had a 69-point season. I mean, he turned out to be a star player in Montreal,

and then he turned out to be an elite shutdown player who helped so many players come up in this system and turn young players into better ones. And so good for him and good for him to get a chance with a team that has some real potential moving forward this season. Now that the Leafs have Placanics and seeing the haul that they traded for Nash, is it more likely or less likely that they trade JVR? Leafs insider Eric Engels.

Yeah, no, I mean, I don't see a scenario where the Toronto Maple Leafs are considering moving off their roster right now. They don't have a reason to do that. They don't have incentive to do that. And when you look at what James Van Riemsdyk has done this season, I would be, it would go down as, let's put it this way, it would be a lot more shocking than seeing Eric Carlson move. What do you think the return, if there is any, on Max Pacioretty will be?

Do you think he gets traded? I do. I'll tell you this. The Canadians did not have a deal that was close to what they were wanting to accept on patch ready as of yesterday if they had he would have been held out of last night's game as a precaution uh that said we know that now that nash is gone uh we know that now that winnipeg has struck out on a few different players i'm not saying that patch ready will end up in winnipeg i don't want to get radioed on that like just saying there are teams there are there are

teams out there with a lot of incentive to add this type of player and i think mark bergeron is going to get a lot closer to the price he's willing to accept for him as we move towards 3 p.m monday and as far as i know there are as many as four teams kicking tires on patch ready and trying to work something out that they could add him one of them is as reported by nick kiprios and elliot friedman the los angeles kings and i believe that's a very real possibility right now another is the florida panthers uh and i can't really what i can't really i can't really assuredly put out the other names of teams that that are potentially looking at patch ready but there is a marketplace for him and i really do believe that between now and 3 p.m monday and

i've been wrong before but i i'm willing to stake it and say that i think the chances are stronger that he's gone than they are that he'll be staying so uh just a couple things there so You said the Panthers, and my response was, what? But I forgot something that I did just last night. I looked at the standings. Now, Leaf fans, I think, have a distorted view of the standings because we're kind of just looking up at Tampa and Boston. Well, looking down at Boston for the time being.

I don't know how long that's going to last. But the Panthers, I think, have played the fewest games in the NHL. They're actually only, I think, four or five points back of the wildcard spot. And they're one of the hottest teams in contention for the wildcard spot. So, man, if they go for Pacioretty, that's a ballsy move. I don't know if it pushes them over the top. Well, let's just put it this way. If Max Pacioretty was asked, like Thomas Placanitz was,

and Max Pacioretty has no trade protection, if he was asked by Mark Bergeman, and I'm not saying that he was, but if he was, the number one team he would say he would want to go to is the Florida Panthers. Money. And, you know, beyond that, beyond that fact is the Florida Panthers, Max Pacioretty is under contract through next season and the Panthers have a rich prospect pool and they could use a player like him who's at $4.5 million a season between now and 2019 to add to what they've got. And I see a big incentive for Dale Tallon to potentially purchase there. And I can't help but feel that if Mark Bergevin has taken the same approach

with Pacioretty as he has with Clay Kanitz, and I'm not saying that I know that he has, but I think it's possible that he has, then, yes, the Florida Panthers make a lot of sense. And considering I've heard that they're one of the teams in on him, you know, it wouldn't surprise me. And to what you said about Pacioretty going to potentially Winnipeg, So we already know Hoffman said no, which you alluded to.

Then last night what they said, I think during headlines, was everyone's kind of waiting for Rick Nash to move. Well, he moved. And then after that, the runner-up was supposed to be Evander Kane. We know Winnipeg's not trading for him. Yeah. So I could see, I mean, I know Florida's got a good system and maybe you could get something out of them.

But what team is more likely to overpay than Winnipeg at this point? I can see it, too. I can see it, too, and I'm not sure it's going to happen. I can't say with any knowledge that Winnipeg is interested in Max Pacioretty, but you have to think, with Hoffman having said no, that they are in on that player. Like I said, I don't have intel on that, so I can't say for sure. But if I was Kevin Shevelday off, there wouldn't be a player

I'd be more interested in if I was looking at a scoring winger than Max Pacioretty, especially given what they have. Because you look at Pacioretty's history, he's had issues, obviously, in the playoffs, but he's had no help, virtually no help in Montreal to get things done. But in Winnipeg, he doesn't have to be the guy. There's Blake Wheeler, there's Mark Scheifele, there's Nick Ehlers, there's Patrick Laine, to add Pacioretty to that picture.

Laine was the fourth guy you mentioned. That's crazy. I put them up against Tampa offensively, you know? Like, that's insane. At the beginning of the year, you know, we're all in hockey pools. At the beginning of the year, my entire hockey pool strategy was I'm picking players only from Winnipeg, Tampa, and Toronto as high-octane offensive players. And it's done very well for me.

Let's put it that way. Well, dude, like, my wife has Blake Wheeler in a hockey pool. And guess what? but Blake Wheeler is paying for our fridge to be fixed. So I would like to personally thank him. I've got him and Shifley, so it's working out well. And I've got Matthews, and I traded for Crosby. I traded Brayden Point and Vlad Domestnikov for Crosby,

which was the steal of this year. Oh, you stole him. Wow. I can't believe Eric Engels just reported that Brayden Point and Vlad Domestnikov are getting traded for Sidney Crosby. That's very cool. Get a Google alert. Yeah, I did it, you know, knowing that Sid is, you know,

and the second half is a whole different player. It's always so frustrating. It worked out well. It worked out well. Eric, I got to ask you, just because of your pool acumen and also your Montreal Canadiens acumen, obviously the big move today was not the Leafs in Montreal. It was Boston and the Rangers.

Rick Nash goes one way. Everybody else goes the other. um what did you think of the hall in the hall as in not taylor hall but the the the return on rick nash and will what patch ready brings come anywhere close to that because you know max patch ready for the struggles he's had this year is probably a better player is on you know projects to have more points and and i i don't see any reason why he wouldn't rebound next year you get him for another year like is that are we talking a pretty like is the are the prices comparable is it more is it less what do you think gotta be more yeah i'll start with the patch ready angle of it um

i think the canadians in an ideal world get a first round pick a cross a center nhl ready top center prospect and potentially another prospect or or a roster player that's that's ideal uh i think that would equate to what rick dash brought in but probably be a better deal better quality pieces involved so to answer your question yeah i mean it definitely it's hard to compare the two because one is a ufa and the other is has one more year and one of the best contracts in the nhl and everybody knows the second he leaves montreal he's going to explode which is not as much of a guarantee with rick nash in boston um that said i'm probably against the grain on this i love this deal for boston i love this deal for boston i love i love what it means

for the bruins in the room who have proven to be not only a much better team than anybody thought they'd be um but in my view potentially the best team in the nhl and that comes down to the way they play the way they act as a team and that top line and the top heavy elements there and and what turns them into that much better of a team is the fact that they were top heavy and they added a piece like rick nash to play underneath those guys and that's you know you could talk about nash's point production in new york which is a waffling team uh or you could also talk about the fact that he's one of the best two-way forwards in the game something which he rarely gets credit for his defensive side of the game so i think it's a great move for boston and it's

going to reinforce a lot of goodwill in that room they're going to feel really good about the fact that don sweeney swung for the fences and made that move no but spooner going the other way along with lingren and the picks and obviously matt baleski but that was a bit of a you know a salary 50 retention dump yeah um you know a lot of people said well spooner's on on pace for more points and he's 26 years old and you know he's less expensive is there any argument to the fact that you know there's no question he probably wouldn't have fit into the lineup had they kept him but um is there is Spooner a comparable player and did they just give up a comparable player for a guy with a great reputation or is it a guy is it genuinely like Rick Nash is going

to change the way the you know the second and third lines on this team play i don't i think ryan spooner has everything to do with cap implications and what the bruins had to do to get this deal done uh i'm not taking anything away from ryan spooner is clearly a very talented player but the boston bruins are looking at this situation is how are we going to win the stanley cup and and does this make us a better team and give us a better chance winning the stanley cup and with Nash's playoff experience even though some that has been um not excellent let's put it that way um you know the Bruins have to believe they have a better chance of winning the Stanley Cup today than they did yesterday when they had Ryan Spooner and Matt Boleski buried in the minors

and their first round pick so I don't know if I were in Don Sweeney's shoes and that management groups place i'd make that deal every day so all right that's just me you know i i've seen a lot of the reaction out there like i know a lot of people think they gave up too much to make this deal happen i just happen to believe that that's the nature of the deadline that's the nature of the salary cap and they targeted a player that they wanted that they believe makes them better and gives them a chance to win the stanley cup and they have every reason to be excited about it because I think they absolutely achieved that objective. There is another team in the Atlantic Division

that we've flirted talking with, but let's dive in. What the hell are the Sens doing? You know, the real question to me is, what is Gary Bettman doing about Eugene Melman? Oh, wow. Great point. Great answer. And it's a question because LeBreton Flats looks like it's going to happen that the senators are going to get a downtown arena and it's going to happen sometime in the near future and heaven forbid they have an owner who's not willing to

spend anything to put a product on the ice there because they are going from a situation where attendance is terrible uh to only getting worse with every player and their mother being traded out of town and you know they're they're the reality of them exploring trading eric carlson uh has as much to do with the fact that they may not want to pay him as it does with eric carlson not wanting to stick around for what's going on there and i just think it's a toxic situation with a guy who I mean everything he has said and done in the last year is like communications 101 of what not to do he's Mr. Burns with your fan base I wouldn't even give him that he's not that cunning and conniving

he's really you know ham-handed I don't even know what the words are I would use to describe it but all i could say is if i were gary bedman um i'd be looking non-stop for somebody who can buy this team and i would be voting him out and getting him out of there and and getting him his money and and trying to build some sort of semblance to the future in ottawa because if they can't do that um they're gonna have to start looking at you know about 200 kilometers east on the 40 on the on the 40 and the 407 and get that team over to Quebec where it'll be treated properly and where there's a beautiful building waiting

and owners willing to take it and turn it into a team that's worth watching because what's going on there right now, to me, is a real shame. And I think there's a serious threat to viability in hockey in Ottawa with this guy at the helm of the team. Can you vote someone out of ownership in the NHL? Because I know you can do that in the NBA, But, like, you mentioned something like, how do you get...

