The Steve Dangle Podcast - Black Aces | February 4, 2026

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Starting point is 00:01:10 download that TaskRabbit.ca code Dangle. Trade video time. And it's the first one and kind of the last one because the trade deadline has passed. This is also the start of today's STV. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've already recorded it, but you know, Artemi Panarin was traded and Adam Schefter who is an ESPN insider but mostly for the NFL broke the trade the LA Kings have acquired Artemi Panarin he had to call him standout forward

Starting point is 00:01:34 Artemi Panarin if he was a hockey guy wouldn't have to do that from the New York Rangers in exchange for a conditional third round pick I don't know what the conditions are please don't ask me and prospect Liam Greentree Emily Kaplan was

Starting point is 00:01:45 apparently first on this as well and she was working with Adam Schefter on it they both work for ESPN don't you know so Liam Greentree conditional third for artemi panarin as of right now as of this recording there there is no extension and what's interesting here is that apparently what held this trade up because he apparently wants to make the move over the olympic break rush is not in the olympics so he's not going to be playing

Starting point is 00:02:07 for them um what apparently made this happen uh is he was waiting and waiting and waiting to see if anybody would step up with an extension nobody did yikes nobody broke so i wonder if kind of feels like there might be a chance he gets traded again doesn't it i don't think so no no i don't know there are games between now and the trade deadline not a whole hell of a lot i understand why you you say that but i think well first off la is not squarely in the playoff picture right right but we were talking and we've talked about this several times guys on the show this week about what a great fit los angeles would be especially on that second line next to a guy that we've been saying for years it's about time he broke out who am i talking about quentin byfield

Starting point is 00:02:53 quentin byfield that's right yep and i think this guy might be perfect for him plus la needs to go for it it's on say kopitar's life this is exactly what they need i think we were we were very on it with that conversation a couple days ago like he fits perfectly in their window they are going to have the cap space to sign him if they want to the left wing is an area that they are a little light on i know they have fiala and more in perry and malott there right now but he's gonna go right into that top line i think he can play next to kopitar and they're gonna have a good little run here or he can just push some cory perry down and play on that second line and this could be i think this could be a really good acquisition for the kings if they want to make that playoff

Starting point is 00:03:35 but they are trying to do having a top six wing situation of some combination of i would i would assume more over perry uh maybe not like perry fiala um panarin and kempe that is freaking ridiculous the thing i'm most shocked about with this trade is they didn't have to give up anything off the roster yeah what a fantastic move for them and no real draft capital either it really shows how much panarin controlled the situation because i thought they would get a lot more than this maybe chris jury's just bad at his job which he might be which i think he is um but i think la is doing fantastic here with this deal and getting panarin in there for nothing that they're losing off their nhl roster now rangers fans you probably want to know a little bit about liam green tell me

Starting point is 00:04:26 about the tree and why it's green steve dangles so as soon as i heard the trade i'm like oh that's not very much wait what do you mean liam green tree so he was a first uh round pick 26th overall 2024 uh of the la kings his last season in the ohl was absolutely preposterous in 64 games well i should say in his draft year in 64 games he had 36 goals and 90 points okay that's how you go in the first round the next season also in 64 games 49 goals 119 points that's so many points that's Now, Windsor was stupid stacked last year. That's why they had a little playoff run like they did. He played 11 playoff games last year, 14 goals, 24 points. This season, he's obviously taken a step back in 34 games. He has 23 goals, 45 points. That's not nearly the point pace, but the Windsor Spitfires as a whole have taken a step back. he's everything you want in a junior prospect um he is from Oshawa Ontario that's that's a big plus uh in junior hockey he's 6'3 he's 216 as a 20 year old and he has a ridiculous scoring touch

Starting point is 00:05:41 um this guy I think is going to be a ranger next year yeah yeah I think so too I 100% agree with that I would I want to say this about the Los Angeles Kings they are third last in goals for this season third best in goals against this season they need to score and their power play percentage is just ahead of the flames weirdly the avalanche and the utah mammoth 15.6 percent uh for the los angeles kings artemi panarin guys is a power play god he can spread the field a little bit take a little bit of the pressure on power play one off of a guy like drew dowdy for instance um you know what do you think he brings in terms of uh overall not just star power to la which is a city of stars but um experience and this push for the playoffs it's so important to

Starting point is 00:06:29 them well now i'm trying to remember all these stats off the top of my head from 2012 but like it's it's definitely giving me the vibes of that that was not a particularly special team that the kings had and if i'm not mistaken when they went out and got jeff carter i want to say they were 11th in the west they were if i remember correctly second in goals for or in possession after the jeff carter trade i could see this being just as transformational for the kings they're obviously betting on goaltending that they have an olympic caliber goaltender and darcy kemper they have an olympic defenseman back there and drew dowdy i'm not as bullish on the evansons and ccs of the world yeah i'm not as bullish on that decor um and jesse's not bullish on jim hiller right no he's

Starting point is 00:07:19 not no jim hiller's a bad head he's not bullish on him at all but um this team is going to be very uh difficult to handle because they've already when they're healthy this is an important thing they're already pretty formidable up the middle like it's crazy that byfield's playing on their third line yep according to uh daily face off um but this could be the kind of transformational trade that the carter one was because how often are you able to add a player the caliber of artemi panarin at the trade deadline oh never it just doesn't happen jesse you know you look at the the wild card situation in the west and and the la kings obviously are in the thick of it uh within striking distance of a wild card spot right now are the nashville predators at 58 points although

Starting point is 00:08:07 we think they're fading San Jose's been put up a really great effort this year wherever they finish I think they're going to look at it as a successful year then you've got LA so San Jose at 58 LA at 60 the the the second wild card spot right now is held by the Kraken at 61 points first wild card spot held by the Utah Mammoth at 62 but the division is within striking distance because Jess the LA Kings are within four points of number one yeah no if you're asking me to put money on somebody who's going to get into the playoffs who's outside of the playoff picture right I don't have in front of me they are outside but i want that i would put money on the kings getting back to the playoffs again like the pacific is really weak in terms of like where they all sit

Starting point is 00:08:46 in terms of the overall nhl standings the red the feasting on overtime and shootout points by the pacific division teams is actually insane when you look at the standings so i think the kings can easily make a push here to get in the the golden knights and edmonton oilers are one and two in the pacific they both have more losses than wins let me ask you this last question gentlemen let's say they don't get first in the division let's say they get to third okay or even second it's la and edmonton for a fifth straight year if that happens so far the kings are 0-4 would you take a los angeles team great defense bolstered by artemi Panarin on offense against the relatively shaky looking Edmonton Oilers in the first round

Starting point is 00:09:35 would you take LA would they finally get through the Oilers if they got a play I'm gonna say I'm gonna I'm gonna say no and you have to explain your show your work the other four times okay all right Jesse what do you think yeah what are we talking about I'm gonna quote I'm gonna quote George Bush he said fool me once shame on me fool me twice won't get fooled again uh won't get fooled again that's an actual quote look it up but this trade i think is your best chance of avoiding them yes absolutely yeah but like also if they face them they're gonna lose can yes could it be ken holland's revenge that is a crazy fun little storyline isn't it and i'm fascinated to know you know this is why i've been thumping the

Starting point is 00:10:19 least so much for getting something done before the olympic freeze now ken holland has the next month to do other things to work on whatever the hell yeah gonna be real fascinating can we can we talk about the ranger side of it we spent a lot of time in the king sorry yeah yeah chris jury this is a mark on the way he has run this organization over the last couple years we've reached the point where you have one of the biggest stars of franchise history one of the best players on your team you have to trade him for a conditional third and a top end prospect and that is all you are getting for this season of artemi panarin you should have never reached this point with panarin because you should be pushing for the playoffs but you've mishandled this roster so much that

Starting point is 00:11:04 this season and last season have been disasters it should have never been this way because this was your competitive window based on the 24 team and since that conference finals run you've messed up this whole thing so much that this is the end of the tenure of Panarin in New York. And that is a huge stain on your legacy as GM. And it really speaks to how you run this team. He is probably the greatest free agent they've ever signed. Maybe people want to say Mark Messier, but in terms of total points, Panarin's numbers are unbelievable. Jesse, are you saying that to the camera for the audience or are you talking to James Dole? James Dole would never listen to this. I don't know if this can get into his bar he's playing out with his dad rock band yeah the guitars are probably

Starting point is 00:11:52 too loud so he'd never hear this podcast but if he were to ever to listen to this stop making jury your side man to do all of your biddings and uh realize he has not been running this team very well for the last few years and this is what has happened to a franchise icon here it's a shame it yeah last word steve not there's not a ton to smile upon with what the rangers have done here's my guess i i think liam green tree is a really good prospect and i think the conditions on that third rounder are based on making the playoffs and re-signing my guess is if things go well in la it ends up as a first there you go that's my guess we'll see a bold guess we'll see and then it would be two firsts for panarin and you could do worse

Starting point is 00:12:36 the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle and jesse blake all right oh i thought you would have muted me over the intro all right it's his first day yeah first time ever doing the podcast um jesse top of the sheet top of the sheet i need to i need to know i need to know more about this sign david alter took this picture last night in edmonton uh leafs took on the oilers and i need to know who how this was divided up okay this is a very important thing there are a lot of leaf fans on the western road trip they're always there and it was uh it was kind of great to see the go leafs go and the let's go oilers chance back to

Starting point is 00:13:24 back i think that bangs it's it's wicked it was an electric night we had a good fight between darnell nurse and brandon carlo interesting um all right now look at this um our family is divided least versus oilers the loser does chores so it looks like the oilers part of the family's doing chores today what i need to know is who are they i think it's just and the parents well i'm sure it's the parents that's a lot of kids man they just put the kids down at the front yeah i know i know but uh i need to know what kind of chores they have to do what are your chores today that you don't want to do that you or is it is it for the week is it for the month i need to know more i'm gonna because i go for the month on that let's be honest those kids aren't doing chores

Starting point is 00:14:07 you don't think they're doing any they're not doing chores really no so i i think it's laundry i think it's the kind of chore that you allow your kids to help with okay like in the same way that my less than two-year-old daughter throws clothes in the laundry machine okay they usually don't make it all the way in and end up on the floor i think those kids are old enough to do chores yeah well i don't know maybe they're on their ipad adam all the time instead of doing work jesse what's the chore that you would be like you would you would bet so you wouldn't have to do it so this isn't uh pablo pablo torre but a little investigation on the situation that's happening you rightly pointed out that the kids go down on the glass and the only one down at the glass is

Starting point is 00:14:51 the one wearing the lease gear yeah so the people to do the chores are not young enough to be up against the glass so the people who have to do the chores are older people who will do normal ass chores they're either the parents who will just do the kids laundry or like teenagers who will just do whatever they do around the house just like finds out i think we've uh just based on process of elimination here on who's up against the glass and who has to do chores i think adults in the uh family or teenagers will have to do regular ass chores there you go as long as it's what was your chore though that you'd want to get rid of that's what i wanted to know uh chore i want to get rid of yeah like the one that you hate doing uh i don't i don't like

Starting point is 00:15:37 i don't hate any chore they're all kind of the same bar to me like dishes and laundry and vacuuming they're all kind of the same level of if you want to do it or not dishes is easy laundry is easy what was the other one vacuuming is easy folding the laundry tedious so i don't like it like it just takes forever it's not hard that's a really good one yeah especially little little tiny kids close yeah yeah no i think you got it yeah um folding bottom one i don't know if if everyone has this but those of you who do emptying the green bin oh that's not fun bottom tier chore in the winter it's fine no it's still bottom tier really bottom tier it stinks steve steve nailed it you found the one there it is holding laundry like putting it away part is the is the

Starting point is 00:16:27 most annoying chore on my tier list this is tedious that's an audiobook uh chore yes 100% that's why i like doing it shoveling my god gives me a minute that's sure shoveling snow is best i love shoveling why do why do we love it it's fun it's a good activity like i like i like an activity i will do anything to do an activity and shoveling counts but it's a but it's a chore you're supposed to warm up before and do you warm up beforehand guys do you do you do your stretches you know you're supposed to do that when you get over 30 you're supposed to i do warm up before i do oh yeah i bet you're good to get ready if you stay ready i got a question for you i got a question for god all right all right city of toronto if you're not

Starting point is 00:17:07 from here you probably have this situation if you're in the northeast somewhere you live maybe similar there's a lot of street parking not a lot of people have driveways here in toronto yep and it gets a little dicey when the snow falls because you have to go shovel out your own spot where your car was when you gotta leave and then you've now shoveled a freshly new space for somebody to come in and take your spot that you shoveled now i think it's okay like i'm doing the neighborhood a solid i sometimes i'll shovel out a couple spots just for the hell of it oh that's segments about how jesse's a hero yeah it's like ah whatever he's the harry potter of the neighborhood everyone loves me whatever so i'll do it i don't care if they take my spot somebody else but do

Starting point is 00:17:52 you guys if you have to do street parking of shovel out a spot are you getting mad are you a little like nothing i can do but i think shoveling is a neighborhood duty i'm happy to shovel a sidewalk that isn't mine i'll even if i got time i'll shovel a driveway that's not mine i'm not even knocking wow i'm just doing it just running up to people's houses and shoveling their driveway i'm just gonna friggin do it i was taught from a young age that is a good thing to do i did so she had the elderly neighbors and stuff oh yeah always helpful yeah and and a hack and this only works if you get the powder snow like we got recently shovel the street safely don't get hit by a car but um shovel it if you know which way the plow is coming go down that way

