The Steve Dangle Podcast - BEEF | February 28, 2025

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, the Leafs & Rantanen (00:00),Berube likes the media (03:00), Schenn to the Leafs? (08:30), Oscars picks! (33:30), Gourde or Tanev? (42:00), Leafs Defence (46:00), Mittelstadt, Nelson, & Bjugstad (55:00), Elias Pettersson is still struggling (1:03:00), Edmonton loses 5 in a row (1:16:00), college free agents (1:38:00), and The Agent's Poll (1:40:00). Visit this episode's sponsors: For all the odds and to learn more visit https://betmgm.com/DANGLE Any opinion expressed is not advice, a promise or suggestion that increases the chance of winning. Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly. To learn more, visit: https://igamingontario.ca/en/player/responsible-gambling Or if you have concerns about a gambling problem, call ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600. Must be 19+ or older to play. Subscribe to the sdpn YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sdpn?sub_confirmation=1 Join SDP VIP: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0a0z05HiddEn7k6OGnDprg/join Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/thestevedanglepodcast Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sdpvip/subscribe Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/MtTmw9rrz7 For general inquiries email: [e-mail] Reach out to https://www.sdpn.ca/sales to connect with our sales team and discuss the opportunity to integrate your brand within our content! Subscribe to the sdpn YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sdpn?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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download that. TaskRabbit.ca. Code Dangle. When WestJet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere. And two out of three women rocked the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at WestJet.com slash 30 years. Oh, hi there. Hi there. It's Friday. Woo-hoo!

Hooray! And we're coming off the heels of a CJ show, and we're in CJ show season. CJ show season. Because today is the official one-week mark from trade deadline. And it's kind of weird this year because I feel like Four Nations cut a big chunk into the excitement around trade deadline. I think Mikko ranted in moving early was one thing that was like, oh, that's so exciting. Then we got Four Nations, like, oh, that's so exciting. Then we come back, and it's like, well, we're not even really sure who's selling.

And it's kind of been that also the JT Miller deal was the big one that was going to happen. That already happened. It seems like we already got like the huge, huge deal. Nothing is going to top Mikko Rantanen getting traded unless Mikko Rantanen gets traded again. What about a Pedersen deal? Rantanen is still bigger. Oh, yeah. That's going to be the biggest deal of the year unless he gets traded again.

And even then, like if he gets traded again, it still won't top the first time he was traded because of everything that came of that and how that came out of nowhere. It was pretty surprising. I think we might get some surprises. I got a bone to pick. I got a bone to pick with CJ's show. What is it? Because the show is called, oh, man, what are the Leafs going to do? It was something along those lines.

And I listened to it the whole way in, and I was enraptured. I was listening to it. So much information, and all of it was good. So much speculation, and all of it was good. And as I'm pulling into the driveway today, they're like, all right, now let's get to the Leafs. Yeah. I was like, no! Yeah.

So now I'll have to listen to it on the way home. Producer Donkeyface definitely put that in a, like he waited and he waited and he waited and he waited. Producer Donkeyballs. Yeah. By the way, this morning, and this should come as no surprise if you know anything about gambling, the Leafs are plus 400, the best odds to land Mikko Rantanen at the trade deadline. now jesse yeah you see a story like this what what do you instantly think odds often do not tell the story of what is most likely to happen sometimes they just say that where the market

wants to put their money right people are just no the betting market knows that people want to put money on the leafs to do things so they have the best odds that's why they're always like the stanley cup favorite in the middle of summer it's like oh wow that's crazy we'll better get that bet now that's how you know you should be putting your money on like connor murphy yeah yeah for sure like for sure it's just no yeah no no i what could the leafs possibly offer the hurricanes for miko random i mean listen i'm sure they could figure it out but i i just don't think that of of if you're talking about priorities it's center and then defense and then wing do they have holes on all three absolutely what if the wing is miko random uh yeah i i don't think it really matters

i think it's sort of like it's a priority of like where's our skill at a deficit right you can put miko ranton and next to max domey if you want to i just don't know that like and i think that'd be great for max but i is that the best way to deploy your assets no no it is not even sort of so it's not it's not uh i i just don't think it's one of those things that's very realistic but boy that would be nice and it's funny too um i i i wanted to uh we're gonna get to a few things today obviously we're gonna talk about the oilers we're gonna talk about the canucks uh we're gonna talk about this nhl friend office uh poll that was done by agent agents for the athletic uh which is actually really really good but i wanted to start the show with something really positive okay and

it's craig berube who was on uh fan 590 yesterday and he said this team is a breath of fresh air for me to come in and see how hard they work the fans the media and everything it's been awesome so so So, Craig Berube likes the media. Uh-oh. Oh, gosh. What do we do now? That sure does interrupt a few narratives. Well, Adam, I suppose we all have to find something new to talk about.

We all have to find something new to blame. Because, unfortunately, it's not the fans or the media. So, I don't know. Perhaps it's the quality of the ice. Right. Something to that. It's got to be something. So, let's pick a thing at random.

Because, apparently, there's nothing behind it. I feel like there's a guy. almost like william neilander where you're like yeah like you can you can play here you can cut it here because it isn't for everybody necessarily no and and i'd say you know it was interesting hearing say one guy that it was clearly not for whether he could cut it or not we didn't really get a chance to see but ryan o'reilly made it clear when he didn't accept the same offer to stay in toronto as he got in nashville i think there's tax reasons for that too of course but very clearly when he accepted that deal it was like yeah i'm not really down for this it's not

for me and and it can be tricky his name has come up in trade discussions featuring the Maple Leafs because he's a center they need one uh but CJ seems to think that that ship might have sailed which is you know oh for the Leafs for the Leafs um yeah I don't know he doesn't want to be here like we we we talked about you know Nick Robertson and oh he requested a trade oh well it's it's difficult to forget about that it's I can move on from that pretty quick it's different with o'reilly but like he didn't want to be here it's also i don't understand why you would trade him oh you're national you're national why are you moving him when he has two years left on his deal we've been through this because they're not smart they don't have center depth he's a good

center he has two years left he's making a little bit of amount of money why would he's making like four percent on the cap like nothing what like why are you trading this player go go ahead and look at the standings here scroll no scroll here keep scrolling uh there's nashville can i can i That's still not a reason to move. They're not smart! To support Steve's point, Jesse, you know a center that's got four goals in eight games, which is pretty good for mid-line seven?

Pontus Holmberg? No. He's got four goals in four games. This is a Nashville-connected center. Colton Sissons. No. Who? Philip Tomasino.

He's the center? Yeah. Oh! Well, sometimes. Yeah, I was like, wait. Sometimes. Sometimes he's the center. and he scored a lot and they got him for a bag of chips and you know i just want to throw that out

there that that things are not things are not smart in nashville right now i don't know that i think barry trotz is one of the best head coaches of all time i think that he's maybe not a general manager and we're finding out potentially why washington after a tremendous amount of success aka stanley cup moved on from him because he probably had a lot of opinions on what players should be brought in that the islanders after two deep runs and two or three deep runs in the playoffs they're like you know what barry let's get somebody else i i have a feeling the preds might be sneaky active uh this well they have a lot of they have a lot of draft capital they have a lot of cap space and they probably have some contracts that they'd like to get rid of

like do you think that the preds are looking at steven stamkos right now going be cool to find you a home i think they're an option for dylan cousins and i think they're an option for elias pedersen yeah the the predators should buy yeah like they should they should honestly don't trade Stamkos I think that's ridiculous you you keep all your guys and you just add because you have a whole bunch of cash space and capital and draft capital so you keep adding and you'd be good next year like how do you they're not far off from being good if you're Nashville do you just throw a bunch of picks at the at the Sabres like the Sabres can't get more picks either like they need to get players now they should be buying yeah but now it's the battle of the dumb

who do you pick to win the battle of the dumb well i think uh the sabers drag you down to their level and beat you with experience um when it comes there in nashville you know they walk into the bar thinking they're hot stuff but they're new dumb right they don't they don't get it you can smell the new dumb on them right yeah they're not generations of dumb uh like you have in in buffalo their their daddy was dumb and their daddy for him was also dumb now skeeter he ain't looking for any trouble uh you know they got generations of dumb down in buffalo i like that i like that a lot okay well so so let's talk about then uh the the thing that in the cj show that they mentioned was braden shen uh jeremy rutherford from the athletic i heard this part wrote a piece

um braden shen according to cj uh seems to be the guy that the leafs are most focused on right now tomorrow this could change guys um but the the great thing about the st louis end of this is they keep going well we don't need to trade them we don't need to trade them and and i always go back to uh i always go back to mark bergevin summer 2016 saying we're not shopping pk we're not shopping i think they're taking calls and i'm wondering uh and for whatever reason the toronto media has gone like hey not only brain shed let's get colton parejo yeah so that's a possibility i said that last show like mostly jokingly there is a salary cap yeah well listen no no if vegas can make it work we can too like the leaf said we'll give you cowan danford and

minton i think the blues still say no within three seconds i think you're wrong on that i think they would take that for shen and pareko plus you're on drugs well you probably get domey and conf too for some salary oh great that that makes it worse oh yeah no they're gonna do it that makes it worse that's like one of those nhl video game trades where you keep adding things to make the little bar go up so that the value 2026 7 2027 7 2028 guys can add to one colton pareko is essentially what you're trying all right you know what gets us across the line nick abruzzese there you go we get it done colin pareko i think is in the same thing of the ryan o'reilly conversation of why are you moving him like i don't think that makes a lot of sense for them to trade one of the best

right-handed defensemen who's making 6.5 million dollars for the next three seasons just move them to toronto for no reason underratedly noisy team they're noisier than their weight st louis st louis blues are always well they fired their head coach because they thought they'd be better and they're clearly not good they're they we don't lump them in the camp of like teams that fell under expectations but the way doug armstrong looks at this team is we were supposed to be a playoff team and we have fallen way below did they fire their head coach because they thought this guy's just objectively better exactly well there's that yeah like i don't know if they were expecting to make the play no i think i think there's both like we're not getting enough out

of the head coach we currently have we can get a head coach who's better than what we have and we are supposed to be good so let's try and be good uh when i say they're noisy they i think doug armstrom's really active but they're always in the middle of every rumor remember um it was like turkey vultures freaking just circling them when they were in last in late 2018 petrangelo was getting moved and he was rumored to be going to the leafs pareko was getting moved and he was rumored to be going to the leafs yeah and like everyone and then they end up winning the cup with both of those guys um and that was the year they fired their coach too they're just i don't know i'm not accusing doug armstrong of anything but i am i think he leaks a lot yeah

he's chatting he makes it fun he's chumming the water i like that he absolutely chumming the water Now, I'm not getting rid of Braden Shen. Why would I do that? Unless the price is right. Oh, shut up, Doug. We see right through you, Doug. And also, don't shut up. Keep it coming.

