The Steve Dangle Podcast - Ayresiversary | February 22, 2021

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Happy Ayresiversary (00:00​), who wore the crown (06:45​), Adam says Matthews will never win the Hart (21:00​), is the North division terrible? No. (47:00​), should the Leafs trade for Eric Staal? (1:17:00​), Artemi Panarin is taking a leave of absence from the NY Rangers (1:28:00​), the Nashville Predators are trading everyone except 3 players (1:45:00​), Lake Tahoe looked cool (1:56:30​), NHL TV rights (2:01:30​), and Leo joins the show! (2:10:00​). Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/5YgLQoT1Iro​ Originally aired: February 22, 2021 We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp​​ Visit this episode's sponsors: https://ca.manscaped.com/​​​​​ http://betmgm.com/​​​​​ Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake all right hot all right man okay so first off today is the actual anniversary of the david ayers game is it not it is i thought it was tomorrow it's not it's today airs aversary if only we're like man this has got to be the low point of the season if only we'd known what would happen two weeks later wow yeah yeah life uh life changed life changed very considerably it might have been the least low point of the season but it but life hit a low point about two and a half three weeks later uh but david airs the marley's warm-up goalie the backup to the backup to the backup the emergency call it beats the leafs last year with the carolina

hurricanes and an emotional win for the carolina hurricanes and it was the last time pierre engvall had scored until recently uh yes he scored in the 5-1 game that the leafs blew to ottawa where they came back and won six he's banned from scoring how about he doesn't score he doesn't score never a strange player like he looks like a giraffe he's got this big alien head but it's It's probably normal. It's just that his neck is really long. Whenever he shoots, it looks like he's holding a paintbrush. You ever notice that?

He shoots like he's trying to sweep the ice. I don't think I've seen that. I'm going to have to check that out. I watched the Leafs so maniacally that they could all play without names or numbers, and I would be able to identify them. And he's one of the easiest. I think that's why I'm so fixated on him. You are doing some things, though, for Sportsnet, Steve, that are special.

uh so can you talk about any of them yeah i actually just realized that this podcast won't be up until those videos are up so there you go there is yeah so there is one i'm not sure when it's going up but it is going up uh when i grew up or when i was growing up i wanted to be goalie for the leafs that was my driveway fantasy i would always go in net and dad would take shots of me the neighbor kids would take shots on me it's how i literally discovered my manhood because when i was five years old i blocked a one-timer with my groin and let me tell you i didn't know that kind of pain was a thing uh so david ayers helped me live my dream of uh being an ice hockey goalie for the first time he uh he gave me his uh he brought two sets of equipment to the shoot

that we had one for him and one for me because covid and all that um so we uh put on all the equipment masked up and everything and then i literally hockey masked up and i have such a ridiculous new appreciation for what goalies do oh is it hard it's crazy it's it's i can't believe they're able to move no i others i did not think the equipment was like that you know they always talk about it being heavy i'm like yeah but it's probably mostly the pads or even the the stiffness in the upper body gear and i felt like superman i felt like a superhero because there's no there's no place the puck could even hit me that would hurt and i was saying something along the lines of that to david airs i'm like where where would it even hit you that it would hurt he's like these

guys shoot so hard that it doesn't matter and like one of the worst ones is kind of like right between your shoulder and elbow it's just it's just it's not thick enough because you do need some mobility and if it hits you oh it's just brutal so i managed to somehow not throw out my back doing that and the feature we shot before that that will be up for sure by the time this podcast is up is me versus david ayers a 10 shot shootout where i had 10 opportunities to score a goal on him okay now you know you can't tell us yeah he can i can it'll be up no no yeah but i want to hold on I want to just guess can we guess how many before we get into this and before I don't even want to know on this podcast how many times you scored but Jesse I want you to guess

and I want to guess and then I want to see how close we are okay so Jesse uh what do you give it out of 10 uh one you give him one I think I'm not even lucky I think he lets you have one yeah You go 0 for 9, and then Ayers is like, hey, here's one. Yeah. Yeah. You know what, Steve? I'm going to be nice because I have seen you score a penalty shot goal. I hope you remember this, but there's actually video on my Instagram page of you when you got your penalty shot goal at the Eric Lindros tournament the last time we were able to do one.

And you scored, and it was big. It was a major goal. So I'm going to say you got three. Interesting. Because I got a little faith. i'm gonna say you got three uh two are lucky one he let in interesting okay okay it's very good and we we became fast friends talking about our various injuries i was like i hurt my back falling down the stairs and he's like my knees mangled and i was like that's great and by the

end of the shoot we exchanged numbers and the first thing he texted me was the link for like one of those electrode things that massages your muscles yeah because that's that's the age we're at um when you're yes yes steve when you're old you just bond over injuries yeah how do you fix this oh here's how yeah i'm currently going to uh rehab for my back for um uh i get um what is it the needlepoint stuff the um acupuncture acupuncture but they electrify it oh yeah have i said that on the show i don't know anyway yeah so it's kind of cool because they the muscle goes and then releases and it's uh pretty amazing it's fixed my i'm sure on the past in the show you've seen me like click my jaw and stuff like that there was actually somebody who messaged me once

was like hey man do you have a cocaine problem and uh i remember that yes and i was like i don't have a coke problem i've never even tried this stuff but i did have a bad job problem i thought it was tmj and my guy's like no uh 95 of people who think they have tmj do not have it uh it's just your back's tight a tmj is like a jaw thing where you um it's your jaw is is i think deformed and and like there's a whole bunch of things that need to happen and it clicks and it pops you're in your immense pain i used to get headaches every day every single day and i don't get them anymore it's amazing see this was the conversation between me and well this is the thing right you gotta listen if you're in your 20s and you're starting to get headaches and back pain deal with it now

because you don't even want to be 32 and waiting that long it was pretty stupid of me now i want to get into who wore the crown jesse who is it brought to you by today today's uh episode is sponsored by the mute button on zoom they say you better you better use it sometimes but you you'll you'll read the liner adam i don't need to get you right sorry i got it i got it right here let me just uh okay all right hey so today's who wore the crown is brought to you by the mute button on zoom have to be why not press and pee during a meeting but make sure that you in fact press mute because a friend of mine who shall remain nameless was dealing with a high-ranking radio executive who thought they'd press mute and didn't and he can't believe it and it happened

oh dear guy p you know i had a friend of mine news and radio and a high-ranking exec was peeing and they didn't mute the the to the thing that is a it's a common said nothing common problem in television um oh my god yes so i had to wear those those mic packs um for every episode of ice surfing and i was so paranoid they're like just turn it off now i i would literally take it off and unplug it every time yeah because i was just i was just so paranoid if you work at a uh broadcasting company like uh several of us have on this call right now um you have access to uh the truck is what they call in the business the truck feed so you can see everything and during commercials you're still watching what's happening

on the broadcast and if people's mics are on they're on and you can hear everything so make sure you turn your mics off if you're working and they they gotta be careful because you never know some some pencil neck uh pimple face uh leafs tv employee named steve um might have access to the back hall feed because he's editing highlights that night and then you might be chastising the leafs coach for thinking he's a fucking genius about something and i've heard some stuff i've heard some stuff i will not be outing people on this show i can vividly remember um watching hockey night in canada growing up and i probably was like 12 when this happened and for some reason the commercial stopped playing and they went to the feed but without the intro so it wasn't like

anybody was queued up they should not have gone back to studio and the two anchors and it had to be like uh i mean it was probably i don't think it was ron and don but it was two guys um sitting there ready to take the next thing out of commercials and there's probably a minute and a half of commercials left and you just see them both and they're like oh no like just sitting at the desk it just exhausted um and that's what really happens i remember at bt like there were several times where um like somebody would be peeing or you know going to the bathroom forget to turn it off and they get you get a thing in the mic hey shut your mic shut your mic you know but technology today like i i know when i worked at sportsnet for the brief moment i could pull up

any feed just on my desktop because it's just all through the it's all through the air and it's on a cloud server so you can just type in the code and then you're just on whatever camera it is and you just watch it because that's the feed you need to clip videos from and get the replays and all that but it's all accessible if you're if you have the right credentials i think some hosts are like oh well yeah but it's just the crew here no it's not no it's not right no it's not it's like hundreds of people across the world right yeah it's uh yeah watch your mouth that's the lesson watch your mouth yeah it's watch your mouth turn it off if you gotta go to the party steve i want you to use your mouth and tell us who you are giving the crown to phrasing um you know we all

know who the leafs mvp is we all know who the best player is so every week when you ask me who wore the crown i try to think of someone who is not this person because saying this person every week would be boring can you imagine saying the same person every week couldn't be me austin matthews is on another goofy planet he is on another world 18 goals in 18 games and man was this guy right or what so he had the nightmare shooting percentage in the bubble and he didn't score in the first few games this season then they scrapped those microchipped pucks that both austin matthews and jason spezza said had a different weight to them he's got something like 18 go forget 18 and 18 he's got something like 18 and 14 or 15 since they changed those pucks it's absolutely absurd

here's how special this season is everybody doug gilmore arguably had the best single season in leafs history he finished uh he won the selkie finished second in heart and he had 127 points mitch marner right now if this was an 82 game season he's scoring at a 129 point pace wow matthews is 132 wow that's how goofy this is so right now we're like over a quarter of the way through the season i think and he still got a realistic shot at beating doug gilmore single season record for points in a season well at least the pace for it and he's got a legitimate shot at 50 and 50 this this guy is he should be in every conversation there is around the nhl Even Vezna, Norris, throw him in there.

Rookie of the year, give it to him again. Doesn't matter. He's unbelievable, so it's got to go to Austin Matthews. And nothing makes me happier than other markets bitching about seeing an Austin Matthews highlights. Sorry, guys, but we have to watch everybody else's highlights too, and most of the time, the Leafs were not at the top of it because they stank, so I think I'm okay with it.

They just can't cover the Leafs then if you don't want to see Matthews highlights. He's got points in 17 straight games. Stupid. It's ridiculous. it is it is actually i have a theory about that something steve brought up there i have a theory about what you just said but i'll hold off on it uh as to why matthews is not going to win a major award this year oh my god you ready yeah i'll save that for after but i haven't i have a i have

an interesting take on it i want to get your opinion and i have proof to back it up in the meantime can i just give mitch marner a shout out absolutely mitch marner needs a crown i don't think we've given mitch marner enough and for steve's same reason we've held back on this this is an 11 million dollar player or 10.839 uh who needed to perform at a 10.83 month and 839 million dollar pace and he has that's what we needed this is what we needed last season and this is what we expect and this is what's being done however seeing it for real is special it's awesome and if he continues producing at this pace nobody's arguing that that money isn't worth it that is worthwhile cash spent if you got these two guys performing at this rate and you know it's funny

Babs did everything he possibly could to keep them apart and now that you've got them together it's sort of like I I don't understand why you would would hamstring yourself like that or you know like why would you pull yourself back from that um Nylander and Tavares haven't been bad uh together despite what you've read in the toronto sun um but these two are it's not just very good it's magic this is something the leaf like a leaf fan has never seen in their lifetime ever they're a top five duo in the nhl yes we've never ever ever seen this we've seen matt sundin and his band of merry men that's what we've seen or we've seen doug gilmore and uh again band of men those teams in the early 90s were not supposed to be that good they were never supposed to be

that good they were a surprise that's what made it so exciting but Doug Gilmore didn't have uh another Doug Gilmore Austin Matthews has the alternate of Austin Matthews which is the the setup machine that is Mitch Marner um and I've said in the past listen I'm I value goal scoring above assists I do I still do but the what Mitch Marner's doing out there and the sneaky shot that he put it on Saturday because he even said it in the broadcast nobody sees me as a shooter man And that's the kind of stuff where you are going to see 120-point seasons if he stays healthy, if he keeps this up. Because people will just not know what to do.