Yeah, you're asking me for the technicalities after I said that? Oh, man. I mean, can you, can you, how do you force Eugene Melnick out? I got, unless you make him just a big, fat offer. Yeah, fine, fine, the guy's willing to pay him. I mean, that's, that's the way. But at the end of the day, there's no way that he's happy. There's no way the Board of Governors are happy.

And it just, it's a, it's a toxic, bad situation that reflects horribly on Melnick and just as badly on the NHL for allowing something like this to happen. The irony in the whole situation is here's Pierre Dorian with a contract extension sitting there about to make a move that will forever mark his name as a general manager in this league. And at the same time, he could completely remake the Senators in a really good way in making that deal but as we all know and as history has proven so many times over and over again regardless of the sport when you give up the best player in the deal

it's hard to say that you're winning it and the only other circumstances where that has happened really was the eric lindrow straight and that was recent and even so we may not be saying that We may not be saying that about the Eric Lindros trade if Patrick Waugh was never traded to the Colorado Avalanche in 1995 because they may have never won without him for as great of a team as they had. You look at the competition they had with the Red Wings, and, you know, that's how much it took for that to happen.

But, yeah, I mean, if you had asked me now in retrospect if I would have traded Eric Lindros one for one for Peter Forsberg, never mind the 100 other assets they got in that deal, that were incredible players uh i would i would have done it i i love peter forsberg is my favorite player of all time and i think in in the end he was a better player than eric lindros though i know that's one of a few things i've said in the last 15 minutes or so that many people would disagree i mean hey man uh lindros was an absolute phenom but i i still tell people peter forsberg in his prime is still one of the best players i've ever seen live he's so dominant the thing i love like

when i grew up as a fan of the game the thing that i loved most about players was seeing them do things that nobody had done before them and that's why i believe you know when i saw carrie price at his very best i truly believe he's the best goaltender i've ever seen numbers be damned because they'll never match up with what some of the other guys in the game have done but when i watch him and what he does i see something that i've never seen from anybody else when i watch Sidney Crosby play up against the greatest players of all time and Mario Amir and Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr and all those guys, just like them before him,

he does things that I've never seen anybody do. And that for me makes him the best, like literally the best player I've ever seen. And I felt that way about Peter Forsberg watching him play because I had never seen a player hit other players while he had the puck. I had never seen a player who could, who could throw a pass the way he could uh blind and and outside of gretzky the best passer i've ever seen in my life and and you know there's a prototypical play in peter forsberg's career that

for me is sums up exactly who he was as a player and why nobody was like him before he came into action and it's it's a playoff game between the minnesota wild and and the colorado avalanche and Forsberg I can't tell you what year it was there's a puck sitting on the center ice line and Forsberg is skating across the line and Wes Walls is skating from blue line to red line and they're skating trying to get to this loose puck and Forsberg gets to it a split second before Walls he's a left-handed shot who corrals the puck with his top hand and lowers his shoulder into Walls and absolutely pancakes him. And Walls was a small guy, too.

No, he wasn't. And he turns around. Wasn't he? Forsberg, was he a small guy, Wes Walls? I don't know. I'd have to check the stats. Sorry, sorry. I'm interrupting your amazing story.

Oh, what a surprise. I know, what a surprise. Sorry, go ahead. He pancakes Walls, like, flat on his back, like one of the hardest hits you will ever see. He pivots, turns, throws a breakaway pass to Milan Haydew, who scores and it was just that was peter forsberg like that was that play nobody else in the world would do that it was just those are the players i always had the most appreciation for and i think

you know a guy who never scored more than 30 goals in a season was one of the best players i've ever seen uh i gotta i gotta follow up on this i gotta bring it back to ottawa for just a second eric and i'm so sorry to do this because that was why sorry you're bringing me well i i You can go anywhere you want, Adam. West Walls, 5'10", 180. Sorry. Okay, okay, you win, Dago. It's very important to him, Eric.

It is. He's fast, all right? Okay, what? You talked a little bit about the poison atmosphere in Ottawa. Because for me, okay, this very day, nine months ago, Ottawa lost in double overtime to Pittsburgh. Nine months ago today, it happened. So nine months ago, we're talking about a team

that's a goal away from the Stanley Cup Finals. Now we're here. And I want to talk a little bit about that culture that people keep referencing. You guys are, as reporters, it's like, I say this to CJ all the time. I'm like, I wish you would say 10 minutes on whatever it is you just said.

And I want to talk about this culture because from what we've heard, there was some sort of incident where Pierre Dorian went into the Ottawa Senator's dressing room. And I wanted to know if you know anything about this. And they refused to turn down the music to talk to him or something like that.

and that's where some of this has come from. Have you heard anything about that? No, and I don't buy into those things. I even saw some crazy tweet from some nobody who has quoted no sources whatsoever. Is this the Uber thing? Yeah, it's not attached to any media outlet or anything like that.

And literally had people, respected people that I respect in the media responding to him as if what he was saying was the gospel. I retreated and said, wait a second, is this true? his own $300, $350 Uber. Anyways, for me, look at the Kyle Turris scenario. Look at the Kyle Turris scenario. How many players in Ottawa do you think were happy with the fact

that Kyle Turris ended up traded off that team and that he wouldn't be paid to stay and that things went the way they did with the reports coming out that they wouldn't offer him the term that he was after and he wouldn't sign for the tournament. All things considered, nobody was happy in Ottawa about the fact that he was moving. He was a huge part of that team.

The players loved him. That was really tough for Matt Duchesne coming into that atmosphere knowing how disappointed everybody was. But that was kind of like the last straw in a series of things that have happened in Ottawa that have made for a sour situation there. And, yeah, you know, you talk about where they were last year. They were obviously riding the inspiration of what happened with Craig Anderson and his wife, Nicole,

which was very unfortunate and terrible, but also galvanized their team and brought them together. And that's an important thing in sports that we often ignore and we just dismiss as, oh, intangible and it doesn't matter and you can't measure it. It does matter. Teams that come together have a good chance of winning. I look at Boston in 2011, and I remember walking into their room in the middle of the season and looking around and seeing the atmosphere in there and talking to the players and walking out of their room and saying, this team is going to win the Stanley Cup. They would die for each other. And I had never quite seen an atmosphere like that in any other room that I had walked into.

And I walked into all 30 up until this year, becoming 31 for 11 years now. So sometimes you see something, you recognize it, and you know what it is. And there was an element of that in Ottawa last year and what they were able to do and how they were able to rally. But, you know, there's a number of elements from mostly emanating from the top and ownership to, in my opinion, the way Guy Boucher coaches the team, to players being lost that were key members of the team,

to the direction they're taking, to Carlson's potential availability, availability because of what he might command on the market I mean there's there's enough reasons that add up to that toxicity that we're referring to and I you know that's as far as I can go as far as my knowledge takes me you know the rest is just my opinion and and that's why maybe someone like me or someone like CJ or or anybody else who's a lot more respected than me would would be shy to to specifically reference things they've heard of and that goes to establishing trust with the people that tell you things that you know they expect you to keep to yourself and

believe me uh you know i always try and share what i know and what i what i can share but there's plenty of stuff that i i can't put on the record because i'm sworn to secrecy about it and i respect the people that tell me and i'm happy to to earn their trust and keep it tell us everything break the trust hey to bring this full circle so we were talking shortly before we called uh Reichel and Valiev uh is there any shot they get in the Habs lineup for sure I mean if they're here if they're here beyond tomorrow which I expect they will be um you know they're in Laval for now I don't know how many roster spots end up read up I think you know Valia will have a good chance to to get a look up in Montreal that to me seems like a no-brainer you can have as many players up

with the team post-deadline as you want to have so that's another factor I think you know right now in Laval they're far out of the playoff picture but they have a chance to make a run if those two players can help them do it and potentially the Canadians will want them to do that and maybe a couple more off their roster um patient period so there's every reason to believe they're going to get a look at some point in Montreal and there's also reason to believe though that they weren't you know among the top 10 prospects and what I would refer to as one of richest prospect pools in the NHL in Toronto, there's reason to believe that they have NHL potential, both of those players. And, you know, I spoke to Warren Reichel this morning, who's

Kirby's father, just briefly and said, you know, this is a great opportunity for your son. And he agrees. And as far as what I know about Valyev, I think, you know, there's some sentiment around the league that he's a player that could play in the NHL down the line. And I think, you know, with all the guys that were ahead of him, be it, you know, Borgman or Dermott. And I think, you know, he wasn't going to get that chance in Toronto, but he certainly gets it in Montreal. So, again, that's part of the reason why this is a good deal for Montreal. Early in the season and at times last season,

whenever asked about guys in the Marlies, Babcock frequently brought up Valiev as a guy he liked. So I was, I don't know. I mean, you got to give up something to get something, I think is the saying. And I wasn't surprised to see Montreal ask for him. it's it's you know it's great when they can work out that way that montreal ends up with those types of players that even though they're not at the top of the list for toronto they could still have an nhl future and it's also great for toronto to be able to move two prospects out of

their pool that don't affect the overall picture of what they're building towards in the future and And, you know, the guys that they have stock in and they believe in. So, I mean, it's, you know, I think more and more, which it really wasn't the case going back over the last number of years, but certainly over the last two, three years, we're seeing more and more deals in the NHL that really work for both teams. And I don't know if that's, I mean, the cap has its negatives. I mean, it seems though Ottawa can't make a deal

without getting three teams involved. But, you know, the positives are that there's been more equitable trade because teams are so careful about what they're giving up in terms of futures because, you know, the NHL is graduating more 18- and 19-year-olds than it ever has before. It's that type of game, you know. You go back five years with a dramatic change, which people really ignored was the elimination of the middle class

And those 30-year-old players who would have served as third-line players all over the NHL ended up on PTOs. Like, you know, Thomas Fleischman coming to Montreal a couple years ago on a PTO, a guy that, you know, had been a consistent, somewhat of a 20-goal scorer. And the minute he hit 30, it was like, that was it. You know, the money isn't there for those guys to sign those four-year deals worth $5 million a year anymore. and that elimination process has led to all these young players coming into the league and being trusted and i think it took a few outliers to prove that if you give those players a chance early on in their careers and give them reasonable opportunity to play in specific situations they'll prove to you that they can do good things and i know this is topical especially speaking

We have three guys in Toronto right now. With all the controversy over what Babcock does with his roster on a nightly basis, and it's just the same here in Montreal with Claude Julien. I wouldn't call him a Babcock disciple, but the two of them certainly see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. I still see both rosters here putting young players in positions to succeed and relying on more of them than they ever would have in the past, regardless of how slow that process looks to be at times well damn eric uh yeah before the conversation started you're like you can have us for you can have me for an hour and we laughed

about it and then i think that's what we did so i really appreciate you coming on man especially on short notice yeah and deadline within 24 hours of the deadline which is crazy well you caught me in a good window the canadians already made one trade and you know we'll wait on the other ones and none of them have happened while we were on the phone. I think there might be more today. We're going to read all your stuff, Eric. Yeah, I look forward to it. Placanik's piece should be up on Sportsnet

now that we've been on the phone for a while. It'll give Leafs fans a really good perspective on what they're getting, and Canadians fans a really good perspective on why Marc Bergevin made this a better deal than what it could have been. It's entitled, Cooperation with Placanik Could Make Canadians Trade Even Better.