Starting point is 00:18:39 so that the giant wall of snow that the plow creates in front of your driveway is smaller have you seen the new plows they've gotten around that their arms not the ones in ajax they have the they have them in different parts of the gta the arms go and then when they get to a driveway it lifts up oh and then it goes and then it comes back down hey thank you whoever discovered now yeah are you gonna answer jesse's question i don't remember what it was you said a lot of stuff there i don't remember what it was are you getting mad at somebody taking your spot after you shovel it out for your car yes yeah you feel like i feel like you're a getting mad kind of guy well i shoveled it yeah you know what i saw recently there was a video i want to say it was

Starting point is 00:19:20 from both perspectives where someone shoveled at a spot someone stole that spot and so that person then poured water on the snow all around that person's car and froze them in yeah and then i think that person updated their tiktok and they had to get their car towed because it was like so bad or something it was it was awful but yeah that person was so mad that they took the spot that they shoveled out that they froze in their car there's a lot of that going on i'm noticing that like in like apartment buildings that have um parking too is like i'm noticing a lot of the states these like outdoor parking lots that they have and they're like uh hey i shoveled that out that's my spot they're like it belongs to anybody and so for me i don't worry about this shit

Starting point is 00:19:59 because i have a truck and i don't have to shovel anything out so i just drive up on whatever snow bank so i you you've never shoveled out a parking spot never on the street no no no i've had a truck for a long like i've had trucks for almost 10 years now so it's been a while um and then before that i had like indoor parking which i don't have right now so you know out of never experiencing no i i used to do driveways but i don't i'm not you got a heated driveway there connor i'm not gonna do a city of toronto like side parking spot that i've already no that's yeah because the city doesn't do it like that'll never happen no they never do they should no they never freaking do i pay for that parking pass too and and they they and where you can park in a certain area

Starting point is 00:20:40 yeah no they don't ever freaking shovel it out so you gotta you gotta run it over yourself so yeah i guess i get upset when i've run my parking spot down and some dipsy little civic gets in there and is like this is mine now i am civic and king so yeah yeah sure what the hell but i haven't done any shoveling so i can't really be mad hey you know what's great what not having to ask the question what's for dinner that's a struggle every day every you're like oh i gotta figure out something to eat buddy lunch is even an issue for me like i i breakfast every day i have the same thing but sometimes you gotta have some help and that's where tempo comes in you're gonna love tempo because tempo delivers fresh

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Starting point is 00:22:09 you should check this out because here's the deal one of the things one of the weird quirks about my condo building is that they use my floor to rappel down and clean all the windows but they never clean my windows oh and their way around on that is like well it's a patio window you can do that yourself and i'm like well hang on a second what if i don't want to i don't have the stuff because you gotta have that scraper thing and the and the washer thing chemicals you gotta have the right chemicals see what i'm saying that's why i used task rabbit and i employed a tasker here's the thing task rabbit connects you with taskers in your area for furniture assembly home repairs lawn maintenance mounting window cleaning all that stuff here's the deal 3.4 million pieces

Starting point is 00:22:49 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 task rabbit 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 in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk.

Starting point is 00:23:31 challenge yourself friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research together we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer register today at pmcfwalk.ca anyway the toronto maple leafs played last night and going into the game they'd had nine power plays in their previous seven games which is cool is it's it's even worse than that because during this game once we hit second intermission ladies and gentlemen we did it the toronto maple leafs went three consecutive hours of gameplay without getting a single power play now now are we talking about hours watched or hours played played okay so how many games is that so five minutes into the third period against seattle they got one there's 15 minutes the rest

Starting point is 00:24:27 of the game okay 65 minutes against vancouver we're now up to 80 minutes it's an hour and 20 minutes okay another 60 minutes against calgary so we're now up to 140 minutes so that's two hours and 20 minutes add on the 40 minutes from the first two periods of the oilers game we're at three hours insane and then six minutes in the dam opens yeah and they get a five on three and score on both penalties hilarious matias michelli and john tavaris they've actually scored on their last three power plays oh well you got to go all the way back to the seattle game and it was your favorite player scott lotten morgan riley oh it's my sorry i thought you meant my actual favorite um no john tavaris did get his 20th uh which he's been an automatic to do he's done that 16 of 17

Starting point is 00:25:14 years and the only other year he had 19 and it was a shortened year yep um so but matias michelli is uh what's the condition on matthias don't you dare because matthias michelli if he gets 51 points that third round pick that they traded to utah for him upgrades to a second does it not yeah he would have to play at a mcdavid level pace okay yeah i mean he has sort of it but you know he has 24 points so and there's what they're at 56 games like i think he's less than halfway there still yeah i think we're good okay all right because every time he scores i'm like yay cool no because if he scores one point per game the rest of the way let me do the math oh no no yeah they're okay so the first goal i was like all right let's go second one i went

Starting point is 00:26:06 whoa nelly you slow down there michelle whoa nelly michelle here's the condition the third round pick that the Leafs sent to Utah for Michele. It upgrades to a second in 2029, which I think is interesting. It's a long time. All the picks that the Leafs have sent out. Their 2027

Starting point is 00:26:28 third round that they sent to Utah upgrades to a 2029 second if Toronto makes the playoffs this season and Michele records at least 51 points. Okay, we're good. We're good. They're not making the playoffs. Now, John Tavares

Starting point is 00:26:44 got his 20th like i mentioned nye's had a goal and an assist while still injured a lot of people are starting to talk about him and going well is that seven million dollars worth it ah he's got a knee injury that requires rest there's people there's people they're wrong okay they're wrong uh at least they're three and all on this road trip they don't play again for another uh 26 days sorry 21 days uh 25th of february will be their first one and anthony stoller's last night got his first win since what date oh boy november 16th jesse uh december 12th november 5th wow first wow he hadn't played since remembrance day but november 5th was his last win so who's that even against i don't even know and you know what i don't care uh i really don't care

Starting point is 00:27:32 it's been a long time and uh the other thing is that he was pretty great and oh yeah like really good on the high danger chances i think there was nine of them a lot of last night's game looked like last year yeah where like last year's team was flawed in the way that they played and a lot of the numbers looked ugly but they won so often that you're like yeah it's just what they do though nah they're gonna be fine don't worry about it that's a little bit what it looked like it was a really good game it was a game where the exactly like how you said it's the game where the leafs just kind of hung around and they capitalized on opportunities when they got it which was the power plays that they got and that's how they won all the games last year it was you never look like

Starting point is 00:28:19 the better team you always just kind of there and then when you got a couple chances you buried it You got outshot to death, and then you scored on the couple chances you had, and that's how they beat the Oilers. And the Oilers had so much more of the puck, and it didn't matter. No. It wasn't. Stoller's was very good. He got the belt last night for a reason.

Starting point is 00:28:43 But, like, I don't know. Did he steal it? Ingram made some good saves, too. I think both goalies had really good games. Yeah. Like, I don't know if he stole it. And that's, I think, last year's Leafs in a nutshell. Hey, did the goalie play well?

Starting point is 00:28:57 Oh, the goalie played well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did he steal it? Ah! They just sort of capitalized on their chances. But you also need that upper-tier goalie performance for this team to win. Yes. When they don't get it, they can't do anything.

Starting point is 00:29:11 That's Peruvian hockey. You know? So it's the bar for goaltending needs to be at the best they can be, which it was last night. That's Peruvian hockey. The Oilers did outshoot the Leafs 37-26, but some of that can be score effects coming trying to come back at the end of a game some of that is just the Oilers are better yeah and I think that's I think the the eye test there

Starting point is 00:29:27 lends to the numbers like the Leafs weren't in the zone a lot that they've never been in the zone a lot all all year long in all 57 games and they weren't and Oilers just kind of had the puck and they threw a lot of pucks on that and we've seen enough like McDavid games against the Leafs where like we know even in a in a game where he doesn't do all that well there's three or four mcdavid moments did last night have one yeah they did yeah oh yeah the one-timer remember when you're sitting in dry saddle spot yeah yeah the one time so one yeah i know what i mean i don't know i thought it's low for him i thought mcdavid had a good game well like there's there's regular person good game and then there's mcdavid good game i don't know if he had a good game by his

Starting point is 00:30:11 standard but his standards ridiculous uh the leafs now move to 25 5 and 1 without morgan riley since 2020 in the lineup one thing that him not being in the lineup it's it's and listen you think i'm gonna hammer morgan riley again i'm not i think him not being in the lineup has forced them to do other things and one of the things that they've broken up is the morgan riley oliver eckman larson pairing thank god carlo mccabe look pretty good together dude back-to-back games this might be the best back-to-back games carlos played in weeks weeks and he fought and he did fight don giant teddy bear fought on saturday night i was on the stream like get off my hockey team like just and like it didn't help that like the fraser minton news with rookie of

Starting point is 00:30:59 the month and i'm like i'm just sick of looking at you like it's not even just that you're not playing well i don't want to see you anymore and he played a very good game against calgary he hit mcdavid and he fought a guy he probably shouldn't have fought but that's that's part of the price you pay for being in the league that's your job yep that's yeah paid money yep and he did it without hesitation i have to say that i i respected the fact even though it was a totally clean hit and there was nothing wrong with it um the fact that darnell nurse was like i don't even care if it's a clean hit i'm still gonna fight you uh well that's what it should be that was that's what every fight is like that's how it this is how we should watch fights it's like hey

Starting point is 00:31:40 there's a little thing there go go fight but you're not like in the 80s you didn't touch Gretzky you didn't even hit Gretzky because they would kill you and I feel like a little bit you don't have to it doesn't have to be like the 80s but I do feel like hey it was nice to see the Oilers stand up for the guy that's going to win them the game and we don't do that here in Toronto or at least we haven't and so I I respected that I do I think there should be fights after clean hits no but when it's connor mcdavid i get it every single time every guy dude i was i was half mad yeah don't be half canada no no well because carlo hasn't been hasn't really thrown a hit of consequence this season and then he takes mcdavid down in the final game before the olympics and i'm

Starting point is 00:32:21 like now now that's when you choose to throw your thanks brandon they look it up where's he from it's gotta be the states uh i think there should be a fight every single time that happens to mcdave i 100 i think that was the correct way to use fighting in hockey that's that's what the islanders have done with uh matthew schaefer it doesn't matter you're dead don't touch our friggin don't touch our fucking water bottle our fucking water bottle oilers play again tonight by the way so there's that's right for him to get injured uh the morgan riley number i don't think you should gloss over it i think it's legitimate it feels like there's enough evidence here that when you remove this player from the lineup they play a different type of hockey and maybe he

Starting point is 00:33:04 doesn't suck whatever energy he's sucking on the back end and they look good i think they're trying to force feed the seven and a half million dollars that he makes into this lineup even and this is where one sec one sec and i want you to say what you're gonna say what did we say what did i say because i'm owning this one okay what did i say do it right after game seven they got to trade them sit down have a conversation say morgan it's over what do they do well they kick the can down the road like they do with everything they did sit down and have a conversation sure and then they said okay you work out a bunch see how that goes no they said he was at the best level he's been at in years and he's at a new peak in his career and this is

Starting point is 00:33:47 going to be the morgan riley season that was the narrative coming into training and then game number one he was the best player on the ice and we all said well hot damn they were right and then what happened i was rooting he there was his last honestly it was his last game where you could say yeah there's the first star of the game morgan riley so every time he takes the ice i interrupted you what did you say or what were you going to say uh he plays too damn much like some people like yeah scratch him like all right no but he does play way too damn much he's not a 22 minute a night guy he's a 16 17 minute a night guy like how many times have we looked down at the at the you know box score and gone what the why like playing three or four more minutes than the next

Starting point is 00:34:34 closest guy no nope that body has ridiculous miles on it ridiculous miles on it and you could argue oh even before the injuries he wasn't all that good all right whatever well like we don't need to do all that let's focus on what we can fix now he plays too damn much he plays way too damn much and i think when he gets back in the lineup uh he's got to be down i don't think they're ever going to play him 16 17 but give me 18 uh how about this the power play was two for two with all of reckman larson at the point it looked fantastic now they have scored on their last three power plays and he got the last one okay but how many times do we have to suggest that having a threat from the point is a good idea on the power the michelli tip that was oel throwing it right at

Starting point is 00:35:27 the stick to get it tipped it was really smart play mccabe loved it oh that was mccabe right damn it even so no it doesn't matter well it goes to the point that like you don't have to be that player in order to pull that off like jake mccabe has been on the power play before like okay let me ask a question there are obviously defensemen who excel at it does it take a rocket scientist a quarterback a power i think it takes some skill and some smarts yes which oel has i think he's a very smart hockey player i think that's always been his thing he's got high hockey iq along with a big frame and and you know some great intangibles but he's like 34 35 years old so no he doesn't have to be kale mccarr just do what a normal guy on the power

Starting point is 00:36:19 play will do or what you should do and i think that's what the first power play unit's been missing at the point again it goes back to if morgan riley's there they know he's not going to shoot so i'll cover the end if he does if he ever he does that's not a threat no he's gonna miss the net he doesn't and that's the thing is too when he shoots he doesn't keep it down that the slap pass that jesse mentions the jake mccabe slap pass that's an oel special that's where all his assists are coming from this year it's that or it's rebounds right and so i i don't understand why this is like taboo to talk about this is a guy that i think doesn't need to be there anymore and it's maybe because they're going well if we if we kill his value now it's gonna be real hard

Starting point is 00:36:58 to sell him in the summer do you worry about a jacob truba situation where they blow up a locker room because they're forcing a guy out i think the difference with the jacob truba situation and i think that's a really good point you bring up is that they were coming off an eastern conference final yeah the leafs have never been to the eastern conference final in morgan riley's time here and that's not all his fault but he's being on every single one of those teams making the playoffs not making the playoffs every single one of these coaches yeah what are we preserving and truba came after barkley goodrow which was like even drier yeah like all right we're just gonna wave you then damn like that was i understand and i'd also like to know his place

Starting point is 00:37:47 in the locker room because i remember i want to say it was like the trifecta of riley matthews and freddie very early on freddie anderson not coach a um like very early on like so many different characters and whatever have come through that locker room and are in that locker room i i'd like to just know his place like i feel like it just it would just be so much easier to understand moving off of him who this is morgan moving off of mo yeah i i think it's a respect thing i think that he's a really good person i don't want to see him pitched out the door like i do well i think i know but not unceremoniously not unceremoniously but but steve it is a professional sports organization and at a certain point you need to sit down and go okay this is

Starting point is 00:38:39 what's gonna happen right you can refuse to move now you'll move later then and it will not be fun because i look at teams that that are uh look at what colorado's done not that they've you know unceremoniously pitched people out the door but when casey middlestad didn't rank out there when beau byram yeah ranton was pitched out the door but he didn't have trade protection right right Bo Byram, Casey Middlestead, I guess Miko Rantan as well. When they didn't work out there, the first two, Rantan worked out just fine.

