The Steve Dangle Podcast - About Schmidt | October 14, 2020

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Steve is a mess (00:00), Joe Thornton to Toronto (03:00), Alex Pietrangelo signs in Vegas (11:00), Vancouver acquires Nate Schmidt (18:45), Celebrate with Frosted Flakes! (27:30), Bergevin - Gallagher negotiations have stalled (31:00), TJ Brodie will wear number 78 (41:00), David Ayers canceled Zach Bogosian's meeting with the Leafs (48:00), Hailey Salvian of The Athletic joins the show to talk about NWHL founder Dani Rylan Kearney stepping down as commissioner and the Sens (58:00). Originally aired: October 14, 2020 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/CJD5ThbQ7OQ 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

the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake jesse steve looks a little dressed up today doesn't he yeah it's funny this isn't the outfit he started out with no it's it's not it's strange uh well fellas are you it's weird because hold on it was weird because uh steve was off mic for just a little bit before the show started and all you hear in the background is swearing and we're like wait maybe you got a bad email are we gonna be able to do the show like this is how badly he was swearing actually yeah yeah i was like oh i think something's yeah you were pissed so what happened well i filled up my water to have water to drink during the show before promptly dumping it all over myself and the table that i

used to do show it was uh and if i had just stood where i meant to in the first place jesse blake I would have been fine. Do you want to explain this one, Jesse? All right. So other thing with Steve. He does the show for anyone who doesn't watch from the standing desk on our Zoom call here. And he had the standing desk set up outside of the blue room.

He's normally in the blue room, but it was outside the room. And I was like, why is the desk outside the blue room? He's like, no reason. I just didn't feel like moving it in today. i was like why did you spend eight years building a youtube channel thousands of dollars oh sorry well no since 2014 when i moved here so right okay so 12 whatever tens of thousands of dollars on plastic figurines to cover the room okay that is i to out of close out of pure laziness you decide to not move the desk and film inside the blue room but you came to your common sense

and did move it in. I had some nice things out there. I had the Felix Podvin mask. And beer cans or something. It was the Bud Light. I got there was Pink Whitney on there. What else? Some hockey gloves.

Is Pink Whitney good, by the way? I haven't had it yet. It's insanity. It's insanity in liquid form. Me and producer Drew bought some in St. Louis and we were drinking it. And before i realized like i'm i'm pretty drunk i looked at the bottle and i'm like this is i can't remember

it's like 30 i'm like this tastes like kool-aid what the hell i am not 19 anymore what am i doing drinking this it was almost 32 at the time it's a hangover in a glass listen if you're in college right now i bet it's awesome it is not made for the pace that i currently live my life at Fair enough. Fair enough. Now. So now that we've got the water spilling in the desk out of the way, I, gentlemen, first off, need to send my grievances. I've got a couple of grievances. I got the first one is Alex Petrangelo, who signed about an hour after the show yesterday or last time. And Nate Schmidt, who was traded about an hour after the show with CJ. so shenanigans and grievances filed with the Vancouver Canucks Vegas Golden Knights and Petrangelo's agent but also I would like to call shenanigans on something that happened on the last show something that I've seen develop something that I have been sitting around watching and frankly I'm not gonna lie not being too happy about have you been taking names there

Adam Wald I have not been taking names I think I've just been observing I've been observing sports in its natural habitat and i'm a little upset where have you been quarantining in your field big quite yeah i have been quarantining in my feelings and i think it's time that we discuss something on the last show chris johnston i love our favorite guy great guy fourth member of the show where we are three of four without him d'artagnan if there was one thing that you found out completely new brand new from last episode something you'd never heard before something you've never read before there's oftentimes chris will tell you something that you've sort of heard a nugget of but he goes deeper and you go wow that's a great piece of information but this was

not even a storyline that made our lineup for the prep this is breaking news what was the breaking news bomb that chris johnson dropped on the show would you like me to play it oh even better i think you should play it even better i think i should play it you should play it i love these signings i i just think there's no downside if you're toronto and you know i still think joe thornton's coming here too like that's like i don't know how this is all gonna fit that'd be cool okay okay i don't there's a there's a bomb really well let me let me reclassify this a little bit more accurately i i think that they remain very interested in joe thornton and i think he is open to the idea. I don't, it's not that obviously if it was done,

they would, they would announce it. It'd be on the Leafs PR account, but I think that there's some mutual interest there still. So even the bottom six is still a bit of like, if we're going to ask what the lines look like, like I have no idea where this all fits with all these guys are bringing in. And if they added someone like Thornton, it's what kind of points me again to trades. Like I think the Leafs are in on everything right now.

So little, little juicy theory in there. and technically he wasn't breaking that joe thornton was the way he worded it at first sounded an awful lot like joe thornton is actually it sounded literally like joe thornton signing with the leafs which everyone took and ran with but was something missing adam yeah yeah and this is where i dropped my shenanigans flag on the field to all of you to all of you to the internet at large to the internet at large because the one person i have not seen yet credited with this story is chris johnston not once but what's weird about it is it well right but what's weird about it is suspiciously a bunch of articles dropped about

two hours after our show dropped saying that joe thornton and toronto had mutual interest And if you go to the timestamps on all of the outlets, all of them, TSN, Sportsnet, The Athletic, NBC San Jose, anywhere else where this story blew up and was hot, they're all about two hours after. And they've gone and it's continued for two more days and not a single person, not one has said Chris Johnston on the Steve Nangle podcast. and i just want to say uh i looked it up i did my research and not a single person posted a single thing about jumbo joe before that episode not a single one so i'm just going to throw this out there and not accuse anyone of anything but can we credit chris for goodness sakes he had the scoop on the rumor this show gets zero scoops we get zero zero we get zero and when we do it's from him and when we do it's from him remember the joffrey loophole thing

that's right we had the joffrey loophole scoop because chris had the joffrey loophole scoop if joffrey scoople can you just give us this one you guys get the rest of them you get this we get this one i have to shout out one person who did give us credit shout him out jesse i know who you're talking about kevin papetti kevin papetti everybody king kevin as i'll call him Moving forward, King Kevin did tweet out Chris Johnson on SDP and then quoted the Joe Thornton quote. I think Account for Hockey had that, too, which I love. Yes.

Well, he just radioed us. Oh, what is that? OK, we did. OK, I think I went. I think I went at him too hard because I was like, please let people listen to this first. And then he didn't tweet about it all. It's like, oh, no, I hope I didn't offend you.

I felt that. No, I was. I'm frigging. I'm joking with you. Yeah. Yeah. I hope he knows. I hope he knows that.

Yeah. Please promote the show. yeah really exactly sorry if that came across as anything other than joking i apologize seriously oh my god tongue-in-cheek um yeah of course and this is tongue-in-cheek but also a little serious guys there were some reporters that had that story suspiciously after the sdp and i i don't want to say that this is where they got it but i'm pretty sure it's where they got it and i'm a little bit perturbed for our friend our d'artagnan not now adam you're not a little bit perturbed for us well no not really because no one's gonna believe it coming from us they wouldn't even okay let's

be honest all right if if tsn had to source chris if they had to they're not gonna source him on our show and if sportsnet had to they're not gonna source him on our show and they would no they would oh they wouldn't no they wouldn't come on well they've got their personality why does it matter what show it came on they're gonna be like yeah no chris said this we know that because he works for us you know and and and the athletic wouldn't say that either and that's i mean that's okay we're sort of just the the the the stage that it happened on and that's all right sports net credited us when it was what's it's from the panthers because we did a 45 minute interview with doug sifu doug sifu yeah well they had to what's it billionaire what's it i know i couldn't

get bill zito out of my head i didn't doug see i wrote about it in the book it's a whole chapter i know i know listen a dick no doug doug was great and and uh yeah well they they couldn't not source us at that point well they used our audio we were the only ones with the with the story yeah uh but but i just think it's i just find it you know how i just think it's funny how do you think it's funny how i just think it's funny how how about we all put it back to our boy chris who had the story uh and by the way story's not done yet so we'll see what happens with jumbo joe i don't know how it all fits where did chris have it adam did he was he standing in the middle of dundas square just shouting it he had it on the steve dangle podcast which apparently

people actually listen to according to chris i haven't seen that mentioned though it's weird got a lot of listeners yeah it's good man great episode i love cj everyone's like oh cj episode i'm like yeah i know trust me we're just as excited as you are for the cj episodes they're just the most fun i always i'm like man jesse hasn't spoken in a while oh i haven't spoken in a while and then i gotta remind myself to ask him something because you guys are just really good well no it's mostly it's just like i want to ask him questions and listen to him talk you know what i mean he's just that kind of a guy where he's got so much information so and you know a legitimate insider you want to ask those guys questions i want to like join the big brother

program and have chris as my big brother yeah i never had a brother never had a brother and i would like it to be chris he'd be my big little brother um let's talk about a scoop that we absolutely did not have and had no idea was coming although we kind of thought it might be Alex Petrangelo signing in Vegas, a seven-year, $61.6 million contract. It's funny, in the interview, he said he was kind of looking for a change of scenery. And I thought Greg Wyshynski had the best tweet, and I'm going to paraphrase it. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You definitely wanted a change of scenery after you lobbied the St. Louis media to get you to get re-signed in St. Louis. I'm sure that's what you wanted.

