The Steve Dangle Podcast - CJ What Happened? | June 4, 2021

Episode Date: June 5, 2021

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, CJ joins the show and talks about the last 72 hours (00:00), do you keep the Big Four together? (08:00), Is Zach Hyman coming back? (13:00), can Mitch Marner perform in the playoffs? (29:00), what do you do in the expansion draft? (47:00), re-doing the trade deadline (51:30), and who is coming back next season? (59:00).   Originally aired: June 4, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/Eo5tRMeOWiw Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Visit this episode's sponsors: https://www.getroman.com/sdp https://freshly.com/sdp https://ca.manscaped.com/ Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake let's go god it's becoming a tradition a first round exit in the final game followed by chris johnson telling us what the hell happened this year so dearly beloved i mean we really didn't expect you to we are gathered here today yeah we didn't expect to see you celebrate this thing called life this early thank you for the prince reference there jesse um i i uh chris i mean where do we start with this how first off first off and i think this is a good question from the from the listening audience somebody who's like chris how are you how are you i'm doing all right you know it's busy right and like the best kind of busy the playoffs uh but you're literally working every day all day

and then late into the night of course but i mean it's the best i mean probably the way the fans feel it's not that different being on the media side i'm still excited for the games the storylines pop you know you can tweet something innocuous and it gets like 3 000 retweets because this fan base is just locked right in on everything going on um so you know it's a lot of fun and then it ends and you kind of feel hungover even if you didn't drink like you almost just feel like you just feel like it's like it's a emotional letdown um but you know i certainly can't complain i was surprised to see them lose from where they were probably like everyone else but uh you know interesting off season ahead and it's actually been an interesting few days

since the season ended so yeah uh yes and we will get to that what i always love is the the the accounts like I love the accounts from Boston 2013 and you know journalists talking about oh I was I wasn't even in my seat for for the game tying goal I was in the tunnel because we it was the third period and we went down obviously this year is a little different what was this collapse like to you like where does the story begin does it begin in game four where they're as high as they could possibly be? Does it begin losing game five? What's it like for you?

Whew. The anatomy of blowing it. It begins in game seven in a way. Game five and six, look, there's lots not to like about the way those games start. But they're showing all kinds of life. They're coming back in it. I think the shots were 6-2 in the third period

in game five after they tied at 3-3. So they kept pushing for the winner and had some chances late in regulation, and a minute in, it's Kilchenyuk turnover. Right bang, it's in the net. Game six, crappy start. Jack Campbell plays awesome in the first period. Montreal ends up having that weird set of circumstances

with the goal challenge, the Marner puck over the glass penalty. They get a 2-0 lead. The Leafs fight back. They get the first 10 shots of overtime, 13-2 advantage overall. Really one chance and in the net. So, okay, I guess that's where it starts. like that that's where the collapse or whatever we want to call it starts but like i thought they played pretty well in those two games not perfect yes you'd rather them start and get a lead and

just suck the life out of it but they had lots i think by the time they got to game seven though everything was unraveling and they just didn't get anything going you know just a shockingly small amount of offense generated in that game by the leafs um didn't didn't put didn't use their skill advantage i guess they didn't really push i don't know if mentally they were fried physically they're fried you know it's hard to get an answer on that but honestly through six games of the series i still thought police were going to win the series so it wasn't until i started watching game seven that i thought okay they just don't got it they don't have it cool cool so but then yes well so go ahead go ahead sorry like as a follow-up to that so it's three one

this year it's three nothing last year it's five one the year before out scored 11 to 2 in elimination or all or nothing games over the past three seasons at what point is this a thing oh it's a thing right now you know it's I think I look at the last two years in particular uh the I thought Columbus game five and Montreal game seven felt eerily similar in that the Leafs didn't really give up a lot in those games yes Jack Campbell makes a mistake on the goal by Brendan Gallagher there's a one bad goal goes in in game five against Columbus but like to me and I wrote this in my story but I really believe a team as good as the Leafs when they're the favorite should be able to overcome one mistake in a game I mean there's there's no flawless game

that's played out there you know with the offense they have the elite players they have being down one nothing no matter how you got there shouldn't be the death knell and you know look the Leafs have some chances in game seven but i just feel as though they have to reevaluate a little bit how they're playing and you know i think that there's a tension right and we all hit on them naturally for years you don't play enough defense or too wide open yada yada yada well this year look they shut things down more but i just wonder if in the process of doing that they were a little too conservative at times especially when they got into a big game and i think that they have to find a way to unlock their top players in those situations um better you know i think that that

rests on sheldon keep because he was the head coach for both of those two games but but it's a thing and if there's a game seven next year which it just feels like god there will be it just feels like i don't know who they're going to play i don't know what circumstances will get them there but it feels like we're going to see this again that they're going to have to find a way not to play so tentative and to dictate the terms of the game to get a lead and to finally win one of those things do you have any explanation for the slow starts narrative because we thought it was babcock at first all last season and then babcock's not here anymore and it still see still seems to be a problem so is there is there any reason why the team seem uh seems like they can't get ahead of

the other team they're facing i don't have a good one you know jesse other than i guess in the two games in particular where it was evident five and six in the series montreal is playing at those games for their life right i mean they could their season can end that night and so you would expect that there's a certain level of desperation there you know game six in particular i actually went to the game in montreal i know it's only 2500 fans that was like a sugar rush after a year of not eating sugar like it was actually crazy how exciting it was to be in that building like i was shaking the entire game i'm not exaggerating not out of nerves for what was going to happen but just like to be around people again and to feel that environment like i just couldn't calm

my heart rate down and i'm just sitting there basically talking a couple times on tv and writing a story after the game like i don't have any important you know role in that night but it's just that the juice was there and so i think that that that had to help montreal a little bit i'm sure it helped toronto like there's no way they didn't feel that too but it was a bit of a foreign experience it actually makes me think whoever gets through whether it's montreal or winnipeg when they go down to the u.s and play a game presumably in front of potentially a full building somewhere that it like that that first game for them will be it's like a culture shock or something when you haven't been through it even though we've all lived that plenty in our

lives before it's just been so long I'm getting off track here but I don't the short answer is I really don't have a good answer for it I think there's got to be a little bit of paralysis here I think that there is a mental block I know all the guys keep saying there isn't you know how can I know I'm not in their minds but you just keep seeing the same thing over and over again it's hard not to believe that this has become a mountain they gotta climb and they just haven't found a way to summit the last peak well and that's that's what gets us to the to the core four as they're being called you know the four guys up front and you know there was visible frustration and emotion and you know with Tavares it's it's more like like it's just good to see him

okay um and you know talking about how he hadn't even seen the hit doesn't want to see the hit based on his family's reactions um and then uh you know uh Matthews is Matthews is pretty stone cold no matter what like he didn't seem too different um but Mitch Marner was our swagger but yeah well and Mitch Marner uh looked visibly visibly frustrated like Nylander is sort of like a backseat to all this but um you know and he looked visibly frustrated on the bench and he looked uh like it was it was a tough series for him and so I think you know everybody's question going forward is do you keep these four guys together and is that the plan this offseason I'm sure the plan can change but you know you know we discussed it a lot 48 percent of Mitch Marner's