I think we also all forget, because it was announced three years before it was going to happen. But at the end of the 2026 season, Alex Steen becomes GM of the St. Louis Blues. And Doug Armstrong no longer has to. I'm reminding you guys of this, right? You're right. I forgot. Like, you have no idea that would that happen, but that's a thing that is going to happen. And I don't know if that underscores what he does or the fact that, like, Steen's there learning that role.

But it's an odd situation that I don't think we've ever seen in pro sports, like, any league. No. Where they've announced the successor to the GM three years ahead of time, and he's there making all these moves. And eventually, at the end of next season, he's going to just pass the torch. And, like, it was announced. Yeah. like there was a time with dubas when he was agm we're like wow that's the wunderkind the heir apparent but mark hunter thought he was getting that job lou lamorello thought he was

keeping that job so and they both quit when i'm going home do we see some alexanthopolis jays where doug armstrong knows he's going out because he's already announced he's going to pass the torch and he tries to win that all cause oh man yeah and you know what i'm gonna offer sheet two guys and i'm gonna nail both of them yeah nail yeah he actually nailed them both i think he even got fair value like i mean broberg might be quote unquote slightly overpaid but he's considered like a part of their core moving he was i think forget how good he was before he got hurt i agree and and people forget how good he was in the stanley cup final yeah like then holloway's just kind of been good the whole and hey guess what four million for a defenseman ain't that

much anymore you mean four percent on your cap for uh the next two or three years for a top four guy right shot no he's not a right shot he can play the right side though but he plays the right side you know what adam maybe give him a right hand stick see how he does yeah true true you should do that with i wonder if there's any ambidextrous players i i doubt it i think they all are to an extent i think every nhl player is better at playing on their offhand than you are playing at your yeah 100 you know like in that way yeah but like you know some like it's very rare but some pitchers can pitch both ways some batters can bat both ways yeah what if i think that wouldn't that be super cool that'd be cool you have a you gotta have a flat stick so you can just flip it

over whenever you want to play on each side no you just put bobby hastings through hell give me a left give me a right you start a shift with a left and it breaks and you go give me a right that'd be unreal just the note on the doug armstrong thing he's not retiring when moving up to being president right his extension is for to be president of hockey operations through 2029 okay so he already knows his next role but it's weird it is weird and i mean listen it's a wrinkle uh i wonder i wonder truly like brayden shen is a centerman who's going to make six and a half million dollars he is uh 40 to 55 point guy like there's a bit of a spread here at this point in his career yeah and and it doesn't mean that that's bad it just means that like maybe the

offense is diminishing but the defense and smarts are there centers make a lot man uh they do and six and a half million dollars doesn't seem like that much when you consider where what centers are going to cost like david kampf when that deal was signed that was too expensive now next year two and a half million bucks for your two percent for your too expensive too expensive for dave but for a fourth line center yeah i know like i don't feel like dave camp is now like i think it's like he's fine it's fine as of next there there are two like low like uh under the radar moves the leafs could make at this deadline that would open up some space and then allow them to get a little more creative that's trading max domey and trading david camp well and there's also the ryan reeves

angle which has come up yeah yeah i like i like revo just just for a bit i don't care people are like oh who care why do we have him to be around the dressing room well that's why well because he's cool there because he's wicked some people just put you in your happy place i if it's a million bucks that's that's what it costs then it's a million bucks i don't care uh i believe no camp has three years sorry two years left on his deal and so does domey yeah there you go so that's obviously pretty difficult but it would it would give again i don't think i don't think either of those guys as of next year are overpaid in what their roles are i really don't you you want a third line winger for three 3.7 or whatever dome he's making i'm i'm hoping that injury that

dome he had in november is the carte blanche excuse for everything and he comes back next year and is actually good yeah because jesus hey people were mad at me for saying uh last show that he's been good the last three games he has he's he's yes he has does he take the occasional stupid penalty yes is he bad on defense mostly he does a lot of micro things that piss me off but he's still better than he has been i know just so hard now he has such a tough time staying on side i'll never get over the being a net negative on offense yeah it's he's can't score he's got a score can't score a goal a non-option to shoot the puck yeah like it's crazy it's three goals on the year they all came in a three game span the middle of december and nothing since yeah how many how

many players making over three and a half in the nhl are you like that guy cannot shoot the puck it's not a long list yeah literally can't shoot the puck connor doer has the excuse of being connor doer right he's not getting paid 3.75 million dollars and being tasked with being the third line center and sometimes bumped up to the first two lines yeah and i know he's got no goals this year but you know how many he had last year 11 ah someone score a goal well there are robertson said okay robertson's doing it and holmberg said okay is there a goalie let's just let's just uh let's just i just want to ask i thought it was funny how much how much capital are you willing to give the st louis blues if brayden shen comes in um and is fully paid so

they don't retain anything oh well ovechkin and chikrin and thompson that's how much capital absolutely dad jokes over here terrible what do we got what do we got um like what do you like people are like well it's going to cost them a pick plus their 2026 first rounder i'm like well then i guess they're going to get yanni gourd because that's not to me what the leafs are going to pay for this guy i think and i by the way i like yanni gourd i'm not down it's not that i'm not down with yanni gourd having trading your your 2026 first and not protecting it while marner and tavaris is unsigned i think is psychotic yeah i think that's the dumbest thing the Leafs could do this deadline is trade that pick and I bet every team in the

league is asking for it because they should that's a smart thing to do um there's a chance the Leafs don't get Tavares they don't get Marner and they no one signs there or if the Leafs do sign some guys it doesn't work out and and that pick is really really good and all of a sudden the Leafs are fucked without it um like I'd rather lose Danford who I don't want to lose I'd rather lose mitten who i don't want to lose i'd rather lose cowan who i don't want to lose um boy this is that fun conversation where you're like how do we get everything we want while giving up nothing well no i'm i'm fine to give up stuff uh like i told you like i would be fine with a swap for brock nelson as long as it comes with an extension i think in order to get

to get something that you want out of the Leafs like a combination of some pretty good picks hopefully avoiding the 2026 first you you got to take money back I think and I would like if you're getting a center in Braden Shen I think you need to take camp and that would that allows you to re-sign Tavares who wants to be here well and then then there's that so camp is 2.4 shen is what 6.5 uh yeah so that you know you're still saving 4.1 million against the cap if you're the blues what picks do the leafs have uh okay well let's look that up that's that's what i'm really good question steve i don't have that off the top of my head yeah um on the screen there there we go it's on the screen oh shoot i left my glasses

a second a third a fifth a sixth and a seventh this year a first a third a fifth a sixth the next year and all their picks in 2027 okay so they have more picks than i thought they did honestly not having the 2025 first hurts they have jake mccabe that was the mccabe deal and you do that every single time um the second and the third this year are very valuable obviously the first next year i want to protect there's the third next year and then you get into oh thank you maddie i have my glasses now uh and then you have every pick in 2027 but like if you're a rebuilding team what is even a high pick three drafts from now do for you um if i'm the least i'm probably offering up the second and the third this year to any and everybody the problem is does that

get braden shen done probably not you probably need a prospect okay what kind of a prospect yeah like is that is that a grabenkin prospect or is that a cowan prospect a little better than grabenkin see because i think i think now cowan's too much yeah well i agree with that because he's like a really good player but braden shen is braden shen yeah all right well no braden shen was braden shen we don't know what he will be and know what he is right now and and he's very good but i don't think like easton cowan objectively as much as i've been like hey man listen if you get a an extension from three-time almost 40 goal scorer brock nelson uh yeah trade him here's uh but but easton cowan could skip the ahl and jump right into the league next year and be a 10 goal

30 point guy right off the bat here's here's what i would offer like to give you an answer that's not an answer but it's enough of an answer if the leafs are going to give up someone of cowan's quality i need you to take money back sure so cowan and domi cowan domi is probably wishful thinking i think they would take conf cowan conf for brayden shen like any leaf fan any blues fan listening to this who says no let's do the old i think there's a lot of lee fans who are going to say no on cowan now and that's because we get attached to our prospects and that's fine you get a center for the next three years it's does he i think he's got three years after this one pretty sure no i think two years is it yeah i think it's this year and two yeah okay yeah

because yeah he's in your five of eight it's this this year okay the third no and then he has six and then seven and then eight now oh is that how yeah it's three more years it's three more years after oh i'm looking at it right now yeah i know it says yeah i'm then i don't know how they count it i i miscount them uh that's a lot of control yeah that's a lot of control but it's also a diminishing asset he's not getting better he's getting well it's just a matter of slowing down the slowdown oh man i think you do that for cowan and conf i don't know if you do cowan what the leafs struggle with here's why i would be okay with that like um you rentals kill you rentals just slowly bleed you dry right you're giving up like giving up

I think a prospect as good as Easton Cowan for a guy who's going to play like 20 games for you. So let's say it's Brock Nelson. Sure. Brock Nelson. And then, and then you lose in, let's say the second round or Miko Rantanen or whatever,

right? Like you need, you need an extension. Well, Rantanen we're talking if I'm Carolina, I asked for nice. And if I'm Brad, I spend the next 20,

25 minutes belly laughing. Yeah. hitting myself so hard I leave welts. I'm laughing so hard. So Shen's not a rental. No, he's not. No.

He's also a commitment. Six and a half million bucks. This is a guy that, by the way, in the playoffs, 75 career games, 11 goals, 29 assists,

40 points. So he does perform at about half a point a game. A cup. And has a cup. Career high was 70 points in 17-18. He got to 65 two years ago.

