The Steve Dangle Podcast - Allan Walsh | September 9, 2021

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, join our Discord! Visit sdpn.ca (00:00), Allan Walsh joins the show to talk about THE SWORD, winning the cup, Marc-André Fleury stories, and ending the cap (09:00), a few words on Jimmy Hayes (50:00), Pierre Dorian gets a contract extension from the Senators, (55:00), Drake Batherson gets a contract and how have more players not received offer sheets (58:00), RFA and UFAs who are still un-signed (1:14:00). - Apologizes again for the audio troubles this episode. Originally aired: September 9, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/JtpJOv9CAJw Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Visit this episode's sponsors: https://nba.com/ https://manscaped.com/ https://www.indochino.com/ https://betterhelp.com/SDP https://www.risescience.com/ Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

S-D-P-P The Steve Dangle Podcast With your hosts, Steve Dangle, Adam Wylde, and Jesse Blake Let's go! It was the tweet that summed everything up about last episode Yeah You wanna repeat it? In front of Adam, MacBook

In front of Jesse, MacBook In front of Steve, pile of candy So I decided to spell S-D-P with it That's great And nobody can see that. It just looks like a pile of candy. It still looks like a pile of candy. No!

It doesn't look down on the table. We don't have an overhead cam. We need to fix this. We have to fix this. Not in my studio. It was a poor plan. Joining us in about five minutes will be Alan Walsh of Octagon, noted agent of Marc-Andre Fleury,

and agent of 25 straight Stanley Cup winning players on teams, I think. he's had clients win the cup 25 straight times yeah wow it's pretty cool right i want to i want to run down the list oh yeah does he have does he have the list give us your top three alan who are your favorites what's it like to be bored of the stanley cup oh yeah right or to win it 25 times by proxy and never have your name on it hmm what is the most stabbed in the back you've ever oh we'll be talking to him about that rumor has it he saw the clip so uh that that's gonna be something fun so again like i said five minutes from right now alan walsh which will be joining us we're kind of excited about this i love uh i love his twitter account because it's just like

here's my opinion with a baseball bat like there's no is he gonna reveal who did the actual photoshopping of the photo let's ask him okay why wouldn't we ask him like did he ask his nephew or something i don't know because it wasn't it wasn't him yeah like jesse if you were to take a stab at redoing it do you think you could do a better job probably i did the one of you oh when you're leaping at the like the the docks there and you got stabbed yeah yours had like blood coming out and stuff you made that in like five minutes yeah while we were on the show allen's was disney there was no blood right right in disney like in star wars even there's like very little blood there's almost no blood yeah but no not in that situation no not with vegas i don't know well placed in the

play i can't i can't wait we're also um later on in the show uh we're going to talk about guys that you are shocked it's shocking that these people are still available ufas and guys that it's kind of shocking that they're still unsigned uh rfas so top eight rfas top 10 ufas surprising amount also it will be time for our way too early predictions so these are the predictions that we ask you not to hold us to that you'll hold us to anyway about divisions and how the how the thing's gonna play out and who's gonna win what award it's gonna be fun we're gonna get into it it's gonna listen not a whole lot frankly happened between cockney emmy and now no but i i do like that there's all these rfas right yeah that's big usually we'd spend all summer talking about that

but everyone in hockey collectively decided actually no after last season and heading into this one no in august you leave me alone and they've all decided that this year august is six weeks yeah yes this year right august is six well he started late all the insiders are still at the cottage what's going on here all yeah back to work pedersen i don't know i've never heard of i don't know who that is he retired years ago don't know brady how many kachuks are there that's too many kachuks they're they're all ignoring that yeah until they need to right which god isn't that the way to do it instead of talking about it all summer we do it just before camp like uh-oh they're not signed yet no no let's i want to talk about mitch marner through july oh

god and august we did that to ourselves it's we did to ourselves we did we did but that was the nothing to talk about there was nothing to talk about so we talked about the nothing right 100 this is way better yeah i i agree so this is there's going to be a lot on the show it's going to be very exciting and a couple of uh and a lot of questions obviously you can join our discord community through sdpn.ca uh where are we at now what are the numbers we passed 4 000 people hey yeah it's incredible it's an incredible number it's uh it's it's more than i expected for sure I think what's been cool about it, too, is the idea generation. It's become a bit of a petri dish.

We're like, why don't the guys try this and that and this and that? All terrible. All of them are awful, but we appreciate the fact that you tried. One day it'll be good. Yeah. Maybe when you're better. Maybe you need to be better first. It was the best of times.

It was the blurst of times. That's the discourse. So, yeah, no, I think there's actually an idea that I want to run by you guys a little bit later when it comes to History Corner. So maybe we'll talk about that a little bit later. But there's some other stuff in there too that's really great And remember if you want to ask questions for the show We figured we'd centralize it and put it on Discord So there is a thread there

And if you haven't gone on Discord yet It's really cool I didn't know what it was and it took me about 20 minutes After Jesse gave me a little tutelage There's something for absolutely everybody Yes 100% Hockey, basketball, baseball There's an LGBT one

There's a Red Dead one Channel I know I call them ones the the discord itself is called a server and then each little thread that you talk in is called a channel um see that's three words the one server thread and channel the one channel you said thread i said the server you talk in is a channel i don't get it the one the one channel that's absolutely dead on our discord chicago white socks fans why is that there's one comment of all the of all the baseball teams of all the hockey it is the least commented on in the white

socks are having a great year they it is there's one person from froggy j that is the only person that commented on it and that was way back on august 24th there is nobody in the white socks thread so if you are a white socks fan please join our discord because froggy j can't sit there alone barack we know you listen get in there and leave a comment their agent uh wasn't who's their agent is like an ancient and he's like it's tony tony larusa uh their manager yeah sorry that's their manager i don't know so the white socks on the mind yeah i did if it's tony larusa that's uh that's funny i think it's tony larusa yeah because he's like 70 yeah it is the funny run out this year probably oh no no no that's actually a player uh yeah but tony larusa um uh obviously

one of the greatest managers of all time but i think he got pulled over for dui uh before the season started, and he said to the police officer, do you know who the fuck I am? And it's just not... Did they? They... I don't know that they did, which has to sting, right? Yeah, also, you're under

arrest. Yeah, yeah, you're 75 and under arrest for a DWA, or DUI. 76, and the quote was, I'm a Hall of Famer. Oh, no. That's worse. That's what he told the police officer. yeah all right pose for your picture oh that's do you see my ring was also in the things he yelled

at to at the police officer boy do you see my ring uh asked by the officer when he was talking about larissa replied uh i'm a hall of famer baseball person i'm legit i'm a hall of famer brother you're trying to embarrass me oh no that sounds like a drunk rich guy trying to get out of a deal a hall of famer brother man this is not where i saw the show going no no it's it's i mean you have to be belligerent to say stuff like that yeah but part of me also wonders like we've all said really stupid things when we're drunk that we don't mean but i feel like that's the stupid thing you say when you're drunk that you do mean oh yeah you know oh yeah like we like there is there's the part of it you're like okay that person doesn't mean it but like the more you

find out about Mel Gibson, the more you realize he meant everything that he said. The show is so dark. You know what? Sign Elias Pettersson. We do need it. I changed my mind. Tony La Russa is sitting on the bench going, I am a Hall of Famer.

