The Steve Dangle Podcast - Amazing Race | March 20, 2026

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Starting point is 00:01:02 Get $15 off your first task right now with the promo code Dangle at TaskRabbit.ca or the TaskRabbit app. You should download that. TaskRabbit.ca. Code Dangle. Hey, we've officially entered what I like to call 69 weekend

Starting point is 00:01:34 where every team is playing their 68th or 69th game. So it's pretty nice. By the time this weekend's over, 69 weekend will be over. So welcome to 69 weekend. Is 69 over? What do you mean? No one makes 69 jokes anymore.

Starting point is 00:01:50 Well, if you're married for long enough, maybe. Hey! you gotta get your old guy laugh going you gotta there's like the really old guy but then there's like like upper middle age you just you just saw a guy you know in costco how they let anyone in here anyway uh hi hi listen uh steve's back from tro uh we'll talk about that later but are you are you are you recovered not jet lag oh yeah jet lag one time zone over yeah yeah man the nightlife and tarot i burned the house down i bet you did who went to boston pizza at 9 30 um jesse is getting ready for uh an all leafs weekend he got to be down at the scotia bank tomorrow just one

Starting point is 00:02:41 day tonight yeah they're in ottawa yeah that's a road game in ottawa they brought up posetta he is not playing tonight he's definitely playing saturday yeah why well and we're not starting with the leafs today sorry that's gonna be my new bit i want to start oilers first off uh oilers tickets are going up big time i don't know if you guys saw this this feels like a very toronto story uh but apparently they might be going up as much as dustin nielsen tweeted out as much as 40 or something like that for the playoffs how do you think that was received on the same night that they lost 4-0 to Florida. Well, thankfully, they found out before that.

Starting point is 00:03:20 Yeah. But yeah, the Florida game is the thing I want to start with because this game was not great. And the press conferences afterwards are... Well, before I even get into the game, I want you to watch the Darnell Nurse press conference or at least part of it. Oilers Nation posted this.

Starting point is 00:03:41 Well, no. I think the most important thing to get out of the way is no matter how bad Evan Bouchard was, kel mccarr would have been worse yes a hundred percent well that it's so funny because there have been a little bit of i think it was cerevalli that was out there saying like well listen like the reason that he's not in the norse conversation whatever it's a bunch of you know eastern voters and i i can understand that to a point but but then i'm like but also there's a bunch of general managers who are not from the east who didn't select him for team canada springfield really

Starting point is 00:04:09 knows how to rock not like shelbyville i also wonder why are we still doing this bit i also thought that that evan bouchard should have been at the olympics and i kind of missed his puck movement but last night was not primo evan bouchard not playoff evan bouchard the one i'm used to the main criticism is you don't know when you're going to get primo evan bouchard well you know you're going to get it in the playoffs but you know you're going to get it offensively it's a matter of the defense like i don't know how many times you can circle around that same conversation as it turns out eastern media jesse as it turns out more than you think all right you darn on nurse yeah let's just so darnell so i want you to watch this and then i

Starting point is 00:04:50 want to show you a picture that dustin nielsen posted so so they didn't come out hot listen to the next 50 seconds listen to what darnell says and then go from there i mean motivation is hard every night it's a long season the fan would wonder how you can see that uniform on the other side and not come out in the first period and be ready to play and playing hard and you know dying to beat this team but you guys had a very slow start tonight is there you know just playing these guys is that not motivation enough facing them once a year here um look I think like everyone comes to the rink with with the right mindset like this this team we want to win that's every day you show up you come to the rink you want to win you want to compete you want to beat whoever's on the

Starting point is 00:05:30 other side uh whether it's Florida Panthers or it's Calgary Flames like it doesn't matter when every day we come in here we want to win um sometimes we come out and we're flat like and that's that's on us we gotta find uh another level to get to um but it's not for for lack of effort especially with this group and i know how much each and every one of these guys and all of us in here want to win motivation so good answer tough question that's a very mark specter question the question was asked and set up twice did you notice that so you guys didn't come out motivated yeah you know but the fan would wonder why it's florida and like also it's florida and you didn't come out very hot yeah uh i'm glad this picture this is from the second goal

Starting point is 00:06:13 um when dustin tweeted this i'm like damn that's gotta i gotta bring that up on the show that's crazy um and there's been there were a few moments last night where i i kind of wonder about i do kind of wonder about evan bouchard in this sense is darnell nurse the right guy to play him with you know uh i don't i don't think so i don't think so either no i don't admittedly i don't watch all 82 oilers games but i do like of course you don't of course you don't attaboy frankie yep of course you don't how dare you and where do you live what's your postal code i i live in the i live in the east so does frank and so does everybody else yeah that's probably why i'm not it's not that i'm i'm i'm trying to i'm like listen frank said it and and that's cool my point

Starting point is 00:06:59 is that i'm like okay but frank i also have eyes and what i'm seeing here is and look at look at this picture this looks like leafs defense dude that's so bouchard straightest legs uh on the left side of uh connor ingram darnell nurse left-handed stick also on the left side of connor ingram and then i can't see who is number 10 isn't that great these days oh yeah it's career i keep remember oh yeah he's getting he's getting traded he's getting and then he didn't anyway injuries um yeah man that's just puck watching 101 no communication whatsoever no situational awareness no nothing good um and uh i'm just not sure you need the right postal code to see that jason gregor tweeted the oilers are now one nine and two this season when they have an opportunity

Starting point is 00:07:57 to win three games in a row uh they've been outscored 47 26 in those games and he called it an uninspired effort fat and happy right well i don't know i mean listen dry Seidel's going to be back for the playoffs, which is great news. You got to get there. That wasn't immediately like we didn't know that immediately when they made the announcement that he was hurt. They're like, oh, he'll be out of the rest of the season. We're like, what does that mean?

Starting point is 00:08:23 Like out out like no, no, but they had to kind of come back and say that can I point something out? Yeah. Six Pacific Division teams played last night. Yeah, they went 0-5-1 and the Kings moved into a playoff spot because they were the one. Yeah,

Starting point is 00:08:39 it's dire straits, man. It's a bad division it's really not good uh go ducks but anyway i think what what i'm curious about with the oilers and this is where it's felt off sort of in the way that the leafs have felt off all year the oil the oilers have higher better higher end talent worse goaltending um although conor ingram's coming in i think he's been pretty good uh the the question i would have for the oilers is or at least if you're an oilers fan is do we do we care you know i know like i know you kind of care because it's the regular season but your division's weak you're fine you're in it you're probably going to get home ice advantage and you know what connor and leon are come playoff

Starting point is 00:09:18 time the problem well first of all i don't think you know that like well if if leon's hurt super hurt right like you don't know what percent of him you're getting and you know that you can make it all the way to the final four with leon on one leg i know that but like this is sports and magic is is finite um within players and within teams you can't count on doing this every time and the the best teams find a way to ramp up they ramp up heading in um there are examples of uh wasn't it florida last year really kind of limped into the playoffs and i was like i think tampa might take them and then they just rocked tampa ran them two years ago florida barely made it into the playoffs and then went all the way to the final that was three oh three years

Starting point is 00:10:08 ago but they barely made it because they were amazing uh down the stretch right they got called out in toronto or something like that or there was some sort of like keith kachuk said they were soft it was so random uh eastern media and uh you know motivating teams all over the world um i guess i guess what we have here between the oilers and panthers who right now are kind of wedded in comparison um the panthers downfall this season has been completely understandable and justifiable whereas the oilers downfall has been understandable and completely unjustified how so because the panthers have played as much hockey basically as the oilers have yes um it's because the panthers have been down matthew chuck and most importantly alexander parkov

Starting point is 00:11:00 Brad Marchand needs surgery. Marchand was one of the best, literally one of the best players in the league when he was sort of holding that thing together while those guys were out. And then he went down to and that little stretch there where they I don't think they had any of the three of them. Everyone's like, all right, well, what can you do? Like at some point, just life sucks. Wear a helmet like you ran out of guys. You ran out of stars. Whereas the Oilers took a very big swing to fix their goaltending problem and made it infinitely worse. And I couldn't help but think of Hannibal Buress a little bit and look at that screenshot of Bouchard and Nurse not knowing what the hell they're doing and going, why would Tristan Jari do this? Who wasn't even in net? Jesse, do you think it matters? of which part how they're playing right now oh yeah 100 yeah i think the winning streak thing to me means a lot because i got three games in a row thing you have to be able to string wings together i think every really good team has a stretch in a regular season where they

Starting point is 00:12:12 win seven out of ten games and then the next bunch is like oh they did eight out of ten there and they string these wins together and then they can kind of go to have a mediocre average season for the rest of it but these large chunks of a couple weeks where you bank a lot of wins is kind of how you get those top seeds in the playoffs and the Oilers have never had that this season where they've had an extending winning streak remember the last three years of Oilers hockey where they started so bad in October November they always made up for it for some sometimes historic win streaks like a couple years and it'll be like in November yeah December or December or January and they'd they'd go on this this year there has never been that and at the end of the day hockey is a

Starting point is 00:12:54 goal scoring competition it's whoever scores the most goals and when the oilers don't put pucks into the back of the net they lose very consistently mcdavid had one shot they can't win games where they're not outscoring their opponents by a whole lot if i was looking at where i mentioned their record last uh i think it was last episode or episode before goals for their goals for and their goals against i'll bring it up again just to just to mention it for you guys and since uh the olympic break i'll do it from that point they've averaged 3.75 goals for per game that's fourth in the league awesome incredible but they've allowed 3.75 goals against per game which is i think fourth last if i organize it there yeah fourth last so are the three worst

Starting point is 00:13:38 teams and why is one of them the least and then you compare them with a team like the buffalo sabers who sits third in goals four per game 3.83 and they've only allowed two goals per game and their record in that span is 11 and one and the oilers are six five and one and i don't know how much better defensively the sabers are but they get i think they're way better defensively in terms of talent their talent doleen power byram are you kidding oh yeah paper yes but like how they actually play with it like oh okay players around the league have been asked like it's river hockey but it's it's effective who on earth could criticize so i think last night is a great example of one of those games where they can't get anything churning offensively and they don't

Starting point is 00:14:21 have the ability whether that's on the guys there or chris knoblock the way he has them playing to churn out those hard victories where it's like oh we grinded out a 2-1 game because we got a bunch of saves we didn't allow a bunch of goals and we were able to generate just a little bit of offense they're either everything we outscore all of our problems or we're nothing and that's a serious problem i think for the playoffs and the mcdavid note uh from sportsnet stats talking about uh scoring when uh winning when guys score mcdavid uh when he fails to collect a point the oilers are oh ten and two if you do not have a victory this season when mcdavid doesn't score wow oh ten wow i mean that's man that's an mvp isn't it yeah that's pressure it there it's got nothing

Starting point is 00:15:05 to do with the fans got nothing to do with the media it's if i don't have a good night we lose that's a defining mvp stat to to go off of what you said yeah i don't think there's a more compelling stat than that he should be the heart trophy winner and it shouldn't even be close who can even you i know if you get one i know sharks get in celebrini either has to win it or be the runner-up well the celebrini numbers are very similar yeah the sharks can't do anything when he doesn't score and they didn't he didn't score last night what look what happened they got shut Right. And that's a very key loss for them. We'll get to that later. I just wanted to say, like, you know, beginning of the season, if we found out first round was going to be Edmonton Vegas, we'd be like, wait, who the hell won the division then? And we would be shocked to find out it was the Ducks. But the Vegas Golden, this is, and this shows how high their standard has been.