Starting point is 00:39:08 They were like, yeah, get the hell out of here. Get out. When Vegas doesn't want you anymore, get out. I mean, I hated the way they treated Marc-Andre Fleury. They immediately won a cup. I agree with you. I think the way they treated

Starting point is 00:39:27 Marc-Andre Fleury was awful. He had just won the Mavessan Trophy. or it might have been two years later but they did win a cup yeah and i think you've got it the leafs it's not that i need the leafs to go to vegas's level or joe sackick's level in colorado i need them to do a little of it you know we grew up in the era of not grew up i guess in our late 20s early 30s kyle dubas and the guys going you know we signed this guy out of rush it's not quite working out why don't we give him away guy proceeds to do quite well at the next team why are we like i understand doing right by the player um how much is that filled up your bank

Starting point is 00:40:02 account you know your bank account of goodwill as brian burke would say it's professional sports if it's not working make a move i wanted to look up morgan riley's db and just check and see for the context of how long he's actually been here it's over 900 crazy look at the 13 14 leafs roster that started with oh let's go randy carlisle leafs and it really puts it into perspective like this guy's a part of the walls at scotia bank arena yes he's been here through everything he on the team the 13 14 leaves like i said randy carlisle phil kessel jvr cadre bozak loophole franzen gardner funuf coolman gunnarson uh just greg mckag played a game that year bernier's on the team Reimer's there it's it's all of the old Leafs from like okay yeah there's there's Reimer

Starting point is 00:40:55 sorry I'm trying to count I count three people still in the NHL yeah James Reimer who like wasn't a few weeks ago Van Riemsdyk uh Van Riemsdyk Kadri and then obviously Riley would make four yeah yep the one of the funny ones is Mark Frazier who's like the community liaison on for the leaf yeah who's had that role for like i don't know half a decade now with the leafs doesn't troy bode also work for he works for an nhl team i want to say like morgan riley's worked with these guys who have been retired for a while now and like work for these nhl teams he's been around for so long isn't colton or like a pwhl coach or he was no where did he coach was it in the nwhl before it folded he definitely coached uh troy bode is the director of hockey

Starting point is 00:41:44 and business operations for the seattle krakens american hockey league farm team the coachella valley firebirds there you go and that's because of that's doing it since 2021 oh it's 2026 and isn't he tim lewicky's son-in-law i have no idea is yeah okay but like that's riley's teammate and i wonder if it's a little it shouldn't be hard for upper management to make that decision with morgan riley because that's what you're paid to do yep but it's got to be a very personal decision here to move off of him but it's the right thing to do i think we are all at that point now does that mean uh does that mean he goes somewhere else and flourishes i can see it i'm not saying absolutely i'm not saying he doesn't he's not doing well but i i sorry i am saying he's not

Starting point is 00:42:27 doing well i'm not saying he's finished i'm saying sometimes it's time to change or if at least we're able to make him their third best defenseman like oh yeah like that's awesome jesse but we've spent the entire time on this show. Adam will not let you. He will not let you. How many times have we said, finally, a defense partner for Morgan Riley? No, no, no.

Starting point is 00:42:48 I'm saying get two guys who are like so much better than him. Actually, they have three. Tanev, McCabe, and OEL, and one of them isn't playing. But those guys would have to be positioned as the one and two defensemen. Right.

Starting point is 00:43:02 And he's always going to be that number one guy, which is a shame. Missing Tanev has really screwed things up because they were positioning him to be further down. Yes, they were. All the toughest minutes have been Tanev McCabe, but you've had those two together for how many games this season? Not a lot.

Starting point is 00:43:23 They were trying to put OEL on the third line to start this third defense pair. Had Tanev not gotten injured, that's what would have happened. To me, it's like, okay, well, if you were going to keep that group together, which I hope they don't because I think OEL will fetch you a lot, oel second pairing minimum with somebody and then and riley on the third pair i would say we didn't know that like we didn't know oel was this good i know they didn't play him enough last year but i liked him all last year too i was i was horny about that signing when it happened he took imagine third pair morgan riley i think he'd be great that's a cup team oh now here's here's something

Starting point is 00:43:58 annoying about the leafs right because we're having all these conversations now like all their problems are solved i i look at this three-game road trip i did not say that no no i know i know the leafs are perfect again now wait wait wait music they win three straight well who'd they win three straight against the edmonton win surprised me second half of a back-to-back 20 hours after the previous game that was in a different city ended it's not a league um calgary i'm sorry you should kill them and they barely beat well what are you talking about the leafs suck no no no the leafs are mid you suck can i give the leafs are 16th in the nhl i hate the atlantic division they're 16th in the nhl the flames are 29th the leafs have 63 points the

Starting point is 00:44:54 flames have 50 you suck the leafs are mid uh and they beat vancouver well the leafs suck you suck the leafs have 63 points the canucks have 42 which has led me to think i hope they sell i do because they're not making it at the end of the day the bar is the playoffs there's still five points out there's still another non-playoff team ahead of them mathematically you're not making it should they tank no no i don't think i'm starting to look at the math and go i don't think tanking is a good idea at all so you want to it's a retool though it's a no no i want them to retool but for the i you know what started to creep in is like

Starting point is 00:45:54 sort of half wanting them to lose games so that you get into the lottery pick position there are only five five positions out of that you only have to be in the top 10 i think right or well 10 it's not to me it's about points okay the leafs have 63 okay the bottom five teams have 42 49 50 50 and 52 so you want the leafs to win to to make the pick less good they if they miss the playoffs by one point that will be the best scenario oh yeah yes because it's still could the bruins win the lottery with that pick the 15th pick that somehow moves up or whatever no i don't think you can oh no you can't with that no sorry okay fine you could jump i think you can 10 spots and spots you could jump into the top five yeah right but

Starting point is 00:46:48 mathematically is that likely no no no but if you start to tank you're gonna end up gift gifting ninth last eighth last seventh last sixth last you're not the the bad teams there was a lot of parody no no there's a cream of the crop now you are never in your wildest dreams catching the canucks the canucks have to get hot and you have to basically lose every game that's not happening the blues so so stink can't score cannot score they have 49 let's get rid of robert thomas like again you have 63 points they have not hit 50 yeah yeah the Rangers and Flames have 50 you're not catching them catching them the Jets have 52 the Blackhawks have 53 even the Devils have 58 the Preds have 58 the Sharks who might make the

Starting point is 00:47:46 playoffs have 58 yeah but you're not in that division so let's not no no I've seen a lot of that too by the way talking about the like standings I know there's a lot of cope going on in Leafs Nation like maybe we should go for it look at we're basically right in line with that I'm not saying they should buy I'm not going to go there I do want them to retool I am slightly worried about

Starting point is 00:48:07 tearing it down to the studs well that's why we're not doing that because of the retool exactly because of the math doesn't math go Leafs go I hope they win every game for the rest of the season and let the cards fall where they do yeah I think that's the correct that's the correct attitude to have because when you don't want to

Starting point is 00:48:23 have your own pick this year because that leaves you vulnerable to 27 and 28 where those picks are unprotected and if the Leafs have a bad year those picks just go to Philly and to Boston yeah that would be the worst case scenario you want this year to be outside of the top five so that you can give Boston that first round draft pick that's a goal and plus this team now with William Nylander back looks so much better than the team without William Nylander like there's evidence here that like hey they had a bunch of injuries oh yeah yeah they're not bad at all they looked really good and i think a large reason they looked good the last two nights because willie's playing great holy there's somebody who wasn't

Starting point is 00:49:02 tired from a back-to-back yeah he had his best game of the year in calgary and then he comes in on against edmonton last night has another great game this team isn't a terrible team and i don't think anybody's making that up this is where this is where we need to define what a retool is because i think people don't understand the word toronto we've never seen one and we've never definitely seen one successfully uh a rebuild is what we did from 2013 to 2015 basically when shanning took over they missed out on re-signing dave bull and were sad about it and then they extended randy carlisle that was shanahan's first move it wasn't yeah listen it wasn't great off the top but what they did was they stripped it back and were still able to hang on to some key veterans like as you

Starting point is 00:49:46 showed there jesse uh van reams dyke gardner caudry they were quite young but they were still vets a couple hundred games between the three of them whatever caudry went through the rebuild and when they're good again a retool is hey we're gonna sell some and we're gonna buy some that's what a retool is so let's say the leafs were like today before the three o'clock deadline they pull off a trade the three pardon the three pardon we're not just gonna gloss over that no the three a cock the three a penis that's what they call it that's what they call it anyway three o'clock deadline they pull artemi panarin out of their hat and he's a leaf now that would be insane okay okay they're still gonna sell why are we recording right now by the way like i know we're stupid i

Starting point is 00:50:31 know we're begging for the uh the trade deadline i think you gotta make make like listen i don't think artemi panarin's coming to toronto but but you understand what i'm saying it's not about this year it's about next when boston pulled the plug last year they were two points out of a playoff spot what have they done this year they're in the wild card they're not great but they're in the wild card glad you mentioned boston adam let me emphasize how frigging difficult it's going to be for the leafs to make the playoffs if that's what you're still hoping for let's say every team in the top 10 in the nhl stays where they are just to make the scenario easier let's say the leafs move up to 11th that would involve them passing the ducks the blue jackets the oilers who are

Starting point is 00:51:14 second in their division vegas who leads their division new york islanders who are in a playoff spot in the east they would be 11th in the entire nhl they still would not be in a playoff spot and it would be 11th in the league and i think what fifth or sixth in the atlantic no sixth it would still be six if you just go by like the points they'd need it's about a hundred this year And for them to get 100 points, they need to go something like 18 and six. Didn't I ask this question months ago? I was like, wait a sec. Like, are we going to see like 100 point wildcard team?

Starting point is 00:51:48 And yeah, it's kind of looking that way. If you think the Leafs can go 18 and six plus all of the other teams lose enough games so that they can get in that that bar like good for you. I don't believe that that is the case. 18 and six might not be enough. no matter how good it looks on the standings where it's like oh there's only two teams there they're within five it's still an unreasonable ask for them to run from march till the end of the season at that pace and everybody else lose like they haven't shown that they can do that if the number one worry is the pick that you're going to end up giving boston i think best case

Starting point is 00:52:22 scenario you're giving them like pick 13 14 or 15 that shouldn't be a worry every least fan should want to give that pick to boston this year that's the picks going to boston sell me on that Sell me on that a little bit more. The pick is going to Boston. Okay. You've already traded it. It's shipping off to Boston. It is either going to be this year in 27 or 28.