Every day. Every damn day that crosses his mind. Well, actually, Coach, you know what I think? And he just sits there and he goes, maybe you're right. But inside he's screaming, I'm a Hall of Famer, brother! Did you see this written? hall of fame i'm a what was it baseball guy yeah is that what he said baseball guy

i'm a big name baseball guy i'm a hall of famer baseball person baseball person okay all right hey jesse just a heads up we're trying to bring alan on it says host has another meeting in progress that's the message he's getting okay let's uh let's pause and solve that okay all right and we got to welcome on we got it sorted out the tech the tech side of it welcoming on alan walsh finally we've got you on the show alan how you doing welcome all right hi guys how are you it's good to finally meet you yeah yeah so alan you know first off i want to ask have you and steve you guys have never met before nope first time we're meeting right here right now Okay, so then this is – I love this question for real hockey people.

What is your impression of and how would you describe Steve Dangle just on the street if somebody asked you, you know, Steve Dangle, what would you say about Steve? What do you know about him? Funny, opinionated, loudmouthed, hopeless Leafs fan. There it is. That's pretty much summed it up. Very fair.

That's very fair. and and specifically you saw the sword clip from last year so yeah context for this you remember that Alan was the one that when Marc-Andre Fleury and and Robin Leonard were put into a bit of an awkward position with the Vegas Golden Knights who was going to start who wasn't uh and we can we can talk about that Alan but Alan put out the Marc-Andre Fleury sword in the back the DeBoer sword into the back of uh so we talked about that and at the time Alan I mean really it was it was sort of like what is what is he doing are you sure is this what you want to do and so you you actually ended up somebody sent you that clip yeah somebody sent me the clip uh a week or two

after it aired and said hey check this out and i watched it and i laughed my ass off good that's good great good so i i mean it was when i first uh when i first spoke to alan it was like i was like oh god i hope he doesn't hate us for that right it was one of those where you realize you're Like, yeah, man. So that's me now. Yeah. Well, don't worry. So he agreed to appear on the show.

Alan, like, I mean, I, I mean, that's one of the things that, that I think probably is one of the most misunderstood situations that you've personally been involved with. Um, because like, I mean, we saw recently, and I think this surprised a lot of people, um, uh, Robin Leonard tweeting really friendly things about you. Uh, and like when he was talking, he was on, I was sitting on an airplane. and he's like ask me anything can you from from your perspective explain what happened last year for anybody that doesn't know and and i guess a closer view of it because you were the one that ultimately ended up tweeting the picture yeah well i i would say that just to begin you know

you guys i never take what someone says about me seriously or to heart uh if you're going to be in this business and your sole focus is representing players the only thing you're concerned about is doing what's best with your client and if other people don't agree with you if other people want to criticize you that's the seat I've chosen to put myself in and I don't lose one second sleep over it at all. So you got to understand that's the perspective that I come to, uh, in any situation I ask first and foremost, what is in the best interest of the client? And that's the only thing that I consider. Uh, what I'll say about that situation is this, uh, number one, it's over uh and and there is a resolution there probably an inevitable revolution resolution given

uh vegas's decision to sign robin to a five-year deal um over overall you know it was still a shock when we got the news because we read it on twitter mark had no heads up from anyone that he was going to be traded and hey he's a big boy it is what it is but one would expect a a face of the franchise player to be treated with a little bit more respect than that but the end of the day it is what it is i i have to ask you earnestly because i don't know the answer to this question do you remember the name of the guy mark andre flurry was traded for yeah it was uh uh hard to hard to cut her to kynan right was it okay i do remember that i believe you i believe because i don't remember did you ever in a million years so

it seems like you said like a foregone conclusion or likely anyway that vegas had i don't want to say chosen sides but they had committed to robin leonard long term did you ever in a million years think flower would win the vesna and then be traded for a guy who's never going to play a game for vegas i i knew that last year flower was a man on a mission the he he was uh his entire career has been marked by incredible highs and some very noteworthy lows. And I think after not being given the net in the bubble during the playoffs, he came back last year with a lot to prove in his own mind and enjoyed every minute of it. But I would say this, And this is something that often gets overlooked. You know, I know Robin Leonard, and Robin Leonard knows me. And Robin and I have talked directly about the whole situation. He understands, Marc-Andre Fleury understands, and the people close to me understand.

This had nothing to do with Robin Leonard. So many people tried to make the narrative Marc-Andre Fleury against Robin Leonard. The truth is, behind the scenes, these guys are incredible friends with each other. Robin Leonard was unbelievably supportive last year, the whole season with Mark. He was incredibly supportive during the playoffs last year with Mark when he wasn't playing. I was blown away by what a great teammate he was behind the scenes in every way, in every single way. This was about Marc-Andre Fleury and the way the organization was treating him the things they had said to him the promises they made to him and the promises that were broken so i have to know from your end what was the immediate reaction uh from

well twitter uh from mark andre and from the vegas golden knights from the sword tweet you're really focused on that one tweet aren't you i promise i'm done with it after this i promise i'm done with it after this but listen alan this is like this is like asking for the same present for christmas for three straight years and it finally shows up under the tree so i i have to ask you about it and then i promise i'm done with it after this yeah who did the photoshop too that too i need to know which immediate relative made that photo i just want you i just want you to know steve those photoshop guys are still out there and i can always uh you know have one put up about you if you keep going

nothing would mean more to me like oh nothing would make me happier nothing in the world put a big walsh on the sword and it's just yeah get get the the cat the fierce cat photo right and then just big big sword behind it i like that i like that so the what grief did you get after that do you yeah do you get grief from gms about stuff like that or is it something where they just don't even call you here's the thing about gms that's interesting most of them follow me on twitter you know many of them have burner accounts and they use Twitter mostly to get breaking news and to follow various people. And the way that I know that, I mean, I don't really talk to a GM

directly about Twitter, but every once in a while I will tweet something and literally within 10 seconds, I'm getting a text message from a GM responding to the tweet. Sometimes it's about Bruce Springsteen. Sometimes it's about one of my clients. Sometimes it's about something else that I've tweeted, but I've been able to glean over the years that there's a number, a vast majority of GMs that are following my tweets and will respond to me one-on-one, never angry, never, you know, I can't believe you tweeted that. It's more of a conversational kind of message that comes back. And I think that I'm cognizant of that. I'm also, despite what you think about that one tweet, fairly careful about what I do put out there. I'll never put out anything regarding

a conversation that I have with the GM under the cloak of privacy and violate that confidence. you know there's certain things i won't do and i need gms when they speak to me to know that they don't have to qualify the end of the conversation by saying um by the way that's just between us and not for twitter who was the first gm to text you after you posted about seeing stevie wonder live um it was a assistant gm from a west coast team okay so i got i got five or six i got five or six messages from gms the first one was from a west coast gm and steve's referring to you saw him playing harmonica in the lobby lounge in santa monica on this past saturday yeah saturday night i was out with my wife we have a another couple who were celebrating

the 50th we had five or six couples together we were on the beach santa monica we're staying uh uh at a hotel uh right on the beach after a great dinner we're sitting in the lounge there's live music i forgot what live music was like uh given the pandemic sitting there watching a three-piece band and all of a sudden a very familiar figure starts walking with a handler leading him to the front where the singer was singing pulls out a harmonica and starts playing and it was stevie wonder that is so cool the video is up on on uh you can follow walsh a on uh on uh on twitter and here's the thing with with with alan is that you know alan i i watch your twitter account i've been dying to get you on this show for years because we i i love the way that you form your opinions

and we know that we don't there's no gray area with alan walsh you know where you stand on things uh but before we get to the hard-hitting hockey takes how many times have you seen bruce springsteen on broadway or just bruce springsteen in general uh springsteen in general my first show was on the darkness on the edge of town tour 1978 montreal forum and i have seen him alive. I lost count probably 120 times total all over the world. Wow. That's amazing. Just Russ Springsteen alone. That's crazy. There's one thing I want to know specifically because Adam beforehand was telling us that for 25 straight years, one of your clients has won the Stanley Cup. Is that true? One of my clients or a client that I'm associated with