Now, to be fair to Alex, Vegas seems like a pretty great destination to be. so once cj brought that up right and i think it on on the note of what cj said last show with regard to vegas i think we've had it all wrong uh we've had it all wrong for three years like or at least in their inaugural season vegas is how our team's gonna survive because they're just gonna be partying all the time and there's exactly six buildings in vegas and there's and they're all casinos and that's just where they're gonna live they're gonna sleep two hours a night because oxygen will just be bumped at them 24 7 and cj's like no they have like you know nice suburbs yeah pretty good price you know it's a nice place to live nice and dry spot and

good climate if you got asthma guy like me yeah and and he pitched you know he pitched vegas the way i think brian burke would pitch vegas the way he kept talking about it on free agency day he would talk about the family angle and you know petrangelo is not a young player in this league anymore he's a family man and i think he was sold on that that and all the money yeah sure which is good it's good money uh somebody did a calculation and forgive me i feel like it was was it sarah valley i forget who had it but they basically said the equivalent of like what he made is the equivalent to 9.4 million based on taxes in st louis so um so like you so i guess down if you like do you have it yeah so the here's the break uh breakdown starting with signing bonus and going

to base salary so it's i'm gonna i'm gonna call it middle loaded um so it's similar to how you're gonna see a lot or how we have seen a lot of contracts because no one has any money because of covid so starting with signing bonus and then base salary it's three two three two seven one so vegas better have uh some cash coming in three years from now eight four point three eight four point five six four and then the final year of his contract is uh zero in signing bonus and 8.8 in base salary which is very interesting because he'll be i think 37 and having 8.8 in just salary that's i mean he has a no move clause but that's as good as one because if he's 37 and wash no one's gonna want him at 8.8 base that's tough so i have a question i'm sure so st louis signs

uh tory krug for 6.5 over seven was it seven yeah seven years yeah seven years um alex signs how much is the aav steve 8.8 8.8 why couldn't doug armstrong find that extra 2.3 million dollars to keep alex petrangelo let's go back why why couldn't he jesse well he could have why did he refuse to because they went out and got justin falk why why i guess he seems to i don't know he's moving forward colton pareko is going to be the number one guy on the team going forward but that that still leaves me with why did they make the justin falk trade and give him all that money at the risk of losing alex petrangelo you could have if they didn't make the falk trade they could have alex petrangelo and tory krug right now potentially yeah they could so especially if

there wasn't any covid you don't need them you don't need tory krug at that point i like because you need you do it because it's hilarious yeah yeah you do it because it's really fun so that deal was signed last september the uh justin falk one so you think that's when they lost uh petrangelo well there were rumors at the time that he was kind of miffed about it because he's looking it he's looking at the future going uh am i not included in this because it was always going to be they were going to lose one of probably not justin falk because he just signed so then it comes down to petro who walks or pareko who you have to trade right and pareko's on you know we've been talking for so long trying to galaxy brain a trade where pareko comes to the

leafs and the reason we do that is one he's really good at hockey two he shoots right on defense and three is the value of his contract spectacular and that's the right side they had a right side of Falk Pareko and freaking uh Petro you and you can't maintain that you can do that for a few years depending on how you finagled the contracts but the when they got Justin Falk they made sure that it was going to be very difficult to keep Alex Petrangelo and it's nothing against Justin Falk go get your money and he's not a bad hockey player but he's not Alex Petrangelo yeah and you lose your captain well something tells me that they wanted to because all this seems a little too intentional you know frankly you can move two million bucks but they signed tory krug

up awfully quick yeah and i have a feeling just a feeling that their st louis management wanted to move on here for whatever reason it just they made the justin falk move last year because they knew because they knew and i just feel like it's something where doug wilson wanted to move on he either didn't want to sign a 30 year old sorry armstrong excuse me didn't want to sign a 30 year old to an eight-year contract which i don't blame him for uh didn't want to sign a 30 year old to a seven-year contract which i don't blame him for uh i don't know how tory krug is but i know justin falk's 28 makes me feel a little better if i'm him although justin falk is nowhere close uh 29 crew is 29 so it's a little better idea by the way i thought he was like 25 yeah i

know i was like he's like he's like he's 20 um i have a feeling that he wanted because they've spent the same amount of money in fact probably more but to me it seems like armstrong wanted to move on here if he had wanted to keep petrangelo petrangelo would have been in st louis it seems like petrangelo wanted to stay in st louis more than st louis wanted him now i want to throw this out there because uh doug armstrong saved vancouver's offseason saved it if doug armstrong doesn't force petrangelo out of town and that's the narrative i'm going with because that's exactly what happened let's be honest let's just be straight he didn't want to keep him it's i don't know why he didn't want to keep him but he didn't want to keep him and maybe that comes out later

but it's pretty clear that st louis did not want alex petrangelo anymore crazy as it sounds strange though that that move would precipitate nate schmidt getting dealt for a third round pick to a to a team that we thought had no money and they said want to bet the by the way the way to guarantee that a team is going to acquire another big money player is to tell them they have to get rid of one of the big money players they already have it happened with the penguins they're gonna have to trade one of crosby or malkin remember yeah f you and they go out and they get they get castle yeah hilarious um and now vancouver now i look at them and i was trying to think of a criticism for uh jim benning and there are plenty obviously in the way he's done this offseason but

i'm looking and i'm like wait a sec they only have two million dollars in cap room right now and they still have to re-sign jake vertanen and adam gaudette man if you have a chance to get nate schmidt you drive both of those guys to the airport yep you if you want to be you know conscious of social distancing you make two trips like but it's nate schmidt yeah and it's having a one two third for a third and you have a one two on your left side now for the foreseeable future of Quinn Hughes and Nate Schmidt. Now, re-signing Quinn Hughes is the difficult part. Right, but that's next year's problem.

And Jim has already shown that he doesn't really think in terms of years. He thinks in terms of what's in front of my face this minute when it comes to free agency, let's be honest. And there are guys coming off the books eventually. Well, there are. There's about 9 million coming off the books, but Pedersen and Hughes are up next year.

So that's one of them. That's tough. That's going to be tough. Honestly, they're going to have to buy out Louis Erickson. I know nobody wants to talk about it, but they're going to have to buy out Louis Erickson. I still think he'll become a Sen. Oh, man, I don't know.

But anyway, besides the point. Sure. When we talk about Jim Benning falling into a great deal, and I got to give the Canucks credit, him and his staff, for grinding Vegas down and giving them a third for Nate Schmidt, who is an outstanding defenseman. You know, you almost wonder if the Leafs hadn't assigned TJ Brody, if they'd known Nate Schmidt was available for a third,

eventually they don't sign anybody July 1st. Maybe, maybe you can't take that risk, but I, I have to tell you, I do think that the Leafs would be like, give me, give me all of that Nate Schmidt.

Although he does bring a lot of the same things. Morgan Riley does just on the right side. That's what we like TJ Brody. And I'm not saying they made the wrong choice. I'm just saying they might've done the other thing. I'm just looking at cap friendly right now. half the league could afford Nate Schmidt if they really wanted to and the Canucks did right but but that half of the league is on internal budgets right now so maybe they could this is the issue

so but but the the point I'm trying to get to here is that um Doug Armstrong has made the Canucks stronger and the only way this has to end is the Canucks and St. Louis Blues in the playoffs and I sincerely hope the Canucks win because that would be perfect circle kind of shit that I absolutely love they've already done it what do you mean the Canucks beat the Blues this year oh wow they have to beat them again though with Nate Schmidt oh yeah yeah well I know they did that yeah sorry I was like what what um one interesting thing that came out of the uh like year-end rap 31 thoughts podcast was insight on the Tanev and Markstrom deals because Elliot was saying that Benning had offered the same deals that Tanev and Markstrom got in the end but he had offered them at the

beginning of uh free agency when during their negotiations and they but those two offers were lower than what they thought they would get on the open market so once Calgary offered those deals to Markstrom and Tanev instead of going back to Vancouver and being like hey we got the same deal from Calgary they were like no Vancouver already lowballed us let's not go back to them and just sign with the new team but that's how but it's the exact same deal but they felt they were low-balled by Jim Benning on the initial offer they thought they were the same as what Calgary offered them yes so uh I believe it was six million for Markstrom and uh Tanev got 4.5 so when Tanev gets the 4.5 from Jim Benning he's like no I'm worth I'm worth six or whatever number he