It's like the Alex Petrangelo with Nate McKinnon. When Nate McKinnon's driving down the line, he goes, oh boy, that's the kind of thing where it's like, if you keep them guessing, it's seasons four and five when you're going to be a dominant player. They have to be so bewildered by what you might do that they can't think of one thing to cover. And that's sort of what happened.

Yeah. well and and mitch marner's shooting makes matthew's shooting better yeah um and matthew's passing makes marner shooting better you know lost in the fact that matthew's had two goals he had two really nice assists in that game they're a top five duo in the nhl and let's throw this out there too matthews is a pretty good defensive center as well yeah he's uh one of the leaders in block shots one of the leaders in stick checks and block passes they were showing the other night he's he's honestly you know it's funny that we evoke doug gilmore what might happen is sort of what happened to doug gilmore where maybe he walks away with the selkie but not the

heart sort of thing he's it's the best season so far we've seen out of a leaf in our lives but you were talking about marner yeah and it wouldn't sorry but it wouldn't be possible it wouldn't be possible without mitch jesse what about you buddy so it's very funny that uh you gave your crown to mitch marner adam and that steve you gave your crown to uh austin matthews because my plan today was to give my crown to both of them oh and i prepared this from jonas to uh give them my crown they rank one and two league wide in five on five scoring and are tied for second and fourth overall in the nhl scoring race matthews tops the goals in uh tops in goals and 5-on-5 and non-5-on-5.

Mitch Marner trails only McDavid with 21 assists, and he ties him at 5-on-5 assists. And Marner has set up 11 of Matthews' 18 goals. Together, he and Matthews have produced 40% of the Leafs' 5-on-5 offense. That's 18 out of 45 goals. Oh, my God. And they outscore their opponents a goal share of 76%.

So when Matthews and Marner are on the ice, the score is 22-7 for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Oh, man. If we needed just to put a head on that, what's the word I'm looking for? Put a cap on that conversation that you guys just had. Put a button on the scene. Put a stamp on that conversation.

I think that number is it. 22-7 when Matthews and Marner are on the ice. those two definitely deserve every crown this week. I think you should give them like six of them. Is that even strength? Yeah. Oh my God. And they're killing penalties.

Both of them. Points wise, make David dry sidle, Marner Matthews. That's what it is in the league right now. And then Shifley is, is, is three points behind Matthews with 26 and 18.

And interestingly, still in the top 10, who guys, who is still in the top 10 for points. That is surprising. On the Leafs. No, no, just in the NHL. Surprising top 10.

I'm going to go, it's either like Conor Garland or Christian Dvorak or something like that. Did you see that stat? Where they had the top five scoring duos in the NHL and it's like elite, elite, elite, elite, those two. Somebody had to score. I mean, I know they're good. I know they're good.

I didn't think they were that good. James Van Reemstuyck, former Leafs, still hanging in there at number 10. He's got 21 points in 15 games. Not bad. Good for him. Not bad. Yeah, it's great. I mean, this is a guy that was – he was – I mean, his shooting percentage is 24%.

So that might come down. But even so, I mean, this is a guy who was scratched for the playoffs last year. $7 million player. This is good for him. I'm sure he's riding a bit of a PDO bender. You know what we also got to talk about? Goal scoring. and that's who wore the crown oh sorry oh yeah that's who wore the crown brought to you by uh

what was it what was it jesse uh oh mute the mute button on zoom the next time you have to pee and you're on the phone with your boss why not why not mute you probably should get you in a lot of trouble um maybe you want to undo the dishwasher too let the dogs out do whatever it is you need to do but use the move button on zoom when you're doing it so you don't get in trouble all right so um yeah i know going into the going into the just the points leaders here and i know this is sort of basic but Shifley at five Cain at six Backstrom at second or at seventh Besser at eight Huberto nine Van Riemsdyk 10 we haven't got to the ridiculousness that is the Florida Panthers yet hopefully we can get to it today but it is just a Florida it's just wild I mean that's par for the

course but actually the Panthers are a real story this year in terms of their success and their backup goalie and their starting goalie and it's bizarre it's everything is weird in Florida all the time and the panthers are no different so in the meantime we do need to talk about this this austin matthew season i know you kind of hit on it there steve but it is the most special season that we've seen from any single league player thus far through 20 games we've never seen anything like this you can't tell me we have because we haven't we actually have not 18 goals 18 games not bad now i have a question for the same reason steve that you would not give matthews a crown for the longest time and I would not give Marner the crown for the longest time. I have a feeling that

he's going to have a hard time winning any major awards. Now, the reason I have for this is I think that writers, the people that vote on these things also take that same viewpoint. Well, it seems obvious who this person should be, but what if I went a different route? Case in point, 2017 conor mcdavid is the clear-cut favorite and the best player in the entire league who does the heart trophy go to taylor hall big only and what's the big distinction and we had a huge debate about it at that time guys what was the big distinction uh the oilers didn't make the playoffs and halls new jersey devils did right wasn't mcdavid not even nominated how does that i don't even remember but how does that look in Potsdary really uh well I so I was a hall guy and I was wrong like uh he

had a magical season he was the sole reason the New Jersey Devils made the playoffs that year and he wasn't the best player like Conor McDavid was most valuable I which I think was the argument okay maybe but like because the Oilers didn't make the playoffs maybe that makes McDavid even more valuable to the Oilers because he was that good and they still sucked because they yeah because they didn't finish dead last um the other thing i want to say is look at what happened last year and i'm not saying leon dry style didn't deserve it but you can't you are going to try to argue to me that connor mcdavid isn't the most valuable player on the oilers well and he was good without mcdavid for like two weeks but no one gave a shit that nathan mckinnon literally just

willed the avalanche through last season oh great fight all the injuries agree one thing i will say knowing that that is important criteria how you play without certain you know with certain adversity in front of you uh games like tonight against calgary i think are going to count big because uh boy are the leafs shorthanded they are but but thankfully not in the high power thing i just want to wrap this point quickly steve before we get to tonight's game because there's lots to get to there i think what the point i'm trying to make is i think there's going to be a lot of writers who go what's the answer other than austin matthews when it comes to the heart trophy when it comes to the selkie which is the runner-up heart let's be honest well the selkie is the runner-up

heart trophy they've written themselves yes that's true they at least for forwards they've written themselves into this interesting corner because you know oh matthews is doing good well it's because of marner all right well let's have that mcdavid conversation then let's have that dry saddle conversation then you know what i mean and i'm not saying we're not saying none of those players aren't great and you know what one of those two dry saddle mcdavid probably wins the heart but i'm saying matthews maybe gets maybe gets a sulking on but i don't know if people are going to vote for him in the same way that you think even if he does score that many goals because people are going to say writers are going to you know they're like this they're going to be

like well what about uh somebody else on some basic other ridiculous level even though matthews will clearly deserve it if he continues at this pace it's going to be well and also writers are conscious of like people people think the toronto media is biased they're actually very conscious of trying to avoid coming across that way right um to the point where they won't vote leave so i think i think at this rate anyway a lot of ballots will include mcdavid and matthews but probably with mcdavid first yep yep even even if we get a 50 goal 50 game thing which would be crazy ah man if he actually does that he's gotta win it there's i don't i don't give a shit if mcdavid uh scores you know two and a half points a game 50 and 50 is special and it hasn't been done for so so long

if matthews actually pulls that off you know when the last time it was was it brett hall oh god i'll look it up look at it yeah let's look at that because it's got it even happened in our lifetime yes yes it has it has to have because brett hall scored 76 with the blues and solani had 70 70 plus with the jets so so the last official 50 and 50 season is brett hall 91 92 that's what that's the year jesse was born yeah there's a couple uh there's a couple unofficial 50 and 50 seasons um so yari curry did an 84 85 but it was the 50th game of the season but it was 53rd game so it needs to be the team's 50th game of the season and not your 50th game of season is what how it's described so he had missed some games so he's so he's a goal behind

cam neely did it in 44 games played but his team had already played uh 66 games so it doesn't count holy cam neely was so good yeah man we were robbed of cam neely we were robbed wow brutal that's a there's an all-time underrated player him i think mike bossy's another one where you're Like, Jesus, look at the goals those guys... Pavel Bure, Peter Forsberg... Do another name on the near... What's that? Do another name on the 50 and 50 but doesn't count list?

Yes. Alexander Muginley in 92-93 for the Sabres. He did it in 46 games, but it was the team's 53rd game. Why doesn't that count? He scored 76 goals in 77 games that year. Why do we do that? Why do we make this difficult? because they make longevity or durability i should say part of it that is dumb did the player do it

in the amount of games or not no here's here's how ridiculous 50 and 50 is in today's nhl because i remember i want to say i was an intern at the fan so it was like around 2008 or something ovechkin had a shot at 50 and 50 and it was a story that was followed for like close to a month he had a shot at 50 and 50 but it wasn't for that season it was dating back to the last so it was like the last chunk of last season and going into this one so he ended hot and started hot um i remember that but for someone to have a realistic shot at it like this season from game one and he's missed a game it's it's wild that we're 19 games into the season he's got 18 goals it's not crazy to think no yeah and it puts in perspective how

incredible gretzky do it in 37 games it was yeah like that's stupid and you can air adjust all you want that's fucking sick like there's just no other way around there's no air adjusting gretzky's numbers like that that part is ridiculous he's so far and away ahead of everyone that it's just clearly he's the best this is you here sorry go ahead steve well this is one of jeff merrick's favorite stats and this should give you an idea of how head and shoulders above everybody else wayne gretzky was who was the second highest scoring nhl player of the 80s uh we can sit here all day you won't get it marcel dion no who is it peter stassny really yeah what peterson in quebec yep get the fuck out wow we could sit here all day you'd

never land on him wow no that's wild i would have picked five or six other guys before you you wouldn't think about the nords like at all no how many younger people listening to the show are like who is that and is that paul stassny's dad yes by the way yes and his uncle jan also played for them and they had a brother too didn't they that another brother uh there was two of the three brothers one of two of the three brothers defected from the uh from the soviet czech republic basically or whatever it was um or was it there's a peter there's a paul there's a yawn there's an anton anton anton yawn was yawn was yawn played for like the blues and bruins or something when crosby was drafted right marion as well and a marion okay heck of a family for

for hockey they've done well and made a couple bucks um I think I think at the end of the day you you you got to look at I feel like the Cam Neely uh the Cam Neely the Ari Curry all that should count that should count uh it's not about necessary like this I this arbitrary idea of durability um they scored Cam Neely scored 50 goals in 44 games but not he got injured the The fact that he got injured and came back and did it is more impressive. That's more impressive. The team played 66. It doesn't count.

Why do we hate our own fans so much? Why can't we just – you asked me. There's people on Twitter on Saturday night going, Adam, why can't you just enjoy this? Why can't this league let me enjoy some shit that's interesting? Why not? That's amazing. Why not?

It's stupid. And by the way, they should have an award, like a trophy, for 50 goals in 50 games or less. It's in the record book. It is, but there should be like a thing that you win. It only comes out once a generation when someone pulls it off. That's pretty cool. It is something they should consider just because it's so incredibly rare.

How many 60-goal seasons have there been since the year 2000? I think two. Was it Chichu? No, he got close. He was 56. Ovi has one. Ovi has one, and Stamkos has one. Oh, yeah.