Starting point is 00:16:01 If they finish the season just at this points pace, it will be one of the worst seasons they've ever had. Well, let's talk about it. I've got a Vegas segment pin for later, so let's get to it now. But then the Oilers, this is also one of their worst seasons in many years. So this should be a heavyweight bout. and i'm sure when push comes to shove it will be like i you know i understand what you're saying like from the beginning of this conversation like these are two playoff hardened teams that know what they're doing yep but at at some point you usually see a little bit of a proof of concept

Starting point is 00:16:39 in season and we're just not seeing that with either team sometimes life throws your curveballs and you don't have time to get to them and that's where task rabbit comes in and i think you should check this out because here's the deal one of the things one of the weird quirks about my condo building is that they use my floor to repel down and clean all the windows but they never clean my windows oh and their way around on that is like well it's a patio window you can do that yourself and i'm like well hang on a second what if i don't want to i don't have the stuff because you gotta have that scraper thing and the and the washer thing chemicals you gotta have the right see what i'm saying that's why i used task rabbit and i employed a tasker here's the thing

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Starting point is 00:17:48 code DANGLE at TaskRabbit.ca or the TaskRabbit app. You should download that. TaskRabbit.ca code DANGLE. So let's talk about that, because Sinbin had a couple of great stats last night. Vegas have now won seven of their last 22 games. In

Starting point is 00:18:04 regulations? Seven of their last 22 games. I saw they were since the olympic break 30th 7 13 and 2 is a good is yeah that's a 60 point regular season pace they're on in the last 20 what 21 22 games and i just i can't why i know and you know that they're they're shorthanded like they look good shorthanded which will help them in the playoffs but um sinvin also posted last night the last time vegas were shut out in consecutive games which happened last night, was the final two games of the playoffs last year.

Starting point is 00:18:40 The time before that was late in the 21-22 season. That's the year they missed. And the Dadunov trade, I think, was nixed that year too. And they did it twice that year. They're on pace for 90.3 points. They're third, though. If the Leafs were in that division, they would have bought at the deadline.

Starting point is 00:18:56 Oh, my God. But they're not. Vegas has sneaky this season never been good. No. We watched them all during the fall, able to get wins despite playing very poorly. Their goaltending has been shaky throughout this entire thing. And I think finally now it's catching up to them. They're like the Hulk, but crap.

Starting point is 00:19:18 Like, okay, I need you to get good goaltending. That's the secret cap. We never have good goaltending. Like, I really did think it was going to arrive at some point. Like, offense goes there to die at times. Like, they haven't been a very good team this season. And, Adam, the standings for post-Olympic break, I think a lot of people will be shocked to see some of those teams.

Starting point is 00:19:40 The Vegas Golden Knights are 30th there in points percentage, 4-8-0. And if you see there, 25th in the league in points percentage. The Minnesota Wild. Oh, I thought you were going to mention the shitty Toronto Maple Leafs. Look at the lightning! Talk about hitting on your Leaf fans. I think we're all aware of where the Leafs sit post-Olympic break. Jesse.

Starting point is 00:20:00 two seven and three we we know yeah we're aware of that we don't like it either man but no one's surprised let's talk about the surprises tied for the second worst team in the league since the olympic break and they're tied with the seattle kraken who i don't think anybody thought would be down there um it hasn't been a good season for vegas i think too they thought perhaps that getting carter hart they would get some sort of found money and goal because he had established himself with philly the last couple of years or last two or three years that he had played as at least a goalie that would get you out on not great philadelphia teams like a 905 907 which is a couple of years ago that's pretty good they were going to make the playoffs they were going

Starting point is 00:20:41 to make the playoffs before he was pulled out of the lineup um for obvious reasons with vegas this year he's played 12 games 5 3 and 3 8 7 1 save percentage henderson he's played three games he's an 8 3 9 so it's going to take him time to get back if he ever does and i think has been far and away their best goal we've seen far and away we've seen with swayman last year missing training camp that you it's a really really tough thing for a goaltender to miss and then try to come in mid-season it's almost like i think when we were growing up it was more possible but these guys are so finely tuned now that it's just it seems to be something that's very very difficult it's a better league yeah well all this talk about you know all these teams and watering down the talent

Starting point is 00:21:24 nope nope it's hockey player i again i'll hammer it every show and maybe the people who think i hate hockey will hear it yep it we're in a golden age of talent yep an absolute golden age of talent and uh that makes it tough out there for goalies it does and i i'm just i'm curious about you know perhaps what he looks like next season but that doesn't help them now and totally yeah you have a mason mctavish conversation absolutely in the lineup because the training camp thing to me is like i'm yelling at him when i see him healthy scratched for the last was it three games now i'm like this is why training camp's important guys like you can't show up on the first day of the season and be like okay i'm good to go and then you're caught behind and then you're kind

Starting point is 00:22:10 of chasing it all season long yeah but the ducks wear that too i think like like you know what i mean like it doesn't help the ducks that mason mctavish is struggling no it doesn't you know what i mean like uh it's in maybe um it's in uh you know what we'll finally see it this september or whatever everyone realizes from the from the uh cautionary tales of jeremy swayman and mason mctavish it's in everyone's best interest to get this done yeah yeah no i i agree like it is on both sides because they want that player to succeed you know imagine how much better they'd be exactly but so i think yeah the message should be to everybody on all the sides is get things done so guys can have training camps because they seem to be kind of important yeah they are not uh

Starting point is 00:22:58 this isn't mark messier and it's not the 90s what was his thing like he he would like intentionally not come yeah i think so i mean that's what eric carlson used to do too guys aren't smoking darts between shifts anymore fellas it's 2026 yep you got nathan mckinnon who hates you and the ice and eats chickpea pasta and i'm not sure has ever seen a beer that he didn't vaporize with his vision you know what i mean like we have athletes yes well you gotta you gotta if you're not at 190 you're going to get eaten alive mason mctavish by the way for anybody who doesn't know was scratched and that is a that's a massive i mean he just signed the contract it was a it was a really really tough negotiation apparently like really did not pat for beak is not known as like

Starting point is 00:23:48 a nice guy uh not known as an easy guy called the little ball of hate yeah uh and that was when he was playing um so i think that there's probably some there was probably some feelings there it probably got a little personal um obviously you try to get past that and over that which a lot of these guys are professional enough to do but you know there have been questions about mctavish's long term uh is he going to stay in anaheim long term and i find that hard to believe because i don't know i know they got carlson i know they got grandlin who can play center but like you need and there was rumors about maybe it was a mctavish nize swap or something like that that was anaheim was one of the teams who really wanted matthew nize mctavish and yeah it would be

Starting point is 00:24:34 mctavish to me go on i'm not saying one one yeah yeah that is i'm glad you pointed that out because the comment section would go ballistic and i'm like guys listen i that they would be the center pieces there would be other things and obviously i i just i do wonder about that situation it's kind of a it's kind of an interesting one you're gonna have a real hard time winning that trade the best thing is like he has 13 goals and 32 points which is not very good it's also not oh let's wrap this up here right disastrous yep he's 23 he makes seven mil which is gonna get more and more reasonable but you're in the middle of a playoff race you're gonna win a division now and you're fielding the best line of night in night out and this guy can't crack it oh no no

Starting point is 00:25:22 totally but like i'm saying off season you don't need to move this person totally deadline heading into the deadline okay yeah explore it but you've made the commitment that this is a guy who can't help us when we need help the most i feel like this scratching is more than a scratching in november oh yeah like this me there's more weight to this considering what the ducks have done this season and where they are so i don't know if there's coming back from this for him for the organization because they've clearly said in our most important games you're not a part of it so i if you guys want to hear from joel quenville as well it's his second straight game uh he's scratched he's scratched two games in a row but this was from uh when he scratched the first time

Starting point is 00:26:08 wish him all the best and uh thank him for all he's done for the organization Alright, next question. Start tonight, coach? Uh and Troy, what's his status right now? I know it's a maintenance day. Yeah. Okay. Um what's uh what's your thought on Mason right now? What what sort of went into the decision on Sunday and what have you kind of seen in his response? Uh I like his response today. You know, I think that uh it's not easy. It's uh you know, it's tough news. Um for the player and uh

Starting point is 00:26:40 And, you know, I think that he's handled it well. I thought today was, you know, that we see him playing. So it's just a matter of time that we'll get him back in there and he'll be doing his thing. So he's not playing tonight, but we expect him to be back in here real soon. Was I the only one who had a really hard time not focusing on the conversation in the background? No, I was listening to Joel Clem.

Starting point is 00:27:08 I was trying to. in the background it's just okay here i'll be him you'll be that guy being a duck rock he's gonna be able to help us it's crazy yo this is this is my thing why can't they fucking figure out press conferences man i don't know i know they're on the road there but i think they were on the road there uh but kick the fucking loudmouths out of the room can i tell you that that would never fly in toronto of course it wouldn't and when people talk about toronto being a hard media market the pr staff here is so good that they're able to control situations like this to make it easy for the head coach if you're in that room at scotia bank arena down on the

Starting point is 00:27:56 event level where craig brube talks there's no talking when the coach is at the podium steve keogh would put a size 12 dress shoe through your chest are you kidding me if you try to have a conversation while berube's up at the podium like no so yeah other places you gotta deal with shit like that amazing anyways shout out the ducks and deep uh pod for that one uh for that audio but i thought it was interesting him telling everybody he's gonna get back in there eventually it's not a permanent scratching but they're clearly trying to reset this player and i know scratchings uh they do that two games in a row though yeah this is ahead of the second time he did it if he does a third time like when do we start they just re-signed paling too two games in a row makes

Starting point is 00:28:42 more sense to me than one because that's one game i don't think is enough time to accomplish anything if you're looking for a true reset maybe that maybe it's just because i'm from toronto and the accountability people being held accountable here might might be a period you might sit for half a shift you don't you don't ever see guys scratched here no even under babs when he had like marner playing on the fourth line you're not counting like michelle was healthy scratched for a bit yeah domi got healthy scratched this you didn't get healthy you're right you're right you're right yeah but yeah but like the big boys never have robertson's always healthy scratch none of those guys

Starting point is 00:29:20 are to the leafs what mason mctavish is to the ducks the year they finished last cadre was healthy scratched at the end of the season for disciplinary reasons i remember that I think the young Leafs, one of those years, Kasperi Kapanen missed something. Like his alarm didn't go off and he was disciplined. That's the last one I can think of. Kapanen has not been a Leaf for a long time. Yeah, it's been a while.

Starting point is 00:29:48 Yeah, so accountability is not a thing. Do you want this player on the Leafs? Mason McTavish? Yeah. I think 31 teams should want this player. what are you willing to give up uh well not nice um oh my god well i don't know nothing that they would want uh specifically i want nice is better how about future considerations uh that's what i'd fucking give you no oh you know what no okay go ahead and throw in austin you know what you gotta

Starting point is 00:30:17 give something to get some austin willie the building i give him the building brad is this the thing that can uh speed up the retool can you get minchukov too now we're talking for us he asked for a trade earlier this year stop it stop it with us but yeah minchukov minchukov asked for a trade there's a lot of good defensemen are you sending knives out for that i don't know like i i listen every time we do this people are you're fucking idiot and i'm like all right i don't know man as good as playing the long game god forbid we have fun with fake trades is is good as playing the long game is all right we got to get him out of toronto i could speed that up takes him out yeah hey i can come to a team that'll respond i can

Starting point is 00:31:05 see austin enjoying california i'm sure he would oh yeah i'm pretty sure most people enjoy california except for the taxes and the lips but um the uh i think i think what you try to do with mason mctavish because he signed a contract that's pretty reasonable uh you try to make it work yeah uh seven million dollar defense or a centerman who is uh 23 23 years old and okay and a dog he's not a centerman he's a left winger uh uh seven million bucks he'll be fine no he'll be he'll be fine i just i'm not sure what the ducks get that makes them better if that makes seven million dollars is a lot to have in your press box listen any anything that'd on the ice would be making them better.

