The Steve Dangle Podcast - Coffle of Donkeys | April 17, 2026

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, 00:00 Join our bracket challenge: https://app.sparc.fun/b/sdpnbracket 06:00 Visit https://sdpn.ca/schedule for our playoff streams! 09:00 Canada Reads comes to an end 22:00 Mats Sundin and Mike Gillis? 37:00 Leafs locker clean out day and The Athletic article 1:42:00 Canucks fire Patrik Allvin 1:49:00 2025-2026 NHL Stats Pack! Visit this episode's sponsors: Canada’s game🤝Canada’s beer. Enjoy every play with Moosehead Canadian Lager– 100% owned, packaged and brewed in Canada. For all the odds, T’s and C’s, and to learn more visit ⁠https://betmgm.com/DANGLE⁠. 19+ to wager. Any opinion expressed is not advice, a promise or suggestion that increases the chance of winning. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Watch all episodes of The Steve Dangle Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEidkgWpSiHVkYT7HrIzLPXlY Watch clips of The Steve Dangle podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEieOJuIrqWyZPWSIJtVMCbLz Buy SDP merch https://sdpnshop.ca/ Visit https://sdpn.ca/schedule to see when our next live stream airs! Check out https://sdpn.ca/events to see The Steve Dangle Podcast live! Watch hockey with us! Live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEifCTX0vkKEaGg9otrW4Zl2k Subscribe to the sdpn YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sdpn?sub_confirmation=1Join Subscribe to SDP VIP!: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0a0z05HiddEn7k6OGnDprg/join Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/thestevedanglepodcast Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sdpvip/subscribe - Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/MtTmw9rrz7 For general inquiries email: [e-mail] Reach out to https://www.sdpn.ca/sales to connect with our sales team and discuss the opportunity to integrate your brand within our content! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. 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. And anybody that has watched Steve and I's streams will know how grateful we both are to do games that matter again.

I haven't done a game that's mattered since before the Olympics, and I'm pretty pumped about, well, since the Olympics, I think, probably. I don't remember their full record, but you know how many Saturday games at least won this year? I'm pretty sure I streamed all of them. I don't think I don't think you missed one. I don't think I missed one. You know how many games they won?

How many? Seven. Do you know how many games they won since the Olympic break? five five and you you've i think you've streamed a lot more games i got the ducks i got the ducks one so that was good uh now jesse let's talk about this spark bracket because we want you to get in on this and it's a real short turnaround okay this is one where 10 000 actually was like 14 000 people signed up last year for this bracket yes there is going to be a way in after the first round but get in on the first round because you want to be on the grand prize thing jesse uh do

we want to talk prize first or we want to talk entry first how do we want to do this so this year for our spark spark bracket we have this lovely hoodie by fanatics and made in dc and it just it just looks like a cool ovi hoodie right but this hoodie is a special collaboration by fanatics and made in dc they're uh major dc sorry i keep saying made in major dc so there's a little logo there and these hoodies are not readily available to anybody there's only 100 of them ever made this is 14 out of 100 that's i've never seen a numbered sweater this is a numbered hoodie and they made it especially for ovi to celebrate the uh the gold chase he had last year steven dangle yes i looked up an ebay listing for one of these hoodies oh man do you want to guess

how much it's going for right now on ebay adam if you want to go just type in on your little google machine major dc ovechkin 895 hoodie i'm going to say ebay i'm on ebay 895 dollars i think that's a good guess do you want to hold it sure adam what's the first listing that comes okay so with the box too this is important and we got the box save the box make the make sure i gotta we gotta send the box out with yeah the box has got to go there's a little sleeve for the box and you keep that sleeve we'll put the sleeve back on and we're gonna have to open it so we have to look at it you that's okay opening it's fine this is the original wrapping you gotta have the original wrapping you gotta have the fanatic sleeve and everything and we've got to put that

in plastic wrap okay but how many of them had jesse blake touch it let me just let me just throw this at you first one 959 second one 890 third one 1027 and the fourth one 1164 and that is it there are only four of them available right now i was pretty close four out of the hundred are up on ebay that's right yeah and like the person who gets this you're not gonna put on just take off the tag real quick oh no steven do not do that so thank you to fanatics for sending this over for somebody out there who's going to finish first in the bracket challenge it's a beautiful hoodie it's clearly very exclusive what size and it is a large okay that is that is the one they have don't wear it yeah probably maybe frame it or mow your lawn send it to your car

maybe he will sign it for you important about this prize and the bracket challenge i'm doing a terrible job folding this because i'm trying to talk can you fold it for me me try that's fine just leave it like that and put it in the box that's fine no no no fold it you already wrecked it i already wrecked it okay important about the prizing for the bracket challenge but there's going to be prizes to the top 10 finishers canadian only oh you'll only win this if you are in canada excluding quebec so every province excluding quebec canadian that's who can win this prize who can win the top 10 uh prize getter so unfortunately if you are in another part of the world or in quebec and you finish first you will not be receiving this it will go to the next

place who is canadian excluding quebec and if you're wondering why that is it's your government yes uh we did not make the rules we don't make the rules but we have to follow them and if you have an issue write your person yeah hey that's bullshit yes no not our fault so we didn't make contest law yeah okay that is not an sdpn initiative yeah now imagine we had that kind of poll i we would do a lot of different things that'd be great i gotta pull that'd be great no no we would only do that we would only do that we would only screw with people when it comes So the OV sweater stays in Canada. It does.

Whoa. From us to a Canadian. Yes. Who will then sell it on eBay? Unless they want to keep it. Or not. Yeah, yeah. They might wear it to the gym.

Listen, I've sold stuff on eBay before. It's quite the process. I think if I saw someone in the gym with that, I'd cry. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. They wouldn't know. All right. So, yeah.

So then places two through ten, we're going to have jerseys for you. We have a couple of Lululemon Fanatics prize packs we'll be giving out to you. So there'll be a bunch of prizes for those places as well. It's like a one in 10,000 chance you'll get it because that's how many brackets we had last year. Amazing. So we'll see whatever percentage of that is obviously Canadian. And then for our streams, important announcement,

we'll be streaming three different series for round number one. Adam? Edmonton, Anaheim. I don't think it could have lined up better for me. Yeah, it's absolutely perfect. I was always going to do the Oilers because I love doing the late night games. But getting the Ducks in the first round. Perfect.

Perfection. It's going to be beautiful. Give me Le Bleu Blanc et Rouge, Montréal, Canadien, ma parole, versus the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Leaf Ripoff Jersey people. Yes. Got it. Okay. So it's almost Toronto, Montreal, except that it's not.

The Tampa Bay Corey Perrys. Every year, I stream at least one Habs and or Corey Perry series. Yeah. Every year. that's actually true there you go every bloody year that's because he keeps making the finals uh sure does jesse blake and i get the honor of kicking off the playoffs because i'm going to be doing ottawa carolina and that whole you're doing the whole series that'll be fun yeah over the next couple weeks we're gonna have all three of the canadian teams running their series

and important if you've ever wondered where you can watch our streams and when they are going on we're gonna be doing a lot of streaming over the next couple weeks we've updated our website it now features our stream schedule you go to sdpn.ca slash schedule and you will see there all of our streams and on the day of the streams you can click the streams and you can go and you can watch it and then i'll also be doing baseball streams if you haven't been following along on the youtube channel i've been doing j streams kind of semi-weekly um over the last since the season has started that'll be continuing through the summer so those are also all scheduled on the site so you could filter like that and you can see the upcoming jay streams that all obviously

change with the playoffs and depending on what day my games fall on for the nhl season but yeah go to sdpn.ca schedule and you'll find our entire stream schedule there it's funny looking at this now i'm going to be doing two games before adam does one game because of how the schedule for the playoffs has has broken out what does 5.2 billion dollars get you thank you not a saturday night game what i don't not be a single canadian saturday night game uh in the first round that was a tweet this morning by someone who works at tsn because rogers people aren't allowed to say this stuff but yeah they spent billions of dollars for what still waiting to find out if it doesn't go to a game seven they'll get a game seven saturday night okay either it'll be the ottawa series or

the adventure series will be 7 p.m on a saturday i assume uh if it goes to game seven both of those fall on a saturday i can't tell you guys how excited i am for this like i know that um the audience is probably like yeah that's nice us too but like to be able to do games that matter again like if you've been out of the playoffs you know how this feels man that really sucked like i that my last stream was game 82 for the leafs and it was really fun and a lot of people actually tuned in but i was like what are you all doing here and they're like we're just here for the companionship man like the hockey sucks the game was bad the Leafs got 20 shots I think Ottawa had like 38 it was just a joke and so now getting some real hockey that really matters it's going to be

incredible and Steve I want to talk about your playoff victory yes very very quickly before we get into the full news of today ladies and gentlemen Steve Dangle was a Canada Reeds finalist but did not pull out the victory lost it in game seven in overtime I think right like the leafs i had a trouble getting the fourth win but pretty good you lost to i mean come on tell everybody i lost to tegan quinn of tegan and sarah fame and uh the book she was championing uh the cure for drowning by logan paler from the announcement it was the favorite to win that was gonna win and she was a formidable champion and how was i was just happy to be there i was happened like tyler hellard who's the author of uh searching for terry punch out which is the book

i was championing we had like a very brief like hell yeah dude like after the third day and getting through and i was like yeah we're dead eh like so i did my best um i had a great time debating with tegan uh we exchanged numbers after it was a big it was a big love-in and uh uh what a great experience um you know got to got to have lunch with josh from blues clues uh got a message from morgan's dad after the fact uh elamaya tail feathers uh gave me a gift of a couple books and a really nice card um we all just we hung out for four days and and like talking about books together it was a shame we had to debate yeah right you know now jesse one thing that really surprised me through this uh is how into this you got because you even put in our group chats

like at that leafs clean out yesterday uh you're like he's jesse's in the middle of like he's like about to interview austin matthews like no spoilers in the chat nobody nobody ruined this and i didn't read it because i was prepping jesse why did you fall so in love with this show it's a great show i had no idea how competitive it was and how cutthroat it was because i'd i'd never watched a previous season of canada reads and obviously i watched because my good buddy steve dangles on and they aired it every morning at 10 a.m live on youtube so that's where i'd i'd tune in they could always just watch the youtube stream afterwards also credit to them for not geo blocking that stream like everybody in the world could just watch it cbc what would be the point you know like

i don't know some other places love to geo block everything they do it's almost like geo blocking sucks and is dumb and is irrelevant sorry anyways i didn't realize that you guys would be going at each other and like trying to tear down each other's books i thought it was just like oh this is what's great about this book this is what's great about this book you just do that for an hour and then you start watching and people are attacking each other and trying to pick apart like this is why your book sucks they didn't phrase it quite that way but that's the segment the host sets up they say why should this book not win why is it ass cheese and you got to go for 90 seconds and tell everybody why it's bad the questions awesome television the questions you