thinks it is when I go to the open market and then when he goes to the open market he's realized he can only get 4.5 and it's and i guess there's an ego play there instead of going back to your team and being like sorry i or have you actually had my right value you sign with the other team so you don't take that ego hit it's kind of how it unfolded with jim benning and the agents in the negotiation see this is where negotiation gets personal and you can't do that isn't that the most silly thing though if i'm ted evan markstrom though i sign in calgary why because you live there no they're better oh they're gonna be a better team and i and i and i say that they're gonna be a better team immediately yes vancouver's got petterson yes vancouver's got besser yes

they've got quinn hughes yes they now have nate schmidt on the right side and by the way if you look at the advanced numbers i'm pretty sure nate schmidt is like way better than oliver eckman larson like oh he's like eckman larson on steroids like not even a little better to make it sorry he's a lot oh that's funny that's a throwback but but he did meet tainted me but jim benning was ready to give up the farm for oliver ekman larson and he gave up a third for a guy who's better how crazy is that talk about a wild offseason now if i am tan evan markstrom i am an older guy and i look at the vancouver canucks and what it's going to take to sign me and what it means for moving out other players and you have to look sometimes at like what your

responsibility on the team is going to be when you sign the contract there and if i'm those guys i'm going so we're gonna probably just to break even on our deals we'll probably have to get worse as a team whereas calgary had the space and calgary has won the division several times in the last couple years not that vancouver's not on the upswing not that they won't be a good team but for right now two guys who are 30 years old who's closer well and especially with them on it like i'm looking at calgary like i two years from now i know what calgary roughly looks like yes barring a huge trade of some sort whereas i look at vancouver and i go how on earth do they sign these guys who is going to be moved out of town how much longer do we have at this etc etc calgary

even though they only have nine forward sign 5d uh and that's three goalies and that's not including all the guys you know the young guys they have in the minors and everything Kachuk is signed for two years Gaudreau, Monaghan Backland is signed for four Lucic is signed for three Lindholm is signed for four

Giordano is signed for another two Hannafin is signed for four Rasmus Andersen is signed for five Markstrom just signed for one, two, three, four, five, six and Tanev is obviously signed for four so we know Calgary could

could uh go at the pacific division for a couple years with a core of that it's pretty good you know what they're going to look like they're not going to it doesn't sound like they're going to screw with the team too much i don't know maybe that maybe that was their thinking i don't know i would i would say too um calgary's a good place to live and you have an opportunity probably to win quicker i think i think vancouver's cap problems will continue to be an issue and if I'm Chris Tanev and I don't get a no move clause or no trade clause I'm concerned because next season I'm pretty sure I'm going to get traded because they're going to have to resign Quinn Hughes and they're going to have to reason and who's going to go it's either you buy out Louie

Erickson which I doubt the Aquilines want to do and I don't blame them like who wants to pay a guy not to play for them so you can open up more cap space and spend that money again nobody wants to do that so I mean otherwise everyone has a bloody no trade no move like I'm just like Tanev and Markstrom both got one well of course they did but if I'm gonna become a league well it's gonna become a league or it's quickly becoming a league where the players just decide where they go no matter what right basically within some sort of reason right um well anyway and I mean maybe they should like do you want to be i mean a lot of players get offended when they get traded regardless unless they request it now is a tough climate to you're gonna move us in the middle of

a pandemic are you serious yeah like i could see how a player with a young family that they don't get to see very much like that's that's panic mode right there so i do want some sort of protection and it's going to be like this for a year or two let's get into uh let's get into kellogg's frosted flakes celly of the week although it won't be a celly of the week let's talk about steve a celly of from celly past one of the great cellies of your lifetime i don't know what you're going to pick today i have no idea what would you like to go with celebrate with frosted flakes thank you tone uh chris pronger we've talked about him before yep uh one of my favorite celebrations of his what could it be well he's won gold medals could it be gold medals he's won

a stanley cup could it be from the stanley cup i can't remember scoring the stanley cup maybe just holding the stanley cup adam you know what i remember what do you remember what kind of a player was chris pronger uh kind of a jerk kind of a jerk yeah kind of uh not well liked unless he was on your team and then he was your captain he hit guys he punched guys he grinded his stick up and down your vertebrae like a xylophone but one of my favorite examples of Chris Pronger rough stuff was at an all-star game when he decided that he's going to take his opponent into the boards

and laugh while he's doing it. There's a picture of him laughing maniacally as he takes his opponent into the corner and who is he crushing? Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber smashes him right into the corner and he looks he's got to be 35, 36 when this photo is taken and he could just as easily

be an 8 year old doing bumper cars for the first time he's just the happiest man in the entire world to be body checking Justin Bieber into the corner and it is a celly that is ingrained in my memory forever as being one of pure joy so that is my

celly of the week love it tony steve's great so something you should know bank sorry montreal canadians forward brendan gallagher and habs general manager mark bergevin have stalled well their car they've broken off eric jordan no mark not even mark no that is a lot of not even jared not even jared william guys no install is that for the no gunner braxton jesus no guys before before the offseason started mark bergevin came out and said i want to make brennan gallagher the highest paid montreal canadian he said that at a press conference

why did he say that well because Montreal Canadiens forwards don't make a lot of money if you look at their forward group before Josh Anderson and Tyler Toffoli who also don't make huge dollars they make good money five four five million nobody on that team makes a ton of money Brendan Gallagher has been there beating hard for a long long time what a stupid thing to say though and he said it because he he said it out of respect Mark Bergeman there's a reason he would say that there's a pr angle with that and that is that brendan gallagher is beloved in montreal he's coming into his last year and this guy is a warrior for the montreal canadians he's exactly what if i'm a habs fan brendan gallagher is everything that i want the montreal canadians to

be and he is loved in the dressing room hated on the ice when you got to play against him the kind of guy that any team wants and the kind of guy that teams are now calling about because it came out yesterday that negotiations have stalled. Now, I want to throw something at you. This is from Eric Engels. And this is important as a part of the negotiations because you might be saying, well, listen, why would you grind one of your top guys?

This is a guy that it's like, yeah, this is a guy you actually pay, right? Wow. I'm Eric Engels at Sportsnet.ca. Before Anderson and Toffoli joined the team, he was well within reason to be asking for a seven-year deal much like the one chris crider got for 45.5 million dollars with the new york rangers back in february by the way i wonder with with that chris crider deal if the rangers are probably thinking if we just waited three weeks oh dude if any contract that was signed last season

looks bad i don't think the deal looks that bad to be honest with you No, the Muzzin deal looks good, but like Engvall, 1.25, who cares? Justin Hall's deal. And Justin Hall at two, you go, and now with the cap not going up, I look at both deals like, oh, okay. Oh, boy. Yep. Now, to be fair, too, they signed those deals and proceeded to suck.

That, too. Here's something else for Gallagher to chew on. A deal signed right now might be the best one he's able to secure prior to the 2021-2022 season because his role is likely to diminish this coming season. So this is interesting. You bring in two tough, grinding, scoring wingers. Tyler Toffoli at a really good price, about four and a half million dollars, less than he was making before, but he wanted that fourth year. Josh Anderson, who walked into Habs friend office after they made the trade and said, listen, you're going to give me a one-year deal or you're going

to give me a seven-year deal. I'm not doing anything else. So sign me long-term or I'm walk in and free agency what do you want to do and they didn't want to have Gallagher and Anderson up because obviously they would use each other as leverage for the other right yeah and the fact that they traded for Anderson before they had a deal done is just insane it's insane he can he literally walked in could ask for whatever he wanted he did it and he got it well and all Gallagher has to do all Gallagher has to do is outscore a guy who had four points last year and he automatically goes, I want more as a baseline. And Marc Bergevin offered him more.

Adam, I think you were right for the wrong reasons. Well, hold on. I haven't made my point yet. Okay. My point is, Brendan Gallagher is at, I'm just trying to provide context. My point is, Brendan Gallagher, that was an Eric Engel's point. Brendan Gallagher has lost his leverage. The Montreal Canadiens, assuming Josh Anderson is healthy, and let's say Josh Anderson is 90% of the player he was

when he scored 26, 27 goals. Brendan Gallagher on this team does not have the same role anymore. And in fact, they can survive without him and he becomes a very valuable trade piece at that point. And when you're Marc Bergevin, you've traded P.K. Subban and survived it. You can trade Brendan Gallagher and survive it.

You gotta be wondering what could possibly get you fired. well and and that's that's exactly it and that guy's life he won that deal shea weber is the one is the best player in that deal he did win that deal yeah yep now i had called it but no me neither uh and i think based on where montreal was at the time too and dormi galsh and dormi galsh yep but i want to say that i do think that mark bergevin brought those guys in not only for the canadians to get tougher but also it was a smart play negotiation wise because brennan gallagher has got to be thinking what's my role in this team now and this contract that they may sign or may not sign is going to determine that this contract is going to say here's where he is in

the lineup if he doesn't have one claude julian basically can say well he's going to be here because this is where i want him if he signs a chris crider deal and he's the highest paid montreal canadian forward then all of a sudden he's playing the top line minutes and i'm not i would not be shocked guys if we start to see as the season goes on whenever the hell that season starts wondering if brendan gallagher gets traded and i know that's crazy but i also feel like his role on this team is now diminished and i great on a one-year deal for whoever wants him for whoever who wouldn't want that guy who would have should want him the hab should want him so Well, listen, chances are he signs with the Habs.