Starting point is 00:31:51 Guys, we're wasting our time. Stop talking about the Leafs. What's the Flyers trade going to be? Oh, you're right. That's all they do. That's the only two teams that do business in the NHL, actually. What are we doing? Ristolainen. Duck. There it is. They could get Gauthier back. We figured it out. Oh, my God.

Starting point is 00:32:08 Yeah, no. I mean, yeah, they love making enormous trades together. They do. They do. They do well. Maybe it's... Well, the Ducks do. Yeah, no, no. but verbeek and i'm wondering did verbeek and briere ever play together i'm trying to think maybe i don't know verbeek duck it's perfect it's a hundred percent of a rhyme or what are you

Starting point is 00:32:29 fucking doing no ducks have beaks oh i'm clever it's like eminem over here jorhin jorhin be verbeek what what's going on i'm not i was gonna i was gonna yes and and i'm I'm deciding not to. I'm pulling the chute. Give us your best M&M impression. You do a good M&M. I'm pulling the chute. Okay.

Starting point is 00:32:52 You do a good M&M. No, I don't. You're making that up. You're fabricating this. Give it to the world. No, I am absolutely not. Give the world your M&M impression. I cannot do it.

Starting point is 00:33:01 No lying. I don't like it. I don't like this. All right. All right. So that's the Pacific Division. Thorin. No.

Starting point is 00:33:09 No. I want to. At the beginning of the week. You want to do it. He wants to. No, I don't. Get that camera off me. I don't want to.

Starting point is 00:33:19 Get that camera off me. What do you want to talk about? I want to talk about the Atlantic now because I told you earlier this week that this is a key week for the Red Wings. Big week. They're playing four games and they have answered the call.

Starting point is 00:33:34 Massive game against Boston tomorrow, but they have had a really, really good week. And, you know, the win last night, no Larkin no cop yeah and they they knew they kind of had to do it this week they beat the Flames which they should have beat on Monday uh they played the Canadians yesterday that's not a great beat for the and and yeah the the Habs losing that game sort of sucks for them uh Bruins and Red Wings tomorrow the teams are dead tight I don't know who holds the I think it's Detroit that holds the uh uh the the tiebreaker because they're in wildcard one right now but it's Boston

Starting point is 00:34:11 it's detroit they're both playing 68 the other way oh sorry so you have the standings in front of you uh they're on the screen they're right there oh it's in the second wild card what i was gonna say is do you know who fell out of a playoff spot because i was shocked let me explain it to the listening audience the boston bruins are in the first wild card spot because they have more rw's they have 28 regulation wins and the detroit red wings are in the second wild card spot but they are both tied at 84 points the new york islanders fell out of a playoff spot last night and they have 83 points so they trail the red wings and the bruins and we're leaving the islanders for now i don't care about the islanders steve and jesse i care about detroit and boston so please do not

Starting point is 00:34:49 talk to me about the islanders just yet there you go raven shen's been such a good no don't give a fuck let's talk about it i like matthew shane uh yeah oh my god bad bad talk do you know he only played 17 games in the ohl last year unbelievable so he's doing the red age guys guys guys guys come on bring it back bruins playing four games could have had braden shen sorry uh have lost two of the four games they were playing this week already they're one and two if they don't beat detroit tomorrow which i think is going to be the game of the week they will be one and three this week do they miss brandon carlo i you know what you have to ask you have to ask the question you have to ask uh i'm curious about this for a couple of reasons because you've got

Starting point is 00:35:34 right behind them forget the islanders for a second because i think they'll they play into their own thing but the senators are surging they won last night against the islanders right huge one huge and we'll talk about it uh but if you've got the senators and the blue jackets right there senators are still four points out boston having a one in three week is a rough look really rough And I don't know that it gets all that easier for either team, but the Bruins specifically, like we have been singing their praises and obviously they beat up on the Jets last night, which they should do the Leafs next week is you should win that game. But then you've got Sabres and Wild. Okay. Wild are sputtering a little bit, but they'll probably be fine.

Starting point is 00:36:21 Then you've got Blue Jackets, Stars, Panthers. And who is this? Sorry, the Sens. Bruins. Bruins. Sorry. We've talked about a lot of teams. bruins and red wings tomorrow bruins and maple leafs tuesday bruins and sabers wednesday so

Starting point is 00:36:33 you're getting the sabers on the second half of a back-to-back and then you get wild and blue jackets and stars the next three games and that'll round out the month blue jackets stars might be the worst back-to-back pair of games you can have in the league right now those are two incredibly difficult teams to be oh maybe buffalo you're also getting the blue jackets on the second half of a back-to-back your first being the wild oh so in four in four nights you get wild blue jackets and stars three games four nights and you better win you have to win you have to win you have to win now brady kachuk brought it last night talking about the sins and the islanders um he fought basically right off the top and then scored the game-winning unbelievable goal with 11 seconds to

Starting point is 00:37:23 go um the senators are no matter what i feel like they can feel no matter what happens here they can feel pretty proud about how this season has gone already i know there's only 12 games left i know that you know the goal has to be to make the playoffs but you can't account you can't like what were they gonna do with this kind of goal you're gonna have to indiana jones it into the playoffs and if you don't it's gonna be super close you know that's a good hockey team oh yeah i of course i do doesn't matter goalie's part of your team yeah yeah now if with four points there there's still a four point spread there even with the record being as good as it is my question for you guys is of the teams that we've mentioned so detroit boston ottawa new york islanders uh

Starting point is 00:38:11 and the blue jackets who are your two wild cards out of those five it's crazy to me one of those seems as to miss um i kind of think we got the right ones so you think the islanders falling out might be normal because that's the one where they've added god they've added significantly that's so blue jacket sorry by the way blue jackets as of this morning are in third place in their division my bad i think the jackets get in and then it's a race between can detroit survive this like what they're going through can boston not run out of steam which does happen to young teams um and like a lot of significant parts of the roster are young and then the island like just are they good enough uh i think they are like they're getting really good performances

Starting point is 00:39:10 out of the guys they need to get good performances out of and they're still not necessarily getting the results they need oh it's fun i will say like every year i think two things can be true at once gary betman is absolutely right that this playoff format um or at very least this point system makes games interesting october through april and also it's anti-sporting yeah it's completely like what's going on in the central division is well i still think you'd have a battle at the bottom you would so so anybody that talks about how exciting no gary's system and he said this is built on uh amping up the first round that's all he wants right um but in terms of like races at the bottom this system doesn't encourage or discourage any more races at the bottom they're

Starting point is 00:40:02 just there so i there let me ask you this jess there is one team of those five blue jackets bruins red wings islanders senators who has a negative goal differential it's the red wings it is the red wings yeah does that does that color this a little bit i have confidence that the red wings can get this done last night's win against montreal was such a gutsy win the goaltending thing all season long has been underrated for them getting gibson has solidified their goaltending something that we've criticized steve eisman for many years because he's decided to run 42 goaltenders in his net at once and keep them all on the roster and send none of them down grand rapids at any moment but now he's decided to just get a starting goaltender and it's kind

Starting point is 00:40:50 of stabilized things and last night close game one one montreal division rival and then you have this huge play here by alex to bring it the pucks going from the detroit the montreal offensive zone all the way to the other end of the ice along mike mike matheson yes along the boards mike matheson's going to play the puck right he's he's chasing back his routine play right he should just be able to collect this puck and and send it up the boards and then uh everything's good for montreal and you're able to break out the other way but he uh does something i don't know if this is classic mike matheson i just think it's a situation that happened in this one play but he turns he pivots to send this puck up the boards and he flubs it right to the brinkett

Starting point is 00:41:32 and then proceeds to fall on his face uh to bring it takes it he goes forehand backhand sauce over over dobish that ends up uh being the game winner as three minutes and 27 seconds are left on there and they go up 2-1 and eventually add an empty net to a 3-1 victory. Something like this late in this season can be a turning moment for a team where you're missing Rasmussen, you're missing Larkin, you're missing Kopp, you're missing Nygaard. So many guys are out and we think that Detroit's going to collapse here down the stretch with so many guys out.

Starting point is 00:42:10 You pick up this huge victory, you go into the next huge game against Boston, momentum's churning. you only need to you don't need to be like crazy hot you're gonna be like a really good team and i think they're gonna ride it to a playoff spot and i'm not going for clickbait here but like adam our our wild card conversation i don't think included enough teams but who would you have to throw montreal in there really we have to falling down you're talking about wow montreal 84 pittsburgh 84 boston 84 detroit 84 uh columbus 83 blue uh uh friggin islanders 83 and the sense sends 79 they're still outside shot and still there i will throw one more team in there

Starting point is 00:42:54 flyers 78 don't be silly it's they're hanging in there don't pander i'm i'm not pandering don't pander to flyers insider j money yeah insider j i know what you said don't talk about mitch don't pander it's i'm gonna yell that for a different mitch mitch cough yeah um no you you have to include the habs in that conversation and you know i talked about the bruins and the potential to wilt as a young team habs it's boy boy boy boy boy boy like every night i like i don't know how you don't scoreboard watch from the bench like it's it's incredibly incredibly tight are you worried about the habs adam because i think steve's got a good point and that if we're having the conversation about teams falling out and who's gonna make the playoffs

Starting point is 00:43:51 they have to be in there i my personal pick would be habs in there with detroit and i think the islanders sneak up sneak back up ahead of columbus they probably fall out and then boston so so it's interesting jess that you bring that up because the islanders have what 83 83 points yeah halves of 84 they're playing tomorrow if the right things happen if the right things happen the habs could be out of a playoff spot by our next show yes geez and what's interesting is they will then play the hurricanes uh top of their division on tuesday and then the blue jackets on thursday that's a horrible this is a this is a this is a big week for montreal and i think they have the talent i mean i think everybody knows that i i never saw montreal as like a threat to lose that

Starting point is 00:44:40 i would be really surprised because they've done it i always feel like i always defer to when i'm making like my predictions of like who's done it and who hasn't right montreal did make the playoffs last year it took some crazy fall-offs from the rangers in boston to get there but ottawa and montreal benefited from that which is why i give them a little more stock this year than i would give teams like detroit like boston um because they didn't do it last year now boston's completely different detroit had a great year and if they stay healthy blah blah blah but everybody oh man think of how great you sound like keith pelly if you start saying well if we had just been healthy like enough like i i you have to play the games with the lineup that you have so with that jesse

Starting point is 00:45:23 i think i'll give you an answer after the islanders canadians tomorrow that's not how that works what's the what's the what's the team that's what's the opposite of what i asked so okay then fine i say canadians do it i have questions about detroit okay i have questions about right but they've answered the bell this week okay oh my god they've answered razor razor thin margin yeah somebody go home real disappointed can i throw on another team are you worried about the pittsburgh penguins no they have 84 points they just got sid back i'm not worried about them they lose one game columbus wins one game they're third in the metro uh and then the islanders could win a couple games and all of a sudden pittsburgh's out of