through Octagon. A lot of times they've won the cup on the road. So there's a pretty fast out after a celebration in the dressing room. I've participated in many dressing room celebrations with the cup i've been on the ice with the cup several times with clients and a few times uh clients have won the cup on home ice and that's a whole different animal why is that so different what is it i guess because they get to stick around and party all night and you get to stick around and party all night okay and there you go there you go well and and so it was this year forgive me if i'm wrong jan ruda was your client on the lightning that that won correct correct and i gotta ask because you've seen so many cups and so many parties the last two years

with the lightning winning i know last year was a little bit more muted than this year can you talk about the differences between what it was like having a client win in like 2019 versus 2020 versus 2021 i mean like i'm sure in 2020 you're probably celebrating at home 2020 celebrating at home 2021 uh you know you're in the rink and it's full and you're kind of looking around saying you know there literally nobody here wearing masks you think about that as you're sitting and watching the game um i realized sitting uh in vegas because i was at um the series vegas played in and those buildings were their building was full how much i missed being in a loud noisy full arena i really missed it it's it's it's

great watching games on tv and during the season i've got four screens uh i do picture in picture I can split the screen. I've got eight games going on. I can follow 16 teams. But when you're actually going to the games, the atmosphere, the smells, the excitement. I mean, at the end of the day, I've been a hockey fanatic since I was four years old, born and raised in Montreal. I love the game.

And it was something that I really missed. um being back in the dressing room with you know jan rudo who i've represented now for for several years but in octagon we also represent players like ryan mcdonald and pat maroon uh luke shen you know there really is a bit of a octagon family feeling being back there uh with the agents that i work closely with my associates uh who represent those players and we were all together with the players with their families with the cup it was it was special but there was still a bit of a muted feeling to the celebration um as opposed to pre-pandemic when uh people were sending me pictures of david perron uh on stage drenched in some bar um you know going going out

of his mind for a week i mean he rivaled ovi in in in stanley cup celebration is is there a particular stanley cup celebration that you've got to experience that that you're willing to share uh that's that you're fond of that's near and dear to your heart i think the 2000 uh 2009 penguins cup win in detroit game seven it was uh flowers for stanley cup uh also had uh pascal dupuy on that team miroslav shatan on that team peter sakura was there ruslan fedotenko um that year was a special year that team was a really special team and uh there was a a moment where uh flower was still in full equipment um i was on the ice and we met at center ice and embraced and uh and i shed a couple of tears at that moment it was an incredibly emotional

meeting together and then flower said to me uh hey alan uh let's pick up the cup together and we'll walk at a couple of steps on the ice and uh that's a memory i'll i'll never forget just getting goosebumps here that is unbelievable i i alan it's it's it's got to be i mean you're there's so much here that i'd love to unpack we're not going to have time with one show to do this because i so i hope that steve asking way too many questions about the deborah sword doesn't prevent you from coming back about the sword um but one thing that we do want to talk about well well adam you better speak fast because you'll never see me again i what i'm hoping what i want I want to ask you about Marc-Andre Fleury, the person, because one of the first places that our show took off was Pittsburgh.

For whatever reason, that fan base embraced us outside of Toronto first and has always been, for a quote-unquote smaller market team, they are one of the most intense markets, as we know, one of the most successful markets. And everybody talks about Marc-Andre Fleury. Yes, they love Sidney Crosby. Yes, they love Mario. Yes, outside of it, you've got Roberto Clemente Bridge. And you've got Jerome Bettis and, and Heinz Ward and all these people that, you know, Terry Bradshaw, all these great Pittsburgh fan, you know, great sports figures. But Marc-Andre Fleury out of all the great Pittsburgh sports, you know, history seems to be the guy that's most beloved in the sense that they actually like they would adopt him. They want him to be a part of the family.

They want to put it, come over for dinner and hang out. What is it about Marc-Andre Fleury, in your experience, that makes him so special? Because everywhere he goes, that's what everybody says about him. You know, Jimmy Rutherford didn't really know Marc before he became the GM in Pittsburgh. And in Marc's last year in Pittsburgh, he called Fleury the greatest teammate in the history of professional sports. That says a lot right there. I personally have never seen a teammate so loved by his other teammates as Marc-Andre Fleury. And off the ice, away from the game, he is such a genuine, real person. He's just genuine and real. The things that I've seen him do, I'll give you one example, and this ended up going a bit viral last year. A person in Vegas won a signed Marc-Andre Fleury Vegas number 29 jersey.

And I asked, the jersey was sent to Flower, I asked him to sign it. i gave him the address and asked him to send it out and he goes oh i know where that is it's not too far from the rink i'll just go drop it off at her house i said flowery you don't have to do that no no no it's only it's only 20-25 minutes out of the way i'm like flower just put it in the mail it's fine he goes no no no i'll go do it i'll go do it well the person didn't answer the door oh no oh alan but but they had ring so you see flower in his uh you know dressed for the game in slacks and a shirt and a tie walking up to the person's door ringing the doorbell with a little bag that he put the jersey in and he's waiting at the door he stepped back you know because of the

pandemic he's got his mask and he's he's back waiting and he's waiting and he's waiting and he's waiting and he ended up leaving a little note saying uh sorry i missed you maybe next time enjoy the jersey and there was the autographed jersey left at her door and she ended up taking the ring video putting it online and it got hundreds of thousands of of hits but who does that yeah who does that i've seen i've seen the other thing that i'll that i'll never forget i'll it's ingrained in my memory forever is uh the the last year uh flower with pittsburgh won the cup um his day with the cup i was in montreal and the the uh keeper of the cup phil was there with how he gave the cup to flower and the first place he wanted to take it was to

ronald mcdonald house in montreal next to the hospital and we went in there and flower put the cup down in the dining area and and spent sat there for two two and a half hours talking to all the kids um talking to the parents taking pictures uh taking pictures with the cup bringing the cup into each kid's bedroom, those who were spending the night there. And I saw something that we all lose sight of when we're in the business, in the industry. But I saw the cup sitting in a room and an older gentleman walked in and you saw the realization. He looked at it. He didn't believe his eyes and then he said to it wow that's the stanley cup and he burst into tears wow and and that's the impact that trophy has in people's lives and and when you when you're

around it all the time you kind of lose sight of how blessed and special it is to be part of that but then things happen like that which really bring you down to earth and make you appreciate every day hearing a story like that while all the stories that you said the the door the doorbell video is hilarious um just the visual of him stepping back but it's hard to imagine a world where he's playing arguably the best he ever has by winning the vesna trophy you win the vesna no one's better than you uh at being a goalie but how close did he come to actually retiring after the trade because that that storyline i i couldn't fathom a league without mark andre flurry this soon i i think what happened was i i don't think it was uh so much do i have the fire

to keep playing there's no question he does i think the question was um my family and i are so ensconced in the vegas community and and our kids with school um you know living where we live i think the idea of having to pick up the whole family and move fairly quickly i mean what they went through this summer you know it's uh you'll always have a fan say well for the millions of dollars those guys make i don't have any sympathy for them okay i'm not asking for it i'm just relaying to you what what the guy is is gone through you know you've got to move out of a place have everything shipped to chicago set up a find a new place get the kids in school find a whole you know new life and get it set up in 30 days um and at the same time train

to be ready for the next season it's a daunting task and i think when it happened and the way it happened left a real bad taste in his mouth especially the fact that he didn't know about it at all beforehand the great communication from vegas was non-existent finding out on twitter i think he just needed with his family a couple of days to to reassess his whole situation which he was perfectly entitled to do he needed to have some conversations with stan bowman he needed to just sit back and say okay if we're going to do this this is what it's going to be like and he needed his family to completely buy in because there's no way he was doing this without his family going with him yeah it's funny even now thinking about that same sort