I get it. But I think that he's lost his negotiation position. That is my thing. I don't think he's going to get the Chris Kreider deal in the economy we're in. But also, I think just on this team, they have replacements. They can live without him. And that's the hardest part. You got to be the guy they can't live without to get the big bucks.

And I still think on your initial point, you were right for the wrong reasons. So I go, why would Bergevin say that? i want to make him our highest paid player that's not out of respect to brendan gallagher that's it's a quote that could down the line turn fans against him interesting because let's hey you can't blame bergevin for the way that the negotiations have gone he wanted to make him the highest paid player who's the highest pay oh well i mean josh anderson makes 5.5 million dollars i don't make 5.5 million dollars do you make 5.5 million no and he doesn't want to play for our storied franchise le bleu blanc et rouge and like fans are passionate there is a course

on the religion of the montreal canadians at mcgill university man i would love to take that and it's not so gallagher's got to outperform anderson who makes 5.5 and drew and who makes 5.5 so there's two different guys even if he outperforms anderson well who does brennan gallagher think he is drewin drewin was amazing for them before he got hurt he's got to also outperform to foley too like he's got to outperform he has to be now he has to go out and be the montreal canadians best forward which easier said than done we talk about how they're thin but like luck is in an enormous factor philip dineau is a really good player who is also up by the way and because he's a center my mess around and get more brennan gallagher might be the highest paid

if he signs a contract today he might be the highest paid forward for less than a year until they have to sign to know right and before they signed anderson he might have been but i don't think he will be now. I think this is, I think this is Bergevin turning the screws on Gallagher. I think so too. And if I have Mark Bergevin, that's exactly what I do. And if I'm Brennan Gallagher, I might want to look at where I might be more needed, where I might be able to make more money. If, if there's a money concern here, if you want to be a, and I'm not saying Brennan Gallagher doesn't deserve it, but at a certain point, you got to look at your situation and think okay is my role filled here am i going to be able to play my best game here fit matters

especially when you're in that part of your career and you're that developed you know when you're a young player you come in and you try to fit in when you're a player like him the player the team needs to fit you a little do you know what i'm saying yeah you know i he scores and he works hard and he's tough as nails that's that's a plug and play on 31 teams he fits wherever we'll see on the haps this year gonna be very we'll see we'll see mark mark bergevin not afraid to walk away from people let's not forget about radulov and markov as well in the same offseason yeah but that also grind you bit him in the ass at some point well but he survived it yeah but we keep looking at bergevin and his additions and we go okay well he won that trade and he won that one

and he did well here and he drafted well there why are they still 24th and he's gotta stop letting guys walk he's gotta at the end of the day like it's difficult for him to play hardball with gallagher when no free agent wants to friggin sign there lock him up point number 28 on elliot Friedman's 34 thoughts this week because of course uh noted Matthews fan Elliot Friedman noted James Reimer fan Michael Fuda was an excellent add to our draft coverage telling a story about how Mark Bergevin likes to ease tension in the minutes before the draft by making goofy phone calls after Fuda told that story someone reached out with another example Bergevin once phoned then Toronto GM Lou Lamorello right before a Leafs pick and said oh sorry butt dial

and then hung up that's pretty funny that's really good i like that i like that so yeah i mean that's pretty sweet uh mark bergeman seems like a guy you get along with but i surely wouldn't want to go head-to-head with him in a negotiation because the guy say what you want about the decisions he's made and they've been mixed there's no question does not he doesn't budge he just does it or unless you're josh anderson match also don't want to go ahead with him in that because he is jacked there's a few coaches and execs that because of our age we only know as coaches and execs go back and look at mark bergevin highlights well he did throw the puck in his own net once that was funny but if you if you look at like a highlight reel of bergevin or uh you know who

used to be a maniac was alain vignot oh really those guys could beat the brakes off you like street fighter those guys and they played in like one of the most that one of the toughest most psychotic eras of the sport and now you know we haven't seen them uh not in a tie or golf shirt for like the one or two decades that we've been seeing them as a coach or exec but when those guys played they were knuckles on skates sure terrifying yep absolutely um Leafs TJ Brody gonna wear number 78 with the team he said I wanted to stick with the seven I was 79 and junior but I didn't want to be that again it's a number I can't really think of many guys that have gone with or worn it I'm not too particular on what number I am I've always just gone with what's available and

I thought I would change it up and they asked him does he know who he's playing with yet because this is important remember last episode I mentioned it's not necessarily going to be Morgan Riley there's some projections that it's Zach Bogosian and Mark or sorry and uh uh Morgan Riley and then Muzzin and TJ Brody because they'd be a good shutdown pair he said I didn't really ask I knew there was a good chance of playing in the top four and for me that's good enough no matter who I'm playing with I'm going to do the best I can for the team and try to make everyone better listen just be good I mean Jake Muzzin's good too when you said I was like I was I was getting all huffy and then you're like okay what about Muzzin and Brody I'm like yeah all right

all right that was pretty good that was pretty good I don't know listen Morgan Riley put up 72 points in part because in major part because of the power play but also he knew Ron Hainsey was never going to cross the red line yes so if he does play with zach bogosian i'll be mad and then i'll get over it because i'm like okay as long as zach bogosian never crosses center ice but let's not because i was like well then he could play with justin huh on second thought maybe he's better off with bogosian and like who is the better player i would say justin hall but who is the better fit uh i would not put justin hall with another right i think part of the reason justin hall exceeds with jake muzzin is jake muzzin hangs back yeah right justin hall needs

to be with someone who will let him fly which is why the uh dermatologist pairing uh stopped working pretty promptly very quickly yes it doesn't work do you guys want to do some trivia yeah sure so tj brody is going to be the first leaf ever to wear number 78 wow so can you name the lowest number that no leaf has ever worn oh boy no leaf has ever worn it does this does it count in uh how many numbers are there that 99 the one that i haven't been that haven't been worn uh i don't have that number it's like it's like a handful it's like less than 10 you know well 99 was worn by wolf paymont yep um lowest number now does exhibition count uh no no okay no it doesn't go on the record yeah yeah

i'm gonna say i'm gonna say 58 because i remember 59 was worn by a guy named bob ren And Jamie Cyphers, I think. Or was he 56? I'm going to say 58 just because I don't know. Come on, Steve. Just pick one. 49.

All right. 49 has been worn by Brendan Leipzig. Oh! When they were giving them weird numbers. Pretty forgettable year. Adam, what number did you guess? 58. Adam, you nailed it.

Hey! get out of here wow wow all right well guys let's not put that skill or memory that was a dumb luck thing dumb luck very good well i'm glad i'm so glad 58 is the lowest number that has never been worn by a toronto maple leaf well here we go that's what i'm gonna get on the back of my jersey when i have wild put on a number 58 adam wild no one's gonna know no one's gonna freaking know okay um now i i do want to mention that uh there's a couple things in uh 31 thoughts we should hit number two Elliot Friedman has also personally heard

about Joe Thornton in the pitch the courtship is how convenient yeah right tinfoil hat and I bet the earth is flat Elliot anyway and the dinosaurs aren't real and neither is Joe Thornton the courtship is on and the interest is real but one thing I've

always been told about the future Hall of Famer do not underestimate his loyalty to San Jose which that's fair right like but of course now he's just got to decide is are the sharks going to be good and he may need to wait until the season's already begun uh to have an answer there because we all thought they'd be in stanley cup contention yep and they missed the playoffs in a year where only seven teams missed on the 31 thoughts podcast this is 0.25 but also on the 31 thoughts podcast

zach magosian confirmed that he was 12 hours away from a face-to-face meeting with the maple Leafs when David Ayers happened Leafs GM Kyle Dubas canceled saying it made more sense to go with youth than veterans after that result it was a tough time for Bogosian he was cut by Buffalo and looking for a new job boy did he land on his feet and I'm reading directly from Elliot said I learned a lot in the last year he said you can go from the lowest of lows and finish off with the highest of highs he had at least one larger out there Elliot Friedman thinks New Jersey but he chose to be in toronto now um and i saw a few people tweeting about this and i think it was platinum secos who had he said is it not a little concerning that after one game

you would cancel a meeting with a potential free agent like zach mcgosh and i think that's a fair point except that except that game didn't happen in a vacuum it's not like exactly the few weeks leading up to that had been great it was the anvil that broke the camel's back 100 percent yes and And I think, again, I think when you think about that game, we forget what led up to that and the enormous amount of frustration that we'd seen from this team. Lackadaisical bullshit, frankly. It was bad hockey.