And I believe it is the top item on Sportsnet.ca right now. Not so bad, sir. Good stuff. All right. Hey, so thank you so much, Eric Engels. Sportsnet.ca. Make sure you check out the call. Make sure you follow him at Eric Engels on Twitter.

And Eric, we might be bugging you again in a couple days after Montreal trades everybody else. I hope you will. I hope you will. I like talking to you guys. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate the time. Feeling is mutual. All right.

Take care. Steve? Yeah, so I wanted to start with a couple things just feeding off that conversation. So Kyle Bond, who hasn't had the most fantastic season, but he's going to be joining the Marlies. He's actually the grandson of Bobby Bond. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, Leafs legend.

So we should break his leg too. Yeah, and he'll play even better. Yeah, Bobby Bond broke his leg in Game 6 of the 1964 Stanley Cup Final, scored the overtime winner on a broken leg, and then the Leafs went on to win Game 7 against the Detroit Red Wings and win the Stanley Cup. The other one, from their last game I think it was, here's the Toronto Marlies lineup.

Okay? Andreas Johnson, Miro Altonen, Dimitro Timoshev. That's your top line. Second line, Trevor Moore, I think it's Chris Mueller, and Ben Smith, who's the Marlies captain and I think leading scorer. Kirby Reichel, Freddie Gauthier, Colin Greening, Mason Marchment, Adam Brooks, Jeremy Bracco

on fourth line there. Their defense, Borgman and Marincin, Rosen and Loverdi, Nielsen and Lilligren. So... Valiev wasn't even playing. Valiev wasn't even playing, but like, I mean, In the AHL, you play three and threes, so maybe it was just his night off.

Hall wasn't in the lineup either. I think he might be hurt. He has, he got cut to the face about a week ago. Altonen scored an amazing highlight reel goal and then was knocked out by a questionable play by former Leafs' Seth Griffith. So anyway, Reichel comes out of the lineup at third line left wing on the Marlies,

and Valiev wasn't even in the lineup there. And I mean, look at that again. Borgman, Marincin, Rosen, Leverdi, Nilsson, Lillegren. The Leafs have value of replacements. The Leafs have right call replacements. Martins Jerkals is in the minors, or like in the ECHL, the minors of the minors right now. They could call him up and plug him in there.

I think they got a couple other prospects. There's one thing you can't replace, and that's a second-round pick that you give away. That is difficult, right? That is difficult. But the argument might be they already have so many players. And you get a guy like Johnson, or Janssen, sorry, in the seventh round, and it makes you able to spend a second-round pick with some security.

I don't, like, God, if the Habs just nail it with that second-round pick, though, it's going to hurt. The Leafs also have, I think it's seven players who are 31 and over, and now four guys who are 35 and over. Does that concern you for the playoffs? No. Everybody's so old? No, because, I mean, that changes very quickly, as we've seen.

And also, like, look at the role the guys are playing. Like, Matthews, Nylander, I think, is Hyman 25 yet? He might have just turned 25. 24 or 25. Marner, Kapanen is getting a bigger role. Janssen is going to be on this team next year, unless there's a trade. Hyman's 25. Yeah, Lilligren is going to make the team at some point.

So, yeah, there are some older guys in the lineup, but the biggest impact guys are still the young ones, if you will. There are still trades we haven't even gotten to. Well, and that's the thing. And this is our pre-deadline show. This isn't even the post-deadline show. So the next thing, obviously, and we spoke about it a little bit with Eric Engels, is the Rick Nash trade.

And so, again, the Bruins get Rick Nash and Matt Boleski's half contract. sorry one more thing from Lance Hornby Placanets were number 14 with the Habs that will have to change unless Dave Keon is in a really

good mood because his number is retired right hmm interesting uh the Bruins I don't that's cool man

I thought I was contributing Bruins get half of Matt Boleski's contract with Matt Boleski the guy they get Rick Nash

uh sorry they get rid of Boleski what am I saying Bruins get Rick Nash Rangers get A first, a seventh next year, Matt Boleski, Ryan Spooner, Ryan Lindgren. That's weird to me.

No, I need a seventh in there or else forget it. That is funny, isn't it? The seventh just is in there. I wonder how that conversation starts. There's one GM go, and I need a seventh. The other guy goes, don't be a dick. The other GM responds, you don't be a dick. It's a seventh.

Were you scared? I wonder how childish it gets. Yeah, I wonder. the one thing the one thing about Rick Nash and I didn't bring this up with Eric because we were running out of time but

Rick Nash has 15 goals in 77 career playoff games wow really if you remember when the Rangers went to the finals two or three years ago one of the things that was

that people kept talking about was Rick Nash not scoring I do remember that and I'm not saying Boston's not a better team I don't know that they are or they're not um I mean Eric seemed pretty convinced that they were uh and this for sure I mean I think it'd be a huge mental boost but I wonder and I brought up the word reputation and I feel like we see this more and more um recently where we've seen it more and more recently where people are made people are

traded based on reputation rather than the results of this particular season for instance Rick Nash apparently is, what is he on a, they're saying he's on a 38-point pace this year. That's pretty bad. Spooner was on a 53-point pace. It's not all about points. Sure. I'm sure some people are. But my question with Rick Nash is, is Rick Nash still worth that much?

What is, is it more than just the points that he's putting up? Fine. Maybe it is. but I have a hard time with if I'm paying that I would like Max Pacioretty that's what I would like

for that that amount of money he's done a lot of bouncing around in his career this is the first year of his big contract traded in junior

bouncing between the AHL and the NHL finally sorta gets established gets traded to the Rangers I heard he's strange not a jerk

just strange I wonder if he strained with his teammates in Boston at all? I don't know. I mean, he's a good player. Apparently he was buried, so I'm not sure. I don't know. Back to Adam's point. Friedman wrote

in, I think, the most recent 31 Thoughts that players want to be rewarded for playing well. And I think this is more of that case. The Boston management is like, okay, you guys have outpaced so much of expectations going this season. Nobody thought Boston would be in this position.

No, you're right. And look how well they play. And the Players want to be like, okay, hey, we did our job. Now you go out and help us. And I think bringing in a guy like Rick Nash is more mental than it is on ice performance because they're like, hey, we did this great job. We got into the second place in the conference. Here's Rick Nash for you guys.

Go out and win. I think that mentally will help Boston more than it will bringing in a guy who's going to score goals. And to your point, a lot of Bruins fans I saw reacting to this, they seem to think Nash is likely to play with David Krejci, who has been a bit of a miracle worker. Like whoever is on his wing kind of turns to gold.

He's really good at taking bigger forwards, kind of power forwards and making them good. I wonder how much, this is stupid, this is so dumb. I might as well just have it tumble out of my head anyway. How much did last night's game against the Bruins Dude, whenever you preface

something, you should always say, hey, this is gonna be dumb. It's gonna be dumb. How much did last night's game change anything? Did it change anything? Because the Leafs ran the Bruins show For quite a chunk of that game I was shocked But the Bruins also almost won

They almost won But teams I don't think I think all of Tampa, Boston, and Toronto Want to win the Atlantic Division But I think what they're much more concerned about Is how they play down the stretch They all know they're getting in

How they play each other matters It matters they want to look good in the games they play and against the Leafs especially that game was ripe for the taking for crying out loud, the Leafs didn't have Matthews that's the second time I believe that the Leafs have beaten the Bruins this season

without Matthews in the lineup I was at the first one, Marleau scored the OT winner now the Bruins were a lot more banged up there and let's not forget Bergeron also left this game in a walking boot now apparently that's not all that bad that was precautionary and it's not that bad

he'll be back The Atlantic is an all-out arms race This ain't a scene, it's a goddamn arms race Somebody asked me once that Rick Nash deal happened, and this is before Placanics was dealt to the Leafs They said, how do you think the Leafs

and Tampa Bay will react to this? I don't think they react to this The Leafs and Tampa are not going to make reactive, these are not reactive Steve Eisenman and Lou Lamorello are not reactive general managers, they're active general managers They have their And as you heard Eric say, the Leafs have been in on mechanics for three or four weeks at least.

So there's a, they're going to make their moves. Boston's going to make their moves. But I don't think that any of those teams are going to just react to each other. Oh, well, they've got Rick Nasher. They've got Ryan McDonough. They've got Eric Carlson or whatever it is. We have to go do something. I don't think that's what any general manager is going to do.

And if you look at these three teams, there is no reason why a general manager couldn't just be confident in what they have. Of all the teams lined up, I mean, I think the Leafs have the biggest hole on defense, but it's not as though Tampa is without, you know, they have some weaknesses too. They have less of them. Well, and Sergeyev has put up a ton of points this season,

but, like, he's not marvelous in his own end. Holy crap, Carlson. That'd be incredible. And also, for the trade deadline coverage, if Carlson gets traded tomorrow, It's like any good UFC fight card No one remembers the undercard As long as the main event delivers

Yep The night There was a fight card in Australia The first four fights were farts Fifth fight Holly Holm kicks Ronda Rousey in the head Huge upset Wins the women's title

That's what I remember from that night I didn't leave disappointed As long as the big fish happens I think we have a very successful deadline and won't be boring television at all. And also, all these trades that are happening today, even though it's not on deadline day, they just happen. We're less than 24 hours out now. Yeah.

Actually, I think literally, yeah, at the time we're recording this, it's just coming up on three o'clock. Rick Nash, to me, is still a reputation trade. I don't love it. Evander Kane has more points. Max Pacioretty is a better player. Are they going to fetch much more? Is Evander Kane going to even fetch close to as much?