of situation you know it does change when you have kids it really does and and you know and honestly and i hate to be this guy but until you have kids it's hard to understand it really is like it's a very it's different and then all of a sudden it changes and i would have rolled my eyes at myself saying that but can you imagine i would have rolled my eyes 18 months ago 100 and i can't now but you go home and you have to say this to your wife and he's got three three kids three kids three kids so you have to go in and you have to explain to them various levels of of of cognitive ability the ability to understand it it's hard for an adult to understand so i can't even imagine what it's like for little kids you know so many transactions across pro sports you

forget that behind every trade every signing there's a person and a family and a whole infrastructure of their life that gets shipped off to somewhere else right right like you said i'm about to hit him so hard so yeah i mean yeah sorry go ahead alan well you you guys look forward to the trade deadline trade deadline day is like a national holiday in canada it sure is do people do people actually go to work on trade deadline day and i have to now i used to skip it steve goes to work for eight hours for 45 seconds of air time wow 45 seconds one of these i gotta put you in charge one of these days they'll use them but uh but but yeah i mean but alan i mean actually this is interesting so alan we all love

that and free agent frenzy on july 1st we love it how would you describe a player's perspective on free agency? How would they describe it to us? It's interesting, but many players, they wait years to become an unrestricted free agent. At age 27 or seven years of service to qualify for unrestricted free agency, many guys sign contracts in their mid-20s, which buy up a year or two of free agency so their first real experience at it might not be till they're 29 30 years of age and when when we know a player is going to test the market is going to free agency we begin preparations you know months and months in advance with the player and their family. As prepared as you can be, there comes a time when a player and the family

need to make a rather quick decision. And after the fact, I've had many players say to me, a vast majority, man, that was the worst experience of my life. I hated it. I hated it. the the worry and indecision leading up to free agent day and then while they're getting i mean i had one player i had uh one team on hold with the light blinking uh and i had another team on the line and i had the player on hold and got a new offer went back to the player went back to the team on hold now i got two teams on hold and i come back to the player i'm like okay here it is this is the most we're going to get from either team you need to make a decision and the player said to me, can I get back to everybody tomorrow? Tomorrow, you've got 15 seconds. And the sheer

panic of 15 seconds, I can't make that decision in 15 seconds. It's 10 seconds now. you know and and you know you're making a life decision and you've prepared for it for months and sometimes not always but sometimes it still comes down to those 15 seconds oh man absolutely unbelievable yes i can't imagine a guy signing like a 50 million dollar deal and going that was the worst i hated that you know what i mean but i'm sure it's happened i'm sure like you know there's a lot and the thing is too like um uh i mean and alan i think this has been a question that we as leaf fans have had for a while especially when and i'm not going to ask specifics but you know when we went through uh the nylander and then the matthews and then the

marner and you know um nylander notably dragged into the season matthews was done relatively quickly behind the scenes and then nobody saw it coming and then marner was i think three days before um in terms of like it was three days before camp or something like that it was very soon it dragged on all summer and we had to talk about it on the show and it was obviously huge news and frankly after a while you're like god do i still have to talk about this thing and steve made a comment and i've always wanted to ask you this question i remember him saying it then i meant if we ever have alan walsh on i'm asking him steve said what exactly do these people do all day like why does it take that long to get the contract done and then all of a sudden with 72

hours to go got it done yeah what what is it that that that makes this and i i realize that there's a huge process behind this but but if you could oversimplify it for the average fan like us who just doesn't get it's like why don't you guys just go for lunch and go here's my number here's your number let's meet in the middle bang what what is it what's happening i understand a few weeks that was like six months yeah it was a long that's what i'm saying you know and it was it was laterly it started from when darren ferris made the the comments about the matthews deal in february in february till till late september so alan what what the hell do these people do all day yeah i i i would say this guys deadlines clarify the mind and if you look at the history of deals

getting done, a majority of deals get done, not when you would want them to get done. They get done when there's a deadline, a critical point, a critical mass that approaches. And whether it's December 1, when a group two restricted free agent turns into Cinderella at midnight, whether it's the footsteps of training camp, whether it's the footsteps of the start of the season, these are all different critical points where the pressure ramps up to that deadline. And you see in situations, the easiest thing in the world would be like, okay, there's your number, there's my number, meet in the middle, done, just like you said, Adam. But that's not how negotiations work in the real world or else

you wouldn't even need agents. You just say, okay, here's your number. Here's my number. Cut it in half and let's go. There's a whole process behind it, but you get deals that happen. Deals get done at a deadline. Interesting. So when we talk about this, we can plan our shows. This is going to help us. So if we have ever got a young restricted free agent who is not signing, we'll just say we're going to leave that until the start of the season because that's around the time we think they'll sign. Because deadlines clear the mind.

Exactly. I like that very much. Hey, speaking of liking something very much, I'm sure you'd like your job, but too bad I'm the emperor of everything and I make you commissioner of the National Hockey League. Ooh. Whaters. i know i'm sorry about the pay cut but sorry about that but what are what are some things

you commissioner walsh would change immediately i like this i like this i know day one there will be a new nhl rule strict liability banning all hits to the head period. Accidental, intentional. It's a automatic, there's an automatic penalty for that. And I would do everything from day one, institute that rule, and then find ways to make the game safer for players. Number one mantra from anyone running the league today. wow wow um alan follow-up what can be improved about the salary cap well you can blow it up that would be nice so so you're of the opinion that and and this is where i keep talking about if you need to have a cap in place why can't it be more like the nba where

you have a luxury zone and then a hard cap like an absolute top spend for teams you know it forces richer teams to spend more. And then that goes into the subsidy for the smaller market team so they can spend more. What do you think? Would you have no salary cap at all? Probably. But if you have to have one, what does it look like in your mind? Very general. Obviously, we can't get into the granular stuff. But what do you think about that? Well, back in 2004, Bob Goodenow had put together a very detailed proposal on revamping the NHL system that involved a luxury tax and meaningful revenue sharing. The irony is, in that kind of system, owners would have ended up making more money. It's been modeled out from 2004-05, well, 2005,

all the way to the present day and that system would have brought owners more money more revenue than the triple hard cap system they rammed down the players throats in 2005 you know very short-sighted they were going for total uh surrender they got it from the players but there is a sweet spot with a soft cap, where you have a threshold number, and it could be tied to previous year's revenues. And then you have an area of taxation, where if teams, Toronto Maple Leafs, spend into that area, they're going to pay a tax. They're going to pay a tax. And that tax is, like you said, distributed amongst a group of smaller market teams. So the more you spend, the more you're putting money into your competitors' pockets, right? And that kind of

system, you see it, there is a limit to where any team will go. But having that kind of a system will allow teams like Tampa, like Toronto, like the New York Rangers, and you can go down the line, will allow them to retain their stars. You know, look at Tampa now. Two cups, and they had to move several key pieces of their team this offseason. You know, why do you have to have a last dance after one year? Why can't you keep these teams together for four or five years? You saw what Chicago had to do.

The more successful you are, the bigger you have to blow up your team to become cap compliant down the road. It doesn't make any sense. And there's a lot of GMs who are cheering for that kind of a system. you know but but but gary betman doesn't care what gms think he's got a constituency of eight owners and they rule the day and the only way to get rid of the cap now is going to be a long lockout or strike and and and you know the who's got the stomach for that today i mean right now let's just get our game back to where it was let's get the pandemic behind us as quickly as we can let's get people healthy hope they stay healthy and that stuff will get figured out down the road

so there's eight owners in a 32 team league that run the league like a quarter of the league runs the league pretty much yeah wow cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool that uh name names I want them. I want them now. No, you can't do that. I tried. Don't say I didn't ask. I at very least tried.