There was no heart, no soul. It was just bad. And you know what? This team always sort of hits a low in mid to late January anyway. It was all season, man. They couldn't play 10 consecutive days consistently except for the beginning of Sheldon Keefe's tenure. They really

could. And Sheldon Keefe, to his credit, has a quote that got sort of lost in the sauce at the beginning of this free agency period. He was asked about the additions to the team and who the Leafs could go out and get. And he goes, let's

not lose sight of the fact that this team has more to give. Like this group. And I didn't take it to mean, well, they're young players who are only going to get better because they're getting older and more experienced he meant these friggin guys need to learn how to bring it every single day he might not i'm putting words in his mouth but he's absolutely right this leafs team had more to give that's why yeah what are you so upset about they make the playoffs they score goals

dude that's that i don't know a leaf fan that's not upset well no no i see i see fans of other teams and it's like the it's frustrating because they're not as good as they could be they're not living up to their potential it's the darcy tucker thing from last show i just want to grab them and be like are you serious come on come on guys you you have this opportunity in front of you and they would just dude casimir caskey swole like i wonder how he views his one nhl game oh because it was this great story i remember it was hockey night it was this great story at the beginning of it and his parents were there and isn't this cool and they let him get slaughtered they let him get slaughtered i don't know he was in an nhl game i don't know about the rest of the

lease well and that's that's the problem i think kyle dubas made a really good point when he said that and i think he you know that to to refresh everyone to refresh everyone yeah 100 i mean and And the thing is, Kyle Dubas, you have to remember, he's learning on the job as well. And motivation becomes different once you've made the league. There's no question about that. When you're in the minor leagues, and I mean like the OHL, even the AHL, the AHL is a little bit more like pro.

But when you're a NCAA player, when you're an OHL player, if you don't bring it every night, you frankly will not make it. But if you already have a guaranteed contract and you're making, let's say you're making league men and you're making 700 grand 700 000 a year to play hockey a lot of people would i man a seventh of that would be more than most people see in a couple years and so sometimes people lose their motivation and you probably say well these are pro athletes and they're making millions of dollars no they're still human beings and it's all relative it's relative situation it is relative to your situation and i think

Kyle Dubas made the right call why would you reward bad behavior and that's what he was saying and it sucks for Zach Bogosian at least in that situation it sucked for a minute until Tampa signed him and he won a cup I tell you what David Ayers better never pay for dinner for as long as Zach Bogosian is a leaf yeah that's a good point that's a really good point or the Hurricanes are a franchise you know yeah yeah yeah but someone that guy should be getting a lot of free meals uh put it that way uh he did a lot of people a favor uh the Leafs up there but uh Zach Bogosian got a Stanley Cup out of it and a million dollar contract do we think Zach Bogosian was going to get a million dollars in free agency having been cut by the Buffalo Sabres no no that's tough and

I mean and then everyone forgets about you imagine he doesn't get scooped up before the beginning of the pandemic no forget that forget that imagine he signs with the Leafs yeah right and they and they you know frankly shit the bed like they did and you're just one of the other guys on defense who didn't work yeah you know what I mean like nothing you're signing Kyle Dubas and that's not a slight on Zach Bogosian what I'm saying is we all figured out what Dubas figured out in that moment nothing he does that particular season was gonna fix that team no nothing boy that's gotta be tough as a general manager when you're you're at the trade deadline and you know there's nothing i can do about this team there we're gonna have to ride this this team and hopefully

things turn around but i don't see it well that's why that's why we saw them do all this confusing shit in the bubble like they called up nick robertson to be on the third line what andreas johnson playing in an elimination game and remember i was like i was like i don't know this sort of seems like they're giving him his opportunity to play his last game as a leaf and you're like no it's ridiculous it's an elimination game it was his last game as a leaf william playing at center it was a sink or swim scenario so you guys like to play games play this one The all-star line, when you're running out Tavares, Matthews, Marner, that's because it's like we're throwing our hands up.

You guys just go do your thing. It's all on you at this point, and sink or swim. Kyle Dumas, in February and March, he was preparing like they were going to miss the playoffs. He was. They were going full experimental. You guys just figure it out on your frigging own. um and you know we talked about you know certain teams who didn't even want to be in the bubble the leafs i think from a management perspective we're like all right we'll see where this goes

like you're not going to turn down an opportunity at the stanley cup uh and to play and you know you get to evaluate your talent and see where you're at but i don't think there were any illusions i think i think that and that's what i've been trying to pitch for a long time in terms of strategy you know whether you agree with kyle dubas or not that's fine you know lots of people like what he's doing some people hate what he's doing but what i was trying to comfort people with uh when the leafs lost in the bubble is listen leaf fans if you don't like what you're what you see from this team don't worry kyle dubas agrees and look what he's done except for on cody cc yeah uh something tells me cody cc getting five million bucks isn't happening

something tells me that's not happening and thank god they're not going to circle back because they don't have the money you know what thank god instead they gave it to tj brody would you imagine that guy's asking for what tj brody got fire your agent you're getting bad advice jesus uh honestly he's gonna be lucky to get a pto at this point yes yeah he's gonna have to go to europe or something it's almost bto i'm sure but if he wants to make real money better go to the k or you better go to europe i mean i would assume he could get what bogosian got one one that's a big assumption man i don't know five no no one million i don't know that he could you could have dude travis hammond is still available

that's crazy eh slater cuckoo is still available available i think like why would why would anybody even call cody cc before those guys are signed and this is what day six i think hoffman hoffman there's no way hoffman who is probably the biggest free agent remaining there's no way he hasn't gotten an offer and whatever it was it was a mistake not to sign it yep same thing dad nov it's like remember cody franzen a few years ago no i'm gonna hold out for the big money well that was several weeks into free agency time is moving wicked fast right now in terms a free agency so hold on when you say remember cody cody uh cody franzen we have to context that sorry cody franzen was offered a five-year 25 million dollar extension from the toronto

maple leafs which he turned down i thought it was bigger and he remember it was 525 he ended up getting two times three with buffalo with uh did he yeah with buffalo ew like that's oh that is and they haven't made the playoffs since that that is it's he misread the market but that used to take weeks to do now if if you didn't find a dance partner in the first two days unless you're alex petrangelo where the hell are you going right like someone's gonna mess around i was talking to someone about this the other day some team like columbus is gonna mess around and like sign hoffman and donov and and and because they're gonna be like the only team with any space left my coffin dadonoff um michael grandlin eric holla anthony duclair carl soderbergh cory perry

all available sammy vatnin travis hamannik also available craig anderson doesn't have a team like all the guys you just name are good yeah all of them they're legitimate nhlers all of them and and not not like guy these a lot of those guys are difference makers and they've hurt their next contract too because you just mentioned vatanen oh power play guy who doesn't have a top power play guy right now everyone's got a top power play guy they're at least responsible enough to have that planned so vatanen's gonna go somewhere he'll be the pp2 guy if he gets on the power play at all and then that's gonna hurt his next deal because he won't be getting his cookies what i wonder who couldn't see this coming with anthony duclair i really feel like he i first off

you take a major risk representing yourself and i'm not saying that the senators are particularly organization particularly easy organization to deal with on a business sense uh or easy to play for frankly things are hard in ottawa right now so i understand that i think however at a certain point you found success there secure the bag i think he's i think he'll end up resigning in ottawa they still have to hit the cap floor so what is this thing about him negotiating his own deal is that well he said he wanted to represent himself because obviously then you don't have to pay your three or four percent agency fee um and I don't know maybe he just doesn't trust anyone I don't know issue with that we can ask so we're gonna have Haley Salvian on

next uh and actually in a couple minutes so why don't we ask her I want to talk to her about that obviously we're gonna talk about Danny Ryland Kearney as well stepping down from the NWHL commissioner you know the thing is it's crazy about that is she founded this league and now she's stepping down from it and I wonder what that is all about and part of me wonders and I'm And I ask Haley this, is that what needed to happen for women's hockey to come together? Just a thought. Just a thought. Don't know.