contracts been paid already I know similar for William Nylander um are we going to see one of these guys the we can and we will guys moved out i really don't believe you will you know and and look i'm not naive enough to believe of course brendan shanahan or kyle dubas isn't gonna come out on the locker clean out day and say like yeah we're looking to train one of these guys everything's on fire yeah yeah like they're already there the city's already half on fire they don't need the other half to be burned down in the process right so like no no gm no president shows all of his cards in that moment you know they're really just trying to get through that i believe like just it's such a shit show like that that that day when your team that just did

what the leafs did i mean it it was chaos i actually have never i'm trying to see the good in it because part of me was like wow this is a little over the top and then i'm like you know what this is why we like working here in my case or why you guys love this team like if people didn't care it didn't it wouldn't have the same juice when it's good too so you know i think there's there's there's probably 20 teams south of the border that looking at everything happening here as bad as it looks from afar and they're like man we would take that because then your organization's making more money and you got you can do more things like the Leafs can do and so you know I I think that you know so they didn't say they're going to trade anyone but I actually

believe them in this case and I I see some people out there being snarky about that stupid media blah blah blah I just don't think it makes sense at the end of the day you know when you look at where the Leafs are no matter what you think of these individuals there's just very few players like what they have like what they have is what other teams don't have and and I I grant you that it creates problems it's seen a steady flow of the middle class right look at the last three seasons the forwards they've lost Andreas Janssen, Kasperi Kapanen, Nazem Kadri, James Van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak you know even Leo Kamara which is maybe to a lesser extent but you know the last Connor Brown And of course, the last three years, like they have to keep losing, you know, valuable sort of middle middle parts of their lineup because you're top heavy.

But I still think it's worth doing because the bet is that they're going to be able to replace that middle that middle mark. And I'm sure we'll get into Zach Hyman at some point during our chat today. But, you know, I do think that he's a little bit on the bubble here, you know, by no means do I think he's gone. But it's a really big decision for them because what he's worth at this point, it's going to be the core five almost, you know, because I think he's going to get more than $5 million, honestly. Unless they give him maybe an eight-year contract, maybe or something like that, there's a way to get the AAV down. But he's going to get $5 million to $6 million, in my opinion,

based on the market. And so, yeah, it's a challenge. But I think Kyle Dubas is all in on this. I really believe that he believes. And if you could ever get one year, and this so far remains an if, where all four of those guys get in the playoffs and they're all rolling, I mean, it's going to be tough to beat them. And it's not to make excuses,

but playing an entire series of the John Tavares is a factor in why they lost to be unmistakably like, and I'm not saying again, it's not to let anyone off the hook. It's just a fact. And so I think you roll it back because you're open next year. All four of them are playing, they're playing well and that no team is going to be able to match up against that. So then what do you do? I mean, so this morning I misquoted Frank Cervalli

with the podcast you're on with jason gregor and him and uh and said i guess it was jason that brought up that there was a rumor about zach hyman already being offered five million bucks a year by the leafs uh and frank so kindly responded uh that uh that was incorrect frank's a bit abrupt on twitter i'm not sure if he is in real life but uh um but anyway he's from philly he's okay well then there you go what are you nuts that makes sense love those five-year-old kids throwing a snowball at santa claus at an eagles game well fair enough so uh so it was jason that brought that up obviously the agent uh today said absolutely no truth to that rumor um is there any sort of chance that zach hyman does what we wished the stars would do takes a shave on the pay

and sticks around because you know there's he loves the team and i don't know why else you would do it i don't think he should if i'm being honest like this is just me speaking but you know all those guys got paid he's been just as part of you know as much a part of the core of this team as them obviously they have the high-end skills they put up the bigger numbers you know i'm not saying he's been more valuable to the team as them but those guys didn't take you know any pay cuts and and zach's already probably played on a deal that that wasn't entirely fair for him i think he outperformed his last contract it was nine million total over four years you know those guys got signing bonuses larger than his entire contract and he's been a valuable member of the team

he's been at no excuses no bullshit no complaints member of the team this is his one opportunity as an NHL player to really cash it and I think that this is where this is why this story is interesting to me is because there's no doubt in my mind he'd prefer to stay in Toronto I've got no small doubt that the Leafs aren't sincere really wanting to keep him but I do think that there's a chance that that their business interests might not align that you know that that Zach if he gets to the open market is getting offers of like six years times six million or even seven years times six million like we're talking a lot of money and you know it's hard for any of us to put ourselves in his shoes because we I don't think any way that we've been making the money he's been making but

you know he's he's taken a lot less than his teammates in these last few years and this is his one shot at it so you know if he ends up leaving i hope there's no ill will his way if he ends up staying on a deal that's pretty rich i think people should understand too that you know it's hard put yourself where he's been he's worked just as hard as all these guys he's been a part of it he i'm sure in his heart he he might believe he's not the fifth best of those five forwards i've never asked him that i wouldn't never expect him to answer that but you know you got to be pretty proud to get as good at anything as he's got and and work a lot pretty hard so you know this this all goes back to i wouldn't put my faith in him taking a hometown

discount nor nor do i think he should be expected to and you know as a result of this i i wouldn't be entirely surprised to see him leave i don't want that to be construed as he's leaving because i really think this is an open question i think there's still some a fair amount of discussion still to be had here before july 28th when he becomes a free agent um but it's it's a tough call for him i you know i i don't envy his position because he look at the end result here he's going to get a payday but i think this could be an emotionally difficult period if the leaps just aren't coming up to the level that that he you know can expect from somewhere else so with the leaps obviously with the core four um you know kyle dubas has been made fun of

you know sort of for giving him all this money and down bud sorry you still seem down i i am dude i had i've had two coffees like before like like within the last hour and zach hyman stuff's killing nothing the zach hyman stuff is so low energy it's it's here let me try to pick it up trust me i'm gonna ramp up throughout this question because at some point dubas has got to say the bank of kyle is closed and it's killing me that hyman could potentially be the end of the bank of kyle the a guy who i wrote about i think in 2015 maybe 2016 i spoke to sheldon keith and kyle dubas individually and asked them who the most underrated players were in the team your big j journal hat was on that day it certainly was uh and uh they both said justin

hall on defense look how that's played out and they both said zach hyman at forward look how that's played out Sheldon Keefe could not beam about the guy enough he's a rock star in all our video sessions he does everything we ask him to do he's a winger but we make him take face-offs on the penalty kill which he's also part of he's earned the right to be on the power play he can drive his own line he can be a complimentary player on his own line he can be a finisher he can go into the corner they're not seriously going to draw the line at Zach Hyman are they he's also 29 and has had some injuries and look i don't want to be in a position where i'm arguing that they shouldn't sign him because it's not necessarily how i feel but i i just recognize

how tough this is because it's not a slam dunk it's a slam dunk in your mind it's just not a in your heart sorry it's not a slam dunk in your mind and there's risk when you he's going to be 29 next season and if you're signing him for six years or seven years or even eight years there's a whole ton of risk in doing that and i think what they have to decide is how important is the culture piece here like if he does you know aging curves are real if you're not getting the kind of production out of him that you've seen the last couple years is he still valuable at those kind of numbers because of how he works and the way he conducts his life and the parties played in this team i mean i actually see him a little bit as like alex

clorin in tampa right you know tampa solution with clorin when they face similar cap challenges was to give him a long-term deal at that you know sort of middle of the road aav i mean maybe there's a path there i'm not saying the exact terms of that that contract's killing them right well that's the thing you're just trying to delay the pain when you do that it's like it's like me putting off my taxes the problem is april 15th comes every year i mean i hate i hate doing it but like like like you can you can try to pay him a little bit less here and it's okay for one year or two years but then what happens if Sandin pops or Nick Robertson put like, and you got to pay those guys. Like if there's going to be, it's this,

the cap just kills you death by a thousand cuts. It's so hard to stay competitive over a long period of time. Some teams do it. It actually requires a certain degree of ruthlessness. I think rather than locking in to players on the wrong side of 30 and that bad cap numbers, you know, it's easier to do that in Chicago where you're at least have three banners that are providing a nice draft through your building. even if you got Brent Seabrook's deal on your cap ledger, you know,