Starting point is 00:52:42 It's already gone. This year, you can send it to Boston. And then next year and the year after, you will have a first round pick. And one of those, you will not hang on the Philly deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll have a pick there. And then you don't have to worry about sending an unprotected pick to Boston in case you are complete dog shit in 27 or 28 if this thing went way off the rails austin matthews

Starting point is 00:53:06 leaves no one's here anymore the team is bad there's a whole bunch of injuries and 28 they finished last and you took your pick in 26 and all of a sudden it's unprotected to boston or philly in 28 you could give the first overall pick you might you might even get galifianakis from the hangover with like all you might get the jesse you might get the you might get you might pull a tyler tyler sagan out of that you know like remember it's as cj and julian did a great job rehashing this with san jose and ottawa because ottawa ended up with two top five picks because san jose sold too far into the future and then their window fell off the rails as it does happen in pro sports and it was tim susla and jake sanderson they got what a kick started their

Starting point is 00:53:54 and then now you're sitting there you're like ah unprotected pick going to the other team and we're awful we're awful and we don't have our own pick we are rebuilding we are no longer rebuilding right and i you're we're praying this year that that pick is the 15th pick right so so then okay uh you you sell bobby mcmahon you sell scott lot in their ufas you might even get a crack at bringing him back this summer right you could i hope so yeah i really hope they don't fall for the culture thing and keep lawton just for this little whatever you know resign him go get your assets and if you really want him to come back make your push in the office scott lawton makes three million dollars i know with the leafs it's one and a half but i can't see a world and he's my favorite guy

Starting point is 00:54:41 where he makes more than that and i think he for the league what was the dollar amount with three million he's going to make five next year you can't i don't think you can pay him christian devore act dude i know christian devorex scores a little bit more but scott lawton on a bad flyers team's put up a lot more points somebody's gonna look at his penalty killing abilities and everything he brings to the table and they're gonna pay he's gonna get four to five and the leafs can't be that team they can't so that's just another mistake unless he decides he really loves it can they really care can they really be the team that pays bobby mcmahon between that four five million i don't think so i don't think so i think you've got to have uh maybe maybe nick

Starting point is 00:55:21 robertson is going to make three and a half million because he's an rfa and you can kind of you know push him around a little bit but like you know nick robertson is the next guy to come up and score 20 goals and not be particularly great defensively that the leaves have you can't commit that to that player and i think so that so i think those guys you should trade them and i love scott lot and that hurts me okay then you've got brandon carlo who's got two years left well this year and next had a pretty manageable number that you can make even more manageable 3.485 with the leafs currently yeah and then and then if they they could cut that in half use the retention slot maybe that ups the value but what about oliver eckman larson who has been spectacular

Starting point is 00:56:01 this year is older on the olympic team he may never be this good again but you sell him you're not going to have him next year so if all of recman larson's gone then you must replace what he brings and i would expect in the offseason that morgan riley will also be gone and simone could be traded brana carlo could be traded like that's like jake mccabe chris tanov and a bunch of merry men no disrespect to troy stetcher who yeah maybe they can resign him at a at a reasonable cap he better be gone troy stetcher at the deadline he better be gone so you think so you would go Jesse if this is all things being equal if they were going to retool properly and I by the way tend to agree with this you have Tanev on LTIR he doesn't need to play again McCabe is going

Starting point is 00:56:49 to play the rest of the year Riley will play the rest of the year get traded in the offseason OEL gone Carlo gone Benoit gone Stetra gone and then you're dressing Myers Refai probably William Villeneuve and I don't even know who else um for the rest of the season are you okay with that is simon benoit's gone gone i think he's i think he's a valuable trade asset so i was about to say i could i could see holding on benoit you can hold on to him yeah you can hold on to imagine with oel if you get to i mean i don't know if this is the greatest scenario but you could potentially have your cake and eat it too which is keep him for the rest of the season and move him at the draft he still has two years left right and you can still do but i think your highest

Starting point is 00:57:33 leverages now because any acquiring team is going to have the same questions i do which is that's so great that you had a great year can you repeat that next year right whereas if i'm the acquiring gm now i'm going you're having a great year and it's this year and i get you this year the the problem i'm starting to have like because again they're mid they're not awful they're mid i'm looking at a guy like stetcher and like let's say he gets two i don't know if that's insane anymore my brain is still adjusting to the new cap reality two million two mil yeah i don't think two times two i don't think that's insane based on how he's played i think right now you have to get as much value as you can out of these guys and i agree with jesse because here's what will

Starting point is 00:58:18 happen okay if you don't if you're retooling retooling means buying so what you need are assets and you can you know like one of the guys that i would i would love to have on the team one day uh if he makes it to free agency is mario ferrara who is available from san jose if san jose does not re-sign him apparently they're they're not quite close yet that's what i'm hearing they have time they got time lots of time lots of time if if he makes it to free agency get after that guy um if you want to buy and you never know who's going to shake loose throughout a year like if i had said to you guys in september guys there is not a fucking chance in hell quinn hughes finishes the year as a canuck you'd be like lol adam why would they trade him they're

Starting point is 00:59:00 trying to win right you don't know what's going to be available when artemi panarin at the start of this year if you had asked anybody they'd be like yeah he's going to stay in new york no matter how well they do uh because he loves it there and he's going to extend and they're going to extend them and it's been a partnership that's worked out really well well that's not happening either he's been held out my fantasy team was dying i only get to edit once a week and they hold him out of games damn it but he's apparently there's a lot of rumors that he's going to get traded before three o'clock today which is so gonna suck for us if you don't have the assets if you do not have the assets then you can't make that buy so when elite players become available you can't put

Starting point is 00:59:38 a package together for them this is part of the reason like i've been stressed about the fact that monday was 200 days since elise made a trade now it's 202 i guess we're at 202 okay if you don't make a move any move at all before this uh olympic trade freeze the first few days of march are going to be a frigging hurricane i think i think that uh they'll have the entire olympic break to figure out the trades yes and the bruins uh little retool at the end of last year happened pretty fast yeah like carlo marchand happened in the span of like can Can I run you down the players that they acquired at last year's trade deadline?

Starting point is 01:00:22 Because it is a master class in a retool. As much as I hate it. So they got Kustaninov, I'm going to say that terribly, for Brazzo in this deal to the Minnesota Wild. Really great young player who's making an impact for them right now. And a pick. And a pick in that. They get Casey Middlestad for Charlie Coyle,

Starting point is 01:00:43 plus a second round pick there. They got a 26-year-old center for a 33-year-old center. And who's William Zellers? He's 18. Hey, what happened to Charlie Coyle in Colorado? He didn't stay there. And one thing I think is also important to show, they bought. They got Henry Yokiharu for a fourth from Buffalo.

Starting point is 01:01:05 And then they also do the Brad Marchan deal where they get a first round pick from Florida. Hilarious. And then they do the Toronto Maple Leafs. jesse if you can go down a minute there uh zellers uh where the lowest price is the law every day um is a 2024 third round pick so it's you're basically getting a third yeah but you're getting an accelerated third and he's already developed yeah a third with a name yeah yeah right that's not magic beans that's a guy with like a license like i fully expect whatever there is jesse this is great that you pulled this up whatever there and the trent frederick deal

Starting point is 01:01:40 let's point that out oh yeah the trent frederick deal i haven't even done the uh max wanner deal where they get the for the max jones over to edmonton right it was it's fantastic stuff in just restocking the cupboard and getting a whole bunch of young guys and like to their credit everything kind of worked out um you don't know if it's going to work the same for the lease and victor soderstrom um well yeah you hope the lease management smart enough yeah so you never know but this is here's you got a little guidelines on how to get this done and then at july 1st they go and get uh like victor arvidson from the oilers you know because it's like hey we also need people and he'd been bad so he's good the leafs you want them at this deadline go move choice stetcher for

Starting point is 01:02:24 whatever get your picks and then come july 1st you're building back up with all the assets you have and and at the draft redeploy those picks that you don't have to use these picks the 2027 and the 2028 picks you don't even have to use the 2026 picks buy with them buy with them yeah fine with that if that's what they're because like listen everybody that wants us to go through the the retool again everybody thinks of 2015 2016 when they think about the rebuild right you're not i guarantee you and i only remember it because we were doing this podcast right you're not thinking about the two years that led to 2015 2016 there was a lot of bad by accident before they got to bat on purpose yeah and they were they were atrocious to watch in the peter horacek era awful

Starting point is 01:03:07 awful team to watch and then the crazy thing is the horacek era ended and mike babcock came in and promptly had the team finish last in the league like it's not this is not a fun process you're not going to enjoy it it's going to be 24 months or more before you start to see the fruits of your labor and you know what it's been so interesting watching the the discourse about austin matthews i said it last show i'm going to say it again elliot friedman talked about how matthews representation and the leafs had a conversation last week and and uh i'm assuming it's judd moldaver and judd and brad sat down and he said brad judd said brad brad said judd and they talked and they said is matthews gonna go if we sell it this judge said no you're brad

Starting point is 01:03:49 and and and the matthews camp was like no we're not gonna leave right the toronto maple leafs despite our misgivings about how they've performed in the playoffs have given Austin Matthews a team that is at or near the top of the division every single season with the exception of 16-17 when they squeaked in, right? After that, they were top three in the division every year. They've given him playoff opportunity after playoff opportunity nine straight years of it.

Starting point is 01:04:19 If Austin Matthews was going to leave at the first sign of trouble, he never should have been captain. And I think he's willing to not I think he's willing to rebuild not towards next season. They're not going to be a contender next year. They're not. But if they build smartly, they could be the year after. And it doesn't mean they're not going to make the playoffs next year. But the idea that they're somehow going to sell now, fire right out of the gate and be any better than what Boston's been, which is fringe wildcard team right now.

Starting point is 01:04:50 they are they are eighth they are simultaneously a fringe wild card team and a top 10 team in the league yes hilarious but that's the division you're in right and what i'm saying is like that that puts you in striking distance no matter where the cards fall so that is what what the leafs need to get back to you i don't think this austin matthews relationship falls apart unless there's multiple years and even sydney crosby he won cups but he had multiple years of not making the playoffs which led us after three years of it to go how long is he going to hang on for this well they're going to make the playoffs this year so it doesn't matter are they a contender i think they're a sleeper to go on a run at best at best but it's a chance and i think matthews is willing

Starting point is 01:05:34 to ride out this storm go through an intelligent retool if they fuck it up yeah he's gonna go and he should but if they don't if they if they're just kind of smart about it they don't have to be brilliant you got to bring in more elite talent on defense you got to bring in somebody who's the pivot point on that defense you're gonna have to bring in a second line center as well john tavaris cannot be the second line center going for there's a lot of work to do if you're smart about it you can do it i mean listen with the leafs take if you could trade nick waugh for casey middlestadt right now like last year's deadline right they would have done that no you don't like he scores more he does it could be a second line the reason why he scores

Starting point is 01:06:18 more and no one seems to want him probably turn it down my point is this there is so much opportunity here to turn this around all is not lost and it's not because they're on a three game winning streak because that's not it let me let me tell you what mark specter wrote about the oilers can i can i read this to you oh today just shiv them 57 games into the city approach them before shiving i i don't know 57 games into the season the edmonton oilers have 64 points they are to this point an average team playing slightly above average on some nights and well below on others uh they resemble a stanley cup contender at this juncture of the season about as much as the vanier cup resembles the super bowl or as much as i resemble brad pitt they that's funny

Starting point is 01:06:58 the i think that's hilarious and i think that's true i don't think the oilers look all that great I don't think they play great defense. They're one point up on the Leafs. I know. I know. So it tells you that if they retool this quickly and smartly, which they can do, they're going to be fine. Also, you need some health.

Starting point is 01:07:18 Chris Tanev's got to play next year. What are they, 6-3-1 when he's in the lineup? Yeah. That's a major guy to lose. That's a pretty huge swing that you don't even know if he's going to play. You know he's going to play. The groin injury will be okay. Apparently, it's significant.

Starting point is 01:07:34 like at home was talking about his not feeling they were selling the broadcast his didn't feel right till december this year um and i think tanev's injury is similar to see that seems bad he played he's older he's older but he's playing great now oh i meant no tanev is older oh he's older yeah yeah okay all i'm saying is this can be done two and five canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.

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Starting point is 01:10:09 For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG.co slash audio. Limited time offer. For anybody that's fretting about Austin Matthews, guys, can you please, I'm begging Leaf fans, have some self-respect. No. Have some self-worth. No, no, no, no. No.

Starting point is 01:10:24 Let me say this. Go for it. Let me say this. I understand where the PTSD comes from. well then what what are you Vince Carter Tracy McGrady um Sean Green in my in my generation Carlos Delgado eventually Roy Halladay eventually they just got they all for Mitch Marner I know I know I know but don't believe the press clippings it's actually pretty great to play here just ask a former leaf any one of them ask Doug Gilmore ask Darcy Tucker ask Shane Corson ask

Starting point is 01:10:56 curtis joseph ask any of those guys that what was the favorite part of their career they're all going to tell you it was toronto and they play for some damn good teams and i'll tell you like there's a reason doug gilmore signed a bunch of autographs in toronto he won the cup in calgary you know that it's wicked to play here and the this bullshit from the outside specifically from the florida panthers about how it sucks and it's so hard and blah blah bullshit nonsense you got to answer some questions you'll be fine these guys are going to look back on this time in their career specifically the guys that have been here a while and gone yeah that was i did have it pretty good that was pretty sweet i don't know i i feel like we got to get over this we got to move past

Starting point is 01:11:34 this matthews is committed relax it's all going to be fine there's there's some i don't i don't want to say timid they're not timid fan bases but they're they're jittery they're jumpy and they have reason to be i was talking to someone today about like flyers fans and their vitriol we're over the mitch kauf stuff yeah i get it yeah now some people are like where the hell does all this come from well a lot of it comes from this kid was supposed to be the second coming and he hasn't quite been and they're blaming the team for it and if you were bad for a number of years and then this kid shows up out of nowhere who looks like he can be a 50 goal scorer and then all you hear the next season is he's fat and plays 12 minutes you would be you would feel a a certain way about

Starting point is 01:12:29 that as well and management traded a guy who's gonna get 30 plus goals this year yes yeah oh cutter goche yeah screw that it looks pretty gosh darn good it was a bad trade always it's still a bad trade just admit it yeah like okay yes you got zegras what if you had both yeah what if you had ziegers and goche could have had both now yeah goche where's some of that blah blah blah all i'm saying is um to any neurotic fan i see you and i hear you you are seen and heard uh i think those feelings are pretty valid yeah like if you're worried about a superstar leaving toronto you have every right but this superstar is not the other guys yeah this guy's not bitching about the media things are things are one way one day and then they change i don't think he's ever

Starting point is 01:13:23 but but has he ever shown any degree of you you haven't ever got a hint from that camp that they wanted out sign the extension as soon as he could it's not it's not about the logic of like hey this is all the evidence there it's just about what you've been through as a fan and i understand that if you're a lease fan and you've been through a lot that you're a little worried then give me a little bit of latitude here and say but on this one guy it seems to be different now in fairness right we all thought Guerrero was going to leave in and he didn't want to in fairness Adam did you see what Brian Matthews said the other day uh his dad yeah did you see what he said the other day what did he say no did you see what he said the other day no I didn't me neither oh um and it's

Starting point is 01:14:07 great the Oilers by the way the they went four and four on their uh in their last eight games they allowed 32 goals in their in their final seven and there's 32 goals in the last seven games the Oilers yeah yeah that seems that's a lot of goals yeah it's a lot of goals that will be very interesting to see how they address that at the trade deadline could you interest Edmonton in Troy Stetcher could you get do you think that the Oilers would trade back for Troy Stetcher that's probably not right fascinating well he we i was about to say he'd fit right in maybe he wouldn't like they waived him for a reason yeah and i remember him playing during the cup final it was either last year or the year before and i was like oh that wasn't very good

Starting point is 01:14:54 yeah you didn't look very good there troy uh he's come to toronto and he's been given a bigger role and he's done really well in it, is, I'd love to know, like, here's the thing. It did not work out. He wasn't on waivers because he was good. He wasn't on waivers because things went well in Edmonton. It's almost like if they were to go out and get anybody, they shouldn't get him. Right. It didn't work.