Alan, yeah, that's pretty heavy. And the thing is, you're right. We don't want to see that go back. And so, man, I guess we've held you for 45 minutes here. So I don't know how much- The next 45 should be just as fun. I don't know how much more time you have. But we do want to say thank you for coming on.

We hope this is not the last time. because this has just been spectacular. Love the stories and that sort of thing. And obviously, if you're available throughout the season, we'd love to have you back on just to talk about the goings on. And obviously, we are expecting several more viral tweets from your account and hoping to see you again soon. So thanks so much for making time for us.

You got it. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks for being good sports. Hey, everyone listening. Jesse here. I just want to give you the heads up that the second half of our recording here for the rest of the episode our audio didn't come through on our mixer so i was forced to use some camera audio and it doesn't sound the best but it's all we got those are the perils of our new

studio trying to work out all the kinks but yeah hope you enjoyed the rest of it we'll be back with our better audio on tuesday uh so that was i didn't get to ask about this no i'm sorry i wish you asked one more question about the story i wanted it i sincerely hope that the um that he gets his sword people together oh my god and I'm getting it printed

and hung in my house why can't I think of it but with the you know the crypto art like

NFT yeah can we NFT that sell it for charity the dangle sword probably good dangle wall sword sell it for charity

anyway anyway listen I I love the story sell it on our store why not why not put it on a t-shirt it would be great

and it could just be Alan stabbing Steve in the back oh I love oh my god All right, so, listen, we've got to get through some things here. Obviously, there was a lot of people from Boston that reached out, and I'm sorry that I missed.

This is my fault. This is on me. Jimmy Hayes. We get the chance to talk about Jimmy Hayes. If you're not from Boston, I don't think that you understand the effect that he had on Bruins. But Bruins fans loved Jimmy Hayes, and obviously Jimmy, unfortunately, passed, I believe it was last week. No, it was during the two weeks we were off.

That's why we never hit it. It happened the first week we weren't doing shows, and then we didn't hit it when we came back. Slipped our minds two weeks later. If we could do two or three minutes on Jimmy Hayes, I think we should do that. Yeah, as an apology, at the beginning of last show,

remember I was like, what are we going to talk about? And then you went through the enormous list of things that happened exactly a week prior that we had just, like, we forget things all the time. Yeah, and there's no way that you're going to hit every story in hockey, but I figured this one was important.

It is. Steve, you're impressed with Jimmy Hayes, the effect he had in Boston, and, you know, a beloved play. Well, and, you know, I think there are markets, but there are markets where if you are beloved, they are petitioned and lost. What a better place to be a fan than Boston. I feel, by the way, not to interrupt, but Johnny Boycha has had that in two markets.

He's had that in Boston, and he's had it with you. That's the kind of, there's the Boston love, and there's the Islanders love, and it's very rare that markets have that with their team. You know, Patrice Bergeron, I'm sure, could run for Congress, and they would wave all sorts of rules about him being Canadian, and all those things. I was upset when the Leafs traded Nathaniel Hayes for the draft pick. I'm not sure what else to say other than it's horrible and I'm sick for his brother, Kevin,

who has shown such strength through all this in his word. You know, his Flyers teammates, you know, did a great job in the ice with them, just sort of helping him move on with life as normal as possible. Right, right. Well, listen, apologies to a couple of people who reached out to us that night. Sincerely, I apologize. Sometimes, too, and I don't think it would be the case in this movie,

it's hard to talk about death. And it's tough because it's sad, and there's a lot of sad, and sometimes I do forget some of that stuff. And that wasn't, Jimmy Hayes was not intentional, but it's terribly sad. He's too young. In death, though, we do see how beloved people are, because really there was a lot of community to someone passing,

and with Jimmy Hayes, we really saw that. There it is. Yeah, beautiful. And yesterday or two days ago, we wrote for the 30th anniversary, we wrote about the plane crash. Yes, yes. We wrote about the plane crash. Was it Abel Demetrius on that plane?

Yep. Carlos Traston. Many... Poor Manichellers. Yeah, well, and like more tragically, this is Russian world community, guys, and we're just beginning, and I remember, you know, that was back when I made KHL videos, and I was almost downtown, and I woke up my friend Andre, who I made the videos with, and I was like, Michelle, what do you even say? Yeah, why? What do you even say? That's all I kept saying to him. What do we even say? Yeah.

So, we are going to take a heartbreak here, but that's just the way it is. Before we get to the UFAs and the RFAs, I do want to talk about, because they made some news earlier this week, and Drake Bathurst getting six years in 29.85 he's basically sent to five leagues

proves that the Ottawa Senators when pushed will spend some money Pierre Dorian re-upped for three more seasons after

this what puts to bed I think at least for a little bit the potential rivalry of Pierre Maguire

and Dorian right because Pierre Maguire by the way is a special advisor on that team I don't know

I think we've all forgotten that but that that has that show, and that is a reality show that will play out in the public guaranteed. That show has yet to even start. We haven't even seen it from here.

And I'm very excited to see what in a, I guess in a perverse sort of way, I'm excited to see how that management group unfolds. We were all wondering, and Pierre Dorian managed to get himself a career extension where he at least paid to be GM, whether or not

he was a GM, because we never know. His contract expired in 2014. That's a pretty good deal for GM. Well, in an effort to be fair, not everything I say about the GM. No! This is smart. We've been saying that.

You've done a great job building this team. Yeah, I don't think Peridorean is a bad GM. I think he's a GM who can be in a bad situation a few times and maybe had feasibility limited. And he's clearly capable, clearly smart. The Sens are clearly a team on the rise. And this eliminates a headache right there. Right there.

We don't have to talk about this script, and they don't have to hear about it, and the team doesn't have to hear about it. A lot of people in the organization are going to be like, ah, it's just a story or whatever. But some of them won't. Some of them will be like, oh, you didn't give him a lunch. And I can guarantee you from our side of it, that's certainly how it looked. He was asked about it at his press conference when McGuire was hired.

They said, hey, Dorian, do you feel weird that it looks like they just hired your replacement? And he had to talk about that. So if they're doing that at the initial press conference, that's going to be the story for the next year if he wasn't signed. But now that he's signed, it's great. It might be, too, that that question got him. Because he could probably say to Eugene, listen, do you want me to be answering these questions all year long,

Or do you want me to be cognizant? I think Eugene knows who the commons are. To quote Steve Simmons, like, oh, I don't read or trust the media. I think he reads everything or has so much you know, to relay it. Well, I know that I had a I had, I gave it to my

one of her jobs, or one of her friend's jobs was to collect every article written about that game. Every. And this is a baseball game. so you imagine there's a lot of articles

and so they take it and then they condense it and they put it in front of me so they know what the narrative is

isn't that wild it makes sense to an extent it seems like a lot of wisdom yeah that's what I was about to say listen if you're going to have interns

I guess why not maybe if you're running the team based on what the media says I don't think you should be running yeah exactly

I think you've got to be aware but I don't think you let it be on the note of Drake Batherson, by the way. Oh yeah, we should be happy for Drake Batherson. Yeah, decent contract for a pretty good player. He ironically reminds me a little bit of Connor Brown

in that he's not one of the bigger names they have at their pipeline, but Sens fans know him. So he was divided as time, spent a lot of time with the Niners, a lot of time playing his way into the lineup, bought in, and blew it. if Drake Batherson is a 5 the natural question is what 3 well Adam, I think we'll no, deadlines clear the month

I noticed there were some funny things on Twitter yesterday, I think it was Wayne Scandi, a Suns reporter there were conflicting reports about whether or not he's in Ottawa, so to my understanding he's still in St. Louis I didn't know

Keith Kachuk is his dad Heard about that. Yeah, so he's still in St. Louis, but his stuff has been shipped to Austin. So this is going to get done. Right. It's going to get done. I guess the biggest question to me is whether or not it's going to get done, what the number is going to be.