Let's say Nash is better than Spooner, all right? So let's say that. It is handy to get Boleski's cap hit off, I suppose. That's a marginal improvement to that lineup for a heavy price. I don't know. I don't know how much I love that. And you know what? Now that we're talking about it, he'll probably set the world on fire

and go on a crazy streak and end up with 50 goals. Oh, dude, if he turns back the clock and he's Nash of four or five years ago, great. should we also mention that Boston picked up Gionta hey that's okay so

you know some people are just evil terrible people and so I'd like to call out Andrew Berkshire for sending me a text that the Boston Bruins

signed Brian Gionta just so he could brain Frederick Anderson in the playoffs just like he did to James Reimer some people

just aren't good people I respect him for remembering that That's amazing I don't I disrespect him Always Rick Nash's 42 goal season

Was in 14-15 Wow And 23 goals in 67 games Not last season but the year before I mean it's Oh no that was last season 23 goals last season Yeah so I think he

Everyone's talking about his 38 point pace Let's be honest guys he's probably better than that how much better is the question right it's very interesting for the bruins very very interesting and then there's this three-way deal we were just sort of talking about this yeah there's another trade yeah there's another trade so uh it's amazing all these gms they make like millions of dollars they had careers as nhl players a lot of them have been executives for years some of them 10 plus you know even before they became general managers and really it's just a copycat league hey uh patrick waugh who just got here as a head coach started pulling his goalie early

let's try that and now everyone does it um hey no one does three-way trades no one's done it for like a decade and a half 15 years one team does a three-way deal hey you know what three-way let's do three or four of them in a in like a three-month i can't wait till restricted free agents start getting offer sheets it's going to be fun dude who knows it might become the trend one of these days it's going to happen might become the trend there's more and more people getting into nhl uh front offices that show you the information you know the cost you know if you pay this pick that pick that pick who say it's actually worth it for certain guys what are the odds that anyone you draft turns out to be

Leon Dreisaitl, for example, or David Pasternak was another guy who was vulnerable for a long time. Pretty rare. Pretty rare. So you're talking

about three-way trades. The Edmonton Oilers traded Mark Letestu to the Preds for Pontius Aberg. Nashville then traded Letestu to the Blue Jackets for a fourth

round pick. The Blue Jackets is fourth round. Four Blue Jackets for a fourth round. So Nashville ends up with the fourth rounder. Edmonton ends up

with Aberg and the Blue Jackets end up with Letestu sorry one more time what did the Preds get? we went over this three times in the car

and you're like good got it no man I don't anymore the Preds have a fourth round pick in this and that's it yeah I don't know why they needed

to be a part of it why didn't you just trade like because Aberg was the second round pick I thought he was decent well they had they put a lot of

I think unfair expectations going on to him this year and then so yeah anyway Aberg's now with the Oilers I don't understand that that's why I heard you I heard you the first time I just don't understand

why they did it yeah and he's had a rough year but maybe he's some of the speed they're looking for on the wing we don't understand why they did it we haven't even gotten to Broussard no we'll get there we're moving I do want to talk about the Ottawa Senators because again

And the Ottawa Senators in double overtime lost May 25th, 2017. That is exactly nine months ago today at the recording of this podcast. And by the way, by the time you listen to this podcast, it'll probably be completely out of date anyway. You know how many babies were born in Pittsburgh today? That's a good point. Maybe. What I can't. What's mind blowing to me.

And it all seems to stem from the tourist situation. The tourist trade kicked off a bunch of bad stuff in Ottawa. It doesn't seem like the day the Sens died. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So, you know, like, Ottawa won the Matt Duchesne sweepstakes and has fallen off a cliff. And it's crazy because you've got to think about who's leaving already.

You've got Turris, Broussard, and Phaneuf already gone. More on the way, probably. Hoffman could have been gone if he wanted to go to Winnipeg. And, by the way, I have no idea why he wouldn't want to go to Winnipeg. That's dumb. Yeah, no. That's a dumb move. You want to stay with the Senators, man?

I like what Fried said about that. you're nuts you're nuts you only get so many chances at this you don't need to live there all the time you're going to be on the road half the time like what's Kanata that awesome

like come on man yeah really get out of town win a cup so Broussard you'd be joining you'd be part of probably the best offense in the NHL

yeah and how much is that just going to beef your stats up look at Patrick Maroon what was Patrick Maroon before he was playing with Connor McDavid a third round pick that's how the Oilers

got him that's like the best move that they've made in a long time oh boy I'm just saying yeah I don't understand the thinking there

and now I'd love to know where he ends up and I'd love to know how they do and where he could've been instead it's very interesting

where do you think Ian Cole ends up the team he goes to ends up beating him Ian Cole has not even left Pittsburgh yeah cause they don't wanna do the

immigration paperwork so they're not bringing him to Canada you just stay there we'll flip you if Nick Holden gets you a third then Ian Cole's got to be a third

has to be Ottawa has one pick in the first three rounds and that's Pittsburgh's first round pick because they trade away their third in the Broussard deal so they don't have a third round pick they don't have a second round pick which is trade away in July of 2018

but they've got a sliding pick they could get the pick this year that they've traded in the Duchesne deal so they might have two first rounders Oh, that's so bad. Oh, also, sorry, I was doing some research earlier today. Yeah, you can call. Going back to the Rick Nash trade, there's something I forgot.

So the Bruins gave up a lot in terms of picks and a little bit in prospects. What? Where are we going? Where are we going? Is this relating to Ottawa? Yeah, it is. Oh, okay. Back to the Rick Nash deal.

No, it does relate. So Ottawa doesn't have many picks coming right now. But one thing that's going on in the Atlantic Division right now, The Marlies are first place, and they're on a record-breaking pace. Belleville, well out of the playoffs. Laval, well out of the playoffs. So those are two teams within the Atlantic who are rebuilding and don't have much in the cupboard.

So they're kind of at base level there. Boston gave up a lot, but in the past three drafts, they've had six first-round picks and 11 picks in the first two rounds. I don't think they're sweating the first round pick too much and out of those

first round picks from the last three drafts one is David Pasternak another is Charlie McAvoy and then there was three together 12, 13, 14 one of whom was

DeBrusque who scored against Elise last night and I think that was his 12th goal of the season as a rookie so like Boston is

they're fine they're in as good of a position as any team in the NHL they're a great combination of experienced

and expensive and young and cheap And I mean Bergeron's on a sweet deal too Derek Broussard That deal was very very interesting Because it was so complicated And Jim Rutherford sat down and said This is the most complicated deal I've ever done

To me the most interesting thing about the Broussard deal Was A. Don Cherry being so upset about Ryan Reeves Leaving Pittsburgh And Crosby too Did you see Goja's Corner last night? I did not I was just getting home He was talking about what Mathot

and I encourage you to go out on Sportsnet.ca and watch it. He was talking about what Mathot did to Crosby and that Ryan Reeves there, Crosby's played every game this year because Ryan Reeves is there. And then he shows a clip of Austin Matthews getting hit sandwiched between two

Islanders and hurting his shoulder and going, you think that hit happens if Matt Martin's there? Yeah, the hit still happens if Matt Martin's there. It's a hockey hit! You guys are making a lot of assumptions. I think Matt Martin would have protected Matthews. I just keep thinking back to the Simpsons.

Lisa, I would like to buy your tiger repelling rock. Ryan Reeves is interesting. What's more interesting is that Vegas would take him. Why did Vegas need Ryan Reeves? Supposedly George McPhee likes him. Okay, because a lot of people were going, well it's payback for the second round pick

they randomly got it absolutely is it absolutely is 100% it's payback why would you do that how is it payback remember we were like

why the hell did Pittsburgh give up a second round pick George McPhee is nice and fat and happy in Vegas right now

and he's going thanks buddy thanks buddy 100% look at their pull up the full trade look at their involvement in this trade

why is Vegas there Why is Vegas there? They're helping out a pal That's it They got a They're paid Like over Two million dollars

For a fourth round pick Which yeah I know the Leafs did that For Eric Fair Basically But they also I think they got a pick In exchange for Eric Fair

So that was kind of cool And he actually played Some games for the team But Vegas is Almost straight up Just paying Why is Vegas paying

Derek Broussard anything? Come on George McPhee did Jim Rutherford an enormous solid he might be handing him the Stanley Cup this year

when or at very least a berth in the Stanley Cup finals where their two teams can duke it out and the winner gets the cup and Marc-Andre Fleury when Ryan Reeves

is the most valuable player in the playoffs you're going to be biting your tongue I bet I will bite all I'm just going to pull a Claude Lemieux and just be incredible

I don't mind so what does everyone get sure Pittsburgh Penguins acquire Derek Brassard Vincent Dunn Not to be confused With super rookie

Vincent Dunn In the St. Louis Blues Because I was like What the hell Derek Broussard Vincent Dunn And a third round pick In 2018

So they ended up With a third round They got Broussard And a third round pick From Ottawa Because life's not fair Chicago you're off the hook Why did they get

A third round pick Chicago you're off the hook We're mad at Pittsburgh now Ottawa Senators Acquire Phillip Gustafson Who is supposedly A very good

Goaltending prospect First round draft pick In 2018 Which is pretty great On account of They traded one yep uh so 31st overall and uh third round pick in 2019 so that's nice vegas gets ryan reeves and a fourth round draft pick in 2018 and that also doesn't mention that they're retaining half

on derrick broussard which carries over to next year now okay something that confused me there uh so broussard's actual money owed next season i think is 3.5 his cap hit is five so doesn't that mean they're on the hook for 2.5 against the cap next season? Vegas? Yeah. It doesn't matter. Vegas will be so under the cap. They have a lot of cap room. It doesn't really matter. They have a lot. I think they bought a fourth round pick. Yeah.

And I guess Ryan Reeves? Ryan Reeves is gonna do well in the playoffs. He's built for it. I'm sure. Penguin, like weren't you still one of the most bruck teams in the NHL this season?

Like, you got injury, you traded to get injury repellent from St. Louis and continue to get injured but the protector's gone I'll never understand hockey players dude I'll never understand I get it I get it

and maybe there's something to it every single hockey player says there's something to it there has to be something to it but I just don't see it my friend and neither does the coach you got a problem with me you take it up with Mike Sullivan who healthy scratched the guy You take it up with your back-to-back Stanley Cup winning coach

who scratched him. Take it up with him. You take it up with that blogging nerd, Mike Sullivan, and what he thinks about enforcers these days. Okay? I'm not crazy. What? Why are you laughing?