Toronto's in a tough spot because they've lost all those guys I mentioned earlier and they haven't yet won anything. And now potentially they could lose Zach Hyman. You know, I think we have to open our minds to the possibility though. Look, this is where they're going to get cap space this year. In my opinion, I believe, well, it's, it's a little soon. I think it's possible that we'll lose Alexander Kerfoot in the Seattle expansion process. You know,

I've heard that, that, that is someone that, that Seattle would like, you know, depending on what they do with, with their protection rules, you know, there's a, there's a world where he's exposed. That's three and a half million. If it happens, of course, they could trade them to it. If that isn't the case, you know, you got Freddie Anderson's 5 million coming off the books. You need another goalie, but you're probably going to try to spend less than 5 million to replace that

spot on the roster. So let's say for fun, you get another 3 million there. So you have to six and a half, you know, Hyman made what? two and a half this year uh so that said you're at about nine million and then that's not counting Simmons and you know you're probably not bringing back potentially Thornton you know they're gonna have like 11 to 12 million bucks if they don't bring Ivan back but what happens if they pay him five and a half you're down you know the money it just it's something bad okay put it this way if you're an emotional East fan I think there's going to be one move this offseason that's going to be hard to stomach and you know i think the core four there but maybe bringing back hyman potentially

trading morgan riley although i don't think that that's likely you know something like that might happen just to create the cap space to to make a larger move bringing somebody in and and if you were to say if if brendan shanahan and kyle dubas were you know taking truth serum and they were in on in this conversation right now what would you say is is their main goal like and don't say resign zach hyman because that's i mean obviously but like in terms of main weakness that needs to be addressed on this team they need to solidify the goaltending position and i think that they need to be better defensively even still a stouter blue line um which might seem sort of counterintuitive look they cut down on all the key defensive metrics this year significantly

that they certainly played better team defense but you know just maybe I'm being influenced by some of the people I've talked to since the loss you know people work for other teams the Leafs are a constant source of interest even around the league like it's amazing how many people reach out and want to talk about oh what are they going to do this is what I would do amazingly a lot of the hockey men are still saying they should trade knee lander i'm sure that will stun you no way i should be clear too i've i've i'm on team willie if there's there's teams here i think you can win with him um but that that's been a common refrain but i i think that if they can bolster the blue line that that should be something to look at and then they probably need a bit more flexibility

up front you know i think really the goal is and this is really boring but they got to make the team better they have to make a team that they have to find a way even with all the restrictions and with everybody getting a year older to have better more better players that in case next year they get to the playoffs maybe face even better team than Montreal and face injuries injuries happen everyone to everyone that they can find their way through so I don't think it's just one area but I'm curious to see what they do with that other goaltending slot you know I think that they address that potentially by trade rather than free agency because the free agent crop of goalies isn't uh that sexy what about a guy like dougie hamilton who's a ufa can't rule him out you know

he's right in their wheelhouse the kind of guy they'd like now you know from what i've heard i think the numbers in in carolina that they've talked or somewhere like i think the team wants somewhere around six million ish you know i would imagine dougie wants eight million ish um so if toronto even if it's not dougie hamilton it would be really difficult to imagine toronto committing eight million to any individual player coming in while keeping everyone here you know it makes them more top heavy perhaps that would have that would that kind of move might fit i guess if you're getting rid of morgan riley's five million this is pure spitball and this is yeah this is not like kyle dubas whispered any of this into my ear no no sorry we should say

that though because this will get quote tweeted well i don't want to misrepresent the tone of the conversation here for anyone who's playing it back at two to three times speed and disseminating it online um but you know maybe they get that way i just think they're gonna have to be a bit bold guys and i'm not talking bold trade mitch marner because i really don't believe that's gonna happen but i don't i don't think they're they actually could roll back more or less the same team believe it or not even signing zach heim like like within the cap they can make that work i just don't believe that's the the route they're gonna go you know i think that it's hard to sell that and i think it's hard to sell even to the players inside the dressing room where

there's got to be a little bit of doubt right just the smallest kernel of doubt like why can't we get this done like the questions we're having trouble answering i think the guys on the ice can't answer them all either about why they failed to get this across the goal line and so you know i think that they're gonna have to change things up there and be a little bit more dynamic probably less old guys in the bottom of the lineup i was just gonna ask about that so i have an observation and two questions the the observation is boy is it gonna suck when jake gardner hands the cup to morgan riley next year when carolina wins it um the to put a bow on the zach hyman thing um josh anderson last year gets 5.5 million per seven years 38 and a half million do you think hyman gets a higher

aav than that um can't really get longer term than that but do you think he gets the max term and do you think the full contract is more than what anderson got if he leaves toronto he's getting higher ab in that wow wow higher than 5.5 yeah if he stays there's probably a world where he gives them that small like i mean i'm saying small we're talking a couple hundred thousand a year but i think that maybe they can keep them a little bit under that on a long-term deal but that's the range honestly that's and look he's earned it as a human you should be happy for him i agree i agree it's just hard because you know you might be at the point where the team has to go like do you know what we love the guy but if we do that it's just going to prevent it's going to get in our way

down the road right so and the final thing was one of my all-time wrong takes was after columbus got uh columbus swept tampa i i did this in passion speech i'm like there's no way the guys in the lightning can look around their room and look at the guy across from them and go i can do it with this group there's no way they can be thinking that right now what did they do they somehow added to that group and they kept they basically kept the entire band together and they go and they're unstoppable a juggernaut you might even call them and they win the stanley cup how do the leafs what what what did tampa do that the leafs can take a lesson from they didn't overreact you know this is this is where it's hard because i know fans want i get it

everyone's frustrated that cares about the team but they just they didn't overreact like julian breeze boss press conference after they got swept by tampa was quite similar actually to a lot of what we heard from kyle dubas i thought on wednesday it's about it's so hard to build this kind of core you just got to ride it forever keep tinkering around the margins hope to get the mix right hope to get the right set of circumstances who you're playing all that sort of stuff better injury luck as lame as it sounds it's the truth you know i i think that's what they did like they added luke shen zach bogosian and then they made trades for barclay goodrow and uh that's essentially what they did like that was the entirety of what they did from the team that