Starting point is 00:46:03 playoff spot they're gonna win okay they're gonna get in i'm also not concerned but i thought i'd ask i think that the not only the pittsburgh penguins getting in but they're going to the second round wow yeah that's who you think they win the two they're gonna get home ice advantage they're gonna go to the second round yeah but it's not gains columbus well right now it's columbus yeah i don't i i think that they i think sid and his playoff is sid and gino i would take pittsburgh over the hurricanes too if that's the second round so i'm curious about that i want to ask you guys about that no give me give me pittsburgh would you take wow i i think i think we're right to question it i think canes fans are gonna hate it but i think we're right to say hey wait a second

Starting point is 00:46:41 here it was it was never about is crosby or crosby and malkin good it's about can the pittsburgh penguins be good enough to get them another shot right and this really could be it really really could because as we've seen this year the divisions change year to year is unbelievable um i here's what i would do i think the penguins fans aren't gonna love this i think if you're going to have a shot you can't be playing chris letang very much oh they know no they know you can't uh based on what i'm reading they know it's over and and and he had a great career but it's over can't do that boy like i'm just like okay tonight is a bit of a snooze fest like leafs hurricanes fart fart devil's caps neither of you are making it avalanche blackhawks the only

Starting point is 00:47:28 intrigue there is like can the avs increase their lead panthers flames fart ducks mammoth is interesting that's a great game yeah saturday holy shit we got bangers everything matters jets penguins surprisingly matters golden knights preds matters for a couple reasons stars wild first round preview potentially sabers kings there's a team playing for the division versus someone playing for their playoff lives philly sharks the sharks are playing for their playoff lives kraken blue jackets both of them islanders habs both of them leaf sends is at very least leaf sends and the sends need to win that game more than they need their next breath blues canucks and then bruins red wings oh and also lightning oilers i'm throwing on sportsnet

Starting point is 00:48:21 Pacific at 7 p.m. to watch Blues Canucks. No, and you know what? There's the slightest bit of intrigue to that game because if you're a Leafs fan, go Blues, go. You're in for tank fest? Yeah, no, I didn't

Starting point is 00:48:37 say that. I was just, you know, go Blues. Oilers, Lightning, yeah. Oilers do need to win that game. Every game on the schedule on Saturday night has intrigue. Every single game. Blues Canucks. And Blues Canucks. You know what?

Starting point is 00:48:52 What is that? 11 games? 10 of 11 ain't bad. They got that. Yeah. Pretty good. That's a pretty good batting average. That's a really, really, really good schedule.

Starting point is 00:49:00 I like that. That's going to be that's going to be fun. Again, I still think Detroit-Boston is the game of those games. Yes. That's the best game. Was it Habs Islanders? Was it? I think Detroit-Boston matters more than the Habs Islanders.

Starting point is 00:49:12 They're both so good. Like, oh, we got Matthew Schaefer against worse Matthew Schaefer. oh my god how dare you am i right no i'm pandering to the two people next to me i thought you were pandering i thought you were what happened to your montreal i think i thought i'd take a second and go on the side i thought you were gonna call canadian lane hudson lane hudson so here's here's what we do habs propaganda uh-huh unless they fall out of the playoff you are you are i'm habs propaganda unless they fall into the playoffs and then we're not streaming their games anymore in which case aggressive islanders propaganda okay i'm pro plastic snakes uh on the ice and burning

Starting point is 00:49:58 jerseys in the parking lot so are you now on the side of me that's taking hudson over shaffer i always was i don't know what you're ah let's go yeah no no two out of three on the panel adam are you coming over i won't do it my islanders my islanders contingent is too strong no i can't do that to them i reserve the right to be a trader and uh be like i was always blue blanca you're playing all sides i was always blue why do you think i'm learning french and duolingo oh yeah yeah what are we doing here learning yeah now steve's ryan in the office and it's to the troops both sides uh on the west in the west uh we we're kind of laughing because again And this is like the second year in three where they're sleepwalking to the to the playoffs in the wild card.

Starting point is 00:50:48 You guys, one of you mentioned I forget which one L.A. won last night and they got no, they lost. They lost in overtime and gained and they're the only thing to get a point in the Pacific. Sharks got shut out. Kraken have been Jesse. Do you still have that since the Olympic break? They're four and eight. I can't believe how bad I can have been. Second worst team in the league since the Olympics.

Starting point is 00:51:08 Yeah, they're tied down there. yeah good for bobby mcmahon though he's like poor bobby went from the worst team since the olympic break to the second worst team but hey they're in the playoff race and he's in he's their friggin mvp right now are the predators gonna do this they simply can't right the math though the math is like there's a couple teams playing really well i think the sends and the preds are in a very similar conversation where like yeah you're both punching above your weight you're both doing really well you might just be running out of time here's what it is here's what it is but here's they're way closer okay la 68 games 72 points they're the second wild card uh

Starting point is 00:51:50 kraken 68 games 71 points nashville 68 games 71 points san jose 67 uh 70 points san jose was in the playoffs five seconds ago yeah they're also you know the other teams have a game or sorry san jose has a game in hand over those guys so they have to win well they certainly do because now they're like forget the points they're three teams out of the playoffs if you look at it like that yep you gotta hop three teams well they lost three in a row it's not good nope nope generally speaking no and then there's utah that's like hello just chilling above everyone utah by the way would be tied for the their their wild card one they would be tied for the pacific division actually they'd be leading it because they have more regulation wins oh okay well there you go

Starting point is 00:52:34 they should be leading this is the system is fucking stupid and we need to stop we need to stop wild card one is like a very efficient spot to be in the west right now yeah yep yeah it's a good spot um i i if the la kings don't make the playoffs go kings go that will be hilarious go kings go come on scott no you know what it's gonna be uh they're gonna be like one point out oh they're gonna be down one 10 seconds to go lot and break away post no no way slapper off the post goes down to the other end do you have the betman quotes about the playoffs uh we can we can pull them if you want yeah was he defiant and shitty so michael russo had a really good article on uh betman's comments from the gm meetings his press conference there

Starting point is 00:53:29 one of the standouts was uh him talking about the playoff format he said it gives us a sensational first round probably the best playoff first round in any sport we get more games and longer series as a result of the format yeah so that's manufactured nonsense i mean yeah okay again it's an entertainment product not a sporting product and as long as you're honest about that i guess i can live with it but it's anti-sporting it does not award the teams that do better it does not reward the teams that can i tell you what i think's happened here um gary's dug in from the network perspective anything no no hold on from the network perspective um the tv rights holders the reason they're not fighting this because if they fought this then the nhl would

Starting point is 00:54:17 have to listen um most of the money is spent in the first round by the time the stanley cup finals rolls around the ratings are the lower i mean i know people are like well edmonton's in and it's this many people whatever yeah but imagine when there's like four canadian teams and imagine what the ratings look like then um so i i think the thing is is that the reason the nhl is doing this is purely financial and i'm not saying it's the right thing and i disagree with it whatever just so people know most sponsors want to buy the first round and they don't really care about the rest of it uh and that's why some will stick around the whole time you'll see like well it's the instacart intermission or the ozempic intermission like what sports that has but most of the time most of the

Starting point is 00:54:57 money is spent there which is why they're loading it up is it anti-sporting yes is it dumb yes does everybody hate it except for gary yes but the tv networks like it and that was that's what gary's after he went on to say and you can always pick at certain situations in any given year and say well i'd like it to be different that year but if you look at the body of work that our playoffs represent over time and what we have now works extraordinarily well and i don't think anybody would agree with that it works it works backwards he's how it should be he's really good at broad platitudes and no specific examples yes like what was your favorite playoff gary teams who win more games are not being rewarded in your playoff format yeah what is happening in the central

Starting point is 00:55:42 is so stupid should be hosting home playoff games to start the playoffs and i'm sure ryan smith is over the moon knowing that instead of being the fourth seed in the conference he has to go on the road as a wild card seed and play those early games the first ever playoff games for utah on the road and well and how about the division we're gonna have those at home how about the division winner of the pacific going oh great that's awesome can't wait to play literally a better team than us a team that finished ahead of us in the first round what a great reward yeah thank goodness we won the division especially our first year in a long time in the playoffs and we get to play a team that is ahead of us in the standings it's ridiculous instead of what should

Starting point is 00:56:31 be you're supposed to be playing a team that barely squeaked in and when an underdog wins it's supposed to be crazy because that rarely ever happens the kings beating the canucks 2012 i think it was that's supposed to be nuts ah but now it's just it's just manufactured i think too you know when you look at it from ryan smith's perspective specifically because they're the team that right now if the playoffs started today they're the ones you'd be getting screwed well them and the dallas colorado minnesota trio 100 because though that's fox like it's fine there's There's no way you have the top teams in the conference playing each other in the first round.

Starting point is 00:57:11 Can I give you a really stupid idea? No, let me jump in with the point I was going to make. Oh, okay. Okay. Think about playoff revenue. Seven game series. Let's say it goes to seven. Anaheim is going to get the three or four million dollars

Starting point is 00:57:23 that you make on a home game on game seven. Not Utah. Yes. Because it would be Utah versus Anaheim. And so then we move the schedule to 84 games next year, as you saw. the toronto maple leaf store allowing season ticket holders first dibs on game 42 how lucky are you guys lucky um the then you then you look okay well you're gonna make that up in the 84th

Starting point is 00:57:45 game fuck off no one cares about the last home game nobody cares about the last home game and we're when we're talking about we're talking about playoff revenue excitement in the city players being there all of that the utah mammoth which he just spent a billion dollars to acquire and is going to spend another half million or half billion dollars renovating that arena for the Olympics and for the team, he's going to miss out on that revenue just because Gary wants it for the TV people.

Starting point is 00:58:11 And I think, here's the deal. If I'm Ryan Smith, I'm like, yo, Gary, that's cool. How about we work both of these in? This is ridiculous. If not, if you don't earn the proper spot in the regular season, what is the point in playing the games?

Starting point is 00:58:27 Can I raise my hand and ask a question? Yeah. the nhl has outwardly out loud said we want longer series is that not exactly what they said yeah kind of in a way okay ref should have to answer questions after every single game absolutely have to they literally what they're manufacturing by their own admission yep longer playoff series so if i go how they ref steve they said it on mic to everybody i know but they should have to admit it on purpose that was by accident yeah after my team goes up three nothing in the first round and all of a sudden the other team starts to creep into it and every call looks a

Starting point is 00:59:15 little funny nope no no no no no no you're answering a question after every single game and everyone should insist on it. Stupid suggestion. Not that one. That's a smart suggestion. Stupid suggestion. If this is the crap you're going to do, here's what it is.

Starting point is 00:59:32 Eight teams make the playoffs. The eight teams with the most points make it. And you're like, yes, Steve, we want a one through eight system. Gary is never going to relent to that. You throw all eight teams into a lottery thing, just like the draft, and you spin it and you pick teams

Starting point is 00:59:48 until you get all the matchups. you decide who the first round opponents are by lottery balls. Okay. If you, Gary said... That's not going to work. They'll never do that. No one's agreeing to that.

Starting point is 01:00:00 No one. I think that's worse than Gary's system. But I think... Well, why not? Like, why not? Let's just do it. The old system was they had... How is it different than Gary's system?