Remember that year he was unstoppable? bull yeah he was absolutely ridiculous that was his uh second year in the league was it not uh no it wasn't his second he got 40 in his second year i think sorry what didn't he have that disgusting mullet that he had for a while remember how bad his mullet was you could tell it was on purpose yeah but like he's he just does it because he can yeah whatever i'm steven stamkos deal with my hair it's like patrick liney's beard like whatever i just scored 40 goals I'll look as stupid as I want. I think it's interesting too with Steve Stamkos

and a few other guys where they're so, so injury prone and yet they're still so good. Like imagine Steven Stamkos hadn't snapped his leg. You know what I mean? Like he broke the biggest bone in his body and he could still rip. It's amazing. And here's how ridiculous Connor McDavid is

and how seamless his success has been. So Elliott Freeman and Jeff Merrick were talking about um Crosby's uh thousandth game and because like it's unbelievable like I remember his rookie year um but they were talking about his thousandth game and they were talking about the McDavid Crosby comparisons and it's not just that they're truly great it's that they overcame their injuries Crosby was obviously head and neck we all remember that but then when they talked about McDavid I was like uh the collarbone and I just and I just went oh wait a sec no no know not the collarbone he snapped his pcl yeah that rehabbed it and rehabbed it yep wild yeah

that is oh it's it's a it's he was the best player in the league snapped his pcl came back without missing a game and was the best player in the league can i read you guys one of the biggest travesties as we were talking about in the nhl in the most recent years We're going to go back to the 17-18 Hart Trophy voting because it's something to look at. So Taylor Hall won first place votes. He got 72 first place votes out of three points on the year. Okay. So second place, Nathan McKinnon, 60 first place votes.

Third place, Anze Kopitar, 11 first place votes. Fourth place, Claude Giroux, 10 first place votes. fifth place connor mcdavid with five first place votes even though out of all those guys uh listed he led them all in points in less games okay okay that's bad yeah no that's i don't know it's just points but here's my contention and this is my problem with the mvp award it's it's most valuable to the team not most valuable in the league best player in the league should be an award but the The NHL has to make things dumb and difficult. I will say this.

As long as Conor McDavid is playing, and he plays more than 60 games, whether the Edmonton Oilers make the playoffs or not or shoot themselves into the moon, Conor McDavid is always the Hart Trophy winner. Who won the Ted Lindsey? He's always the most valuable player on his team. It's inarguable.

Inarguable. Which award do you want, Steve? The Ted Lindsey. I want to know who won MVP as voted. no it's the mvps voted by the players right messier was the leadership award it's it's very common for the heart trophy winner to also win the ted lindsey but i have a feeling he won the ted lindsey and how wild for the ted lindsey winner to not even be nominated for the heart so uh the ted lindsey award went to conor mcdavid so and not i said less games he played the he

late all 82 that wasn't the season he missed some games oh do we have any runners up on the ted lindsey they released that uh let me look at the voting connor mcdavid should have two more trophies than he does he should have the heart from that year or at least been a nominee for crying out loud and the calder where he was robbed by 24 year old or temi panarin which uh is that gonna be the only time that we bring him up on the show no it is not no what a wild story that is we'll get to that a little bit later that's what i was saying and i'm like oh right yeah whatever it was just unbelievable they don't have the voting for the ted lindsey no well because it's players right yeah um they should have a top three i have the i have the finalists here

17 18 the finalists were hall mckinnon mcdavid okay that's fair that's about what it should have been yeah yeah yeah the writers the writers screwed up that year for the heart the writers are unreliable five or top three that's ridiculous it's stupid well you just make yourself look idiotic in posterity like i said how's that how's that vote looking these days guys i mean it didn't look good at the time and everybody was like oh you're crazy it didn't it didn't look good and and this is the best player connor mcdavid at his best will be better than sydney crosby at his best you watch that's a tough one yeah it's a tough one no because you're Crosby Crosby made his team win like that's something that's so bad so hard

to do in hockey and Crosby was able to do it it's unfair I'm so you gotta win you gotta win something yeah I am so upset with what is McDavid one out of nothing because he's with the shitty oilers the shitty terribly run oilers yo the penguins stunk when Crosby joined them and then the next year they were better because malkin yeah but they had the lemieux group behind them uh they had mark andre flurry edmunds has never had a goalie um they had you know malkin came in so you got dry saddle mcdavid crosby malkin they don't have like cleft bomb should be their but he's out for the entire year and they have they have been mismanaged from the beginning the pittsburgh penguins management group deserves a lot of credit for surrounding uh sydney crosby

with guys like you know he was mario he was living in mario lemieux's basement for the first year and then mark recchi joined when they won on the i think it was 2009 uh they not win with mark recchi and and they had big bill garren was on that team wasn't it you know there's there was you know these are guys that have gone on to do some pretty big things in the league and i think other than you know being great players uh i think edmonton's done zero of that they they got they drafted mcdavid fired the guy that basically was going to draft him that's craig mctavish which honestly at the time i was like probably a good move um and then you bring in peter shirelli who uh was like i'm gonna sign lucic and that's it and then they like they have been stuck in a

goaltending quagmire ever since and yes they're in the playoff picture right now and we can talk about that a little bit later but i i find it extremely hard guys to blame the oilers lack of winning on connor mcdavid that's not what we're doing well it takes away comparing his legacy the connor mcdavid you're saying it takes away from his legacy which i think does is extremely unfair because at that point that point you're comparing uh management groups surrounded by some great players as well we're comparing the totality of sydney crosby and everything he's done to connor mcdavid's totality of five six years and five years all i'm saying is when connor mcdavid inevitably ends up with the toronto maple leafs he will be better than

Sidney Crosby I agree with a good management group it won't be in Edmonton I don't think it's going to be in Edmonton I don't think he's going to win in Edmonton I don't I've said that from the beginning the Oilers are what they are they're a mediocre team words I think you're confusing legacy and respect right so but what I was saying is Connor McDavid skill-wise will be better than Sidney Crosby skill-wise at both of their peaks skill-wise you're probably right but That's not how it works. I mean, skill-wise, Alex Kovalev beats the both of them, maybe. But, you know, and he did win with the Rangers.

Oh, my God, that was such a stupid play. Terrible. Like, here's the respect versus legacy conversation. Allen Iverson. Everyone in NBA circles respects Allen Iverson and what he did. But if we're talking legacy and we have to compare his to others, he didn't win. Came close.

Didn't win. and it matters part of that, Allen Iverson's story is a bit different though because he's a bit of a bad boy and part of that, some people have said is on him didn't he have the winning thing? yeah, well I think that

you could take Allen Iverson's story I mean he had the issues with the coach and not showing up for practice or whatever but beyond that, who was he playing with? I mean he had some good players but he didn't have Allen Iverson didn't win because in basketball the only time Isaiah Thomas is the only example

in the last hundred years of basketball of a championship team being based around a point guard like it's not it's not a winnable strategy in basketball and there was never enough pieces with AI to win a championship like they made it to the finals and they got pummeled but like it's just it wasn't it wasn't a strategy that was going to win long term and he needed more pieces than Justin so it was just him and Dikembe and then that was it right like there wasn't and that's the thing what I feel like with McDavid is that when we talk about I can understand what you guys are saying with respect he does have to win legacy purposes 100 but I feel like it's a little unfair to McDavid just because as we can all admit the Edmonton leadership group

has been questionable even under Ken Holland it's gotten better but this is still the same general manager who flipped two second rounders to the Oilers last year and then didn't re-sign the guy no but we all we all know that the real hall of fame is on top of your neck like it's the there's the physical building but then it's it's up here right like he'll he's gonna get into that building no matter what yeah if he retired today he would up here like people talk about how the hall of fame is too easy to get in you might be right this one's harder up here it's it's way harder to get in and you gotta win you gotta you know there are kyle lowry was probably not gonna get into the basketball hall of fame without that championship because there were gonna be

people humming and hawing and they never won he played in canada and i don't freaking like the raptors or even talking about them now he's got a championship and he's still going the championship matters it matters okay here we are we went we were wrong about conor mcdavid and we went right back to being unfair to him about something else everybody hates connor the greatest players in the nhl always find a way to win i think one day in mcdavis career if it's a couple years from now or whenever i think he's gonna find a way to make it to the staley cup finals he wants his contract expires he's gonna accept less money come to toronto play with matthews and marner and win that'd be great that that'll be the year that everybody says matthews is leaving for arizona

which we all know is clearly going to happen now look at how well run they are uh now and here one last thing the the the best player to never win the cup it's a conversation based around like two guys marcel dion marcel and uh dino cicerelli i've heard a lot of people say who's also in the hall of fame i mean he's great but dino cicerelli was not i mean he was he was great this is the thing adam like do you know like marcel dion's up there but we had to go pretty far down the list of all-time greats to get to Dino Cicerelli. Could I make the argument that Matt Sundin is better than Dino Cicerelli? Probably.

You could make that argument, yeah. And he never won. You could make that, like, how many times was Dino Cicerelli the best player on the team that he played for? Maybe with the North Stars? Maybe? Wow. You know what I mean? It matters. It matters.

It does matter. And who was that player up until 2018? That's true. One of my favorite examples is ron francis who's i think fifth in all-time nhl scoring and there were a lot of years where he was probably the third best penguin yes because jogger and lemieux were on the team yeah yeah it's amazing when you think about how how much success pittsburgh has seen in in all major sports excluding the pirates in the last half a half a century um you know being a relatively small

market and in hockey terms they're a small market in football terms they're a small market with an enormous fan base the fact that they've won any championships at all is crazy and the fact that in the early 90s when you know gretzky was making eight or nine million dollars a year to play for the kings that they were able to hang on to jogger lemieux francis all those guys um and and who were not small salaries even based on the time it's pretty incredible it's amazing they lost money hand over fist but they sure won a lot of games here's how good gretzky was mark messier has a trophy named after him because of the two cups he won without gretzky it's true messier has six cups and he has that trophy because of two of them the one in edmonton he won without him and

the one with the rangers we all know it's true the one that kiprios dragged him to yeah oh 100 and that guy brought that sign just to show to kiprios now i can die in peace con smith winner nick kiprios how many points did he have in that playoff run i don't know When I hear Jager and Francis on the Mew, all I think about is Matthews, Marner, and Tavares. 100%.

2P is in a pod. I got to look up Gabriel's. I'm dying. I'm fixating on it. I need to know. I have to know. He played three games that playoff run and he had two penalty minutes. But he was on the ice and won.

He was on the ice when they won. exactly good for him doesn't matter has a chip holy shit 102 penalty minutes in 46 games hard knocks the 90s anyway okay guys adam i have to admit something admit it i was wrong i know about what guys i was wrong about the toronto maple leafs wrapping up the division and missing that opportunity last saturday like two saturdays ago now okay because i did not count on the Montreal Canadiens throwing their chance at winning the division. Wow, it happened.

I know. So here's the thing. I thought Toronto needed to win that game to really sort of wrap things up and clean it up. But then I didn't count on the Habs winning two games in seven. When are we going to talk about the thing that nobody really wants to talk about?