got swept by tampa to the team that just marched to the cup final and you know what's hilarious if you look at Tampa in 2020 the year they won the cup they got all their scoring from their top line like basically exclusively and Victor Hedman like nobody in their bottom six put up any points in the playoffs so you go back and look like I'm talking a handful of points in 20 odd games like the Leafs in the first round got what six points from Alex Kerfoot five from Jason Spezza a couple goals from Jake Muzzin a goal from TJ Brody like they actually got more depth scoring in that series and i think tampa got at any point in last year's playoffs you know what didn't happen was the big guys didn't dominate at least on the score sheet and holy cow sorry to just uh

cj wasn't kidding holy smokes so kucherov at 34 braden point at 33 then it's an enormous drop off to victor headman who had 22 and he's the only other lightning uh player who had over 20 it's palat with 18 gourd 14 it's a very very sharp drop off from that and they didn't even have stamkos because he was out with injury point of game though one game one goal five shifts i was in the building it was unreal now i'll tell you so i think the leafs are built honestly on the bet that one of these years their big guys will care will have a similar kind of thing obviously any capable players below them that aren't getting fed in on their during their minutes you almost just want the third and fourth lines to break even score the odd big goal

and then you need Matthews and Marner or Nylander and Tavares or some version of the four to go ham for four rounds and you probably win a cup I think that's I actually think that that is what the bet of these Toronto Maple Leafs boils down to and if that doesn't happen it's a lot on those guys shoulders but that's that's why they get half the salary cap that's the flip side of this conversation. And I'm not pinning the loss entirely on them, but you just can't get around the fact that, you know, one goal in seven games from those players, if they get one more, if they get two more, if they get three more, I mean, they're playing Winnipeg tonight. Two in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters.

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at participating aw locations in ontario so with that chris you know there are questions arising i brought it up in the last show um you know matthews he didn't look great but you feel like with him you can figure it out uh what i saw from mitch marner to me personally was a guy that disappeared uh the style of play just did not suit his style of play he's an incredible perimeter player but this is a guy that never never drives the net i understand that's not his style i understand that he's made a career and makes 11 million dollars doing that good for him but my question is, does Mitch Marner have the ability to perform in the playoffs? He hasn't scored a goal in 18

playoff games. Does he have the shot to do it? And, and, and frankly, you know, people are able to out physical him in the playoffs. And I hate to make it about that. I understand from a stats perspective, especially in an analytics perspective, the value that Mitch Marner has, and I'm a Mitch Marner fan, but what I saw was a guy that completely disappeared and then got really nervous. I mean, Arpin Basu's tweet, I think before game six or game seven kind of said it all.

Said, Mitch Marner is nervous. I have never seen him like this. I think it was mid game seven. Mid games, whatever. Oh no, I think it was pregame, wasn't it? I don't know. Anyway, long story short, can Mitch Marner do this?

Is he capable of this? Does he have to change anything up? how do you think he looks at going into this summer because the focus seems to be on him mostly with Leafs Nation the question is fair but I I really do believe he can figure it out honestly his whole life he's been small right like and he was dominant when London won the Memorial Cup I get it not the same thing we're talking about man yeah different stage but I would still be betting on him if I were the Leafs and I think that's why they're comfortable doing so there's no question that when the dust settles on this like mitch marner wasn't right these last two

weeks you know i can only guess that everything going wrong the pressure what's being said maybe just the fact he's trying really hard and it's not working and he doesn't he's almost out of answers he's frustrated you know he wasn't himself he wasn't dynamic i don't think it was a lack of care or anything it just the execution wasn't there and i do think when the dust settles like this is still a very emotional time he's just getting you know he's being raked over the coals frankly and that's fine i'm not saying it's unfair but like i think when once the motions of this pass because this too shall pass just like everything we all deal with good and bad in our lives he's got it he has to have some honest reflection i think the organization the coaching

staff management have to talk with him and they have to they have to make a plan for why it'll be different next time and and things he can do because there are things he can do i mean on any ice sheet he's on he's basically the most skilled player and again i think he's wired for success i don't think he's a guy that's doing too much else in his life he's playing some video games maybe a little golf in the summer a bit of cottage time but like he eats sleeps breathes hockey he has his whole life and i just think he's still young enough that i i wouldn't make too many dramatic conclusions based on these 12 days or even you know what happened in the bubble last year the year before against Boston like it's the criticism is fair he goes 18 games without a goal in the

playoffs like people are going to bring that up and they're going to question this they're going to doubt him like it's up to him now people have doubted him again because of his size for a long time it's up for him to push back against that to make sure he's doing everything he needs to this summer and I do think some honest self-reflection about what happened here and this is where it's hard for me to comment too closely because i really don't know everything that was going on behind the scenes or in his mind but we all saw you couldn't deny that it wasn't the same player and i think when it really started going sideways it went sideways and you know with mitch i always feel like anything that doesn't work it's almost a product of caring too much it's

not the opposite where he's just like yeah whatever um you know i think i think he really wants to to find a way and and i i'm giving it at least one more year before a playoff hockey and these kind of circumstances before i'm making those kind of conclusions there are two oh sorry go ahead i just want to know what what do you make of the the pile on that kind of happened afterwards uh after game seven specifically the uh the reporting of the power play him not wanting to play down low and then the uh the viral he was playing golf the next day did you did you have any takeaways from those two those two instances i found the whole thing a little ridiculous i know he wasn't playing golf that one i know isn't true yeah i don't know if he was if he

was who cares yes that's also true like um man we look at the social media world like i still struggle with it like i love so much of it but it got it got nutty out there man it got crazy like actually when i walked outside the building after game seven i was doing a tv hit in maple leaf square with sean mckenzie my sports set colleague and there was a young man in a martyr jersey he's like i'm leaving this year and he like ran over and left it on uh legends row there and he was trying to stick trying trying to get the cameras to film him i'm sure some did i didn't see the footage i just saw live oh gee you know people were angry and they just they don't know where to put their anger i guess but this is you know what the flip side of this this is this is what

it is to be on a big big league team in a big city where people care so you know i i think it's awful you know i don't like anything that's directed in terms of a threat towards his family anyone coming to his house or anything like that i think that stuff is nonsense but i mean look there's going to be criticism and and i think that should be expected to the powerpoint thing is interesting like i i think that there might be a kernel of truth to it as far as i can tell like a small colonel in that my understanding is he prefers to play the spot he played on the power play which makes sense he's been there a long time sure um but i i don't know i can't remember how it's characterized i don't think he like refused or you know i think that maybe you know the fact that

that stuff comes out right after game seven it just feels like you wonder about the motives of everything going on i'm not even saying with the intellect um you know reporting it then it's like who's telling them that, that, that, and why, you know what I mean? It just feels, feels a little dirty to me. You know, the least power play struggled for months. You know, why, why is that coming out that the minute after game seven, again, I'm not blaming Ian necessarily, but who's telling them that and why, and why was it characterized?