get asked uh like the order that they come in and whoever they ask first greatly affect things and day one josh and his book foe which is also a movie on amazon with paul mescal um uh they fell on day one because it was what had the i think it was the least satisfying ending or what was the least satisfying and that book is fine and the writing's fine and the story's fine but it clearly was the least satisfying and so that's why it got killed day four was really difficult because clearly the other panelists had made up their mind on who they thought was the most deserving so you were fighting the biggest uphill battle to try and change anybody's mind but we all know with how debating usually goes people just get more entrenched in their

ideas so everybody was kind of coming at you that final day because it was the last two books it's the two books that are most deserving and the ones with the most backing to win the actual competition so obviously it's going to be like this but you did a good job holding your own against an onslaught of people who clearly were going to vote against you and then they all did yeah and i mean it was my job to talk them into it and you know you no one's obligated to like the same things you do right this was my favorite book searching for terry punch out if you like i got two pieces of feedback about this book and they both warm my heart number one i didn't think i was going to like this book and i did number two this is the first book i read in a long time

if you hadn't read any fiction in a long time and you're a hockey fan searching for terry punch out is fantastic it's 188 pages this is the one argument i didn't use because i didn't want to sound like an idiot but like the cure for drowning is nearly 400 pages i mean there's that's a barrier for some people right 188 pages unless it's an audiobook and well and there's an audiobook now too yeah there you go yeah and the audiobook is like less than half the length fabulous uh as well um i think it's available everywhere um and uh this was my argument on day three um this is the only book with the forget the name of it but there's a seal that you get on the back of the book the canadian indie publisher seal some something like that it's

which is to say it was written in canada it was edited in canada it was printed in canada like everything happened in canada whereas everyone else who is with a bigger publisher like all the canadian branches are just like harper collins is an american company who i work with so i'm not tutting uh you know penguin random house and all that it's just a canadian branch of a uh of an american company so buy this book gosh darn it adam wilde got an appearance on day two two yeah you did McLean day one yeah Ron McLean did the message

of encouragement on day two no you were day three oh yeah yeah and then Adam did the one on day three great job Adam but I think you were outshone by Leo who made an appearance on the final day he's words of encouragement also Clementina

yes the most shocking one was my parents I don't remember who on their staff did that but i was like how did you get my parents to operate technology it was it was adorable i shed a tear i know you shed a tear on this yeah it was very cute to hear that also steve was running bits off the top of the show he wore uh hockey gloves and whipped them out and everyone's like what are you it's always a mistake putting steve on tv we got a fight and it's always a mistake

i dropped the gloves i shook them off i shook them off this is a serious reading show and running hockey bits yeah what's wrong with you yeah well if you're gonna be the hockey guy you gotta gotta go when you get your library slash center for kids who don't read good like in zoolander when i read a wider array of books like this is one of the things that like being in this competition helped me discover is i stopped reading for pleasure like entirely i was just reading hockey biographies to learn as much about the sport as i possibly could and i liked some of them which masked that but then you know you read this is my first novel in i don't remember how long um and foe hadn't read science fiction in quite some time it's different this time is

romance i've never read one of those um a minor chorus uh by billy ray belcourt is i don't even know how to describe that book but it's written it's a novel written by a poet basically discussing a wide range uh array of topics uh about the indigenous identity which was really interesting and again not something usually in my scope and then uh the cure for drowning is a love story triangle told through the lens of a trans author in a world war ii retelling and it's a very Very, very interesting book. Well, this is the great thing. And they're all Canadian authors, too.

We love that. And you know what? We're talking to some Americans today. So listen, check out some of our Canada. Some of us in Canada can read and write, too, you know. Some of us. Some of us. Now, we announced Monday our partnership with Moosehead Canadian Lager.

Food right here. And, you know, they're a Canadian brand. We're a Canadian brand. We're pretty pumped about this. The segment is going to be called 100% Clutch Canadians, presented by Moosehead Canadian Lager. And we're going to be doing this throughout the playoffs. So whether a Canadian team is in or not, and we hope that they will be, there will always be Clutch Canadians in the playoffs. And so I figured since we're pre-playoffs, why not start with Clutch Canadians throughout the season in the NHL?

Steve, start us off. Who is your Clutch Canadian this year? This player is absolutely unbelievable. It's unfortunate we're not going to see them in the playoffs, but we saw them in the first big games of their career at the Olympics. Macklin Celebrini 115 points as a teenager when his next closest teammate had 59 he was unbelievable on the world stage he's the sky is the limit for for this player and thank goodness at very least internationally he plays for us that's nice right I wouldn't want to play against Macklin Celebrini no thanks Jesse Blake do you have one I do and this player I think finally has entered the upper echelon of their position and will hopefully start getting the respect they

deserve they deserve a trophy this season for their performance but the media out there and the writers who vote on this award will not give it to boo the media there's no way you're about to do this Evan Bouchard oh my gosh he did it when I think of clutch players I think of the guy who is 24th all-time in playoff points by a defenseman he wow he trails kale mccarr he's right there with him he trails chris letang bobby or scott nina meyer chris pronger those are the only people ahead of him on this list is the greats of the greats and he's right there and he's he's in like the prime of his career that's just getting started the prime is just getting started he is going to start passing these all-time greats do quick math who does he pass

this year uh so right now evan bouchard has 81 points he is going to pass kale mccarr is going to get points he's gonna pass sergey gonchar who's at 90 he's gonna pass duncan keith who's at 91 wow he's going to pass bobby orr who's at 92 points wow now bobby orr did it in many less games but just talking total numbers he's gonna pass these guys throw in there scott niedermeyer maybe Brian Rafalski all of these all-time greats Bouchard is going to be ahead of them wow wow put some respect on this guy for being one of the most clutch playoff performance of his generation that is that's that's crazy you deserve the Norris this year and you're and you're yes you're right you're right now that's besides everything I said about the playoffs which doesn't

factor into this I'm gonna pick somebody who is also not in the playoffs and the reason I want to do that is I think this player kind of got lost in the shuffle based on the team that they play on and the team that they play on underperformed until the end where they made a slight push, but ultimately fell short. How many goals did Stephen Stamkos have this year? I knew it. 40. 42.

How many of those were game winners? Oh, no, I hate that stat. 15. Well, nobody in the NHL had 15. Oh, it's a lot then. OK, sorry. 8. 10.

10. Good enough for second in the NHL. Wow. Stephen Stamkos won 57.7% of his face-offs this year. jeez he took 560 of them jeez uh this guy for a guy that did start slow and did not have the greatest start last year in nashville either was clutch and key and great and i just i i've always loved stephen stamkos but that is the most underrated 42 goal season i think we've seen in the nhl uh in a long long long time uh this guy still has it and maybe he's not with nashville

next year, and I think probably not. Whoever gets him, though, I think is going to get an absolute gem, and I sure do hope it's the Toronto Maple Leafs. This guy rocks, and a big shout out to Stephen Stamkos. Clutch for a team that frankly wasn't all that good. Also, Unionville in Markham

where he grew up. Lovely place. You know what? Unionville is awesome. It is. Does not get its flowers enough. So that is your first, but first of many, 100% Clutch Canadians. Presented by Moosehead Canadian Lager. The next time we do this, We're going to be talking about playoffs, kids, so that's going to be fun.

Now, the big news this morning, ladies and gentlemen, Chris Johnson, Elliot Friedman, everybody talking about it. Matt Sundin, franchise legend for the Toronto Maple Leafs, man who loved famously being a Toronto Maple Leaf, died on the ice for the Toronto Maple Leafs, is being interviewed. He's alive now. No, you got to do that. What's wrong with dying on the ice? That's like a term of like giving it all.

Have you never heard that before? I've heard it. You set up big news today. Everybody's talking about it. Died on the ice. Died. It was some kind of phrasing. I think, Jesse, that you are just not as literary as I am.

Okay? You know? You see, I've read all these books now. These Canada Reads books, you see. And so now... It's a metaphor. My phrasing and my metaphor and my theater of the mind is just so superior. So superior.

He played like he was dying on the ice. Gave it all. Now it's a simile. That's right. Now, he's Matt Sandin being interviewed or maybe has been interviewed or will be interviewed to be a part of Maple Leafs management, not as a general manager. But this is big news because this has been sort of percolating for a while. Keith Pelling, when he came in, actually said, I want Matt's to be a part of this group. And they're serious.

He should be. They desperately want him to be a part of this. And it hasn't worked out for whatever reason. i i'm led to believe by the way that the reason it hasn't worked out in previous seasons is because there was a bit of a turf war with shanahan that's what i'm that's what i've been told and uh what a shame what a shame however now there's no shanahan and things are wide open and i will tell you this in speaking with people connected to matt's um a lot of the conversation guys comes to um uh well he lives in sweden and has kids and they're you know i think some of them

are pre-teens but like you know this is a that would be a really tough thing this is why it's not going to be general manager but he is a guy that i think they need and want around for the culture because call it what you want to call it the leafs haven't won anything in the matthews era and part of that is culture and i'm not saying that anybody's a bad person but matt's got a heck of a lot further than any of these guys i was about to say he didn't win but like he got way farther than any of them and so from what i'm led to believe this morning or this afternoon i guess as we record this is that this will go as far as matt's wants it to in terms of his involvement and that there is an openness to spending some time in toronto uh as you would

have to be and more time than i think people think month on month off week on week yeah so the way it was basically like he it's it's a gonna be a hybrid role but it's a question of how much time will he spend here and we don't know that and the emphasis though is that pelly has identified a culture issue within maple leaf sports and entertainment and wants a leaf who almost got there because there's no beliefs who got there anymore to be there well how about this what on earth is their culture like i always talk about boston we shot our playoff previews uh we know what their culture is and they keep guys around um once they're done playing and they're present uh we've seen it with the sharks and yeah obviously the sharks aren't going to the

playoffs there's reason to be pretty optimistic for the future and their practice facility is crawling with former greats you can't you can't walk around the sharks facility without bumping into something literally touching their shoulder yeah like they're everywhere the the the leafs have like alumni that kind of like hang around and they work in media and stuff who works for the team it's like none of them berube was here for five seconds as a player who on their staff anywhere up and down like even the former players who work for them mckinley pretty sure or is does he even yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yep it's but like does gilmore work for the team nope does clark work for the team nope i've always been surprised

roberts has not i know he runs his fitness thing but i'm always been i've always been surprised they've never subcontracted that group none of them like any of the brian mccabe works for the panthers you know what i mean i'm just i'm going through the the list of names they don't retain people they they have in the player development department kyle clifford uh nick antropov patrick o'sullivan uh nick antropov jake mussin yeah there are a bunch of the more recent leafs that work in that department patrick o'sullivan works yeah not a leaf though no no never never a leaf never no never a leaf um i didn't know that okay um second round pick did play in the show totally no no i'm not i'm not taking away from that but he just yeah it is it matters it does matter it

very much matters and i now you don't want to become what the oilers were six years ago when it's like hey the owner just wants to hang out with all the former oilers from the 80s you know you you want to have guys there that are a value add but i don't think anybody in toronto is going to be like hey yeah matt's is just there to chill with ed well with the oilers you always saw them up in the press box with the owner you never saw him on the ice and when we were in san jose you're you're just you're watching practice and you're like oh that's evgeny nabokov oh that's joe thornton oh that's you know and they're there and they're and their skates are on yes mike why does why does keith gretzky have a job with the oilers i can't imagine

resume jeff ironclad resume ironclad resume just like that wunderkeen chuck fletcher ironclad ironclad i think i think too you know the the exciting thing about mats listen we've been very hard on Keith Belly. And rightfully so. Everything that you read in that article, which, by the way, is now a couple of days old, Jonas, James and Chris Johnson. I just want to give a shout out to the three of them. That is incredible journalism. And I'm pretty sure there's more that they couldn't report that could have made it and hasn't to say that this this surprise it's what can be much worse. It's not that they fell off. It's we were all quite surprised at how hard they fell off and some of the things that went on behind the scenes were deeply concerning

if the Toronto here's the thing this could go right we think it's not because we're Leaf fans but it has as good a chance to go right as it doesn't yeah everything's 50 50 and so we look at this and go okay if you bring in a Matt Sundin um and you couple him with other players you look at look at for instance the Panthers they've got guys hanging around there like Paul Fenton who's a consultant, Paul Fenton, who was the general manager of the Minnesota Wild. He was an AGM in Philly, I think, too. It was a disaster in Minnesota.