Is it the fact? Well, first of all, let me just throw this out there. The Leafs have a, at least, according to Don Mlucision, a 75% chance right now. Things continue the way they are. to win the division they're running away with it i saw his model doesn't it have the leafs with an eight percent chance to win the cup which is wildly high yeah i think it's high that's high for that's as high as i've seen anyone i can't give the leafs anything that high like eight

percent high too much ptsd is a fan for that but jesse league where 31 teams are still in it that's very high jesse what do you want to ask see the thing about the percentage of them winning the cup and them winning the division oh here we go one the north division isn't very good oh here we go here we go is the narrative all of twitter is the narrative american hockey twitter right here is the narrative that twitter keeps uh hammering away at over the weekend and when you're a hockey team and you only have to play six other teams for an entire season and then the first two rounds of the playoffs are also versus these six teams and like maybe three quarters of them aren't playoff teams if they're playing the rest of the league do we have to start to look at

this a little differently i don't think so and i'll tell you why okay why because there are other bad teams in other bad divisions i mean you gotta look at it like this like look at the like i'll give you this the the east division is pretty tough boston washington philly pittsburgh islanders that's that's a dead heat and then the rangers have had a disaster season new jersey sucks so does buffalo but then you look at like the central division where somehow lightning was the least amount of games everything is possible there dallas has only played 12 games so they're a little bit behind tampa is in fourth place just in the playoffs you got chicago and florida in playoff position kevin lankan and like what one of the more underrated stories of the season i

thought chicago was honestly going to finish last place with uh a a colin delia malcolm subban tandem and this dude who i've never heard of comes out of nowhere and in a league where safe percentage is dropping like plummeting this dude's got a 925 so far that's that's crazy stupid you will get into the playoffs if you have a starter like that you will absolutely and and so you look at that but you look at that division guys i mean really what should have happened it should be carolina tampa columbus dallas and they all should be beating up on nashville detroit chicago and florida that is a from a last year's perspective a very it's like a have and have not division and then obviously you've got the west division st louis vegas colorado pretty pretty amazing and

then the rest of those teams los angeles arizona minnesota san jose and anaheim i think it's fair to say that there is at least one great team in each division i would say toronto boston i think carolina has been a great team for a long time and we just haven't fully fully seen that yet st louis won a cup vegas has been to eight million cups colorado's been like other than those three teams in the honda west those aren't there aren't really any good teams there and they're beating up on you got to think about this st louis vegas colorado get to beat up on five terrible teams it's no but it's uh st louis doesn't play anaheim eight times st louis has to play carolina and they have to play pittsburgh and they gotta play boston they gotta play all the other teams they've already

played arizona seven yeah but the the schedule is balanced for the other teams and when you're in the north division you get to play ottawa a whole bunch and he gets to play montreal all and he gets played terrible Vancouver and it's as I see I see the other side I see the other side that are saying hey it's a little wonky here that the North Division is so bad who's the second best team in Canada like forget the standings who's the second best team in Canada when are they playing to their highest potential who is the second best team in Canada they depend Winnipeg playoffs start today when you i think it's winnipeg i've been on that winnipeg thing for my the whole season it's impossible that six out of seven teams in this division suck against each other you know

what i mean like what calgary's in a slump right now they're losing two teams in this division though montreal's in a slump right now they're losing two teams in this division to me it's impossible that this many teams in this division suck also i gotta throw something out there Jesse, I'm not totally sure that you're correct. The American teams are staying within their division. I'm having a look at Chicago's schedule right now, and they don't play a single team outside of their division. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, no, that's right. Is that what Jesse said? Yeah, everybody's playing within their own division. Yeah. You didn't know that? Yes, but North Division is a terrible list. But that was your main argument. No, but once you reach the first two rounds of the playoffs,

are they breaking off, or are they staying within the division too? You stay within the division until the conference finals, I believe. In each of the divisions? Okay, that's a little different then. Yeah, that's different then. Yeah, that's a little more even, totally. But, like, it's just still – I don't know. It's impossible that they all stink, except for the Jets and Leafs.

That's impossible. That's impossible. But, as a Leafs fan, in terms of teams you don't want to play in a playoff series right now, who's highest? Who don't you want to play? Because they're hard. You don't want to play the Jets? No.

Who's after them? Probably don't want to play the Canadians. Carey Price gets hot. You're fucked. I mean, let's be honest. Edmonton's played the Leafs pretty well. Ottawa's played the Leafs pretty well. You probably don't want to play Ottawa, but you don't have to.

Okay, so now we're getting into a pretty interesting conversation, right? Because we're talking about, well, Edmonton's played the Leafs really well. And Ottawa's played the Leafs really well. And the Habs have actually managed to keep it close. They've played the Leafs pretty decently. So, like, what if the Leafs are just good? Like, what if the teams in this division don't stink? And the Leafs have just, they were already a good team.

And they've improved and they've found ways to win. It's not like they're getting out of this world goaltending. they're not they're getting they're not all right goaltending it's okay like they're they're just winning games because they're better and one of the things that they've been doing steve on top of that is they've been pushing shots the outside i think i brought up an article with uh and it was the athletic where tampa committed to pushing shots the outside and it finally got them the cup that they wanted to get and you're seeing that with the leafs now i'm not saying they're on tampa's level in terms of being able to do that uh but it's happening you're seeing these

low risk, low danger shots happen. And you can look at this, the, the score sheet and then, you know, Ottawa's outshot them or whatever's outshot them, but these are not high definition scoring chances. These are lower, lower. And, and the, the you know, remember last year where you saw like two, three, four rebounds before they were able to get a handle on things. If they were able to get a handle on them at all, you're seeing less and less of that. I think this is a, this is the Leafs team that's been through it and seems like they're developing into the team that we expected them to be probably two years ago um and that's why brings me to my second point which I might have been wrong about the Leafs wrapping up the division uh or having the chance to wrap up

the vision Montreal through it Montreal as I said to you from the beginning of this season you cannot crown a team yet that hasn't proven anything now I'm not saying they won't get there but they like this is a team apparently Philip Deneau is on the trading block which is crazy to me uh i keep hearing there's rumors about that which i might just be that might just be montreal what's that and suzuki's being scratched and stuff i don't know what's happening well and do you know i think is they can't they're having difficulty extending them so they're trying to get value right this is not the time no i don't get it time that's one of my favorite trade trees by the way um the habs traded i think it was thomas fleishman and dale

weiss to the chicago blackhawks for uh a late first round pick who was philip to know who wasn't working out in chicago and a second rounder who years later went on to become alexander romanoff wow it's a fleecing so chicago chicago win the cup that year no that was the 25th uh no that was the year after they won in 2015 that was okay that's when they got destroyed by nashville right uh i think so yeah the first round scored three goals in four games something like that yeah um what i'm saying here guys is that is the montreal canadians you know i understand the excitement around them and that sort of thing but as i said to you before the season started it's a it's an issue of a team that hasn't fully developed yet you got a lot of new parts here

josh anderson looks great but you're gonna have up and down moments from uh kakenyami suzuki There's a lot of people complaining about Claude Julien's systems. And I don't know how much of this you can blame on him, but there seems to be this thing where they're looking a little discombobulated and you can't really point out what it is. Well, there's also the value of magic. And it's hard to deny, especially when they were playing the Canucks, the Habs were really feeling themselves.

have you seen did you see the overtime winner Ottawa scored against them last night yes I did there there's three Habs standing still and they don't look magical they don't they do not look like a magical team uh anymore and that's a tough thing because when they're riding that magic people call them a juggernaut and I look at the things they're doing I look at the highlights every morning and i go absolutely they're a juggernaut look at them look at them they're unstoppable then when they go on a little streak like this or a little slump like this i start to look at the team on paper and i'm like oh they're not special at all they're they're fine they're fine i don't know about special you know and and i look at how they're struggling to score

eric angles had a stat i think it's only once out of the last seven games they've scored three goals uh and correct me if i'm wrong but that was the last game against the leafs and the only reason they got the third one is with about 90 seconds left tyler to fully accidentally literally broke jake muzzin's face yeah by the way um but it's not but i want to i want to throw this at you too i said i tweeted this at the beginning uh or a few weeks ago and i got in a bunch of shit from montreal fans they were so mad talking about how much crow i was gonna eat blah blah blah blah and i said listen montreal beat up on a bunch of weak teams to start the season the matt the habs are do you want to know what the habs are versus non-vancouver teams

literally one team you're taking out of the equation take vancouver out of the equation you want to know what the habs are i want to hear five five and three oh you know what's funny is if you did that for like ottawa i think the least would get better yeah but think about this five five and three they are five and eight essentially with three points added versus teams that aren't the vancouver canucks yeah they've won five games versus the canucks or four they're four oh and one they have one shootout loss in there so is it a weak division or is it a division with the canucks and all who are extra bad like you know it's shockingly bad Ottawa plays hard too though so they do you know what you got to be careful of though everyone takes a turn

everyone takes a turn being ass and the Leafs haven't taken a turn yet let me throw this at you Montreal and the Leafs are up there with PDO both of them Montreal's PDO basically disappeared uh the Leafs have been have been right a bit of a PDO streak as well so it is going to come eventually but at the same time my point in saying that the Leafs had a chance to to wrap up the division was if you get far enough ahead it's almost impossible to catch because of the loser point because if you lose it's pretty good it is pretty good now the Habs have played two less games I know it's possible but I'm asking I'm starting to ask the question is it probable you can get passed by a team maybe two you're not gonna get passed by four they're making the

playoffs but i think i keep going the least like and they should at some point like in in like two weeks the leafs have pretty much locked up a playoff spot because the season ends what first week of may well that's pretty terrible jesse they broke jake muzzin's face they did they do have like 18 guys on ir today so the weird thing about this is the problem the weird thing about being faces faces being broken is it's like a week and then they're like well just put a shield on you're good well that's what happened with kerfoot um it i guess it depends on the break i was thinking about it today morgan riley goes down tj brody goes down travis derma goes down justin uh the thing about that pairing with muzzin and hall is they're the two hardest guys to

replace i think they are and that's not a knock on brody and riley they have guys who can play like them they don't have a guy who can play like muzzin no i i'm i'm ashamed to admit this so rasmus sandin is out i think he has a broken foot um he in his first game with the marley's like get out of here so i was thinking about it i'm like okay if things go sideways and they need a penalty killer do we find out do we go to the buoy what's that Martin Marincin no stop it what are you gonna make me go on the penalty kill stop it with his nonsense he's not good well this is he's a he's guy he's a guy that put on a jersey I think Callie Rosen can kill them I'd so much rather have him like just try him for god's sakes try him sign literally one of your guys on an ahl

deal this is the most conversation i've ever had in my life they're number one in the nhl and we're talking about whether martin marincin is going to have to draw in there's did you bet wait could we not enjoy this no no no but here's two injuries away from martin marincin god he never goes away they are they are like this is the so this is the biggest game of the season for travis durman this is the biggest game of his career this is ironically the situation he was left in at the beginning of the pandemic uh when when they canceled the season dubis literally uploaded like an inspirational video the the night after or the morning after jake muzzin got hurt the the the i believe is the chinese uh farmer parable that's right where you know talked about

maybe and whatever because that the night muzzin got hurt against tampa on the road dermot played it was something like half of the third period it was wild dermot can play power play he's probably not gonna have to he can penalty kill as well though muzzin's probably got like 30 pounds on that guy it's it's going to be a very big test for travis dermot and it's super unfortunate for the Leafs that their first game without Muzzin is against Calgary tonight because uh as Elliot Friedman mentioned on the 31 thoughts podcast the the flames downward spiral began with the Muzzin puck flip and we talked about Matthew Chuck talking to his team after the game like he was pissed that no one came to his defense and it sounds like the friction in

the room has not dissipated so they were probably chomping at the bit to take a big old chunk out of jake muzzin tonight and now they're not going to have that opportunity so are they going to just wilt and have a regular monday night regular season game or are they going to take advantage of a leafs team that does not have jake muzzin in the lineup does not have wayne simmons in the lineup and he did extremely well in alberta does not have zach hyman in the lineup and joe thornton who's not going to take any shit this is a vulnerable lineup against a pissed off team it can go real bad are they pissed off or are they apathetic that's what we're going to find out tonight yeah that's it and and you know elliot freeman did mention in that 31 thoughts

piece that he said this is like at at this point they're they're starting to look in calgary at aggressive traits and we're not going to start any fights tonight he might be uh teammates with these guys in a week am i right high five high five am i right adam i mean we're seeing let's go no unless he's on unless he's a waivers pickup and even then i don't see how it happens um everyone's on damn waivers geez yeah well yeah um the i think with the flames you know they've been talking about you know you've heard gadreau and monaghan's names pointed out there for years at what point are we going to find out what the calgary flames are we know what they're supposed to be and they finally got the goalie that they needed and they said they're back up

that's not bad right but Mark Giordano is like Ron Hainsey's age when he joined the Leafs and that's your like Norris winning guy like they got a bit they the good thing about the Flames is they have great they have value they have good players that's a start but the I I've said this for a few years I don't believe in that team like as a go-all-the-way team I think they're really good um i think they can play you know they can maybe even get the second third round give teams trouble i just they remind me a lot of and maybe we'll get here they remind me a lot of the 2017 nashville predators interesting why do they i'm surprised they remind you that why i just feel like the 2017 predators were never going to win

really in retrospect in retrospect looking back at the end you you know oh ryan johansson and you know what maybe that's some maybe that's revisionist um but they they were this team that really had some pieces and really got some goaltending but there was something about the way they were built up front where i was like i don't believe you Well, they didn't have a center. Do you know who led that team in scoring? The 2017 Preds in the playoffs? 16-17, you're talking?