So we'll get into that next. So Haley Salvian on, obviously, sends reporter extraordinaire for The Athletic, as well as one of the people that, frankly, whenever we do anything women's hockey related, I always have to be the one calling Haley. And Haley, to her credit, has spent hours on the phone explaining the intricacies of what's been going on and that's sort of where we want to start because hayley i mean i was frankly when uh when we were interviewing danny ryle and kearney uh this spring i was on the phone to you going um i gotta understand some stuff here that i really don't get and you were gracious

enough with your time to spend like 45 minutes with me going through it all uh but for her based on what we saw in our interview with her and admittedly we're sort of a lighter show we're not going to go like hard hard-hitting news with her um it it was pretty clear that she's a very passionate person very clear that she's a goal-driven person uh you know in everything that she's done in hockey and obviously in in founding a league uh this is a person that's like dog on a bone like let's go um sort of a shock to see her stepping down can you can you give us a little bit of reasoning why you think that might have happened yeah well first i think i'd just say it just kind of shows the commitment that you guys have to covering women's hockey and

doing it well the fact that you did call me and ask me those questions I think it's really awesome that you guys not only give it a platform but you make sure you do your research and you do it properly I think there's a lot of people who probably can't say the same so a hat tip to you guys for putting in that kind of effort um but in terms of Dani yeah I think you you're absolutely right when you say that she's you know that go-getter type personality like she played men's hockey in college. And then she, you know, paid her way through school selling water bottles outside of, you know, the baseball stadium in Boston, I believe, you know, with a sign that said, you know, it's did you know, it's $5 for a bottle of water out there, but it's $2 here.

And she paid her way through school, like sitting outside of the stadium, just selling water. Could sell you the shirt off your back, like she's so great in that sense. But at the same time, There's obviously a lot of, you know, controversy and there's a lot of complicated stuff around the NWHL and that, you know, all of the issues between the NWHL and the PWHPA. But all that's my roundabout way of saying that, yeah, it is surprising that she is stepping down because this is her baby. She founded this league in 2015. This is going to be the first time that Danny Ryland is, you know, there's going to be a commissioner who is not Danny Ryland, Danny Ryland Kearney now. So it is surprising. But from day one, even if you look back to the first press conferences from 2015, the goal of the NWHL was always to start as that private investor league. You know, they have that central pot. Everything's under the league umbrella. They have their sponsorships from the league, et cetera, et cetera.

And the goal was always to make sure that all of the teams were privately owned and privately run outside of the NWHL umbrella. So we saw that happen first with the Buffalo Buttes when the Pagoulas bought them and then handed the Buttes back to the league. And then the Boston Pride were purchased last year, I believe in 2019. And then the Toronto Six team has now come in with private ownership as well. And there's a bit of overlap in the ownership groups between Toronto and Boston. So the goal was always to have all the teams purchased, but obviously only having two of six teams under private ownership five years in heading into year number six.

I think that you could, you know, say that's a bit of a slow burn. It's taken a little bit for them to get to what that goal is. And so I think this move is, you know, it's just a reshuffling in a way to try to fast track what that, you know, ultimate goal has been from day one. It's Dani stepping down and now she's going to be the president of the four teams that don't have private ownership. And she's going to go back to the days of her selling not water, but selling these hockey teams and selling these franchises to private ownership to ultimately get the league to to

where they always wanted to be um so she's not the commissioner but she's still going to have a very important role and yeah she's going to go back to that you know really you know bulldog like i'm going to sell you your own shirt that you're wearing right now kind of attitude so go ahead steve what could you see her becoming the commissioner again one day because you know having her still involved and obviously she's you know very ambitious it sort of sounds like she has a mission she wants to accomplish it and then once she's done with that i would i would assume she would want her rightful however you look at it uh spot as commissioner again yeah i think that's a good question i'm honestly not sure what the answer to that is right now i think the the interim

commissioner uh ty tominia she was a baseball executive she was also a part of that ownership and leadership group with the toronto six franchise that was announced this year that i believe we talked about um she's going to be the interim commissioner she's no longer going to be the chairwoman chairwoman of the toronto six and i i think they're going to give her you know a long you know she's going to get a shot to run this while danny does you know what what she's going be doing as president and yeah i think it's a good question steve but i i honestly don't know what danny's personal goals are you know she just got married you know there's obviously like this is the league that she created and she's you know tried to build up from the from the ground up but

you know like we've mentioned there's a lot of controversy and complicated stuff there and you know lots of hate that i think gets thrown her way so that's just speculative on me i i don't know what Danny Ryland's daily Danny Ryland Kearney's personal goals are but I can see her wanting to be involved I don't know if she would you know force someone to step down to let her take over again but I could always see her being involved in the future of this league for sure is this what needed to happen Haley for women's hockey to come together and I understand you know understanding the past controversy with Danny Ryland specifically, because the NWHL, I mean, she's been the face of the league and there are

people, players such as Hillary Knight, you know, major, major stars in the sport who frankly just will not work with or won't even discuss it. And, or at least that was where we left it in the spring when you and I spoke. So if that's changed, then please correct me. But if, if Danny Ryland steps down here is still involved and I don't know what her ownership stake or you know what she financially has invested in this league and maybe we can get to that as well um is this what we need to have the pwhpa and the nwhl come together because

the nwhl needs the players the pwhpa needs the league yeah that's that's a good way that's a really good way to put it but honestly no i i don't see this being the move that needed to happen to bring things back together. I think if you speak to the players in the PWHPA, and obviously, some of the players have issues with the NWHL and the leadership group and the way the league was run, you know, they've spoken to me about that, you know, in the stories that I've done, I had that, you know, novel that I wrote on the, you know, why they won't play inside 20 years of women's hockey. And, you know, that was a lengthy one. And I got into some of that there. And, you know, part of it was, you know, there was a distrust within the leadership group from the players of the league and the business model specifically.

So obviously shaking up the leadership, shaking up that model, I think it's good. But I don't know how much that changes things because the players have always said that it's more than just about the leadership. Like the issues that they have go deeper than just who the commissioner is. I think it's, you know, we all know what the goal of the PWHPA is. You know, they want a truly professional league and they want the support and the backing of the NHL. Like they're looking for the WNBA, NBA model. And I don't think that these changes with the NWHL, while they are shifting to, you

the teams all you know privately run and owned like we see nhl teams um i just don't think that that's enough to bring these players back as a follow-up to that sorry steve let me just jump in here for a second i apologize the follow-up to that is that a reasonable goal for them to have the pwhpa given what's going on with covid19 we've seen the economics of the league change drastically uh we don't know and we're going to get to the eugene melnick comments about 6 000 people in the stands later on in this interview because we do want to talk to you about that you're smiling already uh but you know i i i wonder is that even going to be possible if we're looking at flat cap situations for the next three years we're probably looking at a

pandemic that lasts minimum all the way through 2021 now maybe longer you know what does that look like for the pwhpa who you know if there's no pandemic i'm sure that the nhl is right there ready to go but at this point there are teams that are struggling to to make the the the floor of the salary cap and i wondered about that the viability of a plan like that yeah definitely i think that's a good question that's something that when i originally did this story and this just shows how long we've been in this you know pandemic life that you know it This was still going on. Like this happened when I wrote this story months and months ago. And that was something that Bill Daly brought up to me when I was asking him about, you know, the players have laid out specifically what they want now. Do you have an updated stance on the NHL's plans for women's hockey? And he said that, you know, he essentially played up our stance is consistent. You know, we don't have a business plan or model in place to have a professional women's hockey league. And then he said, and particularly in light of the uncertainty in the world of professional sports, you know, it becomes even more challenging for the NHL to even plan into the future for their own league, let alone creating a new league.

So it definitely adds a huge wrinkle to what the PWHPA's ultimate goal is. But I still think that they're not just fighting for a WNHL. They're fighting for a place to play that they believe is truly professional. And the NWHL believes that they provide that. And if you ask players with the Boston Pride who have been privately owned, they get more flights than buses. They get better hotels. They get better facilities.

They have a gym. They have personal trainers. they have way more than the leagues or the teams excuse me who aren't privately owned so um perhaps if the nwhl is successful and getting really good owners and all of a sudden the league is looking like the professional league everyone's wanted maybe something could happen i don't want to say that's going to be true um you know without a doubt but i think the other side of that question though adam is you know how is yes danny ryland's an excellent businesswoman and she's very you know she's kind of like a bulldog in that sense but is it the right time to be selling to people to buy

a women's hockey team in the middle of a pandemic I think it kind of is on both sides right you know the the NHL may not be able to create a league right now but the NWHL might not be able to find people who are going to say yeah take my money in the middle of a pandemic with all this uncertainty we don't know when hockey's going to be back but take my money and I'll I'll buy this franchise so I think it's issues on both sides we talked about players needing a league and a league needing players uh they both need games uh have you I'm sure one of your greatest anxieties right now like mine is when the heck are we going to see hockey again people on the ice nwhl nhl do you have any uh update on that uh at least when it comes to the nwhl because I know they had plans

for i think it was late fall or early winter and it's kind of getting getting there yeah so the nwhl released that they were going to push their uh start of the season back till january and the reasons behind that was you know essentially to push the start date back so they can continue to monitor the situation with covet 19 obviously with the toronto franchise now you have cross border travel um and then you also have trips from minnesota to boston and you know some teams fly some teams drive to buffalo etc so um essentially they pushed everything back so they could continue to monitor covid um do they have to delay again will they even be able to travel what are the restrictions um between going canada to the u.s what are the restrictions between the different