Starting point is 01:15:26 So maybe a Benoit. And it doesn't mean he's bad and it doesn't mean they're bad. it just means it didn't work. Not a system fit. Like maybe Morgan Riley with Berube. He could be perfect, but I don't know. The evidence seems to show no. Most career winning goals by a player with the Maple Leafs.

Starting point is 01:15:43 Matthews is second with 66. Matt Sundin is first with 79. John Tavares moved into the top 10. He is tied with Daryl Sittler now. They have 42 game winning goals with the Leafs. On a related note, according to Stat Center, which is TSN's stats group, um the most 20 plus goal seasons recorded by a leafs center in franchise history sundine has 13

Starting point is 01:16:07 keon 11 matthews 10 uh sitler 9 and tavaris got his 20th last night number 7 on in his time with the leafs damn he is the best free agent signing they've ever made he's been so good he's been incredible uh jesse do you have anything else you want to add to the leafs game winning goals my least favorite stat in hockey why is that give it to you tell me it's it's irrelevant to what the meaning of it is you could technically score a game-winning goal in the first five seconds if the game is like five two and you scored goal three then that's your game-winning goal that's not that doesn't that stats are supposed to show you like something that doesn't show you anything about what this player did in contributing to a win if it's a game winning goal

Starting point is 01:16:55 in the sense that it's hey goals that are scored during a tie game in the last 10 minutes of a hockey game that then the team goes on to win if you specify it like that then the stat shows you something right a game winning goal that scored because it's a 2-1 game and you scored that goal in the first period, that stat is meaningless. I think it means your clutch in the first. It does not show me anything. It shows you that this player scored a lot of goals

Starting point is 01:17:25 throughout their career, and that's why game winning goals, the list of people who have a lot are just guys who scored a lot of goals. Jesse, Jesse, let's and then the guys who score a lot of goals are the best goal scorers and the best players we have in the history of hockey. Yeah. Why

Starting point is 01:17:41 don't we just look at the fucking goals? Let's let's go through a scenario. All right. A guy named Nate Nuthatch scores a goal 15 seconds in. I want a Nuthatch. The Coal Harbor, Nova Scotia's Nate Nuthatch. Coal Harbor, Nova Scotia's Nate Nuthatch scores a goal 15 seconds in. It is his team's last shot of the game.

Starting point is 01:18:03 Their goalie goes on to make 40 consecutive saves to seal the win. And the headline the next day says, Nate Nuthatch plays the role of hero. Nate Natchash scores game-winning goal. Scores game-winning goal. It would have been the goalie. Yeah, you're right. And what it is trying to say, because the words game-winning goal are trying to illustrate this goal led to a win.

Starting point is 01:18:30 It did. It did in the very literal sense, but it did not lead to the win in the sense that that was the goal that propelled them to the victory. So you need a clutch goals thing. Exactly. So goals scored in the last five minutes, three minutes? Yeah, what I just outlined, and I don't, you nerds can figure it out. I'll join you on the nerd bag where I'm pretty nerdy myself. We'll all go nerd out on what it should be,

Starting point is 01:18:54 what an actual clutch stat should be, whether it's five minutes, whether it's seven, whether it's 10. We'll all determine that when we bring out our calculators. But the way it's defined right now, I hate the stat. You know who led? Ridiculous. You know who led the Sabres in game-winning goals in the 90s? No, no one does.

Starting point is 01:19:11 dominic hasik i thought it was dominic hasik yeah like no one does no brian holzinger i don't know like i hear dominic hasik i hear game winning goals like oh did he score in the middle of the second and then the other team didn't score all right it might have been first period like honestly well congrats john taboris yeah congrats on the no we established fuck them with that clip yeah no he can he can take that and put that in his crowd chamber and suck it all right the 16 goal 16 seasons with 20 plus goals is really pretty great that's it that's a great stat yeah it is i like that you're right um all right so we're gonna leave it there uh we're gonna bring julian mckenzie on to talk about his new book black aces so give us just a sec we're gonna

Starting point is 01:19:53 bring him on let's do it two and five canadians will hear the words you have cancer that's why every step and dollar raised matters on september 19th join thousands in toronto for the princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of Bad Sales. Using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery

Starting point is 01:20:41 and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Hey, this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now, I have a question, gentlemen. Would you consider yourself uh good at pickup lines no no now you don't have to be steve because you met your wife at 19 yes yeah jesse how are you in your single days no i got i got zero riz i got negative aura riz it's not just about the riz skibbity toilet it's about the sustained love in your life and because february is you know valentine's month and there's a lot of love

Starting point is 01:21:27 in the air what are green flags for a relationship what you know if you're looking for romance and you're looking to find your way through romance sometimes therapy can help with that too that's why we want you to try better help 30,000 credential therapists they are available at your fingertips and I mean that literally you don't even have to talk sometimes it can just be a message chat if you're more comfortable with that it can be a FaceTime it can be a phone call and it can be at any time of day or night that works for you and that's the key part you're Usually matched with a therapist within 48 hours. If you don't have the chemistry with them,

Starting point is 01:22:00 you can switch it up. It's no big deal. And we want you to try it. 10% off at betterhelp.com, promo code SDP. So betterhelp.com slash SDP, 10% off. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash SDP. The book is called Black Aces. It is the essential stories

Starting point is 01:22:18 from hockey's black trailblazers. It is about, among other names, Steve Dangle, who's in the book. Yep. Julian it's so interesting that you made Steve a central character can you tell us a little bit about that and

Starting point is 01:22:33 why you felt like you know Steve had a lot to do with black excellence in hockey you know what this book needs Steve Dangle is it an autobiography about Steve that you like co-authored how much zoo content is in this Julian

Starting point is 01:22:48 wow you know I worked there for seven years which that's actually the first thing he said when i spoke to him oh yeah he was like i just worked at the zoo he just wouldn't stop talking about it but we found ways to eventually i'm just talking about jerome again oh okay that worked out for jerome again is important yeah i think if you're gonna ask somebody about something it's the angle about jerome again like of all of all the people i interviewed for this book i think uh jerome again the most night

Starting point is 01:23:15 like the most compliments the nicest things said about any of the players profiled jerome again was was that person just like a super kind individual off the ice but also on the ice like a mean son of a bitch yeah no kidding but like dangled obviously was was great with that and talking about the golden goal uh he was he was great yeah how much of a recluse is jerome again that is exactly what i'm gonna ask of him i think is the question yo i remember so i was still in calgary at the time and i think it was like a training camp thing because it would have had to have been late summer early fall and he was up at the so in calgary they have a practice facility wind sport which was essentially built during the olympics in 88 and like everything in

Starting point is 01:23:59 calgary yeah they built it for the olympics right and then didn't build anything else yeah he was like sitting up in this like high area in this practice facility and i had to like will myself up to be like all right this is the day i go to jerome i'm like hey man like do you want to be in this book i was so scared like i was like hey so um jerome um uh uh my name is uh it's like as awkward as this yeah and i was like do you want to be in this book writing about black hockey players and he was like yeah sure i was like really like don't sell them on it just take the yes no but um what if he said you know what never mind i would have just been like you know what that's totally fine and i would have just

Starting point is 01:24:41 gone home and black aces would have never happened no but in all seriousness drone was uh one of the first people i approached with the book and he was so gracious with his time and uh working with him on a forward was also really special too and talking to him about the o2 games the 2010 games uh that was awesome what did you find out about him personally that maybe the general public doesn't know because he's he's an enigma we want to know more about it yeah i would say what did i learn about him i would say learning about the fact that he had people growing up who would look at him and be like are you sure you want to play hockey like there's not a lot of black people who play the sport and it's like i get that there are other people who might have

Starting point is 01:25:19 gone through that but it's still just kind of surreal to kind of hear that from a legend like jerome who looked up to people like a grant fuhrer and and a few other not as known hockey players to a guy like Claude Villegrin who played I think he played in New Jersey at one point he played for a couple different teams I think he represented Canada at the Olympics once upon a time too um like I I think just to to know that that was something that he thinks about a lot because you know there are guys who try to be like hey like I just want to be known as like a hockey player but the fact that that was something that Jerome kind of conscious conscientiously thought about yeah this time coming up like that that was something that was pretty pretty interesting

Starting point is 01:25:56 i thought when was this book conceived like when was the first time you had an idea for the concept i want to say like summer late summer early fall 2023 so the the beginning and i go through in the intro of the book uh when bill peters got hired in the western hockey league in uh late august 2023 by the lethbridge hurricanes i covered that story for the athletic and i was there for his press conference and he's there trying to show contrition for what he did to akimalyu for those who don't remember he coached him in rockford in the ahl and delivered racial slurs toward him and a couple years after the fact akimalyu goes on twitter and says that happened and there was no apology delivered and then bill is there and he's trying to deliver this apology he's

Starting point is 01:26:50 he was trying to cry it looked like he was crying um i mean that's all i'll say about that um and nowhere in that press conference or anything we did with him after the fact did he say like oh yeah like i went to him and i said i'm sorry like i think even 30 minutes before his press conference started akim put out a tweet saying like hey i still haven't received an apology and when i followed up with akim a couple months ago he said he still never got it he doesn't expect to get one but anyway after that event ended i just remember being really angry obviously as a journalist you have to be objective throughout a lot of these events but just as like a black hockey fan i'm just like really like this person did a very bad thing yes they worked with a couple

Starting point is 01:27:36 different organizations to try to rehabilitate themselves but they didn't go through the big step of you know trying to apologize for the one that you wronged yeah and jesse we talked about it on on your podcast not long after that happened like we made it a whole thing was like oh he had like four years or whatever amount of time to apologize no he had like 13 years to work through that and it never really happened but i remember being angry about it i i wrote a column about it and then two days after that uh the agent i'm working with brian wood who obviously knows steve uh he was like hey have you thought about writing a book and then i i've wanted to write a book since i was a kid but i just couldn't think of a really cool idea and then one day i was in the shower and

Starting point is 01:28:21 i thought hey well what if we what if i put together a compilation of profiles on on different black hockey players and next thing you know i just got started best ideas always come in the shower yeah that's exactly what i think whose story are we going to be most surprised about oh because i look at a name like kevin weeks and like i don't know a lot about yeah background i know he likes to show his forehead when he's breaking crates but outside of that and like obviously the playing career i don't really know about the personal side of about his life i think is is anybody on that list like really shocking kevin uh i i like kevin's story where um i focus on the fact that he delves into media and he's essentially the first uh black hockey insider

Starting point is 01:29:03 and he apparently like he was on a beach he was in barbados he was he had played all these years in the nhl and he's trying to figure out what's next and then like he gets this offer to work in tv or he's at least considering it and he like goes he's still on the beach and he like he comes across this like this rasta man who's on the beach and he's all like hey man you have to take the tv job man what are you doing you can't like he speaks to the whole page really yeah that's what happened and he was like all right i guess i'm gonna do it and then he gets an audition uh for and they're like all right cool like you know you got it so wow yeah he took advice from from rasta man on the beach so like that's one story right but like um herb carnegie which uh i know

Starting point is 01:29:45 throughout this whole process like i've gone on different podcasts and stuff and talked about some of the bigger names but i mean the name black aces you think of the original black ace that's that's him playing on the black aces line with his brother uh aussie and manny mcintyre when he played in quebec uh blake bolden i hope people are interested in that story i love telling that story she does a great job on on amazon prime uh but like not to give too much away but like she woke up early in the morning with her mom and her grandmother delivering newspapers and they would do these early routes and one day they meet a security guard in cleveland who happens to work at the local arena when they're playing like international hockey league games

Starting point is 01:30:19 and then she develops a love for the sport watching the cleveland lumberjacks i think marty st louis was on one of those teams too so like okay yeah yeah star power i didn't know any of that that's amazing or or dante abercrombie uh who not a lot of people know now But we'll see what happens by the end of the year with the men's hockey program he's starting at Tennessee State University. This is a guy who he had a YouTube channel where he was trying to show his journey to try to make it to the NHL. Then he ends up taking up coaching. And I think in between there, he had like a playing opportunity in New Zealand. And there's a whole there's a lot of story with Dante.