Yes. Yeah, 16-17 in the regular season. Who led the team in scoring and how many points? Yossi. I'm going to say Roman Yossi as well, and I'm going to say by 12 points. It was Victor Arvidsson. How many points do you think he had?

65. Was that the year he had 33 goals? it was he had 31 goals ah close well done steve damn uh he led by wait sorry did you say yeah victor arvidsson yes how many points 61 61 he was actually tied with ryan johansson with also 61 but rangers hansen only had 14 goals so a lot of assists anyways that's how inept their their offense was it was pretty bad you know balanced y'all had a good year though that was a good year for james neal they had a memorable playoff goal scored by pontus haberg like you know what i mean like they were digging deep

that now you know pre-back injury pk suban and ryan ellis and roman yosi and matthias echolm that's what made them special they were they were a hard team to score on you're a hard team to beat and they got a lot of offense from the back end as well um but just and that's that's kind of calgary isn't it but not even really that much anymore like they replaced tj brody with chris tanev and i don't know i don't know they're fine they're still fine but they should be in the playoffs though they should be in the playoff picture the whole year they absolutely should be and maybe any moves right now would be panic. They do strike me as the team that's just been together too long.

You know what I mean? Maybe it's beyond panic. Like maybe this is, and you know what? Even if they beat the Leafs tonight, I'll still feel this way. Like how many years in a row are we going to have to say this about the Calgary Flames? Well, and then the big thing to me is the Matthew Kachuk. There's potentially friction in the locker room.

in a lot of other situations you can wait out the season and just see how it goes don't make any stupid moves you know make some moves in the offseason but if there's a rot going on in your team uh that's tough you might want to hit that in the bud so gm jesse and gm steve you got the opportunity to build your next generation of the calgary flames around a specific group of players Are you building it around Kachuk or are you building it around Monaghan and Goudreau? Is that what the options are? Yes, because here's the thing. It's who are you keeping?

If I'm Calgary, I go you move Kachuk for pieces that help you win now. You move Kachuk? Wow. To get pieces around Monaghan and Goudreau and Backlund and the guys you have now to try and win. Because it's been too long that they had – You've committed to this group with Markstrom and Tatum. There's no rebuild here.

Like, we're not giving you four years. So, you move the younger guys to get guys to win now. No, not him. The problem I have with Calgary is – Those are two options. What do you mean? Yeah. So, Steve, clearly Steve's on the other side of that.

What do you do? What's your, what's your rebuttal, Steve? I, the problem I have had with Calgary is their lack of identity. I know exactly who Matthew Kachuk is and you build around that. So, and I'm not saying he has to be the best player on the team moving forward, but what I'm saying is there's going to be two. Here are the two forwards or three forwards that have huge value on the open market.

Monahan and Goudreau, who we've seen, we know what they are. Monahan and Goudreau are who we thought they were. And they especially are who we thought they are in the playoffs, where they stink. Goudreau is scoring at 0.5 points per game. He was good last playoffs, but he's the guy I move. I think. Well, yeah.

He's the guy I move. Your number one center is Sean Monahan. Those don't grow on trees. You're not going to be able to replace him. So let me ask you this, Steve. let me ask you this is sean monahan a guy who you win the stanley cup with if he's your first line center probably not but that's an off-season thing okay fair enough fair enough all right just wanted to see just wanted to see uh very interesting viewpoints and i i actually because

i would i would say kachuk too but that's full rebuild but you're absolutely right jesse when you say tanf and markstrom are there for a long long time so what are you going to do it's is it a retool and if it is a retool what are you going to get for gadreau and monaghan with big money contracts who honestly the league is out of money look at adam henryk on on waivers who had a pretty good year and they signed a contract extension that was bob murray's nuts but but i mean he wasn't like he was like outrageous price for adam adam henry because maybe a million dollars more than it should have been but now he's on waivers because people can't afford this anymore he he was perfectly fine last year perfectly fine he's had a rough start to this year but he was perfectly

fine he had 26 goals um i think he missed some games so he scored at like a 30 goal pace perfectly fine that's a good player it's just no one can afford it um on kachuk part of the reason brad marshand has had so much success in this league is he was a rat bastard and then people tried to tell him not to be a rat bastard interesting and then four boston bruins would maul that person and that happened his whole career who's doing the mauling for kachuk he bothered cassian cassian bothered him right back and then and then uh the next game the battle of alberta that we all watched It had to be Kachuk

Versus Kassian What? No No God bless that Kassian, that's a 30 point Player, for the most part Unless he's with McDavid You know what I mean? I want a piece of Kachuk

Where's the flame hopping over the boards Going, uh, no That's my dance Actually, that's my dance Lucic? Since when? i mean is that's that was his he was part of the mob in boston for a while with him and zedano and like you know it was that's true right yeah but that was a very long time ago i mean that's what

you'd have him there for like that'd be the conversation i'd be having when when you bring up luchi it's funny because the first thing i think of is failure in edmonton that's my that's my biggest memory about luci he used to be an animal oh yeah oh yeah i remember that too but the first thing i think of is edmondson well it's like it's like uh you know an action star from like think of the early stephen seagal movies that guy was yeah i believe it and then he you know one day he released a movie and you're like uh-oh you ought not do that anymore steven and now it's a joke yeah right it's like uh or like eddie murphy do you think of raw his stand-up special or do you think of him as a donkey in shrek you know i like him as

donkey you brought up dr do level i've been like you have a point he's all right um i think i like the nutty professor personally but i think the nutty professor was funny man i that was a good movie and that's that's you know when they're sitting around that dinner table and annie murphy's playing all of those characters and that scene fits together that seamlessly that's pretty impressive i don't care what anyone says so is that a nutty professor impressive so is that his time lucy's time in calgary is the nutty professor uh his stand-up specials are his time in boston and edmonton is what about his time no that's uh pluto pluto nash the box office uh that busts that he had wasn't it the biggest bust in box office history for

a time among yeah for a long time for a long long time because they paid him a fortune for that um okay so so eddie murphy we're gonna see what kind of calgary uh we'll see tonight obviously nick batan is in uh who else is back arabanov arabanov is in and then there's someone on defense too i've got uh miko letnan is in for okay watch and injured jake muzzin i have no idea what the lines are okay all right well i would put dermot with hall and one thing i have one thing i have liked is uh alexander kerfoot with tavaris and marner yeah how about that seven points in his last seven games don't mind that it's been real good at if he's scoring at that clip even if he is a winger who can play center when needed seven points in seven games if he's a guy that gets you

40 or 50 points and he plays most of the time on the wing but can do special special team center alexander kerfoot is a useful piece for the toronto maple leafs what is abundantly clear is that the third line center is not really an option for him i don't think he's been the best now that's what brings me to a potential trade deadline acquisition that i think the leaf should consider going on vacation we're here for it with kids who turned the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tablet is louder whose charger is faster and why watching the same cartoon for the hundredth time is a human right yep we totally have vehicles to handle that because whether it's a road trip or a business trip where your flight's delayed your phone's at two percent and your

dinner is whatever is open yeah here for that too enterprise we're here for it you guys are gonna think i'm crazy and brian burke harped it made fun of almost uh kyle dubas for doing this but we talk about some old grizzled leathery vets that the leafs have brought in joe thornton i would say chief among them right we like that patrick marler was going to kind of be that guy but he's more of a finesse guy still playing the league though uh a little overpaid but great great effect on the team he's good in the play um uh wayne simmons less old than way than uh joe thornton but enjoyed an incredible resurgence here and has that attitude that the Leafs were lacking right we agree with that okay yep how do you feel about hard miles but still somewhat producing

eric stall oh i don't hate it on i really like that idea adam i mean he's really like that one year deal right and and uh so he expires at the end of the year and he's uh you know you don't need to rely too much on him at third line center but he's a guy that can step in on the power play could step up if one of the two major centers go down because he's been there before you're not you're hoping that he doesn't have to do it for more than three games but it is what it is there's a guy that's been there won a cup and gives you a little bit more of that uh sinewy thing you know what i mean what does he give you adam sinewy what do they call that that that like it's like that really hard tendon stuff like it's like that oh it's sinew and i feel that's what is it i can't

that's what it is i can't i can't speak um what do you have to give up what do you have to give buffalo to get eric stall i can't imagine it's it's much i mean like what i would say to buffalo is do you want to hang on to right like if it's really because hold on i'm gonna look it up right how wrong were we about him oh you watch eric stall is gonna put jeff skinner in his happy place and he's going to have a resurgent season and uh like uh ralph kruger has locked jeff skinner in the garage like that dude has played 14 games has no goals one assistant makes nine million dollars here's the thing eric's or uh he's going to outlast ralph kruger in buffalo if ralph kruger keeps doing that like the players can love ralph kruger all they want they don't

produce and this guy's making nine million dollars and he's not playing every night ralph kruger will be fired over this if you're if you're ownership and you know your team sucks you and you get to make the calls because your ownership i i generally advise against this uh ownership getting involved but you got to be like okay your number one mission is no longer winning it is getting jeff skinner to score that's not good enough this is nine million dollars yeah that's not separate conversation but uh no stall hasn't been bad six points in 14 games but last year 47 and 66 the year before 52 and 81 if you're getting 40 points from eric stall over the course of an 82 game season at this point you're happy and if and and that from a third line player come on

that's not bad that's what we wanted from kerfoot the leafs have their own So the Leafs only have five picks in this upcoming draft. They have their own first, their own second. They don't have a third. They have their own fourth, their own fifth. Their sixth is conditional, and they don't have a seventh. The second might, I don't know, that might be an overpayment, but that should get the deal done, for crying out loud.