Tampa Bay. All the Ryan Rees on you. Tampa Bay and the Predators. Plus, a couple of unnamed teams are poking around on Eric Carlson, which I find interesting. So, what I love about Elliott Friedman, headlines, by the way, just can't miss right now, Especially like last night.

Last night I tweeted, I'm like, everyone, shut up. Yeah, headlines is on. Ron Burgundy is on times four. So David Poyle, who I hope, I hope this is what he's doing. He could be in there just driving up the price on Carlson for Iserman. That's the, he's like, I think he might just be in there driving up the price. But there are two other teams and you got to think that one of them is Vegas. So I got to go back to the Broussard deal.

It relates. I promise. Okay. So one of the things there... Are you going back to the Rick Nash deal, too? Yes, I am. No, I'm kidding. So one of the things I think Friedman...

I can't remember if he talked about this on headlines or he was tweeting about it. There was a rumor that a Western team was hard in on Broussard. So part of what Vegas gets out of this deal is, you know, because, I mean, let's pretend Vegas makes it to the cup final and it's against Pittsburgh. the line was we'd rather play him in round four than two so what the hell does vegas get out of this deal part of what they get out of more home play updates yep no one else gets them no one else

in the west gets them too bad so we will you know the what is it the enemy of my enemy is my friend yep so that's a little bit of what's going on i think so it's interesting to see david poyle maybe doing a little bit of meddling of his own. I think there's a lot more of that that goes on in the NHL than we even know. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. You don't hear too much about trades that don't happen.

I'm not saying the Eric Carlson deal does happen. I am. But if it does, it will not involve, according to Joe Smith, Lightning reporter, Yanni Gord or Braden Point. I heard that yesterday. There is no way the Tampa Bay Lightning give up, especially Braden Point.

That's what I, yeah. I'm like, Yanni Gord, you signed as a free agent. you can replace that like I could see Brayden Point is like I think he's

center of the future there he's there's no chance there's no chance yeah Mastakov maybe and Friedman

seem to agree there's just no way what will be interesting for for Ottawa and I think interesting for Montreal in this given what Rick Nash

brought in the pressure has to be on Dorian and Bergevin because if Pacioretty doesn't bring in what Nash does that's not going to look good

if Carlson doesn't bring in a lot more than what Nash and Pacioretty get. And the problem with Ottawa right now is they don't hold any of the cards. They're trading the best player, and yet they're the ones at the disadvantage. And that's what's crazy.

They put three guys on waivers today. Oduya, O'Brien, and Burroughs. So the plan is simple. And this is, again, it goes kind of back to what Engels was saying. This goes back to the terrifying reality of the Ottawa Senators. It's not just that they're rebuilding.

they are purging because they're broke they're broke they're giving away assets that's not what you do in a rebuild and I'm also looking at this, this is according to Travis Yost he had a couple important tweets today

but Ottawa just wrapped up what one source calls the worst first week of ticket renewals in organization history payroll down gauging is going to be a common theme so we're not talking about players here we're talking about full on finances Sponsors might start pulling out.

We're talking about regular people in Ottawa. Ottawa residents, just regular folks losing their jobs here. Because this team is freaking broke. Is the team broke or is the owner broke? Sounds like the owner broke. I guess it's both, technically. And why not a guy? Like, if you're, I doubt Oduya and Burroughs get claimed.

If they do, that's fine. But if you have Oduya and Burroughs, yeah, if they clear, that makes them more valuable. I don't know if you need a Burroughs because he's got like 8 points this year and he's got another year on his deal but a Johnny Oduya could be depth for you you know, your 6-7 guy I think they're both just good enough

to, I'm surprised you weren't able to get a depth pick for them, but I think they're both just good enough to get claimed on waivers which I think is what the Sens are banking on so they want them to get claimed oh absolutely, absolutely please, it's a fire sale, take them take them, I think it's a good day to be a

Belleville Sen Because you might have a job In the NHL tomorrow Oh you're gonna stink You're gonna get steamrolled every night Unless you don't It's the NHL Weird stuff happens

But Yeah It can't be a good time To be a member of that organization In any way shape or form You have to get rid of Bobby Ryan With Carlson then Just to save money

His team's boned His team's boned You know Bonks Mullet who's a great Sens follow on Twitter. So funny. Yeah, he was tweeting about it yesterday and just like,

even like Leafs fans, like we just don't have the heart to like spitefully rip on them anymore. It's bad. Like it's bad. We're not talking about a team that's struggling or having an off year. We're not talking about even like,

like a team like Colorado last year where it was just a comedy of errors. Like everything that could possibly go wrong did. and they were just a bad hockey team as well yeah but I don't

I I looked at them and didn't think they'd be as good as they are now but I knew there was no chance of them replicating

last season what was it 47 points 48 points even if they finished last like I knew they would finish

at least 20 points up on what they had last season this is we're talking about a team with what

exactly like what hope of anything do they have right now well and that's that was why it was so interesting to hear eric angles openly say what is you what is gary betman doing about eugene melnick like what a line that's the line of the show right there like yeah we rip on betman a lot but like this is the sort of thing he's paid to do and i don't envy him right now he's got to manage all these crazy egos and what name a bigger ego in the nhl and eugene melnick there aren't many there aren't many and this guy

is CEO now Mr. Burns is running the power plant there are so many Simpsons episodes and Pierre Dorian is Smithers at best and it's such a shame because it's funny I was reading stuff throughout the season

it sounds like Dorian is a relatively smart guy and like competent managerial guy and he worked a really long time to get here doesn't matter this thing could follow him forever ask John Ferguson jr how long a reputation or a little uh stint like this can ruin your reputation we were making fun of the fact that there was a report that john ferguson jr is one of the prospective gms for the

future seattle team and everyone started laughing guys this is a completely different scenario so here's here's the thing that i i i find interesting about the auto so that was over 10 years ago i'm sure he's learned a thing or two the name no one's talking about in trades is matt duchene why is matt duchene not going to be traded like to me that's like okay because because a couple weeks ago because a couple weeks ago it was like well no that's admitting defeat on the duchene deal i think we've admitted defeat now good i think it's time if a guy with an extra year on his deal which he has at a pretty responsible cap hit for a guy like that not bad what is it Six million bucks?

Yeah, something like that. What's... Six million. That's fine. You could... If he was a free agent, he'd get that. Is there a rule

that you can't trade a player that has just been traded to your team? No. No? No. You can trade guys several times.

That's how the Broussard deal was able to happen because it wasn't technically a three-way deal. It was separate deals because of... By the way, we didn't talk about

the fact that that deal got shot down the first time. Yeah, well... Because they had their re-refinery. When was the last time a deal got shot down

and we learned about it by the league. But let's go on to Duchesne for a second. Yeah, sorry. Is it because he's been so bad? He's been good. He's been good recently.

Recently he has. Three weeks. We know Matt Duchesne's a good player though. How long has he been a sin? Three months. Nah. Yeah.

Here, look it up. November. Look it up. It was November. Look it up. Go through his game by game. I want to know. Yes, Adam?

I am just, what I want to say is that I think Matt Duchesne is the guy that moves at the deadline that no one's talking about. Like, here's the thing.

You can get so much. But can you? Well, that's the thing. You've got that extra deal. The Suns got to ice a freaking team. Matt Duchesne played

14 games with Colorado where he had four goals and six assists, 10 points. That's fine. And he played 47 games with Ottawa where he has 13 goals,

16 assists, 29 points. That's good. Ish. At very, like, if you take into account that he basically

didn't score for the first month that means he's been on fire recently doesn't it on a terrible team yeah and he's got great

chemistry with Hoffman and if you're looking for a centerman like look at look at sorry for everybody that I just just got their ear

exploded so Matt Duchesne to Toronto yeah I like it okay alright well I mean put Tadger on like

the wing but that's the thing like I look at a guy like Ryan Nugent Hopkins I look at a guy like Matt Duchesne and I don't think there's a way

that the Oilers can win trading Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. I think you've got to look at trading Leon Dreisaitl. That's a different conversation. No, no, no. The thing that happens next season is the Oilers make an almighty comeback, and it is the Twitter event of the season. Oh, it'll be fun.

The revenge of the Edmonton Oilers, part two. That's a good point. I hope it happens. And this time, no one's good for you, like they were two years ago. Everyone's like, that's great, you snapped the streak. They are going to be so much more jaded and angry.

It's just going to be an entire fan base being Kylo Ren. And now we all have to pay. We all have to suffer. They're 100% the dark side. Matt, the best thing about, a lot has been made of the Griffin-Reinhardt trade that gave the Islanders Matt Barzal. And all Oilers fans will say is, we wouldn't have picked Barzal anyway.

And it's like, that is not a compliment. That's not a good defense. one thing i'll never understand about a lot of oilers fans on twitter just a lot not all of you is you can be like the oilers suck or no no not you you're not allowed to say it they go the oilers suck and you go yeah such and such trade was stupid and they'll go whoa hey asshole what are you talking about taylor hall was a bum and jordan eberly was a bum and we would have never drafted by I'm like do you see how are you making a connection with the issue with your team they can't be shit and you defend every move at some point they might have made a mistake

or two or nine well why are they shit we seem to agree they're shit tell me you we got nothing all right fine they just stay that way forever It's the most baffling thing I'm not your enemy I'm trying to be your friend here And just talk hockey Well it's like when you wrote that article last year As a Leafs fan I'm really happy for the success of the Oilers

We don't need your pity Toronto fans I'm so pissed I'm stealing this from Jim Norton But they got the personality skills of a hornet Just the whole fan base well I can't blame him for being mad right now but to me

if you're Ottawa like if you're the Leafs and you're looking for I agree, screw the Oilers, get back to the Leafs the Leafs are going to be looking for a third line center next year or this summer draft, free agency, trade whatever it is

the Leafs are going to be looking for a third line center a guy like Matt Duchesne a guy like Ryan Nugent Hopkins those guys you can trade for those guys you could try to sign like a Paul Stastny who's going to be

way too expensive and 34 but like what is your what's like that's a question like is it Nylander is Nylander going to do that

is that what's going to happen if that happens that's fine he's getting his audition right now and what a holy terror that friggin line was against the Bruins

they were pretty good that line was absolutely unbelievable do you think that because what was the line again it was Nylander in the middle I think Hyman on the left

And Marner on the right Scary But like the wingers I think they interchanged Cause like when Marner Scored his goal He was on the left side Of the ice

And Nylander froze The Bruins roster Guys on the bench Fell down Did you see the Cabin and move on Oh my god Retire

Go home Take off your skate He should've Just sat Like on his butt On the ice And undone his skates And just started like

register for LinkedIn and start finding another job. The thing is that the Leafs have got to find a solution at that position and I would think going into next year if Nylander is going to be

the third center and let's talk about the Leafs for a second because they have to keep they have to weigh this stuff. Nylander being the third center is fine because you know there's enough winger support

Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner Austin Matthews and Kasperi Kapanen you know you'll keep Hyman with him it's who's his right winger going to be

whatever it doesn't matter and then you've got Nylander at center. You've got Kadri at center. To me, the thing they're going to have to figure out, because they're going to want to stop paying second-round picks for a fourth-line center every deadline,

is what are you going to do at fourth line? And if Mechanics ends up working out, I know that he's a Montreal Canadiens favorite, but if he ends up working out really well here, tell me why Toronto doesn't go, listen, what do we got to do to keep you? I'd be interested.