I think in the worst way possible, that isn't reflective of reality. And, and, you know, man, there's just a lot of shit when your team loses. So then with that, Chris, you know, That is a bone of contention with Leafs Nation that sort of got lost in the fallout from Game 7. One of the things we talked about on the last show was if that rumor were true, part of it would make sense,

not in the sense that that sounds like a Mitch Marner thing to do because it doesn't, but what was interesting was that it seemed that they didn't really make any adjustments. Power play dries up, and they continue to throw it and do the same thing. and a lot of fans, rightly so, laid that at the feet of Manny Malhotra and obviously the players on the ice. So there's a lot of people who are upset that Joe Thornton

was consistently out there when William Nylander was an absolute monster in the series. What do you make of how much of that lays at the feet of the coaching staff and will there be changes with the assistant coaches? It doesn't seem as though there are going to be changes at least to start the offseason, although it might be a little too soon to say. They might not have made that judgment just yet.

You know, what I make of it is they actually made tons of adjustments. But what's strange is that it wasn't until that final power play in Game 7 when you had Sheldon Keefe down at the front of the bench sort of diagramming a play for them that they put William Nylander on the opposite flank to Austin Matthews, kind of the way they played in their rookie season and had some success. Like, they waited. That was the one change they didn't do for an awfully long amount of time.

But if you look back through the regular season, Like, they were going load up one unit, split them between two units. You know, Rasmus Sandin got his turn on the top power play unit, both late in the regular season and in the playoffs. Like, I feel like they tweaked a lot. It's just none of it to any great effect. And it doesn't make sense that this team can't find a way with the power play. Like, but this has to be a huge priority.

Because, yeah, you're right, down the stretch last season, too. It was an issue for them. I mean, if you watch what Colorado is doing right now, or even Boston, like those teams whip it around you know edmonton obviously mcdavid's a cheat code but still tampa they those those teams all they they make it so that it like they're so skilled that you can't help but take penalties against them because they're so good and then they they make you pay for doing that and the thing with montreal who had you know a little bit more of a thuggish type approach to this series they want you know being physical is how they're built that's what they

wanted to do there was there's a little bit less fear i think about crossing the line because the Leafs really didn't make them pay I know they ended up scoring I think three power play goals in the series but you know again they were one of the I think they were 13th of the 16 teams when I looked in the playoffs like if they were the top power play in the league in the playoffs they're still playing in the second round there's just no way around that and it's my instinct to say to you but yeah like the the low percentage is the difference of what one or two goals and then I just look at that series and I'm like Jesus do you win the series you have one of what you have one or two goals like and chris go back to game one guys and game one was so weird right the

jaunt of our things scary and awful yeah but they have a power play in the third period of a one-one game and what do they do they give up the shorthanded goal to byron like if they score there instead of giving up the shorthanded goal you know they're up one nothing maybe they sweep the series like maybe they still win the next three games like i realize you're you're playing the coulda woulda shoulda but they were one shot away in that game they're one shot away in game five and one shot away in game six and even game seven they didn't get blown out they just didn't have anything left but i i i think sorry what i meant by the the tweaks is that it seemed like yes they they changed people in and out and and i don't know why they would have waited till the

last power play of the whole damn season to put nylander in there i think i think if we've learned anything you got to put the best players together to score a fucking goal but especially when you need one goal when you need one goal but the other thing is is it's this it seemed just chris like the way they play the power play in terms of the system itself um the only guy that I really saw I mean Tavares would be a guy that would be in tight uh William Nylander is a guy that scores a ton of goals in tight Wayne Simmons scores goals in tight but he was unfortunately he was very effective at the beginning of the season then had the injury that it just never seemed to come back for him um the the way they played that just never seemed to click and i wonder um and i know that they are

these guys i mean we saw it with cody cc last year they're hard on their like they're hard to they're hard to move off their guys once they have their guys but um there is no excuse for this there you know it's like you know the lakers are out you need lebron to be um you need lebron to be performing at least uh you know you the the Clippers same thing with Kawhi with that air you know the air ball like you need yes you got to have supporting cast but if this if this team doesn't score from its its star players in a position to score I don't know like I don't I didn't see a lot of driving the net I heard that they were tougher I heard that they were grittier but when you go on the power play there's like the one thing that the Leafs power play has lacked is

james van reams dyke for a couple years and as much as he was a problem and the contract's a problem in philly man when he was on that power play in front of the net tipping things all the time they were pretty dominant and it hasn't been the same since he was magic down there his hands are ridiculous yeah you know they have to rip it up and start again i mean you have you have the best pure shooter in the world and you have tons of other players with high high end you know offensive abilities you can't tell me that there's not a way to make that work but you're right the system didn't work i think the problem of course which more than just me identified on the top unit they really have the one guy who shoots who scares you so you just fade matthews i think that

that's why it makes sense with the ladder because the ladder has a low-key ridiculous shot you know we don't it's funny he scores so many goals from in tight like even at five on five you don't see him like really cock it up anymore sometimes but like he he can fire the puck and so I think that that you probably get back to having at least Matthews and Nylander build a unit around the fact that both those guys can shoot and pass and that gives you deceptive options yeah I'm curious what we'll see from Rasmus Sandy next year I assume he's going back to top power play duty in a full season you know I guess if there's any hope in all this for fans like once this wears off like they're probably going to be better next year i i know that that's like false i'm not

expecting anyone to be fired up about that but like they're gonna i i think that they will come back with different players and a different approach and there's every chance they're even more dangerous um but the power play it's like the margins are so fine in a series like the one they played with montreal but you almost can't lose this series they scored four more total goals they got a better save percentage from the goalie more high danger chances more scoring chances more shot attempts more unblocked shot attempts more shots on goal like they did everything but win and i i know that's true no one wants to hear that but like you couldn't lose a series like that like only only a few teams could lose a series

of those kind of lines man like like the haves were like in the matrix that's probably a dated reference for your audience but just like dodging bullets everywhere right like you know that game six they have 10 straight shots in overtime like i've never seen that the haves are playing 4d like their guys are just on fumes and they get one chance and score like it man it's good it's crazy montreal now has its first four game winning streak in two years oh oh goodness i didn't even happens to be the three the three games where they stave off elimination and then the first game against winnipeg what are you doing to me i hate this i fucking hate this yeah man you look like a fucking genius now like i was playing 3d chess all along with you guys

well cj we should have known all along with you that it's uh it's not a sprint it's a marathon oh i like what you did there you go um brian burke came on this show in december and awesome he predicted that the canadians were the best uh built team for the playoffs in the north division and now that we see it unfolding like there's so much truth in it and that this team can just grind and play quote-unquote playoff hockey and that is that is that a style because that was the the the um the idea last offseason for the leafs you get these these tougher guys and then maybe you're you're better in the playoffs and it just doesn't work because like this montreal team outgritted you so going into next year it's not get more like montreal or is it double down on

the scoring like what do you what do you do to combat a team like this knowing kyle dubas as i do a little bit like i feel like he's gonna go back a little bit the other way and maybe get away from some of the the experienced gritty guys that the grit for 60 is going to go down next season i think i think he'll lean back into his his vision that's not to say they'll completely abandon it don't get me wrong like i i think someone like zach bogosian for example there's a good chance he's back um you know there's still going to be some elements on the roster of that but i think you have to be true to who you are like there's not one way to win right i think the canadians have obviously hit on a way to grind out wins you know they had some success in the

bubble last year in similar fashion but you know the canadians look at the leafs and they go like man if we just had a player like matthews or a player like marner like you know what they're missing is those elite players you know i wonder if the nhl i'm sure you guys all saw this bouncing around that list of you know the 18 top players in the league 17 of them are out you know by the start of the second round like this is a broader discussion than just the leafs top guys but you just wondered like to the top offensively skilled players you know is is the playoffs not suited for them just in general maybe the way it's called or the way that the style play goes for sure the way it's called for sure the way it's called yeah i i do agree with that and if i'm an oilers fan i'm

pissed because like zero drawn calls on mcdavid is an atrocity eight straight playoff games for him steve no calls no calls it's it's like like like someone should lose your job over that like that's that's legitimately terrible nobody loses their job at head office in the nhl no no and yet i i would love to make that excuse for the leafs and i have in the past with boston it just wasn't a thing this year in my opinion it wasn't particularly egregious right no no and and you know i'm just trying to explore all the things here i mean i just think the leafs what makes them special is those those players right They have more elite players than basically every team in the league.