And again, you have to remember, St. Louis' scoring has fallen off a cliff the last couple of years so you so it is down you get Braden Shen for 6.5 you sign Tavares to 6.5 let's say for the same amount of and you you expect Shen to get back up to 20 goals I don't know if he's going to hit that this year but I think it's not unfair to expect him because he had 24 21 and 20 the last three seasons I think it's ridiculous that you wouldn't do Cowan and Comfort Shen I'm no I'm saying I do no Adam just said he wouldn't I'm

you wouldn't do that trade like what are we what are we hoping for a cowan so cowan's gonna be good next year because here's the thing that people don't what about this i think there's a huge misunderstanding in the market of what we think cowan tops out at and i think you're right jesse in the sense that like cowan is going to be a very good player sure the the expectation is not a point a game player at the nhl level right that's that's the thing with cowan so are you okay maybe i would maybe you're talking to a dealer no you're talking to me okay okay okay is this a podcast or not i'm here talking it out all right here i gotta talk it out i gotta feel it now camp i'm fine that's fine cowan it's like okay is that a replaceable draft pick in the in

the uh in the next few few coming drafts i think it is i think you can find other players like that i think you found nice in the second round uh i think you found cowan late in this in the first nobody had heard of this guy 28th i think you can i think you can find that so yeah okay i do it you gotta because you get three more years of brayden chen control is the most important part and the mccabe deal has worked out pretty well the difference is this player is older um boy i really think he'd tie the room together though and you could use him on the wing it just makes so much sense for the lineup like i don't care about winning next year like it makes sense for this rest of the season lineup to plug in Brayden Chen.

Yeah. Like, the lineup works. If they're taking money back, oh, man. And the Leafs do have money. What's going to be interesting about July 1st this year, I think you have to keep in mind, because this does factor in now, right? Like, I'm not trying to talk about Marner or Tavares here,

but when you look at control and that salary cap going up, by the time Brayden Chen's deal's up, if the Leafs are paying full jack $6.5 million, right, that salary cap we're expecting to be in three years 113 million dollars right so that's three or four percent of your cap that shen contract is how we'd look at the cough contract right yes yeah basically that's crazy that's kind of nuts right yeah it's the same percentage right based on your math there so if he's playing fourth line duties at that point you're like well like there's worse options and i don't think he will be i don't think so either but i i that's

my point is financially it does make a lot of sense now the other thing is you know in years past and this is where draft picks were so bloody important in years past you had a flat cap for half a decade and we have to it's going to be really hard to do but we got to break ourselves of that mindset because when you look at what's available in terms of cap and how much it's going to go up and when this cba is set up hopefully in june we have an extension on that we're going to have a lot more clarity um you can plug holes via free agency now is it more expensive to do sure it always is but i think you're also going to see a lot more rfa deals happen and jesse you made a really great point and it stuck with me i think it was last podcast of the podcast before

which is hey we already know what this guy is we already know that we know this guy you know this guy's good yeah it's a boat not the mystery box yeah it could be a boat right yeah and and that okay fine i'm talking myself where is the 2026 first rounder you have absolutely no idea yes that's i would rather hey man there could be a lockout before that you don't know it's damn or after that after like uh people um might think i'm not saying i'd trade east and count i would trade east and count before the 2026 pick wow you think there's a chance like things go to shit and the least could be bad you have to you have to take that precaution like yeah like i understand that mentality the bruins right we we talked about they traded all mark before solving

the swayman problem you could argue that decision wrecked their whole season they should be in a playoff spot obviously right now they have the two injured defensemen that's a killer but the reason they've been hovering in this will they or won't they place all season is because of that one mistake the all-mark trade before the swayman stuff the i like i've written about this a few times like there have been a few times in leaf's history in my lifetime anyway where they've traded a pick more than a year of ahead of time and it screwed them every single time uh there was a first round pick I think they traded it in 88 or 89 and it was for the 90 or 91 draft they had to fight tooth and nail to not finish last place because Eric Lindros was the most

highly sought after prospect for decades uh like since Gretzky um so the Nordiques went to the Leafs and they're like hey we want to be bad you don't want to be bad take a bunch of our good players uh because of the expansion draft that pick ended up being third overall that the Leafs gave up instead of first guess who it was Scott Niedermeyer yeah Leafs gave up a pick over a year ahead of time I want to say it was in like the Kenny Janssen or Wendell Clark deal or something like that Luongo it ended up being Roberto friggin Luongo which I think was the fourth overall pick in 1997 like it oh and the most infamous one in recent memory they trade a first round pick a year ahead of time for phil castle second overall pick because the team

sucks and it's tyler sagan oh and there was another one um there was the other first help me douglas hamilton oh police could have they were still bad yeah and there was two top 10 picks yeah right so protected it's one of the worst trades in brian burke's history this team is too good to bottom out that badly probably me but like you lose let's say disaster happens yeah you don't get marner you don't get tavaris okay we'll get ranting you don't get ranting in okay we'll get kip uh caprizo you don't get caprizov well he's next year anyway he's not this oh well then you definitely don't get because mcdavid and caprizov are up after 26 that's going to be wild that there is a very real doomsday scenario and also your goalies get injured like wall

installers are out long term and matt murray's the starting goaltender like there's a there's a possibility all these things get out which is why you do it now yeah i'm nice i'm tavaris i'm marner and you've traded that pick you know i think my number went up half a mil a year right the price goes each you need me you idiot you got rid of all your uh uh what's the word i'm looking for leverage leverage thank you you're wrong i love that you knew it and i didn't that's okay um what were you lose all your leverage which was what the bruins did with swayman and now when you get to the 2026 trade deadline when we're a year from now and they still have that pick and they're in a position like they are now then we're like yeah fucking trade it because you gotta win

right now because you didn't win last year they lose again you know a million percent but at least get to that point before you move that that pick and i i don't disagree with that at all well and i keep saying cowan uh if i'm the blues i'm like well brayden shen's a center so how do we feel about fraser mitten yeah which is a little he's a special being i'd never expected to get this attached to this player but like i really do think he's going to be good yeah and what but if you get Brayden Shen with three years left on his deal Where's Mitten playing?

Where's Mitten playing? So you trade him Especially if you re-sign Tavares then like Mitten, so you're moving Mitten to the wing like that doesn't make sense Maybe Brayden Shen is who you get to prepare for life after Tavares Yeah Tavares is better

Well I think Tavares is going to stay guys I think it's just they'll get the deal done after the playoffs I think the Leafs know that he wants to stay I think he knows he wants to stay they'll figure that part out i just don't think they need to do it right now and i i agree with them just keep your doors open whatever let's get nuts they trade cow and for braden shen and they come to the same conclusion we did we did so they're like all right now we're getting rid of mitten too so what do we get sometimes life throws your curveballs and you don't have

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lawn maintenance mounting window cleaning all that stuff here's the deal 3.4 million pieces of furniture have been assembled 700 000 home repairs 1.5 million moves and counting go ahead and get ahead of your to-do list 15 off your first task at taskrabbit.ca or on the taskrabbit app using the promo code dangle taskers across canada book up fast especially for same day tasks get 15 off your first task right now with the promo code dangle at taskrabbit.ca or the TaskRabbit app. You should download that, TaskRabbit.ca, code DANGLE. Two names I do want to bring up are Yanni Gordon, Brandon Tanev.

As of this morning, like a couple of minutes ago, Pierre Lebrun tweeted that Brandon Tanev is obviously drawing some interest from teams. He has a modified no trade, which means he can, he wants to go to an upper echelon contender. And then he said, obviously, July 1st could be a different story as far as looking at potential fits. Ottawa as a possible example

because Ottawa is in love with the Tanev brothers. I think Brandon Tanev to Toronto makes a lot more sense. Yeah, no, they should sign one of them. They love him so much. But if you have Yanni Gord back-ish, he's going to play next week.

We don't know where he's going to be at. This is a guy who is a playoff animal. So let's say you get the Braden Shen deal done. What's to stop you from also doing Yanni Gord? Well, then Minton's 100 gone why would so this that that that's interesting to me yeah because i don't think yanni gourd coming off an injury who is on track for he might play 45 games this year he had 33

points last year i don't think he cost you frazier mitten he's expensive like five five million dollars for expiring deal expiring he's expensive and a rental right and both of them are like Tanev and Gord are rectangles. Seattle would retain. You think so? Yeah. Inspiring deal. I think that's an easy conversation.

Yeah. He's also just not as good. Like, I don't feel it's as much of an upgrade. Like, if we're talking about Brock Nelson or Braden Shen, like, Gord's not in that conversation. No, but it could give you a third line with purpose, right? Because, okay. Imagine you've got Shen, Yarncroft, or Shen, McMahon, Gord.

I mean. And if one of your centers gets injured, guess who slots in? McMahon goes up. Okay. To me. And so you could have, like, I'm doing Gordon Tanev without Shen, right? So you have McMahon, Tavares, Nylander, Nyes, Matthews, Marner. Mix them up however you want.

That's your top six. Then you have a third line that is Brandon Tanev, Yanni Gord, probably Cal Yarncroke. And then I don't know where Max Domi fits in to that. Well, I just don't, I don't see Brandon Tanev as, he is, to me, he's a fourth liner and that's where he should play. and you have shit i'll take that yeah so you have him him and lorenz and uh pottis holmberg i don't know like who do you have that's slaps yeah yeah i'd rather like or doer devote your attention to getting a defenseman over a winger like i feel like the priority should be center defense then like if you have extra capital get a winger but like well i don't care for tana i'm deluding

myself into thinking tana can be done cheap and right you probably can't i don't i don't care to acquire Tana for the Leafs uh I I think they get them at least I do think they're gonna make a hard charge for him this summer Yanni Gord as your first summer's different I'm gonna add him I'm gonna pass out uh but but I could do that I I the other thing I want to say is that I'm looking at um uh first off Ryan Reeves is gonna play tonight against the Rangers first game in 24 days oh wow um the second thing I want to say which so that's interesting I don't know it looks like Yeah, Alex Steeves, actually. Oh, okay.

Because, you know, he came in, he scored a goal. Everybody freaked out. Guess who the Rangers have? Rempe. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So then Myers is in for Tana, by the way. Tana's day-to-day.

He's not week-to-week, thank God. Well, Reeves owes Rempe. Yeah. Reeves fought him in Toronto. This game's in Madison Square Garden. You owe me. Oh, yeah. They're going to fight.

Now, on the defensive side, okay? Yeah. Because I think if the Leafs do something, it could happen this weekend. I have this feeling that why wouldn't they try to get one of the things done this weekend and get the other thing done on trade deadline? There have been so many Friday trades. What is, gentlemen, well, there are going to be so many Friday trades next Friday during the SDPN trade deadline special.