Starting point is 01:00:09 I'm going to read the rest of Gary's stuff. It's not a whole lot different. No? That's a good point. If you look at the races for the playoffs, I think it's virtually impossible to say that the regular season has no meeting. to the contrary every game counts which is the baseline of anything going to 84 games what that

Starting point is 01:00:27 really does is balance off divisional play every team will play every other twice home every team will play every other twice home and twice away which i think is good so we're not doing any rotation within the division if anything it makes it more impactful well i don't think that okay i don't care good fine 84 games is immaterial to me this is where like this is where the guys that don't consume the game don't understand yeah right like you know the reason that they're okay with how terrible it is to watch hockey in the states on espn plus the reason they're cool with that is because they don't watch it like we watch it and they're not paying for their subscriptions and they're not worried about it because they have direct lines to their house my my thing is this

Starting point is 01:01:11 you could go back to the the the format before this which was you had three divisions back then in each conference right so there were six in the sport and each division winner got a buy into the one two or three based on their points so if you won the division but team four is still better than team three doesn't matter you didn't win your division okay why don't we just not make it confusing there's two divisions in each conference division winners from each get one and two everything else is up to points you don't even need that the the divisions can be immaterial and you just seat at one through eight why do you i think the division is supposed to be based divisions is for traveling that's why that's why you have conferences that's why you have divisions

Starting point is 01:01:56 they break it down so travel is easier because you play your division more so then travel is easier on the players so i'm just trying to find a compromise i guess but the nba has gone away from playoff seeding uh divisions determining playoff seeding you can just play one through eight that's fine like you can still win your division you could win your division the nba but doesn't mean you get a certain seed it's just seeded by how you did the regular season so which would be the most fair because those are the games you played and won and lost what we are forgetting is the old one through eight uh seeding wasn't true one through eight like there were six divisions so it was maybe a little easier to do but it was the three division leaders and then it was

Starting point is 01:02:35 yeah that's what i'm just fourth right oh okay sorry yeah yeah i wasn't listening my point is this my point is this like like we i i i feel like you've got to if you're an owner you got to have that money conversation it's about the money and you know who else would be pissed off and this is a great segue because i'm i'm pretty great at this i'm kidding uh is tom dundon if tom dundon got fucked by this you know he'd talk about it and in fact hurricanes are about to get thunder fucked on every nhl decision for the next three years so it all started with a friend of the show and uh network uh co-worker alan walsh tweeting out that there had been some sort of shouting match uh at the gm meetings this week and uh michael russo from

Starting point is 01:03:26 that same article named the GM because Alan didn't it was Eric Tulsky and here's how he says it he said Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky raised the ire of Bettman when he suggested the standard had slipped on headshots the commissioner is said to have retorted that it was Tulsky's team owner Tom Dundon who was making him bring that up he is such a petulant child he's such a this is why when gary says these things that we've been openly mocking because every sentence is more ridiculous than the last this is why it is a reporter's job to actually push back on him he cannot handle feedback he can't he cannot not in a public setting i'm sure behind the scenes all the time but he's actually a completely over 70 year old petulant child when you give him the

Starting point is 01:04:16 slightest bit of feedback he's a tiny tiny man thoughts well i i there's no arguments with anything you said well then why the fuck is this guy still in charge he's been 33 years he had 32 owners like him yeah and he's got the executive even if he does their bidding well he's got the executive council too so even if he gets let's say a third of the league doesn't like him if they're not on the owner's executive council they don't matter their votes don't matter as much and that's how he's been able to maintain power. And if you don't understand, let me just give it to you briefly. Imagine you got 32 owners in a room. They are not going to agree with you on anything. But if you're on an executive council of eight to 12 teams, they're the teams that people rotate in

Starting point is 01:04:58 and out. But there are certain teams like the Wards family, the Jacobs family that are always on it. Those are the teams that Gary needs on side to push his agenda through so he can win any argument with a you know maybe 40 percent support which is kind of crazy when you think about it and that's why he's been able to stay because these guys if he does the favors properly when you're on the executive council they're not going to vote him out well adam there was this book i read called rogers versus rogers and uh what i what i understand about rogers in that situation and what i understand about the nhl and their executive council is the guys at the tippy top of basically everything are not there because they are particularly talented or um

Starting point is 01:05:46 skilled or brilliant it's because they understand power yes they understand power how to acquire it and how to hold on to it uh and all of us trying to figure out how to get in there and get ahead through skill or maybe doing the right thing or good ideas or oh my god adam that's the number one thing doing the right thing we're all wasting our time uh you should read the 48 laws of power by robert green because gary nails that's too many laws uh do you have the gary's public comments on the uh video review on his public one yeah so is it in the room wait wait are they doing a good job yeah he said a sensational job he says i think hockey hockey operations does a sensational job with video review and much like supplemental discipline everyone is going to have an opinion

Starting point is 01:06:35 and when there's a lot of close calls it comes down to a judgment call there are certain things about our game where you cannot get a hundred percent certainty to everybody's satisfaction but again if you look at the body of work i think our video replay system not only has been a leader among the sports leagues no one has because all the other systems are modeled on ours it has held up extraordinarily well jesse like can i can i i would love a i would love like a side by side of my body language talking about the golden talent the golden era of talent that we're currently in talking about how excited i am for saturday's slate of games versus listening to this shit i feel less alive i feel less awake i feel closer to imminent death than i did 10 15 minutes ago

Starting point is 01:07:33 because of this paid liar i think you nailed it when you talked about how gary speaks because every question he's asked in one of these press conferences he always blankets it with everything's perfect guys everybody's happy with everything we're doing and in fact other people are so impressed with us with how we're doing that's how great we're doing and every answer to all of his questions is always that it's everything is perfect it's like getting a 51 on your math test and going to your parents and going but listen like this could have been a fail but it is not a fail this is a success and this is something we can i got the same amount of credits as the kids on the honor roll a hundred percent that's exactly what this is the other

Starting point is 01:08:19 leagues are like look to us part is so ridiculous because i don't know if major league baseball or the nba or the nfl know that hockey exists i think they are doing their own that's why every season several times a season there are videos of athletes from other sports going to their first ever hockey game and going wow and then the puck whizzes by they go that was fast hey and then there's a fight oh they're fighting to every year they have like they could just do ai you don't need to have any new people do that you could just photoshop new faces onto it you upload the same video six seven eight times per season every single season because people still aren't consuming your shit oh my god micah parsons to mcdavid um also he doesn't know who that is sorry i'm pretty

Starting point is 01:09:13 sure that mlb is the one who runs the back end of a lot of the nhl's database because the mlb has been so far ahead with their stats cast of their proprietary stuff that the nhl contracts mlb to do a lot of the nhl edge stuff i'm pretty sure it's the complete opposite of what gary says like in reality aren't you embarrassed i'll look at the mlb yeah the mlb mlb yeah they're all the league who like actually lets digital creators use their content so that they can talk about it your sarcasm in me okay no i'm just being an asshole because i fucking can't stand the hostage situation of this league i did not misremember this uh here are the details from 2015 is when this deal went down it was a billion dollar deal 1.2 billion dollars the nhl and major league baseball are

Starting point is 01:10:07 expected to deliver a joint announcement tuesday of a groundbreaking new partnership between the two leagues according to sports business journal the partnership involves mlb advanced media taking over the nhl's digital operations including the leagues and member clubs's website live streaming mobile applications and nhl network the nhl signed a six-year partnership with the mlb am on this new endeavor the entirety of the nhl's digital product is built on the advancements that major league baseball did to get to this point to sign a 1.2 billion dollar deal with the nhl gary everything you're saying is a lie and actually the opposite it's it's also like to their credit a smart idea the nhl partnering with an actual league i actually am a big fan of what the nhl does on

Starting point is 01:11:02 their site now in terms of nhl edge and the we've gone over this the amount of stats you can actually get when you know how to navigate yes the glossary and find the terms and then the filters that you have on the standings page and the stats page you can actually get really deep it does take a little bit of skill but like most of almost all the stats from my book was because i got really acquainted with the website was nhl.com the app is a different conversation that thing's buggy as hell and weird no it's awful terrible it's it's not great but when you're interacting with the site and you know how to navigate it it's really good yeah and that's built on the mlb's work with the nhl so gary i don't think you're the leader yeah but gary's remember just like the ottawa

Starting point is 01:11:44 a senator's pick is they're expecting you to forget yeah and and you know what it works for them yeah because because you have lives people have lives and jobs 11 years ago commissioner now uh both russo and frege wrote about uh the gm meetings in terms of uh something else that eric tolsky brought up um if something uh frege said this if something in this meeting was actually contentious i'd pick gold tender interference a few gms left unsatisfied with where we are and where we are going that second goal from the Anaheim Ottawa game last Saturday which we talked about yes has everyone in knots Ducks GM Pat Verbeek wasn't convinced and Tulsky is among those who backed him one of the league's concerns is that disallowing goals too often takes back

Starting point is 01:12:28 takes us back to the horrible toe and crease days of 1999 it doesn't need to be like that you could go into the crease but if you come into contact with the goalie it's on you I recognize the NHL's NHL hockey's operation feels it's a bit under siege I can only speak for myself but I'm

Starting point is 01:12:45 confident the opposition to that goal comes from a desire to avoid postseason chaos so their goals are the same we don't want postseason chaos and

Starting point is 01:12:53 let's be honest the Brad Hall goal was illegal it was the better the Dallas Stars Brad Hall goal was illegal I've heard that it wasn't no it was illegal

Starting point is 01:13:02 don't fucking you toe increase illegal that year you don't even realize how militant it was either Buffalo adam but it was bad it was 1999 was bad dude it ruined the video game but i think it ruined the video i remember having that i had nhl 99 and it was awful because you would take a shot from like

Starting point is 01:13:21 the face off dot no one in the blue paint there would be a review and sometimes the goal would get called back because i think it was random yeah that's how many goals were called back and then i think it was the 98 99 season i had that i had that on n64 nhl 99 i had it on pc with a joystick there you go um i think it's i think it's that um it's it's not actually that difficult no that's a goalie in the crease is contact made if that is the case if the player is in the crease with the goalie and if the goalie has a foot in the crease that's how you should look at crease uh goalies being in the crease like like um like the blue line when you're going through uh for offsides if you have one foot out and one foot in it's not offside

Starting point is 01:14:07 if you have one foot out and one foot in and you're the goaltender then you're in the crease so the blue paint like the change they made after 99 yeah you know i've been a big advocate of let players adapt to the rule don't let the rules adapt to the player that was a rare example of no no no no fix the rule um this one i think you tighten up the standard and yes you are going to get too many reviews and too many goals called back you are but eventually you won't because everyone's going to be like oh that's how hockey's played now and they're going to figure it out you you notice they don't really do the can opener anymore yeah because they they made that illegal yeah what about waving your stick in a goalie's face is that legal anymore

Starting point is 01:14:54 yeah like when they want to change a rule they'll change it in the middle of the playoffs which should not be allowed at all no not oh yeah we're just gonna change the rules mid mid playoff are you sick what um which is something you can't do unless you want to and then simply do it um hey listen you can't buy guys out unless their name is mike richards and you can have them on your they got to figure it out tighten it up deal with the pain so that we're not having the same conversation 5 10 15 years from now fix it deal with the consequences and move on because the consequences of not fixing it will be worse another note i found interesting uh when the nhl and the nhlpa agreed to their new cba this is from frege one unfinished item of business was