It was, but it doesn't mean he doesn't have things to offer, right? Sure. If you're bringing in a very intelligent brain trust to assist whoever's going to run this, I don't hate that. And I'll be the first one to say that. I didn't hate when Keith Pelley said

we're going to be a data-driven organization. I think they should. 100%, that's the one good thing from that press conference. Yeah, we should have asked what kind of data. yeah not chat gbt hopefully uh chat gbting trades and stuff like that i never use ai uh-huh and i i asked it for the lfr but we had to cut it for time uh uh what should the leafs do and one of the suggestions was uh oh you should go out and you can trade prospects for veteran players i suggest fraser mitten and toby niemela oh there you go you dumbass they don't have either of those players

Exactly. So you've got now I would imagine MLSC has got access to higher quality AI than the chat GBT. I wouldn't imagine that. Have you seen? I hope they do. Have you seen? But if this is the start, this is a good start. Now, I have been told this morning by two people who are connected to hockey that Mike Gillis is the guy. I've been told by a different guy that Mike Gillis is also the guy. so Jesse and Steve Mike Gillis has not been a part of the NHL in a long time but from what we have heard behind the scenes has been very engaged in studying great pro teams not just in hockey around the world was always an analytics guy with the Vancouver Canucks which is why they had such an edge when he was running them took a team of alleged soft stars and made them a cup contender and if game seven goes the other way mike gillis would have been working the next 15 years in the

nhl i think if they don't have to use 13 d men during that run they very likely win the cup also maybe hold on to a two nothing lead in the stanley cup final yeah jesse what do you think about a mike gillis led front office we don't know if it's going to be president gm or president and then he hires a gm what do you think i don't care what the name is i care about the process and like how they execute their ideas and what their ideas are, frankly, and if they are going to lean into what Keith Pelley wants them to do and if they are going to listen to those ideas. Like I want whoever comes in, if it's Mike Gillis, to do the analytics focused side of things and use the resources that the Leafs have and have the freedom to make decisions he wants and get Keith Pelley

out of any decision making that he's been doing over the last little bit since he's been there as president and CEO. And I just hope that whoever comes in is able to do their job and do it well. That's got to be the thing. Now, according to Frege this morning, Mike Gillis has been interviewed already a couple of times.

I think he's coming in for a third interview early next week. So it's not set in stone. These are people guessing, right? The contract's not signed, but it sure feels that way. It's maybe set in clay. John Chayka has been interviewed.

Chris Pronger's been interviewed. Brandon Pridham, Ryan Hardy, Ryan Bonas. Not sure about Greg Campbell, although that report was out there that the Leafs might ask. Listen, we'd never get a suspension again if Greg Campbell was the... That's the hope. We said this for months. Yeah.

And then Ross Mahoney was apparently supposed to be there. Oh, from the Capitals, yeah. Yeah, we'll talk about Sonny Mena in a second with New Jersey. Called it. But obviously the Leafs were interested in him, but they do want experience up top. So guys, listen, what does the process need to be in your mind? because what's clear that happened in the true living era was they have this they do have a wrote

like a robust analytic staff we know that but it seems like it would get up to true living's office and he'd be like yeah i don't care that's what seems seemingly happened right so you know how how much of this is going to be if it's mike gillis at the top and he's got a gm or a bunch of agms running this is mike gillis going to be the key decision maker that's my question like is he does he have to go to pelly to ask for permission so here i want to go backward just for a minute do you remember at the beginning of the season there was all that talk about the leafs uh staff being bloated and everything well yeah it would certainly seem that way if you're not using them i don't remember that being a problem under dubas because under dubas i got the

impression everyone was doing their job and had their opinion valued right yes there were butting heads with Dubas and Shanahan and everything like that um it wasn't bloated then I don't think it grew much bigger um in Dubas's like final year before uh Brad Treliving came in I think they just stopped getting listened to and would you look at that they suck um when it comes to Gillis he's I believe 67 years old he doesn't need this he hasn't needed a hockey job for a very long time i believe his last season in vancouver was 13 14 um he did two weird seasons in switzerland and as far as i know he's been at his cottage east of the city having nice wine oh also i think he has a place in bc i get the impression he doesn't hurt for money he has a good life

um why on earth would he take a job where he is not making every single decision with no reins on do you trust him it's a good question like his resume with the canucks is good it's also old it's old so he says he's been doing all this studying like the beatles going to india and doing acid and stuff Like, I don't, I don't know what the hell any of that means. Cause like hockey guys go in here, there, and everywhere to learn more and not just grasping on to their next job. Like grim death, um, is not what we're used to hearing of with, with, uh, these executives. it's a bit of a mystery right like we we said i'm it's much lower stakes but i'm reminded of the conversation that we had with derrick lalonde i was like well listen the only thing we have to go on for his resume ignore his detroit resume that was head coach different role assistant

coach he was pretty good he's been pretty good he has so all the only resume we have to go on with gillis is pretty good now that was a stacked team full of skilled players that and the two stars on it he didn't draft two stars on it he didn't draft the sardines and uh they're best known for not beating opponents they ought to have oh he's a perfect fit well let me say this you know he was also the guy that brought sundin to vancouver hey hey hey i didn't even think of that well and also getting stanley cup pedigree uh hasn't helped right so let's let's not completely be reliant on guys who have been there and guys who have won the cup experience is good stanley cup experience uh as we've seen over and over and over and over again does not necessarily

mean this guy won a cup and now he's he's gonna win it with you because he knows like there's some code to crack the code is have an abundance of really good players can we get someone on board who knows how to do that jesse the reason i want to go to you on this one is whoever they get you were at locker clean out yesterday what are they walking into what impression were you left with after leaf's locker clean out yesterday one thing i think is very apparent to the organization is that nobody can stomach a rebuild right now because the rebuild raises so many questions and it puts you so far behind as an organization

and I don't think anybody wants it. There was a lot of let's run this season out and let's get it over with going on with at least the last month or so. And I think everybody was just very thankful that everything was over on Thursday. They were still in it. on thursday they were still in it and made the active choice to stink well they didn't make the

active choice enough no no no like one point i don't think they made the active choice at all one point out of a guaranteed uh lottery pick they made the inactive choice yeah yeah no no sorry the players right made that oh this season's over management did nothing of the kind sometimes life throws your curve balls and you don't have time to get to them and that's where task rabbit comes in and i think you should check this out because here's the deal one of the things one of the weird quirks about my condo building is that they use my floor to repel down and clean all the windows but they never clean my windows oh and their way around on that is like well it's a patio window you can do that yourself and i'm like well hang on a second what if i don't want to i don't have

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task rabbit.ca or the task rabbit app you should download that task rabbit.ca code dangle 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. So Jess, nobody wants to do a rebuild. They want to do a retool, a refresh, or whatever you want to call it,

however they want to brand this. what was the sense of like you know i saw the matthews quote where he's like i can't predict the future there's a new management group coming in like how did that feel and i think we should play it yeah but feel matters i want to know what it felt like in the room so we can play the clip but it's to me it's a it's it's more about like what's the impression you walk away with anyone can read so here's here's austin uh in his his opening question his opening answer there's a been a lot of people projecting their thoughts on what you think of the future of this franchise and your place within it. I'm sure you've heard that. How do you view your future with

the Leafs moving forward? Yeah, I mean, I can't predict the future. Obviously, there's steps that kind of have to, you know, take place. They're going to hire new leadership and management and stuff like that. So, you know, I don't really know. I think that's kind of, you know, like I said, i can't really predict the future but for yourself personally is this a place you want to be or would reject any suggestion that you should not be here for the remainder yeah i think all that stuff i mean there's always noise and there's always chatter um you know i think personally you know i really don't pay attention to all that um you know i

just focus on myself focus on this team and um you know trying to be a part of the solution you have to try and keep this player like that you don't have a choice in the matter you need a player like austin matthews to be good and he's not going to be here if this team stinks next year and they no one should be shocked by it they have no choice but to try this off season and make sure that this is a one-year blip like we've seen with teams of the past i remember colorado's one-year blip you remember when they were bad because of all those injuries and they come back and boston last year and austin references boston and how they've rebounded because uh in in one season and you hope as a franchise that that is what's going to happen

because cj made the great point on leaf report about how if you were trying to trade willie and austin your hands are so tied behind your back yeah in their them dictating everything in the process especially willie's contract where it's there's term on it at least austin could say i can go somewhere and i can sign an extension at least there's a little incentive for the other team to give you something back but you're not getting anything for these guys if you're trying to trade them now and both him and willie get to tell you oh yeah there's 10 teams oh there's five oh there's literally one and then you're just dealing with one and that other team's like okay so if you don't trade us austin matthews for pennies on the dollar you're gonna be left with

nothing yeah because he's gonna leave him for agency he's a superstar you're a team that stinks you need him he doesn't need you the scary thing is that there is a desperation in the organization to get this thing right with the president and gm hiring and then this off season for the team to do some stuff with that new gm and president to make themselves better and then for next season for them to be good that they the other option is a very dark reality for the team where it could be a long-term rebuild without your franchise leader in goals in austin because he's out the door because he's not going to stomach a rebuild and i don't blame him for the way he answered that question because i believe it's the truth and it was clearly very calculated with his agent