Unless Stahl goes on some sort of unbelievable heater. you wait till the absolute last minute to make this deal by the way you don't make this deal early you you who cares about the 14-day quarantine doesn't matter it's not like the Leafs position in the division is going to be that threatened if things go the way they go right you don't care like a lot of people like well the Leafs will have to make the deals early because uh the 14-day quarantine Leafs don't care they do not care they've got to they've got the guys to plug the gaps until Eric Stahl arrives you want to give him some time to gel with the players. I get that. But to be honest with you, I don't want to commit to Eric stall until I've

seen more Eric stall, but I think he should be a high value target as a centerman proven guy here for 20 games and the playoff run as far as it goes. And I don't think a second rounder is what you should give up for him. I think it should be less than that. Buffalo sucks. Nobody has any money. The trade deadline is going to be honestly, nobody has any money guys. These owners are losing money hand over fist. It's a really, really, really tough sell for any NHL owner at this point, with the exception of maybe the top five teams in earnings to bring on any contract. It's a tough sell. I don't think we'll ever know how bad it is, but I can tell you it's bad. If they're saying we would have lost less money for sitting and not playing at all,

then that tells you something. And so I think when you're talking about trade deadline deals, when a team like the Sabres has the chance to save any dollars, they'll take it. And I don't think the market for guys like Eric Stahl are going to be that huge. I get that he's a center. I get that he's still producing well. And again, you got to remember,

he's got six points in 14 games on the shitty Sabres. Look at how bad Wayne Simmons was for the Sabres last year. Look at how bad everyone was for the Sabres last year. The Sabres are bad. They turn good players into bad players. Look at what happened to Ryan O'Reilly with the Sabres. That's crazy. he's now the captain of the st louis blues i don't know what you do i don't know what you do

there in terms of making them better but that's not the task at hand who cares um eric stall is a very interesting choice adam uh i have a question to also solve your problem internally this time adam you know corporations like the they'll be like oh we'll solve this internally we're gonna post it internally for two weeks and then we'll uh instead of uh bringing someone from the outside in what about your top six forwards look like this uh hyman matthews marner this is when everyone's healthy obviously so um not even hyman thornton even thornton right matthews marner and then some combination of taveras hyman or simmons and then willie becomes your third line center oh that ship sailed that has is it gone yeah i think uh well okay remember i said game

five against columbus we were like what is what are these asinine choices that the leafs are making you're you're gonna give andreas johnson his first game and god knows how long well that's because they were giving him his last his chance to play his last game as a leaf and i think when they started willie at second line center they were giving him a chance uh they were basically finding out once and for all if that's going to be a show us show it's not it's not it's i think it's like kerfoot it's like kerfoot in that he can do it but i don't think it's the best way to use him but with willie because of the seven million bucks and because of his skill on the wing the stakes are just higher they're higher the kerfoot tavara's willie line if you really want

to look at it is three centers which that's how most good olympic teams are made um but it's but nylander and taveras haven't looked great this year together so i'm just trying to find a way to split it up that's yeah that's fair i don't hate them together i don't hate them they're clearly good like they've had success they're battling it though and it's funny because like i feel like jt is having individual success um and if you look at both of their point totals They're both fine. They're fine. I think Willie has one point in his last seven games or something.

Right. But he did start the season at like a point a game. He did start the season at like a point a game. He racked up a lot early. He racked it up early when Matthews was struggling. Let me throw this at you as a third line, Jesse, if we're talking about line combinations. What about Hyman, Stahl, Simmons?

Do you hate that? There's something. Maybe there is a line that you don't want to play. We keep talking about who's up next, right? And it's Pierre Engvall and Alexander Kerfoot's job to prevent this conversation from happening, right? And they've been doing a good job. Engvall's been solid, especially last game.

It sucks so much having Hyman out of the lineup because that dude eats, eats on the third line. I got another line combo for you. Gimme. Okay, ready? Hyman? i love it stall robertson that dude uh may not be long for the ahl or simmon stall robertson and here's the thing if you get robertson on a line with eric stall you'll never get the puck

because eric stall is going to win most face-offs he's over 50 all the time at forever never amen and then you got nick robertson who who plays like he plays and as you said steve if zach hyman is that low because kerfoot's producing up high then you've got zach hyman who eats pucks a lot that's a scary third line yeah i think the leafs enjoy situations uh like the one they're heading into with calgary i think they got this 10 point cushion and the team's doing so well and it just seems like nothing can slow them down and i think they want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes but can we we might see Nick Patan on the first line tonight guys like I think they want to see how it goes it's why not who's it gonna be it's gonna be now's the time right is it a disappointment

is it a disappointment that none of us have brought up Jimmy Vesey like I think he took a shot and it didn't work out they gave him they've given him an opportunity and it's funny I was looking at players the Leafs could give Buffalo to help even out the money a little bit and I was like Jimmy Vesey you imagine no like like when Amun-Ra got got sucked back uh down into hell in the mummy isn't that his name Amun-Ra yeah I think uh yeah the uh the priest the high priest when he gets all the like skeletons and spirits drag him back that's Jimmy Vesey going back to the sabers indiana jones no it's the mummy did you ever see that with it's indiana jones but with brendan frazier it's the same and rachel vice oh big crush on that was in high school

oh rachel vice anyway um uh where were we yeah anyway i thought that might be a good yeah thank you steve i appreciate that now let's move on to our temi panara we got to get into this um so this started with uh brooksie uh of that's what i'm saying fame um tweeted something that timmy panarin was leaving the rangers and it said political hit piece in russia claims he beat up an 18 year old girl in 2011 so um i i think it's important that we we we gotta treat this carefully because in any situation like this you must listen to the victims however in this case from our understanding. The article A was not written by the girl herself. In fact, there doesn't seem to be much testimony at all. Number two, it comes from a source that isn't exactly trustworthy.

And we should mention too that Artemi Panarin has been an outspoken supporter of Alexei Navalny, who is basically Putin's biggest political rival in Russia, who's just had to leave Russia. Oh, no, his wife had to leave Russia. He's gone back to jail. Like there's a whole bunch of and you know what happens when you speak out against Putin. And this we've been having this conversation for years. Like, why won't Alexander Ovechkin speak out against Putin? This is what happens.

This is what happens. And I think we talked about it on the show, the big deal of Panarin coming out and criticizing him. But then we also talked about the fact that several Russian NHL players liked his post on Instagram. I didn't realize this at the time, but I saw Eric Engels and Isabel Kershudian tweeting back and forth at each other. Apparently, Alexander Radulov was one of the players who clicked like, and he clicked unlike. You can't even do that. Oof. You know what I mean?

Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. This is supposedly what happens. And it's like you said, the story could be true. Believe victims and all that. but there is no identified victim this person has not spoke and it's even several layers different than that okay so andre nazaroff who was i believe he was a goon for the penguins and i think it's nazaroff by the way nazaroff sorry well more more importantly than a goon for the penguins he was

the head coach of vidas chahov uh in the khl who was our timmy panarin's team but also mikhail nissan's team so it's nazarov i'm gonna say nazarov it's nazarov was the head coach of um mikhail nissan and he's saying that a nissan told him that panarin beat someone up in 2011 at a bar and a nissan is to be believed this these are supposedly nazarov's words i've been asking people i don't speak russian so i couldn't read it but nazarov said anisen is to be believed because anisen was just drinking juice that night so there's a few things to chew on there first of all not only is there not an identified victim here but it's another degree removed because it's nazarov saying anisen said this happened to this

person right and easton to my knowledge has not spoken right so we're now in a couple different we're a couple layers deep into hearsay um there are deep political roots in the khl and this is basically what artemi panarin is saying is happening right in his statement do you have a statement up by the way i i do know that the rangers put one out and they basically said we can't really say much except for that we love the guy and we support well no i think it was a little stronger than that because it was basically they vehemently deny here it is artemi vehemently and unequivocally denies any and all allegations in this fabricated story extremely strong wording this is clearly an intimidation tactic being used against him for being outspoken on recent

political events artemi is obviously shaken and concerned and will take some time away from the team the rangers fully support artemi and will work with him to identify the source of these unfounded allegations that's extraordinarily interesting because i could have swore the source was uh andre nazarov who is in you today in a russian tabloid said that um so nazarov has a very interesting history within the khl you mentioned he was a goon in the nhl um he was the head coach of vidas chehov who the year before i started doing khl highlights in it and all that they were notorious for their brawls they would have brawls off the opening face off of the game you only get i think it was four import slots where you could get non-russian players

on your team and they use their slots on guys like uh nasty john marasti uh who i think was like an ahl goon jeremy yablonski both of those men i believe have fought mixed martial arts um oh god who else did they get it uh trevor gillies was it at one point they had um and there were there were rumors that they were owned by people who may or may not be like um similar to a character you might find in the Sopranos um there's footage of Nazarov uh basically trying to start a physical fight with a fan um on the note of Anissan only drinking juice that night there's several videos of him like starting drunken fights actually there's a notorious fight of those guys I just mentioned uh Yablonsky and Morasty that I'm sure you've all seen I've

probably directed you towards it before uh these guys challenged them to a fight at a wedding and because of the language barrier they're trying to tell them like we know what we're doing here please please leave us alone and then all hell breaks loose and it's a big knockout fest so basically that team that they were a part of that Panarin and Anissan were somehow skilled players on um they have a wild and checkered past um yes Jesse I was gonna say the uh in my twitter mentions today the three things that people were saying about how uh new york came out and said this story was fabricated and the three pieces of evidence that people were pointing at one was the the fight so the juice drinking hey he gets in all these fights the other one was uh bars aren't

really open in riga on sundays and the event allegedly happened on a sunday in latvia this This is in Latvia where this supposedly took place. Yes, and that's where bars aren't usually open on Sundays. And then also in this story, the team flies out for a game, but in actuality, the game wasn't happening for another seven days. So it would be odd for a team to fly to a city for a game that's not happening for like another week. So if you go back and check the schedule,

the game and the timing of the events don't line up. So those are three things that I just saw on my Twitter mentioned that people who have like knowledge of the things that are going on in russia are pointing out to be like hey these things don't line up uh new york probably has a point saying that the story is fabricated well and the other the other thing i heard in my digging this isn't me making an allegation this is just something that i heard is vitus and to another extent sochi two different KHL teams are, it's a bit of a running joke that they're basically the farm teams for SKA St. Petersburg. There's a lot of poaching from St. Petersburg who has a lot of

money from these teams who do not. And the problem with that is SKA St. Petersburg is owned, I think at least in part by a company called Gazprom, which is a big Russian oil company that i believe is state owned right so you're seeing basically if you want a job in the khl um it would be to your benefit to be pro putin and that means going against any detractor of putin right um it's an extraordinarily messy story um and it's i was thinking about all the other times we talked about the khl on the show and and remember our last conversation is when is the khl going to be like we don't want to be the fuck up league and i was just laughing to myself going you're you're not that naive are you steve well let me let me sorry keep going keep going well

it's just i i don't know why i was like it's not a league where that conversation is a thing right and so let me let me read you from uh molly walker here uh molly walker a reporter for the new york post a great follow on if you want to follow what's going on with the rangers um and she kind of mentioned she goes back and deep into this there um you know there was fear of retribution because january 21st panarin put up an instagram post um with belief that his chances of competing for russia in the 2022 winter olympics in beijing would dwindle um talking about you know uh alexei navelny and said you know don't be uh so he said freedom for navelny um nazarov who has been described as by respected russian journalist slava malamud and i'm quoting

directly here as mentally unstable due to several meltdowns behind the bench throughout his coaching career could be further trying to hinder panarin's chances of playing for russia at the olympics nazarov also once called for foreign players who criticized russia to be jailed according to malamud um you know this is a and and of course panarin sat down for an interview on a youtube channel and eviscerated putin in july 2019 um he criticized the entire regime talked about why he never understood why he you know they because he had supported them before he's like but i was focused on hockey i wasn't reading anything and so he goes into in this interview about like, um, it took me something like two years before, before I thought something

is wrong in Russia. I began, uh, I began feeling with time that at the end of the summer, I wanted to go back to the United States. And so long story short here, there's, it's a mess, but Brooksy from the New York post put this out. As he said, it's a political hit piece. And apparently is it, uh, it was at Isabel Christian that had, who said it wasn't even really that big of a news story in russia itself great minds adam i was about to read that thread so she uh she said this is kind of odd panarin has been critical of the kremlin but while this story made some headlines here in russia today it also didn't seem like it was getting so much attention as to pressure him to take a leave in new york uh there could be more to it too and then she