There's maybe a handful we could debate, but they're certainly in the top percentile of elite players on the roster. And so I think that they're going to, rather than go completely the other direction, I think they're going to lean into skill and try to come back a little bit more skilled than they were this year, next year. Just might be on it. It's Seattle time.

It's officially Seattle time for this fan base. The Kraken. So, let's get cracking on this there, CJ. Ha-ha. Whoa. Hey, whoa. Bad jokes. Hey-oh.

There you go. So, seven and three, four and four. What do they do? Because I think they go four and four. All right. So, who's the fourth defenseman you're worried about? Let me call up Pat Friendly just so I can get a look. Well, Riley's got a year left,

and this is part of the reason why I think they consider trading him. I have no desire for the Leafs to trade Morgan Riley. i just don't want to see them lose him for nothing riley's got a year left hall i think has two and then i want to say muzzin and brody both have three or four let's frame the discussion if you're protecting 3d are we agreed that it would be muzzin riley and brody that would be protected yeah i think so i think losing hall for nothing's probably not a great move so that's why you go to four and four because you're worried about hall essentially yeah because at forward they're obviously protecting the big four if they're bringing those guys back for for automatic

protection slots your fifth choice if you know it depends if they sign zach hyman by then or not right um you know then you have alex kerfoot at six you know and i don't know if you're too worried about the rest of this group you know ang balls and and even mckay of i think you just exposed those guys that's the thing yeah i mean you could go four and four and if you do that i think you're probably losing uh kerfoot kerfoot's a really useful player he is and maybe they can you know have their cake and eat it too and trade him for somebody and it's somebody they're able to keep and or maybe it's even a he's in a package for a goalie of some sort like i mean no if you trade him for a package for a goal you need to protect the goalie that's right yeah i didn't

think of that anyway you're still losing a player like you gotta lose someone so if you're trading someone away you still lose an additional player to the guy you're trading well they're gonna lose a better player than last time that's for sure they lost brendan leipzig and i and i moaned about that because i liked him with the marlies and well we all know how well that aged you were so upset man tanks exposed wrong straight up wrong but like this year we're talking about names like Kerfoot and Hall and Dermott keeps getting brought up and like this isn't nothing might get through man yeah that's it's for some reason Leafs Twitter is latched on to him and I'm like he's an RFA what an RFA who was like this team's sixth seventh defenseman this year yeah

i'm just thinking that like he's not we still don't really know what he is right i'm not sure another team is automatically taking him now he's only 24 right and the success of vegas ultimately there's like a lot of things that went well for vegas but one of the things i think you could learn is that it took a lot of players that were about 24 or 25 and gave them a chance higher up the lineup than they'd ever had with their previous teams and a lot of them hit right you look at their entire front you know first line with with marcia so and william carlson and riley smith like all those guys went bonkers you know nate schmidt played top four minutes for them like right away and you know in washington he was in and out of the the lineup all that kind of

thing you know and then they got a good goaltender and mark andre flurry you know and some other guys down the lineup but like i think the lesson there was they just gave some guys some chances they haven't had like maybe if you if you're if you're not trying to win a stanley cup which i don't think seattle is in year one and you play travis durbin the top four maybe it works but But, you know, I don't think it's a slam dunk they take him. I think if it came down to where the Leafs have exposed, say, Dermott and Kerfoot, I think they're probably taking Kerfoot. Two in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters.

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Starting with just $1 all day, every day Now until December 31st You gotta try breakfast at A&W At participating A&W locations in Ontario And just to get back to something too When it comes to player acquisition Because I forgot to ask this question I hope you guys don't mind

Do you think Kyle Dubas would have redone the trade deadline If he could do it? Yes. Okay. Nick Foligno. Was Nick Foligno injured before he got here? Very injured. Before?

Not when he got him. Okay. Something happened after he got here. Okay. Okay, because that was what we heard last show, and I was ready to punch the screen. No, there was some confusion on this. He missed the last game with Columbus that he could have played,

that he was eligible to play, and I was told by someone who would know that that was just – they preemptively were sitting in to protect him essentially because they knew they were going to trade him okay um and i think it might have been a very minor injury but it wasn't whatever the injury was you know i think it was his back in the playoffs i heard oh um and yeah so then i don't know i don't know the extent of the injury but it was clear he could you know i even heard from one of the montreal players like they're like it just wasn't nick polino like he he wasn't engaging in scrums like he wasn't playing with that kind of edge he's always played with i think just because

he was really struggling to be out there i i feel for the guy we actually didn't hear from him on the locker cleanup day but he wanted this so badly you know he you know potentially could have went somewhere else he wanted to come to toronto he had the whole mike palito his hat thing you know i think he wanted this to work and he played through injury but he just he couldn't couldn't be himself well this is what happens when you trade high draft picks for guys that have played a grinding style for their entire career right like this is that is the risk you run um you you know what they were going for would they what stopped them from going out and getting taylor hall two things i think they felt they didn't need more scoring which ultimately

i think that there's room for scrutiny there and if they did that i'm pretty sure they they might not have even been able to make any subsequent trades like you're probably not getting another goaltender just because of the cap space like taylor even taylor hall's eight million half retained is four million if you look at the total cap hits of all the guys they got and they gave up more draft picks to get retained salary in those deals somewhere in that neighborhood so it was going to be a tougher contract to fit in and even though the david riddick thing didn't work out like remember what he was he was michael hutchinson insurance it was a very good idea when they were making that decision freddie anderson was still hurt so they didn't know if he'd come back what

looked like what he could come back you had Jack Campbell who was nursing in zone injuries and Michael Hutchinson was your backup so that was to try to prevent I say this with respect but like they didn't want circumstances to play over that Michael Hutchinson playing a game seven what sorry Steve just one more question on that if they could do it again Chris how do you think the trade deadline goes what do they do well I guess maybe this is where maybe he doesn't have regrets I think the regrets are you gave up six draft picks and you got seven playoff games and those all those players really had no factor in the series at all um so but i don't know that the approach would actually change like that's the