Makes sense. I want to know what the defensemen they're looking for. Like I know when we're talking about centers, well, the knock against Braden Chen as he shoots left and they don't have any right shot centerman. I'm like, I don't care. Whatever. What? Like that you're getting too, you're getting too into it.

But right shot and left shot D, I'll listen to that all day. That matters more. What are they looking for? What do they want? Here, Adam, watch this. Watch this. Okay, watch where my left hand is going. Okay, now watch where my right hand is going.

Okay. Looks like you shall not pass. And then I turn it this way. Yeah, that's what they're looking for. Looking for a right shot D. Yeah, yeah. that's uh i i think they're looking for a right shot deep with size oh i mean pareko fits that mold he i mean why stop there kalmakar

why not um like why stop there you know um uh there's not a ton of those available you got me thinking about seattle and adam larson's been in those rumors for so long is he hurt uh i can look hurt i don't know because that's a that's a move i wouldn't mind yeah you're talking about seattle jamie alexiak shoots left no adam larson's played 60 games this year oh there you go so you can't get alexiak i don't know if you want alexiak i'm not convinced on alexia i i tried watching connor murphy really hard that uh blackhawks game the other day and the whole time i was just like man this team's really bad did you see tj brody get absolutely torched off the face man that guy i think i feel bad i feel i feel bad but like non-option murphy

players on teams that bad are difficult to evaluate simone benoit well on the ducks because they might go to a better team and perform better or they you know might have their responsibilities diminished on a new team and stink yep right um are we just resigned to yanni hockinpah's not playing i i would think so but i don't know jesse what do we think i don't i don't know about hockinpah like has he been skating uh and i haven't seen him i haven't seen the leafs practice in a month well it's like one time because uh in this entire month because they've been away and then there's been one home game two home games in february like it's been tough but um i don't know about hakenpah like it's i don't i don't even know if the leafs know because

he was projected to play at the four nations he was for so long and then last minute they pull him so i don't even know if the leafs know about hakenpah you got to move forward like he's not playing this season and if we're talking about the right-handed d they should get i mentioned this last episode my boy is david savard i think he'd be perfect i think they should get him i think the list of names is light and he is one of them that i think the leaf should acquire to reinforce jesse's point here's how light the list is cj's trade board 6.0 is up here are the 6.0 here are the first he's got 6.0 wow yeah he's he's right here are the first three defense names uh-huh Carson Soucy, $3.25 million shoots left,

but he's 6'5 every time. He's all right. I mean, he's fine in a bottom line role, but I feel like they've got that. Rasmus Ristolainen, who Kevin Kerr has confirmed. Let's establish something before you get through the rest of the list. I love Simone Benoit. I would like an upgrade.

Okay, there you go. Yeah, if you can replace Benoit, oh no. Yeah, Rasmus Ristolainen, who Kevin Kerr, who's the athletic reporter for Billy said nobody's calling no Bo Byram which I 23 shoots left would be great makes 3.85

I forgot the stupid factor. Yeah no, but I here's the thing. Apparently he was really good in the play. I know for Colorado the Leafs must have called about Dylan Cousins most teams must have called if a 23 year old center who's under contract becomes available you call just my

assumption is whatever the Leafs have the Sabres don't want like that right like if if you're a the Leafs are a team looking for a center I still completely do not understand the saga but but don't you think oh a hundred percent so whatever the Leafs have we gonna we can assume the Sabres are not interested yeah okay so Bo Byron will strike from the list Seth Jones I think we all know that's that he makes nine million dollars also Dallas David Savard is next on the list Jesse he's number 12 on the trade board let's go right shot three and a half million he will be up at the end of this contract now last year if you

wanted to get david savard at the deadline david savard would have cost you a first round pick i don't think that that's going to be what it is this year second in the league in block shots per 60 third in the league is kristana yeah unreal you could have the two two of the top three block shot guys in the league yeah so that second the leafs have this year and the third yeah if you can get it done somewhere in that neighborhood but if it's the habs they're not gonna make it easy on you i don't think they should make it easy on anybody no of course because it doesn't remember david safar wants to be a hap right like he's he's the guy that loves to be there recently i'm there in the offseason man you know i want you from now through the playoffs

shouldn't that uh i just built like a tree trying to sell me on jake evans for months and i'm like guys he's a hab yeah they're going to fleece the leafs uh evans and armia apparently are available off the habs roster too i haven't heard a lot about savard oh i know evans and armia like penalty killers apparently one of the teams interested in armia is winnipeg which is hilarious because that's where he's he was drafted um was he armia yeah he was a he was a winnipeg jet for a while i think he was pretty highly touted until they what was the trade it wasn't monaghan between montreal and winnipeg but there was some sort of trade and oh it was a back in the bergevin evander came no winnipeg cal montreal no winnipeg um i think he went to buffalo first

did he okay well anyway i don't remember i think number on the board was savard number 12 overall oh but like fifth fifth defenseman i think all right and then the next one is jamie alexiak who is a left shot guy 4.6 million again uh he is so jamie alexiak's interested because he's six foot seven yeah not a rental not a rental yeah uh he will be he's got another year left on that deal um uh he's i just don't know like not very good yeah that's my thing even when he signed that contract i was like that guy no offense but really by the way i was right it was the evander kindred it wasn't even there you go connor murphy is on next on that list um six foot four right shot uh another year left on the deal at 4.4 million steve you're starting to whoa beef

you're starting to beef is he big beef is he beefy is he like is david savard's beefy to me he's built like a a willow beef yeah a willow that's where you like the willow the big willow trees not willow smith she's not built like a willow tree i'm talking about the big willow you know the ones you see he whips his hair back in the whomping willow yeah oh no the one from uh from that really famous mission red dead redemption where you're walking down the thing into the and you're burning down the house at every great way man yeah yeah i'm saying i love that after after that mission it kind of does there's like a little bit of a letdown it's so exciting oh adam spoiler alert the game's only seven years old um ivan provorov is also available i don't think

are interested uh mario ferraro uh left shot 26 years old got another year left you know it sucks i looked at the sharks to be like oh who do they got on the right side their highest paid right handed uh defense yeah oh uh i don't i don't think they're doing it brian dumoulin is apparently available from the ducks as a rental he's lefty isn't he he is lefty ah damn it um why are they all lefty. Ryan Lindgren from the Rangers, who had great years and has not had a great year. No, he has not. So, yeah, those are

kind of the names that CJ's got out there. Interesting, too, by the way, Jake Evans' name is out there, like you said, Steve, and Justin Brezeau, and Trent Frederick. Beef! Double the beef! Yeah!

I wanted to tell you guys that Brock Nelson, obviously, has been one of my favorites, and I really hope the Leafs land him, but they're not connected to him at all and uh pierre lebrun called lou lamorello and said hey so knowing what lou would say he's like so like what do you got to say about brock nelson and his potential availability and he said what i will say is brock nelson is a new york islander and a very valuable member of the team how did you get this number did you call him the red line or the blue line uh it's a i forgot about that it's it yeah apparently he's the one who's holding up

the trade deadline yes lou lamorello yeah lebrun said he's kind of holding up a lot of things there's so many teams looking for center help but there's still no clear indication from the new york islanders that brock nelson will actually be made available so it seems like people are waiting to see if they can actually get brock nelson before making any other deals and that's kind of why we're in a standstill here i hate that because there's 32 teams so there's his team that leaves 31 and then there's your team if you're any other gm in the league so that leaves 30 teams what do you mean he's holding it up well it's like if you don't want to spend assets to go get yanni gourd or brayden shen when you could possibly spend those same assets and get brock

nelson you don't want to miss out on the brock brock nelson sweepstakes if he does become available the brock nelson sweepstakes okay guys one name that makes sense no i know one name that doesn't make sense to me to be on this list but sure would make a lot of sense well dylan cousins ask because he was a saber is casey middlestat 26 years old not an unrestricted free agent until 2027 he makes 5.75 million dollars um obviously i guess i would assume again that toronto is doing their job and calling people or maybe he's just not a fit for what they want to do but uh i'm curious as to why the abs would want to move on unless it was like a player for player like yeah they're trying to get bad they're trying to upgrade that position is my understanding okay

like middle stat hasn't been what they've expected so far so they want to get better at to see there yeah here adam let me help you with that give it to me so he scored yesterday uh two days ago sorry uh in their last game before that no points no points no points no points no points and assist no points no points and assist and assist no points no points three point performance with a goal so he just scored his first goal since january 18th over a month ago that's why they want to trade him because that's a lot of money to pay for a player who doesn't score at all now steve what the hell are you talking about yeah brayden shen scores at roughly that pace yes but braden shen is braden shen and casey middlestadt doesn't do the stuff that

braden shen does that's why how do you feel about uh i believe he's six foot six uh or five nick bukestad oh beef um he's not beef though he's more like skinny tree i don't think is bukestad like a monster i'm pretty sure he's dummy thick is he thick is he tick okay maybe he is i gotta check i can check i can check i can check his weight 205 205 and he's sick like how tall he's 65 205 he's deceptive i wouldn't say that no he's not deceptive because he's got a big head his big head made me think yeah what do we think i mean utah is fighting for a playoff spot if you're utah is that a good message to your team or to your fans if he goes um are they fighting for a playoff spot how close are they well they're below the blues

so i would imagine no but you know you got to keep the hope alive yeah i don't think they're no it's just good business like they're not below the blues oh they're not oh they have 63 points blues have 62 okay uh vancouver's in that second wild wild card still 65 how are they in that spot So, yeah, blues are blues. Utah's right there for a playoff spot, I guess. Oh, damn. People are going to make so many rash decisions this week. Listen, you can trade off your roster and still make it.

Is Bukestad going to make or break Utah? No, and if they want it back, they can sign him this summer. See, they've played 60 games, though. Oh, boy, they're right in it. Yeah. 22 games left two points out of a wild card spot I mean if you could

if the Blues are trading the Blues are three points out but three points is a lot this time of year that's a big spread even the Ducks aren't really out of it no the Ducks are out of it no they got two games in hand on two of the teams ahead of them

but they're the Ducks I know they're the Ducks what are you talking about they crushed the let's end the playoff conversation at the Ducks I would do it after the Ducks because the Kraken have 54. Can you stop it?

No, the Kraken are dead. They're dead. Jesse, you know what's going to happen after this conversation, right? The Ducks are going to go on a stupid run. I hope they do. And then everybody's going to be like, oh, Steve Dangle, Ducks.