Judd Moldaver in that they had so much time with this to answer this question they knew it was coming and Austin hasn't spoken to the media since that Gudis incident before that game that was last time he talked to the media so they knew this was coming and they knew exactly what they wanted to say and now the pressure is on the Toronto Maple Leafs and trusting the Leafs to act under pressure I hope they get a top five pick I hope that this offseason they make a bunch of moves that makes them a lot better because they need to be good next season it's crazy they have a less than 50 chance at a top five pick less than 50 it's about 42 percent of uh of keeping their pick if they'd finish one point lower yep it would be a guaranteed top top five damn that's crazy anyway

sorry joe you're in net again friggin like just the dumbest organization out of 32 so there's so before we go down that road and yes we know i agree i i just don't we don't want i don't want i don't want to send you down that road every time no because i know how frustrated you are all that all that to say you're other than blind loyalty why would he be like yeah i'm staying well i think and people have been saying oh he wants out they should trade him whatever to me it's like well hold on this organization gave him nine straight playoff berths yes and but like and where are you going and so for him to be like oh trade me now that would really surprise me i don't think that's going to happen but i don't blame him uh for going you know if by december or january next year

this team looks like the canucks did in the fall of this season uh and and and he goes okay i think we're kind of done here and that would make sense to me i would understand that i would get that i would thank him for his time here and and toronto would have to move on and so this is where that's why i asked jesse like what are we walking into if i'm a general manager here it sounds like it's a pretty fucking intense time yeah 100 look at the stanley cup final last year what was the oilers top lines greatest strength connor mcdavid what was the panthers top lines greatest strength there were three of them like do you want to be on a team where you got to do bloody everything uh or do you want to be surrounded by talent yeah there he wouldn't be surrounded by talent

right now they don't have an obvious future in terms of the guys coming up to the ranks if they get a top five pick this year that's wonderful now you don't have a first round pick for the next two years there's no one in charge the guy making all the decisions appears to be completely drowning there's not much reason to commit right now would you guys take that quote as him putting management's feet to the fire publicly i look at it as half obvious and half yes that's that's what he's doing he should we should all be putting their feet to the wall to be a fly on the wall in that exit interview or that that the end of season interviews that they were doing i would love to know what he said to them would love i would love to know what they

said to him because i would have they would have just listened what maybe but i would walk in there with one question what the fuck are you doing if you're austin yeah okay yeah not the other way around no uh still rehabbing because you guys are baby shit and didn't defend me yeah jesse what do you think what do you think about that is that him putting the screws to management a little bit going hey let's go i think everybody understands the reality of the situation and the organization as a whole there's a lot of people frustrated and i don't know if we're gonna run down some of the other the parts i was hoping we would of no of the cj article i hope so yeah athletic oh yeah um i don't know if you have those queued up oh yeah but like that's you don't get

over 20 sources willing to talk for a piece like that unless there's a lot of people who want to air out their grievances about how the keith pelly era has been run in toronto it has been a lot of chaos for a lot of people in that organization and you look at the little stuff that they can't get right changing the discount codes for the players from 50 to 30 that is such an egregious misstep on the most minor of things and you're talking about uh tickets to the game for their family members jesse and real sport i'm talking about like buying a jersey austin matthews walking into real sports next to scotiabank arena and them saying your discount here because you want to get a jersey or if he wants to go not to real sports apparel but he wants to go to sit down

at the bar at real sports his discount code is 30 percent and like let me read your quote austin wouldn't do that it's the lower level players on the lineup but still yes he can afford it it's not about that it's the principle what kind of devil wears product bullshit is that why is there any charged to be why are you bringing such a great movie into this double bears product because she was a meeting uh for the first time this is from the article team staff started to hear reminders that new majority owner rogers communications was a publicly traded company that closely watched the books and when i was working at rogers and steve and jesse can back me up we all worked there we heard that all the time well we're a publicly traded company you need to watch out for the stock

price and basically everything you see about mega corporations on tiktok that's like well how are we driving shareholder value i've literally heard that in meetings like and i was on i was on an afternoon radio show um that is how these guys operate and what they don't seem to understand rogers has never understood this is the average employee doesn't give a fuck yeah they just don't care and they're like and they'll tell you well if you want to go anywhere in life you're gonna have to care no you can go somewhere else and do something else and a lot of people do now when we talk about um their cheapness a lot of people you know we've mentioned this a little bit before but I think it's worth mentioning again.

I'm going to quote directly. Amid the losing, the Leafs scrapped their much-loved father's trip in November for what was presumed to be, around the team, financial reasons. And an organizational source said it was a team decision prompted by a desire to hold the rookie dinner in Chicago later that month. Later in the season, the trip was hastily rescheduled for late March when the Leafs were already out of it. But the, quote, mentors, they had, quote, mentors instead of fathers. and Pelley strained to make clear internally he had no role in the earlier cancellation. And then basically they also said

because of the late notice, some players chose not to bring anyone because it was hastily organized. And unlike in years past, staff members were not permitted to bring a guest, meaning all the support staff who make this team run, who one of the benefits is, hey, every year I get to bring somebody with me

and you get to experience this incredible job that I have that takes me away from my family so much that I'm truly underpaid for. Because let's be honest, anybody that works at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment will back me up publicly on this. If you work in MLSE in any role other than executive management

or as a player or a coach, you make 30% less than the market value because they know you want to work at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. And so these people who are underpaid, overworked, one perk they got was the 50% off at the store. The other perk they got was I get to bring somebody on this trip

and both of those are gone. And really, what are the savings truly? You know, we walked through this a little bit, $1,000 to wave the flag, $60 for the goal horn. Maybe that makes the Leafs $100,000 more. But when the Leafs themselves on the open market, Gary Bettman said this, between $6 and $7 billion. The Raptors, already worth $6 and $7 billion.

You're talking about an organization that's worth 15 plus billion dollars in assets. a hundred grand and the marlies according to this article instead of flying now uh to places that you could fly to are taking the bus a lot more always a great way to attract young talent that's such an unfair advantage you have over other teams is your financial might and you're just cheap you're just like here's what i would say directly to keith pelly to tony staffieri to ed rogers think really hard now i'm not going to call you names i'll save that for another time but think really hard now think of your top 10 friends in your life think you're top 15 think

you're top 20 you have 20 friends i'm not 20 friends imagine you think ed rogers has 20 i don't have 20 friends i don't have time for that i i think ed has 20 people he'd call friends think of your top 20 friends who's the poorest just answer that question sit with that question who's the poorest you are so wildly out of touch with how the world works and how people think how is your bodies your mammalian instinct from finding out the mentor's trip is canceled from finding out you get less of a discount from finding out uh a staff member you're not even allowed to bring anyone how is your reptilian brains instinct not to be like fuck you oh it's like people that work for rogers that's how they

feel this organization doesn't value me the like there's no way you're giving more than a hundred percent for that organization and there's no way i think you're giving a hundred percent as the team struggled another quote empty seats became more frequent at scotia bank arena the average attendance at 25 26 would end up uh as the lowest in the history of the building for a non-pandemic season for the leafs this is the lowest attendance we've seen i'm including the horacek era guys poor peter horacek seems like a really nice guy really wasn't his fault but that's crazy that's crazy i think uh they might uh they probably own too many teams and they should sell them i don't think it's that steve i think it's this is the way these guys operate and if they're

going to operate like this they're going to be consequences you're a stock like this is not a hockey team well it's a stock you know it's bad for your stock people not buying your product no but you own the team and that just grows in value over time the nhl has teams playing in 12,000 seat buildings and 15 000 seat buildings like a bad no 12 000 no 12 000 utah oh i guess yeah yeah it's asterisk i know that's asterisk let's not yeah it's asterisk but like you have like 15 and 16 and yep and uh you know if ed holds on to this team for a few years it's going to go up in value they're a stock i'm telling you i'm telling you i'm telling you i'm not doing a bit read rogers versus rogers and if you don't want to you know what i forgot about what there's a play

they made that book into a play incredible you could just go and see the play um and maybe they sell it online i don't know but uh yeah man he's not in the business of winning games the jays are because he likes them the rest of you your stock jess uh going through this you know we talk about there's a couple of Craig Berube things in here that I think really matter and one of the things that you know that we haven't really talked enough about I think is his relationship with William Nylander which I think is strained obviously yeah I think they like each other but I think they drive each other crazy like they're oil and water but I don't think either is a bad person Adam well I think that's true there should be a disclaimer off the top of

the show that just we think most of the people we're talking about are good one of the one of the ones that that gets me when they lost the Washington Capitals mid-December and I remember this quote the ask those guys not me and then the other quote I can't I can coach them but I can't give them this pointing to his heart or this pointing to his head both of those quotes are to me akin to what John Tortorella said when we were in San Jose last year and he got fired in Philly which was i can't do this and now we're in a position where the organization's like well he's fine until the next gm says he's not jess everybody likes chief the players like chief the the media likes chief anybody that meets chief likes chief the players though probably

don't like the game plan and this team is not built for his style of hockey fair i would agree with that okay like there's there's so many different issues and problems and ways to go with Craig Rubay's season this year as Leafs head coach because you you go down to you start with the game plan of how he wants the players to play they are clearly not executing what he thinks they should be doing and that's not resulting in winning hockey and what he thinks they should be doing i don't know is the right game plan to have winning hockey so nobody seems to be connected and bradshaw living himself didn't seem to be connected with craig brube at all there's the moment in there in the article where they talk about oel sitting for trade reasons and craig

brube not knowing that at morning skate and telling the reporters there that he's not going to sit for trade reasons and then he sits that game for trade reasons and that's your gm obviously not communicating with you on what's going on and craig berube not being able to fix the way he has the players playing to play a style of hockey that actually works and him not trusting that the analytic support that this team last season outperformed every expectation that they should have had based on how they were playing hockey so there's just so much wrong going on there with the players and the coach but as we sit here postseason and it was such a guarantee that he was going to lose his job he is still employed by this organization and interestingly they talk about

the the fact and i said this i think pally's biggest failure this year uh is not recognizing a general manager in freeze mode and tree was in free freeze mode uh here's what the article said uh at what point at one point the leafs discussed nick roberts for for chinakov uh with the blue jackets but their offers fell short they dangled a second round pick around the league looking for short-term help they contemplated reacquiring luke shen how uh however save for the waiver claim of troy stetra in november the leafs gm made no moves to rescue his failing squad and And we know what Sheena Kopp's gone on and done in Pittsburgh. Yes.