I'd be interested. I'd also... Because he's got this... The thing that he has that Brian Boyle didn't and I thought Brian Boyle should the Leafs should re-sign Brian Boyle even though we're not

and it was an expensive contract in New Jersey but he's still a really great player and he gave that fourth line stability the thing that he doesn't have is the speed

Blakenix has the speed and that's what they loved about Patrick Marleau if he has the speed to keep up with this young team that's the perfect fit

so overpay for him I'd like to see it before because next year is going to be 36 so we'll see how he does at 35

going into the playoffs But if he does have the speed, then there's a there there. The Leafs are a huge question mark. And one thing I learned yesterday from Justin Bourne's Twitter that I did not know is on top of being an offensive god in the AHL, Andreas Janssen kills penalties. And he's very responsible defensively, and this is coming from a guy who worked for the team. By the way, another thing Bourne said was, I think it was Leafs fans should like this deal, which I found very confusing.

because that's a guy who worked for the team and two prospects were leaving. I don't know. I found that very interesting. But yeah, Janssen's making this team next year. So we know that much, but still at center? I don't know what the answer is. Is Fredrick Gauthier out of the question now?

Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. He's out of the question. I mean, it's possible he continues to develop, but he's got to take a pretty significant jump. And maybe that happens, right? He was basically starting from the ground up after breaking his leg.

One thing I wonder if it facilitated this trade was Altonen has been playing very well recently. And then he got knocked out. So your security blanket there, I mean, one of the Leafs' centers gets injured. Okay, your temporary fix is Nylander at center. So you try that. What if it stinks? okay well you don't have

very much time left so you try Marleau at center well what if you're not totally happy with that what if someone else gets hurt you gotta move more up or like who's your next call up

cause with Alton and Hurt it's GOAT after that like who's the next center even under contract I think it's Adam Brooks you gotta have Patrick Marleau at that point playing center

well now you're forced into a situation that you don't even want and we know the player doesn't even want But I think if it comes down to the playoffs, Patrick Marleau is not going to care. He's not going to look at you and go, listen, coach, I understand Patrick Marleau going, I don't want to play 60 games at center.

But if it came down to it, Patrick Marleau would be like, listen, Patrick, we're going for the Stanley Cup. You've never won one of those. Do you have an issue playing center? He'd be like, no, I don't have a problem. You're also talking about a scenario where three guys just got injured in your head. It happens. It does happen, but it's also a made-up situation. It happens last year.

Yes, it is a made-up situation. I just think it's a great... Well, that's what this whole deadline is all about. Yeah. You're trying to look into the future and see what you're going to be a month from now. And then a month from now, you hopefully have a two-month war ahead of you. So it's all hypothetical, right? You're trying to plan three months out, ideally.

It's hard. Placanitz is a great pickup for the Leafs. It's going to be... I think it's solid depth. It's perfect. Now the question is, do you go any further? Do you go any further?

We know McDonough's on the available, but if Rick Nash brought A, McDonough's going to bring A+. And he's a left-handed shot. Not that it matters all that much, but it sort of matters. So you're going to have four left-handed shots in your top four on defense.

I'm a defenseman I have three points in the last four games I haven't taken a penalty for 14 straight games Who am I? Roman Polak Roman frickin' Polak

Credit where credit's due man So wait Are you saying Polak from McDonough straight up? Yep So high No You know it's a Polak's credit

and I harp on him and boy I sure would still like to see the Leafs upgrade on him. But we know the price is probably high, right? And that's maybe something that you address in the offseason instead. Polak did this last year. Played poorly. Midseason, still pretty bad.

And then about the last 20 games or so, him and Matt Hunwick, too, actually, played really, really well. And Polak carried that play into the playoffs where he then fell awkwardly and broke his leg. I wonder if he's turning it on again. Because, no, it couldn't be. I don't know.

I don't, yeah. Put it this way. My faith in him is growing. I am well aware he's not a great option there. But my faith in him is growing. Does the Leafs make a move for Ryan McDonough? Nah. Nah.

And, I don't know. Nah. I don't want to even know what that would cost. I don't like the idea of the Leafs making one of these huge picks and prospects deals. Like Placanitz doesn't fall into that. You're giving up a second and a guy who might make it and a guy who might make it.

So you're giving up three guys who may or may not even make it. But then you start getting into like, People are talking about, like, would you trade Lilligren for, like, not McDonough? Actually, I did see a couple people say McDonough. Absolutely not. Carlson. Well, no, it's not happening. Like, Lilligren, ideally Lilligren becomes somewhat similar to Carlson.

It's going to be very difficult to get anyone to be even 80% of Carlson. But, like, they've drafted pretty well at certain parts. And they've done a good job of getting this depth. Why is everyone so eager to just give it all away? The Leafs are doing it properly. They're building for sustained success. And I don't think they're going to completely blow it all on one playoff run that is two years into the positive end of a rebuild.

I just don't see it happening. I don't think they get McDonough. I mean, they're strong on the left side. That's like the only part of the defense. It's the strongest half of the defense. Now you're looking at the right, and you're looking at overpaying

no matter what and Tanev might not even be back before the playoffs start if you're thinking about him so maybe that's a move they look at

in the offseason in terms of this deadline I can't see them doing much more other than I don't know maybe you look at

hey how about you claim Johnny Oduya off waivers I don't think that kills you why not

so no JVR deal no at 3.01 tomorrow JVR is a leaf yeah Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.

Is that the right move? Dude, like... I'm split down the middle, man. I'm thinking about what you could get for him. I'm split down the middle. Is it the right move? What is the... What are you hoping to get?

Right? You're hoping to get something that makes you great in 2019. Look at them now. These are second leading goal scorer. When this guy touches the puck, the fucking puck finds something. It's magnetized to the back of the other team's net. You know, I would have been with you Maybe a month or so ago

But holy shit All this guy does is score goals And now Like, I mean He's already playing 10-12 minutes a night You know, especially when the Leafs are winning And the Leafs just got deeper

Isn't that a case for You don't need him? I mean, listen I have said in the last show I think he would bring a lot And it would be great and that sort of thing, but the other side of it is...

I bet you could still deal his rights at the draft. Oh, yeah. For not nearly as much, but I bet you could. I think with JVR, it's a question of what school of thought you're with. Are you with renting your own players at the deadline? You know what I mean? Because most people are looking for

what he brings, right? The issue is that if you trade JVR, to me it's not an effect on the room. I think that they would still be a great team or whatever and you know but you don't know what andreas johnson looks like or johnson he does you don't know what he looks like you don't know what he brings at the nhl level what if he comes up and he loses all his confidence like you just you just listen i'm not saying no i got you okay but i'm just but my point is jvr is you know what jvr is and you know how to use them you have

a coach that's coached him for almost three seasons now why not just go for it you're not going to re-sign him. You can't afford him. Fine. You can train the next guy from training camp on. So that's the one side. The other side is, you get a whole bunch of assets for him. Okay, so I would like to know what those are. And if

the Leafs did get an offer that kind of blew them away and they were able to get someone who was on the verge of, say, the NHL the way Sergeyev was before this season, then it's like, okay, well maybe you look at that deal. But I don't think, I just don't, I don't see this Leafs team

or this Leafs management going we gotta have them because there's other players in the system. It's like the cupboards are not bare. We have Carl Grunstrom as well. If Boston offered you the exact same package that they offered for Rick Nash, do you take that for JVR? You can keep Matt

Boleski and it's going to have to be more. It's going to have to be more. Okay. Even with the first round pick in there? The whole point of getting stuff in a trade is so that you can win the Stanley Cup. And the Leafs are, look, the Atlantic, no one's a gimme. No one.

Tampa, Boston, Leafs, it's going to be a dogfight, and the survivor, who will probably be missing several limbs, then gets the great honor of going to the third round, and let's be honest, probably playing the Penguins. Look, winning the Stanley Cup is hard. Watch out for Philly. It's hard. So like

There's never You're never gonna have A clear path The Leafs look at this They look at their team Right now and they go You know what We got a shot

Do you agree That they have a shot Definitely Every team has a shot Oh yeah I think so I don't think anybody Going into the playoffs

This year has better Than a 12% shot Go for it Go for it Yeah that's the funny thing So teams like Tampa, Boston And the Leafs

I think I've seen the same chart God what's it from Like hockey graphs I don't like those charts They're fun. I think they're fun. Yeah, Hillary Clinton won. Wow.

Wow, half of the comments I've read over the past week. Wow. Odds of winning, it doesn't really mean anything. It changes day to day. You win a game Why do you hate Nate Silver? Let's talk about this. Yeah, those are three

of the top five teams in the league or whatever, but none of them have that high a chance of winning the Cup because they all have to go through each other. They all have a 1 in 8 chance to win the Cup is what the percentage is. Pittsburgh won the damn Cup last year and they were in the exact same scenario.