They're still going to miss the playoff. Yeah. You know who goes on runs all the time? Every team. Yeah, true. Like, why is the camera on me? I'm right. Put it on Jesse.

He's wrong. There you go. Wrong. No, Ducks are a playoff team. No, we all believe that, Steve. They are in it. I am, don't make me be a quack truther or a truther quack. Hey, listen, I, I was going to say,

I kind of see a few of those Western teams as like dark horse sellers. I'd take Utah out of that equation. Seattle, on the other hand, I think, uh, yum, yum. So you don't all pick at that carcass. Um, I think he could go. I think he could go. for cheap. I just don't think he's a major upgrade for anybody

and he's not a major loss for Utah either. It might just be smart business for them to do that. He's up at the end of the year, right? Yes, he is. Yeah, Bukestad is up. He's had a long NHL career. Yes, and productive.

Most of it was with the Coyotes. He scored 22 goals last year. Yep. Damn. Yeah, but that was his first in like what? A while. yeah yeah um another name that i thought you that that here's here's it's a weird one it's a weird one but it's a ducks one and uh he he's slightly overpaid i think but again it's hard to know on the ducks because it's the ducks right shot centerman 31 years old pretty good offense

uh not a great face-off guy though ryan strome his defense sticks but but no we got max tommy man yeah okay all right and max tommy's cheaper for us i don't need right-handed more expensive max tommy okay all right all right when he signed there i was like why how come i feel like he was cashing in on a pretty good season i think he was and i was like the ducks okay like the ducks when he signed there yes now go ahead and sign with the ducks i'm sure you'll have fun okay a few years ago why did you do that to yourself one name i i hope the leafs could take a fly around but any team going to the playoff should take a fly around this guy just because of the way he played last year in the playoffs is michael mccarron i know

that he's not like the sexiest name on the board listen listen to these listen to these stats six foot six beef 232 pounds let me that's why i was i was holding off on the beef thing so i could give you those are the stats that matter justin brazeau also available angus yep anyway wait who brazeau um yeah no uh i'd be wait who does mccarran play for uh he plays for the nashville predators oh still yep beef yeah no i'd do it hear that it's your money calling it wants a promotion elevate your savings with the scotia high interest savings account always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest conditions apply visit scotiabank.com hisa to learn more scotiabank you're richer than you think

uh now i want to read you i'm going to switch gears here for a second we talked a little bit about how matt rempe has more goals than elias petterson since matt rempe beef has more goals than elias petterson uh since rempe's not beef the turn of the year he's just tall tall there you go giraffe yeah it's not as fun to yell uh uh Wyatt Arndt uh tweeted this yesterday the last time Elias Pedersen got more than one shot in a game when five games ago Jan 31st seven games since then uh he had zero shots last night I don't remember him taking a shot on goal at the four nation zero shots last night top line center what happened there's there's something really wrong here what on earth happened

and the Canucks lost 5-2 to the Ducks it is worth mentioning that Archer Seeloff's is now 1-6-1 this year when did what was the date you said Jan 30 Jan according to Wyatt it was Jan 31st Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. That's, you know, it's the last day of February, eh? Oh, shit. Leafs lost both games to that damn team. I know, isn't that annoying?

I just want to point that out. Isn't that freaking annoying? Yeah. How are they in a playoff spot? How? I don't know. The bottom of the West isn't very good. Like, nobody's taking, that's why the Ducks are moving up the standings,

because they're 7-2-1, and everybody around them is just kind of floundering. uh calgary five four and one in their last 10 every opportunity to sneak into a playoff spot can't do it jesse who's the one hot team in there uh well the utah hockey club have won three in a row also won three in a row the ducks are seven two and one in their last 10 i just said that and that's why they've kind of climbed up they got two goalies in the nine nine 15 very good percentage yeah why move on from them i don't the question now with john gibson is why trade him oh my goodness well because i guess you got ghost all but like you have two goalies yeah do what the bruins did a lot of teams don't have one yeah keep them look at the team right

underneath you seattle which they would be in a playoff spot the ducks sorry the oilers management group telling the insiders which is what they're doing that they don't see a legitimate upgrade over Stuart Skinner and is so is such a red herring for me because it's not you're not looking to upgrade from Stuart Skinner you're looking to upgrade from Calvin Pickard and I know Calvin Pickard came in and won games for them in the playoffs last year I remember the series I know but if you're telling me that the best you can do is 896 Stuart Skinner and 896 Calvin Pickard last time i checked for save percentage then i think that i i don't know what i think like i think that you need eyes i think that like are you telling

me john gibson wouldn't be an upgrade for these guys come on now uh come on now i still think the move is you saw enough out of skinner in the playoffs that to me the move is on d and what happens if skinner gets injured well that's why i say it's not an upgrade on skinner it's an upgrade on Pickard. You're telling me you can't find an upgrade on Pickard? Then you're not doing your job.

He makes so much, man. Oh, that's crazy. Wow. Oh, man. You know what's crazy? Next year, the salary cap's going up. It's crazy.

Yeah, but I mean this year. Their time to win the Cup is this year, right now. Yeah. And next. Because, hey, guess what? You know who's a free agent in 2026?

Me. Connor McDavid. Not you. Can I have his money? I want to go back to Vancouver for a sec, though. Can I say one thing about Seattle?

Yeah, give it. Joey Decord has picked up 43 of Seattle's points this season. All other goalies combined, all of them being Philip Grubauer, by the way, 11. Yeah, he's bad. We've had that conversation. Dude, you double that, which would still give him a below 500 record probably. Yep. You're in the playoffs, pretty sure, or at very least in the conversation.

One guy I'm shocked is not on the trade board right now. is Brock Besser 73 points last year he was an animal in the playoffs I think I think there's a good chance Vancouver wins game seven of the second round if he's playing and oh man and apparently the difference is like Vancouver's willing to go five years Besser wants six to seven and I'm wondering if his name appears at the very top of the trade board real soon because if they can't get this done by the deadline uh vancouver has got to really sort of check itself here they've lost a lot of talent over the last couple of years you know uh they've got some back but they've lost a lot of talent and there's no guarantees

pedersen's coming back to being the player he ever was you just don't know i think do you do you move best or now and get get get something back and start the retool the canucks could do something reminiscent of what the rangers did years ago right now quick retool uh not necessarily quick i mean the monkey wrench is petterson never has a player this expensive been this bad and of nowhere and this like malcontent yeah like when huberto was really struggling his first year in Calgary there was still an air of guys I'm trying I promise I'm trying and then you know he figured it out a little bit a little chemistry here a little chemistry there would I pay him 10.5 I don't know but he's doing pretty well along the lines of like Pierre-Luc Dubois I don't know if

he's playing like an eight million dollar defenseman in Washington but he's doing well and they're winning games scored last night very important you know oh are you if the Canucks stay in the second wild card spot who are they playing Winnipeg Jets Winnipeg is going to cross 100 points in the next couple of weeks here

they're at 87 I do not envy Patrick galvin and jim rutherford at all what do you because here's the thing they're the most difficult team to evaluate in the nhl i think you might lose your head coach this summer too just throwing that out there he's a free who is a more confusing team in the nhl right now buffalo no they're very easy national they're bad no they're bad but confusing bad though they haven't lost that much off their roster from last year and yet here they are yeah but they also don't have centers and their goal tend to got worse yeah yep yep the Canucks are the most I don't know how how on

earth you evaluate that that roster uh their season their anything I would try to keep Brock Besser like there are some players where it's like yeah no get what you can and there's then And there's players like Besser where I think you're going to be spending years trying to find anyone who's as much of a laser beam as that guy. Oh, man. What a monkey wrench that would be, eh? Just throwing him in there. But they're in a spot.

They're in a playoff spot. So you're saying to your fans, lost season. you're saying to your owner no playoff revenue and you're already and you're in a wild card spot right now golly i think you try to keep him i think yes how many years do you do with brock besser um with brock besser i think yeah i think the move is to keep him um i would do what does he What is he looking for, they say? He is 28, so this is the cash-in deal.

If Brock Besser is looking for $8 million, let's say, this is a guy who's got $36 and $52 this year. He had 73 last year in 81, including 40 goals. And in the playoffs last year, he gave you 12 points in 12 games. Has trouble sometimes staying healthy, but he's been relatively healthy recently, the last three, four years. is is what's what's an eight million dollar player now right i think if you can't get a deal done with brock besser by the trade deadline you have to move them i think the vancouver canucks are not

in a position where they just let him walk to free agency and just lose them for nothing speaking like they can't be difficult to evaluate they can't just be losing assets here they're not no they can't do that and with petterson like for me i'm shutting down petterson because it looks like it's his knee that's bothering him if you remember last playoffs at the end of the playoffs he said he had a nagging knee injury that tendinitis or something since january uh and the daily hive out in vancouver did a little background work on this as well they had a screenshot of the four nations behind the scenes stuff that sportsnet had and they caught him in the locker room tending to his knee throwing an ice pack on it so it's clearly still hampering him and it's it's hurting

his play enough that he's not who he is you know and i think if he's been dealing with it since last january and then he came to training camp and he said he had to train around his knee and then now he's lost all of his speed and he won't shoot the puck and his skating looks bad he's clearly injured and i get you're in a playoff spot and you want your guys to fight through what you're doing so that you can make the playoffs right but that's not helping your team at this point it's not helping petterson's career by having him on the ice so i would shut down petterson side brock brock besser or trade him like it's either you get this deal done by the deadline or you trade him because if you don't get this deal then he walks that's such a blunder

on the franchise so that those are the two things i would do if i'm the canucks because they stink right now you know you do have the option to trade besser and resign him make no and then make another trade oh yeah yeah oh yeah totally like that could be the good business right like colorado loses ranting and we're all like you idiots and they get niches who has been better so far has he been good he's been so good but and he's also signed to next year it's 6.5 million which is robbery there's a possibility that canucks come out of this deadline minus Besser and better, but they got to be

real creative. Adam and Steve, do you trust Jim Rutherford in his handling of this franchise since he's become president of the Vancouver Canucks? Every time we've doubted him, we've been burned for it. Yeah, I think others can doubt him, but Adam and I lost

our privileges a long time ago. With the Pittsburgh Penguins, and frankly last year, going to last season, I was like, this team is so talented and they've never put it together, so why would they do it now wow fast forward they win the division and go to the second round uh game seven against the oilers i think they won the division for years i don't pretty sure but for years the canucks have been under achieving what i expected and when they struggled i didn't get it and then last year happened and i i it was very validating for me and then this year happened and

like i just have such a hard time punting on them because they have what a lot of teams in this league don't have yep talent yep they have goaltending they have arguably the best defenseman in the world if oh man if you go look at the 2020 or 2021 flames or canucks to me it's the same thing wow that roster is loaded with so much talent how did they not put it together like Go look at Jake Markstrom. Go look at the 2023. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Was he having a good Jake here or a bad Jake here? He was having a bad Jake here. Yeah. Well, bad Jake playoff for sure. If you look at, if you look at the flames and you look at those Canucks teams,

man, they were stacked with good young pieces for it and forward defense and, and, and goaltending. It's crazy. Yeah. Anyway, I want to,