And I didn't know he had that in his bag. Like, I remember talking about that trade and I was like, eh, you might as well just keep Robbie or whatever. But like, that's nothing. That's not a thing. That's not something you need an expert for. That is a really high paid job. GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And you're just going around the league going, second round pick, what do you got? What do you have a scouting staff for, dude? Yep. and that's terrifying he messed up the last 30 minutes of that trade deadline adam i don't know if you have that part i'm gonna go to it yeah but him him emailing the gms with an hour to go being like i'm desperate for lawton here guys i need something it's such an insight to how and mcmahon yeah lawton and mcmahon it's such an insight into how he lost control of this team and

like it's no surprise if we're sitting here being like oh bradshaw living did nothing because we spent four months of this podcast yelling do something literally i don't know i shouldn't say we one person yelled at the top of his lungs until he was hoarse and he said do something we know that there was no action by this man for all of those months and nobody around him which would be keith pelly because he's kind of the only guy who can tell him anything did anything about that right i also want to say this um and and this this plays into this this point there's a part of this article we've talked about this openly on the show before because this has been fed through to us by multiple people but the leafs were extremely frustrating to deal with because

teams engaging with the leafs never felt like they were getting a clear set of are we really negotiating here or are you just asking what the price is yeah kicking tires kicking tires yes we know brad kicks tires and that sort of thing but what whatever whatever happened upstairs again keith pelly didn't recognize that teams were looking at him and going brad i'm not going to do business with you if you're not going to be serious people got tired of brad kicking tires every time he'd call or email or whatever it is it wouldn't lead to a deal and we saw that because no deals got done i want i want to go back to the coach for a second um there's no justification for bringing this person back well i don't think he gets that that performance out of chinikov

chinikov would have been stuck to the fourth line you know that if he was in the lineup at all that's the thing like we could have got chinikov and it would have done nothing like i think um coaches who are uh stubbornly determined to be part of the solution are in right now so like there's todd mcclellan in detroit there's rick boness who just got a contract extension in his 70s after his team blew it down the stretch and he said they don't hate to lose they don't hate to lose and it's them them them them them them them and didn't put it on himself put it on them and he got rewarded for it and people are going well it's not uh it's not brew base fault it's the team suck this is from money puck there i'll go through a couple stats here expected goals

against versus expected goals for the leafs logo is being eaten by the canucks logo inside of there's four quadrants bad fun good and boring the Leafs closest comparable on money puck is the team that finished last by leaps and bounds they were propped up by some stars scoring like Matthews like Nylander they got more saves this team holy smoking stinks on ice in terms of uh uh Corsi 44 percentage um i had it up son of a gun where did it go oh yeah here it is they're dead last they're dead spanking last shot attempts percentage the percent of shots attempted that are yours 44.8 they're behind seattle they're behind chicago they're behind vancouver they're behind bloody everyone they were dead last anyone with eyes that happened to be attached

to their head could see they were one of the worst teams in the nhl in terms of the style they played when we say that there's a team that could potentially make the playoffs next year it's because of the talent on the roster that we've seen get it done but in terms of style of play gag me with a spoon that team was a chore to watch 82 times out of 82 they were awful and i almost from an entertainment standpoint barely care if berube manages to get it back on track next year i don't want to watch that product anymore no holy shit it was awful let's get let them even if they're bad let them be bad with someone else get me out of my seat a couple times a night and holy cow they were awful for all of that i blame brad for living for not moving off

of craig brube at some point this season to try and save his own job and i don't think he had the ability watching nhl hockey he never went to manage he never went to manage he never that he never asked he never asked so maybe he didn't ask he knew the answer doesn't matter you gotta ask he never considered it he never went to management and asked and i blame bradshaw living for not firing craig berube and i blame keith pelly for not moving off of bradshaw living who wasn't doing his job now let's just sit in there watching hockey and doing nothing about it past behavior is a a potential indicator of of future behavior um how'd bradshaw living get here brendan shanahan brendan shanahan why was he available because they fired cal dubas

because bradcher living left calgary that's why the position was available the flames supposedly we were told at the time wouldn't let him fire daryl sutter you know so maybe he's like i'm not gonna lose my job a second time over this there's there's a coach clearly favored by the guys who sign my checks and i'm not gonna bother no he never considered fire then you shouldn't be gm yeah then i agree if you're not asking like first off brad uh uh if if you looked at that team and thought craig brube was the answer which i think he did because he never went to management that is what he believed then that's that's forfeiture of your job right there yeah and i like craig brube immensely i do he's got to go he's not the coach for this team it's not gonna about this i

don't like him okay he made my hockey team shitty okay fair enough you can have that feeling i'm sure he's a lovely guy but we're not friends i don't know him what's scary like this is our relationship is transactional leafs fan leafs coach team sucks don't like you get out of here fair fair i don't i don't hate that 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 now the march 6th trade deadline

is interesting because um keith pelly apparently walks into the room with the scouts and gm and sits there the whole time and has stuff so there's a name you're gonna get to know his name is humza teraney and he is the chief uh strategy and innovation officer at maple leaf sports and entertainment made up position they love the long title they love a long title of a long time and his i'm chief of ideas so he uses ai can i have that title here yeah can i be chief of ideas at sdpm you know what people like this do can i be assistant chief of ideas oh yeah you could no adam you could be special advisor assistant to the chief of ideas ah yes so what's hilarious about people like this in any organization is they are there to put their hand in your dinner

so you do things you're successful you've been doing things successfully okay and the organization you work for hires this person and they come in and they go yeah i know that that's your process But without me changing your process, there's no point in me being here. I need to justify my job. Yeah. And normally those are consultants. Like we had radio consultants. You know, I'm sure people who watch this have consultants from like McKinsey and things

like that that are known for. But they come in and they take literally no responsibility for anything. And they go, I'm going to change your process. And when it doesn't work, they go, you're the one resisting it. So we're going to fire you. That's how it works. And so what's interesting here is that now the Humza Terani apparently has helped out some things and use some A.I. and and found some success with the Raptors. They didn't go in the article much about what success they have found.

But as we know, A.I. is not great when it comes to hockey. It's better with things like football and and and basketball. It doesn't know because there's more shit out there for it to rip off. It doesn't know what players play for who. And so Pelly walks in with this folder of, here's what I think we should get for each player. And when they were going through these discussions throughout the trade deadline, and Jesse mentions Brad's failing at the trade deadline because they were shocked, it says in this article, about how little interest in Bobby McMahon and how little interest in Scott Lawton there was. Could it be because the coach played them in terrible positions and yet they outperformed those positions? Could it be that you left it to the last hour and that this was a decision that could have been made in January or in February before the Olympic break? And that's when they should have been getting their business done. Could it be to add to a wishy-washy GM who has a hard time pulling the trigger?

You also had a CEO who was in the room going, get more draft picks. Guys, it's trade deadline. We saw this. i would hate to think this is why the leafs didn't get to fleece the oilers right oh we were salivating we could taste it it was right there oliver eckman larson and scott lawton or bobby mcmahon or all three to the oilers for a similar package to what the oilers ended up paying which by the oilers own admission was exorbitant it was a lot in the video in the video they chose to record edit and release they're like we're paying more than anyone in the league that could have been

you that that'll get their attention the first rounder that could have been you you bunch of rubes but you waited and you waited and you waited and you waited and you weren't uh decisive and then on top of that you also had a ceo who has no idea what he's doing no idea what he's even talking about going you got to get more you got to get more based on what asshole should have been the response from the people in the room but they like a paycheck if you're a scout how don't you immediately check your linkedin oh dear oh dear this organization's in so much trouble well you know so humza terani apparently has a huge role to play in this organization and you're going to get get used to hearing that name more and more especially if they're losing because he is he has

got the eyes and ears of keith pelly on his side he is very very popular within the c-suite guys what i say what i say weeks ago adam these guys are marks they are marks they are there are marks he sunk his hooks in he found one at a boy so you know what's hilarious let's throw this at you get that check i love this sentence let me just give you this sentence based on what the last couple of weeks of leafs hockey the leafs stumbled out of the olympic break with two consecutive losses in florida while cowan sat as a healthy scratch i forgot that was that recently and again you're going to tell me craig berube survives this he might yeah i am they don't you're going with what they should do versus what the evidence shows us and the evidence shows us they don't know what

they're doing yeah i think the reality of the situation is that it's much more likely that craig berube is head coach of the toronto maple east at the start of the 26 27 season let me give another sentence completely terrifying the leafs gm engaged in trade talks involving nize with a handful of teams in hopes of landing a rich return friedman said today on his podcast that the that those teams are going to circle back in the offseason what a gaggle of donkeys how do you watch i thought you weren't gonna do name calling what uh it's time it's time i held my tongue here we are how do you watch the toronto maple leafs play hockey after hemorrhaging talent like zach hyman like nasm cadre i'll throw michael bunting in there i'll throw uh mason marchment in there

i'll throw fraser mitten in there in terms of the style of player how do you hemorrhage not just talent but that kind of talent and look at this jeep on skates with amazing hands who puts up a ton of points and punches like a fire truck with fists and go this is the guy we need to trade and had a career year this year in terms of points while he was injured for like four months of it and that played through everything absolute gaggle of donkeys now is that the correct term for a group of donkeys uh i don't think so according to the children's book uh uh the blippy children's book that i have that plays animal sounds yeah um i believe a baby donkey is called a foal no no it's when you're talking about a group it's a coughle of donkeys what a coughle there you go i didn't

think gaggle didn't sound correct oh it's a gaggle of or a pace of donkeys uh or drove of donkeys what are the three options no what was it coughle uh coughle herd drove or pace this awful coughle of donkey that sounds better show title thank you maddie awful of donkeys there we go there we go donkeys um so then i and i'm just bouncing around this article so uh to get back to humza that's what the c and ceo stands for is cough to get back to humza torini for a second um mls he's got a sports performance lab that's got ai analytics biometrics the raptors found success there and notably fewer doctors i want to i want to be open to something here yeah i want to be yeah i know about the rich rottenberg and we have talked about that the leafs had a doctor who

their man games lost injury was so so low and then this season exploded funny that he's gone i'm sure it's a coincidence i have heard from people let's ask the computer i have heard from people though that the guy that took over from him is the one the players trust okay great so i'm not i'm not saying that that's wrong but i'm saying that the guy that worked under rich who is now the head of it is the guy that the players trusted anyway i mean so i'm just i'm just putting that out there there's an element of luck like i mean uh chris tan i've got put out for the season because he backed into a guy yeah i backed into him um but but what i think is interesting here And maybe this is where I know there's a lot of anger and resentment towards Keith Pelley's leadership.

And there should be right. He was not even seen around the team until late February. And the reason for that is he was rebuilding TFC. And OK, that's great that you're rebuilding TFC. But this would be the golden goose. I'd be focused on this. It's because he has too many jobs. Now.