Starting point is 01:30:52 So I think people read that. One of the what are the like the idea with Black Aces is everybody has a shared experience here. This is right. It is objectively, if you just look at the numbers, a fish out of water thing, right? It is. You're a black kid stepping into a predominantly white sport. And, you know, I remember when Jesse, remember when we did Boko Imama on Agent Provocateur? Yes. And he talked about in Montreal being the only black kid in the entire like district that played hockey. um what are some of the threads that run through in every story that people are going to go okay because we keep coming back to this because it's a it's a theme definitely the fact that a lot of these people who are profiled they're the only black person who's who's playing the sport and and and whether it's if you're a male if you're someone like jerome who you know maybe you don't see too many people like you or even someone like sarah nurse who i mean i'll even go

Starting point is 01:31:49 one step further with her like i mean one she was like okay there aren't a lot of people who look like me who play but also up until a certain age was like wow like there are women who play like hockey like professionally professionally or for the olympics and like she even says straight up in the book like with like angela james like if i knew someone like angela james existed like that would have completely changed the trajectory of my life so yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of that throughout i think particularly i also uh want to shout out uh george larocque who when he came up in Sorrel Tracy I think it's the same hometown as Marc-Andre Fleury he would go to games and there was one game in particular he went to where his parents just

Starting point is 01:32:31 either they were subjected to racial slurs or they saw that George was and they decided okay we're not going to these games like we don't want to be we don't want to why would we be there yeah why would we be there so George would have to take himself to to games and just like some of the other people I've mentioned too like he also had people go up to him be like hey like are you sure you want to you know play hockey like not a lot of black people play hockey so those are some of the commonalities you'll you'll come across a lot in this book and uh uh i know you're doing an event tonight yes uh can you talk a little bit about that i know i know it's a little bit of late run for for everybody but i still think it's worth mentioning uh at a different book list on uh at

Starting point is 01:33:05 the uh blackhurst uh cultural center on bathurst uh 6 30 to 8 30 uh if you are not available for that night uh february 27th at another story uh that's where i'm going to be also at as well we're going to be doing a few toronto events and are you and like not just toronto because obviously this podcast covers you know more than just even just canada where else are you going to be where else can people meet you talk to you for sure we're doing an event february 12th at argo bookshop ottawa february 15th at perfect books and uh there may be more coming because literally before i got here i had someone call me and they're like hey have you thought about going to insert city here i'm like yeah i want to go to insert city here there's a few insert city cities here that i

Starting point is 01:33:50 very much want to visit and and and take this book and showcase so we'll see what these next couple of months will look like and best place to find all those dates and places you're going uh my instagram jk mckenzie uh oh you're just trying to pump your followers now i see what yeah i'm kidding i'm kidding what do you mean i'm here i might as well hey i i gotta ask this because because i don't know we're gonna we're gonna wrap here in a second but what i do want to ask is your parents are both university professors right uh no so my dad uh works with uh mba students at concordia uh my mom uh works work primarily as a receptionist out of cgep she's kind of in between stuff right now but my dad was more my grandmother was a was

Starting point is 01:34:36 like a elementary school teacher so i have like teachers in my in my family what do you think they feel about this like what has because i always i'm always curious about that i remember i saw tina and gary's reaction give me give me your parents and i know your grandmother's a character yo my grandparent both my grandparents uh both sides of my grandparents are characters but my parents like seeing them happy and seeing them proud like it brings a lot of joy to my heart were you in the room to hand them the book or to send it to them so here's the funny thing about it um so when i got my copies of the book my parents were on vacation so i like facetimed them i was like hey like i you know i got it my dad insisted on going to a store and buying a copy for himself

Starting point is 01:35:18 so he went to an indigo and he goes to the counter and he's like hey i want to buy this book and he's like oh you know you want to buy this black aces book he's like that's my son that's so cool my mom eventually did the same thing and then what's actually funny is uh so i did an event at my at my church in montreal at union united church and i brought like a limited amount of books and people were lining up trying to buy copies and getting them signed it got to a point where like my parents had their copies with them and they were like here just take it like buy it yeah so we're gonna run out here yeah that's it like my godfather showed up and my dad was like hey i got i got mine like you you take it like that's very cool there's been a lot of there's been a it's

Starting point is 01:36:00 been a lot of that but also it's not just them like a lot of members of my family too have been really happy and uh yeah i'm just over the moon with the success of the book so far and uh yeah it means a lot are the ottawa senators a playoff team yeah i gotta know that depends on what the rest of the atlantic division looks like if you if you have to pick a side right now gun to your head gun to the earth jesse both what's the what's the line that max kellerman said like are you taking the sins making the playoffs are they andre agudala for you yeah man Or are they Steph? Okay, well, here's the thing.

Starting point is 01:36:43 So you need so much to go right. I think the goaltending is starting to stabilize itself. I think it's good that Lena Solmark is back. And, I mean, James Reimer maybe – I mean, I don't even think he played that badly against Carolina the other night. The first time he played against Carolina a couple days earlier, that wasn't as good. But, like, at least that's starting to get better. The team's able to generate chances still. There's still limited chances.

Starting point is 01:37:08 it's just can buffalo stop playing so well boston you're hoping maybe detroit and montreal too yeah it might be too many teams to depend on boston is the second wild card and 10th in the nhl like you're you're if you're ottawa the only thing you can do is win all the games you can win and just hope some team falls could they still buy at the deadline though regardless i still think here's my thing about it like you don't have a first round pick this year and your guys are playing a style of hockey that you know if you have league average goaltending i think there i think there are guys on that team who think like hey if we get in the playoffs like watch out for us if i'm steve steos that is something i am very much considering like if you sell like okay

Starting point is 01:37:54 maybe you get something for a nick cousins maybe like when david perron comes back from from injury Is he someone you're getting something for? You could do that, but also, like, I think the group would be revitalized if you bought. The problem is, is, like, you don't have a lot of draft capital. You don't have a lot of enticing prospects that you are willing to move because the word has been that they don't really want to move off of Carter Yakumchuk. I could totally see a situation where you try to buy something small, but, I mean, you know what? We didn't expect anything from them last year, and then they ended up with Fabian Zetterlin and their cousins. If there's a team that plays stealth mode, it's definitely them.

Starting point is 01:38:29 uh more important question when will the ottawa media shut the hell up about the first round pick i know the owner there is peddling this oh give me back the pick i need to time out i need a time out for a second it's not happening i need a time out this the fact that you answer they ask that question that way speaks to a crazy i don't know if we can call it a problem but a phenomenon that has been developing over the last how many years when it comes to hockey media in the sense that people like me who cover the team every day and people like sen's talk are basically being put in the same pool right like i get the same right and you're what you're saying is you're better than sen's talk i'm not saying oh i work for the new york times i'm julian

Starting point is 01:39:17 i wrote a book hey when's sen's talk book coming up refer to me as author julian mckenzie by the way uh shout out brandon plant from sense talk you'll see this clip and he's gonna lose his mind yeah uh but my point is i've already forgotten the name julian don't worry julian forgot it first but the point is the point i'm trying to say is when you say jesse yeah media won't stop talking about the first round pick no i'm not doing that bruce gary ark bruce gary ark ain't going around being like when are they getting the first round pick back calum frazier's not doing that alex adams is not doing that but you know who keeps asking that sense talk does i think uh he sends buzz does jammy like i mentioned i'm name dropping a bunch of people

Starting point is 01:40:03 those people are the ones who are like hey man we want that first round pick back and they're going back and forth with people on twitter who are out here saying hey this team did something wrong we're gonna penalize ottawa anyway like that's what it is don't put us in the same basket with that i still think i would still be stunned if they got that first round pick back if they got it back it'd be great for them are you saying that they don't deserve it i'm not saying that okay i am but here's my here's the thing it's not michael anlauer's fault it's not but it is his problem here's my he went about it the wrong way what do you mean he went about the wrong way he he openly and very publicly asked gary betman for that pick back that is the wrong way to curry

Starting point is 01:40:43 faber with the overlord master of the owners yeah and he and that if he wants that pick he's got to play the game and then now he's not gonna get it and he's gonna go i'm not gonna go complain about it he felt screwed and he talked about it and that's not how you do that now i'm not saying that's the right case i'm saying if you're in the game you have to play by their rules is that you're he's never gonna change the rule i don't even here's my thing i don't even know if him talking about that i don't know where this is going we're just watching the two of you go ahead i don't know if him openly complaining about it would even make a difference because here's my whole thing you go back to that punishment with the new jersey devils look at all the things they

Starting point is 01:41:32 took away they find them like three million dollars yeah there's like a fourth round pick and then they decided you know what we took all these things from you since this has gone on long enough we'll let you keep this first round pick which will be the last pick of the round the Ottawa Senators the only thing they got punished was a first round pick that they've deferred two times over yep and the NHL has said like hey we take that punishment very seriously Gary Bettman went to Ottawa and he said that so in my head if you're going out and you're saying like hey man like you know we have to give you this punishment and that's the one thing yeah you're taking away from a team could you imagine if the Sen said hey we're gonna give this back to

Starting point is 01:42:10 like the president that would set for so many no we're on the same side of this like that would be ridiculous for the nhl to give them no punishment here's the thing i understand why michael anlauer and steve stales would be upset sure of course because pierre dorian was the gm when that happened of course and he wasn't the owner no like that that doesn't have anything to do with me as far as i'm concerned like i felt screwed in the sale he thought he should have got a couple million or whatever off if he knew the team didn't have the pay that's an asset I think the Senators have every right, as they are right now, to be upset or feel the way that they want to feel. What's just unfortunate is this is not a situation where the Senators lost a bunch of money and all these other things as punishment.

Starting point is 01:42:53 And then the league says, hey, you know what? Fine. We're going to keep this. This is the one thing that they're trying to take away from them. Yep. Yep. Like, I just would be stunned. I'm not saying, oh, the NHL should keep this pickup.

Starting point is 01:43:05 I'm just saying I would just be stunned if it got to a point where the league said, you know what? but we're going to let you have this first round pick back. You're absolutely right on that, Julian. Do you imagine if Chicago did this? Do you imagine if Chicago, like... Well, listen, I can imagine a few things with Chicago, if I'm going to be honest with you. Not to sing about Chicago.

Starting point is 01:43:19 Yeah. Does LaBreton Flats get built? In the next, like... If I see it... Oh, no, in the next, like... It's not a great way to start that sentence. No, but, like, the next, like, long pause. No, but, like, LaBreton Flats, as it is right now,

Starting point is 01:43:35 I mean... Does it exist? Is it real? I haven't seen it. We think it's a conspiracy theory. I've seen the... I'm with you, Jesse. It's in the Epstein file. Whoa!

Starting point is 01:43:43 All right, all right, all right. All right. La Breton-anon, I think, is what it's called, right? Bro. No, it's a conspiracy theory. Adam's like, all right, we're going to wrap soon.

Starting point is 01:43:54 Julian tells the story about his grandparents. What the... I have, like, tears in my eyes. And then Jesse goes, what about the sentence in the playoffs? And then starts talking

Starting point is 01:44:02 about the Epstein file. How do I get... All you want to know is this. Bring out the La Breton flat files this is great uh julian is it gonna get built i'm just gonna look over you guys here man what was your answer to the lebron flats i i think timeline i i would think it's really difficult to put a year on it but it's one thing for me to say that it's a whole other thing when

Starting point is 01:44:26 michael and lauer himself and i'm going off of reporting i've done in the past sure they're still trying to figure out like how long it's going to take to decontaminate the land in terms we're doing transit studies around there in terms of how everyone can get there because there's a lot that has to go into that project being a reality and every time we've asked michael and lauer about it it's like okay well we have to do all these other steps he keeps mentioning that he has to meet with indigenous leaders on that land as well like they have to get this right right every great construction project has no end date right absolutely but this is not a situation where this is going to get built in like two years like five

Starting point is 01:45:04 like if it gets built in five years i think a lot of people would be stunned oh my wow because i mean what's what's going on jesse is i'm just saying julian no this arena we're gonna come back it's coming real soon oh yeah oh it's great i love i love black people man yeah i love black people man black people best my favorite black person steve dangle highlight of the book that's why you should get black aces i saw i saw the the promo you guys did where you guys called steve a black person yeah why why'd you guys do that why okay why in defense of my friend why did you give him the pass jesse did that don't give him the pass um i don't think i did what i don't think i know i was i want to say this julian my parents are definitely not watching this part i hope not

Starting point is 01:45:52 sure i hope they can do better than us i want to say this julian sorry mr and mrs um and with apologies to sends twitter too who are going to just love this segment oh yeah um they actually they're a fun group and they're great i have a lot of fun with them uh every time i message whatever they're they're awesome we are so proud of you oh what thank you i know we've been cracking jokes the last 10 minutes but we're so proud of you we love working with you generally but to see you uh to see you no no generally like as in a general statement we love you it's not we don't just love you because you produced a book is my point i didn't articulate that properly you have uh since we met you six years ago um really have have just sort of come of your own and i think

Starting point is 01:46:32 you're doing such an incredible job with the athletic but this book is i think a piece that you're going to be proud of for the rest of your life and we are immensely proud of you and you're just in case you want to know at home julian mckenzie's a great fucking guy too so uh thank you for coming in uh and we're really pumped for you man i just want to say uh it's a full circle moment for me because the first time I did an in-person show with you guys, I brought my copy of This Team is Ruining My Life and Steve signed it. So to be on the show and talk about my book and have Steve talk about it means a lot. So this is really great. Thank you. And you guys are great too. Jesse less so though, right? No, no. Jesse's great. I love Jesse Blake. I love Jesse Blake.