I want to move on. I'm going to move on. Don't because I want to talk about the Edmonton Oilers. and mcdavid is minus 12 in his last five games the oilers have lost five regulation games in a row we talked about their goaltending that's a psycho stat is minus 12 in five games is like hard let me give you this too uh their um goals for per game is 2.8 so roughly three goals against per game what do you think it is 3.75 in the last game 5.2 per game per game team save percentage in the last five is eight five seven i'm surprised it's that high their penalty kill is 72.2 percent

in the last five so just nothing's going right knoblock called them a fragile group i think stew i think jeff skinner's getting moved at the deadline by the way to a non-contender and And I think whatever deal the Oilers do make, that Skinner money is going off the books. Yeah. No, they need to make a move to make a move. There was something very interesting I saw with Evander Kane, where I want to say he has a full no trade or something, but it turns into a partial no trade today. I didn't know you could do that.

I've never heard of that in my life. And Jesse mentioned that they might want to move that money depending upon whether he comes back or not yeah yeah i alluded to that that trade uh clause last episode because it makes sense if he's coming back before the playoffs if the injury is like oh i can play like a couple weeks from now to move him and then free up that money i think that's that or you just want to use him and keep him there or if he's not available to the playoffs then you just keep him to the playoffs free player but if now he's gonna come back you might want to move him between now the point where his trade clause is moved and the trade deadline so that you can use that money in

different ways if you don't want evander kane wow wow oh this guy oh man i don't think we're thinking about this deadline properly what do you think like like cj's trade board like i know i think we're gonna get some out of the left out of left field like if andrew kane's been such a non-entity this season i oh man we're gonna get some insane ones the oilers um you know not to sidetrack myself too much um are trading mcdavid well there's very yes first of all they're trading mcdavid second of all there are so few teams in the nhl that you should just give a like carte blanche benefit of the doubt to they're one of them like yeah okay you lost five straight i don't care i think you're a cup contender yeah oh yeah

i bet mcdavid's not the best player in the world anymore just like that you know after scoring the ot winner four nation face off like i bet he's bum no uh they have some moves to make i think they got to shuffle some money around i think jeff jackson's pretty well connected i know he's at the gm anymore but let's be honest um that team maybe more than any needs to be super active at this deadline you got the capitals who are like i'm looking at like the the powerhouses of the league capitals and jets and like i just don't think they should screw with what they got too much the oilers no no mad scientists screw with it a lot like it's so rare we talked about this all playoff long it's so rare that a team is this good and this flawed at the same time they're so

clearly like a top five team in the world and their decor is probably bottom half yeah and now it's like it's bled into the forward group too because um specter was writing about how depth sucks about knob block and he called them uh a bunch of guys out there as passengers out there because they're just kind of hanging out they're not really doing anything i don't know if you want to play that audio too um but happy to uh and he called out specifically yan mark brown and henrik their third line which has been horrendous for them recently and evan bouchard as well which is the the decor there so i don't think that surprises you or anybody around but um that's who specter probably he alludes to like those are probably the guys who are the passengers right now

Bouchard, there's great examples of every time there's a tough defensive play to make, he's kind of standing around on the ice. And that's Evan Bouchard's MO. And it's not good enough when you're trying to win the Stanley Cup. The numbers with Bouchard are enraging. Just because I know his numbers are... Generally, good things are happening for the Oilers when he's on the ice. But there are so many times where he's not even bending his damn knees.

He's not even sort of trying to make a defensive play or even capable of it. And all it is, really, that's effort. That's a mentality thing. I know he doesn't have to be the best defensive defenseman in the NHL because we love him first, but just play adequate defense, neutral defense. Be in position.

Not hard. With his wheels, he can do that. Pass it to Connor or Leon. Seal off the board. All right, good job, Evan. They're not asking much. Oh, man. Do you want a little from Knobloch?

Yes. Because he's usually a mild-mannered guy, so for him to call people passengers is pretty interesting. Not maybe a better result, but did you feel like that was maybe the best game of the Road Trippers since the break, the way the team played, as hard as they did? Absolutely. That was by far their best effort. I think the guys competed really hard against the walls around the nets.

And, yeah, I thought we had some pretty good performance by some guys. and but to get out of funk like this you know when things aren't going well and guys are really feeling it or really squeezing their sticks we need we need everybody and I felt that there was a few passengers there were some guys that just didn't put in the effort that we needed but for the most part I think most of the guys did pretty much everything they could. so i love hearing it because you hear that pause he knows he this isn't a loss and he's praising the team for their effort you know he's trying to hype up the guys but he has this long pause where he says i need to say something here and criticize my team what language am i going to use

that's going to get them going that's not going to be too harsh but i need to sense Oh, that stinks, though. And he goes, few passengers. I'm going to ask a stupid question. How do we know this is the Yanmark line that he's talking about? No, so this was what he said, and then Spectre talked about guys who were passengers last night. He talked about the Yanmark.

The third line that's been very negative on the ice, and then he goes into a thing about Bouchard. See, I'm very surprised by that because last year, remember the Oilers started awful, and we were all sickos watching them lose to the Sharks and just watching their season get worse and worse. Supposedly part of what turned their season around, obviously they fired the coach,

but Matthias Janmark stood up in front of the group and called them out for their effort. And they called the rest of the season Hockey the Janitor Way because that's his nickname, which is pretty creative for a hockey nickname. You got to be honest. You got to give them credit where credit's due. So for him to be a passenger, especially at this point in the season, is surprising.

I think that was then, and during this five-game losing streak, the third line hasn't been productive. I think that's the reality of how they're playing right now is they're not very good. And the spotlight was on Evan Bouchard and his play, especially. I think that was the main passenger comment, and that's who it was probably directed at. let me let me throw something out there that that i think can make some sense um listen the blackhawks stink and i don't think they're gonna have any problems thinking um oilers need some help is there a deal where the oilers could send jeff skinner and a sweetener package to the blackhawks and the blackhawks get to play jeff skinner with

Conor Bedard which might be fun for the rest of the season which might be fun Jeff Skinner doesn't get to go to the playoffs again though okay he's never played in the playoffs you have to earn it you have to earn it he had every opportunity to be a key part of this Oilers team and he's not

okay sorry what is this fantasy camp the Oilers are not there to make Jeff Skinner's dreams come true you should have earned it he gets traded to a non-playoff team that is going to be bonkers that you have to admit oh i feel bad for the guy

gotta earn it jesse what do you have can we get your live reaction to evan bouchard's play on the florida panthers 3-2 goal okay so i we can't put the can't put it up on the screen because i want i want to play it in full in full speed and then we can do stop by uh pause and play if we really want. The first still is him standing completely upright.

And Adam, I'll need your attention as well. I've got it. All right. You got it. You ready? Yeah. So this is the goal.

Here's your reaction. 8.53 left in the third period. It's 2-2. Florida's entering the zone. There's Evan Bouchard. You are hopeless. Look at this little whack. did you you are hopeless so holy shit it's it's like almost immediate it's one of those shocking

i'm so happy i'm so happy like it's immediate okay jess can you just freeze frame yes one and then just so everybody can see this this is this is okay so first off that's not that's just not vaguely giving a fuck so right there we're already like evan evan bend over a little right the game's tied it's the third period evan florida's out playing you okay then go like a second ahead or even half a second sure sure okay now okay so now it becomes evan's guy right because he's going in after this oh yeah right no no i think he's supposed to be doing something anything well you could you could double down on that player look oh we got a bend one leg bent all right let's go okay and then and that's lindell right so lindell then turns around and evan goes you know

what i won't turn i won't turn one way i won't turn the other way i'm just gonna back skate and look just falls completely out of the play who's the other who's the other oiler in this uh i don't know he's doing all the work he's doing all the work 36 38 something like that i don't know i'm gonna look it up uh this is uh clingberg clingberg oh it's clingberg that's yeah how do they end up out there yeah why why are they out there together oh my god what a freaking nightmare so so yeah continue to continue with the so klingberg is like fighting for his life he's done everything oh that's good control john so here we go yeah so john is john is trying to push lindell to the side who's number is that number 10 i can't even tell for this and then

bouchard's like bouchard's like i'll help you john and then klingberg's like cool but then lindell gets the puck back to center at the blue line in the oilers defensive zone he doesn't look like he's playing hockey and then bouchard is just like you know what you got this john you're good i'm i'm gonna rah rah john like what is happening here so yeah well uh i i know this back to nate schmidt i know this goal is about to put you down uh in the third with a little under nine minutes to play he shouldn't have played another shift the like that's it's unbelievable this player did you guys notice the little whack he had when when the play is like almost done is that is that to the third yeah f2 or f3 so right there he's just a little whack that wouldn't have cracked

a pinata like it's just whack i'm doing something that's on jonah gadavich what are you doing he just smacks jonah gadavich gadjovich i did something yeah i took a penalty by hitting the guy in the thumb not not great effort i don't know he should have no no penalty but God, that is... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Do you want the celebration? No, I'm not okay with this Bouchard slander. You guys saying he did nothing.

Look at him, fishing the puck out of his net. This is pain, man. This is so bad. Look at him. No one else did it. No one else did it. Atta boy! Oh, and he fired it down the ice.

Because he's mad. Working on his outlet passes. He's mad. Straight-legged. He mad at who? It shows he cares. Mad at who? Don't you think it shows he cares?

Channel it. Holy shit. Holy. One of the most mystifying players in the league. If he gave the vaguest of fucks, he'd win the Norris. This looks like he's at a public skate. Does he want to play on the Olympic team next year or not? I don't think he wants to play in the Oilers.