It's not what I sound like. It's because he's in charge of eight teams. He has too many jobs. um no is that is that why he wasn't around it's unacceptable uh no hold on hold on sure i'm not done my point go ahead he's doing a job we talked about brad true living having a are you ready to rock a big analytic staff and essentially listening to none of them and several people have said that to me they're like it's really frustrating working in maple leafs analytics right now because you know everything that you do will be completely ignored oh that's great and

And that and I don't mean that like I don't think Brandon Pridham's in there ignoring it. I think Brad is. And I think Wes Clark's comments about, well, we know how Brad likes him big and tall when he when they drafted Ben Danford right before Wes Clark went to Pittsburgh. I think Wes Clark's answer there is very telling in this, especially go look it up. The tone is very dismissive, like, yeah, we know how Brad likes them, like, you know, or tree likes. now imagine imagine hold on would it surprise you steve that even if mlse sports performance lab had something to offer the leafs that the way brad ran the administration they wouldn't have embraced it does that would that surprise you at all not in the slightest so i think we ought to be open to the fact that maybe it could and maybe hums the terrain he isn't this bad guy that's

trying to get in your shit although he's probably annoying to people that have done things a certain wait for a long period of time of course we have to be open to the fact that it may have something to offer and we could be part of the fact a hundred percent we have to acknowledge the fact it could be part of the solution and that they were ignored ignored ignored and that will no longer be acceptable and we're gonna find out with this next guy whether or not it does have something to offer because if it does it'll be in the results it'll be very funny if they hire a really smart guy he gets there and he's like who's this guy yeah that'll that'll be pretty interesting and listen i don't have some kind of anti keith pelly agenda um i do and well no

wait wait i think you do steve i i do um your anti keith pelly current results agenda yeah but okay i don't dislike stuffed peppers because of cream cheese i don't like the pepper so So Keith Pelley is the CEO of a team, well, of many teams, owned by Rogers. Someone sent me this question. Multiple people have asked me this identical question. Is Keith Pelley the new Harold Ballard? Nope. No, that'd be Ed.

Keith Pelley is an employee. He's a very powerful employee. He's way at the tippy top, but he's an employee. ed rogers owns this team he owns maple leaf sports and entertainment he owns damn near half the country it's ed it's ed it's ed i just had to get that out there let's continue so i think keith is underqualified for his job i agree i have an agenda for him not to do that job because i think it's ruining the hockey team that we cover wholeheartedly agree okay now we've we've kind of got the major points from this article um but i found it very interesting this article was

released on wednesday they play game 82 jess and then you walk in yesterday and you know every player in there has read it and i wonder about a guy like austin matthews and going boy that's not good what about a guy like matthew nice who has continually heard his name uh being traded you know and he has committed he committed with no trade protection took a great deal like you know And listen, I'm, I'm somebody that's like, listen, if he gets you a first, if he gets you the best defenseman you've had in the last 25 years, which is what the return for Matthew and I should be, I'm down to trade him, but it better be that. I'm not enthusiastic about trading Matthew and I understand, but are you enthusiastic

about going into next year with 10 of McCabe and all of Reckman, Larson, and nobody else. You got to add to that. I think a wise man once said, you got to give something to get some. That's right. And, you know, the rumor is, Freed said this morning, I think, and I haven't heard the CJ show yet. I'm sure he'll say something similar.

The Leafs want to take a run at Darren Radish. Having this out there, how do you attract any free agent? They know they got to pay him money, right? Well, they're cool with paying players. You know that. It's the employees they don't want to pay. They'll pay up players.

They're fine. The one thing the Leafs will need in order to have this retool go well is creativity through trades. You cannot build your team through free agency. that is out the door nashville tried it and they obviously had a surprise season but they haven't had the successes that they've been intending you can supplement your team a hundred percent you can get a couple guys every now and again you can make a really good free agency signing but to be where

you are in the standings and expect you to just sign your way out of troubles that's not the way the world works anymore in the national hockey league and you see every single month another guy come off the board and it's like who are you getting that's going to change your franchise it needs to be done through trades and negotiating with these other gms so they better have somebody in a position who can do that this offseason the majority of uh of the best teams in the league and their best players were either drafted by them or traded for yeah you don't have any draft picks so you have to trade yeah it's those are the only two ways right now for agency you get the guys around the edges but yeah the best team in the league it's you look at that guy and oh that's

a drafted player and we got him in top five or whatever so you hope that that draft pick stays with toronto because they can get that top five pick and then next year that unprotected pick the boston or philly is in a playoff spot all right i i'm looking at the free agent list like there's some good players here like i have a hard time believing mario like a guy like mario ferraro is not going to stay with the with the sharks but you know radish is the highest scoring ufa this year believe it or not uh 70 points wow three games yes 70 points and the guy next uh next up is alex tuck i have a hard time believing alex tuck western new york native is going to leave buffalo well when we first started having that conversation why would alex tuck stay in buffalo

and then the rest of the season happened we're like oh that's why yeah mantha is a free agent uh he had 64 points this year but like that number went up uh john carlson but like you know um i got people are talking about mason marchman well mason marchman doesn't want to play in a place where he's got to pay taxes he's going to pittsburgh mason marchman yeah dubas said in an interview that he regretted trading him yeah that's that's we call that pillow soft tampering um you know there's a lot of like you know anders lee 35 years old you know uh no shot in the entire world jack rossovich had a pretty good year 36 points in 69 games at least were apparently in on him but just never committed but again these are not great needle movers like they're gonna have to be so

creative like what like then it's it's the same thing as last offseason where like you know what michelle and joshua yeah and wah they're gonna really make this team great and like none of that's happening if that's the kind of assets and moves you're trying to make no what do you think of the idea that one or both of mcmahon or lawton could come back lawton's not from what i've heard lawton really likes la i have that source that says he really like and i think mcmahon priced himself out of toronto yeah and and seattle are desperate to keep him that's true as they bloody should be yeah because dude if they lose him for nothing after giving up draft picks and then finishing sixth last you look like idiots yeah so if if you keep them okay at very least you got

them for the future the dumbest thing this team did i think one of the dumbest things like i understand why they had to trade lotten but trading him the way that they did and how they did you soured a local guy on his own team he would have he he he wouldn't have left philadelphia for anything except toronto and he went to toronto and they did go to the second round and then the next season you've messed around with this guy enough that he's i think he's as good as gone and i don't think they're gonna have a shot at resigning him what a shame he he could have been a huge part of the culture shift here if he's the biggest beauty in the entire history of the world and has discussions with the leafs about coming back part of my negotiations if i'm him would be

we're having the mentors trip in november not a single person in the leafs organization pays everyone is allowed to bring their mentor bring back the old discount you cheap bastards like i don't think scott lawton's got a leverage i don't think scott lawton is doing any of that okay great well then you don't get good players matthew should then you don't get good players no i don't think scott lawton is doing that i I don't think Lawton's telling the Leafs that. No, in this situation, I'm Scott Lawton. I thought, playing the role of Scott Lawton,

today we have Steve. That's what I was doing. You're Steve Dangle, I think is what it is. Yeah. These are things you want for the organization. I don't think Scott Lawton cares or will be demanding those things. I can't believe the Florida Panthers,

who have gone to three straight Stanley Cup finals, won back-to-back Stanley Cups, cannot fill the building, uh are talking about they have their players talking about bill zito covered every dinner stuff like that and you got the leafs nickel and diming their stars and their staff you actual cartoon depiction of monsters you know oh yeah yeah no no no the the media and the fans but how about the cheap disgracefully cheap billionaires in charge of this team what a joke do you think what a joke do you think the way that rogers operates generally let's just speak

openly for now right because we've all worked there yeah do you think that they know everyone loves it adam i'm just gonna say do you think they engender a lot of love for the for the job i don't think so every no every single person there that i worked with and spoke to loves it there they friggin absolutely love it in that building you know what there was a line that i used with the the people i worked with um when things went sour with rogers and that was um at the beginning of today there was one person in this entire company that like working there and it was me and now there's none yeah and no one ever fought me on it yeah no one ever fought me and that's not one on-air person not one behind the scenes person it's run by a soulless

dragon like that's the only way to really look at it i'm sure bell is not much better but i do think it's funny that now that keith pelly and uh mlse ownership um have all this public attention that the people i see going hardest at them besides us are tsn well i also think here here's the deal guys when you when you're with the way the toronto maple leafs used to look at this and this is how they were looking at it at the beginning of the shanahan era and there's a lot to this you have a salary cap there's only so much you can do right but there are other things you can do that make it a more appealing destination hey if you're a fringe player or a young player come sign a toronto we don't make you bust to games you're gonna get 50 off tickets you're

gonna like you can do other things to make the organization more appealing and what the organization has done in the name of cost saving maybe a million dollars and that's a aggressive maybe a million dollars what a complete is is uh yeah um fuck off i you have to this is pro sports this is not quasi government agency which rogers is rogers makes a ton of money off of the average person oh look at look at recent news but they have but they have a lot of government related contracts building infrastructure things like that these major telecoms in canada are all quasi government and so when you when you go from working in a non-competitive field like telecom because it's essentially three companies uh and then you go into sports which is very competitive

right because remember rogers they they they were also owning the blue jays but the blue jays have no competition in this country no right so they're used to not these guys are used to operating like yeah we can just fucking do this because what other choice do you have you know that's not like that anymore now no and they are gonna and and i think fans have a ton of power here you have a ton of power to if this team does not participate well if they don't improve if if matthews ends up going whatever this is going to be this will go from something that seems like a pleasure project for billionaires to a nightmare very quickly and they better understand that and they better reverse some of this shit it's not going to work and i don't know like the tax issue is already a

huge problem why would you not try to save the players money elsewhere by allowing their family to come to the game for cheaper or like i just don't understand that oh you know and that's that we'll move on from the article because there's other things we're going to talk about jesse from locker clean out was there anything else neil anders answers or tanev's answers or whoever that you want to talk about that is worth highlighting let me run it down in my mind so Tanev you mentioned he's gonna be back next season great that he's gonna be fully healthy he outlined all the details for us Tanev is usually very honest with the media and he was yesterday he talked about how he got injured at the last one of the last shifts that he played

in the Detroit game early in the season when he went out and he heard a pop and he knew that was but you can delay an injury like that and you can play through it so he didn't have his surgery until the leafs were like out of it coming out of the olympic break so he delayed his surgery in the hopes that he could fight through something and play in the playoffs for the leaf so if the least were able to make a push for the playoffs we most likely would have seen chris stanov in some of those games but when they had their losing streak post uh olympic break he had the surgery did he say what it was he didn't go into the details but i assume an acl if it's a pop you know pop in a lower leg injury so i'm sorry i'm not a doctor i don't know um

but i'm not nice yeah yeah so he had the surgery and then he was in new york i think he said like two days ago and he had his last checkup and he's all good to go so he's gonna resume like his normal hockey activities over the summer and be all ready for next season 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.