Starting point is 01:15:46 allowing one 19 year old from the chl to go to the ahl uh which is not allowed under previous rules as we know and this has been annoying for a long time nhl teams have pushed to eliminate restrictions saying that if they have more than one player is capable why shouldn't they be able to go and it's not like and frege mentions this hl is a really good hockey league it's not like they're going to get flooded with chl players not going to happen uh and what it does if you're a team and you're going hey wait a second i can't just have one exception what if you got two great players and you piss one of them off imagine it's matthews and marner and you pick matthews right well i was gonna say like uh the islanders have a bunch of guys right now

Starting point is 01:16:28 yeah yeah i think you should be able to do it and i obviously the chl has you know they've they've taken some hits in the sense that they um you know you have players now going to the ncaa and that's not illegal and whatever yeah but the ch is fine they raided the ushl and bc and the and the chl is doing fine yeah doing great in fact i would look at this like there's not going to be a lot of guys at 19 even 18 that are going to be ready for the a there's just isn't no what are we doing well and also we having overagers out of the oa or the chl allows for young young players to come into it right and i think that's the that's the other part like you have guys on those pilots that are like 20 years old they're gonna be well and like the average 20 year old in the

Starting point is 01:17:13 chl is not gonna be able to play in the ahl and thrive they're not the the only ones who are are like draft picks like first and second rounders but the guys who are like undrafted uh undrafted 20 year olds who are their team's leading scorer in part because they're 20 and they might be able to sign like an ahl deal or you know something like that yeah you're totally right they're not going to flood the league we already have a case study that we could look at if we really wanted to how many how many 19 year olds like just ran over the ahl when they were allowed in the 2020 2021 season after covid i don't know zero very few like but i can't even i'm trying to think of all the guys who were there like nick robertson was there and shouldn't have been quentin byfield

Starting point is 01:18:02 was there and shouldn't have been i can't i can't think of many others yeah yep um moving on away from the gm meetings unless you guys have more do you want to add from that uh bobrovsky uh it's interesting free to mention him in 32 thoughts he said there was word at one point that it could be a brad marshand style deal brad signed his at 37 bobrovsky's 37 brad's deal was six years 5.25 aav uh for the next six uh not sure where that stands now i i have a hard time believing that bobrovsky He's not going to be a Panther, but I do, I do have this question. I know that six years is within the acceptable range of the CBA. Sure.

Starting point is 01:18:40 And I know the Leafs have done this with Tanev, right? But let me just ask the question. Are we, you know, we, they, they went after the devils for a non-sporting contract with Kovalchuk, right? 17 years, which was reduced to 15 years. And it cost the devils a first round pick. And then they got the first round pick back and they were fine. but then the fine was reduced

Starting point is 01:19:02 do we believe that Marshan's going to be playing at 41 do we believe Tanev's going to be playing at 41 do we believe what Brovsky's going to be playing at 41 this is my thing what is the like if we're going to go after people for non-sporting contracts

Starting point is 01:19:20 right and I'm not saying the Panthers shouldn't do this they should absolutely do this I kind of want to see it I think next year they're going to be probably right back in contention yeah they'll be a good team maybe even the year after there is a world where in the not too distant future that team stinks but they'll have cups they will have cups and everyone will be like well cups but you know they're

Starting point is 01:19:45 there's potential that they've made the same mistakes that you know every team with the long san jose window makes is they just sign everyone for way too long and then they have to pick up the pieces but again you have you got the glory so what's the big deal yeah it's interesting i i and the the penalty thing for those long contracts for old guys it's not guaranteed that they can't play those years yeah so that's why you can't really penalize teams for that stuff like it's kind of understood you can't play that long but what if they can't and hey what if you're cory perry i'm sure talking along i'm sure with chris tanaf with brad marsh and with these guys you can find injuries to put them on ltir and declare them out for the season totally but like that guy also

Starting point is 01:20:28 might feel healthy enough to play yeah yeah um all right on the leafs very quickly one of the reasons the pats dynasty ended and tom brady's so mad at the pats is that they wouldn't give him that contract until he was like 44 45 and he wanted to keep playing for that long and kept doing those one years and he did there was a moment where he's like okay just give me a long term and they wouldn't do it and smart money is well you're not gonna be playing by then and he beat smart money yeah yeah anyway sorry um no no problem uh matthew knives was asked at practice today uh or morning skate i guess uh about his injury and he said it's kind of an injury that i don't think can get much worse so i think that there i don't think there's any risk

Starting point is 01:21:06 in for me playing it's obviously not comfortable playing through it but everyone's playing through something i feel like at this time of year so it's not really an excuse but if it's not going to get worse, then there's no problem with me playing. Then I'm going to play. And here's the issue I have with the Toronto Maple Leafs. And I said this, I want to give myself flowers for saying this several weeks ago. I said, you should shut down Niles. You should shut down Nylander and you should shut down Matthews. Why? It's not about the injuries they already have. And all three of them are injured this year. It's about the injuries they could incur. And what happened? Go to shut down Matthews for 12 weeks.

Starting point is 01:21:40 i don't understand why you can't like if i don't care if the player says no i want to you say sorry it's not your choice we're going to start rehabbing you we're going to start getting this thing better let's get the offseason started early because i don't want to repeat this otherwise if the leafs don't take this seriously matthews is going to go if they don't turn it around by and i've we talked about this at trade deadline if the leafs do not have by next year in February a good sense of we're going to regularly be in the playoffs again we are talking about trading Austin Matthews and we don't know if Matthew Nise is going to be here next year because he's sure been in a lot of trade rumors and he has no trade protection

Starting point is 01:22:23 if that is your best piece to retool around Austin Matthews what happens if it's his knee and not austin's so we've talked about boyd devereaux and the legend of boyd devereaux with the leafs he had a hat trick in his final game in 2009 and it cost the leafs to go from the fifth pick to the seventh pick lost in that and this was way more of a of an unforced error than that. That's just a player having a good night. The Leafs sold and they claimed Martin Gerber off waivers. Pretty sure it was off waivers. They didn't need to do this. They were tanking. They didn't need to do this. But I remember Brian Burke saying something along the lines of, yeah, but like, I don't know, people are still paying to come to our games, right?

Starting point is 01:23:21 he ended up being the only goalie so Vesa Toskala was the second best goalie which is a hilarious sentence at with an 891 save percentage and this is when goalies were getting like 915s in their sleep Gerber was a 905 and he went six and five in his 12 games he had a much bigger role in costing them that top five pick than Braden Chen or than than boy devereaux did they could have had yeah yeah what if part of the reason they haven't shut these guys down is they're like well people are still paying to come to the games like we can be like yeah tank tank tank just tank this tank it's not a video game and jesse you've been there and you've seen it like they're hurting oh yeah they're hurting they're they're clearly the second

Starting point is 01:24:12 best team against every team they go up against the fans like there is a sense of apathy in the arena well sorry that's what i meant oh yeah they're hurting like no one's no one's there and the ones who are there aren't cheering yeah it's so when they were playing was last the home game uh against what team the islanders when they're playing the islanders and the islanders go up to nothing early i believe it was there was a sense like oh this would be a moment if they were really battling you might hear boos and there was nothing and even when there's moments when they scored and they're supposed to be cheers you know it's like okay people are cheering and they're up but it's a sense of malaise from the audience you don't even know what's good yeah like you get

Starting point is 01:24:53 scored on and you're like all my instincts are that's bad but look at the standings and i guess it's good and then you score and you're like all my instincts are that's good but i'm pretty sure it's also bad and we're losing anyway it only made it to one and the bowl now is when you come back from the first intermission the second intermission it's less and less empty because people are spending more and more time in the clubs that are underneath there and the restaurants and all that you can definitely see people you mean it's more and more empty it's more and more empty in the seats because people are taking more and more advantage of like the scotia club and everything they have under there because they're not to do business deals they're not as interested in the

Starting point is 01:25:31 game they don't need to be in their seats because this game doesn't really matter so they're using the extra stuff in scotia bank arena because there's still every night 17 000 people there 16 000 they're never going to reach the point where it's winnipeg territory and it's like oh we drew 10 000 at scotia bank that's not going to happen there's enough people in the gta that want to go to a leafs game that is still going to be 16 to 18 19 000 people every night but it's a matter of how much do those people care about the thing that's going on the ice and right now i can tell you they're not caring a whole lot imagine they're making more money because they're spending more times in the concourse they probably are buying stuff they're selling more sandwiches

Starting point is 01:26:08 and burgers yeah it's possible more beers more rum and cokes that's funny dude when i flew to nova scotia and the game was blacked out the the leafs islanders game i i was working on trying to get it but because my flight was delayed this is like the beginning of the third period i just went forget it forget it if it was a meaningful game i would have fought for it i would have found a way i would have rode the seven seas but there was no point i want to look at uh i want to look at this to a couple of notes um obviously uh some of the teams that were interested in in nize were anaheim chicago montreal new jersey and utah new jersey i'm not surprised i do think the leafs must have had a conversation and a pretty serious one about simon nemich his name was out there trade deadline

Starting point is 01:26:52 day i still don't know fully why but i think because they've made the commitment to luke hughes um if you can somehow get that player you get that player my buddy was like uh was it jack hughes and i just wanted to like go over there with like a blanket and cocoa and are you doing okay no it was not jack but um i'm curious about like montreal so they they say that there was potentially a patrick liney thing i don't think it patrick liney wouldn't have been playing well maybe he's playing but he's not like a thing where the leafs are like yeah no he's a big part of the future that would have been to make the money work on whatever deal they were doing and i that tells me the montreal deal however far it got was based on futures every

Starting point is 01:27:33 day you decide to not fire bradshaw living is a day you actively decide to do a bad job well if he got an image i wouldn't have been upset uh uh the question i think you're so right on patrick linea where the leafs acquire him just to like hey the money is going out and coming in and then they sit them and they let them go in free agency i've seen people say like well what what if they just signed him to a one times no that was that's the thing where you're taking you're getting assets to take this contract yeah i think patrick liney is taking a million dollars to play in toronto i don't think patrick liney is going to have a choice uh i don't think i don't know if patrick liney gets to a million i don't i'm very curious about what happens with him this

Starting point is 01:28:11 summer there's a world where he has a second nhl career yeah i think we all agree on that we're just making too much how many how many teams how many years are we going to wait for that oh i know i know no he's the the ultimate uh arrested development well it could work for us well that's that's the point right and he hasn't had he had 20 goals last year uh he had 22 the season before well two years ago or sorry 22 23 22 like this is not this is a guy that hasn't scored over 25 goals since 2019 2020 yeah but oh sorry 21 22 that's half a decade even you're talking about matthias michelli with more upside which is sadly i don't i don't think he does more upside i under well his shot is still a touch of death yeah and you can't play him five

Starting point is 01:28:59 on five at all you can't ask have fans what it's true so you can't dress him i i just think there's a i've seen him do it too many times like he's he's maybe the most the most lethal one-dimensional player i've ever seen like 0.25 dimensional like he has one thing he does and he might be a top five person in the world at it and everything else that is every time i see patrick line a play i'm like is there something wrong with the are you six five yeah oh i'm of the opinion that patrick line is closer to retirement than to getting back to what he was that's what i think yeah you're the injury that's kept him out all year long and if you're acquiring him at the trade deadline i don't think you expect him to play like that's why i was confused by people thinking oh the

Starting point is 01:29:50 leafs are getting him and he's gonna play he's taking defensive line rushes with the haves he's not playing this you know the haves are getting him up out of here that is what was i think they were trying to drop that salary too potentially for a cadre exactly this this felt like oh we're doing this so that we can do this and then we're good and i'm surprised that he's not on season ending ir yet so there's still like a chance he could play and everything i'm surprised that decision wasn't made earlier because they clearly don't need him no they're fine without him so um i don't know i don't trust that he's able to get back from this injury missing a year of hockey isn't an easy thing to come back from estimated career earnings according to puckpedia 57.2 mil

Starting point is 01:30:30 it's not bad it'll be all right if the least we're going to do a deal with chicago or with utah i would have to think that would be with for futures like i would think the leafs ask with chicago would start with frank nazar and then utah would be buying nick lardis their playoff run right we're talking about would be at the trade that yeah if you're nice but even if you're doing it this summer jess like what oh totally what's if if if nice is the piece and it seems like he is because people think oh they're going to trade matthews and get a good return like do you think the Quinn Hughes return was good? Commiserate to what he is?