starts a thread since this tweet is being misinterpreted in all sorts of ways i'll try to clarify a thread um not saying this couldn't be kremlin orchestrated smear but i think that's a bit of a leap would be a strange way to go about it a former coach who isn't credible and no woman has come forward not really convincing the story didn't even really get a ton of traction in russia until panarin said he was taking a leave of absence also not saying panarin is definitely innocent, but no one should just take Nazarov's word for it either, obviously. It's easy to jump to the most outrageous conclusions when it comes to Russia, because a lot of outrageous things do indeed happen here. But it's also entirely possible Nazarov just decided to say a bunch of nonsense

to a questionable media outlet without anyone ordering him to. All that being said, my there could be more to it comment refers to why panarin might have chosen to take a leave of absence this story alone clearly didn't succeed in smearing him nor should it have people in north america are generally siding with him but obviously don't know if there's been anything else behind the scenes that spooked him maybe he's legitimately worried about his family don't think his criticism of putin uh has been so intense to trigger such a thing even here but certainly possible and by the way do we ever have isabel on the show i thought we did no we i don't think we maybe we have i wasn't here for it if we did a long time ago when she is now the washington

post foreign correspondent in moscow she used to cover the washington capitals i also want to throw this at you guys um the uh ivis uh kalnitch uh spoke with the hotel spokesperson at the hotel so the story also says that he they paid a forty thousand dollar euro or thirty forty thousand euro bribe to to get panarin off for this and have the local authorities look the other way and again remember this didn't happen in russia it is alleged to have happened in latvia and uh kalnitch said i've reached out to local authorities the hotel that runs the bar in which the alleged incident would have occurred uh and many of panarin's former teammates no response as of right now he said hotel spokesperson as well as multiple other sources have now told me

no such incident has occurred one person who i spoke to uh answered with no absolutely not if you look at nazarov what nazarov said uh do a little research you'd instantly see through his lies so this is a total mess this is a total mess yeah and isabel isabel brings up a very good point like if this were because we all go with the sexiest conspiracy theory and the sexiest conspiracy theory is vladimir putin was he was sitting like this with his fingers you know behind his desk going i want you to say this about artemi panarin yeah more likely if it is a smear campaign more likely it was just nazarov saying this yeah of his own accord he was just probably like screw this guy i hate him yeah you know and and and i think beyond that um

beyond that here i think that there is the new york rangers angle and i think they haven't had a fun year they have not and they've had a rough year with abuse allegations i don't want to call this alleged this and alleged that and and like leah sanderson saying i'll never play for the new york rangers imagine you're strapped by the rangers you get to live in new york and you're like nah not for me dog and then obviously the tony d'angelo situation and we said you know they've got it they've got issues there and they're not dealing with these issues and they've been hiding these issues this might be the new york rangers saying we don't care how small it is we need to do something and we're getting ahead

of this and it's not exactly like they've they're having a great year anyway they're gonna have a chance to make the playoffs let's be honest so why not if if it makes sense for player and it makes sense for team and let let this sort of figure itself out who cares i mean it's you know it sucks for the player it sucks for the team this is awful but it's if if that's what it takes for a little bit for the new york rangers to kind of start doing something about their pr and about their alleged inaction when it comes to these sorts of situations it's good to see do you not think yes and actually sorry i was i brought up a couple videos earlier one was of anise and the other was of nazarov there was another one that i wanted to point you toward

um josh hennessey it was a former second round pick of the sharks he played he only played 23 games in the nhl but that's 23 more than me um he played for vitus during the lockout season of 2012-13 and he was on spit and chiclets and he told a story that i've watched a thousand times and he was on vitus with that old vitus ownership group that i was telling you about that's a little bit like sopranos wild or just a wild organization and remember i told you years ago like whenever i see a player sign with a certain team, I'm like, oh, that couldn't have been your first choice.

Vitus. Vitus is not a first choice destination. It is an unbelievable mess. And I believe Nazarov has been out of coaching for a while, too. Yeah. I think he's the current head coach.

Oh, really? HockeyDB says Neftahimik was his last team. But, yeah, he's it's it's it's a complete mess and listen yeah it is entirely possible this is true but we haven't heard from a victim we haven't even heard from the person the story allegedly came from right so this is um it's a mess it's a mess that it's not just a mess it's a mess that requires a follow-up yeah there needs to be a follow-up here agreed agreed completely completely agree and we will see that and we will follow that as it goes on um so anyway uh we do need to talk

about uh a couple of things here quickly uh the nashville predators uh we sort of mentioned them a little bit earlier but that team is looking extra bad and there is one thing that really stood out to me about the predators and it was what elliot friedman had to say about them selling off because that's what they're prepping to do they're prepping to sell off yeah who are the three players he named as untouchable on the Nashville Predators roster Jesse and Steve uh well in typical Steve fashion I listen so I'm cheating and I also forget no no I'm asking you oh he's Roman Yossi is one Ryan Ellis is another I don't remember the third the third one to me is the one that is the biggest problem Jesse can you name the third player

uh no take it no take it guys the three um you see sorrows pecca renee i guess the wrong goalie that's right um that's are we kidding that's nonsense pecca renee is untouchable because no one will touch pecca renee well i think it's so they're they're basically i guess they want him to be a lifelong pred uh that's nonsense so if you're really trying to rebuild the team that's nonsense he's 38 years old guys 38 so maybe maybe he retires at the end of this season and not having you know what not having a bad season really no 908 in a league where it's dropping that's okay but the preds are the preds are having a bad year oh they're dropping like a rock uh and i'm just bringing up their cap friendly preds um cap friendly nashville predators okay

let's have a look here the cap is becoming less of a thing like i know the flat cap screwed a lot of teams but a lot of teams just literally don't have the dough so the press are one of them so we should also say that friedman uh the name that he wrote down on a piece of paper in the 31 thoughts podcast was because of this nashville story so he heard that they were selling off everyone and in the off season uh the leafs offered mikhail grandland a contract to come here but he decided to stay with nashville so freeman speculated that hey maybe because nashville's selling off any everyone that the least might be interested in getting grandland to come here because grandland had interest in the leafs in the off season here's the thing i

wouldn't pay for granular when you can get him next offseason he's up for free agent again like now pecorine obviously he's going to retire at the end of this year guys because he's got five million on his on his contract currently that's what he's making um and he's a ufa at the end of this year he's 38 years old yeah that's the reason that's the only reason that pecorine is not moving otherwise pecorine needs they needed to move pecorine but when you look at the roster and the construction of this roster it's a little scary like you've got johansson i believe is on injured reserve is he not and then you him and matt duchesne are both taking up between the two of them 20 of the predators cap currently oh matt and people complain about matthews and marner

two maybe second line centers duchesne's the second line center in the league johansson i'm not so sure about anymore duchesne is in sort of the same class as monaghan they can both play on my team they're both friggin really good okay now they're your number one option oh oh so he's going up against braden point and sydney crosby and nicholas backstrom and you know tyler sagan and you go down how many teams would he be the number one center of and nashville predators the ottawa senators not even the sabers no they got eichel yeah it ain't good it ain't a good situation and and let me say this though what's very what would be very interesting for nashville is if 26 year old philip forsberg moves i mean there's an opportunity

to get a player for a good long time and you know it's this sounds nuts okay sounds crazy but if you're calgary and you want to shake things up doesn't bring in a guy like forsberg shake things up i got a name oh first of all adam to address the question you asked yes i sell the farm to get philip forsberg into calgary that's the kind of player they need he would provide a pot to them uh that they would desperately need but i remember an article from a few years ago uh when justin bourne had recently left the leafs organization and started writing again um he was talking about how'd that work out for him anyway it works for some garbage organization called garbage i've never do it now we quit writing and started talking oh what a guy can

you imagine imagine if he did like i i know he has more pride than this but imagine if he had jump cuts like terrible am i right so anyway he wrote this article where he was talking about a like a team meeting and i think it was with the marlies and dubas was there uh they were having dinner or something like that and dubas just in the middle of dinner uh not meanly but he sort of calls out andreas johnson he goes yanni why can't you be victor arvidsson but and it was it was meant to be a compliment and also sort of a challenge where he was basically looking at him and going i see a lot of the same tools and i thought about the comparison and it's interesting but now if nashville is in selling mode you know who you can get literal victor arvidsson

is now is victor arvidsson the same player steve well you know uh he had he was very consistent for a while he had 31 goals 29 goals 34 goals um last year he dipped to 28 points in 57 games only 15 goals this year he's got two goals in 17 games and seven points asterisk the preds suck so is he a guy who stirs the drink probably not is he a guy who contributes a lot on a team with Voss, Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, William Nylander. Yeah, probably. It's, I don't know. It's a name.

Steve, what about the money? I haven't even thought about the money. I don't care. I'm just talking about fun things. And he would certainly be a fun thing. He would. It's interesting that a team that was that good for that long is thinking about breaking it down that dramatically.

Like Friedman mentioned, even a young player like Dante Favreau is available. Wow. At 22 years old. I mean, you'd probably pay a pretty high price for him. Probably, but just so many... To your point, Adam, the Preds just never really made a choice in net. We talk about up front, but UC Saros is going to take over. It's going to take over.

and now Rene's got a 908 save percentage and Saros is sitting on like an 882. Yeah. Now it's just not going to happen. I just don't think it's going to happen. If he does take over, you're talking about last place.

Yeah, they were supposed to make that transition like half a decade ago and then in between that Pecorino won the Vesna. And you're like, oh, I guess we can't make the switch. He is like he's like a Jonathan Quick type goalie right or even a Bobrovsky in the sense that it's a good year bad year good year bad year he really does have two modes bum and unbeatable yes yes but I

think at 38 the chances of him going back to unbeatable are less and if they want to make a lifetime bread probably time to retire this year uh you know it's funny I'm looking at some names on this list and I was thinking about it in terms of if the Leafs had not been able to pull off TJ Brody we'd be still harping on the right side of the defense and it would just be there'd be a big old gaping hole and we wouldn't we would be considering names like Mark Borjetski Borjetski and Matt Benning and all names that came up before for the Leafs wasn't that a name that the Leafs were rumored to be looking at anyway in the offseason Borjetski yeah to run the media relations department after they saw his video with melnick you played it well and

that benning who they did try to get from the oilers for connor brown this is staggering this is oh my god here's how dire the situation is in nashville by the way philip foresburg eight goals seven assists 15 points in 17 games good very good very good next highest scoring player has eight points that's Ryan Ellis okay what about after him also eight Roman Yossi then also eight Matt Duchesne boy no one can score well they don't have any finishers on the roster really except for Forsberg and even that's not he's not big on like his goals are big by Nashville standards but they're not his the thing with Forsberg is he doesn't shoot enough this is a guy with a career shooting percentage of like over 12 and he doesn't shoot enough if you could get

him to shoot more and and also play in more games because he has had injuries the last four or five years man that's a that's an unbelievable player adam the second leading goal scorer on the preds who are they how many they got second leading goal scorer on the preds i'm looking I'm going to say Granlin. And I'm going to say five goals. It is not Granlin. He is tied for third. Can I guess that it's a defenseman?