funny thing uh you know maybe they look at hall instead that's probably if they're being honest if they're if they're they're doing their true serum thing which we like to have that that sort of like not what they're saying to us in front of a zoom camera but talking amongst themselves in the boardroom maybe they look at that again and again that's why i do think they're going to lean into more offensive maybe get away from this idea of role players and all this stuff you know and get have some of that but you know why not just go be the team that that no team can contain you know i think that that's that's their identity that's how this is going to work or not work you know you're not going to magically turn any of these guys into to grinders like the i think

the whole steve eisman narrative is a giant narrative that is only rooted in half truths anyway but yeah you know that's kind that's kind right like it's just like this weird thing that's been like just repeated over time passed down from generation to generation this this myth of you know the way Steve Eisenman's career evolved as opposed to maybe just Detroit got a lot better players around him by the time he was 32 and they finally won a cup yeah Fedorov at his peak is what happened yeah and isn't it weird his scoring his scoring went down as league scoring plummeted yeah it's weird isn't it and then he got older and less skilled whoa this guy who played in the mid-80s all of a sudden stopped scoring in the mid-90s what happened hockey hockey happened

sorry I think probably they go and get Taylor Hall I mean with with hindsight look Taylor only cost a second round pick for Boston we've seen what he's doing to this as we're recording this he's been really good in the playoffs and good down the stretch and I think you want to play here too like i don't i can't get back of hockey twitter like so many rumors come and go i can't remember what was the real rumor or not but the one thing i know to be true is it was not boston or bust for him it just when it came down to the end and he had some choice between a couple teams boston was one was one of the where he wanted to go but i i think you know he owns a house in toronto he lives here in the offseason i think i think he would have been a leaf if if

the leafs wanted to make him a leaf this is torture yeah you're saying some terrible things here chris this is uh well i mean you're no you're saying some truthful things the truth really fucking hurts you are not responsible for the truth the truth you know i don't think they were ever that serious about getting them honestly like which is worse that's that's an indictment because that's been their whole mantra has it not get the best player available yeah but this year they obviously embarked on this idea that they felt that they were missing some of that sandpapery you know they wanted you know there's not really there's no wendell clarks anymore but they wanted guys that played with that certain passion and edge and and would

would not buckle when it mattered and and you know that the trouble is it's just their best players that didn't get them through the series like they they score one more goal and we're just talking about all these decisions so much differently like that's that's what's crazy I think that's where when you're in management, you got to just step away from the noise a little bit. The boy blunder headlines and all this stuff, because, you know, I think that like the second guessing in some ways is I get why everyone's like, there's no excuse for losing that series,

but they didn't lose it by much. And if they win that series and beat Winnipeg and, you know, we're looking at all these decisions a little bit differently. Like it's a matter of one goal and, you know, John Tavares got knocked out in like the freakest injury you could ever imagine. It's horrible. Yeah.

Like, like there's no way they lose that series with Tavares in it. I'll come out and say that when I stand by it. I, who could argue against you? Who could, and no Habs fan is going to argue against you. They were all as surprised as the rest of us.

Hey, CJ, since this has been so awful, let's make it worse. Since. sheldon keith uh got promoted to coach of the leafs the marley's have been awful they've been terrible they finished 21 out of 28 this year uh do you see any changes to the leafs farm system coming this off season and the way things are done there i have to be very

upfront i don't know you know i don't have any window into what's going on there it's been a time i think we can acknowledge like the head coach that supplanted sheldon keith like gets parachuted in mid-season has a pandemic they don't come back for like because they didn't come back to the bubble right so they were off for from march until february i think almost a full year yeah then they play only like four teams all season they get covid like the leafs don't really have any prospects either like they have prospects but you know that the pipeline has been whittled down a little bit you know a lot of guys till the end right like i think that there's a lot of factors that you know but i haven't heard and i really don't know if they would consider changes

there um you know i i do think that though one fallout from all this is going to be the recognition that they need to try to load up that pipeline one way or another you know i think that there's some opportunity this year with this being such a weird draft obviously the leagues traded a lot of their picks but i think there'll be more free agents that could be signed that aren't drafted you know i think you'll i think you'll see at least they got a lot of contract slots i think they're going to be aggressive in trying to unearth some talent and and the farm team will continue to be important because you know the cap situation is what it is you need to graduate some players like is joey anderson going to play for the leafs next year is nick robertson going to

play for the leafs next year maybe even timothy lilligren um some of these guys at some point have to break through because they need someone making 100 million dollars on you know playing meaningful minutes so so let's let's put a bow on the on the trade deadline just say bet i would like you to bet whether these guys will be back okay uh anti-swole mella might as well start there back not back well i i couldn't pick him out of a police lineup so i'm gonna say not back probably not good stefan nason was he just a necessity to get that deal done yeah it was a money thing from san jose i mean he played a game for the leafs but he's not back dave riddick possibly i i i don't i think it depends how things go i imagine that trade though is made

with the idea hey we get to learn more about him we get to see him you know maybe he's back ben sorry what uh sorry my wife's putting something in the microwave oh listen i get it It's a burrito. She's eating up a burrito. Nice. What kind? It's from a little spot on King West, downtown Toronto, called Wilbur. Oh, Wilbur's amazing.

I love Wilbur. Do you know what the fundamental difference between my wife and I is? Is we can go there, and there's no chance I'm having any leftover. But she's disciplined enough to cut it in half, eat one half that night, and eat the next half the next day. Like, no chance. No way. Okay, you need to do a background check on her.

That's not okay. that's not okay the trick is you eat it before she can get to it so then she learns her lesson wow i wouldn't do that i wouldn't do that this is a small apartment oh fair enough consequences if i ate that burrito uh just a divorce um abruptly getting back ben hutton uh maybe the leaf said interested in when he went to anaheim uh originally or la sorry the previous year and you know i know we know we didn't get to see him play much just a handful of games but i i could see him being a death beast next season leaf killer riley nash uh doubtful doubtful and nick felino

doubtful i think he's going back to columbus but i have wondered i have wondered like this didn't go well right and i wonder if they both look at and go like hey maybe there's a way forward out of this you know like maybe he gives it another year here because as much as he's a fixture in columbus and it's pretty clear that there's like a retool going on there maybe because this was so unsatisfying because he was unhealthy maybe he signs a one-year contract to give it another go as a leaf not not impossible i would like that that'd be cool i would happily welcome him back he looked fine when he was healthy he really did chris i think the question will be price right like is he willing to i think

his previous contract was five and a half million you know i think it's fair to assume he's going down from that but how far down does he want to help them does he want to be a value guy i mean i'm not saying league minimum but maybe he signs for two million instead of three million or something like that I mean I don't know what his priorities are but the fact this didn't go well you got to think it's at least a possibility Chris I gotta ask you what's the thing give me the good news we gotta end on a positive note here and we got three four minutes left so what is the good news if you're a Toronto Maple Leafs fan from CJ well the sun came up on Tuesday barely yeah you can see it through the through the smoke from all the the fires around town

yep um look there's no there's no good spin to be put on that like they the good news is is the team demonstrably got better this year for four months or whatever like the full season regular season there's no doubt that this was a better version of the maples and i can't find any positive spin on collapsing away a 3-1 series under those conditions like this is insane like so this is the one season probably in our lifetime where you're only going to play your own division they play their own division and markedly better than every team they played all year long they only have to beat two of those teams to get to the third round and they lose in round one after building a 3-1 lead like you can't even invent those circumstances so i'm not going to try to be