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 ad sales using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery 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. um we got uh no cali yarn croak so there's a bunch of rumors about him leaving the leafs and being done with nhl hockey that's not confirmed and now those reports are being questioned on whether or not uh-huh he's gonna you may stay in north america so it seems like wherever brube's coaching next

year that's where he'll be it seems like he's gonna stick around the nhl oh so he's resigning then i don't know if he's but he did decline to speak to the media he was requested and did not uh want to speak well that tells me that he's gone so i don't think you should be allowed to do we should all we should all expect cali on curve to not be a leaf next year you make 2.1 million dollars dougie hamilton didn't talk to the new jersey media i mean that's unacceptable yeah that's completely honest it's not a toronto thing it's not a leafs thing that's completely unacceptable anthony staller spoke about the seattle incident which is i thought was fascinating he gave all the details on that he said that he probably would have handled it internally

uh next time going forward there's complaints like that he probably wouldn't have done it so publicly but he said there's no animosity between him and the guys and that he doesn't regret what he said because i think now he realizes that he was definitely probably right about what he was saying i think everybody else who saw this team play for the year realized he was right about calling out the team publicly after that seattle game so i thought brandon carlo can't be back what do you mean he can't be back why that he's uh and i like brandon carlo the guy i used to see in the bruins stop it no no the guy the way he played fine fine fine fine um that a guy like that doing what he did and he it wasn't just dollars this year he was soft soft guy incredibly

soft play um talented penalty killer yeah not a not a player you can bring back this is not a this is not a guy that you can build i don't think and and again personally i don't know him but i don't think the way he played on the ice lends itself to guy that they can have around long term or even next season if you're trying to get more dogged brandon carlo's not your guy no he's not he's an ad he's an addition to another team and you know what he's going to go elsewhere and be successful this team has a culture problem he's not where this league is heading yeah that's also true at all austin i think through his lack of words illustrated how frustrated he was about the team's response to the gutus hit in the moment yeah they asked him

what he thought about that and he said i thought in the third period the team responded that to me spoke volumes and i'll pull it up here and i'll play it for you because there's a pregnant pause in there too that is uh it's it says a lot about how he was feeling about the team if you'll just give me a moment yeah please and it's go ahead no i'll while you're while you're pulling that up i'll just say that um uh here's the deal matthews is fucking furious about it as he should be he should be um he should be and that is why guys like brandon carlo cannot be back no i i loved morgan riley's answers and i know jesse hasn't got to them yet i still love that he loves being a leaf cannot be back i again there's a guy who like i've talked about i don't know these guys

they're not my friends but like he's the one i've had the most interactions with over the years and they were all friendly and i i like i like him lovely guy of course yeah we got to move on now there was a report that i saw somewhere on twitter about like the leafs you're gonna have to retain half and oh that was kind of yeah i know we're gonna have to retain half and attach a pick no just keep them yeah that's not that's i also he said that it's possible no there's a big difference between possible and probable and i listen i love kipper yeah but i think that's i think that's going i also don't think he was reporting anything he said it's possible you know that's what he said i don't think he was like hey here's yeah okay it's possible he went

to the norris yeah okay here's austin on gudas do you think of the hit then what did radko you talk about afterwards he said he messaged you or something yeah i mean i think uh i think you probably know how i feel about the head um you know up until a couple days ago i just got off crutches so i didn't think i was going to be standing here today so it's going well so far but um yeah i mean i think you know him reaching out that's you know kind of you know a personal conversation and uh and whatnot but um yeah like i said i think you know how i feel about the head do you think oh they didn't include the part about the response from the team hold on i got i know what you're talking about i gotta play that one for you i changed my mind gouda should have to

fight off the opening draw of every game for the rest of his career yeah i changed i changed my mind uh it's it it's it's it's not something champions do no their response was not something champions do um and they quit on each other if that was the final leaf game you watched this season I don't think anyone should blame you one of the times we had Sid Sixero on the show I remember it was it was early season and they were struggling he came on and was great he was he always was always is great and what he said was he's like I said how do you feel like the Leafs are playing for Sheldon Keefe and he said I he's like I don't think they're playing for each other and that's years ago and I think this season really highlighted that I don't think they ever

got off that media's not on the ice with you fans aren't on the ice with you but we see it like yeah but no no what i'm what i'm saying is you know whether we're a positive or a negative in your eyes your some of your best friends some of your best work colleagues uh just left you laying half dead on the ice okay i went to youtube and now here's the full clip uh when the goodest it happens and there's no reaction from your teammates yeah i mean that's um you know it was an unfortunate play you know i thought uh you know they responded in the third period um but you know it's an unfortunate play so responded you know it was an unfortunate i mean uh when the goodest it happens there's no reaction yeah i mean that's um

you know it was an unfortunate play you know i thought uh hey austin what'd you think of that oh that's an unfortunate play i thought they responded in the third the question was about the response by your teammates can i say to go straight to it's an unfortunate play they responded in the third he must have been the most upset out of anybody oh yeah can i just say that that's a good captain he had a pretty he could have rick bonest them so hard there and he didn't and i think that's good leadership but i hope what's great leadership is taking them all aside and telling them that i hope he did that do you think that the i don't know if he did that i hope so but i think i know that the guys would have seen

that clip i think it was screaming it at the top of his lungs in the dressing room is what i hope it was um you know because craig's been screaming at them all year you gotta hear him do it the guy the guy who's giving this organization over 400 goals yep this is hopefully all solved a month ago like when it happened i hope so and when he was out and when he's back in that locker room and he gave the guys the peace of mind that they deserve you know easton cowan got the message yeah um at least he's a part of the future rest of them unless they scratch him how do you think the conversation between austin and willie went after that moment do you think they had one i don't know what has anyone ever told william nylander that he listened to you know i gotta

tell you that's that's the good and the bad of him the one thing i'll say is i think he'd listen austin maybe you're right i think he would and i think maybe maybe that maybe it isn't a direct conversation maybe they all reached out and apologized which i hope they did but maybe that clip is all you need to say maybe maybe the the one thing i wish that first anaheim game had it's the closest like it looked like nylander was looking for a fight if you remember it it looked genuinely looked like he was getting into a fight and i'm like yes yes yes here we go because i've maintained like jesse you stand next to that guy all the time bill like a brick shit yes yes that's why you can't knock him off the puck yes that's and i still maintain i've said it for years people

always laugh and willie won't give me a chance to prove him right i think he'd do pretty well he doesn't i don't think he'd do well because he doesn't have the fighting ability in his body it is something you sort of need a yeah it is something well in that case then how do you win a championship yeah how on earth do you win a championship uh on the note of william kneelander one of the things i saw him get criticized for was that he on locker clean out day he spoke for 90 seconds you were there yep uh some people were like well yeah we just had already asked him everything that there was to say what was what was there was nothing to ask willie that would have any nobody would have gained any insight on any follow-up questions

okay he came out there he answered i think it was three questions he's very quiet a lot of humbling through them and it's just generic stuff and there was nothing to follow up on and that's a that's on him you know if he doesn't want to give anything to the media what is the media gonna stand there and ask him it's like at best you ask him a question that gets a prickly answer and it's a it's a clip but you don't get anything out of him no there would have been nothing there was nothing left after this season to ask him and if there was anything there there would have been no answer to it on him and that's on him for how he wants to be perceived from the media maybe he's very happy that he can get out of these scrums because he's not giving you anything if if his

desire is to be a bad quote so i don't i can get out of this and go home earlier then maybe he's accomplishing his job but if he cares about how he's perceived by the fans in front of the media then he's doing a bad job because he doesn't speak for the team very well that's one of those worst strengths is if as a maple leaf he does not speak for the team very well at all getting getting to pearson's a nightmare and cancun's warm so have fun yeah if you want to get home you did a great job anything else you'd like to talk about i'm trying to think uh no i think i think it covers most of it john tavarez also didn't say much john tavarez is a man of many words that don't go much places yeah uh he did say he's gonna play at the world championships

this is awesome but didn't give much insight onto the season matthew and i spoke about the trade rumors said obviously he wants to be a maple leaf and he wants to stick around here which is great you want to hear and he said that's for the dudes upstairs and his agent he'd mentioned the agent part i added that in there but that's who's going to deal with that stuff i think he likes playing for the leafs like austin likes playing for the leafs i think all these guys do i like you gotta win nice playing for the leafs and i hope they stop freaking trying to trade him sunny meta uh was hired by the devils today and he had the announcement online and he grew up a devils fan i guess uh fried was saying that as soon as um uh as soon as uh the devils

knew the least were interested they're like let's lock this up let's just let's just do this and i think he grew up a devils fan and i think it kind of makes sense so the leafs cut chair is bolted to the floor so congratulations you could see this coming from space congratulations to the devils to Devils fans for getting a guy like this. I'm very excited to see what kind of GM this guy turns into. And by the way, if you do look at the Devils core, it's pretty sweet. So

if they were going to do the Knives for Nemech deal, I think that's off the table now. He's inheriting a pretty good organization. Patrick Alveen is also out. And what's interesting is that it was a Swedish outlet that had it before anybody else. I believe it's Afton Belay? Afton Bledet.

Bledet. I'm sure I'm pronouncing it wrong. In his Devils starters jacket. That's sick, which is pretty, pretty cool. Yeah, good for him. All right, Islanders fans. What is it? Jacket boy or like what? What do you know?

No more pajama boy, right? So like, what is it? I get boy. How could you hate on him? That's just such a sick jacket. Yeah, it's awesome. Look at that frigging jacket. I know it's great.

Patrick Alvin out as general manager. He was the first Swedish general manager in the NHL. He's also the first Swedish general manager to be fired in the NHL. uh apparently according to a source of mine uh he was telling people he knew this was coming and uh there is from some of the people i chatted to now there's obviously i talked to some people associated with and then some you know media reports that i read and stuff like that um a lot of people are saying the source of the issue is jim rutherford and and i want to specifically bring up the vancouver's 2025 trade deadline which people may have forgotten about i

don't know if you remember this uh last year yes okay remember they had they had besser and suitor right that were guys that were going to be unrestricted free agents okay did they make the playoffs the year before they made the playoffs a year before yeah but they had besser and suitor and they weren't very good okay and they also were heading into the last year two years of quinn hughes's deal which is this year and the next year right and they did nothing i believe they traded carson susie to the new york rangers and that was it and at the time patrick all being said i believe uh that with this group we're just gonna continue to build and get better i don't envision us taking a step back okay yep um you're done he said if we had positioned

ourselves a little bit better in the standings that definitely would have made making trades easier i guess the market is always tough to read but with so many teams involved you could see with some of the players getting moved that the prices were high I think you for you guys you know us I don't think uh I use this day as a defining day of how we build a team for us it's a continuation of day one I'm happy with the players that we have and again if there wasn't any market value I think that's up to other teams and how they view our players and remember that when Brock Besser played his last game not this season but last season he was like shaking hands and in tears because he thought he was gone now they ultimately resigned him but that's where they were just

chaotic and now we find out that jim rutherford wasn't really even involved in whatever conversations they had with quinn hughes about extending him so it feels like we know foot's probably out we already know alvin's gone i've been led to believe that rutherford's job is potentially on the line here too uh i was told yes i was told no i'm gonna find out more on the way home guess we'll find out if he's fired or not guess they'll get back to us but like not every gm is bad at everything not every gm is good at everything i think patrick olivine did a pretty good job d building this year i mean if the goal once you trade quinn hughes is to finish last congrats they out batted calgary by wide power he's leading scorer had 45 points they out batted