It's... How on earth was Iskari Kakuniemi the only guy off or she just... Like, that's a great player. Yeah, with Pettersson sitting out there at the chest sitting. Yeah, why not? Why not? Why not? There's a lot of teams with money, too.

It's not like all of the salary caps are filled up. In Carolina, in the Ajo situation, it was targeted because, oh, their owner won't spend money. The Sens are right there. There's a team, yeah. Go and get Brady Kachuk and offer more. I wonder if the draft capital you have to give up is a little too steep. Because the one above the Pocky Demi on the sheet,

so that was a first and a third. The next level is a first or two seconds? It's either that or a first, second, I think it's a first, second. Or one Thomas the Sucker. I can't believe Vegas did that. At the time I invented it,

I don't know why. I want to thank the pension plan puppets as we often do. For AAVs below 1.356 million, no competition. For somebody at $2 million, almost $2 million flat, it's a one-third round. For somebody that is $0 to $4.11, I guess, is a second rounder, the cock in the ME 6.1 is a first and a third.

Then if you go to $8.2, it's a first, second, and a third. That, I imagine, would be deducted, right? If it's over $10, which I would argue, for a season, if you want to get Brady Kachuk Oh. It's not a crazy idea until you hear. It's expensive. Two first, one second, one second.

Oh, I thought it was four first. That, over the number of 10.27, then you get If you give Brady Kachuk 10 million dollars and you give that up, I would argue, and there are a lot of teams, like look at Boston when they drafted

Jake DeBrusque, right? Who was the other two guys that you were drafted to? Jakob Sporl and Zachary Simpson. Okay. So non-players, right? They still have a shot. They have a shot. But who was drafted after?

Matt Barzal, Thomas Chabot, and Kyle Conner. Okay, so some names that are notable, right? That's why the pile of candy is in front of me. And so the point I'm trying to make here is you could go through several drafts for the first round day and never get a baby. And in fact, you could have the first overall pick, like with Nolan Patrick. And no offense to Nolan Patrick. But are you taking Brady Kachuk or are you taking Nolan Patrick? He went second.

Second overall. But that's what I'm saying, right? Is Brady Kachuk didn't even go that far. But there is a guy... Remember that whole debate? Yeah. Oh my God, you might give up the first. So from the perspective of, especially if you're a winning team, and this is rare, a winning team that has money to spend.

fire your two first rounders into the sun. Who cares? So the pushback on that is you hold on to those things to get the other pieces that you need. Instead of giving up the two firsts, one second, and a third, you take those five assets there

and you get five different guys. And I completely understand and square with that. One of the things that was really interesting I read the book The Cub's Way, and one of the things that Theo Epstein, who was a notable Advanced Stats guy. He was one of the first guys to really win with Advanced Stats in 2004 with the Sox.

When they won in 2016, the whole goal was to find four franchise quarterbacks over the course of between 2012 and 2016 in the draft. And they had that with Rizzo, Schwarberg, and a couple other guys. And then they went out and bought their pitchers. So none of the pitchers that they acquired were guys that they had brought up to the system. So, Arrieta, John Lester, Aroldis Chapman, any of those guys. And what was interesting about the way they did it was, like, we could find this in the draft, we're not sure we're going to be able to find it.

We know we can find these great hitters, these great characters, which is what they were looking for. We're not sure we're going to be able to find that. But we might be able to find a pitcher who underutilized, poorly coached, whatever else. By the way, incredible book, totally read it. And I wonder if, from an NHL perspective, what those positions would be. My thought is always, what's the easiest place to find a franchise quarterback? Center, center, defense, defense, right?

That's where you want to be. Maybe a goalie. Maybe, but are you going to draft a goalie? Is it easier to go out and buy a goalie that's already been developed? Goalie seems like the position you just wait on and buy. Everyone thinks they can draft Monquist in the eighth. Right. Yes.

So why go out and spend an early pick on a goalie when you can get a late pick? Right, and maybe it costs you what is at least paid for Freddie Anderson. Sam Steele, the Sam Steele pick, and the second rounder or something. Even like the Campbell deal. It wasn't much. No, Campbell deal depending on the dollar. I think

the picks, the Ducks, which is two great picks. Nothing wrong with that. But what I'm saying is would you do that trade again? Absolutely. All day, every day. And so I'm wondering and Pichuk is not a center.

You can jump in when needed, but I wonder if you're looking for that X-Factor piece and I'm not saying If you're looking for an X-Factor piece and you're like, imagine the Toronto Maple Leafs but with $10 million. That's the guy the Leafs need.

Right? That is a hundred, him or his brother. That's the guy. The price is too steep. You think so? Like, the $10 million on your cap would limit your flexibility than the five assets you lose that have been used to get other assets. I think

those two things just, like, it makes the NHL set it up so it's impossible. They should have just eased it. The lack of offer, I think, has to do with, like, we all agree he's a great player. He's

a great player, for sure, in a lot of ways. He's what a lot of teams lack. He's what a lot of teams lack. There are so few wingers who are worth that, which is part of the reason Marner gets so much money. And how many teams that are a winger away also are $10 million under that? Yeah, exactly. No, exactly. And I wondered, I was just thinking in terms of what, you know, sometimes you look at these situations and you go, that's impossible.

Sometimes it's fun to dive into the impossible and go, okay, but when would it not be? But I look at this and I'm looking at the $4.1 million is a second round. That sounds like value to me. But you've got to get them to sign it. This has been the big argument, and this is obviously getting away from Brady and Chuck, but in terms of offer sheets, it's the cheaper guys who should be getting offer sheets all the time. At $1.3 million, which is no compensation, why not just throw it at a bunch of guys and see what happens? You can literally offer a whole lot.

You can get an entire throw line. There's no compensation there. Why not just try it? And it's funny because the whole – and I have to assume this is true because this is what we hear from the inside as well. Well, they're afraid of retribution. They're your competitors. They're giving you retribution anyway. That's their point. But they're also their buddy, and they're like, hey, I've got to meet you at the bar later.

Yeah, but still, like, okay, when Jesse and Steve play each other at NHL, it's like two heavyweights because I suck. But it's fun watching the two of you go at it, for me, because you guys are both quite good. Or at least Steve used to be until he had a kid. And so when you guys play, it's always like, it's right down to the end. It's 1-1. Jesse says, Steve screams and yells, and his face is red and purple. The reactions are, it's amazing. But at the end of it, you guys go, well, it went the way it went.

As GMs, that's what it should be too. You're competing, but being afraid of retribution, are you kidding me? You only get two or three years to be a GM. you probably wouldn't be around for the retribution to a degree I think that's what Kyle Dubas but I always wondered this about John Chayka like bro no one likes you anymore

go do it because he's young and he thinks about you young with a brain he's young and has a different way of looking at things like why not they don't like you I wonder how much value there is

in other GMs But in terms of performing better at your job, I wonder if it's easier to be a GM if you say 20 other guys in the league are your friends. Because we don't know that sitting on the outside. It's like, okay, maybe just being this guy's friend, being like, I call up these guys because I'm good pals with them, and I don't screw them over, and it makes my life easier. Certainly.

Great story that Brian Burke told on our podcast with Lou Lamorello. Drinking a highball, by the way. Yeah, yeah, of course. We can't confirm that. We don't talk about enough that he was drinking a highball on the show. We don't know that. Okay, I want to get... What is a highball?