Starting point is 01:31:04 Well, no, no. It was a good return because he had all the trade protection. It's not good. Like, are we talking about equal value trade? No way. It's difficult because there's always

Starting point is 01:31:15 in a deal like that. There's always an element of magic beans like Zeev William could be incredible. He could be. Yeah. And Marco Rossi's look pretty good. The last few games, I think he's got eight points

Starting point is 01:31:24 in his last three or four. Yeah, it's it's a difficult one to i'm gonna see it on saturday yeah i'm gonna be watching that one let's go that's my game of the day um nick lardis uh wanted to point out he had in 65 games in the ohl last year 71 goals is that good goals um this year in the ahl 35 games 32 points 18 of them goals in the nhl it's been a little spotty eight points five of them goals in 27 games um i would want him in the package sure yeah i don't know that chicago would give it to you but that'd be cool for matthew nice then you hang up the phone what are we doing you're asking for something that can turn into

Starting point is 01:32:09 matthew nice or better but it's still a magic bean but a potential like really great player because you know what matthew nice is yeah and we're giving that to you so you got to give us something of that quality if he never if matthew nice never gets better than this you still did well oh my goodness right he's he's grown into a really great player yes whereas these other guys we're gonna need him to come up i i don't think he's not steve's not far off i i would be convinced matt nyes is a point of game player if it wasn't for the knee injury which happened relatively early and it's held him back but he still looks pretty good scoring wise uh my guess is he does get shut down early it's just not yet what's a utah look like like what do they like the utah

Starting point is 01:32:47 has a great system they got a ton of picks like that's the part for me i'm like this could be anything so they have some crazy prospects and the one that i think a lot of utah fans were worried they would get rid of especially in like a mckenzie wieger deal was tg gimma nice is 23 on a reasonable contract with no trade protection huge no trade protection and can score still teach is like i want to say a top five pick i don't know man okay i don't know i don't think they do it they probably don't do it so you might have to go with one of the other guys uh the nhl draft lottery is scheduled for may 5th so big day for us big day for us sure is well you know what we gotta live stream it

Starting point is 01:33:37 i've been live streaming the last couple of years but we haven't paired there was a bit of a mess remember we're doing it from sport check and they were it went by so quick yeah they like did they're like here we go here we go here we go and you couldn't really keep up and then the commercial break happened and we're like what the fuck is going on yeah it was like 10 minutes yeah it was like a 30 minute show and then they did the whole thing in like 10 minutes yeah they're like five minutes and then they spoiled the surprise when the islanders moved up and it was like oh okay and then everybody's like well what about the rest and like no one gives they're like oh the islander got the first pick but we still

Starting point is 01:34:09 got to do two through four yeah everybody's like okay we'll just look it up um the but i remember the year before i did it from the couch in here and the whole thing was with kyle dubas he was on zoom yes would kyle dubas get his pick in the top 10 which was top 10 protected and i and i think it fell to 14 i think that was san jose's pick right and then he just immediately logged off zoom live on the air good good for him um last thing i wanted to hit uh ontario is looking at getting rid of scalping they are introducing legislation for uh anybody that sells a ticket over face value that is now going to be illegal oh no who are they going to show on tv when an opposing team scores against the leaf that is instantly who i thought about and you know who i thought

Starting point is 01:34:53 the you know who this hurts is your average leaf fan who have season tickets but are not corporate because those tickets are so expensive what leaf fans will do is they'll pool the tickets from some of the games they'll put some good games in there and they'll sell those and they it funds the rest of their um their time at the the toronto maple leafs right so that they get able to hang on to the tickets but now that happens that's gonna that's gonna push out a lot of leaf fans who break even using that or even make a profit using that right so they're going after scalpers but they're not going after like a ticket master they're not going after ticket master and um it just means that there will be less fans in the building because the fans that buy those

Starting point is 01:35:41 season tickets and have normal salaries but decide instead of going on vacation we're going to have season tickets are not going to be able to fund those season tickets the way that they have been able to and the leafs by the way are not going to like this either because now if you have season tickets and you have a license and you sell those tickets the leafs get a piece of that so they get to sell the ticket once sometimes twice and they take whatever percentage of it so i'm just i'm fascinated to see a if this actually goes through b how that changes the dynamic within the arena interesting i don't i don't know enough about the world of scalping well it's pretty simple right you buy tickets hey steve you got you got 41 maybe 42 games and you're going to sell 23 of

Starting point is 01:36:22 them so that you can go see 20 games and now in those 23 games pay for the entire season ticket package now uh well i can only really sell them for what i bought them for that's that's tough that's tough so that'll be that could lead in a weird way and i'm i'm still for it to a quieter arena because it'll be more corporate seats because the only people who can afford and really like how many people can really afford ten thousand dollars a seat a year really and truly if you go to double business if you go to double digit leaf games in a year you are in such a i i don't realize i don't think you realize what a what a class that puts you in a one percent of a one percent i think the only year of my life i ever did that is when i literally worked for the

Starting point is 01:37:14 team and i've never i've never done that i don't think i've ever done that i went to three leaf games last year yeah i think i've been to one this old fancy pants two of them were in europe oh wow that was two years ago by the way was it two years ago last year oh shit but the point is i believe something to keep an eye on just throwing that out there i thought that was an interesting story and it's a big that's going to get really good play politically and that if he gets that pass that'll actually be a net positive for everybody but i do think it will make for a quieter scotia bank arena if more corporate seats are there also um you're not allowed to look at uh all the corruption on my phone there you go i don't know that's not i'm not trying to get into

Starting point is 01:37:55 that it's it's a good thing to cover up bad things do you want to end the show watching uh british hockey hooligans no we have to do something else first we have to hayden producer hayden at sd sent over an all-Ontario matchup All-Star game based on our Monday conversation. Oh, this is good. So Hayden said, he said, I caught the first bit of today's show

Starting point is 01:38:22 when you guys were talking about what they could do at the All-Star game, or at least in that time slot for 2027, which is next February. And he said, I had to play fast and loose with the positions. But if you guys were going to do an intra-provincial sort of tournament.

Starting point is 01:38:38 If we held all Canada tournament and it's just like how they do in curling. Yeah. You know, if we did that for the provinces here in Canada. So he said some provinces have a lot of centers, but no wingers and vice versa. But he said, I had to combine the East Coast because the lack of play. Obviously, the population of the East Coast isn't. And don't call it the Maritimes if you're including Newfoundland. The Maritimes are without Newfoundland, but the Eastern provinces.

Starting point is 01:39:03 So we have an East Coast region. Yeah. And we should have a territories. Does he get into that? He doesn't. But the N.A. says is a in place of any spot where an NHL player could not fill. Also, if you guys give me some time and set regions, I can do the same for the U.S. Would be sick.

Starting point is 01:39:18 I love Bord Hayden. Yeah. Bord Hayden is good at this stuff. That's why we call him the stats god. Now, Ontario and Alberta have great teams. Oh, yeah. Like, let's so let's run through. Willie's hilarious.

Starting point is 01:39:29 OK, do Ontario first. OK, so I'm assuming that's Wyatt Johnston. No, it's Ross. uh mcdavid and marner shifley suzuki connect me o'reilly tavaris velarde stamp coast strome beckett seneca uh wilson and bennett on the bench you're in you're insane putting wilson and insane putting two canadian olympians on the bench in favor of i assume dylan strome and beck uh not beckett seneca uh friggin velarde gabe velarde that's okay stop it uh bouchard Radish, Schaefer Ekblad, Montour

Starting point is 01:40:03 Wieger with Clark and Power as extras and then Wedgwood, Binnington, and either Jet Greaves or Mackenzie Blackwood. Wow. Now in Alberta, this is a good team. Hilarious. William Nylander, born in Calgary, Brayden Point, Dylan Genther,

Starting point is 01:40:20 Bobby McMahon, Taylor Hall, Jake DeBrusque, Steele, Holloway, Krebs, Savoy, Kelly, and Greg with Neighbors and Miles Wood as the extras and then McCarr, Morrissey, Zellweger, Spurgeon, and Evans, Pareko, Middleton, and Gooley be sitting on the bench, and Thompson, Thompson, and a couple of other guys by the name of... Matty, remove...

Starting point is 01:40:46 There you go. Here, I'll just look at my own screen. Yeah, I already looked down, yeah. Thompson, Skinner, Comrie. Okay. Now, Team BC is interesting because it's awesome and young and fun, but Dard Celebrini, Ryan Hart. shit Ben Kindle Matt

Starting point is 01:41:00 Barzell Nugent Hopkins wow Jamie Ben Kindle he's been incredible he's been great Jamie Ben I was there for his first NHL goal Jamie Ben Fraser Mitten Logan Stankoven Benson sort of

Starting point is 01:41:11 and Kane that'd be a Vander Kane Finney and con call this gone call this I can never say his name right as the one sitting on the side Theodore Tays Riley Byram ball Witherspoon

Starting point is 01:41:24 and Dylan and Stetcher are the extras and then with Hill Jari and brossois as your uh three goalies team manitoba uh jarvis stone geeky doer domi glass martinook tase colasar howden kozak reeves because because max domi because his dad was i was about to say low-key that's sort of like willie being on alberta yeah uh morgan geeky uh being the extra and then san jose connor that's connor connor geeky excuse both geekies uh san jose matechuk severson pullock edmondson white cloud hunt hamannik hamannik still an nhler uh hofer

Starting point is 01:42:02 reimer and minor as the goalies now let's do the quebec ones quebec's interesting quebec's struggling quebec's quebec's been interesting they haven't developed the top line talent that we're sort of used to lately so mantha lafrenier uh borge i think i think that's a typo i think he meant maverick board i know i'm just oh okay i'm just uh do claire hubert oh marcia so bavillier gourd perron uh i can't pronounce his last name i never can h name from the stars yeah he's the one that was pointing at the stars uh the edmonton bay yeah herculean herculean wah and gray we're gonna need to learn it for the streams uh drew in and gaudreau and then Matheson, Chabot, Letang, Carrier,

Starting point is 01:42:47 Dastu, and Girard, and then Chevrier and Lauzon. Julian would hate me for these pronunciations. How about the goalies? Montabeau and no one else, which is crazy. The problem is they gave us like Plante and gave us

Starting point is 01:43:03 Brodeur and gave us Watt and Montabeau. That's it. Oh, yeah. Oh, Luongo's from Quebec. That's right. Saskatchewan. Alan Walsh. That's right. Great university goalie. The greatest goaltender from Quebec. teammates of Mike Babcock at Laurier. Can you believe it?