holy what they out batted calgary by like leaps and bounds 20 points at least um trading quinn hughes is a trade you lose almost for sure it looks like they did okay so far looks like they got some decent value for their guys i'd like to return for keifer sherwood um they were able to to keep brock besser but okay thanks for all the assets and stuff we're gonna get someone else uh to help us into the future and by waiting this long guys they've missed out on a guy like sunny meta already and they say the reports from the drager this morning or that they're going to take their time so uh what if you either did uh and yeah yeah so we'll see about i think rutherford and that sort of thing they also remember guys

they not only lost quinn hughes but they lost rick talkett too rick talkett actively turned them down and said i don't want to be here that all happened under all beans watch there are conversations about the agms there too um and about that not working all out all that great so i would not be surprised to see a total house cleaning not at all that jt miller trade man i think they a hundred percent need to move on from jim rutherford if i'm blaming any of the problems of the organization it's on him well he's responsible like he hired all these people i think i think it's a shame that patrick allian has to wear this when this season you can't judge his performance when it's all about a teardown like obviously where they were in the 24 season

losing to edmonton like what a crazy fall off it is from there to here but jim rutherford's the guy at the helm of that i don't believe patrick alvin's just working without jim rutherford's guidance and now he fires that guy he put in charge to do what i think he's been directing them to do so i don't understand why he would keep his job he's also so old he's so old 77 years old yeah he was drafted by the red wings in 1969 wow he went 10th over all the red that's the he was drafted in a month that there's a song about he was drafted in the summer of 69 that's right that's incredible i will say this because i can hear canucks fans screaming it through the windshield jim rutherford has to manage one of the craziest owners in the league yep the person

you really all should fire is francesco aquilini but that is not an option i hope for the sake of canucks fans that one day you get a practice facility and you have a new owner didn't they say they were building one that's what they keep saying i don't know if it's done yet hey yo you can say anything they are an nhl team they're not an out a dedicated practice facility yeah what are we doing here your owner is a buffoon who is not it shouldn't be in charge of an nhl team they're gonna kick you out of the press box but it's all good tucker carlson from saturday night live what are we doing here what are we doing going on what's the goal what's going on what are we doing here that is my response to anything that happens with francesco acquini uh you trade

jt miller no one you got in that deal barely played for you this year what are we doing what's going on what's going on 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 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. Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings with the scotia high interest savings account always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more

you save and invest conditions apply visit scotiabank.com slash hisa to learn more scotia bank you're richer than you think uh the art ross the last 10 years has belonged to three players mcdavid kucherov and mckinnon that's it that's insane i think that might change Macklin Celebrini has set obviously the record for most points by any player in a season in San Jose history unbelievable

at a age 19 season I believe it's Gretzky Gretzky with 164 points Crosby with 120 Macklin with 150 stupid that's it that's the list stupid the next Steve are you looking this up oh yes because I

was going to ask you guys son of a i know who it is there you go load hockey db um will smith okay so macklin has 115 how much did will smith finish with 59 you gotta do it by points per game that's the only caveat i put on that because everybody's saying oh look at me he only played 68 games what is it uh 69 games so yeah he had a decent points per game but like it still wasn't a point per game um that's insane yes they had three other players hit 50 points um two other players beyond that hit 40 points and then you had Orlov and Klingbert like dude Celebrini apart from playing all 82 games leaps and bounds above everybody else that is an mvp candidate superstar and the idea that they

could potentially win a draft lottery again and just add to an embarrassment of riches is crazy i saw scott wheeler talking about um the future of like the sharks and the blackhawks the blackhawks have even though they're terrible they have abundance the sharks don't have quite as much as the blackhawks but the guys they have they're targeted insane insane wait till michael meese it takes off that guy barely played i know they should have traded him for quinn hughes they should have yes they should have yeah you should have got quinn hughes that would have been fun um i 100 agree with that i would do that 10 i think it would have been fun That's a trade I make in GM mode, and I don't think twice about it.

Yeah. Because I'm like, I got Quinn Hughes. Did Quinn Hughes not have trade protection, though? Sharks GM. He had trade protection, though, didn't he? Hughes, no. Oh, he didn't? That was the special thing about Quinn Hughes in that scenario.

He had no trade protection. Oh, man. Man, Leafs fans are going to be so disappointed then with what the Leafs get for Matthews and Nylander when they trade him. Can I give you season over NHL stats? Yeah. This is from the NHL themselves. 6.3 goals per game.

that is what teams average this year in the combined game second highest rate in the past 31 seasons no wonder save percentages stunk there was 326 overtime games that is the most in nhl history wow that is a bad thing in my eyes that is well cool that's something that they put in a press release as a good thing so how do you feel about that adam i don't know i think it's a good thing oh yeah i don't have a problem with overtime i have a problem with the point system yeah i hate the point overtime's fine overtime's great i guess that means it's competitive games are tight that's what i'm saying and the comebacks are always there that's what i do want i never want to feel like i'm out of it right they don't want you to turn the tv off yeah i want every game

to mean something and they want every minute to mean something this is the comeback stat 564 comeback wins which is the most in nhl history that's don't turn the tv off previous high was 460 last season there you go this should be called don't turn the tv i would i would prefer nhl referees like call the game continually but that is probably too much to ask how much of this is the referees cheating the situation oh i'm sure there's like a 10 or 15 percent in there yeah i don't think it's that high but no one's ever been caught on mic trying to do that game management yeah i was trying to give one to nashville and we all just moved on we all just moved on total attendance this year crosses 23 million it is the fourth straight season with the

new nhl attendance record so that's a new record they are at 97.5 capacity yeah it's pretty good that's great you keep adding teams but like that is good 61 of all nhlers are gen z oh okay well that makes sense sort of neat i like these packs that they do yeah it is i know i criticize the nhl a lot this is something that they do very well and i like it 40 percent of nhl players in 25 26 did not experience the 1990s oh that's great what a way to learn it i like oh my god no i like that they weren't alive for the 1990s that's pain 40 percent of the league that's quite high that is high wow 77 close games the highest rate in nhl history uh what did they rate a close game as a one game a one goal or two goal game with an empty net don't turn the tv off so there you go

uh turnarounds were the story of the season the nhl writes the 25 26 regular season saw an unprecedented rush to the stanley cup playoffs highlighted by a six team turnover six team turnover that's big that is the second highest total in nhl history and it felt like that don't is your team bad don't turn their games off watch them it felt like this was a year where the nhl went into an etch-a-sketch and we got a whole bunch of new teams yeah that's why people giving me shit on some of like some of the teams that i thought were gonna be good i'm like i don't what did anybody nobody predicted nobody could have picked six new playoff teams the second highest ever if i sat here at the beginning of the season when we were doing our least season

preview and said at least we're gonna finish fifth last you guys would have laughed me out of the fucking room yes fifth last fifth last that's crazy you know predicted i tried to do this with my 24 and 25 predictions where i kind of went kind of like crazy and off the wall with them that was my black hawks pick i think i had the sharks jumping a lot and i was like this could be some kind of wonky season i had the jets like way out because i hate connor hellebuck sarcasm and then everything kind of went chalk last year and then this year is the year i should have went hard with you weren't wrong you were early i was just early but like all the predictions this year look so bad oh my god because everybody did barely except for the ducks pick with adam

There's a Sabres stat in here. The Sabres were the NHL's top team since mid-December when their franchise record-tying winning streak began. On route to their first Atlantic Division crown, Buffalo is the only playoff team to qualify after ranking last place in its conference more than a month into the 25-26 season. Wow.

They were most recently last place on December 17th. Wow. That feels like yesterday. Wow. They basically, again... Are they going to win the Cup? Are they going to St. Louis Blues this? You have to talk about them as a contender.

So people are going to listen to this episode and be like, where the hell is the playoff talk? We did eight playoff previews. On your podcast feed. On your podcast feed. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. I didn't know we were doing that.

My bad. Of course we are. We do it every year. Sorry. But like, yeah, people talk. Oh, yeah, they're young. They haven't been there. Pond hockey.

Okay. Pros, they haven't lost. Yep. They don't lose games. how do you the evidence in front of us is that they are the best team how do you predict them to lose if they don't do that that's not a thing they do they all they do is win the senators overcame the largest standings deficit of any club that made the playoffs sitting 10 points out as late as jan 30th and good for them ottawa is the only playoff team to qualify after ranking last

place in its division after the holiday break i sold a bunch of sends in fantasy and got absolutely oh no set on fire on february 4th they were last in the atlantic that is why i sold because they were bad the flyers tied for the most wins and third most points in the nhl after the olympic break to clinch a return to the playoffs good for them man what else you say did i pick the penguins or Flyers I don't even remember oh my god Philadelphia became the first team in NHL history to qualify for the postseason after overcoming a deficit of that size which was nine points on March 10th of that size 60 plus games into a season so 60 plus games they trailed by nine points and they made the playoffs first NHL team see you're like you're a hot week away

baby it was either don't believe in the Flyers or they're going to literally make NHL history and i was on the side of they made uh don't believe in them and they ended up making nhl history so i'm sorry for betting against history but it happened no they were way out and i looked at it i want to say there were four or five out at the time and i'm like guys they're in it caps came real close to islanders there was really competitive there's a bunch of teams that didn't make the playoffs this year that can look themselves in the mirror and be like we're a good and most of them are in the metro if only toronto could do that we're running long sorry i like there's a whole bunch of stats that i'm not going to read off i'll finish off with mcdavid

because this is probably the most impressive thing that's on this list because of the company he is with mcdavid became the fourth player to win the art ross trophy six times joining gretzky how and lemieux and his next art ross trophy he will pass lemieux and how and he only will then trail trail gretzky who has 10 and my bet if i could put money on it right now mcdavid passes gretzky in all-time art ross trophies whoa he has six right now he needs five more gretzky finished with 10 mcdavid i think is gonna get 11 i think it's possible that david is better later in his career than gretzky was yeah because gretzky did a lot of that early with the Oilers and was still very good with the with the Kings but by the time

you know late Kings early well that blip with the Blues and then range I think McDavid will be better longer it's funny because the guy who might have a problem with this is Macklin Celebrity who could take away a couple Art Ross trophies from McDavid starting as soon as next season but I think I think he passes Howe and Lemieux he's tied with them right now he gets that number seven and then now it's a chase for 10 and 11 which is so cool we get to watch this piece of history unfold over the next five years he's younger than mckinnon holy man maclin's gonna have a say about this though oh yeah absolutely okay well we'll wrap it up there uh and remember be on the lookout whether it's video or audio we've got all the playoff previews for you we've

already done them check them out tens of thousands of people already tuning into them too like i can't believe the numbers are crazy so we're so pumped thank you so much and remember steve streaming tomorrow sunday sunday jesse tomorrow and me on monday 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 hey y'all it's kelly clarkson with wayfair ever order furniture online and wonder what if like what if it doesn't hold up that sofa was four days old you should have ordered from wayfair with wayfair there's no what if just style you love and quality you can trust visit wayfair.ca wayfair every style every home