That's like a cocktail. He was having like a... It looked like a rum and coke. It could have just been coke. Go back and look at this. Go back and look at it and tell me that's not a rum and coke. That's a rum and coke. And I love that.

I thought it was a spitter. No. What the spitter? Oh, is he drinking? Yeah, there was ice in it. Which way did the cup go? And it was a cocktail. Like, if he was having a Diet Coke, he could drink out of it.

think this is a high no what if he wanted ice like you couldn't put it in the fridge come on i need a superuder film of i'll let you yeah so anyway he told this great story him and lou lamorello have known each other for a year uh lou was a uh he was his coach robin's coach yeah and then he's already got a storied career and I think it was when Burke was at the Canucks he calls up Lou for a trade.

Lou screwed. The trade sucks for Burke great for Lou. And Burke goes you screwed me on that and Lou goes

you called me. Hilarious! And they're friends! And Burke had no choice like did he hold it against him? No. Maybe for a moment. Yeah.

I don't think I don't think Brian handled it well in the moment. Probably not But after a few days, he went, ah, well, fair play. Yeah. Right. And then they went back to business.

Right. Well, here's what I would say. Do you need 20 teams to like, or do you need three or four? Let's look at the Toronto Maple Leafs business. Who are they trading? Anaheim. Oh. Anaheim, Los Angeles.

You know that meme where the guy is, like, patting his forehead, and you've got the two buttons to choose from? Yes, yes. Yeah, Kyle Dubas. Trade with Columbus. Trade with Columbus. those are the two buttons and they tried to offer sheet Marner

the only reason that didn't happen is because Marner didn't take it he didn't want to sign it you're right, they do trade with the Ducks a lot they trade with the Kings a lot who else? the Leafs are who they draft and who they acquire from the Kings or Blue Jays

almost literally almost literally that is who the Toronto Maple Leafs are every year they get 3 or 4 free agents and then they call Yarmou and they call... Who's the GM in LA now? I don't know.

Is it Rob Blake still? Yes. Rob Blake is the program parent. I never know who gets promoted and who all niggas get. I don't know.

But, yeah. Like, do you have a set... Like, okay. If we're just going by that, he has two. Yeah. I mean, really, that's all you need.

You just need someone who can do business on a level that he needs. Yeah. Offer sheet, someone on the blue jacket and wink at Yarmou. Ah.

Ha ha ha. Can I read you the teams that Kyle Dubas is in? Yeah, do you have it set by you? Yeah, so just Kyle Dubas trade. This is on NHL Trade Tracker. You've got Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Colorado, the Islanders, Vegas, Nashville, Florida, Ottawa, Kings, St. Louis, Vegas, Ottawa,

Colorado, Carolina, Minnesota, Winnipeg, Asheville, Kings. So I was only doing it very unscientifically with my fingers. I counted six teams that doubled. One of them's in the division.

Ottawa, yeah. I don't know how many of those trades were just swapping X's. Be a dick. Opera sheet guys, be a dick. You're like, okay, the Leafs are not in a position to do that. Yeah, yeah. But your team, shouldn't you want to jerk?

Yeah. What's Ron Hextall doing wasting his time being likable? I know, I know. Okay, so here's, yeah, because no offense to Ron, but Ron is never like, that's wrong. Yeah. That's the fun part about Ron Hextall. Burke's job every morning should be, okay, when does Ron Hextall's alarm go?

Six? All right, his job is to call him at 6.01. Hello, Ron Hextall. He won't do it. And then he spends a few hours wondering what he won't do, and he gets really mad about it, and by lunch he does it. That's his job.

He won't do it. And you know Burke would be up early. He's the kind of guy, he's an up early guy it strikes me as fact 100% oh he's sitting at his desk like with a

with a with his phone in his hand and his tie draped around his neck at 5.30 and he waits 31 minutes to make that phone call you won't do it

click and then the penguins win a cup wouldn't you die to be on a three way conversation with Vaughn Hicks called by a person yes I would just I think that could complete my life

right there I've accomplished everything I want to know what you're talking about I want to see the negotiating Like, wouldn't that be just delicious? Like, think about GM combinations about the greatest GM combination of KQ and McRae.

That would be, three-way-wise, that would be great. I do want to know what Ken Holland's like on a call. Oh, I want... Oh, you want that? Yeah, I want to just hear a phone call between Ken Holland and Steve Eisenman.

I can't imagine either man talking. That's what I want to see That's what I want to hear Let's get into the top 10 UFAs that are still available This is a thank you to Sportsnet.ca For this one Our boy Luke Fox Made a meal out of that

Pretty good Number one, Tuka Rask Still an unrestricted free agent Probably won't be back until January But it's got to be boss He said, I believe In August that he's going to take a sweetheart deal

to come back to Boston. So whatever that happens, it's going to happen. He doesn't need the money. Jason Demers. Still available. Right shot defenseman. And it's sort of surprising because, like, who was the right shot defenseman that Vancouver signed?

Oh, uh... Tucker Pullman. Yeah. Tucker Pullman's worth it. Jason Demers, I know he's fallen off. But he's worth it. PTO, is he not? We're starting to enter PTOs.

That's not a shot at Luke. It's just... I mean, there's only... 21 roster spots per team. And you go, well, there's 32 teams. It goes up fast. Nikita Gustin? Is he?

He's still an unrestricted free agent. 29 years old. Obviously, he had a great first season 13 goal, 44.66 games, but then And, you know, with New Jersey and Florida last year, it didn't look fine. That's especially interesting because the KHL season has begun. Or at very least preseason. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's with Kaprizov. Deadlines clear in mines? That would be interesting. I mean, he could just show up if he really wanted to, but it seems clear to me that he's going to be there. 100%. Because if he wanted to be at the cage... Travis Ajak.

Forgot. He's the one guy the Islanders haven't... so he's 36 yes I thought he was going to work that

interesting for sure now he did have 20 points in 46 games over an 82 game season penalty kill good seven

thousand games I I mean like I don't hate like do you hate if you got him for a million bucks

do you hate him on the Leafs on the Leafs yes well really you're asking okay, I'm going to ignore

the leech cap situation, but this is the thing you can't do. Anyone available by the way unless there's a few rare exceptions, there probably is. Listen, if I offer you a peach in the night I might give you

$800 because you've got gray hair. That's about it. Right. Then these guys will probably wonder if it's worth it. Yeah, they will. Okay, next one.

And we're going to move through this quickly because we are running out of time. Sammy Vatnin. Paid two million bucks last year. Could help a power play. Yeah, that's one of those weird ones where, like, don't you... What we learned with the Leafs

over the past two years is two spots there. Two spots. There's power play one, power play two, and break in case of emergency. Right? Leafs got Riley, Sandeem, Muzzin breaking the case of emergency. Right.

Or Brody. Most teams have three defensive people crying out loud. Yeah. Batten is shocking because he's a right D. But he's a left shot right D, so some coaches are upset. Isn't he a left shot right D? No, I think he shoots right. Is he?

Yeah, but he plays on both sides. But it's shocking that any right-handed D with experience isn't on it. He is right. He's taking the defensive hit. He's never been good defensively. That's not what he's known. No. I think he'll find a spot, but

the sun doesn't really... Dan O'Chara, speaking of the sun setting. 44. I think he'll just show up and threaten a GM to sign him. It's like 8pm in August and the sky is red. The sun is set.