You are incorrect. Five goals is the number I'm going with, Steve. Here's the bad news. Their second leading goal scorer is Callie Yarncroke. here's the worst news he's got four whoa yeah you're toasting that willie's getting skewered and he's got like six and i think he's like what fourth on the leafs i know they've played more games but oof my own that's uh bad oh good lord here i got i gotta i gotta look at the leafs just for my own fun matthews is 18 lol uh marner nine tavara six simmons five forgot about that one

willie five hyman four so hyman kerfoot and spezza would all be tied for second on the preds and goals by the way hyman would have had another one if he just scored another empty net goal on uh saturday yeah oh my god the empty net goal king and for anyone who's like yeah but the least have played more games cool Simmons has five in 12 games oh wow wow I didn't realize it was that bad it's bad um lastly before we get so the Nashville sell-off if it happens we got a couple more things to get to first off the Lake Tahoe pictures despite what happened on the ice with the sun I'm sure they can fix that how beautiful was that pretty amazing yeah uh definitely hope that they do Lake Louise uh in the future I know that Elliot Friedman sort of talked about that on

hockey night in canada super uh would be super cool and obviously that the issue i guess has to do with advertising uh along the boards which um if i'm lake louise the town of lake louise i waive the rule in this particular instance if the nhl can come it's pretty good tourist uh uh you know it's a big it's a nice tourist spot it's very small um so i wouldn't even want to have fans there i think you have it fan free and you just have it just a just a ring it's cool without the fans weirdly the sound oh the sound is amazing i think you do it without the fans because here's the thing it is pristine untouched beautiful nature and i would it would bother me if 20 000 people showed up in lake louise it i don't think it i mean i guess they take that in

skiers each each uh each uh weekend but it just seems like a lot of people to flood the town with however it's not a cool cool zone to do it in and i hope they do it you know what you just reminded me of shoving that many people into a setting like that you reminded me of Loch Ness in Scotland that I that I visited last time I was there which uh coincidentally perhaps not so coincidentally is the first place I ever saw a car flip over it is not made for the amount of people that go through it so yeah fan free in Lake Louise or extremely limited I like this because then at least then if you if you make it extremely limited then it's like oh a bunch of rich assholes are there let's let's let's make it fan free and it's just hockey like it wasn't

lake tahoe and it was beautiful and amazing and i know they had to play the game at midnight but still very very cool very very cool yeah you know uh there was a lot of finger wet a finger wagon at people making fun of uh the sun basically postponing a game now the people who are like this is why the nhl is stupid no that's wrong i think that's wrong we have other we have legitimate reasons not let's not throw this one yeah we don't need to water them down yeah like we're gonna water down adam the ice so it is it's it is funny that that happened it's funny that that happened they found a perfectly logical solution which was to finish the game when the ice was frozen and then the next day they played another game and it went off without a hitch and it looked

great and it was wonderful good on the nhl for doing uh like right in our faces what we always tell them they cannot do which is the unexpected yes it was nice for trying yeah it was really nice and and i think that was and somebody somebody tweeted this either in my timeline or at me or something like that they're like this was the original idea with the outdoor game it's just that they got bogged down in chicago pittsburgh chicago pittsburgh detroit chicago pittsburgh um you know the first one in edmonton i don't know oh yeah it was the flames in edmonton wasn't it the uh i think it was the habs because i remember jose or something with the toque heritage classic yeah and i understand they want to have fans there and the owners want to have fans there

and they want to make it a home game or whatever but i think the experience and the visuals especially in the social media age boy i don't know if you can buy that pretty cool the nhl saw a big sign that said hey we could fit 90 000 people into a football stadium and watch them and make them watch hockey and they started doing that for 10 years and then they realized oh maybe we should go back to the original idea maybe this makes for terrible television which we suck at right although sorry go ahead steve well you know we overused the term printing money but like with the big house game between the leafs and detroit like burke brian burke current president of the pittsburgh penguins brian burke uh came on this podcast and you know betman was just calling him

every day go kid can you sell an additional 20 000 seats yeah i need 48 hours yeah that's not only did i not go to that game i didn't watch it live because i was at someone's cottage and i was playing on the ice for the first time oh that's cool we're playing that outdoor game and and i tried to so we watched it when we got home later that day and i tried so hard to avoid spoilers and i thought i saw a tweet that said the leafs lost and i was just so i was so pissed because it's like the third period red wings tie it and i'm like of course uh now i'm about to and then tyler bozak wins the game in the shootout imagine my surprise because i thought that was literally my reaction because i thought i had read that they had lost and then i see him win

And I'm like, oh, I guess it's over then. I kept waiting for like a review or something. Right. They had just won. Yeah, it was really cool. Well, it's, and it was also heartening to hear Elliott Friedman talk about the TV deal, which ESPN will be at least in part, part of.

And this is, this is an important thing. The ESPN and NHL have a long history together, which ended with the first major lockout through the entire season. Like there was the lockout in the early nineties. But if you read the ESPN book, which is by the way, A fascinating read into the business of sports, into the formation of a channel that nobody thought could work. You can say what you want about ESPN, but holy smokes, what an incredible read that was.

One of the things that they built that brand on was the NHL. They made hockey, especially in California, accessible. when the rise of ESPN directly correlates with the NHL, which was at the time riding an enormous high coming out of the 80s and going into the 90s. It was considered the next big game. And it was at that time, this will challenge basketball and baseball

to be one of the top sports in North America. But the problem is that A, the game got more boring and B, ESPN pulled out of their $100 million deal in 2004 after they threw the entire season. And that is why Gary Bettman intelligently said to the owners, listen, this is our chance to get right back in with ESPN. And that is the only network in the United States that really matters. Let's be honest. Not that Fox doesn't matter. They matter locally. They matter as a secondary network. But and like, I mean, what is it?

They were in the Outdoor Life Network for a few years. This cannot continue. You've got to get back on ESPN, reestablish yourself, get yourself into their highlight packs in the morning, get people interested in this shit some more. because you've got another American team coming and you need to be on ESPN and it looks like they're going to be, which is great. That's a really important point there, Adam, because to a certain audience, if you're not on ESPN,

you're kind of out of sight, out of mind because it's the biggest sports network in the world. And if you go to their website right now and you click, there'll be the tabs on the top that are sports and the sports that they cover. it's nfl nba soccer ncaa men's mma ncaa football hockey doesn't make the first list of tabs you have to click like the three dots to hit more and then drop down to the nhl and if the nhl can just get a little bit of tv coverage from them all that stuff just spikes up maybe they're actually

on the front page uh in the little tabs of the sports leagues yeah like there are revel there a relevant sports league in America again just by being in connection with ESPN. So hopefully they can get that deal because I just hope they get that for the sake of hockey. I want to see the game grow. We also need to get to the point,

and I know this puts Steve's in a bit of a precarious situation, but we cannot blackout games anymore. We've moved past this. Can I go to the bathroom? Yeah, you should. We cannot blackout games anymore. If you are living in a local area,

however you consume that, whether you purchase the streaming rights through uh whatever app you use let's say it's on espn let's say it's on tsn or it's on sports that or whatever or you buy the nhl app tell me how in this day and age you're not pushing people to illegally stream things you're blacking things out yeah so i yeah i know we work for sports but i've i've said i hate blackouts before and just to explain what that is to people if sure say say uh adam you have a subscription to a sports streaming site called sports sports get them right this second so you can get the sports right this second on your phone and you and you

buy the nhl package which allows you to stream all nhl games but the exception is for blackouts blackouts are when a game in your region is showing on local cable so if it's if it's showing on tv and you have the streaming app you're not allowed to watch it on the streaming app if it's available on cable and it's not a national game so the saturday night games you can watch them because you can always watch them but if it's a different day of the week and it's a local game and it's showing on your cable television you can't watch that on your streaming even though you pay the subscription for the nhl pack right and all you need to do to solve this problem and boost your viewership is take the local game and put it on the app and then you get a bunch

more viewers on your ads. Now the, the old way of looking at this from an advertising perspective is, Hey, wait a second, guys, I have local ads running on my thing and I need to be able to sell local ads. But reality is for hockey, especially in Canada, a lot of those ads are not as local as you'd think. We're talking about national ads. Most of the time, like, you know, Panago, for instance, one of our advertisers for years buys a lot or used to buy a lot of Canucks. I don't know whether they do or not but i know that they bought canucks and specifically they would buy local and then they would buy uh canucks they bought on the remember they used to do the advertising on the boards on the on the high glass behind the goalies that was their big out west

their big out west and they and those were that was on the glass but it was only on the glass on television because they can do that with you know with technology these days and it's interesting to me that um that they you know they're a national chain and they're buying local games Most companies, GMC for whatever, whatever the big companies are, they're even buying the local games too, because it's guaranteed watch. And I think the days of, and this is just my personal opinion, the days of, um, of that local needing to serve that local audience are still here, but with technology, like, and I encourage you to look this up, add substitutions. so you can have an ad substitution in your local market. So let's say I'm a Leaf fan in Edmonton and I want to watch a TSN feed of a Toronto Maple Leaf game and it's a local feed,

meaning it is not broadcast nationally on cable. It is just, that means though, that they could be making money off of the local business in Edmonton who's chose to advertise to Edmontonians with the ads substituted in. You can do it. They do it in radio, on iHeartRadio.

I know in the States, we do it in Canada as well. podcasting we do it it's crazy uh so i just i you know i i feel like you know the nhl the next step and hopefully this is a part of the new tv deal stop making people stream things illegally you have got to give them the opportunity to do it easily nobody wants to steal i mean not to bring up his name but like was it louis ck steve that said that's exactly where i was gonna go yeah no and well okay yes let's acknowledge all the bad things he did yes terrible when he was on top of his game there was a business he revolutionized stand-up comedy in that he released a special that he independently produced and he put it on a website and he went it's five dollars and his

anti-theft strategy was asking people not to steal politely and uh people paid because he made it easy he made it easy because and i remember he did an interview he was talking about he's like in australia they just steal they just because it's such a pain in the ass i don't know if it still is but it's such a pain in the ass to get anything there yeah australia was really locked down for a while with that stuff yeah so i'll just pirate it yeah i'll just make it easy and you're right you're right most people do not want to steal no i don't want to dude i don't want to go on some crazy reddit thread and get a dot ru that that is streaming the game and get that shit on my computer no thanks yeah i want to buy the nhl package remember we were talking about the

ahl one two it was like four hundred dollars and as soon as we talked about it they're like oh by the way we uh we put out a new uh ahl package and you can buy it for 99 now there was one point when um the ahl full streaming season package costs more than the nfl equivalent in canada two times more what's the nfl sunday ticket is what it's called it's like 200 bucks for nhl nfl sunday ticket the ahl was like no we want 432 thank you very much it was absurd absurd and then of course as soon as we mentioned it they changed it and here comes leo baby leo he's very upset so we the blue room is sorry to interrupt the conversation the blue room is usually a guaranteed cry stopper because he looks around he loves all the hockey stuff in here oh are you

feeling better buddy you're in the blue room all right if you're listening to this i apologize he is sorry and you should check it out yeah steve's talking to a baby not us if you're just listening hold on is this a pre-victory baby steve no this is no victory baby i will not use my side no he's getting something out of this in that he is not crying anymore yeah there's toys everywhere there's all these dolls how could he not be excited about he likes the toys leo there's a little smirk babies never perform on command it's annoying look at those cheeks he's he's eight months old today wow yeah are you sleeping full nights sorry sleeping full nights yet full nights and he's got one tooth

that i think is bugging him and that's probably why he's cranky well listen it seems like a good time to actually wrap up the show i know we did have a press conference to get to but we talked too long so uh uh it is 4 25 in our time steve your video has officially dropped with david airs and uh i think we're gonna wrap it up guys are you guys good yeah i think steve has a baby to tend to so we must end the podcast i'm sorry everybody no don't be sorry man we i gotta go pick up everly from daycare so i'll see you later here Oh, there's a smirk. End on a smile.

So Leafs Flames tonight. Not so much. We will see you Thursday. And you definitely want to check out the end of the show for Leo. Oh, he's smiling. Yay. S-T-E-P. The Steve Dangle Podcast.

Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle, at Adam W-Y-L-D-E, and at Jesse Blake. Connection complete.