Starting point is 01:43:19 So Hagel, Eberle, Stevenson, Zeri, Shen, Schwartz. This is team Saskatchewan. Janoke,

Starting point is 01:43:25 Catton. That's Berkeley, Catton, Seattle rookie. And Pedersen, but nobody on the fourth line. Schneider, Korczak,

Starting point is 01:43:33 McNabb, Shen, Paschal, Dumba, Fleury, and Fleury. That'd be, wait,

Starting point is 01:43:40 Caden Fleury, right? Oh. And who's the other Fleury? not mark andre no i don't know i don't i wish you said the first thing there and then kemper and ingram as your goaltenders and then the east coast no it'd be hayden flurry uh-huh because caden's the goal okay it's the goal who the hell yeah no i don't know i don't know i'm i know when someone tweets this at us we're going to be mad about it yeah i know 100 um and then last one

Starting point is 01:44:06 mckinnon crosby marsh and team is that might be the best first line i think it is Oh, no, Bedard Celebrini. Yeah, my bad. Oh, BC won. Hey, how about McDavid Marner? That'd be pretty good. This is awesome. McKinnon, Crosby, Marchand,

Starting point is 01:44:21 Killorn, Newhook, Mercer, Johnston, Green, Barron, O'Brien, McEwen, Melanson, Dobson, Barron on defense, Graves, who is that? M. Kyers. M. Kyers, okay. No, I think that's supposed to be Philip Myers.

Starting point is 01:44:36 Yeah, I think it is too. uh alan pickard and uh alice as your goalies but they need two more defensemen so here's my thought if you don't include the territories then the territories if there are players from the territories so yukon uh nunavut and uh northwest then those guys get drafted onto the teams that don't have players don't have a four how i would do this seeing how everybody shapes out with these teams make it a three on three tournament with five deep or seven deep teams i think seven would probably be a good number maybe eight and then we got a good little thing going there yeah it is indeed philip myers he's from monkton yeah that's that's really good the british columbia team is

Starting point is 01:45:21 surprisingly really deep i love that the quebec team very disappointing uh ontario strong obviously alberta is really alberta i might rank i might go ontario bc alberta i think my top three bc or alberta's got uh that that defense is crazy i thought ontario's goalies although it is literally just the goaltending tandem from the best team in the league and canada's goalie thompson is the goalie like come on yeah alberta's got willie mccarr point that's really good sheesh and then yeah bc theodore tase oh morgan riley way to go hayden there's the hole beats working right yeah no that's awesome anyways i thought that was really fun yeah yeah yeah very very cool uh last thing i do want to play this uh this

Starting point is 01:46:15 tiktok of british hooligans at a hockey game it's at the very bottom and i just think the this is why i keep asking for the world cup to be bigger than eight teams uh because i want to see these fans you know i want to see more german fans i want to see more swiss fans i want to see french fan i want to see the fans because if we don't create the opportunities for these guys to participate in the big tournaments then it's not going to draw national interest and i want the sport to grow and that's why i think we're thinking small too small when we when it comes to the nhl only having, you know, eight teams at the World Cup in twenty twenty eight. Now, maybe in twenty thirty two, it's a different look.

Starting point is 01:46:56 But I look at this and I go, man, even if they got stomped, wouldn't it be cool to see this? This is British football. Hooliganism comes together. This is a British team playing in Canada. Here you go. You can hear the chants. They're up all game. They're clapping all game.

Starting point is 01:47:33 You see what I mean? I love it. Isn't that great? I love it. We're not fun here. We're just not. and like here by here i mean just this continent not as fun as no we're not nearly as fun i i was at a prospect showcase that that's very depressing it is though like it's just true i was at a

Starting point is 01:47:59 prospect showcase last spring and it was a russian team of 6 15 through 17 year olds versus a bunch of oh no not 15 through 17 it was like 13 and 13 14 15 and it was a bunch of ohhl 13 14 15 guys that had just been drafted it was a showcase yeah and they brought all the russian parents and listen this is just a showcase but the russian side of that rink was fucking loud were they arrested no they were just they were having the best time they were having a really really fun time and i just thought like man this is we need more of this because what it'll do is it's going to put us north americans to shame so we get up off our asses start bringing some drums and start chanting during games and you know getting into it you know because like you can

Starting point is 01:48:44 make fun of toronto for having a quiet rink they do but montreal fans still sit the last like they're i would you go see a game like a real game in europe they don't sit they're up the whole time they're chanting the whole time they get the drums and the flares and this like we i want more of that people from europe just have more blood in their veins like you think so can i tell a story about my uber driver from yeah you can do that and we'll wrap it up after that this is great so yesterday i'm getting a ride home from the airport uh flew in from halifax and this guy picks me up uh and he he just tells me not much english brother not much english brother georgia georgia he's from i go oh tablisi yes yes yes yes he's boxing boxing he's just trying

Starting point is 01:49:34 to tell me his interest because he doesn't know many words judo judo you know he's trying to show me flips and boxing books and yeah so freaking um it's a long drive from the airport i tip him 50 bucks at the end of it it's a business expense i don't give a shit and like he also had to drive through rush hour traffic i know he makes nothing he also told me he makes nothing um and like doesn't live anywhere near where i live so gave him that big tip i get in the door i'm talking to my wife talking to my son less than five minutes later my doorbell rings i go what the hell and it's the guy he shows up at my door so i open it i go hey man he extends his hand for a handshake so i extend my hand for a handshake and he grabs me firm grip and he brings me in for a

Starting point is 01:50:21 hug i go okay i guess we're hugging and then he gives me a kiss on the neck my uber driver kissed me on the neck and he goes thank you brother thank you thank you brother i appreciate it out thank you but i'm boxing boxing books and then he uh and then he left but i was kissed by a man but that with a very stubbly beard and i was just like that is never like no canadian has ever done that no they've never thought to do that and if they did i might be like call the cops yeah because it'd be weird for them to do it but not this man from georgia absolutely and you absolutely because that's his it's cultural norm yes right i love that i love that uh blood in your veins and smooches on your lips i will be doing the live stream tonight uh and steve will be doing

Starting point is 01:51:09 the live stream tomorrow night if you are at the game tonight being depressed jesse is also there so you can be less depressed about him try to pick him out in the press box two and oh two and oh please this weekend um who do they got carolina and ottawa carolina's gonna kill him Pezzetta's up, but he's not playing tonight. Ottawa's going to be interesting. Pezzetta playing. I'm not sure. He's playing against Ottawa.

Starting point is 01:51:32 100%. Big dub against the Hurricanes, and then you go into Ottawa, smack them around. Why don't you dress Pezzetta against Carolina when DeLorea's there? Because DeLorea is one of those heavyweights that only activates if you make him. oh and also pesetta is i think is in as far as fighters go he's like a middleweight yeah he's one of those guys who's like an upper heavyweight or sorry upper middleweight like he's fought reeves and it was dumb every time he did it okay that's not his weight class but he'll he'll do it but he should not be looking for a fight with nick delorier that's dumb okay steven adam what

Starting point is 01:52:18 did you think of brady and matthews kachuk's comments about the matthews incident i think uh i think a broken clock is right twice a day and i also think it ought to make uh saturday's game between the leafs and sends very interesting because uh it's one thing when you're called out by your team it's another when the captain of your rival who you played in the playoffs last year essentially calls you out for not sticking up for your boy i for context just before you answer adam on their wing men pod uh matthew and brady said if you go after our best players we're going after your best players and they talked about how that would have never happened on their teams and and you know what they're right they are correct they're right they've never they've

Starting point is 01:53:04 never not lived up to that i've never seen a moment where they haven't lived up to that and All right, Ducks fans, go get them. Full marks to them, honestly. Like, I really, you know, I think that they're 100% right, that 100% should be the way it is, and I think you're lying to yourself if you think that this adds any spice to tomorrow night's game. Leafs will be on the second half of a back-to-back.

Starting point is 01:53:24 These guys have zero blood in their veins, and when we saw them play the Islanders on, was it Tuesday or Wednesday, whenever you did your thing for the hotel, it was pretty clear that whatever anger they had from the Matthews thing had worn off, with the exception of Morgan Riley, who I gave a polite applause to,

Starting point is 01:53:38 because we asked him to get tough and he's getting tough sure these guys there's a case to be made that matthew kachuk his the the time we knew he was done in calgary was when an incident like this happened if you remember when he was in the net and he's trying to go after all of the other teams and jake muslin through uh jake muslin nobody jumped in to help him yep and i think from there he probably knew he was gone one day yep i mean this isn't the first second or third time the Leafs have done this but like remember when Michael Bunting was just on an island yes he was he was just getting rigged game treatment from the refs because they're like we don't like Michael Bunting and we're not going to call calls on him anymore so he would just go into the corner and

Starting point is 01:54:26 get roughed up after whistles and take his ass beating and no one stepped up for him no one stepped up from travis travis connect me had a go at matthews a few years ago who stood up for matthews who was the first one into the fray a geriatric mark giordano there you go no dog no dog whatsoever that's why i'm like why are you thinking that tomorrow's going to be spicy it's not going to be spicy because that it might be but that'll be it they do get embarrassed and they do have some pride they have what 12 games left there's no pride there's two that matter it's That one and the Ducks. You think tomorrow night's in the Ducks, eh?

Starting point is 01:55:01 Yeah. I guess Pizzetta has dog. Like, that's a... Pizzetta's who might go in there and just challenge Brady right away. Well... I'll take that trade. So, the one...

Starting point is 01:55:10 That's what I was wondering on the way in. I'm like... Fight who? Well, that would be very stupid. Like, because, like, even... Sometimes? Even if Brady kicks his ass, like, there's no point in Brady

Starting point is 01:55:20 risking anything against Michael Pizzetta. No offense. Sometimes people do stupid things. Brady shouldn't even really... Like, I... Brady fought... That jumps Brady the entire sentence should come off of the bench. Brady fought to start Brady.

Starting point is 01:55:33 Brady fought the game yesterday because you can't say that on your podcast and then not back it up. Well, because he hasn't been able to fight. And so he's proving now that he can. Yeah, but he should not fight again. Like if the senators are going to make the playoffs and he's going to be their leader, which he is, he should not be fighting. He should not be fighting. No. And I understand.

Starting point is 01:55:53 You don't want to see nice Brady on Saturday. I do. but I don't think it's going to happen. Do you fight a guy for comments he made on a podcast? Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely, which is great. That's great.

Starting point is 01:56:04 Please, please let that happen. We need to enter a new age of the NHL. Steve, there's going to be a lineup of guys out the door coming after you. That's fine. First one is going to be Gary Bettman. That's fine. I can't fight, but somebody will fight in my stead. Steve, you better watch out if that's the case.

Starting point is 01:56:21 What's that on the ring cam? Is that just a big round knee? I think Radko Gudis is at the door, fellas. Or just a bunch of guys who, instead of wearing those anonymous masks, like the Guy Fawkes mask, it's just George Peros masks. And he takes it off like Sting, and it's him. Yeah, I like that. That'd be awesome.

Starting point is 01:56:43 I like that. All right. So, Steve, tomorrow night, me tonight. We're hanging out all weekend. And, of course, as always, check out the CJ Show. Brand new Alan Walsh. It's really good. The Formula One season continues, too, and we'll have an episode on Monday.

Starting point is 01:56:56 Party time. Love you all.

The Steve Dangle Podcast - Amazing Race | March 20, 2026

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