uh cities so that was the the main reason why they pushed it back and obviously as we're seeing you know we're kind of in that second wave now um there was no i i don't see how they would have been able to be playing right now um but the the teams i think are still operating like players are still able to practice and essentially what it's given them is an opportunity to have like a longer kind of pre-season training camp ish you know lets everyone get on the ice although i'm not totally familiar with what the restrictions um and the policies are for for those practices and how many people are allowed on the ice uh i i'm i don't really know the answer to that right now um but the nwhl's plan as of right now is to be back in january the pwhpa i think they've had

a couple of games um because i've seen the streams but uh that they've had a bunch of technical difficulties on that you know people haven't really been able to watch um but those are more like inter-squad games or um not you know they're not having the big showcases because you can't host a big event with you know hundreds or a thousand people right now so it's really been difficult I think like women's hockey is basically at a standstill um NCAA women's hockey you know we don't know what's happening with the NCAA next season I know some of the men's teams are going in a bubble and Omaha I think is where that is probably going to be with the NCHC but women's hockey hockey like a lot of stuff is just kind of paused right now and it's just going to be

kind of waiting and watching to see if if they're going to be allowed to to play and how different is it going to be this might not be information that the public is privy to but do you have like an estimation on how much the franchises are valued at and what they're trying to sell them at like a rough number that's a good question i'm i honestly i don't know the answer to that um i don't know how much they would say that that is worth um i don't even know how they would come up with that value if i'm being honest but that's actually that's actually a really good question and uh like probably a good story that i should you know maybe do now that i'd love to know i would like some credit on that story please thank you free subscription let's go by heli's alvin and

jesse blake too byline on it yeah there you go something that's more than you deserve jesse um Oh, I know. Haley, obviously so much going on with the senators this year. But, you know, as Steve likes to say, when you hear owners talk, it's rarely good. And Eugene is a guy, Eugene Melnick is a guy you hear talking a lot. Maybe a little less so during last season, which was good. But the Financial Post came out with an interview with Eugene Melnick today.

And Eugene Melnick is a dynamite quote on the worst of days. But this one in particular caught a lot of people's eyes. And Jesse actually was nice enough to transcribe it into our messenger. So I'm going to read from that. He said, I can assure you that even the Ottawa senators who don't have a great record of bringing fans in over the past few years will have a sellout crowd. And what he's talking about is next season. And what he's talking about is allowing 6,000 people in to the stadium to eat, drink and be merry and enjoy the game. Now, Canada has been far stricter about our COVID policies than Americans have.

However, you get the sense reading this article that, you know, A, he said we have to break even. 6,000 people would allow us to break even. Number two, you get the sense that Eugene's not just pulling that out of the air. It seems like this is a discussion that he is repeating, a discussion he was a part of, potentially an inside look into what is being discussed with the NHL owners currently. Can you give us your thoughts on, you know, first off, maybe where that came from, and second, what the chances of it happening are? I mean, is Eugene Melnick just being Eugene, or is this a thing that is floating around

and we're really going to get ready to see something like this? Yeah, well, I think that if he has, you know, everything in specifics that way, I would assume that's definitely something that's being talked about at what level. I'm not sure, because I think that I always look to the discussions that are happening in junior hockey. You know, they're not allowed to have any fans. They're not even allowed to have body checking and fighting, fighting I can understand, but the, the no body checking, the no fans,

the U S teams can't come over. So if that's the discussions that we're having in Canada and Ontario about just junior hockey i don't know how you're going to execute that on a larger scale in the national hockey league um obviously the arenas are bigger so there's better chances of social distancing we are seeing some nfl teams who were allowed to have like a certain percent of their capacities to have fans in the stands you have to wear a mask the whole time but you're outside so it's a little bit i mean even you're outside so it's different like it's just it's weird and i and i think um if there are legitimate conversations happening about how fans are going to be allowed inside

the building then i think that's great um but i just don't know if that is going to be a realistic thing i think it's probably fair to think that the league has looked to start the season january 1st at the earliest at this point as a way to continue to delay until letting fans in the building um because i think you know gate revenue is not a whole that's not the whole pie but it's definitely a significant piece of it, especially for teams where like, you know, the Senators last year, I think they had just over 12,000 fans in the building. You know, money's going to be tight when you can't get fans in the building pre-pandemic. And if you have zero fans in a pandemic, you know, I can only imagine the financial situation. But, you know, that's kind

of me rambling on to say, like, I have no idea if that is a legitimate thing that's going to be allowed i think it's an interesting conversation but again it's just gonna be you know we don't set the timeline eugene melnick doesn't set the timeline like nobody sets these rules and schedules other than like the covid like i know that sounds so silly but like we can try to say that this is our plan and this is what we're gonna do but look we're still in it it's been seven months since i've been into a hockey rank right sorry if that's really sad and depressed oh no it's it's all really sad it's all relative right i mean yeah how can we be sad at this point hayley if you're anything like me

you like to close your eyes and pretend like everything's going to be fine and there's going to be a season going for i need to get out of the house oh yeah like so going forward with that mindset because like you said we don't know we have no idea Sens have a new starting goaltender what was your first reaction when you saw that they went out and got Matt Murray and then also extended him yeah I think um and I will say like I do think there's going to be a season um I don't want to sound all doom and gloom like there's going to be no sports but um you know we saw what happened with the bubble the playoffs were really successful and I think the conversations we were having before then was like there's no way they're going to be able to do this so I do have faith

that you know we'll figure something out and we'll have hockey and we'll have you know life back at some point but in terms of Matt Murray I think it's uh at first I didn't really quite understand you know they said that Anders Nilsson was you know doing better you know Nilsson and Hoberg was always going to be the goalie tandem for next year um so at first some of the rumors about matt murray at first i didn't really think it made a lot of sense but then when you kind of started to read between the lines about things obviously there was major questions about the health and of allenders nelson and we now know that he is still experiencing post-concussion symptoms from the concussion he suffered in december when he exerts himself too much back

home in sweden so i the senators needed to go out and get somebody and nelson only has one year left on his deal and hoberg you know he really only has he has under 30 nhl games um in his career so you you can't have marcus hoberg you know rushed into a full-time starting position you can't rush one of the younger prospects into a backup or a starting position if marcus hoberg falters so they really needed to go out and get somebody and i think matt murray has the potential you know the matt murray in ottawa has the potential to be a really great fit i think if you look at you know everything that matt murray went through and it really roller coaster five years of his career in pittsburgh um you know he's only had one season with a sub 900 save

percentage he's not a bad goaltender i know he's had a couple of you know iffy years but if you look at a lot of the personal stuff he's been through too you know his dad passed away he was you know i i don't doubt that penguins fans liked matt murray but at the end of the day he was the guy who took Marc-Andre Fleury's spot they protected Matt Murray over Marc-Andre Fleury and he took the brunt of that from the fan base he's not going to have that in Ottawa he's going to be welcomed as the new starter and you know there's not going to be the same kind of weight of expectation it's not going to be that you're not flower you know why didn't you play like flower whatever he would have had that save so I think the expectations are going to be way less

on matt murray and it's a fresh start um like i said it was a bit of a roller coaster for him you know the back-to-back stanley cups is a crazy way to kick off your nhl career coming out of the american hockey league and you know it's been a bit of a downhill slide for him the last couple seasons but you know i think if there's you know a coach um and a team where he could have a really good redemption story i think the senators have shown that they can be a really good place for guys to to really revitalize their careers because they're just given the space and the time to do it you're not going to get benched if you make a mistake in Ottawa because they're not going to be a very good team next year likely I think they're going to do better but it's the same

thing with Anthony Duclair um you know in Columbus or Arizona if you make a mistake in the defensive zone there you're on the bench because you just made a big mistake and it cost him a point in the standings but in Ottawa DJ Smith is going to let you go and play your game he's going to hone you win if you're making some mistakes and not playing his system but by all intents and purposes you're going to be given a really good shot to to show what you can do and and really find your game and i think that's no different for matt murray uh do you think that anthony declare has made a a bad choice in a representing himself and b uh i don't know what the senators offered him as a as an extension. I'm not sure if you've got any insight on that, but he's still unsigned and

he's a top 10 unsigned forward at this point, but not top five. And we've got pretty, some pretty big names out there that remain unsigned, including Mike Hoffman and the Dawn off as well from Florida. I mean, those guys probably go before he does what's Anthony declares future. And does he just still end up in Ottawa? Yeah. I think that's a good question. And that's certainly been a big story here and i think it's going to be one where we continue to see that narrative change as it goes on and i wrote that in my piece last week you know it's it's going to be hard to know if he made a mistake here and it's starting to look maybe a little bit like um you know mistakes were made but at the same time um i don't know what his personal reasoning was for