In fact, it was worse. Pittsburgh is, man, that center depth is unbelievable. It's just crazy. Put it up against the Leafs. Yes. I mean, yeah. Anyway, I'm excited for what the Leafs will do. I still give them the edge, but holy shit. I think the players that they're

going to lose are replaceable guys. My question will be at center this what will they do at center Crosby Malkin Broussard

Sheahan I'm talking about after playoffs but yeah no wait though Crosby Malkin Broussard

Sheahan up against Matthews Kadri Bozak Placanitz it's pretty good I mean

I think Pittsburgh has the edge oh decidedly they have the edge decidedly they have the edge now you're looking at the wings maybe not so much

on the wing I mean jeez they got Kessel and geez they got Gensel but the Leafs have their monsters as well now you're looking

at defense goaltending it's boy oh boy Chris Letang is back remember Chris Letang isn't missing the playoffs this year

he's gonna play no so I mean well yeah but keep in mind that they just lost Ryan Reeves so now they're all gonna get hurt

that's true but if the Leafs don't play Matt Martin so will they no you know what it would have been it'll just be Matt Martin the Leafs will just

dress Matt Martin and everybody else will be injured including Penguins players Mitch Marner got hurt last season I want to know where Matt Martin was

it's a good point I just want to know Mark Letestu and Pat Maroon were told by Peter Chiarelli to pack extra outfits ahead of their

road trip obviously Letestu has already been traded Pat Maroon will be traded what do you think Pat Maroon brings? Pat Maroon is exactly

the sort of player who I wouldn't want to play in a playoff series like just it's one thing if I got to play you once every now and again four to seven games in a row

of him that's the kind of player who even if you lose takes a chunk out of your team especially if you're man a team like the Leafs they do not have a ton of size on the back end we know what the Leafs

good at doing they move the puck and they put up a bunch of points but they're not big and poor like Nikita Zaitsev like that's a regular size dude

and he plays like an absolute honey badger he's the closest comparable to Sashnikov they have on the back end

on account of like he just forgets what size he is but Zaitsev is exactly the defenseman the Leafs would throw out

against Maroon and Maroon would just beat the shit out of him for four to seven games and then even if you win you go into the next series and Zaitsev's like

I didn't hear no bell. Just friggin' wobbling. So that's what he brings. And he's a guy who, you know, you put him with a playmaking center. You know, he can at least keep up with them. He can bang in a few goals. He's a big, belligerent, abusive body in front. I certainly hope he doesn't end up in the Eastern Conference.

Yeah, exactly. You nailed it. You nailed it. I hope, yeah. I hope the West loads up tomorrow. Here's what I think is going to happen. Tampa's going to get Carlson and then they're going to get Maroon

because nothing is fair so what they'll do is they'll give up Nemestikov and they'll give up their futures and whatever and they'll go for it and they'll have Carlson and they'll be dominant for the next year and a half and they're going to have Maroon and they're going to steamroll

whoever they play in the first round who's the bottom wild card right now in the east it is the Columbus Blue Jackets that'd be a tough series I mean I think if Tampa has Carlson yeah

Tampa wins that handily yeah yeah I'm gonna go with yeah unless Bobrovsky Bobbo stands on his head do you think

Kane ends up at Tampa instead of Carlson oh my god oh that's bad I don't know how they do that cap wise but you

I don't think they do it no okay let's say Carolina makes that final spot oh wow they're two teams out now oh my god so okay looking at two teams who are okay here's your wild card picture right

so okay like i know i'm sorry you got new jersey with 72 points they're sitting decently on that top wild card spot so now we're even challenged for the top three in the division there exactly so now we go two points or sorry five points down to columbus with 67 points why did it have to be 67 uh the islanders are only two points back hurricanes three four to five games in hand and they have games in hand so that's pretty good and red wings fans are like why don't you get to us dude you're already selling come on let's be honest um who out of those teams gives tampa any trouble like let's say carolina squeaks in there how soon after does cam ward retire how many did

like on the ice right there after game 4 game 5 give them 1 no I won't I won't Islanders

you think Halak just has a new career as a stop sign in Montreal the Islanders can get hot

enough to make anything a series because they were so good in that middle section of like late December

to mid January can I throw out a really stupid suggestion You know what the Islanders Should do? Evander Kane Sell

They should They should Try to acquire For as cheaply as they can One of the hottest goalies In the Atlantic Division Ante Niemi Is he actually?

Ever since going to Montreal He's been gold Carey Price They should do it They should absolutely do it Carey Price is injured And Montreal has Whoever the other goalie is

On an emergency basis So they can't trade Oh Charlie Leonard Yeah Charlie's up for Emergency basis Or Chuckles Linger. Yeah.

Damn. Can't do that. All right, well, I think Evander... So give him... Make the trade Chris Gibson, who the Islanders have. So you give them a goalie in exchange for Niemi.

So Chris Gibson and a late pick for Niemi. Found money. Maybe. I find it interesting. Evander Kane, to me, if I'm the Islanders, that's a guy I target.

That's a pretty scary guy on their way. Don't you think? I just... That's not their issue. So they actually did make a buy. I forgot. There's another trade we forgot to mention. They got Brandon Davidson from Edmonton for a third.

And Montreal waved him earlier this year. L-M-A-O. That's a third round pick they literally just threw in the garbage. What was that last year? Who waved Mike Condon? And then Pittsburgh got him. Ottawa, Montreal. Was it Ian Montoya?

Oh my God, in Montreal? That was Mike Condon. So I think Montreal waved Mike Condon. Pittsburgh scooped him up. He was decent. They traded him to Ottawa for a fifth. Yes, yep. That's the second time in as many years that that's happened to Montreal.

That sucks. That sucks. Oh, that's funny. No, yeah, so the Islanders, I mean, their need is on the back end. I mean, I guess you address a strength to make it even stronger, but, like, holy shit. Like, we haven't had a podcast since the Islanders game. Barzal is absolutely out of his mind good.

He's so good. Holy shit. Yeah. I don't think Tavares is leaving. No! Why? There's no chance. I would love him to be a Leaf.

You can't not have a look at that kid play and be like, yeah, we have a chance to do something. And Anders Lee is the most underrated superstar in the NHL. And you just locked up Josh Bailey. For $5 million a year. Rich Harris isn't going anywhere damn no way

okay so let's do let's talk about this okay so tomorrow obviously trade deadline day watch Sportsnet because we love Sportsnet you're probably watching it right now

as you listen to this also side note on the Islanders before we move on this year's draft picks they got two first round picks two second round picks and all their other picks

except for a sixth so they got four picks in the first two rounds they're going to load up sorry about that I'm just I sense that we're winding down so I'm checking Twitter

to make sure nothing else has happened nothing's happened I uh okay so just so you know we are doing a trade deadline

wrap up show and that will be 48 hours from now so Tuesday morning actually less than 48 hours let's do the press conference um

are you guys aware of the current draft order if the NHL season ended today well like

Sons Lottery Sons Lottery how it would shape out I do not the first pick will go to the Coyotes the second pick to the Sabres

the third pick to the Senators the fourth pick to the Canucks the fifth pick to the Canadians the sixth pick to the Oilers

so three through six four Canadian teams how disappointed are you in our country uh not no i'm not we saw this coming um saw it coming with montreal for sure ottawa was a surprise last year i didn't think they were gonna be good last year and then they were great and then i'm like okay well maybe i'll give them a flyer on this year and they weren't

and so i keep going back and forth with montreal they shouldn't be this bad yes they should a couple things happen steve weber was out steve and price has they should not been very they don't have a lineup man yeah they have no centers this is a center and goalie league there's no centers they got a winger who's a career winger to play center and they traded their top defensive prospect to get him nothing against jonathan drewan but let's be honest is that how you want to have your number one center a guy who might be able to play the position and then midway through the year you realize oh no he's probably better on the wing hey you know what this trade aside potentially good news for leaf fans it looks like jeff molson is prepared to let bergevin fix his

own mess. Great. Good. Good luck, buddy. You got the full confidence. Actually, they tweeted that yesterday. Good luck. It's awesome. Good luck. I like the idea of Rasmus Dahl ending up in Arizona.

I like the idea of him ending up nowhere near this division. I don't want him here. I don't want him anywhere close geographically to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Don't need it. Listen, But, you know, Jack Eichel is who he is with Buffalo.

And, you know, and he's making the money that he's making. I don't want Buffalo to have another shot. Okay? No, I just, you know, as a Leaf fan, no offense, Buffalo. But, like, seriously, I don't want them to have another shot at having a generational player. You know what I love is when people get, like, smarter than they are about the Sabres. Sabres are a great example That tanking doesn't always mean success

Yeah sorry We should have mentioned that the asterisk is you need to be smart Like Oh I'm sorry did we need to mention That you can't be idiots about your rebuild Yeah they also signed a bunch of ridiculous Contracts Matt Molson

Matt Molson The asterisk is You should try to make a good team As well as tank and maybe take more than one year to do it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we didn't mention that you should try to be good

when trying to be good. What the hell are you talking about? I know, it's dumb. Tanking doesn't always work. Yeah, if you're not an idiot, yes, it does. Harsh, true, I don't care. Jason Palmanville is also signed

through next year for $5.6 million. That's a good deal. And that was a trade before the season. Anyways. Second question. Tyler Patico89 wants to know, what are some fun made up teams we may see in the next World Cup of Hockey

oh yeah congrats to the Olympic athletes of Russia I guess speaking of made up teams made up teams in the next World Cup of Hockey most of Asia was Germany? No Germany was part

of Team Europe so maybe Germany but that's not a made up team so you're asking for made up teams why can't we just invite 16 countries and just have a system where we play an actual

World Cup with 16 countries. So how many was it? Eight? Yeah. Why can't we have 16? Well, you can do eight countries as well if you want. I just like 16 because it involves like crazy like Slovenia. I want to see Germany. I want to see Switzerland. I want to see

Norway. I want to see Denmark. I want to see lesser countries. I want to see England and Italy put something forward you know what I mean like I love when you watch

the FIFA World Cup there's countries and they're like oh yeah that is a country how deep is hockey you know how deep is hockey

that you would get interesting games each time I don't think I would love to see an Italy-Slovenia game I think that would be amazing Slovenia would kick

the shit out of them do you want to see a 16-0 game no nobody wants that for the sport I'm not saying I don't want to see that

But listen, I just don't want some of your North American young stars BS. If you're going to call it the World Cup, fine, there are going to be dominant teams, but there are dominant teams in the Soccer World Cup. It's always Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands. These are always the good teams. Yeah, but you don't see 8-0 soccer games. Nobody gets embarrassed once they make the World Cup. Soccer runs so deep.