Seemingly not. Because, like, this guy should be, if he played neutral defense, he would be an Olympian. Can you compare Bouchard, the way he's standing right now at his public skate, to every other player on screen who's playing hockey? All of them are knees bent, low center of gravity, sticks on the ground, two hands on them. Sticks on the ground is such a good point. Like, Bouchard has his stick down, but does he have any weight on it? Like, what do the coaches always tell you? hard on the puck hard on your stick get hard on it like none none of it like like john cherry stick

on the ice shit like basic basic basic and i know he's he looks like a fill-in like this is one of the best defensemen in the league would put an effort oh yeah you're right a fill-in like this is supposed to be one of the best defensemen in the league and he looks like he won a contest that's wildly unacceptable any other player in the league gets benched for the rest of the season because of that yeah at ty emberson does that he gets sent to madagascar we never see from him again so when you hear stan bowman talk about goaltending is not really an issue i don't blame this on correct skinner no you allowed nate schmidt to come in and wire one blank on your goalie it's not really on the goalie is he at the end of a shift like what the fuck oh my god

lay down you'd be more effective just laying there and taking a swipe at the thing and r1 l1 r1 evan l1 r1 down there yeah even hit l1 just bend the knee i propose to someone i want to say Big shout out to John Klingberg for trying to play some defense there. That's not what he's known for either. He played both sides. Yeah. He was all over the ice. I have to respect him.

Left side and right side. And you know what, Jesse? He's always in position. Always in position. God bless him. Klingberg's trying. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

Go ahead, goal. Middle of the third period. I mean, this is a team that reclaimed Travis Dermott yesterday. Like, they need help. They need help. And they can make trades. Let's start with their best defenseman being kind of an NHL-er. That's shocking.

Yes. Yeah, shout out Spectre for throwing that in the article. We could do weekly Evan Bouchard corner. No, he had another one too. We don't need to do it again. No, let's do it. The next one is him getting just outworked by Brandon Hagel. No, let's keep going.

Outworked by Brandon Hagel. You don't say that. around him so if you want to watch this one in real time as well we can do it again let's go it's all right where is he jesse where is he so bouchard look for the guy not moving okay yeah okay okay so he's just in the bottom left of the corner right now play by play and then yeah you can react so bouchard is up by the blue line here the puck is in the tampa bay zone and they are in the corners two uh f1 and f2 oiler forwards are in there looks like they got great positioning both sides of the uh tampa defenseman with the puck 17 seconds into the second period yeah you

know when you're should be focused you know hit play yeah okay okay so then it goes there you go pinch off that wall skate back okay and he's skating straight leg backwards and doesn't cover the oh you suck okay okay so they they all saw it in real time now that's unbelievable saw the goal in real time so we can bring it up on the screen i'll do a start and stop steve jesse how long before they trade this guy i was just i was like there's no way they're gonna call me dramatic they're gonna trade this guy they're gonna trade this guy there's no way you can't you can't you can't expect to win a cup playing like that mcdavid just got back from team he went to are you kidding i think mcdavid might be goku for anybody dragging this dragging this shit

for anybody listening what adam and steve just saw is brandon hagel has a wraparound goal against the Edmonton Oilers. He comes around the back and he scores a goal. But this whole time, Evan Bouchard is hanging out in front of the net and has all of the time in the world to cut Brandon Hagel off because Brandon Hagel's going around the back of the net

and Bouchard is in front. And he does not go to the other side of the net. He lazily strides over there and he gets beat all the way to the other side, even though Brandon Hagel's going around the back and Evan Bouchard's coming around the front, he still doesn't beat Hegel to the opposite post. No, Jesse, you left out he also got in his goalie's way

trying to come across. Because he skates through the crease. Despite being in front of the net, he can't beat Hegel to the other end who went around the back of the net. Use your stick! That is Bouchard's play defensively. So, yeah, just it's terrible.

You know who loves Evan Bouchard? Wow, I'm so glad you brought this, Jesse. you know who loves evan bouchard every tv salesman in edmonton because i would throw a beer bottle coffee mug the remote through my tv they're gonna trade this guy 82 times a year this is one of the most gifted how many points does he have this season jesse probably like i don't have that in front of me so he's he's a truly gifted special talent 45 points in 59 games. Wow.

Oh, he's down a bit. He had 82 in 81 last year. He's down a bit. That's still good. That's still very good. For a defenseman? Yeah, yeah. Like, very...

Evan Bouchard and Brandon Hagel were both at the face-off dot. And Bouchard goes from the front of the net to the other front of the net, and Brandon Hagel still beats him around the back to the far post. Hagel is... It's insane. Hagel was on the Four Nations team because Brandon Hagel is the human embodiment of effort and uh okay also evan bouchard i just i here's what i don't get about this okay this this freeze frame is amazing here you've got ekholm you've got mcdavid i think that's mcdavid

yeah it's 97 uh and and and you're all you need to do if you're bouchard all you need to do is go to the right side of your goalie as in you know from like from hagel's left your right that's all you got to do cover that off and then he's got to go ring it around the boards he's got to do a knee lander where he's just circling instead you allow him to cut in at like you want all you gotta do you can let him go around the net but just make sure you got the right side cover that's it you want to immediately improve every oilers broadcast put a gopro on his helmet oh you know it's gonna be steady or just have a bouchard cam like in the bottom corner what's evan bouchard doing that's you know what i'm actually really surprised about and i know that his offense is

spectacular i get that so was tyson berries right in edmonton uh why is this not a bigger issue oilers media are very smart well this this comes from oilers like this is mark specter's work doing agreed he did the legwork they're writing about it's full article on bouchard but like if i'm just surprised like this is we've known about this for a long time like this would be a weekly thing in toronto i think weekly daily might be daily might be every hour yeah we're like this market is too hard on defensemen good lord that's not hard good lord above good holy communion good every sacrament good holy unbelievable confession like a whole uh by the way just a couple of pieces of news it looks like i was

actually accidentally bang on the money with what the with what the canucks offered brock besser five years eight million bucks a year he's he wants more term uh and also some breaking news the rangers the leafs and the lightning are pursuing an ncaa free agent center named luke hames hames hames he's a third year dartmouth player tallied eight goals 12 points 43 shots and 16 games after he missed the first 11 games of the campaign with broken hand has enjoyed a career year or enjoyed a career year last year uh 18 points sorry 18 goals 18 assists in 31 games so there's a guy that could potentially factor into even weirdly enough uh a playoff run much in the way Matthew Neistat.

He's 21 years old. Always look for the connection. John Fusco is a Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick who is on that team. So I always, whenever, like remember I did that with Kribankin? Yep. I was like, okay, when they discovered Kribankin,

who were they actually scouting? I don't think they were scouting him. And they were, it was probably Danil Yurov. and uh there was there's another player as well and then they found this guy who's been draft eligible for a couple years and they're like you know what he's really good let's get him are i wonder like were you watching dartmouth games and all of a sudden you're like holy shit look at this kid right you probably already have the resources there my resources i mean scouts be nice to get them it's always the damn leafs and the damn rangers in this conversation yeah

Yeah, Vesey and a few other players too, but Vesey's the one I can remember. Oh, every college free agent. Well, the Rangers are in there. Tampa gets a few of them too. Tampa does. Okay, so I just want to throw that out there. And then do we want to do the athletic list

for friend offices here? Do we have time? We can end with that. Okay, all right. So here's what we got. This is the NHL agent poll, best and worst owners, contracts, et cetera. So number one question,

which which nhl what is the nhl the area sorry what is the area the nhl can improve the most um so this is interesting so they've got this these are comments more than like votes okay got it so uh a few agents said i wouldn't mind them going back to one versus eight on the playoff format yes expanding the playoff field the league continues to grow so it kind of makes sense that you know back in the day you'd have 21 teams but 16 of them would make the playoffs do we expand it to 20 if now that there's 32 teams right or like have a play-in like the nba does okay so that was calgary uh on scheduling with four nations olympics and world cup i think the pa and the league have failed the players the fans and the owners instead of really understanding

the wear and tear it has on the product okay so that was vegas yeah uh on scheduling uh owner said or owner agent said i want to see staggered start times um so you know he said i don't know how we go three or four nights with literally no games and then one or two and all of a sudden everybody plays all at the same time there have been too many games uh too many days this season where it's like every team in the league is playing um so we'll go to the best run franchise in the league this is number two what do you think gets the number one on that best run franchise either no Boston okay Jesse what do you guess three visits to the Stanley Cup final Tampa Bay Lightning and they are the win why didn't they

and funnily enough the the the team with two in a row Florida is number two and that makes obvious and they are tied with Vegas I knew it uh and then Dallas is in there too in the top four so i think that kind of makes sense right no bruins that was the trauma talking i love this one i love this one because you remember you're asking the agents what's the best friend office to deal with so basically who's the who's the best buddy guy i'm gonna sign with tampa again tampa is tied for first with florida minnesota florida's in there soda yeah because bill garren is is right like he i guess uh suitor and parise getting those giant contracts everybody's like you know yeah Minnesota blank checks all the time.

Dallas and Florida. So it's interesting because it's Minnesota, Tampa, Dallas, Florida. So three of those four teams were considered teams that were the best run as well. Worth noting that Colorado,

Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and Vancouver all got two votes each. And there was a bunch of teams that got one vote and none of them were Toronto. Number three, which is the most unstable or poorly run franchise?

Guess Buffalo. Jesse oh that's a good guess Buffalo Buffalo is the winner ah nice give me two and three oh poorly run Anaheim there's a lot one thing I'm surprised about is we sort of went in on Anaheim and Greg Cronin um a month or so ago and the amount of messages I've gotten since then from people who are like you don't know the half of it oh uh so I'm gonna say Anaheim and young GM team's not doing so good. Chicago.

You nailed it. Yeah, well done. So Buffalo, Anaheim, Chicago and weirdly enough, the Sharks are tied with Chicago as well. Wait, those are just teams that are not good.

Yeah, that's not. And also we're going there. They can't be bad. No, I don't think they can be bad. Carolina is one that came in fifth and I thought that was interesting.