lied anyone and put a good spin on it you just i think the good the good news honestly is that the core of this team is still young austin matthews and mitch marner are both going to be awesome next season still like like they're they're not at the point where i'm worried about you know their age uh bringing out a huge decline in their performance offensively william elander had a good playoffs which is a low-key positive thing that happened out of this and i believe that the the people that run this team are really smart people so um i know that that's unsatisfying like everyone wants blood out of this i i just i think it's too soon let's face it this is they get one more year right yeah everybody okay they do this again they don't

make it out of the first round next year one of the core four is gone yeah and maybe i'll do this maybe shell to keep like like i don't know what we have to see how it happens but like there's there's big change there's at least one major city and monster change if they don't get another first round next year hey you know what we we did get something out of this season cj this t-shirt oh my god oh no they didn't they didn't win it though that so i they're not north division champions no they're not i think where'd you get that some uh company sent it to me and i don't want to say who because i want to light it on fire but i'm not going to do that it's just this is i tell you what i i have another shirt that i'm not allowed i don't even i'm going to

get a screen grab of that by the way here if anybody wants to know it says 2021 north division champs uh Toronto Maple Leafs uh this uh I have another forbidden shirt from a team that it's a championship shirt from a team that did not win a championship oh yeah what happened uh they lost they were they were they weren't uh they weren't supposed to uh they weren't supposed to lose and they lost um i will like like you know companies do this like when i was working with nike they gave me a a bag before i went to the gold medal game and they said if if you cannot open this bag and if they lose the game you throw it away you don't open it you never open it the second they lose i pull out this awesome like gold medal ah it was so good like you got to make it

and somehow now i have two of these relics they are i guess technically the north division regular season champs now was that was that were those shirts going to be sold if they won the third got through the first two rounds i honestly don't know i don't as far as a oh i hope i'm not exposing government secrets is i'm pretty sure i'm pretty sure maybe we'll have to edit this out i'm pretty sure these are available i'm pretty sure okay now uh so do you know it's funny when i once did a story on this heading into a game seven of a cup final about how the nhl gets like both teams is because they have to have all that gear and everything they do like you wouldn't believe the process like they won't check any of the bags on a flight with the stuff because

they're worried it could go missing or someone could steal it wow and like they literally bring it in like in secret and like the minute the game ends they like bring out the you know like if they went so in boston st louis was a game seven right yeah like there's boston bruins win the cup in 2019 stuff and it all gets like whisked out of the building and destroyed immediately wow so sorry these are available they're on real sports apparel um and just a very sad $39.99 with a line through it. They are now $27.99. Are they going to lift a banner

for this? I hope not. The winner of Montreal Winnipeg can, and I think they should because it's unique. The Leafs absolutely cannot. I would suggest to you there's no chance. That would be like adding fuel

to this. Just checking. Like Bon Jovi in the Raptors. Did Tampa have a ceremony for the president's trophy thing or did they just hang it they probably just hung it yeah at least that's like a real trophy yeah and it should be arguably more important than the stanley cup arguably nerd that's what all the stats guys keep trying to tell me and they're liars no one's He's like, I won the President's Trophy. There they are.

The regular season champion. Dad, one day I'm going to win the President's Trophy. Said no child ever. I hate this. It's representative of a lot of Tuesday night wins over New Jersey, right? Like it's not – or whatever. Pick a team. No, that's a good one.

You beat Ottawa in the second half of your back-to-back with Detroit. like you know i get it yeah yeah well okay you know what i was thinking so had the leafs got through to the third round just like in this alternate reality yeah i believe they would play the winner of carolina tampa okay round three so like looks like that could be tampa i don't want to get ahead of ourselves and then on the other side they'd be playing the winner of colorado slash vegas slash boston slash the islanders so they there was a there was a world where they could have played tampa and boston at the end of the playoffs oh i'm not saying that's likely it's just it just would have been hilarious if it worked out i love chaos guys wiley coyote super

genius and had they made it like i would have been like you know what they have as good a chance as any they they were they were deep and I agree that Tavares injury railroads everything and if they have Jake Muzzin and yada yada yada yada yada well and Tavares was probably coming back in round two like we can't know that because well we can't know that because a concussion is unpredictable right it's like you feel good for a few days and then you don't like I think without a crystal ball who knows but i think that that the hope was to try to get back in round two if possible if it was safe it wouldn't be unprecedented for him to come back for a game or two because he's feeling good and then he discovers he doesn't right although my sense was the least

we're going to be really careful with him like i i don't think that was lip service like i there there was no there was no world where they were going to try to say rush him into game seven even though he'd resume skating by then like i think they were prioritizing the long period of time versus what could happen in these few weeks right okay plus his life beyond hockey which is far more important 100 well good they don't have to make that decision and he doesn't have to make that decision made for there's a silver lining but honestly that there's no pressure on him like like even subtle pressure just from the situation not that anyone's exerting on him to make you like he can now heal in peace, essentially.

100%. And away from the public eye. Nobody has to ask him the question anymore. It's great. Yeah, no one's following his ambulance as it leaves the building. CJ, I know we'll catch up with you here in the next month or so,

but tough, tough episode this year to get through. Really tough. Really appreciate your insights as always because they're so good. And as much as we might not like it, you know, it's sometimes you don't choose your family. The Leafs chose their family. And this is the family they're sticking with.

So next year will be a very interesting year. This summer will be very interesting. But one thing remains the same is that you are awesome and we love you. Love you guys too. I feel like I didn't bring the heat today. It's a little harder. Honestly, some of the past off seasons, it was clear where things were going. Probably what's interesting with this off season, I think,

is that there's not an obvious direction. Like there's not one clear move that's going to happen. You know, the other anecdote that's funny, just quickly, elliot friedman told me on tuesday morning like the day after game seven he comes out with his son to his driveway and they're going to go somewhere in the morning and his neighbor standing there like watering his lawn or something wearing his leafs jersey and elliot's like wow that's a bold fashion pick he's like i can't help it i'm addicted to this team yeah i do think i do think as much as people are angry and people have burned jerseys and whatever that but come october 15th

whenever the first game of next season is i think people will actually be geared up again i know it's hard to imagine today but this was this is going to be interesting offseason there's going to be at least one player here's a prediction to leave you with there's going to be like one player on this roster on opening night that is going to get everyone excited about like it's like i'm talking a big name or big promise player and no one's going to see it coming like i think that they're going to they're going to make a big move of some sort it's not just going to be the same group actually you better you better have it first cj so help me you don't have it first and the worst is i have someone in mind but i just i can't release it oh come on who is it i can't oh can

you give us a hint are they playing games right now no jack eichel that's it yeah there it is all right you're welcome everybody i narrowed it down to 24 teams 23 plays on a u.s based team oh didn't play in the playoffs at all this year has multiple seasons remaining on his contract and that's as far as i'm going to go okay all right well let's all speculate in the comments on youtube and cj we love you thank you so much for doing the show today we appreciate it Thanks, and maybe a month from now I'll give you a little bit more. Okay. Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait.

Congrats on a great season covering the 2021 North Division champs. Yeah. The juggernaut haves live on, Joe. Unreal. 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.