Starting point is 01:47:10 I love Jesse Blake. I love Steve Dangle. I love Adam Wilde. I love Maddie. I love everyone at the STPN, man. We love you, man. Congratulations. Two in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. I want to tell you about the Scott McKay Foundation First Responder NHL Legends Charity Hockey Challenge.

Starting point is 01:47:53 This features Doug Gilmore, Nick Andropoff, Brad May, and there'll be other people there, too. Those are guys I like. Those are people that you like from eras that you liked. Ah, eras that you liked. Anyway, it's in support of, obviously, first responders. And what's cool about this is that Scott McKay, who was on the show last year, he's a friend of the show,

Starting point is 01:48:12 telling us about Darcy Tucker and his coca chinos, a former Leafs equipment manager. That's right. He's got his own foundation now. And Scott is obviously very, very involved in charity. And this isn't just a charity. It's the peer support for first responders who provide 24-7 anonymous support for police, fire, paramedics and nurses dealing with PTSD and mental health crises run by first responders for first responders. It fits perfectly with, you know, with this sort of a thing, because you look at the the numbers and they're kind of staggering in those professions of people that have severe mental health issues because of what they've seen and what they've done. And they are heroes in our community. So it is cash only 20 bucks. It's cheaper than a than a beer at at Scotiabank Arena. 20 bucks for adults, 10 for youth and five for children.

Starting point is 01:49:05 It's this Saturday at the Ford Performance Center, where the Leafs practice. Link is in the description. All right. So Philadelphia must not be in the real NHL because the fans there care and they care a lot. And we referenced it earlier. But Matt Faye Mitchkoff and Rick Tockett have been right at the center of the crazy last 48 hours in Philadelphia. Let's start at the beginning. The Philly podcast.

Starting point is 01:49:30 It's about the Flyers. um and rick talkett was on and they asked him about mitch kauf and this set off a firestorm unintentionally yesterday madve mishkov sure 10 minutes of ice time the fans that i have spoken to are not happy about some of the things that have gone on since you've been here sure with the young player that we were all so excited about a year ago what does he have to do to get to that level and earn your trust so he can play the minutes people like me think he should get so you think you should get it because he's from because he's earned it because he came like we've talked about it and i'll be very frank in charlotte i'm a very frank guy honestly i'll go

Starting point is 01:50:13 down swinging matty did not come into camp in shape and you can't it's hard to play yourself in shape i have not told him or any other players take a guy one-on-one come out of the corner with the puck on a rush like make a play through rush he's having a tough time in those situations so yeah you could say well other players other players try i mean i get it maybe they don't have this skill set but we're trying to get them that to that level right how to develop them practice making sure that your meat you're you know you're on time for treatments and things like there's so much into that the way you eat the way like that's it you don't become a star because you think, oh, this guy – I'm not talking about that.

Starting point is 01:50:53 I'm talking in general. Yeah, sure. Any person. You know, look at Trevor Zegers. You know, a couple of bad years he comes here, bought into a couple of things, and, you know, he's doing a hell of a job for us. You know, he's in a little bit of a slump, and, you know, I was trying to get him through the center position, see if, you know,

Starting point is 01:51:08 this is – I think there's a time to try it right now. Whether we can do it or not, we'll see, and keep putting him out there. So that's just – I don't know if I've answered the question, but it's that's kind of the rules of winning right um the crust supersedes everything now now that is uh i think a pretty honest answer and it went over like a bomb and i want to just i want to help with context here sure to help you understand why the flyers reaction fans reaction was so visceral and i'm going to stick up for fans here because we get a lot of shit in toronto about caring about the maple leafs uh it's really bad you shouldn't do it um and caring for the

Starting point is 01:51:47 maple leafs is bad for your health objectively philadelphia a little less though but to help you understand the flyers flyers fans have watched a team zegras is a good call out once zegras stopped scoring they stopped winning anything uh because no one else can score him and connecting the flyers are 22nd in goals for this year and man what flyers fans feel here i think is um hey our head coach is suing the guy that needs to be part of the solution to the goal scoring problem that we have now the other side is mitch koff didn't show up to camp in shape and you can't play yourself into into that and so the rumors sort of went wild and i think the cutter goche circumstance has a little bit to do with this um and in the fact that you've

Starting point is 01:52:33 lost a player and you sold losing that player to the market he didn't want to be here really he didn't want to play for torts you fired torts if you just hung on to the player and said too bad so sad then you'd still have the player and he'd probably be playing for you but instead you made an emotional move you moved cutter goche you didn't bring scoring back jamie drysdale did get the i think the game winning goal last night but it's it's not the same thing and they don't want to see a guy run out of town not by them flyers fans but by the organization a superstar or the media which the media is on his side well the media is taking a lot of shit you think oh they're in a foul mood well um jesse i've got another i've got the um i've got media is in a foul mood i

Starting point is 01:53:21 should say so daniel briere it got so bad that elliot friedman even said on his podcast yo you gotta danny you gotta get in front of the media and talk and before moving on to that can i want to point out two very quick things give it to us jesse can you can you pull that up uh just one more time the the clip that we just saw i have to get it again oh sorry my god i thought it was there okay what do you want to point out about it i'll show you okay so we're gonna bring it back up there's a podcast yeah so you're gonna keep going keep talking oh no sorry i thought who is this on the far right because that's an incredible question that he asked i want wanted to shout that out here jesse let the let the clip play just without the audio i just want

Starting point is 01:54:09 to point out how surreal it is that while he's asking this question the only visible jersey is a mitch kov jersey standing in line and then another jersey comes in and it's another mitch kov jersey i just wanted to point that out a little easter egg in the clip that i couldn't look past okay there we go so elliot friedman then says and i think that's a good point it it adds to what i was saying which is the fans are invested in this guy there wasn't a yes and jersey sorry yes and yes and fuck uh i didn't mean it to be that way it's a good point the phly the phillies philadelphia flyers podcast is hosted by charlie o'connor bill matts and jp zappa i follow charlie o'connor one of those guys is charlie o'connor that's a weird thing about twitter is like you

Starting point is 01:54:57 don't know anybody i followed him for many years i didn't know that yeah i don't know what he like Um, regardless, it's a, it was a, it was a very good question and a very good answer. Oh, and, and I looked at that. I was like, huh? How refreshing Flyers fans didn't receive it that way. I would love some honesty here. I think that was a lot of, uh, I think it got on the line of it's so honest. It's a little scary.

Starting point is 01:55:17 Please don't run this guy out of town. Now, Elliot Friedman had to say, Hey, Dan, Daniel Breyer, you should probably talk to the media. And, uh, then spitting chiclets had that clip of, of biz saying, you know, Flyers fans are idiots. I would go to war for talk. I don't know if you should have said that. And then I think that ratcheted up things.

Starting point is 01:55:38 So then Danny Breer and Jesse, I've got it there. I've got his media avail. He makes a media avail, get this, okay, 15 minutes before game time. That's crazy. This is like in the stadium, 15 minutes before game time. I just can imagine Jesse being like, I'm already in the press box and we're watching warm-up here and I got to leave and go down and talk to Danny Breer.

Starting point is 01:55:59 You know what I mean? He did it from the press box. Treliving calling up TSN about the Jonas Eagle article was like, whoa, we don't see that very often. 15 minutes before puck drop. That's wild stuff. Go ahead and play it. All right, guys.

Starting point is 01:56:13 I just wanted to address a little bit of the noise that is going around, especially when it comes to a little bit of a rocky patch that we've hit lately. I know it's upset a lot of people, But it's just the reality of, you know, a team growing. Early in the season, you know, when we were, you know, fighting for one of the top position in the division, we realized that, you know, that was probably a little ahead of schedule. I was probably getting better results that, you know, was warranted at the time.

Starting point is 01:56:49 You know, what's happened now, the way we've been playing lately and what's happening, I also know that, you know, it's not as bad as the way we've been playing. So we're somewhere in between all that. You know, it's important to keep even keel. One thing I've learned, you know, as a player is not to get too high when things are going well, not to get too low when things are sliding. So, you know, that's how we feel. We've said all along that, you know, our players would tell us, you know, when it's time.

Starting point is 01:57:22 But we're, you know, it's still part of the rebuild. We're still dealing with a young team that, you know, is learning how to face those tough games, those tough experiences. It's all part of the process. So that's number one. The other thing is the Rick Todd. It's four minutes. Oh, okay. Well, this is the next one.

Starting point is 01:57:42 Sorry. Madvei Mishkov, that's out there. One thing I can tell you, first of all, is Madvei Mishkov is not going anywhere. Let's make that clear. okay matvey's going to be here for a long time um he's going to be a good player here for the flyers and what he's going through right now is all part of the learning process um so that's out of the way he's not going anywhere that blew my mind like never heading into the season what i thought danny breer would feel the need to clarify we're not trading matvey mitchkov that's crazy

Starting point is 01:58:18 Now, there's a third video I want to play for you. Oh, no. Now, you can't, I don't know if you can play the video because it actually does show the ice, so we can't. It is from a fan in the stands, but we can hear it, okay? So I just want you to hear what happens here, and I'll explain why it went down the way that it did. Because Flyers fans did not know about Danny Breyer's press conference,

Starting point is 01:58:41 which I think he came across pretty well. I thought he was a good GM there. um he wanted to calm the waters and he was as boring as possible so jesse can you press play on this in just the audience show them pull it up oh it was removed okay this post is from an account that no longer exists whoever posted it deleted their account oh that's their entire account so there were flyers fans um organizing a fire talk at chant to start right at the 19 minute mark so a minute into the game in the first period and that video that i had was a flyer fan and the video and i had it this morning like i prepped this this morning so it was they've

Starting point is 01:59:20 deleted their account recently i guess but they did have a fire talk at chant and it did go off and they were yelling fire talk it in the in the crowd so that's how crazy it got and i can't believe leaf fans would do that well i know they're so crazy do you see what i was saying from earlier like don't believe the shit it's actually pretty great to play here and it's pretty great to play in philly too people care yes it's yes it's fans are fans are fans like just no one cheers for your team yeah right so okay stop acting like you're superior because no one cares now what is worth noting steve and jesse is that it appears bullying works oh mitch koff this season has averaged 15 minutes and 32 seconds of ice time i'm surprised it's that high heading

Starting point is 02:00:03 into tuesday night um that was heading into tuesday night he played 1554 last night his average ice time per game last year was just under 17 minutes now the 1554 is an important number because tuesday versus la he'd played 1021 and the game before that it was 1249 that's a three and a half minute difference that's a lot hey is that the flyers not saying to their fans okay we got it well because do you pay to see mitch koff sit on the bench no you don't that's such a good point like winning and losing and what's best for the team but also i paid to watch matvey mitch koff i bought his jersey man yeah you sold me on this guy i didn't pay to watch list a flyer like i paid to watch matvey mitch koff number one two and three then

Starting point is 02:00:56 you can start listing other guys give me what i paid for right it wasn't dan blador that you showed up for it is now christian devorek wasn't at the beginning of the season like they have one point per game player man zegras isn't it it's uh connect me oh it's connecting okay yeah he's got 54 in 54 connect knees under everybody else is under there's no point listing them uh jess does this does this mean the flyers does this mean that bullying works does this get cause the flyers or rick tocket to take an inward look at himself and go well maybe mitch koff isn't playing to the level that he's playing at but he shouldn't be playing only 10 minutes a night i think both sides are wrong and right at the same time okay give it to both sides the issue but i think you got a

Starting point is 02:01:45 situation where mitch koff is at fault here for not coming into training camp and at the correct weight and because he didn't come into training camp at the correct weight he's actually fallen behind in his strength training they outlined this in the athletics so because he had to lose weight he couldn't do as much strength training throughout the season to get up to a weight that to get up to the strength that he needed to play the type of game he wants so he's been chasing that all year long and with the olympic break it'll probably be a great little pause for him going to work his ass to actually have the proper training camp he should have had with the nutritionist and all that so we might see mitch goff have a good march through april for this

Starting point is 02:02:26 season and but that's on him like you're drafted very high in the nhl you're in line to make millions of dollars for the rest of your life this is your job to show up in shape and ready to play hockey and he didn't do that so that falls on him but it also falls on rick tocket for his deployment of mitch koff because he hasn't been helping his career obviously he's been upset with that but i think rick talkett some of this falls on him for just not playing a young kid the way he should be follow-up question where is mitch koff spending the olympic break hopefully with the flyers hopefully with the flyers yeah i think too um that uh uh he's going to be better again but what's interesting about this season is if he was having a great year we'd be talking about what

Starting point is 02:03:10 kind of extension is this kind of guy going to get a year early we're not talking about that are we 12 yeah i know there's something to the wings he's playing too because he's playing the off wing talk it has him playing left wing when he's been a right winger for most of his life and i i think the philly reporters were saying that mishkoff doesn't like have a problem with that but i think just like comfortability a guy getting into the league even though he's like every every hockey player is gonna be like yeah i'm fine you put me out on the ice oh i will play whatever position you put me in put him at defenseman he's gonna try as hard as that defense but yeah are you putting him in a position to succeed and if right wing is where he is going

Starting point is 02:03:50 to be the most successful your franchise it's gonna be lifted up by how good mitch koff is go let him be in the position where he's going to be most successful so that falls on rick rick talker too and i think there's a lot of little things like that where he hasn't helped this player along the way but mitch koff hasn't helped them we're not maximizing shareholder value exactly yeah you need to work through your lunch sit at your desk and eat your sandwich and do work hockey players have generationally not wanted to rock the boat jacques plant was like i don't want to get hit in the face with pucks anymore and i've won so many games in cups for you i think you should afford me that and his coach was like k their diva and like made fun of them and mocked

Starting point is 02:04:33 And that's like one of the greatest goalies of all time. And decades later, nothing's changed. Yeah, I think both guys in this are wrong and right in their own different because we're running low on time. I do got to move on to some other subjects very quickly. Sam Bennett will replace Anthony Sorelli on the Olympic team. Tough break for Sorelli. That's interesting.