wanting to represent himself um i don't know why he decided that he wanted to do that i know that it's probably not the best idea to represent yourself in probably the weirdest and you know most difficult offseason to get paid as a free agent um we're seeing people get squeezed we're seeing really good players not get qualified more than ever this year I think having an agent to help you wade through that would have been very helpful but again you know I don't know what the motivation was for Anthony to to do this you know if there was something at play that you know he he's feeling empowered and he wants to do this for himself and you know finally prove his value and prove his worth and fight for what he believes he deserves and i think you know that could be a

really good reason for that so i don't want to well i think that it's a bad idea to represent yourself and like i said a very strange off season i don't want to cast dispersions when i don't exactly know um you know why he's approaching it this way in terms of what's going to happen i think like i said this is a really weird off season um for the senators i know that they were afraid you know i say afraid i don't know if that's the right terminology but i think the senators like most teams were fearful of getting locked into a high arbitration award um when you know the senators aren't cap strapped by any means but i think you could call them a cash strapped team so you know really every penny counts and when you look at what anthony duclair

has done the last couple seasons you know he he scored 23 22 goals last season the year before he was a couple goals and a couple points shy of another 20 point 40 point season and he was a 20 goal scorer in arizona so while he had a couple of up and down seasons he's still almost a three time 20 goal 40 point guy so i think the senators could have gotten locked into a pretty high arbitration award at between 3.5 and 4 million so i think we can assume that they're uh that their offer on the table was less than that. Certainly, because the walkaway number in arbitration for Duclair would have been around 4.5 million. So we know that they were offering less than the walkaway number. I think I saw some speculation that he was offered, you know,

a foreign change. And I was like, well, that doesn't make sense. Because my understanding is that the walkaway number is 4.5. So you wouldn't offer somebody the same thing that they would have gotten in arbitration so my understanding is that this is also the second straight year that this has happened to Anthony Duclair in the sense of being told if you go to arbitration we are not going to give you a qualifying offer um so he didn't go to arbitration last year he signed a one-year 1.65 million dollar contract scored 23 goals scored 40 points had a great season showed everyone hey I can play I'm an NHL all-star he probably went back to the table and said okay that was my show me year I showed you like I want to be part of

this core um something obviously would have happened there the offer that on the table was not what Anthony Duclair believed he deserved and I think that's just me assuming and imagining what that situation would have been um you know I just believe that in my understanding of it is that you know it's two years in a row that Anthony Duclair felt undervalued and you know he wanted to to get what he believes he's worth um again it's difficult to do that in this kind of a season but you know i obviously wish the best for for anthony and i hope he gets you know what he deserves because i think he's a hell of a hockey player um and definitely i feel like i'm so rambly like why do i talk so much um well you're a guest on the show we were hoping you might talk

we want to hear what you think that's why to answer the final part of your question i would say um you know i i asked pierre dorian if um you know he anthony duclair had circled back and and if there's an opportunity for him to circle back and he said that you know they're never going to close the door on anything um so we'll see what happens that was my next question so because i i think he ends up back there yeah it does feel that way i i think if he does though um if he does circle back um i don't know i i feel like it would probably be at less than what the original offer would have been that's what i would think it's like well we offered you this you left you didn't want it you thought you

deserved more and you didn't get anything so we're gonna knock you down a couple of a couple of bucks but do you think he gets term on a deal like that i don't know because i think that for anthony term and i think term and dollar would have been equally important because in his statement he said that he expressed his desire to be a part of this core in ottawa so i would assume that saying hey i want to be part of this core group that he was asking for some term um as well as as the money that he believes he's owed so uh i don't know the i could have seen like arbitration would have been a one to two year deal and the senators wanted to avoid a one to two year deal with a high arb award so

i don't know what that offer on the table was i haven't been able to find out um but we'll see we'll see what happens um like i said i i just hope that anthony lands somewhere and he can continue to play his best hockey uh lastly uh hayley just at least lastly on the senators um the they seem to be jubilant jubilant after round one uh of the draft in fact pierre dorian said uh specifically that it had changed the direction of the franchise forever is that what you came away with uh or is that just an excited gm who's pumped about the picks that he made Also, I believe one of their picks is, is it Stutzel that broke his arm today?

Am I wrong? Yeah, it was Tim Stutzel broke his hand. So I think he's going into surgery on Thursday. So tomorrow. So he'll be okay. And what are your thoughts on the picks? And do you think that it's changed the future of the franchise?

I really liked, I know a lot of fans maybe weren't happy with some of the selections that were made, especially maybe at number five. Some of the later picks, I think a lot of, you know fans were kind of like who are these players they're not ranked on this draft board that high I don't think that was just Pierre I don't think that was Pierre showboating I think that this draft we all knew heading into it was going to be you know franchise altering for this organization and you know they added a future number one center I personally believe and from

what I've been told that Tim Stutzla is a number one center in the National Hockey League um so not only did they get a number one center which is the hardest position to you know groom and like you're gonna get it in the draft because no one's trading you their top center you don't get a number one guy by a trade or free agency it's just when you get when you hold on to them so they got a really difficult position um to fill a hole they also added um who i believe is the top defensive uh player in this draft um sorry my phone's blowing up today um they got a really really good defenseman in Jake Sanderson I wonder why uh-huh Jake Sanderson's defenseman um playing at University of North Dakota he's gonna uh do really I think he's gonna be a really

good player um they have Thomas Chabot on the on number one and then they're gonna have a really good shutdown guy in Sanderson and then some of their other picks you know Ridley Gregg I think you know that's a that's a good style that they like you know he had a really funny quote someone asked him you know would you compare yourself to brad marchand and he was like yeah maybe but just not as greasy uh which i really appreciate um super good like gritty but like really high skilled guy kind of like a brady kachuk type so um you know i think the moves that the senators did if you look a lot of the guys they picked in the later rounds are big they got a big goaltender They got a couple more big defensemen. Tyler Clevin is a guy if you watch any Tyler Clevin, you know, he's he just destroys people with the body.

And, you know, he's a good you know, he's a good defenseman as well. So the senators I saw really buying into the building from the back end and out. They added some really solid pieces to make them, you know, harder to play against. And I just yeah, I think it's I think it was a really good job for the senators. obviously it's easy to criticize when you have you know a you know analytics or your draft boards but we don't know until these guys develop like we have no idea what's going to happen with these players I think look at the like just speaking to the Leafs I was talking to somebody about this before like look at what people are saying about Kyle Dubas's draft and you know oh he didn't get

anyone that's like over five foot ten um but look at the 2016 drafts you know they drafted austin matthews and a bunch of like monster players who's actually playing from that draft year other than austin matthews exactly so we can talk about how good or how horrible a draft is but we have no idea until these players actually get to the professional level and we can see what they look like but for right now um i think that this and i mean the senators have a really great scouting staff and pierre dorian was a scout for a decade before his decade running the draft in ottawa so if there's something that i trust when pierre dorian is talking about something being very good it's his scouting and his drafting ability so we gotta wait and see and but i i

personally think that it was a good draft um sorry to talk about the 2016 draft the guy who's played the second most games for the Leafs after Austin Matthews from the 2016 draft. Hulking, 5'10", 181-pound Adam Brooks. Oh, wow. He's in that draft class. And they keep talking about Korshkov like he might come over and play for the Marlies.

Or has he? Has he played for the Marlies yet? Yes, he has. I mean, if there's a Marlies to play for, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, Haley, we really appreciate your time. We understand the reasons why your phone is blowing up. uh but kick-ass job as always we love having you on and uh and we hope that there's many more of

these appearances we have no idea when hockey's going to be back so we might just be hitting you up when we're thin on content too you know it's fine talk we can talk about how i honestly didn't believe that steve actually had a child like i still feel bad when i saw those tweets i was like is that real like that and it looked like a doll to be fair it did it did can you imagine if i was psychotic enough to be like april fool's in june i have a kid uh steve i don't think hailey had to imagine it apparently not that's funny we can't beautiful thing for steve like oh i might like i have a child like there's life in this world and Mike is the real you know I'd forgotten that happened Haley that's amazing so listen thank you Haley Salvin of The Athletic thank you so much for

your time today we really appreciate it thanks for having me guys well that was fun uh an eventful day for Haley an eventful day for us and thank you so much for listening uh we really appreciate it as always we're gonna be back on Sunday this week I realized you know with Canadian Thanksgiving and kind of messed up the schedule for all of our American listeners. Thank you so much for hanging in there. American, Swedish, Australian, British, Finnish, wherever you're from.

Nobody celebrates Thanksgiving as early as Canadians do. And in fact, we're the only continent that has Thanksgiving, really. So thank you so much for listening. Shout out to American Thanksgiving that's coming in six weeks, which is, by the way, the better time to have it. I'll give the Americans that.

None of that was necessary. Listen, context is key. guys let me just adam tell me about the history of thanksgiving yeah no that's about the pilgrims i'm gonna go to sleep now bye i love you guys we'll see you the steve dangle podcast follow the guys on twitter at steve underscore dangle at adam w y l d e and at jesse blake connection complete