Canada is 180 in the world or whatever. you know I'm trying to think we once got up to 67 you know did we I think something like that we won the gold cup once

and I still remember we'll be in it when we host I still remember a few years ago maybe not even then a few years ago

Canada's men I should specify because Canada's women are really good Canada's men I remember were tied for 99th with Belize

which up until I heard a Jadakiss song where he mentioned Belize I did not know it was a place that Canadian women are incredible and men

not so much Like who could even ice a team I'm trying to think of Countries who weren't in it last time Who could maybe come in and do something Potentially Denmark Well Germany Germany with Leon Dreisaitl

But the thing About all that is The whole tournament Was a slight Sham to A Just give a middle finger to the Olympics And B just promote NHL players you invite a team

like Denmark there's going to be a few NHLers in there and you showcase how good Freddie Anderson is but like he was the goalie for Team Europe

before he got hurt so you were going to do that anyway but the NHL's job is to grow the game grow the game grow it I beg to differ

whispered Gary Beman who just wants to make money and is also having to deal with Eugene Malik Team Canada currently sits 89th in the world in the FIFA rankings

hey it's not bad we're at 1.17 in 2016 that's a staggering jump I want to know what Central American country

they tied to move up the rankings that much what was the 1-1 draw they had with Armenia like Costa Rica or something like that Armenia is currently at 91 I was like

yeah we all know the central american country of armenia jesse his geography congo that's currently at 88 hey not bad so like we're one behind congo listen with the amount of immigration in this country with the amount of resources available to this country to be honest there is absolutely no reason why we are not better than we should it's it's absolute incompetence for sure and that's why That's why they moved the women's head coach over to the men's side so he could clean some shit up there because he did such a great job on the women's program.

And obviously, we have some absolute studs. Wasn't there a controversy with that? Well, I mean, I think it was a lot of people were like, why are you taking from a strength, which is your women's program, to address a weakness, which is your men's program? And I think it's a legitimate argument. And I don't know enough about it. At the same time, they want both programs to do well.

And Herdman's a good coach, so it's Herdman, right? Yeah. They were really upset because they didn't tell any of the players before this. Christine St. Clair was told. She tweeted that after. She said, I had no words, and then people were like, you didn't tell her? She's like, we talked earlier this week, but

she still was shocked by it. The rumors are that he kind of bullied them into the position because he wanted to leave, and then he's like, if you want me to stay, I want the keys to the men's team. They're like, okay, you can have it. There's a little bit of controversy, but...

Confused as to why you would want that. Yeah. Wouldn't you want to win? Yeah. Like, you got a shot at winning every time. But I guess the men's program still holds so much more prestige, but, like, one's a good team. What are you looking for?

Holy shit, we beat Mexico! Like, that's the pinnacle of the Canadian men's team right now, isn't it? So it made no sense to me. I don't know. I don't know enough about it. The women's program, though, whoever steps in as the head coach there is stepping into a friggin' dynasty. Yup.

So, good for them. and it gives somebody else the opportunity to be a great head coach there do we ever do we talk about

the women's gold medal game no no sucks that it was decided in the shootout we got outplayed

yeah the Americans were you know what would have been the real controversy if Canada had won in the shootout

yeah after the Americans dominated overtime dominated it that was a shame didn't like seeing it what a shame for Germany

just the way they lost that sucks that I'm more upset about like okay you know like the Canadian women that goalie

you lose a hockey game sometimes but it was like holy crap for Germany they really could have won the gold he went for the worst poke check of all time

and like bailed halfway through and just couldn't have made it easier for Russia yeah do you guys have any concluding thoughts on the Olympic tournament

now that we've seen one without this is I think because of where I'm at in my life I have paid I love the Olympics normally

and I summer and winter I love them. I paid almost zero attention to these Olympics, I'm not going to lie and it's just because I came back from honeymoon there's some stuff going on in my personal life that not bad stuff, but there's a lot of complicated stuff going on in my personal life at the moment

and we have this show to worry about, we've got trade deadline, we've got all this stuff. Normally, we're paying attention to it because the NHLers are there, right? So we've got a show that focuses on that, it's a critical time here I've got another two shows to worry about but for me, I didn't pay any attention

so I really don't have an opinion and I feel bad about that but at the same time it's like sometimes life gets in the way man and you can't like there's not you can't focus on everything look at the length of today's show we were talking about breaking news the entire time and then we got to the Olympics

there's stuff to talk about guys and I mean we got more to talk about than I don't know who is it Kevin Poulin winning a bronze like I mean it's a cool story it's cool that they got to do that

but like let's be honest here guys now the one tweet I got that I thought was really interesting is the Olympics inadvertently did more to grow the game than it potentially would have if the NHLers had gone I agree because like the like a lot of people in Germany were up early in the morning to watch Germany

compete for gold I think it would have been better if they won but I mean that is a country that's a perfect example of a country that should be way better at hockey but they just have their priorities elsewhere like the americans should be better at hockey than they are and they're already really good at it but all their star athletes go into other sports right so the you

know germany's big in soccer i think it's soccer that's like their big thing oh they're amazing they always do well at the olympics winter and summer it's just uh you know there's other stuff going on in germany man but if you build interest and there is some but if you build it even more like germany could easily be a hockey powerhouse for sure there's no reason they got the climate uh it's it's uh and and you know what another team or another country emerging is good and money money yeah any money to play hockey but another country emerging on the hockey scene is a great thing we need that we need that yeah like i tweeted it and got shit for it again but like look you could have canada in there again and you could have you know one of the same half dozen

countries in there again or you can have another team get a crack at it and uh germany was in there i think they meddled for the first time or like the first time in a very long time you know there's things like like it's still crazy to me that in 2018 we're hearing something like i think the japanese women's team scored a goal and everyone's like that's their first goal i'm like holy shit Forget first win, first goal That's nuts man That's crazy Maybe I'm wrong there

Maybe it was the first win or something like that It's just Like even in the World Cup Every now and then a team sneaks in there And you go, Senegal You're in the final eight That's crazy What was that one

It would have been like eight years ago now But like most of the final eight Was like how the hell did you get here like South Korea was in there it's the best part, when that happens it's the best it's always more fun when those teams happen I never cared about the Euro tournament more than when Greece

won, yeah how big was that, and I'm half English half Italian and I'm pretty sure Italy has won it in recent memory but when Greece won it was a lot it was cool, and the games weren't even entertaining, they played a boring defensive style but I was like holy shit, Greece yeah, and they got in there

and won, something we should keep in mind 33% of the Leafs' remaining games are against the last-placed Sabres and the Skeleton Habs team. Wow. And that is from Flo Jergesen at Joey Ferg. And they play less games down the stretch than both Boston and Tampa.

Yeah. I keep waiting for Boston to catch up. Like, are we just going to finish a week and a half before they do? It's going to finally happen. When does that happen? It's going to finally happen. The Leafs have played the most games in the league

or, like, been tied with St. Louis. Since like November It's insane It's insane Well remember how ridiculous December was And like weirdly They started to take a dip

Their schedule sucked Yeah It was brutal Right now we're the only team In the NHL To have played 64 games It's crazy Imagine if McElhinney

Hadn't been as good as he is We've got a trade Oh boy Nashville Predators Acquire Brandon Bollig And goaltender Troy Groschnick From the Sharks

I didn't know Bollig was on the Sharks. I didn't know either. So there's your Ryan Reeves. Brandon Bollig. Okay, so here's the deal. So they got four bullies now if I'm not mistaken.

Bollig and Troy Groschnik to the San Jose Sharks for a sixth round pick in the 2018 draft. No, to the Preds. Oh, sorry, from the Sharks. Sorry, in exchange for the six. So what did you hear?

Sharks get a sixth round pick from the Preds. Bollig and Groschnik end up with the Predators. Hmm. That's bizarre. Maybe there's injuries I don't know about because I think they have,

well, Rene's obviously having a potential Vezna conversation season. Then you got Yussi Saros, I think Anders Lindback, and now you got Grosznik. And Grosznik's not had the best year. And you take on two roster spots. He has a 298 GAA and a 902 save percentage in 20 games with Barracuda this year. With the Barracuda, excuse me, this year.

So, eh. also that's the Sharks freeing freeing up a little bit of room I have a feeling tomorrow is still going to be nuts

I think tomorrow is going to be nuts final question before we go okay what are you guys doing tomorrow Saturday at noon

what? tomorrow Saturday next Saturday at noon that was holy smokes yeah no

it's been a long show what are you doing next Saturday at noon I don't know why If you left here From Toronto, Canada Oh that's Oh I know what I'm doing

I'm going to be at What the hell is the place called Oh no What's the new crazy place With all the arcade games The rec room The rec room Thank you

I'm going to be at the rec room Doing puck talks with Myrtle and Jack and Soph And the crew If you had left here for Memorial Stadium at noon on Saturday, you could get there

in time for the Leafs game. No, you absolutely couldn't. Driving. No. It's an eight-hour drive. Yeah, there's going to be no traffic, you're right. Just say,

we should have road-tripped it. Man, I'm not going to road-trip it to see a game where Matthews isn't playing. Come on. By the way, doesn't that suck? Hey, I'm just thinking, wouldn't it be great

if Thomas Placanix wins a Stanley Cup with the Leafs? That'd be fun. that's so heartbreaking won't that be awesome well wouldn't it be fun

if we won the Stanley Cup I mean that'd be great but wouldn't it be extra great here's what I need Matthews hoists the cup first passes the cup to Patrick Marlowe

who hoists the cup crying crying this is his Ray Bork moment kisses the cup hands it to Thomas Picanitz tears pouring into his turtleneck

just soaking it along with the blood and sweat that he spent to win this thing his entire life and Picanitz then hands it to Lou Lamorello the camera has to pan down and he lifts the cup above his

head and the most subtle of smirks crosses his face and into the camera he simply says, kneel. Let the hearts across the league break. The Leafs finally won. And for some reason they take it out

on the Sharks. And also the Habs. Rip their hearts out of their chest. Ah, it's our turn now. The Marlowe one's unnecessary. But the Placanus one's pretty funny. it's going to be weird seeing him in a Leafs jersey

I'm not going to lie they said he might play tomorrow night yep against the Lightning yes when the Leafs play back to backs

and certainly won't be caught by anyone and will still have the most games played in the league cool cool I'm telling you when is it going to happen

the Leafs are going to finish two weeks before everybody else that's just what's going to happen do the Leafs yeah the Leafs get like three weeks off before the playoffs I hope so

but they make them play a bunch of friendlies for no good reason Leafs have to play 90 games thanks so much for listening we love you we'll be back Tuesday morning Steve will be exhausted

and it'll be hilarious cause you know Steve actually he has to work the next 48 hours can you imagine can you imagine like wall to wall

like 8 9 hour days guys not even well you have to do like one LFR a month I am writing a book follow the guys

on twitter at steve underscore dangle at adam w y l d e and at jesse blake the steve dangle podcast brought to you by panago pizza order at panago.com and stuff your face with deliciousness