Because of the owner. Young GM. Yeah. The owner, people think he's cheap. Apparently, well, and he apparently is like directly involved in like all player things so if this by the way if this miko ranton and thing doesn't work out for them um it you know maybe eric tolski can look at him go see i told you when i say young gm i don't i'm not saying that is a bad thing i'm saying

why do you hate eric tolski people in hockey probably think it's a bad thing uh what's the most difficult front office deal to deal with in the entire league give me a guess difficult front office you know i'm gonna carolina buffalo carolina's two damn buffalo actually didn't get a good they didn't get a vote jess no toronto did nobody deals with them toronto got one never make moves uh the the team that far and away won this was the ducks pat verbeek and that there you go tracks with yeah that tracks with what i've heard about the ducks i have heard that they're that pat verbeek is an extremely difficult now that might be a good thing i mean that people said that about the raptors front office too that they're a pain in

the ass to deal with people can't stand verbeek and they can't stand cronin and maybe the ducks look at that and they go well we're happy about that good i don't want to be easy to deal with i don't know i don't know um uh so what the here's the quote pat verbeek is cranky and runs the show himself and gm jeff solomon is a grinder i like those two guys but they're tough i appreciate that they're assholes uh somebody else says verbic is ridiculous he draws lines in the sand and sticks by it irrationally oh uh another quote uh the guy that makes anaheim tough is jeff solomon he does all their contracts something as simple as doing entry-level deals there's just they're going to nickel and dime you on everything um the so-called old school mentality they say is

the theme here so no surprise that the islanders show up on it there they've got they were number three um they're the biggest pain in the ass to deal with says an agent a lot of i don't like when i threaten to talk to the media about a negotiation and they send me a picture of my house uh they just send like the outside of my house this will not surprise you lou lamorello has no ability to let anyone else have any responsibility it all goes through him every conversation i respect the islanders but it's draining and lou definitely holds it tight uh and also they said about carolina it's dysfunctional and the owner micromanages everything um and also somebody said on the predators who finished uh fifth on the list

uh nashville is like pulling teeth on all levels dealing with them on contracts wow best owner in the league you don't have to know the name just know the uh know the know the the general good because i forget his name tampa he won who's number two though what's his name what's his name jeff vinnick but he's thank you he's mostly sold but is still running um but who's number two guys shoot i forget his name and you know what i'll give you this it's a three-way tie for number two so if you pick any of these three teams you will win vegas seattle uh seattle not on the list Vegas on the list, Bill Foley. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.

Interesting. And Vinny Viola. In Florida. Florida Panthers. I thought it was in Florida too. And worst owner in the league. What do we think? Does it rhyme with Airy Pagula?

Second. Really? Who's number one? Come on, I just... Dundon? Tom Dundon. I hate that guy. Wow.

One of the agents said, I don't know how he has the time or energy. He is the de facto GM. a lot of people in our business hate that yeah wow uh uh a lot of people in our business hate that tom is so fucking involved and he is basically the manager and he's a lot of strong opinions too he's not afraid to tell us all of those opinion privately as well his gms and assistant gms have to ask him permission for everything at some point the athletic decided to allow the fucks fly well it's dashed it's dashed out but ah boo yeah yeah okay never mind screw

them but i'm just telling you because they say f dash dash dash or whatever um what should connor mcdavid make on his next contract and and they'll say dollar figure or cap percentage and remember teams look at cap percentage his next deal will come when the cap is supposed to be about 107 million dollars so that'll be roughly 21 million 18 so you say you think so here are the options remember we're talking to agents you think 18 million is that what you think that is that what they 17 okay 0.3 jesse what do you think the agent said you can say percentage you can say money the max the max well most of them said he should make 20 of the cap yeah isn't that the max uh it probably will be yeah i think that is the max so that would be 21 22 million bucks a year

um one agent said whatever the fuck he wants uh and then uh biggest issue in the next cba negotiations um uh one agent said i hope none i hope we've ironed them out we've had enough battles in my life over 30 years as an agent we don't need another most agents by the way are pretty have been in this a long time with the exception of uh judd uh moldover moldover who i believe has mcdavid and matthews yeah And then there's Bedard's agent as well, who's quite young. Brisson? No, no, no.

Bedard's a direct agent. I forget his name. I know we're getting to the end of the show because you're like Judd and I'm like Apatow. Yeah. Your brain's fried. Some of them are saying escrow and other people are saying the Canadian dollar. Luxury tax for teams that want to spend over the cap. Did anyone say guaranteed contracts?

Nobody said guaranteed contracts. I think that's under the radar issue that should be addressed. so here's what the agents said on travel cost conference travel and rivalries i think they should add extra in division games uh one or two uh in the conference rather than say going champa going to vancouver the travel is so taxing and they don't draw well so that's interesting i i with that issue i always have a hard time balancing with you don't get to see every team all year you know it's like because if you want more into in division games then you have to take a way you play every team once home and away yeah yeah but like i like that from a fan perspective

i do too apparently the average fan doesn't though yeah which is weird and i guess because there's less in theory i guess there's less like okay we play vancouver twice although toronto vancouver hate each other uh but let's say you're tampa in vancouver and you just there's not the stakes are less right there's less stakes but like because then there's like a situation where it's like connor mcdavid doesn't come to your town every season yeah yeah like you know yeah like i don't know how to balance that well that if the average fan doesn't care but the average fan needs to realize like okay you don't like vancouver tampa but edmonton tampa you only get that because you get vancouver this all started with crosby yeah because there were teams near

the beginning of his career where it's like oh crosby hasn't been here for like three years yes and they decided hey that's insane so this exists because of a handful of players and maybe it shouldn't i think it should though i think i think we'd go back to that thing it's like how can you believe that conor mcdavid hasn't been here all in two years i i don't hate it there is like i don't hate that you get to see everybody yeah yeah uh the chl college rules i think there's a lot of discussion about the four-year college free agency thing teams hate that agents love it uh where you can just walk to free agency after four years i'm like to me i look at that and i go what are you gonna make it five like stop it guys you're gonna have teams drafting 22 year olds come

on i i thought stupid i thought underrated they were gonna say like it takes too bloody long to get to unrestricted free age i think well i think that i think the agents are saying that i think the teams are going well we want it to be longer and it's like okay yeah okay no on signing bonuses this is an interesting one uh the agent says the signing bonuses haven't kept up with the cost of living if you're a rookie in new york and you're told to get an apartment and you'd rather stay in a hotel uh for three more months to me conor bedard making 95 grand on a signing bonus is crazy that hasn't changed by the way in like 20 years yeah uh like it doesn't go up with the cap it just stays it is what it is right and that objectively for the best player of their year they should be

i know 100 grand is a lot to us but you lose half of that to tax and then another whatever x percent to your agent they are also making nearly a million dollars in salary if they're playing if they're playing in the top league not every free not every first overall pick does yeah but the guys who are getting these big bonuses right i still think i still think that 95 grand's a fucking yeah well that's a joke it's gonna be interesting because like what is league men going up to and is it going to keep up with inflation of what the stars are making because it should a little bit it should go higher than 775 well if stars are going to start making 14 15 16 17 20 million like geez having young players in your lineup is going to squeeze a lot of guys

out of the league because i don't know i got this guy cost controlled for three years yeah at i don't know a mil if and if he hits bonuses it's like a max 3.25 or whatever it is Yeah, and that's Schedule A. And those are unicorns. That's Schedule A. We're talking like Austin Matthews, right? Yeah. Huh.

That's going to affect roster. Even Mitch didn't get Schedule A. No, he didn't. Lou wouldn't let him have it. And this is why you don't trade Easton Cowan, according to Steve Dangle. I didn't say that. Steve said, I don't want him in the cup. On waivers, well, on player safety, this is a no-brainer.

Player safety department needs to be overhauled. Duh. On waivers, entry-level players have to wait so long before they're eligible to be put on waivers. i think a team should have two years to assess the talent of a player and develop them good players are getting trapped in the minors for too long not sure if i agree with that but uh because i do think it can take especially guys that are not conor bedard i think it takes three to four years um and the team should have the ability to hang on to that and develop that i that's what i think i know yeah i need alan would reach through the yeah it's a kick down the door

and be like, bullshit, abolish the draft. To the shock of nobody, all of them except for one said, are you in favor of the NHL expanding? They all said yes. If you were in favor of expansion, which market should the league add in? What do you guys think? Houston. Houston won.

Yes. Nailed it. If you can get two and three, you definitely won't get four. Kansas. Dallas. Or not Dallas. Houston. What's the one?

Yeah, Kansas, I guess, is the other one. Kansas City. Quebec? Portland? Oh. Neither of those. Mexico City. Oh.

Close to Mexico. Close-ish to Mexico. One of them. Already been a team. Already been a team. Come on, guys. Already had. Oh!

Arizona. And? Oh. Already had a team. And no longer does? Mm-hmm. Big market. Top 10 market.

If you say Phoenix, I'm going to kick you. Oh, Atlanta. Yeah. Oh, Atlanta. And then the fourth team that they voted on, Kansas City, Portland, and Quebec each got a vote. But the team that came in number four was another team in Toronto. Hey. Are you in favor of expanding the NHL season by adding more games or a play-in tournament?

Most of them said no. Some of them said no to the regular season, yes to the play-in, which is not really surprising. who is the future gm to watch i'll just run through these i'm not gonna make you guys guess spets a penguin scott white stars brett peterson panthers brandon pridham leafs and then a couple of agents said myself okay so alan no i don't alan would never work so anyway that's the uh that's the survey i thought that was interesting a lot of fun stuff hey it does kind of go to show that like fans are pretty attuned to who's poorly run and who isn't right like you pretty much know well i have to just kind of

pay attention so much of the information that gets out there in the media is from these guys so i feel like we're conditioned by them a little bit um that's why i was like ah i know these guys and we're like nailing it nailing it nailing it nail that they are not shy about talking about the teams they hate. There's a reason they were like, the Ducks stink, the Hurricanes stink. I bet the Ducks double down on that. Oh, no, I think Pat Verbeek read that

and handled it really well. All right, so this weekend, as a heads up, I am doing the Pittsburgh Penguins stream on Sunday afternoon. There is no Saturday night game for the Leafs. You can hit that extra, Jesse, if you want to. No Saturday night game for the Leafs because we got one tonight

and we're facing Pittsburgh Penguins, the Kyle Duvis Revenge Game at 7 in the afternoon. Yeah, in the afternoon. Yeah. And then Sharks Monday. Woo! The Sharks.

Do you know anything about them? No. S-T-E-V-E The Steve Dangle Podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle at Adam W-Y-L-D-E and at Jesse Blake.

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