His head blocks the sun out. All you can see is just the outline of his brow. real thick he'll take a cheap deal I can see him getting it would be nice it would not be Ryan Donato

25 year old center yeah there's another guy who I don't know if he's a center center or a curve foot for lack of a better term yeah yeah he's a guy you need

worker beats if you need guys who can put up 30-35 points he's going to be big Alex Delcheny oh boy, I would love to know the story I would love to know the story there because this wasn't

supposed to happen the Leafs rebuilt him they did this, they did that maybe he asked sure worked that way because that's an NHL player Oh, without question Without question

I just think there's probably A long history there of teams not And then 20 games of him doing well And that's where, as a GM, you go Yeah, that's BTO This was his last chance And he did well He did well

Except for game four Was it game five? Yeah, except for maybe Fourth giveaway in Leafs history Well, I'm then a gem of a game Yeah Very frustrated I'm disappointed

I want him to be a Leaf I want him back I'm worried that his role is too limited you know maybe you know because the Leaf

Dubas brought in four guys who do what he does this offseason as does at like one to two million dollars so where does

Galchenyuk okay we're going to throw you here to see if you can beat these guys for the same spot unless he got

no offers I think whatever decision he made on Tyler Bozak oh I'm surprised about that. He's apparently still in St. Louis

practicing with his St. Louis teammates, but because the Blues lost their window in Tarasenko, and that, honestly, that's a conversation that we have not had yet. But whatever deal they had that they said we're not getting fair value for this, if they don't get him traded by the start of the season,

that's a big blowout. It's not about what Tarasenko brings, It's freeing up the $7 million or the $3.5 million if you have to retain the season. Like, they're nuts. This league is ready. Yeah? Tarasenko, Eichel, all the RFAs, even if they stay, obviously, that's news. And then the UFAs, that's sort of usual, that's run-of-the-mill stuff.

We're going to get... Zachary, according to this, is still listed as an UFA? That is signed. It has yet to be, as of two days ago, yet to be registered. Lou Amarello has not registered the contract.

That's as of two days ago. I remember the announcement happening, but I just thought it was notable. Hey, Gary, Lou just said that he signed Zachary's A. He sent the fact over. Oh, can you show me? And it's just Lou staring.

He just faxed his face. It was a September 1st report. Just chatted, this is from Michael Russo, just chatted with former Minnesota Wilds vet Zach Rizet, and he confirmed he agreed to terms with the Islanders earlier this summer. So that was September 1st, so it was already earlier in the summer.

Lou Lamorello just has to register his contract with the NHL. He's got his aisle freezers, and it's heading to NY for good later this month. So Lou just needs to file that thing. Jesse, can you do me a favor and make sure Michael Russo has um...

He's not in the bottom of the Yeah, I just need to, I'm concerned for We gotta have Michael Russo on. Okay, let's go through the RFA super quick here. Two, the top two, are Pedersen and Hughes and Davis. Gotta get done right before training camp, right? You talk about such an easy

situation, but it's an obvious situation to get split. Yeah. There's two, and they have a finite amount of dollars to give to those two. Take one! Or I guess the rest of the league doesn't need

Jack, or sorry, Quinn Hughes or Elias Pettersson. And like, if you're worried about Pettersson's injuries, fine. I get that. Hughes. Who doesn't need a young, stud, right-handed defenseman? Does anyone? Oh, he's left-handed.

He's special enough that I don't care if he... Imagine you poach Hughes. and he doesn't play with Ekman-Larsson next year so you've got Ekman-Larsson to play with. So it's Myers and Ekman. And that's the one... Tucker Poolman.

We mentioned Kaprizov in passing. That'll be very interesting because apparently he's got an eight-figure deal with CKS and CSKA Moscow. One year, eight figures. That's about $10-plus million on the table right now.

Yeah, maybe community. I do have a quick question. Could a team with the draft picks and captains offer sheet Quinn Hughes, who a dollar amount that the Canucks are unhappy about,

the Canucks match it, and then that team turns around because the offer sheet was unsuccessful, and they go, ha ha, you know how much money you have left for Ederson. Yes. Oh my god! This league! It's nothing against Canucks fans, but like, Do things!

Once again, I'm begging you to do things. Rasmus Dahlien. Sorry, by the way, I skipped over Chuck that's already talked in front of him, but Rasmus Dahlien, unsigned in Buffalo. Another easy situation to exploit. They have lots of cap room, but they also suck. Nolan Patrick is center right winger Vegas. I forgot Nolan Patrick was in Vegas.

I mean, a lot of people don't like that GM already. Yep. Ugh! Get him! Taylor Yamamoto in, uh... Another perpetually cap-strapped team. I really like that player.

He's another guy I've seen in trade rumors. Like, when I saw Ethan Barham, like, that makes no sense. And Yamamoto, I think. It's equally as dumb. I'm such a... I'm a big fan. Yeah. And lastly, Robert Thomas.

Memorial Cup champion, gold medalist, King Canada in 18, Stanley Cup champion in 19, 87 points behind him. Yeah, everything I see with the Blues. Well, so apparently he's looking at a deal at around $3 million. The Blues only have $1 million. Oh, wow. He's holding stuff up.

This is why they got it. This is why you dropped Tarasenko. Even if you have to retain, drop it. Who cares? That's a year. That team seems like they've been in a whirlwind since they won the Cup. Yeah. Yeah, and boy, it didn't look the same without the Trinity.

you really saw with Vegas, who in the third round literally did nothing did nothing, the Trans Bowl is the only guy on the ice that was man, I was obviously infuriated watching the latest game but I remember I remember watching the

second one, or whichever one it was, it was early in the series oh man, Vegas' forwards had an off game and by the end of the series I was like, oh, maybe they just I couldn't believe couldn't Mark

couldn't believe Petra Red couldn't and how good Petra Red was every game he was

every game best player on the ice in the great jersey I think that's what happens when you try and build a team with no center like they built their team from the

from the fence and then the wings who was the top center who was injured before that Chandler Stevens and then he came back and guess what changed? Nothing!

Chandler Stevenson could work at a grocery store. He wouldn't know. You know? You walk in, he's behind the desk trying to... Chandler Stevenson. Great. I don't know. Listen, listen.

I know he's a darling and, you know, he had a very good regular season. I don't recognize his name. That doesn't sound like the first line center on a Western Conference final. Exactly what you're saying. So, listen. We've got to end it there.

We will get to a couple of things that people were asking. for next show. Number one, we never get our all-time lead that William Clark doesn't make. You've got to give us

a heads up for that. So Tuesday we're doing that. Tuesday we are also doing Are You Ready? because I wrote it down. We are going to do We are going to do way too early predictions

on season. Are you ready to do? Okay? We're going to do division wins. We're going to do eight playoff games from each conference.

We're going to do conference winners in each conference. We're going to do the champions. We're going to do Hart, Norris, Calder. all of those. We can't wait until training camp to do this? No. We're going to do the way too early, and then we're going to do it again right this week.

Baby. See if anything... That's why it's way too early. What if we just wait until training camp to do the season predictions? No, it's the way too early episode, Jesse Blake. That's why. That's why. Is it based on any knowledge? Absolutely not. It looks like a foreplay. It is. But I still want to see

your answers, too, so get them ready, get them in the Discord, get them in the YouTube comments. I was trying to look it up, but here, I'll just say it. saw someone tweet that Alex Nedeljkovic, who was nominated for the Calder last year, is still

eligible. Oh! Because he didn't cross the gameplay threshold. There's a goalie that could win goalie of the year. Oh, sorry, rookie of the

year. He could win the Calder in the second year. All right, let's wrap it up. So we will see you on Tuesday next week. And as a reminder,

sdbn.ca, go and buy your merch. Go check out our Discord. There's more stuff coming. We've got so many announcements in the

next few weeks. That we're so excited about, but we can't say anything yet. So, until then, be watching sdpn.ca. Get on the newsletter. We'll see you next week. Oh, there's also this. Forgot. I thought we were done here.

Listen to the show! Right. 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.

Thank you.