Starting point is 02:04:49 I'm curious about Braden Point. Still haven't heard anything there. And I'm wondering if that happens or if that's announced anytime soon. And if it's because we did have that chat on Monday, who would it be? It is Sam Bennett. Who's the next one up? Conspiracy theory. Give it to me.

Starting point is 02:05:03 they're waiting to see how hyman gets through tonight's game okay interesting uh david posturnock has just been announced will be one of the two people carrying the flag for the czech republic or czechia uh at the olympics which i think is a pretty great honor for him very cool uh if you haven't seen it yet i'm just gonna run through some of these the connor mcdavid player tribune article is incredible um you'll want to die for him and i reading it as a leaf fan killed me a little bit inside because i was like first off he mentions a couple leaves that he loved growing up watching tucker sunday and that sort of thing second thing is i'm like i probably i kind of hope he doesn't leave edmonton uh because part of what he said is i wanted to be the captain

Starting point is 02:05:43 of the oilers talking about captain being a captain at 19 i wanted that pressure no doubt but i'd be lying if i said it came naturally to me or that the weight wasn't heavy he talks about uh a whole bunch of stuff without this but what i loved is towards the end this is what he says And let me read this paragraph to you because you just want to run through a wall for this man. He said, I don't want to play golf. I don't want to sit by the pool. I don't want to be in the Bahamas. I don't need a break or a fresh start.

Starting point is 02:06:10 I just want to be in Edmonton playing hockey. I want to get back there, whatever it takes. And he's talking about the Stanley Cup final. If it sounds like a robot, then I guess I'm a robot. But I see it differently. It doesn't feel like work to me. It's just the game that I love. Ever since I was a little kid, it's been the same feeling.

Starting point is 02:06:27 every time you step onto a fresh sheet of ice even if it's at five o'clock in the morning you're just excited for that zamboni to come off and for that barn door to swing open so you can hop out onto the ice this guy and there's a lot of love for canada in here too damn is all i gotta say ah what a treat i'm so happy that we get to watch the olympics soon and i get to cheer for all these guys just can i look at the second picture of that article yeah that's what yes do you think you're there i do think i think that's me right behind sean mckenzie there he is that's me that is you hey uh that's this is at is it a draft uh no this is at friggin maple leaf gardens for uh uh they did an upper deck event for all the rookies in the cards

Starting point is 02:07:19 that's james myrtle behind you who's this the gangly that oh that slender man who's that my arm that guy looking above everybody yeah there's james hello james myrtle i still remember this i still remember this that's i i couldn't help but be distracted by it i'm like i think i'm in that photo excellent um for that uh since the start of 2026 nikita kucherov has 39 points in his since the start of 2026 he has 39 points he would be the leading scorer just in this past month on four different nhl teams he has 76 in his last 36 games he has 90 on the season one behind nate four sorry five behind mcdavid on a 173 point pace over his last 36 games 2.1 points per game if you're wondering why this is all thanks to mike amato by the way uh mike's a great

Starting point is 02:08:18 follow especially if you love fantasy um if you're wondering why the lightning can do so well with so many guys out nikita kucherov's on fire and here's the great thing he doesn't have to play hockey for the next couple of weeks so whatever's whatever bruises he might have they're gonna heal and he's gonna come back like a rabid dog out of the break somehow better and more violent just reinforce those elbows he's just gonna spend the whole olympic break just weathering them against a tree he has as many points as many games with four points as he does with no points that's not real yeah almost excuse me almost as many oh my god so it isn't really not real damn it almost almost uh i want to do a quick two because i'm just running through this really

Starting point is 02:09:04 quickly little shout out to the columbus blue jackets they've won six straight guys since rick boness took over 10 games how have they done give give me just wild guess six three and one okay great jesse eight and two nine and one get out of this place they are currently sitting uh the the team at the top right below the bruins but there's still like a four or five point gap there between the two so that's that the chances of them even making it as difficult but it seems to work out under bones the leafs are 16th in the nhl yep and they have to pass in order to make the playoffs a team that is 10th in the nhl and another team who is nine and one in their last good luck i want to know if evison still thinks it wasn't his fault

Starting point is 02:09:55 yeah yeah that's why you don't do an interview immediately afterwards you don't you wait till the summer and you go hey that coach did a shit job now i can say see i told you it wasn't my fault that was about it it looks like it's his fault that was about it that's bad pr man that's just straight up bad pr and you're right jesse i think you're absolutely right the blue jackets vibes are great even if they don't make the playoffs but they how many moral victories can the blue get blue jackets have right right so the question will be zacharinski i think's going into his last year next year they better make the playoffs next year if they don't do it this year uh last thing i want to do um uh because i did want to hit the devils and stuff but we just ran out of time uh devils

Starting point is 02:10:37 are struggling shelton keith had a pretty good off ice avail last night we're not going to get into it jessica is versus the media jack hughes versus the media is good too do we want to i i would prefer to do this because i think it's more fun and we don't have the time more versus the fans um yeah i don't know jack hughes pretty do you want to hit it contentious yeah all right i don't know if we have time do we have time let's let's do jack hughes all right all right i think that's that's the biggest story all right well i was going to go into ducks propaganda but there was a if you're a goaltender 10 the goal moment last night and the ducks took advantage i don't there's always those there sort of was in the leafs oilers i know um by the way ducks ate two

Starting point is 02:11:12 and on their last 10 so fucking ducks baby jack hughes was asked what message do you have for fans that have lost hope in the devils the devils are below the leafs they have looked worse than the leafs and probably uh just are this is a shit season for them all is lost so jackie was like hey some fans are out on you guys what do you think and this is what he said for fans that have kind of lost faith and looking at the standings what do you want to tell them that makes them think this team can go on a run honestly if nothing was said to them honestly like for us it's just our group we gotta figure out a way to win more hockey games and um we got two big games here before the break

Starting point is 02:11:58 It's been half of the break, and it's a long time, so it's really fresh, and we're up for a really good final 25 games that we did, so it's on us to find a way to win more matches, so like I say, it's on us. If you're going to have a press availability at an event like this, turn down the friggin' music! Or put it in a different room. yes this wasn't at any scrum afterwards it was at the devil's foundation you devil's youth foundation uh gala thing yeah just put it put the avail in the second so uh jack hughes he has nothing to say to the fans it's he's an awkward guy yeah this was this is not a great quote it's a soft it's a softball jack it's that's a soft we're gonna fight through this we're gonna try and win every single game we can for

Starting point is 02:12:48 you guys. They're setting you up and you a 10 second answer where it's like this isn't even a clip. This is this is one of those gender reveal videos where the guy throws the ball and you took a swing and missed it and it just turns into a blue streak on the ground in front of you. I always love when they pick

Starting point is 02:13:04 it up and try again. Yeah, it's like, no, you missed. No, man, you missed. So after this quote, though, it's not great. This is why we bring up the Blue Jackets. Who did they lose three nothing to last night? The Blue Jackets lost three enough no oh the devils lost three to the blue jackets oh was it c bus and and james nichols who's a great devils reporter was saying that there were some fire fitzgerald chants in the

Starting point is 02:13:26 crowd and he said it's just not loud enough because there's not enough people here damn and i think jack could go new jersey's fiery man the fans are fiery that's a that's a you know what it's like the islanders fans islanders fans run on anger i don't know man devils fans run on anger no that's the real they run on we're pissed off that's the real i'm talking about the fans i'm not talking about how the coaches see it i know and i think if jack hughes either challenges them or says something along the lines of we're fighting every day for these guys i know it hasn't gone the way we wanted to my brother's out he's hurt i've been hurt we understand the frustration but we are here to make the new jersey devil stanley cup champions and we're

Starting point is 02:14:10 going to do everything we can for the remainder of the season to do that people will be like all right fine fuck him great hell yeah but when when you have any i guess he's a younger captain at a certain point though not a captain oh he's not a captain he's a leader on that team though he is a leader on that team he is the leader he's jack hughes my point is is or typically have a have a have a rah-rah answer even if it's bullshit he's never been rah-rah in his life so it's probably difficult but that was a softball that should have never been a clip from a charity gala presser that you can barely hear adam what time is the sheldon keith quote uh it's it's not a long uh presser uh it's it's

Starting point is 02:14:56 actually he's a little bit long don't worry about it it's it's impossible the time i don't have the time stamp okay yeah i don't know why i didn't write it down it was a 20 minute yeah well and he's the first eight minutes of it that's the problem yeah it's because it's jonas they put it all do you have a quote no oh no it was good check it out if you want to um i think i think fitzgerald's gone i think keith stays and i think devils fans want it that way i think like yeah we we talked about the philly situation for a lot there and the mitch goff stuff but where the devils are as a team with their expectations on them coming into the season they're to me one of the most fascinating teams of this year like disappointing like they're behind the phillies

Starting point is 02:15:38 or the phillies the the flyers they're behind the phillies too yeah they're just they're barely up there i shouldn't say barely they're just above the rangers who are the worst team ever and then it's just rangers at 50 points and then the devils and they were supposed to be a stanley cup contender team they're supposed to be fighting for the metro and they're gonna miss the playoffs by a lot and potentially have a top five pick this year but at least they got siplikov i i think uh i think jess the one thing the devils do have are assets they got cap space this summer projected to be about 21 million dollars he both hughes are signed okay you don't have i mean nemish is going to need a new deal so that'll be expensive but beyond that you're probably okay

Starting point is 02:16:25 and you've got your first round pick this year next year and actually your first and second the next three years you can go and buy at this deadline still miss the playoffs but bring in a key asset thank goodness they still have their first yeah like you you can do this this is this is totally fixable i agree that it's fixable um you gotta get some at some point you gotta start winning games yep how many years can we go ah the devil's bad luck and we're gonna bad luck the devils for a decade you gotta win game and you gotta win next year's one of markstrom's good years because he has he he alternates good and bad years i think first thing you do is get rid the general manager yeah it's it's over if i were them i would i would call would you not call for

Starting point is 02:17:09 walstead for a while apparently he's on the market would you call and be like what do you want i think the wild are on drugs trying to trade that person but yeah i would absolutely 100 like that seems like their goaltending fix right there oh and yeah if you could trade for the best goalie on the wild you should and and listen jake allen's got a no trade clause but i'd be like jake you want to go try to win a cup with minnesota and you'll be the backup goalie behind gustafson probably rather be the backup to walston like you're not trading markstrom no but he's a different cat like i kind of think he might want to just stay put and that's why he signed that deal yeah he signed that deal where it was remember how shocked we were at the number yeah like he signed

Starting point is 02:17:53 that to remain in new jersey then i don't know what you do with markstrom because he's got two more years now the extension next year is for six million and it's two years and it's partial no trade dougie hamilton should be back on the table all things considered yeah it's funny that he became like for like two weeks there it was like oh well luke hughes is injured so they're not going to trade him now hamilton i was like what happened hamilton playing with quinn hughes on the wild is that what you want is very funny i don't know they can uh quinn hughes and dougie hamilton playing together like we all thought they would i don't think jesse was suggesting that you trade down into the wild it was just i was not no but it'd be nice if he became available

Starting point is 02:18:37 yeah i don't know i don't i that that situation where your agent comes out and tries to skewer the team that doesn't just go away people don't just forget that yep yep bit of a thing i don't The Devils, to me, are fascinating. Well, they're one of the greatest disappointments this year up there with the Leafs. And by the way, Demidoff and Seneca, 46 points for Demidoff, 43 for Seneca. They are leading one and two in rookie scoring this year, which is pretty outstanding. Matt Schaefer is in third. All right, well, we'll wrap it up there.

Starting point is 02:19:11 So thank you for joining us. And thank you to Julian McKenzie for joining us. Pick up his book, Black Aces in Stores now. We're very excited for our guy, Julian. We've known about this book for a long, long time, and he has worked frigging hard on it. There he is. That name. In print.

Starting point is 02:19:27 S-T-E-P. The Steve Dangle Podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle, at Adam W-Y-L-D-E, and at Jesse Blake. Connection complete.

The Steve Dangle Podcast - Black Aces | February 4, 2026

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